so much to be THANKFUL for!

So this is a belated Thanksgiving post... We spent part of this past week at the deer lease, where Cooter shot the best buck he's ever killed. It was a great trip...and best of all, my morning sickness is slowly fading so I wasn't miserable the whole time! I forgot my good camera at home...go figure he'd shoot a good buck since I didn't have it. I had the case, lenses, etc. but no camera. People warned me that the baby would eat my brain...but seriously?!? The act of forgetting things is an everyday occurrence now. Here's Cooter with his buck.

Seeing as I outgrew my jeans a couple weeks ago, I got to give my new maternity jeans a good try while we were there. Turns out, they are pretty cute with cowboy boots too! Mom and Nicole went overboard on a shopping spree to Motherhood Maternity a couple weeks ago. Here's the loot mom gave me to get started... I am SO blessed! Can you read the red shirt on the bottom?...it says Tis the season to be pregnant. Cute. I will be wearing this every couple of days till Christmas!

That same day the clothes fairy visited me, I went to Pearland to see Jeremy and Nicole as they closed on their first house! So excited for them!

So on to baby news because I know that's why you are all such loyal followers. We raced home from the deer lease Wednesday for our last appointment with the fertility specialist. I got a call halfway home asking us if we could either come in early (um no could do...we were miles down I-10) or take our appointment to The Woodlands office. So we did. We actually saw our doctor for a minute...which we haven't seen since I quit my shots. The nurses do all of my ultrasounds and the doctors just help get the babies made. When he walked in I got nervous, like something was wrong...turns out it was just a misunderstanding. He thought we were sent to The Woodlands because we needed to see him (i.e. pregnancy complications), but our office was just short staffed that day. He stayed long enough for the nurse to start the ultrasound, saw a wiggly baby and beating heart, congratulated us and left! I LOVE feeling such trust from the doctor!

So this was by far, the best ultrasound we've had yet. I keep saying that... Immediately the nurse commented on seeing a good strong heartbeat. She measured it and it was 156bpm. I asked if that was okay since we have steadily fallen in the last couple of weeks and she said anything over 120 is normal. Also, the baby was more or less resting again this week...not that we didn't see our fair share of wiggles though! It had flipped around again. Each week, its head it on the opposite side of the sac. So weird to know how much the baby is flipping around inside me and I don't feel a thing. Soon I will though! The baby is the size of a lime this week...measuring about an inch and three quarters today and will be two inches within a few more days! Amazing! During most of the ultrasound the baby had hiccups. Do you know how adorably cute it is to watch it hiccuping on the monitor?!? Its whole little body would twitch and then lay back down. The nurse said I would start feeling the hiccups in the next month or so. Yay! I was 10w4d at this appointment, but the baby measured 10w6d. Anything within a couple of days is good. At this point, I like seeing it jump ahead like that! Grow, baby grow! Here's June bug this week with is feet curled up. Feet are on the left, head on the right.
As adorably cute as we found the hiccups...we were once again stunned by cuteness as the baby took a big stretch. Its legs stretched all the way out and both hands went up. We could see fingers and toes... What a sight! The legs are stretched out of the left (see its little feet?!?) and one hand is to the side and the other is up by the face.
Then as if we hadn't had enough ooooh and aaaaahs for the day, the nurse was able to get a shot from the baby's bottom half. This picture is a little harder to understand... The two white dots on the bottom of the pic are the bottom of its feet. The legs are curled up in the fetal position so we don't really see much of them. Then if you look upward there is another dot in the middle of the pic. That is the answer to the heated debate...boy or girl?!? Those are the parts, ladies and gentleman, but we just can't seem them enough in detail yet.

Oh how I wish they would keep me there another couple of weeks and then we'd know early! The nurse did hint a bit that she thought it looked awfully boyish, but she couldn't give us any more than 50% accuracy...lol. Cooter is convinced though...even calls it "he" when he talks about it. Speaking of talking about the baby...I LOVE to hear Cooter go on and on about the baby. I LOVE watching him show off the ultrasound pics and hear his description of each one and recount what a wonderful experience we had at our appointment. So sweet. He's going to be such a great daddy.

