The Details

Now that we've made the big announcement :) , here are some details. I most definitely fall into the category of "high risk" pregnancy. When I started talking with my doctor about getting pregnant again, she said that she was fine with it, but that I would need to be seen by an OB/GYN because I am "too scary." When I met with him the first thing he said was, "Well, you are... special when it comes to pregnancy." There you go, scary and special, that apparently sums it up when it comes to me being pregnant.
We are very happy, very excited, and slightly nervous.
The number he gave me for HELLP syndrome (the name for my liver going crazy and why Noah had to be delivered) occurring again is 1%. That's not so bad. Although when you consider the chances for someone that hasn't had it before are less than .1%, my odds are significantly higher. Still, 1% isn't too scary.
He said the chances of preeclampsia happening again are between 20-40%. But usually it can be managed and doesn't end with emergency surgery and 3 months in the NICU.
Unfortunately, both of them are pretty much just a big basket of unknowns, so there really isn't anything preventative to be done. I will be watched extremely closely to try to catch anything right away, having weekly appointments and ultrasounds once we hit 25/26 weeks.
I have had my first appointment already. They took a bunch of blood and said everything looks good to start with. I got to hear that sweet, fast little heartbeat. :) Due date is September 16, and we are going for as close to that as possible!
Overall I have been feeling...pregnant. Today is the first day in a few weeks I haven't felt nauseous all the time. Hopefully it lasts! I have had people ask how I felt when I was pregnant with Noah, but the weird truth is I don't remember too many specific details about it. I don't know if it is because it went really well (obviously up until it went really NOT well), or because I was working full time, or because it didn't go how it was supposed to and my brain does some weird defense mechanism. That's one of the weird things about being pregnant after having a preemie--in a lot of ways I feel like a first time mom. I am just as scared of labor and delivery and the third trimester because they are completely unknown to me. Strange. More on that later.
I think Noah is going to be a great big brother. When I first told him we were going to have a new baby in our family, I used his new cousin as an example. Then he asked to go see her like 50 times that day--he loves her. :) He has this weird thing where whenever there is a baby in the room, he wants me to be holding it. We'll see how long that lasts after there is one living in our house. :) Of course once we get closer we will talk about it more and hopefully he will do great! He asks to pray for the baby once in a while. When I pray that the baby grows healthy, he says, "no hurt, baby." Lately he has been very sensitive to his NICU pictures; whenever he sees them he says, "No no! Hurt, all done." I don't know why he is suddenly associating it with "hurt" but needless to say we share his prayer that this baby does not have to go through the NICU. We would appreciate prayers from you as well, and will keep you posted on how things progress!