I can’t believe it! All the months of trying with no luck and just when we started to embrace the sadness of me never becoming a mommy, you came! I instantly craved all the fruits and veggies to help you grow big and strong! This time was a little different than last time. We didn’t run to the stores to get gifts for our family to open or video their reactions like last time. We held the secret of you in a lot longer. Mommy didn’t want to jinx it so we cherished this secret pregnancy as long as we could. Until a pig show came haha. Tanner and Mia had a pig show in Yuma and normally I’m busy running around loading heavy stuff and carrying heavy buckets of water to each pen to keep pigs comfortable and help as much as I can! Pig shows can be hectic! Lots of classes, lots of movement of animals and lots of stress for a first time shower like Mia! (Soon you will learn pig shows, your auntie Dawn will have you showing baby pigs in no time! Hah) But I had woken up really sick and nauseated that morning and knew I wouldn’t be much help. So I quietly told ur auntie Dawn that I wouldn’t be much help today… because… I have a baby in my tummy 🙂 She was super excited but also was hesitant to celebrate as it was still early and the sadness from my previous loss still lingered, enough to make everyone so nervous.
Shortly after, nana and tata arrived so I told them also, everyone full of excitement but hesitant to celebrate due to our worst fears of loss. However, shortly after we had our first appt with the regular physician to confirm pregnancy and the morning sickness came.
Normally women dread morning sickness but for me it was a constant reminder that I was still pregnant and you were still with me. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the sickness but I thanked God for his gentle reminders that my body was growing a fetus and I tried to get through the hard days as best I could. Until the fainting spells came! Those were hard- especially as a surgeon. At the time I was performing over 20 surgeries on some days and that number quickly declined to maybe 5 which included sitting for some procedures and taking lots breaks in between! This was my first reality check that pregnancy is demanding and I needed to listen to my body when it told me to slow down, I like to think it was you telling me to keep you safe and I listened so intently, keeping you as safe and healthy as I possibly could. I think you enjoyed taking all of mommy’s energy and nutrients! Having you on board changed a lot of things during pregnancy. You don’t know it yet but mommy is an animal doctor so she had to be real careful with anesthesia of her patients, making sure you weren’t exposed and I wasn’t able to take X-rays of my patients. I had to avoid heavy lifting of doggies and cats and I wasn’t able to see any horses. All of this was to protect you from harm. One day you will meet mommy’s amazing staff who did an exceptional job at helping mommy stay safe and keep you healthy!
March 2024
It had been a few days of mommy feeling really sick and lethargic. I was barely able to eat so auntie Brit convinced mommy to go get checked at the ER and maybe just get some fluids to help rehydrate me. Reluctantly I went and after some blood work the doctor wanted to do an ultrasound to check on you… After multiple attempts of trying to find you, Dr. Henry was unsuccessful. (In his defense, he only had access to abdominal ultrasound which can be very difficult when trying to find early pregnancy). However, due to the nature of my medical history Dr. Henry was worried something else may be going on. This is when the first scare occurred. He warned us about ectopic pregnancy which can be life threatening and requires emergency surgery to terminate pregnancy, molar pregnancy which is a cancer that can imitate a pregnancy which requires chemo/radiation to treat or we could be once again experiencing a miscarriage. He sent us to Banner University right away- daddy took off work, packed mommy a bag and off we went to Phoenix in a hurry.
The 2hr drive seemed like 10 hours. Daddy and I talked about everything under the sun. My favorite thing about daddy is he is my best friend. We can talk about fun happy stuff but we can also talk about hard or scary stuff too. After the doctor shared his concerns, the drive consisted of us talking about what we would do if something happened to me during this pregnancy, what we would do if it was confirmed that you were leaving us or what we would do if I had cancer. We talked about everything, most importantly about how much we love each other and how much we already loved you. In these scary moments, mommy never felt alone and I truly believe it is that comfort that kept me going most days.
When we arrived at Banner, a vaginal ultrasound was done. We wont talk about the level of pain this ultrasound was. Vaginal ultrasounds are painful for mommy because of that silly septum we talked about but for some reason this sonographer must have been desperately searching for you in mommy’s uterus because I have never cried so hard from pain during this diagnostic. The minutes of waiting for results were even more excruciating but… doctor came in so casual with little to no concern in his demeanor. “Baby is there, normal pregnancy, very early maybe 5-6 week fetal sac but baby is right where it should be, you can go home now- take pre natals and follow up with your OB”. Daddy and I just stared at each other in complete shock. We had just spent 2 hours planning for the worst but were so relieved to go home and continue growing a miracle! Dr. Henry still feels bad for scaring us but a good doctor rules out their concerns and refers if they don’t have the right diagnostic tool to do so. I am still grateful that when he couldn’t find you on the ultrasound, he sent us somewhere that could. Dr. Henry will always be a good doctor in my books 🙂 I can’t wait for you to meet him someday!
April 2024
Our first OB appt. Nana and daddy came with me, all 3 of us were full of excitement and ready to learn the realities of mommy being high risk and all the things we need to do to make sure you are okay! The ultrasound was the moment it sank in that I “may actually” get to be a mommy. For the last 15 years of my life, I have been warned that pregnancy journey for me would be different than most and with the previous loss lingering in my mind, being cautiously excited was about the only emotion I could muster up. “Worry”was always the dominating emotion although I tried to embrace this beautiful time in our lives, reality is- mommy was terrified. Terrified for her life and yours. I wanted so bad to meet you one day and hold you and snuggle you… but I also knew it was a big mountain to climb but as scared as I was, mama was ready for the hike!
Dr. Weise came into the exam room and discussed all logistics. As scared as I was, she wasn’t. That made me feel more calm. She wasn’t intimidated by my uterine septum and I’ll never forget her words. “Ok so normal pregnancies, we wear seat belts… with you, we’re wearing 5 point harnesses. We’re going to be checking you more and keeping an eye on baby but we got this mama!” She made me feel at ease. For once, a doctor didn’t push me off on another specialist to manage my unique case and she was close to home. We got to see you for the first time on ultrasound and you wiggled and wiggled! I couldn’t feel you yet so seeing you so active on the screen made us all cry! You were really there, growing in mommy and I wish I could describe the joy I felt in that moment… but we will have to wait for the day when its your turn to have babies for you to understand that feeling.
This appointment calmed some of my fears but I still was on edge. We had crossed the first hurdle of proper implantation. You had implanted on my uterus so early loss was less likely but still possible. In the beginning, I’d wake up EVERY DAY to check for bleeding. Every time I peed, I’d be nervous there would be blood but for weeks, there was none! 🙂 Everything seemed to be going well.
until it’s wasn’t…
Dear Tennessee Grace 