Our Miracle Baby

We are FINALLY Having a Baby!

As soon as we found out we were finally pregnant (and it was confirmed by blood tests and ultrasounds). I began planning. I didn't know what sex the baby would be (it could have been an alien and I would have been happy!), we were still in the early stages of our pregnancy, so there was still a risk of miscarriage, which scared me—a lot. There are many women out there who have miscarriages, and I think there are a lot of people who don't seem to understand what kind of loss that really is. I have a good friend who has struggled through infertility and lost babies in that struggle. I once heard a woman (of all people) say, "at least it was early on in the pregnancy" about someone who had a miscarriage. I wanted to slap her (and I had not seriously considered slapping anyone that badly since junior high). It DOES NOT matter if you are 4 weeks or 40 weeks, losing a baby is a devastating loss. For my friends that have lost their babies my heart breaks for them, because that is something they will never forget. I had seen my friends go through it and I truly feared it, because the risks were high for me. I don't know about other women out there, but being pregnant required a lot of faith from me. I had to trust God to get both me and my hopes and dreams that I carried in my womb through it. The most unnerving thing about my pregnancy was that I had hardly any symptoms at all. Despite the doctor telling me at EVERY appointment that I should count myself lucky, I wanted that reassurance that I was STILL pregnant (If that meant I had to throw up every day, I would have gladly done it—and throwing up is the thing that I hate the most!). I had no symptoms, though, besides having to wake up to pee in the wee hours of the morning every day, but that was also a side effect of those lovely hormone suppositories that I had to take until I was 12 weeks along.

We were so excited we went straight out and bought an outfit for a girl because we were both convinced that we would have a girl, mostly because what we wanted was a boy and that's just how our life seemed to go. So, I was planning what life would be like with a baby. When we found out that we were going to have a boy, we were both so excited! We couldn't wait for him to come and were looking forward to all those little boy moments and how he would grow up, go on a mission, go to college, get married and have a family of his own. I was looking forward to all of it. It was going to be so fun, and we would finally fit into the world we wanted to because we would be like all the other couples around us who had babies. I would play cars with him and we would do crafts together, I was looking forward to sharing that bond with him between a mother and her child, and hearing him say "mama" for the first time.

The day finally came for us to have our baby boy (March 1st). What an experience that was! Wow! I was called in around midnight to be induced and the labor and delivery were "textbook" according to the doctor. The trouble began AFTER the birth. The hospital where we chose to have our baby was supposed to have these new rooms where you did everything—no switching rooms. HA! about an hour after giving birth I was trying to figure out the whole breastfeeding thing and was working with a woman who was more suited to being a drill sergeant than a lactation consultant and in the middle of all this, some random hospital worker comes in and just takes my bags! I say "Hey! what's going on?" and he says, "Oh, you're being moved." then leaves with my stuff. I was mad. My post-partum experience was not the greatest. I had one great nurse during the day shift who actually cared, and she was the one that caught the fact that our little Braden had jaundice. She ordered some tests and confirmed it. He would have to stay an extra day or two wearing some baby sunglasses while under some "bili-lights".

We finally brought home our sweet little Braden and he was our miracle baby.