It takes just a little bit of Hope!

Where oh where to begin... If you've been following along, our journey to parenthood was detoured a bit this summer, but Jason and I are happy to announce that we are having a baby! Needless to say it's been a hard secret to keep, but we wanted to be reassured that everything was progressing as it should - and it is!!!!

I'm 12 weeks today and our Butterbean is due July 13, 2010!

Back tracking a bit, we found out that I was pregnant right after my birthday :) - I guess you could say it was a belated birthday gift. I took a test on November 6th and there was the glaring "Pregnant" on the stick. Jason had been traveling all week, so I surprised him when he got home. He couldn't believe it happened again so quickly.

Our first appointment was the week of Thanksgiving (I was 7 weeks), and things looked good so far and we got our first glimse of Butterbean. Given the past miscarriage and that we didn't know the baby stopped growing, I requested another ultrasound at 10 weeks.

So after what felt like the longest 3 weeks of waiting, I was able to see our sweet Butterbean at 10 weeks on Dec. 16th.

I was pretty nervous about this ultrasound, fearing that they wouldn't find a heartbeat and Jason couldn't come since he was traveling with work. As the tech started the ultrasound, I stared at the screen the entire time, searching for the tiny heartbeat. At first I couldn't see it, but I could see a head, body, arms and legs. Then as I looked a bit closer, there was the heart just a racing! I immediately started crying, I couldn't believe the rush of emotions. It finally felt real! Our little Butterbean was just a wiggling around the entire time.

Now fast forward to today... We had my 12 week appointment along with a Nuchal Translucency screening. During my OB appointment we got to hear the baby's heartbeat and it took the nurse no time to find it - so amazing to hear! We then went to another office to have the Nuchal Translucency screening. It's a more detailed ultrasound screening for Down Syndrome risk. My OB said we would really enjoy this ultrasound, but I didn't realize how much. It lasted for about 25 minutes and we got to see so much of Butterbean. He/she was moving all around, but didn't want to quite cooperate for some of the measurements, but after a little poking, proding and coughing the tech got what she needed. Both the tech and the doctor said everything looked really great and Butterbean looked healthly.

Here are some of the pictures from today, along with some commentary I added :)

And lastly, here is the first of the belly shots... I think our camera was being extremely nice today, there is a bit of a belly going on. All I can say is thank you to lowrise jeans!

Jason and I are so excited and feel so blessed that we have our Butterbean on the way. We've got a long road ahead of us, but so excited to see what the future holds!

A special gift of Hope

I wasn't sure when I'd be back on our blog, but I received such a special gift in the mail yesterday that I just had to share.

I have a very dear friend Heather who was blessed with triplets in February 2008. However, her and her husband's journey to these angels didn't come easy. After her second miscarriage, Heather wore a Hope bracelet all the way through to the birth of her miracles - Ella, Ben & Will. In her card she explained to me that she knew she wanted to pass this special bracelet along to someone special who also needed Hope, so she sent it on to her friend who lost her triplet daughters at 22 weeks. This same friend was later blessed with a baby boy who will be a year in November. Heather told her friend about me and her friend happily sent the Hope bracelet back to Heather, saying how much Hope it brought her and how she didn't take it off her arm until her son came home.

When it comes to starting our family, I can't imagine what both Heather and her friend experienced, having only miscarrying one time. But what I think I'm beginning to understand is, as women we share a special bond of wanting to be a mother. Then once you are blessed with 1, 2 or even 3, you then understand "so this is what my parents were talking about" - the unconditional love for a miracle that shares traits of both you and your spouse. Heather's card came on a day when I needed it most. I have good days and I have bad days, and being the friend she is, she has now passed along the Hope that saw her through her life being blessed with her 3 sweet, sweet babies.

Thank you Heather, this post is dedicated to you. I love you dearly and my life is so blessed with your friendship! You have given me Hope that Jason and I will be blessed very, very soon.

"I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me" - Philippians 4:13

You may be wondering why the title of this post, but our journey to parenthood has been currently postponed - at least that's how I'm looking at it, just a bump in our road....

Yesterday during my 12 week appointment, sadly I learned I had miscarried. So far I had been feeling well, so honestly hadn't suspected anything to be wrong. During the appointment, the nurse and my doctor tried to hear the baby's heartbeat with the handheld doppler, but didn't have any luck. We thought at first this was due to my uterus being "retroverted", meaning it tilts backwards. So the plan was to have a quick ultrasound, so I could leave the appointment having heard the heartbeat. At that point of my appointment, there was no reason to suspect anything was wrong. Just that the baby was sitting further back so harder to hear.

As I was having the ultrasound, I guess you could say it was my "mother's intuition", but I could tell that something wasn't right. The sweet woman doing my ultrasound wasn't saying much and by the questions she was asking me, I knew the outcome wasn't going to be good. She finally turned to me, showed me the screen and delivered the bad news - there was no heartbeat. It was pretty hard news to take, after having 2 previous ultrasounds with such a strong heartbeats, but my doctor explained that it was more than likely a chromosomal issue that happened at conception and I would have miscarried on my own eventually.

Jason and I realize that this has happened for a reason and we are extremely lucky to have gotten pregnant so quickly - sadly many couples aren't even that lucky. We also take comfort in knowing it is God's way of helping us grow stronger as a couple and even better parents.

Thank you for all the prayers, phone calls, and emails. While it has been an emotional couple of days, I've taken comfort that our first Butterbean is now in Heaven with my parents, taking a piece of Jason and I to heaven.

I'm signing off the blog for a bit, since I started this to journal my pregnancy. We will see what the future holds, hopefully I'll be back soon!

Attack of of "pregnancy brain"....

Well I've heard about this mystery thing call pregnancy brain in all the books I'm reading an thus far, I didn't think I had really experienced... Until today...

So this morning was like any other, alarm goes off, get up shower, get ready for work. Nothing out of the ordinary - just your average Monday start of the week. As I'm getting dressed and I keep thinking to myself "wow I got ready really fast today", but just figured I managed to get myself up out of the bed a few minutes earlier. That yes is the case, however I did get ready faster than normal.. It's not until I'm a in the car, a mile down the road that I just happen to look in the rear view mirror and there it is....

I'M NOT WEARING ANY MAKE UP!

Yes, I managed to forget a very important step in my morning routine - putting on make up. Well needless to say at that point while I'm driving I said forget it, slapped on some lipstick and decided to go about my day.

I did call my very sweet husband and asked if he noticed anything different about me this morning, he said "no why?" - poor thing probably thought he was getting set up by pregnancy hormones, but lucky for him no set up, just my stupidity of the day!

If this is already happening, I'm scared what the next 6 months are going to be like!

10 Week - Belly Update

Well this is the first official belly picture we've taken. I probably should have taken an early one, so we could see the difference :)
What matters right now, is that I can still button my jeans!

It's official!

Well I've been contemplating starting a blog for a while and I figure no time is better than now....

Jason and I are excited to announce that we are adding to our family - I'm pregnant!!

This is the first positive test on May 24th. However Jason was in disbelief, so he made me do another one the next day.....

Test #1 and test #2 - I think it might just be true!

I'm 10 weeks right now, but here is our ultrasound at 8 weeks, meet our little Butterbean. Jason's nickname growing up was Butterbean Dean, so we thought it was a perfect name for our little blessing!

Butterbean's estimated arrival is January 26, 2010! Please keep us in your prayers as we follow this journey to an new and exciting time in our life!