16 Week Update - Baby #3

How far along? 16 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: Okay, so here is the deal with this section for this pregnancy - I gained 10 lbs with HeavenGirl and never lost the weight, so I started pregnancy #3 roughly 10 lbs heavier than I was with BigBro pre pregnancy.  I am using my BigBro pre pregnancy weight as my starting weight and hoping to curb weight gain since I started out so much heavier...make sense?  So right now I am going to say my weight gain is 11lbs, even though I have actually only gained 1-2 lbs this pregnancy alone. I am trying (not really that hard) to maintain this weight until at least 20 weeks, to be on a healthier track.  By "trying" I am running some and not really watching what I eat at all.

Maternity clothes? I guess...I am really in-between and feel large in everything truthfully.  When baby belly is actually looking baby-bellyish, this will get better.

Stretch marks? Not yet. PTL!

Sleep: Pretty good!  I am usually up once to pee, and that's not bad at all!

Best moment this week: I just love hanging out with BigBro all day everyday.  He is a sweet sweet boy and I cherish our times together.  Even better are the times when WBH comes home.  I love him and miss him very much while he is working.  So the best moments have been him walking in the door every evening :).

Miss Anything? Prob fitting into clothes and feeling comfortable in my skin.

Movement: Not yet, hopefully just a few more weeks!  It will be extra reassuring when baby is big enough to feel consistently,

Food cravings: Today - sweets.  But it varies and nothing really crazy now that I'm out of nausea trimester.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Not really! Ptl feeling so much better (than weeks 5-13).

Have you started to show yet: Nope, just extra pudge that can kind of look like a baby bump in the right outfit.

Gender: Find out in 2 weeks!!

Labor Signs: Oh no, sir!

Belly Button in or out? Still so far in.

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: I am quite happy! But I do get tired more easily and every once in a while have a silly mood swing.

Size of Baby: About the size of an avocado - roughly 4.5 inches and 3.5 oz.

Exercise this week (this is for my own accountability): Ran a mile, walked a mile with BigBro Sunday, Ran 2 miles with BigBro Monday, ran 2.75 with BigBro Tuesday, Ran 2 with BigBro Wednesday.  All about 10:30 min/mile.

Baby bump Selfie:

Expecting #3, Part 2

It was recommended we wait at least 3 months before trying to get pregnant again.  It also just so happened that all of the Fall Holidays and Christmas came about in those three months.  I was somewhat of an emotional basket case, but not as much as you might expect.  The first 2 months I couldn't really imagine having another baby, I just wanted to have HeavenGirl and I knew that getting pregnant again would not fix the pain of our loss.  Like anyone going through grief (and I've been here a time or two at this point in my life), there were clear, really good days, and completely cloudy, not-so-good days.  When it came time to "try" again, however, we were absolutely ready for another baby.  Not to "get over" the loss of HeavenGirl, but because we were even more excited about the idea of pregnancy and having another sweet life entrusted to us.  We realized how much and how deeply we loved our babies and that we were called to have more! Praise God!

We got pregnant the first month we tried, and we absolutely know how undeserving we are of that blessing.  We have many friends that are struggling and have struggled with infertility and we do not take our ability to conceive for granted.  We are flat on our face in awe of such grace.

This time we scheduled an appointment with the prenatal nurse for 6 weeks and saw our doctor at 8 weeks.  At 8 weeks, all looked good! We were amazed and grateful.  And our due date? Sep 30th.  Remember how I told you to remember that date from last time? Yes. This baby's due date is the exact anniversary of the day we found out HeavenGirl had died.  This is not a coincidence, and there is nothing we could have done to plan to have this exact due date.  Again, we are floored at God's mercy.

We had another appt at 10 weeks for my peace of mind, and then a heart beat check at 14 weeks.  So far, so good! I have a doppler (that a sweet organization is lending to me because of our history of loss) so I can listen to baby's heartbeat whenever I want.  It is reassuring to have this ability, but we know that the Doppler does not keep baby alive.

So now I am 16 weeks along! Our next appointment is on April 30 for our 18 week anatomy scan ultrasound. We are so excited!

We're often asked how we are doing emotionally with this pregnancy after our loss.  I am grateful to say that we are very peaceful 95% of the time.  We know that this life is in God's hands, not ours or the doctor's, and we trust that, whatever the outcome, it is good. Of course, about every 3 weeks there will be a hard day where one of us especially misses HeavenGirl and is nervous about the future, and on those days I run head on into the grief and by the morning, it has passed. Probably the hardest is seeing so many pregnant friends that have such a bubbly, joyful innocence about pregnancy - they have never lost and so, why should they think it's a possibility?  They shouldn't dwell on that, for sure! It is selfishly hard because I want that innocence back, and it may never come.  But that is okay, I still deeply cherish the life that is growing!

