2016: A Hard Year

Also known as: "A Year of Never-ending First Trimester Misery", or "The First Trimester That Lasted A Year"

On February 10, 2016 we celebrated Henry's first birthday! Three days later we found out that we were pregnant! Yay!

Birthday boy enjoying his Krispy Kreme birthday treat

Get in my belly!

A few weeks later at my OBGYN doctor appointment, I expressed to my doctor how tired and sick I was. She pointed out that I was burning the candle at both ends, as I was using all my energy to grow a new baby, as well as converting whatever energy was left over into breast milk for Henry. I determined that I would stop nursing Henry in an effort to regain energy and better make it through the difficult/miserable beginning of a new pregnancy. Especially since we had achieved the long sought-after milestone of nursing for one year, I felt good about stopping and all the success we had achieved up to that point. Good work team!

About a month later I went in for a 9 week pregnancy confirmation ultrasound. Everything looked great! A week later I had another appointment. This time they couldn't find a heartbeat. They did another ultrasound to double check, and it confirmed that I had suffered a "missed miscarriage", or a miscarriage where your body has not yet recognized that the baby has died. 

We scheduled a D&C for a few days later, on April 1, 2016. Ironically, we were at the same outpatient clinic two days before for Clara to have her trigger thumb surgery. While there for Clara's surgery, it was hard having to tell the nurses and staff why we were coming back in a few days. Going around living life, all the while knowingly carrying around your dead baby is a hard reality to live through.

The surgery went without incident, and we all went home to recover. Physically, and emotionally. We had testing done which determined that the baby was most likely a girl, and that there was no genetic problems that would account for a miscarriage. Just a random occurrence. 

A few months later, I woke up and noticed my nose was stuffed up. "I think I'm pregnant again!" I contacted my OBGYN and let her know, and she had me immediately go get blood drawn to determine my hormone levels to see if I needed hormone shots to help me keep this pregnancy. I went in again a couple of days later for another blood draw to use for comparison. Later that night we were at Chick-fil-A for a family dinner when I went to the bathroom and saw the bleeding. I told Zach and we head home. 

I messaged my doctor and let her know that I thought I was having another miscarriage, or possibly that I wasn't even pregnant and just had a late period. She let me know that the blood test had come back confirming that I had been pregnant, but that I had indeed suffered another miscarriage. 

Fast forward to a few months after that...

Stuffed nose leads to a pregnancy test. Positive pregnancy test leads to blood work, doctor appointments, and off we go on my THIRD pregnancy for 2016. (For those counting, this is now my EIGHTH pregnancy overall.)

Everything was checking out good, and we had a healthy and viable pregnancy! We kept a close eye on her and eagerly looked forward to meeting the new baby sister due March 25, 2017, just in time for Henry to turn two before she was born.