LIL Baby Questions & Answers

Good morning everyone!

Thank you so much for all of the warm congratulations and wishes sent our way after we announced our news. I was pretty busy at work last week and over the weekend, so I’m still responding to emails and comments, but I’ve read every single one and they’ve melted my heart. Some of you have been reading here since the beginning, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me!

I don’t think my heart has ever been so full. We are beyond excited for the road ahead to parenthood, and I am doing my best to soak this planning time up as much as I can.

I have received a lot of question since we shared our secret with the world, so I figured that I’d dive into documenting this journey with my answers here on the blog. I’ll be covering the highlights and a recap of the first trimester soon, but for now, here’s a general Q&A to get things rolling.

Thank you again for following along on this amazing journey!

 

LIL Baby Questions & Answers

 

How are you feeling?

I’m actually feeling pretty good right now! The first trimester, however, was a little rougher. I’ll be sharing more details about the first twelve weeks later this week. I’m just shy of 15 weeks, and overall, I finally feel more energized and like myself, less caffeinated … with a growing bump!

(The baby bloat was real at 12 weeks. I originally cropped this picture to hide it!)

I’m trying to listen to my body as much as possible and rest when I need to. I’m also trying to get out and enjoy the last six months of being “on my own” until the little one gets here. I had some serious spells of morning sickness in the first trimester, but that seems to have subsided for now. I’ll be sharing more about how I’ve been feeling in a first trimester update soon.

 

When did you find out that you were pregnant?

4 Weeks!

I randomly decided to take a test the night before my period was due. I don’t know why (and from what I’ve read, that’s the worst time to detect an early pregnancy), but I just couldn’t go to bed without giving in to my suspicion. I stopped by a drug store on my walk home from work, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a positive result shortly after.

 

How did you tell Scott?

I purchased a little blue box with a rainbow card ages ago as a way to be able to wrap up a positive test to share with Scott one day. As soon as I found out, I was elated that my day to fill out the card finally came, and I told him that I had a surprise waiting for him when he got in from work.

It was a few nights before our sixth wedding anniversary, so I told him that I got him a small present, even though we agreed not to exchange anything this year. As soon as I heard him come through the door, I bounced out of bed and will never forget the look on his face when he figured it out. We both cried and cried and were so thankful.

 

How did you tell your family?

Scott wanted to tell his family right away, so he did. I waited until about 6 weeks (after a few scares, which I will eventually talk about) to tell my parents, and I probably would have waited longer if we didn’t feel like we needed the extra prayers. We made a big production out of announcing our first pregnancy to our families with special Christmas cards wrapped in their presents, so we decided to keep things simple this time. One by one, we called everyone in our families to share the news.

As the weeks went by, closer towards the end of the first trimester, we decided to tell our close friends, too. My favorite reveal was in person when our friends from Detroit came to the City for the weekend. We put an ultrasound photo in one of their menus at dinner, and they caught on to our secret pretty quickly when the menus were passed out!

 

Did you get pregnant naturally?

After two and a half years of trying and sixth months of trying after our second loss, we finally decided to look into infertility testing and treatments this summer. We made an appointment with my OB/GYN at the end of June to discuss an action plan and came home with an overload of emotions and way too many things on our to-do list. Feeling a bit overwhelmed, we decided to take a break from tracking and the stress of timing everything perfectly to “see what happens” and go from there.

Lo and behold, I got pregnant shortly after! God is so good.

(I didn’t realize it then, but I was pregnant in this picture taken on July 4th!)

 

Did you do anything differently to get pregnant this time?

Piggy backing off of the answer above, we basically took a break from stressing about getting pregnant. Instead of trying to figure out exactly when I was ovulating (looking back, I have a feeling that my cycle isn’t always what my app/baby computer was telling me — and according to my dates, it looks like I ovulated pretty early the month I got pregnant), we went for the “every day” method for three weeks. What can I say? It worked.

 

Are you going to find out the gender?

No! You’re all just going to have to wait and see what this little miracle will be, too. Sorry!

Scott and I had this conversation years ago, and we finally agreed that we aren’t going to find out the baby’s gender. I could dedicate an entire blog post to this subject if there is an interest in reading about it. Let me know!

 

Will you be having a gender reveal party?

