Happy Due Date!! Zander's Birthday Story

So first off all of those struggling with infertility BEWARE this post may need to be skipped for now. I know how it is and just know that this is not sensitive to an infertiles heart. I can say this because I have been there....
I also need to warn the males that childbirth is not a sexy process. So you may want to just close this page up too. I want to be real and it's not pretty!

I have waited to write this post for a time when I am not so emotional. I can now see that time may never come so what better time to write it than the day our miracle was supposed to arrive.  To start out I must say that no one prepared me for the emotions becoming a mother would bring. Shame on you guys! Maybe I could have at least warned Daniel or had plenty of tissues handy. But anyways, let's start from the beginning.

Wednesday September 14th
It's about 4 am and I wake up to an urgent need to pee. However, it looks like I woke up a little too late. I pee and get back into the bed because of course I have to work and here I am up at 4 am. I woke up again at 5:30 and nearly peed myself again. I decided to go ahead and get ready for work because it looked like it was going to be a long day. I got ready and continued to leak "pee" so I put a pad on and thought how embarrassing????  I mean I had been warned about sneezing but just standing around. I packed a few pads just in case...  I also for some crazy reason decided to pack my make-up into a small bag. I was fine the whole way to work but I could tell as soon as I got out of the car that walking around was going to be rough. I mean how do I explain to my co workers that I needed to change scrub pants because I couldn't hold my pee. I got report and had already filled up a pad. I then began to think that maybe just maybe this wasn't pee. I asked a few girls what they thought and they told me to walk over to MEU and get checked out. So I did. They dipped the fluid and weren't convinced so they wanted to do a pelvic exam. So i have been to this rodeo before a few weeks back and it was no fun. Speculum and pregnant Jennifer are not friends. So I go into full blown fit throwing while they are trying to get the speculum in and my water full on breaks. All into the floor. So needless to say I wasn't going back to work. I texted Daniel to tell him he needed to come ASAP. He of course was the smart one and went home to grab some stuff. Since we had NOTHING ready he did a pretty good job.
This is where things become a blur. They asked if I wanted an epidural. I hadn't even felt a contraction. I asked, "now??" and they said sure! I waited quite a while in MEU until a room was open in L&D. Daniel had made his way to the hospital at this point. It wasn't long before anesthesia came in to do the epidural. It was a breeze compared to the speculum exam. Have I mentioned that I was completely closed at this point. Not dilated at all. I went pretty much all day and nothing. I have friends and family in to visit which was nice. But Zander had started some drama and then left the party. As the day went on with membranes ruptured a c-section was thrown around. I knew 24 hours was the cut-off usually so I was getting nervous. I had not really cared before about c-section versus vaginal. But as soon as they said c-section my emotions went haywire. I wanted to keep going and see what happened. So on into the night a doctor came in and still closed. He wanted to manually dilate and i must say I LOVE EPIDURALS!! I didn't feel a thing.

Friday September 16th
After this I was at 2 cm for a while.  Baby was sitting very very low but my cervix (I hate you cervix!!) was not cooperating. During the night I continually was asked to move from side to side. Zander's heart rate kept dropping. I reacted very easily to the Pitocin. Like I am pretty sure they had to turn it off for a while because I was having contractions back to back and Zander did not like that. (Once again I Love Epidurals) I can't remember exactly what time they checked me maybe 4 and I had progressed to 6cm. They wanted to check me again at six. I can remember I told my nurse that I could feel just a mild cramping (not to complain) and when she checked me I was at 9.5. They also check the epidural to see why I was beginning to feel things. They did the ice test and I could feel it in places that I did not need to. So they told me if I were to have a c-section I would need a spinal but
it should be fine for vaginal. Things went into motion. Everyone ran out of the room for fear they might see my privateness and my Mom and Daniel stayed. Did I mention I did not sleep at all the night before due to being moved from side to side constantly?? So of course the intense tiredness hits me at the moment I have to push this human out of me. I remember pushing a few times when suddenly this doctor i had never seen before who looked 12 runs in a yells, "hand me a vacuum, call back up." Do what?!? A vacuum? Back up? Working in the NICU you see some scary stuff caused by a vacuum. They try the vacuum three times and nothing. I have never been so scared in my life. The doctor then yells out that we need to go for an emergency c-section. I went into full blown panic knowing my epidural had slipped out. Thankfully a wonderful doctor came in and calmed the room down. She wanted to give me a chance to do this thing vaginally.  To say this was the hardest thing I have ever done is an understatement. I was exhausted and had not more energy left, but I knew my baby was at risk. I even fell asleep snoring in between pushing.  (That lightened the mood) I gave up multiple times begging them to just cut him out. They encouraged me and cheered me on. Daniel fed me ice chips and I even got them to cut the light out so I could watch in the mirror above me. This gave me so much motivation (before I thought NO Way!) because I could see his hair and knew he was close. I gave it one last push and there he was. Blue and beautiful. (not really. he looked pretty bad at first lol) The doctor fumbled with the cord and it seemed like a lifetime before I heard him cry. And finally he was there, on my chest, the best feeling in the world. I cannot even put into words the feeling of him there. He was the most beautiful thing. And the hair!! Made all the heart burn worth it. I feel like this is all over the place but I needed to put it down on paper before it all slips away from me. So far motherhood is not easy but I would not trade anything for it. I can't imagine life without this little one.

