Our Rainbow Baby

It has been such a long road to get here. When this baby is born, it will be right around the 5 year mark of trying to have children. We were 24 and 27 when we started trying and will be 29 and 32 when we {hopefully} finally get to bring a child home. 

So much waiting and heartbreak, so many tears and needles. 276 needles, to be exact (that's the amount of shots it took in the last year to get to this point). 

'Rainbow baby' is a term for a baby born after a loss, which inspired this little art project made with some of said needles.

I filled up all of these sharps containers in 1 year!

This baby's story actually started in July of 2020. We ended up with 3 precious embryos from our first round of IVF, and this baby was one of them! 

Our extra embryos are all frozen until we're able to transfer them and hope and pray that they stick around. It's kind of cool to think about how this baby was already created and waiting since last year. <3

We knew immediately after the loss of our son that we wanted another baby as soon as medically advisable. Like an insane person, I emailed our fertility clinic just days after the loss. Our frozen embryos were the only tiny bit of hope that I had for the future.

Thankfully, we didn't have a very long wait until multiple doctors (RE, OB, and MFM) cleared us to try again. Those months in between pregnancies were the darkest, most horrible time of my life, and I am incredibly grateful that I didn't have any complications that lengthened the difficult wait. We've waited long enough!

In April I started appointments and medication (yay needles) for a frozen embryo transfer. We transferred one of our July embryos on May 3rd. Everything went smoothly, and the wait began to see if it worked.

The official blood test at the clinic was 9 days after the transfer, but there was no way I was waiting that long to find out. My first positive test at home was 5 days later on 5/8. I then continued to torture myself by testing every day for weeks, squinting to see if the lines got darker, and feeling devastated when it wasn't clear. 

My blood test results were great and somewhat eased my nerves; they repeated the test 3 times and my HCG levels kept on rising. 

It felt like a long wait until the first ultrasound at 7 weeks pregnant on June 2nd. We saw the beautiful flicker of a heartbeat and the baby was measuring right on track. At that point we officially "graduated" from the fertility clinic and were able to stop driving to Illinois every week and get care closer to home.

Blurry little bean- size of a cheerio.

The rest of the first trimester was pretty uneventful besides the fun gagging. The award for the weirdest thing to make me gag goes to TAPE. Yes, tape, which doesn't usually have a smell, has made me gag multiple times. The runner-up award goes to plain white bread, which suddenly also has a strong smell.

For the most part, my nausea hasn't been as bad as last time. That's because I finally figured out to take my medication preventatively and not when I already feel sick. The few times I haven't taken it, I have the "can't even stand up without constantly dry heaving" all-day nausea again... so I'm thankful I found something that helps. 

Week 13 was a big milestone. Not only was it the start of the second trimester, but I made it through my surgery! As part of the plan to hopefully keep this baby safe, I got a preventative cerclage. Basically, they did a spinal block and then stitched up my cervix to help keep it strong and closed.

It was pretty traumatic to go back to the hospital where I found out my son was dead and gave birth to him, but at the same time a big relief to get this done and have the cerclage in place.

On that subject, here's what I'm doing differently this pregnancy knowing I have cervix issues- taking progesterone until I reach full-term, no exercising, not working, not doing strenuous chores, and limiting walking/being on my feet as much as possible. 

I think I've found a good balance of getting out a bit and being cautious. I try not to be on my feet for more than 10 minutes at a time, but I can still visit family, go to restaurants, and pop into stores once in a while. It can be a little boring but it's not too restrictive. By far the worst part is the constant stress of "am I doing too much, will this hurt the baby" type of thoughts.

At 15 weeks, we went to a "for fun" non-medical ultrasound place to get to see the baby in 3-D and find out the gender. I'm so glad we did, because it's extremely hard to find joy in pregnancy after loss. It was a great day to get to see our baby together and find out we're having a GIRL. We celebrated that night by buying her first outfits and a few books. I cried leaving the store because having hope for the future felt so good.

We had the anatomy scan at 19 weeks, which confirmed we're going to have a daughter. More importantly, she looks completely healthy! They also checked my cervix length for the first time since my surgery and that looks good too, which was a huge relief. That night we did a little gender reveal (featuring Poppy the puppy) for my family and had a fun celebration. We also officially chose her name!

Cool story: I had this name in my head the second we found out we were cleared to do IVF again. The night before the transfer I had this name in my head. The moment I had the first positive pregnancy test, I had this name in my head. From the very beginning, I felt very sure that she would be a girl and this would be her name. And even more miraculous: David agrees 100% about the name (we have very different taste in names) and also always felt sure she was a girl.

That was something that has helped me feel more confident, because I felt nothing like this for our 2 previous embryo transfers. Both times I felt no inclination what the gender was or what their name would be. I'm dying to share what her name is because I love it, but I'm holding off for now. Stay tuned on that front. :)

It was a big milestone (and a very stressful week) to make it past 21 weeks, which is when everything ended last time. Although I'm still extremely stressed, and will be until I'm holding her and she's fine, it helps a bit to be at a point now where at least she would have a chance to survive.

This week is our 5th anniversary, and I can't think of a better anniversary gift than to hit 24 weeks this week, which is widely considered to officially be "viability."

Taking one of these every 3 weeks- Poppy is the same number of weeks old as baby :)

A few random ones from my rare outings.

It's really hard to believe that after all of this, we should actually be bringing home a baby in just about 3 months!

What is pregnancy after loss and infertility really like? It's checking for blood every time I go to the bathroom, it's having reoccurring nightmares that my water breaks, it's barely holding it together the week leading up to doctor's appointments as I assume the worst, it's being terrified to set up the nursery or have a baby shower, it's exhaustion from being nauseous every single day of back to back pregnancies... 

It's an uphill battle.

Yet I'm thankful to be at this point and praying every day that we get to bring her home. <3