I Guess I'm Due: when your plans don't work, but turn out better

Meet Candace. Candace's story is one that takes I Guess I'm Due to a very literal meaning. Her and her husband had their 5-10 year plan all laid out. Things were getting in order and their plan was falling into place. Things begin to change from here. Check out Candace's story below!

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“Your boys look exactly alike!”

It’s a phrase my husband and I hear often. Although they have nearly three years between their ages, there is no doubt they are brothers with their bright blonde hair, beautiful baby blues, and plump cheeks. And their hyper, outgoing personalities are almost identical as well. In fact, my standard response to the question “how are the boys?” is “ornery.” But, the stories of their entrances into this world probably couldn’t be more different from one another.

Let me start off by noting my husband, Randy, and I had a detailed plan: establish our jobs in the city, buy a house, have one child, wait two full years and have another, then relocate closer to our hometowns to be near family before our oldest child started Kindergarten. After that, we planned on having two more children because we both have three siblings a piece. Well, we should have known that plans don’t always work out the way we hope. We both had steady jobs, but before we were close to being prepared for buying our first home, my maternal clock was ticking and it was time to change our plans.

We certainly didn’t expect the conception of our first child to take quite so long. After about ten months of daily temperature-taking and charting, I felt like I was hitting a breaking point. Ten months isn’t long compared to what some couples go through, but it was taking a toll on me emotionally. We finally decided to take a break from all of that after month eleven, and…

TA-DA! Pregnant!

The first pregnancy was a breeze. With the exception of some nausea and back pain, I felt pretty good. During my routine 37-week checkup, my doctor said my blood pressure had spiked and I needed to be sent to the hospital for more testing. When I heard her say “We probably won’t induce you today,” I think I went into a state of shock. I was not planning on having this baby today or any day soon – I was planning to go into work! The next morning, I was admitted for preeclampsia and the only remedy was birth. This was a Thursday morning. I was thinking “Great, I will have my baby later today and welcome all of my family and friends to meet this little guy over the weekend!” Wrong.

No one told me how long it can take to be induced when your body is not physically ready. After being poked and prodded for two-and-a-half days straight, with no sleep, no shower and no food (thanks IV), my sanity was running thin. Late Saturday night, the medical team broke my water and I finally started having contractions through the night. Things were finally moving along, but in the a.m., two adjustments of the epidural proved to be unsuccessful - I was going to be doing this the natural way. And the natural way lasted two-and-a-half hours while I pushed, semi-convinced this baby was never coming out. Around the 73^rd hour, Brady was finally born on Sunday, March 8, 2009.

By this time, the weekend, along with visitors, had come and gone, but I was finally able to sleep due to the magnesium in my system from the preeclampsia (the shower though, wouldn’t happen until Tuesday due to the fact that I was seconds away from fainting during my Monday morning attempt to do anything on my own). Adjusting to parenthood proved to be a tough one, especially with our family several hours away and a baby who only slept when he was held - literally. Our plans took another turn and we ended up moving closer to our hometowns when Brady was just 18-months old. This, of course, meant two new jobs and attempting to buy our first home. We decided it was best to only have one more child and to put our Baby #2 plans on hold for a while longer. That’s the funny thing about plans…

TA-DA! Pregnant!

The second pregnancy didn’t go quite as smoothly, as I developed gestational diabetes and had to begin an improved workout regime, closely monitor my diet (every single crumb that entered my body), and test my blood sugar 4x per day. It probably would’ve been best to stay off the Internet after that diagnosis… yikes! Because Brady was induced three-weeks early, imagine my frustration when Baby #2 stayed put for the full forty-weeks. Sure, it doesn’t seem that long in theory, but those weeks seemed like an eternity.

On the due date, I woke up before dawn to use the restroom (again) and my water broke the instant I stood up. I spent all morning and part of the afternoon lying in the hospital bed, watching television, chatting with family, and texting with friends – so far, much more relaxing and pleasant than the first time. My contractions started in the afternoon and I asked for an epidural around 1:30pm when I began to get uncomfortable, but still not in a tremendous amount of pain. Things escalated rapidly and by 2:15pm, the baby was ready to enter the world and I received the epidural about 10-seconds before I was ready to push (and this time, it worked! Whew!). Unfortunately, the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck three times and he was turning sideways. The doctor was ready to try one more possible solution, otherwise I was headed for an emergency c-section. Fortunately, the alternatives worked - two pushes was all it took, which was a monumental improvement from the first time around (or miracle, as I like to call it). Cooper was born on Monday, January 9, 2012.

Adjusting to life after Baby #2 was much easier than we had anticipated, and it has been amazing to watch our boys growing up. They are so much alike, but also very different in many ways. It didn’t take long before we realized we don’t feel “done” creating our family, so our plan is to try again for another baby in the future and see what life brings. But you know what they say about plans…