I feel like I have disappeared for awhile, and I guess I did. A lot has happened in the last few months _
YEA!!!!! As of today, I am 13 weeks pregnant and my belly is growing at a much more rapid pace than it did with Emily...WAY MORE RAPID!!! There have been a handful of reasons as to why I kept this little secret for so long.
As you know, getting pregnant is not at all easy for me. I waited as long as I could before taking a pregnancy test. I have been keeping track of all of my cycles (with a handy dandy app from my iPhone) since Emily was born. In the last two and a half years, my longest cycle was 38 days long and it only occurred for three cycles, two of them being the first two cycles after Emily was born. After that, my cycles evened out around 34-35 days pretty consistently. When trying to decide if I should take a pregnancy test or not, I committed to waiting until cycle day #40. At that time, Craig had just come home from a trip to Virginia for his work's Christmas Party...and I had to lie to him that I had started my period, because I didn't want to get him excited that I was "late". The morning of day #40, I remember hitting the snooze button to my alarm clock as many times as I possibly could because I literally was terrified to take the test. I was clueless as to how I would handle the results...because I so sure that it would be negative. At the same time, I talked myself into believing that it wouldn't be so awful if it was negative because I was used to the disappointment...so "I would be just fine".
I finally got out of bed, found the hidden pregnancy test (Again, I didn't want Craig to see it), and I took my test. As I watched the second line show up...I was in shock!!! I had to double check the box to make sure that seeing two lines was a positive reading...and sure enough, it was. I WAS PREGNANT!! I started to cry in the bathroom because I honestly felt like this would never happen for us again. I believed that Emily was our gift and that God had other plans for our family...well...He sure did have "other" plans for our family, that's for sure.
I wanted to surprise Craig this time...other than just waking him up in tears asking him to explain what the two lines of the pregnancy test meant. I went downstairs and find the perfect little box to wrap the pregnancy test in. I quietly got back into bed with Craig and gently woke him up (He is NOT a morning person, so it was important that I carefully woke him up so that he wasn't cranky). As he began to wake up, I whispered to him that Santa brought him an early Christmas gift. His reply was, "Doesn't Santa know that I'm sleeping right now?" He was a good sport. When he saw the gift, he slowly opened it up...when he saw the contents in the box he immediately jumped up and said, "NO WAY!!!" He was so excited!!! We spent the next few minutes talking about the good news and trying to come up fun ways to tell our families.
We decided to tell our parents that evening...mainly because I CANNOT keep something like this a secret from mom for more than 24 hours...TOO HARD. We decided to tell my parents through a slide show. As the time, Craig was designing different logo's for my mom's new business that she was starting up. He created a slideshow to present each of his logo's and then the last slide was our pregnancy announcement. My parents were a hoot. It took so many attempts to get them to sit down to watch the slideshow. First, my mom wanted to look at her own computer, then she didn't want to sit at the table, she wanted to sit at the couch (but then dad wouldn't be able to see the announcement). Then when she finally sat at the table, dad was walking around. Craig asked dad to come and sit down, and his response was, "Na, that's OK...I have no say in this anyways." DAD!!!! Come sit down for pete's sake!!!! FINALLY...everyone was in their place, and the slideshow began. When the announcement finally showed, both parents were in unbelief for a split second and then overjoyed!!! YAY!!! When we announced to Craig's parents, we used the same idea...only, instead of logo designs, we showed them pictures of Emily and her visit with Santa. Then, again, the last slide was our pregnancy announcement. Craig's family was also overjoyed and just thrilled to tears for us.
So...why the long silent treatment?
Craig and I decided to return back to our old fertility clinic for the first trimester because when we were there for Emily's pregnancy, we enjoyed the special treatment of being seen once a week and being closely monitored. So, I called the clinic and made my appointment. The first two appointments were blood draws to check my HCG and everything looked great. They did notice that my progesterone levels were low so they put me on some meds to help balance that out. Finally at six weeks, I was able to have my first ultrasound. The ultrasound looked great...the baby was TINY, we couldn't make anything out...it just looked like a small blob, but we could see the heartbeat...a little fluttering on the screen in the middle of the blob. The baby was measuring 5 weeks instead of the 6 weeks that they expected by going off of my cycle. I made an appointment the following week. At that appointment, the Dr found a "Subchorionic Hemorrhage". I don't know if I fully understand it completely, but I believe it is as though the baby's sac was pulling away from my uterus and that empty area was full of blood. The Dr put me on a few restrictions: don't lift anything over 30lbs., no heavy exercise, no mall walking, etc. At first I was calm about it because the Dr seemed calm about it. He said that this occurs in 1 of 4 pregnancies and 90% of them heal on their own. If bleeding continues into the 2nd trimester then they would increase my restrictions with bed rest. What ended up terrifying me was when I broke down and started researching this condition online. It was there that I found a handful of horror stories that ended in miscarriages.
Because of my increased fear, Craig and I agreed to hide the pregnancy as long as we could. My 3rd ultrasound showed new bleeding in the hemorrhage, which was so disappointing because it was my prayer that it would at least show signs of healing so that I could begin to relax. I so didn't want to hurt the pregnancy anymore with my added stress.
At 11 weeks, I made it to another ultrasound. During this ultrasound, the baby's features were clearly starting to show: the head, the torso and the tiny little arm and leg buds. On top of that, little baby was moving and twisting all around...what a CUTEY PIE!!! The best part was that the hemorrhage was clearly starting to clot and heal. PRAISE GOD. Unfortunately, I had to go in a couple of days early for this appointment because I had some spotting earlier that day, so the Dr told me to stay on my restrictions.
Well, I've made it to 13 weeks now. I am no longer at the fertility clinic (they send you to your regular OB/GYN after 12 weeks). The worst part about the switch over is that I don't get seen as often, and the only ultrasound I get is at 20 weeks. I am making it work...the wait is SO LONG, but I know that it will work out. At 13 weeks, my growing belly can no longer be disguised anymore...so I finally announced our pregnancy at work and on facebook...which brings me to my blog.
