Baby Keaton

i think he's a thumb sucker

my mom just fell in love with this shot so the tech printed it out for us

I have a cute video of Miller saying baby Keaton's name but I want daddy to be the first to see it and right now he doesn't have access to internet. So someday I'll put it on.

Introducing.....

KEATON PAUL EWING

One year ago yesterday....

...was the day I miscarried our second child. I still remember that day as if it was yesterday. I had spent the day before (Halloween) at the hospital all day. I got to come home for about an hour to see my sweet boy dressed up (only b/c I cried and the nurses felt so bad for me) and then back to the hospital. Our household goods were also delivered that day. So Saturday the 1st, my family unpacked our stuff while I sat in an old recliner we have and slept most of the day away. I started passing clots that morning and passed them all day. I just tried so hard not to think about the fact that I could be flushing my baby down the toilet (graphic I know but it's what I felt). I used to always say that God knew I could never handle a miscarriage and that's why I only had infertility. Oh how wrong I was. After 17 months of struggles, drugs, pricks, scans and worry, I was finally pregnant. Then my worst fear came true. I honestly wasn't sure how in the world I would get through it or how I was supposed to get through it. I've since learned that you don't "get through it", you learn to live with it. I still miss that baby. I still think about what might have been. I still mourn a life that never got a chance. I'm sure I sound down right crazy to someone that has never lost a baby (or to some that have...I'm always amazed at those that seem to get over a miscarriage as if it's no big deal), but it's how I feel. I don't think I'll ever get over these feelings. I just think each day I learn more and more how to live with them and learn from them. I hope and pray that I never have to experience that again but I know there are no guarantees in life. God didn't promise us a bed of roses (oh how I know that full well).

National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

I know alot of the people that read this blog have never lost a baby, but I can bet most of you know someone (other than me) that has. In fact you probably know alot of people that have but they just don't talk about it. Through being so open about my experiences, I've talked to so many people (friends of old or new friends) that have had a loss but no one knows. It's not easy to talk about. So today I encourage you to pray for those you know that have lost a pregnancy or an infant and remember to pray for the women you don't even know about. Infertility has been such a horrible thing to have to go through but losing a baby was even worse. I still think about that precious one and what could have been. I still mourn a life that never got a chance. It's something I would never wish on anyone yet it happens to so many. So count yourself blessed today if you've never experienced that kind of loss and show some love to someone that has (and I don't mean me).

p.s- We had our appt on Tuesday and all is good. I'm officially in my second trimester and the baby is great. I, however, am still throwing up (even on the Zofran). I'm hoping this all comes to an end soon.

Fear

I wish I could tell you that getting pregnant after over 2 years of trying, a miscarriage and 2 failed adoptions is everything I dreamed it would be...but I'd be lying. The biggest struggle for me is fear. Here I am about to be 14 weeks (tomorrow) and heading out of the first trimester and the fear is still there. I want it to go away...I try to pray it away...but it's still here. The first 6 weeks after we knew (despite seeing the heartbeat at 6.5 weeks), we never really let ourselves be excited about this pregnancy. Then we told everyone and people were SO excited for us that it allowed me, even if just for a moment to dream and be excited. But as I approach another appointment (this Tuesday), I find the fear coming back. What if something is wrong, what if the baby stopped growing, what if we lose this baby? Trust me, I don't want to feel this way. I guess years of disappointment have just left me always waiting on the other shoe to drop. Something good can't possibly be happening to us. We can't possibly be getting what we prayed so hard for.

Also in the mix is the fact that Jon leaves for a year long deployment in about a month. He will miss most of this pregnancy that we longed for. Sure he wants to take his R&R to try to be home for the birth but anyone that's been pregnant before knows that babies don't come when you tell them to. He won't get to go to appointments with me, decorate the nursery, or anything else that goes along with planning for a baby. Hopefully he'll be home for the birth but then he'll miss the first 7 months of this little ones life. I know I was blessed beyond measure that Jon could be there for the pregnancy and the first 3.5 years of Miller life...that's rare in the Army. But for all the time we've spent trying for this baby dangit, I want to enjoy it with my husband. Is that too much to ask? That is part of the reason we started trying so soon after Miller was born, we knew we'd go to a new unit and deploy and we didnt' want Jon to leave me pregnant. Well here we are in the very situation we tried so hard to avoid.

