Eleanor at 1 month!

I can't believe that it has been a month since we welcomed our little girl into this world. It has flown by! Some days feel long of course, but most days fly by and I just love every minute that I get to be with Ella. The nicu is a crazy place to be, but I wouldn't want her in any other place. It is SO nice to have my friends taking care of her and to know that even when I am not there that she is getting amazing care. So here is some tidbits about Eleanor at one month

*She loves her binky and will try to keep it in with her hands
*She is SO spunky and if its not her way then she will let you know!
*She loves to sleep with one arm above her head, just like her momma :)
*She likes to grab and pull on her tubes. Actually she will grab onto anything in site, but our fingers are her favorite to hold onto!
*She loves being swaddled
*Her favorite time of the day is when mommy and daddy come to see her, and the nurses tell us that she wakes up almost every time about 10 minutes before we get there and gets antsy for us to come
*She is the best dressed baby in the NICU
*She loves getting her hair washed...just like any girl would!
*She is SO alert. She literally looks around all the time and just sucks on her binky and is very content to see whats going on.
*She loves to be held but will tell you when she is ready to go back to bed!

Happy One Month Girlie! 

Eleanor Marie Beeson

Wow it has taken me a month to get to writing this post! And I look back at my last post and it was when I had just found out I had placenta previa. And things were just fine! Well lets get to whats happened in the last month.

I would like to introduce my sweet Eleanor Marie Beeson. She was born on December 8th, 2013 at 2:13 am. She was 1 pound 14 ounces an 13 inches long. And she stole our hearts pretty much instantly.

So back to her story. And it starts on December 6th when I went to my high risk doctor. Everything had been going great and when we went we got the ok to go to seattle for christmas and was told that everything was looking great and that I was "very stable." Kind of ironic that she came two days later? So on Saturday I went to a regular day at work. I wasn't really busy and it was just a normal day. As I was leaving the neonatoligist on that night said Ali be safe driving home and take care of that baby. There was a major snow storm that night and I had to work the next day so I decided to grab Cafe Rio on the way home for dinner for Brock and I. As I was getting home and getting out of my car, I suddenly felt a big gush of blood.

I immediately knew what this felt like because just six weeks before the same thing had happened. And to be honest...I didn't freak out this time. I could feel her kicking around and had been told by the doctors that this could happen a few times in my pregnancy because of the placenta previa and so when it happened I needed to come back to the hospital and spend a few days on bedrest until it stopped in the hospital. So I had sort of prepared myself that I could start bleeding at any time because of it. So I actually walked upstairs, changed out of my scrubs and then told Brock we need to go to the hospital. 

As we were driving, the roads were horrible and I kept telling Brock, DO NOT get us in an accident. Luckily we live super close to the hospital so we were fine. I didn't even call my parents at first because I didn't want them to rush in the snow to the hospital when I thought that I would just be chillin there. 

When we got to the hospital they admitted me right away, did some blood tests and called the doctor. When he came in, he told me exactly what I expected. That I would need to stay in the hospital for a few days to watch the bleeding and that I would need to get a lot worse in order to need to deliver her. So at this point I had Brock go home and get me clothes, and my pillow and things in order to stay in the hospital a few days. The bleeding had slowed down a bit and things were ok! 

Then around 10 pm I started feeling my uterus contracting. It wasn't painful but it was definitely there and even at first it wasn't showing on the monitors. They got worse though and started showing on the monitors so the doc came in and said that he was going to give me some medicine to slow the contractions down. So once again I was fine with that and really wasn't thinking that she was going to be born. 

Two hours later and its midnight. And I start feeling so really strong contractions. I was super uncomfortable and all of a sudden I started feeling gushing of blood with every contraction. I knew then that something wasn't right and I called my nurse in. She told me that she would change my pad and see how much blood I had lost and call the doctor. I also thought I needed to go to the bathroom so she gave me a bedpan and instead of peeing, I gushed 500 ml of blood right then into the bedpan. And then my nurse ran out and called the doc. She came in a couple minutes later and said I am so sorry but we need to do an emergency c-section right now.

