Now it has been awhile since all of this took place and I had it all typed up once before but lost it all when the website malfunctioned :(. So pardon my lack of flow and literary finesse. Trying to get it all down so I can catch up!
The story of B really begins back in January 2016 and starts when we became pregnant with our little angel baby. In February we took a trip to Indiana and I thought that maybe I was pregnant but when my period started at the beginning of the trip I thought I must not be. Things still didn't seem quite normal so after we got home, on February 16 I took a pregnancy test and sure enough, it was positive!! I was in shock! We were not planning or trying to have the baby but we weren't NOT trying ;). I didn't think I could keep it a secret from Zach for long so I had to come up with a clever way to tell him quick!
I had seen on Pinterest a coffee mug with "hello daddy" typed inside on the bottom so when he finished his coffee in the morning he'd see the message :). I didn't want to wait until morning so I wrote it on the bottom of a cereal bowl and crafted a plan to have him eat a late night snack. That night, as we were watching Jeopardy :D, I slyly hid the iPad to record his reaction to the news and tried to persuade him to eat the last of the very old Chex Mix we had in the cupboard. He wasn't interested but I insisted. After several minutes of not touching the mix I said "would you just eat the snack!" He asked why and I said because there's a surprise at the bottom. He dug his way to the message and read it as "heeeey daddy..." to which he responded with "heeeey mama!!" "Wait! Are you pregnant???" "Oh _____!" Nice one. We laughed, hugged, and started realizing how much our life was about to change!
I struggled with a lot of morning sickness fairly early on and had a rough time hiding it from coworkers. There were many times I had to nibble on Saltines and sip ginger ale. Not fun. Ended up telling my boss and then some coworkers at about week 6 :/
Fast forward to March 16 (8 weeks along) when we had our first ultrasound. By this point we had told our families and some close friends that we were pregnant. In the appointment neither of us had any idea what we were looking at and Zach asked a lot of questions, always trying to be lighthearted and fun. I though the tech was very quiet unfriendly because she didn't say much. When asked a question she responded with "the Dr. will go over that with you." She did point out the heartbeat and said it was strong. We were given our pictures and sent to the exam room to wait for the Midwife. After what felt like forever, the Midwife walked in and said "I'm just going to say it, there's something wrong with your baby." At that moment I felt this huge weight press down on me starting at my head and moving down on my shoulders and to my stomach. "There appears to be fluid around the baby's heart and brain and we do not see legs developing." My heart sank. All I could think and say was "did I do something wrong?" The Midwife assured me there was nothing I could have done and that it was likely a fluke, an unexplainable occurrence. She explained that the baby did not look normal and she was not qualified to interpret what she was seeing so we were being transferred to an O.B. and to specialists at Maternal Fetal Medicine. She was very compassionate and expressed deep sympathy that this was the news we were receiving. I remember feeling this overwhelming feeling that I needed to share our faith with her. To make it known that despite the terrible news we had just received, that we still had joy. I think I said "He's still good!" She responded with "yes, He is. And He is the ultimate Healer." As she was giving us further instructions and telling us what we could expect moving forward, she encouraged us to be confident where we stood because "they might pressure you to do things you don't agree with." We knew what she meant.
What followed was a week and two days of lot of prayer and tearful conversations with those who knew about our sweet baby. That first appointment left us with the understanding that we would likely have a very high risk pregnancy and a potentially severely handicapped child. At our appointment on March 25th with MFM we saw our baby again but this time he/she did not have a heartbeat and the tech informed us that our baby had passed away. That news came as a shock as we had not really considered that outcome I guess because there had been a strong heartbeat at 8 weeks and when we were told about the problems no one mentioned that the baby was likely not viable for life. While our hearts were broken and the tears flowed, we had a great sense of peace and thankfulness that our compassionate Father chose to take this baby home and make him/her perfectly whole rather than have it endure a lifetime of hardship and physical pain.
We went home to the pain of having to tell loved ones the sad news. Going back to work after the learning the baby had passed and everyone knew was the hardest. Then we began the wait for baby to pass naturally but after a week of nothing we were scheduled for a D&C on April 4th. Afterwards we were informed that it was as was expected, a chromosomal fluke and there was no reason to believe it would happen again. Of course, even with that encouragement, doubt still crept in and I struggled for awhile with questions and fears that I know are shared by many. So many wonderful people rallied around us and supported us through that time and we felt so blessed. We could not have handled this event in our lives were it not for our hope that we will be reunited with this baby one day in heaven. Looking forward with anticipation to that day!
I struggled with a lot of morning sickness fairly early on and had a rough time hiding it from coworkers. There were many times I had to nibble on Saltines and sip ginger ale. Not fun. Ended up telling my boss and then some coworkers at about week 6 :/
Fast forward to March 16 (8 weeks along) when we had our first ultrasound. By this point we had told our families and some close friends that we were pregnant. In the appointment neither of us had any idea what we were looking at and Zach asked a lot of questions, always trying to be lighthearted and fun. I though the tech was very quiet unfriendly because she didn't say much. When asked a question she responded with "the Dr. will go over that with you." She did point out the heartbeat and said it was strong. We were given our pictures and sent to the exam room to wait for the Midwife. After what felt like forever, the Midwife walked in and said "I'm just going to say it, there's something wrong with your baby." At that moment I felt this huge weight press down on me starting at my head and moving down on my shoulders and to my stomach. "There appears to be fluid around the baby's heart and brain and we do not see legs developing." My heart sank. All I could think and say was "did I do something wrong?" The Midwife assured me there was nothing I could have done and that it was likely a fluke, an unexplainable occurrence. She explained that the baby did not look normal and she was not qualified to interpret what she was seeing so we were being transferred to an O.B. and to specialists at Maternal Fetal Medicine. She was very compassionate and expressed deep sympathy that this was the news we were receiving. I remember feeling this overwhelming feeling that I needed to share our faith with her. To make it known that despite the terrible news we had just received, that we still had joy. I think I said "He's still good!" She responded with "yes, He is. And He is the ultimate Healer." As she was giving us further instructions and telling us what we could expect moving forward, she encouraged us to be confident where we stood because "they might pressure you to do things you don't agree with." We knew what she meant.
