Surprise! Pregnancy After Infertility

We still cannot believe it, we’re pregnant, on our own! If you’ve been following along for a while then you know that we struggled with infertility, finally getting pregnant with Lily after our second round of IUI and 18 months TTC. The journey and unexpected time that it took to get to that first successful pregnancy was really hard, I tried to articulate some of those feelings in this blog post on TTC. As a distraction, I wrote and published a children’s theme book during that time because I felt like there was little to no support talking about a journey to parenthood that is different than you anticipated, and didn’t have the happy ending, yet. My book,“Someday”, highlights the journey before your someday is here, to help give a bit of hope in the wait. Read more about my book here.

We were so grateful when our "someday” was born in her own perfect time on our anniversary and Brian’s mama in heavens birthday.

Fast forward through the last 15 months, and we have just been in awe of parenthood, and this perfect little human that we brought into this world.

Even before struggling with infertility, we always said that we knew we wanted to have one baby, and we would know if we wanted more. We were feeling so happy with our little family since welcoming Lily, we never really talked about trying for more. Brian and I went on our first date night, and when we were out to dinner, B said for the first time “don’t you want to give Lily a sibling?”. I was shocked to hear him say that (I think my jaw actually dropped), we were just feeling so content, finally in a good sleep routine, and not to mention, I literally just stopped nursing the month before. We talked a little bit more about how good of a big sister Lily would be, and we left the conversation there.

Fast forward 3 weeks later, and 3 days late on my period… it was made perfectly clear what was supposed to be. Two dark pink lines.

I waited, what felt like, so long to see those two pink lines before. I prayed month after month for a positive test, and grew so much anxiety to testing from all of the disappointment. And then I found myself running into the bathroom having to pee after a Trader Joe’s run (groceries on the counter and Lily following me in), grabbing an extra test I had on a whim to rule out that pregnancy was the reason that I was 3 days late… and seeing that second pink line light up right away.

I had a wave of emotions hit me all at once: shock, excitement, disbelief, happiness… fear. I am not sure if anyone else can relate to this, but in full honesty, I was fearful that we were going to rock the boat so to speak. We have this beautiful, healthy, happy baby… how could we get so lucky to have that happen again? I grabbed lily, tearful, and she looked at me concerned. I hugged her, and said “this is so special that I get to share this with you first, but mama has a baby in her belly, and you are going to be the best big sister”.

I waited until B got home from work, and just pointed to the counter with the test sitting on it, and of course he had the sweetest reaction as I had tears in my eyes.

We did it on our own this time.

Spontaneous pregnancy after infertility

If I am being honest, I had a mental block on the idea of a second baby because I was not ready to go through the emotional rollercoaster of infertility again. This is a true and honest beige flag of mine… but if I set my mind on something, you better believe it is happening. A perfect example of this is from when we were house hunting- if I liked a house, I literally proceeded to spend the next 24 hours mentally moving into every single room. Full kitchen renovations would be designed in my head. New furniture mentally purchased, and current furniture sold. I wish I were kidding, but I am who I am! If I told myself that we wanted to try for another baby, I would be walking right back onto that merry-go-round, unclear of when we would be getting off.

And I was not ready for that.

I honestly am not sure if I would have been ready for that again. Life always seems to have its own perfect plan.

A challenge that I have had with this spontaneous natural conception after experiencing infertility is the infrequent follow-up. I had serial HCG monitoring for the first week, followed by weekly ultrasounds, as opposed to one visit with this natural conception pregnancy so far. I am adjusting, but it has been hard in these early weeks to trust that everything is okay when do not feel pregnant (aside from feeling so tired and nauseous lol). But we are trusting the process, and looking forward to the next time we can hear that sweet little heartbeat again.

9 weeks

Thank you for sharing in our excitement for our newest little love, I suppose our hearts will just have to grow twice as big now.

We are due May 18th, I am 12 weeks tomorrow.

xo, Kelly, Brian, & Lillian

The sweetest hand embroidered “big sis” sweater is from Lettie Lovie, and it is perfect.