Hey look, it’s the pregnancy blog reboot! So baby #2 is on the way and we’re ecstatic! I’m going to try and summarize the last three months for you all so we can be caught up on this baby.
Around Lila’s first birthday Jason and I started discussing when we wanted to have another. My doctors had all been consistent in telling me that I shouldn’t wait more than two years between kids or I could run into the same difficulties conceiving that I had before. Our problem was that I had just returned to college to finish the last 3 classes I needed for my degree and wasn’t going to be done until mid-December. In the end we decided that we would begin trying in June. This would give us 6 months of trying naturally so that after I finished school we would be able to jump into fertility treatments immediately if we had problems. Neither of us were really getting our hopes up that this would be easy, especially after striking out twice.
I started my final class (Spanish II) on August 19, the day before my period was due. My first assignment was to have a speech memorized, recorded, and posted for Wednesday. I had a total freak out over it. On Wednesday night I was borderline panic attacking over not being able to memorize it and messing up constantly and poor Jason tried everything he could to get me to calm down. We eventually got the speech recorded and called it a night. The next day I remember telling him that I felt so drained and worn out from it that it was like I’d just been zapped of energy. It was Friday when I realized that I should have gotten my period on Tuesday. Neither of us really thought anything of it. I was stressed out with this class. I was exhausted, broken out worse than a Proactive commercial, and late. So what if those were my exact symptoms with Lila, there was no way the third time was the charm and we weren’t getting our hopes up that it was. I told him that if I didn’t have it by the time I woke up I would take a test.
The next morning – instead of a period – I got two pink lines on my HPT. Jason pumped his fist in the air, we called our parents, and we celebrated at Magic Kingdom.
The next day I had a little bit of bleeding. Nothing heavy and I stayed weirdly, remarkably calm. Kept off my feet, drank water, and thought positively. I wasn’t even 4 weeks yet, so literally there was nothing else to do. There was no more blood after that and I chalked it up to some residual implantation bleeding.
On Monday I went to my Doctor’s office for a blood draw. With Lila my Progesterone wasn’t ideal so I needed to know if I had to take progesterone supplements again. On Wednesday I fount out that my hcG was 848 and my progesterone was 19.6! Perfect! I had one more blood draw and on Friday I got the call that my hcG was multiplying beautifully and was 2,898. I was officially pregnant and could breathe!
For a little while, at least. A couple weeks later on a Thursday night I started having some bad cramping in my back with a few shooting pains. The next morning they really hadn’t gone away. I called my doctor’s office just to see what I should do since the weekend was approaching and they had me come in to make sure it wasn’t an ectopic. Right away we saw the baby – implanted up high with a steady fhr of 150. Cramping was thanks to all that fun iron in my new prenatals. Ugh. Prenatals.
After that everything progressed normally and undramatically. I was exhausted, plagued by headaches which made giving up coffee cold turkey impossible, and spent more than a few day feeling like I was going to hurl without ever actually hurling. My cravings were all over the place. I went from craving fried chicken, cheesy bread and steak to feeling ill every time I took a bite of meat. I went from not wanting anything sweet to almost crying in happiness when Jason surprised me with éclairs.
Perhaps the biggest sign that I was pregnant came in the form of my inability to handle full days at a theme park once I hit 8wks. Several times by 3:00 my body was just done with the day. Everything hurt, everything sucked, and all I wanted was to curl up and sleep for a year. Another Food & Wine festival just out of my reach! At least there were Belgium waffles to drown my sorrows in.
Despite all of this, however, it’s been really hard for me to believe I’m pregnant. I know I am, since I’m already showing and I’ve felt miserable for three months, but it’s not really clicking in my brain that I’m going to be a mom to two. It’s just been difficult to comprehend this time around. It’s a calmer, less dramatic pregnancy and conception, and sometimes I really have to stop and force myself to believe that there’s a small human inside of me. Lila loves to pull up my shirt and point at my belly and yell “Baby!” She even pointed at the ultrasound screen the other day and declared “Baby!” as well. So I think she’s understanding and comprehending as much as her little mind can. I hope. If she can do it I should start believing it soon too.
Friday was our 12wk appointment and the first time we were going to hear the baby with the Doppler. So I thought. I endured the most nerve wracking few minutes as our doctor went over my belly with the Doppler and only found my heartbeat. She was great at telling me to calm down, and managed to hear it very, very briefly (for about a second). But since she’s a total sweetheart and could see I was about to cry told me she would take me to ultrasound so I could see and hear it for myself. We got in there, and baby popped right up on screen. After a bit of maneuvering, the little flicker of its heart appeared and eventually we got the sound. 152 bpm. Apparently I have an anterior placenta. Meaning that instead of implanting towards the back (closer to the spine) and growing in front of the placenta, the baby implanted near the front and is growing behind it. Which the doctor assured me was fine, it just will make it harder to feel movement and find the hb. And, as the ultrasound picture shows, baby wasn’t being cooperative anyways. Its head is turned away from of us and its laying curled up on its stomach. You can see the bottom of its feet and the curve of its spine. This one is not fond of showing off the way Lila was!! It just wanted to sleep and be left alone.
Once we heard the heartbeat and knew for sure the baby was doing well, Jason and I finally decided to go public with our exciting baby news. I had wanted to do a fun birth announcement that was a little creative and different and involved Lila. I thought of the “bun in the oven” idea after seeing the Halloween costume of a pregnant woman as an oven. Lila was a perfect model! She even resisted trying to eat the cinnamon bun until after I finished taking pictures, so I rewarded her with half of it. Writing the date on that bun was way way harder than it ever should have been, but I’m super proud of the whole outcome!
In conclusion: Baby is .49 oz, 2 . 1 inches and is the size of a plum. I’m +2 lbs from pre-pregnancy weight (which!! Was the same as my LAST pre-pregnancy weight! Just in time!) and I’m craving cookies and spinach fruit smoothies. I have no idea if it’s a boy or a girl, but any time someone says they hope it’s a boy or ask if I hope it’s a boy I vindictively want it to be a girl (which probably means it will be a boy). Really though, we’d be ecstatic either way. A boy would be great, but having a sister close in age would be fun for Lila. So either or! We find that out November 30th. I’m 12wks 4days and I’m due on May 6, 2014. Welcome back to my blog!
