The miracle of Rylie Dawn- Part 2

Tuesday- August 5, 2014

They checked me at 12am and I had made no progress.  Also at midnight, my parents arrived in Toledo.  Right after I got the text that they had arrived safely, I started to have contractions every 2 minutes apart.  Pretty hard ones too.  I was so excited!  However, when they checked me at 7am I had made ZERO progress. With the fact that my mom was unable to deliver vaginally due to her lack of dialation, my doctor's plan was to send me home after he checked me, and let me go another week or two and if I still hadn't made progress to try and take the little one via c-section. However when he was supposed to check me in the morning, he was pulled into a last minute birth and was unable to make it over to check me. Luckily the nurses must not have known the whole situation, because regardless of the fact that I had made no progress, they put me on the pitocin. When the doctor came back in at noon, he told me that I had made just enough progress that he could break my water.  He was in my room probably less than a minute and by the time he left my contractions were unbearable.  My whole body was shaking uncontrollably as if I was having a seizure.  Luckily my new best friend, Gino, was right around the corner with my epidural.  luckily the epidural was way worse in movies than in real life.  The only part that was hard about it was that I couldn't move during a contraction and I felt that I didn't have control over my body during that time.  But luckily it went right in no problems and in about 30 minutes I was feeling a little better.  However I was still in a lot of pain, so they called Gino back in and he gave me another dose of meds. Once that happened, I was feeling great!  So happy to be having our sweet baby! 

That lasted a few hours, and when the nurse came in to check me again at about 4-4:30 I was in a lot of pain again and only dialated to a 3-4. That was like no progress.  So Gino (who apparently was really attractive, but I don't remember his face, I only remember his meds) came back in and gave me another dose of meds.  He told me I would feel better within about 15 minutes but in 30 I felt no relief.  He came in and gave me one more dose of the meds and I still felt no relief.  Finally, around 5:30 they decided that I needed to make a decision. I either needed to suck it up, or we needed to take the epi out and re-do it since it didn't seem to be working. I couldn't decide what to do because I was in so much pain I couldn't handle it or really even talk anymore.  The nurse couldn't stand me being in that much pain so she told me she would check me one more time and if she could, we would re-do the epidural.  I was sure I hadn't made any progress in the past hour, so I geared up for the epidural.  However as soon as she checked me, (about 5:40) she said she felt the baby's head, and that we needed to get the doctor asap because it was time to deliver our sweet baby! She even told me that our baby had a lot of hair! Ahh!  It was getting so real!  I was not to push because we needed to get the doctor.  It took them about 15 minutes to get the room all ready to go and get all the equipment in there for when the baby was born, and then it was time to push!  They offered a mirror so I could watch, and of course I had to accept!  Pushing was not painful.  The contractions were still painful, but once I could push, I just wanted to push!  My contractions were very intense, I would have 4 consecutively and then a small break.  4 consecutive, then a small break.  But then it changed to 6 consecutive and a smaller break.  This put the baby in some distress and very little time to recover from each contraction.  Because of this, the doctor decided to use the vacuum to help get her out as quickly as possible.  At 6:05 pm on August 5, 2014 I became a mother and Zack a father to the most beautiful baby girl on the planet.  She was 6 lbs 11 oz and 20 1/4 inches long. But the biggest surprise of all? She was a girl!! Everyone was so excited and surprised. We were all positive that she was a boy.  But oh my goodness are we so excited to have a sweet baby girl. She is absolutely perfect and we could not be happier to have her in our lives.   I will be adding pictures once she goes back to sleep and I have a little more time on my hands!

The Miracle of Rylie Dawn- Part 1

Well, she is here!  Our beautiful little miracle has arrived.  She shocked us all when she came out a girl. But before we get there, let me back up just a little bit.  This is going to be kinda long, but I want to remember every little detail that I can, so I understand if you would rather not read it all. I really just want it for our own family records.

Thursday- July 31, 2014
I had my 38 week doctors appointment today.  I have been in a TON of pain with something called SPD. Basically my understanding is that my pelvic bone is separating.  It makes it hard to walk or roll over or shower.  Well regardless, today at my doctors appointment, Dr. Jackson told me that if I don't go into labor over the weekend, he will induce me early next week.  So we made an appointment for Monday morning at 9:30am to see what we can do to get all this moving right along!  Family is all so excited that they get to be here next week for the arrival of our little baby!  Now to sit and wait for the weekend to pass!

