August 12, 2011- 2nd appointment down

Midwife appointment number 2! I've lost 2 pounds since my last appointment. Not bad. My blood pressure was great. No urine sample. Yay! Amanda came with us for this visit. I think she wanted some time out of the house. We left the big kids sitting in the waiting room as I usually do when they come. They play their DS and my phone and enjoy it. Becca spent a little bit of time chatting with Alexa. She kept telling me how beautiful she is. We once again went back and forth on when my due date is. The first ultrasound had me due on February 23rd. My calculations (based on our oopsie moment, May 28th) have me due on February 20th. The midwives due date (I have no idea what this is based on) has me due on February 19th. For now I'm sticking with the February 20th due date as that is on a Monday and that makes it easy for me to remember when to change weeks. Becca said "We'll go with that". not much talk about Scooby Snack. We tried to hear the heartbeat with the doppler but no such luck. That of course put me on high alert. The only other time we couldn't hear the heartbeat at 12 weeks was when I was pregnant with the twins. For now it's just a teeny tiny voice in my head that says something might be wrong. By Monday, the day of my next ultrasound, that voice may be screaming at me and I'll be scared to death to go to my NT scan. My blood tests came back good. I'm not HIV positive, nor do I have any other STD's. Go me! Just joking. There better not have been any or somebody would've had a whole lot of explaining to do. She also told me that I am O+ blood type. I have always been pretty sure I was but now I know for sure. Again it came up that I am not immune to Rubella. After I gave birth to Alexa thy told me that there was a shortage of the vaccine so I never received it. After this baby is born I will receive the MMR vaccine. At one point we both had a good chuckle about the size of my chart. I guess it had gotten so big that someone decided to retire it and start a new chart for me. With 6 pregnancies, 1 miscarriage, 1 high risk pregnancy with conjoined twins and 1 pregnancy ending with HELLP and pre-eclampsia I suppose there was a lot to chart. Not this time. I intend for this pregnancy to be completely uncomplicated and of course end with an amazing epidural and a beautiful healthy baby.

August 9, 2011- Boy or Girl?

I am 12 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I was hoping that this "all different times of the day on and off" sickness would've turned off by yesterday, but no such luck. For some reason the smell of my upstairs makes me gag to a point of almost throwing up every time I go up there. I think it has to do with the fact that it's so dry up there and there isn't much circulation throughout the day. I keep all the windows closed and maybe I shouldn't. I've resorted to keeping a can of powder fresh air freshener up there to spray as soon as I walk up. It's the weirdest things that really set my gag reflex off. Yesterday I drank a small cup of hot tea and felt sick for at least an hour afterwards. I'm having a hard time eating anything past 4 o'clock. I'm always hungry but don't want to eat anything. This little one is really giving me a run for my money. In so many ways this pregnancy seems a bit more hard on me. My gut instinct is pointing me to think it's a boy. And for the first time ever I really have no preference. Thus far with all of my pregnancies I have preferred one gender over the other and have gotten exactly what I wanted. With this pregnancy everyone is hoping for a boy. A boy would round out the bunch 2 girls, 2 boys. Girl, boy, girl, boy. Kind of fun. And it might be nice for Alexa to keep some of the attention on her as she would be the youngest girl. Besides, I don't know if I could keep up with making hair bows for three girls. Then I get to thinking and a girl would be a perfect playmate for Alexa. They'd be so close in age throughout life and they'd be able to share so many fun activities and memories. Besides girls are super fun to dress. Either way all I really want is a healthy baby. I visited the Heart Breaking Choice website last night. I don't know what's been pulling me there. Maybe some deeply buried fears. Some thoughts of "could this happen to me again?!". A scary thought of course as we're all becoming pretty attached to the idea of having another newborn to cuddle come February. My NT scan is coming up too. This scan is when I got a slightly elevated chance of down syndrome when pregnant with Alexa. And I remember it sent me into a frenzy of worry. I'm hoping it's smooth sailing and that my blood work comes back with numbers that won't make anyone question the health of this little Scooby Snack.

August 4, 2011- Cravings

Chocolate covered pretzels. YUMMMMMMMMMMM!

July 25th, 2011 (con't)- Great ultrasound!

Last blog update I was heading out for my ultrasound at the perinatologist's office. I brought Abby along since I was fairly certain we wouldn't be getting any bad news at this visit. Terrible how that has to be one of my first thoughts but I will never forget how hard it was trying to hold it together for the kids after receiving the bad news about the twins. The u/s tech wasn't the most friendly tech we've had but she was at least a bit informative if I asked the right questions. We did an abdominal ultrasound and pretty quickly she found the baby. It's always king of weird to see them at this stage of development. They're starting to look like a real baby but they're still very disproportionate. The baby's head was much bigger then the body, but we did get to see little arm and leg buds wiggling around. I forgot to ask what the baby's heart rate was but I know I saw it beating beautifully. I even saw the placenta which had only started to form in the previous week or so. She did a quick check of my cervical length and then left us in the room to wait to speak with the doctor. At first I was a bit worried as I had never been left in the ultrasound room to wait to speak with the doctor with any of my ultrasounds with Alexa. But soon I felt more confident because I didn't think you could really tell if anything was wrong with the baby this early on. What bad news could there have been? I saw a heartbeat. I saw a wiggly little peanut. The doctor came into the room and left quickly. Everything was fine. I scheduled my NT scan for August 15th. I may be a bit more nervous for that one. For now everything looks great and I'm enjoying the thought of having another snuggle buddy come February.