Brock didn't even catch it when she said it. And like 10 people started coming in my room right then. I told Brock that he needed to call my parents and tell them what was going on. And he was like Ali what is going on I don't know what is going on. So I told him and then he freaked of course and started getting on his phone calling our family. I was beyond freaked out at this point. I just wanted to go home and none of this to happen. But one really great thing happened. The neonatologist that had told me to be safe going home, and who I love and respect so much came into my room before they delivered and told me that they were going to take great care of my baby. I literally tear up thinking about this. In the moment of being terrified that calmed me just a little bit. I will NEVER be able to thank this man enough. He is one incredible doctor. and he is from France. which makes him way cooler. :) 

Ok back to the story. So they rushed me off to the operating room, gave me a spinal which really didn't hurt all that bad but I did have a lot on my mind and all of a sudden after a few minutes I hear a little baby crying. And then I was calm. Because when a baby that is 27 weeks comes out crying, thats a REALLY good thing. So they took her out and got her all set up and took her to the NICU. And if you know what apgar scores are, hers were 8 and 9. Which is amazing for a baby her size. Brock told me that she was wide eyed and just bawling her eyes out when she was out. They brought me a couple pictures of her and Brock went with her to the NICU. And once again I was so grateful for those sweet friends I have in the NICU that took care of her that night. I couldn't have asked for a better group to take care of Eleanor when she was born and the best part was that I knew they were amazing and I wasn't nervous for her. I knew that she would be ok. 

When I was stable they got to take me over in my bed to see her for a few minutes. And that was amazing. She was so adorable and I fell in love right away. And only love her more everyday. She has been such a fighter. And she is spunky! 

Meeting my little girl for the first time 

A little scare!

This little girlie of ours has given us a fair amount of stress since the beginning. She just wanted to rule our lives from the moment that she was even thought of. I can't blame her....she has me for a mom :) :) But ever since the beginning parts of pregnancy where I was extremely worried and stressed...pregnancy has been a total breeze. I love being pregnant. I seriously can't complain. Other than being tired, I really just haven't experienced anything to bad. So of course since it has been so easy..she decided that she wanted to make things a bit more difficult!

A week ago on Monday I had just worked the day shift, had some dinner and was chillin on the couch watching tv with Brock. All of a sudden I felt like I had peed my pants. So I ran over to the bathroom and had a huggge gush of blood all over. I of course started bawling and Brock came running over to see what was wrong. We went straight to the hospital and I was more than sure that I had miscarried. We got to L&D and they took us right in and put the monitors on me. There was her heartbeat!!! She was still alive! Hallelujah! I calmed down a lot then but I still was bleeding and they didn't know why. They called up for an ultrasound to see if something was wrong with my placenta and so we waited a while for them to come.

Then I started contracting! Ugh! So then they were worried that I was dilating...so they checked me (ouch!) and luckily my cervix was closed and they couldn't see anything wrong that way. But I was contracting regularly so they gave me a whole bunch of IV fluids to help me rehydrate and that pretty much stopped the contractions so that was good! Then the ultrasound guy came up...saw that my placenta was very low and close to my cervix...luckily my cervix was closed but it was a little shorter than normal as well. So my doc said since the bleeding had slowed down a lot that I could go home on bedrest for the rest of the week and then come in on Friday. So bedrest it was for the rest of the week!

Friday we went in and luckily I hadn't had anymore bleeding. He said that with everything that happened that we should head to Maternal Fetal Medicine (the high risk docs) on tuesday to make sure everything was ok!

So this past Tuesday we went to maternal fetal medicine. We had a long ultrasound and looked at everything with our little girl. She looks completely normal. No abnormalities or defects with her luckily! Her placenta on the other hand...ain't so hot! I have a complete placenta previa which means that the placenta is fully covering the cervix. This has to be watched really carefully throughout the pregnancy but can resolve itself as the uterus grows..we just have to wait and see. Also, her cord insert to the placenta is on the side of the placenta...not smack dab in the middle like it should be. She has always been on the small side and they said that her growth isn't as great as they would like to see and that is probably why. So we get to have monthly trips to the maternal fetal medicine doc to check both of those things. And I pray that she will just grow and that the placenta previa will resolve! But we will do what we have to do! :) My little girlie is a fighter!

