A's Birth Story

The day before A’s birthday, we had our last ultrasound at the perinatologist’s office. Fittingly, the same ultrasound tech who did our very first ultrasound there wound up doing the last one as well.

What a difference seven months makes.

During our first one, I was terrified of what we would (or rather, wouldn’t) see and had R hand me the tissue box before we even started so that I wouldn’t have to ask for it if I needed it later on. During the last ultrasound, I knew I had felt A moving around that day, and there was no thought of the tissue box and no particular worry about what the screen would show.

There also weren’t any indications that the little miss was going to come early, so I figured we had one last weekend to get some things done. We were planning one last dinner date as a couple on March 17, and that afternoon I was sitting on the couch working on some thank you notes.

At first, I thought my bladder had leaked a little bit. Then after I felt the leaking sensation a couple more times, I realized it probably wasn’t my bladder after all.

I went to the bathroom to confirm my suspicion that it was amniotic fluid. I expected it to possibly be pink-tinged, but I didn’t expect there to be bright red/pink blood. I knew it wasn’t just blood – there was definitely other fluid as well – but it was a lot more blood than I expected.

I called the peri’s office. I knew that we were going to the hospital regardless of what the peri said, and fortunately, the doctor on call (the other doctor in the practice) agreed that we should go. I was concerned about the possibility of a placental abruption. (Because, yes, I always have to have something to worry about.)

We didn’t have our bags completely packed. I was surprised at how calm we both stayed while we tried to grab a few more things, although R said later on that he was anything but calm on the inside. After a couple of minutes, the concern about the possibility of an abruption got the best of me, and I told R that I just wanted to get to the hospital without any more delay.

It was a 30-minute drive. He stayed calm and resisted the urge to peel down the freeway at 80 miles an hour while honking at anyone in his way. :-)

Once we arrived, he dropped me off at the hospital entrance so that I could head up to the Birthing Center while he parked. I was afraid I might leave a trail of amniotic fluid and blood behind me, but fortunately I had bought some super-absorbant pads and had put one on before we left the house, so that didn’t seem to be the case.

The peri’s office had called ahead for us, so as soon as I got to the Birthing Center, they whisked me to a triage room and had me change into a gown. There was a lot more blood by that point, and any thought of a vaginal delivery completely left my mind.

One of the nurses immediately hooked me up to monitors, and thankfully A’s heartbeat sounded steady and strong, which provided some reassurance. The nurses agreed that there was more blood than they would expect to see, but eventually they decided it was probably all related to my water breaking and nothing else bad going on.

We got to the Birthing Center around 5 p.m., and at 6 p.m., one of the nurses announced that they’d be taking us to the surgery suite between 7 and 7:30 p.m. I was surprised, because we had eaten lunch at 2:30 p.m., so I figured we’d have to wait until closer to 10 or 11 p.m. But apparently the anesthesiologist said it would be okay to go earlier. Earlier rather than later sounded great to me!

They wheeled us in to surgery a few minutes after 7 p.m., putting R in a separate waiting room while they did the spinal block on me. I was nervous about the idea of a needle in my back, but it turned out to be no big deal. One of the nurses stood in front of me and let me grip her hands. I said “ouch” a few times, but it really didn’t hurt that badly – it was more just the fact that I was feeling the pain in an unusual location rather than my butt or tummy. Seriously, PIO injections seem worse to me.

A few minutes later, the C-section got underway. I felt some tugging, more than I expected, as they pulled A out, but no pain. We heard a small cry before they suctioned her, and then as soon as they did that, the loud, healthy cries began.

I finally exhaled the breath that I had been holding for 9 months. She was here!

That cry was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. There were tears, and I still tear up thinking about that moment now, but not as many tears as I expected, because I was focused on watching her as they cleaned her up. (They brought her to us very briefly before taking her over to the isolette.) Once they were done, R was able to carry her over to me.

Finally, after all these years, we became a family of three.

Meet Miss A

Belated, but as promised, pictures of Miss A:

Our first kiss, a few minutes after she was born:

The rest of these were taken by the photographer who came around in the hospital. At this point it's all a blur, but I'm pretty sure that was on Monday, so she's less than 48 hours old.

I can't believe how tiny she looks in her daddy's hands:

A rare picture with her eyes open. What her hair color looks like may vary based on screen settings, but it's blonde. Most of the nurses were referring to it as platinum with highlights, because it gets darker at the ends. R and his siblings were all very blonde growing up, as was my dad. It looks like there's some brown mixed in with the blue in her eyes, so she may wind up with my brown eyes, but I wouldn't complain if she wound up with R's eyes too, because they're a great shade of blue.

