It was on September 6th 2009, that was my sweet sister-in-law Stephanie’s (the 2nd oldest that we raised) birthday, I’ll never forget that day! Mark and I were sitting in church, the youngest (Tami) was at Grandma’s and the second to youngest (Vicki) was at a friends, anyway I started feeling weird like a cross between hungry and nauseous. So I started rubbing my belly and then doing the math in my head and I’m like what the heck, I can’t be, that’s not possible, is it? So I wasn’t paying attention to the sermon at all (shame on me) but I had bigger fish to fry. We left church and had to pick up Tami. I told Mark when we went to pick up Tami that I needed to go Walmart to get a test because I think I’m pregnant. I remember Tami getting in the van and she is sitting way in the back and I remember smelling mint gum and telling her to spit it out I couldn’t take the odor. We got to the store and me and Tami stayed in the van because I didn’t want to say anything. So we got home and Tami went to her room and I don’t believe I even ate lunch because I was so anxious. I went in the bathroom and peed in a cup because there was no way that I could pee on a stick, I was shaking so bad, and probably not even 2 minutes later there were two pink lines! I started sobbing, happy and totally freaked out. Mark then went to the Dollar General down the road and bought the cheapest pregnancy test just to see what it would say. And of course it also was positive. I then called my best friend, Christie who was down the road at her sister’s, she kept asking what’s wrong and I just told her to come over now! She came in my room and I showed her the test and then started bawling again. She said what’s wrong, this is great news! GREAT NEWS, was she kidding??? How can I bring a baby into this world??? How can I have a baby? It will be too hard! So needless to say I was freaking out! I mean I always wanted kids but honestly I never thought I could have any. Now Mark always tells everyone that the doctors told me that I couldn’t have children but that’s not entirely true. It was like just never thought of. We had been together since 2000 and it just never happened so I didn’t think that I could. Then we got the girls, they were my chance at motherhood. But you know what they say when you want to hear God laugh, just tell him your plans!
So Mark and I decided to drive out to my parents house to share the news with them. We pulled into the Roller Kingdom across the street from my parents house and called my dad because he wasn’t home. He told me that he was on his way and would be there shortly and wanted to know why I was calling. It was quite odd for me to call out of the blue. Anyway we went inside and watched TV with my mom until he got home. She happened to be watching a movie called The Runaway Bride starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gear and Julia Roberts character’s name was Maggie and I thought if the baby was a girl Maggie was a good name. Anyway dad was taking forever and I just could not wait so I pulled my phone out and showed mom a picture of the pregnancy test and she kept looking at it and finally said what is this? So I said it’s a positive pregnancy test and mom said who’s it for so I said it’s for me. She just looked at me stunned and speechless. My dad came home at that moment, and I showed him the phone also and of course he didn’t know what it was either. And my mom said she’s pregnant! My dad was so excited! I think my mom was really excited also but she was also very concerned. My parents never thought they wouldn even have Grandkids at least not from me or my sister and my brother was a player so he definitely was not ready to settle down much less have a family. So the next day we were having a birthday dinner celebration for Stephanie the second to oldest. My best friend decided at that moment to come over and bring me a gift that would let the girls know what was coming without me telling. So I opened the gift and pulled out a pack of diapers and I think a bib. They started screaming and were so excited! The dynamics of our little family were about to change big time! Of course the only thing that I thought was that this baby was going to be so loved and so spoiled. What kept going through my mind was that I would have a baby to love and would love me and I would get to bond and do things with this child that I did not get to do with the girls. I couldn’t wait for all those pregnancy things to happen like cravings and feeling the baby move because I never thought that I would be the one to experience that but of course God knows! All my friends were ecstatic and I had a bunch of baby showers! The pregnancy was easy but I started physical therapy in my second trimester so I could work on strengthening up before delivery. It was a really good pregnancy, no morning sickness just nausea in the first trimester. I was totally elated that I was finally going to get the chance to experience what most of my friends had already gone through. To grow a child in my body and see parts of myself passed on and most importantly to see what mine and Mark’s love created was almost inconceivable. Because I have FA a perionatologist from Woman’s Hospital came from Baton Rouge once a month to check on me and the baby and do an ultrasound. It was so hard to believe that this was really happening! And to me none the less!! I mean I felt like this was going to be a piece of cake. How hard can it be??? I mean we did raise the four girls and I pretty much took care of Chloé since she was a baby. I was in for a rude awakening! 
