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!