I am so overjoyed by the amount of love and support that was poured onto us with the news that we’re expecting baby number 2 into our family! It hasn’t been an easy journey getting to this healthy, strong and thriving baby in my womb. We’ve hit bumps along the way, and sometimes those bumps have really caused me to stop and question what His plan is for us as a family and for me as a woman.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll remember my blog post about our miscarriage that we had in September. The days following that first miscarriage were daunting. Filled with anger, fear, disbelief…the list of emotions could go on. I cried every day for weeks and found myself so vulnerable one night that I made sure it was my last night like that — crying so hard and shaking my fists at God. I instead, asked for a sign that we would indeed have our rainbow baby and He delivered the very next morning: an actual rainbow, so large and so clear in the sky on my way to drop Aubree off at school. It hadn’t rained or anything — it just appeared out of nowhere and my whole body shook. I knew that was my sign.

After losing that baby, my doctor made us wait 2 months before trying again and then ordered blood tests to make sure my progesterone levels were good enough to start trying again. After the loss of our baby, my blood tests resulted in very low progesterone levels, which is why he wanted us to wait and test again after a few ‘cycles’ to see if my body would naturally start producing more of that very important hormone. To this day, I still don’t know if losing that little one was because of natural, chromosomal issues or because my body wasn’t strong enough to carry a child. It’s something I don’t even want to think about. For those of you that don’t know, progesterone is the hormone responsible for keeping you pregnant. 

After 2 months, I went in for a blood test. Some of you may remember my Instagram story that day and how emotional I was. I was scared to death my results would come back low again, but 2 days later, they came back GOOD! My body had started producing more progesterone all on its own. It felt like a sign from God that everything was going to be okay and my doctor said “get to it girl, its time to make a baby!” Well you don’t have to tell us twice, LOL! We’ve been wanting another baby in our family for over a year!

Two days after this phone call, I found out I was already pregnant! My doctor wasn’t thrilled that we hadn’t listened to his ‘instructions’ but what can ya do? He ordered me for more blood tests and a prenatal work up that needed to be done within a week or two. I was leaving for Paris in a few short days so I decided to wait until I got home from Paris to do these tests. Paris was rough y’all. I was nauseous, all the food made me sick, I felt dizzy and ‘off’ every single day I was there and I kept thinking something was wrong with my pregnancy. At that point, I was only 3 weeks pregnant but I just knew something was off…different… being pregnant before, I knew there were feelings I was having that were so different from before but I wasn’t sure if it was because I was traveling, if I was making it up in my head because of the miscarriage and my fear, or if I was legitimately feeling something different. So as soon as I got home from Paris, I went in for my first blood test. 48 hours later, I did my second one.

My doctor called me and said “well, you have a very viable pregnancy in there, your HCG levels more than doubled in 48 hours. This is great! But… your progesterone plummeted again and we need to get you on a pill that will help support this pregnancy.”

Fear drove right back into my body. I’ve never felt like my body has failed me more in my life than throughout this pregnancy journey. He put me on progesterone and I’ve been on it for almost 2 months now. Let me tell you, it isn’t fun. It amplifies every horrible symptom you’ll have of pregnancy. I have to take them 2x a day so I do one in the morning and one at night before bed. The one in the morning makes me dizzy, nauseous, exhausted, and overall just makes my body feel awful. BUT, its doing its job and here I am 10 weeks pregnant with a healthy child :)

THAT is not all though you guys. The most astonishing thing happened at my first doctors appointment. After my doctor ordered me to go on progesterone, I told him “I really want to be seen earlier than my original appointment. I feel like something is off or different.” He agreed to see me early, thank goodness and 2 days later, Kyle, Aubree and I were sitting in a room with the Nurse Practitioner.

Let me preface by saying that my mom works for my doctor and I’ve been going there for roughly 15 years. Everyone that works there is like extended family to me and they all are SO amazing.

So… we sat there with the Nurse Practitioner and she started asking me questions about why I felt different and then quickly said “never mind, we can answer those later, lets get to the meat! I want to see this baby!!”

Mind you, my fear the whole way to my appointment that day was that there was no baby in my womb and thats why I felt different. That maybe I was having the symptoms of pregnancy without an actual baby. But I was far from wrong.

She started the ultrasound and immediately her face did something weird, LOL. She made a face and went “WHAT?!” — at this point I still can’t see the monitor so I have no idea whats going on. I said “what?? Is there no baby in there?” and she replied with “oh there’s a baby in there, there’s THREE!!!”