Expecting #3, Part 1

I recently read through all of my pregnancy updates with BigBro and it got me thinking about a few things-

1.  I really like being able to look back and see the progression that led to our sweet sweet BigBro.
2. Wow! I really left that on a cliff hanger and need to at LEAST post his birth story for a finale sometime.  AND
3. I wish I had recorded along the way for our HeavenGirl. 

So now that we are expecting our third baby at the end of September, I want to start posting some updates to cherish for later seasons.

Why "Part 1?"

Some of you (if any ever read this) may not have even known we were expecting a baby before this one and others know of our loss and want to know what happened.  The "what happened" will be addressed here, and a follow-up post about how we are doing this time around and my current weekly progress will be posted separately.

Here is the story, told as briefly as possible, about our HeavenGirl.

We were absolutely not trying to get pregnant when I took the pregnancy test that informed us that yes, 4.5 months after our BigBro was born, we were expecting another baby blessing.  We were still overjoyed and trusted that children truly truly are a good gift from God. I waited a while to go to the doctor because, hey, I'd been through all of that like 5 days ago...okay, like a year ago.  Everything was going well, I was active, not spotting, had morning sickness that passed by the 2nd trimester, nothing super eventful.  I finally decided to make an appointment when I was about what I thought was 15 weeks along (I never had my period, but guessed based on my morning sickness).  Doctor and ultrasound tech confirmed that I was, indeed, 15.5 weeks and all looked great - they could even tell we were having a girl(!) already and our anatomy scan at 18 weeks confirmed that we definitely were!  Everything looked great at the 18 week appointment and we went on our way with our next appointment scheduled for Sep 30 (remember that date) at 22 weeks. 

I felt HeavenGirl kick quite a bit over the next couple weeks - we moved into our first home, I ramped up my running, cleaned and painted our new home quite a bit, played with BigBro and WBH constantly.  I stopped feeling HeavenGirl around 20 weeks, but wasn't concerned because I hadn't felt BigBro consistently until after 23 weeks or so (both babies had anterior placentas). 

The night before our 22 week check up, I told WBH that I was slightly nervous about the appointment the next day, but had no good reason to be.  He asked if I wanted him to come along (we were so chill about appts at this point because we'd beed to so many in the past year and a half) and I said no, that it would be silly for him to miss work for a quick heart beat check.

I had 9 month old  BigBro in tow at the 22 week check up and as we strolled into the office, the nurse handed me a paper and said, "This is for your glucose test at your next appointment." I was secretly excited, knowing glucose testing means I am that much closer to meeting my little girl! Dr. Groff came in, had me hop up on the chair, and gelled me up for the heartbeat check.  After searching for a couple minutes without finding a heartbeat, she said we should just have an ultrasound instead of fishing around any longer.  I immediately texted WBH (who left work and came to the office), my mom, and a close friend I had been in touch with that morning.  BigBro and I headed to the fancy ultrasound room and the sweet Tech looked at HeavenGirl on the screen while we waited for Dr. Groff to come in. As soon as she got in, she said "No heartbeat?" And I burst into tears.  WBH showed up not long after and we were given our options for how to proceed to deliver our sweet, precious, dead baby girl.

The next 24 hours was long and hard as we spent the night in the hospital, waiting and waiting to deliver our baby.  The nurses were sweet, but we just wanted the whole thing to be over.  There is nothing like waiting for the pains of labor to deliver a child you will never meet on this side of Heaven.  I won't go into more details because I don't want to cry right now and I do have them written down in a personal journal, but know that we did deliver our sweet HeavenGirl the following afternoon (Oct 1st) and God is good.  We rejoice, knowing that she is not at all sad to be missing life with us here, she is with our Savior in perfect peace! She never knew the suffering of this world and we praise God for that, even though we miss her so so much. 

For those that wonder what went wrong - we don't really know.  It seemed that her umbilical cord was pinched right where it met her belly button, but we aren't sure why.  Our doctors have said there is no reason to suspect that this will happen again in a future pregnancy, and that is really all we have. We trust that is how God created her - to have fulfilled her purpose for His glory by only 22 weeks in the womb.  She is an amazing girl!