Thankful Thursday… Princess Katie

Eleven years ago I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycycstic Ovarian Syndrome) a fairly newer diagnosis and in its very early stages of being understood. After the doctor explained to me what it was she told me I would never have children. At 19 years old, not even having met my husband yet this was devastating news. When I was a little girl and the teacher went around the room asking what we wanted to be when we grew up I proudly said, “I want to be a mommy!” This doctor shattered one of my deepest desires for my life. I remember crying and mourning the loss of this dream. Later that year I met my future husband and the next year we began dating and were engaged. The whole “I will never be able to carry our children” talk was very emotional and hard. We discussed adoption in pre-marital counseling, coming up with a plan of being married for 4 years and then beginning the adoption process. regardless of how severe my PCOS was and what the doctors said I prayed daily for the first three years of our marriage for a miracle. We never used birth control of any type and every late period (which is very common in PCOS patients) I took a test only to see a negative result. 

I took comfort in Hannah’s story from 1 Samuel, a woman who knew the pain of a barren womb and yet still trusted God with her heart’s desires. I remember some days having to read and reread her story several times to calm my aching heart. She had it much worse with another wife giving her husband many children and throwing it in her face, if she could be strong in her faith then so could I. Eric and I struggled with giving up our plans and learning to go with God’s plans for us. After three and a half years we had given up on having our own child and I began researching adoption agencies. We decided there must be a special child/children out there God wants us to love and parent.

At this point in our lives Eric was ministering at a church in Virginia, and I had a new doctor for my PCOS. I went to see her because I have to be checked every 6 months, and she asked the normal new patient questions like, “is there any chance you are pregnant?” Well this day I was pretty emotional after having a negative test earlier in the week and I started crying when I said no. She was a really sweet woman and talked with me about my PCOS and how there was a new treatment being tried somewhat successfully with PCOS women to help control it and get pregnant. It was a diabetes medication and said she felt pretty confident it would help if not get me pregnant. I was so excited and willing to try anything that would give us our own child. So I went through the rough few weeks of my body getting used to the new medication with only one thought, “any pain or discomfort is worth a baby”.

After 6 weeks of the new medicine I was late but didn’t think much of it after 3 years of unusual periods. Eric came home really late on a Saturday night after a youth group kids school ball game and brought home Taco Bell since he missed dinner. I was excited to see him but one whiff of his taco meal and I ran upstairs about to throw up. Never in my life can I remember not being sick and smelling a food and feeling nauseated by it. I blew it off to Eric not wanting to get his hopes up and told him I was probably just catching a bug. That night I could barely sleep and was up really early before Eric (on a Sunday morning this is a big deal) and went to the bathroom to take what felt like my hundredth pregnancy test. I didn’t expect it to be positive but prayed for the whole 5 min I had to wait for results. I prayed that my heart would accept it without too much pain if it was negative again, I also prayed for a miracle that I would be carrying our child. I checked the test and it was positive! I ran into our bedroom screaming “we are pregnant!” and kissing Eric. He woke up confused and in disbelief. He looked at the test like it was in chinese and keep asking, “Are you sure this is right? Did you read the directions? Do you have another test?” It was plenty early in the morning before church so he made a trip to the local drug store and came home with several brands of tests that I took and every one said positive! He keep reading and comparing the tests to the instructions over and over. Finally he believed it and we were so happy and excited it was very hard to contain it at church (we didn’t want to broadcast it until we had seen a dr. because of my PCOS). After church we drove to a nice restaurant and celebrated just the two of us.

Once I’d seen the dr and had a blood test and a urine test, I had taken exactly 11 pregnancy tests in a weeks time! Yeah, yeah go on and laugh at us… we needed the assurance after years of trying. I praised God constantly, I didn’t forget that part of Hannah’s story. While growing up my parents taught me to thank God for answering my prayers twice as long and hard as I prayed for it. So needless to say she is only 4 1/2 and I’m still thanking him daily for her. 

When I got pregnant with her I was working at a private preschool and about 3 months into my pregnancy I had some spotting. Being a high-risk pregnancy I took it very seriously and saw my doctor immediately. She confirmed that my baby was ok but started asking questions trying to find the source of the bleeding, like have you fallen lately? are you stressed? what does your daily life entail?  When I told her I was working with preschoolers all day, up and down and picking them up, she immediately told me that  due to the high risk nature of my pregnancy and bleeding I needed to seriously consider quitting my job if I wanted the best chance of a healthy pregnancy and baby. It was a no-brainer for us, I quit the next day. I had really great administrators of the school I worked at and they were very supportive of me and my decision. I ended up having a very good pregnancy aside from some minor increase in heart problems from my already elongated mitrovalve prolapse. 

Katie must have loved it in there because she was a week late and no signs of coming out when the doctor decided to induce labor. I went into the hospital at 10 pm and went through a great labor all night and the next morning. After receiving my epidural my heart and hers started slowing and my blood pressure dropped dramatically. I’m told this by my mother and husband because I don’t remember, I passed out (in active labor) which felt like I was just going to sleep. I woke up when they took the epidural away and I went through the last three hours of labor naturally. It was fine and not as painful as I thought it would be without medication and I had a gorgeous baby girl. I would have done it 20 more times to have her. This was the beautiful life I prayed for, for years! I love Katherine Elizabeth more than words can accurately express. Eric has been wrapped around her cute fingers since the moment he saw her. She is our miracle.

She has grown so fast and I’ve loved every minute of being her momma. She has brought us laughter, joy, tears, love and hope. Since Katie, we have had another daughter, Annabelle Lee and a son, Noah Thomas. We are finished having our own children due to some major medical issues with my last pregnancy, but haven’t totally ruled out adoption. God put that on our hearts early on for a reason and if he leads us to it we will follow him faithfully. If not, we are more than satisfied with our sweet family of 5. 

I’m thankful this Thursday for Katie’s life. Today she is beautiful and loves everything pink and girly. Always wants her “outfits” to match, needs accessories, nails done and wants to wear a tutu 24/7. She loves art (like her momma), animals (especially horses), her sister (they think they are twins), playing piano, cooking with momma, her best friend/next door neighbor Parker, pretending, tea parties, dancing and singing bible songs. She is smart, silly, sweet-hearted, has a loving spirit, mommy’s her baby brother, loves God and wants to be a mommy when she grows up. I can’t express how proud I am to be her mother, I’m crying just typing about this beautiful life God allowed me to be part of creating. I am immensly blessed by her life.