And So It Has Begun

Well, you can see by the picture, we're going for round two. Yup, we didn't learn our lesson the first time and somehow managed up to wind up pregnant again. All kidding aside, we are just beyond thrilled that we are having another baby! Now, for any of you who read my blog that know me in my personal or professional life – mum's the word! I haven't even told my family yet so DON'T SPILL THE BEANS!!

 

We had an ultrasound on Nov 30th and it showed my little blueberry in there but it was too soon to hear a heartbeat. We will go back on the 17^th for another ultrasound just to make sure he's doing okay in there. Not to say that there's a reason he wouldn't be though. Actually quite the opposite. My progesterone numbers were normal this time around which means no icky progesterone pills (that don't get swallowed by the way…) and my hCG numbers had a doubling time of 26 hours which is fabulous.

 

I am now in my seventh week of pregnancy. I am precisely six weeks, three days according to LMP and ultrasound size measurements (6+4 by ovulatory dating but still close enough). That makes me due on 28 July 2013. This is sorta amazing to me because, as you can recall, my prediction from Cheri was that I was going to have a boy about two years after Zoey and he would be born in August. I think that I'm not going to hold my breath when my due date rolls around and expect this baby to take his sweet time!

 

Also in the realm or early gender prediction, I looked up this baby's gender based on the Chinese gender chart and it says that it will be a boy. Plus I used the Ramzi method from my ultrasound and saw that based on the placental location, it is also suggested that it's a boy. With all of this evidence and my gut instinct telling me that I'm having a boy, I've already decided. It's a boy! I've been searching out names for the past few weeks, trying to pin one down. There are a few that I really like, but I can't seem to get Jon on board with any of them. Oh well, we still have 33 more weeks to figure it out.

 

So we are planning to tell our families at Christmas to make it extra fun and special. We bought Zoey a shirt that says, "This little monkey is going to be a big sister!" and we are going to have her wear it around and see how long it takes people to notice. lol We will be in Blanding for Christmas this year so we will be spilling the beans on two occasions. First up is my family on the weekend before Christmas and then Jon's family a few days later. I'm so excited to be able to share my news with everybody! I seriously don't know how I'm going to contain myself (or stop my belly from poking out in the meantime!).

 

Speaking of the effects of pregnancy, I am having some serious morning sickness lately. I am also getting a lot of migraines which really exacerbates the morning sickness. Throw into that the serious fatigue and this momma needs a nap – daily! But of course there's no rest for mommies because Zoey certainly doesn't understand mommy being too tired to play. I am also getting high blood sugar readings. My fasting numbers are around 100 every morning even though my post meal numbers are in the low 100's to 90's which is excellent. My doc has already started me on the ADA diet and told me to get some exercise (seriously? I'm too tired to even haul my ass to the potty sometime! lol) so now I don't even get to indulge in my pregnancy cravings. L Oh well, I knew pregnancy would be miserable again but it's worth it in the end!

 

Wow, this is a long post. I guess I'll end this by saying that I'm hoping for an easy pregnancy but preparing for every complication I've suffered with before. Remember – DON'T TELL!! I am excited to share the surprise with my family and I'll post again after that.

Here We Go Again

So Jon and I had planned on starting to try for another baby when Zoey turned two. I even had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for about a week and a half after Zoey’s birthday to get my IUD taken out. Well, apparently fate had another course for us. Last Saturday I felt really weird and got a horrible migraine (my migraines are hormonally related – I used to get them once to twice a month at very regular times) but I didn’t think much of it. I was a little crampy and spotty but I just figured it was a weird period thing and I was camping so I didn’t bother trying to figure it out.  

I went home and on Monday, took a shower and checked my IUD strings like I normally do and realized that they were about three times longer than normal. I kinda freaked out a bit and didn’t quite know what to do for a little while. I read just about everything on the internet that pertained to the topic before I came to the decision that my body was expelling the IUD. It was a holiday so I couldn’t call my doctor that day, but I called first thing in the morning and got the first appointment I could on Thursday afternoon.  

In the meantime I read more and more online. I read that most people with similar symptoms needed to have their IUD removed, which I decided I was fine with. Then I realized that I would only be able to take progestin-only birth control pills because I’m still nursing a bit. I know that those “mini-pills” don’t really work that well and have to be taken at the exact same time every day which I am horrible at. I also hated the idea of being on hormonal birth control again. I asked Jon for his opinion and he told me, “You know what I said a long time ago, we should just get [having another kid] over with” 

Fast forward to Thursday. I had read the night before about how sometimes the string length can change if you become pregnant with the IUD. I freaked out of course but still had plenty of pregnancy tests from when we were trying for Zoey so I took one in the morning and it was thankfully negative. I checked the strings again and this time they felt shorter than then had on Monday, but still longer than usual. I went to the doctor’s office in the afternoon and had quite the long wait to sit and think about what I wanted to do. My doctor was delivering a baby so I had to wait a total of 2 hours to see her! I asked about rescheduling but the next available apt was in a week and I was too uncomfortable to wait that long. When she checked it out, she said that it felt like it was in the right position and the strings measured about what they were when she put it in. She offered to do an ultrasound to check the positioning inside the uterus, but by that time I had just decided that it was too uncomfortable at that point and I asked her to remove it.

We deduced that I was having a weird cycle that somehow caused the IUD to slip down for a few days while my cervix was low and then when my cervix moved up again, it pulled the IUD up again but it just wasn’t quite the same position likely so that’s why it felt so uncomfortable. I opted not to ask for birth control because it just didn’t seem like a good plan for me with my hormone issues. I talked to Jon about it when I got home and he said that was just fine with him. We could just not specifically “try” to get pregnant until I’m ready and if it happens in the meantime, well then, my timetable was just upped a little. lol

 So now I’m hearing the OK GO song in my head, “Here It Goes Again” and wondering when I am going to start all over again. The last pregnancy, as you all know, was not the most pleasant experience at many times so I’m apprehensive to say the least. I would say that I’ve likely got plenty of time to prepare for it as it takes a bit of action that I’m not getting to get a bun in the oven, but knowing my luck and how we had to not try to get Zoey, I’ll end up prego in a matter of a few months.

 And then there’s the Cheri prediction… She said that my baby boy would be linked to August and the two kids would be about two years apart. Well, August has passed for the month of conception, but if he were to be born in August, we would conceive in November and the two would be just over two years apart. I don’t know if I’m ready for it yet, but here we go again!