Bryan and I always knew that we wanted more than one child but after Luke was born, I needed some time. The newborn stage rocked me. I remember long ago telling people, "I think I could have six kids, at most," and after Luke was born I initially started wearily saying, "Maybe one is okay..." Newborns are hard. But, we knew we weren't really done so when we were both ready we decided to start trying again-- that was April 2015.
Most of you probably know that we had a hard time getting pregnant with Luke. Doctors won't even see you until you've been trying a year so we went through that and then finally got on Clomid. After 15 months of trying, we got pregnant after our first round. Hallelujah! I was so happy because I figured that I'd found the permanent solution to our infertility and that'd we'd be able to have kids at a normal rate going forward. My OB/Gyn in Boise told me that I could go on Clomid as soon as I wanted since I'd had a history with infertility. We were so relaxed at first. We went on Clomid in June and were told that I would be able to do six cycles (months) with it, but would likely get pregnant before that time. Each month went by and each month I was more confused and frustrated that it wasn't happening. My last month on Clomid was in November and yet again I was not pregnant-- and more, we were moving to Utah the next month so I couldn't even consult with the doctors who knew me on how to press forward. We lived with Bryan's mom for about three months and they felt like such a limbo. We didn't know where we were going to be so we couldn't find any new doctors yet. Finally we moved to West Jordan and I set up an appointment with a fertility specialist. At the very first appointment the doctor diagnosed me as having Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (which doesn't mean the same thing for any given person-- it's a spectrum). He told me it was the most treatable of all fertility issues and recommended starting out immediately with a procedure called an Intrauterine Insemination or IUI. I was surprised and said something like, "Right off the bat?" and he said, "Well you've already done the 6 rounds of Clomid without success." I couldn't argue with that. Over the coming couple of months I had all kinds of ultrasounds and appointments and procedures until finally we knew an egg would be ready and the procedure was performed. I was to go in for a blood test two weeks later to see if it had succeeded and my whole family and lots of friends knew it. I'm kind of an open book and it sometimes ruins the element of surprise. So I took a test on my own without telling anyone a few days before the blood test-- and it was positive! I was able to surprise Bryan after all because he was expecting the news a couple days later. We told our family the next day but we kept it to that circle until I was 12 weeks. At that point we started telling people in person but decided to wait to put it on Facebook until we had the gender just in case it was too good to be true and something happened.
After a couple of ultrasounds to make sure all was well I graduated from the fertility center to a new ob/gyn. Things seemed to be going pretty smooth at first-- I'd had a pretty easy pregnancy with Luke and assumed all would be the same this time. I threw up about seven times with him and I was determined to be able to say I hadn't done so once in this pregnancy. In my pregnancy with Luke I determined that as long as I had something in my stomach before getting out of bed and moving around that I would be fine for the rest of the day. This pretty much held true for my whole first trimester but I had a couple of gag moments later on, weirdly enough. And then September happened. It has been one of the most physically miserable months of my life. It started out with some pains in my stomach and just a general not feeling great. After a couple days where it lingered I decided to call my doctor and we determined it was a normal pregnancy symptom and they gave me measures to treat it. I followed that for about a week but it just seemed to be getting worse. I went in to the doctor and they said that at that point I was probably in recovery mode but if I didn't feel better after the weekend that I would need to see a gastroenterologist. The weekend came and went and I was no better so I got an appointment the next day (VERY luckily) to see one. He diagnosed me with a common syndrome and said it was likely exacerbated by pregnancy hormones. He gave me medicine to deal with the stomach pain and said that should help and it would improve as the pregnancy progressed. At first I thought the medicine was working and that I was in less pain but the other symptoms persisted with vigor. Those symptoms are TMI for the internet. On Saturday I woke up so miserable and was crying so much. At this point my parents and sister were in town and my sister gave me the courage to call in despite it being a weekend. The gastroenterologist got back to me and had me go in to the hospital to do some lab work. The whole time I was sick I kept crying to Bryan that I just wanted to check in to the hospital and have the doctors and nurses figure out what was wrong me, treat me and keep me comfortable. That didn't happen but I was very fortunate to have my parents around a good amount of the time and Bryan was able to work from home or take the day off a few times. The whole time I also worried that whatever was going on with me would somehow hurt my precious baby that I had worked so hard to get. I went between feeling worried for it and frustrated at it, assuming it was the reason I was feeling more miserable than I had in a very long time. Well, Monday morning the tests came back and I was informed that I had an intestinal infection and would have to go on antibiotics. No lifelong syndrome, just an infection that would not, could not go away on it's own without medical intervention. Thank goodness for modern medicine!!! I don't know how I got this infection other than it was probably something I ate. On the antibiotics I got better little by little every day. Sometimes the improvement was more subtle than I would have liked but now, on Monday, I can say that I feel completely back to myself where my intestines are concerned. However, Luke caught a bad cold several days ago that of course I also got and I've been dealing with that. I think I'm getting better from that too. I now truly know that your immune system is suppressed when you're pregnant. Mine seems to have been laying down on the job, anyway.
