He's here! Baby B is here!

Hi all,

I have been a terrible blogger these last few months, but I wanted to update and say that our sweet boy arrived via c-section on July 20th (exactly a week before his due date) and was 9lbs 11oz of perfection!

I am so grateful to finally have my boy in my arms and there are no words to express how much I loved him, the second the held him over the curtain in the operating room. I went from being in pain, to crying emotionally about seeing his face in person.

It was quite the stressful birth because my water broke on Friday night and I was in labor for 30 hours before my c-section. During that time, I had 2 epidurals because the first one wasn't working, 2 IV's because one infiltrated and a lot of pain. Finding out that an epidural doesn't work as well for me as it might for other women was a fun tidbit, because even after the second epidural, I was still in so much pain. Along with being in pain, I was not making much progress and by the end of 30 hours, I think I was maybe dilated 4.5-5cm, which was just crazy to me. The midwife said that it was normal to progress slowly when your water breaks early and that as long as I was making progress, I could keep going, but 30 hours was my limit for sure. I guess it isn't like in the movies! Apparently water only breaks first in about 10% of women and I was one of those lucky 10%.

I also had some BP issues at the hospital where it kept fluctuating up and down, even after the baby was born, so they monitored me till I was discharged. The day I was discharged, I had a higher reading and then my left eye started seeing a grey haze, which went away not long after, but it still freaked me out. Then the day after I was discharged, my eye did it again and it was really starting to worry me....by Friday morning at 4am, my eye had done it again and had not recovered and I basically lost vision in my left eye. Had to drag all of us to the ER and then was referred to an eye doctor where I was told that blood managed to get into my eye just fine, but couldn't escape and caused blood vessels to break which is now blocking my vision, The doctor also said that it is something young people don't normally get, so I had blood work done to see if there was an underlying cause for this and then I go back to the eye doctor in two weeks. In the meantime, he says because I am young, it MIGHT go away on it's own (which I am praying hard for) and I am to stay calm until then because high blood pressure isn't good for it. Needless to say, I am stressed beyond my limits and staying calms is very difficult when you are recovering from surgery and can only see out of one eye. If ya'll have any spare good thoughts and prayers that this problem resolves, I would be eternally grateful.

Thankfully, holding my baby boy helps calm me and I am so lucky for J and baby B and Parker to help take care of me and help keep me calm.

Day he came home and met big bro 

Hanging out with mom

Newborn photoshoot

National Infertility Awareness Week

I know I have been a very bad blogger, I just haven't felt like I had anything significant to say! Since this week is National Infertility Awareness Week, I thought I would come back to blogging and do a little post about that as a change from pregnancy countdowns.

Obviously, I am that 1 in 8 people and I have many friends in that group as well...even if this is not a personal struggle for you, chances are, with statistics like that, there are more people in your life impacted by infertility than you think.

Even though I know I am so incredibly blessed to have my baby Seahorse growing and I am so excited to meet him in July, I cannot forget the pain and stress I went through to get to this point and the fear that infertility brings you, never leaves. The fear that this is all a dream and that something can still go wrong, plagues my mind every day. Infertility takes away a pleasant naiveté that couples who do not suffer from infertility, get to enjoy. I am excited about my baby Seahorse and I trust that everything will continue to go well, but I am not so naïve to think that things can't change in an instant.

Women who struggle through infertility and women who don't, need to unite to take the stigma of infertility out of society. It is not something that one should be ashamed of...it is a disease and the more this disease is talked about and the more information people receive about it, the more success we can have.

 **As one of the lucky ones who has seemingly come out on the other side of infertility, I have found myself feeling as if some of my friends who are still in the middle of their struggles, no longer consider me part of the "club", as if I magically know nothing about the struggle because I was lucky enough to have success. Just because you have success in that struggle (and I hope everyone I know finds their happy endings with their beautiful babies as well), you don't forget everything you went through and you are not magically cured of the infertility problems. If and when J and I are ready to start thinking about a sibling for baby Seahorse, we will have to go through the IVF journey again (perhaps multiple times again) and that is another thing that is in our minds when we think about how excited we are for baby Seahorse to arrive. Before we knew what we were dealing with and we had that "this shouldn't be too hard" mentality, we had dreams of a family with more than one child. I think having a sibling is important because you hopefully have a built in support system for your children when you can one day no longer be around. We would love for baby Seahorse to have a sibling in the future, but infertility has changed our dreams slightly and we have adjusted to think more realistically about our situation. Our dreams have changed, just as much as anyone still dealing with this struggle and we all need to realize this to be able to support each other through these difficult times.

