What a day yesterday turned out to be! Yesterday officially marked 15 weeks of pregnancy! 2 weeks into the 2nd trimester..and 25 more weeks to go! I truly didn’t believe it when Dr. Tynes told me we’d be able to find out gender at 15 weeks, but it was a success!
With Sara Grace I was certain from the get go she was a girl! I just knew it deep down in my bones. With this sweet baby though I have not had an inkling of a feeling.
I have been struggling for a few weeks now processing through my emotions that we had to use IVF to begin with. Part of that because it has just been an emotional roller coaster for nearly two years, and another part because I’ve seen a few posts from facebook friends lately post some articles from “Christian” sites giving their 2 cents on Christians using IVF. I won’t get into the details of that, but just want to put it out there that there are ways to approach and present that topic that are much less insensitive than the way they have been presented. There are definitely topics to consider when making the decision to pursue IVF, but truly if you’ve never done the research, gone though it yourself, and don’t actually know the facts then you should think twice before shaming others who have had to travel that road. So thankful for God’s grace upon grace and that He has equipped me to get through sticky emotions and relationships because of His grace!
But, back to gender feelings! I truly have not had any feelings toward thinking it may be a girl or a boy. The only slightest idea that it might be a girl came from studies I read about embryo grading/quality. IVF pregnancies tend to favor boy pregnancies. The studies I have read said that is due to the majority of IVF transfers occur by choosing the best possible graded embryos, your AAs, ABs, BAs, BBs etc. The sex ratio for boys is actually on the high end of like 60% for most IVF pregnancies.
Most doctors won’t even freeze an embryo with a C in it. And to think, the embryos we transferred this round were BCs. Dr. V wouldn’t have even frozen them and one of them became our little girl! ( I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE that man so don’t take that the wrong way) That same study has shown that when successful pregnancies occur from BCs, CBs, CCs etc, the sex ratio is switched in the opposite trend to favor girl pregnancies! I told Danny about that study when we found out about the pregnancy, and I’ve been curious ever since.
In November I shared our girl name with you all in the blog titled “Let Hope Arise”; November 28th for reference. Josephine Joy is the name, and it translates to “May Jehovah add joy”! Her name has been such a big part of our story. I was so scared to share it at first because I was so worried about what if it wasn’t a girl and what if I was looked at as ridiculous for sharing so much. But, in that same blog I talked about how Satan wants to give us every insecurity and doubt to make us not share the gospel or our hope in Christ. I also wanted to be able to look back and see God in the details where I’ve shared our story and remember what He accomplished along every step of the way. It has been such a joy to go back and read those old blogs today, because friends, He has truly been in every detail along the way! In my heart when we started this journey I felt that God had another girl in store for us. I don’t know why I had that feeling, only that I did. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how often the word Joy or some form of the name Josephine would show up giving me the hope I needed. The last few weeks have been no exception.
With Sara Grace, early on in pregnancy I had a dream about her being a girl. We were in the hospital and she was nursing and just looked up at me and grinned. The baby in that dream was my Sara Grace and looked just like her. I had the exact same type of dream with sweet Josephine. In my dream Josephine has a dark head of hair so she’s already turning out to be quite different from SG. Pregnancy causes some really weird dreams so I just chalked it up to that, but secretly had a hope that it was a confirmation that we were blessed with another sweet girl! I’ve got a good friend that has a coworker and we call her the ultrasound whisperer. She claims to be able to look at an US picture from around 12 weeks and determine the gender. She knew SG was a girl. She knew my friend’s sister’s twins were a boy and a girl and which was which. We have sent her countless pictures of friends babies (I’m talking like 15 people here), and Y’ALL….she’s been right every dang time! So of course I sent her sweet Josephine’s 12 week US pic, and her guess was girl! Right again!
