Let the Countdown Begin

Actually I've been counting since I found out I was pregnant again. Our 20 week ultrasound is in T minus one week. Seven days from today at this time, I will be leaving work to go home and eat lunch, meet Brad and leave for Iowa City. This is D-Day for us. We will see the heart in detail and see how everything else is looking, and of course will be finding out the sex of our little one. We are anxious and excited and hopeful all at once. Please God let this be our healthy, take-home baby!

A minor...ok major scare

I've been bad with keeping up on my blogging. This actually happened about a week and a half ago, on New Years Eve. What a way to ring in the new year.

I woke up Saturday morning, ate breakfast and starting taking down our Christmas decorations. I went to the bathroom and had some spotting. I had spotting when I was pregnant with Claire, but that was at like 6 weeks, not 15 weeks! I freaked out and thought the worst was going to happen. I called the on-call doctor at the hospital, knowing they wouldn't say anything but to take it easy and call back if it got worse. That's exactly what they said. Thankfully, it never got worse. It stuck around Saturday and was pretty much non-existent on Sunday. It came back on Monday. After Iowa City told me there was nothing they would do for me, I called my local on-call doctor. She already knew my history (that's why I love them), and told me to call first thing Tuesday morning to schedule an ultrasound and check-up. I got in around 9:30 and we saw our baby with a perfect heartbeat moving around. She also did an internal on me, and I'm happy to say we are high, firm and closed! I thought maybe we'd get a sneak peak of the sex, but no such luck. Guess we will be waiting until February 6th. I can't wait.

I had a normally scheduled appointment in Iowa City on Friday and after a fiasco with our appointment time, we ended up having to be there at 4PM. We knew we wouldn't get great care on a Friday at 4PM, but no one said a word about my spotting issue or if it had stopped, etc. Seriously, take the 2 fucking minutes and read my chart before you see me. It can't be that difficult! Yeah, I need to work on my language before this baby gets here, but how frustrating.

On a happy note, I felt the baby for the first time a couple days ago. Just a little bit and it's only been once a day since then if I'm lucky, but I'll take it.

Can't believe it's been over 7 months. We miss you everyday Claire Bear. We love you so much.

Just a little venting

After our last appointment in Iowa City, I have decided to start seeing my local OB as well. Once we find out that everything is ok with this little one, we will make the decision to be seen locally only and to deliver locally. I had nothing but great experiences in Iowa City when I was pregnant with Claire. This pregnancy has been very different. It all started when we had to go over our entire history (family and previous pregnancy) during our first appointment. I just had Claire in June. Shouldn't they know my history?! We are treated as just another pregnant couple there, where as locally, my OB knows me personally and knows everything about my previous pregnancy even though I didn't even deliver with her. We drive 2 hours round trip to get to Iowa City and we were in and out of there in 45 minutes last appointment. The high risk OB saw us for literally 5 minutes.

I'm also very frustrated with the timing of our first fetal echo. It seems as though every other heart mom has an echo at around 16 weeks with subsequent pregnancies. We were told we won't have one until 22 weeks. Really!? Our first echo for Claire was at 21 weeks. Shouldn't they be giving us one earlier this time to try to detect a problem earlier? I don't understand their reasoning. The more I think about it the more angry I get.

Sorry for the venting! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Happy New Year!! This will be my second new years in a row of no drinking, so drink 2 or 3 or 10 for me. I'm going to be an extreme lightweight after this baby is born.

Thank God!

Our screening went great on Friday! I can't even begin to express my relief. The nuchal fold measurement was 1.8. We were shooting for anything under 2.5, so we're ecstatic with that number! Everything is looking great so far. Of course, it's too early to see if there are 4 heart chambers, but I'll take what I can get right now. This should get me through until 20 weeks when we will find out about the heart. Baby was measuring 4 days ahead, but not enough for them to move up my due date. He/She had the hiccups and was bouncing up and down and opening and closing his/her mouth. It was so amazing! I do have an anterior placenta again, so that explains my craziness with not finding the heartbeat on the doppler. I'll try again this week now that I'm a little further along. Here's a picture. It's from my phone, so it's small. I'll try to upload the actual picture sometime this week.

Impossibly Hard

Being pregnant after a loss sucks. It is so extremely hard. I know it's like this for anyone who has lost a baby no matter how far along they were.

