Baby #8

Yes, we are expecting baby #8.  Yes, we are crazy.  Owen was supposed to be our last.  But I felt like a girl was still missing from our family.  So we had Kate, and she completed us so perfectly.  And we were done.  7 kids.  It was a handful.

Except I didn't want to be done.  I watched my older kids grow up, and I cherished the moments I had with my little kids, knowing how quickly they would grow up.  I enjoy being a mom now so much more than I did in the beginning when I had 4 kids 4 and under and everything was always so stressful.  I love spending my days with Owen and Kate, and I know that they will grow up all too fast. 

When I had Kate I was 37.  My doctor told me that if I wanted to have another one, not to wait till I was 40.  So, even though I said we were done with Kate, I had in the back of my mind that I had time still to change my mind.

And so Kate's first year came and went, and I found myself really depressed over the fact that I wouldn't get any more babies.  And so I brought up the idea of having another one to Scott.  He rejected it flat out.  So I waited.  And I asked again.  It just was not something he wanted.  And so I went on with life, enjoying my kids, and trying to suppress the overwhelming desire I had for another baby.  It became a tension point between Scott and me.  I understood why he didn't want more, but it didn't make it any easier for me to just give it up.  I pulled away as I tried to come to grips with the fact that we really were done.  Scott tried to understand why I wanted more, but understanding my "why" didn't change what he wanted.  One day I explained to him that it was like a missionary who puts in for an extension on his mission.  He knows he has to come home eventually, but he loves the work so much that he would give anything for just one more month or two.  I wanted an extension of motherhood.

For months he and I both tried to reconcile what we wanted against what the other one wanted.  And in the end, my sweet husband told me that he loved me enough to accept what I wanted.  And so we started trying for another baby.  After 5 long months we finally got a positive sign on the pregnancy test in February.  I was hesitantly excited.  I knew that getting pregnant at my age would be hard, but I also knew that staying pregnant at my age would be hard.  Two days before my 39th birthday, I lost that baby, just a week after we learned I was pregnant.  We didn't tell anyone.  When we agreed to try for a baby, we also agreed not to tell anyone, just in case it didn't work.  We especially didn't want the kids to know, in case it never happened.  We didn't want to get their hopes up, and then disappoint them.  So I lost a baby, and we kept it a secret.  Losing a baby is hard, I didn't want my kids to have to share in that heartbreak.

Scott and I went to Phoenix for my birthday.  It was a great way to emotionally recover and come closer together as a couple.  When we came back from that vacation, I had a thyroid check with my family practice doctor.  I told her about the miscarriage.  She said she wanted to run some hormone level tests, specifically progesterone.  She said often when you miscarry that early, it's a problem with low progesterone.  So we stopped trying for a month so we could get hormone levels tested.  My progesterone came back super low, too low to carry a baby.  So I went on progesterone pills and we started trying again for a baby.

April came.  Kate turned 2.  Then May.  And finally in June we got another positive pregnancy test.  I was told to stay on the progesterone and come in every 2 weeks for progesterone level testing.  At 8 weeks, I transferred over from my family practice to my OB, and got to see my baby on ultrasound.  By then my progesterone levels were solid, and I was told to keep taking the progesterone through the first trimester, then I could go off of it.  And then the sickness started.  I think the progesterone exaggerated my morning sickness (it should be called all day sickness).  I struggled to keep up an appearance of feeling fine, so the kids wouldn't suspect anything.  I didn't want to tell them till I was sure this baby was healthy and here to stay.

When we went on vacation, I was 10 weeks, and I finally felt safe enough to tell the kids.  They were so excited.

At 12 weeks, I had another OB appointment and got to see this little one again.  Scott was in Alaska, so I sent this picture to him.  I think that is when it finally became real to him, and he started to be excited about another baby. 

The next week I was able to go off the progesterone (end of the first trimester), and almost immediately my sickness went away.  But I was left with an exhaustion that made it impossible to function.  I was a week away from a thyroid check with my family practice dr, and I prayed that she would decide I needed more thyroid medicine.  Thankfully, when I went in, my thyroid labs came back with my thyroid way off, and my dr bumped me up two doses of thyroid meds.  I'm three weeks into my new thyroid dose, and I'm starting to feel like I can make it through the day.  It's been a rough go of it so far, and there have been many times when I questioned why I decided to do this again.  But Scott keeps reminding me that the end result is going to be so worth it. 

Oh, and my dr's advice of "don't wait till you're 40"?  My due date is 2 days after my 40th birthday.  But, I get induced a week early, so I will beat my 40 year deadline by a whole 5 days.