Rainbow Baby: 8 Weeks

Thursday our little Cupcake turn 8 weeks old (in utero).

I figure now is a good time to start weekly updates!

I have been keeping personal weekly updates since week 4, inspired by another mommy blogger here. This is the first one that I am sharing with all of you, so this is the one I made at week 4, about a week after we found out I was pregnant.

Four weeks Pregnant (7.21.11)

Weight: 173 pounds. This is really scary to me. After I had Leila in January I dropped down to 153 pounds. By the middle of February I was about 145ish. Then when I finally started eating normally again, it backfired on me and I shot up to this weight: 173… Oh man… Let’s hope it doesn’t get too much higher. My goal is to only gain about 10 pounds with this pregnancy. A lot of people say “OH BUT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GAIN!” and my reply is “I lost 20 pounds with Landon and only gained ten of it back before delivering, and even more with Leila. I am lucky if I GAIN anything.”
Waist (at belly button): 33"
Hips/butt (fullest part): 42" (yeah, I got curves... What can I say)
Bust (fullest part): 37"
Total weight gain: Zero
Average number of times I get up to pee per night: 1
Baby’s heart rate: Unknown at this point
HcG count: 250+ish… could it be twins? Only time will tell!


How I am feeling emotionally: I have been very emotional. I cry at the drop of a hat. I watched the end of “WALL-E” with Landon today and instantly started bawling. Then I read Landon a book and started crying at the first sentence. Granted, the book was about deployment and my husband is gearing up to deploy soon, but still. Super emotional. I have also noticed that I have very little tolerance or patience. Usually I have endless patience with Landon, but lately I just haven’t had the energy to deal with things that I know will start fights (ie: “No, you may NOT have that cookie!” or “Yes, it’s bed time right NOW!”). So I have been kind of just avoiding the arguments that I know are just going to snowball until I give in anyway. Might as well just give him the dang cookie and tell him it’s the only one right from the start, rather than let it snowball until he is red in the face and screaming and I am huddled in the corner clutching the box of cookies and crying…. Oh and it doesn’t hurt that “cookies” in my house are Ritz crackers ;). Funny they things you can convince your kids when they are young.
And to be honest, there is an entire deeper level of emotions working on me… I am excited and happy, but I am also TERRIFIED! We wanted this pregnancy and this baby, and we feel so blessed to have it: our rainbow baby. Our rainbow after the storm, our silver lining. We are so happy, but so scared. There isn’t anything to say that we won’t go through the exact same we went through with Leila. I am supposed to be having a cerclage this time, but then again, I was supposed to have one last time. What if they refuse again? Then what? I am so scared, but I am trying to stay positive for our precious baby.
And the scariest emotion I am wrestling? Guilt. I feel guilty. I feel like I am “replacing” Leila. I know that no baby could ever take her place or erase her from my memory, but I still feel guilty. A lot of people don’t understand why we chose to conceive so soon. And I don’t expect them to until they have been in our shoes, and I wouldn’t wish what we have been through on anyone. But it’s pretty simple to explain: we wanted her. We were ready for her. We loved her so much and when she died, she left a little hole in our hearts. That hole will never be filled, but we still have so much love to give. And we still want a baby. And we still want Landon to be a big brother. And boy oh boy does he want a baby brother or sister.

How I am feeling physically: With Landon I felt the best I had felt in my life at this point in my pregnancy, even though we later found out my body was battling cancer while I was pregnant. I still felt amazing. I had (surprisingly) loads of energy and was always in an amazingly upbeat mood. But through all of that, I was vomiting like, every minute. It wasn’t “morning sickness”, it was “every minute sickness”. Everything made me sick. Even hearing the words “peanut butter” made me vomit. With Leila I was super sick as well. But it was even worse than Landon! So far with this one, I haven’t really had much trouble. Which actually WORRIES me rather than making me feel good. With Landon and Leila I always felt relieved when I would be throwing up… Almost like my intense sickness was reassurance that my baby was thriving. Is it weird that I long to be sick? It doesn’t hurt that I lost weight with both of my pregnancies because of my sickness.
Besides the lack of morning sickness, I feel pretty good for the most part. But I am having the random sharp abdominal pain that I had with Leila. If it doesn’t stop soon I am going to get checked out…. You know, because I am paranoid like that.

