It is very hard to believe that in a few weeks my baby will be two years old. I feel like he was born yesterday, although if that were truly the case I would be exhausted from lack of sleep instead of just from having sick kids. Back in September, in preparation for her birthday, I documented
Reagan's birth story and I wanted to do the same with Jackson's. His story has many twists and turns so buckle in and hang on tight!
Back in the Spring of 2005 I was a young mother of 2. Reagan was only 2 1/2 (30 months to be exact) and Dee Dee was 9 months old. I was very content with my two little girls, but I did want to have just one more baby... someday, but not then. After Dee was born the doctor had asked about tying my tubes, but @ 25 I was not ready to say I was DONE having children. On March 15th which just happened to be Chris' birthday I decided to take a pregnancy test. I had had irregular periods my whole life but that time around I hadn't had one since January. We had plans to celebrate Chris' birthday and I didn't want to go out drinking if there was any possibility that I was pregnant. I thought for sure I wasn't, but better safe than sorry right? So I took the test. It was the first time that I had ever taken one of those digital ones that actually says "pregnant" or "not pregnant", before I had always used ones with plus signs or double lines. When the word "pregnant" came across the screen immediately after my pee hit the sensors I almost died right there on the toilet. My whole life flashed before my eyes. How was I going to handle one more? What would happen to my girls? It wasn't fair for them to not get to be babies, and have to keep making room for another one. How would we do it financially? We were going to need a bigger house, bigger cars and more of everything! I will be completely honest and say that at the time, I did not want the baby. I didn't even bother to tell anyone about the positive test. I went through my day like I had planned and took the girls to
Leah's to get Kennedy's 9 month pictures taken. The whole time I just kept thinking "what am I going to do?"
Here is one of my favorite pictures from that day
On my way home I stopped to buy Chris a birthday card. Inside I wrote "Happy Birthday Daddy, I hope this one is a boy!" When he read it his face went blank. All of the color literally drained out of his face and he looked up at me and said, "Are you serious?" Well I was and like it or not, we were having another baby. I spent a few days brooding and thinking about all of the coulda, woulda, shouldas, but then I began to grow accustomed to the fact that this was God's plan for me and that He would never give me more than He thought I could handle. I called my high risk OB/GYN who had delivered both of the girls and made an appointment for the second week in April.
By the time my appointment rolled around I was in full excitement mode. I knew my doctor was going to call me crazy and tell me all about the risks of having three c-sections so close together and so on and so forth , but I didn't care. I was prepared to throw it all back at him and explain that I was sorry, that this baby may not have been planned, but was not however unwanted. Because of my high risk status, the first thing Dr. Wheeler did was an ultrasound. I knew immediately that something was wrong. Not because I could see it on the screen, but because I could see it on his face. He kept looking and looking but he could not find a baby or a heartbeat anywhere. He told me not to panic yet, and to get dressed and go get him a urine sample to test. As I did that, my mind went everywhere from ectopic pregnancy to thinking that maybe I was crazy and I had read the first test wrong. When my test came back from the lab he called us into his office. I was not pregnant. Though he did not doubt that I had initially had a positive test at home, he said it must have been a very early chemical pregnancy that had since dissipated. He said that it was common and that there was nothing I could do about it. He sent me home and said I would have what would feel like a very heavy period.
I was devastated. Not only was I not pregnant but I felt so guilty for initially having not wanted this pregnancy. I felt like it was my fault. I must have done something wrong to have made God take this baby away from me. I slept for three days. I didn't want to have to look at all of the people we had so cheerfully told our "good news". I didn't want to have to say "oops, I'm sorry were aren't pregnant." I spent one particular evening getting very inebriated and feeling sorry for myself. Then in the beginning of May Dee Dee got sick. She had rotovirus and was so dehydrated that they had to admit her to the hospital and put her on an i.v. I went back into mom mode and decided then and there that I was going to be there for the kids I had now and quit hating myself over something that was beyond my control. I was spending the night in the hospital with Dee when I started bleeding. I thought it was a sign. It was time to move on...