And the appointment just got even better! Yes, there was still room for more excitement... We HEARD our baby's beating heart for the first time! It is the most beautiful music to a pregnant momma's ears! Nothing is sweeter than that swishly thump-thump of your baby's heart beating. Typically the specialist didn't have the ability to hear the heartbeat, just see it via ultrasound. They don't deal with much prenatal care outside of watching the first 10-12 weeks of growth and development. However, they had just received new software for the ultrasound machines and this was the nurse's first attempt to see if it worked. Boy, did it!

It was a bittersweet day as we said good-bye to Houston Fertility Institute. We feel so lucky to have been brought to their care. They are such an attentive, caring staff. We know this is a good thing. The baby is doing well enough to graduate to the OB full time now. We're just going to miss our weekly sneak peeks at the little guy. We left that last appointment on such a high...thrill after thrill, goofy smiles are our face as we carried all of the pictures of our baby out to the car. No videos this week...the files didn't save to my thumb drive for some reason. I might make a drive to The Woodlands this week to retrieve them. Next appointment is with our OB on December 7. We are doing NT screening (more info on that later) and will be having an ultrasound...yay! Then we probably won't see the baby until late January...

We had a busy, but wonderful Thanksgiving with the family. We spent Thanksgiving eve sitting in the garage with the neighbors. Always a good time. Thanksgiving Day, we dropped Laila off at Jeremy and Nicole's new pad so she could spend the day with her aunt, uncle and grandparents. Cooter and I took of to the Gonzalez house for turkey dinner.

Cooter and I Thanksgiving Day

Justin and Emily

After turkey, I headed over to my parents house to watch the Aggies beat UT in the annual Thanksgiving game. Jeremy even gave Laila a Maroon Out shirt to wear during the game. Cooter and the guys headed up to the deer lease for another weekend of hunting.

See, SO much to be thankful for! Big bucks, new houses, precious time well spent with friends and family, growing, hiccuping, stretching baby in my belly, and Ags win! What a wonderful end to an amazing holiday! Now, time for Christmas!!!

still growing

I started taking belly pics last week. I have belly pics from my other two pregnancies too, much earlier than 9wks, but I just couldn't bring myself to start documenting things until I felt more comfortable with the pregnancy. This was taken about an hour after I woke up last Saturday morning. Most of my belly disappears over night, but within the last week or so, I wake up with a little bump. Then as I eat and drink (I drink TONS of water), it grows throughout the day.

Each week our appointments get a little more nerving. We should be feeling more relieved and excited with each passing week, but when you suffer through a missed miscarriage, you learn to fear the future. The days approaching our appointment we talk about how excited we are to see the baby again, but when we find ourselves in the waiting room, we are nerve struck immediately. After finding out solely through ultrasound that the last baby's heart stopped beating, we developed a learned behavior to fear each passing appointment. We have to stop our neurotic thoughts and remind ourselves of everything we've seen the past 5 weeks. The baby is noticeably bigger and definitely more human looking each week, the heart rate steadily climbed and has remained strong ever since and we've now seen it wiggling around 3 weeks in a row! I asked the nurse today when she feels that I'm in the clear. She said there's really two points they look at...8wks and 12wks. We have healthily passed the 8wk mark with flying colors. In about 2 weeks I will be at the 12wk mark. Today was supposed to be my last appointment with the fertility doctor, but after seeing how nervous we still are and how incredibly relieved we are once we see the baby's heart beating, she told us we could come back one more week if that would make us feel better. Of course we jumped all over that! So we will squeeze in before Thanksgiving next Wednesday afternoon. She told me to look at it as a graduation point. They wouldn't release me if they didn't feel that the pregnancy was going well enough. Always constantly reminding ourselves of things like that... Neurotic, I'm telling you!

Our June Bug!