Sunday- August 3, 2014
 We picked up Mike, Steph, and Linz from the airport today and the Ellsworth family (minus the uncles and Tay) jumped in the car to start the long 31 hour drive out to Toledo.  Things are starting to get real!

Monday- August 4, 2014
This morning was my doctors appointment.  The doctors appointment came with some bad news.  Even though the Dr told me that he would be able to induce me starting either today or tomorrow, when he did an actual exam on me, told me that the chances of an induction at this point only has a 10-20% chance of success.  He suggested that we wait until Friday and check me again to see if my body showed more signs of successful induction. Problem!! Our families are all in town and Olsens have to leave by Thursday and my family by Saturday.  Do you know how much they spent on getting out here?  And its not like we can ask them to do it again in a week! Ugh.  Luckily after talking to my doctor and telling him the circumstance, he told me that he would give it a go, but like he said, he expects only about a 10-20% chance of success and if I hadn't made any progress by tomorrow morning, he would be sending me home.  So at least we get a chance! Tonight they will be putting some meds on my cervix, and then hopefully tomorrow we will have a baby.  That being said, we are very worried that this sweet baby will be taking its time to get to us.  On the way home from the doctor, we stopped in the parking lot across the street and said a tearful prayer that we would be able to meet our little one.  Then again in the parking lot of the hospital as we went for our 5:00 check in time.  Please, please let out little one come now with our families here.

"the story" Part 2

Ok well I think I should just get it all out on the line.  Zack and I struggled to have children for 4.5 years, during that time suffering 2 miscarriages, and going through many doctors and never really got an answer.  Everyone said that it seemed like we should get pregnant no problem and that we just needed to be patient.  Well I knew something was wrong, I could just feel it.  Finally, after moving to Ohio, I got in with an absolutely AMAZING doctor.  He broke infertility down into 3 sections.  He said infertility is ALWAYS one of three problems.  It is either the man, the egg, or the uterus.  We know Zack is all clear, so we can narrow it down to the egg or the uterus.  (Disclaimer: this was a very fast conversation, and I may have gotten some facts a little off, but it at least gives you the idea)  We have done ultrasounds and he didn't see anything that made him think that it was my uterus, so he said we should start with the eggs.  Then he smiled at me and told me he bet we would be pregnant within the next 2 months. As exciting as this was, I have actually heard this exact phrase from every doctor that I have been to, so I was excited but still cautious.  I like to say: cautiously optimistic.  Anyways, he put me on Femara (sp?) to make my eggs grow, and then we did an ultrasound to see if they did.  Well, they didn't grow big enough.  So the next month we upped the dosage.  Still the eggs were too small.  So we started with some shots.  I forget the name of it, but it was something like Menopur. It was a shot that I took every night for 5 nights along with taking the Femara. the first month of this, I had 4 big eggs on the right side!! Such good news!!! We were pretty nervous about multiples, but no pregnancy.  We did the same dosage the next month, only I had 8 eggs this time!  All on the right side again.  We were EXTREMELY excited and the doctor even told us that he was so sure that we would get pregnant that he hoped that we just didn't fertilize all 8 eggs, because my body probably wouldn't handle being octo-mom very well.  However, yet again, I was not pregnant.  This really puzzled the doctor.  He saw we had a problem, we fixed it, so I should be getting pregnant now no problem.  That is when we decided to do more testing.  This was not a good month for me.  We found out that on my own, my body does not make eggs that are big enough or healthy enough for pregnancy.  But we fixed that with all those miserable meds that I was taking. (they make me so so sick and gave me horrible headaches.)  Then we did another test and to spare the ugly details, we found out that my right Fallopian tube is blocked.  So all that pain and suffering to make those eggs on the right side was for nothing.  Because no matter if I had 100 eggs on the right side, they would not be able to sustain a pregnancy because that tube is blocking them from implanting to my uterus.  Honestly after getting this news I just gave up. My left side was healthy tube wise but I never made any eggs on that side.  I was heart broken.  I squared my shoulders and told Zack that once the holiday season was over we should start the adoption process.  Zack was more hopeful than I, but still agreed that we could start the process after the new year.

