Our journey to parenthood.....

Well, I have decided to give blogging a shot. I am probably the world's worst at returning calls and keeping in touch with people, so we will see how this goes!!! I wanted to start this blog by telling a bit of our story:
After 3 years of marriage, Stuart and I decided to start a family in 2007. We were initially devastated to learn that we would have to do in vitro fertilization in order to conceive a child, but jumped into the process with both feet. Sadly, our first two attempts at IVF ended with early miscarriages. We fertilized our embryos on February 14, 2008 for our third attempt. On February 29th, leap year day, we learned that we were indeed pregnant. The joy we felt in being pregnant soon became clouded by fear when I started bleeding at 12 weeks. I was put on modified bedrest until 24 weeks, when I was allowed to go back to work very light duty at 24 weeks. The bleeding was intermittent throughout those weeks, and the fear eventually eased. I have to admit that those weeks at home were quite enjoyable. I got to go to Ruidoso with my mom and grams and relax by the river for several weeks, I got alot done around the house, and caught up on rest. On October 22, 2008 we welcomed baby Jace to this world at 37 5/7 weeks. My water broke at work and I got an epidural before I even felt a contraction. In fact, I laughed throughout the actual delivery- it was your storybook delivery. Jace had no medical issues, despite a bit of jaundice, came home on time, and easily got the hang of eating and sleeping. While it was a bit of a rollercoaster getting there, we learned so many lessons in our journey to parenthood. First off, we found out how many people loved us. We had so many friends and family praying for baby Jace before he was even conceived, and those same people spoiled us rotten at our baby showers. We learned the power of prayer. We discovered that this struggle brought us closer together and strengthened our marriage. We were both able to become better caregivers based on our experiences, and we were able to be a support to several friends going through infertility and loss. And finally, we gained an amazing appreciation for our little miracle that we worked so hard to get.