The A-Team

Today we had an OB appointment. It was SUPPOSED to be routine – a simple in and out visit with a quick check of the heartbeat since we are only at 15 weeks and 5 days. Well, this little baby of ours does NOT like to have her heartbeat found, EVER. At my last appointment, I almost ended up in ultrasound because there was no heartbeat. It took the nurse about 15 minutes to find it. Thankfully she did. This time it was the doc checking for the heartbeat (he is a very busy man) and spent about 5 minutes hunting. He then said, “you are going to ultrasound.”

At this point, I am having extremely mixed emotions. I am excited to have an ultrasound and yet COMPLETELY freaked out that something is wrong. I will explain a bit more on that in a minute. Anyway, I shyly ask the doc if we can find out the sex if it’s possible. He was all for it!! YIPPEE!!

We are taken right over to ultrasound (Sara our tech is AWESOME – she did Abel’s ultrasounds) and we get to hear the heartbeat immediately! It was strong and steady at 148 beats per minute. Now for the fun part. Sara was super excited to help us find out the sex too and within about 5 minutes or so she confirmed GIRL!!!

Abilene's ultrasound pictures

My placenta is quite large and anterior which has made heartbeat detection and movement detection difficult. But she was moving and squirming the whole ultrasound. It was great to see her move around and to know she is a SHE!! I have “known” this entire pregnancy that it was a girl. Don’t ask me how, I just knew. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. I think if Sara had said “boy” I would have been shocked. Aaron I think was much more surprised by the outcome but he is happy to have a healthy baby girl growing!

Confession time: For basically this entire pregnancy I have been having an incredibly difficult time. Not with illness or anything, just emotionally a really tough time. I have been surrounded by the loss of SO many babies. There has been tragedy after tragedy and it has been wearing on me so much that I built walls around myself to protect me from possible hurt. These walls were so thick that I wasn’t really “bonding” with the child inside me. Sure, I would acknowledge my pregnancy because I am NOT getting fat again…it really is a baby. But I never felt close or even excited. I was petrified to be honest. I was scared that at any moment I would lose this precious baby. Fear gripped me so much that I couldn’t even voice these feelings to my husband until New Year’s Eve. Once I was able to FINALLY put my feelings to words and share them with someone, I was immediately released! I felt this huge weight lifted from me because in discussing my fear with Aaron I realized that there is absolutely nothing I can do to protect this child (aside from eating right, sleeping, not over doing it and not getting too stressed out). This child is in God’s hands and I need to leave the baby there. I can enjoy the time I have with this child and rejoice at knowing that I will see this child in either this life or the next! Whew! I know that seems incredibly simple but it was revolutionary for me and this pregnancy. And hopefully that explains a bit as to why I was freaking out when they couldn’t find the heartbeat earlier today.

So to sum things up, Abraham and Abel will be joined by Abilene in June! We are excited and I am having fun thinking of buying a few pink, yellow and purple things for our new baby girl!

Let me tell you….

I am 13 weeks and 1 day along with baby #3 and it has been a doozy of a 1st trimester. First we had the progesterone issue and that was resolved by my 12th week. Only to then find out that I had been exposed to 5th disease which was confirmed to have terminated another pregnancy that was just a couple of weeks behind me. Sigh. I called the doc and had to have blood work done on Monday. Did that. Then Tuesday night, I woke up in pain (ghost gallbladder pain) and finally after 2 hours or so of writhing I ended up vomiting most violently. The pain didn’t stop. It writhed in bed for another 4 or 5 hours. Called my OB, he said see your PCP. My PCP said go to the ER. After I managed to get my body to the shower, I just sat in the warm water and tried to actually shower. Did the best I could until the vomiting took over again. There was nothing but water in my system by this point and the heaves wouldn’t stop. It was horrible. I literally prayed for God to take it away because it hurt so much. Thankfully He listened and took away my heaves. I finished my shower and dressed to go to the ER. I got to the ER at around 11 am (my sweet family took me) and I got right in (THANK GOD!). I had no fever, no high blood pressure, no other symptoms other than extreme epigastric pain and vomiting. They get an IV started but no fluids are started. I explain over and over that I am 13 weeks pregnant and please help me keep from vomiting and stop the pain. They give me something for the nausea but we hold out on pain meds for a short bit as they want to run some blood work. All labs come back normal. No liver issues, no pancreatitis, nothing. That is of course good and bad. I finally get something for the pain and the nurse even made a curious comment about how she had never seen such a low dose prescribed. She hoped it would do something for me. She did give me another dose of anti-nausea medication as the pain meds could make me sick. Within 90 seconds of getting the pain meds, I was vomiting again. Thankfully I had a basin nearby in my room. I started to get a headache and asked for fluids to get started. The nurse came back with some saline and thankfully I felt much better within about an hour. Then comes time for discharge because they really can’t run any more tests as I am pregnant. Time will just have to sort this out. It is 4 pm and I am getting prepped to leave. I don’t feel good at all but I assume it is because I am extremely sore from the violent vomiting. Turns out…nope. I got home and was actually running a temp of 102! Figures. I get some Tylenol in me and pass out at home in bed. The next thing I remember is that my fever was gone around 5 am Thursday morning. Yeah! I was ridiculously sore but felt much better. Later that morning I got word from my OB that all tests for 5th disease were NEGATIVE!!! Yeah!!! Have to do a recheck in 2 weeks but all looks great! Praise Jesus!

