Details…..again.

Holy cow.

Simply put, I just can not believe that I am getting to write a post like this again.

I’ve known for weeks and I’m still in shock. Just absolute shock.

I mean, we tried. And I got pregnant.

That just doesn’t happen for us!

Except that it did.

So, let me back this entire story up and give you allllll of the details.

We haven’t been on birth control since we were first married. I went off of birth control in the beginning of 2009 and have never looked back. It took us one year to conceive Abigail, it took us 3.5 years (plus IUI’s….plus IVF….plus naturopath) to conceive Mabel. So this baby….

My cycle came back when Mabel was 9 months old(February 2016) and so we “officially” started trying. We hadn’t been using any prevention up until that point, but once my cycle was back I knew we actually had a chance at it happening. So, we tried off and on for a few months without any success.

In September, I went to my OB for my yearly exam and asked her to go ahead and run some blood work just to make sure that my thyroid(I have a family history of hypothyroidism) and hormones were fine. Thankfully, they were!

A great blog friend of mine sent me her fertility monitor(this one– it’s AMAZING) so I started using it around this time.

Nothing happened in September. Nothing in October. Nothing in November.

So I emailed my Naturopath in the beginning of December asking her for suggestions. She told me to get some cycle day 3 blood work done to test my prolactin levels(since I was still breastfeeding, she wanted to double check that it wasn’t inhibiting anything before starting me on supplements) and my FSH level. Which, some might recall, was one of the numbers that my RE tested four years ago and told me was really “BAD”. They also told me that it would only get worse with time- which is why they recommended we get a move on with IVF(which we did).

My results came back and my prolactin levels were good, nothing to be concerned with there. And my FSH level had gone DOWN two entire points. Four years later, and my FSH level that I had been told would only get worse with time had gotten BETTER.  I was completely shocked…and also wondered…what could this mean?

So I started supplements when my cycle showed up in December. Enough supplements to need an old lady pill divider- I swear it.

I was taking daily:

2 prenatals

1 probiotic

1 B complex

1 CoQ10

2 Arginine

3 folliculinum pellets 3x a day on cycle days 3-14

and a dropperful of Vitex tincture every morning (tastes SOOOO gross)

So my cycle progressed along and I started thinking about how things were starting to feel really similar to the cycle I got pregnant with Mabel.

The cycle before Mabel? It went long.

The cycle before this? Had gone long.

The cycle before Mabel? A beach vacation.

The cycle before this? A 10 day Christmas stay at my parents.

The cycle before Mabel? When we returned from beach vacation we started a strict paleo diet.

The cycle before this? When we returned from Christmas break we started a New Years diet with a focus on less bread and sugar(and lots of spinach and kale! lol)

Then the similar symptoms that let me know the supplements were working showed up- skin breakouts, hot flashes, etc. Just like before Mabel.

So, on Friday January 13th, I decided to test. I knew it was going to be early- and I HATE being an early tester because there is nothing I hate more than seeing a negative. Which is why I didn’t find out with my girls until cycle day 34 and cycle day 38 and got instant, super dark, super positive test results. But, I knew that I was going to a ladies fellowship party(it ended up being canceled due to the “ice storm”) that night and would be having drinks and thought I should test- just in case.

And this is what showed up.

I know it’s so faint you can hardly see it, but I’ve seen dozens of negative tests in my life and this was no negative test. I have willed and wished for a line to be in that second spot so many times and it never showed up, so I knew this was different. I quickly took a second test just to make sure it wasn’t an evap line and again….the faint line showed up.

So, I did what any sane person would do and took my two kids out in the middle of an “ice storm” to go buy digital pregnancy tests as Walmart.

Over the weekend I think I took like…ten more tests. The lines were darker on Saturday…darker on Sunday…and then I finally took this one.

Pregnant.

On Monday, I called my OB and had my HCG and progesterone drawn. My progesterone was 30 and my HCG was 102. I had my HCG repeated two days later and it had doubled to 218.

Everything was progressing just like it should and all we had to do was wait until our first ultrasound on February 7th.

Oh yeah! So, how I told Jim.

I knew I wanted to tell him in person but I also decided that I didn’t want to tell Abigail until after our ultrasound. So I had to wait an entire day and for the girls to be in bed before I could tell him.

Since my ladies night had been canceled I was sitting on the couch with Abigail watching a movie with her when I heard him in the kitchen “pop!” open one of my Christmas present bottles of wine (noooo!) I knew he was pouring me a glass, which was sweet, and I was so excited to tell him that I couldn’t drink it! He brought it into the living room for me and then took Abigail upstairs to go to bed.

A little while later he came down and said, “how’s the wine?” and I said…”you’re going to have to drink it for me” and he was disappointed/concerned and said, “oh no!! Is it not any good?!” so then I got to say….”no, actually, it’s because I’m pregnant.”

I wish I could have recorded his face. It was the best thing ever. I think he did the Home Alone Macaulay Culkin thing where he slapped his face and was just like WHATTTT?!!! and of course he came over and hugged me and was so excited and just as shocked as me and said, “oh my gosh. we’re going to have three kids!” and it was just great.

We mostly kept the news to ourselves, but over the next few weeks we told a few family members.

Then we had our ultrasound!

This was the earliest u/s I’d ever had, so I was pretty(really) nervous for it. It was only at 7 weeks 1 day, but the receptionist had said that as long as I was sure of my dates(for the first time ever, I am!) then anything between 7-10 weeks was fine. So, anyway, I was incredibly nervous. I was so worried there would be nothing there. Or worse, that there would be something but it would be hard to find or hard to see or not the right size.

But my fervent prayers were answered (Jim wasn’t worried in the slightest because I had been feeling like death for two weeks leading up to the u/s. As he said, “I can see it in your eyes that you don’t feel good. Courtney, there is a baby in there.”) and the second she put the device on my stomach we could see our baby instantly. And not only that, but their heartbeat just flickering away. And not only that, but measuring perfectly. And not only that, but there was only one in there :p

After such a great appointment, I finally felt ready to tell people. So, we called all of our family members to tell them the news and the best part- we got to tell the girls.

Telling Abigail about the baby will probably go down as one of the single best moments of my life. It was so fantastic. I’ve uploaded it to youtube so if you have some time, watch it, because it is the sweetest/silliest/best thing ever.

And that’s where we’re at! I’m still in the throes of first trimester sickness….though with the girls it went well into second trimester as well. So, we’re settling in and bracing ourselves for 2ish more months of sickness. But that’s okay, absolutely and completely worth it.

I’ve been having a blast going through all of my old Mabel weekly pregnancy posts, so I plan on bringing those back for this baby too. It will be fun to compare them and fun to chronicle this little miracle as well.

As always, thank you so, so, so, so much for all of your love and support. From the bottom of my heart, truly. It means so much.