I’m…Pregnant!?!

It’s true. Pregnant. Again. It’s also true that we already have a baby, so you can imagine our surprise when we found out we would be having another baby. This super surprise came in the form of a pregnancy test taken about six weeks ago after I ate six slices of bread with butter in one sitting. I cried three times afterwards, but only one of those times was a complete and total blubbering breakdown. The guilt of knowing that in just a few months my “Kicky Pants” would no longer get the full attention of his Momma just broke my heart. However, my husband knew all the right things to say, and I’m guessing that hormones have already started to kick in, because now I’m positively excited (and terrified) about having another baby.

We have baby names picked out, but don’t usually share the names with anyone until after the baby is born. So we decided to nickname him Swee’Pea (as in Popeye’s Swee’Pea). That’s right, another boy. When you’re over 35 they send you to an ultrasound specialist and with their high tech equipment they are able to guess the sex of the baby pretty early. The same doctor told us “Kicky Pants” was a boy at 12 weeks, but we’ll wait until after our 20 week visit before decorating the nursery. Our due date is February 3rd which makes us just over 12 weeks pregnant, so we are early into our 2nd trimester.

According to my OB, getting pregnant while breast feeding and on progestin-only birth control is not uncommon. It happened to her, whose children are 15 months apart, it happened to the above mentioned ultrasound specialist, who’s wife got pregnant when their first baby was only 7 months old, and we saw a pregnant couple in the waiting room who went to our pregnancy classes at the hospital and actually shared our due date the first time around. She was due in August. “Not planned” she told us, but they are such a sweet couple that I couldn’t help but be excited for them.

My regular birth control has always worked perfectly for me, but you cannot take it while breastfeeding because it can cause a reduced milk supply. My husband and I hadn’t decided if we wanted another child, so we didn’t want to do anything too permanent (although we both might get “fixed” after this baby is born ), so the progetstin-only mini-pill seemed the right choice for us. With this type of birth control pill, you can still ovulate 50% of the time, but it also thickens the walls of your uterus and fallopian tubes so a fertilized egg cannot easily attach itself to the uterine wall. I had an ectopic pregnancy three years ago and lost my right tube, so I was convinced that I only had a 50% chance of getting pregnant anyway! I was already weaning my son, and only about a month away from my regular birth control, when we got pregnant. Some would call this fate.

Now we’re just hoping and wishing that the baby is healthy. Since this wasn’t a planned pregnancy, and my son was getting vitamins from eating solid foods, I was no longer taking my prenatal pills. It’s very important in the first 4-6 weeks to take folic acid. My diet didn’t really have much folic acid, so we’re concerned about Spina Bifida and other neural tube defects. Also, because of my age, I’m also concerned about Down Syndrome. There’s always a higher risk when you’re older than 35. The ultrasound did not show anything wrong, which is a really great sign, but not a guarantee. It’s just nice to know that, so far, everything appears to be going smoothly. I’ll get my blood work back next week and hopefully, like the first time around, I can avoid an amniocentesis.

The great news is, I get to decorate another nursery! Woo! The bad news is, we don’t have any money to decorate another nursery. Lucky for us, Lone Star Baby & Kids offers financing, and with the best selection and prices around, we’re in good hands.

Do you have any “surprise” pregnancy stories that you’d like to share?

Tags: baby news, lone star baby & kids baby news, pregnancy, pregnant, pregnant at 37, pregnant while on birth control, surprise pregnancy