Pregnancy Week 15 through Week 19

Catching up time. I wish I focused more on writing papers right now instead of updating this blog, but this is just way more fun. Ha

At 15 weeks Baby Girl or "Peanut" was the size of an apple. I had started the pregnancy at 123 pounds. By the end of the first trimester I was down to 112 pounds. But by week 15 I had gained all that weight back and was back up to 124 pounds. 

By this week the morning sickness had officially gone away, though I was still sensitive to smell. 

I was starting to get heartburn but I was able to take care of it with either a glass of milk or tums.

This week I was still in my skinny jeans using either a hair tie around the button or the belly bands. 

It seemed as though Peanut had shifted onto a nerve because anytime I would lay down my legs would go numb/tingly.

!5 Weeks Photo

 At 16 Weeks Peanut was at the size of an avocado. 

I craved Mexican food like crazy. That's all I wanted throughout the rest of the pregnancy.

Heartburn wasn't as bad this week.

I was still in my normal clothes which was very nice. 

 

16 Week Photo

Weeks 17 Through 19 we were moving from California to Texas. I don't remember much as far as symptoms or cravings. I do remember the crazy dreams had started to have. I also didn't record anything that was different. I had my energy back and I wasn't sick any more. My nose was still sensitive. My feet also started to swell about this point. It was very light swelling and it was only on the days that I was on my feet a whole bunch.  

I felt her moving around week 18. It was very light movement but it was very different than anything before and it was amazing. 

Week 17 Photo

Week 18 Photo (side)

Week 18 Photo (front view)

Week 19 Photo

The first week of November my California friends threw me a baby shower (that will be the next post), and then E and I packed up our home and drove a uhaul and both vehicles (E had it on the back of the uhaul)  with both the dogs as well to Texas. It took us 3 days.

The middle of November E and I drove back to California for a few last minute items we couldn't fit and for our final inspection. 

We also did some Christmas shopping while there. 

It was a very stressful, yet exciting, and sad month for me. The stress was from the moving and I wasn't able to help all that much. 

The excitement was from moving home to my family and starting a new chapter. Looking forward to our baby girl coming. 

The sadness was from leaving our home that we had made in California for 2 and a half years. That house was one of my favorite houses we lived in during the first 4 years of our marriage. That house I stayed in while E was deployed. That is the house we found out about Peanut. It was a very sad day for me to leave that house.

Pregnancy Week 12 through Week 14

I finally made my first goal of hitting 12 weeks. (Through this pregnancy I set goals for myself and I've hit each one thus far (today I'm 28 weeks and 5 days as I type this post)). 

I still had awful morning sickness. I was unable to keep anything down except a double cheese burger from McDonalds. If you know me then you know that I hate McDonalds so for that to be the only thing I not only wanted but the only thing that would stay down frustrated me to no end.

I was mostly bloated, but wearing jeans really irritated my belly. I started using a hair tie around my buttons, and then I finally got a belly band thing that was amazing!! 

13 Weeks I was finally nearing the end of the first trimester. I was starting to get less and less sick. I was still always tired but I was able to keep other foods down better. I still craved McDonalds, and I wanted Orange juice all the time. I had a drunken summer in 2008 were all I drank was screwdrivers and so to this day I cannot stand the taste of OJ. But baby wanted it, so baby got it. 

I was starting to show a little bit more. It mostly just looked like I was fat unless you knew me and knew I was pregnant lol. 

 14 Weeks came and I was really excited. E and I were going to get a 3D sono to find out baby's gender early for my friends who wanted to through me a baby shower before we moved from CA to TX. 

I was definitely showing more. My morning sickness was finally gone. I had more energy than the first few weeks. My nose was very sensitive to smell though. I couldn't stand the smell of dirty dishes, or the smell of dish water for that matter. The stink of the dogs made me sick to my stomach. 

I was really really enjoying that belly band thing also!! 

Here is Peanut Banegas in 3D!! Baby acted like daddy and didn't cooperate at the beginning. Had the legs crossed so we looked at the face for a bit. 

We found out we were having a daughter!! I was shocked. I had thought for sure she was a he!! I hadn't even thought of baby girl names. 

Her daddy realized then that he was in trouble. 

At the end of the sono she started to cover her face. She was over the sono and wanted us to leave her alone. 

I of course teared up when we saw her! I do every sono we have! It's just so amazing to see that I have a baby inside my belly, FINALLY! 

We've waited a long time for her and I'm so over joyed with her!!

Pregnancy Week 11

The Friday before I turned 11 weeks I received a phone call from my OB at 530 pm. She started the conversation by asking how I was doing and how I was feeling. I told her I was feeling great just exhausted but great other wise. She then started to tell me about how she received my lab results from the prior Monday and Wednesday and that my HCG levels were dropping and gave me the numbers. She then went on to say that I was miscarrying. She didn't understand why this was happening and that she was so sorry. She stated how she believed in miracles. She asked me to come in Monday for more blood work and that we would be watching the levels drop to zero and then do a DNC.

