My Pregnancy So Far…
Today I am 31 weeks and this has been the longest pregnancy ever! Through this pregnancy,
I have learned a lot about myself, my husband and my family. I have learned that I really DO
need help from others and that I can’t do this myself. I realized that it sometimes takes a village
just to get through a pregnancy and I learned how amazing my husband is
(I mean...I already knew..but he showed me he was cooler than I ever thought).
There were many times through this pregnancy that I just REALLY needed help. I REALLY need
somebody to come over to just keep the kids alive. I REALLY needed somebody to come and bring
my family a meal. My parents sacrificed so much during this pregnancy. They have taken many days
off, left work early, had late nights, and have even spent some of their time hanging out in the hospital.
During this experience, I figured out who my family could really rely on and who would actually
step-up and help my family at our time of need.
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| My brother and sister-in-law let the kids spend the night when I came home from the hospital. They wanted to make sure that I was getting enough rest. |
We had several people in our church, and family friends, who would come and take my kids from me.
I had many meals delivered. Heck, my sister-in-law’s (Chelsea) mother even sent us TWO meals
and a gift bag for my kids! She is seriously so sweet. There were some days that I didn’t want anything done,
but I just needed somebody to watch my kids because I felt like I was dying. Some people said,
“I am praying for you.” and others would say, “I put your name in the temple.” Both of these are nice,
but praying for me doesn’t watch my kids. I didn’t want prayers, I just needed help. I want to thank
everybody who came over to clean my house, watch my kids, and bring me meals. Thank you to those
who didn’t say, “we are too busy.”
We found out we were pregnant the day after Christmas. We told my parents shortly after.
We then told Derek's family about a month later. About a week later, after my numbers were going up, we decided to share out it with the world.
I have down syndrome and other chromosomal things in my dad's side of the family and so we decided to go through genetic testing. It also checked for Cystic Fibrosis which runs in Derek's family. While doing the genetic testing we were asked if we wanted to know Gender and we said "YES" and then we got the results about 2 weeks later (so around 12 weeks). Little baby was doing GREAT and had no issues. And the nurse told me that the baby was going to be a little baby girl. I instantly got goosebumps and said, "really? not a boy?" and she said, "nope a little girl." And then I said, "but I have three boy." And she said, "oh my goodness congratulations!" And I told her thank you. I started sobbing. I then called Derek. We told my parents that evening by doing a cake reveal.
For the first 18 weeks of my pregnancy, I was throwing up. My husband was even gone for a week for business. I lost 6 pounds that week. I finally had to call my mom, who had to leave work. And then I called a family friend to take my older kids. My mom had to take me to the doctor to get fluids. My blood pressure was very low 73/40. I was so sick. They pumped me with a whole bag of I.V in only 20 minutes (which they said usually takes over an hour) and gave me an anti-nausea shot just to get me to stay alive.
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| Getting fluids because I was so dehydrated and had such a low BP |
At about 19 weeks I finally started feeling better. I still was taking Zofran regularly. I just finally stopped
throwing it up at 19 weeks. I then started peeing blood. After tests and an ultrasound, they found that
I had a blockage. They had no idea what the blockage was though. They sent me home with Percocet
and told me “good luck.” I took as little as humanly possible but was in tons of pain. A month later I
was told by the urologist they weren’t going to do anything unless I was in too much pain.
At 25 weeks I was in TOO much pain! My mom took me to the hospital. They put in a stent.
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| My dad brought my boys to the hospital to visit me. He is such a great and wonderful grandpa. |
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| They gave me Dauladin and I felt so much better! First time in over a month I was in no pain! |
I spent two weeks with that stupid stent and it was the worst thing in the world! I was in so much pain, I physically couldn’t pee, I was having CONSTANT contractions in my bladder, and then my vagina stung. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t pick up my kids, and it was terrible. They originally wanted to have the stupid stent in until I gave birth, but I just couldn’t survive. After having it in for a week I had really bad anxiety and was throwing up uncontrollably. They said everything was fine and sent me home. A week later I went into the hospital and basically said, “GET IT OUT!”
They did surgery to get our the stent and then they checked to see what the blockage was by using a
scope. They found a stone! They blasted the stone. When I woke up from surgery I was screaming in
pain. It took me a second to figure out that I was the one that was screaming. They gave me 5mg of
Delaudin. It was the worst pain of my life. I would rather give birth to all of my children all over again!
While in the hospital I was bleeding a ton from all of the stuff they did, but thankfully baby was doing
great! She never was affected by any of the drugs, or pain, or surgeries that I went through.
My mom started trying to get people to help because my mom and dad were going to California soon
and she wouldn’t be a resource. She called a couple of people and they said, “we are too busy” and
then she called my grandma who of course would help! She lives about an hour and a half away but
that didn’t stop her from jumping at the chance to be a resource of service. Thank you grandma!
After the stent was out I spent a couple of days in pain, but then it was so much better. I am 31 weeks
and still feeling cramps every once in a while. I still pee blood every now and again. They still believe
I have a blockage in my right kidney, but not sure what it is. I can actually do more things though.
This pregnancy has been really bad. I have tried to reflect and think about all of the things that I
learned from this whole experience. Some of the things, I already knew. I knew that my mom, my dad,
my sister-in-law Chelsea and my brother will seriously do anything for me. I KNOW for a fact if my
sister Emily lived closer she would be right there helping me as much as she possibly could. Hey,
Emily, move back and LOVE ME! I am grateful I live so close to my parents because they would have
spent A LOT of money flying over to wherever the heck Derek and I lived to help throughout the past
7 months. Hey they would have gotten a lot of frequent flyer miles though haha. My parents would
never move, but if they did, we would follow them. Hey maybe they will choose somewhere warm!
I also learned the people who really do care about my family through the thick and thin. For those
people who didn’t say, “I am too busy,” or “we can’t” and jumped at the moment that we cried, “HELP”
we appreciate you! Thank you for the meals, thank you for babysitting my kids, thank you for cleaning
my house. The past 7 months I have REALLY needed people and I appreciate those people who
came to love us!
Through this pregnancy, I learned what a dynamite man Derek is and how much he really can and will
do for this family. I am very much a go-getter. I do EVERYTHING. I take care of all the handy work,
the errands, taking care of children, all of the yard work, the laundry and the housework. I even have
a part-time job where I am writing about 15 hours a week. When I became pregnant life changed. I
couldn’t do as much. I couldn’t do anything some days. Derek would have to wake up and get the kids
breakfast, come home during lunch and get them lunch and then come home and get them dinner.
He has never ONCE complained. In fact, every day he asks if he can get me anything. He has made
MANY late night trips to get me things that I wanted. God REALLY did a good job when he created this
man! Derek has worked so hard in the last months to take care of our three kids, our house, our dog,
our cat, and his really uncomfortable (whether sick or in pain) wife.
Ultimately I am SO grateful for the health of my baby girl! Through all of the sickness, the pain, the
drugs, the surgery, and the emotional tribulations, she has always been okay. Her heart rate has
always been good, she has always been strong, she moves all the time and she is perfect. I recently
got to see an ultrasound of her and she was perfect. I saw her hand open and close and we realized
she was trying to grab her own little nose. She is perfect. So so perfect. I cannot wait to meet her! I
am so excited to hold her in my arms for the first time.
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