15 Weeks!

Today marks 15 weeks. and I must say that it’s nice to finally be considered a part of the second trimester now.  My OB said week 14 was the second, but websites vary from 12-15 weeks.  You’d think someone could get that figured out and regulate it across the pregnancy world?  Oh well, I’m finally there, officially, on all accounts.

Other than my stuffy head, bloody nose thing I’ve had going on, I am also feeling more “growing pains” around my abdomen.  I guess the uterus popping up and out causes quite a stir in there.  Plus the gas contributes to the fun.  I plan to relax (not get off of the couch) for the rest of the week to help ease the discomfort.

Other than the normal “i’m tired” complaint, I still have my “my nipples are sensitive” complaint.  Although, I’m not really complaining.  I still love all of my symptoms and would never be mad at them. 🙂  All the websites say that your breasts should not be as sore, and they are right, my breasts aren’t that sore, but the nipples are still super sensitive.  I need some new bras, but I’ve tried on about ten, of all different shapes and sizes, and none of them are fitting correctly.  I’ve heard this complaint from all of my friends who have been pregnant in the past.  I’m not sure what to do.  If I just go buy normal bras in a bigger size, I’m going to have to find a place who sells E’s and above.  I started as a DD and I know I’ve gone up at least two sizes.  Maybe I just won’t ever leave the house… problem solved… no bra needed!

 

Here is my 15 week belly.  It is noticeably bigger to all around me.  It looks the same in these pictures though.  I can feel it getting heavier when I’m sleeping on my side.  🙂

Next appointment: January 10th for a 16 week checkup.  Can’t wait! I’m getting antsy to hear the heartbeat, and have some satisfaction that everything is still going well in there.

14 Weeks

Well, today is actually 14 weeks 3 days, but we’ve been out of town.

This past Sunday we went to visit my side of the family for Christmas.  It was time to announce!  We decided to do it by writing it on a cake and setting it down in front of everyone.  It was a hit.  Mom cried, sister cried…. no clue when my family became so emotional.  I actually got in trouble with my dad for making fun of my sister for crying.  Guess you’re never too old or too much of an adult to get in trouble for not being nice to your sister.  *Insert Eye Rolling*

The family was super excited, which was understandable.  They all think I’m an old maid (28 years old) who was never going to have children.  They don’t know anything about what we’ve been through because they would be INSANE.  My mom would probably call me everyday, telling me that she just read that B6 cures PCOS, or if I eat extra broccoli, my egg reserve will go up.  I’m not exaggerating, they truly do this type of thing.  So our little struggle will be kept between us.

I wasn’t expecting to be as stressed out as I was there.  You may notice that this post is not written in my usual upbeat style.  I am tired and still thinking about how much I get stressed out when we visit my side.  I can’t help it.  Everyone is in love with being in everyone else’s business there.  My mom said that I had to know the “rules” for naming our baby if it’s a girl.  Um, rules?  I don’t think so.  My sister would not quit rubbing my belly.  I LOVE when my husband rubs my belly.  In fact, I’m IN LOVE with my husband rubbing my belly, but I do not like anyone else doing it.  I’m just not a touchy-feel-y person, unless I happen to be touching and feeling my husband. 🙂  Now I can expect phone calls all the time with helpful tips and them asking me if I need this or want this or if I’ve seen that.  I tried to tell them to just stick to our registry, but I doubt that will happen.  Is anyone else as stressed out by their family as I am?  I can’t imagine I’d be the only one!

Oh, and they also all want to be up there while I’m in the hospital.  That would be 7 people just from my side.  *Insert Hyperventilating*  I fully intend to call them once I start pushing.  Hopefully I can get the baby out within the 3.5 hours it would take them to get here.  😉  Still though, I can’t fit 9 (7 on my side and my husbands parent) people, plus me and my husband and a baby in our house at the same time….. ahhh… my blood pressure is starting to rise again.

