3 Months In

Today marks 13 weeks, or 3 months, since I found out that I'm not so infertile after all. My goal has been to post about how things are going at least once a month. I hope that it helps me to remember this time, which is going soooooo slow, yet concurrently so fast.

Here is what Little Bit and I looked like this past Sunday, at 23 weeks.

For comparison purposes, this is what we looked like at 16 weeks. I think my baby boy has grown! And I'm hoping that most of the growing is sticking right there.


The past month has been a whirlwind. Little Bit, so far, has been great for my blood pressure. Despite the odds, I have actually had my blood pressure decrease to a level where it was too low. The lowest reading I took, about three weeks ago, was 82/53. If you don't know - that is very, very low. Really good blood pressure is usually about 105/65 or so. When I first was pregnant, as I went through the struggles of changing medications and grappling with my unexpected, happy surprise, my blood pressure was sometimes hitting 160/105. So this is a big change. I don't know how long it will last, but I am hoping that we can carry through to the end and still be so healthy. After reducing my blood pressure medications twice, they decided to fully take me off of it. So for the past week and a half, I have not taken a single blood pressure pill. The medicine I was taking is also sometimes used as a sleep aid, so I was constantly drowsy. It has been nice to be more awake again.

I did have a "rebound" affect about 4 days after I stopped taking the medicine and my blood pressure shot up. They didn't want to immediately put me back on the medicine, because they wanted to first see if my body could fix itself. So, lucky me, I spent about 2 days in bed doing nothing. It was pure torture. It didn't help that Charlie and Boone could both sense their opportunity and went all-out crazy for both days. Let's just hope that I do not develop pre-eclampsia, because if I am long-term bed-rested... I may not survive!

I had another fun little mishap a couple of weeks ago. I mixed up a batch of banana bread, which has been a pregnancy favorite of mine, and slid it into the oven one night. Then I went outside to play with Charlie for twenty minutes. When I came back in my house stunk, was smoky, and one look at my oven showed flames covering the bottom. Some (read: a lot) of the mix had dripped out of the pan and fallen onto the bottom coils. A full flaming fire resulted. As I ran to the oven, grabbing the phone, the clearest thought in my head was: "Do I want to use the fire extinguisher or baking soda?" I chose baking soda and the fire was quickly out. Afterwards I realized that I was just sitting there breathing in smoke. I aired out the house and immediately started to panic about the safety of my baby boy. I had no idea how smoke affects a 21 week old fetus. I swore I couldn't feel him. I called the nurse line twice. I went to sleep that night and woke up still panicked. I called my OB, who had me do a fetal movement test... I wasn't sure it would work so early. But I counted 10 movements in 12 minutes, and then finally started to calm down.

All of my experiences in the past month have reinforced to me just how attached I am to this little baby. He's still a big mover, and is keeping me awake at night now. To me, he's already a part of our family and there are days when I want him to be here right now. I want to be able to hold him, and to be able to debate about who he resembles. But at the same time, I want him to stay where he is for much longer than is really physically possible. It's nice to always have him with me. I enjoy talking to him, and I enjoy feeling him move around.

Next week we have our next ultrasound. In two and a half weeks we'll be in our third trimester. I can't believe it. I still worry that he might come very early. If pre-eclampsia develops, it could happen any time... and if it worsens quickly, he could need to be delivered as early as 26 weeks. (Gasp! That's only two weeks away!) Of course, that scenario is very unlikely... but it is not as unlikely that he may need to be delivered at some point pre-term. At my last appointment, when I asked my OB what I should expect, she told me that she doesn't know... that I might go all the way to my due date. Actually, what she told me is that I have the lowest blood pressure she has ever seen in a high blood pressure patient. So, that's a good thing. But all of this uncertainty is making me feel like I need to rush to be ready, and worry that I might actually be pregnant for 40 (or even 42) weeks.

One thing that I do know is that Little Bit is growing, that he is very active, and that I love him very much. He is our miracle baby, the one that just happened to be when it was his time. The one that helped put our family life in perspective. The one that seems to be good for my health. Knowing all of that, I have to have a little bit of faith. So I guess he'll get here when he gets here.