Not Just Chillin'

I'm going to kill the suspense right quick. I had my "peace of mind" ultrasound this morning and it appears that all is well in my uterus :)

My Doctor thankfully found the heartbeat immediately so I didn't have to wait one more second to breathe a sigh of relief. Then I saw the coolest thing ever. It's a baby, you guys. It was moving its arms and legs like crazy and bouncing around. It may only be the size of a fig, but it now looks more like a baby than a blob! The movement was unbelievable to see. It is definitely not hanging out in there, it is getting its groove on! So cool.

After floating around on cloud nine for the day, I had a slew of labs drawn for the antenatal screening tests that we elected to do. On September 9th we will have a detailed ultrasound where they will complete in depth measurements and give us the odds of different chromosomal anomalies like Trisomy 21, 18, and 13. I'm a little nervous for that, but also excited to get to watch the scan for up to 45 minutes!

Unfortunately I have no picture proof to share this time, but so happy that baby R is enjoying his/her home in my ute!

Waiting and Woozy

First of all, I want to thank you for all of the support during the bleeding "episode". I was feeling very doom and gloom after my encounter with The Resident from Hell, so your good stories were very calming. 

We returned from Kauai on my 31st birthday and the Mini-Me's 11 week mark. Even though the trip felt like awful timing with the spotting, it was PERFECT timing. It provided just the right amount of distraction, some much-needed relaxation time, and had me surrounded by my sweet Hubs and my family for support. My plans changed a bit in an effort to rest my body (no hiking, only a short kayak instead of a big Napali Coast kayak) but I am not one to complain about extra time spent lounging on the beach and snorkeling :)

The nausea is unreal people. I thought it might start to taper off this week as I approach the end of the 1st trimester, but apparently I was mistaken. I have been wearing Sea Bands which have actually helped a lot, but it only seems to be getting worse. With a quick consult from Dr. Google, some people say that HCG peaks between 10-12 weeks, so nausea will get worse before it gets better. One can hope! Otherwise, besides feeling totally fat (my pants almost do not fit, you guys! At 11 weeks!? In case you weren't sure, eating mass quantities of carbs will cause you to pack on pounds faster than you can believe...) I am feeling pretty great. We'll see how great I feel when I go back to work tomorrow. Boo.

The one upside is that I will get to take an ultrasound peak tomorrow if all goes according to plan. When I went in for the bleeding my doctor said I could come in right after my vacation for a "piece of mind" scan, but when I called to schedule, the coordinators couldn't get me in. Ugh...more waiting! Fortunately, my doctor is in L&D tomorrow which happens to be on the same floor that I work on, so I will be popping over for a STAT ultrasound in the morning! I am VERY nervous. I'm taking the continued nausea as a good sign, but still can't get the missed miscarriage idea out of my head. Evil resident! Hopefully all will be good in there and we can move on after tomorrow and count that as a little bump in the road.

 

The babe is fig-sized!

"Mmmm. I love figs."

PUPO in Kauai

Hello from paradise. I am short on time (too much beaching to do!), so I'll post what I know.

The bleeding did not restart. It sort of trickled as old blood after that initial bleed for a few days and was accompanied by some mild cramping (I think, I could have just been crazy nervous and having GI cramps too!) 

The first day here was incredibly stressful because I was spotting in a bathing suit, trying not to overdo anything, and just overall really freaking scared. I think I'm going to start referring to the ocean as "nature's douche" because I think it cleaned out all that old blood and I stopped spotting! Since then I have been intermittently incredibly nauseous and overall feeling exactly as I did before this bleeding debacle. I'm relieved, but still wondering what's going on in there.

Last night I started having a little cramping again, which I'm attributing to a growing uterus? Does that even happen? I'm hoping so :) I am looking forward to (okay, more like counting down the days until) I can get an ultrasound the day I get back. I just want to know,  but also don't want to wish this vacation away! I contemplated looking up an ultrasound place on the island, but I feel like it is a big expense for something that I could just wait a few more days for. The Hubby was all for it, considering we can't have sex until then...one track mind.

I am doing my best to feel pregnant, because I have no reason to believe I am not. PUPO. 

On that note, Thursday makes 10 weeks!

The little fetus (it's a fetus this week!) is now the size of a prune...or in the spirit of aloha, a small lilikoi (passion fruit)!

Blood

This morning I started bleeding. It was pretty much my worst nightmare coming to life when I saw those drops of blood on my underwear. Then when I wiped and it kept coming I went into a state of...not sure, I guess focused devastation. 

We went into the hospital to be checked and experience such a spectrum of emotions. The first nurse we spoke to was reassuring that this could be normal and hopefully just a part of my normal pregnancy. A bump in the road.

The first doctor we saw was a resident that I now think of as Satan. She was doom and gloom to the max. She did a cervical exam and saw no new blood, but a bit of old blood on my cervix. Then she did the ultrasound and found the heartbeat right away. Nothing about that was reassuring to me, mostly because I've watched this story play out before through so many of you, and the news isn't always good even when there is still a heartbeat. Then she proceeded to say, "the most common reason for bleeding at this time is miscarriage" and walk me though what a miscarriage will look like if it happens to me. She also said that it will be labeled a threatened abortion.

