Pregnancy Q&A

Now that Elise had the chance to make her big announcement, here are the answers to some of the questions many of you have been wondering...

How far along are you?  When are you due?
I'm 13 weeks today and due June 18th.

When did you find out you were pregnant?
October 6th.  I was actually just barely pregnant and the second line on the test just barely showed since I wasn't even quite 4 weeks yet.  Here's the ultrasound from a little over 8 weeks; the baby was measuring a mere two days behind (8 weeks, 1 day rather than 8 weeks, 3 days) and had a strong heartbeat of 178 beats per minute.

Does the doctor expect any complications?  What are the chances of you having a placental abruption again?
My doctor is very optimistic that everything should go well.  And the statistics are with him.  There's about a 1% chance of having a placental abruption in the first place.  That chance jumps to 5% in subsequent pregnancies once you've had an abruption.  At 20 weeks, I'll get a Level 2 ultrasound at the hospital.  That level will offer more detail than my doctor can do in his office and will hopefully show us if the placenta appears to be having any issues.

And if at any point during my pregnancy I experience abnormal abdominal pain, I am to call my doctor's office immediately (if during business hours and not so bad that I need to go to the hospital or call 911) or to go to the hospital.  There they'll monitor things closely to make sure another abruption isn't occurring before sending me home.

Are you scared, nervous, etc?
Not really.  I don't want to sound like I'm being dishonest, but I think that my personality is such that I don't worry as much as those with other personalities might.  If anything, I tend to be over-confident.  This is one of those situations, however, where I believe my confidence is well placed.  If Kit and I learned anything from Elise's birth, we learned that we have no control over our lives.  Not to say that we don't have responsibilities and things that we can control.  But overall, we aren't the ones in charge.  God is.  He knows exactly when this baby will be born.  He gave us this baby, at this time, in these circumstances, for His purpose.

I was worried about three weeks ago that I was miscarrying.  Things just didn't feel the same.  It turned out that between Friday and Monday, my muscles or ligaments or whatever it is that stretches out stretched out.  I went from being able to zip up and button my jeans on Friday to not even being able to zip that same pair of jeans halfway up on Monday.  All that to say, Sunday was a hard day for me.  I tearfully asked a couple of friends at church to pray for me.  And I spent the music portion of the service crying and praying to the Lord.  In that time, I gave this baby fully to the Lord.

I told Him through my tears that I don't know what His plan is for this baby's life or for my own but that I will trust Him.  That if the purpose of this baby's life was to be short and only within my body, then I will trust Him and use this baby's life for His glory.  And that if this baby gets to live a full, long life, I will trust Him and raise this baby for His glory.  Kit and I are blessed beyond measure for me to be pregnant again.  And we will strive to be godly parents for as long as we have charge of this new baby's life.

How are you feeling?
Much better in the last couple of weeks.  Although my nausea never hit the same level as I had with Elise, I was nauseous and had food diversions (still have those).  I've needed to eat a lot of food to keep up with both pumping for Elise and growing this new little one, which is hard with those diversions.  For a few weeks I was averaging half of an 8 or 9 ounce box of Cheese-Its everyday as a snack because it was one of the few things that sounded good and could really fill me up.

I was also exhausted at a whole new level.  Every morning I would get up with Elise, feed her, play with her, hope that she got tired again quickly, put her down for a nap, and then nap myself for a couple of hours.  But I think I'm feeling better overall compared with when I was pregnant with Elise simply because I'm not getting up at 5am to go to work every weekday like I was then.

Others questions?
Let me know!