Update Part 2

I really can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to finally be at the hospital. I filled out all of my paperwork, paid my copay and headed upstairs to find my room. There was lots to do from the second I stepped through the door. I had to change into my gown, give a urine sample, get an iv and go through a whole list of questions, information and papers to sign. Once all that was done, they started the first medication I had to have and then all we had to do was wait. Let me just say, I am absolutely not a patient person. Of course they tell you to sleep, but they come in every hour to check the medication and see if contractions are starting. The last thing on my mind was sleeping, but that didn't stop my hubby from snoozing away. Finally, they came to check me and decided I was ready to start the pitocin. Pitocin is a game I really don't like to play. They kept having to adjust the dose, up and down, for hours. It made my contractions come one right after another and no break in between. I didn't want an epidural, they make me nervous. In the end, I had to have one. There was no way around it. The contractions were so bad that I had three doses before it finally even touched my pain. The nurses checked me after the epidural kicked in and I was dilated to between 3 and 4. About 20 minutes later they came back to check  me before going to lunch and her head was in the birth canal. I pushed a total of about 4 times and my baby girl was born at 11:58pm. She weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces and was 19.25 inches. After five years, two miscarriages, countless doctor appointments, money, tears, frustrations...I was finally holding my miracle baby. There are no words to describe what that feeling is like. I know most all parents are grateful and happy about having a baby, but I think when you are in a situation like ours, it makes it a million times sweeter. It is seeing every hope and dream you had and thought would never be, come true. 

Now that I have had her, many people have asked what I am going to do about birth control. My answer is very simple. Nothing. This had caused some issues with a few people that think the risk of having another baby so close to the first is too risky or just not the thing to do, but I have my reasons. I am a firm believer that birth control helped play a part in my hormones being so screwed up. I am terrified to even think about going back on it, because I think it will make it harder to get pregnant again. The way I see it, it took me five years to be blessed with this child. If it takes another five years, then I really can't afford to wait. It will happen when and if my body decides it will happen and I'm okay with whenever that may be. We are not aggressively trying yet. I'm not tracking my ovulation and timing intercourse or anything like that. We are simply just not worryig about or thinking about it. If it hasn't happened after what we feel is enough time, then we will begin all over again with the ttc journey. The purpose of this blog was to help me deal with my infertility journey and to give a voice to and help others. Just because I had my miracle baby does't change what I went through or what this is all about. Yes, I will talk about my daughter from time to time. Some of my readers like that part of my story too, but I will try to focus on the journey for number 2. I am proud to say I am an infertility success story. I hope my story brings hope to others, for what are we without hope?

Update Part 1

Since it has been so long since the last time I updated, I am going to break this up into two different parts. This part will cover the rest of my pregnancy and the second part will start when I had her. 

We had our Baby Shower in October and did a pink camo theme. Everything from plates, cups, napkins and cake was pink camo. My best friend and my mother planned the whole thing and worked really hard to make sure that it was perfect. There was just one small thing that went wrong. The Homecoming Parade for our local high school was the same night as the shower, but we didn't find out about it until after the invites had been sent out and it was too late to change the date. There were a few people that couldn't make it because of the parade and a few people that ended up walking quite a bit to get there. All in all, everything still turned out great. We had an awesome time and got tons of stuff for our girl. 

Once her movements became strong enough for my hubby to feel is when things finally felt a little more real to me. Finally, I wasn't the only one that could tell she was in there. I never started really showing until the very end of my pregnancy, so her movements is what made all the difference. He would fall asleep with his hand on my stomach and would talk to her all the time. We would entertain ourselves by just laying and watching her move in my stomach. After trying for so long, it still seemed so unreal that we were really having a baby.

We had several ultrasounds done because they were a little worried about her weight and we paid for a 4D ultrasound too. With the 4D we not only got a cd with tons of pictures, but they did videos of her moving to. We could tell already that she was going to look like her daddy. She was constantly trying to suck and we even have a few pictures of her trying to get her umbilical cord in her mouth. The first ultrasound we had done because they said she was measuring small, put her between the 16th and 17th percentile. If they get under the 10th percentile, they usually go ahead and take the baby early. At 37 weeks she was only measuring 34 weeks. The second ultrasound we had done, she had dropped to 10.7. So she was just over the 10th percentile. Luckily, this was just before we were going to induce. 

In November we did Maternity pictures. They were taken at a farm and vineyard that is about an hour away from our house. Staying with our country theme, we took pictures in a field, a covered bridge and on a swing. I think they are the most amazing pictures that I have ever taken. They turned out beautiful and I seriously can't wait to have the newborn pictures done.

We were originally scheduled to induce on December 10, but they ended up rescheduling me twice before I finally got to go to the hospital. I think that was the hardest time of the entire pregnancy. All I did was sit and wait by the phone for days to see if they were going to call to tell me to come in for my induction, and it made me that much more anxious every time they called to tell me it was rescheduled. On December 15 they called at 5:00 p.m. to tell me to be there by 7:30 p.m. to start the induction. I live two hours away, so I had thirty minutes to get ready and get on the road. I was in complete panic mode because my husband had gone hunting and I couldn't get a hold of him to tell him to get home. I was afraid that we had planned all this out so that he could be at the hospital when she was born, instead of in Ohio at work, and he was going to be late getting there. He walked through the door with fifteen minutes left before we had to leave. We got on the road at 5:30 p.m. and got stopped by a train and stuck behind vehicles going 25 below the speed limit. I was so afraid that we were going to be late getting there. Thankfully, with the way my hubby drives, we made it just in time.