The Best Job in the World

When I was a little girl, my absolute favorite toys to play with were my baby dolls. I knew by age 6 that I wanted to be a mommy one day more than anything in the world! It took me quite a while to find “Mr. Right”, but when I finally did, we knew we wanted to start having kids right away. I was almost almost 28 when we got pregnant with my first daughter. We had been married for one month and found out when I was just 4 weeks pregnant. I couldn’t believe how quickly and easily we got pregnant with her, but I was so excited!

Baylee was born on July 15th, 2014, and from that day on my life has never been the same. Being a stay at home mom was a dream come true from day one. It’s been tough and exhausting, but so much love and fun has filled my days and so far I haven’t missed one milestone!

When Baylee was about 9 months old, we felt ready to add another sweet babe to our family, so we started trying again. Things were different this time, though. We tried and tried, but month after month I saw negative tests. Finally, after 12 months of not getting pregnant again, I saw my doctor to see what was up. After some testing we discovered that I not only have PCOS, but also a bicornuate (heart shaped) uterus. This was the cause of us not having any luck the second time around. My doctor gave us clomid to try, but even 6 rounds of that didn’t work. I was so frustrated and about to throw in the towel, but my husband (my amazing, wonderful support system) encouraged me to keep fighting. We decided to see a reproductive endocrinologist to see what our options were. After doing some testing of his own, he confirmed that Baylee was an absolute miracle, and that if we wanted to get pregnant again IVF was our best bet. This hit like a ton of bricks. We didn’t have good insurance at the time, so we had to pay every dime out of pocket. We wanted another baby more than anything, though, so we decided it was worth it.

The IVF process was crazy. From all the shots to the egg retrieval surgery to the actual embryo implantation; my life was a whirlwind for 4 months. In March of 2017, we implanted a healthy embryo that took. We were so excited that our dream was finally coming true, but at my seven week scan we discovered that the embryo had no heartbeat. I was miscarrying. It was one of the worst feelings ever having to say goodbye to my angel baby, but I mustered up every ounce of fight I had left and decided to try again two months later. This time, the embryo took again and grew and grew! We got our rainbow after the longest storm!

It was a pretty tough pregnancy with being on modified bed rest for the first half of it, and then my husband starting the firefighter academy and being gone 6 days a week, all while chasing around my crazy 3-year-old! It was completely worth it though when on February 9, 2018, Natalie was born and doubled our family’s love! She has been an absolute joyous addition and I am so happy we never gave up hope!

Now that I am a “fire wife” and mommy to an almost 4-year-old and a 4-month-old, life has been pretty crazy, but I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world! My husband is gone a lot, but he has his dream career that he worked so hard to get into, and I get to continue staying home with my little loves! We are beyond blessed! We still have a few frozen embryos left, so our plan is to have one more baby and then our family will be complete.

So, 6-year-old me was completely right; being a mommy is the best job in the world! My Tiny Tags necklace is so special to me. I waited a long time to have that little + in between the two names of my beautiful babies. I wear it every single day as a constant reminder of my precious girls.

— Ashlee T.