Here's the stats from this week's appointment... The baby is almost 3cm long now...that's about an inch and a quarter. In a few days it will be about the size of a prune! Its measurements are back on track. If you remember last week, it gained 2 days. Just a little growth spurt! Its 9w5d this week, which is right on with our dates. I'll be 10 weeks on Saturday. It didn't want to move as much for us this week as it did last week. I had terrible indigestion and nausea last night and didn't sleep well so I thought maybe the baby was catching up on sleep. This week's heart rate was 163bpm, which is lower than last week, but still high. With the baby not moving as much today, that's still a good resting heart rate. The flicker of its heartbeat isn't as obvious anymore as more internal organs are developing inside our little one every day. The arms and legs have grown significantly since last week...all 4 limbs were very clear on the monitor. We were able to see a good shot of the brain today. If you look in the 2nd pic, the head is up and the dark circle at the top is the brain. So neat to know that it already has a mind of its own! The placenta was still really clear and the baby is taking up more and more space in there. Eventually it will start to stretch and take up that entire gestational sac (the black circle around the baby). If you look really closely in the last picture, you can see facial features! Most of the pic is the head...we were peeking at its brain when we got this shot. You can see eyes, nose and mouth...the baby was looking right at us in the pic. On the monitor we got a good frontal shot of the baby and could see the arms and legs on both sides of the body. Its so awesome to see it actually looking like a baby now!

It did wiggle for just a bit and I say this every time, but I am forever in awe of that image. It is so breath-taking watching it on the monitor. When I plugged in my thumb drive to edit the video, I giggled out loud after watching it. I will watch it over and over until we see it again in person. It doesn't just move its head and body now, it moves its arms and legs all around. Such a proud momma!

it wiggles, it waves!

There are not words to describe how amazing it is to watch the life we created growing inside me.

Quite possibly the best doctor's appointment yet! First of all, little baby blob is no longer blobular, but looking much more human like! If I haven't said this repeatedly, I'll say it again...it is SO awesome to get to watch your little one's growth each week. It is incredible how much bigger it is this week than last! The baby measured 9weeks 0 days today, which is 2 days early (bigger). The nurse calls it super baby. While in awe of how much more we could see this week, the baby started wiggling around. The head is as big as the body right now, so you see movements between the head and trunk, like twitches. It moved over and over and we just started giggling! The nurse decided to take a video of the movement and of course the baby chilled out and just laid there. Since it was still, she decided to measure the heart rate, and its started dancing around again...so cute. The heart rate is 174bpm! That is a wonderfully strong heartbeat! She zoomed in for us to see its arm and leg buds...I say buds because they are not fully extended yet, just little small extensions off the body. As she zoomed in and pointed to one of the arms, it waved at us! I gasped and we both started giggling all over again. WOW, that was just the best thing we could've asked to see. If you look closely in the 2nd pic, you can see its little legs. The baby is upside down, so the legs are up and to the left. She said next week we might be able to hear the heartbeat out loud. The placenta is nice and clear, a perfect little circle surrounding the baby (you can see it in all of the pics). If you look at the 3rd pic, it is a little more blurry, but it is zoomed to see the umbilical cord. Actually in that pic, you can very clearly see the head and body. The line that goes straight down is the cord. On the monitor, we could actually see the blood flow through the cord. She took a video of the blood flow too...our baby's life line.

See the video below. The flicker in the middle of the baby is the heartbeat. Watch it twitch and its little feet kick! It wouldn't dance like it was for the video, but still breath-taking!



Thank you to everyone that has continuously kept our family in your prayers. We thank God for every day we have with this baby. Watching it grow is such a blessing.

