How it all happened...

I'm Janell. I'm a dog groomer (or as we say, "a stylist", heh), I own Ratterfly Rattery, and I'm 22. I've been married for 3 years to my husband Bill, who's the man of my dreams. He's 26 and in the US Navy, a submariner on the USS Topeka (SSN 754). We met online, on the website hotornot. I know, classy, right? LOL .. he thought he was just getting a booty call. SURPRISE. I guess you could say I swept him off his feet. We met November of 2004 and were married July of 2005.

Well, this pregnancy was.. interesting. I found out on October 14th, 2007 that I was pregnant (SURPRISE!). This wasn't planned, but to be honest, we were planning on our first being a surprise baby. Two days later, my husband was sent out on deployment. He's on a submarine, so for the next 6 months, our contact was limited. E-mail was bare minimum and I was lucky to get them from him once a week, if at all. Some months we didn't even get that. I only got phone calls when they were in ports that were sailor-friendly, and by that, I mean ports that they were able to get out and walk around in civies and actually find payphones or, better yet, check into a hotel that had phones. This was hard enough to face alone, but two weeks into this deployment, a MASSIVE fire swept my area. I was given a reverse 911 call at about 2am and had to pack up and flee. I live on a horse ranch, very rural and woody.. and I have a lot of animals. I was able to take the majority of my pets but had to leave some behind - it was really tough to make that decision, knowing that I may not be able to get back in time to get them out. I just tossed food in there, gave them a ton of water, and hoped for the best. I had to leave my horses, all three of them, behind as well. It was probably the most insane two weeks of my life.

When I was allowed home, I was thankful to find the fire had burned within a mile of my home but I was otherwise OK. Talk about lucky! Life returned to normal for the most part. The insane winds during the firestorm had ripped shingles off my roof and I arranged with my landlord to have them taken care of. They climbed up on the roof, tore the WHOLE roof off, leaving the faux surface exposed (I have open beam ceilings), and quit for the night.. and then it rained (HARD) for about 18 hours straight. Needless to say, my house flooded. I got ANOTHER reverse 911 later in that same rainstorm regarding flooding in the area anyway due to the fire damage weakening the ground cover. I packed my stuff up for good and just went to stay with my mom (who lives 20 minutes away). I continued working full time as a pet stylist and I like to think its how I stayed in shape during this whole pregnancy.. not that I was overly worried about it.

I was considered high risk and referred to a high risk clinic because I've always been fairly severely anemic. I'm also 6 years post-op on Gastric Bypass (Roux-En-Y) bariatric weight loss surgery. December 27th we found out that our first was going to be a baby girl - which is breaking a ton of family traditions, since in the McMorran family, boys ALWAYS come first. Abigail is the first female firstborn in 4 generations - before her was her Great Aunt Beverly, who was the first firstborn in almost a dozen generations. In February I was diagnosed as being Gestational Diabetic (pile another one on me!), although it wasn't such a big deal to deal with - just had to watch my diet pretty closely. My husband came home in April, when I was 32wks along. He hadn't seen or felt anything, so it was a pretty big adjustment for him -- he left a skinny wife and came home to a bloated, emotional wreck!

All in all... this was the best experience of my life and has had the greatest reward. I'm looking forward to giving Abby brothers and sisters, so I WILL be on this site more.. and I more than encourage anyone who's interested in talking to me about anything at all to contact me - particularly if I can help with GD questions, gastric bypass, or just in general shoot-the-shit. Angelfinx@hotmail.com is my e-mail.

We're parents!!!!

Believe me, the longer you spend in a hospital bed, the better housework looks!

So for anyone wanting to know, my birth story was pretty easy. If you're facing a c-section, breathe easy. It's a snap!

Well I went in June 10th at 6am to check in for my c-section at 7:30. I was nervous on the drive in mostly because I've never been through anything quite like this before, but honestly.. it was no big deal. I was surprised at how easy it was.

They admitted me, we filled out paperwork and had all of the prework done. On check in, I weighed 167lbs. That pissed me off - that meant I gained 27lbs total during my pregnancy. Then they walked me back to the OR, I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to my anesthesiologist yap (he was a pretty funny guy, talked a LOT) while he did my spinal. I felt absolutely nothing until I felt a stinging/burning sensation roll down my spine. I felt liquid drip down my back, which I later discovered was a little bit of blood and spinal fluid, and I felt him wipe it up. Then he told me "Ok, here comes the anesthesia." and I felt a warm, floaty sensation and the nurse laid me down. Everything was going numb by the time they put in my cath and started prepping me with the drape and shaving me and all that fun stuff.

