Due Dates and Frequently Asked Questions

I made it to my due date! Jonathan and I are very excited to meet our little girl very, very soon! It's a little hard to wait, not knowing exactly when she'll get here, but I do know for sure that it will be soon. I am 99% sure she'll be here sometime in the next two weeks, and I will finally get to hold her and see her face, and see the look on Jonathan's face when he holds her for the first time. I've honestly never been so excited for anything in my life, and sure, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impatient. But I'm working to maintain perspective here. I've been waiting for this little girl for three years, most of that time not knowing if or when she would ever come. And I've been waiting for her knowing that she would come for almost nine months. So waiting for one or two more weeks, being absolutely certain that she will show up any day - not that hard in the grand scheme of things. It will happen!

As anyone who has ever been pregnant knows, in the month before (and for 50% of women days after) your due date, you get asked a lot of the same questions over and over again. So I thought I'd do an FAQ blog post, and answer all those questions in one swing.

Q: When is the baby coming? Do you think she'll be here soon?

A: I don't know. How would I know? I found this great website though, with what looks like a very objective, scientific and statistically significant study on when babies usually come. Check out the whole site for more fascinating statistics on when babies come, but here is a page bookmarked with my due date and odds of having a baby in the coming days.

When Will Baby Petzold Come?

Note that there is a 56% chance of her coming within the next week, but that does mean that there's a pretty high chance that she'll take even longer than that. 

Q: How do you feel?/When do you feel like she'll be born?

A: I feel great, normal, and not that tired or uncomfortable. I've been feeling pretty good these past few weeks. What a blessing! I've had a really easy pregnancy, and I can't complain at all. I don't feel anything that makes me thing she'll be born any time soon, but that doesn't mean she couldn't come any time! I hope she does come soon! I can't wait to meet her! 

Q: How long will "they" let you go before they induce?

A: Whoever this "they" is, I'm not going to be induced unless I think it's medically necessary. And that will have nothing to do with the date on the calendar. That's just how I feel about it. My doctor asked me if I wanted to be induced and I said no, so she said that was fine, and we didn't have to schedule an induction. I had a non-stress test yesterday, and she is doing very, very well in there. She passed the test with flying colors, and there is no reason to worry about anything at this point. I have another appointment next Wednesday, and we'll just keep waiting until either A. she comes on her own, or B. something serious happens that makes it medically necessary to do something different. We're praying for option A, obviously! She's still growing, her heartbeat is great, and both she and I are doing really well, so if she wants to wait another few weeks, that's her choice. :) 

Q: Are you ready?

A: This question has two possible meanings, so I'll answer them separately. 

Do you mean am I ready practically speaking? Yes! Do you know me? I'm Christa. I've been ready since 37 weeks, you know, just to be safe! The crib is set up, the car seat is installed, all her clothes and blankets are clean and neatly folded in her dresser. Her closet is organized. We have a mountain of diapers in various sizes and everything I can think of that we need. Of course, I'm sure something will come up that we didn't expect, but we're prepared for that to happen. (And I might add... all the tiny pink clothes are adorable, and I can't wait for her to get here so she can see them and use all her cute things! I know she won't appreciate them as much as I do... but that doesn't matter!) We're also stocked up on groceries, the apartment is pretty clean, and I've been trying to keep up on laundry. We're in good shape here! 

Or did you mean am I ready to be a parent and take care of an infant and have my life change in one of the most significant ways it ever will? Well, probably not entirely, but I feel like we're as ready as anyone is. I have been waiting and daydreaming about this day for three years at least, probably more. And I know there's no way to really be ready for something this big, something this significant, or something this important. But I feel like I'm as ready as I'll ever be! 

Also, even though people don't usually ask me, Jonathan is really ready too! He is every bit as excited as I am, and it's so much fun to be excited with him! He told me today that every time his phone rings he gets really excited because he hopes it might be me and his daughter might be coming. Aww! :) I absolutely cannot wait to see him with her! 

Q: We want a picture! 

A: Okay, fine. :)

And the inevitable follow-up question/comment I always get when I tell people when I'm due or how far along I am...

Q: You look so small! You don't look like you're 40 weeks pregnant! 

A: Yes, yes I know. (And that's not a question!) I've been measuring small my entire pregnancy. I blame my short torso somehow. Do not worry; Baby is measuring just fine and growing consistently! And I don't feel that small, so... 

If you have a question that you don't see answered here there are two possibilities. Either it's too personal, and I wouldn't have answered it anyway, or I didn't think of it and I'm sorry! But hopefully this is enough of an update to keep all my wonderful and excited friends and family happy while they wait with us for the next day or two or five or ten or...

I love you all!

30 Weeks

As of Thursday this past week, I'm officially 30 weeks pregnant.

Taken at 29 weeks.

On many days I still can't believe this is happening for me. How can such a wonderful blessing really be mine? How is it possible that two months from now I could be holding my daughter in my arms? How can God be so good and loving and gracious to me?