So now I am back to my good ol’ self today (still a bit sore) and pizza sounded AMAZING since I haven’t eaten since Tuesday and I ate my entire half! (highly unusual might I add). And it tasted SOOOO GOOD!!!

But that is what has been happening in my world for the last week…hope yours hasn’t been so icky!

**quick explanation of “ghost gallbladder pain.” I had my gallbladder removed in 9-06. The pain and suffering I went through for the 6 years leading up to the discovery of a diseased gallbladder is what I have been experiencing all over again with this pregnancy. I will eat something that will create such intense pain that it will eventually cause me to vomit. This has been the first episode of vomiting since the start of the pregnancy but not the first episode of intense pain. Since I have no gallbladder hence the term “ghost gallbladder.”

The other night Abraham was laying next to me and rubbing my belly to say Hi to the new baby. He was being so sweet. I proceeded to tell him that before too long he will start to feel the baby kick and move within my belly and that the baby will be strong enough to kick his arm right off (my belly of course!). Well, I didn’t say the “off my belly” part. I assumed it was understood since we were demonstrating the action…but horrified my son exclaims, “No Mommy! I don’t want the baby to kick me. Then I will only have 1 left!!!” It took me a few seconds to put this together in my brain to figure out WHAT he was saying…he literally thought the baby was going to kick his arm OFF and he would only have 1 left! Poor kid! What a miscommunication! I quickly reassured him and all is well:) I still think he might be leery of when the baby starts really kicking!

We received news this morning that my labs are showing a deficiency in the hormone progesterone which supports the pregnancy. Without it, the baby will not survive. I have been placed on a hormone replacement to last through the 1st trimester and see how things go. As many of you know, this is new to me but does explain several symptoms with this pregnancy. Hopefully, this hormone will help and my body will respond properly and help to support the life growing inside. Your prayers are appreciated!!!

On a lighter note, after picking up my prescription and finally getting the chance to sit down and read all the information that came with it (yes, I am a dork like that). Anyway, I read the label on the bottle and just BURST out laughing! I showed it to Aaron and he about died laughing too!  You can read this label and see if you can see the hilariousness.

We made it to the doctor yesterday with much thanks to my mother-in-law who watched the boys all by herself for a few hours! Thanks!!!

Baby A#3 first ultrasound

The appointment went well. It is so crazy to see a picture of this new little life growing inside. It makes it very concrete. The baby is growing well and even measuring ahead of dates already! The heart beat was 143 bpm and sounded super strong. I think about how much has already taken place in the development of this baby and we are only at 7 weeks! Some women don’t even know they are pregnant yet at this stage and maybe haven’t been as careful as to what they have put in their bodies (caffeine, medication, etc…).

We are very excited for this new little person to continue to grow strong and healthy. Please pray that this would be the case. We have been surrounded by more families than I care to list that have suffered losses of their babies in recent times. It is very painful for me to see their loss and then I start to worry about my babies. Please pray for peace for me and also those families affected by the loss of their children. I know God is sovereign and will not let His people suffer beyond what He can offer comfort. Just pray that these families will also lean on God to get them through.

Anyway, I have been asked by several of you “how are you doing?” with pregnancy #3. This one has been a bit tougher. I had cluster headaches for the first 3 weeks that I could do NOTHING for. Not fun. But thankfully with 1 caffeinated beverage a day, that has gone away! Nausea has been a biggy this time around. I believe most of it stems from my calorie restriction that I have been rather used to but this baby wants none of. If I eat small, frequent meals (totally not me) I feel much better. So I am having to get into the habit of eating snacks (healthy ones) and dinner (ugh). I despise dinner. I never want to eat at night. I used to have a yogurt and maybe some fruit or a veggie. Never anything much. Well not anymore. This baby says “if You don’t eat, I will make you sick!” So I now eat a dinner much to my chagrin. Oh well. It keeps things interesting, right? I am also exhausted. Duh, right? I am very tired and it shows come 2 pm. I usually CRASH and crash hard. So we have family nap time around 2 pm and we nap for about an hour to 2 hours. It is glorious! I am still tired but not super sleepy and am recharged enough to handle the rest of the afternoon/evening.

The boys have been fabulous with this new pregnancy. We had to stop going to BSF because it was just tearing us apart – Abel wouldn’t get his morning nap and fall asleep on the way home which meant mommy didn’t get her afternoon nap, food was rushed, and even Abraham would get super grumpy by the afternoon because of our early day. It just wasn’t worth it. Maybe next year? Anyway, the boys took it well (ham was a bit disappointed but he enjoys his school time with mommy). We don’t go hardly anywhere any more. I love to just stay home and keep up on things. Sometimes we get restless and run out to the library or something or while it was still warm we hit the park or just ran around outside for 10 minutes or so. It is actually quite nice hanging out at home most of the time!

That about sums up this pregnancy so far! Love to you all and can’t wait to see everyone during the upcoming Holidays!