Zander Ray Vines... 18-26 weeks

Sorry for the absence from posting guys! I have so much to share in this post. Since the last post we have found out the sex of our little miracle. As you all know we are having a BOY. Yes I am guilty of being slightly disappointed but I have always had my heart set on a girl. The idea has sunk in and I love this little fella so much already! Here are a view of our little guy at our gender scan...

We also tried to do some gender reveal photos before we knew what we were having so we could go ahead and announce that day. The pictures did not go as planned. I guess that is what happens when you are dealing with dogs, even trained ones. We took some boy and girl photos. Loved how the ones of Taz announcing a sister was on the way, but due to it being a boy we couldn't use it. Had to still share this great pic of our handsome boy...

 

Tried to take some pics of the dogs announcing the gender with paw prints on my belly but they just ended up looking like big blobs on my belly and the paint ended up all over the dogs. It was worth a try though. We ended up announcing to our families over some good food at Texas de Brazil and the waiter brought out their drinks with penis straws. Very traditional gender reveal :D You would be surprised how long it took some of our family to figure out what it all meant. 

We are now at 26 weeks. Everything is going great. Not too many complaints. I have told many people if I could keep getting pregnant I would just stay this way. I love the feeling of Zander dancing around in my tummy. I have experienced few symptoms of pregnancy including some insomnia, terrible reflux that is getting worse and this heat is horrible. 100 degrees is not a pregnant lady's friend. My feet have swelled a few times at work but that is understandable. I went today for my glucose test. Like I suspected I failed by one point. Seriously... one point. So I go back next week for the lovely three hour test. I had kind of expected worse since I have eaten nothing but junk and sugar since January. I love ice cream and gummy bears. I have also had a craving for the cream filled caramel candies. We are working on the nursery in between hectic work schedules. We have the carpet ripped up and just waiting to hopefully get the walls painted by this weekend. Then comes the fun part of laying hardwood floors. 

First Trimester and Road Trips

Sorry I have waited all week to post! Between work and dog shows we have been super busy! I will start with the most important update! Baby Vines is doing well. Already stubborn like it's Daddy. I went for the First Trimester genetic screening this week on Tuesday. Baby Vines says, "Hello!! to all who have prayed for me!" 

 Heart Rate 162!

 Doctor was frustrated because Baby Vines did not want to cooperate. It turned every way but the way the doctor needed to do the test. He said from what he could see everything looked great. My blood work came back negative also. This test tests for Down's Syndrome and Trisomy 18 along with neural tube defects. They will do another blood test in a couple weeks that tests for some other defects. I go back to the doctor in two weeks!
How far along? 12 weeks
Total weight gain/loss? 2/3 pounds
Maternity clothes? No but loose fitting clothes
Stretch marks? no
Sleep? as much as i can
Best moment this week? Seeing Baby Vines waving at the camera
Miss Anything? energy
Movement? No
Food cravings?Fish Fillet Sandwich from Mcdonalds and hot fudge sundaes
Anything making you queasy or sick? Tazikis and can add Olive Garden to the list
Have you started to show yet? I believe so! A tiny bump
Gender? 
Labor Signs? Nope
Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time? Happy, but tired
Looking forward to? April 12th next ultrasound! 