Cravings: I haven’t had a huge appetite, but I have been wanting things that are lighter and more “healthy”. Spinach, brie cheese with berries (don’t worry, it’s pasteurized, so totally safe!),

Aversions: Luckily so far nothing is making me nauseous. I am doing okay so far with food… that’s a big deal for me!

Activity: Taking it pretty easy. I am not taking any chances with this baby. At all. I am not officially on bed rest yet, and I probably won’t be on official bed rest until about 12 weeks or so. The school of thought is basically before 12 weeks, if you are going to miscarry there isn’t a lot that will stop it. It’s a scary thought. So hopefully we can make it through to that point, have the surgery, and then I will be on modified, or even strict, bed rest.

Doctor appointments: Had my “first” appointment where they checked my HcG levels, but didn’t meet with the doctor yet. That is coming up soon.

Boy? Or girl?: You know… I have no feelings. I have no guesses. I am just so blessed and happy to be pregnant, I will take whatever God sees fit to give us… I will make a really crazy prediction and say… both.. I mean, I can’t go wrong right? Boy or girl, I still win. So I am going to say “one of each”. On a side note, my son keep telling me that I have “nine blue babies” OR he will say I am having “two girl babies”… So I guess I should write Landon down for a guess of “9 boys, or 2 girls”.

Names: We had a boy name picked out for Leila (just in case) that we would love to use if we have a boy. It honors my brother and Donovan’s mom’s family. For the girl’s name, we want to honor Leila by keeping her middle name (possibly), and using a name that has “Lei” in it. I like Lorelei.



Okay. Update between the day this was written and now. A month has passed, and a lot has happened. There is a bit of TMI, so if you don't want to read this stuff, skip it.

My hcg levels sky rocketed for the next week. The doctor was even convinced I was having twins. A week from the day I wrote this 4 week update, my husband deployed. I had experienced a small amount of spotting the night before and didn't think much of it. A little spotting is normal, though still scary. The next day, about two or so hours after my husband deployed, I was standing in my kitchen chatting with a friend when I had a sensation equivalent to peeing my pants. All of a sudden I had liquid running down my legs and sticking to my leggings. I ran to the bathroom and found bright red blood. When I sat down, it gushed out. (Sorry for the over share, but I want to be sure to share all these details for people who may have a similar experience). I was terrified so I rushed to the hospital, leaving my friend behind with our kids.

They ran my levels and did an ultrasound and confirmed that the little cupcake was hanging on. I just didn't understand how I could still be pregnant after all of that blood. My doctor had a couple theories: it could be the edge of the placenta bleeding. It could have been implantation bleeding. It could have been the loss of one of the babies had I been having twins. It could have been a blood clot.

The biggest thing to keep in mind though, was that we had a strong baby holding on. That was all that mattered.

Over the next few days I continued to bleed, so my doctor had me come back a couple times to have my levels drawn again and monitor the baby.

The baby was still hanging on.

Another week went by and we got to see the heartbeat! The beautiful, gorgeous, STRONG heartbeat! 160bpm. This baby is definitely showing us he or she is here to stay. I was so relieved I wanted to cry. Which wasn't hard to believe because I have been crying at everything lately!

Another week passed and I had an appointment with my new specialist. He is wonderful. He is determined to help us have this baby safely. He performed an ultrasound and said that I still have a lot of blood in the uterus that needs to come out. He said that it did appear that there was another gestational sac that needed to pass, though he couldn't be too sure. As heartbreaking as that news is, I am still focused on the strong baby. Still focused on the fact that we have a healthy baby that is thriving.

That very night I woke up in the middle of the night to more bleeding. As much as the first time. It was terrifying, but I knew that it had to happen in order for this baby to be safe. All the bad/old blood needs to pass in order for me to have my surgery. The surgery that will keep this baby safely inside my uterus until *hopefully* 36 weeks!

Oh and a big change that happened VERY soon after I wrote my 4 week update: SICKNESS! I am nauseous at EVERYTHING! I can barely look at the kitchen without throwing up! I crave super comforting food like mashed potatoes and fried chicken and corn. Oh and chicken and dumplings. Gee whiz I crave chicken and dumplings!!! And SWEETS! Lots and lots of sweets!

So that's the update up to this point. I will post the more recent weight and measurement stats and all the emotional/yucky food stuff later.