Cole Edward Corbin was born on December 21, 2011 at 9:17 p.m. He weighed 6 lb. 9 oz. and was 19 inches long. This little boy was so perfect from the moment I laid eyes on him. Cole is truly a miracle baby. His story would be many pages long if I were to include every detail. He sure is one loved little boy.
Cole, like his sister Braelyn, is an IVF baby. Matt and I went through the IVF process in April 2011. Our health insurance has specific rules about paying for the IVF procedure. They will pay for 4 IVF's, but if you have a live birth you get two additional IVF's. I got pregnant with Braelyn on our first IVF attempt. So that meant that we should have 3 more IVF's to use in the future. However, when Braelyn was born, our insurance company counted her as a live birth, even though she only lived for 12 hours. Since she was a "live birth" we only got 2 more IVF attempts. This meant that we lost out on one attempt. When you only get 4 total, it is a blow to the stomach to find out you lost one. We tried our second IVF in February 2011, but it didn't work. That meant the IVF in April 2011 was our very last attempt to have a baby without having to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket. Now don't get me wrong, even though our insurance was paying for a huge chunk of the procedures, we were still paying a hefty amount out of pocket. But I feel so grateful that we had some sort of coverage. We were down to our last IVF in April 2011. I felt a lot of pressure for it to work this time. Otherwise, I wasn't sure what we would choose to do in order to have a baby. Our goal for this IVF was to get enough embryos to be able to freeze some to use later (insurance will pay for as many embryo transfer procedures as you need...they just only want to pay for 4 egg retrievals). Our doctor was able to retrieve 9 mature eggs, and 8 of those ended up being fertilized into embryos. On our transfer day, there were only 7 embryos that had survived. We transferred two of them, meaning we had 5 left to freeze. However, a few days later the embryologist called to say that none of the ones we were going to freeze had survived long enough to go through the process. Our dreams of having a baby were all coming down to the two embryos that we transferred. Luckily, on April 25th we found out that the IVF had worked! God really does answer prayers.
 |
| One of these is baby Cole! |
We found out on May 18 that we were expecting just one baby. The other embryo had not survived. We were still in disbelief that I was even pregnant. We experienced a lot of the same feelings of joy that we went through when we found out I was pregnant with Braelyn. After I delivered Braelyn at 23 weeks 5 days, we talked to a lot of doctors about what the problem could have been. Our reproductive specialist suggested it was an incompetent cervix that caused me to go into pre-term labor. This time around, we were going to try to prevent that from happening again. My OBGYN did a cerclage (a stitch in my cervix to keep it closed) when I was 9 weeks pregnant. There was some risk associated with this procedure and I had to acknowledge that I could lose the baby. But to us, the risk of not doing the cerclage was a much greater risk than going through with it. The procedure was short and painless and I was in and out of the hospital in one day. The cerclage gave me a sense of peace and security, but I still had many days filled with anxiety. I was nervous that the cerclage would not hold and I would go into pre-term labor again and it would be too late to save this baby too. But God really looked out for us and got me through each of those scary times.
 |
| Getting a cerclage 6-2-11 |
I had so many doctor appointments during this pregnancy. I think Matt and I counted it was about 30+ visits :o) You would think I was tired of going to the doctor, but I actually really enjoyed it. I felt such peace each time I could see my baby and also to know that my cervix was still measuring at a good length. I also made many friends at my doctor's office and I looked forward to seeing them each week. They were all so invested in making sure this baby got here safe and sound. In August I started to work from home half days. This was to keep me off of my feet as much as possible. I felt so blessed to have a job that would allow me to work from home when I really needed to the most. At about 28 weeks we started to notice that my cervix was changing. I then started to work from home all day every day. I had some very long days home alone, but looking back now, it was all worth it. After the changes were noticed I started having 2 doctor appointments per week. We had so many goals to reach during this pregnancy...getting through the first trimester, making it to 23 weeks 5 days, making it to 24 weeks, then 28, then 30, then 34 weeks, then 35. After we hit 35 weeks we knew that our baby would be okay if he was born at any time.
 |
| Doctor Appointment - Non-Stress Test |
At 37 weeks, my cerclage was cut and I was told it was safe to give birth. 37 weeks is considered full term. We were so happy we made it to this point. We joked that after the cerclage was cut the baby would decide to stay put. We spent so much time trying to keep him in there, and now he didn't want to come out. The doctors thought that I would go into labor a few days after they cut it, but that didn't happen. Those were some of the longest days in my pregnancy. I wanted to meet this little guy so bad! I did a lot of mall walking and walking up and down the stairs at home to try and coax him out once I was released from "couch" rest.
 |
| 38 weeks 2 days... 12/21/11 |
 |
| Let's get the party started! |
As it ended up, I (along with my doctor) made the choice to be induced. We were nearing the Christmas holiday and my doctor was going to be out of town. After all that we had been through he really wanted to be the one to deliver Cole. I really wanted this to be the case as well, so we chose to be induced on 12/21/11...I was 38 weeks 2 days pregnant. I knew that Cole would be healthy if we chose to go ahead with things, otherwise I would have never agreed to it. The morning of 12/21 I went to my doctor's office and had a non-stress test done to make sure Cole was nice and healthy. After that my doctor broke my water and then sent me over to Labor & Delivery at the hospital. I got settled into my room about 9:30 a.m. They started giving me pitocin at that time too. I was already dilated to 4 cm that morning, so chances are if I had not been induced Cole would have come within the next day or so anyway. By about 1:30 p.m. I couldn't take the pain from the contractions anymore, so I asked for an epidural. After I got that I was feeling much better. The whole day went super fast and was such a blur. I couldn't believe I was going to meet my sweetie that day!! By about 8:20 p.m. I was dilated to a 10 and ready to push. I feel so lucky that my labor was "easy" compared to a lot of women. Don't get me wrong, it was exhausting, but I didn't have any major complications. I pushed for about an hour and then we got to see our precious little boy! Cole was born at 9:17 p.m.
Seeing Cole for the first time is something I will never forget. He was so alert and just stared in my eyes. I just couldn't get over the fact that I was actually holding my baby and he was a nice healthy size. When I had Braelyn, something just told me I would never take her home, but the feeling was so completely opposite this time around. It was so fun for our families to get to meet Cole for the first time as well. I will always have very fond memories of the entire experience.
I know I have left out many details, but as I said before, there are soooo many details of how this little miracle baby came to be. I'd be writing forever... I am so appreciative to all of the doctors and nurses for helping Cole grow and arrive here safely. I am also so thankful to friends and family who have been right by our side on this journey. We love Cole so much and are blessed beyond belief to have the opportunity to be his parents.
 |
| Our Little Christmas Present |
 |
| Angelic |