This is her in her going-home-from-the-hospital outfit. (We haven't downloaded the photos of that day yet.) It's hard to see in these photos, but the gown has a very delicate eyelet pattern to it and a rose at the center of the collar.

I want to write posts about the birth, our hospital stay, and coming home, but I won't make promises on when that will happen, given how slow I was to get these posted.

One funny note I will leave you with - within the first 24 hours of being home, we've been both projectile pee'd upon (I was doing diaper duty, and thankfully had a quick enough reflex to get out of the way), and projectile poo'd upon. (R was on diaper duty and unfortunately did not have that same reflex. The look on his face as he looked down at his poo-splattered shorts was priceless.)

Yes, this is what we signed up for. And are enjoying every single sleep-deprived moment of it. :-)

She's Here!!!

After 9 years and 9 months, we're holding our daughter in our arms.

Her name is Al.e.xa Ho.pe. She weighs 7 lb. 12 oz. and is 20.5 inches long. She seems to be a breastfeeding champ.

It looks like she has R's blond hair, may potentially wind up with my brown eyes (I know it's not definitive for quite a while), and my dad's curly hair. Both of us think she kind of looks like him.

Pics and more details to come in the next few days. She arrived the evening of St. Patrick's Day (March 17) at 38w1d after my water broke. There was a lot of blood mixed in, which freaked me out, and I wasn't having any sort of real contractions, so we went the c-section route.

9 Days (At The Most)

We are down to the single digits. The shorter the timeframe, the more slowly it seems to go.

Tomorrow is my last day of work, and then I'm taking a week of vacation time before FMLA starts. There are no signs yet of her coming early.

Overall I've been feeling pretty good, both physically and mentally, but I had another freakout day yesterday afternoon. Everything had been fine up until lunch, and then Kiddo started moving around a lot more than normal for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Plus, she was all bunched up on my left side, which is unusual - I think she's spent about 90 percent of this pregnancy on my right side so far, and if she ventures over to the left, she heads back to the right fairly quickly.

So I broke out the doppler three times yesterday, and even though I could hear her heart rate and the cord flow, I still wasn't 100 percent reassured. I didn't call the doctor's office, though, because I figure they'll tell me that as long as she's moving, everything is fine.

I'm doing better this morning. Still not 100 percent, but better. Although work has been stressful, one of the nice things about it is that it's kept me from obsessing too much every day. It will be interesting to see what I'm like starting on Wednesday. By Wednesday afternoon, the doppler may be duct-taped to my belly...

17 Days and Counting...

The days are flying by. It's hard to believe we're 2 1/2 weeks away at the most.

During our Tuesday appointment, the doctor checked my cervix. I joked with R that it was ironic how we've spent so long trying and there have been so many people inspecting that part of my anatomy, and then ever since we've gotten pregnant, there have been very few physical exams of that area. This was the second or third one at the most.

Anyway, the doctor said Kiddo's head had started to move down and my cervix was starting to soften slightly, but I hadn't dilated at all. She thinks I'll go all the way to the 21st.

We had another growth scan on Friday (36 weeks), and the measurements indicated Kiddo weighs 7 lb. 4 oz. However, the tech said girls tend to weigh less than the estimates, so she thinks Kiddo is in the upper 6 lb. range at this point.

I was concerned again that Kiddo's size could be because of the gestational diabetes, but the tech said it's not just her soft-tissue circumferences (like her belly) that are measuring large, but her bone lengths are also long, so the tech doesn't think her size is due to the GD. I don't know if the tech was just trying to make me feel better, but I'll ask the doctor about it on Tuesday.

It does make sense that Kiddo would be on the large side regardless, since other than me at 5' 7" and R's mom at 5' 1", everyone else in the immediate family, including R's sister, is 5'10" or taller. And all of us are medium or large builds - we aren't exactly a petite bunch.

Last weekend, we ventured out to a baby store with a friend of mine to buy a few more essentials. I was still a bit freaked out about allowing things to cross the threshold, but my friend said it doesn't count if the tags are still on and we still have the receipts, so I'm trying to be okay with it. Everything is still in bags, though - I haven't made progress to the point of washing things yet.

I am, however, now driving around with a car seat base in the back seat of my car.

I called the Fire Department this week to make an appointment because I'd heard it takes a few weeks to get on the schedule for car seat inspections, but when they called me back on Friday, they had an opening for yesterday. So we went, and I'm glad we did, because getting it installed in my car properly was tough.

