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Category Archives: Pregnancy

My First Appointment

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Brittnei Washington 74 comments

Today it finally came! My first appointment! Last night, right before I went to bed, I did something extremely silly: I went to my birth club message board on Baby Center. Why might that be silly? Well, I saw a post that said something like “Goodbye.” It was a woman who was 11 weeks along letting us know that she had miscarried. She went to the doctor’s and there was no heart beat on the ultrasound! According to my last menstrual cycle, I am 11 weeks! That was not what I wanted to hear right before I went to bed, the day before my appointment. Very, very sad for her. I sent my sympathy her way and went off to sleep. As a courtesy of me linking up with Ten Things of Thankful. I will be sharing my visit while I share also what I’m thankful for! Here it goes…

1) I’m thankful that when I had my ultrasound today that there was a cute little angel growing inside of me. Here’s the baby’s debut on my blog below:

2) I’m thankful for his or her heart beat that was around 180 (beats per minute?) I think that it’s measured that way. I know the doctor said it was 180.

3) I’m thankful that this time around I am going to a D.O. I’ve only gone to M.D. doctors in the past. We have changed so much in terms of how we want to handle our health that I think a D.O. could be what we need. But we’ll see. I have no discrimination against M.D. medical professionals. I just know they may have some gripes with some of our decisions that we have been making for our family so that may not be a good fit for us.

4) I’m happy that my husband and I actually really like our OB so far. The first time around my husband wanted to have a woman doctor. (Men are weird sometimes. I couldn’t even tell you what that was about lol.) But today with our new doctor here in Arizona, after talking with him about all of my concerns and just interacting with him, we both agreed he seems to know his stuff and he’s extremely personable.

5) As a side note: last night was probably the easiest night so far in our night weaning process with J.R. He went to bed at what was, a better hour for all of us, and it literally didn’t take him that long to fall asleep! Thank you God for that one!

6) I’m thankful that the office that we went to for the appointment wasn’t too far.

7) Also for the fact that it is practically new and it was a nice experience even when I had to go in the bathroom to provide a urine sample. (TMI? Sorry!)

8) I’m thankful that this is my 2nd baby. It feels so much more laid back and a sigh of relief. Today when I got my ultrasound, the doctor measured me to be about 10 weeks 4 days along, but according to my last menstrual cycle, I’m 11 weeks 4 days. Here’s the deal: with the current measurements of the baby, I would be due August 5th (3 days after my birthday), but I know from last time that up until around the 13th week, J.R. measured about a week behind as well, so I plan not to even change the due date from July 27th just yet. In 2 weeks when I go back for blood work and my NT scan, if the baby is still measuring a week behind, then it will be official in my mind that I’m due August 5th!

9) I’m thankful that my uterus isn’t as abnormally shaped as I thought AND I probably won’t need to keep getting checked to make sure my cervix isn’t thinning the next trimester. Here’s the deal with that: in my last pregnancy, I was diagnosed with having a bicornuate uterus, which is a type of abnormal shape that is different than the normal pear shape. I didn’t know how abnormal it really was, but because it was my first pregnancy that was to carry to term, my doctor didn’t want to take any chances, and she had me checked by a specialist every 2 weeks between weeks 16 and 24 to make sure that I wasn’t going to go into preterm labor. With an abnormal shaped uterus, depending on the shape and other factors, the baby could have problems growing to term so the mother is at risk of going into preterm labor. My OB confirmed today that it is slightly abnormal, but nothing to be overly concerned about. Besides, because I carried to term the first time around with no issues, if he sees again that my cervix doesn’t look to be thinning, he said he won’t make me see a specialist every 2 weeks like last time. See why I said it’s a bonus that I’ve done this before?!

Finally number 10) So thankful that I have you all to share these details with! It’s very exciting to have more than just my immediate and some extended family who lives very far away to be excited for our journey.

I’m linking up with Ten Things of Thankful! Come join us and tell us 10 things you’re thankful for:

XoXo,

Night Weaning and Losses

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Brittnei Washington 24 comments

If you are a regular here, you probably read my post about our unexpected gift around Thanksgiving and maybe…just maybe you have been waiting for some type of update on how things have been progressing. Initially, I contemplated a creative way to share my journey with you all. I knew I didn’t want to vlog about it. I also didn’t really feel up to creating a post every week to chronicle the milestones and growth of the baby as well as my cravings and feelings I had experienced either. So honestly, I started to think that maybe I just want to create a series of pregnancy posts that would help others during their pregnancy. Not necessarily in any specific order, but as I was inspired to write and share. I still look forward to doing this. If you have gotten to know me a bit through my blogging, you are probably now understanding that it’s hard for me to make things all about me even though this is my blog. Perhaps it has to do with my core values where I’m always seeking to put others before me in my every day life. I don’t think my personality should emit anything different through my blogging.

