Happy Birthday Katie!

Remembering back 3 years and 9 months, still seems like yesterday. As most of you know, Doug and I had a little difficult time conceiving a child. We went through a few years of stress and impatience. The story of Hannah (hope) kept me a float and helping me to not go completely insane. God had a plan for me and it took me a long hard time to understand what he was doing. God needed to shape and mold my spirituality, to help me grow in Him. So, now when I have a lot of road blocks or disheartened obstacles in my life, I have to stop and say to myself that God has a reason. A reason that I will see further down life's path. I will never forget, while we were in the ART Program from Brookwood, we had just gone through a lot of tests. I was having a few of my nieces and nephews over on Halloween to go Tricker Treating in our neighborhood. I received a call from my doctor's office the day before Halloween, the nurse told me that it was time. Doug and I had to be at the doctor's office on Halloween Day to do a procedure that would hopefully bless us with a baby. A baby, we had prayed and hoped for for so long. We conceived our little miracle baby on November 1st, All Saints Day. God has truly blessed us and I thank Him everyday for our little princess. Pregnancy didn't agree with me because I was sick the entire time I was pregnant. I believe I had 1 1/2 months without sickness. In fact, I ended up spending Christmas Eve in the hospital because I was so sick. You know what, it was worth every day of puking on the way to work. I think I even spilled my guts in the parking lot of my work place. Thank God, Doug drove us to and from work everyday. He might have gotten aggravated with me at times, but he was so understand and took good care of me. Nine months later, she wouldn't drop and I wasn't progressing. They did a final ultrasound of our little baby and the monitor was predicting that she was 9 lbs +/- a pound. My doctor felt it would be safer for both me and the baby, if we did a C-Section on Monday, 25th of July. The Friday before July 25th was my last day at work. I had a very nice baby shower from all of our friends and co-workers. I had not been feeling that great all day long. I was having more and more Brackston Hicks (?). On the way home, Doug took us out to eat supper and I still wasn't feeling all that great. My stomach would get so hard. We even went walking around in Walmart. When we got home, I was feeling a little worse and the hicks were not letting up. In fact, they were getting worse. Maryann just so happen to call me and I told her about my symptoms and she told me I was going into labor. When I hung up, I began spotting. Well that scared me to death. Doug called the doctor on call because my doctor was on vacation. The doctor wanted me to come in to be examined. The hicks were coming every 5 minutes, right on time. Sure enough, I was in labor, but the baby still had not dropped and I had not progressed. They kept me doped up on meds the rest of the night. The next morning, the doctor asked me if I was ready to deliver the baby. I was so ready, he didn't have to ask me twice. Kaitlyn was born by C-Section on Saturday, July 23rd at 6:00 a.m. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. and was a whopping 23 inches long. It was great that our parents were able to hear the whole birth by the intercom system. Katie is the most precious life, God has blessed us.


I let Katie sleep in this morning because it was her birthday. lol. She didn't feel good this morning, which is a bummer because she is such a pill when she's sick. I knew she was a little constipated, but I don't know of any other symptoms. I put on her birthday shirt and had her sit in the yard to take her picture. Of course, she had to act a little silly. I then dressed her up in her Fancy Nancy clothes to show Grandma Jerry. Mom was a little surprised to see us coming in the door. Katie got a lot of attention because she was dressed to the T. I don't think she like all the attention, plus her not feeling good. Mom gave her another present for her to open in front of her. She got some more Barbie Doll clothes, which is exactly what she needed. Katie loved them and wanted me to take them out of the box right then and there. I wanted to take a picture of Mom and Katie. Unfortunately, Katie wouldn't have it today. Ugh!

Later tonight, Doug, Katie and myself went to Chik-fil-a for supper. You could tell by this time that Katie was sick. She got very quiet and wouldn't eat her chicken nuggets. I told Doug that she hasn't ate much at all today and that it was beginning to worry me. We went ahead and let her play in the indoor playground. She met a brother and sister about the same age as she. They had blast playing together. In fact, Katie didn't want to leave at all. Ugh! She received some birthday money, so we took her to Walmart to spend some of her money. I was completely with her, where ever she went, I followed. It was cute, watching her. She knew exactly what she wanted. Actually, I was surprised that she didn't start throwing every toy and book into our buggy. She made very wise choices: Barbie Doll Furniture - Table, 2 Chairs & Dinner Accessories; Butterfly Barbie Doll (Blue); and a Cinderella Board Game. I was kind of afraid to let her have the board game because it said on the box for ages 4+. When we got home, she wanted to play her new game right off the bat. After reading the directions and spending about 15 minutes telling her how to play, she got the knack of it. I guess we played with it for about 30 minutes until she got tired of it and wanted to play with her Barbie for a while. It's cute. She takes turns playing with her toys. She'll play with Barbies for a while, spend some time with her train set and then she'll be dressed up and playing with her baby dolls.


Okay, so maybe I got a little carried away with the Christmas Countdown. If you think about it, it's not that far away (5 months). It's been so hot here and with August right around the corner, I figured it might be refreshing to see a countdown and give us hope for cooler weather. I just hate it that my widget got cut off and I couldn't get it fixed. I found some other Christmas widgets, but they were not as pretty as this one.