Baby Rabon #2!

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you probably saw this handsome face telling the world that he’s going to be a big brother! We couldn’t be more thrilled with this incredible miracle that God is doing in our lives.

We’ve had a rough road to being parents. It took some heartbreak, resilience and faith to get from our first pregnancy to having Jonathan. He’s the answer to so many prayers, and the tiny love of my life. Stephen and I have always felt strongly that we wanted him to have a sibling, so trying to expand our family is something that we have always planned on.

Roughly a year and a half after Jonathan was born, we decided to start trying for another little one. Since we had finally had a successful pregnancy, we thought it would be easier this time. Bottom line, it wasn’t. I read a great article lately on what secondary infertility feels like, emotionally & mentally. If you want to get a glimpse into that, you can read it here.

In July of 2017, we hit two years of trying without getting pregnant. While we didn’t have to work through multiple miscarriages this time, we just didn’t get pregnant. That was hard in a different way. It was at this point that I decided to be an adult and do something that scared me. I met with an OBGYN and talked it all over with her. She proceeded to order blood work to test hormone levels and ensure that I was actually ovulating. Everything came back normal. The next step was a hysterosalpingogram. This is a procedure in which they use an x-ray to determine whether or not the fallopian tubes are blocked and can check the shape of the uterus. There was slight concern about scar tissue from having to get the placenta medically removed after Jonathan’s birth. It’s also decidedly painful. Everything came back normal.

Starting testing was a big step for me. It required me to open the door to being told there was something wrong. Thankfully, nothing was wrong. Which is obviously good news, but also left us with the question of why we weren’t getting pregnant. It also had the possibility of opening a pandora’s box of fertility treatments of various levels of invasiveness, time commitment, and expense. Now, I would do anything and sell everything I own to have Jonathan. But I also recognized that if Jonathan is the only child we ever got to have, that I would be completely content with our beautiful family of three. Honestly, if we only had one child, you couldn’t ask for a better one than the one we’ve got. I mean, look at this boy:

After all of the tests came back (Sept), we decided that we would wait until January to see about getting Stephen tested. That would allow us to enjoy the holidays without having such a heavy burden on our minds.

So I focused on my journey with Macroholics & Fitness Blender – and we went about our lives. Imagine my complete surprise when just a couple months later, I started to have suspicions that I could be pregnant. On November 10, I decided to pull the trigger and take a test. Stephen was in the shower getting ready for work and I snuck into Jonathan’s bathroom to take the test. Waiting for the result, surrounded by Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and the rest of the Avengers & Justice League, was pretty humorous. Then there it was. In plain English: pregnant.

I snuck back into our room, in shock, really. Jonathan woke up and joined me in waiting for Stephen. When Stephen got out of the shower, I told Jonathan to go show Daddy his shirt. He was wearing this:

I contacted my doctor and she had us come in for an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy and ensure the baby was properly located. There he or she was, a tiny little dot of perfection. Heartbeat and all.

We had another ultrasound when we switched insurance and had to change to a new OBGYN practice. Here’s our little person at 9 weeks 2 days.

He or she was DANCING. Moving those cute little paddle arms and legs around. I just wanted to cry from the insane amount of joy.

We’re 16.5 weeks now and looking forward to our 20 week ultrasound in a few weeks. I can’t wait to see our little person again. We’re going to take Jonathan so he can see the baby. We think it’ll make the whole thing more real to him, and he LOVES watching his own ultrasound video and hearing/seeing the heartbeat. We’re also planning to find out the gender of the baby this time. I mean, we still have time to change our minds if we decide to want to torture you all again. Finding out will help us with naming, since we’re totally blank on boys’ names – maybe we’ll need one, maybe we won’t!