As the months went on I continued to feel worn down and tired. I was still very hormonal and emotional, but I chalked it all up to what must be my body trying to get itself back to normal. At the end of May, Chris and I bought a bar with my mom and dad about 30 miles away and began making plans to move. Our house was on the market and Chris was commuting back and forth every day. I hardly ever saw him, but the bar was his dream and I was happy to be supporting him in it. By the time my birthday rolled around in July I was sick and tired of still feeling like I was pregnant. I called my doctor's office and explained my story. The phone nurse told me to take an at home test and call back after I had the results. I wouldn't have thought I could ever have been as surprised at the results as I was the first time around but this time when the stick said "pregnant" my heart sank. Not for the same reason it did the first time, but because I couldn't bear the idea of going through that all over again. I was cautious. When I called back, I told the nurse that I refused to believe the at home test. I had had a false positive once before and I was not going to believe anything until after the blood work came back. So I drove the 45 minutes to my Dr.'s office for the blood work and then went home to wait. A day later, on my 26th birthday they called to tell me that yes, I was definitely pregnant. The next day, I went in by myself to have an ultrasound with a technician. I was expecting to see a little peanut on the screen. I thought for sure that I had managed to somehow get pregnant again. Needless to say I was shocked when I looked up and saw this...
It was definitely not a peanut! The tech put me at 17 1/2 weeks. I was almost halfway through my pregnancy and I had missed all of it! On my way home I stopped at the bar to tell Chris. He was as shocked as I was when I showed him the pictures. The next week when I went to see Dr. Wheeler, he told us it was a boy! He apologized over and over again saying he wished he had done the blood work back in April. He was convinced that if he had it would have said I was pregnant and that judging by the way the baby was measuring now there was no possible way that this was not the same baby I thought I had lost. He chalked the bleeding I had up to the stress of Dee Dee's hospital visit. I was almost crying in his office because all of the guilt just washed away right there. I loved this baby, I wanted this baby, I needed this baby. And I was going to have him home before Christmas! I was officially due December 18th.
We went into high gear as far as preparation went. We moved into a rental house so that I had two extra hours of Chris' help a day and while we unpacked I got all of the baby things out again. Though to be honest some of them hadn't even been put away yet. I had a crazy last pregnancy. I had a almost nervous breakdown in September. I was just so overwhelmed by the thought of having three children under the age of three and a husband who wasn't around very much. I was smart enough to realize there was a problem and got on some pregnancy safe medication. After that I just spent my time trying to get all of my Christmas shopping done before the baby's scheduled arrival date of December 1st.
Because I had had two previous c-sections so recently, my doc did not want to take the chance of having me go into labor. When he gave me my options between a couple of different dates I immediately picked December 1st. The reason for this was because three years earlier my mom's sister Connie had died in a car accident on that day. My mom hadn't been the same ever since. I figured if I could give her something to celebrate on that day, it might help make getting through it every year a little easier.
So, Jackson Reed Polk made his way into the world at 7:42 a.m December 1, 2006 in the middle of an ice storm. He weighed 7lbs. 6 oz. and was 19 3/4 inches long. Though I expected to have a normal hospital stay with him, that was not in the cards. He had a hard time getting all of the fluid off of his lungs as some c-section babies do, and he went to the NICU after getting cleaned up. Every day I hoped I would get to bring him back to the room with me and every day my hope faded. Eventually when I woke up on the fifth day I knew I would be leaving the hospital without him. To me that was the part I dreaded. It had been the worst part of Reagan's birth experience and I had no doubt, that even with all I had gone through to get him here it would be the hardest part about Jack's. I spent the next five days torn between being at home with my girls and being at the hospital with Jack. Not to mention the fact that I was recovering from major surgery and a tubal ligation! I couldn't drive and the hospital was 30 minutes away. It was the worst five days of my life.
Here are some pictures of him in the hospital
When they finally told us we could take him home, we were ecstatic. Even though it meant that he would go home on a monitor because he still forgot to breathe sometimes. Because of the monitor, we would have to spend the night before rooming in at the hospital. Nothing new to us, as we had done the same thing with Reagan. We made arrangements for the girls and took the opportunity to go out for dinner just the two of us. We ate at an amazing Mexican restaurant, and then headed over to the hospital. The next day we drove home and daddy went to work. I however, went to my mom and dad's with all three kids in tow to celebrate Christmas with my dad's side of the family. It was an amazing day, and one I will never forget! I finally had all three of my babies in my arms, and I was complete.
*I apologize for the poor quality of the photos, they were all scanned into my computer because I don't have the digital versions!
