Lissie's Luck

Overwhelmed

2012-02-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

In two days, I will be at 34 weeks. That means 6 weeks to go. I'm not sure how to wrap my brain around that. I never thought I would make it here. It is so strange as I sit here with Fin kicking away, how normal that has become to me. But in no more than 7.5 weeks (I'm not okay with going beyond 41 weeks), he won't be kicking away in me, he will be cuddling in my arms. It still doesn't feel real.

Even though our house is full of baby stuff. Even though we now routinely hit the baby section in all the stores we shop at to look for sales. Even with all of this, it still doesn't feel real.

I think a big part of the unreal feeling is that lots of things are still uncertain. We still might move. We still might stay. We have no clue. We are waiting to hear from the company in Texas that hubby interviewed with. At this point if they make a good offer (meeting our salary requirement), we will take it. Until last night, we weren't sure that we would go, even if the offer was good. But my poor hubby is frustrated. The option of starting a company here is still our first choice, but the money men said they would have an answer two weeks ago today. And we are still waiting. So we aren't optimistic. Its still possible, but getting less likely everyday.

I feel like I can't grasp the reality of the baby when I can't picture where I will be when the baby comes. It seems unreal that I have a just in case OB and pediatrician chosen in TX. The realtor that hubby talked to gave us some doctor suggestions and even gave us his wife's phone number since she could better recommend OBs. It is all just so unreal.

And thats why I feel overwhelmed. I know it could be lots worse. I know he could be here already and in the NICU. I know that hubby could have no job offers. I know all of these things, but I also know that it could be better. It was supposed to be better. Hubby was supposed to get converted to a staff member in November. Then our money issues would be gone. Then there would be no question about whether I was going to be able to stay home or not.

And with that, I will quit whining. Hope things are going well in all of your worlds today!!

Happy Thoughts for my Nephew

2012-02-22T13:58:00.000-08:00

I want to take a minute to ask everyone to say a pray (or meditate or do whatever it is that you do) for my nephew. He will be having some pretty major surgery in two weeks. He is only 6, but has had fairly severe neck pain all of his life. To hopefully alleviate the pain, they will be removing a small part of his skull (in the back just under where it curves down) and shaving the edge of his T1 vertebrae. This will hopefully solve the problem for life. So please ask for surgeons with steady hands and nurses who will make him feel as good as possible under the circumstances.

I had surgery when I was 12 and I still remember the nurse who took me back to surgery. She was there when I went to sleep and she was right there when I woke up. If I walked into that docs office, I could still pick her out. She was so sweet to me. I really hope he has someone like that. He is at a children's hospital so I would hope that all the nurses are that awesome to the kids.

His older sister is going to come stay with us. I am so glad that we are close enough (opposite sides of the same state) that we can help them out. His dad is in the Air Force and they live in southern New Mexico. Because the population of New Mexico is so small, anytime you have major medical issues that require a specialist, you get sent to Albuquerque. Since we are less than 2 hours from Albuquerque, we can go pick up my niece and still be close enough to go visit him once he is out of the ICU. I'm very glad I have been hoarding my vacation and sick time!

Okay, now back to your regularly scheduled programing and thanks in advance for all the happy thoughts!

Catching Up on Belly Pics

2012-02-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

28 Weeks (and a bit scary. I should have done some make up that day)

30 Weeks 2 Days

32 Weeks 3 Days (I gotta get hubby to do full profile instead of 3/4 angle. I'm bigger than this pic makes me look.)

Thank Goodness for Weekends!!!

2012-02-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

Wow, pregnancy is catching up with me all of a sudden! This week kicked my butt. I work at a bank. I'm a teller and account service rep. In other words, I open/close accounts, deal with IRAs, do deposits & withdrawals. All the basics of the people at the counter and the desks. We are a small branch so we all do everything. Its not very strenuous. I have a chair to sit in as much as I want. The hardest part is that I have to get up and down a lot. I have to run to the printer for nearly every customer. Some days that's once or twice an hour, some days that's every couple of minutes.

The sciatic nerve pain makes getting up hard. Once I move around its not bad, but if I stay on my feet for long then it starts hurting again. Plus my feet swell. I have serious cankles after working all day.

I'm not sure why this is so hard. I feel like I should be able to handle this easily, but by the time that I got home last night, I was wrecked. My back hurt. My feet were killing me. My belly felt like it weighed a ton. I couldn't get comfy on the couch. A hot shower didn't even help. Luckily sleeping for 11 hours did. Well 11 hours minus 5 bathroom trips.

Now I'm couching it. And I plan to couch it most of the weekend. Next week should be a bit easier since we have a holiday on Monday and I have a doc appointment on Friday so I will only work half the day. But hubby will be in TX Wednesday & Thursday so that will make it harder. I will have to walk and feel the animals. Not the hardest thing in the world, I will also have to cook dinner and such when I get off work. Hubby has me very spoiled!! He is great!

Well now I'll quit complaining and go watch some TV.

Huge, Gigantic, Enormous Sigh of Relief!

2012-02-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

Hubby got a job!!!

Its not the most ideal situation, but it is a job here at the same lab that he is currently at. He is still going to go to his interview in Texas and we still might end up moving there, but if nothing else pans out, HE HAS A JOB!

The best part about this is that it will start as soon as his only post doc is up (on Saturday, talk about cutting it close!) so there will be NO lapse in pay or in insurance coverage!

There are a few reasons that this isn't totally ideal. First off, we expected him to be making more money at this point so that I could stay home with Fin. He will be making the same amount that he has been making for the past two years. With some adjustments to our spending habits, we can make it work for me to stay home. It really just means that I have to cook almost all of our meals and we need to take better advantage of our Sam's membership. It would be a snap if it wasn't for the $475 per month to pay off our IVF loan and our nearly $700 per month in combined student loans. But we will make it work. If we have to, we can deffer student loans for a year while I stay home with the munchkin. I would rather have those to pay for longer than give up my only chance to spend so much time with him.

The other reasons are not as much of a big deal. Mainly if he swithces to this area, he would likely need to stay in this area because this job would take advantage of his clearance (aka top secret-ish clearance). If he applied for other jobs in other areas, he wouldn't be able to explain what he had been doing before. It makes job interviews hard.

But those things aside, hubby has a job! I am just so happy to know that no matter what, we won't have to sell our house and live with (mooch off) family members.

Oh yeah, I'm now 32 weeks!!! Holy cow! Its starting to get super real!

9 Weeks to go!?!?!?!?!

2012-02-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

I am simply amazed that we have made it to this point! We are down to single digits on our weeks left! Last night I looke at hubby and said "Only 9 more weeks! That's CRAZY!!" His response was perfect. He said "It's not crazy, it's AWESOME!" We are both still in shock that we have made it to this point. I still look down at my belly and it takes a minute to realize that I'm really 8 months pregnant! Only 2 months to go! My due date is in 2 months and 3 days! The due date my doc is going by is in 2 months and 5 days (but since he is measuring 3 or 4 days ahead each ultrasound, I'm going with the 4-12 date).

I can remember being in school when we had 9 week semesters. They felt so long. But now 9 weeks seems like no time at all. Especially when you take into consideration what is going to happen during that time.

Hubby is going to interview with a company in Texas. It is quite likely that he will get an offer from them. His current boss is trying to get him another post doc here at the lab he is currently at. And yesterday, he had a meeting with a possible group who might fund the company that they want to start. So he may have three job offers coming in, but he still might not have any. This waiting is killing me!! I want to decorate Fin's room. I want to take the crib out of its box.

But at least for the moment, I feel fairly confident that at least one of the three options will work out. In reality, I am fine with any of the three options. Texas would be within 3.5 hours of all of my family (and most of hubby's). Either a post doc or the company here would be great since we already have a group of friends here and we wouldn't have to move with a newborn or with me 9 months pregnant.

So thats it for now. Todays task is to finish up the little home improvement projects that we have been putting off. All the piddly stuff like finishing the baseboards and painting the trim around the attic door. Fun, fun, fun.

Maternity Pictures!!

2012-02-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot that while I was in Texas, I had a maternity photo shoot! Some great friends from high school went together and booked me a shoot with another friend from high school who has her own photography studio. It was lots of fun and really relaxed since we all knew each other very well. I was even in girl scouts with the photographer!

If you are in or near the San Antonio area, be sure to check out Lindley Photography! Mychal did a great job and I can't wait to see the rest of the pics!

Baby Shower # 3

2012-02-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

Our families are awesome! I hope to be able to post some pics from Showers #1 & 2, but I don't have any pics yet. I'm waiting for 35mm film to be developed! Yep my family is still using non-digital cameras :)

Shower #3 was thrown by hubby's mom & two sisters. Unfortunately his one sister Liz was unable to come to the shower since she lives in a different state. Liz came up with the theme: Sock Monkeys! Then his mom Lisa and other sis Laura did an awesome job!

The sign says "Finley William." It will soon hang in his room!

Laura did such an awesome job making this diaper cake! It was so cute!

Look at these AMAZING sock monkey cake pops!!! And they were super tasty too!

Sock monkey cupcakes too!

Giant sock monkey!

Gifts!

My 2.5 year old nephew Ian decided that I wasn't opening the gifts early enough so he figured that he would take care of it for me! He opened every gift before we caught him! It was too funny to be upset about. Luckily I was looking the other way and Laura was able to get everything back where it belonged before I saw this.

One of the game we played required us to draw a baby on a plate that we were holding on top of our heads! Renee & I are both trained art teachers with lots of practice doing Blind Contour drawings (drawing something without looking at the paper and your pencil). It was kind of unfair to everyone else cause we rocked it :)

Everyone's plate babies!

It was a GREAT day! Everyone was so sweet and they gave us awesome stuff for Fin. I was so excited to get to see lots of my college friends. Lisa, Laura & Liz were so great to throw such a fun shower for me!

Baby's Room...So Far

2012-02-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

I have had a couple of requests to post the pics of the baby's room so far. I will warn you that at this point it doesn't look like a "Nursery or Baby's Room." Right now it looks like a crazy storage area. It is better than it was yesterday (I spent the afternoon cleaning and organizing). So here goes...

Before organization:

This pic is of the room as you walk in. Below the pillow and other assorted baby stuff is a queen size bed. Hubby & I built the bookshelves, but we still need to finish them. The front edges need to be covered with molding or something similar.

The left hand wall. The window is on the right and the closet is on the left. Most of this stuff is either for the baby or to go in the attic.

You can just make out the corner of the bed.

After organization:

Semi-organized closet. Newborn sized and 0-3 are all hanging. I still have TONS more to hang, but I need more hangers. The hanging bin has hats, bibs, socks, shoes, pacifiers & swaddling blankets. The stuff at the top and on the bottom is our junk that will hopefully find a new home soon, I just need to organize our room first.

Everything that belongs in the attic is now there. The plastic drawer thingy is filled with all the baby clothes. One bin for each size: 0-3, 3-6, 6-9 & 9-12. Our changing table is on the left with the changing pad on top. The cover in in the washer as we speak. On top of that is the My.Breast.Friend Pillow that a friend gave me. The stroller box is empty, but we are keeping it just in case we end up not liking our car seat. The crib is in the brown box on the right. That is where it will be set up if we stay. the car seat is in its box in front of that. We are still too chicken to pull it out and mess with it :)

Toys are all in the basket on the end table. Diapers are on the bookshelf. I plan to get rid of lots of the stuff on the shelves, but I ran out of energy.

Now you can actually tell that there is a bed in the room! It still has the stroller (right), play pen (middle) and snap-n-go stroller (left) plus some baby jungle gyms. We got the full stroller and the snap-n-go cause the snap-n-go was only 8 bucks on craigslist!

Well that's it so far. None of the fun stuff yet. Hopefully in the next 3 weeks we will find out if we are going to stay here or be moving to parts unknown. Hubby's bosses are trying really hard to get him another post doc. Its not the ideal solution that we were hoping for, but in this economy, we will take whatever option that we can get. If we tweek our finances a bit, we should be able to make due on hubby's salary and I can stay home with the munchkin. So please keep your fingers crossed that hubby's post doc will be approved!!!

Seriously?!?!?!?!?!?!

2012-01-31T15:16:00.000-08:00

ARGH!!

I am so angry I can't see straight! Above is the link to an article about how Newt Gingrich has decided that he should be the moral compass for a woman's uterus!

Aside from how laughable it is for him to discuss the immorality of ANYTHING, it infuriates me that a politician would think that he (or she) could dictate how I procreate!

Argh! I want to continue ranting, but there are no words.

Wow, Its Been a While!

2012-01-30T15:36:00.000-08:00

I didn't plan to disappear for that long. I spent the last 10 days in Texas for my baby showers. I started a post about that before I left, but I got so caught up with getting things ready for me to be gone at work, that I forgot to finish it!

So to catch up I'm going to do a bullet post and tonight or tomorrow night I will try to put up some pics of my shower (stinking crummy work computer won't let me put up pics!).

I had 3 showers in Texas. 2 in San Antonio (dads side and moms side) and one in Fort Worth. I'll try to put up some pics soon.
We only need a few more things and I think we will be pretty set for this kid! Now if only we knew where we would be living when he is born!
As of today I am 29 weeks 4 days or 29 weeks 2 days as the docs insist.
My newest and worst symptom so far is sciatic nerve pain. I think some of it comes from the position of my workstation at work. My pulled ligament probably isn't helping either. If you aren't familiar with sciatic nerve pain, it is a sharp shooting type pain that can go from your lower back and butt down your leg. I'm finding it increasingly hard to drive longer distances (which is great since my OB is 45 minutes away). I need to shift positions a lot and the foot on the pedals doesn't allow that.
This boy is STRONG! In the past week his kicks have gotten so much stronger. I'm fairly certain that they are kicks most of the time, but I'll know for sure tomorrow when I have another ultrasound.
Lots of family was able to feel the munchkin move. He really started kicking in Fort Worth so more of hubbys family got to feel that my family.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of stuff that has happened in the last couple of weeks, but mostly I have been hobbling with the sciatic pain and trying to lay with my feet up so not much happens.

Hope all is well in your various worlds. Now I'm off to catch up on your blogs. I didn't have a reliable internet connection for most of my trip so I have nearly 100 blogs to read!!!

Third Trimester

2012-01-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

I'm officially in the third trimester. Well my OBs would say it isn't til Saturday, but whatever. I know what day he started cooking and he consistently measures a couple of days ahead so I'm calling it today :)

To celebrate I took the day off. Well not really. I had my OB appointment this morning and after eating lunch, I got super nauseous. I think it has to do with the fact that my nose often bleeds during the night and last night I ended up sleeping half on my back (preggo pillow tucked under one side). So it bled, but it all went into my stomach. I know totally disgusting. But I felt sort of gross all morning, but just figured once I ate lunch I would be fine. Food seems to have magical pregnancy healing powers. If I feel crappy, all I need to do to feel better is eat. Most of the times.

But not today. I ate and my stomach cramped up and I quickly lost my lunch. So instead of going to work I spend the afternoon on the couch, snoozing and watching netflix. I haven't had much to eat aside from tortillas (plain) and water, but I'm feeling better now. I'm going to try some pasta and a few veggie for dinner. We shall see how that goes. And I'm adding more pillows so if my nose bleeds tonight it won't mess up my tummy. I would rather mess up my pillow than my tummy.

So yay third trimester! But I hope today wasn't a sign of what is in store.

In other news, my OB appointment went great. I talked to the doc about all of the things that I want to put in a birth plan. Most of the stuff is standard at her practice. There is no nursery so all babies room in. Baring complications babies always go immediately to mom's belly where the nurse does vitals and such. Its fine to have both hubby & my mom there. She explained the reasonings behind pitocin for placenta delivery and I'm okay with that as long as I get to cuddle with Fin. There were several other things that I was glad to learn, but I can't remember them at the moment. Basically, my birth plan won't be needed for much which is nice. I think the only thing that I may have to fight is supplemental feedings. Lots of babies have jaundice here at this elevation (not sure what the connection is) and they tend to push supplemental feedings. I want to try to avoid that as much as possible. Otherwise all is well.

I do a two hour gestational diabetes test next week one day. I'm not worried though. My blood sugars have been rocking.

Thats all for now...

I Have Hit That Point

2012-01-09T14:20:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has a kiddo knows the point. The point in pregnancy where everything starts to get progressively harder.

