I cannot say enough about how much we love our photographer!!  Bump Meet Baby Photography is so incredibly talented. I have dabbled with newborn photography for the last 6 years so I am very particular about what I like. Newborn photography is about patience, lighting, posing, editing and so much more. Every photographer offers a different point of view and I just adore what Tamara Hart says with her photos. Our newborn photos consisted of 2 trips to Goose Creek (Charleston)... 8 total hours of driving. For the first trip Blake was wide awake for the first 3 hours before giving Tamara an hour of shooting. For the second trip she was wide awake for about 2 hours followed by another 2 hours of shooting. That's 8 hours of drive time plus 8 hours in the studio. I have to say it was completely worth every second. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. I can't wait to share some of our birth photos too from Whitney Hempsey of Studio 412 Imagery.

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Monster Matthew

 In honor of our 37th week of pregnancy we are braving the evacuation traffic and heading to Augusta, Georgia. Varying between a Category 3 and Category 4 hurricane Matthew is headed our way. The predictions still change frequently but the Governor of South Carolina declared a state of emergency and is beginning mandatory evacuations.

Our "zone" is not currently required to evacuate but with a toddler and a little one of the way we decided it wasn't safe to stay. Adam wasn't a fan of my unassisted home birth suggestion. Haha. We got on the road at 7:30 this morning and so far everything is moving smoothly. We are so grateful for our unofficial family that is taking us in for the weekend. Not everyone has a safe place to go during this time and we had 2. Thankful for our friends.

On a lighter noted here is the first photo we've seen from our amazing photographer Bump Meet Baby Photography!!!  Isn't this incredible?  The entire scene looks photoshopped but I assure you, it's all real!!

Help us pray for South Carolina and all those effected by this crazy hurricane. Pray his path heads east and stays over vacant waters. Today we are praising God for 37 weeks!!

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36 weeks?! Are you sure?

I see anywhere from 15 to 25 pregnant mamas per day. I would say 97% of them are tired of being pregnant at this point. Not me. I'm so blessed to be pregnant for likely the only time in my life I'm just not ready for it to end. I am pleasantly surprised at how good I feel. Aside from an ever growing right ankle/foot, most of the time I feel great. No back pain, hip pain, pelvic pain, heartburn. I still throw up a few times a week but it's short lived and tolerable. I have been very lucky to have had such an easy pregnancy.

I want to talk for a minute about how we got here. Imagine going through years of infertility, finally getting to the point of IVF and then being blessed with an abundance of viable embryos. Our donors had, I believe, around 11 healthy embryos. They used the 2 best and got their adorable (and tall!!) 5 year old boy-girl twins. After a certain point infertility clinics will send you a letter asking what you want to do with the rest of the embryos. You can continue paying and freeze them indefinitely, destroy them, donate them to science or find a family to donate them to. Can you imagine having to make that decision? We are so fortunate that our donor parents chose life for their little embryos. Currently we have 2 remaining out of the 4 donated to us (the first straw they thawed for our transfer was empty!) and another family was gifted the other 5 little embryos.

I get emotional just thinking about this. I'm sitting here with my 6 1/2 pound daughter moving like a ninja in my belly. She responds when her sister and daddy talk to and touch her. She gets hiccups all day. She gets mad when I gently push her butt down off my rib cage. She like her hands (and feet) to be up by her face and I think she plays drums on my bladder. But without our donor parents we would have never been in this situation. They decided that giving their children's biological siblings a chance at life was more important than all of the uncertainty that surrounds embryo adoption. We will forever be grateful for them and the gift that they have given us. 

So my update: 36 weeks, 3 days. Baby girl is measuring 6lbs13oz which is 76%. She has an average side head, big round belly and short legs. We will still be shocked if she doesn't come out with long legs given the donor dad is 6'6 but we will see!

My patients always ask me how long I plan to continue working. My response: until I'm 5 centimeters dilated in labor! I'm on call the weekend of October 15 with 1 midwife out of town and the other busy with a family wedding. Oh and it's a full moon with 2 of my nurse friends on postpartum due that exact weekend! Either she will come out then because she likes drama or she will stay in a week extra and come out in November. I do hope I can continue feeling this good over the next few weeks. 

I'm sharing the 35 week pictures because I'm a slacker who forgot to post them last week. We got back from Charleston late last night from our maternity photoshoot with my favorite photographer Bump Meet Baby Photography. She is so talented and makes us look amazing! And she is so good with Brennan. Brennan told us she wanted to go home with Tamara! They were snuggling, holding hands and having a blast. My husband wasn't super excited about doing maternity photos (especially 2 hours from home after work on a Friday) but even he can't wait to see them! This is our 3rd shoot with her and she will do our newborn photos too. I can't wait! Feel free to stalk her Facebook page here. We were laughing about cheesy maternity photos (blocks spelling out the name, hands making a heart over the belly, etc). Well here is my cheesy maternity photo. I can't help it, cheesy or not I like it!  It's fun thinking about her starting as a few little cells and now here she is, 6 and a half pounds. Only God could do that.

I don't know if you all remember me asking for prayers for my friend going through IVF and then a frozen embryo transfer. Well she is pregnant with a healthy baby boy. 14 weeks and growing strong! The power of prayer is incredible. 

Please pray that we start to feel emotionally ready for this baby. I've switched my brain from "keep her in" mode to "she's going to come out" mode and I'm starting to freak out a bit. I tell women every day to trust their bodies and to trust their babies. For some reason I'm starting to doubt mine. I need to get over the "nurse curse" fear and start trusting in my ability to give birth to this baby. I need to trust in our ability to breastfeed and stop fearing all of the unknown. I'm too controlling! Adoption was a breeze. I worry about our ability to love her like we love her sister and live in fear that this baby will take away from our time and attention towards Brennan. Normal 2nd time mom fears but I need to just pray and hand it over to God. Please help me pray through this! 

I think that's all for now. I can't wait to share our maternity photos soon!!

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One Little Line

That single pink line surrounded by nothing but white used to be heartbreaking. Every month I know I'm probably not pregnant and yet every time ovulation comes and goes my mind and body play tricks on me. I spend 2 weeks a month wondering if this could be the month. I predict when I would be due if it were to happen and fantasize about telling my family. Every month I take a test so I can stop getting my hopes up and when that single pink line appears I remember that my body sucks.

I wonder what it's like for fertile people. I can't imagine just wanting a baby then getting pregnant just like that. That's not the path that God put on us and as crazy as it sounds I'm so grateful.

If we had gotten pregnant on our own we wouldn't have Brennan. I couldn't imagine my life for a second without her. If we had gotten pregnant on our own we wouldn't have 4 little embryos in Texas just waiting to make their way here and into my uterus. I don't know exactly what will happen but I do know that one little lonely line has gotten us to this point.

As for our update.   We have a signed and notarized contract!!  Our donors are seriously incredible. When we asked for more information from their fertility clinic our donors got it to us within hours!!  We negotiated the contract in no time and they signed and returned it within days. They have made this process so easy on us.

We have submitted all of the release forms to the Texas (shipping) clinic and have decided to go with Cryoport. They make it so easy!  They take care of coordinating with both the shipping & receiving clinics, manage the packaging, shipping and receiving with email updates all along the way!  We hope it all happens as easily as they make it sound. We will be so relieved when our embryos make it here safe and sound. My husband, daughter and I pray for our embryos every night and know that God will see this through.

We have gone back and forth a lot about the time frame for our Frozen Embryo transfer. Please be praying that we are able to follow God's plan and in His time rather than in our time.

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