PLEASE DO NOT PT ME UNLESS I HAVE TALKED TO YOU ONCE AND IN SOME DETAIL SO I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

This is about me: I am currently 39 years old, I just had my baby girl on May 14, 3 months premature, she is my 3rd daughter. Her name is Anya Samantha, her middle name is after my angel baby, her name was Samantha Mary, born at 21 weeks gestation after my water broke. Losing her almost destroyed me. I got pregnant with my daughter who is now 11, 10 months after Samantha died, I had a hell of a time with my pregnancy with her. I am no longer with her father, thankfully, we never married. I married the love of my life on September 27, 2003, and about a year into our marriage, we decided to try to have a baby together, he doesn't have any biological children of his own, but he has been a wonderful stepfather to my daughter. It took us almost 4 years to get pregnant. About a year and a half into our trying, we got sent to a fertility specialist, who I dearly love, I couldn't ask for a better doctor. It took us another 2 1/2 years to get pregnant even with his help, tried on our own for a year and a half with fertility meds, then we moved onto IUI aka artificial insemination, took us 4 tries to get it right, but now I have my 2 beautiful girls, Anya and Katelyn (my 11 yr old).

The story of Anya's rough start at life:

On May 8, I was 26 weeks pregnant, and I started bleeding, went to the hospital, and they checked me over, said I was fine, sent me home. 45 mins after I got home, I started bleeding again, so I called my OB and he told me to go to bed and take it easy for the rest of the night and if the bleeding increased to go to a hospital downtown that is more equipped for a premature birth. The next day, at 6am, I woke up to a lot of bleeding, I woke my hubby and he took me to the hospital downtown.I was admitted immediately, and was found to have a slight placental abruption, 4 days later, I was supposed to go home, but an hour before discharge, I started bleeding again and was contracting, so they stopped my labor, got the bleeding under control, and had advised me that I was in the hospital for the duration of my pregnancy, little did I know, I would only be pregnant for 23 more hours. At midnight, my water broke due to chorio-amnioitis, Anya's heartrate was real high, they thought she got the infection, so they induced me, and 11:14am on May 14 (day before my birthday), Anya Samantha was born at 2 lbs 6 oz, 14 inches long. She tried to cry so that was a good thing, I got to touch her arm and then she was whisked away to be stabilized to be put in the NICU. I didn't get to see her until later that night, as I was being treated for the infection that broke my water. I finally got to go see her around 10pm at night, and I took one look at her little body with all these wires and tubes and just broke down uncontrollably crying. A nurse came up to me, put out her hand, stood me up and just gave me the biggest hug, it was so sweet. The next 3 months were rough ones, but I made some very good friends in the other NICU parents, we shared our happy news and got each other through the not so happy news. During her 3 month stay, she dealt with even lower body weight, she dropped down to 1 lb 15 oz. She had a grade 2 bleed on the brain (for anyone without a preemie, its a normal preemie thing), resolved on its own, had a heart murmur, which resolved with the help of medication. Our biggest challenge is she had a feeding intolerance, but we finally got past that and she started gaining weight like a champ. As of November 14, 2009, Anya is now 6 months old, but 3 months old corrected, perfectly healthy, a little bit developmentally behind, but we're starting to see an OT to help get her back on track, and almost 11 lbs. I am so proud of my little preemie, I asked her the day she was born to please be mommy's little fighter, and she listened (probably one of the few times she will listen to me in her life, lol). My daughter is my hero!




Thanks to MISS Tommie[BBM], she made this for me and it touched me deep down MISS Tommie, thank you so very much.


Diehard Eagles fan, and I would like to thank Lilu Monsters Mommy for this!

I'm sending out xams cards, Pm me your address if you want one