IT'S OFFICIAL!!!!!

BROOKLYN'S GONNA BE A BIG SISTER!
I guess it has been official for a while, but we just found out we are going to be having another little GIRL runnin' around the house come October! We are so excited, but also apprehensive. Though this pregnancy has been a lot like Brooklyn's, in many ways I hope it's not! I keep waiting for something to go wrong but so far so good. The ultrasound found that our little girl appears to be healthy and yes, we had them double/triple check to make sure the spine was closed!

We also feel so blessed that I have even made it this far in the pregnancy since we have lost two pregnancies this past year. I believe I have officially been pregnant for a year (don't act like you can't tell!) Here is a brief summary of our struggles this past year..........

I got pregnant early last summer and felt that I had won the lottery. I wasn't nearly as sick as I was with B and was going to have the baby in the spring which I thought was just perfect. I kept thinking how easy all this was finally going to be. There wasn't a day that I didn't give thanks or feel that this picture perfect pregnancy was the Lord's way of giving me a break, that I thought I deserved. Well at 12 weeks I realized that this pregnancy was not going to be. I passed out a few times at home with a frantic husband and mom who called 911 and I was taken to the hospital to stop my hemorrhaging. The recovery of the miscarriage proved to be much worse than labor. I couldn't lift Brooklyn for almost two weeks because of the loss of blood and I had and chronic headaches. Thanks to my wonderful sister, mom, and husband, I was able to lay on the couch for days (weeks?) recovering. My sister no longer fears another labor, it is a miscarriage she fears!!

Six weeks later I found out I was pregnant again. YAY! I didn't think life could be so cruel and take this one away, but it still nagged at the back of my mind. So I never told a soul, and suffered in first-trimester silence while being sick, tired and putting on ANOTHER 5 lbs. At exactly 12 weeks my worst fears came to light once again. Only this time I didn't have to pay the $2000 dollar hospital bill and was quite relieved for a "normal" miscarriage (oh, the things we become grateful for). Though physically I recovered from this pregnancy quicker, lets just say I didn't get dressed for about a month. This may be where ANOTHER 5 lbs came from but its hard to tell since sweats are so forgiving!

Six weeks later...... I become pregnant again. Only this time I cried. I wanted to scream "how fertile am I ??"I didn't think it would happen so soon and had planned on waiting until I could function like a normal person again, not to mention I had no faith that his pregnancy would work out. This time the doctor put me on progesterone to lower the risk of another miscarriage. It is this stuff that I attribute to making me want to die every day until I was 16 weeks. I have never been sicker or more tired. Not to mention by this point I was so TIRED of being tired and so SICK of being sick from my other pregnancies, but this was much worse, so I took it as a good sign. Every day I couldn't get off the couch, I smiled to myself and thought "well I'm still pregnant!" Now I was grateful for being sick?!?


So here we are FINALLY! From day one Brooklyn told us this was a girl (we thought it was a boy), and she has since named her. I'm pretty sure she just thinks this one will "go- away" as the others have, but now that I'm getting a little belly, I think she understands a little more. Jonny is up for husband of the year award and is thrilled to not be Mr. Mom anymore. He has been amazing these past months, coming home from work every day and cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and learning to do pig-tails on Brooklyn sometimes better than I can. I couldn't do it without him and it's strange how trials bring you closer than before.

Wish us luck in the next few months!