Ok so since we found out we were expecting, I started experiencing a boat load of fatigue and all day sickness all at once. I can remember being sick last time with JR from weeks 7-14, but this queasiness is a bit different. I’m more tired this time around for sure. Chasing after JR on a daily basis might have something to do with that. We also started to night wean our little guy because we want to make sure that by the time the new baby is here, he is used to not breastfeeding at night and is sleeping in his own bed most of the time. I honestly love to still breastfeed and co-sleep with JR, but I realize that co-sleeping with a toddler and a newborn could be dangerous. Also, I know that my nights could be long with nursing a newborn. Knowing that a newborn’s primary nutrition is breast milk for the first year, I definitely don’t want JR to feel jealous because of my nightly nursing sessions with the baby. If he still wants to, I plan to tandem nurse my two nurslings for as long as JR wants to nurse. Night weaning may happen at the one year mark though with baby number 2. With all of my first trimester all day sickness and fatigue, night weaning a toddler right now has been even more of a struggle some nights. He’s been doing ok. I think overall he understands that after a particular hour he can’t nurse again until the sun comes up.

Another reason why it has been a bit difficult for me to create posts focused around pregnancy is because I have two blogger friends who have experienced miscarriages during their first trimester very recently. Call me crazy, but I guess I just felt like seeing posts about pregnancy when an experience like that is still new might take them back to thinking about their loss. Perhaps I was mourning their losses in my own way, too. I could imagine how I might feel if it happened to me, I could remember how it felt when it did happen to me. I have experienced the loss of a pregnancy in the past…one that I was forced to lose so maybe the feeling they had experienced was similar to what I felt…they wrote about their losses, but I knew that I could never really know so I just wanted to be sensitive to how they could feel if they read a post about a pregnancy that was progressing. I believe one day they both will be expecting again and when they both are, I hope that I still know them so that I can encourage and support them along their journey of growing life within them.

XoXo,

An Unexpected Gift

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Brittnei Washington 22 comments

Ever since I had my first son, I’ve deliberated with myself and discussed with my husband when it would be a great time to have another baby. He thought three years apart was nice. I wanted my kids to be closer in age. Many times, I recall the years spent with my younger brother. Bathing together. Playing together. We shared a room for many years. My brother and I are exactly 12 months apart, though. I knew that was pretty close. Time came and went. JR was suckling for the first time in my arms at the hospital and then one day we were at the playground, for his first time, celebrating his first year of life.

We decided that we would just let it happen; well at least that is what hubby wanted. I could see where he was coming from. No one wants to deal with being frustrated because you made the goal of your intimate encounters to be about reproduction and then, no baby. He didn’t want to stress if things didn’t happen right away. He just wanted to enjoy us and then one day, when God was ready to bless us with another child, he or she would be here. And then I realized that each family can’t really say what age difference between their kids would have been better or what didn’t work out as well until after it already happened. We live wholeheartedly for God so I knew I had to just trust Him in this area, like I do with everything else.

I can remember this one night….I felt like Hannah, the mother of Samuel in the Bible. She hadn’t had any children yet and she went to the temple one day and prayed to God that He would give her a child. Now granted, Hannah had no children so I can only imagine what that must have felt like, but how I could relate was I wanted to mother more children. I know some people want to be doctors, or hair stylists or lawyers or I don’t know…just more than a wife and mom, but for me, it’s the reason I know I was born. Living out my purpose has been the most rewarding thing I could ever have experienced thus far in my life. I wanted JR to have siblings. I wanted to teach them to stick together and to be there for each other. So this one night that I can remember so vividly, it was a few months back, I did what a mother who is a believer in Jesus Christ must always do anyway and I just prayed. And cried. And prayed some more. I prayed that nothing was wrong with my womb. I prayed that all would go well with my pregnancy when it happened and that I could be blessed to go through it naturally. And after I prayed, I knew I had to leave it alone.

Even though I had left it alone, each month since I had gotten my period again, at 13 months postpartum, had been a mystery in terms of symptoms and figuring out exactly what day I would get my period. As time has gone on, it has regulated. I even downloaded an app that helps me record everything so that I can learn my body again. Things haven’t been exactly the same, especially since I am still nursing my first baby. And then, this month came and I realized that day number 31 of my cycle was here and still no period. I checked back a few months and I could remember it coming on day 32 or 33. So I decided it could be nothing. Besides, cramping always came on strong right before my cycle started. Well, after day 33 came and went, I decided maybe I should take a test. Negative. This was the absolute last day that I thought that my menstrual cycle would begin. I decided that maybe it was going to come later than expected.

And then tonight arrived, I realized that day 37 has passed me by. Hubby isn’t feeling well. He brings home another test. After dinner, I decided to see if perhaps I took the first test too early, or maybe there was something wrong with the first one. And right before my very eyes, there it was, the result: positive. An unexpected gift. Our blessing.