Then my husband was in the room, looking totally scared to death. He came over and held my hand, kissed my forehead through the mask, and asked me how I felt. It wasn't bad, really. I couldn't feel anything from my breasts down, so breathing felt odd. Plus they had me on a slant, so I felt like my lungs were falling into my throat. I told my anesthesiologist I felt like I was having trouble breathing and he looked at some monitors and then went "Good! It's working!" and patted me on the forehead. (Amusing guy)

And then I felt lots of pulling, tugging, and rocking. Like someone had decided to roughly shake my abdomen, basically. Didn't hurt, just lots of movement. My husband asked me "Have they started yet?" and I said "I dunno, I'm frickin' numb." and a minute later I felt this hollow sensation in my belly and I heard Abigail gurgle. I INSTANTLY started crying and my doctor announced "Congratulations, you guys! She's definitely a girl, and she's a chunker!" and she carried her over to the pediatric nurse. I could see her when I turned my head, and her legs looked so funny, she'd been breech for so long that she had these crazy frog legs that came all the way up over her head. They spent some time evaluating her while they were sewing me up, and my dorky husband kept popping up to look over the drape. He told me my uterus looks like a beefheart (thank you honey!).

Soo, they wheel me out to recovery and my husband is popping excitedly over to the warmer to see his daughter, smiling and excited, and my mom was the first one in to see me. She carried Abby over and said "Look what I found!" And then started giggling and crying all at the same time, which of course made me cry too.. happy tears of course. My reaction to the spinal sucked, I was shivering as soon as it started wearing off, and they gave me demerol to control the shaking.. but it didn't really work all that well. They offered me another shot but it would've knocked me out so I told them no. I waited until I was almost ready to go up to a room to hold Abby for the first time just because I was shaking so hard I didn't want to drop her. Then they wheeled me up to my room and I was just.. peachy.

I had my cath in until the next morning, and then after my lab work came back they took my IV out too and I was able to shower. By Thursday I was pacing the room and ready to go home, and Friday I practically shot out of bed to pack as soon as they told me I could be discharged. If I go too long before taking my scripts I'm in a little bit of pain, mostly just burning from the nerves reconnecting and the muscle pain (duh, you can't have your uterus split open without having a lil pain), but seriously, this is nothing major.

She started breastfeeding right off, which is awesome, I was worried about it. My milk supply has already come in and HOLY COW!! these things are HUGE! I love it, I finally have breasts. I'm dragging Laura out to go halter top shopping with me next week. Since I can go braless at the moment, I want tops I can do that in, plus it makes it easier to feed rather than having to hike up my tank top. It's too frickin hot for button ups lately. I didn't find out until FRIDAY from the lactation consultant that her feeding would cue cramping and contractions, AND make me extremely drowsy.. I thought I was just weird.. but apparently that's normal.

So I jumped on the scale yesterday and weighed myself -- drum roll -- 146lbs!! I lost 21lbs just having her!

I still have 6lbs to lose before I'm back at my pre-baby weight and 16lbs to lose before I'm at my new goal weight but I'm not really pushing it until after I'm off the vicoden and active again. I figure while I'm sitting on my butt not doing anything, I can't really actively and effectively burn calories, so why bother?

So there ya have it! We're home and I'm totally in love with my little girl. And everyone who helped me through my "oh crap" moment awhile back.. you guys were soooooo right... MommyInstincts are real. And the instant you look into your baby's eyes, you surrender everything you are or ever were, and you're totally helpless to do anything but love them rediculously completely. I'm head over heels in love with this little girl. She's my everything.

NOW.. if you got this far.. you totally deserve a cookie.

Relationships don't work the way they do on television and in the movies: Will they, won't they, and then they finally do and they're happy forever -- gimme a break. Nine out of ten of them end because they weren't right for each other to begin with, and half the ones that get married get divorced, anyway. And I'm telling you right now, through all this stuff, I have not become a cynic, I haven't. Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate-covered candies and, you know, in some cultures, a chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don't care, 'cause I do...believe in it. Bottom line...is the couples that are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but, the big difference is, they don't let it take 'em down.

- Dr. Cox (Scrubs)