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!