This past Saturday, January 28th marked one year ago that Jeff and I found out we were pregnant! After taking fertility medication we had finally conceived! YEAH! We thought we had finally won.....that we finally got our break! We were so overjoyed and all the plans we had for this little baby started to form! Jeff immediatly nicknamed the baby, Little Johnny (after John Deere of course) and talked about how he was going to teach the baby how to run the air seeder, and make hay, and combine, drive semi, take them fishing and hunting and the list went on and on! One thing was for sure....this baby was going to be a farmer not matter what. Jeff and I got a whole 6 weeks of what I now call ignorant bliss. During those 6 weeks we did what every parent does....dream of everything that is yet to come. All the hopes and dreams we had for our baby were made during this time. I had bought a sign at a local store in town for our baby's nursery that simply says, "Wishes and Dreams." This baby was what we had prayed for, wished for and dreamt about for so long. We really thought the hardest part of our journey was behind us since we were able to get pregnant. Little did we know what was ahead of us. On March 15th our lives became to crumble........we had a 10 week ultrasound since we had been on fertility medication and were told it was only to see if we were dealing with a single birth or a mutiple birth. We got our one picture from the US tech and headed to our appointment, blissfully unaware of what was yet to come. Our doctor walked in and with little tact said right off the bat, "Well the radiologist is having difficulty making out all of her cranial features. We're going to set you up to see a perinatologist in Fargo for further analysis of this, but that won't be until June." Now......this is where the appointment stopped for both Jeff and I. Our minds shut off at this very point and we had a whole 1 hour appt. after that yet. As a nurse I knew she was covering something up....you just don't send a someone to a perinatologist for nothing. I was upset with how she conducted herself and needless to say, so was my friend Sarah. Sarah recommended Dr. Witt to us and we thought at this point, what did we really have to lose. We found a blessing from God when we walked into his office. He treated us with the utmost respect and with dignity and laid everything out for us. We didn't need a perinatologist....we did everything with him.
I often think back to that blissful 6 weeks....the only 6 weeks of that pregnancy where I didn't have the weight of the world on my shoulders.....and think about all of our hopes and dreams for our little one. I had 6 weeks of being in a "normal" pregnancy......6 weeks out 42 weeks. I will always cherish those moments of feeling "normal" but I will also cherish the other 36 weeks. Although they were very stressful and brought a lot of tears, they also brought a lot of happiness and smiles. I was one of the fortunate ones that did not have a miserable pregnancy. There was little nausea, no excessive weight gain, and no excessive fluid retention. I was able to go about our normal daily lives and helped Jeff with raking hay even when I was 40 weeks pregnant. We decided that Gracie would help her Daddy farm from in the womb.....she went through pretty much every season on the farm from calving to seeding to haying to combining. She drove tractor with her mom, a LOT and loved it. When I would stop then she would kick up a storm! We laughed as we wondered what she thought about those rough hay fields! We cherished her kicks and movements. Knowing this was the only time we had with our daughter that was guaranteed, made us appreciate our pregnancy on a whole new level. We wouldn't change a thing....this was what God wanted. Gracie came into this world and was blissfully unaware of her condition and she was also unaware of how many lives she was impacting by being there. The people we had at the hospital with us thanked us for allowing them to be part of Gracie's Day....it was what God wanted. Everyone there that day saw a little bit of heaven and saw one of God's littlest workers. That was such a blessing for us to witness as parents......what a gift.
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