Here she is from Tuesday! 

We're pregnant! And Its a girl!

12 weeks came and we were so excited that the first trimester was over! Time to let everyone know our big news and we happened to be in Seattle. So we thought the gum wall would be a fun place to take our pic to announce it! Here it is...

And one of the perks of working in the hospital is that when the ultrasound techs have students they will ultrasound employees for free! So here I was...only 14.5 weeks along and we got to go down and have a look to see if it they could see if it was a boy or a girl! Of course I knew that it was early...but I have had lots of friends find out early and it is becoming more and more common since technology is so great. We went down and the student struggled to get our little babe to settle down! She was flipping and moving around like crazy! After 20 minutes of looking she finalllly calmed down and revealed herself! IT'S A GIRL!!! :) The student said, "oh its for sure a girl." Then the real ultrasound tech came in and confirmed it was a girl! From then on she has been a little missy! And it was confirmed on our twenty week ultrasound that she was girl! So it really is possible to find out early early!! :) 

I'm a girl!

Pregnant!...?

So after those home pregnancy tests Brock and I were THRILLED! And we weren't even nervous for our blood pregnancy test. We went in at the 12 days after and got the test. And then the nurse called later that day, and she didn't sound excited. In fact, she told me that normal HCG (pregnancy hormone) levels should be over 100 by the time I took my test. And mine was 59. So she said..your technically pregnant but this number is not great and we need you to come in two days and retake the level to see if it has risen by at least 60%. We were SO upset. And the next two days were the LONGEST ever. It took forever we felt like. So we went in two days later and our number had risen to 98. That was good! It had risen more than 60%. So they said, well it still isn't looking great but thats good that it has risen. They told us we could miscarry at any time and to just be prepared. And to come in four days later and get another level. So four days went by, and this time we were calm....we had a good feeling that it was going to be a good number. And it was! 715!!!! Thats amazing! It had skyrocketed. So we scheduled our ultrasound for 6 1/2 weeks.

Ultrasound day came. And we were excited. So excited. I hadn't had any bleeding, no signs of miscarrying and things were going well! We went in....and our doc just didn't seem to have a great attitude about the pregnancy. He told us often times it will still be to early to see anything yet but we would look for the fetal pole. So we looked...no fetal pole. Just a gestational sac and a yolk sac. So something was there. But no heartbeat yet. And he told us again...our chances of miscarrying were really high and that the pregnancy probably wouldn't last. And we were so sad...again...Literally we kept getting this whole..your pregnant but your going to miscarry speech and it was hard to hear! So hard to hear! So he said to come in a week and a half later and if there was no heartbeat at that point then I would for sure miscarry.

So a week and a half came....and we were dang nervous! I still hadn't miscarried. And had no signs of miscarrying. We went into the ultrasound room...and the second the put the probe on...I could see it! A heartbeat! A baby! And just one! Oh my we were so relieved. And the doctor said things looked much better now! He said to come back at 10 weeks for one more ultrasound, but to make an appointment with our regular ob/gyn and start to have a regular pregnancy!

Yes that little blob is a baby! 

So we went along...pregnant! I never got sick at all my first trimester. I had a lot of food aversion..but never nausea and vomiting! Thank heavens! The first trimester was a total breeze. And we went in at 10 weeks for one more ultrasound and here is baby! 

Still a blob...but more a baby blob! 

IVF

So it was last May that we finally decided that IVF was what we needed to do. And we felt good about it. And nervous. Extremely nervous. Its a lot of money. and kind of our last thing to get to in order to get pregnant. But when we made the decision, Brock and I felt really good about it. We knew that we would be parents somehow and if this was the way for our little family to get started then so be it. 

So we started all of the many medications that you have to be on to actually do IVF. I was on 3 injectable medications at one point and probably 10 vitamins. Brock had to take tons of vitamins and some other stuff too. It was insane. Our house could have been mistaken for a druggies house because of all the needles and medications that were lying around. Some of the injectables left huge welts on my tummy. And some made me feel yucky. But the point was to get as many good eggs as possible to fertilize so that we would have as many embryos as possible. We ended up getting 16 eggs, 10 fertilized, 7 made it to day 3 of the growing in the incubator, and 4 made it to day 5. They drop like flies. Its crazy. So we still have two frozen. Which is amazing if you ask me! 