A few examples:

It took a good bit of finagling to get my socks on today. I warned hubby that he would likely be taking over that task in the near future :) I think the main reason that it was harder today was because I WAY over did it yesterday and it now hurts to move my legs, but I can see how it is just going to keep getting worse.
I now rarely get off the couch without an "omph."
I walk up the stairs like a duck. My feet are spread wider and I kind of lean forward. I told hubby if he laughs at me, I will kick his butt (except that I'm not confident that I could lift my leg up that high).
Organizing the baby's room yesterday required 4 or 5 breaks and a night with my feet up and I still feel like I was hit by a truck. But the baby's room is in great shape!
I think I may be starting to waddle. My stride feels different, but I don't have access to a long enough mirror to know for sure :)
I have to run pee every 45 minutes or so. Which means that I have roughly 2050 more trips to the bathroom before he is born. That is quite depressing since that only includes the aware hours. I didn't factor in the 4 trips per night!
I now have to wear the support belt all the time. I can feel the strain if I don't. I sometimes take it off if I'm just on the couch, but otherwise it is my constant companion.
It is getting harder and harder to get up and down from my chair at work. I have one of those slightly taller desk chairs to sit at the teller line. I am trying to combine all I can into each trip up or down.
Based on our ultrasound last week (and on the new high up kicks), Fin is head down. His head was sitting squarely on my cervix. I thought I felt him do a big flip last week and I must have been right. He had been feet down. With his head pushing down, I'm getting lots of pressure on my lady parts which seems to be adding to the leg moving pain has helped to increase my bathroom trips.

Well I guess that was more than a few, but I want to try to remember as much as possible. I guess it makes sense. The second trimester was so nice and now the third is starting and it will be less fun except that each day gets me closer to my little man!

How Can I Nearly be in the 3rd Trimester!

2012-01-05T18:44:00.000-08:00

Holy cow! I only have 100 days to go! Today I am 26 weeks so according to about 50% of the internet, I will start the 3rt trimester in a week. Its so strange. The first trimester felt so long. The second seems to have flown by!

On that note, here are a few pics.

26 Weeks

Awesome aquarium volcano bubble (cool red LED light makes it look AWESOME!)

Hubby assembling our new stroller!

Hubby "changing" the kitty on our new playpen changing station. Amazingly he didn't bleed after this :)

Super Exciting & Overwhelming

2012-01-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

Our house is filling up with baby stuff!!!

So far we have a crib (thanks hubby's mom!), a play pen (thanks dad!), a swing (borrowed from a friend). a play gym (super cheap at the thrift store) and TONS of clothes. I know that what we have is no where near what we will need, but still, it feels like a lot!

I think we have all we will need for 0-3 months (a big bin stuffed full) and are close on 3-6 (a big bin almost full). I'm planning to hit a few consignment sales in the next couple of months to stock up on bigger sizes.

All of this is BEFORE any of my baby showers. I was originally thinking I would only have one shower with a part of hubbys family, but apparently I am having 5 baby showers! I don't even feel like I know enough people for that! Each shower will be fairly small, but I think that will be awesome. If I had one big shower, I wouldn't be able to spend much time with everyone. This way I can acutally talk to everyone who comes instead of just having time to eat cake and open gifts. Plus this way I won't be overwhelmed at any of the showers.

This many different showers also helps with the geographic issues of living in a different state from my family. I'm having two showers in San Antonio (one for dad's side and one for mom's, I'll write a full post on that drama one day) and one in the Dallas area (hubby's family & college friends) and two in New Mexico (one a friend is throwing and one at work, none of the details on these two are set yet). That should have our munchkin decked out very well!

I'm headed to Texas for over a week in just over two weeks. I can't believe that I have made it to the point of having baby showers!!!

I am so thankful for our family and friends being so generous to us! Having to worry about buying everything for the little man, on top of all of the job and living arrangement worries would be too much. I am so relieved to know that he will have everything that he needs and more.

The Best & Worst Year Yet, but 2012 May Take That Title Too

2012-01-02T21:10:00.000-08:00

I think 2011 was the best and worst year ever. I got pregnant after two years of trying and many more years of worrying before we started officially trying (I was diagnosed with PCOS at 17 so that's 10 years of knowing what I was in store for before we started trying).

But before I got pregnant, we went through several rounds of frustrating treatments (frustrating in that they did nothing other than make me a crazy hormonal mess). Both hubby & I had our minds blown when they jumped us from Letrozole to IVF. Jumped right past injects with IUI. We found out that hubby only had 2% morphology.

Our IVF went great til retrieval then I had crazy insane pain from them having a rough time that lead to OHSS (not severe, but enough to make me miserable). Our car broke down that afternoon on the way home from the RE so instead of heading to bed, I helped my hubby change the water pump in our Jeep after taking a very long, very bumpy ride in a tow truck. We got home about 12 hours after the docs let us leave. That may be the most miserable day of my life, well maybe second to the day of my deviated septum repair.

The day of transfer, we headed to the RE expecting to hear that we had lots of great blasts since we had 13 eggs that fertilized. When we arrived, we were told that only 2 had made it to blast stage and even those were not the best quality.

But somehow we got pregnant. Somehow we made it to today which has me sitting here on the couch, six months pregnant feeling my little boy kicking away in my belly. I keep telling myself that I made it through all of that so I can make it through this. But now, I am worried not just for myself. Now I have the baby to think about. I didn't realize how much more stressful that would make this job situation.

As we speak, hubby and I are making plans to sell our house and most of our stuff in less than two months if he doesn't have a job by then. Luckily for us, we purchased our house for such a low price that we have a good bit of equity so we should be able to live on it for 6 months at least. We can stay with hubby's grandma if needed. Hubby's grandpa passed away not long ago so she would be happy to have the company. And we can help her with a lot of the things around the house and make things better there for her. Its not the worst thing that could happen by any means, but it does change things a lot!

Our plan was for me to be able to quit my job 3 or 4 weeks before my due date. I know lots of women work right up to the end, but we were hoping to give me a break before the baby comes. But if hubby doesn't have a job, I have to work as long as possible to keep the insurance going. So we would probably list our house in Feb but with the stipulation that it won't really sell til after the baby comes. Then we would move 7 hours away to his grandma's with a newborn. I am so scared that this is what is going to happen. And I have no clue what we would do when my 12 weeks of FMLA time runs out. With PCOS I am uninsurable by private insurance, but we should at least be able to get some coverage for the baby.

I feel so bad for my hubby. He isn't sleeping well. He is so stressed and I can tell the even though he doesn't say it, he feels like he is failing us. It breaks my heart. He keeps telling me that no matter what happen, he promises that this isn't forever. That things will get better. I have no doubt that that is true. I know we will make it through this, but man is it hard. I look around the house and know that we may only be here for a few more months. We may only have all of our stuff for a few more months. I really don't know how to make this better. I really wish this whole recession thing would end so he could get a flipping job!

Okay, now my rant or bawlfest (yep, I'm trying to keep the bawling quiet cause hubby went to bed early in hopes of getting a good night of sleep) is over. If you know me in real life, please don't make too big of a deal of this. We are just trying to roll with the punches and do what we need to do. For now, I am just looking forward to my baby showers knowing that no matter what, our baby will have everything he needs. And most importantly, if you know hubby, don't let him know how much I'm stressing. He of course knows, but it just seems to stress him more if he really sees it.

I Told Myself I Wouldn't Do This

2011-12-29T09:42:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine spent nearly every week in the OBs office. She is a very worry-natured person. She always had something that she was concerned about. And now that her baby is here, her baby has been to the doc more than any other I know. She isn't quite a hypochondriac, but she is close. And proud of it. Hubby & I are often told stories about the terrible outcome of some other friend who didn't go to the doc at the drop of a hat. We are frequently cautioned that if we don't do the same, terrible things will happen.

I have learned to take this all with a grain of salt and make my normal decisions. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. I am not opposed to going to the doc more than the normal amount if needed, but I'm not going to run in for every little thing. Luckily my mom is an RN and a call to her usually lets me know which way to go.

All that being said, I made a last minute appointment with my OB yesterday and in the end, I am glad I did! I figured they would tell me it was all normal and just to live with it, but that's not how it went. I felt silly, as though I was being like my friend, over reacting.

For the past week or so, I have been noticing that (this is going to get a bit TMI so feel free to skip) my pants and undies were riding up uncomfortably when I sat at work. I was figuring that maybe it was time for maternity underwear. It tried several different kinds, all with the same uncomfortable result. I tried wearing a dress and felt much better.

Over the holiday weekend, the uncomfortable sensations in my lady bits increased. I felt like I was bruised and swollen. We went shopping the day after Christmas and bought a stroller (more on that later). By the second store, I was totally worn out and hurting. The achy, bruised feeling had moved into my inner thighs so walking was less than pleasant.

The internet and my mom both felt that it was likely from the position of the baby. I did find one thing that mentioned an infection causing similar symptoms, but only one compared to the tons mentioning the baby's position. So I waited to see if it would get better. By the time I got home from work on Tuesday, I was hurting a lot! So Wednesday morning I put in a call to the OB. I talked to a nurse around lunch time and they had me in by 3:30. She told me she was mostly bringing me in to calm my worries :) They are great!

After measuring my uterus, the midwife I was seeing pressed on the ligaments to see if I had pulled anything and sure enough it hurt. So somehow I pulled a ligament that supports the uterus. So from now on, I get to wear a super sexy pregnancy support belt. It is surprisingly comfy, but it makes my belly have a funny shape. Fin is also entertained by it. He seems to like punching it when I sit down. It is super cute.

The midwife also did an exam of the lady bits and she thinks I also have an infection. I'm still waiting for the results to know how to proceed there. But basically, it was not the baby's position at all.

I'm very glad I went. I'm trying to learn to trust my body, but its very hard. IF has taught me that my body fails me left and right, but it seems to be doing well with pregnancy. I need to remember to listen to it more and trust what it tells me. Maybe one day I will...

Woo Hoo!

2011-12-25T14:41:00.000-08:00

Well, as of yesterday, no matter how you count it (on Thursdays which works with the day of conception or on Saturdays which works with how he is growing), Mr. Fin has reached 24 weeks and the point of viability! I keep telling him that even though he might be able to survive it, he should stay inside for at least 14 more weeks.

But we have hit the point where I told myself I would feel more comfortable with buying stuff. And its a good thing because when hubby got home from work one day this week, there was a very large box on the door stop. That big box contained THIS!!!

Its our baby's crib! Isn't it pretty! Currently the box is sitting on the landing between the downstairs and upstairs. We aren't going to get it out until we know if we will be in this house, so it could be a couple of months before I can take a picture of it all put together in our house.

Well, thats about all for now. Hope everyone has a great holiday! Eat lots of tasty treats and enjoy the family time!

24 Weeks and 3 Days!

I took my jacket off for two minutes to take the picture. Its COLD!

I Give

2011-12-21T14:34:00.000-08:00

Alright, I'm done trying. I failed at the challenge so now I'm done.

And on to other things...

I originally planned to chronicle everything about this pregnancy and I have not totally done that. I have put up my ultrasounds and mentioned the big things, but I'm not keeping up with everything as well as I had hoped to. So I'm going to break down and do one of those less fun bullet posts just to keep records of how this has all gone for myself.

Fin is moving around like crazy!!!!! I first felt him around 19 weeks, but wasn't totally sure of what I felt. When we got back from Thanksgiving, I was pretty sure of what I was feeling. In the past 2 weeks though, there is no question. He is a wiggler!!! Anytime I sit or lay down (or apparently talk or write about him) he starts wiggling like crazy. Last night, I'm pretty sure he did a couple of flips.
We still have no clue what is going to happen with hubby's job. He is officially out of a job in 2 months!!! He is currently still trying to get the company funded that would allow him to stay here along with applying for jobs all over. So far he has applied in DC, Virginia, Maryland, California & Illinois. The upside of moving to any of those places is they are all much closer to or in big cities so finding a great OB shouldn't be too hard. The down side, I would be finding a new OB at 6 weeks til my due date!!!
I'm actually to the point of feeling pretty good most of the time as long as I don't over do it.
This past weekend, I over did it. We went to a hockey game in Abq which was nearly a 2 hour drive. Then several hours sitting in the crummy chairs at the arena then 2 more hours home. It was rough. At least I planned ahead and brought protein rich snacks!
Sleeping is getting harder every day! I cannot even imagine how I will function in a couple of months!
I had a nose bleed nearly every day last week. Its getting really old. Especially since it starts while I am sleeping and laying sort of half on my side and half on my back so it goes down my throat and I end up hocking up nastiness all morning (I know, disgusting, sorry for over sharing).Today I was even late to work because my nose wouldn't stop for an hour and a half.
We are having people over for an Iron Chef type dinner where everyone brings something with the "secret ingredient" which is pineapple. Our last one was a big hit (blood orange) so we figured we would try a holiday edition. I am totally stressed out about it. I get off work at 6 and everyone will get here at about the same time as I get home. I like having time to be mellow when I get home. I am worried that I may be too worn out, especially since I have to work the next day.
I have already gained the amount of weight that I had hoped to gain in the entire pregnancy! My doc isn't worried, but I'm trying to reign in the less healthy foods, of course Christmas time is not a great time for that :)

Well thats all my mushy brain can come up with. I think its all the blood loss. My head is killing me, so I'm gonna go stare off into space til I get to go home :)

I Fail

2011-12-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

I suck at these challenges! I'm going to keep trying, but well you have seen how successful I have been so far :)

Day 8 - Describe your dream vacation.

An entire summer in Europe with the hubby. That would give us time to hit all the usual spots, plus find some fun off the beaten path places (and of course several weeks for me to get lost in the Louvre).

Day 9 - List 5 things you want to do before you die.

1. The above vacation.

2. Hold my baby boy.

3. Learn to weld. Hubby can teach me at some point, but I need the patience to let him and the patience to practice. I have this terrible tendency to want to be great at something the moment I learn to do it. And if I'm not, I tend to move on to a new project.

4. Ride one of those cool zip lines through the rain forest.

5. Have one of my projects featured on a crayola site. Oh wait I just did that :) If you go to the Crayola Play Sand Facebook site, the current project listed is directly from my website!!! I feel a bit famous :)

Day 10 - What is your favorite book?

Impossible to choose. I can't even narrow it down to my top 10.

Day 11 - If you could have 3 wishes, what would they be?

This one is repetitive. I already listed thing I wanna do before I die so take three of those and there you go :)

Day 12 - List 5 pet peeves.

1. Smelly people!!! I work in a customer service area and man, some people stink!! Some its cigarettes, some its bad breath (lots of older folks in my area), some its just bad hygiene. I want to hand out breathe mints & soap as freebies instead of lollipops and pens!

2. Grown ups who consistently baby talk to their kids. I'm fine with some baby talk when they are babies, but when they are toddlers who are beginning to speak, talk to them properly! They learn from you. If you baby talk to them, that is how they will learn to speak.

3. People who assume you political view will match theirs and start complaining to you without verifying if they are bitching about the person you voted or plan to vote for. It happens a lot with customers. They walk in and start complaining about Obama. I'm a democrat. Granted, he could do better, but I'll choose him over Gingrich any day. But my point is, no matter what your take on politics is, make sure you are complaining to someone who isn't getting pissed about what you are saying.

4. Stupid misspellings and people who don't fix them even when Windows tells them that its spelled wrong. And I'm not talking about an occasional missed word. I am talking about the people who constantly misspell words on their FB posts and such. Its infuriating.

5. Having to run pee every twenty mintues. Its not cool that pregnancy makes me SOOOOOOOOO thirsty and then makes me have to pee twice as much! (But I still wouldn't trade it for anything!!!)

Day 6 & 7 with a Belly Shot

2011-12-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

Day 5: A picture of something that makes me happy.

So I of course have several pictures. The two things that make me happiest right now are my belly and Christmas. So pics of both!

After being shocked by our old lights, we went LED this year and I LOVE them! They are so bright!

Our tree and stockings. And yes there are only two of us, but we have the kitties and puppy. I still need a stocking for the pup since he is new to our family this year. I am going to wait until next year to get one for Fin.

22 weeks and one day. AKA Fin and his first Christmas tree.

Me & Lola during "Lola upside down time." She is a funny cat. And yes that's the messy house I referred to in my list of things about me.

Day 6: Where do you shop?

Mostly Amazon.com. We live in a town with one grocery store, a Bealls and a small local departments store. Its an hour to Santa Fe with more stores and an hour 45 mins to Albuquerque with all of the stores. We don't go to Abq often so we usually stick with Santa Fe and Amazon.

Days 4 & 5

2011-12-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

Day 4 - If you won the lottery what would you blow your money on (after charity and bills, of course) list 10 material possessions you would buy for yourself.

1. A brand new Dodge Charger.

2. A brand new Dodge Challenger for hubby.

3. Design and renovate a room to be an art studio.

4. Kiln for my art studio.

5. Glass blowing lessons.

6. A newer, bigger house.

7. A vacation house in Texas, probably in the Hill Country.

8. A giant whirlpool tub.

9. A pool & hot tub for our newer house.

10. Foosball table (I could get one now, but would need the bigger house first).

Day 5 - 15 facts about yourself.

