You would have been 5

Dear sweet, first child of mine,

It's so hard to believe you would have been turning 5 this year!  5!  I could have had a 5 year old.  It's hard for me to believe, and yet, a 5 year old would fit so perfectly in our family with a 3 year old and a 5 month old.  And then that gets me thinking about your sibling that we never got to meet either and how we could have been a family of 5, 4, 3, and 5 months.  Wow.  It's still hard for me to believe I'm a mother of 4.  4 precious lives begun in my IF, broken womb.  I wish I could hug you and squeeze you today and wish you happy birthday.  How fun it would be to think about and plan for you to begin Kindergarten this year.  I often wonder if I will recognize you in heaven, sweet child.  Will I know you are mine?  If so, how will I know?

So many unknowns and yet, I'm not a mother of 4 to those peering in on my life from the outside.  For when others look at me, they only see 2.  Yes, 2 precious, amazing, blessings, but they are #3 and #4 in the conception order.  I still haven't figured out how to answer the questions when people ask, "Are these your only kids?"  "Is she your first?"  I want to say, "No, I have 2 other babies in heaven that I'm waiting to meet."  or "No, she's actually my 3rd as I lost 2 before her to miscarriage."  But then I don't want to sound morbid or make the person asking the question feel bad.  So sometimes I just say, "yes" to the questions.  But then I feel all guilty inside for not acknowledging the other two children whose life started and ended in just a few short weeks.  So sometimes I do tell the whole story depending on how well I know the person.  And I share it because it is a part of our story....my story that God has written and continues to write.

I feel like there are just some things you always remember, and for me, that was my very first due date of a baby I never got to hold in my arms- June 2nd.   That due date marked so much hope after years of misdiagnoses, then diagnoses (PCOS, low progesterone), and IF.  Hope and memories that I still recall if I think back to that time over 5 years ago.  That first ever BFP.  Those first progesterone draws and progesterone injections.  Those first dreams and hopes as a family of three.  Those plans of how to tell our families.  And so on.  I don't think I can ever forgot those moments, and I don't think I'm suppose to.  Memories etched in my mind.  Memories and experiences that help me be a more compassionate person to others going through loss and IF.  Compassion that would not exist had I not known what it was like.

It's still so hard for me to fathom that she/he would have been turning 5 today. And while I don't understand all the whys and pains of living in our fallen world, I do know that losing 2 babies in the womb makes me hug my 2 kiddos extra tight every day and appreciate each day I have with them this side of heaven.  I am a different (better, more patient, appreciative) parent because of my first 2 children conceived, and for that I am so grateful.  

Catching Up: The Rest of 2014

Well, here we go.  A few catch up posts before jumping in with current life.  Thanks for all your warm comments.  It always feels good to feel loved and encouraged!  Here's a quick re-cap of the rest of 2014.

July- major road trip to Michigan for DH's cousin's wedding.  R did great in the car even though she did not sleep a wink (3 leisurely days to get there, 2 coming home).  Yes, that's right.  My child will not sleep in the car seat no matter how tired she is.  We tried to stop and see some fun things along the way, and she loved the lake and sandy beach we went to while in MI. 

Oh- and right before the trip we had our big 20 week ultrasound which confirmed what we had already found out through blood work at 10 weeks...we were having a BOY.  A son.  Such a joy.  We then told our families the news.  To me it was still hard to believe that the gender could be so accurately determined with a simple blood test so soon in the pregnancy.

Aug- We said we should start addressing R's sleep issues, work on potty training, or work on other things with her, but we did none of them.  Pregnancy was starting to zap my strength and I was having big time back problems since the babe was forming right out in front- the typical basketball under the shirt look- as opposed to the more up and down positioning R was in the womb.  I started going to the chiropractor weekly at this point and continued through the end of pregnancy.

Sept- My OB goes on maternity leave.  No big deal, right?  I knew I had to shuffle through the 5 other OBs in the practice once before delivery anyways, so it should have worked out where I could do that and then see my regular OB again.  Not a problem...or so I thought.  R and I continue one last month with mommy and me gymnastics classes.  Talk about a work out! 