As far as I was concerned, the rest of the doctors appointments were just going through the motions, because I was just too sad and too down to care anymore.  We went to the doctors before I ovulated and low and behold, there was an egg on the left side.  Not only one, but there was even another one that was borderline ready.  Doctor told us to wait a few days and then take my last shot which was ovadrill, which makes me ovulate.  Zack was through the roof and over the moon excited. I was indifferent.  I was too heart broken to even care about it anymore and honestly I was setting my heart on adopting a sweet little baby.  

Come Thanksgiving break, the day after Thanksgiving, I decided that I should take a pregnancy test just to rule the secret quiet nagging question in my head and so that I would be prepared when I saw the period starting.  I took a test that morning, of course Zack knew, we were at his parents house, and I knew that I would not see a positive test.  I took the test and then laid down for a while. Finally, when I looked, I saw not one, but two pink lines. One was very dark.  But the other was quite light.  My heart sank.  Not this again.  This was how my tests looked when I found out the first two times, and both times I had miscarried before I even reached 5.5 weeks. But something told me that this time was different. I showed Zack and he was the same as me. Excited, but very nervous. We have been down this path before.  So I had another test, and took it the following day.  Two pink lines again. And this time, it was darker. Not as dark as the test line, but definitely there.  I showed Zack. We got excited.  But again, cautiously optimistic.  Finally, about 3 weeks after that, I went to the doctors and he ran a bunch of tests.  Test results: 95% chance of a healthy, happy take home baby.  We were so excited and as soon as I saw that little heard beat on the screen, I lost it.  A long long time ago, before I knew we would have troubles getting pregnant, before we were even trying to have a baby, Zack gave me a blessing that promised me that we would have our own children when the time was right.  A month previous, he promised me the same thing again, and this time told me that my body was preparing to get pregnant.  I didn't realize just how soon that blessing was meant to come to pass.

To all my infertile friends: Miracles absolutely do happen. Nobody knows how or when your miracle will come but let me tell you this. I think back to my hopeless and stubborn feelings just about 2 months ago and I hate myself for it.  Here was Heavenly Father trying to give me the biggest blessing of my life aside from Zack, and I am there acting like a spoiled child who didn't get their way.  Trust him. Trust him every single day even when you want to doubt him because you feel so broken.  I wish that I could have seen the blessings that awaited me.  Your blessings await you too. And you want to be faithful the whole way through.

"The story" Part 1

July-December 2009
Marriage. So happy.  Best husband ever.
Such a good husband. Lets make a family!
Not yet. Spend time together. Get to know each other. Fall more in love
.
Missed a birth control pill. Pregnant? Pregnant? Pregnant? Could it happen?
Am I pregnant? Is it too soon? I think maybe I am pregnant.

Blood. Tears. Not pregnant. Please can we try now?
Not  yet. Too early. No money.
Birth control is making me crazy.
Back of the package says 93% effective. I hope I am one of 7%. Please please please.
I hope I'm pregnant. Could I be? OMG please.

Blood. Tears. Not pregnant. Emptiness.
Done with pills. Zack agrees. Other forms of Birth control.

January-June 2010
Feeling at a loss. Heavenly Father promises us we will have kids at the right time.
Please be the exception. Please be pregnant.
Blood. Tears. Not pregnant.

Please be the exception. Please be pregnant.
Blood. Tears. Not pregnant.

Please be the exception. Please be pregnant.
Blood. Tears. Not pregnant.

Please be the exception. Please be pregnant.
Blood. Tears. Not pregnant.

Please be the exception. Please be pregnant.
Blood. Tears. Not pregnant.

July 2010-December 2010
Zack agrees it is time to try. Joy. Tears of joy. Can't wait!!
Hope, please please please please please!
Blood. Tears. Not Pregnant.

Hope, please please please please please!
Blood. Tears. Not Pregnant.

Hope, please please please please please!
Blood. Tears. Not Pregnant.

Hope, please please please please please!
Blood. Tears. Not Pregnant. Should we see a doctor?

