Catching Our Breath: When We Realized We're Having Another Baby!
I honestly thought I'd have written this blog a while ago, but it seems time continues to get away from me (excuses, excuses, I know). So I've resolved to FINALLY write it today!
So yes! We are having ANOTHER baby! Come September when this little lovebug arrives, I guess I'll have to change the description of the blog to indicate my status as mom of three under three rather than two under two. Many people have asked how old the girls will be when this one arrives - so for anyone else wondering, Annie will be exactly 2 1/2 and Eloise will be 15 months. Yep, you read that right. Our kids will all be 15 months apart.
There is another question that some people ask but others don't (the ones that don't just kind of say wow, you're going to have your hands full, or they look absolutely shocked and say "You're pregnant again??"). That question is: Was this one planned??
The answer isn't quite a simple yes or no.
Maybe I'll write about it later when I have more time (because you know, I have so much extra of that lying around), but we tried for nearly 2 years to get pregnant with Annabelle by the time we were actually pregnant with her. For those of you that are familiar with the timing aspect of getting (or trying to get) pregnant, you know that you track your cycles, identify your most fertile days, and well, you know the rest of what you do during those days. When we started trying to expand our family, I was 31, so on the older side than some, but by no means at an age that would cause any sort of fertility concern. After about 6 months of negative pregnancy tests, I had a gut feeling something was not right. But we kept trying a few more months until we finally realized that it was likely not going to happen without SOME sort of medical intervention. So I made an appointment with my OB and she prescribed a medication that essentially stimulates a woman's body to produce and release more eggs than normal in a cycle. It also makes you kind of crazy (or at least it did for me). We thought, hey, a round or 2 of this and we'll be pregnant! I had known of a friend who had tried for several years and got pregnant after her first round of the same medication, so we had high hopes.
Three rounds of that later, and still no positive pregnancy test. We made an appointment with The Fertility Center right here in Grand Rapids. Side bar - their staff are all AMAZING. Infertility is a bear of a thing to go through, and everyone from the front desk staff all the way up to the Doctors are all fantastic. After numerous tests on both Dan and myself, we were nervous, yet hopeful, going to the appointment to find out what was preventing us from getting pregnant. Turns out, the reason was - NOTHING. We were in the 15-30% of couples with infertility where the cause is unknown. Our official diagnosis is "unexplained infertility." It's a double edged sword really. It could be a lot worse. We could have been told we'd never be able to get pregnant. On the flip side, treatment is really a crap shoot. You try one thing a few times, and if that doesn't work you move on to the next.
Turns out we had to try quite a few things. I'll spare you all of the details of our full journey today (maybe I'll save it for another post) and fast forward to how we got pregnant with Annie. Long story short, she was a product of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), or as we like to say, a lot of love and prayers, a bit of money, and some science. Same for Eloise.
For those of you out there that are mothers, at your 6 week post-partum appointment, you know that your OB asks if you're interested in birth control. After trying for 2 years to get pregnant with Annie, after both her birth and Eloise's, at my post-partum appointment, I said no. We figured, no need, Dan's body and mine both seem to just naturally prevent pregnancy from happening, so it didn't really make much sense to us to do any sort of birth control.
ALL of that being said, we went on about our crazy life with the girls, getting into the swing of the holiday season with them and carrying on as usual. About a week before Christmas, I was strangely waking up in the middle of the night hungry, which was pretty unusual for me. I figured, "Life is moving at warp speed, I'm sure I'm just exhausted." Then a few days later, I was making lunch at work. Someone had opened a can of some sort of soup next to me to warm up in the microwave and the smell made my stomach turn completely upside down. Also unusual. But again, I didn't really think much of it, thinking "Well, the flu season is a doozy this year, maybe I'm coming down with something." And I carried on again as normal.
I woke up in the middle of the night hungry for a few more days, and thought, OK, this is a little weird. And it reminded me of the hunger I would wake up with when I was pregnant with the girls. I didn't mention it to Dan because I didn't want to get his hopes or (or worry him) unnecessarily. I decided to go out and buy a pregnancy test and waited until the next morning to take it. I was 95% sure I was NOT pregnant, but with holiday gatherings coming up that weekend, I wanted to enjoy a glass of wine here and there but wanted to rule out that 5% chance that I was pregnant.
So I took the test on a Friday morning before Christmas. I walked out of the bathroom so I wouldn't be staring at the test, got a glass of water, and came back. And I saw this:
I about died. I could feel my heart beating in my throat. I was shaking. And, in all honesty, I started sweating profusely. HOW did this happen?? I mean, I know HOW. But HOW? I was ecstatic, because I never thought this would happen without IVF, and also totally in shock. Dan was still asleep and I didn't tell him when he woke up. He was a bit frazzled because he had a lot to do at work that day, and I didn't want to stress him any more (even if it was a good stress), especially since it was the last day of work before Christmas. So I sat on this knowledge for a day.
That night, I gave Dan a small gift bag and told him I had an early Christmas present for him. He looked at me skeptically, most likely thinking, "If she's giving me an early gift, I should probably give one to her too." Then he took the test of out of the bag and I think his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he realized what was going on. His reaction was pretty much the same as mine: "What?...How does this?...When?...This is so awesome!" Or something along those lines. We were both in absolute shock, but both SO excited.
My OB ordered some blood tests and a few ultrasounds (bless her heart, she knew after us having gone through IVF, that I would be a basket case and have no idea how a "normal" pregnancy goes in the beginning). Everything has been going along nicely, and we even got a glimpse of the little nugget a couple of times (no, that is not a 2nd baby in the photo below, it's just the beginning of baby growing).
We told our families here and there throughout the next few weeks. Finally, week 13 I think it was rolled around, and we felt comfortable enough to "announce" on social media. I had toyed around with the idea of not announcing this time, honestly because I didn't want people to judge. Social media (yes, I know I'm a blogger), can be a blessing and a curse. I didn't want people to think, "Geez, they're having another kid AGAIN???" But I realized, this baby deserves to be celebrated just as much as Annie and Ellie. So we decided to go forward with the social media announcement. If people want to judge, they can judge. It doesn't take anything away from this baby, or our joy at what a miracle it is!
We announced in the beginning of March and went with a simple St. Patrick's Day theme:
If people did judge, they kept it to themselves. We mostly got a lot of Congratulations, which was wonderful. Who knows, maybe it was just the hormones making me paranoid. It was shortly after announcing that I started to feel better. The nausea this time has been a lot rougher than it was with the girls. I still get bouts of it now and then, but it's far less constant than it was, thank goodness. Around 2 weeks ago, shortly after announcing, I started showing, and honestly, I think it took me about that long for the shock to wear off and for me to fully realized that we are having another baby. We are beyond thrilled, but it definitely was a shocker!
We've had so much love and support from our families and friends, especially those that know our history of infertility, that we honestly couldn't be more excited for this little miracle baby to join our family. Yes, we will have our hands full. And yes, part of me is absolutely terrified about how we will maintain our sanity with 3 kids so young. But this was clearly meant to be for our family, and I know we will make it work, and make it amazing.
I can't wait to update you all in a few months about what the adjustment to life with 3 under 3 is like!