Tornados

When we were trying to get pregnant I frequently had this awful recurring nightmare that Jayda, Chase and I were stuck in the path of a huge tornado. Almost always I lost Jayda in the tornado and was left without any child. I remember one terrible dream I was 6 months pregnant with a second baby and I ended up having it early but couldnt get to the hospital. The tornado came and took that baby away. I felt so horrible and so alone.

Usually in the dreams we were trying to get away from the tornado but it always seemed to catch up to us. No matter how much we tried to plan or were warned it always seemed to just want to come straight for us. One particular dream I was completely alone in a field and a huge tornado was coming my way. It was such a helpless feeling knowing I couldn't do anything to get away.

Since I've been pregnant I haven't had any tornado dreams. Perhaps it was because infertility is such a helpless feeling. And that no matter what we did infertility just seemed to follow us and there was nothing we could do to get away from it.

The day I got my positive I woke up early and googled tornados. So random, I know. I guess the dreams really got to a breaking point and I wanted to know why I was seemingly so subconciously interested in tornados. At that point I had no idea I was pregnant and wouldn't know til the end of the day when AF was being a biatch and taking her sweet time.

I read about what to do if you ever came close to a tornado. FYI, under freeway overpasses are the WORST place to go if a tornado is headed your way. Your welcome. I even watched videos of some of the worst tornados in U.S. history. For some reason I was fascinated by its power and its force. How helpless those people who had no idea about the tornado must have felt.

Last night I dreamt that I was eating Funyuns and drinking a bottle of coke. Talk about riveting! Apparantly, the tides have turned and salty food is on my mind. I've been eating so many doritos I swear this baby is going to come out looking orange.

I'm pleading and begging my subconcious to continue to dream about food and lolipops. At least for the next 7 months!

The Lost Footage

On my facebook there is this page for those in my area to do a "virtual garage sale". People post all kinds of things. So the other day I decided that I was going to post this video camera that has been sitting in our house for literally years. The last time we used it was when Jayda was just home from the NICU. Chase's parents got us an upgraded version so there was just no reason to use it so I decided to just sell it. Before we gave it to the person we sold it to I had to make sure there wasn't anything on the camera. Boy, am I glad I did.
I found over an hour of video of Jayda during the first week of her life, the first time I got to hold her, the first time Chase got to hold her, the first time I got to hold her skin to skin, her first real bath right before heading to Primarys for surgery, and her when she was just 5 months old.

Man, is it easy to forget. It's been almost 3 years since she was born. Looking at pictures is one thing (I have millions of those) but watching a video is a completely different story. All at once those sounds and feelings came right back. Even the smell came rushing back. I still love/hate the smell of hand sanitizer. That smell is associated with good and bad things. Three years down the road I still can't decide if I like it.

I never thought I'd see the day that I would begin to forget what everything meant. What a good sat number was. What the sound of the alarm on the giraffe made when it needed water. That I even know something called a giraffe thats not an animal. The sound her TPN made when it was completed. The sound of the oscillator and the whoosing of the high flow. The feeling of not having her on the monitor and doubting if she was getting enough oxygen when the nurse and I gave her a bath.

It was rough watching the look on my face as they tried to put this little 1lb baby on my chest who's wires weighed more than her. The look was pure terror as I looked at the moniters hoping that she wouldn't die being transfered over to my arms. I remember feeling those things but having it played back to me years down the road makes it feel like yesterday.

And not all of it was bad. It was awesome to see some of my favorite nurses on the video. Man nurse Scarlett and I had a blast matching her bedding up with big over-the-top bows. And nurse Susan's funny side comments. Oh and you can't forget Miquelle running away from the camera because of her huge sun burn she had on her face. Not so lucky for her she was the one to take Jayda up to primarys on her flight and her mom was crazy about documenting it all. And Amy Marshall taking time out of her day to help record me and Scarlett giving her a bath. Those nurses were gold.

I'm not sure if it was a good thing to watch that being pregnant. But for some reason I have a good feeling about everything. Maybe it's ignorance since its been awhile. Perhaps its good its been awhile. And maybe I'm just so grateful that I am just pregnant. Going months after months after months of no positives really puts things into perspective.

And as a side note...I can't believe no one told me how fat I looked. Holy crap buckets I was pushing the limits with those cookies!! Me so hungry.

Blessings

Anyone that reads my blog knows that I use blogging to release pent up feelings that I have. I started out venting about my horrible experience having a micropreemie and then that turned into my battle with secondary infertility. Sometimes I felt like a broken record crying about the same thing over and over again. In fact, I have many drafts I never published because I felt like such a whiner.

Many people have told me that reading my blog has been inspirational for them to stay real throughout this whole experience. Because anyone who has been through this knows that there can be some ugly feelings going through such a lonely journey. No one gets that unless they've been in your shoes. Many people will be quick to judge you and call you an awful jealous, selfish person because you don't want to bask in pregnancy talk 24/7. But luckily you quickly learn (or for some, not so quickly) those people were never your friends. Friends are there for you even on those ugly selfish days. They recognize that not everyone is perfect and that sometimes you just want to give the world the finger.

After my appointment for my IUI I was very depressed. I couldn't believe this was my life. One of my good friends told me that I was due for something good very soon. That after all the crap we have been through something good had to be coming. Little did I know at that very moment a little emby was traveling down my tube getting ready to snuggle in nice and tight.

The past few weeks have been great. I've had a relatively worryfree pregnancy (no bleeding as of yet to speak of). I saw a sweet little bean today on ultrasound who's heart was beating away at 156bpm measuring in at 7weeks 5days. I go in a couple of weeks to get another one to see the heartbeat again.

My hubby got an amazing job working for Farmer's Insurance as an insurance agent. He'll be making double if not triple what we are making now. Some may not know how dark last year was for us (more ways than one) because my hubby got laid off from his job as an Assistant Manager at a bank. So he's been waiting tables at Red Robin. All at once, a job was lined up and he was hired on the spot. He's still working at Red Robin until he gets liscenced and he gets on base salary after he sells his quota of initial clients.

In other good news... I finally graduated with my Bachelor's in Psychology last week. I officially got my grades back today and so it's official! I'm a freaking educated WO-man! I'm going to take a year off (perhaps study and take my GRE in the meantime) and just bask in hopefully a newborn in November or December and then start up grad school next year!

And look at how presh my little girl is? Her and her daddy have been sick the last few days (luckily I have seemed to bypass that....hopefully) and they took a little nap together on the couch. It was cute but I was also eagerly awaiting him waking up so he could get me my Red Robin soup I had been craving since 9 in the morning. BTW the folks at Wendys open at 9am. They've seen me many a morn. Don't judge me!