Now let's back up a little bit....
While Annie and I were at the beach with the kids last August, Sarah announced that she was pregnant! We were so excited for her and I secretly hoped that I might be pregnant as well because Ryan and I were trying. I had a pregnancy test with me and took one in Florida but it was negative. Oh well, I thought. Not this month.
Fast forward 2 days and we were back in Memphis. I still hadn't started and decided to take another pregnancy test. It was positive! I was so excited that I immediately went upstairs and told Madison Claire :). Annie was still living with us at the time, so I also interrupted her getting ready to share the news! We decided that we would surprise Ryan that day at school - he was in in-service. I called him to let him know that we wanted to bring him lunch because the kids missed him and when we got there, I had Madison Claire run up to him and say "Daddy, mommy has a baby in her tummy". He was so surprised & happy!!!
We called our parents from the car to share the news - they were surprised and excited. My parents couldn't believe that they were going to have 2 grandbabies so close together!! I told them that they managed to raise twins successfully so now they were going to have grandtwins.
First order of business was to find an OBGYN in Memphis because I was so spoiled with a great OB in Nashville. Thanks to the recommendation of my friend, Erica, I landed with Dr. Neblett and from my first appointment with him I knew that he would be great. They did an ultrasound during my first appointment and found out that I was due April 12th. 7 days after Sarah!
The early days of the pregnancy went by fairly seamlessly. I did have some nausea during the first trimester. I never actually threw up but I just didn't feel great. I was tired but didn't really have any cravings. If anything, I had negative associations with food - nothing really sounded good and some of my usual staples (think Pei Wei Pad Thai) were 100% out of question. I continued to workout at the gym and taking my Pure Barre class and waited to get to the 12 week mark so we could share the news beyond our close family and friends.
We made the announcement in October. It was around Halloween, and Ryan and I had gone to Nashville for a weekend getaway. Mom had seen this idea of a ghost family on pinterest and thought it would be fun to make with Madison Claire. When we got home, this was the ghost family hanging in our backyard. Look really closely and you will see that there is a baby ghost in the Mommy ghost. Entirely too creative! Wish I could have said that I came up with the idea! So...I emailed this picture out to my colleagues and posted it on Facebook as our announcement - really fun :).
Fast forward to my 19 week ultrasound. We were so excited to find out if it was going to be a girl or a boy! Here I am before we left the house. You can tell that I wasn't really showing too much - I tend to really pop out around 20 weeks.
Here is the proof that there was a baby in there! The ultrasound picture from our 19 week ultrasound! WOO HOO! As usual, it was amazing to see that baby in there actually moving around. Such a miracle and blessing!
Our families were coming into town that weekend for the St. George's playoff game, so we had decided that we would wait and do a gender reveal that weekend with our families. I bought 2 lovies - a pink one and a blue one and we took them with us to the ultrasound. We had the ultrasound technician put the one that represented the sex of the baby in a box that I had marked with a star and then let Madison Claire open that box on Saturday with our families, Annie & Sarah/Ryan via Skype. She opened up the box and it was P-I-N-K! A baby sister for Madison Claire! I cried! My sisters are so special to me and I always hoped that Madison Claire would be able to have a sister so was truly overjoyed.
Sarah and Ryan had found out the sex of their baby that same week, so after we announced, they had Jacob tell us that they were having a baby boy. We were so excited for them! Both of us were also a bit bummed. We had hoped that we would have the same sex - either both boys or both girls but alas, God is in control and we are now blessed with another little boy and a little girl!
My second trimester was fairly uneventful. My belly slowly started to show and I continued on with work and life as usual.
At 29 weeks, my Dr. offered a free 4-D ultrasound. Here I am before we left the house for the office. It was so neat to see the baby in 4-D. It absolutely blew my mind that that sweet little girl was already that big and had such defined features growing inside me. What a miracle! Ryan thought she looked like Madison Claire but I immediately saw a little Mac.
It was fun being pregnant with Sarah. We talked often and traded stories on how we were feeling and what the doctors were saying. I wish I could have seen her more throughout the pregnancies and hope one day we are able to live close to each other. We did get to see each other at Christmas and a few times in the January - March time frame. It was so much fun to go through this experience together and now the calls about contractions and due dates have changed to pacifiers and nursing.
