Straight From the Harts

A NOTE FROM MOMMY

For those of you who don't really know the full story of Morgan's life.......

Looking back.....

It was about this time last year that we found out we were pregnant. We had decided to start trying in October, and therefore, I began charting my temperatures in the morning. At the end of October I began to notice that my temps were remaining elevated.....a sign of pregnancy. I didn't want to get my hopes up, though. I remember on Halloween at school, I was dressed up as the Cat in the Hat, and I was just uncomfortable and feeling very bloated and tired. At lunch a few teachers joked around that maybe I was pregnant. I denied the fact, but secretly hoped it was true. Then came Parent-Teacher Conferences the next week, and I could barely make it through. I was tired, cranky, my back hurt, and I was going to the bathroom all the time. Not long after that, I shared with my friend Kate at work how I was feeling, and she encouraged me to go get a pregnancy test. I bought it after school and didn't even wait until morning like you are supposed to. I was too anxious. It showed positive right away. I was ecstatic!

I went to the doctor on November 11 to confirm it with a blood test. But two days later, before I even got the results back, I felt of gush of fluid, and was devastated. Instead of driving to a meeting that morning, I drove straight to Mom's house and broke down crying, afraid I had lost the baby. Unfortunately, that's how Mom found out I was pregnant.... When I called the doctor, they immediately said, "Congratulations, your test showed you ARE pregnant" before I could even tell them why I was calling. Through tears I told them what I had experienced, and they said to wait a week (as there was nothing they could have done anyway) and come in for an ultrasound. That was an agonizing week. You can imagine the tears of joy when we got to the ultrasound and saw our little baby for the first time. All was fine.

A couple weeks later, (around 10 weeks) the same thing happened repeatedly over the course of a few days, but I tried not to worry about it, knowing it had happened before. Finally I called the doctor, and once again had an ultrasound. And once again all was fine. Whew!

All went well until our 20 week ultrasound at the end of February where they check all the anatomy, fluid, etc. We found out that my amniotic fluid levels were on the low side, so they sent me to see a specialist. By the time I saw him a week later, the numbers were slightly lower, but nothing overly alarming. I was told to drink lots of water and stay off my feet as much as possible and take it easy. (Yeah, right.....That's hard for a first grade teacher to do!) At my next appointment my fluid levels were down to a 5.7 (5 is dangerously low), though I had done everything they told me to do, and I was sent straight to the hospital. They monitored me for 10 days, and my levels went up, so I was sent home on bedrest. I was on bedrest for 13 weeks. It was hard leaving my students so suddenly like that and never returning for the rest of the year. But I did get to return on the last day to say goodbye.

We weren't going to find out what we were having, but we had to have sonograms every 1-2 weeks to monitor the fluid levels, and it was getting too hard for me not to find out. So, around 30 weeks we found out we were having a girl, though we still didn't make that news public . I was finally let off bedrest at around 35 weeks, and I was convinced she would be born shortly thereafter. Nope. She had other ideas. I had no other complications or problems for the next 6 weeks as we awaited her arrival. Finally at 41 weeks 2 days, we had to be induced. I had not dilated or anything yet, though, which made for a rough labor. I went in to the hospital on July 23, at 7:00 a.m. 31 hours later Morgan was born via a c-section on July 24 at 1:55 p.m. I wasn't progressing much at all and ended up developing an infection, so they finally had to do the c-section.

I think back to all that has taken place in the last year, and I have to thank God for His divine strength and protection. As my favorite song says, "May this journey bring a blessing." Our journey brought us the greatest blessing ever - Morgan Joy!