The Hanway Family

We were finally able to announce our pregnancy to the rest of our family. We told our immediate family at Thanksgiving, but we wanted to wait until after our first appointment to tell everyone else. Christmas was the best time as it was our only opportunity to tell everyone in person.

We decided on tamale day as the date to tell the family. I couldn't come up with any cute ideas, so I wrapped up a framed copy of an ultrasound picture for my grandparents to open while the rest of the family watched.

Today was our first appointment. It was a bit early at 6 weeks 3 days, but based on my LMP, I should have been 8 weeks. When I made the appointment, I tried to explain that I ovulated late and wasn't that far along. Of course, they just ignored me. Thankfully, I was prepared and didn't expect the ultrasound to show I was 8 weeks.

We were so nervous headed into the ultrasound because that's where we learned I was going to miscarry the last time. Luckily, the ultrasound tech was able to find the heartbeat right away. It was 118 bpm. It was a little slow, but that's because the heart had just started to beat. Their measurement of 6w 2d was only one day off of my calculation, so I was happy with that. It was really hard to see the heartbeat, but when the tech placed the wand correctly, you could see the rhythm on the screen.

Now that we've told our families, I can finally tell everyone that we're having a baby. The due date is July 27. We've known since Nov. 15, although I was pretty sure I was pregnant a few days before that, even though it was still a few days before AF was due. This was the first cycle I had tried charting. I'm glad I did it because my cycles had been anywhere from 35-45 days since July. It really helped out knowing when I ovulated and when I could test.

I went a little test happy. First, I tried out a test that I got for free. When it turned up positive, I figured I better try out my expensive ones because I didn't trust it 100%. It came up positive almost immediately.

I went in for betas on the 15th and 19th. They are supposed to double every 48-72 hours. Mine went from 192 to over 1000! My progesterone was 29. From what I've read, most doctors want it about 15-20, so that was also a good number. That gave me hope that things would turn out ok.

I tested before Leonard got home. Of course, I couldn't sleep, so I laid on the couch until he got home. He almost sat on me because he didn't see me wrapped up in the blanket.

For Labor Day weekend, we decided to head down the road about four hours to Fort Worth. After everything that has happened the last few months, we needed to get away for a few days, away from everyone we know.

For Labor Day weekend we are headed down to Dallas/Fort Worth. After everything that has happened this last month we need to get away for a few days. We are going to do some car shopping while we are down there, so hopefully we will come back with a new vehicle.

This hasn't been a very good week for us with the one month anniversary of the miscarriage. Work has been crazy for both of us and has just added to the stress. I have spent ten of the last fifteen days in meetings. The rest of the work just keeps piling up during this time.

It bothers me a lot when I hear someone announce that they are expecting, and it seems to be happening quite often recently. Right now, I seem to be bothered still by those who have had babies out of wedlock, especially teenagers. One of our temp workers just turned 19 and already has a year and a half old baby. The rate of teenage pregnancy down here puts the rate at home to shame. It's amazing how many teenagers here have kids, and most of them are already broken up from their boyfriends by the time they have the kid. It seems so unfair that people like that are able to have children, but here we are.

We still have two more months until we are supposed to start trying again. I feel like everything will be ok if we start trying again in another month or so. Most likely, we won't get pregnant the first time around again, although that would be nice. I still haven't had any signs of my period, so it will be at least another month and a half before the timing would be right, so that would put us pretty close to three months anyway.

Tuesday, I killed my first rattlesnake at the bottom of our back steps. I had been inside on the computer and Jack started to bark. I went outside to see what he was barking at, figuring that it was just some other dogs. When I walked around the back of the house, I saw a snake at the bottom of the steps. Just by looking at it, I could tell it was a timber rattlesnake even though I had never seen one.

