our Journey to Hadley: My pregnancy

In the beginning of pregnancy I thought I was going to die. Up until pregnancy I had only thrown up once in my entire life! I never thought I would be the person to throw up several times a day but thats what happened. I was sicker than I have ever been before! I was watching 6 kids under 3 at the time and I remember so many days wondering if I was going to make it. I ended up losing 15 pounds. After trying everything to stop from getting sick the doctors put me on a nausea medicine(I hope not to have to do this next pregnancy. It made me very nervous)After 20 to 25 weeks of being sick I slowly started to feel better and then I started being able to eat and I mean I could eat as much or more than my husband. A day of eating went like this breakfast: 4 pieces of toast and 4 eggs

Lunch: 2 large bowls of mac and tomatoes(my favorite) a bow of salad, and a turkey sandwich (with lots of cucumbers and pickles)

Dinner: 3 baskets of chips and salsa and 2 chicken burritos(easy)

Not to mention the all day snacks of pickles,cucumbers, apples, peaches, and a few m&m's here and there. I could eat!! The eating and feeling Hadley move were my two favorite things about pregnancy and the only two things I miss. Honestly I am scared of being pregnant again for fear I will be very sick.

Here is a good pic of my bellybutton sticking out that has a hernia in it(lucky me)

This was round one and I believe there were three rounds that day

I never got stretch marks just a large belly button!!

Breah's Baby is here

Raegen Kynlee Gray

1-26-10

5:12 pm

6lbs 9oz

19 in.

Momma and Baby are doing well!! To Breah's relief everything went as planned. She has a beautiful, healthy baby girl that she delivered naturally!! They are coming home some time this afternoon. Now the journey of their little family will begin. How exciting!! Congratulations!!!!

PRECIOUS BABY!!!

Our Journey to Hadley: The day we found out

It was October 4, 2008 the day we found out I was pregnant. I took the pregnancy test at 6:00 am bright and early. It was the first digital test I had ever bought and believe me I had gone through a number of pregnancy tests so this one was the lucky one. When I saw the pregnant in the little window I blinked and looked at it again to make sure I wasn't dreaming or seeing things. When I realized I was pregnant I dropped to my knees and cried. I prayed that I would not miscarry now that I was given this gift. I was terrified it was going to be taken away. I immediately felt a peace come over me and then realized I needed to wake up Matt. Matt is a very hard person to wake up so I put the test in his hand and said,"LOOK!" He said ,"what, are you pregnant?" When I told him yes he flew up and said," SWEET!" Then of course when he woke up a little bit more he asked if I was kidding and I said, "no I am dead serious." I told him to look at the test in his hand.

I decided I couldn't wait to tell everyone so I invited all the family over for potato soup and started calling all my relatives that lived to far away that couldn't come. I thought everyone would figure that I was pregnant so we decided to tell a little white lie at first. We told all the family we were moving to Alaska and they freaked out in a bad way. Matt's dad about had another stroke, my Grandma started yelling at me, but my Mom never believed us. When we told them all we just kidding that I was pregnant everyone was shocked it happened only three months after seeing Vickie and were very excited for us. No one expected a thing and we didn't have to lie at all but that was just the way it went.

Our Journey to Hadley: The Angel on Earth

It was June of 2008 we were seriously thinking about adoption and decided we needed to save up some money. My Aunt Terrie told me she new of this Nature Path that had helped her friend with depression and was a midwife also. I really thought I don't have the money right now to do anything else. I was visiting my Grandma and she had heard me talk about this and knew just how badly I wanted a baby and offered to pay for it if I would go. I found out it was only $30.00 to see her plus the vitamins and herbs. I was willing to try anything at this point especially something that wasn't going to cost ten thousand dollars.