1. I am a messy person. I couldn't stand to live in a house that is super neat. It makes me twitchy. I love my nice messy house.

2. I really miss teaching and wish I could handle being on my feet that much.

3. My hubby calls me a Christmas crack head. I LOVE Christmas time. The lights and the tree and the family. I love it all.

4. I am addicted to feeling the kiddo move! Just in the past 3 days, I have started feeling movements several times a day.

5. I have a hopeless addiction to TV shows with a supernatural theme from the 90s & 00s. Examples: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel & Charmed. I am currently rewatching Charmed on Netflix.

6. I also have a hopeless addiction to trashy romance novels. I tried to keep track of how many I read last year. I know I missed some, but I counted 67 for sure.

7. I am also very cheap in my romance novel addiction. I generally get them from a local thrift store where they usually cost around 10 cents each. I only buy 3 or 4 new each year.

8. I have come to like the snow. I hated the cold so much at first when we moved from Texas, that I couldn't appreciate the snow. But now that we are in our second winter with not much snow so far, I miss it.

9. Garlic bread may be the best food on the planet. And thats not just a pregnancy craving talking. I have always loved it!

10. I am an annoying in between size in almost everything. My pants are too long if I get longs and too short if I get regulars. Larges are too small and XLs are too big in many shirts (except over the girls, there XLs fit). I am even technically in between cup sizes for my bra! I wish clothes fit better.

11. Monkeys are awesome. I know this isn't technically about me, but I guess I could say, I think monkeys are awesome.

12. I'm apparently very boring because this is way too hard!

13. Currently Fruit Loops are my new craving.

14. Even though I like the snow, I really want to be on a beach right now!!!

15. In 5 more minutes I will close my window and head home to a big bowl of chili and cornbread!

Yay!

2011-12-07T07:36:00.000-08:00

No more placenta previa!!!

Huge sigh of relief. Plus on the way home from the docs, I was talking to my dad and Fin kicked me 4 times in a row! I was totally psyched! I have an anterior placenta so I don't feel as much as lots of ladies by this point. My dad started laughing and said "Well, alright, he loves his old grandpa!" It was really cute.

Unfortunenately now I have no worry to distract me from the big scary prospect of hubby's job ending. We should have some word this week on the possibility of his getting converted to staff, but who knows when the final word will come. His job is over in Feb if he doesn't get converted. So we may be moving when I'm 7.5 months pregnant! And who knows where we would be moving.

So one big yay! I'm just gonna focus on that! Oh and Fin is measuring in the 54% which is GREAT! I forgot to get the pictures scanned, but maybe tonight. We got a pretty cute profile, but mostly the freaky Skeletor face :)

Day 3 & Fingers Crossed

2011-12-06T12:36:00.000-08:00

Day 3 - What's in your makeup bag?

Well, lately it doesn't matter because I haven't worn makeup in months. I should restart at some point, but sleep is so much more important :)

I do have a makeup metal lunchbox (it from the show Firefly, yep I'm a nerd). It has a bit of everything from stuff that's exclusively for costumes to my regular powder and mascara. Pretty boring.

Well now I'm off to the Perinatologist!! I get to see Fin again soon. Fingers crossed for a moved placenta!!!

Day 2

2011-12-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

30 Day Challenge

Day 2: What's in your handbag?

Well, Chapstick (I'm addicted to one specific kind so there are usually 3 or 4 in my purse at any given moment), wallet full of cards & such, Glucose Meter (no GD and my readings are PERFECT!), pink alligator print zipper case with nail file & clippers and such, mini first aide kit, cell phone, fold up hairbrush, lots of random reciepts, and a random trashy romance novel (todays is called The Truth about Lord Stoneville).

In other news, totally unrelated to my purse, today I had my first super dizzy spell followed by a massive hot flash. In the past few days, I have had several hot flashes. I have had several dizzy spells, but all the past ones have been when I got up too fast. This one today was crazy. I was standing at a work station and started having that head swimming feeling followed by extreme nausea. I just stood there. One of my co-workers came back and saw me looking funny. He walked me back to my chair (I could not have made it on my own). After about 5 minutes it was gone, but wow, it was crazy! I'm a bit terrified of driving. If that happened on some of the roads here in the mountains, it would be bad. I'll have to talk to my doc about it tomorrow.

30 Day Challenge

2011-12-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

Day 1 - What is the meaning behind your blog name?

Day 2 - What's in your handbag?

Day 3 - What's in your makeup bag?

Day 4 - If you won the lottery what would you blow your money on (after charity and bills, of course) list 10 material possessions you would buy for yourself.

Day 5 - 15 facts about yourself.

Day 6- A picture of something that makes you happy.

Day 7 - Where do you like to shop?

Day 8 - Describe your dream vacation.

Day 9 - List 5 things you want to do before you die.

Day 10 - What is your favorite book?

Day 11 - If you could have 3 wishes, what would they be?

Day 12 - List 5 pet peeves.

Day 13 - List 5 guilty pleasures.

Day 14 - Put your iPad on shuffle. List the first 10 songs that play.

Day 15 - Show your favorite outfit or fashion pieces.

Day 16 - How did you and your partner decide when you were ready to start trying to conceive?

Day 17 - Discuss the most ridiculous thing you ever heard about conception. Where did you hear it? Did it work for someone else? Did you try it?

Day 18 - Besides Mothers Day, what is the hardest holiday for you as an infertile?

Day 19 - Write a letter (one that you never have to send) to a fertile in your life. Did they hurt you? Support you? Tell them how you feel, all the things you can’t bring yourself to say in person.

Day 20 - Discuss how you found your way into the ALI community, and what being part of it has meant to you – good and bad.

Day 21 - If you had gotten pregnant that first month you started trying, how would you have been a different parent? What changes have you made to your parenting style (either current or future) in the time you spent trying to conceive?

Day 22 - What was the first baby or pregnancy-related purchase you ever made? Was it before or after you started trying to conceive? Or was it after you were already pregnant? Why did you choose that particular item to buy first? If you haven’t purchased anything yet, why not?

Day 23 - Talk about how you chose your RE.

Day 24 - If a very observant stranger were to walk into your house, what clues could lead them to believe that you have struggled with infertility?

Day 25 - Have you ever bonded with someone IRL over infertility?

Day 26 - Were you the product of infertility? Was anyone you know the product of infertility? How do you know? Or do you just suspect based on circumstances like age differences between siblings, time between marriage and conception, etc.

Day 27 - Talk about a time when you made someone in your life understand more about infertility.

Day 28 - What do you use the “nursery” for right now? If you already had a baby, what did you use it for before pregnancy?

Day 29 - If you had known that you would have trouble conceiving, what would you have done differently in life? If you already knew, did that knowledge affect your other life choices?

Day 30 -Tell us about a friendship you lost or a relationship that changed for the worse because of infertility.

Day 1 - What is the meaning behind your blog name?

Well, that started out as a snarky statement of my crappy luck, turned into a celebration of great luck. When I started this blog, nothing in my life was going as planned. I had recently found out that I didn't have a crippling disorder that I thought I had for 20 years. While I am totally aware that was GREAT luck, it threw my world into a tailspin. It took a while to figure out who I was. So I consider the 20 years of false identity as the unluckiness.

Since then we have done IVF and I am now 21 weeks and 3 days. My luck has changed a lot. I still feel like at any moment the old crummy luck will be back, but I am hoping to at least get to hold my little man before it is back.

Why I am Actually Liking my OB

2011-12-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

I had heard some stories from several different people that made me leary of staying witht he same OBGYN that I've seen since we moved here. Most included being induced for various reasons that didn't seem good enough to me. But so far, I'm actually loving my OB.

For one, she told me where to order great maternity clothes online :) I know thats not really a reason to love an OB, but it made me feel comfortable talking to her.

But the main reason that she is awesome is how she treats fertility patients! They allowed me not to get a pap as early in the pregnancy if I wanted to, because of the likelyhood of bleeding. They assured me that the pap was not risky, but that many women who have dealt with IF are worried about any bleeding. I went ahead and got it over with, but I greatly appreciated the option.

When I spoke to the doc about wanting to keep things as natural as possible, she totally understood. She did caution me not to get to set on one direction since birth is different for everyone and things can happen unexpectedly.

We also talked about whether or not I am actually high risk. With the placenta previa I am if it doesn't move, but mostly they call all women who have done IVF high risk. She implied that it is more for our benefit since being high risk gets you more ultrasounds and more monitoring. She expressed that they take it very seriously that we have put so much into getting where we are. She even said that she completely realizes that if we loose our baby, we may never get another chance. We can't just go home and do the nasty and end up preggo again.

I am completely butchering our talk, but it was great and it made me feel like she really understands what we (preggo IFers) are going through. Its an odd place to be. We are so excited to be here, but so scared too.

MIA Blogger

2011-11-29T16:06:00.000-08:00

Wow, I'm not a very good blogger lately. I would love to say that life has gotten in the way and I have been so busy, but for the most part that isn't the case.

This past weekend we had hubby's grandpa's memorial. As far as sad events go, it was as good as it could be. Hubby's uncle lead the memorial. It was perfect for grandpa. He was a scientist and very intelligent. He would have likely told us not to have one at all, but I think in the end he would have approved. The family and friends took turns telling stories. Many detailed his fierce intelligence and many others made us all laugh through our tears.

Our little munchkin had a fairly staring role. Some of the family knew that grandpa had developed the nutrient medium that was used in the first successful IVF (and many later IVFs), but some did not. Several relatives mentioned that we have a legacy with Fin. While technically, the medium grandpa developed was not used in our IVF, the medium that was used was derived from his medium.

Aside from that (and the brutal 7 hour drive to get to Colorado which I do not recommend you making if you are pregnant), not much has happened. Hubby finally finished his big project and now we are just waiting to hear about funding to keep him at this job. Fingers crossed, we should find out soon!

My sister-in-law brought me a huge tub of hand-me-downs from her and my other sister-in-law for Fin. He now has a decent amount of clothes. I can't wait to get some hangers and hang it all in his closet.

Well, thats all I have for the moment. I'll try not to be such a slacker in the near future :)

Half Way Baby!

2011-11-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

18 Weeks, 2 Days 20 Weeks!

Today I am officially 20 weeks pregnant! I think I have been holding my breath to get to today for a long time. I know its not viability, but for some reason I feel so very much more secure now. I'm still leery, but we are now thinking about buying some of the big stuff. We have been collecting small bits so far, but we may buy go buy our stroller and carseat while we are in Colorado this weekend. Not totally sure yet, but we might.

Now I'm off to pack. We are headed to Colorado for hubby's grandpa's memorial service. I hope you have all had a lovely Thanksgiving!

Ultrasounds, Tummy Pics & Placenta Previa

2011-11-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

But not necessarily in that order. At the 18 week ultrasound this past Wednesday, the doc discovered that I have placenta previa. For those of you who don't know what that is, well, its not terrible, but its not great. Basically the placenta is too close to the cervix. Luckily its not over the cervix. There is a good chance that the placenta will move up the uterus wall as the uterus grows. We need it to move a bit more than 1 cm farther away. So I'm not worrying yet. If it doesn't move, I will likely have to have a c-sections and could end up on bed rest before that. So here's hoping that it moves! As of now, I have been put on pelvic rest (aka no doing the naughty with the hubby) until I get checked at my next ultrasound on 12-6.

16 weeks 2 days 18 weeks 2 days
What a difference 2 weeks makes!!! I know that I'm standing differently so it may not be as much of a difference as it looks, but either way, the tummy over took the chest this week. For that matter, I think my chest looks bigger too :)

Finley's heartbeat. 155 bpm. Perfect!

My cute little man! (I love saying that. He's definitely going to be called "My Little Man" a lot!

Semi-cute 3D pic. He was rubbing one eye the whole time! I am surprised that he looks babyish and not alienish.

Well that's all for today. Now I'm off to start Fin's baby quilt. Maybe. Either that or try to get us ready for our trip to Texas next weekend. Not sure which.

Fin is Gonna Look So Handsome in His New Outfits!

2011-11-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

Yep, that means we are having a boy!! I guess I should have stuck with my intuition. I was convinced it was a boy, but then a weird dream made me reconsider and think maybe it was a girl.

We got him the Built Tough outfit and his Nana got him the other two. Nana sent a box with two sets of gifts, one for a girl and one for a boy (plus the gift reciepts cause Nana is always thinking).

So yay! Now I'm gonna go plan my nursery decorations! We are going to skip the big crib set. I'm going to get plain color or simple pattern sheets. I'm going to make a quilt (featuring monkeys and jungle animals, but mostly monkeys). And I want to choose some of the monkeys and make some cool wall decorations. So now I'm off to be crafty, if I don't start coughing again.

Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Politics

2011-11-08T14:11:00.000-08:00

I'll start off by saying I'm sick so I may ramble or make less sense than usual, but I'm also pissed off. Have you heard about Mississippi's Initiative 26?

If not and you are a woman who has dealt with IF, be prepared to get PISSED!!! And if you haven't read Mel @ the Stirrup Queen's post about it, you should. She is far better with words than I am.

I also want to add, that I don't want this to turn into an abortion debate. We all have our take on abortion. So to that end, any comments that are hateful or hurtful will be deleted.

I am 17 weeks and 5 days pregnant. This fetus would not exist without the help of IVF. This Initiative in Mississippi would take away or limit a woman's right to choose IVF. If IVF is still available under the crazy law, a woman would have to put all of the fertilized embryos in because they might not survive a freeze. Freezing them would be taking their rights away. We have 4 frozen embryos currently. We hope to have two children from them (I know its not a guarantee, but I'm talking best case scenarios here). If it works to have a second child from our first FET, we would still have 2 embryos left frozen since we plan to transfer only 2. But the way this insane law is written, I would have had to put in all 5 in the first transfer. In other words, I would never have done IVF to begin with. No reputable RE would transfer all of your embryos every time! That is an insane risk to the health of both the mother and any possible babies.

Aside from my own personal situation, Mississippi would also like to take away birth control pills. Many pills have several ways of preventing pregnancy. The last line of defense is making the uterine lining "inhospitable." If personhood begins at conception, this type of birth control would be illegal. This type includes almost all methods except barrier methods (condoms, etc..) and abstinence (which lets face it, we were all horny teenagers at one point, so we know that doesn't really work that often).

If I am able to carry this child to full term and I find out tomorrow (yep, a happier post to come tomorrow) that its a girl, I want her to live in a country where she and only she can make choices about what does and doesn't happen in her uterus! If this passes, it will be a truly sad day for our country.

9 Days

2011-10-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

Only 9 days til we find out if I'm carrying a boy or a girl. For most of the pregnancy I thought it was a boy, but the other day I had one of those freaky pregnancy dreams that made me wonder. If I'm honest with myself, I'm hoping for a girl. Don't get me wrong, healthy baby is the only thing I'm really asking for, but come on. When I think about a baby shower, I picture cute little dresses and bows. Hubby thinks its a boy. Most of the others around us are thinking girl.

I was confident until that dream. Now I have no clue. I know its 50/50, but its such a big deal. I am so impressed by the people who wait til birth. No way could I do that! If I could have found out the day of transfer, I would have! I can't wait to start planning stuff. The baby's room will be mostly the same either way with just some variations of color, but I feel like I can't start anything til I know.

Not that much will happen for a month or so after we find out. We are going on a trip in November to visit some friends and see my cousin's first baby. Then we will likely have hubby's grandpa's memorial sometime in November as well. Then Thanksgiving. So who knows? I may find out and buy one outfit then do nothing else til after Christmas, but at least I'll know!

First Belly Pics

2011-10-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

12 Weeks 16 Weeks 2 Days

I Totally can't find the magenta shirt anymore, but I like this one better anyway. So that's the tummy now. Not too much change, but it feels totally different and is getting ready to overtake my chest. At the rate its going it will do that any day. It makes me smile! Hubby freaked when I woke up yesterday and my belly was noticeably bigger than the day before.

Now I'm off to work on my Halloween costume and decorations. I'll try to post pics, but since I work in a bank, not sure if I can.

Sad Day in Our World

2011-10-29T15:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my hubby's grandpa passed away. I mentioned in a previous post that he was not doing well. Since then, he was in the hospital and then in a rehab facility. He seemed to be improving and it even seemed likely that he could one day come home again. But sadly that was not the way of things. He went peacefully, just sort of drifted away.

I also previously mentioned that he was a scientist. He developed the nutrient medium that embryos grew in for the early IVFs. As I sit here, pregnant with our baby through IVF, I can't help but think of the saying "When one door closes, somewhere a window opens." His grandpa couldn't have known that one day, his work would help his grandson have a baby, but I know that its helping hubby to know that we have this little one coming that his grandpa helped create.

