Josslyn’s Birth Story – Part One

I have been thinking about if I would share Josslyn’s birth story with you all for a very long time.  And since Josslyn is turning ONE next Friday I thought it would be a great time to fill you in on the details!

I want to start out by giving you the Prologue to my pregnancy with Josslyn, I have done some minor blogging on this journey on my old blog Chasing Rainbows, but never really talked about it here.  Even though I found out I was pregnant in March of 2013 our journey to become pregnant started long before that, around November of 2009 Matt and I decided we wanted to start trying to grow our family.  On April 5, 2010 I stared shocked at a pregnancy test that was clearly positive. This is what I had wanted so badly but when it finally happens I felt a since of joy and shock all at once!  Unfortunately just before 10 weeks our baby’s heart stopped beating.  I was devastated, Matt was devastated.  It took me a long time to start healing from that miscarriage.  I was grateful that I had been fortunate enough to have 3 ultrasounds before that last one and got to see our baby’s heart pounding as it wiggled around.  You can learn more about that loss here.  At that point I was diagnosed with a bi-cornuate uterus … basically it’s heart shaped which is not good.

Just before what would have been our first child’s due date I had another pregnancy that did not go past 5 weeks.  The Doctor didn’t technically consider it a miscarriage, but I did and it was very sad to us.  My third pregnancy was not a viable pregnancy and considered a blighted ovum.  We saw a sac but even though it kept growing there was never a heartbeat present.  We waited 9 long weeks before we finally new it was time to move on.  My 4th pregnancy was a hopeful one.  We saw a baby, heartbeat, but unfortunately the baby had implanted on the septum of my uterus.  This area has very little vascular tissue, and not enough to sustain blood to my baby.  With each ultrasound the heartbeat got slower and slower, until one day it just stopped.

Once again we were heart broken and my Doctor suggested an Reproductive Endocrinologist to perform corrective surgery on my uterus.  Think rhinoplasty for your uterus if you will!  After our 2nd loss I had gone to a different RE who had done a full panel of Chromosomal testing on both Matt and myself.  It was nerve wracking but we knew there were no abnormalities with us that would be causing the miscarriages.  The RE did an awesome job and the surgery was a success.  He wanted me to stay in his care until I was successfully pregnant again.  We stayed with him for 1.5 years.  1.5 years of Clomid, Fermarra, HCG injections, HSG’s, 4- unsuccessful IUI’s, ultrasounds, progesterone, and so much blood work I cant even begin to count the number of times!

The whole time they were giving me drugs I just could not get the thought out of my head that something was not right.  How could I have gotten pregnant so many times before and now that I am taking drugs that women who can’t get pregnant, get pregnant on but nothing was happening to me?  Well there were some things happening, Clomid can make you very angry and snappy.  It can also help you gain weight … lots of weight!  My body loved Clomid so much that I could only take 1/2 the normal lowest dosage usually prescribed.  Finally just before Christmas of 2012 I had decided I was done.  I was done with the drugs, the stress, the testing at the RE office, the testing at home, the temperature taking, the shots.  I was D O N E.  I wanted to go back to what were doing before, what worked for us.  I finished that cycle and never took another dose of Clomid.

It took a few months for the Clomid to get out of my system, but good news is, it did!  And on March 25, 2013 while Matt was at work I took a pregnancy test.  Shocked I face-timed him, there was no way I could tell him I was pregnant without seeing his face for myself!  It was wonderful.  And so began the journey of growing my little Josslyn!

My pregnancy with Josslyn had it’s up and downs.  We didn’t tell our family until I was close to 10 weeks pregnant and not publicly until I was 20 weeks along.  Fear still had me in its reigns!   After everything we had been through the last thing I wanted to do was get anyone’s hopes up.  I went to the Dr on March 27 and started tracking my levels and guess what?  They were doubling.  I was still hesitant to be too excited but I just kept going to the Dr.  On April 10th I had some spotting and was seen by my Dr right away.  We settled in for my first ultrasound of this pregnancy and there she was clear as day. 6w1d with a fetal heart rate of 112 and an EDD of December 6, 2013, we had additional ultrasounds every two weeks until the month she was born and we had moved to weekly visits.

On June 13th the tech let it slip that the baby looked like a girl!  It was confirmed on June 27, but I still had the tech check every time, just in case they were wrong!

I was on progesterone through the entire pregnancy and due to a shortening cervix was switched to progesterone injections and Crinone 8% to help prevent pre-term labor.  On August 26, 2013, 26 weeks, everything was going great with one exception.  Josslyn had decided that she wanted to be breech, she had been that way for about 10 weeks at that point.  She stayed Frank Breech through the rest of the pregnancy.  Head in my ribs and tap dancing on my bladder.  Such a sweet little girl, hehe!

On October 14th I started NST scans weekly since my blood pressure had been slowly creeping up.  Each time she passed with flying colors.  Such a smart little girl!  On October 28 (34w3d) we had what would be our last NST scan and my Dr informed me that she wanted me to go to 36 weeks but not past 38 weeks.  And that if Josslyn had not turned she would be scheduling the c-seciton.  Matt and I were a little shocked.  Our once December baby was going to be come a Thanksgiving baby!  Thankfully we had a few days for that to settle, because clearly Josslyn had other plans.

This was the last ultrasound picture we got of our Little Miss.  I think she looks like her father here what do you think?

To Be Continued … Josslyn’s Birth Story- Part Two