Hope, please please please please please!!!
Positive pregnancy test.  Run to the school, meet Zack after his class, share the good news.
So excited. Very panicked.  How will this work out?  Mostly excitement.  We will tell parents over Thanksgiving!
Blood. LOTS of tears. Miscarriage.
Maybe next month.

Hope, please please please please please!
Waiting,hoping, waiting and hoping, waiting and hoping.
Blood. Tears. Not Pregnant. 
Doctors. Testing.
REPEAT CYCLE 12 TIMES.

November 2011
Hope, please please please please please!
POSITIVE PREGNANCY TEST!!!!
Write a poem. Record Zack reading the poem! SO excited! We feel ready!
 We will tell family over Christmas.
Blood. SOOO many tears.  Miscarriage. Heart broken.
Maybe next month.

Hope, please please please please please!
Waiting,hoping, waiting and hoping, waiting and hoping.
Blood. Tears. Not Pregnant. 
Doctors. Testing.
REPEAT CYCLE 23 TIMES



Many absolutely amazing things happened during these years.  I do not want to paint a picture that the first 4.5 years of our marriage was horrible because that could not be farther from the truth.  We were very happy.  We grew closer in love and learned to understand each other that I believe wouldn't have been the same had we had children when we wanted to.  We are very lucky to have each other.  We witnessed many miracles and have grown more than we expected.  I love Zack more than I ever thought I could love another human being.  He is more than I could have imagined for myself and if we never ever had children, he would be enough for me.  There would be heartache involved, of course! But he would be more than I could ask for.  All that being said, infertility is no joke. It freaking sucks, and it is a trial that honestly makes no logical sense at all. People who are most of the time very fit to be parents who don't get to raise the families that they dreamed of.  It is a beast. While I am currently pregnant with what will hopefully be our first child, I still know that I will most likely still suffer from infertility my whole life.  I will always miss those sweet spirits that were miscarriages, and this will be a lifelong challenge.  I am so grateful for my beautiful growing family, and I hope that others can witness our miracle and it will give them comfort for their future families as well.  Now, if you want to know what it was like when we found out and a little about the doctors, you can read the next post! If not... This one to me is the bulk of our story.

MOVING DAY!

Well, here we are... our new adventure.  It has been a pretty crazy one so far.  First of all, I found out that I won't be able to teach here, at least this year.  Because we found out that we would be moving here so late, I missed out on their "interview season" and was told that there was no way that I will get a teaching job here at least for this year.  I am super bummed about this.  I went to school and got this education... for what?  Nothing.  So I will be looking for a position as a nanny once again.  Not that this is a bad thing, its actually a great thing to be a nanny, it pays well and its all under the table, so that is amazing news!  Plus its not nearly as much work as teaching is as far as the daily preparation goes and all of that.  So that is a bummer. I am freaking out a little bit about what the heck I will be doing out here.  I mean right now I have a lot to do with getting the house together, but I just sit here and go CRAZY with my mind racing and thinking about how bad I want to be a mom and how bad I miss my family and all of that.  It makes me miserable!  I need something to do and something to dive into!  So I will find something ASAP!

But in the mean time... Here are some pictures of the move!

Our Last Days in South Bend

Well, after being home and visiting family, we were able to go back to South Bend and had 2 days before the big move!  We spent our last few days doing whatever we possibly could to soak it up and enjoy it!  We went miniature golfing, real golfing, out for ice cream, walked around campus, and in our spare time, we packed up our house.  In talking with Zack and with his family, we have been trying to come up with our favorite things about living in Indiana and going to school.  I would have to say that my favorite thing is the way that my relationship has grown with Zack.  I mean, believe me, there were very hard times.  Times when I was so mad because I wasn't able to spend time with him, times when all I wanted to do was go home and be with my parents and siblings, times when I just wanted to cry.  And many, many times, I did cry.  I missed my family so much and felt a little bit stuck out there.  But in the end, it all worked out for the best.  It honestly has brought Zack and I so much closer, and we have really grown into our relationship.  We were watching that new movie Battleship the other night.  Basically Aliens attack the earth, it looks like the earth is going to be overcome and there is no way out, but in the end, humans win and blow up all the aliens.  Zack made a comment to me about the scene when the enemy was finally defeated and the last ship was blowing up.  He said, "Man can you imagine how amazing of a feeling that would be?  I mean, not the whole middle part where you have to fight them and your friends die and you think the whole world is going to be gone, just that feeling right there."  I obviously agreed with him, but then something dawned on me.  That feeling at the end, where the world is saved, wouldn't be nearly as amazing of a feeling if you didn't have that whole hard middle part.  You would just watch something blow up, and it really wouldn't have much meaning to you.  I mean the explosion would be cool to see, but what really would make that feeling so great is the hard part.  I am so happy and grateful for the trials that we faced while in Indiana.  Even though they are hard, they are what made us grow closer together.  Plus, now we have an amazing new adventure!  Ohio here we come baby!!

