Thoughts on pregnancy

It's hard to believe I've let so much time go by without writing down my thoughts about pregnancy.

At times it feels like I've been pregnant forever, and other times it's gone by so fast that I wonder what I've been doing all this time NOT getting ready for him to come. Nope, I don't have a nursery ready yet. He doesn't have more than a few outfits to his name, and I'm almost 31 weeks pregnant. (What have I been doing?!)

I was so focused on our house being built and moving, that I really didn't have much time to think about him coming. Plus, May felt so far away and I didn't really feel the urge to "nest" quite yet. I wondered if something was wrong with me since all these other moms who were due in May had nurseries set up and ready, carseats installed, etc. Along side that, running a business is so time consuming. I still haven't quite felt the need to "nest," but I do feel a sense of urgency with only single digit weeks left before he arrives. (Yikes!) It's suddenly mid-March and May is just around the corner. (YIKES AGAIN!)




I have really enjoyed being pregnant. Even though pregnancy comes with A LOT of changes, aches and pains, and things you frankly don't expect, I've had a REALLY great pregnancy. Everything has been perfect and right on track... tests, measuring, weight gain... all of it. And that makes me really grateful. I have constantly worried this whole pregnancy about him being okay, even though I have no reason to worry. I hope I have done much better the last few months since I can actually see and feel him move. The first 19-20 weeks were rough for me... I had anxiety, panic attacks, and worries every day. It didn't feel real for me yet until I started showing (around 22 weeks) and feeling him move.

Ask any woman who has been pregnant, and they will tell you those kicks and punches and movements are about the most glorious thing in the world. At times it still totally weirds me out imaging a little person wiggling inside me, but I feel such an amazing privilege to experience it. I don't know how anyone could ever doubt there is a God after feeling another human grow inside you. Thinking about how he started out as the size of a poppyseed and somehow develops into this whole little person, is an absolute mind blowing concept. And not only that, he was fully formed at about 15 weeks! He had all the right organs and everything in place and actually looked like a little baby. Since then he has been packing on the pounds and growing! And all I do is go about my normal life. And my body just does it! How could there not be a supreme being orchestrating all of this. To add to all of that, he has a unique special spirit with his own personality and looks. How can that not be divine?

As my belly grows and expands, I have learned to love and appreciate my body more than I ever have in my life. It's capable of something so miraculous. And I hope this doesn't sound conceded, but I feel... so beautiful. I know my body will never be the same as it was before. I may have "scars" of pregnancy, but I'm still so grateful for how capable my body is. It's growing and nurturing an entirely perfect, fully developed human! I can't help but love and appreciate my body.

I'm so grateful for a supportive, excited husband. He is going to be the most wonderful father to our littles. But I know this experience has been different for him. And that has made me think a lot about my role as a woman. I can feel Heavenly Father's trust and love for me and each of his daughters. We have such a special calling on this earth. Every time this little baby goes on a kicking spree in my tummy, I ask Lincoln is he wants to feel him move. I know for him it is really amazing to experience, but it's so different than my experience. The first kick probably feels a lot like the 500th kick to Lincoln. After a minute or two, Lincoln goes back to what he was doing before. But for me, I could sit all day and watch him kick and move. The movements never become less miraculous to me. It absolutely fascinates me every time. It truly is astounding! Now I'm seeing whole tiny feet move across my belly. It totally blows my mind! I am that crazy person who asks other people if they want to put their hand on my belly to feel him move. It's so amazing to me that I want other people to experience it too!

As his birth approaches, I feel a lot of emotions. I am honestly quite nervous and scared to be a mother. I've never felt "baby hungry" like other women do. And I haven't felt that connection some women say they have with their baby when pregnant. I am nervous about balancing it all--running a business and being a mom and wife... Nervous I won't know how to take care of a newborn. It's all really overwhelming. I often wish he could stay in me much longer. He is so easy and fun to take care of now. Haha! I know it will be much harder when he comes out.

I know that Heavenly Father will expand my capacity to be a mother. I felt incapable for a long time about even being pregnant, but He helped me and my body make that possible. I feel incapable about being a mother and loving this baby, but I know He has the ability to help us all expand and truly fulfill our callings on this earth. And it often surprises us just how capable we are.