The last couple weeks the anticipation has really been building up, because like I said, I just really had no certain feelings of what we were having. Last Wednesday things started getting a little interesting though. Wednesday night I dreamed what felt like ALLLLLLL night about only seeing ultrasound pictures and seeing 3 little lines (what you see on girl ultrasounds) over and over and over again. I woke up and told Danny about the dream and just said, “Guess we’ll see in a few days.” So it’s now Thursday morning, only 4 more days to go! I’m on facebook scrolling aimlessly and I stop because a random post on one of the IVF support pages catches my attention and I look at the name of the poster and it’s Josephine. No big deal. I then make my way to my first patient’s house and as we are doing seated exercises I glance up at his wall and notice a little sign peaking out with the word joy written real big on it. Obviously the name is on my mind. I get to my next patient’s house and I’ve seen this sweet lady several times over the last year and I can tell you right now, I have never seen a pineapple anything in her kitchen which is where we spend a lot of time. I’ve been planning to do a pineapple nursery if the baby was a girl….big surprise huh? Anyways, I glance over at her counter and notice these bright oven mitts and dish towels with pineapples and they just bring a smile to my face. I leave there and head to my endocrinology appointment. When I get done and am sitting in the parking lot I see a lady in front of me get out of her car and she is carrying an adorable Dooney and Bourke pineapple purse! Naturally, I smile again real big. I think to myself, “God, are you giving me little glimpses of what to expect on Monday?” I decide to jot down the little “signs” in the notes app on my iPhone so I can remember the details later and include them in the blog juuuust in case. I’m so glad I did.
I begin to lean more into my feelings and start to think maybe just maybe it is a girl, but I definitely don’t feel the certainty that I did with Sara Grace.
Sunday finally rolls around and I get a text message from my sister in law that says, “I dreamed you’re having another girl.” I laugh and tell her that’s all I’ve been dreaming and get excited that tomorrow is finally Monday. I text my best friend all day with a countdown of hours and then joked that the baby probably wouldn’t cooperate.
Guess what? She didn’t. They brought me in for the ultrasound and that little toot was sitting straight up with her booty down in my pelvic cavity with no way possible to get a view. That sweet tech tried for a solid 10-15 minutes but it just wasn’t happening, She told me to eat and drink something and go on to see the Dr. then we could come back in and she’d try again. More waiting. I chugged 12 oz of orange juice, ate a dum dum lollipop, and half a bag of peanut m&ms. We had our appointment and all was well. I was pretty certain I felt the baby flip so when we got back to the US room I got really nervous because I knew we’d likely really be finding out soon. She had given me pictures from the first attempt and based off the skull profile I was convinced it was a boy. As she slid the US probe around on my belly that sweet baby was still being difficult and wouldn’t budge legs, and then the umbilical cord was getting in the way. I told the US tech I’d always heard 2nd babies were more stubborn and she agreed this was one of the toughest ones she’d had to find. Then, what I knew I was looking for popped up on that screen. Those 3 little lines, but it wasn’t good enough for the tech to be certain! She tried again and again but by this point I already knew in my heart it was our sweet Josephine and the tears were flowing. She pointed out what we were looking at and said she was almost sure it was a girl, and I am so glad Danny caught it on video of me saying “But, it’s not a penis” and she said “No it’s definitely not!” Then, she finally got a for certain angle that confirmed it was indeed a Miss Josephine Joy and then the tears came on even stronger! God did that y’all! God orchestrated every detail of these past two years to confirm what I have been experiencing in my heart and sharing with you all! I wish I could shout this story from the mountaintops because as difficult as it has been He has been there EVERY step of the way!
In that same blog from November I mentioned purchasing a picture frame as an act of faith. The picture frame is the word “JOY” and the O is the frame. That frame has been sitting on a table by the door in our garage for months now, and I’ve been glancing at it every day just wondering and remembering every detail I’ve shared.
I can not tell you how excited I was to put a picture of our sweet Josephine in that frame yesterday and ponder the mercies, and grace, and goodness of God. He is a good, good father and He is the perfecter of our faith and a restorer of our hope!
The verse I have clung to this entire journey is Romans 15:13 and this is the life verse we have chosen for our sweet Josephine as well the verse we had on our IVF fundraising shirts:
“May the God of hope fill you with all JOY and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
I pray that in every circumstance you are facing the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him!
Making a Myers 