The Stephens Family

today I went back to the doctor for the first time since we miscarried on Tuesday. They went ahead and did an ultrasound. This ultrasound was supposed to be the one where we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat and all that good stuff. Instead, we confirmed that we did miscarry. I’m still showing hormones in my urine though, so I have to go back again next week to draw blood to make sure it has all been cleaned out so to speak. That was really hard.

The doctor said we should wait like three months before we try again (but that ain’t never going to happen). If I see that I’m ovulating, you better bet that we are going to be trying again. We realize from this miscarriage just how much we both really want this whole parenthood thing. This marriage, I think, will make our marriage stronger.

What has made all of this sweeter has been my students. Lots of my kids have been approaching me and giving me huge hugs, which has been awesome. Now, for some reason, they all seem to think I fell down the stairs, and that is how I lost the baby. I’m not sure how that got started, but it is nice to see the ones who have butted heads with me all year, ask me if the rumors are true, and then say they were really sorry to hear that. I had no idea the students cared so much.

WARNING: THIS IS A BIT GRAPHIC POST, SO IF YOU ARE EASILY GROSSED OUT, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER,last night/this morning we had a miscarriage. We have been dealing with the shock of this all day. I was kinda expecting this all day yesterday, so let me tell you how. First of all, for the last several months I have been charting. Last month, the month I got pregnant, I picked up this book which I followed to the letter. As part of this method, I would take my temperature every morning. So, I know after you ovulate, when you see your temperature drop, you are getting your prior within the next 24 hours. Yesterday morning my temperature tumbled. But, that was not my only sign that worried me. On Friday, the doctor’s office called and asked me to come in Monday for more blood work. They told me my hcg levels were low, and they wanted more blood to see if they continued to go up. Yesterday, I felt miserable all day. I had a headache, had a backache, and felt like I was getting my period. I went to the doctor and drew blood, and went home and started having mild cramps. Then close to bedtime I had light spotting. In the middle of the night I started having severe cramping with heavier bleeding, I called the doctor and they told me as long as the bleed stayed the way it was, call first thing this morning and get worked in for an ultrasound. So we got a little sleep last night. We both called in, CB saying he was going to be late today. We got ready early this morning, so that when we called the doctor we could tell them we were already on our way. So on the road, I was calling the doctor but the doctor was trying to call me. They got my blood work back from yesterday, and they knew I was having a miscarriage. There was no need for me to come in to the office.

I am keeping my appointment that I had for Friday for our ultrasound, but now it has a whole different purpose. I have to have more blood work done on Friday.

CB and I have been taking this kinda hard. But, now I know we can get pregnant, so hopefully we will be pregnant again soon. We have to think that this happened for a reason.

Today I had my first OB appointment. All that really happened was to reconfirm my pregnancy (check!) and to schedule my first ultrasound in a week (Friday the 20th). The ultrasound I can hopefully hear the heartbeat, which would be totally awesome. At the ultrasound next week they will also confirm my due date. The reason there is a slight problem is I ovulated late and so based on my ovulation my due date is January 12 but based on the date of my last period my due date would be January 6th. So, next week we will know for sure. C.B. met me up at the doctors office just in time for us to ask another question. I know there is a reason I always keep him around. He was so happy that he was telling absolutely everyone that we were having a baby! He is totally awesome. I just can’t help but smile because I am happy when I see how happy this baby makes him. By now pretty much everyone at school knows. C.B.has taken care of that problem as well. We just can’t keep secrets, especially since we are just so excited about this baby.

so today being Mother’s Day and all we decided that we really wanted to tell our mothers today. So, we tried to be a little sneaky about it. We had already gotten them their mothers day gift, but we wrapped them each in a onesie, and got each of them a Grandmother card instead of the usual Mother card. Needless to say they were estatic once they realized what it was! It was completely awesome Mothers Day.

so we have tried really really hard, but CB & I just can’t manage to keep this a secret. We wanted to wait until we were a littler further along and there was less possibilities of complications but……LAST WEEK ON THURSDAY WE FOUND OUT WE ARE EXPECTING A BABY! Yes, we mean to shout it. We can’t stop screaming it out loud. (Seriously, like in the car, taking a walk, in the house we have been screaming “we made life!”) yes, we realize that most of the world’s population has managed to do this, but now finally, so have we! We should be due about mid-January 2012, but Pamela goes to her first OB/GYN visit on Wednesday and get a more solid due date. We did confirm it last week with our GP.