I don’t have a picture for 14 weeks, because I’ve either been traveling or exhausted, but from what I can tell, it looks about the same as last week.  I’ll be sure to get a 15 week picture up this coming Monday.  Other than still being extremely tired, I’ve been having some bloody noses.  Not dripping type of bloody nose, but when I blow my nose there is blood.  I’m thinking of investing in a humidifier.  Anyone else had to do this?

I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season!  Be safe and happy this New Year!!

13 Weeks!

Today marks 13 weeks!  My belly is getting bigger and harder by the day… and I love it!

We had a Christmas party with some of our closest friends on Saturday.  We decided to go ahead and have a little reveal with them since it’s almost impossible to get them all together at one time.  We always do Greedy Santa at our Christmas parties, so this year we decided to do it again and have our surprise waiting in one of our gifts.  It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly.  My friend since middle school was here and she was picking third.  I was picking fourth.  And yay for me, she chose my gift (I stole it from her immediately afterwards)!!  She opened it, and inside contained three baby hats and three baby onsies, one of which had “Baby Ross” painted on the front.  She said “whaaaat??”  Then she showed it to everyone else in the room and everyone was silent.  She obviously wasn’t satisfied with the silence, so she showed it to everyone again and then said “GET IT?!”  Hilarious.  Everyone finally put everything together.  Only two people of the ten knew about it ahead of time, so we had a lot of surprised people in our house.  I then proudly pulled out our hidden ultrasound pictures (including the picture of our little 8 celled embryos we got before transfer) and showed them to everyone.  Then I put them back in their spot on the fridge.  Everyone ended up getting pretty drunk and started asking us where in the house we made the baby and I just kept laughing, pointing the the fridge and saying “at the fertility clinic, remember?!”  I decided not to be shy about this because I want the girls who haven’t started trying yet to know that there are possibilities of having difficulties, and that if they do have to go through that, they know they have someone they can talk to about it.  I didn’t have that starting out, so I think it’s important.  I hope they all go on the be fertile Myrtles though. 🙂

Symptom wise, nausea is completely gone.  Now my appetite is coming back, including cravings for milk (milkshakes to be precise).  I’m catching up from 12 weeks without dairy I guess.  Yum!  My nipples are still super tender and they sometimes feel wet or cold, but they never are.  They may be leaking just a tad and it gets absorbed into my shirt or bra before I can see it?  As long as it doesn’t start gushing out while i’m out in public, I’ll be happy, but I don’t think it does that this early?!?

Anyway, everything is going to be pretty hectic the next two weeks.  Getting ready for Christmas and then traveling for a full week to visit both families.  My 14 week update might be combined with my 15 week.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season!!  Whatever you celebrate, or don’t celebrate, I just want you all to be happy and healthy!

 

There is my 13 week belly!  Again, rocking the bra-less, pajama look. 🙂  I have another party this week on Thursday (it’s a Christmas/End of the World party) and I’m not sure how I’m going to hide this belly.  It was really difficult this past weekend. I had to wear a big sweater all day (even though I was boiling).  I may have to do that again because I don’t want this group to know before my family.  They can know in January sometime. 🙂

OB Appointment and NT scan

Today was a much anticipated day here in our house!  Finally! Our first OB appointment!  I went in and had my urine taken, my weight checked (135 – lower than my normal weight of 138) and my blood pressure checked.  Everything looked good so I moved into the room… with no ultrasound machine.  Say whaaaat??  As my husband and I waited the hour (just kidding, but it did feel like an hour) for the doctor to come in, we speculated that the ultrasound machine must be on wheels.  Once the doctor came in, holding nothing but a fetal doppler, I knew that the ultrasound was a no-go again.  I asked, and she said that since we had one at 7 weeks with our RE, that we wouldn’t have one there until 20 and that I had an NT scan later that day so they would be doing one anyway.  I’m pretty sure they are just amazingly lazy and decided to let us do the NT scan in place of the scan they would probably do if we weren’t going to do the NT scan.  Oh well, no big deal, we just had to wait another hour and a half…. ahhhh!!  So, anyway, she goes over all the basic things.  What to eat, what not to eat, get some exercise (I should probably start doing that one day) and that heating pads, allergy medicine and the chiropractor are all good things.  Yay! I can start going back to the chiropractor soon!  My tweaked back will appreciate it.

