Life As I Know It...: Growing Love- Loss, Pregnancy, Bliss

With good reason, I have been out of the blogging world for quite a while. I found out the day before school started last year that I was pregnant!

Crazy timing, I know! With school starting and having just had an ectopic pregnancy, I couldn't let myself immediately get excited about this pregnancy. I spent virtually my entire first trimester living in fear- fear that I would lose another baby, either to miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, both of which I have experienced.

There is nothing worse to me than the first trimester of pregnancy. It is supposed to be a joyous time in a mother's life - filled with excitement and growing love. But for me, almost every moment was filled with fear and anxiety. I tried to be excited, but more often than not my mind would wander off to dark places. Eventually my first trimester successfully ended and I was able to have peace about my pregnancy. I spent the next 6 months falling in love with the child growing in my womb.

A photo of me at my baby shower!

I had a very healthy pregnancy. My blood pressure stayed under control this time, no gestational diabetes, and I didn't even gain much weight! I found out at 16 weeks through a 3d ultrasound that we were having another girl!

When we burst the balloon at our gender reveal party!

It's a girl!

Now on to the hard part - the labor. With my first daughter I was induced and I loved it, so I planned on being induced again with this baby, but my body had other plans! I went into labor on April 21st around 4am. I stayed home from school with contractions about 10 minutes apart all morning. At 11:30am I had my husband take me to the hospital to be checked out. I was dilated to a 4, but after staying for 2 hours I was no further along so they sent me home. (Horrible idea)

From there I continued to have contractions all day long, which got worse and closer together. I had the dreaded BACK LABOR, and it is something I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. There is no way to describe the immense pain I experienced during labor. I looked like one of those crazy women who go into labor on TV shows- screaming, sweating, shaking, etc.

I finally had my husband take me back to the hospital at 11:30pm. I was dilated to a 7 and knew I would be meeting my beautiful baby girl very soon! At 1am I got my epidural, and it was much different than the one I got with my first daughter. This epidural didn't relax me and make me feel wonderful and warm all over. It made me feel like my legs were asleep. Like, pins and needles asleep. It was very uncomfortable, but at least I wasn't having back labor anymore.

I was able to get some rest on and off through out the early morning hours, and at 4:45am my nurse woke me up saying it was time to push! "It's time to push" are the most simple, horrifying and exciting words of all time!

Once the doctor got to my room I pushed for 12 minutes and my beautiful baby girl, Penelope Iris Taylor, entered the world. My husband and I were instantly in love with the incredible blessing that we prayed over for 9 months.