Shoo Fly…

I have become a woman possessed. Possessed with keeping these frigging flies out of my house.

Last year, there were hundreds of them.  I kid you not.  There is no exaggeration.  Unfortunately, I had a three year old and a 3 month old and I had no ability, energy, or desire to battle the flies.  Now, however, my kids are older, and I am on a rampage. Swatting, spraying, and cutting off their food sources.  And you want to know which of these three things is working best?  Cutting off the food source.

Last week I decided that there would be no more food in the trash.  None.  I put everything in the disposal (this is a great time for people to rave about composting, but I’m almost unable to keep up with throwing things into my sink, so it’s just not the right time, or the right blog).  I have even been rinsing out food wrappers and food covered paper towels.  Not only are there no more flies racing towards my face every time I open the garbage can, but there is also no terrible garbage smell.  Seriously, it’s a win-win.

Are there still flies? Yes, of course.  It’s summer in North Carolina…. but compared to the hundreds from last year, this year has a max of 15 at a time, and those get swatted.  Then I spray their filthy black poop dots that cover my window sills with vinegar and go about my day.  It’s kind of exhausting, but earlier this summer I was having to put a paper towel with a hairband around it around my cups so that the flies wouldn’t dive in and drown in my drink.  Inside my house.  Yes, it was that bad.

So, shoo fly, don’t bother me, or i’mma gonna have to swat ya.

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! ❤

8 Weeks

Today I am officially considered 8 weeks! Woo!  Since I was going off of an online due date calculator, which ended up not being 100% accurate for me, I ended up having to live through week 7 twice!  That was a long second week!

So far my symptoms are pretty sporadic, other than being tired, which is constant and overwhelming.  Every now and then I am nauseated from breakfast to bed time.  I have realized that milk and milk-like products are a huge no-no.  We made some tetrazzini the other night, which contains whipping cream and mushrooms.  Not sure whether it was the whipping cream or the mushrooms or both, but needless to say I will be staying away from both of those items.  I’ve also been eating cheese and crackers for a mid-day snack, but not I’m just down to crackers.  It’s all totally worth it though!  Also, my breasts are huge, my nipples are tender and getting up even slightly quickly makes me dizzy.  So, nothing really new besides the nausea being really nasty when it decides to visit.  Still haven’t thrown up yet though! Woo!

Last time I mentioned that my doctor said I could stop progesterone the day of my appointment.  That would have been 7 weeks 2 days, so after some super Googling, I realized that almost everyone who has gone through this has been on the suppositories until at least week 10.  So I decided that I would self medicate… ha!  On 7 weeks 2 days I started weaning myself off.  I didn’t want to go from 300 units (forget how they are measured) to nothing so early in the pregnancy before the placenta had even taken over!  So now I’m doing 200 a day.  One suppository every 12 hours.  So far I feel exactly the same, except my boobs hurt a little more and the nausea has stepped up it’s game, but I’m not sure if it’s related to decreasing my dosage, or getting closer to 8 weeks.  I guess we’ll see how it goes when I get down to 1 a day.  I’m going to start 1 a day this Friday and go until the following Friday.  That way when I go into my first OB appointment on Monday and they check my progesterone, if it turns out my body isn’t making enough, i’ll know right away instead of 2 weeks later!  I think that seems like a logical plan, right? RIGHT?!

In other news, I went to a party on Saturday (one my of most nauseated days so far) and I was sitting down to eat with the hostess (one of my most favorite people).  She knows that I’m pregnant, so when I was only eating a piece of cornbread and some mashed potatoes, she understood that I had eaten dinner before arriving.  No way I can wait until 8:00 to eat dinner anymore!  So as we were sitting there, and I was eating slowly to make sure everything was going to settle, I noticed that she wasn’t eating a lot, and when she did eat she was making this “ugh” noise.  So I looked at her and said, “is there something you need to tell me?”  So we went upstairs to have a little chat.  Turns out she got a positive HPT on Friday!  That is SO exciting!  She’s only 3 weeks and a day behind me too, so that’s even more exciting.  I’m wishing the best for us both so that we can get big and pregnant together and then have little ones super close together.  Amazing!  And it only took her three months of trying, which makes me so happy for her.  Sticky vibes!!

I know my updating has been lacking, but I think I’m going to stick with updating each week and after appointments.  It makes me feel more confident that things are progressing. 🙂

Next appointment: November 26th! (2 weeks to go!)

Must Eat All Of The Things…

So, another side effect i’m noticing is my bottomless pit of a stomach… which seems to want lots of sugar.  I’m also totally exhausted.  Maybe my body is trying to overcome all the tired by eating all of the sugar. Ugh… what a battle.  My stomach is already bloating out enough, I’m sure the extra sugar isn’t going to help.  Bright side?  I am going to rock my sweat pants like you wouldn’t believe!

Worth it though!

When I did my IUI’s last year, I never had pain with any of my injections, except for the Ganirelix and that was just after the injection.  It would burn, itch and turn red at the injection site for 30 minutes to an hour.  But this Menopur + Follistim combo burns as soon as I start the injection… and there is a lot in the injection.  Ouchy.  Also, I’m having bruising from the injections.  They are about an inch long, half an inch wide, and almost rectangular in shape.  They are so weird.  My stomach is going to look pretty neat by the time I’ve done a week and a half worth of injections.  I plan to take a pretty picture once it’s all done.

…I wonder how much it’s going to hurt once I have to add the Ganirelix into the injection.

Worth it though!

Time for bed… I plan to sleep for at least 10 hours… maybe my dogs will be nice to be and let me sleep for 12? 🙂