Whoa! Been A While!!!

Wow! I can’t believe I haven’t posted in so long! Sorry!!! Which if you keep up with Facebook you pretty much know what’s been happening!

So, a little rundown!...

I am currently 23 weeks and 1 day along! Only 16 weeks 6 days to go! It has been insane how quickly time has flown by even though all the same we are soooo anxious to meet this baby! My pregnancy has been amazingly smooth sailing so far! I haven’t had any sickness to speak of, no out of the ordinary cravings yet! Although chili cheese fritos sound good when I’m craving something tangy or salty and oddly enough I never really ate them before! I was going every two weeks for my appointments and ultrasounds and had a slight case of placenta previa but by about 18 weeks it all moved to where it is supposed to be and since then everything has looked great! My doctor assured me after that that everything was going great and I could move to regular 4 week appointments but around that time I still wasn’t comfortable so I bumped to 3 weeks! After the three week appointment I went ahead and went to 4 weeks and wow! Talk about torture when you’re used to going so often! I have been feeling him move since about 19 weeks so it hasn’t been too bad since those little flutters are more reassuring than you know! He started out by kicking my heart Doppler which was too crazy! Oh and also the best $50 I’ve ever spent!

Ever since about 21 weeks I have been feeling more than just flutters for sure though! He loves to kick at night when we lay down to go to bed and really it’s the best time out of the day because chadd gets to feel him! As the days have gone by they get a little stronger and I’ve now started to feel him throughout the day! If my belly is pushed up against the shampoo bowl or my chair at work he sort of kicks at it which is just too cute to me! I tell chadd he likes to help mommy work! I have been carrying him quite low so the backaches are pretty rough when I’ve had a full day at work and my feet tend to ache by the end of the day more than normal! I’m pretty excited to try out a support band my sister in law is letting me borrow so maybe that will help! I just got it today so we will see.

Chadd has always talked to my belly since we first found out but it’s so cute to hear him talk to him so often. Every day when he gets home from work I get a big hug then he goes straight to Brody to tell him how much he loves him! It melts me every time he talks to him. It makes me that much more thankful and happy that I stuck with my battle and created this miracle for us! Oh and yes, if I’m being mean to him he is sure to tell brody to kick me! Oh yes by the way he has a name! haha

Brody Cotton-Lee Brown

Brody, just because we love it….Cotton is chadds grandpas name on his dads side. He was a trucker his whole life and to this day still has cotton blonde hair, therefore Cotton has always been the name we’ve known him by! (besides Papa of course!) he is a strong, caring man. From the day I met him he has always been so sweet and since we started our journey he has always been sure to ask me or chadd how “his baby” has been on all the medicines! He actually told us that we should just adopt because he didn’t like to see his babies suffer being on all these medications! He’s so sweet and caring and I know chadd got a lot of it from him! when we told papa on thanksgiving day the full name i think he was quite surprised and even had to sneak off according to chadds cousin because he got a little emotional! it was so cute! Chadds dad was Cottons only son, chadd was his first grandson, and this will be his first great-grandson so we figured: how appropriate!? Lee is chadd and his dad’s middle name. we wanted to carry on the name of course so they can all three share it! We love his name and love this little boy so much already!

We are slowly starting to get stuff for his room! He of course has all sorts of clothes already and every now and then when we are at the store we will pick up a pack of diapers just to help us out in the future! His walls are a dark denim blue which is what they have been! I originally painted it a long time ago, in secret hopes of a boy ;) we decided not to paint again since we have our house on the market so that way when we move we can have a fresh idea! We purchased a dresser for him from Santa fe furniture so he could have a nice one to grow up with, and my parents are buying his crib/changer for us! I’m so excited to get it ordered and get it here to finally start getting his room looking like a baby’s room! Chadds parents bought our car seat stroller which is red and grey and sooo pretty!

We decided to schedule a 4D sonogram in Abilene which will be February 4^th that we are really looking forward to! Check Facebook for pictures! It’s at a place called stork vision and they let you bring as many people as you want and its up on big screens for everyone to see! They also give a dvd, cd with pics, and printed pics to take home! Can’t wait!!!

Well that was a doozy! I will go ahead and end it for now and will try not to wait 3 more months to update again! Thanks for reading and thanks for the prayers and support!!! 