On June, 25 I saw Vickie Sorensen(My Angel on Earth). She does muscle testing and can tell you all kinds of things about your body. The first thing she told me was that I had a bad tooth on the bottom right and the crazy thing is I had just been to the dentist and was told that. I found out I have heart murmurs, low blood sugar(which I knew), a seven year old brain injury(this was due to passing out on a hard floor due to low blood sugar and this was how I found out I was Hyperglycemic) I was allergic to cigarette smoke, dairy, soy, artificial sweeteners, and msg. She scores everything on a 1 to 10 scale and my uterus was a 10 and was very healthy. She told me there was no reason why I couldn't carry a baby. This was such a relief! My ovaries scored a 5 the lowest score I got and the reason was that my eggs were not releasing. I told her what the fertility docs had me on and she said that they were not giving me anything that would help that. Great I thought!! I spend all that money for nothing and quite frankly I have never been a big fan of doctors and well this just fueled that fire! I took everything she told me to an it leveled out my hormones and she told me I would be pregnant in three to six months.I thought I will believe it when I see it! In September we conceived Hadley!!

As of now I have sent several people to her with various problems and she just works miracles and is very good at what she does. I am grateful for her every day and tell her that often. I know that thanks to her Matt and I are able to have the Family we have always dreamed of!!!

Our Journey to Hadley: The fertility nightmare

Matt and I got married in October of 2003. Matt's Dad had a stroke right after we got married and was in the hospital until Christmas. This really put life in perspective for us so I went off the pill in December. A year had gone by and no pregnancy but we kept telling ourselves it will happen when it's suppose to happen. In 2005 we bought a house so we decided at this point that we were more than ready. I thought we had been patient enough so in 2007 we started seeing a fertility doctor. The only thing they found was that my periods were not regular(which I knew) and that Matt's sperm count was on the lower end of normal. We did fertility treatment until June of 2008. We had six IUI's done and none of them worked. I was constantly asking if my body was doing everything it needed to and they reassured me every time that it was. Every IUI we did Matt's sperm count was great so what was the problem? There is a little thing called intuition that I wish I would have listened to! I felt something wasn't right with me but they kept telling me otherwise so we kept doing what they said to all the while I was feeling horribly tired, moody, and well not myself at all from all the hormones being put in my body through pills and shots.(lots of shots)

I was reading my journal and reliving the stress and emotional sadness all over again. I wrote most days that I wondered if this would ever happen for us. The one thing I have dreamed of since I was a child myself. I always have had a special place in my heart for children wether it was at 3 years old being mommy to my dolls, 13 babysitting every weekend and all summer long, or at 23 praying to get the chance to be a mommy. I felt as though because of money we were being backed into a corner and couldn't afford to do any more fertility treatments. We had spent seven thousand dollars and the next step was adoption, or in-vitro. We had used all our savings and credit cards the only way to do either of these things was to take out a loan. The decision to go for adoption, as my Aunt Lorrie who had adopted three children put it, was a sure thing. If we went with in-vitro we could use up our last resort and have it not work and wouldn't get to be parents at all. With this in mind I slowly started to give up the dream of carrying my own child. I called and got information on foster parenting and adoption. In the mean time I realized just how hard it is to adopt. There are so many children that need homes yet it is a long and what seemed almost impossible process. I then started asking everyone I knew if they knew of someone that wanted to give there baby up for adoption. I asked Riley(a girl I used to babysit) who at the time was in High School and had told me of all the 14, 15, and 16 year olds that were pregnant. The crazy thing is all of them were keeping their babies. When I thought about this and all the drug babies out there I became angry. VERY ANGRY!! I couldn't understand why God would allow such things when here I was willing to do anything for a baby!

Wednesday friend and cooking day

On Wednesday Karlie came to play with Cienna again and I cooked all day long. I made two meals that were great and a desert that didn't turn out. I am an ok cook but seriously the worst baker ever!I don't have the patience for all the exact measuring and I think that is where I go wrong every time. Anyway, I love it when Karlie comes to play!! I do get a lot done because Hadley just watches them play. On the other hand the two of them can make the biggest messes ever(I was going to take a pic but my camera batteries died)!! I remember doing this same thing as a child with my cousins and yes we too could mess up an entire room in no time. Karlie told me I needed to take their picture for my bwog, so here they are. Such great friends!!

Tuesday we went to Matt's Parents house for dinner. This is Hadley with her Bepa.

Sisters

Jennica and I smiling for the camera

Jennica and I laughing about my double chin in the first pic and is still in this one

STILL LAUGHING!!

