Dear Penny: Letters to our Baby #10

This is the letter I have been wanting to share for WEEKS now. And frankly, I've felt a little badly about all the prayer offers I've received while posting our other letters, but please know that prayers never go to waste... they were either used on this sweet little one (we have had quite a few progesterone related scares!) or on someone else dealing with subfertility! But after an 8 week ultrasound where the babe measured a bit small, I really wanted to wait until the 12 week mark to share our news, as hard as it was! 

source

Here is the letter I wrote to Baby Penny (remember: nickname only! ;) We aren't going to find out gender) the day we found out, or were almost positive, that we had co-created life with God. The due date has changed to the 3/5, just fyi.

 Penny is actually 11w6d here-yesterday-, but just consistently measures the teeniest bit small. Little shrimp baby :). Looks like Penny is waving! 

Dear Penny, 07/01/2013

Wow! I cannot believe it. Yesterday morning I woke up without a period (p+18) and decided against my better judgement to take a pregnancy test. It came back positive, but I didn’t let myself get too excited since I am using hcg post peak. I thought “hmmm.... we’ll see what happens”, but since I’ve been cramping for a week, I still expected a period to come. But I was very, very hopeful. Daddy was excited but much more realistic. This morning I woke up again to no period. I took another pregnancy test and it also came back positive. This is when my heart began skipping a few beats! I went to the chiropractor and all I could think was how if I didn’t tell him I might be pregnant, and if I miscarried after the adjustment, I would think it was my fault for not letting him know. So when he came over to adjust me, I had him bend down and I whispered, “I might be pregnant in case that matters with what you do”. He smiled and said “Praise the Lord!” (yes, indeed!) and gave me a foam pillow to lay on that has a belly indention. I almost cried. It felt real, but I wasn’t ready to say it yet!

After the chiropractor appointment, I called the doctor. The nurse said to take a home pregnancy test; I said I had taken 2! The doctor got on the phone laughing, congratulating me. I asked if he could be sure from the home pregnancy test due to the hcg. He said it was very unlikely that I was experiencing a false positive and that I needed to come in today for an hcg level and progesterone level as well as a progesterone injection, that daddy needed to learn how to give me shots at home. I called daddy at work, crying out of excitement! Once he realized nothing was wrong (and everything was right) he was excited. How did I even get any work done today? I kept crying or nearly crying as I made my way to the office, but I managed to focus most of the day since I had a lot to get done. It was torture talking to your gammy and not telling her.  I picked daddy up from work at 2:45 and we headed to the doctor.

Of course the wait was the longest ever! They confirmed that a urine pregnancy test was positive and the doctor dated my pregnancy based off my ovulation date. Penny, you are due on March 7. March 7 is St. Felicity’s feast day. St. Felicity is my patron saint. She is the patron saint of barren women, which I didn’t even know until almost a decade after I picked her, and was hit with the irony when I learned of my reproductive issues. I instantly knew that we were in God’s hands and being taken care of, no matter the outcome.

The doctor said he couldn’t tell me for 100% certain that I was pregnant until he had a few days of hcg levels to make sure they are rising, but from the way he acted, I just knew. He and his entire office kept congratulating us. They made us feel like such big shots and gave us a little baby magazine and diaper and wipe sample on the way out. We were beaming! On the way home, daddy was SO excited and kept saying he wanted to tell the whole world. We celebrated with a meal at Chickfila which the doctor and nurse ribbed us about but hey... we will save the big celebrating for when we get our numbers back!

Daddy had to learn to give me progesterone injections and he was such a champ! I had to get one in each hip (ouch!) and he watched the nurse do one, and then he did the other. The nurse got an A; daddy got a B. He will learn :). He’ll have to do this throughout much of the pregnancy to keep you safe in there. I don’t really have any pregnancy symptoms yet except my chest is a little sore. I’ve also been drinking/peeing more but I don’t know if that’s related.

On the drive home, we plotted how we’d tell your grandparents, which was so much fun! We decided for your gammy and gampy (mommy’s parents) that we will drive down this Thursday, the 4th of July, and show up at their house unexpectedly with a pink and blue balloon. For grandma and grandpa (daddy’s parents), we are going to print out pictures from our Alaska trip with a picture of us with the balloons mixed in there, and let them find it at our next visit! We are sooo excited, but trying to wait until we hear numbers to tell close family and friends.

Except daddy already told one friend (he just had to tell SOMEone) and I already told 3 very close online friends(I just had to tell SOMEone, too!).

I keep wondering “what did it?”. The doctor’s nurse made a joke about the cruise being the answer. It didn’t happen actually on the cruise, but maybe so! Last month I asked my primary care doctor to raise my thyroid medication dose because it was higher than I wanted it to be (she was fine with the level but also fine with raising it a bit). Was that it? Or was it the 2 months of hcg injections helping to balance my hormones out? It was probably all of it! And obviously God had a pretty big hand in it :).

Baby Penny, we already love you so much. Daddy is already kissing and rubbing you, and you are probably the size of a pencil tip, if even that! I can’t stop thinking about you and planning for you already. Pregnancy dating is so silly. I am 4 weeks and 3 days along, even though I ovulated 19 days ago. But you know what? I will totally take it because that means less time until I get to meet you!

Stay safe and cozy in there baby. Can’t wait to go on this journey with you.

Love,

Mommy