top pic is one my favorite Brookelyn & Mommy pics, look at her kissy lips!
this is a brand new pic, taken yesterday of my big girl Brookelyn, still beautiful.I have been inspired after reading other peoples blogs (including strangers) to write blogs describing each of my girl's "story". I have needed to do this, if nothing else, as an archive for them to have.
To understand Brookelyn's beginning, I have to give some additional information about events that led up to her conception.
In 2001 I was newly married to Michael, and we were both finishing up with college. We lived in a one bedroom apartment with sun room in East Fort Worth. He commuted to Denton almost daily as I commuted to Dallas and then worked in the evenings as a bubbly waitress at The Mexican Inn in Fort Worth. We were broke but happy. On the weekends I interned at Family Services (which is no longer in business) at their crisis line. I didn't get paid of course but it was required for my degree. One day, after ten days of lots of cramping from what I assumed was an intense period, I became alarmed. I had started my cycle right on time and I was accustomed to brutal cycles. However, there I sit, answering crisis calls, with a heating pad and a bottle of midol so confused, and so in pain. At the end of my shift I decided to drive up to Arlington Memorial Hospital because a nurse told me over the phone that what I was experiencing could be anything, not just a bad period. This alarmed me. I had convinced myself that the doctor would tell me my body was out of whack, put me on some medicine and send me on my way. I was wrong. I had called my family and by my side my aunt and I heard the news that I was pregnant and miscarrying. The waterworks began. I believed we were being careful, although I was no longer on the pill. I think the pill is awful so I was glad to come off of it when we married. I just had to be careful until I was finished with college! They did a sono, gave me some pain pills, sent me home for bed rest. However, I was relieved. I needed to get better because I had to work and finish school!
Six months later, graduation was approaching and we deliberately let me get pregnant. I told Michael, "lets just see what happens, if I can't carry a baby, I need to prepare for the next steps" It is almost like I knew I was going to miscarry again before I even got pregnant. Well, so the story goes, I end back in the emergency room, same complaints, and this time I was truly upset and wanted answers. While there they jammed a catheter in me, filled my bladder with fluid so they could magnify things for the sono. It was terrible pain. The catheter was painful the entire time it was in. The tears kept coming. Before I left the hospital, I passed the grey matter which was to be the fetus in the making.
Come to find out, I had dangerously low levels of progesterone, the hormone necessary to carrying a baby.
We decided to wait a while, get jobs, insurance etc.. because with that new knowledge, we wanted to be better prepared.
I was given Clomid Dec. 02, to prompt ovulation and hopefully raise the progesterone in the process. It worked! I was pregnant with Brookelyn! The progesterone was still low and I was given pills until about 15 weeks when the uterus takes over the production of progesterone. At 6 weeks pregnant, I experienced some bleeding. I just knew I was having another miscarriage. The dr. did a sono and discovered that the outside of my uterus was bleeding and that it could go either way. I was told to rest for a week and come back. After that, I stopped bleeding and Miss B continued to thrive! I was sicker than sick during that pregnancy, part of that is because of the progesterone pills I had to take so often. I lost 23 lbs. I was lighter the day I delivered her than I was when I got pregnant. Hows that for a diet! Well, it was a miserable time. My head was always in the toilet and I don't know how I was able to work. I was absent a lot.
When I found out I was having a girl, I was surprised! I don't know why but I kept assuming I was having a boy. I was over joyed to find out it was a girl though. Naming her was easy. We settled on "Brooke" pretty fast but someone mentioned Lynn as a middle name and then Brookelyn just popped out as a result! Her middle name "Aubrey" is just one of my absolute favorite names! I wanted her to have a long name, pretty, but strong.
On October 3, 2003 my water broke when I got home from work and I was alone. The liquid was overwhelming. I thought I'd just change clothes and be fine. I must have changed 4 times before realizing that it was useless. The water just kept coming, all over me, the toilet, the floor. I wasn't in pain, just freaked out. I called Michael home and we got to hospital as fast as we could....for no reason...I wasn't really in labor but I had be put in labor because my water broke. By the next day, after the epidermal, I was ready to push, but the epidermal wore off, quit working, apparently they don't work for everyone. I was terrible pain. I puked all over the floor, in my hair and bed, and wondered if that was what death felt like. They already knew B's head was face up instead of face down but what they didn't know what that no matter how hard I pushed, she wasn't coming out. Her nose was stuck on my pelvic bone. Michael could see her head when I was pushing and he was like, "push harder, I see her!". I looked at him with hell in my eyes, tears all over my face, chunks of barf in my ponytail, as if to say, "don't you think if I had it in me to push harder, I would? Moron!" Looking back though, he was being endearing and didn't know what to do or say. Here we were, 23 and 24 having a baby and he had never seen me act so primitive, in such primitive pain, it was medieval in there. When the doctor came in after 2 hours of pushing and said "stop pushing, we're going in to C-section NOW" I was relieved. All I could think about was getting her out of me. I knew no human should be in the kind of pain I was experiencing. I didn't care if they came in and bashed my head with a skillet to put me under. I was done. I laid on the operating table a happy woman. I was given lots of drugs to make me feel like I wasn't really there. A few minutes later, after no work on my part, I was a Mommy! Michael and I both started crying. It was really happening, she was finally here, after the miscarriages, the terrible pregnancy, the horrible labor, she was here! All ours!!
Next month on Oct. 4th she will be 5 years old. She is awesome and everyday makes my heart grow bigger. I am really convinced that I was unsure what love even was until she got to earth. She taught me all about unconditional love. Blessed me who gets to be that beautiful child's mother!