But I was also really happy to find out that we can also use the car seat in the back seat of R's truck. His truck is old (1998) and has clamshell doors rather than a full crew cab with four full-size doors, so I thought we'd have to put the car seat in the passenger seat in his truck and shut off the airbag. But fortunately the back bench in his truck is deep enough that it fits safely. So yea for that!

Scan Pics for Mo

For those of you who don't know Mo from Life and Love in the Petri Dish, she is in a place very similar to where I was in August - at the beginning of pregnancy #7 and having a hard time believing it could possibly end well. I'm taking a look back and posting pictures of my earliest ultrasound scans so she can compare them.

The first two are from our ultrasound at 6w0d. The sac looks very kidney-shaped. The yolk sac was visible, but it just looked like a ring with an empty center, and it would be visible on the screen for a second and then gone the next moment, depending on exactly how the wand was positioned at the time.

These images are from another scan done at 6w6d. The sac looks really abnormally shaped in the first picture. It looks a bit better in the second one, but the yolk sac isn't definitively visible in the second one like it is in the first.

It's hard to imagine those first tiny images have turned into an actual live, practice-breathing baby, but somehow, incredibly, they have...Here is hoping the same for Mo, and for all of you who are in the process of working toward these kinds of images of your own.

Contraction! And, 28 Days!

I'm sorry I've been MIA lately. Things have been crazy at work, and as you can probably tell, I've been behind on both posting and commenting. I'm hoping to catch up by the end of the weekend, but I just wanted to pop in and say everything still seems to be going well.

It's hard to believe this is our fourth week of twice-a-week appointments. During yesterday's non-stress test, apparently I had a contraction. I didn't feel it, so I didn't even know it until the doctor looked at the monitor's printout and said, "So you had a contraction, huh?"

She said it happens randomly and doesn't mean I'll go into labor early. But for those of you who have been hoping I will find the courage to do more to prepare, I don't know that I'd call it courage exactly, but a feeling of "Wow, this might actually happen! And I'd better get moving!" did set in.

R and I went shopping last night, so at least now Kiddo has an outfit in which to come home from the hospital and a baby book that we can take with us to have handprints and footprints put in. We haven't gotten everything yet, but I don't care so much if we're the ones buying diaper rash cream or if we have to send someone else for that, but I did want to at least pick out the sentimental stuff ourselves.

In other news, Kiddo will be here no later than 28 days from today. Well, technically, 27 days from today since it is now after midnight. I still can't totally believe it. But I hope the next 4 weeks go really quickly.

Actually, even more than that, I hope she decides to show up sooner than then. Not too much sooner, because I'm only at 34w5d and I want her to have all the growing time she needs, but I wouldn't mind if she showed up a couple days ahead of schedule.

And, my usual refrain: Please, Dear God, let this end well...

The Non-Shower Shower

A quick update on Kiddo first...at our appointment on Friday (32w0d), the ultrasound tech measured her weight at 4 lb. 9 oz., which calculated out to the 71st percentile. So I'm glad she's getting bigger, and I'm still in disbelief that there is somehow 4 1/2 pounds of kid inside me.

I'm also a little worried that her size is creeping up because of the gestational diabetes, so I'll ask the peri about that if we see her during the non-stress test tomorrow. At 24 weeks, she was 1 lb. 9 oz., which was the 56th percentile. Then at 28 weeks, she was 2 lb. 14 oz., which was the 67th percentile. If she gains at the rate of 1/2 a pound a week (which is what the tech said is pretty typical from this point forward), she'd be 8 lb. 9 oz. at her due date. Even though we're not going that far, I think she'll still be at least 8 pounds if we make it to the scheduled date of March 21.

I was 8 lb. 8 oz., but I was also born a week past my due date. I asked R's mom about him, and it turns out he was 8 lb. 1 oz., 17 days past his due date! I'm so glad we won't have to go 2 1/2 weeks past the due date - there's no way I'd have the patience for that, especially after all these years. I'd probably be trying every old wives' tale out there about inducing labor if we were even 1 day past the due date... :-)

On to the non-shower shower...

Early in the first trimester, one of my best friends made me promise she could guide us through registering at 30 weeks if we made it that far. When we reached 29 weeks, she decided that was far enough and commenced with planning a shower despite my objections.

Even though we've made it past the 30-week mark, I'm just still not feeling courageous enough to have a shower. I just don't think I'm going to do one unless this ends well and it's a post-birth shower.