It has been an honor for me to photograph birth stories. It's an amazing thing to witness a mother meeting her baby for the first time. It is almost too hard describe how beautiful that moment is. It is sacred and truly magnificent. I'm finally getting excited about that moment for me. Labor and delivery is daunting, but I've become less nervous for that part. Lately I've been wondering what he will look like, how big he will be, if he will have similar personality traits as Lincoln... I'm excited to meet him!




Well, that's all my thoughts for today... 9 (or so) weeks until we meet this little guy!

The Taylor Baby

Thank you for all your love and excitement you expressed when we told everyone we are expecting a baby! We felt very loved and didn't really expect our silly video to get as much attention as it did.

I wanted to write about our road to conceiving since I often looked for similar situations to find comfort. I know that we didn't struggle with infertility as long as other couples do. I know how difficult and heart wrenching that must be to deal with years of uncertainty. I never wanted to give off the impression that our road was more difficult than another. I have many close friends who I wish could have a baby more than anything. Time is such a difficult thing sometimes. And we are all here to learn and grow from our trials.

I knew from talking to doctors that our situation wasn't the worst possible scenario out there, but we did have some issues that needed medical intervention. I can't say enough great things about our fertility clinic at the University of Utah. I was especially grateful for our doctor, Erica Johnstone, for helping us for 6 months. She was the perfect personality to match mine and was so patient and kind. I wish she could be my OBGYN too! All the staff there was absolutely wonderful! It made going to countless appointments every couple weeks bearable.

A little recap, we spent a few months trying clomid. After four months of that not working, we pushed to try IUI. I was able to get pregnant, but had an early miscarriage.  Once all the HCG was out of my system (I only had to wait a week for this to happen), she gave us the go ahead to try again when we were ready. She also told me to take a baby aspirin a day. She mentioned they did some study once that found women who had had a miscarriage and took a baby aspirin a day afterwards were able to get pregnant quicker and sustain the pregnancy. So I thought, what the heck! Not that hard. She also had Lincoln start taking 300 mg of COQ10 a day to help improve the quality of his swimmers. Even though we were devastated by the loss of a pregnancy, we wanted to try again the next month.

We assumed we would need to do another round of IUI (Artificial Insemination) since that is how we were able to get pregnant the month before. We had everything scheduled on the calendar and I started another round of clomid. I went in for my ultrasound to see how my ovaries responded to the clomid about two weeks later. It was a Monday morning, and when she started to look around she gave us the bad news that I had already ovulated. I most likely had released the two eggs (yes, two) either the day or two before or even hours before the appointment. We were so bummed!!! Since they didn't know exactly when I had released the eggs, we were told we couldn't do IUI that month. So beyond frustrating! So much time and money spent on medications and doctor's appointments and it was all for nothing. The last glimmer of hope inside me asked her if we could still try the "natural way" and she said yes, we could, but her best guess was we probably missed our short window. Somehow with starting clomid mid cycle because of the miscarriage, our dates got off and I should've had an appointment a few days before. (Weekends make fertility treatments really difficult!)

So ya know, we went on thinking we had missed out on another month. About 7 or 8 days later I started to get really sore breasts. This happened before with the other pregnancy. I waited a few days to tell Lincoln because I didn't want to get his hopes up. I was really hopeful it had worked, but was still thinking our chances were slim. We were set to leave on our cruise on Saturday. I knew I should really wait to test until that following Monday to be safe, since testing early can give you a false negative. But I also didn't really want to wait the entire cruise to see if my HCG levels were doubling. Waiting is torture. Thursday before our cruise I had a dream right before I woke up that the test was positive! Lincoln had already woken up and gone upstairs to eat breakfast. I couldn't resist testing even though I knew it was really early. I took the test... Waited about 30 seconds... and slowly started to see that other pink line appearing... I COULD NOT believe it! A huge smile spread across my face and I ran upstairs. I stuck the positive test in front of Lincoln's cereal without saying anything. He looked at me and replied, "What?! Are you serious?!!"

I went in a few hours later for my first HCG blood test. It came back at 61. "They" like to see it above 100, but I knew I was okay since I had tested way earlier than most people do. The number just had to at least double in 48 hours. And it was higher than any number I got last time, so I was stoked! We somehow managed to find a clinic open early enough Saturday for me to go in a get my second blood test just an hour before our flight to Florida. They told me they would call me with results that afternoon. That flight to Florida felt SO LONG! It was so painful and nerve wracking. When I got off the plane and turned on my phone, I had a voice mail message. (!!!!) I was soooo nervous to check it because last time this happened, the results weren't good. Luckily, the nurse congratulated me and told me my HCG levels were at 120! If my levels hadn't doubled, I'm sure our entire vacation would've been so awful. I finally could relax a little and we spent the next 10 days in the Caribbean. Being the person I am, I still worried the whole trip and kept over thinking every little cramp I felt.