I feel her move regularly now, often throughout the day. I don't know if it's just my perception or not, but I feel like she's already developing so much personality! Sometimes I think I feel her foot (or some appendage) pressed up against my side, but when I feel it she immediately pulls it away. She's so sneaky! Every move she makes in there feels adorable to me. I don't know how to describe it, but I already know she's cute because her little movements feel so precious and sweet!

I already love her so much and I just wish there was more I could do for her right now. I know that she's just in there growing, and there's not a lot I can do for her beyond eating well, resting, and waiting for her to be ready to come out, but I just feel like that isn't enough. I feel the need to get everything ready and have it all together before she gets here. Hopefully I can do that! But there is still so much that needs to be done. I need to pick a pediatrician, we need to get her furniture and get the rooms rearranged. There just feels like there's so much to do!

And yet I'm sitting here on a Saturday and I can't call pediatricians because they're all closed on weekends, and we don't have any furniture yet so I can't arrange that... I'm just sitting here, waiting. I definitely feel the urge to nest, but there's nothing I can do today. So I'm just sitting here, feeling her move around in there, waiting...

But as I sit here waiting, I feel so very blessed. God has been so incredibly good to me. I know how much I struggled to understand why before I got pregnant. And I know that I didn't always trust God to answer my prayers. I didn't know if he would give me this incredible gift or not. And I still don't know why. I don't know why we struggled, and I don't know why our prayers were answered. I don't know why I have been blessed in this way while others continue to wait. I know that life is never fair. But today, I am so happy. Today I feel my daughter moving, kicking, poking and prodding at me, and I can't stop thinking of this verse:

"For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me the desires of my heart." ~ 1 Samuel 1:27

Words fail me. How can I ever express how grateful I am, or how incredibly blessed I feel?

Ask, Seek, Knock

This Sunday in church the gospel reading was Luke 11:1-13. As we read it in church, and during the sermon, I got to thinking a lot about this passage, especially the verses about "Ask and it will be given to you." I feel like this passage has always been hard for me to understand, so I thought I'd take a minute to explore it here.

 Luke 11:1-13

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” ² And he said to them,“When you pray, say:“Father, hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come.³ Give us each day our daily bread,⁴ and forgive us our sins,    for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.And lead us not into temptation.”⁵ And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; ⁷ and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? ⁸ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. ⁹ And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; ¹² or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

This passage is all about prayer and persistence in prayer.  I know that during our journey through infertility (and even before that in other areas of life) I have been absolutely perplexed by passages like this. I feel like I grew up just hearing verses 9 and 10 in isolation from the rest of the passage and they never made any sense. It sure sounded to me like God would give me anything I asked for. If you add in verses 5-8, it makes it sound like you can wear God down by persistent prayer. Like if you annoy Him enough He will give you whatever you want just to get you to shut up. I never really understood that.

Everyone has heard some variation of this concept - "God always answers prayer one way or another. He either says 'yes,' 'no,' or 'later.'" I never really understood why people said this. Is that supposed to be reassuring? I suppose the intent is to communicate that God always hears every prayer, regardless of whether or not He gives you specifically what you prayed for. And it is important to trust that God knows best and not try to determine for yourself exactly what way in which you expect God to answer your prayer. But the really hard thing about prayer, especially when you feel that your prayers are not being answered, is that at the time and in the moment, there is no way to tell the difference between God saying "no" and God saying "later." How are we supposed to know that? All too often we pray and we pray and we pray for the one thing that we want more than anything else, and all we hear is the absence of that yes that we are waiting for. If we knew for sure that God was saying, "later" it would be much easier to wait! But then we wouldn't have to trust Him.

I think this passage is easier to understand when taken in context. If we look at the beginning, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him to teach them to pray. Jesus proceeded with the Lord's Prayer, which we all know so well that we sometimes forget to look at it and what Jesus is really teaching here. Jesus doesn't say that we should start with the thing we want most and repeatedly ask God for it over and over and over until we get it (or until we give up and decide that God isn't listening and doesn't care about us). There is so much packed into this prayer that we could really dig in all day, but just looking at two things for now, Jesus prays, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (I realize that this isn't in this particular recounting, but it is in Matthew's account.) And then He goes on, "Give us this day our daily bread." This is praying for just our bare needs - not what we want more than anything, but what we need. Not "Give us this day cake, ice cream, and all things delicious."

In verse 8 this is reiterated, "Because of his impudence, he will rise up and give him whatever he needs." Not whatever he desires. Whatever he needs. Now we get to, "And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened." And look at the end of the passage - this is the best part. "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" This is wonderfully reassuring. It speaks of God's love for us. If we know how to give good things to our earthly children, how very much more God must love us! And the Holy Spirit, which creates saving faith in our hearts, is the ultimate gift that God can give. Surely God loves us very much indeed, and does wish to answer our prayers and give us good gifts. But what He really wants is to give us the greatest gift of all - the gift that Christ died so that we could have - faith in Him and eternal life with Him forever.