Our Family has also been busy on the road with our big babies. Two weekends ago we attended a Practical Protection Dog trial. We had some bumps in the road on the first day thanks to dealing with stubborn bulldogs, but the next day proved to be a lot better. Rose finished fourth all around and Taz scored the most point in the agility/food refusal portion.
The next weekend we drove to St Louis to attend the ABBA dog show (Alapaha bulldog show). We had such a great time touring the area and spending time with Daniel's parents! Taz won Adult Champion in the second show. He also passed his CAL 1 & 2. Rose won Top Alapaha in the Top Dog Competition and came in first amongst the females. We are so proud of them and when we do finally breed them we will have an all around perfect bulldog in there somewhere.

10 Weeks and going strong!!

Look how big I am getting!!!

We are getting closer and closer to the end of the first trimester! If anything then I will be able to take some tums and ease this reflux maybe. Little bit is doing awesome! It's amazing how much he/she has grown in just a week! Its little head just popped out there. Or should I say big head! Today was my high risk OB appointment. Pretty much this jist is that I am very low high risk in their book. My cervix issue can not be dealt with until it rears its ugly head and they are hopeful that it won't. Since this pregnancy is au natural that puts me at even lower risk. Studies show that with a cold cone knife/Leep type procedure on a cervix that puts me at like a 20-30% chance of preterm labor depending on how much cervix was removed, but they said it is hard to really tell if that was the real cause of the early labor. She said that I would likely have a quick labor that a lot of times patients like me will go from 1 to 10 very quickly. So right now the plan is to go back in two weeks for my optional genetic screening (ultrasound and bloodwork only) and then in four weeks back to MFM. They said at fourteen weeks the chance of miscarriage diminishes drastically so that is our next milestone to hit! Thanks for the prayers!

How far along? 10 weeks
Total weight gain/loss? 2/3 pounds
Maternity clothes? No but loose fitting clothes
Stretch marks? no
Sleep? as much as i can
Best moment this week? Getting to see baby on Ultrasound
Miss Anything? deer meat
Movement? No
Food cravings? Icees and milk shakes
Anything making you queasy or sick? Tazikis and can add Olive Garden to the list
Have you started to show yet? I believe so! A tiny bump
Gender? 
Labor Signs? Nope
Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time? Happy, but tired
Looking forward to? dog show season starting so we will be taking some trips the next few months so maybe it won't seem like forever between appointments. Off work for 14 days!!

8/9 Weeks

Tuesday March 1, 2016
It seems like the two weeks in between appointments took forever! My symptoms stayed consistent and nothing traumatic happened. However I still could not breathe easily until I saw our little gummy bear on the ultrasound screen. Dr. Bouknight described it as the little gopher in caddyshack moving around in there. We were able to make out limb buds and she showed us the spinal column developing. And our little baby is moving around. The heart rate was up to 178 this time! Nice and strong! She had not gotten a chance to email the OB's to ask about my continued care. She thought it would be fine to be seen by regular OB's but an email I received later confirmed that they would like me to go to High Risk to at least get a consult and get my cervix checked out. That appointment will be March 17thwith Amelia Sutton at UAB. As bittersweet as it was, this was our last appointment with our RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist). I have been with the for 4 years almost and they are like a second family. I never thought I would get to this point and it is so surreal that it is here!! I mean, I am nine weeks pregnant!
So for my fellow fertility strugglers, I know the mixed emotions that reading post like this brings. I have been there and felt those feelings. I have even struggled with posting what I have because I didn't want to hurt these ladies hearts. It's not meanness. Only infertiles understand it. It's frustration, pain, sorrow, a little bit of envy and anger at the universe for it not being your turn. I wish I had tricks to tell you, but I don't. I will say that the last thing on our mind that month was trying to get pregnant because we didn't even worry about charting or keeping up with it when we weren't doing an IVF cycle because why bother. I mean if IVF was not working for us why in the world would natural conception work. I will say that I know of hundreds of people who were lifting us up in prayer and I am sure there are hundreds I don't know of. My grandfather told me specifically he put my name in their church to pray for me that week of conception and I know a friend that anointed a prayer cloth for me that week. I know that we changed insurance that month to BCBS that was triple the premium so that it would cover more IVF labs and US. I know that we put a deposit on a puppy the month before so that we could add to our Alapaha family (Sorry Mom and Dad!!) We also planned a trip to Canada in the fall that won't be happening now. It was just a whole bunch of craziness and faithfulness that added up to our little munchkin coming into this world! I am just trying to say, don't give up. Or do but don't stop praying.


