By the way, we had a baby!

Well, it has been entirely too long since I posted. In my last entry I said that getting pregnant would solve my conundrum. Within a day of posting I took a pregnancy test that revealed that we were pregnant! Our first due date was New Year's Eve which was later changed to January 4th after an ultrasound. I wish I had posted on here throughout the pregnancy!

For years I have been nervous about whether or not I would be able to conceive and if I did how rough pregnancy might be because of my diabetes. I had heard horror stories about blindness, miscarriages, etc. But we got pregnant only after a couple months of trying and my diabetes was in better control than it had ever been in my life! God definitely has plans for this child. :-)

Around November 16th (33 weeks along) I went in for a routine non-stress-test during which we found out that I had high BP. They kept me over night for observation, did continual fetal monitoring and kept track of my vitals. I ended up taking an ambulance ride to Great Falls where they gave me 2 rounds of steroid shots to help speed infant lung development (this messed with my blood sugar, so that wasn't fun). The doctors started talking about doing an emergency c-section. It was fairly scary. If we delivered at that point, baby would be 7 weeks early and more likely to have problems! Continuing to carry with pre-eclampsia could lead to seizures, kidney damage, and death for me! We began praying that my BP would drop and that we could hold out until 36 weeks along. We rejoiced for each extra day we gained!

God is so good! My blood pressure went down and I was released from the hospital after about a week. The doctors were shocked because pre-eclampsia doesn't just recede. God gave us a miracle. We were able to gain 2 1/2 weeks!

On December 4th, 2009 at 8:20am we welcomed our little boy, Ander Mathias Mielke, via c-section. He was 5lbs. 14oz. and 18 1/2 inches long. He was in the NICU for about a week. We also had a scare with RSV and ended up hospitalized again in January, but now we are growing beautifully and staying healthy! He's such a good baby! Pretty easy going, quite strong, and a cuddle-bug. We're so blessed!