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Thank you all so much for all of your sweet comments here and on Facebook!  It was so fun to read them all...it was just like my birthday! :)  We had been keeping this a secret for so long, it was so nice to finally make the final announcement.

Baby at 11 weeks

I wanted to share a little bit about this pregnancy, so I can get it recorded!  With Andrew, I kept a separate journal (believe it or not, I never started blogging until he was 6 months old!  Imagine that!  So much time went by that I didn't get online!  Ha!)  and I love looking back in the journal and seeing all the special things that we did during our pregnancy.  I also love to look back and remember when I first felt him kick, and my feelings and emotions since we found out about his special heart.

~ 12 Weeks ~ 

I already look huge!  Ha!  I popped really quick this time around.  People at my school were starting to ask questions, so I had to announce a little sooner than I wanted to!  It is hard when you see people every day and have to hide this giant belly!  

Many of you were so sweet to remember our initial struggle with infertility.  And the struggle continued with this baby.  We tried to get pregnant on our own right after Andrew turned two.  I knew that I would want to see our fertility doctor again eventually if it didn't happen, but Craig wasn't so sure.  We were both (and still are!) very worried about this baby's heart and everything possibly happening again.  I guess I was more willing to let it go because I knew how badly I wanted another child.  I was desperate for Andrew to have a sibling.  He loves kids so much, and he is so sweet with babies, I just had "the itch" right away!  I really never doubted it for a moment.  Craig gave in eventually (ha!) and when I wasn't pregnant last summer, he agreed to go back to the doctor with me.

And so it began... another struggle with fertility drugs and doctor's appointments.  It was much harder this time around, because I decided to keep this a secret from my mom.  Shocking, I know!  Ha!  I tell my mom pretty much every single detail of our lives, so this was very hard.  I was determined to surprise her this time around, because with Andrew she was a part of everything.  The whole time we were going through infertility, the roller coaster of emotions we went through when we found out about Andrew's heart... I could go on and on.  Basically this time I wanted to spare her the "worry" part and just let her have fun! :)

We went through three cycles of fertility treatments and one failed IUI.  I was getting worried we were going to have to do In-Vitro again, but we were thrilled to discover that our second IUI worked!  I was shocked and very surprised.  I could never describe the feeling of seeing the "plus" sign appear on that pregnancy test.  I just couldn't believe it was true!  Andrew and I were home alone since Daddy was at school at an event, so I threw him in the car and we went shopping!  We got him Baby Ruth and Sugar Babies and we also bought him a balloon and tied it to the pregnancy test.  I took a quick picture of Andrew in his "Big Brother" shirt (which I have had for about 3 years and happened to buy a 4T, thinking it would take a while before he'd wear it!  It fit perfectly!) and we made a card for daddy and put the picture in it.  Craig's face was priceless when he got home!  It was very fun to get to surprise him, too.

We had a little bit of worry at the beginning when my HCG levels weren't doubling right away (there always has to be some drama, right!?)  But this baby is obviously a fighter just like it's brother, and it is definitely a miracle, and meant to be.  While we are a little nervous that this baby could also have a heart defect, we are putting our faith in God and we know that God sent us this special baby for a reason, and that it is exactly the baby that it is supposed to be.

As for Andrew, this is what he really thinks...

Ha!  Every time we ask him if he wants a brother or a sister (not does he want one, but which one does he want) he says "NOOOOOOOOO!"  It is really funny.  I think now he just says it because everyone always laughs when he says it.  He knows there is a baby in mommy's tummy and once in a while he'll kiss it and touch it.  When I ask him if we should have a baby come and live with us he smiles and says "yeah" so I think he'll come around to the idea!  Ha!  He is really so gentle and sweet with babies.  He smiles and loves on them whenever he sees them.  I am really not very worried about his reaction to this baby (maybe I should be!) but I think he's going to love it so much.  He has never been jealous of me with other babies or anything, and he's never been so attached to me that he won't let me hold another child.  Although, like I said to Craig, all those babies went home eventually!  Ha! 

For the thumbs down picture, I was trying to get him to give a thumbs up, but he didn't quite get it!  Ha!

Lots of people have asked if we want to find out what the gender is.  I have mixed feelings on this one!  With Andrew, our plan was to be surprised.  Until we found out at 20 weeks that he had a heart condition.  Then we felt we needed to know so we could bond with him.  We figured when he was born the gender was going to be the least of our concern, and we would worry more about whether he was breathing, or alive.  So we found out.

This time I'd like that opportunity to be surprised.  There are so few real surprises in life, that this would just be so fun to wait.  However, the truth is...I don't think I can wait!  Ha!  I think with the second child, it is easier to know the gender so you know what you'll need.  Obviously, if it is a boy we'll need very little!  So, I think given our next opportunity, we will find out.  We've had several ultrasounds already, and baby has quite a fast heart rate (which tends to lean towards girl), and I've been more sick this time around than I was with Andrew.  Thankfully, it is starting to get better now that I'm at the start of my second trimester.  The bottom line is, we don't care if it is a boy or a girl, we just want a healthy baby with a healthy heart.

This is baby's whole body- it's little legs are sticking up in the air!  When I had this ultrasound, I got so excited and I just teared up because baby was moving around so much!  It was very active and flipping all over the place!  I couldn't believe that I couldn't feel it, but the tech reminded me that it was only about 2 inches big at that point!

Ironically enough,  I will be 20 weeks when we are in Iowa City for Andrew's heart surgery.  It is then that they can do the fetal echo to check baby's heart.  We figured while we are in Iowa City, we'll go ahead and have them do the ultrasound, since I don't think I can wait until we are back home.  So while my son is in the hospital recovering from open heart surgery, Craig and I will walk down the hall to see if our second child will one day have the same needs.  We can only pray continuously that we will get some bright news on that day.  Something to celebrate while in the midst of CHD world.  Faith will get us through, and hope will sustain us.

I love this one- baby's head with it's little arm, hand and fingers up by it's face.  He/she surely isn't going to be shy!  Ha!

Thank you for being our support group.  Thank you for the kind messages and prayers.  While we are nervously anticipating Andrew's upcoming heart surgery, we are so thankful and grateful that God has brought this miracle into our lives.  Something to celebrate and somewhere else to have our minds rest.  Thank you for joining us in prayer for Andrew's surgery, and also for our new little life that we have so much hope for!