Friday, August 11, 2006

Baby's got Front!

Anting ,"Yo Bian" and Me Outside the Cheng Kai Shek Memorial

We are very excited to announce that Anting is pregnant. We are expecting our son on November 12, 2006.

Tomorrow Anting will be 27 weeks pregnant. While this may be late in the pregnancy to make such an announcement, for the reasons below, we have mostly kept this news to ourselves.

We started trying to have a family last August when we were in Australia. Anting actually was pregnant at that time, but unfortunately had a miscarriage in October at 8 weeks. We also found out that Anting has a heart shaped uterus and this may cause complications for future pregnancies, especially since one side, the right side, is quite a bit smaller than the left.

In the beginning of March we started testing to see if Anting was pregnant again and after several days of the "red line" going from "that is so faint, I can't tell if it's a line or not" to "Okay, that's a line for sure", we went to the doctor and had the test confirmed.

A few weeks later we had our first ultrasound and saw that the baby was on the right side of Anting's uterus. We immediately named him "Yo Bian" (right side in Chinese) and started worrying that there may not be enough room for him to grow on the right side. We saw several doctors and some said there should be no problem as the uterus expands to be the size of a basketball and even bigger, and some who said the baby may come early because of lack of room.

If these worries were not enough, at about 6 weeks, Anting started having complications. We were immediately reminded of our terrible experience last year with the same problem. This time, however, we immediately checked into the hospital in Taipei and Anting was put on strict bed rest and Progesterone injections. We were there for 3 weeks and finally were allowed to go home, but on restricted activities.

Since then, Anting has been off the Progesterone, but then started having contractions, so she was on an anti-contraction medication for a while. Currently she is medication free and able to do most activities.

We have had all the tests and ultrasounds and everything looks normal. At 17 weeks we had an ultrasound and while we were all watching the monitor, suddenly there was a weird silence in the room as we all saw the same thing. I looked over at Anting and asked "Was that what I think it was?". The doctor then asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, but at that point we already knew as it had been pretty obvious on the screen.

Now we have passed the critical points and if the baby comes early, has a very good chance of survival. We are however, trying to keep him inside as long as possible to give him the best chance of health. We have stopped worrying so much and are now looking forward, with great anticipation, excitement and fear, to starting a family.

I will keep you posted.



Is it a line? Lets test again..and again...and again..Okay its a line!



9 weeks.................11 weeks


13 weeks.................17 weeks


17 weeks.................21 weeks