Our last mini golf session!

Ritters! Our favorite Ice cream place out there!!

Golfing! My first time real golfing with Zack.  Well I didn't golf, I just watched and drove him around, but it was fun together time!

At the 18th hole!  There were severe thunderstorm warnings the whole time! We were so happy that we finished with time to spare before the storm hit!  BTW please disregard my one nasty eye... My allergies were horrible bad!

Zack wanted to remember all of the green there! 

Our last night... all packed up!  So sad!!

Last time in front of the stadium as a student!  So many amazing memories here!

As per ND tradition, Zack had to ring the bell noting that he has a job!  Seriously so  happy that he does have one!

Our Visit home!

Well after graduation, we had the great opportunity to go home for about 10 days before we moved!  I have to say one thing... I have really got to be better about taking pictures with family.  I don't think I took a single one while I was with them.  The only ones I have, my mother-in-law, Steph sent me from her phone.  So I apologize for that to myself and my future kids and such, because it would be really great to have more pictures.

Well first, we flew into Las Vegas, where my grandpa picked us up and drove us half way to Toquerville.  We spent an amazing week with my family!  We played in the pool and got extremely sun burned, we went on midnight hikes, and we went to the lake where everyone but me, Regan, and my parents go swimmers itch from the lake!!   If you don't know what that is, its basically like chicken pox, only you don't catch them from person to person, you get it from the lake.  So that was pretty miserable for everyone.   But it was definitely like a scene from a movie when everyone got it!  They all were out of the water, Graysen was standing on a picnic table going crazy itching her body like she was on fire.  Then by brother Bo was pacing back and forth looking like he was about to explode trying not to itch.  Cooper was going crazy in the middle of the desert area with a towel over his head, also looking like he was on fire and trying to put it out.  Then Adi and her friend Hannah were just walking all around trying so hard to be tough, but totally burning up with the itch. haha It was really quite funny.  Probably not for all of the itchy people, but it was for Regan and I.

Then we had my brother Bo drive us half way up north to hang out with Zack's family.  Only about an hour into the drive, Bo started throwing up.  I felt so bad!  It was a little bit of a miserable drive for him, but in te end he made it home ok, but I felt so bad for him.  You know, it was funny because during the week, lots of slightly disastrous things happened. Like the swimmers itch and Bo puking. However the great thing is that we still completely loved our time there!  It was just normal family time and I absolutely loved it!

Well once we got up with the Olsen clan, we also had a blast!  We had the family all over to celebrate that we are in town, we went and had like the best time ever going miniature golfing and then playing in the arcade area!  I mean unfortunately, I lost at mini golf, so then I had to go buy everyone ice cream.  But it was yummy and fun to go out with the family, so it was ok!

We also saw some of our good friends, the Hills which was fun and went to watch Kaden play baseball and did some shopping and went out to Spaghetti Factory, obviously, I mean thats like a tradition.

Well Long story short, it was an amazing time, and we were so happy to have some great family time before our big move!

Here are some pictures!  Enjoy!

I went running with our dog Maggie... she is the best running partner!  I love her so much!

I FINALLY rode the horses at Zack's house!! So fun!

Bensons actually ended up being up in Northern Utah that weekend and we were so lucky that they came and visited us!  The WHOLE family this time! yay!!

Our friends the Hills.. So good to see them again!

Zack playing on the old stomping grounds again...  It was cute to watch him be so excited out there!

Sharing a yummy strawberry daiquiri!   YUMMY!!!