Major nesting continues and I attempt to complete house projects galore to get ready for baby and do things that hadn't been done since we moved into the house a year ago.  First off, have all the rooms on the main level painted, wallpaper removed, and paint 1/3 of the upstairs.  Secondly, remove a ton of trees in the back to clear play space and along the house to prevent pest and rodent problems.

Oct- THE ultrasound. No, not the 20 week ultrasound, but the ultrasound that sent things tumbling for weeks.  I was seeing one of the other OBs in the practice and mentioned to him all the back pain I was having, some anxiety over how fast this labor might go (only 3 hours in the hospital delivering R and 8-9 hours in labor overall), cramping and so on.  He suggested I could have a quick ultrasound to check my cervical length and make sure things weren't happening yet (I was 33 weeks).  I gladly agreed, thinking it would give me some peace of mind and I could make it through the next few weeks.  The cervix was nice and long with no change, but then the tech took other measurements because I was there and found the head to be measuring small. 

Right away I knew in my heart the tech was wrong and off with her measurements, but as a result, the OB wanted me to see a specialist.  I did and things checked out fine, but then that OB continued to pester me with more and more tests he wanted, fears that I would have to be induced because baby's growth might be restricted, and more.  All along I was measuring right on track for the pregnancy, overall I was feeling good, and I was only on 100 mg of progesterone injections for most of the pregnancy.  I had no reason for concern about the baby's well being, and God had given me peace about that up to that point. 

But I was definitely moving towards the unstable side of emotions, and learning our upstairs furnace was leaking CO2 and needed to be replaced ASAP, certainly didn't help much.  Thankfully, we have an emergency fund, but we had already allocated all of our housing allowance funds with the other big projects above.  Wasn't planning on an additional 5K expense, but thankful the CO2 was discovered after only running our furnace once so far.  Too bad our home warranty just ran out in August.

Take a birth refresher course and finally find a Christian doula.  Not too organized or on the ball this time around.

One of my favorites from our maternity pictures at 35 weeks.  Such an amazing gift to prepare my Napro baby (R) for the birth of another baby...her brother.  Words cannot even describe the emotions after IF and miscarriage.

Nov- Now I've got a black mark on my OB file because every other OB I see in the practice continues to push me on the "small head" issue.  My heart still tells me this baby is fine, but after so many weeks of this, I start to grow fearful of an induction.  My trust in the practice wanes, and I doubt whether or not my OB will be back from maternity leave in time to deliver me.  I reach out in tears to my OB's nurse, and finally decide to see if I can find another OB at 36 1/2 weeks pregnant.  Not exactly how I planned to spend the end of the pregnancy, and keep in mind, I still have the fear of dying in childbirth looming over my head. 

My incredibly high stress levels lead to behavior issues/acting out in R, and basically, our house becomes an unhappy place for more weeks than I care to think about.  I do find 2 amazing OBs that would take me at 37 weeks, but I would have to change the hospital I'd be delivering at.  I'm already worried about the 15 minute car ride, so I just don't feel good extending that car ride up to an hour plus if it was during rush hour.  I schedule the first available appointment with my OB the day she comes back from maternity leave and pray this baby doesn't come before that.  At 38 weeks, I still hadn't allowed any of the OBs to check me.  Since full term was considered 39 weeks now (not 37 weeks like when I was pregnant with R), I just kept declining cervical checks.  I wanted nothing done to hurry along this baby coming until after my OB was back.  DH and I were actually worried the babe might be a Nov. baby and not a Dec. baby since my body seemed to be preparing for labor earlier.

Dec- We made it to Dec- hooray!  Meet with my OB Dec. 2nd and she apologizes for all the junk I had to go thru with the other OBs.  Finally, get checked at 38 1/2 weeks and I'm 2.5 cm dilated, 70% effaced, and a -2 station.  She says she'll be seeing me before the week is over!  Hooray.  I feel the same way. R came at 39 weeks and it seems there's  a good chance this baby will to.

