Finding Out About Baby #2

Zach and I have always known that we wanted more than one child. He has one sister and I have two, so giving our children siblings was never really a decision we had to think too hard on. Surprisingly enough though, making the conscious decision to actually “try” for number two was harder than we anticipated. We had finally hit a groove with Cam and felt like we were getting the hang of this parenting thing. We had a few trips away from baby planned, he was/is sleeping through the night, so we are both more well rested than we were this time last year.. our new normal of parenthood felt good. Making the decision to leap back into new born life and to shake up our norm by adding a second baby was kind of terrifying honestly. So we talked about it and then we talked about it some more. We both ultimately agreed that we knew without a doubt that we wanted more children.. we just wanted and needed to be on the same page about when that would happen.

I began to have some issues with my cycle in late May and decided to stop taking the mini pill at that time. With my health history of having PCOS and thinking about trying for another baby, I figured (along with the support from my OBGYN) that I’d just give my body a break and see how things realigned. At that time, I also began taking a supplement called Balance, engineered by Katy Hearn’s company Alani Nu. I had been doing research and reading reviews on the supplement for about a year and found that so many women with PCOS saw incredible hormonal balancing and some were even able to conceive naturally after years of trying. I personally don’t believe in cure-alls, but the ingredients in the supplement were all the “tried and trues” you find when researching fertility/infertility. So I decided to give it a shot.

Because we needed to go through multiple rounds of fertility treatments with Cam (see my blog post about our fertility journey) and I was still breastfeeding, we decided to just make an appointment with our reproductive endocrinologist to see what steps we needed to take before starting medications again to get pregnant. This appointment was set for the end of August, after our first ever “Mommy and Daddy get away” weekend away from Cam. After discussing at length with our doctor, not only was it determined that we would have to go through ALL of the preliminary testing that we had done before conceiving Cam again, but that I would also have to stop breastfeeding for 4-6 weeks BEFORE it could be done. This news was both frustrating and devastating for me, although I’m not really sure why. I’m a medical professional, so part of me knew that that was exactly what was going to need to happen. Of course I can’t start medications to conceive while actively breastfeeding my son. Of course we needed to recheck all of the things! I birthed a baby almost two years ago. What if my anatomy has changed? Part of me just felt defeated. How would we manage all of the costs and appointments this time around? How would we get time off work with both of our busy schedules for the mandatory ultrasounds, sometimes multiple times a week? As much as we wanted baby #2, the thought of going through the process all over again was daunting.

The weekend after this appointment, we had planned a beach trip with my family. We decided not to sweat the news, pray on it, and enjoy ourselves! And that we did. We had a blast with my family, enjoyed cold beers, music, the sunshine and the water. The night before we were leaving, I woke up in the middle of the night extremely nauseous. It was really brief, but it kinda shocked me that it had actually woken me up. I went back to sleep and kinda forgot about the little episode. That next night after getting home, while nursing Cam before bed, I was saying our prayers and begging God to guide me through the decision to end our breastfeeding journey so that we could grow our family. I cried as I was laying him down, wondering how I could force him to stop something that was so clearly a comfort to him. It was all we ever knew together. Something through all of that, told me (no symptoms) to take a pregnancy test before making the decision to stop. I hadn’t been tracking my cycles because they were so irregular anyways, so I’m not sure if I was “late” or not. I just felt compelled to do so. I pulled an old test out of my cabinet, took it, then left it on the countertop to shower. Assuming it would be negative like all of the times I tested before our fertility treatments with Cam. After I got out, I had nearly forgotten about it. When I glanced at the test while simultaneously picking it up to throw it in the trash I saw the faintest second line. WHAT!!? How could this even be possible? I quickly decided it wasn’t real. I’d take the other one I have in the morning and if that one shows positive, I’ll go buy the Clear Blue tests that say “pregnant” or “not pregnant”. I didn’t even tell Zach about it, that’s how much I believed it couldn’t be real.

The next morning, before Cam got up, I took the other test. ANOTHER second line. What in Sam Hell I thought?! There’s no way. A close friend of mine came over for a play date that morning (I couldn’t even muster the courage to tell her bc I still believed it wasn’t real) and as soon as she left, I raced up to CVS to buy the Clear Blue tests. I took one as soon as I got home, and clear as day it read: pregnant. Holy shit. God is so good. God answers prayers. I begged Him to guide me and he laughed and said, “watch this.” I quickly searched easy ways to surprise husband with positive pregnancy test and found a sweet suggestions to get whatever item/size baby is at that time and give it to him! Tiny Toth 2.0 was the size of a peppercorn (so I thought) at the time so I grabbed our jar of whole peppercorns out of the pantry and had Cam give it to him as soon as he got home from work (yes I filmed it)! He was SHOCKED. There was a lot of: “are you sure?” And “omg really?!” Needless to say, neither of us saw it coming. We both were gearing up for another journey through infertility and we both feel beyond blessed that God decided to allow us to be this baby’s parents without the help of modern medicine.

For the first couple of weeks after finding out we were pregnant, I felt guilty. Guilty that I had identified so closely with infertility and the community of friends whom I had confided in (and whom confided in me). Guilty that conceiving this baby came easy for us this time, when so many men and women prayed every day to become parents. It didn’t take long for me to share my news with most of them and to be greeted with warm love and support. I’m not sure what I expected but all I know is that I’m so grateful to be surrounded by such loving, caring individuals. Women who, even through their own heartache, can find it in their hearts to still find and share the joy of others.

So there you have it! The story of how we found out about our sweet baby boy, joining us in April 2020. God, Balance, and well.. you know the rest. XO- JT