I've been a slack blogger since before Jack was born. Relying too much on posting everyday life on fb instead of here where it is neatly categorized for me to look back on later. You know how fb time line is... Something posted yesterday is shuffled way down and lost in time unless you spend hours searching for it. So, I'll resume most of my posting on here, and what better way to start than with summer break?
The first weekend after Sean was out of school was downright rainy, so we spent the time doing puzzles, games, play-doh, and asking (answering!) Too many questions!
This week brought the sun, finally! We've spent the past two days at the pool, and loving it! I'm one kid down in the mornings this week with Lilly at an imaginOn camp, so I've been able to slowly acclimate myself to the pool routine. If it weren't for the nifty JuJu Roo water carrier, going to the pool wouldn't be possible at all! Jack slept 90% of the time we're there, which is amazing! He did, however, scream all the way home wed and half the way home today. When that boy is hungry, he means business!
I'll write more later, but for now, here are a few pictures of our day today. The one of jack is completely wrong lighting, probably due to the shade. You can't see the carrier that well, but he's comfy and it's all quick-drying neoprene, so it doesn't get yucky in the van when we toss our pool stuff to leave. The less I have to carry inside to wash everyday the better! Speaking of laundry, gotta go throw the bathing suits and towels in the wash....
I've worked on this blog post for several weeks. I thought it would be fitting to finally post it a year to the day after we officially found out we were expecting another baby. It was Jon's birthday, and the timing was perfect to take yet another pregnancy test (after 3 miscarriages in a row). We were cautiously happy, and I can say today I am so thankful God allowed Jack to thrive and grow for the past year--both inside during pregnancy and now 4 months on the outside. To me, this feels like his first birthday...because he has been a huge part of our lives since today. So, I will always remember Jack and Jon as sharing this day and the wonderful gift God gave our family. So, what follows is the many times I started and stopped writing this post about Jack's story!
I first started this blog almost 3 years ago when Brilee was born. I began writing down each of the children's stories so that I would remember the details/highlights of each pregnancy and birth. Here it is 6 weeks since Jack has been born and I have yet to write down his story from the beginning.
His story really began December 2011 when we happily conceived and had a positive test just before Christmas. Sadly, I miscarried at 5 weeks on New Year's Eve. Then we experienced the same heartache again in March and early May. I wrote that story down in this blog post: In The Storm.
After so many early losses, I made an appointment with a fertility specialist to determine if something else was happening besides my progesterone deficiency since the supplements didn't seem to be working. The dr. was going to run some different tests to see what might be happening since I had 3 of the top 5 reasons for early miscarriage: thyroid disease, progesterone deficiency and fibroids. However, I got another positive test the day before that dr's appointment, so he said we would just have to see what happened this time. On my own research, I had started taking the progesterone supplements a week before I got a positive test hoping it would help any possible baby to get a good implantation. When the dr. did the ultrasound that day (4 weeks pregnant), it was too early to see anything besides a very thick lining, so he made an appointment for me to come back in 2 weeks when I would be 6 weeks pregnant....and this was happily our first glance at our baby and a tiny beating heart:
So, even though Jack is 6 weeks old as I write this, I will always remember this image as the time he was REALLY six weeks old with a teeny tiny heart. The dr. still could not get a good crown to rump measurement from this ultrasound, so he scheduled me to come in again in 2 weeks later for a more accurate measurement for a due date.
So, on June 26 I had another ultrasound and the baby had grown well and I was given a due date of February 4, 2013! My progesterone numbers were still low even with the supplements, so the dr. increased my dose to 2x daily, which made my pregnancy symptoms even more exaggerated. I was extremely tired and fatigued and had lots of indigestion since the progesterone slows down the digestive system. I am ever thankful to God, however, that there is modern medicine with such a simple way to allow babies such as ours to make it through the first trimester when your body produces the progesterone necessary to support the pregnancy.
I also find it amazing that the baby grows so fast in the first few weeks, that if it continued to grow at the same rate, it would weigh over a ton at birth! SO glad they slow down after the beginning :)
The specialist doesn't release patients back to their regular Ob/gyn care until the baby has reached 10 weeks gestation, so I had yet ANOTHER ultrasound on July 9 and was SO happy everything was going well. My progesterone numbers looked good, so he took me back down to 1 dose a day and I stayed on the medication for 2 more weeks until the first trimester was over.