I think that's the context for this passage. And in that light "ask and it shall be given to you" and all that makes sense. If God is talking about his Holy Spirit, of course He desires and promises to give it to all of us. But I think that we can also take reassurance from this passage that God desires to give us good things. James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above."

This baby that I am carrying is a wonderful gift and a miracle from God. She is also a beautiful and long-awaited answer to prayer. When I was praying every day for God to give me a child, I felt confused at why God would not answer my prayer. Wasn't God the one that told us to have children? Doesn't the Bible only ever talk about children as the greatest blessing? I felt sure that God's will was that I would have children because children and families are God's idea, and part of His design. So I couldn't figure out why God would answer "no" to my prayer. As it turned out God didn't answer "no" forever. But I did need to trust God that even if I didn't ever have my own children, that God would answer my prayer and longing in one way or another. I know that God does love me, I know that He does desire to give me good things, and I know that God loves families. This world we live in isn't perfect, but that isn't God's fault. We did that. It doesn't always make sense, especially when we are in the thick of one struggle or another. But we can count on God's promise that He will be there and He will answer our prayers.

And instead of praying for exactly what we think we need and nothing else, let's echo the disciples and say, "Lord, teach us to pray."

Blessings and Paradoxes

Pregnancy is full of paradoxes.

On one hand I cannot remember ever being happier than I am these days. I love our little one more every day, and I feel closer to her with every little kick and movement and with each ultrasound. She is such a sweetheart already! On the other hand I feel uncomfortable all the time. I understand now why women complain about pregnancy. It's just not always fun!

On one hand I want it to be October NOW! I want her to be born and to get to hold her and see her. But on the other hand I feel like there's no way we'll be ready by October. There's so many things we need and so many things to do.

Whenever I feel the urge to complain I try to remember how much I wanted her and what a wonderful blessing she is. And whenever I start feeling impatient I think about how four months is a very definite and short period of time to wait compared to how indefinite and hopeless waiting to conceive can feel. I know I've heard several women say that they didn't like how with pregnancy you never know when the baby is going to come and it makes it so hard to wait. I'm sure there's truth to that, but compared to never knowing if you're even going to have a baby, waiting for a baby to come is nothing. I mean, she will come eventually! I may not know a day, but I can say with confidence, "She'll be here before November." That is not indefinite at all! (I know I may regret saying that when I'm 30-some weeks pregnant and much more uncomfortable than I am now, but it's still true.)

I may not be in a place quite yet where I can honestly thank God for our struggles with infertility. I may get there someday - I don't know. But I am definitely thankful for the perspective our journey has given me and how much it helps me to not take this blessing for granted. I'm not saying that I've been perfect at this, or that I've never in a moment of weakness complained to Jonathan. I have. But I do know that every single discomfort and every day of waiting is 100% worth it, and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to go through this experience.

This is how I know it will all be worth it:

Look at how beautiful she is! I am so in love already!

Despite every discomfort, I am feeling incredibly joyful and incredibly blessed these days. God has been very good to us!

Half Way There!

This past Thursday marked 20 weeks, which I realize isn't technically the half-way point of pregnancy, but it still counts as the honorary half-way mark. I can't believe how fast time flies! I'm sure that this is just the beginning of feeling this way and time will continue to go by faster and faster, but I am so excited to meet our Little One in October. Words cannot describe my excitement and impatience, and I'm sure it will just get worse!

Also this week, we had our 20 week ultrasound on Tuesday, and discovered that Baby is a little GIRL!!! We are both so thrilled! Of course, we would have been very happy either way, but I think just knowing boy or girl makes me feel closer to her. I love being able to say "she" and "her" and I feel like I know her a little bit better now. It was so exciting to see her on the ultrasound too!

Everything is looking great so far, which is so comforting to hear. She was hiding a bit, though, and the ultrasound tech was not able to see everything she needed to see. Her head was deep down in my pelvis and the tech couldn't see her face or brain and only got a limited view of her heart. So I get another ultrasound in three weeks when I go back for my next appointment. But I'm not worried - there was no indication that anything was abnormal; they just couldn't get a look at everything they like to see. So hopefully Little Girl will show us her beautiful  face at the next appointment. I wonder if she's stubborn, or just shy!

Obviously we weren't able to get great pictures with her hiding like that, but here is the best one we got:

She was measuring on schedule - they couldn't get a length but she was approximately 10 ounces and her heartbeat was 144 bpm. I know she may just look like a baby to the rest of the world, but I think she's absolutely adorable, and I can't wait to meet her! 

Jonathan and I went out today to buy her something cute and pink. It turns out that I am very picky when it comes to shopping for my daughter. (Anyone who has shopped with me shouldn't be surprised - I'm really picky about my own clothes, too!) There are so many tacky, ugly, or just not cute enough clothes out there. All I want is for my daughter to have adorable, comfortable, classy clothes with no tacky messages or cartoon characters. I know I'll find enough clothes for her eventually, though. I just have to keep looking! Here are some cute onesies we did find:

Aren't they sweet? I can't wait to meet my daughter in about 4.5 months! I am feeling incredibly blessed today.