Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Morning sickness at 10 weeks?

I am still unsure but I think I may have had morning sickness hit me at 10 weeks. Friday (10w2d) I felt really nauseous before lunch. Once I ate I felt much better and stayed that way for the rest of the day. Saturday I felt fine until I was at a jewelry party in the afternoon. I ate a small brownie and some fruit and dip and instantly felt nauseous. The feeling did not go away the rest of the day. We met my parents and youngest sister for dinner and I ate some soup but felt so nauseous I could not get my dinner down. The feeling stayed with me til bed. On Sunday I was fine until right after dinner. I ate dessert and instantly felt sick then. Monday (yesterday) I had the feeling almost as soon as I woke up and it just got worse and worse. I was so sick last night I wanted to cry. I went to Babies R Us and somehow walking around I guess distracted me from it. I was searching for Preggie Pops. I did find them and bought a bag as well as a container of the Preggie Pops drops. Today I feel much better although just a bit off, not quite 100%.

My hubby did crack me up last night. He talks to my belly already even though I'm sure the baby can't hear him yet. I don't discourage him because I find it adorable. He was saying to the baby, "Be nice to your mom. You're being mean to your mom, making her sick. Please be nice." It just cracked me up. He talks so matter-of-factly to our baby.

I called my midwife today after not getting a response to my email from last week about the first trimester screening. I'm still very on the fence as to whether or not I want to get it done. My RE was the one who suggested I get it done and told me to ask my midwife if she did it. She said she could give me a prescription and I should get it done by 14 weeks and I should call now and make the appointment. She did warn me though that I need to decide beforehand what I'm going to do with the information. Would I terminate the pregnancy? (I cannot even imagine.) Would I just want to be prepared if something were wrong? Is it better to just not know at all? So these are things my hubby and I must sit down and discuss.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Our last ultrasound - so sweet.

We had our last ultrasound today. My husband remembered the camera and I'm so glad he did. He may have missed the cutest part just because it happened immediately before he had a chance to get the camera on. As soon as the doctor put the ultrasound on the baby's arms were waving around. The doctor is saying, "Hi, Mom! Hi, Mom!" I almost cried. He does have video of the heartbeat though.

The heartbeat was 169 today. My progesterone was 17. That is the highest it's ever been! It's sort of had me worried but I know now that it's not as important. I can finish my Endometrin suppositories next week.

Well, I'm a tired mama again.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

More announcements! And eve of last ultrasound.

We are on a roll with our announcements. Sunday we told my parents and two of my sisters. Monday (yesterday) I told two friends that are also coworkers and my two brothers. Then we went to my mother-in-law's and told her and my brother-in-law. Today I told my closest aunt and my best friend. I am praying everyone keeps this news to themselves because the last thing I want is for someone I'm close with to hear it through the grapevine instead of from me. I just only have so much time each evening to make any calls and some of them (like tonight's with my best friend) are over an hour. We haven't had much time to talk since February as she had her little guy a month ago and has been so busy with him.

It is overwhelming just how happy everyone is for us. We've gotten tears (my aunt and my one friend at work), shouts, hurrahs, confusion (mother-in-law), questions, and hugs. My best friend told me I made her day. :)

I think the "strangest reaction" award has to go to my mother-in-law. First I have to explain she's kind of obsessed with Johnny Depp and when we handed her the ultrasound picture she said, "Oh, I thought you were giving me a picture of Johnny Depp." I am not sure but I think she might have sounded disappointed it wasn't. She's been begging for a grandchild for the longest time. Then she tried to feel my belly. I'm not even 10 weeks. My baby is the size of an olive. There is nothing to feel. She is too funny.

Tomorrow is our last ultrasound with the doctor and then we move on to the midwife. I'm feeling really bittersweet. I want to go there every week for the next 30 weeks (although at a $30 copay per visit that would really add up!) so I can see our little bean. This will be our last ultrasound until the big one. I know I'm very lucky that I've had so many already.

Well, I'm one tired mama. I'm off to bed.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Our first announcement!

I told my parents and youngest sister tonight! The cat is out of the bag! I did not do it in the way I planned. For some reason I got a case of the jitters and just held up the ultrasound pictures and blurted out, "You know what this is?" My youngest sister said, "An ultrasound." Then I don't really remember what I said, maybe something like, "Yeah, but whose?" And my mom says, "Are you expecting?" And my husband is joking saying, "Our dog is pregnant." I was just standing there with this nervous grin and my mom asked to see it and I showed her and my sister who was sitting next to her and then my dad and they were all just so excited. My dad is just thrilled to have his first "local" grandchild. We live a half hour from my parents and my other siblings with kids live about two hours away. They don't get to see them as often as they'd like so this will be a treat to see their grandchild weekly (or maybe more but as of now we see them every Sunday for dinner).

