My Road to Motherhood Part 4-The Birth Story

I wake up Sunday, November 27th.  I go to the restroom, brush my teeth, and wash my face.  I notice that I am having some really mild cramping.  I tell Scott, and then call the nurse.  She gets me hooked up to the monitor to check for contractions and to check the baby's heartrate.  Kendall's heartrate was fine, but I was having contractions.  The nurse calls the doctor, and the doctor tells the nurse to give me my medication early to stop contractions.  I take that, and we wait a little while to see if the contractions stop.  They don't.  We give it a little while longer, and the contractions continue.  The contractions don't get more intense or painful, but my body just isn't responding to the medication at all.  There is another medication that I could take, but my heartrate has to be under 120 bpm.  Unfortunately, my heartrate was too close to 120 to be able to take the second medication.

The doctor came in around lunch time to check how far I had dilated.  I was still at 5cm.  Since my contractions hadn't slacked up any, they transitioned us to a labor and delivery room.  The labor and delivery nurse was really nice.  She explained step by step how things would go.  I got situated in the bed, and Scott and I watched football games.  I wasn't in any pain.  I was just talking and laughing.  I eventually dilated to 7cm, and I still wasn't feeling any pain.  I went ahead and got my epidural just in case pain came during labor though. 

I was lying there watching football and talking with family when I felt my water break.  It was just a little trinkle.  The nurse confirmed that it had broke, and she called the doctor to get her in route to the hospital.  A little more time went by, and I finally dilated to 10cm. 

Scott and my mom were in the room with me.  The doctor and nurse told me that when I felt a contraction to push for 10 seconds 3 times in a row.  (FYI:  one push is really 3 pushes for 10 seconds each)  I did just that.  At first I didn't feel like I was doing anything, but the doctor reassured me that she was moving down.  I pushed 4 times and Kendall was here.  It was crazy that she was moving down, and I wasn't even pushing at times.  She was ready to get into this world.  We heard her do a little cry.  It was so cute!   The NICU nurses were in the room with us to immediately get Kendall prepped to go to the NICU.  Before they took her to the NICU, they let me see her.  She was all swaddled up and cute as could be.  Of course, the tears came next.  I remember thinking, I'M A MOM!!!!!  Our daughter was born Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 6:25pm. 

The neonatologist came in the room and talked to us and our family.  He said that Kendall will most likely be in the NICU for about 2 months give or take a couple of weeks, but he felt good that she would be just fine.  She basically couldn't come home until close to her original due date. After 10 days of hospital bedrest and delivering Kendall, we still had 2 or so months left until we could bring her home.  We were progressing down this journey, but we were not done yet. 

Stay tuned for the NICU experience!

My Road to Motherhood Part 3

I have to say that I had a pretty good pregnancy.  I didn't have morning sickness at all.  As long as I had something on my stomach, I didn't feel queasy.  I didn't gain a lot of weight.  I actually only gained 16 lbs.  All was going just peachy.  Until November 17, 2011.....

Scott and I ate dinner at Copeland's.  We came home afterwards, and he started packing up to go deer hunting the next day.  I was about to take a shower, so I went to the restroom first.  I noticed that I was bleeding.  My doctor had told me that if I ever saw bright, red blood to go to the hospital.  I told Scott, and we got ready and went to the hospital.  He took the bag that he had already packed to go deer hunting with us just in case.  On the way to the hospital, we both called and told our moms.  In our minds, we were thinking that all was fine and that it was really nothing.  I was thinking they would tell me to take it easy or something like that.  Boy was I wrong....

We get to the ER, and luckily, it wasn't busy at all.  They wheeled me up to the labor and delivery department.  I lay there in the bed to get examined by the nurse.  I wasn't feeling any pain or contractions, so I thought all was well.  The nurse checks my cervix, she looks at me, and whispers, "You're 5cm!"  It's like I had an outer body experience.  I was like, how in the world could that be.  I'm only 27 weeks, and I don't feel any contractions.  They hook me up to the monitors, and they tell me that I'm having contractions every 4 minutes.  I still can't believe it because I'm not in any pain.  The nurses prepare the room like I'm about to go into labor.  They then tell us that there isn't any medication to reverse dilation, and we would be at the hospital until our baby comes.  My doctor comes up to my room and tells me that she hopes I can make it 48 hours without delivering, so I can get these steroid shots that will help develop the baby's lungs.  She prays with us, which I thought was very nice.  You just don't get too many doctors who actually bring up God in times like these.  After that, they tilt the bed down so that my head is lower than my feet.  I must say that this is very uncomfortable, but it helped keep the baby from moving towards my cervix.  Scott and I hardly slept that night.  I mean, we were both in a state of shock. 

