Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

As I was stewing over my next blog topic I decided that it would probably be best to start from the beginning and give y'all (yes I say y'all, I'm from Texas) the 411 on what we've been up to over the past year and a half or so. Exciting things have been happening!

At this time last year I was preparing to find out the sex of the fetus that was growing in my belly. It was such an exciting time for us. Blake and I thought FOR SURE that we were having a girl, so imagine my surprise when I saw a little pecker willy on the ultrasound screen :) I had to completely flip gears and join Team Blue. Not gonna lie, it was a little hard for me to get the visions of headbands, tutus and hair bows out of my head, but once I realized what a STUD my son was going to be I quickly became overly obsessed with all things boy.

Rewind even further to sometime in the early summer of 2010. Blake and I so desperately wanted to have a baby but things were not panning out how we had hoped...  Remember the days you spent trying to PREVENT pregnancy!? What ever happened to it being a one shot deal?  Anyway, when the two of us set our minds to something there is pretty much no stopping it, so we decided that we wanted a baby NOW, and we had to find a way to make that happen. After extensive testing we discovered that we had pretty major fertility issues, as in "You have approximately a 3% chance of ever getting pregnant on your own". I am no betting woman, but I don't like those odds.  Three percent? Really?  But we are good people and we deserve a baby! That's exactly how we felt and I remember us both being angry at the fact that some not-so-deserving people can get pregnant at the drop of a hat. Once we got past that we decided that we didn't want to waste any more time, so we moved straight to the big guns... Houston Fertility Institute

1. IUI- Intrauterine Insemination: Attempted in July of 2010, which resulted in a BFN, otherwise known as a Big Fat Negative in the Infertility world.
2. IVF- In-Vitro Fertilization: We began the process in September, and boyyyy was it a not-so-fun thing to go through. We're talking multiple shots and several medications every day. I vividly remember Blake stabbing me in the belly every night. I would sit there and squirm but I kept reminding myself that "it's all worth it if it brings us a baby...". I was right.

I ended up being one of the "lucky" ones who produced an exorbitant amount of eggs. I felt like I was walking around with cantaloupes for ovaries, but again, it was all worth it. Just about the time that I felt like I couldn't possibly walk any more with these ginormous ovaries, it was time for my Egg Retrieval. They were able to get 24 eggs out of me! HOLY S#*T! No wonder it felt like I was smuggling fruit in there...

Anyway, we had great success with IVF. Our clinic does ICSI with every IVF procedure, which means they actually inject individual sperm into every egg. In the end we wound up with something like 20 fertilized embryos, 9 of which made their way back to the freezer to be used at a later date :) We transferred 2 beautiful embryos into my ready-to-be-implanted uterus and the dreaded 2 week wait began as we sat on pins and needles waiting to find out if the procedure had worked or not.

In the end I got pregnant with ONE perfect, strong, superhero rockstar baby...and his name became Briggs. I may be biased, but he is  literally the happiest, sweetest, STRONGEST, most beautiful little creature I have ever laid eyes on. We had a long hard road but we wanted him SO badly and I can't help but think that our struggles have shaped me to be the Mother that I am today,and for that I am thankful.

Briggs was born on June 5th, 2011 when I was only 36 weeks pregnant. After my struggles with infertility I somehow thought I had earned a "free pass" when it came to pregnancy, but I was wrong. I will save that topic for another discussion... but after 5 weeks of bed rest and several visits to the hospital, I ended up having a c-section and Briggs weighed in at a whopping 5lbs 1.5oz. June 5th was the best day of my life.

So here we are, it's 2012 and Briggs is growing like a weed. Actually, he's quite small :) but he continues to grow and flourish before my eyes and I can hardly believe how fast time flies. He will already be 8 months old on February 5th and I find myself frantically trying to plan his 1st Birthday! Where did my 5lb newborn go?

I absolutely love being a mother and cannot imagine anything more rewarding. Everyday I remind myself to enjoy every minute with Briggs because we really do have so little time... I often find myself contemplating how many children we should have. I knew I would love being a mom but I had no clue just how much sparkle it would bring to my life. Sunshine, glitter, oomph, whatever you call it...my life is (even more) full of it thanks to a little baby named Briggs.

5:00am Ready for a c-section!



Love in it's purest form



Welcome to the world, tiny man