So the other day I was just laying on the bed watching my little girls sleep and I thought to myself... " Thank God for Maternal Fetal Medicine Dept" I realized right then that they had to be a part of this count down of blessings. While they may not be a part of my life from this point forward in the literal sense of the word... they will be a part of my life for the rest of my life, living on through my children. If not for that group of people I believe that my life would be very very different. While I feel very strongly that the prayer network that we built up during my pregnancies were a HUGE part of our successes, the doctors who worked every day to keep my girls where they needed to be for 9 months were also. So this is a joint blessing to list. I am listing the people who prayed with me every day and the people who sweated with me every day to keep a pregnancy to viability.
Dave and I had agreed that Ashlynn's pregnancy was going to be the last. We could not see going forward with yet another if that pregnancy had ended the way that our previous pregnancies had. We hadn't planned to get pregnant. In fact we had talked about taking a little bit of time a year or so and then reassessing if we really wanted to get pregnant again at all. Surprise. I went to the doc for a UTI because I was peeing all the time and I was exhausted and nauseated.... Oops you don't have a UTI you have a baby. I didn't know whether to cry or to cheer or what. I was tired from the roller coasters we had been on with the other pregnancies and so was Dave. We were still trying to figure out how to pull ourselves up from the last loss and weren't prepared for this. But I circled the wagons. I called every single person I knew and I started e-mailing people. I needed PRAYER! Boy Howdy did I get it.
I started my pregnancy updates with little clue that it would become so important to people. Soon though I was getting replies and one person after another was telling me that they had put me on a prayer list. One put me on every prayer list from every church that she could think of. I had a TON of people praying with me. I would come home from every doctors appointment and sit right down to fill everybody in... and if I didn't get that e-mail out I would hear about it. Later that evening I would make the phone calls for the people that did not have e-mail. We had quite a network. My brother Shawn was on a tour in Iraq during most of the pregnancy... but he called me EVERY SINGLE morning when he was on base. If he was away he would often have to miss a day or two but he would call me again as soon as he got back to the base. He called me EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!! These people and prayers helped to get us through. The people on that prayer chain... and every single person I knew was on that prayer chain, are a blessing to me. They are, I believe, the foundation for the miracles that are sleeping in the bedroom.
The second half of that equation was the incredible team of doctors and nurses in the Maternal Fetal Medicine dept. These docs took a true interest and were seriously emotionally invested in helping me get to full term. I was in the best possible hands and I knew it the whole time I was there. I had a midwife and a doctor both who wanted nothing more that to see me huge and uncomfortable, and they worked hard at getting that point. I was often hugged and still e-mail back and forth with some of them and I am facebook friends with others. These people CARED! They really really CARED... and if things had turned out differently they would have mourned with me.
I had the best of both worlds through both of my pregnancies. I had the best medical team and I had the best prayer team. I had all of my bases covered. And that is TRULY a blessing. It is a blessing that changed my life. I will forever be grateful for the people who worked so hard with me to foster the lives of two beautiful little girls. To have so many friends is a blessing that I count among the highest of blessings.
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