I have been blessed...

Today I read about a little boy who passed away from a congenital heart defect. They showed pictures of his time spent in the NICU and it brought back so many memories of that long month that Maddy was in the NICU. It makes me think of just how blessed we are to have a beautiful healthy little girl in our arms. Having her in the NICU was so scary and now it just seems amazing how big she has become since that day. I want her to always know how much of a miracle she is to Matt and I and how much we love her. Maybe one day she'll read this blog. I wanted to share a few of her favorite things right now, just little things she is doing that I want to always remember!

For one, she loves anything "Boo!" Boo to her is anything Halloween-like such as witches, ghosts, pumpkins, etc. She watched a Mickey Mouse Halloween Sing Along and since then she loves anything scary. While at garage sales a few weeks ago I found a little toddler witch costume, it is so cute and boy does she love it! Every time the witches song comes on she has to run and get her hat and broom!

She also loves to dance! I watch that show, "So You Think You Can Dance" every week and when it comes on she goes in front of the TV and does her own little version of the dances they are doing, I just love it!

Little Miss Maddy is also becoming quite independent at times! She is saying on a daily basis now, "I want to do!" Meaning she wants to do it herself without help! She is getting so big! But with this Independence also comes the pouting when she is told no. When she is mad or angry she will cross her arms over her chest and say, "Hmm!" Then sit there pouting. She learned this from her little buddy Charlie. Honestly, though I don't really mind it, I would rather her quietly pout then throw a fit or yell! : ) The picture below is of her pouting when we went to the Hands-On Museum. She wanted to put the play food in her mouth and I told her no so she was mad. (Goodness only knows how many kids have put those things in their mouths! Ewww!!!)

She is doing great with her speech therapy and has made lots of progress! She is now saying short sentences/phrases and adds quite a bit of new words to her vocaubluary each week! Her favorite part of therapy is getting a cup of water from the water machine on the way out. Every time I tell her we are going to therapy she says, "And I get wa-wa!" So when we are through she always reminds me that she wants her water. After getting the water she then has the routine of sitting outside of the building on the bench and drinking her water before we proceed to get in the car. I love the little routine things like this that we do! I love her so much! Well I am headed to bed! Yawn!

Our first glimpse of you!

Matt and I were so excited to go back for our second ultrasound, we were also really nervous. We got to the doctors office and waited for what seemed like forever but in all reality was probably a pretty short wait. Finally, they called us back and got all set up for the ultrasound, I silently said a little payer to please show us that everything is OK and show us little ones heart beating. The second the baby came up on the screen I saw the beautiful little fluttering and I knew that it was the little heart beating!!! She measured the baby and said that everything looked great! They she zoomed in a bit and showed us the heartbeat and turned on the volume so we could hear his/her heart beating!!!! Ooohhhh, that was the greatest sound and it brought back memories of being in that same room just a few years back listening to Maddy's little heartbeat! She printed us out 2 ultrasound photos, I think they are so cute although this early on the little one looks kinda like a little grain of rice! Next we met with Dr. Boyd (this is my doctor who delivered Tyler) and he gave us the due date of February 9th! What a day full of blessings!

Our next appointment is towards the end of July and then at the end of August when I am 16 weeks we have our appointment with ROC- the high risk doctors for a consultation and ultrasound to check and make sure everything is ok with baby. I am hoping to possibly find out the sex this day too!

Early Appointments

I have already had a few ob appointments thus far. Because of my history with Maddy and having the severe pre-eclampsia and delivering early at 34 weeks, I am considered "high-risk." Our first appointment was called a, "confirmation appointment" with the nurse practitioner, they did a pregnancy test in the office to confirm that I was pregnant and then went over different things like prenatal, things to do and not do during pregnancy, etc.

My next appointment was the long appointment where they do your first ultrasound, yay! And then you see one of the ob's. We got there and did the ultrasound first, I was so excited and couldn't wait to see the little peanut- Matt calls this little one "peanut." So we get in there and I am sooo nervous and we very disappointed to find out that it looked like we weren't quite as far along as we thought we were. I thought I was about 6 weeks and 5 days when really I was more like 5 weeks and 5 days. We were able to see the yolk sac but she said it was still too early to see the baby. She said we would schedule another one in 1-2 weeks. I was sooooo bummed! Then we go back to the waiting room and they call me back to do the finer stick to check for gestational diabetes and the numbers were a little high so they told me I had to go to the lab next to do the 3 hour glucose test, after the ultrasound and then this I was feeling really defeated already.... Next we went into the room to meet with Dr. McIntyre.

She was so great and it felt good to meet with her! She said that the due dates were probably just off and when we came back in a week or 2 we should be able to see the little one. Also assured me that the blood work was just precautionary and didn't necessarily mean that I had gestational diabetes (which by the way it did all come back perfectly normal! yay!) I spoke with her about how I wanted to try and change my eating habits a little to eat more healthily and she said this would be fine and also talked to her about being seem by the high risk consultants and she also agreed that this would be good because of my past history.

BIG news!!!!!!

We're pregnant!!!! I wanted to begin blogging all about our new little peanut but am not ready to share quite yet so I am just going to save these as drafts for now and publish later. Matt and I decided a few months ago to stop using protection and if something happened it happened and if not then that's fine too. Because of all the infertility issues we had in the past we knew that it may take a really long time and I think we were both expecting it to be even a year or so boy were we surprised to find out that after just a few months we are expecting!

When I realized I was late I took a early test and it was negative. Then a few days later I decided to take another one and it was positive!!!! i was so excited!!! I took the test in the morning and the first one was a faint line, I left for work and then when I got home took another one and this time the line was darker! Matt was at work and I was dying to call him at work and tell him but I wanted to tell him in person. I also wanted to think of a creative way to tell him.

So, Maddy and I went to the store and I bought Maddy a book called, "I'm a Big Sister!" Then we went home and waited for what seemed like forever for him to get home! When he finally got home I said," Maddy-go show Daddy the new book you got today for him to read to you!" Maddy took the book to him and he said, "Oh you want me to read this to you? Ok... Then began reading the title and looked up at me and said, "Wait.... what???" I said, "Yep! Im pregnant!" He kept saying, "Are you serious? Are you serious? Wow, that's great!!!!!!" Then of course he had to call his mom and dad. they were so excited! Then we went up to the ballpark where alot of our family was and told them, they were all really surprised and happy for us! We also went to visit Tyler at the cemetary and tell him that he is going to be a Big brother again, although we are sure he already knew since he is up there with Jesus watching over all of us!!! So, that's our big news! We are beyond excited and cannot wait to welcome with little one into our lives!!!