My dad asked me if I had morning sickness and I told him no, I was just really tired, and he said I was just like my mom and she never had morning sickness either and got really tired with her last (my youngest sister). Then he told me to make sure I drank plenty of fluids. That was his fatherly advice. He also wanted to know which hospital I was delivering at. My mom was just blown away by the ultrasounds, about how much detail she could see of the baby on the 7-week ultrasound. The 8- and 9-week ultrasounds got blurrier. She is already talking about turning their spare bedroom into the baby's room, saying she needs to get a high chair at her house, etc. I love how excited they are!

I called another sister on the way home. She did not answer but called back a bit later to say she was putting her little guy (not quite 3 years old) to bed. She said she thought she'd call me back to see if I needed something and I said, "Nah, I just wanted to tell you you're going to be an aunt!" She shrieked and yelled, "First of all, that's awesome. Secondly, I told my husband you called and he said, 'Call her back, maybe she's calling to say she's pregnant.'" How funny is that? We got a laugh out of it! So she's excited too.

I still have to tell my brothers and my other sister. Then I can start telling extended family and some close trustworthy friends. I'm still planning to wait until the second trimester to make the Facebook announcement and tell my coworkers and the "world."

Friday, April 8, 2011

New stage in our baby journey. New blog.

It was starting to seem a bit odd to me to be posting on a blog about trying to conceive when I'm already nine weeks pregnant. I kept hesitating to start a new pregnancy/birth blog though, I guess in part due to a fear that "something would happen." Since I'm nine weeks now though I decided I need to start moving forward and looking to the future. It's been a whirlwind few months and I just can't believe where we've gotten in such a short amount of time. Two months ago I wasn't even pregnant and was feeling so dejected that our first cycle was a non-ovulatory bust and today I heard my baby's heartbeat for the fourth time. I am so so blessed.

For those of you who don't know, I have PCOS and went months and months without ovulating while TTC (trying to conceive). When I did ovulate it would be very late in my cycle (after day 30) and not what you'd consider a "good" ovulation. We visited a reproductive endocrinologist (RE) in December (after having had all the tests we needed back in the summer) and decided to start Femara (to induce ovulation). January 1-5 I took 2.5 mg and my largest follicle never grew past 12mm. (It needs to be more in the range of 20mm.) The second month (February 2-6) I took 5 mg of Femara and by February 14 I had quite a large follicle. I triggered with Ovidrel (forces ovulation to occur within approximately 36 hours) and on February 27 I took a pregnancy test and it was positive! Our original plan was to wait til May or June to start fertility treatments but in December I was starting to feel really low so we decided to just do one cycle to see if I'd ovulate. Well, I didn't and then we decided to try just one more and if that didn't work we were going to put it on hold until May or June again. Well, thank God, May and June are not even here yet and I'm already pregnant. We told none of our friends and family we were doing this. We wanted to keep it to ourselves and not hear the constant questions asking how things were going and if I was pregnant yet. We wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret between us until close to the second trimester (and now we're nine weeks and going strong) and if we told people we were seeing the RE it would have been almost impossible to keep it quiet.

I read somewhere the other day that pregnancy brings with it a mix of anticipation, fear, and excitement. That has definitely been true for my husband and me. He's been unemployed since August and I know that has to be so hard on him emotionally as well as it is a financial strain. I was able to pay for our fertility treatments with my flexible spending account (FSA) through my employer. The end of last year my company had open enrollment and I put in quite a few thousand dollars for 2011. My hope was that I'd only need one or two cycles and then the rest of the money could go for the birth (since due date would be in 2011) or if I needed more than 1-2 cycles I'd get as many as I needed before the money ran out. Fortunately there is still some money left after two cycles and I can put the rest towards the birth.

I was so worried my husband would be upset (or if not upset, just not that excited) about the pregnancy even though it was something we were actively working towards, but he is excited as I am. He talks to the baby and has given it nicknames already. While I'm convinced our baby is a boy, he thinks it's a girl.

The fear part I think is definitely lesser for me than the anticipation and excitement. I'm so excited to meet our kid, to get to know his/her personality, to hear the first laugh (baby giggles melt me), to cuddle my baby, to read to him/her.

I absolutely love being pregnant so far. I haven't had one moment of nausea. My only symptoms are extreme fatigue (I can barely hold open my eyes during the day at times) and very sore breasts. I've also already begun to get round ligament pain. All of these symptoms are quite worth it to me. I'm so grateful to be pregnant and what a bonus not to have morning sickness. While I can't wait to meet our child, I also just love love being pregnant and am already sad that in seven months it will be over. Of course once the seven months is up I might be talking differently but for right now I just adore knowing there is a little tiny human inside my uterus growing by the day!

I want to start keeping a written journal too, something I can give to our baby someday when he/she is old enough to read it and appreciate it, where I can record my thoughts and the events.

I hope you'll continue reading what I have to share. Thank you for those of you who will.