Kennedy's birth story Part 1

Over my last year (almost) of blogging, people have asked several times about Kennedy's birth, whether or not we knew she had Down syndrome prenatally, and all the emotions that surrounded her birth day... both good and bad. What follows is probably one of the most "real" posts you will read from me. It's not all pretty, but it's part of our lives, for better or worse.

It was September 2003... Frank had been home visiting from AIT (tech school in Virginia) a few weeks before, and viola! I was pregnant! It doesn't take much for me to get pregnant... putting our toothbrushes next to each other worked for our first two ;). Since we had actually PLANNED on getting pregnant this time, I was very excited! The new digital pregnancy tests had just come out so I went and bought one ok, ok I bought three to try it out. They work.

With my pregnancies with Kassidy and Kameron I had horrible kidney infections. With Kass I was admitted to the hospital during my second trimester where I slept with an ice blanket on as they tried to get my fever down. At that point I still cried over the thought of an IV... huh Kelly?! LOL With Kameron I spent another few days in the hospital battling another infection. With Kennedy I was determined NOT to get a kidney infection! I drank gallons of water (and almost gave myself water poisoning at one point... who knew?!). I went on prophylactic antibiotics and all was well! I did however have constant, horrible ear infections. I kept telling my OB they HAD to be pregnancy related because I never got ear infections normally. They laughed at me. Seriously. Fine! (For the record, after Kennedy was born, the infections stopped and I never got another one. So there!)

Other than that my pregnancy was GREAT! I had hardly any morning sickness and I felt wonderful. I did the AFP test at the suggestion of my doctor, but I was only 24 and she assured me I had nothing to worry about. The test came back normal. I went to get my 20 week ultrasound on December 19th (my wedding anniversary). Frank was in Iraq at the time, so my mom went with me. We were thrilled to find out I was having a girl!! Kassidy would now have the sister I always wanted when I was growing up! I had instant dreams of matching outfits and tea parties and the girls staying up late at night to talk about boys (you know, when they were 20 or so!). At one point during the ultrasound, the tech stood up and walked out of the room without a word. I remember thinking, "Oh no, something's wrong." But she came back after a few minutes, assured me everything was fine, and we moved on.

In February, Frank returned from Iraq and came to California to get us and move us to Tennessee. (I do NOT recommend driving from CA to TN while you're 7 months pregnant... just FYI.) Once we got here, I got set up with the Military OB. They did another ultrasound just for the heck of it, and once again, everything was fine.

In March, Kameron was diagnosed with Autism (another story for another day) and we worked to get him settled with Early Intervention before Kennedy was born. We continued to find our groove here in TN... found a church, made friends, I got bigger and bigger and bigger... and then finally, on May 15th I started having contractions! Our new daughter was on her way!!!!

Watch for the rest of this story soon!!

Read Part 2 Here
Read Part 3 Here
Read Part 4 Here
Read Part 5 Here
Read Part 6 Here
Read Part 7 Here