I love you my baby!

well its been a few weeks so i figured i would update! dont want the blog to get too rusty! ive had 3 sonnogram appointments since finding out we have a miracle growing and they have all been amazing! our first one at 6 weeks was just a little blob with a flicker but one of the most amazing sights weve seen in a loooong time! everything measured right on track but for some reason it was hard to believe it was real! i havent been sick besides my metformin im on that has made me queezy since i first started taking it two years ago....

the second one was at about 7 1/2 weeks and i had that one in san antonio! we werent planning on going back there but i ended up getting to go with all the girls from work to a hair show so i figured since i was going to be there, why not!? that one i had quite the audience! since chadd wasnt able to go, i took tayler with me, tanners girlfriend that i work with, then the rest of the girls tagged along! i was really glad they all got to see it since almost all of them have been going through this with me from day one! everything looked good  there as well and my fertility doctor set up the dates to start weening me off my medications! pretty scary but comforting at the same time knowing he's confident enough to start the process!

our third one was just yesterday and by far the best yet! the baby is growing wonderfully and we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time together! it was nice and strong and the baby was wiggling all around! just hoping its not a sign that it will have too much of chadds ADD! my husband cant sit still to save his life unless its in a recliner! but thats ok im not complaining!!! we are so in love with this baby already and are still praying hard that we get to meet him or her in about 7 months!!! the heart rate was at 188bpm which was perfect! after watching the baby wiggle around for a little bit, our tech then surprised us with a 3D view!!! i had to ask if it was our baby we were looking at or just an example image! haha! it was shocking! we were able to see its limbs developing as well as the face! you could see where the nose and eyes were starting to develop! it was the coolest thing ever to see an 8 1/2 week old baby so clearly!

my next appointment is this coming monday and my mom is going to come with me this time! since everything is looking good we dont want chadd to miss too much work time although i know he will have a hard time missing it! like ive said in the past, chadd has been amazing through everything weve been through. its not easy seeing your wife being poked and prodded as much as i have been just to try to MAYBE have a baby! he has definitely continued his greatness since we found out! he has done laundry, cooked dinner, cleaned the house, and the list goes on! he has truly given me the strength ive needed in these past 4 years and i know he will continue to be my rock for the rest of our lives! i know i wouldnt have made it this far if i didnt have such an amazing husband to create a child for. he is going to be an amazing father and i cant wait for the both of us to meet our child for the first time!!! Thank you God for this miracle and thank you to everyone for the continued prayers! they have truly helped us i know it! i can feel the miracle inside me thriving off prayer!!!


HERE IS OUR MIRACLE! THE PICTURE OF COURSE ISNT AS CLEAR AS SEEING IT ON THE SCREEN BUT ITS PRETTY GOOD!

THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND THE REASON I'VE GONE THROUGH HELL AND BACK TO CREATE A CHILD FOR US!

This is dedicated to our parents

well its been a while! this ride has been anything but easy, but were so happy to finally get to enjoy the ride!!! two full invitro cycles, 500 trips to san antonio, countless needles into my body, pills, bedrest, financial support from family and an amazing set of friends(you know who you are), and $30,000 later we saw the heart beat yesterday of our growing miracle and wouldnt trade it for anything in the world!

chadd and i have an amazing marriage. weve always had a strong relationship since we were first together and i have to contribute a lot of it to him. he has definitely given me the strength ive needed to get to where we are today. he and i have definitely changed eachother over the past 13 years together, and i know it will only get better. he has helped me overcome the fear of the future by reminding me to take all of this one step at a time, and i have just about broken his fear of needles with all the shots he has given to me! im by no means saying that the love we have for our child is any different than someone that got pregnant the "easy way," but going through all of this has definitely made us appreciate Gods work. trust me, if you dig down deep and have seen what weve seen about the process of what goes into making a baby, you would be shocked at how many miracles are created so easily sometimes!

i honestly have to say as well that our marriage has been amazingly supported by watching the love and support our parents have always given eachother. not everyone is fortunate enough to witness such love and devotion, but we truly have been. not only the love they have for eachother, but the love they have for us, their children. when our first IVF cycle failed, it was like our world was over. the road had ended, but for some reason all of a sudden, i didnt want it to end. i thought i was tired of the countless san antonio trips, shots, and pills, but i knew deep down God had a plan and in that instant i knew we couldnt give up yet. thankfully for our amazing parents, they all came together and put up the money we needed to try one more time. at first we both thought, no way...theirs no way we can take money like that from them, but then my mom said, "hey we want to be grandparents just as bad as yall want to be parents and wouldnt you do the same for your children if they needed it and you could?" so of course their was no turning it down after that! so from their hearts and wallets to ours, the money appeared, but what dissapeared was our fear...the first time we went through all of this, i told chadd afterward that in my heart something didnt feel right but of course i ignored it. for some reason though, all of us had this feeling that it was just going to work this time. we werent hesitant, we werent afraid, we werent nervous for some reason! i know now that it was all God working inside of us to ease our hearts so we would know that the future was in His hands and if we just trusted Him, it would all work!
we also have a huge place in our hearts for all of the people that have come out of the wood work lifting us up to Him in prayer. Ive met quite a few people recently that have friends of friends that know us and have spoken about us, then they come to us saying that, even though they dont know us, they are praying for us. people have added us to their prayer groups at their churches and dont even know our last names! its amazing! i feel really strongly as well that all of these prayers have helped to heal our hearts and keep the confidence and strength in them that we have needed. so from the bottom of mine and chadds hearts, you know who you are, we cant thank you enough for the amazing prayers. we know we go to bed at night lifted into the arms of God because of all of you.

