Three

I thought it had been a while since I wrote the last time I wrote, but now, it’s been much, much longer. Connor was a just little at the time (5 months?) and I thought that life would get less busy when Connor was a bit older. I was wrong. Just like grief is always there, the busyness of having a living child is always there, both just change over time.

I carve out little times each day for Brady John. I have his little blue elephant (that my sister bought and left at his gravesite) in my car and I give him a little pat each day. Connor and I say prayers before bed every night and we always pray for his big brother Brady John. I’m excited to put our Christmas stockings up on the mantel again this year. Me, Jeff, Brady John, and Connor will all be accounted for. And maybe I’ll even pick one up for Three, if we’re feeling confident about the name by Christmastime. Oh yeah, there’s a three on the way too.

As I write this, I’m 23+ weeks with our third child and like everything else, this pregnancy is flying by at a much faster clip than our previous ones have. There’s just less time to worry, which is probably a good thing. We had our level 2 ultrasound at 19 weeks and things looked pretty good. Three was in the 53rd percentile, which was a relief since Brady was already so small at that point. We got to see our favorite perinatologist again too. Oh, and it’s another boy.

We did end up needing to go back this week to get a better look at the heart. Where Connor was a very cooperative little guy when it came to ultrasounds, it turns out Three isn’t on board with that. Thankfully, this time we were able to see the heart well and growth continued to look good. He’s in the 64th percentile now. The perinatologist we saw this time recommended that we come back early 3rd trimester for another growth ultrasound. As long as that looks good, and my blood pressure stays in check, she wouldn’t recommend the weekly NSTs and BPPs that I had with Connor. It would be routine prenatal care going forward. I don’t know if I’m relieved that they want to treat me like a normal person or not. While those extra appointments do take up a lot of time, it is nice to have the reassurance.

We hope that things continue to go well for the next 14 weeks and that we can call it a wrap on the pregnancy and having babies thing at that point. It feels like I’ve been pregnant for years… and really, I kind of have been. Of the last 40 months, I have been pregnant for 19 of them. That’s pretty staggering. The perinatologist we saw on Monday reminded me of how normal my pregnancy was with Connor (though it certainly didn’t feel normal at the time). I’m grateful for how “normal” it was and I hope this one continues to be normal too. I will always wonder why Brady John didn’t get that same luxury, but that’s something we will probably never know.