I Have An Announcement

Ultrasound 7w5d
Originally uploaded by Jenmomma

While many of you that know me in real life, have already heard the news, I am ready to make my announcement on Blogger. We are expecting Baby #3, due January 8, 2010. As of today, I am 8 weeks and 2 days pregnant.

Even though I have not been writing about it here, I have so far been documenting all the details in a paper journal I keep by my bed. So I wanted to share a few of details so far here.

I had mentioned several months ago my desire to have a third baby, but that I was unsure about the timing due to school deadlines and Eric's employment situation. Eric and I spent more time discussing and praying and decided to continue to have faith that God will provide for us. I even had come to peace that when we did start trying I would stick to the window of needing to be pregnant by my August cycle or that if I wasn't, I would trust that the time was not right for us and focus on still starting school full time 2010 and deciding in the future if we would ever have a third child. But when to start?

I started charting my cycles again in January. I still had my IUD in,but mine is non-homonal (ParaGard rather than Merena), so I knew my cycles were not influenced. I was kind of thinking of maybe removing my IUD and starting to "try" in May or so, but after watching a couple months and having an anovulatory cycle and 2 cycles with only an 8 day lutal phase, I was beginning to get a little scared that my cycles weren't going to be regular enough to sustain a pregnancy. So, I talked to Eric in late March (3/23/09 according to my journal) and he agreed that I could make the appointment. They actually scheduled me really quickly for an April 1st removal. My cycle started on March 31st and on day 2, I had my IUD removed. Seemed a little fast and scary to me, because when we were chatting in March I never really thought we'd get everything done in time to make April a viable month to really start trying.

So, I charting in April. I also wanted to do a pregnancy test experiment this time, so I ordered some really cheap pregnancy tests online (seriously, I got 100 tests for $34 plus $6 shipping). I was getting kind of hyped up and decided to try using an OPK (Ovulation Predictor Kit) this month too. I started taking them on CD 14 and day 16 got an almost positive result, I couldn't tell about Day 17 and day 18 was negative again. My temperature rose on Day 19, so we estimated a Day 18 ovulation date. So, since I knew when I ovulated, I started taking HPT's at 1 DPO. I kept them all to see how early a pregnancy could possibly show up. I figured I had enough tests to last me until August if needed.

Of course nothing happened for a while, but on on April 22 at 5 DPO, I started spotting and cramping. Considering the last 2 months I only had 8 DPO before starting, I assumed this meant that I was again going to have a short cycle. The spotting and cramping lasted 3 days, stopping by Saturday when I was in Chicago for GWO. I had brought my tests with me and got up and tested each morning. Although, I couldn't let them sit the whole 10 minutes, since no one knew what I was doing, but i put them back in my ziplock to take home with me. So, Monday after GWO, 10 DPO, I was getting encouraged that my new cycle still hadn't started yet, and when I used my cheap test, I thought maybe I might see a hint of a line. I couldn't be sure though, so I used the same urine (the cheap tests require dipping in a cup) and used a digital test I had gotten on sale. I went to get some clothes from the basement while it was processing and when I got back upstairs it was staring at me saying "Pregnant." I have to say I was completely floored. Of course, I had hoped it would work, but honestly, I never thought it would happen on the first try again. Wow, we are so blessed.

So, at this point, we hadn't told anyone we had started trying except for Samara and I had told 2 of my coworkers that I chat with daily, so after telling them the news, we decided we wanted to keep it to ourselves for a little while.

I think Luke is waking up from his nap, so I will go tend to him, but I will write again soon about how we told our family and our symptoms to date. I have a new set in Flickr with pictures from this pregnancy, including now a "weekly" belly picture, which I was inspired to do by my friend Danialle. So far, believe it or not, I haven't missed one of those from 4 to 8 weeks. Please ignore my starting flab. :)