Our first ultrasound was scheduled for a couple weeks later to confirm the pregnancy, how many babies, and to date the pregnancy. It was so hard to wait that long for the ultrasound and when it finally came I was so nervous. Mostly I just wanted everything to look okay. And we would've gladly taken twins if there were two in there. She was able to see the heart beating on the ultrasound right off the bat! Such a good way to start an ultrasound. And of course I cried when we heard it for the first time. She looked around and said everything looked great! And only found one little bean in there. We were absolutely filled with joy! It was time to move on with our OBGYN.

A few weeks later we met with our doctor's nurse practitioner. I should also point out that I took the baby aspirin every day until I was 10 weeks... (But please ask your doctor before you do this.) I don't know if that's what helped us, but it seemed to! Again, I went into the appointment worrying they wouldn't be able to find a heart beat. I suppose I will always worry about this. Pregnancy really hadn't (and still hasn't) felt very real to me. I did get nauseous the day I turned 6 weeks, which is a good sign, but a not so fun part of pregnancy. And that lasted until about week 13... but let the record show, I never threw up! Hallelujah! I hate throwing up more than anything in this world. I did have quite a few gag-fests and close calls, but no puking around here. Whew! Anyway, at this appointment, she was able to find the heart beat with a doppler right away at 9 weeks, which was so comforting. They sometimes have to wait longer to find it with a doppler. But that meant no ultrasound which is always a huge bummer.

A month went by and we finally met with our OBGYN, who I love! I was nervous about meeting her, but afterwards I felt so great about having her as my doctor. Since I had a horrible experience with another OBGYN prior to conceiving, I was glad to have someone I liked. Again, we heard baby's heart beat with a doppler. I told her how nervous I had been about miscarrying again and she told me after this point, I could relax a little. We were finally out of the higher risk weeks.

We are super impatient and couldn't wait until 20 weeks to find out what we were having, so we went to Fetal Fotos at 15 weeks. Again, me... nervous... worried that everything wouldn't look normal. And I had heard that same week of a girl due the day after me finding out she was pregnant with twins from her 3rd ultrasound! They only detected one fetus at ultrasound 1 and 2 and since I only had one ultrasound very early on, I started stressing they would find two babies in there! (I know, I stress about everything.)

She started the ultrasound and we were all smiles for the next 15 minutes. We finally got to see our baby who looked like a really baby! (And not a tiny blurry ball anymore.) She confirmed only one baby was in there... whew! I had thought the baby was a boy the entire pregnancy. Lincoln was sure it was a girl. The second she moved the wand to show his bum, I knew before she even said it. BOY! I could totally tell. We were (and are) so so happy! We got to see him do flips and move all around. He had his little ankles crossed and at one point, opened and closed his mouth a few times for us. He also got the hiccups twice, stretched out, and showed us a great shot of all five of his cute fingers on one hand.

I love him so much already!

I still worry everyday that he's okay and everything is progressing as it should. I suppose I will never stop worrying his entire life. I just want him to be happy and healthy.

I am slowly starting to show. I feel like I am lightyears behind all my baby due in May counterparts. I do have a really long torso, and I'm tall, so I figure he's taking his time to spread upwards instead of outwards. I know one day I'm going to feel super large, so I should enjoy these small baby bump days.

I also think I may have felt him move for the first time the day before Thanksgiving! It's so hard to know what is gas bubbles and what is baby. But I was sitting on the couch and it felt like a tiny long potato did a flip or two in my lower abdomen. I've never felt anything like it, so I think it was him! I have felt little swishes and pokes about once or twice a day since then. He was sure active on our ultrasound so I wouldn't be surprised if it was him!

This is a very long winded blog post, but this is mostly for my record and for anyone who cares to read about it. Praying and hoping everything continues to go well!

Also thinking, praying, and hoping for all those struggling with infertility. I think about my friends who are struggling every single day. Lots of love and hugs!