2 baby pictures

We were lucky enough to get to see our baby twice in one day! Last week's gummi bear grew into a baby blob. Scroll down and see the growth in just the past 3 weeks...its amazing! We had our weekly appointment with the fertility specialist and I started my prenatal visits with my OB. The pics were taken at 7weeks 5days, despite the dates the pics say. Both doctors are still going by my last period to date the pregnancy, but thanks to the wonderful world of medicine, I am roughly 4-5 days ahead of that timeline. The baby has measured exactly a week ahead with each passing visit, so its growing exactly as it should be! At my first appointment, the heart rate measured 144bpm. We had enough time to grab some breakfast between appointments, and by my second ultrasound, the heart rate was up to 157bpm! Its still so incredible to watch that flicker on the screen and know that means our baby is thriving. I know I've voiced my love for my weekly appointments, but we found out that I will continue those up until 10 weeks. Depending on which dates they go by, that gives me 2-3 more ultrasounds. The nurse said next time we might even be able to start seeing arm and leg buds...I can't wait for that baby blob to start looking like a tiny human! My OB is going to see me again December 7, which will put me about 12weeks 3 days. At that time we will do an NT (neural tube) screening. That involves bloodwork and an ultrasound. This extra testing was doctor recommended after we reminded them that spina bifida runs in Cooter's family. It was the NT screening during the last pregnancy that we found out that our baby's heart had stopped beating at about 9 weeks. I was 8weeks yesterday, which means I am officially past my first pregnancy (which ended at 7w6d), and if I can make it one more week, we will have passed up the last pregnancy. I don't let myself get too excited yet...I just can't. I did frame our ultrasound pic and look at it about 2493 times a day. I've been sick enough to remind myself daily that I am indeed pregnant. Nothing terrible, just feel tired and weak and the nausea comes and goes about 4-5 times a day. Every time I want to hurl, I look at the baby and I gladly feel sick to know he/she is growing! Keep praying!

photo update

There have been such few pictures of us lately, as the Maxwell family blog seems to have become a pregnancy journal. Thought you all might be curious as to what we look like these days... Here we are at a wedding October 23. We are so seldom dressed up together and with such beautiful backgrounds behind us. We were on Inks Lake in Burnet, TX. Cooter was a groomsman in the wedding, which explains the orange tie below. Excuse the beard...from Cooter's dad's birthday (Sept. 26) thru opening weekend of deer season (this weekend), Cooter and his dad sport a beard. I coined the time table..."beard season." By the way...I am 6 weeks preggo in the pic.





Here's some photo updates of our fur babies. With the passing of each baby, we have inadvertently adopted another animal. Grayce is now 4 and a half, Laila is almost 16 months, and Alice (Allie) is a little over 9 months old. Allie wandered up to our house back in July and her and Laila instantly became best friends.

Grace

Laila

Best Friends

Meet Allie

one beautiful baby

Look how much our little baby has grown already! 6 weeks, 5 days old in the picture. It went from a little rice-looking thing last week to a gummi bear! That's what the nurse called it...she said, "what a beautiful little gummi bear!" Not that its even that big yet...last week it was the size of an orange seed, this week its about the size of a nail head...and by next week it will be a blueberry! For the record, there is only one baby! We would've been thrilled with twins, but the chances of complications are a lot less with a singleton pregnancy. Almost immediately, we saw the baby's heart beating. I almost forgot that we might be able to see the heartbeat this time...I was so excited to see that the baby had grown! This is the second time I've seen one of our baby's hearts beating...and wow, it just brings tears to your eyes every time. What a miracle! This baby was just made almost 7 weeks ago, and it already has a beating heart. The heart rate was 119 beats per minute. They even recorded the heartbeat on a video for us...although I can't get the mac to play it...but I will persevere and beat the computer! According to What to Expect (the baby bible), in the 6th week, the heart should be beating around 80bpm and growing faster every day. So I am thrilled with 119. That's actually already faster than the other baby's heart rate was at 7 weeks, 1 day with the last pregnancy. I just love our fertility nurses...she just sat there and let us awe in the moment as we watched the baby's heart beating. I barely got to see it at the OB's office last time. They are so busy there, you are in and out of ultrasounds. I am holding on to each moment we get to see the baby, and thankful to have been given such amazing resources.

The baby is still measuring right on time. We are now going by the baby's measurements to date the pregnancy since the little guy's growth has been consistent a couple weeks in a row. So that makes me 7 weeks tomorrow, still due June 18. With each passing week, I find myself getting more excited about the pregnancy. i feel so vulnerable, especially after the way we lost the last baby. We get to see the baby twice next week...my fertility doctor still wants to see me once a week and I will have my first prenatal appointment with my OB, which means bloodwork and another ultrasound! I'll take it!

one or two?!?

