What’s this? A post?! My goodness I know it’s been FOREVER… but is there a better way to ring in a new year than to share something new? Let’s dive in!
New Year’s Eve 2023 I announced we were expecting our Mic Drop – the final addition to our family. I hesitated for a long time about sharing because I had such a hard time accepting that the pregnancy was real. Hold on, lemme explain!
In 2020 I somehow convinced my husband that we should give it a go for one more…
In November 2022, I suffered my second ectopic pregnancy and my husband was *not* keen on me risking my life one last time. That was embryo #7 since we started our journey to #3 in March 2021.
I think I’ve said it before that IVF is very taxing physically and mentally. After a therapy session post ectopic, I was left with one question to help make a decision on our final embryo: “can you live with whatever decision you make?”. I gave myself until the end of Summer to go wild and have fun before making a decision that had the potential to shake things up for us. So in September 2023, I contacted my fertility doctor. I came to this conclusion: I need to transfer this embryo. If it doesn’t work, I’m ok. If it does, we’ll be expanding our family! I’m ok with either outcome but I’d never be ok discarding that embryo. Now, luckily for me, I’m very in tuned with body. My husband knows this and that’s why he was ok (after more convincing) with this final transfer. I just couldn’t throw away the last fruit of my labor. And it was better to do it sooner than after I turned 40 (for me).
So we transferred… shortly after I had a hematoma that presented with a lot of bleeding so I thought:
“ok! This is it… no baby. I’ll be ok.”
But after an ultrasound this little stinker was there bouncing around having the time of their life! There was more cramping, more bleeding… and every time I went in, sure I’ll be receiving bad news, they kept growing stronger and thriving. This was embryo #8 in two years so forgive me for not having the most positive mindset.
Well! After all of that in my first trimester, I had an uneventful pregnancy. I was of “advanced maternal age” and this was an IVF pregnancy so I had an extra scan or two but otherwise I survived. I’d promised myself that my next pregnancy I would continue working out (I’m not young anymore!) and I did that until about 33.5weeks (8 months). This was also my first full term C-section. The last ectopic pregnancy had to be removed via C-section and being pregnant almost an exact year later after it meant I had to have a C-section to reduce the risk of uterine rupture.
I wanted my older two to be involved. Every week, we’d watch the short What to Expect videos to see how the baby was growing and developing. It was exciting for them and I was happy to keep them involved. As this was our last embryo ever, I requested to not know the sex of the baby at transfer. Something else I wanted to experience with the kids. I always wanted 2 boys and a girl, so I was ecstatic when we did our little gender reveal at home and found out it was a boy. I kept lots of items from my son in hopes of having another little boy and it’s been so sweet to see #3 wearing them!
So that was the journey to number three in a nutshell. We’re now a family of 5 and I’m always in shock that I have 3 kids. I say “my son” referring to my eldest and then “the baby” is my second son. My older kids are helpful and I believe everything happened when it was supposed to. Having the kids be older and more self sufficient was a huge plus. Having both my parents and my MIL be retired and able to help us until the end of the year was icing on the cake. I’m forever grateful for that.
I don’t know what 2025 holds but I also don’t see us slowing down. We have one life to live and we’re going to enjoy it.
Just a Dash 