Jennica said "don't lean back I will scoot forward."

Hadley's first girl shopping trip

We went to Boise on Saturday and shopped until we dropped! I was able to find some clothes for Hadley but I had to order onesies on ebay because they discontinued 3t and 4t onesies. Kholes was where we hit the jack pot and found just about everything there. Jennica found lots of stuff at Ross , of course. We had lunch at Olive garden with Aunt Lorrie and Jackie, Lissie and Landen. I only got to hold Landen for a couple of minutes because Hadley saw me holding him, reached her arms out, and bawled!I haven't been around any babies so this was the first time she had done that. I am her mommy and thats just the way it is!He is just so darn cute though!! The girls were so good the entire day! They slept all the way home and Hadley slept half way there. Here we are.

So Frustrated!!!!

Well, today I am very frustrated! Nothing fits Hadley and I mean nothing. We can't find 3T onesies anywhere and I can't get the others to button up. All her pants were tight around her waist so I shopped and shopped to find pants that were looser around her waist. I found lots but now none of them fit around her thighs. They are so tight that if she wanted to bring her knees up to crawl she can't. Pajamas that are 3t are too tight around her thigh. I can hardly get them zipped. The pajamas that are 4t zip fine and are loose enough but are about 6 inches too long so she can't stand up in her saucer or jump in them. I can only find 24 month one piece outfits and they are too tight and not long enough!! Oh, and most dresses are too tight around her chest (I have to break some of them or not button the back to get them on) and tights I have to cut around the waist! I don't know what to dress this girl in anymore!! NOTHING FITS!!! HELP!!! We are going to Boise tomorrow maybe I will have better luck there!

Hadley is 7 months old today

I feel like I was just writing that she was 6 months old! This has to be the fastest month ever! This month Hadley started doing a few new things. She closes one eye a smiles big(Matt calls this her pirate look), she can pull the toys out of her saucer(they snap in but she is strong enough to just pull them right out,that is a first for me), she plays with her hair all the time now and does not like me to fix it(bad for me because I love to do hair pretties), when we smile at her she smiles back with this new cheesy smile, she laughs when I tell her no(I hope this doesn't last long or I am in trouble)arches her back and throws a fit if I don't feed her right now! She finally naps well in her own crib(she hated that thing until now) she spins round and round in her saucer.I finally got her to drink water out of a bottle(a munchkin,glass bottle that is the opposite of the breast. Who would have thought)

Hadley's likes:

her feet

squash

walker(going backwards)

bath time

rubber ducky

stuffed horse (from aunt Jackie)

helping mom with laundry

washcloths to suck on

her puppy mister

Americas Funniest Home Videos

Backyardigans

Barney

Your Baby can Read

Flash cards

phones

remotes

herself in the mirror

I finally measured her around her thighs, tummy, and biceps.Everyone has been asking me to do this so here it is Thighs(14" around), Tummy(24" around), and Biceps( 9" around). I haven't gone to weigh her yet because I don't own a scale so I will post that tomorrow.

Her first hair pretty!!

Funny Face

Eating the comb

Cheesy Cheese

A night of laughter!

Thanks to American Idol and America's Funniest Home Video's we laughed until we cried and I almost peed my pants!Hadley thinks it's so funny when we laugh and she laughs too! It's so nice to have days that we can spend as a family laughing!

It's almost impossible to get a good pic of Hadley smiling because she is so intrigued by the camera that as soon as we get it out the smile goes away, so we were lucky to get these smiling pics last night!!
I have been trying to get a good pic with her 2 teeth and finally got one! They are just too cute!

Thanks Karissa!!

Karissa helped me figure out how to make my blog pretty!! Thank you so much!! I am really bad with computers! It took me about an hour even though there were step by step instructions. Well, at least it's pretty now so I can print them off and make a book with them. Thanks Again!!

Last of pics from Britt

More pics from Britt

my friend Brittney took these pics

A friend of mine has her own business of taking pictures and these are some pics she took of Hadley the beginning of Nov. Thanks Brittney!!

Tu Tu Pics

I made Tu Tu's for the girls a couple of months ago and forgot to post the pics so here they are.