How far along? 8/9 weeks
Total weight gain/loss? zero
Maternity clothes? No, but have used this as an excuse to not button my jeans
Stretch marks? no
Sleep? Not much at night. Having terrible nausea and reflux right at bedtime.
Best moment this week? Getting to see baby on Ultrasound
Miss Anything? Being able to take medicine for my ailmentsMovement? NoFood cravings? Chocolate Chip cookiesAnything making you queasy or sick? TazikisHave you started to show yet? nope think it's just a fat roll :DGender? Labor Signs? NopeBelly Button in or out? InWedding rings on or off? OnHappy or Moody most of the time? Happy, but tiredLooking forward to? MFM appointment next week

Well Hello there Little One

So for those that follow my blog the last we talked I was to start my period so that I could start the wonderful hormones that might someday lead to a baby. I waited and cramped for about a week before my sweet husband suggested I take a pregnancy test. I did everything short of patting him on the head and saying, "Bless you heart." I went a couple more day waiting on the inevitable... but it never came. February 4th I went home after work and dug around under my sink to find two pregnancy test. Daniel was on the phone so I thought I would just get it out of the way so I would get these little rays of hope out of my head. I took the first one and it automatically started coming up a plus sign. Everyone knows the plus sign ones are kind of hard to read. Thankfully I had one more of the two pink lines test left over so I used it next. I sat a few seconds waiting and there it was. Two lines. I immediately started crying. I mean I'm not on any medications. No Progesterone. No estrogen. Just my vitamins. I yelled at Daniel to get off the phone. We couldn't believe it!! I sent a message to the nurse at the clinic we have used for the last 3-4 years to see if they could run a blood test in the morning. That test came back 107. Which is a pretty awesome starting number. I was still cramping so I took it easy all weekend and went back to the doctor on Monday for more blood work. I told myself that my goal was around 300 because you want your hCG level to double every 24-48 hours. It was almost 600! The doctor was stoked! We were stoked. I finally let myself believe that this is it. God has truly given us a miracle. Last time we were pregnant my level only got to 150. So this is one tough kid so far! The doctor wanted to see me back that Wednesday to check my level one more time. Once again I gave myself a goal of 1400 and it was 1718. So we felt that we could finally tell our parents once our levels looked healthy. We made a picture of the dogs to help spread our joy...

 

 At 6weeks 5 days we finally got to see our little ladybug and its heartbeat. The first words out of our doctors mouth was, "well it's just one". Its heartbeat was 128 and everything looked great and measured perfectly. I couldn't help but cry to see this little one!!

  

 I have been waiting for four years to announce this so I had tons of ideas! So sorry for the announcement overload!! I go back next Tuesday for another ultrasound with my fertility doctor and then will be released to regular OB.

 So far I have had a little nausea, but not throwing up, fatigue and sore boobs. All of which I am welcoming graciously! I will take it! I want to thank everyone who has prayed and supported us through some pretty emotional years. I want to share with everyone the huge miracle that God has given us!

New Year, New Perspective

The bond you form with your fertility doctor is usually something special. They are just as disappointed about negative results as your family and friends. They become family. So it was really difficult to arrive at the decision to get a second opinion. Our doctor suggested Dr. Steinkampf and we were hesitant at first. But we were so impressed by him today. He spent more than an hour going through every bit of paperwork and history that he could dig up. He was caring and had fresh ideas. He gave us hope, which I had ran out of. We wanted an honest opinion and though some of his stuff he wants to try makes us nervous, we were sent to him for a reason. He told me, "Do not give up on your eggs just yet. I want to get you pregnant." So his plans are... 1. We will start with doing IUI's with injectable meds. He feels like we should give this option a fair shot. We only completed one IUI with injections before and due to the painfulness of the IUI's and my cervix we quickly swapped to IVF. He feels that he can use a different type of catheter that should take my stenotic cervix out of the equation. 2. On that note, he isn't worried about my cervix. He believes that UAB is a more conservative practice and wants to go higher on all the meds to help create better and more eggs for retrieval. 3. If we do get to the point of IVF he believes that we shouldn't do ICSI. He feels this could be causing harm to the eggs and possibly causing them to arrest in development. 4. He drew an AMH level since I have never known it but he feels that with my labwork he has seen that my ovarian reserve isn't diminished. I just do not respond well to the meds. So next month we will be doing artificial insemination with 225mcg of gonal-f. I am excited to get back at it and hopefully get pregnant!