Last Christmas was wonderful. Joe and I already knew we’re having a baby, we were both ecstatic, but still keeping it to ourselves. That wasn’t so easy since we spent Christmas (2 and a half weeks actually) at my parents house. I had already started feeling sick, especially cooking smells were the worst, which was not an easy situation with all the holiday cooking. But we managed to keep the secret, however me having cold and feeling bad due to it did the main part in covering up for the pregnancy.
On January 3rd I saw the tiny little heart beat. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
In mid-February I was starting 2nd trimester so we decided to tell the family. We have planned a weekend at my parents couple days before Valentine’s day, so we handed them a card as if nothing special was going on. Then they read the baby’s coming in August and another round of pure happiness unfolded.
Two weeks later was my last day at work, unplanned, because I was put on bed rest. There were some complications with me being able to hold the pregnancy. It wasn’t fun at all but it seemed to be manageable if I did all as I was told and was monitored closely. So I was still enjoying the pregnancy, now without needing to go to work (yay!). Even though I love my work, I was really ok with taking this vacation, stay on the couch, read, watch tv, online shop for the baby and basically just rest.
My next doctor’s appointment came, this was week 16, and there were some other complications, that seemed to be a real threat to maintaining the pregnancy. Now we became more worried and took the bed rest even more seriously. Joe was wonderful the entire time, he took such good care of me! He wouldn’t let me do ANYTHING, I felt like a princess. So we did all we could on our part, and we were still happy about our baby and couldn’t wait to meet him.
Week 20 came and we had the anatomy ultrasound. I will never forget the time my doctor took to take all the measurements. It seemed never ending. He told me beforehand that he’s going to be quiet, examine the baby and then tell us everything we want to know. But the quiet time seemed way too long… Then he told Joe to come closer to have a good view of the monitor and he told us that he can see a deformity of the baby’s hand. He told us how is the left hand deformed, but he couldn’t see the right one due to the baby’s position. Only later did we find out, there is something wrong with both his tiny little hands.
It was devastating. I was in a position were I might not be able to hold the pregnancy and if I did, I was having a baby boy with both hands handicapped. This happened when our baby was kicking In the belly all the time, we knew him, we loved him and couldn’t imagine our life without him. I am so grateful, that not once did we think of ending the pregnancy. I had so much support from Joe and all my family. I always knew my husband is wonderful, but I had no idea how much.
…
And here we are today. Joe and I and our beautiful baby boy Peter. We love him so much! He is such a wonderful baby, smiles all the time, tries to speak to us in his funny baby language:) Sometimes he sleeps through the night, other times he wakes just once for feeding. Plus he just started appreciating day-time naps, so yay! (Yes, he is 2 months old and yes, he refused to sleep much through the day until recently.)
Our lives have changed so much! We are in a totally different place than we were last year this time. Our new life began.