I was devastated. I was confused. We had just seen the baby on an ultrasound just days before. It wasn't fair. I wasn't having any cramping and I had stopped bleeding from my week 7 scare. It was a rough phone call to take. I was even more mad that she had called me on a Friday afternoon at 530. Way past time for the doctors office to close (they close at 4pm) and the next day was E's 25th birthday and I had a fun night planned for him.

I was actually in bed trying to take a nap after a long day at work and I couldn't fall asleep anymore I was crying to much so I went downstairs. E saw me crying and asked why. I finally was able to stop the sobs to get my words out and tell him. The look on his face was so sad. He didn't understand it either. He said "well we can just wait until Monday and see what the doctor says. Maybe its a mistake."

I remember texting my dear friend Leah and telling her. She called me moments later and said to go over because she had a doppler we could try to find the heartbeat. So I went and the first thing she said was, "since you are so early we may not be able to find the heartbeat so do not freak out." I laid down and we placed it on my belly and she found it instantly. It was still in the high 140s-150s. That was def. comforting and I was able to calm down. We sat and did some research and found that at week 10 the levels do drop and level out because the placenta is taking over. Once we read that I was even more hopeful.

I had also called my aunt who is an RN and she had called her OB nurse friends and they told her the same thing. So that all made me feel much better.

All weekend I tried to stay positive. and I did a great job putting up a front for all our friends who came to help celebrate E's birthday. But in the back of my head I had to keep in mind that I may actually be losing this baby.

Monday finally came and Leah went with me to the hospital. We walked in to see my OB and she asked if we went to the lab. I told her no and that I wanted to talk to her first. So we sat down with her and we showed her all the research we had found. We also told her about the doppler and the heartbeat. She shook her head in agreement and then simply stated "I never told you you were miscarrying." I told her yes you did and repeat what she had told me Friday and her reply was "oh you are right I did say that."

I was livid by this point. I asked her to do an ultrasound and if she once again can't find the baby I wanted to go back to radiology for a second ultrasound. She agreed to it and so that's what we did.

When she started the ultrasound she found this:

Peanut Banegas was fine. Moving and jumping around like a jelly bean. It was so great being right and so great to still have my baby. 

I took some late 11 week belly pictures. 

Week 11 was much better. Less stressful just know my baby was fine. My friend also let me take home the doppler so every night I would sit and listen to the baby. It was so peaceful!!!



Pregnancy Week 8 through Week 10

Week 8 was stressful. I was scared of every move I would make. I didn't want to do anything that would harm my baby. I was sick every morning. I could not keep anything down. Dairy and I really didn't mix well. I craved Orange Juice, which was so odd because I had way to many screwdrivers one summer and to this day cannot stand the taste of orange juice, but baby wanted it so I would drink it. I'd gag as I would but it stayed down.

I would crave icees and I would suck one down and not 10 minutes later it would come right back up. I couldn't keep anything down. Pizza would come up. I was so hungry but didn't want to eat because I couldn't. One day we drove past McDonalds and I could smell it. I made E turn around and get me food. I got a medium order of fries and a double cheeseburger. That stayed down and didn't come up at all. From that day for the next few weeks that is all I would and could eat and it would stay down. Mind you I hated McDonalds. I normally couldn't stand the smell before. When someone would bring it into my house I would cringe at the smell of it. 

Week 9 was about the same but I started to take pictures that week. 

I hadn't grown much but I was definitely bloating. I still could only eat that McDonalds hamburger. I would try to eat other items and I would try so hard to just sit and hold it down but I always failed. I was always exhausted. I just wanted to sleep and eat. 

Week 10 came and I was finally able to see my OB. 

There is a bare belly picture. I didn't take many bare bellys and I still haven't. 

Here is baby Peanut Banegas at 10 weeks. The doctor at first couldn't find her on the ultrasound. She was starting to stress me out. She had called 3 different doctors in before sending me down to radiology. 

When I got there the tech asked why I was sent to him. I told him my OB couldn't find the baby or the baby's heartbeat. He laughed and said its right there and the heart rate was in the 150s! That was so comforting. 

The doctor made me also go to the lab that day (it was a Monday) and get blood work done and wanted me to come back to the lab Wednesday for my lab work. That annoyed me. I was already so over them taking my blood and I always got sick after they did too. A miserable thing. 

10 weeks photo wearing a similar outfit as 9 weeks. 

Pregnancy Week 7

I didn't start taking photos until week 9. But some exciting, well actually not so exciting things started with Week 7!

