I don't even know where to start. Motherhood didn't come easy for me. I tried to get pregnant for a really long time and had no luck. After 3 years of trying, it happened. Then it was gone. I was sad, but glad because I knew I could get pregnant. And get pregnant I did. Two more times, and then came two more losses. After my last miscarriage, I was devastated. Shook to my core. What did I do in my life to deserve this? I went on this roller coaster of emotion. After two months of unstable hormones, I was finally feeling normal again! And then came the fourth positive pregnancy test. I was soooo happy, and equally as scared. As the weeks went on, I got more excited. Every time I made it past the point that I had had miscarriages in my past pregnancies, I was just amazed. I wasn't at ease though until Mikey was out and screaming. That beautiful boy came into my life 10 day early weighing in just under 9 pounds! 9 pounds! ( Jen if you read this, thank you for helping me experience the joy of motherhood, finally) The doctors said to wait a year before we started trying for another. We waited 11 1/2 months. I thought it would be as hard the fifth time around to get pregnant and stay pregnant. Imagine my surprise when I found out I was pregnant on Mikey's first birthday. Really nervous, but excited. Even though mikey was a very healthy full term baby, I was still worried about this pregnancy. I went to a specialist because of my history. At 6 weeks, I saw Garrett for the first time. What a relief that was! I couldn't help but think he was lower in my uterus then mikey was at that time. But the doctor said everything looked good, so I didn't worry. 3 weeks later, I woke up to a lot of bleeding. I panicked. I went straight to the doctor. As I waited for him to come in and do my ultrasound, all I could think about was I can't do this again. The doctor came in, said with the amount of bleeding I was having that it didn't look very promising, and he would look and see where we stood. As soon as he put the wand on my belly, there he was, just kicking away, like nothing had even happened. The doctor couldn't believe it. The baby was fine. I had a partial placenta previa, so it was covering my cervix a little. I had been carrying mikey alot the day before, so that caused some contractions, causing the bleeding. I spent the rest of my pregnancy being monitored very closely. A doctors visit every two weeks, with an ultrasound. The rest of my pregnancy was pretty uneventful. I had to take heparin, which is a blood thinner for a clotting disorder, but other than that, it was great.
We had these pictures done at 29 weeks. For those of you who don't know, a full term pregnancy is 40 weeks. I was huge! I am glad we did it, because the next week I woke up in the middle of the night with this horrible recurring back pain. I tried to reposition myself, going pee, and walk around, but nothing helped. After about 2 hours I remembered having that same pain when I was in labor with Mikey. I kept thinking this can't be right, it's way to early. I went to the hospital in carson city. They hooked me up to the monitor, and sure enough I was contracting away. They gave me shots to stop the labor but it didn't work. So they sent me to reno where my doctor was. When I was in carson, the bleeding started again. When I got to St. Mary's the hooked my up to the monitor, and confirmed I was in labor. My doctor came over and did an ultrasound. I had a very large blood clot in my placenta. He told me that I would spend the rest of my pregnancy in the hospital on bed rest. I was shocked. I was feeling fine, and now my baby's life was in danger. He told me that the best case scenario was 48 hours. He didn't think I would make it longer than that. They put me on this medicine called mag. I swear it's poison. But it worked. The days passed, and before I knew it, a month had passed! I was slowly taken off the mag and was doing great. I woke up on Saturday morning and felt like crap. I couldn't put a finger on where the pain was coming from, but it was really bad. I had another ultrasound and found out that I had hardly any amniotic fluid. Every where they thought was fluid was umbilical cord. They told me that the likely hood of him stretching and pinching off his blood supply was very high. They wanted to keep him in another week, for his health. So they put me back on the monitor and said if there was one dip in his heartbeat, they would take him immediately. As the day went on, the pain got worse. I had the most amazing nurse that day. She had been my nurse most of the month I had been there. She kept coming in and checking on me because she said I was acting funny. Finally I broke down. I just started crying. I told her the pain was unbearable. She called the doctor and he came to talk to me. I told him I felt like I was going to explode. He started freaking out. He said he thought my uterus was rupturing and we had about 5 minutes to get me to surgery before I bled to death. Panic took over. I called mike who was in carson and said to please hurry because we were in trouble. I called my sister and asked her to call my dad. Anyone who knows amy knows she had 2100 questions. I just said, call dad, we might not make it. My dad was just up the street at a UNR basketball game. As soon as I hung up with amy, about 10 people came rushing in my room. They were starting new IV's for blood transfusions, making sure Garrett hadn't died, and prepping me for emergency surgery. I just laid there and thought this can't be happening. I can't die. Mikey needs his mom. And then the most horrible thought crossed my mind, what if I live and he dies? Just then the doctor said it was time to go. I was terrified. I was alone, and thought that me and my baby were going to die. Just then my dad appears out of no where. He grabbed my hand and told me it was going to be ok. He came with me to the O.R. but they wouldn't let him in because it was emergency surgery. My nurse that day had been talking about how she couldn't wait to get home to see her kids. They put me in the O.R. and she came in and sat down next to me and asked if she could stay. She said she didn't want me to be alone. I asked her to tell mike and mikey I loved them. She smiled and said they made it, and I could tell them when I woke up, and that's the last thing I remember.
He picked this outfit out all by himself.
He was a big helper when it came to running the shovel.
Here he is under the bili lights to help with his jaundice. It was pretty cute that the eye covers looked like sunglasses. The bili lights look like a tanning bed so when you would walk in there would be these naked babies with sunglasses tanning all over the NICU, it was pretty cute. Anyway, his days got better and better, and his eating improved. He had a feeding tube in his nose the entire month he was there. They took it out the day before we left. 
