Everett’s Story - Part One

This is the story of our 9th baby, Everett Virgil’s, conception, pregnancy, birth, and 1st week. I am breaking it up into parts:

Part One - Conception and Pregnancy
Part Two - Birth
Part Three - 1st Week

Conception has never really been easy for me. You can read about my journey with fertility issues and conceptions here, here, and here.

Deacon FINALLY started sleeping through the night at 11 months and my cycles came back almost exactly a month later. I knew that I wanted Deacon to have a close in age sibling, so I started charting right away. Since I have PCOS(polycystic ovarian syndrome), my cycles are irregular. The one after my 1st flow was 58 days. My app on https://www.fertilityfriend.com/ picked up ovulation, but my temps were kind of weird. My dip was at day 45, but my spike wasn’t until day 53. Then I started at just 7dpo. I was using one of the more expensive OPKs(ovulation predictor kit) that also measure estrogen. It had started showing “high” around day 22 and stayed that way with no LH surge for 11 days. I gave up. Our timing was still good, but my hormones just weren’t. 

The next cycle I decided to just get cheap LH surge strips off Amazon. It was $20 and had 50 LH strips and 20 pregnancy tests. 

I didn’t show any signs of fertility until day 42. The strip was negative that day. I tested again 2 days later and it was positive. We attempted conception both days. On day 45, Summer and I were at Whole Foods and I was having some discomfort and had a strong feeling I was ovulating(03/16). I started taking pregnancy tests at 7 dpo(days past ovulation) and got a Big Fat Positive on day 10! That conception date gave me an EDD(estimated due date) of 12/07/2018... 12 days after Deacons 2nd birthday 🎂

A little background for those who don’t know... Everett is our 8th live birth. My 9th pregnancy. Joshua was a hospital birth with the works: stadol, AROM(artificial rupture of membranes), epidural, and pitocin. Jacob and Summer were natural hospital births with the exception of AROM that I labored in the bed with. Ronan and Raiden were the same as Jacob and Summer, but I labored in the tub. Also with them I planned and did catch them myself. Actually with Ronan, my OB didn’t make it in time for the birth. Sierra was my 1st homebirth. It was a 19 minute precipitous labor after a few days of pre/prodromal labor that just felt like more frequent Braxton Hicks. My midwife didn’t make it to her birth either. Dani was my 10+3 week loss. I birthed naturally at home a week after finding out our precious baby no longer had a heartbeat. With Deacon, I planned(and partially paid for) to have a homebirth, but had a difficult pregnancy with kidney stones, glucose intolerance and an extremely irritable uterus. My water ended up breaking at 35+3 and I decided to go to the hospital. The labor went great, but the delivery ended up being a bit traumatic for me(baby was fine). 

Their birth stories can be found at these links: 

Natural Childbirth - Part One

Natural Childbirth - Part Two

Prodromal/Precipitous Unplanned Unassisted Home Waterbirth 

Deacon's Birth Story - Part Two  

That brings me to some unconventional decisions with Everett’s pregnancy and birth. I didn’t want to pay thousands of dollars to a midwife again to plan a homebirth that quite possibly wouldn’t be attended anyway. Since I am a healthy, knowledgeable woman, I felt I could do my own prenatal care as long as there weren’t any concerns. I tested my urine, weighed myself, checked my blood pressure and sugar, measured my belly, and listened for baby just like they would do at any prenatal. 

At around 14 weeks I became aware that not only was I still having some glucose intolerance (which never went away after Deacon’s birth), but I was also having some fasting lows. I started seeing an Endocrinologist to monitor me for this.

16 weeks

Before I was able to hear baby’s heartbeat at 17 weeks, I was able to hear and locate my placenta with my fetoscope.... pretty cool. 

At around 20 weeks, I started having more of an irritable uterus again. Crampbark helped, but I was having more discomfort with these Braxton Hicks so, I decided to go ahead and start seeing an OB to have my cervix scanned to make sure it wasn’t shortening or funneling which could cause preterm labor or my water breaking early again.

20 weeks

I hadn’t planned on having any ultrasounds or finding out the gender, but since they were going to be using ultrasound anyway I decided to go ahead and to a full anatomy scan at 23 weeks. I just requested no 3D/4D images and to do it as quick as possible. We found out we were having boy #6.

At my 1st appointment before the scan we decided to try progesterone shots to calm my uterus, but it was so painful and gave me a horrible migraine. I opted to discontinue them and put myself on more of a bed rest on top of the pelvic rest and no lifting that my doctor recommended. 

My endo expected me to get more insulin resistant and have less lows as I entered my 3rd trimester, but just the opposite happened. 

I read an article online that said sometimes low progesterone can cause hypoglycemia along with an irritable uterus. I asked my OB to check my levels. They did come back a little low. I decided to try suppositories instead of the shots this time. Unfortunately it didn’t help with the lows. They did seem to help a little with the contractions on a daily basis though. I was still having episodes every now and then, but it was manageable. 

At my 32 week appointment my OB suggested a growth scan the next week. I didn’t think it was necessary, but I wanted to have them check my cervix again so I agreed. Cervix was still looking good and baby was growing perfectly. 

Click here for Part Two