Baby #1

I love to hear about other people’s pregnancies and deliveries so I thought I’d share mine with you in a few different posts.  Today we’ll start with my Baby #1.

Andy and I tried for 8 months to get pregnant with Aiden.  Without telling you too many gory and embarrassing details I have always had irregular periods, ever since they started in the 9th grade.  I tried using a Basal Body Thermometer to know when I was ovulating but that was up and down and never consistent so we basically just had to wait for God to say the time was right. 

I took multiple pregnancy tests over those 8 months and they were always negative.  One night I came home from work and asked Andy (who was cooking macaroni and cheese for us for supper) if he thought I should take a pregnancy test.  Up until this point he’d always said no, but that night he must have had a feeling so he told me to take the test.  After 5 minutes I went into the bathroom and about passed out – POSITIVE!  I yelled for Andy and he came in and we just hugged each other, then screamed and jumped up and down.  We were so excited!  Then we got quiet and realized what we’d just done!

Even though my face is a mess I just love this picture.  I am about 6 months pregnant (bad angle, I know I was bigger than this at 6 months) and just so.darn.happy!  I LOVED being pregnant.  I felt amazing, was so super happy all the time and the anticipation was so fun!  My first pregnancy was so easy.  I had no morning sickness at all.  Shortly after I found out I was pregnant I remember feeling a little erpy one morning so from then on I’d go make myself a glass of chocolate milk every morning as soon as I’d wake up and then go lay in bed drink it.  Usually by the time I made it back to bed it’d be about half gone.  But I never felt erpy again. 

By the end of my pregnancy I started to swell – A LOT!  In this picture you can see where my socks left indentations around my ankles.  I normally wear a size 6 but at around 7  months I had to buy a pair of size 8 flip flops so the strap would fit over the top of my chubby, swollen feet!  Luckily I didn’t have a bank job so I could get away with wearing those ugly flip flogs to work.

They look like clubs, don’t they?  That part was a bit miserable!

My original due date was June 5 but early on they ended up pushing my date back to June 30.  At 39 weeks I was barely dilated to 1cm.  The weather was beautiful for late June, nice and mild and no humidity, so I wasn’t miserable or super antsy to have the baby.  We never found out what we were having so that part made me anxious, but otherwise I still loved being pregnant.  Somehow I still slept on my stomach at 9 months pregnant!!!  I really did just love being pregnant!

9 months and HUGE!

I gained 40 pounds with this pregnancy, probably 15 of that was from all that extra fluid from swelling.

On Thursday, June 29 I was at work at the salon and was planning on going out one more time with my girlfriends for supper before the baby came.  Late afternoon I started feeling…off, the only word I can use to describe it.  I just felt different.  I cancelled my plans, left the salon about 5:00 and went home.  Andy wasn’t home yet but I started to panic that the baby was going to come so I went out to my garden, looking big as a house, and bent over to pick my green beans. For some reason it was important to me that they didn’t go to waste on the vine if I was in the hospital having a baby.  Andy came home about 6:00, I told him I felt weird and then we had supper and watched TV.  We went to bed like normal that night and fell fast asleep.

Stay tuned…

Erin