Christmas and New Year Wishes...

We are happy to announce that our 3 years of waiting for another little spirit to bless our home has come to an end. We are now 13 weeks pregnant, due July 11, 2012. We find out the sex of the baby on February 23rd...if not sooner on January 24th or by Darin somewhere in between. :)

This next part is mostly for my own journal. You may continue if you like. :)
This pregnancy as all the others came as a complete surprise. Yes we have been trying to conceive a baby but the past couple of months we have sought out help in the process. This past summer we began receiving fertility treatments. My body is of course very strange and a normal dose of chlomid given to me had a crazy effect and produced too many eggs. Because we are not insane we opted out of that round for fear of having 5 babies. (Although it did cross my mind that we could do it!) That treatment formed cysts on my ovaries which had to be cleared before we could begin another cycle. We then tried again in September this time, I was put on a very low dose of clomid and produced 2 eggs. We went through with the IUI cycle at that point only to find out in October it didn't work...BOO! Those eggs became cysts and we were told to wait another cycle before trying again.

I was feeling a bit frustrated at this point as I knew the next cycle would be during November possibly when our trip to Utah was planned so we would have to wait until January to do the next IUI. Despite Darin being on the worst rotation ever (Trauma), October came to be our LUCKY month!

My parents came to visit at the first of November and watched Nash for me while I ran a half-marathon. It was on that trip that I realized that I hadn't started my period. During the race I started getting terrible stomach pains that continued well into the night where I really thought someone was ripping out my insides. I told my parents that I either was having terrible menstrual cramps or my body was pregnant and trying to miscarry. As that was what it felt like during my last miscarriage. I waited a couple of days to see if my cycle would begin. It didn't. I was a little afraid to take a pregnancy test as I was sick of the disappointment. I finally did and to my surprise it was POSITIVE. When I told Darin he looked at me in shock and said "How did that happen?" haha! We both didn't believe it and called the fertility specialist to see if the meds given at the end of the cycle could carry over to this months cycle, because the meds will cause a positive test. She laughed at me and said "no sweetie it looks like you are pregnant! Congratulations!" we were thrilled but shocked!

We didn't tell anyone for fear of a miscarriage. We waited until we had our first ultrasound and heard the heart beat. Then we sent our parents our Christmas cards. Once they received those then we sent the rest to everyone else. I remember with Nash I kept it a secret from friends until I knew the sex of the baby. This time I want to shout it from the roof tops. It has been a long awaited blessing!

Unfortunately this past week we received some serious news about our growing baby. Before we were married I developed some lupus like symptoms. Darin has believed it is a connective tissue disorder. Some of my limbs lose strength and I have severe pain in my muscles and joints. Before Nash I took medication to help with this pain but since having Nash I haven't had too many episodes to cause concern. After mentioning this condition to my OB she recommended me to Maternal Fetal Medicine. I thought this was silly as I knew I wasn't a high risk patient since the "disease" in my body has been so quiet the past 3 years. Although I was happy that I went for more reasons then one. The first being they put me on Zoloft. I had to go off my depression meds when I got pregnant. They put me back on some and told me I need to function. THANK YOU! The second is they did some testing to see what my quiet "disease" was doing at the moment.

My lupus levels tested negative. However the Sjogrens Syndrome test (SSA/Ro) was high. This isn't a good thing with pregnant women. Sjogrens is an autoimmune disease/connective tissue disorder much like lupus. I have NEVER tested high in this area before. Women who have high SSA/Ro run the risk of having a baby with Congenital Heart Block (CHB). CHB is a problem with the heart's electrical system that controls the rate and rhythm of heartbeats. There are 3 types of CHB. The 1st degree the least severe but the child is monitored yearly by a cardiologist as they may but rarely develop severe symptoms. The 2nd degree may result in the heart skipping a beat/s which can make you feel dizzy. The 3rd degree is a complete block and requires prompt surgery for a pacemaker as this degree can be fatal. Babies born with 3rd degree have a 20% mortality rate. The 60% who survive have a permanent pacemaker. As of right now there is no treatment.

The reason why this is happening to my baby is my body's antinuclear antibodies (ANA) are attacking my child. The SSA/Ro antibodies cross the placenta in pregnancy from me to my developing child, because the baby doesn't have an immune system it uses mine and I am attacking the good stuff that help the baby to develop...kind of crappy that it is ME that is hurting our child.

When my Nurse Practitioner Wendy first told me that our baby could develop CHB she said that there was only a 5% chance. Although she had a meeting with the specialist doctors where they discussed my case and she was educated on some new research where the statistics are much higher now.

I am now considered a "high risk" patient. Starting at 16 weeks I will have weekly visits to my OB for a fetal echo-cardiogram until week 30. The goal is to identify if there is injury to the heart before it becomes untreatable. IF there is damage to the heart and the baby is developing CHB I will be put on a steroid (dexamethasone) to see if it will improve the outcome of the fetus.

Hopefully with prayer and faith this baby will develop perfectly just as Nash did. I am trying my best NOT to get worked up about this as the chances are low. But my heart aches with the thought that I may be hurting our baby...a child we have waited so long for.

If you have made it this far in this novel...PLEASE PRAY FOR A HEALTHY PREGNANCY!