My first trimester screening is tomorrow afternoon, and includes an ultrasound. I am having such anxiety about it, that my mood is horrible and I haven't been sleeping well. I am so worried that the baby will pop up on the screen and there will be no heartbeat. I even bought a doppler to ease my mind, and that has made me more crazy. I found the heartbeat pretty quickly the very first time I tried (Monday), but haven't been able to find it since. I am not a doctor, I am only 11W4D, and it's very possible that I have an anterior placenta again. I should be relieved that I found it at all, but of course I am not.

Why am I so worried about miscarrying? I carried a baby with a very severe heart defect to full-term. Really, I am just worried about losing another baby, because honestly, if I lost another baby I'm not sure how I could recover from that. I dont think I would. Losing Claire is hopefully the hardest thing I will have to go through in my life. Losing another baby is unimaginable to me.

Brad of course tries to reassure me that everything is ok. I'm still having symptoms, I clearly have a belly. He's so optimistic. He doesn't understand why I am so worried. I will be worried until this baby comes out screaming! I will update either tomorrow night or Saturday. "Today I am pregnant and I love my baby."

So Different

First off, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

It's amazing how different pregnancies can be. This time around is nothing like my first trimester pregnant with Claire. I've been so sick this time. Not physically sick (yet), but picture your worst hangover and then imagine feeling like that all day every day. It's great. I'm really hoping I only have another week or two of this. With Claire I had bad days, but nothing compared to this. Maybe I should have taken that as a sign, or maybe it doesn't mean anything. I know some people feel great their whole pregnancy. I hate them!

I've also been way more emotional this time around. I cry at the drop of a hat. I'll share an extremely embarrassing moment. Brad and I were at Hy-Vee when I was about 6 weeks along. About three fourths of the way through my grocery list, I thought I was going to get sick. I ran to the bathrooms, and of course, they were closed, they were remodeling. The only bathrooms where outside and portable. I would have gotten sick for sure going in one of those, so I just stepped outside and got some fresh air and calmed down. Brad kept shopping. I went back in the store figuring I would see him right away. Nope, I walked through the entire store at least 3 times and went back outside to check if maybe he was at the car already. He wasn't. I then started tearing up in the middle of Hy-Vee, when I finally found him. He was laughing at me while I was wiping my eyes as we checked out. It was great.

The cravings have been completely different as well. Last time Mexican food sounded horrendous and this time I could eat tacos every night! People say maybe that means we're having a boy this time. I hope it means that we have a healthy baby.

What We've Been Up To

It's been a long while since I've blogged. We've been quite busy and it's only going to get more crazy. I can't believe it's been over 5 months since Claire was born. Thanksgiving is next week and then in a few more weeks is Christmas! The holidays are going to be rough this year, but we will be with family and that will help.

Here's a little of what we've been up to -

The end of October we went to Ames for the Iowa State Homecoming game. My parents went with us. We got up early to tailgate before the game. It was luckily a perfect day weather-wise. ISU didn't win, but it was at least a close, exciting game to watch. I still can't believe they just beat the #2 (not anymore!) team in the country on Friday! So proud!

A couple weeks ago we saw Luke Bryan in concert. That man can shake his ass! It was even better of a concert than I thought it would be. I love live music so I hardly ever turn down the chance to go to a concert. Unfortunately, Brad and I have different taste in music and it seems that we only ever go to country concerts. Or maybe it's the fact that we live in Iowa and only country singers come here! I'll take what I can get I guess.

The last, but most exciting thing we've been up to is this...



I'm pregnant again!! Baby is 8 weeks in this ultrasound. I'm now 9 weeks along and due June 24th. Yep, another June baby. We couldn't be more excited and nervous at the same time. We feel so blessed and so lucky. The day we found out, I cried and prayed and talked to Claire. I know she had a hand in this. This baby is so lucky to always have his/her big sister watching over them and keeping them safe.

We are going to Iowa City, at least to begin with. It was hard going back there after how we left there last time. My blood pressure was extremely high at first, but did go down before we left. We have a plan, which is a little bit of a relief. Our next appointment is Dec. 9th. We will have the first trimester screen. We will then have more blood work at 16 weeks, and then the anatomy scan and our first fetal echo at 20 weeks. They also want to do another echo at 28 weeks just to double check everything. Fingers crossed baby will be 100% healthy and we will get to finish out this pregnancy with my local doctor.

Please don't say anything on Facebook if we are friends. My parents know, but we aren't telling Brad's family until this weekend, and we aren't telling our extended families until Christmas. We're just being very cautious. I wish we could wait to tell anyone until February when we know everything is OK, but I'm showing already, so that's pretty much impossible!