Well, everyone else is doing it...

So I've seen quite a few blogs where pregnant ladies are giving detailed updates week to week.  There is even a kind of template to follow as well.  For myself I always kinda giggled because I don't know what I would have to say week to week, or if there would be any changes to report.  But then I found myself stalking their blogs for the next update to see what has changed and how they're doing.  So I figure this week I'll give it a shot, but don't be an upset stalker if I don't do it every week :)

How Far Along?  8 Weeks

Weight Gain?  None!  I've actually lost weight but I think that those 5-6 pounds were from all the drugs and procedures I had to do.  So I'm sticking with zero.

Maternity Clothes?  My family was in town this past weekend and I was asked the same question that some of my friends had asked "Why are you in jeans when its over 100 degrees outside?"  Answer: all my shorts were slim fitting and this little itty bitty bump I've gotten causes them not too fit.  Solution: Grandma bought me my first pair of maternity jean shorts!  They're really cute, have a small band at the top so you can't even tell they're maternity.

Symptoms?  None really.  I'm so glad we've had multiple blood tests and ultrasounds otherwise I still might not believe it.  All I've noticed is that I've needed to alter my usual eating schedule.  Skipping breakfast, a lean cuisine for lunch, and then a small dinner just wasn't cutting it.  So multiple small meals a day it is.

Sleep?  This comes and goes.  Some nights I stay up till 11pm, others I'm dead by 8:30pm.  Some nights I sleep the whole night, others I'm wide awake for 2-3 hours.  Napping on the weekends has become a necessity too.

Food Cravings?  I haven't had any cravings yet.  Now Tim on the other hand!  He's been craving Taco Bell, Mike & Ikes, Bacon, etc.  It's really funny.

Best Moment this Week?  Having my parents and grandparents come visit for the weekend.  It was so good to just hang out.

Movement?  Nope

Gender?  Lots of people are saying its a girl. 

What I Miss?  Nothing yet.  We've waited so long to get here that I would have given up pretty much anything for forever, not just 9 months, to be here.

What I'm Looking Forward To?  Our first Drs appt with our new OB next Friday.  I really hope we like him.

Weekly Wisdom?  Instead of trying to push through the tired, just lay down and take the quick nap.  Because I can't push through it anymore.

Milestones?  I had my first baby dream!  We were going to get him from the nursery at the hospital to take him home, why we get him rather than the nurses I don't know.  And there he is, blonde curly hair, he lifts up his head and sees us.  Then rolls over so we can pick him up.  Pretty good for a little guy only 2-3 days old!  :)  But now every morning I wake up and didn't have a baby dream, I'm a little sad.

Emotions? Still normal, well at least I think.

Appointments?  First OB appt Aug 6th!

Baby Size?  5/8 inch long.  The size of a kidney bean!

Goodies

Last week my friend gave me this great basket of goodies to help make it through the ups and downs of pregnancy.  She had compiled a list of the "must haves" from our friends.  This was so unexpected but super sweet!

Even though I'm not experiencing many symptoms so far, besides sleep, we've already started using some of the goodies.  Of course I dug into the body lotion right away...please no stretch marks!  I'll try my best but if they come, then they come.  I'll take a million stretch marks just to be in the position that I'm in any day of the week.  I've dipped into the Tums twice so far.  And Tim demolished the Mike&Ike's so fast, they didn't even make it into the picture!  I haven't had any cravings so far, but Tim has been making up for that.  The candy hit the spot for him, plus he's been wanting some T.Bell for days.

Sleep, Sleep, and More Sleep

I'm about 7 weeks along and was thinking I was pretty lucky that I wasn't having all the horror stories of pregnancy symptoms.  I haven't been nauseous or have crazy cravings.  I've had some acne but nothing insane.  And I thought I was a little tired here and there, but not enough to classify it as a symptom.  That was until this weekend!  So far there would be nights when I would be crawling into bed at 9pm, others where I could stay up past 11:30pm.  Until this weekend.  Granted, we went out to The Muny Saturday night and didn't get back home and in bed until 12:30am, but I still got 8 hours of sleep in.  Wake up around 8am Sunday morning and I just didn't feel right.  Sat on the couch for a little bit and got really sleepy.  Tim suggested I lay back down in bed.  So at 10am, I gave in and went back to bed.....I didn't wake up until 3pm!!!  I felt really good when I did wake up though!  And sure enough, fell asleep around 10pm and didn't wake up until 7am.  Getting the extra 5 hours of sleep didn't effect my sleeping last night at all!

Happy Ultrasound Day! (the whole story)

Some days I'm absolutely spent and it's only 8:30pm.  Then there are nights like today when I'm still kicking at 11:30pm,  hmmmm?  I don't get it but at least I'm not going to bed by 9pm every night!  Since I'm finally awake, coherent, and not at work, here's all the beautiful details.

