Going into uncharted waters - 23w0d today

I have stepped into uncharted waters - I have never been this pregnant before since a little before 10 am this morning. It is really unbelievable that I gave birth to Isaac and Rachel this early and Isaac is such a beautiful, thriving toddler now. I am rejoicing that the pregnancy has gone relatively well so far but I was also a little sad last night and this morning thinking how much Isaac had to go through outside of the safe confines of my womb to get to where he is now. We are so proud of our brave, determined, strong albeit skinny little boy.

We actually had a very rough week. Isaac started getting a fever on Saturday afternoon and his fever was running at 103C on Sunday. His fever went up to 105C in the middle of the night on Sunday and we were all up trying to lower his fever with ice pack on his head, lukewarm bath, etc. We took him to Dr. C's clinic first thing Monday morning and Dr. C diagnosed Isaac with tonsillitis and prescribed antibiotics for him. (We have already been giving him tylenol for the fever.) His fever stayed at around 102-103C most of the day but started really spiking up in the late afternoon/early evening. Between 5:30 pm to around 7 pm, his fever had gone from 103C/104C to 107C. As I was not able to reach Dr. C, we rushed to the hospital with him. Unfortunately, it was a complete wasted and exhausting trip as we had to wait in line behind all these older kids (who didn't seem to be more sick than having colds and fevers) and when we finally saw a doctor, she really didn't do anything for us except for prescribing us a few more medications (antihistamine type medications) that Dr. C told us the next day were not very useful. By the time we got home from the hospital and the pharmacy (another really long wait), Isaac was beyond completely exhausted. We put Isaac's O2 monitor probe on to make sure he was breathing okay but he was only satting in the 80s so we had to put supplemental O2 on for him. I am so glad we decided that we should keep the O2 machine over the winter. Fortunately, his fever started going down the next day. I was half functioning with no sleep at the office in a meeting in the late afternoon when Remy called me and said Isaac started getting red spots on his body though he had no fever. So I thought oh no, here we go again so I rushed home, checked out his spots and called Dr. C. It turned out that the underlying cause of his fever was Roseola. He is finally almost completely better now though we lost the little weight he gained in the last few months because he couldn't eat due to the fever and the tonsillitis and he is still very tired.

I guess this was kind of our first major illness on our own and I definitely learned a lot from it. I was truly traumatized! I know we have faced far scarier life/death situations with Isaac before but this was when he was in the hospital and there were professionals there who knew what they were doing. Its quite another thing to have primary responsibility for his care! I am quite worn out emotionally and physically from this experience! I never fully realized how much courage one is required to have to be a parent! :)

Anyway, as I mentioned, I am quite worn out (in addition to Isaac's sickness, work has pretty much been hellish these days) and have a migraine headache going so I will stop rambling on for now. Hopefully, I can find sometime to post some pictures I have taken this weekend.

By the way, I am very late on cards so I am sending New Years cards out instead of Christmas cards out (I don't remember when was the last time I was actually able to get Christmas cards out before Christmas.) Anyway, hopefully I will post again but if I don't, I hope you all have a Blessed Christmas!

Sonia

Introducing....................................................

Dear all,

We had our 21 weeks Level 2 ultrasound check up today. (Can't believe I am already 21 weeks and can't believe Isaac was born only 2 weeks from now!)

And woooooooo hoooooooo!!!! My cervix is behaving!!!!!! Its still long and shut. In fact it hasn't shortened since my last check up 4 weeks ago. I am quite relieved since I have been feeling a little pit of pelvic pressure lately but Dr. said its probably because its my second pregnancy.

Everything else checked out great as well. Thank you so much for all of your prayers.

So without further adieu, I would like to introduce you to our Abigail Hope (or at least her profile):We confirmed that indeed we are having an Abigail and not an Abraham. (Don't worry we weren't seriously thinking of Abraham as a name if our baby were a boy. Can you imagine naming Isaac's brother Abraham? LOL.)

Ab·i·gail:
"a female given name: from a Hebrew word meaning 'joy of the father.'" I think the meaning "joy of the father" is particularly appropriate since Jong has had such a longing for a daughter.Hope:
When I began to felt like I was starting to heal from the loss of Rachel, I knew that if we were to have another baby girl, her middle name would be Hope. Little did I know how God would indeed be blessing us with another little girl.

To be honest, I have been so scared for our little Abigail throughout my pregnancy that I have had quite a bit of difficulty bonding with her so far. But I think I am finally starting to let myself fall in love with our little baby girl. :)

Jong and I feel so humbled and blessed by this precious miracle. When I was looking at her kicking around today during her ultrasound, I still can't believe how it was possible for us to get pregnant after all these years of infertility. In fact its still hard for me to believe that I have a baby inside me (even though I can clearly feel her little kicks)!

Thank you for all of your prayers. We would appreciate your continued prayers as we are not out of the woods yet. I guess since everything has already been such a miracle, I now am feeling more brave about praying that I can go till the full 37 weeks my dr. is going to allow me to go! I told Jong I'd be happy with a 5 lb baby - that would be like 4 times Isaac's weight but may be I should pray for a 6 lb baby! :-)

Take care and hope you all have a good weekend!

Sonia