thank you to everyone for helping us get here. you will all be a part of creating our miracle! please continue the prayers and we cant wait for everyone to meet the miracle you all helped create this coming April!

I LOVE YOU MY CHADD

Thankful Thankful Thankful!!!!

So if everyone doesnt know yet....I'M OFFICIALLY KNOCKED UP!!!! yep, test tube baby or babies decided to take up residence in my uterus and we couldn't be happier!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i know we have had so many people praying for us. weve been put on prayer lists at peoples churchs that they dont even know who we are but have helped us get this far spiritually! its an amazing feeling! its also an amazing feeling to hopefully know that we can finally have a well deserved break from all the stress and craziness of IVF procedures and finally just enjoy Gods gift! i was told by a close friend that i need to remember and enjoy this pregnancy and remind myself that its all in Gods hands! even though its hard to give it up to God i am definitely going to try my best! i just know that im doing everything in my power to hold on to this miracle and thats all i can do! and of course ask for prayers from all the amazing people that have gotten us here!
we officially got the news around 11am yesterday(friday) and of course were on the phones immediately since we had so many friends and family waiting on pins and needles for the results! we were super excited to have the test done to see what my HCG level came back at which is the number they give you so you can know how strong everything is basically! i guess i will let the cat out of the bag as well now....we took a total of 6 home tests from monday to friday morning and got positives all week soooo we kinda had a hunch!!! but hey, when you've been around the block as many times as us, it takes A LOT OF PROOF to show me that im truly pregnant! honestly i remind myself that i am, and remind myself my level was nice and high, but honestly until i see that first ultrasound theeeeeeen maybe, just maybe, i will be convinced! haha
so for now were just (im)patiently waiting on tuesday to get our level again to make sure everything looks good! my number was 534 yesterday so by tuesday were wanting to see greater than 1,000 sooooo everyone say a little prayer this miracle or miracles are growing for mommy and daddy!!!!!!!!!
thanks again to everyone for your continued prayers and support! it means the world to us to know so many people care about us becoming parents! its definitely been our dream for a looooooong time! we are grateful to God for this gift and know that we have two angel babies waiting for us in heaven and hope that they will guard and protect their siblings in my tummy for the next 8 months because they know how badly their parents need this precious gift!!!! Praise the Lord for his gift and thank you everyone!!!!

Waiting waiting and more waiting!

Well were getting closer to the big day! Come Friday morning we will know if our next nine months will be filled with baby preparations or empty hearts! I guess they can't be too empty though since we were lucky enough to have two embryos freeze! Thank God for that! Because I can tell you right now I don't plan on going through this entire IVF fiasco ever again! I don't mind going back to have two more put in in the future but after that, no more needles!!!!! Anyways just another thank you to everyone for praying so much for us! Were nearing the end of one phase but I'm certain we will need even stronger prayers if my body did actually decide to let the babies move in! I will do my best to update Friday or atleast the weekend but watch my Facebook status because I'm sure it will be on there quickly! Thanks everyone for the support and prayers. It means more than you know to chadd and I and helps more than you know! God bless!

Harvest time!