Hubby's grandma seems to be taking all of this amazingly well. We have all known that it is coming in the not too distant future, but it always still a shock. I know that the moment we lost my grandma was still intensely painful and startling, even though I had sat by her side for nearly 24 hours. Even if you try to prepare yourself, its really not possible. They were married for 58 years. How can you face a life without your partner of 58 years. She is a very strong woman.

So to any of you who pray or meditate or practice any other spiritual time, please think of hubby's grandma and of hubby and family. And maybe throw in our little one. I am even more scared now of what it would be like if we lost it.

16 Weeks (yesterday)! and random updates

2011-10-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

Why is it that some weeks seem like a bigger deal than others? Each week has been a celebration including a high five in the morning and a huge hug when we get home. But some seem like a bigger deal. 16 feels bigger. 12 was bigger. Now I am looking forward to 20 (which will be Thanksgiving day).

I feel like now if I tell someone that I'm pregnant and they ask how far along, saying 16 weeks is real. I felt silly saying 12 weeks or 14 weeks. For some reason 16 feels real. I'm sure I'm totally nuts, but hey, I am seriously enjoying this!

In other news, I finally got my work chair fixed. I've been at work for an hour and my back doesn't hurt yet. Maybe this will work! The lady who came also plans to get me a foot rest and get the okay to make a few changes to my station. She is worried that my chair may be hard to use as I get bigger so she is going to recommend that they come back and check in 6 weeks or so once I'm starting to get bigger. This whole chair thing should not have been a big deal, but for the past few days I have had a hard time walking normally without pain. I tend to shuffle for at least an hour after work until everything stretches out. The heating pad has been a close friend lately. Now that this is better, I'm going to make a massage appointment to try to get my back feeling totally normal again. The funny thing is that all the stuff that made my chair painful is all the stuff I loved about it before getting pregnant. It leaned perilously far back and moved around a lot when you sit. It felt almost like a rocking chair. Apparently that's bad.

Hubby commented on my tummy getting hard yesterday. I hadn't noticed, but he said he could feel the difference when we hugged. So of course I spent the evening poking my belly and what do you know! It is quite a bit more firm.

Aside from lots of food aversions and needing to eat ALL the time, I am having very few symptoms. I periodically feel some cramps in my uterus and some stretching of the ligaments, but not for long and nothing that a walk, or occasionally Tylenol, can't fix.

Most of the food aversions have been smell or texture based, no surprise there. I have always had texture issues with food (don't get me started on oatmeal or tapioca pudding). But recently things that I normally liked are causing problems. Hubby made some chicken noodle soup and I thought I was gonna hurl. French fries are the devil. I'm still having trouble cooking cause raw meats are TERRIBLE! Luckily hubby doesn't mind doing the cutting and starting the meal if I take over once its in the pan.

Well that's all the randomness I've got for today. Now I'm off to work on some Halloween decorations. We are doing a pirate theme at work. I have to go make our lobby look like a ship. That should be easy right?

Requested Pics of my Baby Stuff

2011-10-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

So as requested, these are all the onesies that I got for $7. All but the dark blue one that says Daddy's Little Monster. That was our first baby purchase!

These were part of it too, but they got washed in a separate load. All said and done, we got 17 outfits for $7! Plus some kids books and books for the hubby.

So Surreal

2011-10-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to visit my family in Texas. It was great to see everyone, but holy cow, traveling is HARD! Before I got there I planned much of my time there. As usual, I only have a few days, but have TONS of people to see. So I definitely overbooked myself. I forgot how quickly I get tired. And how often I need to eat. And how important naps are for days I'm up and moving a lot.

Luckily everyone is so happy and excited for us that it wasn't a big deal to change some plans. I did manage to go out and see my mom's hubby's band the day we landed. Luckily San Antonio recently made it illegal to smoke in bars. I was quite impressed that I stayed up past midnight (especially since it was Central time and we live in Mountain time so it was really 1am!). I did of course sleep til 11am the next day. I also visited my grandma twice (and even dragged my brother along once), went shopping with both my step-sisters, had dinner at my sister's house twice, had lunch and dinner with my dad and spent most of a day shopping with my mom. I packed a lot into 4.5 days!

The strange and surreal part is as I was getting dressed the first full day there, hubby was staring at my tummy. I turned and looked in the mirror. I'm starting to show. Its still that annoying time where I just look fatter instead of pregnant, but still! I know that beneath the pudge is a baby. I can't wait for the next couple of weeks as it starts to turn into a real baby bump.

I knew I would be excited, but I had no clue how much. Everytime I walk by a mirror, I have to turn sideways and look.

I also went shopping and bought some maternity shirts. I was really glad I got to go while I was in Texas. For one, there was a much bigger store than we have. And two, I went with my mom and two step-sisters which is much more fun than going alone!

Its starting to feel real. I'm going between thinking "Whew, we made it though the rough part!" and "Holy cow, if things go badly now I will be devistated!" I know that my chances are good at this point. I know that things look good and there is no reason to think I won't have a perfect baby in April, but its so hard to give up worrying. But I'm trying. I'm thinking about the awesomeness of being pregnant right this second. No matter what, I am pregnant right now.

Very Sad

2011-10-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yesteday ADSchill lost her twins at 20 weeks. Go give her some love if you can. I can't imagine what she is going through right now.

This is the onefrustrating part about this lovely bloggy world. I wish it wasn't all so anonymous so I could go and do something for her. Not that anything I could do would really help, but well, I don't know what else to say.

The Many Way an Infertile's Pregnancy is Different

2011-10-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about the many ways that my pregnancy will be different than it would have been had I gotten pregnant quickly without all of this struggle. I thought I would start a list and probably add to it later on in future posts. So here we go:

I feel like there is less of an "unreal" feeling. This baby has been so wanted that as soon as I got that pink line, it was real. If I knew if it was a boy or girl, we would have a name and already be using it.
My hubby is actually ready and excited. I was worried that he would never be actually happy about it. It took years for me to get him to agree that we were ready to try. When it finally happened, he looked at me with the hugest grin on his face. I think he was more excited than I was at first. He is already talking to the baby. I didn't expect that.
I am so overwhelmingly aware of all the things that can go wrong. I think that lots of fertiles live in blissful ignorance unless they have a loss. But us infertiles have researched and studied and worried. We know what can go wrong. And we know how easy it is to end up on the wrong side of the odds.
All of the annoyances seem to bug me less. Granted, when I feel crappy, I complain to the hubby (but that is mainly so he will rub my back). But in reality, after I mentally whine I start to celebrate. Feeling crappy means things are happening. Since I can't feel the baby yet, I need the crappy feelings to assure me that its still in there doing its thing.
In some ways I prepared for pregnancy earlier and in some ways later. Because of the IVF, I had to start wearing maternity pants almost immediately. That was terrifying. What if I lost the kiddo? Then I would have these pants sitting here mocking me. So I went and bought stretchy skirts. Not specifically maternity, but totally usable for most of the pregnancy.
I ended up telling lots of people about the baby earlier than most non-IFers would. I know that is probably not typical for many IFers, but I was very open about the IVF so lots of people asked. In the end I felt that if I told them about the IVF I could tell them about a loss. So most of the people around me knew about the pregnancy as early a 7 weeks.
Today I am 14 weeks and I am very scared of buying anything. After the first trimester, lots of non-IFers start shopping. I have one bag of stuff that I bought and even that scares me (I couldn't resist thought. There was a bag sale at my local thrift store so I got a bag full of adorable onesies for $7). Currently the bag is hidden away in the closet of what will be the baby's room. I keep thinking that once I feel it move, I will be ready, but who knows.

That's all for now, but I'm sure at some point I will think of other things. Do you ladies have any thoughts?

NT Scan including some Pics

2011-10-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

All went wll yesterday at our NT Scan. Hubby and I decided that we didn't want all the bloodwork and such so we just had the ultrasound. The baby measured perfectly. No indicators for Downs or any of the other chromosomal issues that can come up. So basically, YAY!

Hubby had not seen the little one since it was just a white blob on the screen. I watched him watch the screen as much as I watched the actual ultrasound. His face was amazing to watch. The sonographer was great. She told us everything that she was measuring and pointed out each different body part. The baby was jumping around and flipping over so much that she had a bit of trouble getting to everything, but in the end, after jabbing the baby (and of course me) several times she got the kid to quit mooning us and was able to get the all important neck measurement. Prefect.

It was so cool to see the kid flipping around. It is very surreal to see and to know that its happening inside my body and yet I can't feel it. I can't wait to feel it!

When she typed in the "Hi Mom & Dad," hubby got huge eyes. I think he realized "Whoa, thats us!"

This one cracked us up. I looks like the kid is kicked back in a hammock with a smoke :)

How Quickly It Happens

2011-10-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

I have become boring. I was talking to some friends that I haven't seen in a few months yesterday. They wanted to know what we had been up to since we last saw each other. My only response was "sleep." And its pretty much true. I am so tired most of the time.

There are a few exceptions. Last night I went into the kitchen to make dinner, but the kitchen was too dirty so I scrubbed. The whole kitchen. And today I am paying the price. I am SOOOO sleepy. Only 45 minutes til I get off work. I might be able to make it without nodding off.

Yep, I'm so boring that I can't think of a thing to blog about. I have two thoughts right now: Sleep and dinner. I'm hoping the 2nd trimester energy will kick in soon. Please, kick in soon.

Oh yeah! Tomorrow is officially 13 weeks!!!! As long as I make it to tomorrow, I have survived the 1st trimester! And best of all...tomorrow is our NT scan so we get to see the baby again!!!

I Thought I Was Done With Needles!

2011-09-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had an appointment at the local Diabetes Center. My OBGYN automatically sends all preggos with PCOS to them for monitoring to prevent Gestational Diabetes. I was all for this since Gestational Diabetes is one of my big fears.

I sat down with the lady and we went over my typical diet (typical since pregnancy). She was actually quite impressed. I seem to be on the right track. She made a few changes, mainly adding things instead of taking them away surprisingly. Her main point was that anytime I eat carbs, I should also eat some protein to help slow the impact on my blood sugar. I can handle that. I am now armed with pecans, cheese sticks and turkey lunch meat.

She also gave me a blood glucose meter (I think thats what its called) and wants me to test my blood sugar 4 times a day. I was so bummed. I really thought I was done with stabbing myself daily. And now 4 times a day! Luckily its not really that bad. It took a bit to get the depth right. I want the needle to poke enough to make it bleed good, but not so much that it actually hurts once the bleeding stops. It also took a number of wasted strips before I got the hang of how much blood it takes.

After getting my results and talking to my mom (who is an RN and has worked with diabetic patients for years), I'm not as confident with the info I was given yesterday. The lady told me that I should test in the morning before breakfast for my fasting blood sugar levels. Today this was 82. She told me that it should be between 60-70. This result has me confused. I am also supposed to test 2 hours after each meal. For this she didn't give me a range. She just said it should be around 120. When my after breakfast result yesterday was 77, I thought "Well crap. My body is doing stuff wrong again. No big surprise." Then after lunch it was 76. I was freaked. I had eaten a good healthy lunch. Why was the result so far from what she said it would be? I emailed my hubby. He agreed that I should call the lady and see what was up.

I called her and told her about my two 70s results. She sounded excited and said "Wow thats great!" If thats a great result, why the heck didn't she give me a range? Why did she say around 120? 76 is not around 120! I call 44 points difference a big one!

When I got off work yesterday I called my mom. She is my go to person for all medical info. Being an RN in various settings has given her a good amount of knowledge on most fairly common medical issues. And living in South/Central Texas (Texas being one of the fattest states) has given her lots of experience with patients with diabetes. I told mom about the days results and she said "Great! You body is doing what its supposed to do!" We were both surprised about that. Mom said that normal results should be between 70 and 110 so I'm not sure where she got that 120 result idea. I think she was giving me the normal for someone with a diabetes. But I'm not diabetic. I thought the whole idea was to keep me from becoming diabetic.

I have an appointment in 2 weeks so when I go back I will try to find out what the heck is going on. Until then I will go with what my mummy says (the internets agree) and celebrate the fact that my body is doing something right!!!!! It was even normal after I ate a doughnut with my breakfast! Yay me!

When Should This or That Symptom Start?

2011-09-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to see why some women hate all those pregnancy books. I am definitely NOT fitting those timelines for most things. The books say morning sickness is usually worse in the morning and generally happens from 6 weeks to 13 weeks. Mine didn't start until 1pm. Ever. And it started at 4 weeks and was gone by 10 weeks. Go me. 2 weeks ahead of the game.

Most of the books say, nesting starts around 5 months and often not until later. I'm apparently 2 months ahead on this one too! For the past two weekends, I find myself unable to sit lazily on the couch. As I was watching some random tv show on Netflix, I noticed that the bottom shelf of our living room bookcase was a big mess. Normally I would think, man I should clean that, but end up getting sucked into the show again and forget. Can you tell that I'm not a neat freak? But this weekend, it drove me NUTS! I had to clean it. Then when I was putting away a pair of shoes that was on the floor near the book shelf, I noticed how chaotic the coat/shoe closet was. After two trashbags of stuff to send to the local thrift store and a dust pan full of pet hair (sorry, but how can they shed their own body weight in fur monthly?) the closet is nicely organized and clean. Each project lead me to the next until we ended up with a totally cleaned down stairs (including steam cleaning the whole downstairs). Granted hubby did most of the steam cleaning since I had run out of energy by then, but still. This is not like me.

I am speculating that this instinct is hitting early because we may be moving during the normal nesting time. We are still hoping that hubby will get hired on permenantly at the lab, but the best option would be if his group formed a company. In that case, we would end up moving about 45 minutes away. I am terrified that we are going to end up moving when I am 7 or 8 months pregnant. I feel like it is too early to do much now, but I also don't want to wait because we could me moving. And in reality, we could be moving cross country (New Mexico to DC) if hubby gets any of the jobs he applied for recently. We still have no clue what's going to happen.

So maybe its a really good thing that I'm not sticking to the "typical" timeline. And as my mom would say, its not out of the ordinary for me to be wierd. My nickname as a kids was Gonzo (yep, because of the muppet).

It's Suddenly Real

2011-09-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to post this for several days, but work has been crazy.

My OB appointment went great. Most of my worries were taken care of and when I see the actual OB at the next appointment, she can answer my last few questions best. Wednesday, I saw the CNM in the practice. She no longer delivers babies, but I will likely see her for many of my appointments. I'm still not totally sold on these docs purely because there is a very good chance that my doc will not deliver my baby. They have a pool of local docs and they split the on call time. Unfortunately from what I can tell, all of the other docs I was planning to look at are in the same on call pool, so it would be the same situation. When I go back the doc can tell me what percent of her patients she actually delivers.

Talking to the midwife was great. She was not worried at all about my weight loss. We talked about my current diet and my past diet. She felt confident that I was loosing weight because I had made such a big change in a positive direction (aside from the brownies that a customer brought us today).

She planned to listen to the heartbeat with the doppler. But with my extra padding and how early it is, she wasn't able to find it. She looked at me and smiled as she said, "This won't be official, but lets take a peak." As soon as she turned on the monitor, there it was. Its starting to look like an actual person. It jumped around and waved its arms. I instantly got teary eyed as she was pointing out each little body part. It was just a quick peek and then back to the rest of the appointment.

We continued talking about all of my questions. They are also sending me for a first trimester scan at the high-risk OBGYN. That will be October 6th. Its going to be a very long appointment. 1 hour with a genetic counselor going over family medical histories, then the ultrasound (I think its the NT scan) that will take at least 30 mins, then we see the actual doctor then I go for bloodwork. They estimate 2.5 hours!

They are also sending me to a Diabetic Nutrition Counselor. This is the standard practice at the OBGYNs for anyone with PCOS. It should be a good thing to help keep my risk of gestational diabetes down.

After the appointment, as I was checking out, I had a really hard time keeping it together. When I got to my car, I bawled for at least 5 minutes before I could go anywhere. It suddenly felt so real. There really is a little person in me. I was so happy and so scared and so sad all at once. Sad mostly cause it was a surprise ultrasound so hubby wasn't there to see it. I'm still having a hard time processing all of it. My body doesn't do what it is supposed to do. I keep expecting it to fail me again. I guess that probably won't go away til I'm holding a baby.

So there it is, the post I've been trying to write for days.

On another note, I am so happy for so many of you ladies who have recently gotten your BFPs!!! And I am rooting for all of you who are still working toward yours! I'm thinking lots of happy thoughts for you all!!!

Why am I Suddenly Terrified?

