Friday, July 27, 2018

(IN)FERTILITY FRIDAY - 4 MONTH BUMPDATE

Sorry for the long break since my last post! We have been busy with swim team championships, a baby shower for my friend Tracie, waiting on baby Rush to make his debut, and Mary Beth & Collier visiting for the past week! Where has the summer gone! I can't believe it is august in 5 days. Officially 2 weeks till Delainey's first day of school. I am so not ready for school yet. I am really enjoying the sleeping in and relaxing mornings. It is coming whether we are ready or not though!

Anyways back to the Bumpdate! Yea! I have finally made to the point where I can do a monthly Bumpdate. I probably could have done one at 12 weeks too, but didn't think of it till a couple weeks ago so we will start today and do monthly updates with other fun things on the weeks between.


How far along are you: 16 weeks and 5 days

Size of baby: Avocado. Yum :) 4.5 inches & 3.5 oz

Gender/Name: I will be sharing that with the world next week! I've been holding out for my anatomy scan on Tuesday to make sure all looks good!

Cravings: I have fallen back into the world of carbs and pasta. I did so good the first few months with veggies and eating somewhat healthy, but lately all I want are noodles. We have had company in town and have eaten out a lot so hopefully I will get back on track with my eating now that all the craziness has died down. I still am liking cold things: fruit, salads, smoothies, yogurt. Eggs have started to gross me out but otherwise I am eating pretty normal.

Weight gained: 6 lbs. I didn't gain any weight at my 12 week appointment, but I think I have been making up for that the last few weeks.

Sleep: I have been sleeping pretty good. I busted out my wedge pillow to put under my belly so I don't keep rolling onto my stomach when sleeping on my side. But otherwise sleeping through the night with an occasional wake to go potty. Still taking cat naps during the day every now and then.

Baby Movement: I felt a kick! Actually a few now! At 15 weeks, I was watching tv and felt the first and said Dave I just felt the baby! It is still sporadic, but I am feeling it more and more. I can't wait to feel it all day everyday! That is one of my favorite parts of being pregnant.

How Mom is feeling: I am feeling good. Excited to hit the 4 month mark. Trying to let all fear and anxiety go away and just enjoy my last pregnancy. I can't believe how quickly it is flying by so I want to cherish all of it. I of course am a little anxious for my anatomy scan. I just want everything to be 100% perfect with it! Been having fun with the girls and have some fun weekends planned for the fall before baby arrives so I'm excited about that.

Miss Anything: Working out. I wish I could go do some body pump or something. I finally tried yoga on Tuesday just to do some sort of exercise, but I didn't like it. I couldn't do some of the movements and I felt like my ligaments were stretching and pulling. So I probably won't be doing that again. And I surely am not walking in this heat. So working out will wait till January! (Note: I do think everyone should work out while pregnant but I couldn't at the beginning and they say don't start something new that you haven't been doing the whole time so I'll just continue doing nothing)

Nursery Progress: I already have the nursery furniture from the girls, so I just need to decorate and buy some small things. I actually just bought the crib bedding today so that is a step in the right direction! I have gone anti color (you know that if you have ever stepped foot in my house) so I will be doing a plain neutral nursery. All white and beige everywhere! Here is the bedding I ordered.


Best moment this month: Feeling baby kick and hearing the heartbeat! My friend Alicia gave me her doppler and I love it! I started at about 13 weeks and maybe 2 times a week I will pull out the doppler and listen to baby's heartbeat. The girls love listening to it beat and talking to the baby. 5 weeks was too long to go without hearing the heartbeat so I have been loving doing it a few times a week on my own.

Looking forward to next month: I am looking forward to my anatomy scan and praying all looks good with baby. I am also excited to share the gender. Quite a few people know the gender like family and close friends, but the social media world hasn't heard yet. Also looking forward to adding another cousin to the family as baby Rush should make his debut any minute now.

Hope you all are doing well and enjoying summer! School will be back before we know it! XOXO

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Our 2 year journey for Baby #3!

Our journey for Baby #3 started exactly 2 years ago. We had a one year old and a 4 year old and thought since conceiving them took lots of time and work, we might as well get started sooner than later. I did a Fresh IVF cycle which resulted in Blakely and I was able to freeze 6 embryos. So in my naive mind I had 6 more kids waiting for the right time! The right time was the summer of 2016. I started taking all of my shots and had a frozen embryo transfer (FET)  in July. It worked and I actually was pregnant with twins. One of the twins died off quickly but the other baby looked great and I was passed from the fertility doctor to my regular OB at 9 weeks. A week and a half later at my regular OB ultrasound, the tech could not find a heartbeat and we had a D&C scheduled the next day and I was no longer pregnant. To say it rocked my world is an understatement! I think it was the lowest I had been throughout this entire 7 year trying to conceive journey. I went into a month of solitary and borderline depression. I just didn't know how to cope with everything after so many weeks of praying and shots and medications.

