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It’s been a bit of a longer, more challenging, more frustrating road to baby #2 than I’d ever have imagined it would be. In December 2016, we finally made up our minds that we wanted to grow our family. We assumed it’d be easy, like it was with Caleb, and we’d be pregnant within a month, like we were with Caleb.
Well, that part kind of happened, but it didn’t end well. As many of you know, in February 2017, we discovered I was both pregnant AND that something was wrong on the very same day. Though we got pregnant very quickly, it ended in an ectopic pregnancy. It was heartbreaking and scary. I remember Jerry even saying at one point that he didn’t know if we should try anymore because he didn’t want to deal with that sort of heartbreak again. However, we made our peace with it eventually, and knew that we still wanted to make Caleb a brother someday soon.
Commence trying for nearly a year. A YEAR! I know to some people, that isn’t long at all. But for us, who conceived within the first month on both of our previous tries, it was disheartening and discouraging. At the end of December, I found myself back at my doctor’s office. I had seen him several times since the ectopic, but this was a “hey, why isn’t my body working like it should anymore?” kinda thing. He ordered some testing for us, and I was on my way. I felt good that we would finally get some answers, and hopeful for the first time in months.
Cue just a few days later — January 4th — and I had Jerry bring home a couple of pregnancy tests. I peed on the first one that evening and walked away. After being accustomed to seeing negative after negative for the last year, I wasn’t too hopeful and I went and did something else. Jerry reminded me a few minutes later to check, and lo and behold, a faint positive line. “Jerry!” I shouted from the bathoom. “I think it’s positive!” I ran to show him and he was doubtful, though I knew that even the faintest of lines constituted a positive. I told him I’d take the digital one in the morning, and that was that.
At 3 am, I woke up to go to the bathroom and I couldn’t wait any longer. I pulled out the digital test and took it. Within a minute, “Pregnant” appeared on the screen. I started shaking and I remember letting out a little laugh. I ran into our bedroom, shook Jerry awake, and shoved the test under his nose. I illuminated it with my cell phone and demanded he look. I was so ecstatic, I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. The next morning, Caleb ran around with the test (didn’t know what it was, but it was something shiny and new!) until we took it away from him because… urine.
I saw my doctor the following Monday and he started me on blood work that same day to check my HCG levels and ensure we weren’t dealing with another ectopic. With an ectopic, your levels typically rise very slowly, but with a normal pregnancy, they double every day or two. I had blood draws Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that week. Each time, they had doubled! My doctor called me on Saturday with the Friday results to tell me “congratulations,” and ensure me he believed this pregnancy to be progressing normally. He ordered an ultrasound for two weeks out when he felt the baby would be large enough to be visible. On Caleb’s 3rd birthday, January 22, we saw the baby bright and early at an 8:30 ultrasound appointment. The baby was in the right spot this time (YAY!), and we even saw the heart flickering with a heart rate of 119. It finally felt real! Caleb trotted around the waiting room with the ultrasound print outs, and it was pretty damn adorable (he had no idea what they were). After that ultrasound, my pregnancy converted to a normal one, and the extra monitoring could stop. I go for my first “regular” appointment on Wednesday!
And that’s our story of baby number two. There were countless negative tests, innumerable tears, questions, and frustrations along the way. At times, I started to feel hopeless. I wondered if maybe we were just meant to be a one child family. It seemed like my body was failing me and not doing what I felt it was meant to be doing. And then… just like that, it happened.
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