When you can’t sleep due to a little 4 month old, what do you do in those early wee hours of the morning? Blog!

When we found out we were pregnant it was exciting and terrifying at the same time. I had experienced miscarriages several times and on top of that I have endometriosis and recurrent ovarian cysts which can make it more challenging to get pregnant. So when I saw that little plus sign, I was drenched in a wave of emotions. We were immediately placed with a high risk ob-gyn to closely monitor baby and me in those early weeks. Little did we know that we would have to overcome many challenges throughout this pregnancy.

When you dream of becoming pregnant you imagine having that “glow” that so many talk about, you imagine this wonderful experience of growing your child. I had dreamt of this opportunity for a long time,  little did I know this would be one of the most challenging and emotional things I would ever do.

From being closely monitored in the early weeks with lots of tests and ultrasounds, and being plagued with nausea and dry heaving for the first 16-18 weeks. Finding out that I have a positive marker in my amino acids for MTHFR (will discuss in later blog), it makes you at higher risk for clotting so I had to see a hematologist on top of all of my ob care. Next at 18 weeks I began lactating and by 26 weeks I was told that I had a case of mastitis and had to be put on an antibiotic.  Due to the challenges with my breasts I was referred to see a breast specialist along with seeing hematology.  Then at 28 weeks I failed both of the gestational diabetes tests and I had to deal with that struggle (which I will go into more depth in another blog post). After that I figured nothing else could possibly stand in our way…

Third trimester we found out that our baby was still breech. Finally at 37 weeks she flipped on her own, but not without the discussions of having to do a manual inversion at the hospital, where they attempt to manually rotate the baby. Then there was talk of induction because she was growing at such a rapid rate and with gestational diabetes they usually don’t let you go full term. I was then put on insulin because diet couldn’t control my blood sugars well enough.

I was swollen to the point that I could hardly walk some days, and they were beginning to watch me closely for preeclampsia.  I was seeing the doctor twice a week to monitor myself and the baby with the insulin to check her movement and heart rate. At 37 weeks they scheduled an ultrasound to check if she was still breech. She had flipped that morning as I slept and was head down! Praise God!  She also had significantly slowed in her growth rate and her belly which had been in the 92nd percentile was now down to the 65th!  Praise God again!

The next week, 38 weeks and 2 days I naturally began leaking amniotic fluid and went into labor. No induction, and no struggle.  After about 9 hours of active hard labor, 30 minutes of pushing without any drugs or interventions, we introduced our daughter into the world.

All those struggles I experienced, the challenges and the tears of emotion, I would go through time and time again for the end result. I would rather carry the weight and the struggles during my pregnancy in order to have a healthy and beautiful child!

Just as Christ did for us, he carried our weight and struggles by coming to this world and dying on the cross and taking the burden of all of our sins. He would rather have taken it all and endured those hardships in order to give us life. How incredible is that, to be able to tie my relationship with Christ and my relationship with my daughter together to better understand what and why Christ did that for us. He loves us immeasurably and without condition,  just as I do my daughter.