So she and I had a disagreement about it, and then she came up with another idea, which I thought is tremendously sweet and makes her happy because it still lets her feel like she's helping us prepare: She's throwing me a frozen casserole shower.

Somehow this feels safer - I figure we still have to eat regardless of how this turns out, so it doesn't feel quite so much like tempting fate to come smack us upside the head.

Basically, she's invited several of my friends and given them instructions to bring their favorite casserole dish in a disposable pan for us to freeze, and another, smaller version of it along with copies of the recipe so that we can all taste all of the dishes during the party. She's made it clear there will be no pink, no baby decorations, and no one is to bring any gifts other than the food.

All of that is how I want it to be at this point, although I do admit I'm starting to panic a bit over the fact that we're just over 6 weeks away from the planned date, and there are a bunch of things I want to do (i.e. organize the house) that I still don't have done, not to mention the fact that I have Absolutely. No. Idea. how to care for a newborn. But that's a post for another day...

It's a Date!

Assuming this pregnancy ends well - and that I don't go into labor early - at this time 7 weeks from today, Kiddo should be almost 12 hours old.

Yep, we have a date. March 21.

It's weird to think that tomorrow, we will be less than 7 weeks away from that date. I hope these next 7 weeks go quickly!

We also had our first non-stress test yesterday. I thought we were doing both the NST and the biophysical profile every Tuesday and every Friday, but it turns out the NSTs (no ultrasound) will be on Tuesdays, and the BPPs (ultrasound) will be on Fridays. I can live with that - at least we still get to go in twice a week for reassurance.

Kiddo did well on the NST. There were separate periods of movement, and her heart rate increased appropriately during each one. I think they want to see two periods of movement/rate increases within 10 minutes, but the doctor came in to speak with us, so we wound up being hooked up to the monitors longer than that. Again, fine by me... :-)

Nesting Times Two

It turns out that I am not the only one around this house who is nesting.

Aside from telling some people we weren't ready to tell, my mom has been pretty good about not pressuring us about this pregnancy. She didn't push to know the gender, if she bought stuff before the gender reveal a couple weeks ago she didn't mention it, she's only touched my stomach once, etc. But now that we've announced the gender, I think she's starting to let herself relax into this pregnancy a little bit, too.

I came home a few days ago to find the garbage can that's usually in the pantry sitting instead out in the kitchen, piled high with stuff. And the shelves in the pantry were half bare.

She very proudly announced that that was the third garbage can full of stuff she had thrown away. Her goal was to clear a shelf for stuff we might need to keep in the pantry for Kiddo, and she did it.

I was very impressed. Being willing to throw things away - regardless of how expired they are - is not an easy thing for her to do.

She's not a hoarder in the sense of that show on TV where you can't even see the countertops or floors of the house and have to fight your way through piles of stuff just to clear a small pathway. She's always been very neat and organized, and her house (or now, her space in our house) is always clutter-free.

It's just that she was born while the country was going through the Great Depression, and I think that's had a life-long influence on her.

She has more mini shampoo and conditioner bottles (neatly stored in bins in her linen closet) than I would use in my lifetime, much less that she could use in her lifetime. One time several months ago I found a bottle of spices with a label from The Price Club, which was a store that went out of business when I was probably around the 8th grade, seriously. I tried to throw it out, but it upset her too much - never mind that she doesn't use spices when she cooks. (I waited a few days and then buried it in the bottom of the garbage can when she wasn't around. I don't think she ever noticed.) She had boxes of pudding mix that expired in the late 1990s, a dozen jars of white asparagus that were too good of a deal to pass up. (R and I don't eat white asparagus.)

Apparently all that stuff went out with the trash, because now there is some seriously empty space in the pantry.

If we're lucky, next she'll tackle our home office... :-) (That is our space, and it is not clutter free!)

A couple of other notes:

We start our twice-a-week non-stress test/biophysical profile appointments tomorrow. I'm thrilled to be getting a peek at Kiddo that often because it helps reassure me.

Today is Jan. 30 and technically our due date is March 30, so as of tomorrow we will be officially less than 2 months away. Since I'll be delivered early, we're actually less than 8 weeks away now, but it's a nice milestone. January has flown by. I'm very thankful for that.

R and I have ventured into baby stores twice in the past two weeks! We've only made it as far as the car seat/stroller section, but it's a start.

The Story Behind The Gender Reveal

Now that I've had a couple days to process, I thought I'd share the story of Friday's reveal...

