12 Weeks

TODAY I am 12 weeks pregnant! YAY!!

I am sure all my 2 blog readers are wondering why I didn't post this earlier. Well, that is because I have had 6 miscarriages, all very early on (around 5-8 weeks, one at 11 weeks). So we decided to wait till we were 12 weeks this time to tell anyone. Here is the story of why this little guy in my tummy is staying....

I have been to the doctor several times and let me just say that I have had horrible personal experiences with military doctors. They have been completely unhelpful and often rude to me. So finally we went to see a midwife instead of a doctor (I was 5-and-a-half weeks when we went). Within 5 minutes she diagnosed me with hypothyroidism. She asked me these questions: "Are your hands and feet always cold? Do you always feel tired and listless, with no energy? Do you have trouble maintaining your ideal weight?" My answer to all three was an emphatic yes!! She said, "I think you have hypothyroidism. Let's do some bloodwork." So she took some blood, and in a few days we recieved the results confirming that her hunch was right. We were so excited. Hypothyroidism prevents the body from being able to produce HGC, the pregnancy hormones. My HCG levels were at 1400 (at 5.5 weeks) which is below the normal range. Women with hypothyroidism will often suffer from repeated miscarriages, which is me!! I tried very hard to go to the military doctor's to get them to prescribe me medication for hypothyroidism (medication seems to be the only known solution... I would prefer some sort of dietary solution, but there are none as of now), but they refused to listen to me. It was very frustrating so I am really not going to bother explaining all the details but it is a long and drawn out story. The final result was that they never gave me a prescription, but thankfully my midwife told me to immediately start taking a natural supplement called "raw thyroid" (which we got from whole foods) and to start using progesterone cream (which I had tried to use unsuccessfully in previous pregnancies) and I believe that is what has helped. Meanwhile, durring week 6&7 I had a lot of spotting and cramping, and stayed in bed most of the time. Durring that time, the baby was barely holding on, but he made it through with a lot of prayer. More bloodwork was done, as well as an ultrasound at week 7 (this was the only time the military hospital was helpful, and they were still rather rude!) and I was able to see the baby's heartbeat! My HGC levels were also up from 1400 to 20,000 which was a huuuuge jump and a very good sign. I finally stopped spotting and everything is going well. Last weekend we had another appointment with our midwives (Joi and Stacey, by the way) and were able to hear our little guy's heartbeat. We are so happy he is doing well! Praise God he has blessed us with this baby, and I am so thankful to Him for leading us to our midwives and to a solution to our problems. More than anything else we give God the credit for finally answering our prayers and blessing us with a little baby. We have been waiting for him for a long time!! (And yes, we think he is a boy. Daniel had a dream that he met our little son when he was about 8 years old, and he told Daniel his name. So we already have his name picked out. But we aren't telling yet!)

ANYWAY so that is the story. I have been waiting and waiting to write about it; it's been no fun trying to avoid telling people. Today when Daniel gets home we will call his family to tell them... i can't wait! And my pants are starting to not fit anymore... i have a little baby pouch, but not much of one. I will have to put up pictures soon!