July 25th, 2011- 10 weeks

The good news is the morning sickness is fading. I'm 10 weeks today. I no longer wake up feeling like I'm going to be sick. Sometimes throughout the day I get waves of nausea but a quick gag or two and I'm back to feeling like myself again. My energy is beginning to return little by little. It's nice to finally feel human again and I'm sure the kids are enjoying having their Mommy back too.

Today is a semi big day in Scooby Snack's life. Today at 11:30am I go for an ultrasound at the perinatologist's office. They'll be checking my cervical length for a base number. That way as I get further into my pregnancy we'll be able to tell if it's thinning out at all. They'll also be double checking that we don't have another set of conjoined twins in there. I'm happy to get another peek at the munchkin and hopefully a good picture. Abby is coming with me. She's really excited. A part of me is nervous. I guess the worry will never go away although my anxiety is nowhere near as high as it was at this point in my pregnancy with Alexa. See what a healthy pregnancy and baby will do for your mental health?

Written July 14, 2011- Scooby Snack's 1st Ultrasound

During my initial meeting and pregnancy confirmation at the midwives I was given a referral for an ultrasound to be done by the perinatologists at Delaware County. Since being pregnant with the twins I am almost guaranteed an early ultrasound. It is great for easing my worries and the midwives know that I am a worry wart. This time I had an additional reason for the early ultraound. This time they wanted to check my cervical length too. One of the complications of the laser surgery on pregnancy is that sometimes the cervix can shorten too soon with the weight from the baby. I have an appointment on July 25th.

In other baby bump news I have been feeling extremely nauseous. The nausea turned on like a light switch on the day of Alexa's party. I have only actually thrown up once but the sick feeling just never goes away. I'm sure if it weren't for my complete hatred of throwing up I would've done so a few times. There are times when I just have to sit quietly and breathe slowly so that I can get rid of the urge. The midwives have taken mercy on me and prescribed some anti-nausea med. First I started out on reglan. It didn't seem to do much. Then they prescribed phernegran (a suppository) and I refused to even try it. Finally my insurance approved zofran. The midwives seemed to think this would be the answer. Unfortunately I'm still gagging and suffering almost non stop. I pray that there's only a couple more weeks of this and then my hormone levels should level out a bit. The good news that came from all of my sickness is that the midwives want me to have an u/s done even earlier then July 25th to rule out twins. They said with my "history of twins" and my exaggerated nausea it wouldn't hurt to have an ultrasound done in radiology.

July 7th was the day. Burt came along with me as usual. My appointment was for 10:15am so I started drinking my 32 ozs of water at 9:30am. We arrived at radiology at 10:00. I thought for sure being early was a good thing and that maybe they'd take me back earlier. No such luck! 11:00 came and went and I was ready to pee my pants. I paced the hallway just waiting to be called. Finally when I was on the verge of having an accident the tech brought us back. I told her I didn't know how long I might be able to hold it in. It wasn't my fault that they were running an hour behind schedule. She said she'd do a quick abdominal one but that we probably wouldn't see the baby that way. She kept to her word and after getting a few shots of my ovaries I was allowed to pee. Sweet relief!! As soon as we started the vaginal u/s Burt spotted the baby. Just one little bean in there. Snuggled in. A heartbeat of 163 bpm. She showed Burt the sac, the baby and the heartbeat. I finally got a glimpse of the baby right before she wrapped it up. A sweet little Scooby Snack! The tech printed me out two pictures. Neither one was very good. For some reason the radiology department prints their pictures on computer paper. They're never clear and this time the tech even cut the paper so that the only part you could try to see was the baby. Weird. Needless to say I am excited for the ultrasound on the 25th where I'll actually get a good look at what will be our 4th living child.