I hope that everyone going through this struggle finds their happy ending of a family (and very soon) and I want all of my friends to know, that even though I am pregnant, I know what they are going through and I will always be here to talk and support them through their journeys. We all deserve to be mothers and one day, I believe we will be.

If you would like to know more about National Infertility Awareness Week, or infertility as a whole, please visit Resolve.org  There are links for more information and ways you can support someone going on this difficult journey. You can also use this "twibbon" in your Facebook profile to show your support for all the couples going through infertility (even if you are lucky enough to not be yourself): Support Infertility

I've been a bad blogger!

I have been soooo bad about blogging lately! I think mostly because I am too lazy to do the chalkboards! Chalk is a pain and the chalk markers stain and ruined the board anyway...I don't know how Starbucks manages to clean off their boards at the end of each day!

Anyway, we are officially half baked over here! 20 MORE weeks until I get to meet my boy!

Nothing too exciting has gone on since my last update...finding out he was a boy was as exciting as it gets around here!

Oh well, that's a lie....I got a few surprises at my door last week! A good friend of my mom's went on my registry and ended up buying my baby boy's crib and mattress for him! I am so grateful and excited, it feels special coming from someone that was close to my mom, since my mom isn't here to enjoy all this with. I know my mom would be very grateful for her friend's support as well...this woman and her family have been very supportive of me since I lost my mom and they feel like family to me.

  Another friend of mine sent my boy a whole stroller/carseat travel system! I am also super grateful for that! I am thankful for any bit of help and generosity my boy receives from friends and family and don't know what we would do if we didn't have that support! Baby gear is not cheap!
I can't build a crib on my own, but I was too excited to keep the travel system in it's box for the next few months! After a little manual labor (it seriously isn't that easy!), I managed to put the stroller together all by myself! Skills! Now I can't wait till I have my little boy to push around in it for walks! So excited!

We are having our anatomy scan later this week, so I hopefully get a new photo of my little stinker! Hopefully nothing new to update on him, other than he is still doing well!

I can feel him kicking and wiggling around in there and I think he may have a tad bit of an attitude! He apparently doesn't like it when I let my stomach growl (I suppose it must be loud for him in there!) because he goes crazy with the kicks and wiggles! I have also found out that he seems to  HATE the doppler...the moment I put it on my stomach to find him, the doppler gets a big old kick (loud noise in my ear!) and he squirms away so I can't catch his heart beat for very long. He kicks me the hardest if I have the doppler out!

I am hoping I will be more motivated to give updates in the future! My life is not very exciting outside of the pregnancy right now, I need to find some hobbies when I get my freedom back with a second car again!

It's a.......!!!!

Going to be partners in crime! Uh-Oh!

I had a 16 week ultrasound today to make sure my cervix wasn't shortening due to a past cervical biopsy and thankfully everything with that is looking good so far! Baby Seahorse was also kind enough to show us the goods and we found out we are officially having a baby BOY! It feels so surreal because I never thought I'd be a mom to a boy! We have so many girls in our family, so I just always pictured having a girl as well! We are happy and excited though, I just have to let go of the pink and the tutu's for now! LOL

 

Nurse typed "BOY" next to his little weenie. haha
 

During the ultrasound, obviously the cervix was the big thing to look at, so the ultrasound tech did that first for me so I could breathe, and then she started looking for his little tooshie to find his "bits". Little stinker was wiggling around, so other than us being able to get a good view of the boy parts, he didn't want to cooperate for a good picture for his mama! He stayed face down, so no good profile shots or anything, but I am glad we got such a great one during our NT and will hopefully get another one during the anatomy scan at 20 weeks!

Baby Boy face down...good view of his spine though!

I'm super excited about finally being able to really plan out how I want to decorate his nursery and look for cute boy things that will satisfy my mommy shopping desires like girly tutu's would have! We knew that the nursery would have an "Under the Sea" theme for Baby Seahorse, but now we know we can make it more masculine and pick out some cute things for our boy.

I was also 16 weeks on Sunday, so little baby boy Seahorse is the size of an avocado and according to the ultrasound tech, measuring 4 days ahead....I may have a chunker on my hands!

Still working on finding another chalkboard!

15 Weeks

Sunday marked 15 weeks for baby and I!

So far, second trimester hasn't changed much from the first. I still have my nausea and I am still having a lot of trouble with being able to drink enough fluids throughout the day. Some days are better than others, but I really hate the days when I just gag at the thought of drinking anything!

I also have noticed that I LOOK pregnant now...I am sure a lot is still bloat, but I don't look just fat... it is an obvious "hey, she's pregnant" look!  I'm okay, as long as my butt and everything else don't start expanding as well! Lol

We did our hospital tours last weekend, and we decided on which hospital to deliver at. Only complication is that I couldn't get an appointment with those doctors until later in the month, but I needed to have things done before that, so now I have an appointment with the doctors from the other hospital, even though I am not planning on staying with them! Kind of a pain in the butt, especially when we are still in between insurance policies and out of pocket is seriously expensive!

