I (Dorretta Haynes) am a new mom as of March 1, 2013 and since it took me over 15 years to get here and I am enjoying myself so much I decided to make a blog about "Life with Brighton"! First a bit about myself, I am a SAHM married to my husband (Chris Haynes) of 14 years who is a disabled war veteran from Desert Storm in 1991, so he is home as well. We thought we would never have a baby because we were told that about 8-10 years ago, so it was a HUGE surprise when on July 15th of last year I had this weird voice in my head telling me I needed to take a pregnancy test- so, even though I was not  "late" I rummaged through the cabinet and came up with a left over pregnancy test from a few years back, it was from a dollar store of all places! I didn't really know why I was thinking I should take this test because I had not really had any symptoms of pregnancy except I had been really tired but I just couldn't stop hearing that voice tell me I needed to and I never had felt compelled to take one before. I gave in and peed on the little stick thinking I would just shut up that voice in my head and I  set the strip on the counter, and sat waiting. In less than a minuet I had a dull line and I sat in shock looking at it for the next few minuets as it got darker. Now, like I said, I just got this whim to take this test so my husband had no idea I was even doing it and so my first thought was, "OMG! I am pregnant" the next one was, "OH this is gonna hurt" and the last one was, "Uh oh! I gotta go tell Chris".  So I took the test in hand and went to the kitchen where my husband was on the phone to a friend of mine who had just rang us. I stood there looking all wild eyed and with a weird look on my face trying to get him to make up any excuse to just hang up. Finally when he seemed like he couldn't get free from the call I held up the test to him. To make an even longer story short he was so shocked at it being positive after 15+ years of trying and even being on Clomid several times that he didn't want me to trust the cheap, dollar pregnancy test and get my hopes all up and be shattered if I wasen't really positive and I wasen't pregnant, so he wanted me to take another test, a better test. I immediately went and got not one but two Clear Blue Easy digital pregnancy tests. I waited until I got home to take them although to be honest, I really wanted to run to the bathroom at the store and take one. Sure enough the digital screen read "pregnant"! Now you should be able to guess with me saying we tried for 15+ years that we aren't spring chickens anymore. I was 38 at this time and my husband was 40, so my husbands first worries were that he was too old to have a new baby and everyone would mistake us for its grandparents instead of the parents. After we started telling people, we found lots of friends our age who were either pregnant or just had had a baby within the last few months, so he started feeling better about the age thing. I don't mean to act like he wasen't excited because he was and I was just ecstatic! I only wished that my mom would have been here to  go through this with me and see our baby once it was here. My mom had passed away at our home in Oct of 2010 from brain and lung cancer and she always wanted me to have a baby, as a matter of fact, she is the one who paid for the expensive fertility drugs several times. 

My pregnancy was high risk for several reasons with just a couple being my age, that I was diabetic and all the female problems I had that prevented me from getting pregnant all the previous years. So, the next 9 months were spent mostly on bed rest and with several scares  that I was miscarrying this miracle we had conceived. We had found out around week 24 that I was carrying a boy and we had both kinda wanted a girl, but the more I thought about the baby boy I was carrying, the happier I became that he was a boy. Now, I can't imagine having a girl at all and I love my little man so much that I can honestly say that I am glad I had a boy! I wouldn't want it any other way! My labor was induced and I gave birth to my 6lb 3oz 20 1/2 in. baby boy on March 1, 2013 at 7:14pm, after 37 and a half hours of labor and 3 and a half hours of pushing and a little help from my doctor with vacuum. We named our miracle baby son Christopher Brighton Haynes and we call him Brighton. We named him Christopher after his dad and we both didn't think his name sounded right if we would have put it Brighton Christopher so we switched it around and said we would just call him by his middle name.  From now on all my blogs will all be about this new adventure I am on with my new son. Things I learn, love, hate,that make me crazy, that make me smile and things that I just shake my head at! Please join me for my journey and tell me about your journey as well. I love to hear about baby/kid stories! 

~Dorretta "Brighton's Mommy03"