Lucy was pretty much exclusively breastfeeding for 9 1/2 months. She had some solids here and there after six months, but it didn't become part of her regular diet until after nine months. I tried, but she just had no interest! She also did not sleep more than 3 hours at a time until 8-9 months, so I was nursing very consistently. My cycle did not return until she was exactly 11 months old, and so until that point I hadn't really given a lot of thought as to when we would have another child.
Once it became a possibility that we could get pregnant again, we talked more about when we wanted another child. The pressure of trying to conceive Lucy was so extremely hard for me that I knew I didn't want that again. I didn't want to wait until one particular month when I knew that was exactly when I would want to get pregnant and then not have it happen and be disappointed. So we decided to just let things go and see what happened. I wasn't tracking my cycles to try to get pregnant, and we weren't actively avoiding it either. (Except for one month, when I realized if we got pregnant then, I would be due on my birthday, which is the day after Jay's birthday, and about a week before Oliver's. I really preferred not to have another August birthday!) I knew that having children closer together could be tough, but I was okay with that.
I had four cycles before getting pregnant with baby #3. They were very irregular, and if I hadn't learned so much about my fertility when we were trying to conceive with Lucy, I would have had no idea when anything was going on during those cycles. The fifth cycle when we did conceive was also very irregular. When I'm pregnant, I immediately start showing symptoms. The same thing happened this time. I took several early tests that were negative because I took them too soon, but I was just so sure I was pregnant. Finally, 35 days into my cycle, I got a positive test. It was mid-January, 2013. According to my last menstrual cycle, I was 5 weeks pregnant, but I knew I had ovulated late and was only 4 weeks. (An early ultrasound with my midwife confirmed that I was right with how far along I was.)
The pregnancy was strange. My early symptoms (middle of the night sickness, breast tenderness, aversion to smells) coincided exactly with Oliver's pregnancy. I told Jay right away that I was saying this one was a boy. Then, for about two weeks, all of my symptoms disappeared. It was during these two weeks that I got my positive test. I was pretty worried for awhile that things may not be going well because of the lack of symptoms. Oh, how I spoke too soon. I ended up being so sick for more than half of the pregnancy, which was more like Lucy's pregnancy. With our first two pregnancies, we told everyone right away. This time, we decided to wait awhile. I really wanted to make sure that things were ok with the baby, and just wanted to keep this to ourselves for awhile before telling all of our friends and family.
My first appointment was in early February. By that point I was feeling nauseated a lot and didn't have a big appetite. I was still feeling like this pregnancy was a lot like Oliver's, and in the back of my mind I wondered if in fact this baby was a boy, if we would deal with clubfoot again. But I never really even considered it a possibility at that point. I just thought if we do deal with it, then at least we'll know exactly who to go to and what to expect. We decided to tell our families on Valentine's Day, which was a fun surprise.
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| Announcing baby #3! This picture makes me laugh. Oliver is happy, as usual, and Lucy's looking unimpressed, as usual. :-) |
Just like in Lucy's pregnancy, I struggled with how to pray for this baby. I had said in the past, "If Oliver's struggles brought one person to know Jesus Christ, then it was worth it, and I'd do it all over again." But to be honest, when faced with the reality that maybe we would have to do it all over again, I wasn't so firm in my statement. Not so much because of my own emotion of it all (although that certain played into it), but because I knew how incredibly painful it would be for the baby. My prayers would be all over the place..."God, I'm trying to just trust in Your plan. Please don't let this baby have clubfoot. But if it does, we will use it for Your glory. If it does, please let it bring someone to know you. But please don't let it happen. But I'll trust you if it does. I'm just putting this in Your hands, Lord. But You know my heart. Please don't let it be." Yeah, completely and totally disorganized.
I could really feel Satan working on me at times during the pregnancy. There was one particular Wednesday night service when our pastor was talking about faith and miracles, and mentioned Oliver's healing. It was right after that that I started feeling so guilty about wanting another "normal" non-clubfoot baby. I started thinking, "Wow, how selfish of me for wanting that. I mean, if we had another baby who could be an example of God's grace, how could I be praying against that?" I have to say, it is astounding to me how Satan knows our weaknesses and uses them against us. I had to quickly take those thoughts captive and shut them out. God knew my heart. He knew I wasn't being selfish praying for my child to not have clubfoot. I just had to believe that as well.
At the very end of April, I had a quick ultrasound just to see if we could tell the sex of the baby. I had really hoped to find out because I wanted to have a gender reveal party for this baby. I thought great, have an ultrasound to see the sex before we have our big ultrasound. That way, if the baby does have clubfoot, we won't know right away and can just be excited about baby being a boy or a girl.
Well. Remember how we couldn't tell for sure with Oliver because the cord was laying right between his legs? Yeah. The SAME THING happened this time!!!! I couldn't freaking believe it. My midwife turned on the ultrasound and we looked at his profile and everything, and then she turned it away to see if she could see anything. She kind of laughed and said, "Ok, you have to see this." and turned the screen back toward us. She pointed and said, "You see this? Leg. Cord. Leg. The umbilical cord is laying right between the legs." I just had to laugh. Are you kidding me?! At that point, it was almost a joke that surely baby had to be a boy since Oliver had done the same thing. But seriously, why the heck couldn't we tell?! Pretty much every other person I know has been able to see on their ultrasound the first time whether they are having a boy or a girl. I was a day away from 19 weeks, so plenty far along. It was both frustrating and humorous. So the gender reveal party was postponed. I had to text everyone later and say that perhaps we would have it next month, because baby was very uncooperative!! During that ultrasound I tried to peak a little at his feet, but didn't really look too hard. From what I saw, I thought one of them looked fine, but honestly I didn't really want to know just yet.
So the countdown until my big ultrasound continued. I would be just past 23 weeks when we had that. Jay was going to go and we would end up taking both kids with us. In the meantime, I just prayed. I prayed that God would give me peace about the whole situation. I prayed that he knew my heart and to forgive me if I was praying against His plan, but to please not make us go through this again. Part of me really resented the fact that I couldn't just be excited about an ultrasound, but instead spent the beginning half of every pregnancy worrying. It didn't seem "fair". I really appreciated everyone else who prayed for us during that time as well. They all seemed confident that we wouldn't have to go through it again, and I clung to that hope. I was both looking forward to and totally dreading May 31.
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