Ultrasound day was as wonderful as I had hoped it to be!  I met Tim in the lobby and we walked up together.  It felt kind of full circle as we waited in line to let the receptionist know we were there.  You could tell by the paperwork that the couple ahead and behind us in line were having their first visits to the office.  I prayed that they could find what they were looking for here as well.

Margaret was going to perform our scan and I've had her before and like her a lot.  She's always very sweet.  She chats a little but not a lot, which is nice considering you're half-dressed.  Of course the day Tim came with, it didn't go as smooth as usual.  Nothing bad, just a few hiccups.  First off, it took a little while for her to come back to the room.  You can imagine Tim, with ADD, in the room checking out all the new things he hadn't seen before.  When she came back, she started to get settled at the ultrasound machine and made a funny face and excused herself again.  I bet Tim that for some reason she didn't like it and was going to transfer me to the other room.  Him, not knowing there were multiple ultrasound rooms made a joke about me walking through the halls wearing my lovely blue sheet.  So I pointed out the bathroom door that joined both rooms.  Good thing she came back fairly quick, otherwise I'm sure Tim would have scoped out the bathroom too!  Sure enough, we were swapping rooms because she preferred the other setup. 

We get settled and she starts going into her spiel.  Took a look at our chart....two blastocysts...going to check ovaries first......then look for the baby......do measurements then will show us the screen shots.  Alrighty, I understand....be patient.  Except as soon as she started, the screen was barely tipped towards us and I saw it.  I gasped!  I was so nervous that I was going to be Rachel from Friends and not know what I was looking at.  But when I saw it, I knew exactly what I was looking at!  It was so beautiful, so so beautiful.  You could see a sparkle on the screen, a little flutter, just a glimmer, and that was the heartbeat.  So beautiful.

After letting us enjoy our sneak peek, she got back to business.  Checked out my ovaries and they are looking almost all healed up from the surgery.  Good news.  She then came back and did her measurements.  Baby W is a whopping 6.2 mm long, only a quarter of an inch!  It's truly a miracle that something so tiny has a heartbeat you can see on a monitor!  It brought tears to my eyes, I didn't know if we would be lucky enough to see a heartbeat since we're so early on.  She pointed right at the flutter and measured the heartbeat.  A solid and beautiful heartbeat of 120bpm.  You could see the wavelengths on the screen, it was amazing.  Then something I wasn't expecting again, she turned on the audio!  Something that is so so tiny, and we could still hear it.  It was breath taking!

By far my favorite Drs appointment!  Afterwards I think we were both so relieved and excited, we were pretty much speechless.  Margaret printed off our pics and sent us into another office to wait for Dr O.  He came in and said everything looked great!  Gave us some basic do's and don't's, got us our next steps, then asked who our OB was going to be.  Tim and I smiled and told him we were hoping he could point us in the right direction, we hadn't found any we liked enough to return to.  Luckily he had a few names of some good docs.  Then he gave us our estimated due date....March 8th.

We are so excited!  Some times it doesn't even feel real, we've waited so long that its hard to comprehend that we're not waiting anymore.  We are truly blessed!  Blessed with each other, our families and their support, our friends and their prayers, our doctors, etc.  Truly, truly blessed.  A new stage in our life has officially begun.  I'm always on the lookout for cute blogger backgrounds and when I found this one I knew it was time for a change.  A change in our life required a new look.  It was pretty yet still science experiment-esque with the graph paper background.  When the title of the design was I'm so Lucky, I knew it had to be.

Still Waiting

So I guess I'm getting pay back now.  My two week wait went really fast thanks to work, etc.  Then the week inbetween betas went fast too.  Both times, I didn't really get to sit and think and stew and fret until the night before.  Now, I'm getting paid back.  All I can think about is this ultrasound on Thursday!  Is it one or two?  (I'm already into positive-thinking overdrive and feel that it will at least be a healthy one)  Will we get discharged from the RE then or not?  I think about it in the morning, on the drive to work, thoughts pop into my head during work, on the drive home, through dinner, and before I fall asleep!  I guess I'm just so excited that this is finally happening and seeing the ultrasound will mean it's finally happening!  Is it Thursday yet?

Unfortunately since I'm still new on the job I'm not taking a full day off for this HUGE appointment.  It sucks, but such is life.  I'm still new, my director is out so more responsibility is on me, our VP is in the office this week, and our Marketing Director will be in Thursday too.  So I'm taking an extended lunch to go to the Doctor.  I hope that I can stay focused at work that morning!  All I'll be thinking about will be baby, baby, baby.  Tim will be able to join me for the appointment with his work schedule being much more flexible.  He's never been to any of my ultrasounds before, so it should be interesting to see how he reacts to the whole process.  I'm so glad he'll be there!  Is it Thursday yet?