Isn't it amazing how you can really see the baby developing and he was only a little over 3 cm here? After this ultrasound, we made a huge puzzle for the kids to put together to announce to them that they were going to have another sibling. Sean's reaction was especially priceless :)
Here is the picture we sent to family and friends to announce our fourth little one was on the way:
So, I was released into my regular Ob/gyn's care after 10 weeks, but I switched dr's offices as I had felt like I had been brushed aside with my concerns over my 3 early losses by the dr that delivered Brilee. (My wonderful Dr. who helped me through the miscarriages before Sean had since left the practice and moved up to Huntersville) So, I went to a practice that several friends recommended. They did yet (ANOTHER!) ultrasound at 12 weeks to check the nuchal space behind the baby's neck. It's usually done to determine any possible chromosomal abnormalities, but we just liked the fact we were getting another glimpse at baby! Here is baby at 12 weeks 4 days:
I must admit I stared at these pictures over and over again looking at every little detail. I was just mesmerized by our baby who was so very little. At first, we were planning to leave the gender a surprise for this baby (since we'd always found out in the past) but the more I thought about the preparation we would need to do in order to get room assignments worked out, we decided it would be best to find out what we were having. If it were a girl, the girls would need to move out of their room to have the office/guest bedroom as a huge bedroom for them but if it were a boy he would share a room with Sean. (though at first the baby wouldn't stay in either room until old enough to sleep well)
So, our BIG ultrasound day arrived on September 6 (if you're keeping count, this was the 5th!!! ultrasound we'd had so far!), and all the kids tagged along with us. I told the ultrasound tech not to tell me what it was, but to let me look and that I would be able to tell (I've looked at plenty of ultrasound pictures to know what I'm looking at!) So, she started doing the ultrasound and Jon was sternly warned that he couldn't take video when she realized he was filming! So, we only have about 10 seconds of video! She started doing the ultrasound and the kids were mesmerized right away. Such a cute baby :)
She then scanned over "the" area and I could tell right away...who couldn't? :) THe kids were thrilled...especially Sean who has been wanting a baby brother :)
We felt excited and so happy that we decided to find out after all. This allowed us to prepare and plan for baby Jack and get everything ready before he was born (I ended up sewing a LOT of things for him that I never took the time to make with the other babies, and rediscovered my love for crocheting and sewing!)
The last half of my pregnancy absolutely flew by. With Sean in school, we stayed very busy keeping on top of him and the girls were taking dance classes and I playing piano for the church so we were on the go all the time. I wanted to savor every moment of being pregnant (as I was one of the strange women who actually enjoy it...well, until the last month I suppose when it gets super uncomfortable!)
I decided i was going to do a better job of taking pictures this last go around of being pregnant. So, even though many of them are very unpleasant, here are the pictures I managed to capture (please ignore the ever so annoying "pic in a mirror pictures"...no, I'm not 16, but sometimes that was the only way to get a picture whenever I could remember when Jon was at work!)
12 weeks (I'm still larger than this now at 6 weeks postpartum!)
20 weeks
23 weeks
24 weeks
25 weeks
27 weeks
28 weeks
30 weeks
35 weeks
36 weeks
38 1/2 weeks (dirty mirror and all where Sean makes a mess brushing his teeth!)
39 weeks 3 days (just ONE day before Jack was born)
Wow, I was huge...but I already miss that sweet feeling of baby kicks (jabs/punches!) inside and really loved every minute of being pregnant. Even the miserable last 3 weeks where I had lots of false labor and tons of contractions.
Maybe it was that I had 3 older kids to take care of, or maybe because I was older, or just because each pregnancy is different, but I really thought I was going to have him at any moment the last few weeks. Thankfully, I had a wonderful doula who was on call at a moments notice to come when I needed her if it was time. I downloaded one of those handy dandy contraction timers on my phone and kept up with them for hours at a time during the night....but every time they would die down after about 5-6 hours and I would be tired the next day and felt so sorry for my girls because mommy didn't feel like doing anything fun!
The week before Jack was born we DID go to the hospital thinking he was coming as I had really bad contractions for over 7 hours, but then they died down after 4 hours at the hospital, but the on call dr. would not let me go home! (we are still working out the billing on that one since they said I was being monitored longer than I actually was...and the bill for when he was actually born a week later was LESS than that visit the week before...strange!)
(Interruption for a few more pictures that I found on my phone with the baby skeleton shirt...plus I am a little tired of typing right now, so I'm going to come back to finish "The rest of the story) later.... :)
Part II will continue later. I need to re-group and refresh my mind before writing Jack's very exciting birth experience. Hope it doesn't take me 4 more months for Part II! I hear others joke about how no one updates their blog anymore, and I have to admit I'm part of the slackers who have fallen by the wayside, but I hope to start posting more often soon...especially with summer and more fun family activities.
The past month or so I've been working on making a few things for the baby...well, it started as a few things and turned into many more projects! Here are some pics of the items I ended up making:
