Pregnancy Q&A

Last year my pregnant friend did a Q&A on her blog and I loved it and thought it was a great idea. She used some of the most common questions she gets asked, and while several of ours matched, I have a few different ones. So this one is tailored for me :)

I filled this out a few weeks ago, saved it and forgot about it... so finally, here goes!

Q: When did you find out?
We found out on August 14th {for those of you who read my blog, it was the day of the Amazon picnic}. 

This was the one time in our marriage where neither one of us was expecting me to be pregnant. I miscarried in both April and July and about 5 weeks post my July miscarriage I began to worry because I hadn't started my cycle - and for me, that's odd. So before I freaked out about me dying or anything ;-) I took a pregnancy test to rule that out. And to my surprise {shock} two very dark lines popped up! 

Q: When are you due? 

April 21st  -though I hold very loosely to the term "due dates. I think they're mostly silly, because baby will come when baby wants to come and is ready to come. I like to just say I'm due near the end of April. 

Q:How did you tell Jason and your kids? Jason knew I was taking the test, so when I came out of the bathroom, he was right there, eager to see the results :) 

We always think we're going to wait to tell our kids {to avoid having them deal with the disappointment of a loss} but we talked about and it and decided that we felt its healthy and normal for even children to experience disappointments, even death, in life. 

We told Ethan first and he said he already knew because he saw me laying on the couch a lot :-) He was very excited and told me right away "I'm mostly excited because this time you're having TWO babies!" - this boy wants to kill me, I think. 

Rachel's reaction was cute and sad. She hugged me and said she was excited and then she said "I hope we get to keep this baby longer before it dies." So I had to explain to her that not all babies meet death and some, like her, are born healthy and live a long life. 

Kara was very excited and began running around the house, stuffing her stomach with blankets, telling everyone she was pregnant too. 

Q: after 3 miscarriages since Kara, how did you feel when you found out? Its the news of a new life, so no matter how much loss I suffer, I will always be instantly thrilled when I see two lines. After miscarriages though, the excitement does come with some worry and anxiety. 

I wasn't terribly anxious, but I did worry. I'm afraid my first thought was "If this baby doesn't make it, I hope I miscarry early on. I don't think I can handle another late miscarriage." I feel horrible for even thinking we could lose the baby... but I'm afraid its what happens when its been back-to-back for 2 1/2 years. 

The first 4 weeks were rough. Making it to the 8 week point felt good, but making it to the 12 week point, plus hearing the strong heart beat at 9 weeks and then SEEING the active, healthy baby on the ultrasound at 12 weeks, definitely helped :) 

Every new day felt like icing on the cake and a major miracle. 

Our families, our church friends and several close friends knew early on and so we had a lot of prayer going up for this little one, which was comforting. 

Q: When you passed up milestones you never made it past with previous babies... was that hard? 

Yes. Much harder and way more emotional than I thought it would be. Very bitter-sweet. My due date with Micah was a hard day to get through. It wasn't God's plan for those babies to be in our earthly family and His plans are best, so I'm learning to truly be content with that - no matter how hard it can be for my little mind to understand. 

I'm so thankful He's given us this child and I'm praying that healing will continue as we ge to know this little one and he/she joins our family. 

Q: How are you feeling?

I'm feeling great now! The first trimester was very, very hard on me. Call it a depleted body or not, being my 3rd pregnancy in 9 months, I had a hard time. 

The morning sickness was bad, the stomach flu that followed didn't help either. 

The fact that the morning sickness hit hard and heavy the day we started moving, didn't help either. It was just rough... but this seems to be pregnancy for me. No matter what I do, what I eat or don't eat, etc... I just have a rough first trimester. In the grand scheme of things, 12 weeks of yuckiness isn't too horrible. 

Q: Notice any differences yet?I have compared this pregnancy to Rachel's many times, because it really reminds me of hers. But then sometimes it strongly reminds me of Ethan's. 

I imagine with each child we have, the similarities will being to blend quite a bit. 

I've said it on Facebook, we're having a very ethnic child. I crave pretty much ALL types of food. I just like food and so does our baby :) 

But no, no real major difference from my other pregnancies. 

Q: Are you going to find out the gender?Yes. We hope to. Our kids very badly want to know and I think this time around especially, we are all very eager to know what our baby is. We've always felt like the bonding part becomes so much easier when we know and we can actually refer to our baby as something besides "baby" or "it". Plus its always made name choosing much easier. 

Q: Gender Predictions?This is where we're more stumped this time around. I lean mostly towards girl and I'm not really sure why. I even dream its a girl, so who knows. 

Jason & Ethan think its a boy and our girls want it to be a girl, so they've decided it is :) 

We're all just thrilled he or she is healthy :) 

**since writing this post I actually took one of those gender prediction tests {came highly recommended on Amazon} and so we have our result from that test, but we're waiting on the ultrasound, which will be December 5th, before we make any real announcements.  I'll be sure to let you mommies know if the test was accurate. A few of you have told me you're dying to know how accurate they are :) 

Q: And...will you be going drug free again?If I can, of course! 

Nothing ever went "wrong" during my epidural labors, but any time I can bypass drugs and intervention, I'd love to try.