I am so thankful for this pregnancy...I really am. There are many infertiles who never get the chance for a pregnancy or to be a mom. It is a blessing that I will now know twice (hopefully I'll know the mom part to many more through adoption). It's just hard to let go of everything...all this anger and pain I've been carrying around for 2 years seems to be coming to a head like a volcano. I wanted it all to just go away when I got pregnant and yet it's still here..and it's mixed with fear.

Pray that I am able to enjoy this pregnancy. I want to so much but so far with the sickness, insane tiredness, fear, and dread of the upcoming deployment, I just find myself not enjoying this pregnancy the way I want to. This is very likely the last time I'll ever get to experience the joy of pregnancy and I really want to savor every second...and I'm trying. I promise I'm trying.

Over ten weeks of info crammed into one post

Ok so let's go back to July and start there. It was my 3rd month on Follistim and the doctor had already said if it didn't work, we would have to take a look at things and make some decisions. The cycle really didn't go well at all. My doctor thought I might have gotten some weak meds as some other patients were having the same problems. Usually I go 100 the first day or two and then 75 after. If not, then I end up with WAY to many follicles. I spent most of this cycle at 100 and I just wasn't responding. We kept at it and in the end had one good follicle. Although that's good, my doctor really wanted two since we had one both other cycles and didn't get pregnant. He just felt two would give us better odds. So let's just say I had no hope of this cycle working. I triggered and went ahead with the cycle cause I had nothing to lose.

I was supposed to start my period on a Saturday and did not. The other two Follistim cycles, I was like clockwork. I refused to pay money for another OTC pregnancy test so we just spent a few days in limbo. I called the doc on Monday and the nurse told me to wait another day. So on Tuesday she said I could come in for a blood test. I wasn't able to make it in that day (I was at the waterpark with MOPS for those that were there) so it wasn't until Wednesday (4 days after my missed period) that I could test. My first beta at 18 dpo was 169. It's a bit below average but definitely pregnant. Two days later at 20dpo, I had another blood test done. For those that don't know, you want it to double every 48 hours or so. Mine was 416. I was definitely pregnant. Although this was great news, please remember what we went through with the miscarriage. I thought I was pregnant but the baby stopped growing and we had no idea. So we had to wait until about 6.5 weeks along when the RE would do an ultrasound to check for a heartbeat and such. In those two weeks, we never talked about it. It was as if I wasn't even pregnant. It was too painful to get excited. The only people we told were immediate family.

The day of the appointment arrived and I was nervous to say the least. The doctor asked me how thing were going and I told him I was waiting on him to tell me the answer to that. He had a student doctor with him and she wasn't as good as he is at finding things right away. He ended up taking the thing from her to find the baby. He found the baby right away and saw a heartbeat. I'm gonna be honest though, Jon and I felt like Rachel on Friends at that point. I had no idea what he was pointing to and could not see the supposed heartbeat that he could. I trusted him and his experience though. I felt alot better to see a heartbeat but it was still so early. I honestly thought I would at least start telling family after that but I couldn't. We spent the next 4 weeks still not really talking about it. The most we talked about it was because I was becoming increasingly sick and tired. That should have been a good sign since I was not very sick with the miscarriage...and it was. I'll talk later about my feelings in all of this and what it is like to be pregnant after a miscarriage and so much heartbreak. For now, just the facts.

After that, my doctor graduated me to an OB for the rest of my pregnancy. There was a part of me that wanted to just stay with my RE...he is comfort to me. But of course it's nice to be a normal pregnant person too (ok I'll never be normal). Wednesday was my appointment and I was nervous. I've been very sick to begin with but that day I was even more as the anxiousness settled in. I met with the NP in the practice and she was great. She answered my questions and even gave me a prescription for Zofran for the sickness. She was not able to find the heartbeat with the little heartbeat monitor thing but we weren't too freaked out. They couldn't find Miller's with that thing for almost half my pregnancy b/c my placenta was in the front. The good news from that is that I got an ultrasound b/c of it. I can say that when I got up on that table I got a bit nervous. The last time I did that it was not good news and my mind flashed back to that. Jon took my hand and we waited. She was a great ultrasound tech and told me the second we saw the baby that she saw the heartbeat and it was great. RELIEF!!!! She took some measurements and was able to tell us that the baby was measuring exactly at 10 weeks 4 days (which is how far along I was). She had a bit of difficulty getting a good heartbeat reading b/c the baby wouldn't stay still long enough (that's a whole other post about our fears of having another hyper active child), but finally got a reading of 162. It was a good appt and everyone was so nice. It was just nice to be in that position and getting good news...it's been way too long since that's happened.