I will have a 16 week ultrasound this coming Tuesday, because the doctors want to keep an eye on my cervix due to a past cervical biopsy I had. They want to watch to make sure my cervix isn't shortening prematurely, which can cause a world of problems for the baby and I. I am praying that everything is going well, because they said if it is shortening, I will need to have a cervix cerclage (which is basically where they stitch your cervix closed under anesthesia and remove the stitch towards the end of your pregnancy). Just the idea of that scares the crap out of me, not only because I hate anesthesia and having your cervix stitched shut can't be pleasant by any standards, but because the shortening of my cervix can cause pre-term labor which is obviously REALLY dangerous at this stage in my pregnancy because Baby Seahorse can't survive without me right now!  STRESS STRESS STRESS!

Anyway...in other news, since it has been a while since my last ultrasound, I decided to try the Doppler that my sister gave me for Christmas. After a lot of stress of not being able to find anything besides my pulse, I finally found baby! Such a beautiful, beautiful sound! I am guilty of listening to the recording multiple times a day now!

Listen to Baby Seahorse's Heartbeat

Second Trimester!

I am 14 weeks and 2 days pregnant and officially made it to second trimester!

Since my last post, we have moved from New Jersey to South Carolina, so it has been bit busy! We are finally starting to settle in to our new apartment and it is amazing to have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathroom to spread out in and it's exciting to have a room designated for this baby Seahorse now!

I am behind on my chalkboards, so I will post those first:

At some point, I will attempt "bump" photos along with my chalkboards, but right now, the bump I have is mostly from bloat! I expect it won't be too long for that to change, though!

As we settle into South Carolina living, I have been trying to think of ways to meet people, since I don't know anyone down here and would like to make some friends. I have joined a local moms forum, so I am hoping they have a group activity planned soon, so I can meet some of the local ladies around here. I also bought a Groupon for some pre-natal yoga classes at a yoga studio down the street and the girl at the maternity boutique I checked out the other day, said that there are about 15-20 women that attend that studio's pre-natal yoga classes at each time, so I hope I can make friends there as well! I feel like I'm going to look desperate because I want to be able to socialize with other women at that same stage as me, but I can't just go up to every pregnant woman and ask her if she wants to be my friend!

We are also going to be touring the two hospital options on Sunday, to get a better idea of where I want to deliver, so maybe we will me a few couples during that! I should just get a t-shirt that says "Pregnant and in need of friends!".

As my procrastination from unpacking, I have been researching things for a registry, so I can get an idea of what we need and trying to keep all of that in a budget. I won't be having a baby shower since I don't know anyone here, so we won't even get those little things that you might normally get from friends and family. I have picked out the stroller/car seat system that I want and we have also picked out baby Seahorse's crib (nothing purchased yet!). While we were at Babies R Us this past weekend, looking at these things in person, I went through the clothing section and there was this little set of burp cloths that had seahorses on them! They were sooooo adorable, so J got them for me, to make sure we had them for the baby! I love them! Baby has things of it's own now and that's exciting!

Anyway, I think I have updated everything that I have missed in the last few weeks. I will try to be a little more on top of my chalkboards, especially since there should be a bump included in those, soon enough!

NT Scan and Official Announcement!

I had a few issues with our insurance, since it is changing with J's new employers, so I managed to get my NT scan bumped up to today, instead of Monday when it would have been more complicated!

The ultrasound tech squished my abdomen a lot, but I got to see my baby for quite a while! She said everything looks good (blood work still has to come in) and showed me the legs and arm and heart and brain...etc. Baby was dancing all over the place and even picked his/her nose! I did not know they did that LOL! It was still the cutest nose picker I've ever seen!

Today, since the NT went well and I got some new photos, I decided I would make my official Facebook announcement. I will be 12 weeks on Sunday, so I got a little brave and decided to announce a tad early, but I am just so excited after seeing my little human today!

11 weeks (A little late!)

So I was 11 weeks on Sunday, but packing up our apartment for moving, got in the way of my weekly board!

Need a new board since the chalk markers have stained this one!

Next week's post will probably be delayed as well, since we leave NJ on Monday and will be busy driving and moving in to our new place in Fort Mill, SC. I am hoping to have some good ultrasound photos to share by next week though, since my NT scan is scheduled for Monday and the seahorse should really look like a baby by then!

Hope everyone had a nice New Year's and it isn't too rough getting back to the every day grind. Moving is more stressful than I imagined, but I am hoping once we are settled there, things can go back to being a little more normal!