Our Rainbow Baby: How this Pregnancy is Different

I know this is a Home/DIY blog, but occasionally I like to throw in a personal post to allow you to get to know me better and see what’s going on in my life. You can always skip over these if you aren’t comfortable with getting personal. 😉

I thought I’d give you a quick baby update, especially for those of you who have been following our journey since I opened up about it last year. As some of you know, we weren’t sure if baby #3 was ever going to happen for us. We went through 2 1/2 years of secondary infertility and miscarriages, which I documented here and here. Well, I’m happy to say that I am now 22 weeks pregnant with our “rainbow baby” (apparently this is what it’s called when you have a baby after a miscarriage) and we got to have a peek at our little one in an ultrasound recently. Here’s the little profile photo I posted on Instagram:

We resisted temptation and looked away so we still don’t know the gender, and we are looking forward to being surprised. I did get a sudden gut feeling during the ultrasound that the baby is a boy, but I guess gut feelings aren’t very scientific so we will just have to wait and see! Of course we will be happy no matter what. We are just thankful for this little miracle.

This pregnancy did not start off easy to say the least. I was extremely sick and could hardly function or get out of bed, and I had all sorts of feelings of guilt. Guilt for feeling like I couldn’t properly care for my two boys or give them the attention they deserve (not that they seemed to care much, they enjoyed the extra video game time), and guilt for not being able to enjoy this pregnancy that I had so desperately wanted for so long. Guilt for feeling like I was complaining about feeling awful when I fought so hard to get here and ultimately I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I was thankful for the sickness — thankful for what it represented and the reassurance it gave me that my body was working hard to grow a tiny human. But there were days when I thought the sickness might never go away, especially when it didn’t magically disappear at that 12-13 week mark, and I dreaded enduring 9 whole months of it. I would gladly do it if I had to, but it took a lot out of me. Finally after about 15 weeks I started to feel human again, a major wave of relief took over, and now I am feeling great for the time being.

It’s interesting, after going through everything we went through, I always assumed that if and when we got pregnant “for real” again, I would be an emotional mess of pure gratefulness — a puddle of happy tears on the floor. I was happy and grateful, but there were no tears. Only shock. I think we were both too scared to ever get excited, so we remained cautiously optimistic instead, always a little scared early on that this one might end in a loss too. There was no jumping for joy, no huge celebratory moment. Just me, staring at a pregnancy test in shock, showing it to Chris, and both of us saying, “Ok, well here we go…” We chose not to tell anyone (other than my sister and a close friend) until after we had our first ultrasound. We didn’t even tell our parents. I wanted to be excited when we told them, not fearful and apprehensive. Plus, I don’t think either of us had fully accepted that it was “real” until the tiny beating heart appeared on the ultrasound screen. That was a milestone we hadn’t reached with our last two pregnancies, and it definitely made this one seem more real. We were still afraid, but that eased our fears significantly.

Now that I have the basketball belly and we’ve seen our sweet little one grabbing his/her feet and I’ve felt the tiny kicks and punches and tumbling around, we are excited, and this has become real. We know that nothing is a “given,” and we certainly don’t take this pregnancy or baby for granted, so continued prayers are always appreciated. This pregnancy definitely feels different than my first two with the boys — back then I had the privilege of blissful ignorance about the reality and statistics of miscarriage, and the ability to be a little more happy-go-lucky about it, not that I took those pregnancies for granted either. It was just … different. We realize that this is beyond our control — it always was. I’m not sure if the fear will ever fully go away but at least it has faded significantly with time. We have faith in God and acknowledge that, He’s got this. There’s no point in being overly stressed over something you just can’t control, so we are trying to keep that in mind. The boys are looking forward to meeting their little sibling, and they say they’ll be happy with a brother or a sister — they have no preference. It makes me happy to hear that they trust God to choose the right baby for our family too, regardless of gender.

Thank you so much to all of you who have kept us in your thoughts and prayers and voiced your support throughout our journey. It means the world to us! Of course I will keep you updated periodically. Project nursery begins soon so I can’t wait to show you the room as we go along.

Ok you guys, I don’t condone mirror selfies or anything but here I am a little over a week ago at 21 weeks pregnant. (You can see more prego pics in my Haven recap post):

Thanks again for all of your sweet words and support! And for those of you still fighting your infertility battle, please know that there is hope. This time last year we were in the middle of our battle, and here we are now. My prayer is that you will get your baby very soon. XOXO

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-Erin