By the grace of God (literally), I was able to come out of it and realize my true meaning and purpose in life. God had it ordained that I started Bible Study Fellowship on the day of my D&C. The month after my D&C, I learned more about God and read the Bible more than I ever have in my entire life. One week my leader spoke and talked about how we are here on Earth to do God's work and share about him with others, not be preoccupied with what we wanted for our own lives. So I took that to heart and learned to trust in God's perfect plan for my life.

Fast forward to a few months later and I felt good enough to do another FET. On March 17, 2017, St. Patricks Day, we transferred another 2 embryos and one of them took. I was pregnant again! Surely this time was going to work. I had learned my lesson from God and was actually grateful for my first miscarriage and all the spiritual growth that had occurred. All looked great again and I was passed from my fertility doctor at 9 1/2 weeks. At my regular OB ultrasound at 12 weeks, they once again found no heartbeat. Was this a bad dream? I had been here before and surely it could not be happening again. It did and 2 days later I was in the hospital for my 2nd D&C. I took this one much better to be honest. I still had my guard up somewhat so I think that helped as well as my relationship with God was much deeper.

Fast forward a few more months to August and I said ok lets give it one last try. These are our last 2 embryos and both times I have gotten pregnant so the odds are in my favor. 8 days after my transfer I took a pregnancy test, and it said Not pregnant. It didn't work. So now what do we do? Do we call it quits and just thank God for the 2 beautiful girls we have? I wasn't sure at the time if I would do it again, but I just had this feeling that my family wasn't complete. So I vowed to wait for God to tell me when to do it again. I really would have loved a verbal announcement that now was the time, but I knew it would be more subtle in the form of signs. Well by December a few things started to happen and I just knew God wasn't done and I had to give it one more try.

So in February 2018, I decided to do the entire Fresh IVF cycle again. We new we only wanted one more baby, but I was hoping and praying for lots of embryos because we ended up with one child out of 7 last time. So off we went. We also decided this time to do genetic testing to increase our chances of a healthy baby. For both miscarriages no-one could tell me why they didn't live past 9 weeks. They said they could have been genetically abnormal or just plain bad luck. So we decided to give ourselves the best chance possible. We would do the genetic testing and atleast put in a embryo that had all the right chromosomes and we would let God to the rest from there.

The shots began and we were counting about 8-10 embryos that were growing. I was really hoping for 10-12 but could live with 8. Last time we got 10 eggs and 7 made it to day 5 so if I had 8 I would have about 5-6 embryos to freeze which hopefully would give us our one last baby. On the day of my retrieval they removed 8 embryos and 7 fertilized. I was ecstatic! Then day 6 happened when I got a call to tell me how many embryos they were able to genetically test and freeze, and it was only 2. :( This lady was a hot mess! Seriously only 2! I knew the statistics and on average 50% of genetically tested embryos come back abnormal so if I was a normal statistic I would have 1 embryo. Or I could have none. Who knows!

So the 2 week wait to get my results back ensued. It was miserable playing every scenario in my mind. What was my next step... I have learned over the past 2 years, you pretty much cannot control anything! It is all up to God so I had to give it up to him. I am still a work in progress on this by the way. I finally got the phone call and the doctor told me, that I had one normal embryo. One shot for a baby and if it doesn't work all this money is out the window and we are back to square one.

So we waited for the perfect time to transfer, based off of my own normal ovulation and in that one little embryo went. Talk about stressful and anxiety while I waited to see if it worked and I become pregnant. 8 days later I took a pregnancy test and it said Pregnant! Woohoo! I was cautiously optimistic. But then God started to test me every step of the way for the next few weeks.

