Our Holiday Babies And Overcoming Infertility

“This is a sponsored conversation from Mums the Word Network and The Stork OTC. All opinions are my own.”

With Fall in full swing (in the department stores at least, certainly not weather-wise here in Florida) and the due date of our twin boys approaching I cant help but think if they’ll fall in line with our trend of “Holiday” babies! If you’re unfamiliar with what I am referring to it’s that both of our girls were born on standing Holidays (Holidays that are the same date each year). Of course none of the above was planned that way but that’s how it worked out. It actually was beyond perfect for our first daughter in so many ways!

As some of you may not know we had a really hard time getting pregnant with our first daughter. It took a long time and lots of fertility interventions before I finally became pregnant with her. It caused so much stress for my husband and myself and we had to really come together in that time to push through. Of course becoming stronger together! After becoming pregnant and before we ever knew she was a girl for certain I had a feeling she would be. Call it mother’s intuition if you will but I just knew! We deliberated for MONTHS over a name for her and I kept going back to a long time favorite of mine, Johanna. However, convincing my husband of that didn’t seem promising at the time. That was until one day while at my husband’s parent’s home they handed us a book with their family history in it. On the front cover was the name “Johanna” for his great grandmother. I think that was the moment we both knew we had found the perfect name for our miracle baby!

So fast forward a few months and I had entered my third trimester. The doctor appointments started getting closer together and I was so ready to have this baby. January couldn’t come fast enough! My doctor could totally see how anxious I was and he was sure to explain that the average length for a first time mom to carry a singleton was 40 weeks and 5 days. So we were almost certain the baby would come well after Christmas and in to the New Year. We even purchased our family ornament for that year with a pregnant mama snowman (that would represent me) and joked how she better not come before Christmas or our ornament wouldn’t be accurate. Well our little lady had different plans!

Christmas Eve is one of my favorite days of the year. With Italian heritage we make it a tradition to have the “Feast of The Seven Fishes” that night. Typically my dad cooks and we host so that year wasn’t any different! This was my exact Instagram post that very Christmas Eve:

I love looking back at it because it’s so fun to see the joy of the holiday in the post but never realizing that our world was about to forever change in a matter of hours!

After a long walk around the neighborhood to walk off some of that feast, my family and I all sat down to watch some Christmas movies before heading off to bed. My parents stayed over that night, as did my sister, which she typically didn’t do but so thankful she did! That’s because a few hours later, at 3:30am, I woke up to what felt like my water breaking! My first reaction was pure shock, my house was full of guests and we had a busy day the next day so this couldn’t possibly be happening. Plus my doctor told me 40 weeks and 5 days! I woke Jason up and told him what was happening and he went into straight “go-time!” mode. But I wasn’t convinced just yet. I sat in bed googling “did my water break” while he scrambled to get all of our stuff together. He finally convinced me to call the doctor and get going! I went and told my parents and my sister what was happening and my sister always likes to joke that I said “I think my water broke but it wasn’t like in the movies so I’m not sure” LOL. After arriving to the hospital Jason paged the nurses to let us in by saying “My wife if having a baby!” in true frantic first time dad mode, as if the baby was coming out that very moment (when that wasn’t exactly the case, ha-ha.) We got upstairs and got settled in. There was only one other couple in labor and delivery that night and they happen to be checking in with us. The dad joked about us “racing” to see which baby would be born first but we certainly didn’t take him up on that because this was our first and their second (AND there was NO way our baby was actually going to be born on Christmas Day!) Even after getting settled, and told that my water did indeed break, the nurses were all sure that our little girl definitely wouldn’t be born that day as she was taking her sweet time and I was only 1cm dilated. So we got comfy and waited. My mom and sister even came in the morning but we sent them home after a little bit to shower/rest/enjoy their day because again, it wasn’t happening that day! Well shortly before 5pm I started having a weird cramp in my leg. I was only 5cm when they checked about 30 minutes prior so we weren’t sure what that was steaming from. The nurse decided to check me again and her face was pure shock. Within 30 minutes I went from 5cm to fully dilated and ready. The rest was a blur. Jason frantically called my mom and sister to come back and HURRY and the nurses scrambled to get the doctor there. My mom and sister weren’t as close as Jason assured me they were but I’ve never been happier for him to tell me that little white lie of “they’re almost back here anyways.” It was hectic to say the least but everyone made just in time for me to push a few times and welcome our little Christmas miracle into this world! First name: Johanna meaning “A Gift From God” and middle name after my Grandma Corliss were already picked out yet we never knew how much the meaning behind her name could be so perfect. Her initials: JC. Born on Christmas Day! I still get chills just thinking about it! All the struggles we faced to have this baby and in that moment we knew that there was always a plan way bigger than ours!

With that said I have to say a little something to my fellow friends who are trying to conceive or become parents. Even when it seems like it will never happen just have faith in the bigger plan! Because when it does happen, and in some way it will happen for you, the journey WILL make sense!

It’s amazing to say but after all those struggles to conceive our Johanna we went on to conceive our second daughter with the use of an at home ovulation kit and a stroke of luck on the first try! It’s almost as though my body just needed a kick-starter the first time and told, “This is what you’re supposed to do!” They have so many options for tracking your cycles these days that can really help take the guess work out of trying to conceive. Some of these methods weren’t even available 2-3 years ago so that shows you just how much technology has progressed in such a short time! From cycle tracking apps to home ovulation kits to even at home medical devices such as this new revolutionary Stork Over The Counter Home Conception Device which is a drug-free option in the next step towards conception. I can’t help but think what a blessing this product could be to so many families trying to conceive! It takes the modern/advanced technology available today at fertility centers and brings it to your home at an extremely affordable price!

The Stork OTC is now available for $59.99 at most retailers, such as Target, CVS and also available online at www.storkotc.com // #TTCwithStorkOTC

Now lets guess some due dates for these twins of mine below!! 40 weeks puts me at 12/9/17 and average for twins is 36 weeks … Ready, GO! Leave your guesses in the comments!