THREE.

Kyle and I just starred at each other with open mouths and I was in utter shock. How did WE make triplets?!?! She turned the monitor around to us and clear as day, you could see 3 little gestational sacs. She mentioned we shouldn’t freak out yet because she hadn’t been able to look inside of each one yet, so she did that with us.

“Sac A… here’s the baby, and here’s their heartbeat. Sac B… here’s the baby, and here’s another heart beat!!…”

At this point I’m screaming and crying. Literally screaming and crying and thats when the whole office one by one starts making their way into my ultrasound room, LOL!

She gets to Sac C and realized it was completely empty. We had a vanishing triplet. It’s super common apparently to have a vanishing twin or triplet.

She wanted the doctor to come in immediately and confirm that she was indeed looking at two separate sacs and not the same one over and over when we kept seeing two heartbeats. He came in and verified, we were having twins. These twins immediately had Kyle and I’s heart. We fell in love instantly. TWINS! We never thought in our wildest dreams we would make twins, let alone triplets!! My doctor’s face wasn’t cheery though. He looked at us and said “Baby B has a much smaller sac than Baby A and this concerns me. Baby B probably has a 50% chance of making it. I want to see you again in 3 weeks.”

Again, all that fear came rushing back in. Kyle and I spent that 3 weeks praying our hearts out. Together, separately, me in my prayer journal, me getting up early every morning to spend quiet time in my Bible and with God. I felt it in my heart that God wouldn’t show us two babies with two strong heartbeats just to take one away. I thought it was Him glorifying the hurt and pain of our miscarriage by giving us two babies. But again, He always has a plan for us thats different from what we expect.

3 weeks went by and back to the doctor we went. I waited on the table for 30-40 minutes before he came in. That had never happened before. Apparently someone was going into labor in the room next to me and he had to get her over to the hospital. It felt like I sat there for hours, just wondering what the fate of this pregnancy was going to be. It was miserable.

He finally came in with his nurse and they quickly started the ultrasound. Mind you, I was a wreck. I was a complete mess because my biggest fear was them telling me there was only one baby and that Baby B’s sac didn’t catch up with Baby A’s sac. They began and I studied their faces. The nurse had a HUGE smile on her face. She saw two babies on the ultrasound screen. But as he took a closer look, her face dropped. So did his. Neither of them were smiling anymore. And I laid there knowing what was happening without a word ever being spoken. He looked at me and said “one viable pregnancy.”

“What does that mean?? What happened??”

He said, “I’m not sure, it stopped growing about a week ago and there’s no heartbeat.” And then he turned the screen around so I could see the two sacs, and my two babies. One alive and strong, and the other lifelessly laying in my womb. That was horrifying. He had been taking pictures all along and when it was all over and he gave me my ultrasounds, I made him cut the ones off with Baby B. I didn’t want a reminder of now a second baby that didn’t make it. The pain from this is unreal. I feel bad because I don’t want to take any of the glory away from this child growing inside of me. They’ve been dreamed of, hoped for, prayed for and wanted for so long. But something in me was just at a loss for words. I wanted to know WHY God showed me those two babies with two heartbeats only to take one away. I questioned so many things and I probably will for a bit. That’s just how the grieving process goes…its not a quick one. We had to grieve our first loss in September and now here we are, grieving another loss but thankful and blessed that there is still one thriving baby in there.

Kyle says God gave us three babies to start with to make sure that one stuck and one was strong enough to survive. I’ll believe him because anything else is too hard to comprehend.

Although we’ve hit bumps along this journey, I’m just thankful there’s a strong baby growing inside of me. He or She is all we have ever hoped for or dreamed of and I can’t wait to meet them this summer!! I don’t think I’ll ever stop kissing their little face once I get to hold them. And Aubree is going to be so thrilled to finally hold her baby. She thinks he or she is HER baby, haha, and asks to hold the baby all the time. She still hasn’t quite comprehend that the baby is still growing in mommy’s tummy!

I’m also thankful for YOU! I’m thankful that we have the largest support system I could’ve ever imagined and this social media platform gives me extra support. I’m so thankful for each and every single one of you, your words of encouragement, love and support. Thank you for following our journey, for your prayers, and kind words. We’re so blessed to have you here with us.

Until the next pregnancy update… :)

xoxo!