You can probably guess this answer based on the one above. While we won’t be having a gender reveal party, we will be partying in our delivery room screaming “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” in March!

 

When is your due date?

March 28th. During the third ultrasound, our doctor told us that I’m measuring early … so there’s been some debate. The last ultrasound I had, however, confirmed a March 28th due date. Scott is secretly hoping for an April Fool’s baby. (Wouldn’t that just be too fitting?) I guess we shall see!

 

Have you started showing?

Yes! In fact, I feel like I popped at Weeks 13 and 14.

Members at work started staring at my belly, so we figured that we should announce sooner than later since our loved ones were already in the know. Several of you pointed out that you thought you saw a belly when I posted this photo last week, and clearly, you all were right. I guess the cat is officially out of the bag now!

 

Do you have a name picked out?

Actually, yes. We already know what the name will be if it’s a boy! We do, however, need to narrow down our girl names.

It’s really important to us to keep the details a surprise, so I won’t be sharing the names in play. And who knows, we may even decide on a top two or three and see what he or she looks like once they arrive to make a final decision.

 

Did your doctor recommend getting genetics testing?

Before we dive into this, I want to acknowledge that I realize this can be a controversial subject. Some people choose to get this testing done to decide of they want to carry the pregnancy after finding out the results. (For those of you who don’t know, standard genetics testing usually takes place between 10-12 weeks and gives you an idea of the risk of down syndrome, trisomy 18, trisomy 13, and other chromosomal abnormalities.)  

No matter what the results were, Scott and I chose that we were going to carry this baby full-term.

That said …

She left it completely up to us. Since we’ve had multiple miscarriages, this is considered to be a high risk pregnancy. The reasons for our losses were chromosomal, so we felt like we wanted to know everything about this pregnancy as we possibly could — minus the gender. We wanted our doctor to have every ounce of information possible on our baby, and we wanted to prepare ourselves for whatever the future may hold if the news wasn’t great.

I don’t know how this got lost in translation, but I didn’t realize that I needed to make an appointment at a separate facility for this ultrasound and blood work testing. When I arrived to the doctor’s for our 12 week appointment, we lucked out by getting an appointment for the testing to happen a few days later. Phew!

 

How did that go?

Scott was overseas for this, which was fine because I knew the results would come 3-5 days later and that he would be home. I was bummed for him during the appointment, because I was able to see our baby closer and longer than ever before. It was actually the first time I heard the heartbeat, too!

Just like his/her mom and dad, the baby was being stubborn and the ultrasound tech had to use three different equipment approaches to get all of the right measurements. I was probably in that room, pants down, for 45 minutes!

She had me lean back, lean further back, roll to the side, roll to the other side, and move every which way to try to get the baby to uncurl to see the neck. I guess the little one is super comfortable in there.

Eventually, she was able to get what she needed and I felt a sense of relief after a quick needle prick for the blood work.

I did, however, worry during the ultrasound(s) because the baby wasn’t “waking up” when we were trying to get measurements. The tech pressed down on my belly at different angles and kept saying “wake up, baby” for longer than I would have liked. There was movement (and I even saw an arm and hand wave!), but the way she was talking paired with the amount of time I spent in that chair had me freaking out inside. Is my baby supposed to be moving more?

All in all I left feeling good, and we are praising God for all healthy and negative results for everything tested.

 

Did your doctor recommend you take a break from working out?

I’ll go over more details about this in the trimester recaps, but this decision was totally on me. My doctor said I’m free to do anything that feels good, as long as it isn’t anything new or too intense. During my first two pregnancies, I worked out as normal, and incorporated modifications when I needed to in barre classes and workouts. I felt good.

This pregnancy, however, started on the bumpy side. I had some concerning spotting around 5.5 weeks and 6.5 weeks, so I went in for an early ultrasound and put myself on bed rest as much as possible. Living in New York City, I climb stairs and walk a lot on a daily basis, so I felt like that was enough until I got out of the first trimester. I just didn’t feel comfortable putting unnecessary strain on my body.

Again, I’ll chat more about this on the trimester recaps!

 

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And with that, I think I’m going to end this post here.

Do you have any questions I didn’t answer? If so, please leave them in the comments section below and I’d be happy to answer them in posts to come.

Thanks again for checking in, and I’ll be back later this week with a first trimester update and regular scheduled Friday Favorites.

Happy Monday!