39 weeks comes and goes with no labor signs.  Next check at 39 1/2 weeks is 3.5-4 cm dilated, still -2 station and still 70% effaced.  No real contractions though but the cervix is ripe and super soft.  Hopeful that baby can have the coolest birthdate: 12-13-14.

40 1/2 weeks and still no baby!  I'm losing the mental game as I was so sure this baby would come early like R did.  4-5 cm dilated now and 80% effaced but still a -2 station.  Sheesh.  Dilation is almost half over and I've felt virtually nothing.  Abdomen measured 42 inches and weight was up 40 lbs and I was feeling all that in my back.  The dreaded induction talk came up at this point as I suspected it would. 

The beauty of going past your due date when you think your baby is going to come early is you have nothing planned on your calendar!  I literally had most of the month of December open because I was so certain this baby would arrive no later than Dec. 4th (39 weeks).  Boy was I wrong, but the time together as a family was a beautiful thing given the extreme stress of October and November.  I had so much peace about baby arriving when he was ready that I wasn't worried about him going late and I wasn't worried about his head size either.  I still had the death fear in my mind, but that was one that wasn't going away until after delivery.  And we spent a few good weeks waiting and waiting and waiting.  We were asked daily if there was any baby news, which got old after awhile, but it showed how much people cared.  Waiting...It was such a perfect Advent object lesson....waiting anxiously during the season of waiting.  Waiting for the birth of our son as we waited expectantly to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus.  The symbolism was not lost on us.  Another beautiful gift God gave me...an unexpected gift I got as I had much time to meditate and reflect during those last few weeks of pregnancy. 

Next catch up post: the birth story

Dusting Off

I've been thinking about dusting off the 'ol blogging keyboard and jumping back into the blogging world.  But gosh, at this point, I'm not sure I'd have any readers left.  It has been months....MONTHS... since I've posted.  I have drafts that I started, but just never got around to finishing.  It was hard to know where to start blogging again with such an ominous post up.  And frankly, until baby arrived, I just had too much fear and anxiety to deal with.  You see, my husband had a dream and a strong sense that I was going to die in childbirth.  THAT was the ominous feeling surrounding the pregnancy.  I didn't want to necessarily spell it out because I wasn't looking for sympathy and didn't want people thinking I was crazy.  But y'all, my husband has senses that just come true- the genders of our children, that we were moving, senses about people, etc.. This is one of just two times he's been wrong, and I'm thankful that he was, but man, I'm still not sure what God's purpose was in all of that. 

But anyways, all is well.  I do want to blog about the rest of the pregnancy, the birth, adjusting to 2 at home, and what we've been up to.  But gosh, it's hard to know when and what to write.  This started out as an IF and miscarriage blog, and things have changed so much in the years since I started it.  I guess my purpose in blogging has always been to record my story as an online dairy of sorts, to share my story in case it might help others, and to glorify God in the whole process.  Spelling it out that way makes me think that I should keep blogging even if my audience is zero.

I've still been reading blogs on a weekly basis now more than the daily check ins I used to do.  I haven't been commenting because something has changed with gmail/google/blogger so even though I'm logged in when I comment, the comment doesn't show up.  Not sure what I need to do to fix this, but there are a few people/blogs I've really missed out on commenting.

And I'm finally hitting "post" during National Infertility Week.  Coincidence?  No. What was a major part of years of my life still is never far from my mind even though outward appearances may suggest otherwise.   To those of you still in the trenches, hang in there.  We think of you and pray for you often.  Your tears are not fruitless.  Praying for your "songs of joy" to come soon (Psalm 126:5).

The State of Affairs Around Here

Just popping in for a little 'ol update since it's been a month since my update.  Geez Louise!  Time flies.  I have so many times I think about putting up a post and topics that I want to process through in this online format, but clearly as you can tell, that's not happening these days.  But what is happening?

House
Our little "replace 2 toilets and get 2 programmable thermostats installed" project turned into replace all 3 toilets, 2 thermostats....oh, and get a new bathroom floor. Lovely, huh?  We discovered lots of problems when our handyman was replacing the toilet in our master bath, so we decided to just replace the tile on the floor.  It was in bad shape anyway, but still wasn't on our top list of household projects for the year.  It's nice to have the work done, the floor looks amazing, and we got rid of tons of black mold spots and hope our ant problem is gone now too.  The handyman did such a precise job and was so considerate of R's nap schedule, so we'll definitely be calling him again.  That was a lot of work to have someone do that we hadn't used before (though he did come highly recommended from our neighbors).

