To Conceive to not to Conceive...

I know a few Hydro Parents we've met since Carter was born. Some stopped having kids after their hydro baby and some had more children. I often looked at the parents who chose to have more and wondered about their emotional journey to that decision. For Eric and I this was a very difficult decision, we always wanted more children, but after going through what we've been through we weren't sure we could or should try again. I'm sure 'typical' families think about the years between their children, their budget, space, whatever. Eric and I worried about a life threatening brain condition happening again. Would it be irresponsible of us to try again with the chance of it happening a second time? Would we be able to handle the pregnancy with "what if's, worries, and the unknown"? What if it happened again? What if something else happened to this baby? We've also met a lot of friends with many other birth defect babies, we are now under the impression that the 'miracle baby' is the healthy developing baby. There's so much that could and does go wrong with a developing baby. This is such a frustrating fact for a mom like me who didn't drink caffeine during pregnancy, took prenatals every day and did everything the books said to do.

We also had Carter tested for the x-linked factor that causes Hydrocephalus, he tested negative. This means that I didn't pass this condition down through genetics. This is an important fact when weighing this decision.

Eric and I discussed, prayed and came up with the decision to try again. It took us about 8 months of trying...brutal brutal trying! :) and finally we have a bun in the oven! We are now 12 weeks pregnant. I have been watched and monitored as a very high risk and our doctors say everything looks good so far. They cant look at the brain structure until about 17 weeks and we are undergoing a bunch of other genetic testing on this baby to make sure nothing else is going on. So its a brutal wait and try not to stress few months. I am super sick like the other 2 pregnancies. I dont know if thats a good sign, I had one extremely healthy and one not so healthy so I dont know how to think yet. We pray each night for the health of our children including the one cooking. So we are only living on a decision based on the faith in our Heavenly Father to bless us with a "healthy, typically developing child". There came a time we had to hand over the stress and worry and just live on faith. We have certainly have handed over control to our faith several times when Carter was clinging to life, and we will continue to have faith with this baby.