Injection Free

This post originally appeared on Annery at Home in November 2011.

A couple more days and I'll be at the 11-week mark.  Last week I went to my nurse appointment. After running the blood tests, I got the call that I could stop taking the progesterone injections.

After a month of 3x a week shots, I was overly ready to be done.  As I said before, I really did try not to be a weanie about my shots., although this toughing it out came to a whole new level while I was out of town working.  Without my husband with me to give me the shots, it fell to me to give myself the injections. 

The first night I needed to give myself the injection, a close friend who lives near where I was working came over to my hotel and supervised me to make sure I was able to do it.  With her moral support, I gave myself the shot and it didn't seem so bad.  She actually took a picture of me injecting myself, but I'll spare you all, since not everyone is a fan of medical-type pictures.  The next time I had to give myself a shot, I really missed her help, it is huge to have someone telling you, "you're almost done!" 

As my friend termed it, I was "hardcore" about giving myself the injections, but I was relieved to be home and having my husband do the shots again!  I was even more relieved when I got the call that I could stop the shots altogether.

Now that I'm back home and life is settling into it's normal rhythm, I'm starting to feel a little of that first trimester exhaustion, last week is kind of a blur in fact.  I'm starting to worry a little about where we're going to live next year, with a new baby on the way and our foster daughter with us, our 2 bedroom house will soon be a really tight squeeze.  But I'm trying not to let those worries take over.

My husband is in his second week at a new job, and while I worry about how it will work out after all the ups and downs of the last six months, I have to have faith that everything will work out.

Every time I worry about where we're going to put all the kids, I take a breath and say a prayer that God give us the resources to care for the children He wants us to have.  I have to have confidence that Providence will be there.  My husband is a hard worker and if anyone can succeed in a new career of sales, it's him, although I may have to read this to remind myself of that when his income moves to straight commission in a couple months. 

God has been with us every step of the way and I have no evidence to the contrary that He will not continue to be, I'll just have to remind myself of that as I struggle against my natural anxiety-prone ways. 

God is faithful beyond my understanding.

Hope Grows

This post originally appeared on Annery at Home in October 2011.

I've been pretty open about our struggles to conceive and the heart-wrenching loss of an ectopic pregnancy last year.  We have been open and waiting for children since L was about a year old.  She turned 6 this past July.  Doctors couldn't really find any problems that should prevent babies, but it was still five years and no babies.

About three months after I lost the ectopic pregnancy, my husband and I signed up to become foster parents.  I strongly felt like a baby of our own wasn't part of God's plan for us at that time.  We remained open, but it was a hard thing.  The licensing for foster parenting took about 9 months.  About halfway through, I started taking Clomid in hopes of having a baby.  I wanted to feel like I'd given everything I could to trying so that I would have no regrets.

I took Clomid for 9 months before discontinuing.  Sweet Baby was brought home from the hospital as our foster daughter shortly after I completed my ninth round of hormones.  It did feel like a little bit of God's sense of humor that I went through nine hormonal months and then brought a baby home from the hospital.

Sweet Baby will be 3 months old this weekend.  She's been a delight in our home.  Her goal is reunification, but we'll enjoy her every day we have her.

A couple weeks back, I had suspicions I was expecting.  Once a test confirmed those suspicions, the real battery of tests began.  Because of my history with the ectopic, my first step was blood testing.

A series of blood tests revealed that my hcg doubled as it should, but my progesterone levels were on the low side for supporting the baby's development.  I went in the next week to the doctor's office to get an injection of progesterone and for the nurse to show my husband how to give the injections (if you ever want a trust building exercise - this will truly test your limits!).  I'm on injections 3 times a week until week 10, when hopefully, the placenta will take over and I'll be in the clear. 

Due to the low progesterone and medical history, I went in for an ultrasound to confirm that the baby was growing in the right place.  It was nerve-wracking waiting for the ultrasound.  When the ultrasound confirmed that the baby was growing in the right location, it was the first moment I let myself hope that this pregnancy will be successful and I'll be holding a baby next summer.

That hope continues to grow; every day that goes by is one more closer to a healthy new baby. 

This pregnancy is totally different than L.  I was so oblivious to everything that could go wrong; now I find myself being much more careful and not taking this baby as a given. 

This pregnancy is a miracle and I'm so looking forward to growing Hope.