36 weeks

Wow.  36 weeks.  That's 2 days longer than I made it with Lexi.  To some it isn't a big deal, to me, it means everything.  When I went on hospital bedrest with Lexi 3 years ago the only thing that kept me going was knowing that when I left that hospital I would have a sweet baby girl in my arms.  I was admitted on a Monday.  On Saturday night I was begging God to make it be over.  I just couldn't do it anymore.  I felt like I was alone all the time.  I don't know.  I can't explain it now.  I just know that being in the hospital is miserable and I was totally done with it.  I had Lexi the next day.  Maybe God heard my prayers.  Maybe He knew that I really really couldn't do it anymore.  Maybe it was just fate.  Either way, at 35 weeks and 5 days Alexia Rosemay entered this world at 5lb 5oz and 17 3/4 inches long.  I didn't know at the time that my hospital had an automatic NICU stay for every baby born before 36 weeks.  So minutes before I had her, in swooped a whole team of people.  They let me see her and touch her face and kiss her before they whisked her off to the NICU.  Jacob went with her and I went back to my room.  She breathed good.  She looked good.  They gave her a binky almost immediately because she just wanted something to suck on.  But she wouldn't eat very good at first.  So they put a feeding tube in.  It took her a couple days to start taking all her feeds by mouth and for them to remove the tube.  Then she wouldn't keep her body temperature up.  For those 9 days that she was there, we couldn't take her out and hold her whenever we wanted.  We could take her out to feed her, hold her for a little bit, and then put her back in.  And she had to be wrapped up completely the whole time.  If her temperature wasn't good, then we couldn't take her out and feed her.  She could be out of the isolette for like 45 minutes tops.  Leaving her in the hospital alone every night was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my whole life.

What all this rambling leads to is:
No matter how much I talk about being miserable right now
No matter how much I think I can't do this for one more second
I HAVE TO.  AND I WILL.

I know how lucky I am to even be pregnant right now, and I don't take that for granted at all.  And I know that every day longer that Rex bakes will make his grand entrance and his life, that much easier.  And for one of my children, I will do anything...anything!

pregnancy after infertility

I don't really know where to go with this post without offending or triggering someone. So i will try my best to do neither. I will always consider myself infertile. It's a club I unwillingly joined. But I have met some amazing women along the way. They are my sisters now and I wont leave them. Pregnancy in general is hard. But pregnancy after infertility is especially hard. With Lexi I had extreme guilt because I got pregnant while we were on a ttc break. It was a miracle, but I was scared to share it with my friends because I didn't know how they would handle it. They were excited for me and life was good. After I had Lexi it was hard to post on our site because I felt like since I wasn't currently ttc I didn't have anything to contribute. But I learned that a simple "I'm here for you" works wonders when you don't know what to say or do. This pregnancy has been much the same. I got pregnant while we weren't ttc. I didn't even have a cycle. Rex is truly a miracle. And I had to share with my girls. Once again they were excited for me. But this is where the hard part comes. I don't remember a lot of things about my pregnancy with Lexi. So I have a lot of questions. I don't want to bombard my infertile friends with pregnancy questions. They always answer me but I can't imagine how difficult it is. Then there come the normal pregnancy issues. The aches and pains. Is this normal? Should he be moving more? I'm so sore and tired and miserable. Those are things I feel extremely guilty saying. Because I am infertile. I know what it took for me to get here. For me to get 2 babies I had to lose 3. So I shouldn't complain about morning sickness or round ligament lain or braxton hicks. Because. There is someone out there who would die to have those problems. And I know that. And I feel guilty for my feelings. So if I have offended anyone, I sincerely apologize. It was not my intent to hurt anyone.

28 Week Bump Update

*How far along?: 28 weeks 3 days
 *Total weight gain: I'm right around the even point.
 *How big is baby?: 3 pounds
 *Sleep?: I generally don't sleep for more than a couple hours at a time without having to wake up and use the potty.
 *Best moment this week?: Getting to see his sweet face on the ultrasound
 *Movement? He is definitely a mover. Constantly! 
 *Food cravings?: Nothing in particular, but when something happens to cross my mind I need it right now. 
*Labor signs?: I have had a few contractions, but nothing major.
 *Belly button in or out?: Still in.
 *What I miss: Being able to sleep on my belly. 
 *What I’m looking forward to: Jacob feeling more movement.  Rex moving so I am not in as much pain.