2011-09-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

I have been doing fine most of the time. Going from one ultrasound to the next was a bit unnerving, but I was nauseous so I figured everything was fine. Now that the nausea is gone, I'm starting to worry. Since the transfer, I have lost almost 30 pounds. At first I wasn't worried because I was so nauseous that I wasn't eating much. Now I'm not feeling so crummy and I'm trying to eat more. All the books say that I should be slowly starting to gain weight, but when I stepped on the scale this morning I was down another pound.

I'm not too worried because I am overweight. By quite a bit. Well it was quite a bit at my top weight, now its down to just overweight. My top weight included 8 pounds of water weight from my retrieval. So I'm really only down about 22 pounds of my actual weight.

But it has been a long time since I was down this low. Like college. Dorm food was helpful for loosing weight. Now its just that I'm eating healthy. Previously we tried to eat veggies, but there were definitely days that we didn't have any. Now I'm often eating a salad (with carrots, cheese, sunflower seeds, chickpeas & ham) for lunch, carrots & cucumbers or apples for snacks and two types of veggies at least with dinner. Most of the carbs I get are from my snacks between meals. Pretzel sticks and the like. Right now I'm munching on some Teddy Grahams. But it still seems strange to be loosing this much weight. I'm almost 11 weeks so thats more than 2 pounds per week of total loss.

Part of me is totally excited about the loss, but most of me is worried. I am now terrified that my doc is gonna flip tomorrow when I tell her.

I'm also just scared. For no specific reason. Just terrified. I'm hoping tomorrow eases my fears, at least for a few days.

What's Been Happening in My World...

2011-09-19T16:53:00.000-07:00

Well mostly sleep. I am still trying for 11 or 12 hours of sleep, but its starting to be harder to get. My back has started hurting some, which seems odd to me since the kid is still tiny. But oh well. I am trying very diligently to work on my posture.

I am also going up to my HR department to see how I can get a better chair cause mine is not only crummy, its broken. When I move the back support up to a decent (not good, but better) position, it falls back down as soon as I lean against it. I asked for a new chair months ago, but instead they sent a repair guy who said it was not repairable. They still didn't replace it. We are a small business so its not that surprising. But I'm hoping that being preggo will get me somewhere.

Aside from that, not much is going on with me. Hubby is working lots of long days and weekends in the hopes that a company will be started soon using the stuff that they are developing at work. If this happens we will likely be moving. We won't have to move far (less than an hour), but moving at all is so stressful. Plus it making it so that I can't start to get the baby's room (we have just allowed ourselves to start calling it that instead of the "room full of crap") ready. I'm not ready to get furniture or anything like that, but I do want to paint and do a mural on the closet doors. I also want to buy a closet organizing system so that we can make the most of our tiny closet. But I don't want to do any of that if we may end up moving in the next 6 months. Odds are pretty good that the baby will be brought to this house after its born. But we may move soon after that. Or we may move sooner. Its so unsettled that I'm leery of doing anything. So instead I watch netflix and read trashy romance novels.

Nothing much interesting is happening right now. Hopefully soon hubby will know about his job status, but til then we are in a holding pattern.

I see my OB (well the midwife in her practice) on Wednesday. I am getting a list of questions together. I know lots of people (5) who saw her and were induced to fit her schedule. Only 1 of them really needed to be induced. I will NOT be induced to fit a schedule. I am going to be a pain in the butt if they want me to conform the them. I don't have lots of options for OBs because of where we live. I am hoping to stick with the one I know and have liked as my GYN for years, but I will not take a cookie-cutter treatment. All of the "natural" feeling was taken from me as far as conception. I will fight for what I want as far as care and delivery. I really wish we had a good birthing center.

I feel crazy talking about this stuff now at 10 weeks 4 days. But then I also don't want to change doctors late in the game.

Alright, now my totally random rambling post is done and I will try not to disappear as much soon. I'm still having a hard time with this bloggind about pregnancy without loosing the IF side. I know it has shaped me so I can't really lose it, but I sort of want to. Who knows. Maybe one day I will figure out what I want to say/

Random Updates

2011-09-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

I am now off Metformin, Progesterone in Oil & Lovenox!!! I feel so much better without the Metformin. As long as I eat before I get hungry (which super annoys me cause I'm not a snacker), my nausea is almost totally gone. I thought without the nausea I would freak and worry that things were going wrong. Not the case so far. I feel so...strange that there is no question about whether I'm still preggo. Plus all I have to do is listen to county music, start crying and realize that there is nothing to worry about.

My ovaries are still HUGE so I took the leap and bought a pair of maternity jeans (thank you Target for selling on Amazon!). Now I just need some work pants cause Fall is fast approaching. It will be too chilly to wear most of my skirts within the month. I was very scared to buy maternity stuff so early (I'm 9 weeks 1 day) but I'm also too broke to imagine buying a new size of pants then go and buy maternity stuff in a month or two (not really broke, but with hubby's job situation, we are trying to spend every extra penny paying off IVF debt).

Currently my biggest symptom is epic tiredness combined with an inability to sleep well. Its very frustrating. I think all of the animals may get locked out of the room soon. Last night one of our cats, Lola used my bladder as a spring board twice and then started eating my hair. She is a freak, but it made me have to run pee two extra times.

As of this past Tuesday, I graduated from my RE to a regular OBGYN (with an occasional visit to the Hi Risk OB). I am sad that I will no longer get weekly ultrasounds, but glad that things are going so well. I'm starting to think this whole thing may work out.

Blobby has a Heartbeat!!!

2011-08-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today we had our 2nd ultrasound. Everything is going great! Blobby looks just right. The heart rate is perfect. 146 bpm. I can honestly say that I wasn't very worried. And that is only true because I am feeling crummy most days so I know its still going good.

I got all teary hearing that little heart beat. Why does it seem so much more real now? I still forget that I'm preggo a lot, but when I remember that heartbeat, it feels real again. Even hubby got choked up! Which of course made me even more teary.

I'm still terrified, but I think I'm going to let the cat out of the bag to my family. My folks & siblings know, but not aunts & uncles or my grandma. I'm only gonna tell now so that my grandma gets to know. But as soon as she knows, so will EVERYONE in the southern half of Texas. I'm not sure she does it. She lives alone, but everyone around calls her. It may take a bit longer since she doesn't have a phone in her room at the nursing home yet, but all of the aunts & uncles come visit, so I give it a week. I told one of my aunts because her daugher also used ART (advanced reproductive technology) to conceive. Her baby is due next month.

Well now feel free to look away if you don't want to see our ultrasounds.

Our Blobby is the white shape inside of the black jelly bean.

If you make this pic bigger you might be able to see the heart rate at the bottom. There are little white lines that show the woosh woosh we heard.

Look Out...I'm Grumpy

2011-08-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Just in case you were planning on getting pregnant at the same time as one spouse is in job limbo and two of your grandparents are in failing health, I would encourage you to reconsider. Or at least take a trip to some remote spot so that you don't kill someone.

Combining pregnancy hormones with this much stress is a bad idea!!! I am currently alternating between being very sad (aka sobbing my face off) and being totally pissed (aka super grumpy at the world).

Hubby and I jokingly talked about how we would totally get pregnant this time since his job is uncertain. We compared it to the likely-hood of a teen getting knocked up in the back seat of a sports car. Its an inevitability. But the whole time we did the IVF stuff, I thought that he would be converted to staff at any minute. How could he not be? The project can't keep going without him. Literally. So why do they keep jerking him around?

I prepared myself for the pregnancy stuff. I'm trying not to complain too much about the nausea (especially since I would be freaked if I didn't have it). I'm trying not to let my grumpiness spill over at work (failed on that today, but usually do fine). But you can't prepare for the extra crap that life throws at you. I'm trying not to stress. I getting scared that being this stressed could cause problems with Blobby (yes we are going to keep calling it that until it exhibits some visible features, he he he).

I know that worrying that I'm too stressed is completely counter productive, but man how do I stop? I am trying to lower my stress with little things. I'm working overtime this week so thats an extra $150 to pay on a credit card. Next week is our heartbeat ultrasound, so we have that to look forward to. Hubby bought me a beautiful necklace when he went to Boulder to visit his grandpa. His grandpa is doing much better. He is able to sit up and talk to everyone. He still isn't out of the woods, but things are looking up for the moment. My grandma has a couple of ladies that she knows in her nursing home, so hopefully she will start having a better time and not be sad that her kids aren't with her 24/7 (she tried really hard to get one of my aunts to move in with her, but my aunt has other ailing relatives that she cares for in another city, so my dad and uncle took turns visiting and cooking for her everyday).

Maybe if I keep reminding myself of these things, I can get out of this funk and be happy again.

We Wrote a Book!

2011-08-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I have a tendency to plan crazy schemes to allow us to quit working and do something fun. One of these is that we wrote a children's book. We hunted for agents and eventually gave up. We like it and we know its good, so who needs them!

Hubby (a computer genus, well at least compared to me) has gotten it e-published. Currently the idea isn't to quit our jobs. Its to pay off our IVF!!! We will be paying for it for the next 3 years! Our state is one of the pricier places to get IVF because there is only one doc in the state who does it!

So if you are in the market for a cute kids book, with added humor for the grown-ups, here's the book for you!

Tails of Socrates: The Search for Shorty Beard's Treasure

Its available in lots of formats and its only $3.99!

I Didn't Think It Would Still Hurt...

2011-08-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

I am learning that being pregnant doesn't magically fix all of the IF feelings. In my head I knew this, but my heart was taken by surprise. The evil FB had some surprises yesterday. A girl that I went to high school with announced her pregnancy. She got married less than a month ago. About ten minutes after I saw that, hubby told me that his cousin's water broke. His cousin is in her early 20s. She just got married a few months ago.

I thought that I would just be able to be happy for these women. Boy was I wrong. The same old feelings started up. Its not fair. That was way too easy for them. Why not me? I messaged hubby and told him that I was surprised how much stuff like that still hurts. No matter what happens. No matter how many kids I end up having, I'm infertile. That will never change and never go away. I hope it will dull with time, but 6 weeks and 6 days are not enough time apparently.

I wonder if I will feel differently when my belly starts to pop out? Or will it take until I have a baby in my arms? Will it be longer? I hope it isn't too long because we are in that time of life where everyone around us is having babies. I guess almost 30 is that time for everyone.

On another topic, man I wish I could get control of my emotions! It has been so long since my emotions have been totally my own. Since before we started Clomid. The scary part is that it will probably be more than a year before I get some control again.

Currently everything makes me cry! A recent country song about how if heaven weren't so far away we could visit our loved ones. Sappy romantic movies. Futurama made me cry last night!?!?! Granted, it was the episode where Fry's dog was fossilized and it show him sitting out front of the pizza shop waiting his whole life for Fry to come back when he get frozen. I'm getting all weepy just thinking about it.

I'm not surprised that I'm crying a lot. With hubby's grandpa, my grandma and hubby's job situation we have a lot going on. But I'm crying at STUPID stuff! Chock it up as a pregnancy symptom. I do love those, but its annoying. My other two major symptoms are still nausea and breast changes. I looked in the mirror this morning after I got out of the shower. My nipples are HUGE! When did that happen? I know they were a bit bigger, but now they are literally huge! I think I'm going to have to shop for new bras soon. I hate bra shopping with a firey passion! Usually I know what fits and order it online.

Oh well. Guess I better get to work. Stuff to do.

My Grandma & Grandpa

2011-08-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

I started this post nearly two weeks ago. Since then I am a bit less worried about my Grandma and more worried about my hubby's Grandpa. We have known for a couple of weeks that his Grandpa was in the hospital. We just found out today that he is now in ICU. He has been in such bad shape that they had to restart his heart. In the past few hours things have gotten a bit better. They are now talking weeks or months as long as there is no brain damage from his time before his heart was restarted.

My poor hubby doesn't know how to handle this. He still has all four of his grandparents. The only other time that I have seen my hubby cry is when we lost our pup Socrates. I wish I could do something to help him. Please think happy thoughts or pray or whatever it is that you do. I really think hubby needs a chance to go see his Grandpa at least one more time. I hope he gets one.

And not back to my original blog...

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It sucks to be one of the youngest children of the youngest child. My grandma is 94. My dad was her youngest. We lost my grandpa years ago and it seems more and more like we will lose grandma soon. I am terrified. Losing grandma will be so much worse than any of the others. She is my last grandparent. It will be like losing them all again. I am so sad that none of my kids will get to know their great grandparents. I know that a lot of people do not, but my grandparents are so very different than anyone else I know. I really want my grandma to at least get to see my baby. We are waiting to tell her about the baby until after we hear a heartbeat since she will be so excited that she will tell everyone. We originally planned to wait until the end of the first trimester, but I am too worried. I want her to at least know about the baby in case she doesn't make it that long. Her health has been failing so much lately. She doesn't seem to want to go on.

Both of my grandparents are adorable. Grandpa looked just like the guy in the American Gothic painting, only happier. He wore blue & white striped overalls everyday except Sundays. Grandma made herself homemade dresses out of cute calico prints with pretty ricrack trim.

I grew up living next door to grandma & grandpa. I got off the school bus everyday at their house. Grandma would have some sort of tasty food ready for me. She made homemade bread every other week or so along with homemade cinnamon rolls and super tasty buttery rolls. Some times it would be crumb cake (coffee cake with a cinnamon crumble on top). After a snack, grandpa and I would go out and feed the cows. Did I mention I grew up on a farm? It was a GREAT way to grow up!!

Both of my grandparents would have been perfectly happy living in the 1800s. They both had that "work til its done" type of work ethic although grandma never had a job outside of the home. Instead she ran the house and sewed (a quilt for each major event, i.e. high school graduation, college graduation, marriage & first baby, for all 12 of her grand kids!)

Grandma is now in a nursing home, newly as of this week. We are hoping that being around more people will be good for her. She knows several of the ladies there from a long time ago. Right now she is alternating between good and bad days. Dad is going to call me this week when he goes to visit so I can talk to her. They haven't had a chance to install a phone line yet.

Now I have a few pictures to show you all...

This is me & Grandma on her 90th bday 4 years ago.

Me & Grandpa when I was little eating some of Grandma's tasty food.

Me in a homemade dress that Grandma made for me. She had one that was just like it.

6 Weeks!!!

2011-08-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

Blobby is officially at 4 weeks which puts me at 6 weeks pregnant! It seems like a strange way to count, but I guess it make sense for the fertiles :)

I learned a very important lesson today. Just say no to the chinese buffet!!! I am so stuffed that I feel terrible! I so need to stick to the many small meals rule. I am not by nature a snacker. I think I used to be (as in when I was growing up at home), but in my many efforts to shed the pounds over the years, snacks have gone away. So now it seems so strange to always have my stash. It is almost like my stomach can never be empty or full. If it is empty, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, my tummy gets very upset. If it gets too full, I start to feel nauseous.

Now that all the directly preggo related stuff is out of the way, I need to stress out a bit...and to those of you in our family, don't give hubby a hard time about this. He is super stressed! And please don't mention my scared rant either!

Some background before I get to the really scary part. I'm a bank teller. I make very little money. I used to be a public school teacher. I made pretty good money then. When we moved from Texas to New Mexico I basically took a 20k pay cut. But the hubby's job more than made up for that. He went from being a broke grad student to a physicist post-doc at a national laboratory. Scientist at national labs make good money.

Post-docs are generally only for two years. This coming October will be the end of hubby's 3rd year. Since the end of the second year his bosses have been promising that he will probably be able to be converted to a full staff member. If this happens, his salary will be about the same as both of our salaries right now. So I can stay home with Blobby. That has been our plan since we started trying. He has been assured along the way that it will totally happen.

Well October is 2 months away!!! And currently they are still saying that they want to convert him, but right now there just isn't the money. They can keep him for a 4th year as a post-doc. If this is what happens, I will have to try to find a better job so that we can afford to have Blobby in daycare. Currently my job would barely cover daycare and our insurance. I would basically have no paycheck since a good bit goes to our FSA and a good bit to my 401K. Hubby also puts lots into his 401K. So I guess we could take that down to a lower level for a while, but I hate to do it. It seems like one of those things that once you stop, you never start back up.

So basically my stress is this: hubby's job ends in two months. They say they will extend his post-doc, but they have also been saying that he will be converted to staff for the past year so I tend not to believe anything that "they" say. I am now in full badger mode. "How many job applications have you done today? Only 3! That's not enough!" (I really say "Hey baaaybeee, have you done some applications? Oh good!") I also told him that with this short of notice, he should look here at the lab or in San Antonio and Dallas where we have family that could help us move or that we could stay with. I'm trying not to show him how scared I am cause as it is he hasn't been sleeping much, but holy crap! I'm terrified!!!

