We're pregnant!

We’re pregnant! Announcing the news of our second child was something I imagined doing in some really cute way, with Xander in a “big brother” outfit, or holding the ultrasound, or some other sweetness like that. However, I share this news in a different light. I have to admit that I’m posting this with excitement, worry, fear and hopefulness…but most of all because I want to ask all of you to please pray for us and our baby.

This pregnancy has been different from Xander’s in almost EVERY way. With him, we got pregnant the first full month after I stopped taking birth control. This pregnancy took months of trying and I had to start taking metformin to control my PCOS. With Xander, I was exhausted from the beginning and started feeling nauseous in the 5th week. This pregnancy I have felt very little change at all…at times I have even forgotten that I am pregnant!

Which is where this journey starts.

According to my last missed cycle, I should be about 10 weeks along. In what I thought was my 6th week, I began to get worried about my good energy level and the noticeably absent nausea. I text my sweet, amazing friend….who also happens to be my OB-GYN. She had me come in for lab work to check my hCG levels. We repeated the bloodwork two days later for comparison. That afternoon she called to tell me that my levels hadn't risen the way they are expected to and that she wanted to do an early ultrasound the following week.

The first ultrasound revealed that I was 5 weeks and 3 days…which was not as far along as we thought, so that sort of explained the lower hormone levels. We waited and rechecked about a week later. The second ultrasound, we did hear a slow but steady heartbeat. As to be expected in the 6th week. Today was our third ultrasound. While we do have a heartbeat that is increasing, the baby is still growing slowly and the gestational sac is growing even more slowly. The baby measured at 7 weeks and one day, but the sac is at 5 just over 5 weeks.

We go back for our fourth ultrasound next Wednesday at 2:30.

I’m not sure what will happen, and neither is my doctor. Everything could catch up and be completely fine, or this could result in a miscarriage. Either way, I just ask you to pray for God’s will.

While I was driving home this morning, I had a second of relief when I thought about turning this over to God and truly laying my worries down. In the next second that felt really irresponsible. That's when I recognized my personal struggle in all of this. As a mother it feels irresponsible to turn over my worries for my child…but as a believer, that's what I am called to do. Today, I’m working on being a Child of God first and a Mother second. I’m choosing what feels irresponsible to my flesh, to be obedient to my spirit. I’m placing my second child in God’s hands. The very hands that created this baby and know its purpose in this world. Because when I look at it from that perspective, its abundantly clear that that is the most responsible thing I can do as a mother.

While we want a second child so badly, we know that God is sovereign and His plans are far greater than our own. We cannot bring ourselves to pray to get to keep a baby that isn't meant to be here. I am hoping that next week everything will be great and totally “normal” on the ultrasound, but I know that there are many possible outcomes. I hope you will join us in praying for peace while we wait and that God will move as He sees fit.