Then…. it was time…. time to try and locate the heartbeat.  She started off by saying “don’t worry if we can’t find it right away, sometimes it takes a little while.”  So, another hour goes by (jk, you know, probably a full minute) and finally she finds it!… for about a half a second and then squirrel decided to squirm away.  The second time she found it, I decided no breathing until she found out how fast it was.  154! Perfect, she says. 🙂  Finally, some confirmation that there is a little thing growing inside of me still!  Overjoyed, I tell ya!  Now it was time to go grab something to eat and then head to the next appointment for the NT scan!

So, after a yummy Brueggers Bagel, the husband and I ran one quick Christmas present errand and then went over to the hospital.  This is an old hospital, and it shows.  Dingy chairs, dingy bathroom, dingy hallways… but that’s beside the point (update your hospital, people!)  So we are called back to go over the verbal information.  What the test was, what they were looking for, what happens if they find something that may indicate Downs Syndrome, or Trisomy 13 or 18.  Yes, yes, nods nods.  Show us our baby!  We sign all the paperwork and go back to the waiting room.  Soon the ultrasound technician comes and gets us.  Probably the sweetest lady ever born, but I haven’t met all the ladies of the world, so I can’t say for sure.  She has to be top 100 though.  She was just as excited (or seemed to be) to see our baby as we were.  This makes the experience that much better.  Who wants a lazy tech who’s “seen it all”?  Not me!  So, yes, there is squirrel!  Beautiful, beautiful squirrel!  Head, body, arms and legs!  It moves around when you poke at it with an ultrasound wand too! 🙂  So amazing.  I wish I had an ultrasound machine at home so I could just stare at it all day.  That’s probably not healthy though… mentally.  Right?

So today was amazing! Pure satisfaction! And the NT scan didn’t show anything to be worried about.  They are running blood samples to verify, but everything looks good at this moment in time.  By the way, did you know they prick your finger to get your blood sample?  That is just rude.  I’d rather have a blood draw all day long than to have a finger pricked.  All worth it, but ouch!  There has to be a nicer way to retrieve blood when you only need 5 drops.

So now I’m going to go eat some dinner and then upload my picture disc onto my computer with all the NT scan images.  I’m hoping they have the heartbeat part on there too.  I giggled in the middle, so when you look at the heartbeat sound waves, you see three waves for the babies heartbeat, then a bunch of squigglies from me giggling, and then two more heartbeats.  Couldn’t help it, it was amazing.   I am so glad that this is something I am getting to experience, since for a long time it didn’t look like I ever would.  Pure Joy.

 

Here is a little 3D image of squirrel.  He/she was not happy about being woken up from a nap… looks like he/she is trying to cover their ears and go back to sleep.  🙂

12 Weeks!

Today marks 12 weeks along in my pregnancy.  Wow…

My nausea is pretty much gone.  Now my main food problem is indigestion and feeling icky if I don’t eat every few hours.  Not too shabby!  I also have started to experience the dizzy/lightheadedness even more than last week.  My pulse can be felt moving though my body more, which means there is more blood coursing through me that is causing the dizzy symptoms.  Go blood, go!  🙂  Again, I love my symptoms and no one will ever be able to talk me out of that craziness.

Sleeping has been becoming slightly more difficult.  Getting comfortable is like an Olympic sport.  Last night I did stuff a pillow between my legs and had a much better night of sleep. I think I’ll have to continue doing that.  I’m hoping I can get away with that instead of having to buy one of the huge body pillows.  The one specifically designed for pregnant ladies is $50 at Target!  No thanks!