I was a day shy of actually being 7 weeks. It was a Friday and I had worked the lunch rush and a few extra hours after. It was a long day at work I can remember that. I had to rush home because E and I were hosting dinner for our friends. We were expecting about 8 people over for dinner.

When I got home I started dinner, I was making my green chicken enchiladas, rice and beans. Not too hard of a meal to prep and make. Especially after making it so many times, I can pretty much do it with my eyes closed. Once I got dinner going I needed to sweep, mop, and vacuum.

Needless to say I was not going to get to rest until our guests left later that evening. I didn't mind it one bit because I love company, but the beginning of my pregnancy was rough on my body. I was always exhausted and always so sick. Most days I would want to come home and just sleep. But this day I was excited about the company.

Our guests started to arrive and I was almost finished with dinner. Just waiting on a few items to finish cooking. The guys were hanging out in the living room and the girls were with me in the kitchen. We were laughing and having a great time. It was 6:30 and I had 7 minutes left before I could pull the enchiladas out of the oven. We were laughing so hard I felt like I had peed my pants. I stopped and said I would be right back. On my way to the bathroom I thought to myself I am way to early in my pregnancy to being peeing my pants due to laughter.

Once I got to the bathroom, my thoughts ended up being very correct for what I found was not urine but blood. So much blood I was in shock. I hadn't been cramping but the amount of blood that was there I just knew I was miscarrying our baby.

I took care of the mess and changed my shorts and went back down stairs to finish dinner and serve everyone. By this point I was sobbing. I couldn't control my tears or the sobs. I pulled the enchiladas out and as I did that my dear friend realized I was crying and asked what had happened. I told her and she tried to keep calm for me. She was who got me to tell E and go to the ER. She was fairly certain it wasn't a miscarriage since I wasn't cramping. But I couldn't believe her.

When we got to the ER they took me back right away for blood test and to take my vitals. Before they could finish they were ready to send me back for an ultrasound. The nurse who was taking care of me tried multiple times to calm me down and cheer me up with comforting words. During the ultrasound I'm still crying. E was unable to go back with me and that was super frustrating. Finally after what felt like 2 hours the sono tech turned the monitor towards me and showed me the baby. She showed me the baby's heart and showed how strong it was. That was comforting and helped the tears and sobs to stop.

I went back to finish my vitals and then sat in the waiting room for 2 hours with E. When they finally called me back they had to retake my blood. They finally had the results from the ultrasound and from the blood work. The blood work showed that I was RH-Negative. The ultrasound found a 2.8 cm subchorionic hemorrhage. The doctor explained it to me and let me know that my baby was fine. It wasn't affecting the baby at all. They did diagnose me with "threatened miscarriage" and those words stung. But I was put on pelvic rest and I was suppose to take it easy. He didn't put me on bed rest, but def. wanted and needed me to take it easy.

That was the scariest day of my life. I was so thankful to hear that my baby was fine. Since that night I've always assumed the worst with baby. I set goals for myself. My first one was to make it to 12 weeks. Once I hit that my next was to make it to 24 weeks. I remember telling E that I hadn't cried that much since the night he deployed. He was so calm the whole time. I could see it in his face he was sad and I think he was more sad for me than anything. But his strength was very helpful and comforting. He was a trooper the whole night. We had arrived at the ER at 7 and didn't get home until after midnight. We hadn't eaten and we were both starved. When we got back to the house my kitchen and living room were spotless. Our friends had cleaned up for us. The also ate so much of the enchiladas which made me very happy. E and I got our plates and then headed off to bed.

I continued to bleed for about a week and a half after that. It slowly lighted up. I was thankful when it stopped. I was terrified the whole time. I wasn't going to be seeing an OB until 10 weeks. But I lifted it up to God and He took care of us.

Few of my close friends know about this trip and most of our family knows about it. They were all terrified and they all continued to pray for us and that meant so much to us.

Let's Go Back

My friends from high school and I have this little giggle about my life. They always say I was going to be the first to get married and have lots of babies. If you know me, you know that this was at the top of my bucket list. Of course I wanted to go to school, and I have a passion to become a teacher, but my first top two items of my "to do list" was to get married and have babies.

Now it took me a couple years after high school before I knew I was ready to marry my best friend, my high school sweetheart. I knew in high school E was who I was going to marry and have this fantastic un-perfect, perfect family with. We were engaged May of 2009, married January 1, 2010, and by our first year of marriage I told E I was ready to start our family.

Of course E was a bit worried and not completely on board. We still hadn't "hit the fleet" and we knew that there would be a deployment coming up once we did. But none of that mattered to me. I just wanted a baby. I always just wanted a baby. We began "not, not trying" January of 2011. By that I mean we stopped being careful and was just putting it in God's hands. In my mind I thought for sure we would get pregnant pretty quick. I had never been on BC so it wasn't as if my body needed to clean itself out of that. I was turning 21 that year. I was young and healthy.