Okay, now its off to look for higher paying jobs just in case!

A Few More Things...

2011-08-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that as expected, my ovaries are still HUGE. They dwarf the baby!!! I have to continue the Lovenox because of this, but the blood flow looks good so now worries there. Also I get to go off the Estrace (Estrogen) and go down to half the dose of my PIO injections. I was hoping I could stop the injections, but at least with a half dose it will last lots longer. That stuff is pretty pricy! And of course not covered by insurance!

So all in all, everything is as good as could be expected. Yay for things working! I'm going to try not to get used to it. I'm sure my body will figure out a way to screw things up!

On the pregnancy sypmtoms front, I think I have them all!!!

I still haven't started throwing up yet, but the queasiness is starting earlier and earlier each day. Currently it runs from around 10:30am to 7pm. So basically my whole work day!
I think my boobs have started growing. My bra was a bit tight, but I'm not busting out the top yet. My nipples twinge at very random moments. They hurt most of the time. Hubby says they are darker, but I don't see it.
I'm sleeping around 11 hours a night. I usually go to bed around 8:30pm! And I may start taking a nap at lunch.
I have an upset stomach most of the time. Could be pregnancy. Could be Metformin.

I was anxious to get some symptoms. I'll be more careful of what I wish for next time. I don't mind these symptoms, but piled ontop of the grossness of the Hyper-Stim that is still lingering, I feel pretty gross and none of my pants fit! I'm totally confused by that cause I have actually lost several pounds. Oh well. I'm back to wearing all skirts and dresses like I used to. Plus its a good excuse for shopping.

We Have a Blobby!!!

2011-08-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

We had our first ultrasound this morning. We officially have a little blobby! Too early for a heartbeat, but everything looks good. I'll try to post the ultrasound pictures later, but there isn't much to see. The pics are very grainy.

They gave me the option to come back in a week and see the heartbeat or to wait and come back in two weeks. After much mental deliberation, I have opted for the two weeks. I'm sure that once next Tuesday rolls around I will be kicking myself in the butt. My thought process was to wait another week so that I can see more changes in our little blobby. Maybe next time the pictures will show a bit more.

Now back to work....

ETA:

Holy cow! This is my 100th post!!!

Fun with Blood Thinner

2011-08-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

If you don't wanna see some nasty bruises, you may want to skip this one. I'm mainly documenting all this fun nonsense for myself.

If you are still here, the pic below is the biggest of my belly bruises. I was trying to get a pic of all the bruises, but didn't want to show that much of belly :) This one was SO much worse a while back. It was so bad I took a pic and texted it to my mom (who is an RN) just to make sure something wasn't seriously wrong. Thanks Lovenox!

The next one is super blurry. We had a bit of an adventure yesterday. We went to a concert that started at 8pm in a town 2 hours away. I do my shots at 7pm. So we got to do the shots in the parking lot of a Taco Cabana. The Lovenox went okay except for a big spurt that shot out from the altitude chance from home and the parking lot (about 1500 feet difference in altitude). For the PIO injection the needle wasn't attached all the way so when the hubby started injecting it, it busted all over me. After several profanities from the hubby, he pulled the needle out and we started cleaning up. He then reloaded a new one and tried again. Something about the fun of the explosive shot made it bruise like crazy. Plus it bled extra so I also have the nice pink band aid shape since the sticky stuff breaks me out. Enjoy!

Now on to more fun stuff!!! Last night we saw Aaron Lewis of Staind in a solo, acoustic concert. It was EPIC!!! For one, I love Staind and I love their songs when done on acoustic. It was amazing. And it turns out that Aaron Lewis is hilarious. He was snarky and made funny replies to all the silly stuff morons shouted. Then he said he was going to do a cover song that encompassed Tool, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and several others. Everyone was totally excited. We had no clue what he was going to sing. Then he starts off in a girly voice singing Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time. It was too funny, but he actually did a surprisingly good version!

Oh and in case you were wondering, I'm 5 weeks & 2 days today! I totally forgot that I had a digital preggo test. When I saw it of course I had to use it to see it say...

Not that I was worried cause I'm still feeling like I may puke at any moment for the second half of everyday. Thank goodness for mornings or I would get nothing done! I have also had to start eating every two hours or so. If I don't, I get very queasy and my stomach yells at me. So far nothing has been too bad. Ginger ale helps.

And now I'm gonna go lay on the couch some more. If I don't move, I'm not queasy.

A Strange New World

2011-08-11T07:53:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll start with the typical. I totally understand if any of you ladies want to ignore my posts or unfollow me. I will admit that I have done it, too. So don't worry about hurting my feelings. Do what you need to do to make it through. I'm still reading all of your blogs, just not commenting much. I feel like a comment from me might hurt more than help. So just know that no matter what, I'm rooting for all of you and sending happy thoughts your way each day. I'm going to try to not become one of those annoying pregnant ladies who just complains about my symptoms. But we write what we know. And currently I know that the bathroom tile is very cold when I'm hugging the toilet.

So now on to my rambling thoughts for the day...

I feel like I am in limbo. I'm not pregnant enough to go looking at baby stuff. I'm still terrified that something will go wrong at any moment (and I'm betting that's not going away anytime soon). Its too early to talk about names or plan a nursery.

But at the same time, I am pregnant, so I don't need to schedule my next cycle. I'm not sure how to be anymore. I'm so used to scheduling my life around RE appointments. What do I do now?

I have read very similar posts on many newly pregnant women's blogs. I always thought how strange it was. Once your pregnant everything is great. You should be happy 24/7. And there is some of that. Underneath it all, no matter what, I am ecstatic. Happy doesn't even cover it. But then I tell myself, don't get attached. That will make it harder if something goes wrong. But who am I kidding. I'm attached. We have already started talking to the baby.

I would give so much to be one of the blissfully ignorant fertiles out there, who pee on a stick and immediately go out shopping for baby clothes. Wouldn't that be awesome?

I did admit to the hubby that I have a couple of baby things hidden around. Things that were just too cute to pass up. Things that I told myself were for someone else and then conveniently forgot about when it was time to give them a gift. Hubby now calls me a little squirrel since I have hidden treats around the house.

It just feels so strange. We have worked toward something for 21 months (really longer cause it took me years to convince hubby that he was ready). And now we are here and I'm not sure what to do. Its an odd feeling.

And It Begins...

2011-08-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

I think today may be the day I puke. Yesterday I was feeling queasy, but I figured it might just be what I ate. Today I'm sure. It started mid-afternoon and by the time I got home from work I was sure I would lose my lunch.

Isn't this supposed to start around week 6? I'm not complaining. I know that morning sickness tends to mean a lower miscarriage rate, but still. I'm at 4weeks and 5 days. I was expecting a bit of a reprieve.

Oh well. Here we go. A real pregnancy!

Yay!

2011-08-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

3rd beta is 204! Which gives me a doubling time of about 51 hours. Much better than the 60something hours from the last beta. I am much happier.

And best of all, my first ultrasound is going to be a week from tomorrow!!! They are doing it a bit early since my numbers didn't go up as quickly as expected. Fingers crossed that everything goes well. Its gonna be a long week!

Beta #2

2011-08-05T17:37:00.000-07:00

77

Not happy, but they are retesting on Monday. Trying to be optimistic. Its only 10dp5dt so I'm trying not to stress.

Hurry Up!!!

2011-08-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

Typically my RE's office gets test results from the lab around 1pm. It is now 2:30 and my blood has not even made it to the processing lab yet!!! I'm going nuts!

I live in a small town sort of in the mountains. Its about an hour drive to Santa Fe and another 45 minutes to Albuquerque. The processing lab is in Albuquerque. I had my blood drawn in Santa Fe. There is a lab in my town, but when I got my test to see if the trigger shot worked, it was marked rush, but they did not process it that way. Plus I have a friend who has had to have her blood work redone 4 times at the lab in our town. So basically I do not trust them.

Typically the courier picks up from all of the labs by 11:00am then heads back to Abq so the processing lab should have the blood by 12:30. There is currently a LOT of road construction between here and Abq. I saw cars totally stopped on one of the highways since it was closed down to one lane. I know things like that are unavoidable, but still it SUCKS!!!

So now 2nd beta yet. I'll post again once I get the results. They better come in before my RE's office closes!

Well....

2011-08-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

B....F....P!!!!!

Holy crap I can't believe it!!! My Hcg is 46 so we want to see close to 100 on Friday. The nurse said with the first beta they look for around 50 and that pretty darn close to 50!

And my stupid husband isn't answering the phone! So you guys get to know before him :) I can't believe he isn't answering. He totally knew we were getting results today!

I was worried, but my body has been trying to convince me. I am totally bloated and have to pee ALL the time. My boobs feel...weird for lack of a better word. The hubby claims they are bigger, but I don't see it yet. My nipples got huge when I started progesterone injections so they aren't an indicator.

Unfortunately I still have to keep doing the Lovenox injections. Maybe at my appointment in two weeks he will let me stop. I wanna take a picture of my stomach, but it might scare people.

Well now I should get back to work. Thanks for all of the happy thoughts! I lots can still go wrong, but for right now, nothing can bring me down!!! I love you all! And thats not just the uber-happiness, its totally true!

Worried

2011-08-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

3.5 hours til my results should be in. I POASed again, anxious to see a darker line. But I saw less of a line. Now I'm nervous.

I Must Have Lost My Mind

2011-08-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

Its really faint and you probably can't see it, but I swear there is a second pink line there. Hubby saw it and so did our friend who is staying with us (poor guy was home before hubby so I made him look at it and compare it to a picture online).

If you click it you might be able to see it!

Maybe there is a change?

Loosing Hope

2011-08-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

I'm quickly loosing hope in this IVF cycle. BFN this morning. Beta tomorrow. The space where the second pink line should be has never looked whiter.

I Didn't Resist, but the Jury's Still Out

2011-08-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

I woke up extra early this morning so I could stop by the store and pick up a pack of HPTs. I live in a super small town and don't want everyone to know that I'm POASing so I did the fun hide it under everything else and by 6 extra things to cover the box thing. I checked out and headed to work. By the time I had a chance to run to the bathroom I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head!

I wasn't too surprised to see a BFN. But I was super pissed off when I discovered that the box of test that I got was WAY expired!!! So who know! Maybe it was a real BFN or maybe not.

I went back to the store and found the one checker lady that I love and who I have taked to about some of my IF issues. She helped me exchange the tests with no fuss. I could just picture them having to call someone else over as a huge line formed behind me.

So basically I have decided to pretend that I didn't POAS today. I'll let ya'll know what happens tomorrow with non-expired tests!

Trying to Reisist

2011-07-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

I am trying to resist the urge to go buy some tests and pee on a stick (poas) early. I can't decide if seening a BFN now would be less painful because there is still a chance or if it would hurt just as much as usual. This is really the first chance I have ever had for it to be positive. I know its early and unlikely to show anything no matter what, but its hard to resist. If I have to go to the store today, I might have to give in.

5 More Days of Insanity!

2011-07-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going crazy. Everytime I feel ANYTHING in the middle portion of my body I get very excited and then worried. Is that a sign of implantation? Is that a bad sign? Am I preggo? Of course I'm not preggo. I don't get preggo. What am I thinking?

I just keep running through the same 10 thoughts. I know this is probably totally normal (at least for those of us living in the land of IF). I have read enough other blogs to know that lots of ladies feel the same. It just seems strange because up til this point its never even been a possibility. I have only ovulated once and that was way late with tiny follies so no chance. I "thought" I had a 2ww with my first round of Clomid, but nope. False positive on my OPK.

So this is so new to me. We have been trying different stuff for so long that it is very surreal to have an actual chance. My hubby keeps poking my belly and telling the embryo that it better grab on or it won't get to go to Disney World. Its very cute. We both keep trying not to think too much about it, but obviously thats not working.

We have a number of things planned between now and Wednesday (aka Beta day). Luckily since we have to do two Betas and they don't do them on Saturdays for some reason, I get to go one day early. Beta #1 is Wednesday and #2 is Friday of next week!

In the mean time we are going to see Cowboys & Aliens (don't judge, I am psyched!). Then on Satuday our friend that is staying with us is going to go camping til Sunday afternoon. I am very excited to have the house to ourselves for a while. I'm thinking romantic dinner and a movie at home. Sunday I'm hoping to go see my friend and her new baby then that afternoon we are going to hang out with some friends. Sunday might be a bit rough depending on how my emotions are that day. The friends we will be visiting have a 6 month old and the other couple who is coming have a 14 month old. So we will be the only ones without a baby. Or if I'm feeling optimistic, without a baby that has a window seat. Thats how my mom always referred to babies in utero.

And on a completely random note, a former parent of one of my kiddos (back when I taught preschool) just came into the bank. She told me about the store that she is taking over. It is a crafty, scrapbooky, consignment store. And then she asked if I wanted to have anything there in consignment! It has been so long since I have done crafty stuff just for the fun of it. But she got me thinking about starting up my polymer clay jewelry that I used to make. I also started playing with wire jewelry techniques. The two work so well together. I may have to pull out my stuff and start working tonight.

Maybe I'll post some stuff soon to get opinions! And now I better get back to work!

4 Frosties!!!

2011-07-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

Huge sigh of relief! I am so much more optimistic. Boy, no joke this IF thing is a roller coaster! Now I can go back to watching sappy girly movies.

I also wanted to say that you ladies ROCK!!!! It has been so awesome to know that there are lots of you out there rooting for us! I wish I could send you all lovely gifts, but since I can't (both due to the anonymity of the bloggy world and the fact that we spent ALL of our money on this IVF thing) I will just continue to try to make you all feel as loved as I feel!

So basically THANK YOU!!!

And with that I will leave you with a couple of hopeful pictures.

I'm not sure which one is the one we put in. I'm hoping to talk to the embryologist when I go back next time and find out. The other guy is one of our frosties.

The little white spot inside the gray doughnut is our little embryo inside my uterus!!! Sorry for the crummy picture of a picture. I'll try to scan them and put up a better one later, but the scanner is upstairs and I'm still doing the bed rest thing :)

Transfer

2011-07-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Well we did our transfer. We transferred 1 blast. It was not the highest grade. When he told us I only had two blasts out of 13 fertilized, I was a bit shell shocked. Sunday they said they were all doing good so I was totally floored. We have 4 early blasts that may keep growing and be blasts by freezing time tomorrow. We for sure have the one to freeze and possibly a couple more, but none are great quality.

I am feeling very defeated today. I'm trying to think positive, but its hard. I never have good enough luck to fall on the good side of the odds. The doc said with this blast we have probably a 40% chance with my weight and age factored in. Its not the worst, but we went there thinking it was about a 65% chance.

I'll update tomorrow when we know how many little frosties we will have.

Another RE Visit

2011-07-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

We had to head back to the RE's office this morning. Luckily the car is all fixed (my hubby rocks!!). I'm still not enjoying the car. Seat belts are tight on the tummy. The doc had us come back in because I had fluid above my uterus. Thank goodness, the fluid is gone, but during the ultrasound the doc say that yep I am definitely hyper-stimulated. My ovaries are each 9cm x 7cm. I looked up the normal size of an ovary. They are normally only 3cm x 1.5 cm! Mine are more than 3 time the normal size! No wonder I feel like a whale! I have gained 7 pounds since Thursday!!! If anyone has any tips on how to make this go away faster I would love them. I'm drinking lots of Pedialite & Gatorade. I have had my feet propped up (really I have been laying around on the couch with my legs up on the arm). I'm taking Tylenol and walking around regularly.

Because of the hyper-stimulation my RE has me doing Lovenox injections. Lovenox is basically Heparin a blood thinner. Hyper-stimulation apparently can cause clotting. Lovenox burns!

We have no news on the embryos today. They don't mess with them at all today, but tomorrow they will call us just in case we have to do a 3 day transfer. Its unlikely with 13 embryos, but they call just in case.

In other news, we started doing Progesterone in Oil (PIO) injections today. Its not as bad as I figured it would be, but holy crap those needles are big! The hubby keeps redrawing the circles for the injection spots so we make sure its in the right spot.

And on that note, I'm gonna go sit with a heating pad on my HUGE belly. I caught my my profile in the mirror and thought, "Crap, I look preggo!"

Crappiest Day Ever

2011-07-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

WARNING! I didn't have a great time with my Egg Retrieval so if you are doing one soon and haven't done it before, you might not want to hear my story. I'm fine and it wasn't too bad, but I don't want to make anyone worry...and with that on to my crappy day.

