Two years ago at Thanksgiving we were celebrating our first pregnancy and on Christmas day, we were in the ER in Oklahoma City due to miscarriage. One of my previous posts (ironically about a year ago) talked about my cycle not starting after my second miscarriage for well over 100 days and how I felt defective, and then.....and then, the day after Thanksgiving last year, I took a pregnancy test just for giggles because my husband and sister-in-law were convinced I was pregnant and sure enough....I was. I went to have blood drawn that day to see what my hcg levels were and they were off the chart. We were ecstatic but very scared. My awesome OB nurses (Pat and Roberta) were very positive and encouraging and said I was between 8-12 weeks with my hcg level (over 40,000...anything over 5 is pregnant). Then we had to wait the long, long weekend for a second level to find out if the pregnancy was viable. If the numbers were going up, we were good, but if they were going down, it didn't look good for us again. On Monday, I went in for the blood draw, and the call on Tuesday felt like it would never come. When it did, we were devastated. My numbers had dropped, but the nurse was still very positive and said that at some point in the pregnancy they start to go down and maybe that's just where we were in the process. We made an ultrasound appointment for the next day and another very long day ensued. At home on Tuesday night, I snuck into the basement with my hospital grade doppler to see if I could hear the heartbeat. I felt that if I could then everything would be okay. I just couldn't wait until the ultrasound to see if our little baby was alive or had passed like the two before it. After what felt like years, I finally found the heartbeat. I was on cloud 9,999 but didn't tell Jeremy because I didn't want him to worry about me. I could only keep my silence until the next morning, and then I played the heartbeat for Jeremy. He was pretty happy about hearing the heartbeat too but a bit miffed that I hadn't shared it with him the night before. So we went to the appointment knowing that we'd see a live baby on the screen at the doctors office instead of what we had experienced previously. What we didn't know was how long it would last because my levels were falling (a very bad sign) and I had been off and on provera trying to get my cycle to restart.
We arrived at the appointment prepared for the worst but hoping and praying for the best. The ultrasound tech put the gel on my slightly rounded stomach and we saw a hand go by. At our previous appointments we saw the entire baby on the screen so to see a hand fill the screen was certainly not what we expected. The ultrasound tech laughed and said, "You're skipping the first trimester and going straight to the second!!" She had to change heads for the ultrasound (think of it as having less zoom) so we could see all of the baby and there on the screen was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life!!! There was a sweet little baby all wiggling around and kicking. It was a few more weeks before I could feel the kicks, but I'm here to tell you, I celebrated everyone of them. I started crying, and in doing so, was making it hard for the tech to get the measurements she needed so I got myself together so she could tell us how long he had been in there and whether or not he was healthy. Jeremy and I were just smiling ear to ear the whole time and his eyes were misty too. We were holding hands talking to the screen and were instantly in love with our little miracle. There he was with all 10 fingers and toes…we could see his heart, his brain, and all the important parts. The tech finished up and told us we were 16 weeks and 4 days pregnant and that our baby was due on Mother's Day in 2008. She also said the baby was past the miscarriage danger zone, and that we were squarely in the second trimester. My joy could NOT be contained, and when I sat and thought about everything, I knew that this baby was truly a blessing from God. His little miracle delivered in His time and according to His plan. After two miscarriages, Jeremy and I were prepared to worry about every moment until we made it to the second trimester. This time, no need to worry…we had already passed that milestone without ever fretting about an appointment. The due date was another sweet reminder of God's love…you see, Jeremy had surprised me on Mother's Day in 2007 when I was pregnant the second time with all kinds of sweet things from him and the baby along with a card signed "Havason" (a mix between the two names we had chosen for a boy and girl…Harrison and Ava). After the loss of the second pregnancy I was doomed to associate that memory, bitter sweet as it was, with Mother's Day from then on….but once I found out our sweet baby was due on Mother's Day, the pain from that memory just vanished. You see, everything about this pregnancy was exactly as it was supposed to be.
Well, you know how it ended up….Harrison was born just 2 hours shy of his Mother's Day due date, and while I still don't have the answers for why our sweet baby had to spend the first 3 weeks of his life in the NICU, I know that there was someone else watching over us and making sure we were growing stronger and closer together as a family. I'm not one to believe in coincidence. That doesn't mean I always know why things happen, but what I DO know is that God is in control and for that, I am more thankful this year than ever. So Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! Here's a flashback to Harrison at our first ultrasound appointment...
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