Many years ago when first decided to use a donor, we came to the decision quickly but knew it would be some time before we could go forward with it. I know I wondered over the years if we were making the right choice for us. I wondered how my husband would really feel once a flesh and blood baby was here. I wasn't sure how his family would act towards her, if they would accept her the same as their other grandchild. I really worried throughout my pregnancy even though we had spent years talking about these issues. Husband felt strongly enough that if he felt his family didn't treat her as they do the other kids, he was prepared to cut them off entirely (which for the record I feel that's a bit harsh but its his family and his choice to make).

Now that our daughter is here, I have no idea why I ever worried or doubted. We so made the right choice. I have never seen my husband so happy as he is when he is holding his baby. It makes my heart ache sometimes when I see how in love he is with her. And she is a Daddy's girl! When she was very new she would always turn towards his voice and hated it when he left the room. Now at almost 10 weeks her biggest smiles and coos are for her Daddy. His family can't get enough of her! His dad is a huge guy and he loves letting her sleep on his chest..my bitty baby on her 6'8 grandpa's chest is just too cute. His mom can't stop buying her clothes, she only had boys and has male grandchildren so she is just in little girl heaven. After so many years it is hard to believe how good everything is but it really is. I could use a nap though.

We don't know our donor, we don't know really why he chose to donate but I have never been so grateful to someone in my whole life. Out of all the pain and procedures we got something wonderful.

The post where I have a baby

Yeah, I fail at blogging. At some point after my baby shower I started to feel really low. I can't explain it or put a finger on what really was going on. I really regressed on all my positive feelings about having a baby and fear took over. I had a hard time facing the fact that I was pregnant, let alone going to have a baby- maybe. Since I was on bedrest I pretty much just laid in a dark room and had a pity party, for no reason. Everyone was so super excited about the impending birth and that just made me feel like an even bigger asshole. At my 38 week appointment my protein levels were elevated and my BP was a tad higher. The OB got with my kidney Dr and they decided that I was heading towards pre eclampsia for realsies so if I'd made no progress by 39 weeks I'd be induced that night or the next day.

I wasn't having any of that.

Of course at the 38 week appt my cervix was all sealed up and not even looking like it was going to be open for business any time soon. This was a Wednesday, the plan was made that on Saturday we'd go out to the outlet mall and walk- for hours if needed. I kept telling everyone "I'm not getting induced!". Saturday we walked, Sunday I paid the price with an aching everything and not even a braxton hicks contraction to show for it. Monday and Tuesday I cleaned and did last minute bill paying and errands and took my dogs to my mom's house Tuesday afternoon. All day Tuesday I was in a foul ass mood. Just everything in the world was pissing me off, I figured it had to do with being induced the next day- I just knew it was going to happen despite my best effort. My husband was working until 11pm so I just relaxed as best I could and read. He got home and got to listen to me bitch and moan about being induced until I finally let him fall asleep about 1:30am. About 2:30am I'm laying in bed reading and I shifted a bit and heard a wet popping sound..but nothing came out or happened so I just figured it was some gross pregnant vagina thing. I figured I'd get up to pee since I was going every 15 minutes anyhow and when I wiped I noticed blood and mucous..an investigation further reveals my mucous plug is gone! I'm excited because now maybe they will give me a few extra days to go into labor on my own instead of inducing. I go into the living room and I'm hit with the urge to pee AGAIN so I head back to the bathroom. After I'm done going, I realize fluid is still coming out..and its a funky green color. I come to the conclusion that I'm leaking fluid and the baby has had a bowel movement..I need to call labor & delivery, even though I know they will tell me to come in. I throw on a pad and I'm standing in the hall on the phone with a nurse, explaining the leaking and the color:

Nurse: Are you sure your water didn't break?
Me: I'm positive. Its just a little fluid but the color is green. There's been no gushing just a sma..*sploosh*! My water just broke. I'm coming in.

Thank god I was wearing a pad it was pretty gross! I go wake up Husband and we grab my already packed bags and haul ass out to the car. We get in and he turns to me and says " Where's the hospital?? How do I get there??" Um, the same place its always been. Seriously guy, I need you to focus! We to the hospital and I'm in a room and hooked up in no time. This all happened pretty quick- I felt the pop at 2:30 I was in a room at 3:15am. Contractions still hadn't started but I was able to talk them off the pitocin until my doula could get there. Come to find out they don't let you have anyone beyond 1 support person until 7 am. So basically I napped until 7 am when the shift changed and the new nurse came in with the OB. They were concerned about the darkness of my fluid but it wasn't quite bad enough to make them call it a c-section right away. They started my pitocin about 7:30 and we were in the countdown!

