It's A...............

Hi Everyone! It's a NEW MONTH! I am currently 15 weeks and 4 days pregnant!
I AM FINALLY FINISHED WITH DAILY INJECTIONS and extra medications to help keep this pregnancy viable! My body has now taken over naturally and everything is going great! (Except for daily nausea and vomiting) 70 injections... DONE!

Since my last post, I've had an appointment with a nurse practitioner at my OB office. We talked about my past pregnancies, health, and blood work to check for any issues. I was able to have the Intended Mother on a video call with me so she was able to get any questions answered and just chat with the nurse practitioner. Since the parents live in New Jersey, it is nice that they can at least be a video call away! Technology is WONDERFUL!

The first appointment includes a TON of blood work. Most of it is just routine things that are checked but we also decided to do the Prequel Blood Test. This blood test is a non-invasive prenatal screen that uses cell-free DNA (cfDNA) to determine if a pregnancy is at an increased risk for common chromosome abnormalities, such as Down syndrome. It also can tell you the gender if you're interested in knowing that already!

The parents definitely wanted to know the gender, and since I've been saying I'm SURE it's a boy, we were all curious. Typically it takes 10 days to get your results back, but to my surprise, 4 days later in the morning, I got a call from the OB office letting me know they already had the results! The baby is fine and healthy (as determined by blood testing), and they asked if I wanted to know the gender and of course, I said YES! They told me and I knew I wanted to do something special for the parents to reveal to them whether the baby was BOY or GIRL!

My kids and I decided to load a box full of balloons and then video chat the parents to let them know. I wasn't able to get the balloons until the next day and it was SO hard not to just tell them that I already knew. I text the Mom and asked her if we could video chat the next evening. The next day I raced home from work with a car full of balloons and the kids and I got them packed in a box for the big reveal. We got on the call, chatted for a minute, and then.........

IT'S A GIRL!

To say I was surprised is an understatement! I almost 100% thought I was carrying a boy! I had the same symptoms and cravings as I did with my own son so I just assumed it was a boy. The parents (& their daughter!) are so happy and I am glad we were able to do this video call with them.

We have scheduled our 20-week ultrasound for mid-August and the family is planning to come to that appointment. I cannot wait to FINALLY meet them face to face and give them a big hug!