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The Story (Part 1 = the beginning)
Where do I start? The
day he was born? The day I started
going into labor? The day we found
out we were pregnant? It only
seems to make sense to me to start back at the beginning. When we first started dreaming about
this child of ours. We
decided in the fall of 2007 that it was soon time we wanted to start trying to
get pregnant, so I quit taking birth control in order to let my body get ready
for this baby. What we didn’t know
was how long it would take to get pregnant, and the road we would have to
journey to get there.
For the first few months, we didn’t think much about the fact that
I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet, because we knew I needed foot surgery soon and
wouldn’t be able to have that if I was pregnant. It wasn’t until after my foot surgery in February of 2008
that we started to wonder why we weren’t getting pregnant! After a few more months, I decided to
ask my doctor what was going on, and after many tests, it was determined that
basically my body had ‘forgotten’ how to ovulate. How?
Apparently because of the length of time I had been on birth control
(almost 10 years!) and the fact that for the last several years I had been
taking the pills continuously in the new style that is popular. Other than that, I was perfectly
healthy, which meant that I just needed a ‘jump-start’ to get my body back in
order.
That jump-start came in the form of a medication called Clomid,
which is taken in a 5 day cycle beginning with the first day of your
period. I started taking the
Clomid on July 11th, and we found out on August 12th that I was pregnant! What a blessing to be pregnant after
just one cycle of this medicine, as they only give you 3 chances before
determining that the medicine will not work! Our prayers were answered, and the next 9 months would prove
to be a blessing and a trial as we prepared for this new life that would be
joining us.
When Andrew came home
from work that Tuesday, the 12th, I was standing at the door waiting
for him. He walked in and saw the
HUGE smile on my face and immediately looked down and all around on the floor
and asked “Did we get another cat?!?”
(Can you tell we had somewhat given up hope on the pregnancy dream?) My response? Tears, and a barely whispered “we’re pregnant!” That was the greatest feeling and such
a wonderful day!
That evening, we decided to start telling our family, and for
something fun we decided to send them all a text! “What has 10 fingers and 10 toes and is the size of an apple
seed?” We thought this would be
pretty obvious, but it took most of them a while! The responses started coming in and then we realzed my dad
hadn’t responded! My mom then soon
called to tell us that he had instead gone on to Facebook and posted to the
world that we were pregnant! We
were shocked! And upset for about
2 seconds, before we realized that what’s done is done and we might as well
enjoy telling everyone the news!
It turned out to be somewhat of a blessing that we didn’t have to make
the decision whether or not to tell until the first trimester was over. That would have been so hard, due to
how excited we were! And later due
to how sick I got…
Right around 7 weeks was when I started to really feel sick. August 30th, to be
exact… labor day weekend! We drove down to Lake Cushman to spend
Labor Day with some friends, and that was my first real taste of pregnancy
misery. Everyone was so patient
with me, even when I ate all of the tortilla chips because that was the only
food I could keep down! I made it
through the worst weeks of sickness before my first doctor’s appointment at 10
weeks along where I was told to take a combination of vitamin B6 and Unisom. What a difference that made! I could at least keep a little bit of
food down now! Although I did end
up losing about 5 pounds during my first trimester.
I never did get back to feeling normal, as some do during their
second trimester. I had very low
blood pressure throughout the pregnancy which caused a lot of faintness,
dizzyness, and exhaustion. I also
struggled to sleep because I have always been a back sleeper, and could not get
comfortable in any other position.
I was so ready for the pregnancy to be over, just so I could get a good
hour of sleep! Little did I know
that I wouldn’t be getting that hour for several weeks or longer! Even though the sleep now (Bjørn is
almost 4 weeks old!) feels much better, it is not restful by any means. I thought I was a light sleeper before,
but that was nothing… every noise
my sweet baby makes wakes me up!
In my 16th week, on November 4th (election day – the
day President Barak Obama was elected) I felt my baby move inside of me. What an amazing feeling! Daddy had to wait awhile longer to
experience that feeling, 6 weeks
longer actually! Bjørn never was
much of a kicker. More of a mellow
roller, and summersaulter! I’m
still hoping that means he will be a mellow boy as he grows up!
On November 28th
we got to find out what we were having. Andrew and I were somewhat hoping for a girl, as we
had a house-full of boy already in Navy, but God knew what was best, and we
couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful perfect son! We knew immediately (that night actually!) what we would
name our son. And we didn’t have
to even discuss it. Bjørn. A beautiful strong name for our
beautiful strong boy. We were so
excited! We didn’t decide for sure
until the day he was born what his middle name would be though. We were leaning towards Andrew (Navy’s
middle name) but deicded to go with Mikael, after Andrew’s best friend,
Michael. (We did change the
spelling, though, to be a bit more norwegian…)
Fast-forward about 5 more months. Andrew went to Mexico on a
mission trip April 1st -9th. Our due date was April
17th, and since this was my first pregnancy, we were not too worried
about him missing it. I did ask for lots of prayer that this baby would
wait to show up until his daddy came home... and I guess God took our
prayers quite literally, as Bjørn decided to start making his appearance the
day after Andrew got home!
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