Wrapping Up the First Trimester

I’m thirteen weeks along now and am just about done with my first trimester. I think back on those first few weeks and how much more nervous I felt at that time. Getting to the first few milestones is a nail-biting experience – the rising HCG levels, the heartbeat, and seeing the baby form and grow normally. It’s nice to have that behind me.

It’s a wonderful contrast to my past experience with in vitro. I feel like this is the closest I’ll ever come to feeling pregnant like a fertile woman would, without all the doubt and fear and heartache, and I’m so grateful for that. I’m happy to skip all the pain, but I find it’s easy to forget about the miracle inside of me when everything is going so smoothly, when I’m not on the edge of my seat waiting for tragedy. I understand how women can take for granted the miracle of conception and pregnancy when there’s no worry and everything is sailing along smoothly. At least for me, I know I’m a lot less obsessive than I was with my first child.

It’s actually made me reflect on my experiences, the contrast between the two. I met a woman once who’d battled with infertility and then had a baby of her own. She told me she was happy for the experience and the gratitude it gave her for her child, that she wouldn’t trade that for anything. That sounded a little nuts to me! Who the heck is happy for pain? I figure we’re all grateful for our children, whether we had the pain or not. But having these two contrasting experiences – the one so difficult, the other so easy - does open to my eyes to how a struggle can make the prize that much sweeter. I look back on my experiences with Gavin and remember all the pain and anguish we experienced in getting him here, the waiting and wondering and doubt. Then we had our baby boy! Oh, the magic and wonder! Suddenly, we had a whole new set of emotions – love, awe, joy, peace, and gratitude – and we felt those emotions just as intensely as we’d felt the pain, the struggle, the fear, and everything else.

I think on this pregnancy now, and I feel certain that if this had been my journey from the beginning, if I’d have skipped all the hurt and anguish, I would have missed out on the beauty I experienced in having my son and the incredibly tender feelings of love and gratitude I have in being a mother. It’s hard to remember the pain and genuinely feel grateful for that, but I do feel blessed for my experiences and where they’ve led me. It reminds me of a scripture that a friend shared with me when I was pregnant with Gavin: Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.  (Prov. 13:12)

Let me tell you, we had our tree of life. Heck, I think we had the whole Amazon rainforest!

Of course, it does help that Gavin is such a wonderful kid. He was a relatively easy baby, always happy and calm, and has become a VERY smart, fun-loving, adorable toddler. I love to see him dance, to see him laugh and be silly, to hear him read his books and see him line up his cars all in a row, to hear him talk about Jesus. My favorite moments are to snuggle with him in his rocking chair and sing him songs and know that he’s loving me and I’m loving him. If I stop singing, he says, “Songs,” because he wants me to keep singing. When I ask him if he wants to go in his bed, he says, “Snuggle” because he wants us to keep holding on to each other until he falls asleep. In those tender moments, I often think of all the life he has ahead of him and how I get to be a part of it. I imagine him as at seven years old, twelve years old, seventeen, and wonder what he will be like and what his hobbies will be. Then I see him getting married and loving another woman and remember how precious these moments are, this special time with my little boy, and I suck up every minute.

So much love and so much gratitude.

It’s wonderful to know that those feelings are ahead – more love, more gratitude, more wonder – for another child. At this point, I’m feeling calm about the pregnancy, about our future with this baby, and I’m happy to have my fetal Doppler so I can keep tabs on the baby and back up my confidence. I will always be aware of the bad things that can happen, always be aware of that chance, but it doesn’t overwhelm me with feelings of worry.  At this point, I have about a 99% chance of success and I really can’t hope for better odds than that. That’s better odds than I’ve ever had in this whole process and I’m very grateful.

Still, it doesn’t quite feel real yet and it’s hard to get excited. I have my next ultrasound in ten days, on December 28^th, and we may find out the gender then. That may help it feel more real, as it did with Gavin. If not, then perhaps a baby bump would help, or the turning of the seasons. It’s hard to get excited about a summer baby when there’s snow on the ground and Christmas is around the corner. It feels like such a long ways away!

It seriously feels like you’re pregnant forever! Here I am finishing up my first trimester and yet I look at the months and months ahead and wonder how in the world I’m already one-third of the way through. But then I think about how fiercely that baby is growing inside of me and realize just how quickly we’re moving along. The baby is essentially growing about one half an inch each week, which is crazy! Your hair grows one half an inch each MONTH, to put things in perspective. That is some intense growing going on for baby.

The other amazing thing is that the baby is essentially fully formed at this point. It spends those first two months making all those systems and organs and turning into a tiny baby, then spends the second and third trimester just growing, with some fine tuning along the way. Remember my blog on ovaries and eggs and how a woman is born with all her eggs? If I’m having a girl, she already has 2 million eggs inside of her ovaries. CRAZY! How can there be 2 million of ANYTHING inside something so small?

Yet, the baby is really not so small anymore. Right now, it’s measuring at about 3 inches, from head to rump, and will be nearly 4 inches long when we see the baby on ultrasound at 15 weeks. That’s a whopping 2 and half inches longer than when we saw it last, dancing on the ultrasound! Yes, lots and lots of fierce growing and I am amazed at it all.

For now, I’m feeling incredibly blessed to be here with things going so well. Every day that passes is a gift, one step closer to meeting this child, and much much better than the alternative. Gavin and I pray together each day that the baby will keep growing. I make sure to be specific: “Bless this baby brother or baby sister, that he will grow like he should, that I will meet him someday, that he will be part of our family, and we can play together and be friends.” And I always make sure that Gavin adds his “Amen!”

I’m anxious and excited to find out the gender. Gavin loves to hang out with the boys. It makes sense because he is ALL boy, in every way. So it’d be fun for him to have a brother. It runs in the family too. My parents and my siblings had to have their two boys before moving on to the girls. So we’ll see if I keep the streak going. But a girl would be lovely. I think it would be a good way to balance out Gavin a little bit. Not only that, but I have literally been surrounded by boys my entire life. I was the only girl in my family, the only girl my age in my neighborhood, and the only girl my age at church. I even took geeky computer classes in high school with ALL boys. I am definitely ready for some girl power. If I end up having all boys, I’ll throw my hands up in the air and accept my lot in life, haha!

Either way, I won’t lie and say that I’m feeling ready for this baby. The thought of a hyperactive toddler and a newborn sort of terrifies me. I still have six months to go, though. Maybe by then we’ll have a house and more space for this toddler to play in. Maybe by then, Gavin will be out of diapers. Maybe by then, Gavin will be a better listener and a little calmer. Or maybe I should accept that I’m going to be utterly exhausted for the next five years. Guess I better go take a nap while I still can.

Whatever the case, I’m excited for this baby, to discover who he/she is and feel that love all over again, that very special love, that gift from God, the love of a mother.