Photo Credit: Flickr
Do you remember when you realized that you wanted to be a mom? I remember growing up that I always wanted to be a mom at a fairly young age. Growing up I had a whole bunch of cabbage patch kids and I would even put them under my shirt so that I could pretend that I was pregnant. I would care for my cabbage patch kids as if they were my own babies. I even had come up with a few names for my future children; however, I never used any of the names that I came up with.
When my mom got pregnant with my twin sisters, I was excited because I was old enough to be able to help her care for them. It was fun watching my mother’s tummy grow along with our anticipation to meet them for the very first time.
After my mom found out both of the babies were girls, I remember giving her plenty of ideas and suggestions on what to name both of the girl. I even tossed out the few names that I had come up with to name my own children one day. Well my mom and dad loved the names that I had come up with and decided to use the names that I suggested except for my baby A’s middle name. My parents brainstormed some more and my mom finally came up with a middle name for baby A shortly after she was born.
My mom was about 6 weeks from her due date when she thought her water broke while she was getting ready to take a shower. So my mom finished what she was doing and my dad took her to the hospital to be checked out. A few hours later, my twin sisters were born via c-section.
Photo Credit: Flickr
Since they were about 6 weeks early, my sisters had a few problems and had to stay in the NICU for about a week. When they came home, they had to use apnea monitors to alert my parents if they stopped breathing.
If it wasn’t for my mother attempting to breastfeed and use a breast pump to express breast milk for my sisters, I probably wouldn’t have breastfed my own children due to lack of knowledge or education even though it was briefly mentioned during my Lamaze class. My mom didn’t breastfeed the twins for very long.
Taking My Very First Pregnancy Test
When I was 18, I found out that I was expecting my very first child. I remember going to the drug store and picking up a pregnancy test. After I peed on the stick, it quickly turned positive. The pregnancy tests back then weren’t fancy. They were the simple tests that let you know that you were pregnant by showing you two lines or a plus sign if you were pregnant. I don’t remember them having digital pregnancy tests ones that displayed weather or not you were “pregnant” or “not pregnant”. Now you can even find pregnancy tests, like Clearblue Advanced Pregnancy Test with Weeks Estimator, that will estimate how far along you are based on the hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (better known as hCG ) that is only produced during pregnancy.
The moment that I found out that I was going to be a mom, I remember being scared and excited at the same time. I scheduled an appointment to start my prenatal care and I remember that the doctor that I saw wasn’t very nice to me because of my age. Needless to say, I didn’t see him again and found a new doctor.
Due to the circumstances at the time, I didn’t receive very much prenatal care until I was roughly 18 weeks along. I was without insurance for a few weeks and didn’t realize that I could have qualified for subsidized health care. When I finally got to go to the doctor again, I remember sitting in the office chair when I got to hear my babies heart beat for the very first time. It was the most amazing sound in the entire world. Then a few weeks later, I was able to have a sonogram when they confirmed that I was going to have a little girl.
Once I found out that I was expecting a little girl, I was super excited because I knew that I would have plenty of clothes and baby gear because my mom saved all the clothes that my sister had as babies. Plus, I knew it would be so much fun dressing up my little girl in cute dresses and putting bows in her hair.
We had been out celebrating my mother’s birthday about a week before my due date. We went out to dinner and shopping. After I got home, I ended up getting sick. I didn’t think anything of it since I usually had bouts of nausea throughout my entire pregnancy. I also remember being super tired (more than normal) and decided to try to get some sleep. As soon as I laid down on the bed, I heard and felt a pop in my belly and my pants were suddenly wet.
I called my mom to come and take me to the hospital. I was having super painful contractions every few minutes on the way to the hospital and at that point I knew that I was going to have a baby soon. They were able to confirm that my water broke and the nurse gave me some medication so that it would help relax me. I was able to get a decent amount of sleep and the next morning I woke up still having regular contractions. However, my contractions weren’t progressing me and my doctor ordered Pictocin. At that point, I opted for an epidural. Ah relief.
The pictocin made my contractions progress me and soon I was told that I could start pushing. After several pushes, my daughter was born. She was so beautiful and perfect.
Clearblue’s Mother’s Day Video Montage
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