First the good. We got 15 eggs! Then the crappy. My ovaries are hard to get to so I was in more pain than usual when I woke up. So they gave me some big time pain killers. No one warned me that having a fat belly might mean that ER could be more painful. I could tell that this was an unusual circumstance because they normally only give ibuprofen and the fact that I suddenly had 5 or 6 nurses and both docs hovering around me. After the first dose of pain meds didn't really help much, the doc wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure nothing had gone wrong. So I got up to head to the ultrasound room and the world swam. I made it to the bed and collapsed. the quickly gave me a bowl and some meds for the nausea.

The ultrasound showed everything looking normal. The pain seem to be just from the normal retrieval process and nothing strange was wrong. They helped me back to the recovery room and gave me another dose of meds. I was finally able to sleep. I slept for over two hours and woke up feeling a million times better. After some Gatorade and crackers they said I was good to go home. They have now called me twice to check up on me.

And now for the crappiest part! We live over a hundred miles from the RE's office. On the way home, my car broke down. The water pump needed to be replaced. We were about 15 miles outside of Albuquerque. We had to get towed to a repair shop. We waited 45 minutes for the tow truck. When our Jeep was all loaded up, we got in the tow truck. That was the worst car ride of my life. I had a pillow between me and the seat belt, but every bump was agony. Tow trucks make you feel bumps that you would never have felt in a normal car. It was of course rush hour so the drive took forever (aka an hour and a half to go 20 miles!).

The repair shop confirmed the problem, but couldn't fix it until the next day. The nearest hotel was a long way away. My hubby does most of the work on our cars and new how to change the water pump out. So I stretched out in the car while he worked on it. After a couple of hours and a couple of trips to Auto Zone it started getting dark. I went out to help. I mostly held flash lights and helped position the water pump. We finally got home around midnight. I quickly passed out.

This morning I can tell that I over did it. I feel like I have been hit by a truck! But when the nurse called me this morning she gave me my fertilization report. Of our 15 eggs, 13 fertilized!!! So maybe karma is paying us back for such a crappy day. Keep growing little guys!!!

ICLW PrePost

2011-07-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

Hi all of you ICLWers! I am posting this a day ahead just in case I don't feel up to posting tomorrow. Tomorrow (Thursday) at 10:15 am Mountain time I will be having my first egg retrieval for IVF!!! If you are new to my blog feel free to click here to see how this all started. Its been a crazy couple of years and I am hoping we are on the down hill slide!

Hope you all are doing well. I'm going to try to update tomorrow with how many eggs we get. Fingers crossed for lots!!!

Crummy Feelings and House Guests

2011-07-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

The trigger shot was not a bad as I expected. The shot itself hurt a bit, but not like I was worried it would. I had my cute smiley faces drawn on my upper butt/lower back area by my nurse. My hubby was super nervous, but tried to play it off. All in all it went well.

I cleaned up the trash (have any of you noticed that all the meds and injections make a TON of trash?) and turned to head back to bed (we triggered at 11:45 pm so I had been alseep for 2 hours already). As I turned, the world swam. I was mid sentance saying something like "Wow, that wasn't too bad...but I do think I'm gonna puke." So I spent a bit sitting on the cool bathroom floor then felt a bit better and went to bed. I'm still feeling off. Not terrible just not right.

And to make all of this more fun, we have a friend staying with us for a month. I said I would never do this again, but he is on a work trip so he will be paying rent. In the end we could get all of our IVF meds paid for by letting him stay. So I will deal, but its gonna be interesting having a house guest during all this nonsense. At least he is entertaining. He has almost no filter between his brain and his mouth so he could say anything at any moment.

Should be an interesting month!

Yay!!

2011-07-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

I trigger at 11:45 tonight! Then retrieval is Thursday morning. I just took my last Menopur. Last Ganirelix was last night. I still have LOTS of eggs! I guess we will see how many on Thursday.

And that's all I've got in me today. I feel super crummy. Nauseous and very bloated. Gotta love IF meds!

Am I the Only One?

2011-07-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

From time to time in my life, I have this frustrating feeling that I did something wrong. That one decision I made will spiral out of control and ruin everything. It feels like everything is out of place and nothing I can do will fix it. I don't know what brings on this feeling. I don't know how to end it. Crying doesn't help. Watching sad movies doesn't help. Hanging out with friends will help temporarily, but once they are gone the feeling is back. It ends up taking over my brain so much that I am not only questioning my recent decisions. I start wondering if I choose the wrong major in college. I start wondering if I should have gone to a different college. I start wondering if I should have gone to prom instead of going to the out of town art competition. How would my life be different if I had done any of these things differently?

At some point I will realize that all of these decisions led me to my wonderful hubby. At some point I will realize that if I wasn't here I probably would have ended up teaching art at my old high school which used to be good, but the neighborhood has gone way down hill. Last time I was in Texas, a police offices was gunned down in his car for no apparent reason, less than a mile from the school.

But for now, I still feel like something that I can't put my finger on has gone wrong. Maybe this time it has to do with my fear that this IVF cycle will fail. Or the meds and my weepiness today.

Not Today :(

2011-07-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

No trigger today. Probably tomorrow. But I have been seeing the other RE in the office since mine is off this weekend (they rotate). It seems like each doc has their own way of doing things and my doc may want to give me an extra day to grow. So I will likely get triggered tomorrow, but won't know for sure til then.

Its funny, in the REs office, the women usually tend to sit quietly and not talk to one another, but when you are there everyday at the same time (8 to 8:30 am) with the same women all week, it seems silly to not talk. Yesterday the four of us who had been in each day started chatting. We discussed the shots and the side effects. Today we talked about how many embryos we would transfer and how we all felt huge with our giant ovaries. I wonder what we will talk about tomorrow? We are all getting close to our trigger time, but I think most of us will still be there tomorrow. Its very interesting to talk to other women doing the same thing that I am.

I know a few women who have had IVF or various other treatments, but all of their kids are at least 5 so I feel quite removed from where they are. It was very cool to talk to people who are in the same place as me. If this doesn't work, I think I may look into one of those support groups or at least find one or two people who I can talk to face to face.

Man I hope this works. I really do not want to do this again. I am seriously thinking about adoption for a second baby.

Retrieval Coming Soon???

2011-07-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will get to trigger tomorrow. I'm not sure if I have anymore room in my body for these follies to grow! There are at least 6 on each ovary, but my body likes to hide them so we won't know how many exactly til retrieval. On the left most are around 13 x 14 mm and on the right around 15 x 16 mm. If we don't trigger tomorrow it will be Tuesday. I keep trying to make myself focus on something else, but since I am not at home and I can't go clean my kitchen or organize my closet I'm having trouble.

Oh and have I mentioned that I hate Ganirelix? It burns like a son of a b*$@#!!! At least its only 3 or 4 days, but holy crap it hurts.

Now I'm off to read all of you lovely ladies blogs!

Question

2011-07-15T16:14:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else think that it is terribly insensitive for people to bring babies to an RE's office? Yesterday for my monitoring appointment there were two babies and one toddler. Seriously!?!?! If you have been through this battle and know how hard it is to see other peoples babies, why the hell would you do that? This morning only one, but still! Find a f*#@ing babysitter!!!

Okay rant over.

Follie Update

2011-07-15T14:43:00.001-07:00

All seems to be well in my ovaries. I still have lots of follies growing (more than ten, but my ovaries like to hide so we aren't sure exactly how many more). They still have me on 150 IU of Follistim and two vials of Menopur. They are sticking with the slow stimulation so that I don't get OHSS (Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome). I start the Ganirelix injections tonight.

Ganirelix is basically the new Lupron but you only take it for 4-5 days so way fewer injections! My RE rarely uses Lupron at all anymore.

I am staying at a hotel near my REs office since the hotel is cheaper than the gas to get from home to the REs office. Its kind of like a mini vacation from my life. I'm laying around watching tv and playing on the internet. When I checked in the girl at the front desk was really excited to check me in. I thought that she must really like her job. Then when I walked into my room, the first thing I saw was a basket with fruit, flowers and a big balloon. My first thought was crap, they put me in the wrong room. I figured the balloon would say congrats or happy birthday. But it said "Thinking of You." The basket was from my lovely sister-in-law! It was the first time I have ever had flowers delivered to me! My hubby has of course given me flowers, but he always gives them to me himself. The basket has tons of tasty snacks great for a hotel stay! Fruits (apples, kiwi, oranges & pears), cheese & crackers, cookies & tea and hot chocolate. The flowers are red-orange potted, gerber daisies.

Thanks honey!!! I'm gonna go eat a kiwi now!

A Few Pictures...

2011-07-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

I would really like to put more pictures in my blog, but most of my posts are done at work (shhh don't tell) and my work computer is TERRIBLE! So since I"m posting from home, I will put in a few pictures.

First the IF stuff: My lovely sister-in-law sent me an awesome care package with lots of band-aids for my injections (Winnie the Pooh and Hearts & Stars), a bouncy ball to throw at people who say stupid things (her words), a cool bag for my stuff, cotton pads, really tasty cookies (seriously go get some Milano melts!), Halls for my sore throat from the smoke, and several other things, but this captions is too long :)

All my meds and needles. Its far more depressing to see it all spread out at once. (For some reason the pic would not flip)

Now on to the fur kids: Cali & Branigan. This was one of the first times that she let him get close.

Lola hiding among the shoes.

Branigan with his huge puppy smile.

Branigan with his favorite toy Kiff. Branigan is named for Zapp Branigan from Futurama so his little green friend had to be Kiff.

Last but not least, some fire pics. The fire made the clouds beautiful colors. This was taken from the valley below our town on day 4 or 5 of the fire.

This is one of the views once we were allowed back in time.

Gotta love the fires in the background of the Welcome Home sign!

One of the AWESOME choppers that has been fighting this fire.

This is technically a volcano, just a dormant one. It totally looks like one!

There are 18 choppers working to fight the fire. It is currently 50% contained so they are still working on it!

Another cool view. It was crazy to come home and be able to see the fire. It was literally on all parts of the mountains!

The smoke sucks, but it does some cool things for the sunsets.

Well that is all for now. I'll try to put pictures in at the times that they make sense instead of doing them all at once from now on.

1st Monitoring Ultrasound

2011-07-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

E2: 158
Lining: 3.5 (still dealing with AF so that should get better soon)
Follies: 20 (YAY!!!) small. Largest is only 6mm, but its only the 4th day. They think I may be a slow grower, but with my Estrogen level that high they aren't going to up my meds.

I was hoping to have bigger follies, but 20 is nothing to sneeze at so I'm happy. Here's hoping most of them keep growing!

Go follies, Go!!!

Random Thoughts and Meds Side Effects

2011-07-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

My mind has been going to lots of different places lately so fair warning: this post will probably be random and jump from one topic to another.

First off side effects. So far not too awful much. Some stomach upset and possible hot flashes. I say possible because it has been in the 90s here and that is much hotter than usual and we do not have air conditioning. Plus it is still smoke from the wildfire so we have to keep our windows closed a lot. So basically its hard to tell if its hot flashes or if its just really hot. The stomach issues could also be due to AF showing up after I had to stop the BCP. Although I usually only have a messed up stomach for the first two days and its usually not this bad.

So all in all, not as bad as I expected so far.

On a totally different side of IF, my hubby and I have a tendency to plan for all of the possible worst case scenarios. We have found that we don't fight if we talk about all of the random possibilities. Plus we have a long drive to the RE so we have lots of time to talk. Lately we have been talking about adoption. I am leaning toward trying to have one baby through IVF and then adopting another. I'm not sure if I am willing to put my mind and body through all of this again. Plus doing all of this when I have a baby to take care of is hard to imagine.

Now granted, I may totally change my mind once I finally get to hold my own baby in my arms, but for now, I am leaning toward one biological babe and one adopted babe. Then I can tell each that we loved them so much that we chose a special way to get each of them.

So being the nutcase that I am, I'm starting to research adoption. I sort of feel like if the IVF doesn't work maybe we should take a break and look at adoption and maybe come back to IVF later.

See I told you I was all over the map today. And to illustrate that fact, I wanted to tell you all about my very strange evening yesterday. We did our usual Sunday afternoon trip to the grocery store to buy all the food for the week. We eat better if we plan the meals ahead and buy it all at once. While at the store we ran into some friends. She is at almost 38 weeks and they have already been to the hospital once with contractions 5 minutes apart, but no dilation. I figured she probably wouldn't want to cook dinner and he doesn't cook much. So we invited them to dinner. We had a pleasant dinner (with her having contractions periodically) and a very tasty dessert (grilled strawberry shortcake). Just after dinner it was time for my evening Menopur injection. She really wanted to watch. I'm not sure why, but she did so the hubby gave me my shot in the belly with both of them watching. She squealed and he shouted "This is the best dinner ever!" It was hilarious. He thought it was the coolest thing and she was kept asking if I was okay, did I need to sit down. I laughed my butt off.

And now one final bit of randomness...I have lots 5 pounds in the past couple of weeks!!! Woohoo!!!

Now I'm off to lunch. Hope my stream of consciousness randomness wasn't too annoying!

We Did It!

2011-07-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

This morning we did the first shot of Follistim. Nice and easy. I like the whole pen thing. This evening we get to mix the Menopur which is a bit scary. So now I guess I just sit back and wait for the side effects :) I usually get all of the listed side effects for the meds that I take so that should be fun.

My hubby was so cute! He woke up early and watched a bunch of videos on this specific med and this specific injection. He was so prepared and business-like. It was adorable!

Hope all the rest are just as easy. I'm still worried about the intramuscular ones (I keep hinting to my mom, an RN that the end of July would be a good time to visit) but I'm sure we will manage.

IVF Baseline

2011-07-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well, all is quiet in my ovaries. So we are good to start shots on Saturday. I am so excited and terrified all at the same time. After the ultrasound, we met with one of the nurses. She went over all of our consents and our medication dosages. Man, the idea of having to mix the meds is a bit scary! What if we do it wrong?

The night before the ultrasound, we watched our injection class video. It was actually a really good set of instructions. At first I was bummed that the class was on dvd, but now I'm glad because I can rewatch it on Saturday when we do our first shots.

After watching the video with the instructions, I immediatly went to YouTube and watched several people do their trigger shots and PIO shots. I'm not worried about the subcutanious shots, its the intramuscular ones that freak me and the hubby out! It seems like most people don't think it hurts too much. So good news there.

I probably should have watched the video earlier in the evening though. Around 5 am I woke up to the smell of smoke so I closed the windows (the wind had changed and the house was starting to smell smokey). I woke up from a terrible dream about injections. In the dream I was having to get shots in terrible places. I was initally annoyed about having to wake up to close the windows, but thank goodness for the smoke. That was a creepy dream!

So to sum it all up, I start shots on Saturday. I go back for another ultrasound next Tuesday, then no ultrasound Wednesday then start daily ultrasounds until the day of my trigger. So there we are. I'm nervous and happy and terrified and thinking about the worst case scenerios. We spent the 2 hour drive home from the RE talking about what we would do if we get no good embryos. What if my eggs are bad. What if...

Too many what ifs...

What I Learned as a Wildfire Evacuee

2011-07-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Sorry I have been MIA lately. We were finally able to return to our homes on Sunday! So we were gone for a week. It is still REALLY smokey and we can see the fires in the mountains above town. This fire seems unstoppable. It is no longer a danger to our town (unless things go very badly), but it is still blazing a trail north so keep sending prayers and positive thoughts to all the people displaced!

After the evacuation I started putting together a bit of a list of things that will be helpful in preparing for future evacuations (it seems to happen every 10 years or so here since we live on the edge of a forest and the desert). So here is my list of helpful things:

Make sure that you have your pets vaccination records in the important paperwork that you take with you!!! Some hotels require the records on file if you take a pet inside. Animal shelters (where we are housing our cats currently) prefer shot records, but thankfully they understand the nature of emergency so they let us slide. Even Petsmart wants the records to do grooming! Petco made an exception for us since we are evacuees. Some hotels in Santa Fe were requiring pets to be groomed before they could stay in the hotel.
Pack a variety of types of clothing (i.e. casual, work, cool weather, warm weather, etc...). I managed to only pack about 3 work shirts so I get to do laundry every 3rd day as long as we are out. Luckily we are staying with friends as this would be extra troublesome in a hotel or shelter.
Talk to friends about staying with them in emergencies ahead of time. We had to scramble to find a place that we could go with our critters.
Check with animal shelters to see if they can board your pets if needed. Our kitties DO NOT travel well!!! So we have them boarded with the shelter for free. The Santa Fe shelter is GREAT!!!
Make sure to pack early. We packed when the evacuations were voluntary. This gave us a lot of time to get the things that we forgot in our initial rush.
Take or throw out the stuff from your fridge that will go bad or start to smell. I didn't do this. I am really hoping that there is no reason for the power to go out!!! No matter what, the leftovers in the fridge are gonna be NASTY by the time we get back. And take out the trash!!!
Find out ahead of time what your employer's policy is so that you are not caught off guard when you get called to work the day after you are evacuated.
Buy lots of eye drops to help combat the smoke.
Always keep a set of extra vacation fish feeders around just in case. Luckily our fish made it, but they went without food for several days after the algae tabs dissolved.
Most renters & homeowners insurance plans have a loss of use policy. You may have to pay your deductible, but this policy should cover the cost of hotels if you are forced to leave your home. Most policies also cover smoke damage (luckily we did not have any).