My third trimester was also fairly uneventful outside of the entire McSwain house getting hit with the bad stomach bug of 2013. Being very pregnant and very sick = not a fun combination. I continued to work out throughout this pregnancy - I even did Pure Barre the morning that I went into labor. It did help me feel comfortable throughout most of the third trimester. I gained around 28 pounds which is much less than I did with Mac and Madison Claire but I also started off at a higher weight and ironically, the day I gave birth I weighed almost exactly the same with all 3 of them! Just proves my theory that my body needs to be at a certain weight to give birth. Here I am at 36 weeks...
Here I am at 37 weeks - my belly button officially popped :)
Here I am at 38 weeks - getting ready to go out with the girls from my small group for a girls night that ended up being a surprise baby shower!
Here I am at 39 weeks....
As usual, it took us a while to pick a name for the baby girl. We had a few that we liked and always seem to have a hard time pulling the trigger. We finally decided on a family name - Caroline Grace McSwain. My sisters are so special to me. Caroline is Meredith's middle name and Grace is Sarah's middle name so we thought it would be perfect to name her after the 2 of them. As an added bonus, Caroline is also my MaMa Howard's middle name so she gets some credit too!
Madison Claire has been precious throughout the pregnancy. At the beginning of the pregnancy, she would ask frequently about when the baby would come out. I would tell her that first we had to get through daddy's football season, then Christmas, then her birthday, then the baby would come. She seemed to understand that sequence of events and referenced it frequently. I was caught off guard in having to explain how the baby would come out (in case you are wondering - I told her the truth). She was interested in my growing belly, would pray for the baby sister, and started "shopping" for her early. She would just randomly find things at the store and say "Aww...mommy....wouldn't this look so cute on little baby girl". Adorableness!
As I approached my due date, I started talking with Dr. Neblett about my options for scheduling an induction. I was originally thinking I would schedule it for April 17th - this was the Wednesday after my due date and was the day that Ryan and I were originally supposed to be married before he was diagnosed with cancer. After talking with Dr. Neblett, he seemed a little concerned about waiting that long, so we decided on April 10th. Well, after getting excited about the 10th, there was a snafu in the communication with the Drs. office and the hospital and it somehow got pushed back to the 17th. I was so disappointed when I found out because by that point I had wrapped my mind around the 10th and waiting another week felt like it would take FOREVER! I was determined to bring on labor myself, so on Saturday the 6th, I walked 3 miles at the gym and then we took the kids to the zoo and we walked all over that zoo - all for not a single contraction! *Note - I was induced with both Madison Claire and Mac, so I wasn't sure that my body would go into labor on it's own. I hoped that I would because I wanted to experience what that would be like, but I also like being able to plan and know when the baby is going to come so I was fine with being induced as well.
I had a drs. appointment the next Monday and during the appointment, Dr. Neblett told me to come into his office on Wednesday the 10th and that he would check me and then call the hospital and tell them I was in labor and send me over. I asked him what would happen when I got to the hospital and wasn't actually in labor and he said they would call him and he would tell them to start me on pitocin and be able to induce me that day. I was excited that it was now back on for the 10th but was nervous about going to the hospital as if I was in labor even though I would know I wasn't in labor, but they convinced me that it would be okay, so that was the plan.
I spent Monday trying to get things wrapped up with work and ready here at the house. I posted on Facebook that night that it was probably my last full night of sleep because I knew that I would be anxious on Tuesday night before going in on Wednesday morning. I went to bed around 10pm and woke up around 11:30 because I had to go to the bathroom and noticed that my underwear were wet. I thought I had peed on myself a little but the thought did cross the back of my mind that maybe my water had broken. I went to the bathroom and got up and there wasn't any water coming out, so I decided that it probably wasn't my water breaking. I put on a new pair of underwear (obviously!) and went back to bed. I did think it would be a good idea to read about water breaking just so I could make sure so I looked on my i-phone and one website recommended lying down for 30 minutes and then standing up. The idea was that if your water has broken, when you stand up, you will soak through the dry underwear and know that your water has broken. If you stand up and nothing happens, it hasn't. So that was my plan. Well...5 minutes hadn't passed when all of sudden, while still lying down, water obviously started coming out. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom and waited for it to stop/slow down. I then woke up Ryan and said "I'm not joking, my water just broke".....and the birth story began :). Stay tuned for Part 2....