Ok I think that brings you up to now. I'm still insanely sick and am hoping my hubby comes home early today and can run my prescription to Walmart so I can stop throwing up everything I eat. I'll do another post soon about how we feel and how hard this has all been but for now we'll stick with the happy stuff. I'm pregnant! It still feels weird to say that.

My lack of blogging is due to....

Our Adoption Decision

I got a couple of comments on the last post about considering other avenues for adoption so I thought I'd review our decision to adopt for those that haven't heard it. Jon and I first talked about adopting before we got married. We knew we wanted 4-5 kids and thought we'd have a few and adopt 1 or 2. When God dealt us the hand of secondary infertility, we began to rethink that plan. We prayed about it and truly felt that God was saying, adopt now. So about this time last year, we began researching all about adoption and the different ways to adopt. Then I got pregnant and silly us put the adoption on hold. After the miscarriage and moving and Christmas, we got back on board in January. We knew Jon was deploying this November so that really helped make our decision on which adoption avenue to pursue. We thought we wanted to do international but there was no way we had enough time. Foster to adopt seemed the same way. And Jon was not convinced that I could handle the foster to adopt program after all we'd been through. The thought of bringing a child into our home and falling in love with them only to have them taken away was more than I could handle after 2 years of infertility and a miscarriage. The miscarriage broke my heart in half and I didn't even have that baby in my arms. We have a passion for the foster care system (I have family members that have been in it) and hope to one day be able to be foster parents. The hard part is being military. Sometimes the foster to adopt can take years and to be honest we won't even be in GA for 3 years. So when we put all that together and prayed for God's will, we felt called to a domestic adoption. Of course I wanted a baby b/c I love babies but we are open to any child and would actually love a child closer in age to Miller if that were to ever come available. As of now, there is no walking away from the path we have chosen. After a failed adoption with our agency, you either take 50% of your money back or you roll 100% into a new adoption. Despite the money we've already lost, we're not willing to lose more by just stopping. And deep inside, I still believe God wants us to adopt. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why He is making this so hard for us but we still have a passion for adoption and want to see this through. It might be years from now, but we WILL adopt. And hopefully one day God will open the door for us to be foster parents and love on children that might never become ours. Who knows.

Not again

The day our agency called with the failed adoption in June, they let me know about an agency pick they had. This means the mother wants the agency to pick the family. It was a girl in Arkansas that had a son that just turned 2, a daughter about to turn 1 and was due the 1st of October. She wasn't going to be able to take care of this child and wanted to place him (yes a boy) up for adoption. She had placed children before so they felt she was a lower risk. It was very hard for us (especially me) to make the decision to move forward. I wasn't sure how to trust another BM (even though I know our 1st BM had every right to change her mind). We had lost money and I didn't want to do it again. After much consideration and prayer, I reluctantly agreed to move forward. I thought it was just me guarding myself but I should have trusted my instincts. Two weeks ago, we got a call from our agency that this girl was working with several agencies and several adoptive families. When they called her on it, she cussed them out and hung up the phone. Yes this is fraud and technically she could be charged and sent to jail but convincing the DA that this is worthy to be tried is hard. So where does that leave us, without a child, over $7000 lost that we can't get back, and more than likely not able to adopt before Jon deploys. So that leaves us paying $400 a month on a 20K loan with nothing to show for it. To say we're heartbroken, angry and confused is really an understatement. I said before that we had hit rock bottom and couldn't get any lower and I think that was true. This is just an extension of rock bottom. Right now, we wonder if anything will ever go right for us. If it weren't for the money we'd lose, we might consider pulling out and not adopting at all. That's harsh for a couple that has prayed about adoption since before we were ever married. We've been excited about adopting and proponents of adoption. And now, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I know our situations aren't normal. Alot of people never have a failed adoption....but what does that say about us? Does God just desire to take us to the bottom and hold us down there? I'll be honest I really struggle with how this can be God's good and perfect plan. When is enough, enough? How much more do we have to take? How much more can we take?

Just in case you were wondering...

I know I stated a bit ago that I might stop doing this blog but I think I'll keep it for now. You see at the time we thought we were adopting that baby in July (something my blog readers didn't know). Although I was still struggling to get pregnant, I just felt that having this blog around was not a good idea. I just had this idea of a struggling IFer coming to my blog and being heartbroken after seeing my two kids. So I felt that it wasn't fair to the other IFers to keep the blog going. But since the adoption fell through and we're still "waiting on baby #2), I think I'll keep it around for awhile.