well the end of our second invitro cycle has officially come! we are completely done, now just to harvest my babies and pray to God for the miracle we have awaited so long for! i ended up this past wednesday with 15 eggs being retrieved, out of those 15, 14 were mature, which is great, which means they were all of good enough size to fertilize! the first time we attempted IVF the clinic had called us at 7:30am to deliver the fertilization news, and this time i finally had to call them twice by 10:30am because chadd and i were just about to explode with worry that they hadnt called because something went wrong!!! so out of those 14, 2 were not maturing properly so we will not use those and they will be disposed of since something was obviously not right!
when we arrived at the clinic saturday morning, they gave us the news we had been awaiting since we found out we had 12 embryos, which was the grade of the embryos! the lab woman came in and told us some amazing news, that we had 2 perfect embryos with the grade of 8A's, which is the highest grade, that would be put in! last time the highest quality we had that we transferred were two 7B's so this was an answered prayer for sure! we still have one 8B, one 7A, 2-7B's, and a few grade fives and fours left to see if they make it to the blasocyst stage in order to be frozen! the 8B and 7's have a good chance, but the lower ones will probably not make it so were hoping for the best and even if we only get one to freeze we will be happy campers!!!!!!! we should know around tuesday or wednesday if our remaining babies make it!
so i guess now all we ask for are a few more prayers asking for God to make this dream come true! it will be extremely hard if we dont have any freeze and this is a negative outcome, but for some reason chadd and i both just have a much better feeling about this cycle...im not sure what it is but on the way to san antonio friday i told chadd that for some reason my heart and my mind havent had any negative feelings throughout this entire process...unlike the first time...i dont know, it could be that "mothers" intuition combined with all the prayers weve had from people who hardly know us praying for our peace and success! whichever it is i sure hope its a good sign! these two weeks will be the longest of my life i know, so im looking forward to many distractions, yet still have to remind myself to take it easy! they told me that im not allowed to exercise for the next two weeks...darn...its totally going to cramp my style to not run my 5 miles every morning and keep up this amazing figure...lol ya right!!!!!!!!!!! looking forward to my awesome husband taking care of me as well! if theirs one thing i could say that he's good at in our marriage is taking care of me! in times like this and whenever i've been sick or anything he's right on top of taking care of me no matter what i ask for while still making me smile! i love you chadd and thank God everyday that he chose you to be by my side throughout this crazy thing called life and infertility!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! love you my chadd!

Dreamin's Free!

well this weekend in san antonio went muuuuuuch better than the last time i was there! we went to the doctor saturday morning, all the follicles were growing like they should be! then we headed to round rock with my parents and did some shopping then we drove over to Gruene and had dinner at the Gristmill while sweating our butts off but the food was worth it! my mom and i hung around sunday night for my appointment this morning and we sent the boys home since my appointment this morning wasnt anything chadd needed to miss a day of work over at his new job! my doctor seems much more confident this round than he did the first time which is a comforting feeling! he says that my follicles are growing all together at a good pace and good sizes so were hoping for mature eggs that will fertilize and make the "grade" when they become embryos!

so for anyone unfamiliar, they will basically knock me out wednesday morning, extract my eggs with a tiny needle-like tube, send them to the lab, mix them up with chadds "goods", then voila! we have embryos 24 hours later! they give the embryos 2 grades, a letter and number, based off the cell division and quality, the best being an 8A, grading 1-8 and A-D so were praying for many many 8A's!!!!!!!!!!! those are the most ideal for implantation and also to survive freezing in order to be able to use later on if needed! but if anyone wants to get specific with their prayers for us, we would love to have a boy and a girl set of twins, and not ever have to look back!!!!!!!! haha, like i said in the title, dreamin's free, right!? anyways chadd and i are at a comforting place in our life at the moment so it is much more comforting going into this final phase with a positive outlook on all aspects of our life! house got put on the market, chadd got a new career opportunity, our house is showing to a private client for the first time this wednesday, and God willing a baby in nine months!

i would like to thank everyone for their support that has helped guide chadd and i through the ups and downs of the past four years of our lives! our parents especially, because without their support financially and emotionally, theirs no way we would have the opportunity to attempt our dream again...praying for the last time!!!!

also a special thank you to Valarie and Eric, our aunt and uncle, that have graciously chosen us to become Bowens Godparents. It will be official the weekend after we find our if we are pregnant or not, so no matter the outcome, we feel so blessed that we will atleast have a Godchild that we can watch grow faithfully, and lovingly, with the best support we can give him throughout his journey in life as if he were our own! We love you BoBo and plan on spoiling you rotten! (especially if we dont have our own baby...lookout! kisses all the time!)

i will attempt to update after we find out how many embryos we end up with which we should know around thursday morning!



~Even though you're not here and I am yet to know if you will ever exist, please know i will love you unconditionally, protect you over my own well being, guide you through life with my best capabilities, and will hold your heart forever in mine~My heart longs for a baby of my own, to hold, to love, to kiss goodnight, to bandage a scrape, to drop off at the first day of school, to watch graduate from college, to walk down the isle, and to bless me with my own grandchildren someday, God willing, so Lord if you could grant this one wish, to send down a healthy child that Chadd and I can raise in your eyes, I'll never ask for anything again~