But month after month AF came and went. It wasn't until August of 2011 I started to "try, try." I started taking my temperature in the mornings. I was tracking my cycle on an app on my phone. I eating healthier. I was doing everything right (well at least I thought so). I didn't understand why I wasn't getting the one thing I wanted when everyone around me was on baby number 2, 3, or 4. It just wasn't fair.

By that month E started his pre-deployment training. He was away for all of September. Then once October hit he was home a week gone for two weeks. So this started to make things even more difficult to get pregnant. I had gone to my doctor there at the base hospital and they weren't concerned, but they weren't willing to run any tests to figure out any issues until we'd been trying for 2 years. That was annoying and heartbreaking in itself.

In November of 2011 my sister found out she was expecting her first baby. That killed me. It wasn't fair. I hated her, and I was so jealous. I was angry with God and I didn't understand why. That was when my life went dark, and I became a bitter person.

For the beginning of 2012 E was doing that one-two weeks home, two weeks gone. Some months it was "perfect" timing, and other months it just wasn't helpful. My sister had baby Matthew in August and I fell in love with him instantly through photos of course. I wasn't able to come to Texas for the birth because E was deploying the next month. Sister and Matthew came the first week of September and he was only a month old. It was so fun getting to enjoy and meet him for that week. Watching E with him melt/broke my heart.

The second weekend of September I had to say goodbye "see you later" to E as he sailed off on his long "fishing trip" (that's what I called it). So TTC for baby was definitely put on hold.

 In February 2013 my sister found out she was expecting baby number 2. That was just annoying. I still wanted just one baby and I wasn't even able to try for my baby, yet she was starting her pregnancy with number 2. I was bitter for the first few months but then we found out she was having a girl and I was ecstatic. She gave me my first nephew and now she was giving me my first niece. At that point I decided I would just spoil her kids since I wasn't having any of my own. (I had said earlier that I hated her, I don't hate my sister. I love her and I'm blessed to have her and those kids in my life).

Then E came home from deployment and he was more then ready to start TTC for our baby. Before he was just going through the motions for me because it was what I wanted. Of course if we had gotten pregnant he would have been happy but it wasn't killing him like it was killing me. It killed him to see me so unhappy though. But after 3 months and AF still coming I was annoyed and heartbroken. I could see that it bugged him as well even though he wouldn't say anything. At the end of July he said that he thought it would be best to just put TTC on hold for a year or so since he was getting out of the Marines in December and starting school again in January. He wanted us to get on our feet and into a routine. I was sad about that but I was also tried of being sad every time AF came and went.

The weekend of August 24th I was out in town with a friend and her daughter. I had been feeling funny for a couple of days and wanting to eat items I normally wouldn't eat. We went to this restaurant that is one of my favorites and I ordered a hamburger smothered in chili. It was the yummiest thing in the world. (now I don't think I would eat that today lol) 

August 27th I was on my day off. I had woken up and I was feeling very flu like. I couldn't figure out why I had zero energy and why I just wanted to sleep and felt like I would throw up if I ate. I decided that since I had a pregnancy test in my bathroom I would just take it to rule that out and just get rid of the test. I didn't think I would see what I saw when I sat it down and looked at it. 

I sat there stunned. In shock. I couldn't move. The only thing I did was say out loud "oh shit." I can still remember how I felt when I was looking at this, that day. I knew it was wrong. So I stole a test from my friend who was living with us at the time. 

At that point I had lost my mind. I couldn't breathe. I texted that friend first (I'm so mad I didn't screenshot the text). I sent her a picture of the tests and below them I said OMG OMG OMG. 

I told two other close friends and the three of them freaked out with me. When one got off work we headed to the hospital to confirm it with a blood test. I was still not fully believing it. So while we were waiting for the results I was preparing myself for the doctor to tell me that I had two false positives. When he finally came (we waited a good 3 hours) His words were "yep you are definitely pregnant. I'd say about 6 weeks."  

By the time I got home it was past 9pm and E was already in bed asleep. I had debated telling him that night or wait until the next morning. I couldn't wait because I was so shocked, excited, and scared. I woke him up and told him. He just looked at me and said "really?" and then rolled back over and went back to sleep. I laugh about it now haha, but that night was wasn't impressed with his reaction. But the next morning as we were sitting on the beach I could tell he was pretty excited. Nervous since we would be starting a new chapter in just a few months, but still excited. I think he just needed to process it, or I should have just waited until the morning haha. 

I am sorry this was such a long post but there was just alot of information I felt was needed to get to August 27th!