So my first official OB appointment is coming up on Wednesday!  So excited to finally hear the heartbeat and have verification that everything is going well.  5 weeks between ultrasounds/checkups this early in pregnancy is nerve wracking.   Right after our OB appointment, we will have our NT scan.  I’m a little stressed out, but I’m just glad to be able to see squirrel so much in one day!  It should look like a little human now instead of a peanut.  Crazy….

Well, here is my belly!  Excuse the pajamas and no bra thing.  I’ll put up a nice picture one day, but for now you’ll have to take my “just woke up, too lazy to get dressed” belly pictures. 🙂  I love it!

Ways To Make Yourself Infertile… Geez

Every morning I watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.  To be honest, it took me a while to enjoy The Colbert Report.  I thought he was a little over the top compared to Jon, but now that’s why I love him.

So last night he was talking about the product Andro-gel.  Apparently it’s a testosterone gel that men can apply to themselves to help increase their testosterone level.  Now, after it’s applied, they cannot touch a woman.  The “medicine” is so potent that just having it on the sink after applying, and having your children or wife touch it, can cause their testosterone levels to rise.  It can also cause prostate cancer and lower sperm count.  So, yea.

Then, Colbert started talking about a nasal spray for women.  It’s actually a gel that women shoot up into their nose.  It’s to help women increase their sex drive in order to have better or have an orgasm at all.  The gel is testosterone that women shoot directly into their brains.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging a women for wanting an orgasm.  I know that some find it impossible to have one and that makes me sad for them, but there has to be a better way to fix these problems.  Women taking extra testosterone, and men taking extra testosterone all seem to be factors in increasing societies infertility levels.  If you listen to the voice over telling you all of the terrible things these medicines can cause it’s amazing that someone would say “yea, worth it!”.  Look at us already… 1 out of 8 couples cannot conceive on their own.  What is all this testosterone flying around going to do for us?  Science, I beg of you, try a little harder and don’t just take the easy way out on this.  The future generations rely on you to help and not hinder the fertility levels.  Thanks!

So if you have a few minutes to watch, take a look and see what I’m talking about from the mouth of the amusing Colbert. 🙂

Oh, and I’m not trying to say that trying to help increase sex drive is bad, I’m trying to say that there needs to be a safer way to do it that won’t lower sperm count or cause women to take extra testosterone.  Coming straight from a women with too much male hormone (hello!) I will say that I do have a stronger sex drive than any woman I know, but I also cannot conceive on my own.  I’d take a few less shags in my life if it meant I could conceive like the majority of the population.  You know?

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/421822/december-04-2012/low-t—low-o?xrs=share_copy

 

Need Good Vibes For A Friend

I just got done chatting with a friend on Facebook about her IVF cycle.  They ended up having to cancel the cycle before the egg retrieval.  She had three on her right ovary around size 18, and a few on her left ovary only measuring between 5-7.  So, since there was no way to have those little ones catch up before the others were too big, the cycle was canceled.  To say that she is disappointed and highly frustrated would be putting it mildly.  Now she’s going through all of the questions like “will my ovaries ever produce follicles consistently enough?”  “If not, how many will they allow to do the retrieval?”  “Will my body even do this?”  Ugh, I feel for her.

One of her main problems is that this is the first time she’s been on injectables.  She was on pills for her IUI’s (three failed) so they didn’t really know how her body would respond to Follistim.  They had her on 50mg AM and 150PM with 10 units of HCG (not sure what that means… anyone else?)  The two things that make me maddest are these… 1. She thought that the reason the medicine wasn’t working was because her body was confused coming off of birth control.  I had to explain to her that that has nothing to do with it, since that is the protocol for everyone.  And 2. She thought that her high estrogen level was bad. No one explained to her that the high estrogen level was great.  I know she’s going to one of the highest rated place in our state, but geeez.  I can’t help but feeling like she’s not getting the answers she needs.  The place doesn’t even have a visit to show you how to do your injections, they just send you home with a piece of paper with pictures on it.