News
Once again I'm sucked into the news stories with the latest airline crash.  I don't know if it's my love of travel, my time visiting and living overseas, or what, but I got pulled into the news for weeks with the stories and details of the other Malaysia Airlines crash (MH370).  I feel the same thing happening again with MH17.  Part of it is shock and disbelief over the events, I suppose.  

Progesterone
Zone 2 for the 3rd time in a row....yippee!  My progesterone levels have been much more constant this time around.  Last pregnancy they zig-zagged all over the place, as did my PIO dosages.  This time we've been on "just" 100mg shots twice a week, and since I have the compounded oil this time around, it means on 1cc for a shot each time.  My bum is definitely happy with that, which is good because we had a major issue with one of the shots about 2 months ago where I think DH hit a blood vessel.  I got a huge, fist-size welt, bruise, hematoma...something on one side that still is not totally healed.  That means we've been doing all the shots on the same side.  Definitely thankful for the 100mg compounded meds.  Not sure I could stand 2 or 4ccs in the same spot twice a week as was the case last pregnancy.  It's the little things.

Pregnancy
I haven't written about this much, but it's definitely on my mind constantly...both DH and I have had this ominous feeling of death surrounding this pregnancy.  It's hard to explain in such a short update, but it's been a pretty constant feeling since early on when we found out we were expecting.  DH and I have had lots of conversations and prayers surrounding these thoughts and feelings, and I've shed lots of tears even talking about the things we have, but still the sense remains.  I don't know if it's Satan trying to steal our joy or God preparing us for something that lies ahead.  I should really process through some of these strong emotions in a blog post soon, but if you could spare an extra prayer or two for the health and safety of the 4 in our family, especially Baby Sprout and I, I know I'd appreciate it.

Celebration week
Tomorrow kicks off a big week for us....we have our big ultrasound, and we will be finding out and sharing the gender of this baby.  DH and I sort of know already from the fetal DNA test, but it will be so good to see and confirm everything on u/s.  I'm anxious to make sure everything else checks out with the baby too health wise.  So hard to believe we are almost at the 20 week mark already.  Then we celebrate our 9th anniversary mid-week and end the week with my 36th (gasp) birthday.  I'm taking full advantage and insisting we have little celebrations every day (free Chick-fil-A milkshake, free smoothie at Starbucks, dinner with a giftcard someone gave us, etc.).  Should be fun!  I'll try to let you know how it all goes soon.  Promise it won't be in another month!

Quick Takes (44): A Random Collection of Updates

--- 1 ---

After 4 days of swim lessons, I'm officially going to call them a bust.  What started out with such great intentions (getting R better acclimated and more comfortable in the pool) and such joy on Day 1, quickly went downhill on Day 2.  R loves the water, so DH and I thought it would be good to get her in some lessons before swimming a lot at our neighborhood pool.  He agreed to do the lessons with her, and I agreed to go along and take pictures and video:-)  Day 2 was "Submerge" day, where all the parents were supposed to dunk their kids to get them familiar with the water (I guess).  It didn't go so well.  She wasn't happy with that, took on some water, and ended up throwing up in the pool which caused a full pool immediate evacuation.  Since then, she's not been super interested getting back in the pool (I don't blame her).  Wish we would have stuck with our instincts and not followed the teacher's instructions.  Now we've got to build up her trust again, and we have 4 more days of class left next week.  Not sure what will come of that.  Ugh.

--- 2 ---

10 full lawn and leaf bags later, our azalea bushes are finally trimmed.  Yes, we do have a ton of bushes, but they were also pretty bad.  Finally just paid somebody to do it because neither of us has had time to do it.  They sure look nice now!  And much more manageable to keep up with.

