Mother's Day & Milestones

Updates & looking ahead now that we've made it to the third trimester

Happy belated Mother’s Day to all the moms reading this! 

We had a couple week break from medical appointments, which gave us some nice breathing room to enjoy everyday life with Alva in our midst. In that time, I made it to 28 weeks, which means Alva has officially made it to the third trimester! 

Mother’s Day was the final day of our two-week break, and it was an extra special day with Alva here. We had gorgeous weather in Minnesota and spent pretty much the whole weekend in our family’s favorite place: The great outdoors!

We took Alva to Teddy Bear Park and the lift bridge in Stillwater, saw farm babies at our zoo, and had a lot of outdoor treats, including grilled foods, coffee, and ice cream. 

Garret woke up early with the boys Sunday morning and took them on a special Bunn Boy mission to get coffee, which meant I had a quiet, peaceful start to the day–a rare delicacy in this stage of life. It also meant that I got to start this Mother’s Day with just Alva. I wouldn’t have had it any other way this year. 

Early Monday morning marked a return to appointments. I had my 28-week prenatal checkup with my midwives, then we had an appointment for Alva with Maternal Fetal Medicine. 

Since Alva’s diagnosis has not posed a risk to my health, I’ve been able to continue receiving prenatal care with the same midwife team I’ve seen in all of my pregnancies. We’re very grateful for this because my midwives are phenomenal and seeing them for prenatal appointments has added a sense of normalcy to carrying Alva. 

Even so, Monday’s appointment was emotionally harder than I anticipated. My blood type is A-, which means I’ve needed Rhogam shots with each pregnancy in case the baby was Rh+. The first shot and gestational diabetes test are given at 28 weeks. I had a very hard time driving in thinking about how this routine care had been so exciting my past two pregnancies. Both times, the appointment had marked the start of a home stretch, bringing with it the excitement of getting to meet baby very soon.

It’s a different mix of emotions when you know meeting your baby will also mean saying goodbye. 

I was glad to have seeing Alva to look forward to afterward. We always hope and pray her ultrasound will show miraculous healing. While we did not see that healing this week, we still did get to see our beautiful daughter. And we’ve been able to focus on new details each time now that scans feel so routine. This week, we noticed: 

• How long and dainty her fingers are

• How her mouth and chin look a lot like Arlen’s

• How she plays hard-to-get with the camera and peeks her face out from behind her hands, just like Jonah did

• How her second toes are longest, just like mine 

We also got a recording of her heartbeat, which was a suggestion from one of our nurses. We’re so grateful for all the good ideas people have shared with us around memory making because I’m sure most of it never would have occurred to us. There’s a way we’ll be able to include the audio of her heartbeat in build-a-bears, which we plan to do with Arlen and Jonah down the line. 

While nothing changed with Alva’s diagnosis, her scans reflected overall growth in her body, her heart and lungs are still going strong, and, despite her condition, she seems to be thriving in utero. It’s just mind blowing to us how much my body can compensate for as it sustains her life right now. It brings us a lot of peace and joy seeing her move around, untroubled, while she is here with us. 

Looking ahead to delivery, what we have the most peace with right now is letting labor happen as naturally as possible. That being said, we know things could still change very quickly and are keeping an open mind going forward. Our hope is to meet Alva alive–even if it’s just for a few minutes–so our MFM team will continue monitoring her via ultrasound and let us know if they see any decline that might be a reason to consider early induction. We’re glad to be at almost 29 weeks now–well past the point of viability–as I think we’d have a harder time making that decision if it had to happen earlier on. Still, a new prayer request is for peace and wisdom if an upcoming appointment does reveal anything to put early induction on the table. 

As mentioned earlier, we’ve had a stretch of amazing spring weather in Minnesota! This has brought new levels of enjoyment to our lives, but also new waves of sadness. Somehow, it can be much harder for us to comprehend not getting to share this world with Alva when it keeps giving us breathtaking days. 

I’ve been writing to Alva in a journal each day since we were given her diagnosis. Last weekend, when the boys were napping, I decided to write to her out back under our tree that blooms with white blossoms each spring. I wanted to tell her about how beautiful the outdoors are, so I started with that tree, which I’ve loved each spring since we moved in. I told her how beautiful the blossoms are, but that they only last for a few days, so we need to enjoy them as much as we can while they’re in full bloom. 

I stopped short, then, realizing that that is exactly what her life is like. I knew then that I’ll never see another blossom without thinking of her. And I’m grateful her life will always remind us that sometimes the most beautiful things in this world are those that last only a short while. 

Mother’s Day 2024: An extra special day celebrating with Arlen, Jonah, & Alva

Please continue to pray for:

• A miracle of complete healing for Alva

• That our family could continue to show her as much love as we can, and think about experiences and memories we want to make while she’s here

• That Garret and I could continue to have a flexible mindset and that God would give us wisdom and discretion in any upcoming decisions–especially ones that might need to be made with urgency