Gender Reveal and Pregnancy Update

We decided to do things differently this time around and find out the sex of the baby ahead of time.  This is a new concept for us because I am totally Team Surprise!  I love love love waiting til the baby arrives to find out if its a girl or boy.  There is something so special about that moment for me.  But this time the circumstances were different.  With already having two boys, everyone had a comment about how much they wanted it to be a girl.  Plus if it was a girl, we would need to do a little more preparing, where if it was a boy, he could just jump right into our tribe of boys.  Most importantly, and the reason I think I was persuaded to find out, was because Ryan really wanted to know.  He didn't care if it was a boy or a girl, he just couldn't wait to find out.  He kept saying "you know Mom, you can just take a test and find out, you don't have to wait anymore!"  So we did it, we took the test and found out.

I really didn't want to do the whole gender reveal party.  My emotions have been all over the place, and I didn't think I could handle dealing with everyone else's feelings and emotions as I was processing my own.  But since this is our only time finding out in advance we did want to do something special.  Mike picked the gender reveal balls that explode when they hit something hard, and I picked to do it just the 4 of us (plus a friend that came for video taping purposes).

Gender Reveal Balls from Etsy- Awesome!

I polled everyone ahead of time and we were all on team girl.  Based on how sick I was feeling, how awful my skin looked,  the babies heart rate, gender prediction charts, and how different this pregnancy was from my others... I was 100% team girl.  And it seemed like the whole world agreed with me.  I would walk past people randomly and they would say, "wow you are definitely having a girl, I can just sense it".

Surprise- We were all wrong!  It is a boy!!

I was shocked, legitimately in shock.  I really really really felt like this baby was a girl.  Of course we are excited about having another boy, being a boy mom is the best.  And watching brothers grow up together is really awesome.  And above all, having a healthy pregnancy and baby trumps everything.  But I would be lying if I said that I didn't also have a moment of sadness.  Not at all because we are having a boy, bring on the boys I would take 10 of them, but since we are pretty confident that this is our last baby, I had to mourn the idea of never having a daughter.  The hours after finding out was all excitement and celebration.  Then around 9:30pm it hit me like a ton of bricks that I will never have the daughter that I have dreamed about having my whole life.  The person to share the bond with that I do with my mom.  The daughters wedding to plan or the dance recital to do hair backstage for.  Also getting to see Mike be a father to a girl, and sending them off on Daddy Daughter dates.   Relationships are different between mothers and sons and mothers and daughters (same for fathers with sons vs daughters).  They are each special in their own way.  So I am blessed to have three boys in my life, but also sad not to experience the other side.  I cried for about 24 hours straight.  Which of course made me feel guilty, but an emotion I had to process to move forward with embracing our family.

I am glad I had that moment though, I needed it, because since then I really am back to just being excited.  What an adventure life is going to be with 3 sons!!  I use to be so worried I would never find a guy to love me (back in my sappy single college days) and now look, I will have 4!!  We are soooo blessed, and know that this was the baby God wanted for me and we can't wait to meet HIM!


In other pregnancy news-

I am so happy to be about 20 weeks and finally feeling good.  The first 16-17 weeks was rough.  I was so sick to my stomach every day all day.  I threw up frequently, spent all day gagging at the most random things, couldn't eat anything but bagels, and my I wanted to sleep all the time.  Plus I have the throw up every time I brush my teeth condition I had with the other pregnancies (unfortunately that normally lasts the entire pregnancy).  Luckily that has all slowly faded away and I am feeling back to normal.

The baby's heart rate has been about 160 at each checkup and the ultra sound tech said "wow that is an active baby" (of course he is, he is my son).   I have been measuring exactly a week ahead of my estimated due date, which makes more sense to me based on my ovulation schedule (thanks Turks and Caicos for helping us get pregnant!).  The official date on the doctors records is July 2, but based on my cycle and all the ultra sounds, the better estimated due date is a week earlier June 25.

Ryan has spread the news to the whole world, and can't wait to be Mom's helper when the baby arrives.  He practices every day and tells me all the jobs he will do once baby arrives.  Patrick has finally warmed up to the idea and has stopped saying "No I am the baby" every time someone mentions I am pregnant.  I think by July he will be excited and ready too.

I am starting to prep for actually getting this baby out.  I am going to prenatal yoga more often and recently reaching out to a Doula to work with towards the end of pregnancy and delivery.  We are also starting to plan Baby Boy's nursery, we are going with an antique airplane theme this time around.  Nothing major, just sprucing the room up so it doesn't exactly the same as when it was  Patrick's nursery.  Next on our agenda is to pick a name.  I am so bad at names, especially boy names (I have had Charlotte Elizabeth in the waiting for 6 years now!).  Some maybes are Harrison, Charles, Thomas, Andrew, Alex... who knows.  But I seriously want to decide soon.  I hate having that decision hanging over my head.   I'll keep everyone posted.
Life is good right now.  We are all excited and happy and can't wait to see what life in zone coverage parenting will be like!