One or two?!? We still don't know yet! What we do know is that we can see one baby nice and clear so far! Going into the ultrasound, my nurse warned us that being early, we wouldn't see much. She said what they were looking for was the number of gestational or amniotic sacs (the large black circles). If we were lucky we'd be able to see a yolk sac (which will later be incorporated into the baby's digestive tract) and possibly the baby. We were able to see one gestational sac right away and the nurse said, "hi baby!" She zoomed in on it and we were able to see a yolk sac and the baby. In the ultrasound pic, the baby resembles the bright white piece of rice and if you see the white circular area around the baby, that's the yolk sac. So far, so good! Everything we MIGHT see, we saw! The baby has implanted right in the center of my uterus, which is a good thing as well. The baby measured 5 weeks, 5 days...which matches up exactly with the first day we tried. The computer calculates my pregnancy based on when my hormone shot was given, which made me 5 weeks , 3 days. The nurse said this early, as long as the pregnancy and the baby's measurements are within a couple of days, they are happy. My estimated due date is June 18!

One baby or two? While the nurse was scanning my uterus for gestational sacs, she noticed a suspicious spot just about the other baby. Its too hard to see in the ultrasound pic (that pic is zoomed in to see more detail), but on the screen there was another black circular area. it wasn't clear like the baby we could see, but it was defined enough for the nurse to draw attention to. Why would we be able to see one baby and not another? The baby doesn't implant in the uterus until about 2 weeks after conception. If the babies implanted on different days, it could have made a difference in the ultrasound. We know I had two eggs released during ovulation. There are multiple possibilities at this point. Both eggs could have released on different days, even though I took only one hormone shot. Also, we were told to try on two separate days, so its possible that the eggs were fertilized on different days, causing them to implant differently. Either way, we will hopefully know how many when we go back on Thursday this week. I haven't had any more bloodwork done since my early levels were on the high side. We might be able to see a heartbeat at this week's appointment too! I have an appointment with my ob/gyn November 4, at which time I'll be almost 8 weeks and we'll have another ultrasound done then...yay! After losing the last two babies, I LOVE being able to keep tabs on this baby (or babies).

We also found out that my ovaries are very swollen right now. The injections I took last month stimulated my ovaries so we could control ovulation. I ended up releasing an egg from each ovary. My high levels of estrogen have not allowed my ovaries to return to their normal size. Right now, they are bigger than my uterus. I had been feeling a lot of lower abdominal pressure (uncomfortable, but not painful). It wasn't cramping or anything that caused me worry. In fact, I thought it was gas pains. Turns out, as my bladder fills up (quite frequently these days), it puts pressure on my ovaries, which is why I am feeling so uncomfortable. My ovaries, bladder and growing uterus are all sharing the same space right now. The nurse didn't act like it was anything for concern, but she did take measurements of one ovary. It was about 58mm (when I ovulated, each was 18-20mm to put that into perspective). Unfortunately, it will take a while for the swelling to go down. Rising levels are so important to my pregnancy, but cause adverse effects on other parts of my body. So for now, I deal with the swelling belly!

Cooter is so proud and excited. We went to a wedding this past weekend and he told anyone and everyone he talked to that I was pregnant. He told most people it was twins too! He secretly wants twins...we lost two, he thinks that would be amazing to get two babies back. We'll see very soon... I'm still so very cautious, but I want to be excited. I have been exhausted lately and for the past 5 days or so I've been feeling so nauseated. I have no appetite, so its hard to want to eat. If I don't eat, I feel sick. When I do eat, I still feel sick for a couple hours. The progesterone I take and what my body makes on top of that causes my food to digest slowly, which leaves me with the full sick feeling in my gut. I end up with about 3-4 hours in the late afternoon/evening that I feel great. It makes me feel very fortunate to not be getting up for work at 3:45am right now. I'm about 6 weeks, 3 days or 6 weeks, 1 day depending which calculation we use. I can't wait for Thursday!