She's a fighter and it still amazes me how she went through so much just to get here. She was conceived in a petrie dish (more or less), had to survive being frozen and thawed and then there was my bleeding for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. And my initial beta numbers...they were so so so very low. Only 25.5 at 10dp5dt (or 15 dpo). That alone convinced me that it was a chemical pregnancy. I was so sure that she wouldn't survive. But the numbers kept going up...no huge jumps, just slowly and surely...consistently. At one appointment with my RE, her growth was a little behind and the nurse prepared me for the possibility of a miscarriage. This was at about 8 weeks (her growth was about 4-5 days behind). I was so scared, and also a little bit resigned. But Hayden kept growing...kept catching up. Her heart beat was always strong and steady. Then there was her birth, the scary 4 day NICU stay.
Thinking about it all, I just can't believe she's here and (knock on wood) healthy. She is such a joy and sometimes when I look at her, I just ache with fullness. That's really the only way to describe it. I ache. Her tentative beginnings still scare me if I think too long about it.
Both my girls are fighters. And I look at them both today and to me they are so perfect...perfectly formed, beautiful. And I can't believe I, we, made them. I don't know how we made anything so perfect. I can't wrap my head around it. They both went through so much to get here, that it blows my mind. And then I'm proud of myself, of us. We fought for our girls, every inch, every second. So I guess that makes us fighters too. Childbirth is empowering. But so is fighting every step of the way for what you want, for what you don't think you can live without. There's something special about my girls someday knowing how wanted they were, how much we fought to bring them into the world. There's a beauty in that. I'm just so thankful...
Sisters
My beautiful girls
