Dash-3 Is ON BOARD!

So, if you want to truly know what receiving a miraculous answer to prayer feels like, post something on FB, have a ton of people offer encouragement, support and mostly, PRAYER...get on your knees and beg God to listen to your and others' prayers and wait.

(Which of course, is the excruciating part!)

Yesterday morning, I was pretty sure I was miscarrying.  I have no experience with miscarriage, but I know that bright red blood and cramping are not usually great things, nor were they anything I experienced with Matthew or Luke.  Considering how miserable I've felt (and really...I've been SICK!  Almost as bad as when I had H1N1 last year!) and how worried I was about how my illness could have affected the baby, when you throw in the blood and the cramping...like I said, pretty much felt it was over.

Throughout the day, I got email after email/text/message telling me not to give up hope because this was common and there were other reasons than just losing the baby that I could be bleeding.

I wasn't so sure, but honestly, as the day wore on, I felt more and more encouraged.  The bleeding pretty much stopped (and I figured if it was miscarriage, it would get worse) and the cramping lessened.  By the end of the night, I started to feel like maybe...just maybe...maybe we could still have a miracle.

John seemed pretty upbeat, and even though I didn't want to get my hopes up, truly, my gut said to just hold on.

You know, though, what kind of speaking terms my gut and I have been on lately, of course.  Not so easy.

But then I thought, maybe it wasn't my gut.  I really feel like God was just telling me to wait.

I sort of had some internal conversation with God...

"Lori, trust Me.  You specifically asked for a healthy brother or sister for Luke and Matthew.  I think I've made it pretty clear with how amazing things have turned that I'm working that for you."

"I know, God...but You promised me Matthew too."

"I gave him to you."

"You didn't let me keep him."

"I never tell anyone how long they get to keep anyone.  Not your business...Mine.  Make the most of every second I give you with anyone you love."

"Well I love this baby.  I want this baby.  This baby is a miracle."

"Umm...I KNOW!  I gave her (yes, I think it's a girl) to you.  Wait in me.  Strength will rise when you wait on me."

(Cue music again...and by the way, the week we found out we were pregnant, we sang that song at church...so before we found out Luke was coming and right after we found out this baby was coming!)

"Lori.  You said you wouldn't worry about anything until you had a reason to worry.  Don't live through a miscarriage you may not even have.  Deal with it tomorrow, if that's what happens.  But treasure that baby now."

"Gulp.  Ok."

So, even though I was nervous, nervous, nervous...I oddly felt like this was going to be one of those miracles.  I didn't know how...but I just felt like it could be.

AND IT WAS!

The doctor had a difficult time finding anything initially because she didn't have enough gel (she was a resident, and very nice!) so the sonographer helped her and helped her move me up on the table.  At first, the only thing obvious was that my ovaries are still VERY enlarged (did NOT need an ultrasound for that, trust me... I feel it!)...but I didn't see anything.  Nothing.  NOTHING.  I started to tear up and then all of a sudden, the tech said, "Hey, hey...there's your peanut!!!"  and then John said, "I see the heartbeat!!!"

TEARS.  TEARS.  MORE TEARS.

There was a sweet little baby with a sweet little heartbeat and I was overjoyed.  As I thanked God, I then said, "Well, why am I bleeding??? What's going on????"  The doctor and tech said it looked as if there were the 'remains' (such a harsh word) of another and it just didn't continue...so, that would explain why my HCG levels were off the charts...and also explain why I was bleeding.  They suspect it was a twin.  She said that often, there may not even be any blood..."Disappearing Twin" and that it actually was fairly common in IVF pregnancies, especially when two embryos were transferred.  The official terminology was "a sonolucent area representing a 2nd gestational sac with no fetal pole."

So, of course.  That is sad.  Sad, sad, sad.  And worse, I feel so terrible because as sad as that makes me, I am just so overjoyed and relieved that the peanut we saw on Friday shared a beautiful heartbeat with us today! 122!!!

Dr. P talked to us after and said it was very common to miss a twin (especially one that was not going to make it) when we scanned at 5w5d and so that a lot of things made sense and today was great news.

You know, here's a secret.  I only told John...not even my doctors...on Thursday, I had a little bit of bleeding too.  I won't get graphic, but it was weird.  Sort of out of the blue and not really much of anything I gave any credence to because it was just so weird.  It wasn't a lot, and I just thought, "Hmm. Well, blood sometimes happens."  Now, knowing what we know and seeing what we saw today...I think even then we were losing that little one.

This all boils down to....DASH-3 is ON BOARD!!!  We are thrilled and just so, so grateful.

Thank you ALL for the prayers.  Isn't it amazing what things can be done when asked for in His name?

Here are a few pics of our little one...already giving us a run for our money!

To me, this looks like a parrot sitting on it's ring...the baby is the parrot part and the ring is the yolk sac.

Welcome to our family, little one!!!