Kittymomma's Adventures

Since I know you are all dying to know, here is the story of how I found out I was pregnant the fourth time. It is actually quite different from the first three times.

The first time, I saw the two pink lines, ran down the hall to Chris’s home office (He worked from home at the time.) and said, “Honey, look” with a huge smile on my face.

Max (Nov. 4, 2008)

The second time, I saw the positive result, immediately thought, “There’s my girl” and ran downstairs to the kitchen. Glowing with excitement, I burst in on Chris and Max saying, “Honey, I’m pregnant!” We proceeded to get Max to pose for pics with me and the positive test. You can tell how bewildered he is in the pics. He wasn’t even two at the time.

Lucy (May 21, 2011)

The third time, it was a Clearblue Easy test. I texted Chris at work: “Are you sitting down?” Then I texted him the picture. His response? “Oh, wow.”

Baby Bean (June 13, 2013)

The fourth time was the only time we had to try more than once. It was also a pregnancy after two losses – the loss of Lucy last May and the loss of Baby Bean last August. Although I knew I had every chance of having another baby, I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant, or that I would lose the baby, or that the baby would die of some terrible disease after it was born.

We tried for the third time in November 2014. By that time, I was on estrogen gel and taking my temperature every morning. My morning routine – wake up, take temperature before I move, do back extension, get out of bed. By mid-November, I added a morning pregnancy test to the routine. As with Baby Bean, I was having some bleeding. I couldn’t tell if I was about to start my period or if a pregnancy was starting, so I was testing. I really didn’t think I was pregnant, but if I was I wanted to know, so proper medical intervention could be taken.

On November 15, we checked Max into Dell Children’s for his tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy. I was fine until that evening, but my feelings of grief for Lucy and Baby Bean and fears of never having another child were triggered by that time. I was lying on the fold-out bed in Max’s hospital room, sobbing furiously, but as quietly as I could. I felt so cheated, so angry. I railed against fate, against having to try for another child more than once, against eventually having a third child, but not actually having three here. Chris did his best to comfort me and even brought me chocolate cake from the cafeteria. I finally fell into an angry, sad sleep.

Max woke up in the early hours of the morning. I climbed into his hospital bed with him and we managed to sleep another few hours. By then I had recovered my equilibrium. Max awoke and I took my temp and headed to the bathroom for my morning test.

As I watched, an amazed, incredulous smile spread across my face. A second pink line was finally appearing. I couldn’t believe it. I was thrilled, but also afraid, since I was spotting.

I left the bathroom and crossed over to sit next to Chris on the fold-out.  I whispered in his ear, “I’m pregnant.” He looked at me with tired, uncomprehending eyes. A smile spread across his face.

Baby 4 (Nov. 16, 2013.)

(Yes, the pictures get less fancy every time you get pregnant, no matter how grateful and excited you are. In fact, I only took a picture of this one just now, for this blog post, even though I have meant to since the day we found out.)

For once, it seemed like something huge happened right when it needed to. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an immediate, obvious answer to my prayers. Despite all the tears and prayers that had been expended since Lucy’s death and Baby Bean’s loss, despite the disappointment of the two previous months, this seemed like it happened at just the right time.

Yes, I know many of you would not have thought to take a pregnancy test in the hospital the day after your child’s tonsillectomy. But, that’s just me. I was in a routine and I really did want to know and let the doctor know as soon as possible in case he could do something about the spotting. Really, anyone who knows me very well is probably not surprised that I still remembered to do it. J

Of course, this happened about a week after I wrote the post about having trouble getting pregnant. I admit, from the very beginning it felt like this baby making it was a long shot. The spotting the first week did not help with that impression. It took a lot of picturing a successful pregnancy to convince myself it might actually happen. We experienced a couple of big scares, but we are now on Week 13 and cautiously optimistic we will welcome a new baby next July/August.

Now we have yet another reason for Dell Children’s Medical Center to be a very special place for us with very special memories. They gave Lucy new life and good days feeling well when she was there. They gave Max a new lease on life after his tonsils were removed. And our first signs that a new life and new hope were on the way came to us there.