The next morning, a specialist comes in and does an ultrasound.  He tells me that I'm more like 3.5 cm.  That makes Scott and I feel better, but nonetheless, I'm dilated.  I start taking this medicine that helps calm the muscles of the uterus and reduces contractions.  I get moved from labor and delivery to antepartum.  The room isn't as big, but it's cool.  I try and let it settle in that this will be our home until Kendall comes into the world.  God blesses me to be able to get the two steroid shots to help develop Kendall's lungs.  We were so glad of that.

We tell our latest news to our friends and family.  The outpour of love that we got was unbelievable.  I don't think a day went by while I was on bedrest that we didn't have a visitor.  Friends brought us dinner and lunch, games to play, magazines to read, and candy and goodies.  Family brought thanksgiving to us and relieved Scott, so he could go home for a minute.  We just felt so blessed to have such a good support system.  God made us realize just how blessed we are to have such good friends and family in our corner.  I would like to give a shot out to everyone who supported us during this time.  Scott and I truly love you and appreciate you.

I pretty much laid around, sent texts, talked on the phone, watched tv, prayed and read my bible, surfed the net, and visited with vistors.  It wasn't that bad at all.

Twice a day I got monitored to see if I am contracting. Scott and I held our breath when this part of the day comes because of course we both hope I'm not. The medicine was holding off contractions.  That was until the morning of November 27th.  That was the day that our lives changed forever.

Stay tuned!

My Road to Motherhood Part 2

Scott and I told our family and close friends of the pregnancy right away.  The next thing I did was called my doctor and scheduled our first appointment.  We were so happy!  One day when I was about 4 weeks, I noticed that I was spotting.  This can be normal with it being so early in the pregnancy, but I decided to go to the doctor to get it checked out (just to be sure).  It was Monday of that week when I went to the doctor.  Everything looked ok, but the doctor wanted to do blood work to be sure that my hormone levels were increasing like they should. She also did an ultrasound.  It was too early to actually see the baby, but all looked good.  On Wednesday, I went back to get more blood work done.  My first set of blood work looked good, but they just wanted to be sure that all was well.  Friday, I was scheduled for another ultrasound to see if the baby had developed enough to see.  The doctor told me that the baby still wasn't showing up and that she didn't feel good about the pregnancy.  I was crushed.  My doctor wasn't in the office that day, so the doctor I saw said that she would like for my own doctor to confirm the status of the pregnancy.
Scott and I had to go the whole weekend with this on our hearts and minds.  We prayed and just tried to keep busy to keep our minds off of it.  It was the longest weekend ever.  My doctor called me Monday afternoon to schedule an appointment for the following Wednesday.  Ugh!  More waiting.  Well, Wednesday finally came.  My doctor did the ultrasound, and we saw a "flicker."  She tells us to go upstairs to the radiology department to get confirmation on what the flicker is.  So we do just that.  The radiologist squeezes the gel on my stomach, gets to moving the probe around, and VOILA!  To our surprise, we see our baby for the first time.  We are both in shock.  The flicker we were seeing was the baby's heartbeat.  It was beating strong.  We just couldn't believe it.  We were prepared to get bad news, but we got confirmation that our baby was growing and healthy.

We went back downstairs to the doctor's office with big Kool-Aid smiles on.  My doctor gives me a great big hug and congratulates us both.  We schedule our next appt and go home feeling overjoyed and blessed.

My Road to Motherhood Part 1

Well, let me start at the beginning.  Scott and I went to New York to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.  We had decided that when we got back that we would start trying for Baby Dismute.  After a few months of trying, nothing happened.  A few more months went by and still nothing.  We did a little research and found out that nothing could be done until we had been trying for an official year.  Well, a year came.  My doctor ordered some tests for both me and Scott to have done.  We both got good results, and was told that nothing was hindering conception.  At that point, my doctor prescribed a fertility drug for me to take for 3 months.  After 3 months, nothing. 

She then referred us to a fertility clinic.  We met with a fertility specialist, and he wanted to do some blood work to see if my hormone levels were accurate during different points in my cycle.  All of that checked out.  The next step was for me to have a laproscopy done.  This procedure checks to make sure that my fallopian tubes are open, and my uterus is healthy.  During pre-op before this procedure, it was found that I needed to have my umbilical hernia repaired.  I had both the laparoscopy and the umbilical hernia repair done all at the same time.  Nothing was found that would inhibit me from having kids.  The next step was for me to try fertility drugs again.

We decided to wait a few months to start the fertility drugs.  We were inching up on my 30th birthday, so we took a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate.  We had a blast.  Once we were back, it was time for us to start the fertility drugs.  The only thing was that my cycle never came.  After a few days of waiting on it, I took a pregnancy that I had from the dollar store.  After all that we had been through, we saw 2 lines.  We couldn't believe it.  Scott wanted me to be sure by taking a more expensive test, so I rushed down to USA Drug.  That test confirmed that we were definitely pregnant.  We couldn't believe it.  The first thing we did was hugged each other and got on our knees and thanked God.  We were finally PREGNANT!!!!!!

Stay tuned to more of this incredible story......