Despite all the changes that were going on in my body, this miracle child was sure to change the dynamics of my house with my girls. And definitely not in a bad way but this was my child and I was going to get the opportunity to bond with this baby in a way that I was not able to do with the girls. 
16 weeks
I was 16 weeks along when I found out what gender the baby was. And it wasn’t that long ago but at that time people did not do the whole gender reveal thing. So when I went in for my monthly ultrasound at 16 weeks, that doctor asked me if I wanted to know what the gender was. Of course I said YES and then he said well you are having a girl! We were ecstatic! I mean we were already raising Mark’s four half sisters and I had Chloé all the time so it couldn’t be that different!! Right? I was going to get to decorate a nursery and buy cute baby clothes and buy bows. I was so thrilled! We turned the office that was right next to my room into the nursery and made a bigger closet. I also had my grandmother’s armoire that my brother used and we had it refinished to put in the baby’s room. I wanted her to have something of my grandma’s. We decided to name her Maggie after my favorite grandma, my mom’s mom, Margaret and we chose Annalise for her middle name. And how we came up with that was pretty funny. Vicki and Tami had come in from school one day and told me a story about a little girl on the school bus named Annalise. I said Maggie Annalise, I love it, I think we’ll go with that for her middle name. Come to find out that Annalise, the little girl on the bus, was the name of Mark’s ex-girlfriend’s niece, who lived down the road from us!😂😂😂😂I was about 17 weeks pregnant when I felt my baby girl kick for the first time. And it also happened to be on Christmas Eve. That was the best gift I got that year!
21 weeks 
23 weeks
I took all the new mother classes at North Oaks that I could take like breastfeeding, delivery, and how to care for a newborn. I remember going through the delivery class and they were demonstrating how to breath right and make a natural delivery easier so of course I didn’t pay attention. But only if I could turn back the clock, I so would! I started physical therapy when I was in my second trimester. My doctors wanted to strengthen me up so I could deliver without any major hiccups. I remember my therapist telling me that she didn’t think I want be able to deliver vaginally. She had her doubts as to whether or not I would be able to push a baby out. It’s pretty hard to have that stigma on you where people are saying you can’t do something. Well I am the type of person that someone can tell me that I won’t be able to do something and I will work my hind end off to prove them wrong! I kept trying to go and get one of those 3D/4D ultrasounds because my whole logic was that I was not doing this again so I wanted to have every possible experience that I could. And of course it took four times of going before Maggie would cooperate and face forward for the camera. The nurse told me before I came back to go to Taco Bell and get a big dr. Pepper so I did and that did the trick.
31 weeks
I was about 32 weeks when I went in for the ultrasound. It was very surreal seeing my baby girl and watching her move on the big screen!My awesome sister in law, D’ann Lindsey was pregnant with my nephew, Jamie at the same time as me. Well to be exact she ended up delivering three days shy of three months before me. It was pretty cool going through pregnancy with my sister-in-law and having someone to bounce ideas off of and who understood what I was going through because she was going through the same thing.