Letters to Rex

28 Weeks 2 days This is from our journal Rex Allen- You are quite the little stinker. You are always on the move it seems like. At our appt. Monday you weighed 3.3 pounds. We couldn't get a good picture of your face because you kept pulling your head back. You are still head up - which I could tell because your movement hasn't changed spots. You also have an arrhythmia with your heart. Dr. Lakin didn't seem concerned. She said it will probably heal itself before you are born, But we will watch it closely. You already have been causing a stir with pains and contractions. You are leading up to being just as big of a trouble maker as your big sister was. Daddy got to feel you move a lot the other day. We joked that it felt like you were running a marathon like Aunt Lisa. Lexi talks to you and asks about you all the time. We all love you so very much! Love Mommy!

The only picture of your face

irrational fears?

Yesterday I had 3 contractions. They were spread out over 3 hours. They weren't painful, and I possibly wouldn't have even known that they were contractions if I hadn't experienced them before. The fact that I'm only 28 weeks tomorrow only slightly terrifies me. It's way too early for this to start happening. Then I have been having some heart palpitations. It makes me kind if short of breath when it happens. And of course it's frightening when anything happens with your heart. I have read that it is fairly common in pregnancy due to the extra blood flow, but I do have an ob spot tomorrow so I will bring it up. When I had the second contraction yesterday I was at my mom's. I kinds just zoned out. I had this completely panicked feeling. I know part of it is due to lack of control. I have a type a personality. I have to be able to plan things. And I am realizing that once again laborious and delivery isn't going to be something I can plan. I don't want another long hospital stay. I don't want my baby to be in the nicu again. I have had a few fairly bad headaches in the past week. That scares me because I had a fee really good weeks. I don't want them to get out of control again. And then just the fact that I have all these things, plus more running through my head all the time makes me feel even more panicked and out if control.

25 week bump update

*How far along?: 25 weeks 4 days 
 *Total weight gain: I think I'm still a couple pounds under what I was when I got pregnant...which was way too much. 
 *How big is baby?: The size of an eggplant. Approximately 1.6 pounds.
 *Sleep?: I generally don't sleep for more than a couple hours at a time without having to wake up and use the potty.
 *Best moment this week?: Having more pain-free days than pain-full days.
 *Movement? He is definitely a mover. Constantly! 
 *Food cravings?: Nothing in particular, but when something happens to cross my mind I need it right now. *Labor signs?: Not yet, thank goodness
 *Belly button in or out?: Still in. It never popped with Lexi so I don't expect it to this time either. 
 *What I miss: Being able to sleep on my belly. 
 *What I’m looking forward to: Jacob being able to feel more movement. Dr's appt on Monday so I will get to hear his heartbeat again.

scared

First thing...I got to come home from the hospital today! So excited to be back in my own bed. But tonight I got this overwhelming sadness. At first I couldn't really explain it. I mean, I am home...Lexi is home...we're all together...pain is a little better, so I should be good right?!? The more I started thinking about it, the more it started to make sense. I am scared of the pain coming back full force. I'm scared to wake up tomorrow with an 8 on the pain scale...which has been the norm up until today. I wanted to come home from the hospital more than anything, but I didn't realize how nice it was to know that a nurse would be checking on me all day, and if I needed anything I could just push the little red button. I'm scared of having to manage the pain on my own at home. I'm scared that if the pain comes back how will I function. The past few days if I was in pain it didn't really matter because my only job was to lay there and try to feel better. But now that I'm home I have other normal things that I have to do...go to work, take care of my daughter. I'm scared that if the pain comes back there are some people who won't handle it gently. Then Jacob informed me today that we just aren't going to have the money to make the trip to Dallas to hang out with my best girlfriends at the end of this month. I have been looking forward to this trip since the day I left Dallas after our trip last year. So, bummed doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. Devastated is more like it. I completely understand and I am not angry with him in the least for this. Then, as per my nature, I have extreme guilt. I am already worried about the hospital bills for this little adventure we were on this week. Not just regular hospital bills, but the MRI cost also. I am worried about my lack of a paycheck next week. I am guilty for the fact that my mom missed a lot of work this week, which will also affect her paycheck. I feel guilty because of the stress and worry I put on Jacob and the rest of my family. I have a million things going on in my head. I need to finish 1 baby blanket, do another for friends. I need to do a baby blanket for Kristin, and also one for baby Rex. I need to plan a baby shower for Kristin and buy her gifts. There's just a lot still going on in my head. So needless to say, I still need prayers.