At 9:30am the OB came back in and decided he still didn't like the color of my fluid and placed amnio infusion cath into my uterus. Until this time the contractions were there but totally bearable. I was super confident in deciding to go drug free and was feeling pretty good. The amnio infusion was super painful when they placed it and immediately kicked up the intensity of the contractions. By the time my doula got there at 10:30 I was in terrible pain. The contractions were 1 min apart and lasting about 45 seconds..so I couldn't catch my breath and I was starting to hyperventilate. They gave me oxygen because the baby wasn't liking what was going on either. At that point I made the choice to get an epidural. I knew if I couldn't calm down it would stress the baby out more and I would end up with a c-section. When they finally came to place the epidural, it took almost an hour to do it and even then it didn't seem to be fully working. I had enough relief to catch my breath but I was still in a lot of pain. It was now about 12:30pm and I was about 3cm. The next few hours were a bit blurry. There was a lot of pain, they came and upped the epidural 2 more times until I was at max dosage and it just wasn't working. About 4 pm I hit max pain. Jenny, my doula, had been watching the monitor and me told me she was pretty sure I was in transition. About 4:45 I was really feeling a need to push. I had been feeling pressure and an urge but I wanted to conserve energy for "real" pushes. When they checked I was at 10 cm! I told the nurse and she said ok, that I could try some "practice" pushes. They went and got my mom from the lobby and the nurse called the OB to let him know I was progressing and wanted to "try" pushing. Everyone got in position and I gave it a pretty good try..and felt a huge pressure drop down. The nurse yelled "Stop pushing, I see hair!" Things went really quick after that: Another nurse came in to help break the bed down, the NICU team came in be there in case she had aspirated meconium and all the while I'm still pushing! The OB came running in shoved his hands into a gown and gloves, sat down and we got down to serious business. I heard my husband say I see the head and then I heard there she is! I started to say is she almost out? and they put her on my chest! I had felt intense pressure and burning but I really expected it to hurt more (don't get me wrong, it really fucking hurt!) but didn't think it was her coming just normal for that stage of labor. And the only thing numb from the epidural was the top of my right thigh!

Amelia Maeve was born on July 11, 2012 at 5:10pm after 20 minutes of pushing! She was a bitty baby, 6lbs even and 19.5inches. She was so alert! She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I couldn't look at her enough. I did have a severe internal tear which was awesome..it took longer to stitch than it did to push. The room looked like a crime scene there was so much blood. And that's pretty much the whole story! She's 6 weeks old and we're doing great. Somethings haven't been so awesome, like breastfeeding, but that's a whole other novel of its own.

And now baby:

Fresh out of the oven, Daddy already smitten

The next morning

Daddy and his girl doing what they do best

Daddy's home, just in time too!

So I've pretty much been filling my days with cooking, cleaning, baby shower stuff and work. I've been trying to get the house in order not just for the birth but also for Husband's return from Afghanistan. Saturday morning I had gone to store to pick up a few things to make chicken taquitos to freeze. About noon I went to the bathroom to pee and surprise- there went my mucous plug! I wasn't too worried about it but just decided to lay around for the rest of the day just in case I started to feel anything off. About 7 I got up to pee for the millionth time and there was bright red blood in my underwear and on the TP. So of course off to L&D I went! I wasn't having any contractions or pain but of course as soon as they hooked me up to the monitor they started! I couldn't feel them but apparently I had a few good ones in the first hour. So they ordered a FFN swab, it came back positive. Ultrasound came in and took a look around to get an estimated weight, she was about 4 pounds so that was nice to hear- even though I know those can be off. Then they did a transvaginal and lo and behold my cervix is super short- only about a 1. They gave me a steroid shot with orders to come get the next on monday since it was early Sunday by this time. So I've been on strict bedrest since then! The first day was kinda nice, just laying around watching tv. Since then its been pretty lame. I went yesterday and got the second shot and followed up with my smokin hot OB. Basically, since I'm almost 34 weeks and they are happy with her size and all her monitorings they aren't going to do anything to keep her from coming besides bedrest. He says with the FFN being positive labor usually starts in 2 weeks but that doesn't mean it will happen for sure. So for now just lay on bedrest and keep coming in for the weekly biophysical profiles and the MFM appointments. The hospital here that I'm delivering at has a level ll NICU and a level lll 30 minutes up the road so I know we're in good hands. I just want my lil cupcake to get a little more icing on her before she arrives! And finally- Daddy's home! he's been so cute with my belly and she was bouncing all around last night so he got to feel some pretty good kicks. He has been really good so far with helping with the bedrest and fetching of meals and drinks. Tomorrow he's going to install the car seats and put together a few things I got at my baby shower..I'm sure I'll learn all sorts of new colorful phrases!