I just really hope they can get her dosage right and that she can have a little more hope that all of this is going to work.  I know it’s a little harder on her because she and her husband have absolutely zero medical reasons why they shouldn’t be able to conceive.  At least I had reasons… lots of them.  I think it would be harder to keep hearing there is nothing wrong, yet you still can’t get pregnant.

They are going to try timed intercourse with the follicles that have been made.  Let’s send out some good vibes for her and maybe she won’t have to go through anything else!  That is my hope for her.

11 Weeks! Woo!

I made it to 11 weeks.  Holy cow!  Luckily, the weeks have been going by a little faster due to the holidays coming up and all of the things I have to get ready for parties and traveling. It’s going to be a fun few weeks, except for the actual traveling, which is just my least favorite thing EVER! 🙂

So, let’s talk about how I’m feeling right now.  So far the nausea is pretty much gone.  If I don’t eat every couple hours I feel even more dizzy than normal.  Apparently dizziness and lightheadedness get a lot worse around week 10?  Maybe it’s just me, but it’s been keeping me even more grounded to the couch than I was.  I’ve been getting up and moving around to decorate, do laundry, clean and make myself some food, but that’s about it.  Last night while decorating the tree, I had to sit down because I was so lightheaded, I could hear my heart beating in my head.  The hubby made me some popcorn to get some more food on my stomach since we’d already had dinner.  Squirrel sure is hungry!  Other than that, I’d say being tired is still my number one symptom.  I hear, from blog world, that this should lessen in the next few weeks.  It’ll be nice to have some energy to deal with all the traveling.  Oh, and also, I’ve noticed a tiny, itty bitty bit of liquid coming out of my breasts. WHOA!! 😀

So, last night my husband and I decided to have a little fun. *wink*  I will say that our sex life has been significantly decreased since starting IVF.  We didn’t have sex until I was 8 weeks, and since then we’ve probably only had sex 4-5 times?  My body just doesn’t bend the same way and it feels a little dry “down there” now.  It’s still fun, just a little weird to get used to all the body changes.  Well, last night was the first time I’ve had a … ya know. *wink again*  It was a great time had by all, but then afterwards I started freaking out about whether that could hurt the baby.  I’ve already read that it can’t, but I was sure to lay there and make sure I didn’t have any cramping and that the contractions had quit.  They didn’t even last 30 seconds after the big event from what I could tell.  I guess I’m not in that part of pregnancy where my body is uber hyped up. *wink!*  No bleeding either… trust me, I’ve checked!  I know it sounds crazy, but i’ll probably keep from having those too often, due to the crazy nature of my brain. 🙂

Well, I figured I’d put up a belly picture for the first time ever.  Not sure why mine looks so big already, but the progesterone started me off bigger and then I’m a natural bloater, but this was taken first thing this morning before I had eaten, so it should be pretty legit.  It’s amazing to see and it’s starting to get pretty hard! ❤

David Sedaris

This post has nothing to do with fertility or pregnancy… whoa.  (That will be tomorrow)

I was reading Kathryn’s blog today, and she happened to mention going to see a play by David Sedaris, who is easily the funniest writer I’ve ever read.  His family and all of their quirks make me think of my own family.  I don’t think mine is as funny, but maybe if David Sedaris was writing about them, they would be.

Anyway, last year I was riding down the street and came across a work truck.  This work truck was the truck of David Sedaris’s brother, Paul.  If you’ve read anything about Paul, you know that he is probably the most insane one of the bunch, other than David.  So Kathryn suggested that I put the pictures of the work truck up on my blog.  Great idea! That way i’ll have them forever, and I can share them with all the fans of David and Paul Sedaris…. 🙂

It’s nothing super exciting, but it’s neat if you’re a fan. Enjoy!