hospital part 2

Today was my second full day here. There is really nothing new to report. I still have pain. I woke up this morning and rated my pain as an 8. When Jacob got here my food tray was already here but I couldn't even force my eyes open. I eventually ate my breakfast and felt a little better. I got pain meds at 1:30 and then slept for a while. It wasn't a hard sleep, I could still hear everyone in the room but I once again felt like I couldn't force my eyes open. When I did wake up in a couple hours I was feeling (much) better. I ranked my pain as a 5 and I didn't ask for more pain meds at 5:30. We were waiting all day for an internal medicine consult. They finally came right before 7 and stayed approximately 3 minutes. I didn't understand what his plans were and I was still hopeful about going home tonight, so Jacob chased him down the hall. He thinks the neurontin needs to build up in my system. He may increase the dose tomorrow. The general consensus between him and my ob is that I willnot be going home until the pain ia gone. That's a scary thought considering I have beenin pain for 7 weeks. So when Jacob came back in and told me that I pretty much had a breakdown. I want to go home! I feel like I can rest and take pills at home. Jacob immediately called my mom who got me calmed down. I got pain meds at 8. The nurse told me not to wait too long in between so the pain doesn't get intolerable. I have been sweating like crazy in here. Everyone keeps talking about how cold it is but I literally feel like my bed is an oven. The fan is missing from my room so that sucks. Keeping my fingers crossed that I have a good night and get to go home tomorrow. Lexi is coming home after being gone for a week so I want to be there not here. I have tried to keep everyone updated as much as possible. It has been hard to keep up with all the texts and tweets. Eventually I will get my Thanks out to everyone. I appreciate all the thoughts and prayers so much. ignore any typos! I am using the kindle fire and I'm still not used to the keypad.

labor and delivery

Well I beat my own record of having to go to labor and delivery. 23 weeks 1 day this time. The past few days my migraine has been getting worse and worse. I have slept for less than 6 hrs since Saturday because of the pain. Today I got to work and started throwing up. It was pretty uncontrollable so i went home. I called my ob because I was concerned with getting dehydrated,and of course the pain. My ob called me back and told me to come to labor and delivery to be admitted for 24 hrs. I got here and they did bloodwork and started iv fluids. I got a couple pain pills and dozed for a second. The pain is still on about the same level. I think the plan is to do an mri tomorrow. Hopefully it comes back clear. I'm sure it will because it always does. Jacob went home to sleep and I'm starving. Off to hopefully get some sleep.

Once again, it's been forever since I've updated.
On February 14 we got the best valentine's day gift ever. We found out we are pregnant! I won't go into great details but this is just a miracle baby. We were not trying to get pregnant and generally I have to see lots of drs and take lots of meds to get pregnant. So for it to happen the natural way is nothing short of miraculous.
With this pregnancy I have been pretty sick. The "morning sickness" didn't surprise me, as I was very sick with Lexi. I just hit 12 weeks and my appetite has started to come back. I'm scared of weight gain because I'm so much bigger this time. I am already pretty much as big as I was when Lexi was born.
We are trying to stabilize my meds. My bp med is proven to cause low birth weight, so we had to change that. With Lexi only being 5lbs 5oz at birth, I don't want this one to be smaller than that.
I also had to go off my migraine medicine. This has proved to not be good. Jacob had to take me to urgent care last weekend because I was in so much pain. They gave me a shot and a few minor pain pills. The shot didn't seem like it did anything. They pills kinda took the edge off. Then I kinda got the runaround when figuring out who is going to manage these headaches, my pcp or my ob. For now, it looks like ob.
Let me just say that I love my ob. She helped me get Lexi and I never want another ob for the rest of my life. She thinks my body is just not handling pregnancy well....hence the insane bp last time. She gave me a somewhat stronger pain med and told me it should get better soon. I got to listen to baby though and everything sounds good.
We travelled four hours from home yesterday for my grandma's 88th birthday party. Lexi and I rode with mom and dad as Jacob stayed home this trip. Yesterday I was pretty sick. But thankfully my wonderful aunt and uncle have a guest bedroom with toys and cable tv. So when I had to take a pain pill and lay down Lexi could still be in the room with me. There are plenty of people here that could watch her, but I hate to not be able to take care of her myself.
The party was today and it was great. Can't wait to see all the pictures. I also get to sleep in a queen bed with Lexi. I lo e being close to this girl. I snapped pictures of her while she slept last night because she's too darn cute.
Well, my eyes are dropping closed as I type this and my sweet girl is snoring next to me.
Much love! And I'll try to keep up more!