Hop-a-long

I can't very well do a post all about my four year old (2 posts down) without doing one about our second little miracle! She's the one I refer to in my stories as my chubby eighteen month old.

She's really not so chubby! Although she's definitely chunkier than her big sister was at the same age! But oh my, is she ever as cute as a button! With her curly blonde hair and the sweetest puppy dog brown eyes you've ever seen~ she steals my heart just about every time I look at her!!

I've heard people say that they are afraid to have a second child because they don't think they can ever love him/her as much as their first. Coming from a family with five kids (AND being the youngest of the five!), I certainly didn't doubt that I'd be able to love another kiddo. And I knew I wanted my child to have a sibling. So.... we started trying for another soon after my first was born. Being that she took three years to conceive, I figured we didn't have a lot of time to waste!

We tried for a year. With no luck. I wanted to smack the people who kept telling me #2 would be so much easier to conceive and that all I needed to do was relax and it would happen. I was relaxed. Wasn't freaking out every month. Wasn't becoming obsessed with trying. And yet, it didn't happen.

SOOOO.... we headed back to the fertility doc. The first thing he did was the same test he had done the month before I finally got pregnant with J. We didn't have the same results. For four long months, we tried different things that should have worked. But they didn't. So, I decided I was tired of waiting around and I was ready to get aggressive. December of 2002, we took a much needed break. No drugs, no trying, just a break.

In January, we were back at it. With a little more help this time. My hubby and I (and the doc of course!) made plans to do an iui procedure. So starting on day 3 through day 11, my husband gave me a SHOT each night in my stomach. Yep.... they hurt. And yep, they bruised my belly. BUT, they did their job. Midcycle, I had the iui. Basically, what they do is inject "the boys" where they need to go using a catheter, bypassing all the boring stuff. Then you wait 12-14 days and see if those little suckers found the egg.

Major dissapointment. They didn't. But... I wasn't too devastated because I knew we were going to try at least one or two more times.

We took a month off to recoop then went at it again in March of 03. Same procedure... shots in the belly, iui midcycle, and then we waited. But our wait this time had a much happier ending! The little suckers had not only found the egg, they had dug in deep and implanted. I was knocked up and due the week before Christmas! I couldn't imagine a better gift!

Just like the first time, we had 3 ultrasounds before ten weeks. It amazed and mesmerized me again looking at that little bleep bleep on the screen. At eight weeks, on Mother's Day, we told our families. I bought my oldest a shirt that said BIG SISTER on it and she wore it to our moms' houses.

I started showing a lot sooner the second time around and once again, escaped with barely any morning sickness. Whew! Around 19 weeks, we found out we were having another girl... of course, I was ecstatic! It took a while but we finally decided on a name, Cassidy. Hubby wasn't quite as crazy about the name as I was but he gave in eventually. Guess it helps that I was the one having to carry her around 24/7! When I told my dad what her name was going to be, he said, "I'm not going to call her Cassidy. I'm gonna call her Hopalong!"

Get it?!!? As in Hopalong Cassidy!

And that's what he calls her. Me... I've got a couple other nicknames for her! But mainly, she goes by Cass.

Both of my girlies took some work and lots of time to get here.... but when I sit back and watch them play together or when they snuggle up with me to read a book... all that time trying just seems like a minute. A minute I'd do all over again.