We're still debating on whether or not we should keep the findings secret.  In a "normal pregnancy," couples usually try to wait til out of the first trimester to even let others know they're pregnant.  Then usually, they just keep names and/or gender secret.  We're definitely not in the normal category.  Everyone knew when our procedures were happening and when the bloodwork was being drawn.  We announced our good news at five weeks!  We've been trying out baby names for years now.  Partly because it helped keep us positive through all the procedures through the years.  But now most people know, or have a good idea, of what our choice for names are.  And keeping gender a secret is something I, Miss-Type-A, can not do.  I need To Do lists people!  And those lists are different if it is a boy or a girl.  So we don't have much to keep secret but the chance of twins.  We're debating on not letting anyone know until we find out the genders.  I say debating, because herein lies our fatal flaw.  (Kara is already seeing this coming)  Tim and I are not very good at secrets....and when I say not very good - I mean AWFUL!  So we will see if we'll be able to keep it to ourselves or not.  Plus, how do you post an ultrasound pic without giving that away? 

Is it Thursday yet?

2nd Beta

Went in for my 2nd beta test on Friday......and it was 7969!!!!!

If it doubled everyday like they prefer, that would have been around 5200.....and it was 7969!

I'm so relieved since I'm not having any symptoms still.  The night before I started getting really nervous about no symptoms.  So when I heard our number I literally had to grab on to the wall to keep standing!

Now the question still remains.....one or two?  Whatcha think?

So So Grateful

I am just so incredibly grateful to everyone.  This past weekend, being able to tell everyone made it seem real.  It hadn't really sunken in until we got to say it out loud over and over.  Thank you for helping it sink in.  I'm so grateful that we have this support system out there.  Our path hasn't been the easiest one but we wouldn't trade it either.  It's made relationships stronger, opened our eyes to new things, and we've been able to come out the other side still standing.

I know this pregnancy isn't going to be your average one.  I mean, who tells people they're pregnant at 4 weeks!  But we had so many people rooting for us, praying and praying and praying for us.  We knew, either way it turned out, that we would need your support.  And for that, we thank you.  Thank you for all the texts and emails and comments posted here.  Thank you for all the screaming and clapping and tears.  Thank you for all the old prayers and now for the new ones.  Thank you for all the new advice to take it slow and soak it in, and thank you for your offer to get us onion rings any time.  Thank you for all the support!  It really means the world to us.

UPDATE

BETA TEST = 458!!!

I'm definitely pregnant!!!

More details to come, but for now we're heading out to celebrate!!!

Learning to Embrace the Nerves

Welcome Everybody!

Thanks for coming over and visiting my blog.

I hope you kick up your feet and stay awhile.

For everyone visiting from The Infertility Overachievers, here's a little bit about our journey.  My husband and I are both 29 years old and have been "diagnosed" with unexplained unfertility.  I still think its funny that you can be "diagnosed" with unexplained infertility!  To me, that just means you need more testing....but what's left to test!?!  We've gone through multiple rounds of IUI's with no success and are nearing the results of our first IVF attempt.  Today is our first beta test!

I'm really thankful that I've been super busy with my new job during our two week wait, but today is finally the day!  The day that one little blood test has the possibility to take our life in an entirely different path.  So between last night and this morning the nervousness has been given enough time to settle in.  And it sucks!  All the "what ifs" start to creep in your head.  One moment you can imagine pure joy, and then the next you just want to hide under the covers and never come out. 

After driving myself nuts for hours, I finally realized that I need to learn to embrace these nerves.  All this nervousness won't go away with a simple beta test.  I mean, what if it's negative...  then IVF didn't work.  Then I'll have to worry about our next step.  Do we do another round of IVF?  If so, what will that look like, we maxed out our infertility insurance with this last cycle.  When would we do another round?  Do we take a break first?  Then what if the second IVF doesn't work?  How far will we go until we throw in the towel?  Would we be ok just being the cool Aunt & Uncle?  See, a neverending string of nerves.

But then, what if it's positive....  Will it still be positive for our next beta?  Will we get to the ultrasound only to find out it's a chemical pregnancy?  What about the risk of miscarriage?  What can I eat or not eat?  Drink or not drink?  Will the baby be born healthy?  What about SIDS?  Do immunizations really have a connection to Autism?  What about when they start driving?  See, a neverending string of nerves!!

No matter what happens today, I'm going to try to take it all in.  I going to learn how to embrace all this nervousness, because this ball of nerves is our life.  This is us, take it or leave it.  This test isn't going to make things all perfect, whatever that would mean.  It will lead to a whole new set of nerves.  Hopefully, I'll just be excited about taking on that new set of nerves.