The first thing I did was take Jack to the front porch and tie him up. Luckily he hadn't been bitten. I went back inside and put on jeans and my steel-toed boots. They probably wouldn't protect me much, but it was more than the shorts and flip-flops that I had been wearing. I grabbed the .22 and loaded it, then headed to the back of the house again. When I got there, the snake had crawled to the top of the old concrete steps under the deck and there wasn't a good shot.

When I finally got ahold of Leonard, he told me to use the shotgun and not to shoot at the concrete because I'd probably get hit by flying pieces. When I returned from getting the shotgun, the snake was gone.

As I carefully looked around, I found him on the other side of the house where our air conditioner condenser is. This is about 6 inches away from the house, so there was no way I could take a shot.

After half an hour of waiting, he finally decided to return to the back of the house. Once his head was off the bricks, I took a shot, using the house to help hold me steady. I hit him in the head with the first shot and it killed him... or so I thought. I watched him for about 20 minutes to make sure he didn't move, then I went back inside.

About an hour later, I went back outside so I could put him in an ice cream bucket and put it in the freezer so the ants wouldn't get to it before Leonard got home. As soon as I stepped outside I noticed that he wasn't in the same position as before. I grabbed the nearest stick and poked him. To my amazement he started to crawl away and tried to rattle. I ran inside and grabbed the .22. I hit him twice with that and it had no effect. Since it was nearly dark, I pulled my work truck around so that the headlights were shining on him. Then I switched to the shotgun and shot him once more. He then stopped moving and I decided to just leave him alone until the morning.

The next morning when Leonard got home, I took some pictures with my snake. He measured out at 44 inches, but he would have been closer to 47 or 48 if he'd had his head and part of his neck. He had eight rattles, which does not seem like very much for how long he was. Leonard skinned him out for me and he would have been almost perfect if it hadn't been for the second shotgun shot - it went straight to his abdomen. I didn't know where the best place to shoot him was since he no longer had a head. Hopefully this is the last rattlesnake that I see around the house for a long time.

Today I had my follow-up appointment for my D&C. The doctor said that everything looked good. They checked the pathology on the baby (and I'm assuming everything else) and they said that it just looked like it was a fluke and they didn't expect it to happen again.

She said that I should call as soon as I get my next positive test and that they will have me come in right away to check my HCG and progesterone levels. I was very glad to hear that.

The doctor also said that we should wait three months before trying again. Most of what I have found has said that this is primarily for emotional reasons. We will probably wait until I've had two periods, then start trying again after that.

I am back from my D&C. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting. We arrived at the surgery center around 6am, then waited a few minutes because they didn't open until 6:30. We were able to go in around 6:15 and finish filling out all my paperwork.

Around 7, they took me back to change into my gown. Thankfully they let Leonard come back with me after a few minutes because I was a mess. The nurse told him that I was upset and she didn't know why. If you were about to have your baby scraped out from inside of you, you'd be a little upset too.

The nurses were very nice and let me have a private room while they put in my IV and had a final consultation with the doctor. I would have to say that the worst part of this was trying to get an IV in. My veins are small, so they didn't want to numb the area first because that sometimes makes the vein collapse. I told them to go ahead, which was a mistake. It was very painful. They were digging around in my hand for what seemed like an eternity and still didn't get the needle in the vein. When they tried on my other hand, I made sure they numbed it and it made a world of difference. I said goodbye to Leonard and my mom, then they wheeled me off.

The next thing I really remember is waking up in the recovery room, very thirsty, and in a small amount of pain. They gave me some Vicodin and some Sprite, which worked wonders. I know the doctor came in, but I don't remember it. After about an hour of sitting up in the recovery room, we were out the door.

So far, I have had very little bleeding. I only took one pain pill, and I didn't need it. It actually is a relief to have everything over with. I think the waiting was almost the worst part of it. I still wish that they had done a second ultrasound to make sure the first one wasn't bad. Part of me is still afraid that our baby was still alive.

I go back for a follow-up on the 9th. I'm not sure if they were going to do any testing on the baby. It would have been nice to find out what actually happened to give us some closure.