Well that's all I can think of right now. I will do another post shortly about my baseline ultrasound yesterday!

Awards!!!

2011-07-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

The lovely Joey from The Childless Mom gave me an award over a month ago. At the time I didn't know of 15 blogs to award. I kept telling myself that I would post about it tomorrow. So thanks Joey! I'm finally passing on the award!

The rules:

A) Grab the award: Done!

B) Link back to the person who gave it to you: Done!

C) Share 10 things about yourself:

I am currently living out of a suitcase. We were evacuated from our house due to the largest wildfire in New Mexico's history. Fingers crossed that we get to go home soon!
I start injections for my first IVF in 8 days!!!
I'm a farm girl at heart.
I am in the process of illustrating the children's book that my hubby and I wrote. (I'll post a link once we get it e-published!)
I am obsessed with art supplies. I want to own all the different kids!
The first thing that I packed when we were evacuated was a suitcase full of quilts that my two grandmas made.
I love to read! But I mostly read trashy romance novels.
Aside from going to work, I very seldom drive. My hubby ALWAYS drives if we are together and I LOVE that. I hate driving.
I love Tex-Mex food!! Living in New Mexico is so strange because instead of spanish rice I get Posole (hominy, yuck!)
I am a Diet Dr. Pepper addict.

D) Award 15 recently discovered blogs:

And yesterday I got another award (all of you bloggy ladies rock!). I will do that one tomorrow and I really will!!!

So Far We Still Have a House!

2011-06-29T13:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the AWESOME fire fighters, the wildfire that has led to our being evacuated, has not made it into our town officially. Our house is on one of the canyons that is still at risk, but not in immediate danger. The fire teams have been mostly able to keep it from spreading around the town. That is helped by the fact that we have a national lab in our town that the government wants to protect (yep I live in the town you have been hearing about on CNN, MSNBC and such). Let me tell you, when a town that has a lab with a nuclear research division is threatened by fire, we get LOTS of help (and don't let the news scare you, the lab has all the scary stuff super secured!).

Thanks also to all of you wonderful ladies in the bloggy world. It makes this so much easier to know that there are so many of you out there sending positive thoughts my way!

On the IVF front, I get the rest of my meds tomorrow (luckily the bank branch that I work for is in a nearby town so it isn't evacuated since Fedex requires a signature for them). Its a really crazy feeling to get ready for work out of a suitcase!

Thats all for now!

Quick Update

2011-06-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to throw out a quick update. We have been evacuated from our house due to a huge wildfire. It started yesterday around 1 pm and has now grown to 50,000 acres. It has become the #1 fire that the country is focusing on because our town has a national laboratory. So we are are hoping that our house will make it through the fire. It is unlikely that we will lose our house, but its really hard to walk through your house and decide what you are willing to lose.

And to make it more fun, we got most of our meds for IVF. So I got to drag around my ice chest around with me. Thank goodness we have some friends that are willing to house us and our pup for as long as we need to be evacuated. And really luckily, our RE is in another town so we can head there if we are still evacuated on the 6th when I have my first ultrasound.

Well that's all for now. I usually post when I'm at work and now obviously I will not be going to work for a bit.

Who in the Heck was I Before This Started?

2011-06-23T12:49:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about the person that I used to be. The person that I was before my first RE appointment. The person that I was before stopping birth control.

I have had my current job for a shorter time than our TTC time. So I feel like a totally different person. I changed jobs in large part because I was planning to have a baby and my previous job was immensely stressful so that was not particularly conducive. I figured that by now we would have a baby or at least be preggo so I would be staying home soon anyway (our plan is for me to stay at home with the baby for at least the first year).

But now looking back, my life barely resembles the life of the woman I was before TTC. I was the director of a preschool. I love kids. I love teaching. I fell into the director position by accident. I was originally a teacher at the school. I volunteered to be a teacher representative to the Board of Directors. In the end, knowing all the behind the scenes stuff from the Board led me to volunteer for the job. In many ways I loved it and in many ways I hated it. I mainly hated it because I had staff members who essentially set out to make my life a living hell (I'm gonna leave it at that because it still makes my blood boil).

It was a real job. A job that I was proud to tell people about. Now I say "I'm just a bank teller." I went to school to be a teacher. I am not using my degree at all. Two months ago my teaching license expired. I will probably never teach in a public school setting again. And that makes me very sad, but my feet just hurt too much when I teach.

I don't really like my job. It is not challenging at all (well dealing with the customers is challenging, but not in the way I want). I want to find something different. But I don't want to get a new job and then quit after 8 months because I had a baby. I am sort of embarrassed to talk about my job to extended family on my dad's side. All of my cousins have degrees, some bachelors and some graduate degrees even a couple of MDs. So being almost 30 and a freaking bank teller is depressing. I changed jobs when we moved to New Mexico because there were no teacher openings at the time. I moved from art to preschool. I was still doing something that I loved.

Now I am so consumed by my desire to have a baby that I have no clue where I would look for another job. I just keep thinking, when we have a baby I can stay home, then I don't have to figure out what I want to do.

Totally aside from my job, I'm having a hard time with how I spend my free time. My best friend locally is due in a month. She is not crafty at all so I have been helping her make decorations for the baby's room. I have also been making baby quilts. I have a lot of close friends who are either due within the next month or just found out that they are preggo. I guess that's what happens when you are nearly 30. My cousin who is closest in age is also preggo so I'm making her a quilt too.

So in recent months almost all of my time has been spent on baby stuff. Just not my baby. All I want to do is prepare for my baby. But then I also don't want to jinx myself. I have all of these ideas of stuff to do, but I don't want to do it until I'm actually preggo. So what do I do now?

I am trying to reclaim myself. The self that used to exist. I need to get back to doing art for myself. I need to stop making baby quilts and start working on my own quilt again. I need to figure out who I am, just in case we don't get preggo. Just in case my world crashes down around me, I need to know who it is that I need to rebuild.

Welcome ICLWers!

2011-06-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

I'm not very computer savy so I haven't got one of those nifty TTC timelines or anything like that so I'll sum up where we are. I was diagnosed with PCOS at 17. Married my hubby just over 2 years ago. We have been trying for almost that whole time. We did a round of Clomid with no effect and a round of Letrzole with little effect (I technically ovulated, but the follies were tiny and useless). So now we are waiting til its time for IVF. Did I mention that we also have some MFI? Hubby's morphology was 1% so ICSI here we come. But we are getting close. I have my baseline on July 6th! Two weeks from tomorrow!!!

Right now I am trying to reign in my excitment and fear. Both tend to run away with me at alternating times. On Sunday I was so excited and was having trouble not running up to our extra room (aka future baby room) and starting with my plans for when a baby comes. Then last night, I spent the evening crying (aka blubbering) on my hubby's shoulder. He kept trying to reassure me, but he doesn't have a clue. He told me that we know I have good eggs so we are in good shape. But we don't know that I have good eggs! We have no reason to believe that my eggs are good. I have only ovulated once in my life and the eggs were tiny. I have never had a follie that was bigger than 10mm. He didn't know that the eggs that I have could be crummy. He didn't know that some of the follies may not have eggs in them. I know that I know stuff from reading all these blogs and doing crazy amounts of research (because I'm obsessed). So I told him about some of the things that could go wrong. I don't want him to stress out, but I want him to understand why I am so worried.

Hopefully today will be a bit better. I have acupunture so I at least feel like I am doing something. I started going to a new acupunturist. She is a cute little Chinese lady who rushes around super fast and gets the needles in super quick. She is also working to help me lose weight so thats great too.

Our IVF Should TOTALLY be Free!!!

2011-06-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

As my hubby was talking to his grandpa yesterday for Father's Day, we learned something very cool. Something that make me say that the docs owe it to science to do our IVF for free!

My hubby's grandpa invented the stuff that the embryos grow in while in the petri dish!!! He created it! Its named after him! It was used in the very FIRST IVF ever! And variations of it are still used today. So our RE owes it to science to make sure that my hubby's great scientific genes get passed on, right? Think he will agree? Probably not. But its still cool!

Thanks grandpa for making IVF possible for us!

Hurry Up and Get Here...Wait, I'm Not Ready Yet

2011-06-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

I am currently bopping back and forth between wanting our IVF cycle to get her faster and wanting to slow down and wait a while. I keep thinking, if this works, we will have a kiddo this time next year...I can't wait. Then in my next thought, I'm terrified cause this could be my last summer without kids. This just feels so much more real than IUIs and meds felt. And I've got the monthly payment to prove how real it is. I am so glad to finally be here and se excited, but also scared. I don't know how to feel. I don't want to get my hopes up. If it doesn't work, I will be crushed. I don't want to make that worse by planning all sorts of stuff ahead of time. But its hard to reel it in. I will suddenly realize that my mind has been wondering and I'm trying to decide on a name if its a girl. Or thinking, my family in Texas will want to throw me a shower about 2 months before so with an EDD of April 11th, that would be late January to early February. And how do I want to decorate the room. And the thoughts keep spiraling out of control.

I know I need to reign it in for self preservation's sake.

I Survived a Baby Shower

2011-06-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

And I didn't get drunk or hit anyone!!! I am quite proud of myself. It was quite stressful planning the shower, but in a way I am grateful for the drama. It gave me something to focus on other than the fact that I was one of 3 ladies who either don't have kids or are not currently pregnant. Luckily it was not a bring your kids with you sort of shower. If it had been there would have been lots of babies.

The drama consists of one of the three hostesses being totally nuts. She wanted to host the shower at her house which is in another town about 45 minutes away from where 90% of the guests live. That makes no sense. So we wanted to have it here in our town. She also planned to hire caterers and wait staff for the shower. She also wanted it to be for both guys & girls. The mom (you know, the one who we are planning the shower for) said she didn't want guys there. She also said she wanted it in our town and she wanted it to be simple. She is a very simple streamline type of person. She isn't into gaudy craziness, like the crazy lady had planned.

All throughout the planning, the crazy lady either totally ignored all requests for us to help make anything or she complained because it would be too hard for her to bring a cake from her town to ours. Now granted, the geography of our area makes things a bit trickier since we have lots of hills and mountains, but its not like the drive from there to here is on dirt roads or anything. She whined about the cake the whole time so we said don't worry about a cake. I would make cupcakes. I had a plan to make super fancy cupcakes with royal icing decorations that match the baby's room. So of course she shows up with a 3 tier cake and smaller cakes for everyone to take home with them. No one even noticed my cupcakes.

The crazy lady kept making snide remarks about how at "traditional" baby showers the dad gets gifts too. Have you ever heard of that? I have thrown or helped throw at least 10 baby showers ( I have lots of cousins) and I haven't heard of that. She also made remarks about the tea sandwiches that we served. She immediately sat in the most comfy chair (gee, wouldn't you think that might be for the expectant mom?). Basically she is nuts as well as rude. But it kept me from dwelling on the fact that I may never get a baby shower. So yay for drama!

Oh and I forgot to mention that in the prep that morning, I cut off part of the tip of my finger. So add a good bit of blood loss to the fun of the day!

I can't believe you just said that to me!!!

2011-06-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend was Summerfest on our local ski hill. They have the lifts open so you can ride up and hike or bike down (there are trails crisscrossing the ski trails so you don't have to go straight down). Then after the hiking & biking the cafe opens and they have burgers and all the local microbreweries have samples of their beer. You buy a glass and can get free samples and one free pint. So everyone in town was there. Small town with not much to do, so everyone goes to all the events, especially when cheap, tasty beer is involved.

We met up with several friends, one of whom is the preggo friend who I am throwing a baby shower for this coming Saturday. After we had been hanging out for a while (aka going to every booth and getting a free sample which means we basically got 3 free beers) we had our pint and went looking for a table. We met up with my preggo friend and another girl (who I later found out is also preggo). She looked at me and said "I hate you. I wish I could have a beer!" I looked right back at her and said "I hate you, too. I wish I could get pregnant." Everyone around us got sort of quiet. Before I go any farther I do want to say that the "I hate you"s are not serious in any way. That is just the nature of our relationship. Well at that moment my "I hate you" may have been a bit serious. She finally realized that she put her foot in her mouth big time. She said she was sorry and asked how everything was going. I told her that I would gladly give up all beer for life if I could get pregnant right now.

So basically, I can't believe that she said that. I really wish people would process what they are going to say before it comes out of their mouths!

Trip home, family and all that jazz

2011-06-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

I went home to San Antonio over Memorial Day weekend. As always it was great to see all my family. I spent most of the nights at my mom's house. She even managed to get all my sibs and step sibs in the house at once. That is quite a feat since we range in age from 16 to 38. Most have jobs with varying work schedules and my big sis has 2 kiddos to wrangle. But we managed to have a big family dinner (which we only slightly burned while playing a rousing game of Scattergories). It was great.

I spent one night at my dad's house. He had been baking bread and cinnamon rolls and cinnamon twists all day. He is trying to master my grandma's recipes while she is still around to coach him. That was the best possible day to come by. I LOVE my grandma's bread and cinnamon rolls! Dad's is almost just like hers. I think a bit more practice and he will have it down. So I got to have fresh bread with jelly for breakfast! The down side was his air conditioning went out that night so I got to sleep in the 80 degree, 100% humidity heat without A/C.

K (dad's fiancee)'s daughter was there for dinner with her two little ones. One is 2 and half years old and the other is 3 months old. Its hard to be around them. S (the daughter) made a flippant comment about how she was hoping the youngest would be a girl, but she should have know it was a boy cause the baby's dad has a pattern. He has two boys then a girl. Apparently he had a boy with his wife (not S) then had a boy with S, then had a girl with the wife, then the second boy with S. She said that if she wants a girl she will have to wait til he has his next boy with his wife! She even said it with a smile on her face! How can she be SO stupid!!! That is one of the many reasons that I don't like being around her or her kids. I don't hold it against her kids, but they are painful reminders that a crackhead like her can get preggo, but I can't.

But the main reason I went home was to see my grandma. She is my last living grandparent and she will be 94 in September. She is not doing great. I suppose for a 94 year old she is doing great, but she is fading. I really want her to be able to meet my baby. I need the IVF to work in July so that I have a better chance of having a baby before I lose my last grandma. Please let it work!

My RE's office rocks!

2011-06-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

I have had moments (especially reading blogs where others talk about their REs) when I was annoyed with my RE's office. RE stands for Reproductive Endocrinologist for anyone who doesn't know or forgot. I felt like he was pushing me to IVF sooner than I was ready. I have had a time or two of not getting a call back as quickly as I had hoped.

I think my doc new that the meds wouldn't work for me after one round of Clomid, but I wasn't ready for that to be true so he went with what I wanted to do. And on the call backs, I can easily understand how that happens. Lots more calls than usual or a heavily scheduled day. And I will admit, most of us IF ladies probably call more often than we really NEED to call. So lots of call backs to make.

Aside from those two things, I must say that my RE's office rocks! They are pretty much the only option in the whole state, so we are really lucky to have such a good option! All of the nurses that have helped me have been super. The IVF coordinator is GREAT!!! She gets back to me so quickly and got me my prescriptions right away. She doesn't seem to mind that I have called her 5 or 6 times with random questions about the meds and the ordering of the meds. The doc himself (aside from being a total hottie) is very nice and always answers all my questions. He always comes up with some random topic to chat about when he is going to do something uncomfortable (which is often since my ovaries hide so my ultrasounds can be quite painful). He brings up such random topics that you can't help but forget about the pain and listen to what he is saying.

So basically I am feeling really happy with them. I just felt the need for a positive post and they have been so great.

That is all... :)

Day 8

2011-05-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

Three Films:

Untamed Heart...I have a definite weakness for chick flicks
Benny & Joon...see I told ya.
Playing by Heart...yep.

Day 7

2011-05-30T12:59:00.001-07:00

Four Books:

Any Shakespeare. I can't pick just one :)
Any of the Harry Potters. I tried to fight it, but they are GREAT books! Even my dad loved them and the only other book I can remember him reading are Louis Lamore westerns.
Any Laurell K Hamilton book. I am currently rereading the whole Anita Blake series before the new one comes out in June.
Any Shel Silverstein book.

I am not good at picking just one!