34 weeks
Also several of my friends from church were pregnant at the same time or were pregnant after me. My best friend, Tina Jump adopted her first child right before I had Maggie. And he was 2 and a half at the time, and his name was Evan. It was really awesome having friends around me who were dealing with the same thing and our kids are growing up together. That is one of the best things that Maggie has. So I was at 37 weeks and it was Dr Shuman that I was seeing and she said that I was 3 centimeters dilated and 70% effaced. So she said we can go ahead and induce because the perionatalogist didn’t want me to go to 40 weeks because I would be delivering vaginally and he didn’t want the baby getting too big. So it was decided that on May 6, 2010 I would be induced. So many people were telling me that being induced made labor harder and I was a first time mother so labor would probably be very lengthy. Talk about being very nervous! But I was getting an epidural, so I really wasn’t that worried. Now remember what I said about telling God your plans….I had to be at the hospital for 5:00 in the morning on May 6th. I had no idea what to expect and I was nervous and excited all at the same time. I was going to meet my baby girl that I had carried for 37 weeks and four days. So we got to the hospital at five and they took us to the birthing suite and had me change to a gown and get in the bed. After getting in bed they put in the I.V. port and took my blood and all that other Humbug. They waited till about 7:30 a.m. to finally administer the pitocin drug (that is what they use to induce labor). About an hour after they had started inducing the anesthesiologist came in and said we can’t do an epidural because you have rods in your back. So because I hadn’t been told this months ago he consulted with another doctor to see if there was any way I couldn get the epidural. The 2nd doctor came in and told me no we can’t do it and I very pleasantly said well how are we going to get this baby out? And he told me that my options were to put me under and do a C-section or going natural. So I said they are not putting me under and cutting me, I will just go natural! Boy didn’t I wish that I would have paid attention in delivery class! I mean holy crap! They already started the pitocin so like it or not she was coming whether or not I was ready! Now when I went for my checkups I made sure not to schedule the appointments where I needed a vaginal check to be with the female doctors (because I had to see all of them). There was one male doctor in the group and even though I had seen him for yearly pap-smears, I just didn’t want him delivering or going down there because my thinking is males don’t know about having babies! Right??? And even though he is the one doctor that told me a year before that if I wanted to have kids that I could. He had done research on my disease to find out if I could have babies if I wanted. Well guess who was on call to deliver? That’s right, it was Jeremy Erwin.
So at about 10:30 a.m. active labor started. It was intense and painful. The nurse offered me a type of drug that would make me feel drunk about hopefully dull the pain. I took it but she only gave me half a dose. The only thing that did was make me so sleepy that I could barely keep my eyes open. And YES I help every minute on the pain!!! It felt as if something was ripping my insides out. I remember at one point I was in so much pain that every time a contraction would hit I would lift my body off the bed and twists and turn. One of the nurses who was helping deliver had went through two or three natural births and she told me that if I kept twisting and turning my body like that I could break my baby’s neck and kill her. So at that point I didn’t move my body unless they told me to. At one point the pain was so intense that I was told that I put my poor husband in a headlock. LOL! I mean it was extremely painful! At
I did it! Some had their doubts but I proved them wrong!! I couldn’t even enjoy my baby, I was just so tired. Where were all the emotions?? I blamed my state on that medicine. I remember laying there while they cleaned the baby and thinking that wasn’t so bad. I could definitely do that again! She was 18 & 1/4 long and weighed 6 pounds & 11.5 ounces. I was just floored that I had done something that I never thought possible. Mark’s grandmother, Agnes Cheramie had come in the room before I had the baby to pray with me. She was taking a chance because at that point I had sent everyone to the waiting room because I was in so much pain. Well I firmly believe that God is the reason my labor was short and everything turned out good! From start to finish it only lasted about five and a half hours and only a short while pushing. I brought her home on Mother’s Day May 10th, 2010. That was the best gift that I got that year.Things had changed so much! I finally had a little girl of my own who would love me unconditionally an in turn she would love me because she depended on me and I can’t describe how that felt. As much as the girls will always feel like part of them is mine, in reality they never really would be. On a daily basis I would talk to their family, see them, and share them with everyone else. But with Maggie I didn’t have to do any of that. And at that time only Vicki and Tami lived with us. And I gave them such a hard time when I look back because my thing was that everyone else could carry my baby around but I couldn’t. I mean I carried her for nine months, gave her nourishment, and brought her into this world, but I always felt like everyone was taking her from me. I felt as if people thought that because I am disabled that all I can do was be a human incubator and then have the baby for everybody else to take care of. Which is why a small part of me wanted to breastfeed because then I would be the only one who could feed her and I did for 15 months and then it was table food. But I took a large part raising her and taking care of her: I would help feed her, dress her, and do her hair. I would get so upset when people would tell Mark oh you’re such a great man taking care of all those girls. Really??? As if I don’t do anything?! He doesn’t do everything alone! I was a little obsessed and crazy but the Lord has taught me a lot in my 17 years of marriage!