28 Weeks

I can't freaking believe I'm in my third trimester. I realize I have spent the majority of my pregnancy either in a state of disbelief or in outright denial at times. I'm convinced that I'm not showing, I simply just look fat. I've only gained 10 pounds so far I think the theory deserves some consideration. Every day I get more excited and slightly less worried that something will go wrong. We have a great NICU locally so even if I do have her early I know she will get the best care possible. Her room is ready, minus a few wall decorations- I'm not good at decorating at all and I think it came out quite cute. I start my childbirth classes next week and signed up for cloth diapering class on Saturday. The next hurdle is my baby shower. I went to my cousin's last week for her Baby B, turns out I'm still not a fan of baby showers. I actually felt a little awkward being there visibly pregnant and her baby being in the NICU. And he is doing awesome, he is on track to come home in 3-4 weeks! The little guy is super determined to get the hell out of dodge and is hitting all his goals way ahead of schedule.

I have maybe decided to keep working after the baby is born. If they give me the promotion that they have been saying is in the works, it will allow me to work 3 1/2 days a week with weekends off. I do actually like the work I do so I think that would be a good compromise. As an added bonus I found a daycare that will work with me on the cloth diapers! But if for some reason they can't get my new position on paper they can kiss my lactating ass. I'm fully prepared for both scenarios. In other real life news I have reached the point where I am so over this deployment! I'm tired of doing everything myself, I'm tired of being lonely and feeling guilty that he is missing all the joys of pregnancy. Yes, the birth and afterward is much more important it just sucks so bad for him to be gone through all this. Only about 5 more weeks to go and he'll be home. Lord knows I'm tired of getting my own drinks.

24 Weeks

24 weeks, oh my! We might just be having a baby- like for reals even! Time is passing quickly in the slowest way possible, if such a thing can be imagined. I had an interesting weekend..my back started hurting on Friday at work, not painful but enough to say oh that sorta aches. Saturday it was still hurting and since it was in the kidney area I decided to go to the urgent care clinic thinking it could be a kidney infection starting. Urgent care sent me to Express care which sent me to the ER since I'm pregnant..all the while holding the urine sample I first supplied at urgent care. 4 hours later I was the proud parent of several kidney stones. I was sent home with a few perco.sets to deliver them naturally. And might I say, after not even having any alcohol since early October that perco.set got me hiiiiiiigh. And I got 2 days off work, so all in all not too bad. I had a major kidney stone a few years ago and it was quite dramatic, screaming, crying, lots of morphine required. These tiny stones were a cake walk compared to that.

I also began seeing the perinatologist last week and I have now added Lovenox injections to my nightly routine. The first one bruised terribly but the others haven't been so bad. I'm not a fan but if they thought walking across burning glass everyday would help I'd gladly light the fire myself. I also got a nice long ultrasound, she's right on target with size and weight, her fluid and cord are prefect- things I was pretty nervous about considering what my cousin just went through with her son.

And speaking of Baby B he is doing fantastic! He's up to 2lbs 8oz and bulldozing through all the tests and on a fast road to going home much sooner than his due date. We're going up there for her baby shower in April and we will hopefully get to see him! Now if I can keep my mouth shut about the skeevy guy my cousin started dating literally the day she was released from the hospital, we'll all be amazed.

In 2008 my cousin lost her daughter at 26 weeks. She had really high blood pressure from the start of her pregnancy and they think that led to the umbilical cord being small. At one point she actually had reverse flow in the umbilical cord, at which time they decided to go ahead and do a c-section but the baby passed away before they could get her to a hospital that had a nicu (they live in a very rural area about 3 hours from a nicu equipped hospital). When she became pregnant again they were prepared. Her and the baby's father moved closer to the hospital. She had monitoring and ultrasounds every week with progesterone injections. Last Wednesday was 26 weeks. It was a hard and scary day for her which I fully understand. On Friday they admitted her because the baby was too small and began monitoring the umbilical cord. On Sunday the cord was showing signs of reverse flow. Baby B was born Sunday night at 26 weeks 4 days at 1 lbs 12 ozs. He was taken straight to the nicu and placed on a vent. Monday morning he was taken off the vent and has been breathing on his own ever since! He still has many weeks to go since the earliest he can go home is June 5th, his due date. My cousin is doing well, relieved that her son is doing good but hating that he has to stay and feels guilty about him being a preemie, which I guess I can understand. If anything happened to my girl I'd feel it was my fault no matter what happened. For now our little puffer is doing good and hopefully he'll behave and get to go home in June!

