A Good Day

Good days are hard to come by for me when I'm pregnant. I am not the woman who feels better than ever when she's pregnant; I feel sick, out of sorts, unable to do things I normally do...long before the true physical manifestations of pregnancy make day to day activities a challenge.

However, today was a good day. The best day I've had since we found out we were pregnant (as far as feeling good, hearing the heartbeat was my true best day thus far)! I was able to eat, pretty much what I wanted; and drink! This is a true treat, to drink a glass of juice or milk or water, oh water how I miss you!, and not feel like it's going to come straight back up.

This was a hard week. I was unable to keep all but one dose of the progesterone down starting Sunday night through Tuesday night. I was spotting, just like with the miscarriages, and I was frustrated. I cried and prayed a good part of the night, knowing I needed to keep the progesterone down if I was going to keep carrying this pregnancy. In the morning I woke up to find goodies of lemons, ginger, tea, and honey sticks on the counter. Kevin told me our friends Jon and Kirsten had dropped them off after she did some research on morning sickness. Well, let me tell you, the lemons have done it for me! I smell them when I'm sick, lick them, suck on them, and I have been able to keep my meds down since Wednesday, every time! I am so thankful, as I had never heard of using lemons to combat morning sickness.

Kyle has had some interesting moments since we told him we are pregnant. I was on the phone the other day with my cousin talking about adoption and he told Kevin he thought I was talking to Jesus about our babies. Last night, Kyle crawled in to bed with me (Kevin was at work), and stated that "My baby brother or sister wants me to sleep with them tonight". I couldn't help but snicker and let him fall asleep on Kevin's side of the bed.

I feel bad; Kyle is having to grow up fast with me being so sick and Kevin taking care of everything around here. I often see Kyle finishing up breakfast or dinner alone while Kevin packs lunches, cleans up the kitchen, or throws another load of laundry in the washer. He has always played well by himself, but lately he's had to do it more often than usual. I know this is temporary and I look forward to feeling better on a more regular basis here in a few weeks; enjoying these last few months of play time with just Kyle. I think a part of me is going to mourn this one on one time with him, as excited as we are for the new baby. Kyle will be old enough that I think he will have some memories of being an only child.

Kyle thinks we should get two brothers and sisters, I just asked him. He wants us to go and get them...some of the details are still lost to him, lol.

Time for bed! I'll update on my next "good day".

Good news!

Kevin got some great results at the lab today, just hours before his abstract is due for his big spring conference. I am so proud of him! He has been working so hard this year, his last year as a Ph.D. student; actually, if you took a glance at his CV, he's been working hard all four years,but this year we both knew would be a big push for him to be in the lab, getting results, and writing all the time in order to get published and finish up everything for his dissertation.

Our adoption classes have been going well and we are about halfway through. Amazingly, we had a positive pregnancy test the Friday after our first adoption class. I went in for some blood work that morning, and we got the results the Monday after: low progesterone. So, I started progesterone twice a day and have been taking it for the last 30 days. It's been really hard for me to believe that we are actually pregnant again, for the 3rd time, since May. Today we had our first pregnancy appointment, which is a hurdle in itself, one we haven't made it to since we were pregnant with Kyle. I was so nervous about everything (and probably will be until we deliver a healthy baby), but the midwife was optimistic. She was wrapping things up and I asked if we could try to hear the heartbeat (we heard Kyle at 8 weeks). She made sure we knew that it was unlikely we would hear the heartbeat this early on, that she would schedule us for two weeks out if we didn't hear it. She was searching and found my heartbeat (not hard to find) and then she said "I just heard it, let me get lower on your abdomen", and she found it and says "That's a strong heartbeat, feel it" and Kevin and I could feel it vibrating through the doppler speaker and I just started crying, I couldn't help it. Even now I'm crying, every time I think about it or talk about it, the tears well up, happy tears. The midwife made sure we knew that we weren't out of the woods yet, not with our two miscarriages this past year. I'm on progesterone for another 30 days and our next appointment is December 10th.

And so today I'm praising God, for my husband's success and the kind of heartbeat I wasn't sure I'd ever hear again. No matter what happens from here on out, I am asking for all of your prayers and support. We are 9 weeks pregnant and baby #2 is due June 17th.