Number 5

Ben and I are overjoyed with the news that we finally have a growing baby inside my belly.  It has been a long and difficult journey to get to this point as we've struggled through four miscarriages in the last four years.  I feel like we have seen countless doctors and have had every test/procedure/surgery possible only to find out that we have nothing wrong....at least not that would cause a miscarriage.

We found out about this pregnancy a little earlier than normal.  I took at test at what I thought would be two days before four weeks, but after looking at the calendar it was actually three weeks, three days.  I don't normally test early and some months I don't even bother testing.  But with my turbo senses, I just knew that this was the time!

Given our past experience, as soon as we find out I'm pregnant we make our way to the doctor to start labs to check my HCG counts.  My labs in the past always look great up until about week six.  I'm seeing a new doctor this time around so we did things a little different this time.  I only did labs up to week five and then had an ultrasound schedules for week six.  As you can imagine, leading up to the ultrasound was a very nervous time for both Ben and me although we tried not to vocalize our concerns to each other so not to get the other riled up.  We couldn't believe it when after about 30 seconds of the ultrasound tech searching my belly, she found a baby and a strong heartbeat of 116.  What a huge sigh of relief.  I was immediately brought to tears and I was so thankful to have Ben by my side doing our secret hand squeeze that means "I Love You" (it was actually his and his mom's squeeze first, but he taught me too).  This was the first ultrasound that we positively saw a heartbeat.  We did have one ultrasound with a previous pregnancy that tech said "I think this is a heartbeat, but we'll know more at the next ultrasound."  Although the strong heartbeat did put at us at ease, we both still had reservations about getting too excited.

We had a brief scare at 11 weeks when the nurse and the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat with a doppler, but they didn't let our concern last too long as they sent us to an ultrasound right away.  Once again, the ultrasound tech found a heartbeat of 174 immediately (174 was also the heartbeat at the eight week ultrasound). 

We are now 13 and a half weeks and were happy to hear, this time with the doppler, a heartbeat of 164.  We are so excited that this is finally happening for us, but we still have a long journey ahead of us as we learned that we are considered a "very high risk" pregnancy because of a very elevated risk of pre-term labor.  We'll see how things progress, but there is a good possibility that I will be on at least some form of bed rest at 25 weeks.

Please send Ben and I some good thoughts over the next couple of months.  We can't wait to meet Baby Ruley!