The Background Story

Alan & I started dating in November of 2001 and got married almost 7 years later on March 8th, 2008 (what a wonderful day). We found out I was pregnant on August 18th, 2008 - the day we got back from CJ & Angela's Bachelor/Bachelorette parties. We had no clue how to react so we laughed, hugged, then called our parents! And that was the beginning of a life-changing journey!

We found out we were having a boy at our 20 week sonogram and couldn't have been happier! Being pregnant was amazing. Feeling him move was my favorite part. He was so active and he had great reflexes, any time I wanted him to move I would just push where I knew his legs/feet were and he'd kick me back. That was his way of letting me know he was okay and to stop worrying about him.

The pregnancy started getting a little complicated around 28 weeks. I found out that I had gestational diabetes. This meant that I would have to completely change my diet and start testing my blood sugar levels four times a day. It doesn't sound that bad, unless you're like me and hate needles and blood. I guess that was God's way of making me stronger, what a blessing in disguise! The biggest side effect of the diabetes was that Ryder was growing very big, very fast. My doctor wanted to start doing weekly sonograms to monitor his growth and my fluids because of the diabetes. It's a good thing because the first appointment I went to with the Perinatologist for the sonogram, they found a problem with Ryder's kidneys. They called it Hydronephrosis, he had some sort of blockage not letting his fluids drain so his kidneys were swelling. We went through 3 weeks of the sonograms where they would monitor all of this stuff until at our last appointment they decided that the condition was getting to be severe and the baby needed to be delivered...THAT DAY!