Cheers, "Baby Valentine"

Well, the cat’s out of the bag, or will be soon? If you’ve seen me recently, you may have parted our meeting with your head cocked, wondering, “hmm, she looks different.” And yes, I am different. My body is different, my mood is very different, I am pregnant. Wait… hold on, let me try that again… I AM PREGNANT!!!! Right? Aren’t you supposed to be screaming from the rooftops?

This past December I WAS screaming it from the rooftops. I had this obnoxious, goofy grin on my face all day and couldn’t stop smiling when people asked if we would be having another. “Like, totally, yea! We’re already expecting!” And like with Jax, first try, right out the gate, ready to go with baby #2 as soon as we made the decision to start trying. I was only a few weeks along, had just missed my period, and had confirmed it with multiple pregnancy tests. We were ready to celebrate this little miracle! The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, or worse maybe as you will find out later. Since we found out the second week of December, we spent the holidays telling family and friends using a fun “Big Brother” t-shirt that Jax would wear. We even have some of the family's reactions on video. I’ve watched them over and over since then. Then January came; back to reality, back to work, and me marching my butt to the doc’s office. We were very excited, and anxious, to get that first sono out of the way. In retrospect perhaps I did have a feeling, but brushed it aside or attributed it to my underlying anxiety. As soon as I saw the screen, I KNEW something was wrong. Very wrong. I saw the gestational sac, but there was no heartbeat. I only saw empty space, nothingness. Much of everything that happened after that, up until my D&C a month later is a blur. I spent most of the time going back and forth between complete denial, to outrage, to crying hysterically for entire days. I felt so lost and so incomplete. I never understood what it felt like to lose something like that. Even now, it is difficult to put into words what I felt. But now, today, I feel different. I had this undeniable urge to write today and didn’t even realize why until I saw the calendar. Today is technically my due date for that sweet baby conceived back in December. So yes, if you’ve seen me recently, I probably look different. Because I am not 40 weeks pregnant ready to give birth; I am actually 17 weeks pregnant with our rainbow baby.

This time around we waited a VERY long time before we started telling people, including close family! And probably the only reason we started telling people is the awkwardness of them seeing me with my very obvious pregnant belly.. curse my abdominal muscles for being crap after baby #1… I still feel weird about shouting it from the rooftops. Both Dustin and I are very guarded. And there’s no denying I still feel sad because of what our “Baby Christmas” could have been. Please understand, we are still holding this baby close... so very close. I think if you've ever experienced a loss, you might understand where we are coming from. Yes, we are excited for this baby, yes we are HAPPY for this baby, YES we are counting down the days until we hold our baby. I WANT TO SCREAM "I'M PREGNANT" FROM THE ROOFTOPS!!! For now, we are just silently cheering as each week passes. Cheers to 17+ weeks growing this little miracle in my belly; cheers to feeling baby “wake up” every morning at 10:00 by rolling over and/or stretching onto my bladder; cheers to giant boobs, super awesome heartburn, peeing every hour, constant fatigue, and waking up starving at 2:00 am every morning. Cheers to you, our “Baby Valentine."