Baby #3

Where do I even start...

We are pregnant with baby #3! We are so excited to be adding to our family! I am just over 14 weeks and so far this pregnancy has been much different than my other two.

For starters I have been way more sick. In fact at 14 weeks, unfortunately, I'm still feeling nauseous. It's definitely improved significantly but I was hoping it would be gone at this point. Now, I feel silly even talking about this because I've only thrown up 4 times and I know some people who throw up more than 4 times each day for 20+ weeks - I don't know how you do it! ....but for me it was way different than my first two pregnancies.

14 weeks

Second, I have a sub chorionic hemorrhage (SCH). From talking to docs and researching, my best understanding is a SCH appears when there is a tear between the chorion membrane and the uterine wall (they are supposed to be fused together). The SCH is the blood pooled between the chorion membrane and the uterine wall. Anyways, when I was 11 weeks I woke up in the middle of the night with significant bleeding. We went into the ER where I was diagnosed with this SCH. The tear was 20% or in other words 20% of the membrane was separated from the uterine wall. The docs essentially told me I had a higher chance of miscarrying and I just had to wait and see.  I bled once more over the next few days. I was taken off the blood thinner (Lovenox) shots that I've had been taking since week 8 for other complications found when I was pregnant with Collin.  A huge blessing was that despite the SCH our baby was doing great on the ultrasounds with a strong heartbeat and great growth. Anyways...I went back in the doctors a few days later and the SCH seemed to be healing up great. Hence my trip to Guatemala a couple of days later - (this trip had been planned for months and I was super bummed about almost having to miss it). The doctors put me back on the blood thinner shots and off we went to Guatemala were we had a great time with no bleeding and no complications. More on our Guatemala trip later.

I was excited to go back in for my follow up ultrasound a couple of days ago because I naively assumed that since I was no longer bleeding that the SCH had healed and I would get the go ahead to resume exercising. If you know me well you know I'm big into running/swimming/working out in general. I was excited for the doctor to lift my restrictions! Well unfortunately the ultrasound was quite the opposite of what I was expecting. The SCH had actually grown to 50% (so 50% of the chorion membrane is separated from the uterine wall). The prognosis at this point is the doctors hope to get me to 34 weeks and are fairly confident I can make it to the 3rd trimester (27 weeks), which is a little unnerving to hear considering Collin was born at 25 weeks. They took me off the blood thinner shots again and I am now just taking a baby Aspirin. I will have a follow up ultrasound in a week to see if it's starting to heal. We are very hopeful that being off the blood thinners will do the trick! In the meantime I am on a modified bed rest. I say modified because I don't need to stay in bed I just need to rest as much as I can, not lift anything/anyone (namely Ethan), not do anything I don't absolutely have to and avoid walking around a lot, which means our daily adventures will have to change drastically, at least for now. We are so grateful to have so much family close by! And so grateful for all the help offered from neighbors, friends, and our church.

The great news is that our baby is healthy! Another difference is our baby is measuring 3 days ahead of schedule. Ethan and Collin both measured small throughout my whole pregnancy. Another difference is that (according to the ultrasound tech's best guess from a 14 week ultrasound) we are having a GIRL!!! Now I know this is not 100% and 14 weeks is very early to detect gender so we will see in the coming weeks (I will be having lots of ultrasounds..)

Wow that was a long update!