The Story...oh boy...

 

I think everyone knows now, I am pregnant!  21 weeks to be exact.  We found out I was expecting the end of January/beginning of February.  Despite everything that was going on, we were glad for the good news, a bit surprised, but excited.

 

 

Pregnancy for me has always been a difficult challenge, a long nine month flu.  The vomitting, nausea, severe food aversions...pregnancy in our house is tough business.  It is a blessing and something we are very grateful for...but also physically and emotionally very challenging for our family.  My pregnancy coincided with Mr. N's final semester of graduate school.  Not only did he have to complete his Master's Project, but once again became a full-time Mom.  This pregnancy has been  different.  For the first twelve weeks I had to take progesterone, which seemed to restrict the production of my own hormones.  I was sick, but it was more gradual in intensity.  I was still super sick...but not puking 20 times a day.

 

 

When I was about 10 weeks along, Elle came up to me with this picture she had drawn.  At this point we hadn't told the girls that I was expecting.  They just knew mom was sick.  I was actually dealing with a devil cold/sinus infection on top of the pregnancy.   Ugh.  Anyways, we let them believe the cold continued to linger so you can imagins my surprise when Elle brought me this picture (above) and told me "Mom, this is a picture of the baby that is in your belly!"  I was totally floored.  The next day we used Elle's picture to tell the girls that Mom was expecting another baby.  Elle said it was a girl and Emmy said we had enough sisters and that it was a boy.

 

 

When I went off the progesterone, It seemed like my hormone levels skyrocketed & instead of seeing an improvement, it got a lot worse.  I felt so terrible for Mr. N, but there wasn't much I could do to help.  Naturally our friends close around us knew what was going on.  You can only get sick for so long before people figure it out.  We are so grateful for the help and support of friends, to include meals, taking the girls, a quick call to check on things.  We have some great friends.  I didn't really feel like saying anything to anyone about the pregnancy, so we kept it under wraps with the exception of local friends and family.   

 

 

I didn't start feeling somewhat human again until about 18 weeks.  At that point I figured we had made it that far, so why not wait until we knew the gender to share the news. 

 

 

Unfortunately our OB didn't want to do the anatomy ultrasound until 23 weeks...which I was less than thrilled about.  I was use to finding out at about 19 weeks, and refused to pay $75 just to find out.  I managed to get them to do the anatomy ultrasound at 21 weeks, which was better.

 

I had pretty much felt that we were having a girl.  The heart rate was higher & everything with the pregnancy was the same: sick sick sick.  I figured if we were going to have a boy, we were just going to have to adopt him.  The day of the ultrasound we took our guesses.  We knew Emmy wanted a boy, Elle wanted a girl, and Louie wanted ice cream.  Mr. N guessed it was a boy and I guessed a girl.

 

 

IT'S A BOY.  I was completely shocked.  When the ultrasound technician put the ultrasound thing on my belly the first thing we saw indicated he was a male.  I still couldn't believe it.  I kept asking, "Are you sure it's really a boy?"  The funny thing was the baby was super active and only seemed interested in mooning the camera.  She had a really hard time doing the anatomy scan because she kept getting the same image of him...the "Its a boy" image.  She managed to get this shot right at the end.  We are relieved that he appears very healthy.

 

Looking back, I did feel like the baby was a girl the whole time, but about a week before the ultrasound I started having thoughts that maybe it was a boy.  I guess that was the spirit preparing me.  I am happy we're having a boy.  It's just so weird to think about.  After so many girls....  Maybe that's why I also had a really hard time thinking about girl names. 

The girls are super excited to have a brother.  They keep telling everyone wherever we go that they are going to have a little brother.  It's nice to see them so excited.  Now they are just frustrated that we have to wait for him to get here.  :)