I had my first blood test and all looked great! I was so happy! Then I went in 2 days later to see if my numbers were doubling and they were not. I even went in the next day and they still hadn't doubled. From the mountaintop to the valley I went. The baby was 100% not making it. I was certain. Slow numbers can be an indication of an ectopic pregnancy so they scheduled me for a very early ultrasound at 5 weeks to see if we could just see a sac. It was not an ectopic Thank the Lord. Come back next week to see if we see a heartbeat, we did! Come back the next week just to check things (7 weeks), they found a hemorrhage and the placenta was not attached completely. It could either detach fully or we wait and hope the blood stops and it will reattach. Week 8, its still there but not too much bigger. Week 9 it is still there but same size. Week 10 I go in more anxious than I have ever been in my life. Both miscarriages the babies stopped growing during the 9th week. Will I go see no heartbeat again? I said a prayer and asked God for an obvious sign! If this baby is going to make it, could he make the heartbeat and everything look great and even make the blood disappear. So what did God do? He did just that for me! The blood had disappeared, the placenta was fully attached and we saw a baby actually moving and kicking around! I have even moved on to my OB and had a great ultrasound at 12 weeks that looked great! Can this really be happening? Am I actually going to have a baby after 2 long years of trials and tragedies? I am still in shock and still cautious, but I think I will always be until I am holding a child in my arms! So friends I am pregnant!! I am in my second trimester at 14 weeks and am due on January 7th!


In hindsight, God laid all of this out perfectly! He gave me only one embryo because we only wanted one more baby, he gave me only one embryo so we wouldn't have to face the decision of which embryo to put in based off of gender, he gave me low numbers so I could have early ultrasounds to give me reassurance, he gave me a hemorrhage because there was no way I would sleep if I didn't get to see the baby weekly to make sure it was still alive and growing. It all has worked out so beautifully  that I wish I didn't doubt every step along the way because clearly God has got this under control. He surely doesn't need me and my crappy plans to interfere.

So I hope that for anyone who is reading this, my story can inspire you. Inspire you to trust in God and lean in to him, no matter what trial you are facing. He has everyday of your life written out already and we need to sit back and let God unfold it how he sees fit. We need to trust that his plan is best. Trust that God loves us more than we could ever imagine and he wants whats best for us. What we think is best for our lives may not actually be. I needed those miscarriages to happen. Without them who knows where I would be trying to live life on my own. Because of them, I have strengthened and deepened my relationship with God. And truly all we are here on Earth for is to build relationships with others and bring them to Heaven with us one day. So in the end it was all worth it!

Thank you to all who have been on this journey with me over the past 2 years and have prayed for me constantly. You'll never know how much I appreciated it and still do! I am so glad I have a community of Godly people guiding me throughout my life. Prayers for a continued healthy pregnancy and baby of course are always welcome too! Love to you all! XOXO


Friday, July 6, 2018

(IN)FERTILITY FRIDAY - HELLO 2ND TRIMESTER!

Woohoo! We have made it to the 2nd trimester and are officially 1/3 of the way to meeting Baby McLaughlin #3. There is no denying that I am pregnant these days and people are starting to ask when I will share the news of my pregnancy with the world. I just want to do a good God glorifying post. Last time I posted something on facebook was after my 2nd miscarriage and I had like 1,000 views so I need it to be a stellar post telling my journey over the past 2 years and how God has worked during that time. It can't just be something I throw together in 15 minutes and I have just been too busy to do it so hopefully next week I will work on that and the world will finally know the good news we have been praying for, for so long! Stay tuned for that and that is why I haven't put anything on social media.

As far as this pregnancy goes, Mom is large and in charge and I finally look pregnant. The baby is the size of a kiwi/peach, about 3 inches long and a 1/2  pound. So too big to stay down in my pelvis. It has raised up and outward as you can see from the pictures below.


I am feeling great! Not that I ever felt that bad during the entire 1st trimester. I don't know if I can attribute the glorious lack of symptoms to the acupuncture or just being different this pregnancy, but boy was it different. Different from all 4 times of being pregnant. I always felt very tired and so nauseous that I had to eat every 1-2 hours or I felt like I was going to throw up. I barely ever felt like that this time and the only thing that changed was the acupuncture so I would recommend trying it to anyone who does experience some bad symptoms. I of course dealt with the worry and anxiety of all the trials we have endured over the past 9 weeks and just praying that this baby would live. But other than that we have been pretty good with the occasional moody/grumpiness from the hormones changing. So hopefully we are smooth sailing and in the sweet time of pregnancy for the next 20ish weeks.

We had a great trip to the Bahamas and it was very relaxing! Lots of time in the pool and on the beach, with some good food and early bedtimes for everyone. We had lots of fun! I will do a whole blog post recapping our trip but here are a few where you can start to see the belly popping out.




I hope you all had a great 4th of July! We sure did! Talk to you all soon! XOXO