On a side note. We had a major decision to make during IVF. We are a healthy, young couple that had an extremely great chance of getting pregnant with IVF we were told. We had the choice to implant one embryo or two. But our doctors really tried to push us to implant only one because our risk of multiples was over 50% if we implanted two. And as a NICU nurse, I knew what kind of high risk pregnancy that meant, and neither Brock nor I was crazy about having twins. So basically we were told that we had a choice to do one or two, but that we should do one. It was a crazy hard decision for us. Lots of praying and going to the temple went on. And I felt insanely strong that we needed to implant two. And Brock felt that way too. And it bugged us. Because we knew the risk. And yet we couldn't help but feel strongly prompted to implant two. 

The day of implanting the embryos is SO COOL! They show you the embryos, give you pictures, and it is a really really amazing thing to be able to see life in such a simple form of cells. AMAZING. Heres the pic of the two embryos that we implanted!!!

Does that picture amaze you like it amazes me?! While this has been an extreme trial for us, the way that we did get pregnant was unreal. Modern medicine never ceases to amaze me. It is a 100% miracle that this is our little baby 5 days after conception. And that all babies start out this way. Our Heavenly Father sure has blessed this day by the medicine of IVF. Its unreal. Ok back to the story....

So they implanted them. And we waited. For 12 days until our blood pregnancy test! I was on bedrest for 3 days after the implantation and then went back to work after that. But I of course couldn't wait and so I started peeing on a stick to see if I was pregnant. And a week and a half after the implantation...I got this.....

From the beginning...

I have been feeling a little overwhelmed by the thought of blogging for a while now! SO much has happened since last January and its insane to think of where we are at now. I was talking to Brock about how I want to remember everything that has happened over the past couple years but I just didn't even know where to start. So I'm starting at the beginning. Because our story can't be told without it being told from the beginning.

If you know me then you know that I have been baby hungry longgg before I was married. I never had the "lets wait for a while before we have kids" feeling and I probably would have been just fine if we got pregnant right after we got married. But alas Brock and I talked and we figured that we should wait 6 months after got married to start trying. So the March after we got married we were off birth control and trying....the summer came and went and nothing had happened. I had a really strong feeling that I was going to be like my momma and struggle to get pregnant and so off we went to the doctor.  After a couple months of going to the OB and being thrown clomid and saying we would get pregnant and it not happening, my little medical self was very frustrated. I had no diagnosis, and no reason that we should not be pregnant other than I was not ovulating for some reason. So I made an appointment with an infertility specialist a year ago at the University of Utah. And man if you ever need to go see a fertility specialist...come talk to me..because ours is 100% amazing.

I finallllly got the answers that I was looking for. From the first appointment that we had, I got answers of why we weren't getting pregnant. I am a girl with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). Nobody had probably ever really talked about this with me before because I seriously just don't fit the mold of it. Most of the time girls with PCOS are obese, have hair in unwanted places, and have lots of acne...to name a few of the symptoms. And I don't have one of those. But then if you take an ultrasound and look at my ovaries you can see that they look like little chocolate chip cookies with little cysts on them everywhere. Periods are very irregular...which I have...and infertility comes right along with that because it screws with ovulation. I found out that 1 in 15 women have it, and its probably what my mom had as well and why she struggled to get pregnant as well.

So we started out on the fertility med called letrozole to help me ovulate. We tried that for four months and my dose just having to get increased because my body sucked in the meds and didn't want to ovulate. When I was at the highest dose and still not getting pregnant we decided that we would try to add IUI to our trying. This is when they watch you via ultrasound through the month and see when your body is about to ovulate...then take a concentrated sample of sperm and inject it into the uterus when you are ovulating....and then your supposed to have a better chance of getting pregnant. On top of it..I started taking injectable medications to help my body ovulate. So we did that for four more times. And no luck. And it was getting expensive for no luck! So after a lot of thought and praying and talking with our doctor, we decided that in-vitro fertilization would be the best option for us...and thats where our story goes next.