Heartbeats

They say you never forget the first time you hear your baby's heartbeat. And I don't think I ever will. This weekend we announced to friends (and some total strangers) that we are now celebrating our 12th week of pregnancy. I was able to finally wear a more form fitting shirt and allow my little baby bump to show. It feels strange to me now to be able to tell people openly about the pregnancy after keeping it secret for so long. And its because we reached the magical week # 12. The end of the first and beginning of the second trimester.

We've been waiting exactly 2 years for this miracle to happen in our lives. Two long, anxious, painful, expensive years. Yes, it brought Eric and I closer together for sure. Strengthen our faith in God. But it also gave others the opportunity to minister to us. Through their prayers, shared experiences, notes in the mail, and other means of encouragement. Even though we are in the less the 1% category for miscarriage it can still happen. We pray it doesn't. I honestly don't know what I'd do if we lost another pregnancy. I choose not to dwell on the what ifs. Instead I choose to plan and prepare for our child.

I've been garage saling every weekend the weather is decent. I've been researching cloth diapers and figuring out where the registry will be. I've been reading my pregnancy books. I've been slowing growing out of my jeans. I've been sick off and on but had a very easy first 12 weeks compared to some other women. I've been trying to gain some healthy weight and add more protein to my diet.

I've also been plenty scared. Only a woman who has been through a miscarriage can really know just how scary a pregnancy can be. I didn't start believing this baby would make it until the second time I saw the heartbeat on the ultrasound. When I saw his/her little body growing from week to week (infertility treatments allow for lots of ultrasounds) I was slowly becoming more confident that this one was going to make it.

And then the spotting started. Talk about my confidence level going back to zero. No matter how many times the nurses told me it was 'normal' and that it happens to 'everyone' it still caused me no small amount of anxiety. Then I finally went the space of about 2 weeks or so with no spotting at all and I thought I was done with that. Then this weekend (of all weekends) when I was so excited to tell all our friends the good news, along comes the spotting again. Scarier this time because I just finished taking the last of the medicine. We shared the news regardless and I had a quicky ultrasound done today and everything looks 'perfect' they say and they can't see where the blood came from.

So this may still be an ongoing struggle for me. Why some women have bleeding throughout their pregnancies and others don't bleed a single drop is one of those mysteries. But I will keep on doing what I'm doing. Eating well, trying to do some yoga for exercise, praying daily, and trying not to worry about the 'what ifs'.  We will find out the gender sometime in September but we are choosing to only share our names with our families until this little guy/girl is born. Predicated due date is Feb 8th, 2014.  :)