It seemed like forever, but we
finally went to the OB's office for that first ultrasound appointment. I was so
nervous that I hardly slept the night before. I really hoped that we'd
have good news--that there would be a baby, and not a miscarriage--but I
was preparing for the worst. I went over and over what I would do if
we got to the ultrasound and saw nothing. I imagined how I would feel
and how I would handle the news. I played it out again and again in my mind (as I tend to do) just in case. My husband came with me, and we were both sitting in the waiting room with such anxiety They called me back, sat me down on the table. I lifted my shirt, felt the cool gel on my tummy, and it was time to see. My heart was racing and I looked up at the large display screen. When the ultrasound technician put that
first image up, I could see a little blob with a
pulse. It was so early in the pregnancy, you couldn't make out the head from the body. It was just a small pulsing round little ball of cells. But it was there, and I couldn't hold back tears of joy. I was so relieved, and so happy. The last
time I had an ultrasound, I could see everything...the head, the body, the ribcage, but it was just a still image. And here we
were, just 6 weeks along, and it had a heartbeat and I could see it. I
spent the next four hours not able to control the tears of relief and
joy. I didn't realize how scared I actually was until the relief set
in. A day later, I still got teary-eyed thinking about seeing its
little heart in action.
Two weeks after the
initial ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy, I had my first OB
appointment. The baby was still too little to pick up its heartbeat on a
Doppler, so to my surprise, my doctor actually brought an ultrasound
machine into the examining room with him, because he said, "I just
thought you'd like to see the heartbeat again." And did I ever. It was
still there, and now at 8 weeks, it looked much less like a blob, and
more like a baby. There was definitely a head and torso, and the heart
was right where it should be and beating a steady quick pace. It was one of
the most beautiful things you can witness.
Due
to all the uncertainty of the stillbirth, we decided to have genetic
testing done at 11 weeks, just to make sure everything was on pace for a
healthy pregnancy. One of the perks is that you get to find out the
gender while still in the first trimester. I really thought right after
my c-section that I was done having girls. I was pretty certain that
the next child would be a boy. But, then as the months went on, and
everyone who I met or knew that was pregnant was having a girl, I
started thinking that maybe it was to numb me to the trauma of a girl
pregnancy. Maybe I would be blessed 3 times in a row. About a week
after they drew my blood, I got a phone call from the lab. They said
that all the genetic markers came back negative. Whew! I confirmed
that what she said meant that the baby was healthy, and she said yes,
asked if I had any other questions, and I said "Can you tell me the
gender?" She repeated, "Everything came back negative, including the
y-chromosome." It's a girl! I ran downstairs to give Andy the good news
about her health, and then I told him with a smirk, "I told you when we got married,
that you were destined to only have girls". He smiled, and said "Okay."
I could tell he was excited too. I'm so thrilled that Whitney will get
the baby sister she wanted, and I can't actually believe how blessed we
are. I'm so happy that I'm going to get a second chance to raise
sisters!
9 1/2 weeks after finding out that we
were expecting a girl, Andy ands I had both made up lists of names, and we each vetoed
the others favorites. It's really hard coming up with girl names for
the third time that we both love. Andy really likes Natalie Ann, but I
just wasn't sold on it. It's a fine name, but there was just something
holding me back from saying yes. Then on a Wednesday morning, I woke
up with the name Annalie stuck in my head. I don't know any Annalies
and I actually never even heard of that name before dreaming about it. But that was what I
woke up thinking about. Maybe it was my subconscious combining Natalie
and Ann together in one name, or maybe it was pure inspiration. I'll
never know. So, the first thing I did after turning off my alarm was to
roll over and look it up on my iPad. (Yes, I sleep with my iPad right
next to me.) The way I was spelling it, it's Finnish and means "God has
favored me". And immediately, I knew that this was what I wanted for her name. It couldn't have been a more perfect meaning for a
post-stillborn baby. I did a little more research on the name, and there's a more common spelling, Annalee, which is
Scandinavian and means "grace". I thought that this could be a nice
tribute to Miri since Grace was her middle name. Either way, I loved
it. And, it's incredibly unpopular, something that was somewhat important to both of us. (Having grown up in the 70s and 80s, it seemed like every other person I met was a Jenny. I wanted a name that I could call on a playground and only one kid would turn around to answer.) After some research, there were only 48 people born with that
name in the US last year, but I thought that it doesn't sound weird or seem too out of the ordinary. I texted
Andy since he was still sleeping, and told him not to tell me yes or
no, but to just think it over for a couple days and then we'd discuss
it. I didn't want to hear another veto for such a perfect name. I told
my mom, and she thought it was pretty. I also asked Joy, because I
wanted to know if I was crazy for loving it, since it is so unpopular.
If it was as pretty as I thought, wouldn't more people think so too?
But she promised that she'd give me the truth, and in 10 seconds, she
agreed that I wasn't crazy and that she thought it was pretty too. On
Sunday afternoon, Andy and I talked about it, and he told me he didn't
like the meaning of "grace". So I said, we could spell it the other
way, and then it wouldn't mean that. I also told him that if he agreed
to this first name, then he could choose
the middle name, as long as it didn't sound silly (like Annalie
Natalie). A few days later, he told me that he liked Annalie Claire,
Annalie Hope, and one more that he couldn't think of off the top of his
head. He agreed! We have a first name, and it's just perfect!
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