What followed was a week and two days of lot of prayer and tearful conversations with those who knew about our sweet baby. That first appointment left us with the understanding that we would likely have a very high risk pregnancy and a potentially severely handicapped child. At our appointment on March 25th with MFM we saw our baby again but this time he/she did not have a heartbeat and the tech informed us that our baby had passed away. That news came as a shock as we had not really considered that outcome I guess because there had been a strong heartbeat at 8 weeks and when we were told about the problems no one mentioned that the baby was likely not viable for life. While our hearts were broken and the tears flowed, we had a great sense of peace and thankfulness that our compassionate Father chose to take this baby home and make him/her perfectly whole rather than have it endure a lifetime of hardship and physical pain.
We went home to the pain of having to tell loved ones the sad news. Going back to work after the learning the baby had passed and everyone knew was the hardest. Then we began the wait for baby to pass naturally but after a week of nothing we were scheduled for a D&C on April 4th. Afterwards we were informed that it was as was expected, a chromosomal fluke and there was no reason to believe it would happen again. Of course, even with that encouragement, doubt still crept in and I struggled for awhile with questions and fears that I know are shared by many. So many wonderful people rallied around us and supported us through that time and we felt so blessed. We could not have handled this event in our lives were it not for our hope that we will be reunited with this baby one day in heaven. Looking forward with anticipation to that day!
Our First Baby :)
Sometime in the weeks following our miscarriage, Zach and I had an in depth conversation about trying again to start our family. Our experience with getting pregnant helped us realize we needed to be a little more prepared for it to happen again. I was ready to start again sooner rather than later but Zach had some things he wanted to see us accomplish first before we had kids (aka be debt free!). We agreed that we would not try again or even bring up the question of having a baby until our debt was paid off and we shook on it ;). But believe me, when we made that last payment in August, I was quick to remind Zach of our previous agreement and it did not take long after becoming debt free that we found out we were expecting little Miss B :)
This time I didn't go quite all out with the announcement to Zach and left a jar of Prego pasta sauce on his pillow to find while I was out for the evening ;). I struggled with a lot of anxiety about losing this baby too so we decided to let our parents in on the news earlier than we had for the first so that they could be praying and I could have people to talk to about it. The first trimester of pregnancy can feel very lonely sometimes!
Like the first I had lots of morning sickness! Like clockwork I was found puking in the bathroom either before or after my breakfast from about week 6 to week 14 :(. I was able to keep it more hidden from coworkers though, thankfully! We waited to have our first ultrasound until 10 weeks this time and when we went in for that appointment on November 30th I became flooded with anxiety that I would hear the same news I heard before or see the baby not moving on the screen like I had at MFM. When I climbed up onto the bed I burst into tears and told the girls I was expecting them to give me bad news. They were so kind and comforting, the tech offered to blank the screen until she saw the baby first but I said it was ok to show. Once the baby was shown I let out a huge sigh of relief! "It's moving!" was my exclamation when the tech asked me what I saw! The appointment was filled with so much more excitement and relief from that point on and we learned we had a healthy, normal little baby moving away inside! Miss B actually flipped sides during that ultrasound and that was a glimpse into the personality of what was to come ;)
B at 10 weeks
Many fears and concerns were gone at that point and I felt able to relax and be excited. We still waited until 13 weeks to make the news about our expanding family public. First trimester left us for a much more pleasant second trimester. We decided to find out the gender on February 3rd at our 20 week appointment and learned we would be welcoming a little girl into our family :). Zach was disappointed we weren't having a boy for about 5 seconds but quickly warmed to the idea;). We told my parents who were visiting us in FL by having them unwrap a little girl outfit mom had picked out at the store (she picked out a boy outfit and a girl). We told our TNB family the following Sunday at our Super Bowl party. I baked a cake and put pink frosting in the middle which Zach cut into during a commercial break :)
B at 20 weeks
The artists creating our Super Bowl themed gender voting board
2nd trimester was a breeze (aside from the frequent pressure in my upper right ribs. Little Miss must have kept her legs straight and her feet right up in there the whole time!). 3rd trimester also went smoothly with very minor discomfort. Throughout I struggled with frustrating lower muscle pains and a feeling that my pelvis what out of whack but it was never unbearable. Right at the end I had a hard time getting comfortable at night and dreaded going to bed :( Was so relived to be able to sleep normally again once I was no longer pregnant!
And what would a pregnancy post be without some bump pics??
16 weeks
20 weeks
25 weeks
35 weeks
36.5 weeks
37 weeks
37.5 weeks
38.5 weeks
So there we have it in a nutshell! We are immeasurably blessed, that we know for sure! Hopefully I stay on top of documenting throughout her first year:) Next up a catch up of pictures and a birth story :)
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