And now to today, where Bryan and I were able to go find out the gender of this baby. I've been telling everyone how much I hoped for a girl. I've always wanted a boy and then a girl and then whatever comes after that can be what it will be. Especially because we have such a hard time getting pregnant and who knows if we'll be able to again I wanted to be able to have one of each. My instincts kept telling me that this was a girl. Every time I thought about the future, I imagined a little girl. That is much how it was with Luke. He just felt like a boy! However, I was not confident enough to be sure of this because I also knew I really wanted a little girl and that could be clouding my instincts. I have to say that the ultrasound itself was pretty miserable. They made me drink 32 oz of water before coming in and then the tech kept pressing on my stomach to get pictures. I felt like I was being subjected to a form of torture. On the one hand, I wanted to sit and stare at that wiggly baby all day long and see her from every angle but on the other hand the only thing I could think about is how badly I needed to use the bathroom. At one point both Bryan and I saw something on the screen that had us sure it was a boy. Good thing the ultrasound tech knew what she was looking for. She was able to show us specifically that this little baby was a girl!!! What a dream come true. We would have been so happy with another little boy and if it had been a boy we would know it's what Heavenly Father had meant for our family. Putting aside our own desires for a girl, I think the reason my instincts were so strong is because it's what was meant for our family. It just seemed right. It's why I couldn't ever clearly imagine our life with two boys the way I could with a boy and a girl. So, my instincts are 2 for 2! The pressure is off of baby #3 if we can ever make it there. It can be whatever it is and I will be over the moon. For now, I'm half way there with so much to get done before this baby comes and three holidays months in the way too. I sure hope I can get it all done! It's going pretty fast this time around. Probably because I have a crazy toddler to run around after. I'm so grateful for Luke. He is such a sweet, good boy that we love dearly and I think he will make a great big brother. It is so strange to start really thinking of him in a big brotherly role. I love my little family and can't wait for this little girl to join us!
Most of you probably know that we had a hard time getting pregnant with Luke. Doctors won't even see you until you've been trying a year so we went through that and then finally got on Clomid. After 15 months of trying, we got pregnant after our first round. Hallelujah! I was so happy because I figured that I'd found the permanent solution to our infertility and that'd we'd be able to have kids at a normal rate going forward. My OB/Gyn in Boise told me that I could go on Clomid as soon as I wanted since I'd had a history with infertility. We were so relaxed at first. We went on Clomid in June and were told that I would be able to do six cycles (months) with it, but would likely get pregnant before that time. Each month went by and each month I was more confused and frustrated that it wasn't happening. My last month on Clomid was in November and yet again I was not pregnant-- and more, we were moving to Utah the next month so I couldn't even consult with the doctors who knew me on how to press forward. We lived with Bryan's mom for about three months and they felt like such a limbo. We didn't know where we were going to be so we couldn't find any new doctors yet. Finally we moved to West Jordan and I set up an appointment with a fertility specialist. At the very first appointment the doctor diagnosed me as having Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (which doesn't mean the same thing for any given person-- it's a spectrum). He told me it was the most treatable of all fertility issues and recommended starting out immediately with a procedure called an Intrauterine Insemination or IUI. I was surprised and said something like, "Right off the bat?" and he said, "Well you've already done the 6 rounds of Clomid without success." I couldn't argue with that. Over the coming couple of months I had all kinds of ultrasounds and appointments and procedures until finally we knew an egg would be ready and the procedure was performed. I was to go in for a blood test two weeks later to see if it had succeeded and my whole family and lots of friends knew it. I'm kind of an open book and it sometimes ruins the element of surprise. So I took a test on my own without telling anyone a few days before the blood test-- and it was positive! I was able to surprise Bryan after all because he was expecting the news a couple days later. We told our family the next day but we kept it to that circle until I was 12 weeks. At that point we started telling people in person but decided to wait to put it on Facebook until we had the gender just in case it was too good to be true and something happened.