Baby B, a few hours old

I don't like to think myself as being lazy and not posting I prefer to call it taking a pregnant pause. Things are surprisingly awesome. I've been having the lowest blood pressure I've had since pretty much ever. Energy level is good but the willingness to actually do stuff is another story. Now the random projectile vomiting, that I can do without. A few weeks ago I went to a friends Airman Leadership School graduation. Its a semi formal dinner and a pretty big deal. I looked really nice I thought and dinner went smooth. Halfway through the ceremony I had to make a dash for the door and only narrowly missed barfing on my commander. As if he didn't already think everyone in my duty section is a complete moron.

This whole having a baby thing is starting to get pretty real. There hasn't been any one thing that made me really realize it, a lot of small things have been building up to the total point. We keep the doors to the spare bedrooms shut just to keep the dogs out but behind one of those doors is a baby's room! There is a crib, a dresser/changer, a fancy stroller and loads of frilly clothes. Sometimes I go sit in there in the glider and stare at everything. I think I'm still in a state of shock sometimes. I can't quite wrap my mind around it all sometimes. I'm so happy we're having a girl. Of course we'd be thrilled either way but we both really wanted a girl. And my goodness but she already has her Daddy completely under her thumb. He feels I'm actually not shopping for her enough, his daughter must not lack anything! We should probably start a prom dress fund, I can't even think about what Daddy will pay for a wedding dress!

I've been feeling kicks and pokes for a bit now but within the last week they have gotten a lot stronger and noticeable. My first poke I got while driving and "singing" along with the radio. Either she really loves Styx (who doesn't?) or she doesn't like my singing (who does?). On the OB side, my blood pressure has never been lower! It was 112/80 on my last visit which just blows my mind. Even after I lost 100 pounds it wan't that good! And speaking of weight, at almost 20 weeks I've gained...nothing. The Doctor seems ok with it and to be honest I'm a pretty big girl so I'm on the right path to keeping the weight gain to a reasonable amount.

And in reward for hanging in this long:



Cute right?

We have a gender!

Our baby is very much a girl!

We had planned to go next weekend to an ultrasound place here in town but I ended up having to work that day so the very nice woman was able to squeeze us in today. I took my Mom, MIL and my Grandma. Baby was not having anything to do with being looked at and it took a lot of poking and rubbing to get her to uncurl. Right then Husband called and was on speaker phone when she saw the bits and said "It's a girl!" Our moms both cried, his mom only had boys so she's been waiting for a while. I gotta say- I wasn't a bit surprised. I've just had a feeling for a while that it was girl. I've been dreaming about her for months. After we left my mom and I went straight to the mall and got the cutest outfits, I've been dying to but something but gender neutral stuff just doesn't seem to exist.

I can't wait to meet Amelia Maeve in July!

Alone again, naturally

Well he's gone. Deployment 2012 started Friday morning when I dropped him off at the DCC* about 0830. I went grocery shopping right after then went home and put some stew in the crockpot and did abou 9 loads of laundry (mostly linens). The first few days and weeks aren't that bad really, you get so used to them being at work for long hours or short training trips so you can almost convince yourself that's what is going on at first. Then you hit your groove and everything is smoothe: you work, you come home, chores, dinner, tv..it's your choice! No compromise about what to eat or watch. I once ate sushi every night for 2 weeks because when Husband's home I never get it. I can read all night long in bed without anyone bitching about the light being on at 3 am. These few weeks are actually enjoyable IF you let them be and you should! Then comes the down swing..You miss him so bad it hurts. Everything pisses you off because you have to do EVERYTHING yourself. Tantrums are frequent. Bitchiness abounds. And then one day you wake up and realize, hey he'll be home soon! Followed quickly by: I haven't done any chores beyond basic housework in weeks, I haven't shaved my legs since the night before he left and there's no food in the house since I've eaten out pretty much ever other night for the last month. Homecoming outfits must be planned and shopped for. Hair, manicure and pedicure appointments must be made. And then finally you wait in a hangar for a plane to touch down and of course your spouse will always be the last guy off the plane..and it's over! You made it, you survived another deployment. Some experiences may vary, if you sat at home the whole time crying about how bad your life is..well yeah, it will suck worse for you. nobody is having a good time but how you choose to spend your time is up to you.