Today was supposed to be our first doctor appointment. When we went in, they did all the paperwork for a first pregnancy appointment, along with all the blood work. That's where everything stopped being normal. The nurse did not have me undress, which was our first sign that something was wrong. When the doctor came in, she confirmed our fears that our baby had died.

I am now scheduled to go in for surgery Friday because it has been two weeks since our baby died, but my body is showing absolutely no signs of a miscarriage. I know my body is just being stubborn and doesn't want to let go. The doctor is concerned about infection.

What has bothered me the most is that they knew for four days what was happening, and didn't tell us. All we could do between our ultrasound and our appointment was hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Now we have to wait another three days for the D&C.

It is very hard to accept, especially because this was going to be our first child, my mom's first grandchild, and my grandparents' first great-grandchild. This is not what we were expecting when we went into that doctors office. I still feel pregnant. I feel exactly the same as I did before - the same morning sickness, the same fatigue, the same soreness. I keep wondering if maybe they just made a mistake, maybe this is a bad dream and I'm going to wake up any minute.

I wonder what it would be like to hold my baby. I wonder what he would look like. I'll never get the chance to meet him. I'll never get to watch him get on the bus for the first day of school, go off to college, get married and have kids.

It seems so unfair. We would have been two loving parents. We have a house to provide, plenty of food, and everything else you need for a baby. When I think of all the babies out there born to teenage mothers and single mothers, drug addicts, and alcoholics, I just wonder why all their babies lived and mine had to die.

This is now at all what we were expecting when we walked into that doctor's office yesterday. I know there is a reason that this happened - that there was something wrong with him. I know that there is nothing that I could have done to prevent this, but I still wonder. I have no idea what I'm going to say to my mom when she gets back from her trip tonight.

I guess all I really know is that now there is a little angel in heaven watching down over us.

The excitement of my first ultrasound has been replaced by a whole new set of emotions. The ultrasound showed that the baby only measured 6 weeks, 5 days instead of eight weeks. The ultrasound tech didn't say if it had a heartbeat either. Now we are scared and worried that something is wrong and there is absolutely nothing that we can do. This is defintely not the result we expected.

My appointment with the doctor is on Tuesday and now all we can do is wait and see if everything is ok. We are hoping that I simply ovulated a week later than I thought and got an early positive on my test. While hoping for the best, we are also trying to prepare for the worst.

The tech didn't explain anything other than show which was the baby and which was the yolk sac. We were in too much shock about it measuring behind to ask about anything else. The tech wasn't even going to say anything about it measuring behind until I said something. We are hoping that everything is ok and assuming that if something was really wrong, that another doctor would have come in and talked to us. It seemed like the entire thing was over in 30 seconds.

This weekend is just going to be spent praying that everything is ok and trying to stay busy so that we don't drive ourselves crazy thinking about it. We can definitely use everyone's thoughts and prayers right now.

We are so excited! Tomorrow is our first ultrasound. The doctor's office called this afternoon and asked if I could come in tomorrow for my ultrasound because the sonographer is going to be at jury duty on Tuesday. Hopefully they will explain everything instead of making me wait until my appointment on Tuesday. It's a good thing I bought my video tape last weekend.

We finally made the announcement to the rest of the family this weekend. At first, we were going to wait until the end of the first trimester, then we moved it up to after the first appointment. It was too hard to keep it a secret, so we ended up telling at six weeks. Everyone was excited as this will be the first great-grandchild on my side of the family. Leonard's niece was happy because this will be her first cousin, while I don't think his nephew quite understood what was happening.

Right now, we are still planning to wait until after my first appointment before I tell my bosses and everyone else at work. We're also waiting until then to tell friends, but I think some are going to figure it out before then.

Leonard and me after telling Mom and Chris

Last night, we went to the bookstore and bought three pregnancy books. The first is Your Pregnancy Week by Week and the second is The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy. The third book is for Leonard and it is called Pregnancy Sucks for Men. It looked pretty funny.