We are Pregnant!

This post is long long over due.  But after our struggles this year, I was holding off on posting until we had more answers and were sure things were progressing and baby is healthy!  My last post was mid October, and a lot has happened since then.  Just a week or so after posting I found out I was pregnant again.  Of course my first reaction was one of hope and excitement, but it was very quickly followed by fear and anxiety.  Then within a week a week of getting the positive pregnancy test, we met with the hematologist and finally got some answers as to what was going on with my blood work.

The doctor results were that I did have a mutation of the MTHFR gene and have anticardiolipin syndrome.  As my OB suspected, my levels where high enough to put me at risk for blood clotting, and most likely the clots where leading to the past miscarriages.  The hematologist suspects this is a new condition, not something I had when I was pregnant with the boys.  I have a ton of questions, like why would I suddenly develop a new blood clotting condition, but at this particular moment my bigger concern was what can I do to help keep this pregnancy.

The doctor recommendation is that I need to do daily injections of Lovenox in my stomach every day til 4 weeks after the baby arrives.  This is a blood thinner that is safest for pregnancy, and apparently the common treatment for a condition like this.  I hate shots, and needles, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do the injections to myself... but you gotta do what you gotta do.  That night Mike and I started our daily ritual of him giving me a shot in the tummy every night before bed.  Its not fun, it stings, and its getting harder as my belly gets bigger.  But we do it with no complaints because we know its helping baby.  Thank God for my husband.  This is definitely one of those moments that I appreciate him even more than usual, because he stepped up without any hesitation to give these injections, even though I know its something he is uncomfortable with.

We pretty much told our family and close friends right away that we were in fact pregnant again, and taking it one day at a time.  We were holding off on celebrating, praying a lot, but still hopeful for a healthy baby.  I was kind of stuck in a weird funk.  I wanted to be so excited about being pregnant, to talk about it and plan for baby, but I was so scared to get attached and scared of getting hurt again, that I resisted all urges to just let myself be an excited pregnant momma.  I had a variety of doctors appointments pretty much on a weekly basis for the first few months just to make sure things were progressing.

The week before Christmas, I had a 12 week ultra sound and all the genetic testing blood work, and I had a follow up with the hematologist.  Everything checked out great, so we decided we could officially start spreading the news and more specifically tell the boys that they were going to be big brothers!  On Christmas Eve we told the boys, Ryan was so excited, Patrick not so much.  And then we let them tell all of our friends, family, cousins, as we saw them throughout the holiday week.  It was great to finally get to celebrate the new baby.

In January, at 15 weeks pregnant we did have another scare.  One night as I was getting ready for bed, I started bleeding very heavily.  I have it about and hour to see if it continued and see if I had any other symptoms (based on my OBs recommendation).  About an hour later the blood was still very heavy and I was officially freaked out.  Mike happened to be sick with the flu that night, so I called my mom and off to the ER we went.  At that point I just wanted to hear the babies heart beat, I needed to know baby was safe.  We spent the entire night in the hospital, blood work, ultra sounds, monitoring, and the baby seemed to be doing just fine.  The ER docs were not able to identify the cause of the bleeding, just that it was not a miscarriage or the placenta, THANK GOD!  He sent me home at 5am and told me to see the OB first thing in the morning.

I followed instructions and was in the office about 10 am.  They did another ultra sound and found that I was pooling blood in my cervix, which is why it was bleeding like a heavy period.  Long story short, for some reason my body was not reabsorbing blood the way it should, and it was causing it to pool in my cervix instead.  The remedy,  modified bed rest, stay calm and quiet and relaxed as much as possible, and give myself the chance to heal.  If the blood was reabsorbed, that would be great and we can move forward, if the blood continued to pool, it could lead to early contractions and labor as my body tried to get rid of the extra blood.  So on doctors order, I did just that.  I modified all my activities, asked for extra help from anyone around that could help, and tried to rest and relax as much as possible.  Luckily it worked, and the last week of January we confirmed the issue went away, baby looked great, and I could return to normal activities (as long as I still remembered that yes I am pregnant and yes my body needs to take it easy).

I am now officially 20 weeks pregnant!  Anatomy scan ultra sound looked perfect this week, and I am feeling the 2nd trimester high!  We can not wait to meet this baby in June/July and complete our family!

Next post... finding out the gender!  And other pregnant fun!