A Bit About Me

I am totally new to this blogging thing. I figured this will be a good way to keep friends and family up-to-date on our family and evolve from there. I am unsure how dedicated I will be especially as Evangeline grows and keeps me busy, but I will do my best.
A little history on me and my family of 3. I am from Texas and my husband, Cory is from Georgia (most recently-his father worked for the military so he's lived all over). We are both veterinarians. We met after I moved to South Carolina, fresh from veterinary school in 2002. I was not yet licensed to practice on my own and my boss found himself unable to work and oversee me shortly after I started. The manager asked another local office if they could spare a vet to oversee me until I was licensed. They sent Cory for a couple of days.
When I first saw him I thought he was quite good looking in his khakis and shirt and tie. Our managers then worked hard to set us up. Our first date was walking our dogs in town. We fell in love quickly and were engaged a few months later, marrying September 6, 2003, nearly a year after we met. Of course our dogs were in the wedding!
I loved married life and he and I love to do outdoor activities like hiking, kayaking, and biking and traveling locally and abroad. We are also very involved in our church and we even lead a weekly Life Group.
After 4 years of marriage we decided to try and have a baby (or not not try). After a year of no success I saw my OB. Testing in their office and at a fertility specialty office revealed nothing specifically wrong. We tried some fertility medications and my OB performed an intrauterine insemination (they placed the sperm directly in my uterus bypassing the cervix-very romantic). It did not work so we went to the fertility specialist and he amped up the drugs. I took pills and gave myself injections and then we traveled 2 hours to the clinic for another intrauterine insemination. On February 15, 2009 at 3 am I found out I was pregnant. I was so excited! I woke Cory and told him. He said, "I thought your boobs looked bigger." I couldn't go back to sleep. I called my mom in England to tell her the news and then I looked up nursery items for the baby that would join us in October.
Everything went well. The fertility specialists followed my progress until I was 9 weeks pregnant and then transferred me to my OB. At 10 weeks 6 days I had my first ultrasound at the OB's office. All looked great! He asked me to come back in 2 weeks for a pap smear. At that appointment I joked with him, telling him how cold his hands were. He did my exam and then took out the Doppler heart monitor. He moved it around on my belly, but heard nothing. He said he wanted to do an ultrasound to check things out, telling me this early it can be difficult to find the heart beat. I knew right away when I saw the baby something was wrong. "There's no heartbeat," I said. "I'm sorry," he replied. I was in total shock. I'd had a silent miscarriage/abortion where my body hadn't yet received the signal that my baby had died and so there was no bleeding. I did stop having morning sickness, but I thought that was because I was heading into the second trimester. I left the office without crying. In my car I called my husband and that's when the tears flooded out. "The baby is dead," I told him, but he couldn't understand me. I had to tell him 3 or 4 times before he understood me.
We decided to have a D&C because I was fearful of seeing the decomposed baby once my body figured it out and aborted it. I was anesthetized and the doctor did the procedure. Once I was awake my husband came back to the recovery area and I started to cry. No longer was my child attached to me, deep inside of me. I was not pregnant any more.
Even though we were not very far along in our pregnancy many people knew we were pregnant because they knew of our fertility struggles and treatments. Plus once we knew we were finally pregnant it was so hard to keep it a secret. My friends asked what they could do to help and I told them to spread the word. My biggest fear was having people come up to me and rub my belly and ask when I would start showing. I didn't want to have to say I'd had a miscarriage and I didn't want to have them feel bad for asking. So my friends had my permission to "gossip" and thankfully I only had to tell a couple of people myself.
We decided we would start trying to get pregnant again immediately. Once pregnant you often find it easier to get pregnant again the doctors told me. After 3 months we still weren't pregnant. We went back for another IUI at the fertility clinic, but it failed. We could no longer travel that far for treatments because of my husband's job. I decided to try acupuncture. Every week for 3 months I would go in for treatments. It turned out to be quite relaxing. I often fell asleep. Dr. Dong also had me follow my basal body temperatures which I had already been doing. I would wake every morning at the same time and take my temperature before ever leaving the bed. Basal body temperatures help you see you menstrual cycle in detail and determine if you are ovulating. In the middle of the third month on my treatment day, I took my temperature and it had climbed nearly a degree. Hmmm, that's higher than usual for me. Maybe this is a good sign, I thought. About 10 days later my temperature had remained elevated. Typically it falls just before your period starts. So I took a pregnancy test at 5 am that morning. POSITIVE!!! And so the journey to motherhood began again, but thank God this time the pregnancy would end with a beautiful, healthy baby girl!