Two Bittersweet Years Later:

Today is the day… two years ago, today, Will and I sat in Helena Regional Medical Center’s ER waiting to be initially told we had miscarried our first baby.  This particular week of October still seems to stay so significant in our lives.  October 5, yesterday, was also the anniversary of our engagement from 2013!

THIS year, THIS week I have thought a lot about our past years and this particular year.  Since this time two years ago we have been through two miscarriages and the months in between hoping we would maybe get the chance to be parents… and here we are today- parents to our third baby that gets to live here on Earth with us. A sweet, beautiful, awesome-sleeping, pleasant baby girl- Annabelle Grace.  Wednesday she had to have a hip ultrasound done (everything looks good!) and the sonographer who did the ultrasound was the same man who two years ago, initially told us he didn’t see a heartbeat.  I couldn’t help but feel a little bittersweet- that he was now checking our sweet baby we do have around the same time of year.  I had not seen him since that very heartbreaking night.  Today, on the two year anniversary, I had my own 6-week post-partum check up with the same doctor that has seen me through these difficult years, who delivered our dear Annabelle Grace.  Again, so bittersweet!

October is known as Miscarriage, SIDS, Stillbirth, Infant Loss Month.  I have recently learned that in 1988 it was Ronald Reagan who stated that this month would be National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

That:

“When a child loses his parent, they are called an orphan.  When a spouse loses her or his partner, they are called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, there isn’t a word to describe them. This month recognizes the loss so many parents experience across the United States and around the world. It is also meant to inform and provide resources for parents who have lost children due to miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, stillbirths, birth defects, SIDS, and other causes.” (Found this at: http://www.october15th.com/ )

Since this month is significant to us for not just losing our first baby on this date, but because we also finally get to celebrate 6 weeks with our “Rainbow Baby,” I figured I would finally share the first blog post I ever started journaling in about that first baby before we lost him/her.  When I was so happily naive about the future we would so quickly have.  I’m so thankful to have our sweet girl now, but there aren’t days that go by that I don’t sometimes think about the two we lost.  Will and I certainly want more sweet babies, but we also know the unfortunate reality of everything that can go wrong- so I’m soaking up every single minute of Annabelle Grace’s beautiful life with us.  So, here is my post I never released about our first Angel Baby, it does stop abruptly- which is about a week or so before I started bleeding and we lost him/her.

We’re Expanding Our House By Two Feet

(By two feet!)  Get it?

Yep, you got it, we’re pregnant!!!!

HOLY CRAP! WE’RE PREGNANT!?!?!?!!!

Wednesday, September 2:

Funny thing is, Will doesn’t know yet either.  Today is currently Wednesday, September 2, 2015, right at about 5:00pm. I also just ate chicken nuggets from McDonalds, because hey, why not celebrate with everyone’s favorite kid food?!  You, however, are just currently reading this today!  (Obviously Will does know now.)

I figured until I could actually share the news with you all, I would pretty much journal in here until then.

So how will/did I tell Will?  So he is currently at the farm and it is rice harvest so he won’t be home until probably 9:00pm.   Ahhhhh, waiting that long even is hard.  I bought him a “Congrats, Grad” card, because he is graduating to “Daddy status” and am hiding it under his pillow.  I’m going to attempt to video his remark to it.

{EDIT} Sooo, the video didn’t go according to plan… This is literally all I got:

 

So I had the plan to put the card under his pillow and once he found it, I was going to casually video this moment.  Well by the time he got home, I couldn’t take it.  He was going to take a shower, so I just said “here’s a card I got you!”  I still thought I could casually video the moment… But he noticed and just started saying what is in this card?  I think he knew.  I kind of teared up, and I think he did too.  The rest of the night we both kind of stayed in shock, but happy shock.

Next question– how did I know I was pregnant?  I didn’t.  We  weren’t really trying yet, but something just felt different.  I haven’t really had any crazy pregnancy side effects, but something just kept telling me to take a test.  Well it was positive, and so were the other two I took later on.  Yep three different brands.

{EDIT} Thursday, September 3

DAY AFTER FINDING OUT I’M PREGNANT

So I woke up today and still couldn’t hardly believe it, so of course, I took another test!  Yep! Still PREGNANT.

Will and I have been discussing who, when, and how to tell people.  We figure we will wait until October when my parents are in town and when Will’s come down for dinner.  Now to decide how….

QUESTION:  Will we learn if we are having a baby boy or girl?!

Nope!  I have always known that I didn’t want to know, and Will seems pretty on board with that idea too!  So delivery day it is!

For fun, we found this website:

http://newparent.com/mom/how-to-tell-if-youre-having-a-girl-or-boy1

On it are all the myths people traditionally use to try to see if they are having a boy or girl.  We decided we would try most of these out once a month and keep track of what comes of each of them!  It’ll pass the time and make it kind of cool to see what really happens when #BabyCashion is born!

QUESTION:  Have we at least picked out names?

Yes and No!  Are we going to tell the choices?  We haven’t decided yet.

Also, I’m not a good liar; I hope nobody asks me if I’m pregnant between now and when this blog post actually gets posted!

{EDIT}. Saturday, September 12:

Today I am six weeks along!  The baby is as big as a chocolate chip.  Will really enjoyed hearing that, and then immediately wanted cookies…. Ha.

So yesterday, Friday was my first appointment.  Literally nothing to report except the fact that they too had me pee in a cup to confirm the pregnancy.  The doctor answered a few questions and home I went.  On the bright side I can continue my Pure Barre classes!

I also have still not experienced any morning sickness, which is a great thing.  I have however, in the last few days been exhausted feeling!

My next appointment is Friday, October 9- the same weekend my parents will be in town!

{EDIT} Friday, September 25

So my next appointment was supposed to be in two weeks- on October 9th, turns out today was the day baby wanted me to get a little closer look at him or her.  I woke up this morning and things weren’t quite right, on top of the fact that I also have had NO morning sickness- so I started to get a little nervous.

Will and I talked about it and of course he was a rock, and a positive one at that, and he felt things were fine.  I wanted to feel that way too, but the fact that I haven’t been feeling much different and I woke up to this unexpected, not pleasant surprise, and the only confirmation of pregnancy I had at the doctor’s office was peeing in a cup, I was a little more stressed out.  Of course reading things on line NEVER helps, and you learn about things like chemical pregnancies and ectopic pregnancies.  I really didn’t want to chance things and wait until the Friday before my parents came to town to find out if something was wrong, so I called and made an appointment.

On a positive note, things are just fine!  They told me I wasn’t crazy for worrying, because seeing blood is not a good thing, but is normal to happen.  The doctor ran a few tests, and decided to go ahead and do an ultrasound just to make sure she saw something- guess what- she did!  There is a teeny tiny baby inside of me with a good heartbeat!

Talk about RELIEF! I could not be more thankful, and now can honestly appreciate the fact that I’m not dealing with morning sickness!  Will tried his best to make it there, and of course made it right when I was finishing up and walking out.  The fact that he tried to make it and wanted to meant a lot.

I still have my appointment on the 9th, so he will at least get to hear the heartbeat then!  I’ll update again soon!