--- 3 ---

Operation house update/get the house ready before Baby comes continues in full swing this summer.  Next up- new low-flow toilets (our county offers $100 rebates for 2!) and programmable thermostats.  Can't believe our 28 year old house still has the old school, turn style thermostats in them!  Will be nice to get those puppies replaced.  Yes, we have 2 thermostats for our 2 air conditioners and 2 furnaces. Still seems so funny to me since our house is only 2,000 square feet.  Such is life in the South.

--- 4 ---

Busy bags are going to be keeping me busy!  I'm getting ready to participate in my 1st swap, while at the same time organizing another one for local moms.  Should be fun.  I've got 2 different ideas I'm working on, and I can't wait to get all the bags from everyone and have lots of new activities for R this fall.  Perfect timing.

--- 5 ---

We've entered the time of year where our air conditioners could practically run all day long.  We don't run them that much, but we certainly could to keep cool/feel comfortable.  I'm so missing those mountain nights where the temps could be 80s and 90s during the day, but then 50s overnight.  It was wonderful to open up windows overnight, cool down the house, and not have to run the A/C much the next day.  One of my favorite parts of summer in the West.  Hoping we only have 10 more weeks left of this yucky summer heat.  I seem to remember September being cooler last year.

--- 6 ---

DH and I just completed our 1st 6 week round of exercising 3 times a week and eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables 5 times a week.  It doesn't sound like much, but it's always good for us to keep track, and our health insurance offers cash incentives for doing various things like this, so we keep doing them.  The fruits and veggies are usually easier than the exercise for me (see weather point above).  It's so blasted hot all day long, it's hard to get out and walk.  We try to exercise at the pool, walking inside the mall, or chasing her around at a Gymboree class (one month Groupon....love it!), but sadly, I still struggle. I definitely need more exercise as I'm packing on the pounds, but it's so much easier to just sit inside in the cool during the day.

--- 7 ---

Finally, two good progesterone draws in a row!  High Zone 2 (1 point away from zone 3 actually...I've never seen zone 3 in a pregnancy before), so decreasing the shots for a few times.  Yippee.  But it probably means my numbers will go down and I'll be increasing the shots again in 2 weeks. Oh well. I will gladly welcome a small break because I'm pretty sure DH hit a blood vessel last week as I've got an ugly, nasty, sore bruised area that doesn't seem to be healing very quickly.  Yuck.  No shots on that side for quite awhile.  Just hoping it heals and doesn't become something icky.  Sorry to end on that note.  Enjoy the weekend!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

And Then There Were 4

4 pregnancies.  4 in our family.  However you count it, 4 is our number right now.

Yes folks, PPIW is pregnant again at almost 36 years of age.  I can hardly believe it.  I've been quiet on the blog about it and quiet to just about everyone in real life.  With the exception of my 3 close friends, our photographer, and dentist, we've pretty much kept this to ourselves...oh, and all the women that were doing the Matthew study, but that's a story for another day.  I've actually just completed 1st trimester, so it seems this is really happening.  I'm 13 weeks now, and just starting to tell people.  In fact, we just sent photos and announcements to our families Wednesday after my appointments.  They haven't even received them yet, so they aren't even aware.

When we had R's 2 year photos done last month, we had a few extra photos taken that could be used for announcements if we made it past 1st trimester.  Our photographer was great about keeping our secret, so when we sent copies of the 2 year photos to our families, we also sent along these extras.

In case they didn't figure it our from the above 4 pairs of feet (like my grandma), we sent this "Big sister" one.

And because I'm uploading pictures like I never do anymore, here are a few more.  Cannot hardly believe this sweet girl is 2.  Just blows me away.  Some days I still have a hard time believing I'm a mother to a living child because there were so many years I waited, dreamed, and prayed and wasn't sure it would ever happen.

Love this one.  "Blow the dandelion, Mommy."

I'm not exactly sure why I've been quiet for so long.  It's certainly so out of my character.  With all the other pregnancies, I was posting about it as soon as I got the BFP on the pregnancy test.  And then I was updating with every twist and turn along the way.  This time around has been different, but as usual, it's been a roller coaster ride with me.