June 16, 2011 (con't)- Announcements

I'm always weary about announcing my pregnancy to friends and family. There's always that small thought in the back of my mind...What if I loose this baby? So I wait. When I was pregnant with Alexa I told some close friends and family after the first ultrasound showing a heartbeat. Others I waited for the 12 week ultrasound. Waiting is hard. It's especially hard in regards to Abby and Nathan. They have super sonic hearing and hear everything. If the kids were to be left in the dark Burt and I just wouldn't be able to talk about this pregnancy. I wasn't quite sure what to do. Burt fixed that for me. Shortly after he learned of the news he came out to the living room where the kids and I were sitting. He made it short and sweet and blurted it out. "Mommy is pregnant guys". I'd be lying if I wasn't a bit shocked but mostly I felt relief. Abby seemed a bit reserved at first. Nathan was excited immediately. We all talked about how nice it would be to have a little boy to round out the bunch. Soon after that Daddy left for work I talked more with Abby. Her initial response to the news had me a little worried. What was she thinking? After talking with her for a few minutes I realized my fears were silly. She was very excited! Probably more so then Nathan, but both kids talked about it all day. Before we announced it to anyone else I knew we had to find a cute way to tell my Mom and Amanda. I decided on buying Alexa a "Big Sister" t-shirt from Carters and wrapping it in a box. We let Alexa open the gift right after cake that night. Burt held it up and there was complete silence. Did they not understand it Were they not happy? I finally said, "if Alexa is a big sister, what does that mean?" and then it dawned on them. Everyone was a bit quiet after that. I'm pretty sure that most of it had to do with the tension that was already there about my mom moving to Amsterdam. Maybe she was sad about the idea of missing out on a grandchild. I'll never know, but I was definitely disappointed. After we broke the news to them everyone else was just easy. I think I called Cindy and told her. Shannon knew even before Burt. I blurted it out on rose's facebook page in hopes that it would make her call me ASAP. And of course my JB Mommas knew right away. I still hadn't made a general facebook announcement though. Those people could wait until I had my ultrasound. Giving immediate friend and family bad news would be much easier then having to tell the 150 something facebook acquaintances I have.

June 16th, 2011- A welcomed surprise!

I'm pretty sure I don't have to go into all the details about how this welcomed surprise came into our life. You can probably figure that out. Although it is important to recall some details. May 28th was definitely the day. I remember it well. Not because I was charting or in trying to conceive mode this time. I remember it because it was our first oops moment since Alexa had been born. I remember checking my calendar right after the fact. I was only cd 18, still could've been too early to ovulate. I made a short note in my "My Days" app and we went about our night. 5 days later I had laser surgery on my cervix. I hope that doesn't play a major role in this pregnancy but in case it does the facts are here. The morning of the laser surgery they did a blood pregnancy test. It came out negative of course because even though I must've been preggo my body showed no signs of it yet. The egg may not have even implanted by that time. The days passed. I was so consumed by Alexa's party planning that I gave the idea of pregnancy little thought. Only when I checked my "My Days" app again did I even realize that on June 15th I would've been on cd 35. Even for me that was getting to be a bit long. That night I dug in the bathroom cabinet and discovered I had a digital pregnancy test still left over from my pregnancy with the youngest McCabe. I checked the expiration date . Not expired until July. Score! I left the test in the cabinet and went to bed. I knew if I didn't have my period by the morning that I should take the test. June 16th I woke up ready to celebrate my little miracle's 1st birthday! I stumbled into the bathroom and put in my contacts, peed, and took the test. I sat there as the little hour glass blinked. I wonder if the people who invented those tests thought about the effect that that little hourglass would have on millions of women trying to conceive. I remember staring at that hour glass time and time again when we were trying to get pregnant almost two years prior. I used to stare as it blinked and blinked and I'd imagine the word pregnant there. This time was quite different. I really don't think I was expecting to see the result that I did, but POP! There it was. Clear as day. PREGNANT. I hurried up and hid the test. I had a birthday girl to get out of her crib. Abby, Nathan and I walked into her room singing "Happy Birthday". My baby girl was one. What a happy day! The rest of the morning time seemed as if time was standing still. I got Alexa dressed in her special "Birthday Girl" shirt and bib. We waited for Daddy to get back from a quick run to his friend's house. The wait seemed like hours. I was worried about how he'd take the news. We had always talked about wanting to have another baby close in age to Alexa. We loved watching Abby and Nathan grow into best friends and we always assumed it was because of how close in age they were. We knew we wanted the same for Alexa. We just didn't know that we wanted it right now. When he came in he made a beeline to the sink. There was a sinkful of dishes from the night before calling his name. As he washed the dishes I grabbed Alexa and handed her the pregnancy test. I stood her up a few feet from Burt and let her walk towards him. I said to Burt, "The birthday girl is behind you". He immediately turned around and started singing "Happy Birthday" to her. He sang the whole song and never once saw the test in her hand. It wasn't until I said, "Alexa, Daddy isn't very observant today" that he turned around and took notice. "You're pregnant?!?!?!", he said. I just looked at him and nodded. We both stood there in shock for a few minutes. We discussed how Alexa would be 20 or 21 months old before the baby was even born. By the end of the conversation Burt was feeling overwhelmed but excited. My mind was still racing though. I just has this laser surgery. What effect did the anesthesia have on the baby? Would my cervix be capable of even carrying this pregnancy to term? And of course with our passed pregnancies not far from my thoughts...was this little baby okay in there? All of these thoughts had to wait. Afterall, I had a one year old to celebrate!

Changes on the way

I made a mistake. Sometime in July I started a new blog for pregnancy number 6/wombmate number 7/ living child number 4. I had a few people tell me I should just continue on with the same blog but I wanted Alexa and Scooby Snack to have their own baby book of sorts. I felt like I'd be a bit more organized if I kept them separate, but it seems like keeping up with two separate blogs is next to impossible. So now I've decided to combine the two and yet I don't know how to bring the new blog over here. I've tried copy and pasting it to no avail. I think the only option I'm left with is to retype everything. The task seems like too much to handle but I think in the end it will be worth it.