Then my OB, who happened to be there today came in and had me go over what was going on. She was much more positive and had more of a "let's hope for the best" approach. Better, but not sunshine and butterflies.

We're leaving for what was to be a relaxing trip to Kauai tomorrow. I'm not sure how relaxing it will be, but at least now that lounging is going to be the name of my game, I'll have a good place to do that in. No hiking or kayaking for me! 

I can't believe this...please let this be "normal". At nine weeks miscarriage rates are 0.5%, why oh why do I always seem to be part of the less than 1%?

Graduated

We have officially been discharged from the RE. It was the most unceremonious graduation ever. I was hoping for some fanfare on the occasion of my last meeting with the dildo cam...oh well. Just a quick look at our little embryo (yes, still considered at embryo at this point? Weird.) in all its glory. All I could think was, "it looks like a gummy bear. Or a teddygram. Yes, most definitely I am growing a food item of some sort."

 

This speaks to my state of mind this week.

It's all about the food, ladies. I am not kidding when I tell you that I eat all.the.time. 

I did make a change after last week's carb fest because I was feeling so terrible. Carbs definitely keep the nausea in check, but they don't do much for my state of mind, my figure, or my overall feelings of goodness. So this week, while I still ate my fair share of carbs, I definitely tried to maintain a little more...balance and discretion. Verdict: feeling way better. Not the morning all day sickness, but just overall.

Other than seeing the wee one and its little heart beating (174 bpm now!) ushering my way through week nine was much of the same.

At nine weeks, the little one is about the size of the cherry tomatoes we are growing in the garden. According to the book, it is actually the size of a big green olive, but I'm not a fan, so tomato it is!

*Please don't mind the state of my wrinkled dress. In my post-work state I had already changed into PJs and dress was in a pile of laundry before I realized we hadn't taken a picture yet :-/

Carbs, etc.

Last weekend we shared the news of our March arrival with our immediate families. It was amazing to see the utter joy that the news brought, and great to be able to talk freely for a change! Keeping this huge of a secret from everyone was harder than I thought it would be.
Interestingly, both families said that they had a feeling...talk about parents' intuition!

We came up with a pretty fun way to tell everyone and had little books printed for both families with this:

133 Injections...

65 Doctor Appointments...

31 Ultrasounds...

2 Surgeries...

37 Eggs...

13 Embryos...

725 Cocktails not sipped...

59 Cigars not smoked...

$23,960.70...

(Ultrasound Picture), Arriving March 2014...Priceless

Way cuter is person and in the form of a booklet, but you get the idea :)

Besides that excitement, this week included a lot of carbs. Like a LOT. To say I have been having some morning sickness is putting it mildly. It is all day sickness, which thank goodness has not involved vomit, but nonetheless makes me feel like utter crap. It feels ironically a lot like a terrible hangover, spins and all. For a girl who hasn't had a hangover since TTC, I find this a cruel joke. Hence the massive amounts of carbs. I have been noshing on bread like a starving person because it's the only way to keep the nausea at bay. Monday I literally went into the bathroom at work and cried because I felt so yucky. That was a first. But, no joke, as I hung my head between my legs (dangerously close to the toilet bowl, I might add) I thought of how many times I pleaded and prayed for this exact thing. How many times I listened to a knocked up mama-to-be complain and thought, "You have no idea how lucky you are". So I am thankful. For every moment that this baby continues to show its presence. I know without a doubt that I would take 57 months of this unpleasantness if it meant I'd meet our baby in seven months. No more pity parties here.

Tuesday we indeed saw the little sucker that is making its Mama so sick. It was nothing short of amazing to see the little blob of blurry cells, twice as big as last week, heart beating (they didn't measure how fast).

 

 Today marks 8 weeks.

You guessed it, we have a raspberry-sized baby up in there!

Mumm Is No Longer the Word. Almost.

No one in real life, aside from the necessary work persons, knows what's going on.

No one knows about the retrieval, the cancelled transfers, the actual transfer, or the little being that is residing in my uterus. I am content with that. For some reason it feels safer. The Hubby is not so into it. He's a "sharer" and is just about busting at the seams to spill the beans to everyone. So we've decided that this weekend we will tell our families. I'm excited to finally get to share some good news, but also a bit nervous. The only point of withholding the information now is so we don't have to share bad news if it happens, but at this point I am feeling like having the support of our families would be good anyway if the worst case scenario happened.

We haven't quite nailed down exactly how we are going to spread the news, but we're working on some fun ideas. I can.not.wait to see their faces! This moment is the whole reason we kept this IVF journey such a secret in the first place!

This week I have felt a bit more pregnant, waking up with nausea that pretty much forces me to eat immediately. Apparently I will not be losing weight in my first trimester like some people do. I'm totally okay with that as long as this babe keeps growing.

Speaking of growing...today marks seven weeks and the tiny one is the size of a blueberry.

I'm sure we will have a busy weekend of family fun, but I'm most looking forward to the ultrasound on Tuesday. Seriously, what do normal people do when they have NO ultrasounds for 8-10 weeks?! I would go bananas wondering if it was still there!