We were shocked to discover we were pregnant.  I was only on my 5th or 6th cycle post-postpartum, and my cycles had been long (45-50 days).  I was on zero progesterone support and zero meds. unlike last time.  I was still breastfe.eding quite a bit, but I was starting to get a feel for the patterns of my cycle.  I had no plan whatsoever as far as who to contact if I got pregnant, which OB to get in with, etc.  The only doctor I had seen in the area was the crappy "Napro" doctor I vowed never to go back to.  I have Napro in quotes because while this doctor was originally trained in Napro, he/she no longer does anything that remotely resembles the Napro we know and have experienced.

Out of desperation, I went back to him/her those beginning days of pregnancy.  It was stressful, but I had no choice.  As a new OB patient, even with a miscarriage and IF history, no one would see me until at least 8 weeks.  Then throw in a trip to TX in there that will probably go down as the worst visit ever, and I like my in-laws...I do, but talk about high stress.  They didn't even have a place for us to stay when they picked us up from the airport, great planners that they are.  Then there's the month where I had no progesterone monitoring because PPVI took so long to get me set up as a long-distance patient.  And so on and so forth. I'll type up a detailed timeline for my own benefit with all the details, but that's some of the skinny.

All of these things set off my fear about another miscarriage. It didn't help that most of my pregnancy symptoms went away around 10 1/2 weeks.  I honestly thought the pregnancy was over and I fully expected to see that on the ultrasound Weds.  Thankfully, that was not the case and things seem to be progressing normally. I'm on PIO injections 200mg twice a week, but that is all.  I've had 3 ultrasounds now, and they all seem fine with the latest exception of a low-lying placenta that I'm hoping will move the heck off the bottom of my uterus/cervix area as the uterus grows.  The genetic testing all came back normal and we even found out the sex of the baby already!  Amazing if it really is true.  We never did any of this with R because it was elective.  It still is, but since I'm 35, actually almost 36 now, my insurance would cover the blood test, so I said, why not. There's gotta be some perks to being "AMA" (Advanced Maternal Age).   It's a fetal DNA test where they are able to separate my DNA from the fetus's and then analyze it for some of the trisomy problems as well as determine sex...with get this...99% accuracy!  We're not telling anyone about it now, but will definitely confirm the sex at 20 weeks and then let people know.

Throughout the whole past 2 months, I've really struggled with guilt.  Guilt over being pregnant again while so many other amazing ladies still battle primary infertility.  Guilt over not being more outwardly excited and sharing with people from the beginning.  Guilt over not really struggling with secondary infertility while I know some of you are.  Guilt over why I remained so quiet and didn't share from the start what God had done.  It's been such a weird mix of emotions that I guess I've sort of just holed up in my shell and not said or done much.

But it's not been a pleasant or comfortable place to be, so I'm ready for the change.  I'm ready for people to know of our pregnancy and ready to talk about God's hand in all of it.  Most people here still don't have much of an idea of our past- my health issues, IF, miscarriages, etc.  It's just not something you bring up in every day conversation.  I can't rejoice in the present without sharing at least a little bit about our past and journey to get here.  We didn't resort to artificial means.  We remained faithful to each other and to God...committing to prayer with whatever the result was.  We waited and prayed and waited and prayed for years.  We endured heartache and loss.  That is all part of our story, and I'm ready to get story-telling again!

Jesus, I Trust You

Dear Jesus,

I trust in you.

Even when my actions and words may not clearly show it,

deep down, I really, really trust in you.

There are times when I let my worries and fears take over.

Please forgive me for those times.

Help me to trust You,

Your ways,

Your timing,

and Your plan more.

You know the deep anxiety I have over appointments tomorrow.

I'm scared and afraid.

I'm thinking of the worst case scenario.

Things are out of my control, and that is a scary place for me to be.

It means I can only rely on you and not my own strength or power.

I want to have hope.

I want to trust in You.

Please give me the courage and grace to face whatever the results show.

 Instead of focusing on my fears and worries,

fill me up with love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

and self-control.

Help others to see You working in and through me.

Your (often times weak) child,

Perfect Power in Weakness