Thankful

Last Thanksgiving was rough for the Kelloggs. You can read about our troubles here. The past year in general has been full of triumphs and tribulations for our family. Between giving birth to the most amazing child to having our dream wedding and then the blow of four surgeries and my health sharply declining, we hardly had time to catch our breath. 

Following my last surgery in March we were advised to try to get pregnant right away. We figured that it would happen naturally, like June. We gave my body some time following surgery to rest and started trying at the end of March. I've been tracking my periods for several years now and have become really in tune with my body so I didn't want to bother with any of the tests. April's period came and went. It was shorter than my periods had been before I had the baby. I thought it was just my body changing.

We tried again in April and this time my ovulation was confirmed via ultrasound by Dr. Latino. I was dead on about figuring when that was and it was pretty cool. I knew we had timed everything perfectly. But May came and I got my period, it was very short though. No worries, we had only tried for two months. 

I really wanted a February baby so I started to get serious about things in May. I started using ovulation predictor kits and tested the week before I thought I would ovulate. It turns out I was ovulating a few days later than what I assumed. We tried in May. In June, I got my period. It was even shorter than May's. I wasn't getting my February baby.

In June I started taking my temperature to measure my basal body temp. Another step in becoming serious about conceiving. All of this was becoming tiring and we were only four months in. But I desperately wanted June to have a sibling so I stopped thinking about it as a hassle and started thinking about it as what we had to do, a part of life. The week before my period in June I began to get depressed. We had just moved to our new home and being a full time stay at home mom left a lot of time for me to browse the internet. I read countless stories of women with Asherman's syndrome getting pregnant and losing the baby at all points of pregnancy. 

I had decided to take charge of the situation and call Dr.Man to discuss further tests. We had talked about a hysterosonogram - a test to see how open the uterus is as well as the fallopian tubes. I called to schedule the test and it had to be two weeks after my period.
My period came. It was only one day long. This was even more depressing because I knew this meant that my uterus was progressively scarring more and more and my chances of getting pregnant were becoming more slim as each month passed. I called to schedule the test and I found out that my insurance had been cancelled. This was adding to the increasing stress I felt. 

In mid-July I got my new job. I didn't have insurance, I was stressed and I needed to re-evaluate everything. Thomas and I talked for days on end about what we were going to do. We decided to stop trying to conceive. June was enough for us and we were lucky to have survived all of my health problems. We had been trying for 5 months and my body was telling me that it just wasn't going to happen. I put away all of the tests I had left, I unsubscribed to the trying to conceive newsletters and put my energy into work. 

At the end of July I had a 3 hour period. Yes, 3 hours. I sobbed. Not because it meant I wasn't pregnant but because that was the final straw of my body telling me that it was done. My uterus was closing for good.

August was busy. Work, family, the new house, I was planning for June's 1st birthday party, I was in a wedding, etc. I knew that my period was due at the end of the month but I had stopped really thinking about it. I figured it wasn't going to come and that when I finally had insurance again I would have to call Dr. Latino and figure out where to go from there. I didn't get my period. 

But I felt weird. Like something was off. Thomas and I were driving home from a family birthday party and I decided I should get a pregnancy test. It made me so sad though. The thought of testing again and it being negative again was just killing me. When we got home Thomas put June in her bed and took Henry on a walk. I built up the courage to pee on the stick. Tears ran down my cheeks as I stared at the test in disbelief. Nearly immediately it turned positive. We had given up. We were pregnant. 

The first few weeks were rough. I was constantly sick. I had the fear of losing the baby. I bled, I cramped, but everything was fine. They set my due date as May 5, 2013. 

As I got farther along, the ultrasounds starting showing that I was farther along than we thought. 

I saw a high risk perinatologist at 11 weeks. He sat with Thomas and I for nearly 30 minutes and went over every question we had. He proceeded to do an ultrasound. The baby was perfect. My uterus was perfect. I was nearly completely healed. Even the doctor called it a miracle. This baby is a miracle. 

Our due date was moved to April 29 and baby is measuring a week bigger than that as well. We find on December 14th if baby is a girl or boy.

June and new baby Kellogg will be 19 months apart. We are overjoyed and thrilled and will never sleep again.