We’re Having a Baby
I’ve been saying this a lot this week or some variation of it. We have been excitedly sharing our news with family and close friends in preparation for posting it publicly today. First, I’ll share all the details on Baby Schneider/MPC, my nickname for the little one, and then I’ll share a little about how we got here.
Baby Schneider is due May 20, 2021. As of September 24, MPC measured at exactly 6 weeks and had a heartbeat of 115 bpm. I’m having some mild morning sickness in the form of queasiness and an uneasy stomach throughout the day. Overall, we are both doing pretty well.
So not everyone knows this, but we had been trying for a little over a year before a positive pregnancy test. However, God’s plan is so much better than our own and I have learned that so much this past year.
When Michael and I got married, we always figured we would wait a couple years before we had kids. We wanted sometime to spend as a couple and get settled into our life together before adding a third person to our family. In March 2019, I started to get migraines. I wrote them off as stress triggered. The building I manage was under contract and there was uncertainty about my job and I lost my great grandmother. I struggled through the migraines and figured there was not much that could be done.
In July, I was getting ready for work when I lost vision completely in my left eye. It only lasted about 5 minutes, but we went to the ER to have it checked out. The ER doctor confirmed that it was most likely just a symptom of the migraines, but recommended that I see a neurologist. All that back story to say that at my first visit to my neurologist, he took me off birth control as it increased my risk for stroke.
Michael and I decided together that if I was going to come off birth control anyway, we might as well start trying for a baby. So for the next year, we tried a lot of different things. I did ovulation tests, I counted days, I took my temperature every morning at the exact same time and I prayed a lot.
At my annual well visit in March of this year, my OB/GYN made me an appointment for the end of August to talk about infertility and our options if I still was not pregnant. The next five months, I really tried to let go and let God. If infertility was part of His plan for us, we would walk through it faithfully.
The next five months flew by and no pregnancy. Due to COVID, Michael was not able to go with me to my appointment with my OB/GYN. They took some blood and ordered some more tests for both Michael and I at a local fertility center. It felt like no answers and potentially another 5 months of just trying before a real plan was put in place. Little did I know what God had planned for two weeks later.
We spent Labor Day weekend at a lake house with my family for my mom’s birthday. As I was packing, I checked my calendar and made sure to pack a heat pad and tampons. At the last minute, I threw in an at home pregnancy test too. The weekend was relaxing and I didn’t think about it too much, but Sunday night with no signs of Aunt Flo, I decided to take the test the next morning.
When the word Pregnant came across the screen, I was beyond excited. I woke Michael up and showed him, still not quite believing it myself. We had just celebrated our second anniversary a week ago and now we were going to be parents. I used an app to calculate my due date as May 15. We decided to keep it to ourselves for a couple weeks since it was so early. I made my first prenatal appointment the next day. They scheduled me out a couple weeks so that I could have an ultrasound.
At what we were counting as 6 weeks, we told our parents and siblings. Everyone is so excited for this new baby and new chapter for our family.
I went in last Thursday at what was supposed to be 6 weeks and 5 days. Michael was not allowed to come to the appointment so I called him on Google Meetings and together we saw our baby for the first time and the little heartbeat. MPC measured at 6 weeks exactly which my OB says it perfectly normal and she adjusted the due date to May 20.
To say that we are ecstatic is an understatement. It has been a long year of a lot of let downs and even more prayers. Now my prayers sound a little different. I am daily fighting against anxiety and worry. I pray for health for me and the baby, but most of all for peace and trust in God’s perfect plan, whatever that may be.