Thursday, March 05, 2009

And Baby Makes Four!

And the announcement that everyone has been waiting for!


First, Santa and the Stork crossed paths this Christmas. The Stork left a small package for Santa to drop in my stocking. He mentioned it be 9 months before I could unwrap it.


Then in Hawaii, while everyone else was drinking Mai Tais and enjoying sushi, I was sucking on an O'douls. Yes, Baby Rader #2 is going to be joining us sometime around Sept. 12!


Here is he or she at age 12 weeks 4 days.
Carson is thrilled to becoming a Big Brother . . . even though he has NO idea what that means!

Meanwhile, I had to laugh looking back at my first pregnancy picture with Carson. Here I am at 12 weeks. Slim and trim! No baby bump.Here I am at 12 weeks with B2 (Baby #2). Even though I weigh 7 pounds less and actually have lost 3 pounds since the start of this pregnancy, I have a very noticable baby bump.For comparison, here I am at 17 weeks with Carson. Strangely the same size baby bump as I am now sporting at 12 weeks. I'm scared to see how big I'm going to get!

And for everyone wondering what B2 is going to be . . . we have invited all three grandparents to a special luncheon on March 21st. We are all going to cram into a tiny ultrasound room to find out together if we are expecting a boy or a girl! It will be cozy and exciting!


The road to a sibling for Carson has been a bit of a roller coaster. We actually began this journey back in April of 2008. It took five long months and then in August we became pregnant.
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Unfortunately at our 12 week ultrasound on Halloween (the day we were planning to announce our pregnancy), we discovered that we had lost the baby. It was called a "missed miscarriage".
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Sadly the baby had passed away at 8 weeks but my body somehow didn't get the message. It was very emotional, especially since we'd actually seen the baby via ultrasound at 7 weeks and its little heart was beating away.
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Fortunately the surgical procedure to take care of the miscarriage went well and we were able to get back to life fairly quickly. Most couples are advised to wait 3 months before trying to conceive again but our doctor gave us the green light right away due to my excellent health and emotional state. At that point we were just looking forward to enjoying our upcoming trip to Hawaii in January.
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On New Year's Day I took a pregnancy test and it was negative. I was a little disappointed but with Hawaii coming up in a few weeks, I was also looking forward to a few Mai Tais and some yummy sushi. The following Monday morning, I realized that I had a dentist appointment later that afternoon and while I didn't feel pregnant, I did take another pregnancy test just in case (you can't have xrays while you are pregnant).
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The test was negative. No biggie. However, 30 minutes later I happened to peek in the garbage can just one more time and there was a faint pink line on the stick!! I truly didn't believe it. The directions say not to read the test after 10 minutes because of incorrect results.
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So just to be safe, I passed on the xrays at the dentist. Ironically, my super sweet dental hygenist (whom I've known for almost 20 years) was also the first person to know when I was pregnant with Carson for the same xray reason! Too funny! We had a good giggle about it.
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Needless to say, I was not convinced I was pregnant. With Carson and the 2nd pregnancy, the preggo stick turned PREGNANT within a minute and was dark pink. With this one the line was faint and didn't turn for a long time.
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I left the dentist and headed straight for The Dollar Store. $3 later I arrived at my office, grabbed a styrophom coffee cup, and beelined it for the bathroom.
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Oh yes, I took another pregnancy test in the bathroom at work. And sure enough, another faint pink line. A little more convinced but not 100%. I considered asking my officemate to pee in another cup for me but figured that would be a tad suspicious.
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On the way home, I bought the MAC DADDY $20 pregnancy test. Convinced it would convince me. I peed, the lights flashed, the hourglass tipped, and sure enough, it shouted "PREGNANT" at me.
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Still not convinced. I called my midwife and asked for a blood test. She humored me with not one but two blood tests a day apart to confirm that yes, I was indeed pregnant. And just in time for Hawaii. We celebrated with O'douls and California rolls in Maui.
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Then our pregnancy took an unexpected turn. The night after we turned "6 weeks" and returned from Hawaii, I experienced heavy bleeding. I'll spare you the gorey details but I thought for sure we were miscarrying and almost didn't call the midwife.
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I did call though and they got me in the very next day for an emergency ultrasound. After a very long, stressful night, we arrived at the ultrasound clinic pretty convinced that our baby hadn't made it.
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Fortunately the baby was still in there and alive! The little tiny heart was ticking away! The other news was that they were able to identify the source of the bleeding. There was a subchorionic hemmorhage (or blood clot) next to the baby. It put us in the category of "threatened miscarriage".
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Not a fun diagnosis but somewhat of a relief to have identify it and learn more. The prognosis was good but still risky. I was put on "limited activity" with no working out and no lifting.
Anyone who knows me and remembers my previous low tolerance for bedrest, knows this was a very challenging time for me. But I did my best and did it for the baby.
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Over the next three weeks we went in for weekly ultrasounds to monitor the baby and the blood clot. It was a long three weeks with daily bleeding. Fortunately the blood clot "bled out" and by our third ultrasound at 8 weeks, things were looking very positive.
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I was feeling a little nervous last week (11 weeks, 4 days) and my sweet midwife said come on in! She dopplered me to hear the heartbeat. Pesky little baby was turned the wrong way so she ended up having to wheel in a portable ultrasound machine. It was so wonderful to be able to see the little jumping bean on a tiny little 3 inch screen and confirm he/she was still in there!
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Throughout that time and to this very day, I really have no other symptoms or side effects of pregnancy. It's really strange but nice overall. With the 2nd pregnancy I experienced terrible all day sickness, gained a pound a week, and my boobs felt like they'd been pummeled in a boxing match. None of the above this time. In fact I've lost three pounds, and that's in spite of not being able to work out.
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I will be 13 weeks as of Saturday and looking forward to working out again soon! Our midwife has been absolutely wonderful and we are very excited to spend this pregnancy with her and her fellow midwives. As of right now, I'm hoping to deliver this baby without an epidural. Jeremy is hedging his bets on the fact that I will cave. Maybe we'll start a pool ;-)
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So this blog will now have to become a family blog and I will try to post equally on Carson and B2.

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations Kristin! What a story, and am I the only woman who's ever only taken 1 test (I took a picture of it, but...)?

    ReplyDelete

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