After a couple of ultrasounds to make sure all was well I graduated from the fertility center to a new ob/gyn. Things seemed to be going pretty smooth at first-- I'd had a pretty easy pregnancy with Luke and assumed all would be the same this time. I threw up about seven times with him and I was determined to be able to say I hadn't done so once in this pregnancy. In my pregnancy with Luke I determined that as long as I had something in my stomach before getting out of bed and moving around that I would be fine for the rest of the day. This pretty much held true for my whole first trimester but I had a couple of gag moments later on, weirdly enough. And then September happened. It has been one of the most physically miserable months of my life. It started out with some pains in my stomach and just a general not feeling great. After a couple days where it lingered I decided to call my doctor and we determined it was a normal pregnancy symptom and they gave me measures to treat it. I followed that for about a week but it just seemed to be getting worse. I went in to the doctor and they said that at that point I was probably in recovery mode but if I didn't feel better after the weekend that I would need to see a gastroenterologist. The weekend came and went and I was no better so I got an appointment the next day (VERY luckily) to see one. He diagnosed me with a common syndrome and said it was likely exacerbated by pregnancy hormones. He gave me medicine to deal with the stomach pain and said that should help and it would improve as the pregnancy progressed. At first I thought the medicine was working and that I was in less pain but the other symptoms persisted with vigor. Those symptoms are TMI for the internet. On Saturday I woke up so miserable and was crying so much. At this point my parents and sister were in town and my sister gave me the courage to call in despite it being a weekend. The gastroenterologist got back to me and had me go in to the hospital to do some lab work. The whole time I was sick I kept crying to Bryan that I just wanted to check in to the hospital and have the doctors and nurses figure out what was wrong me, treat me and keep me comfortable. That didn't happen but I was very fortunate to have my parents around a good amount of the time and Bryan was able to work from home or take the day off a few times. The whole time I also worried that whatever was going on with me would somehow hurt my precious baby that I had worked so hard to get. I went between feeling worried for it and frustrated at it, assuming it was the reason I was feeling more miserable than I had in a very long time. Well, Monday morning the tests came back and I was informed that I had an intestinal infection and would have to go on antibiotics. No lifelong syndrome, just an infection that would not, could not go away on it's own without medical intervention. Thank goodness for modern medicine!!! I don't know how I got this infection other than it was probably something I ate. On the antibiotics I got better little by little every day. Sometimes the improvement was more subtle than I would have liked but now, on Monday, I can say that I feel completely back to myself where my intestines are concerned. However, Luke caught a bad cold several days ago that of course I also got and I've been dealing with that. I think I'm getting better from that too. I now truly know that your immune system is suppressed when you're pregnant. Mine seems to have been laying down on the job, anyway.
And now to today, where Bryan and I were able to go find out the gender of this baby. I've been telling everyone how much I hoped for a girl. I've always wanted a boy and then a girl and then whatever comes after that can be what it will be. Especially because we have such a hard time getting pregnant and who knows if we'll be able to again I wanted to be able to have one of each. My instincts kept telling me that this was a girl. Every time I thought about the future, I imagined a little girl. That is much how it was with Luke. He just felt like a boy! However, I was not confident enough to be sure of this because I also knew I really wanted a little girl and that could be clouding my instincts. I have to say that the ultrasound itself was pretty miserable. They made me drink 32 oz of water before coming in and then the tech kept pressing on my stomach to get pictures. I felt like I was being subjected to a form of torture. On the one hand, I wanted to sit and stare at that wiggly baby all day long and see her from every angle but on the other hand the only thing I could think about is how badly I needed to use the bathroom. At one point both Bryan and I saw something on the screen that had us sure it was a boy. Good thing the ultrasound tech knew what she was looking for. She was able to show us specifically that this little baby was a girl!!! What a dream come true. We would have been so happy with another little boy and if it had been a boy we would know it's what Heavenly Father had meant for our family. Putting aside our own desires for a girl, I think the reason my instincts were so strong is because it's what was meant for our family. It just seemed right. It's why I couldn't ever clearly imagine our life with two boys the way I could with a boy and a girl. So, my instincts are 2 for 2! The pressure is off of baby #3 if we can ever make it there. It can be whatever it is and I will be over the moon. For now, I'm half way there with so much to get done before this baby comes and three holidays months in the way too. I sure hope I can get it all done! It's going pretty fast this time around. Probably because I have a crazy toddler to run around after. I'm so grateful for Luke. He is such a sweet, good boy that we love dearly and I think he will make a great big brother. It is so strange to start really thinking of him in a big brotherly role. I love my little family and can't wait for this little girl to join us!