Blessed!

I don't know what's wrong with me lately! I know that I am a very passionate person (which sometimes gets me in trouble because it also makes me a very stubborn person). In fact, I'm probably more emotional than most women (I like to blame it on all of the infertility drugs and hormones that has been pumped through my body over the years). But as of late, I have been filled with so much emotion.....




Just yesterday, I was remembering and reminiscing that last year around this time (in early February) we had just found out that I was nearly 5 weeks pregnant with Jonah. Neither of my pregnancies were easy by any means! I was on bed rest for nearly 16 weeks total with Stella. I had to have several liters of fluid drained from my belly (due to ovarian hyper-stimulation), I was hospitalized twice for pre-term labor and that pregnancy began with me carrying triplets and ended with a singleton.

My pregnancy with Jonah was no cake walk either. I was put on bed rest early on for spotting (causing me not to be able to travel to my companies annual sales meeting in Orlando), diagnosed with gestational diabetes, had borderline high blood pressure and severe sciatic pain.

Would I do it all over again? ABSOLUTELY! Look at the 2 beautiful and precious gifts, I've been blessed with. Hmmm...maybe this is why I've been so emotional lately.

I just love watching Stella and Jonah interacting together. She just absolutely adores him. To be honest, I was initially concerned about having 2 kids that were 7 years apart. You see, I am 10 years older than my little sister, Sarah, and felt like and technically was the only child for a longest time. I resented her when she was born because I wasn't the center of my parents attention anymore and when I was 15 and she was 5 I would be stuck babysitting her. It wasn't until we were older that we became best friends and now I can't even begin to fathom my life without her! I'm definitely very blessed and lucky to have her, I don't know if she would say the same about me! LOL


So when Todd and I began discussing starting a family, I made him promise me come hell or high water that we would never have just one child! I remember telling him once "I hated being the only child for 10 years and I never want to do that to another child!"

So as Stella got older, and I still couldn't get pregnant without the help of modern medicine (aka infertility treatments and infertility drugs), I began to worry and even panic! We tried several times to get pregnant after Stella, all of which either resulted in miscarriages or no success. We struggled with the decision to keep seeking the aid of modern medicine again. In 2007, several years after Stella's birth I was diagnosed with DIL (Drug Induced Lupus), likely as a result of several years of being on infertility meds and undergoing infertility treatments. Infertility medications put such a lot of strain on your body and organs to begin with, but add to it having an auto immune disease like Lupus can make it even dangerous and even life threatening. 

After a lot of prayer and soul searching, we decided to roll the dice and give it one more FINAL try with the help of infertility meds/treatments! If it worked, great and if not, then we would begin researching other means like possibly adoption. Then on February 1, 2010 we received the news that we had been long been waiting to hear...we were PREGNANT (see my post We're absolutely positive!)!

So here we are exactly 1 year later and nothing makes me happier (or more emotional) than watching Stella and Jonah together. She loves to help us with him and will do just about anything for him except change his diaper (I can't say I can blame her for not wanting to help with that). Stella will read to him, sing to him, play with him and he just loves it! Jonah smiles at Stella, as if to say "I know that your my sissy!"

Although they are a little more than 7 years apart, I know that Stella will always watch over him and mother him as she does now and when he gets older I know that Jonah will look up to her with such admiration. I have no doubt in my mind that they will always love each other and will look out for each other as much as my sister and I do.

So if I've been a little emotional lately, it's probably because when I look over at my 2 little miracles, I realize that I AM BLESSED!