My pregnancy went fairly smoothly. There were a few days that I felt queasy, but nothing major. I did, however, have “weird” things happen throughout the pregnancy. I had major back problems early on. Then were the migraines...those sucked. I had a headache for about 5 weeks straight. Once I got over that, I got plantar fascaitis. I would wake up in the middle of the night with horrible cramps in my heels and feet. This went on for weeks until I finally accepted that I would have to wear my running shoes all of the time. So, my summer was spent in dresses and running shoes. Right about the time that the novelty of being pregnant began to wear off, we had our ultrasound. We decided to find out the gender. I really wanted to find out because I felt like I needed to mentally prepare for the chaos we may have if we were to have three boys under 3 years old. We went to the ultrasound and found out that we would be having our first little girl! We were so excited! Once the third trimester rolled around, I was feeling great! I was over all of the aches and pains and was ready to meet my baby!
On December 12th, I was absolutely determined to have the baby. I went to the gym that morning and went on the treadmill. After about 10 minutes of walking I felt so miserable that I had to stop. No “real” contractions, but felt horrible. On the way home I began to panic a bit about adding another child to our family. Do other parents go through this? I felt guilty that I would be dividing my time again between my children, and it broke my heart! I decided that I would take the boys to see Santa while I still had time! My mom came with me and the boys got to see Santa. We walked around a bit afterwards to kill some time until I felt horrible again. I had to take a 20 minute break in the Boston Store shoe section before I could make it back to the car. Once we were home, I put Casey down for a nap and popped in a movie for Will. I fell asleep immediately on the couch until my water broke! Woo hoo! I called Brock at work and told him to come home. I called the doctor, my parents, and a few friends, letting them know the baby was on her way!
After about 7 hours of trying to get contractions started, the nurses gave me pitocin. I immediately had regular (and extremely painful) contractions. 3 hours later, I had an epidural, and a few hours after that our baby was born! Elizabeth came into the world at 9:45 am. She was absolutely perfect!
That day, we got a glimpse of her personality. She is very sweet for most of the time. However, when she wants something, she is going to let everyone know until she gets her way. To this day, she is extremely strong-willed and demands that she gets what she wants. At the same time, she cuddles and gives out so much love to everyone. My little girl...