So that's that. On the baby side, we finally got to hear the heartbeat! It took him forever to find it, I started to panic and get upset so when he did find it I still wasn't very calm and didn't get to bask in it like I hoped. Then it turned into a full fledged panic attack- the Dr ended up giving me a low dose xan.ax because once the panic train has pulled out of the station for me there is no stopping. Then I felt worse for being an overreacting spaz. I think it was a lot of things that had been piling up and it taking 5 minutes to find the heartbeat just did me in. But in the end all that matters is we got to hear it, it was nice and strong! Ooh..gender reveal on Feb 18!






*DCC- Deployment Control Center, where all deploying troops gather to drop their bags off, get copies of orders, get issued any extra equipment or weapons ect. Its one stop shopping for outbound troops. Spouses and such aren't allowed access to the building so there is a lot of PDA in the parking lot.

My child is already showing its ass. That is pretty much all we could get a shot off. Every time the lady would move the paddle The Dark Passenger would flip over and face the other way. Camera shy just like me! I was a bit worried when she started, I wasn't seeing any movement and the tech wasn't saying anything. I finally had to ask "Um, is it moving??" and she said "Yep". Thanks for the reassurance lady! Everything looks good, heart rate was great and they moved my due date up 3 days.

My new thing is telling my husband we're going to have a homebirth. That we're gonna move the coffee table, throw down a tarp and inflate a pool right in the living room. Order some pizzas and a pay-per-view, invite the whole family! I'm only half kidding actually..the only thing is I'm not sure I'll be able to clean my house well enough to have people over. Maybe!

Wearing the maternity pants wouldn't be so bad if I looked a wee bit pregnant. I still look like I had a big lunch. And a big breakfast. Like I stored up fat for a long winter even though I live in tropical climate. I even lost 4 pounds since this whole thing started! Which is good because you only gain 25 during pregnancy right? Cuz that's all I'm gonna gain. well, actually 29 pounds since I'm negative 4 pounds. I'm pretty sure that's how math works.

Our ultrasound got moved up a week since the rotator (the huge ass aircraft that they pile all the troops and their gear in for an 18 hour flight to their theater locations) is leaving much sooner than we thought. Fun Fact: no actual clue when it leaves we only get about 48 hours notice to his departure time but we get strong hints. Its probably the best part of being part of a special ops base and its secret squirrel tactics. So we get to on monday and see the Dark Passenger..I'm nervous. A million bad things are all I can think about, really just one bad thing. Nothing but seeing a live person bopping around in there will fix those fears. And I'm a fearful and guilt ridden wench these days. I feel like I betrayed my tribe a bit. I sort of expected these feelings but it doesn't make me feel better though or less guilty about being pregnant which is probably a stupid thing to say and it's ok if you just called me a retarded whore. I think it's the hyper awareness that not everyone gets to go on this trip and for some it doesn't end well. Just a big ball of angst over here.

A New Year, Same Old Slacking..

Believe it or not I really didn't want to be one of those people who got a BFP and was never heard from again. I blame the holidays- we've been minimally manned since Thanksgiving pretty much until next week. I've been working 12 hour shifts at least 4 days a week. It's not hard work but it is a lot of standing and at the end of the day my energy is sapped. Not to mention the whole OH MY FREAKIN LORD, I'M PREGNANT!? thing I have going on pretty much every day. I'm heading into week 12, it has been an amazingly smooth ride. I still have minor freak outs (WHAT IF THERE'S REALLY NOTHING IN THERE??)but I've managed to stay vaguely sane.

Christmas was really nice, if you gloss over the monumental all day sickness I had. But I've had a few moments of nausea since so I'm guessing it was just one final blow out. I got incredibly spoiled with a huge box of stuff from Sep.hora (so much lip gloss!), books, new jammies and gift cards. I LOVE getting gift cards! I know some people aren't fans but for me they can never be wrong. Everyone fawned over me, congratulations were abundant..it was nice, I'm not usually a fan of being in the center of attention like that but I think I earned it.

Now we're just getting ready for this deployment at the end of the month, all the packing and appointments that come with those kinds of things. We (ok, I) decided this morning we're going to take one last quick trip to Dis.ney before he goes. Just a 3 day jaunt, going at a slow pace. I'm not a fan of babies at Dis.ney so I can only assume it will be years before we get to go again but I'm ok with that.