I had ordered the cake earlier in the week, and we picked it up after our appointment on Friday afternoon. We wanted it to be a moment with just the two of us when we found out, and since my mom lives with us, that ruled out cutting into it at home. So from the bakery, we drove to a neighborhood park not too far from our house and walked to a ramada overlooking a small lake. (Well, technically to most of you it would probably wouldn't even qualify as a small pond, but we don't have much water where we live, so our perception of the size of a body of water tends to be a bit skewed.)

Anyway, it was a pretty setting. I had put R in charge of gathering the necessary supplies, and he had grabbed the cake-cutting knife and server we had used for our wedding, along with paper plates, etc. We cut it like we cut our wedding cake - both of our hands on the knife. I stared at the ceiling of the ramada as we sliced into it, but he had the camera in his other hand, so he was taking pictures.

When we pulled the knife out, I was expecting to see crumbs. There were no crumbs, but there was some of the filling on the knife.

My reaction was, "It's pink??!?"

I won't post the first picture he took of my face, but let's just say it's quite the expression. It's not that I was unhappy, it's just that we've known for 8 years (since our first adoption certification) that it would be more likely we'd wind up adopting a boy. We were/are open to either gender and any race, and the adoption professionals all told us that because of that, we'd most likely be matched with a boy. And the first two of our three matches were boys. (In the third one, which we were only matched for a few days, the gender wasn't known until the baby was born, and she was a girl.)

Because of those matches, we bought boy stuff when we were preparing. And the friend who gave us most of the baby furniture we have had two boys, so it's boy-themed. And of our normal embryos, 9 of them tested male and 6 tested female. And Kiddo has very long feet.

And so, because of all of that, my brain has been completely in boy mode for most of a decade.

So seeing pink was quite the surprise. I kept looking at the cake and saying "It's still pink!" Finally, after about the fifth time repeating that phrase, R said, "Yeah, I don't think it's the kind of thing that really changes over time...or with exposure to air."

He was great, as usual - he was able to wrap his head around the fact that it was pink right away.

Then we packed up, headed home, and invited his parents over for dinner. We had told them and my mom about the cake plan a while back but hadn't reminded them lately.

After we ate, I mentioned that we had dessert. They were kind of surprised, given that I'm supposed to be limiting my sugar intake. We had them close their eyes, and then R brought out the cake, which we had left in our car.

Their reactions were pretty funny. I video taped it, and we may think about sending it in to America's Funniest Home Videos someday.

R's mom's first reaction was puzzled: "Why is there a piece missing??" When I told them to look at the color, she said, "Piiink?" slowly and looked at us questioningly.

Then it dawned on my mom, who literally started screaming (no exaggeration) "It's a girl, it's a girl!" and pounding the table. Then she reached for the phone and began calling people, saying, "Oh my God, (friend's name), it's a girl, it's a girl! I've gotta go, gotta call more people! Bye!" There are some people on the East Coast who were probably awoken from a sound sleep (it was 11 p.m. there) and thought it was a prank call, because she bypassed the traditional niceties, such as mentioning who, exactly, was calling... :-)

For me, the surprise has worn off and now I'm just excited. But I do still think of things every once in a while that make me nervous.

For example, R was a Boy Scout, and his dad was a troop leader. Since I envisoned us with a boy, I also envisioned R being the troop leader. On Saturday, the thought occurred to me - can dads accompany Girl Scouts on camping trips? Apparently not.

"So you mean I'm going to have to learn how to pitch a tent and start a fire by rubbing two sticks together??" I asked him. "You know I'm not good with fire! I can't even light a basic match without burning myself!"

On the other hand, I have some serious skills when it comes to sniffing out a good deal on a hotel. Can't I just teach them how to make reservations instead?

Kiddo's Gender Revealed

We reached 30 weeks yesterday, and we stuck with our plan of finding out the gender.

Doing so has made all of this so much more real, and I am still processing all of it, so for now, I will just leave you with the picture:

Also, I've tried to comment on a bunch of Blo.gsp.ot blogs lately, but when I click on the comment link, I get a completely blank page. I thought it was something Google was doing as part of its SOPA protest since it started happening around that time, but it's still occurring as of today.

I've seen a couple other bloggers mention a similar issue, so apparently it's not technology being cranky with just me. There are one or two blogs I've been able to comment on, but for the vast majority of them, I've had no such luck. So please don't think I'm ignoring you - I'm reading, it's just that's all I can do at this point. Hopefully Google will fix it soon...

R Discovers the World of Diapers

I'm behind on the post I promised, although on the bright side it's in large part because I had a productive weekend nesting, i.e. cleaning up some of the messes I've let pile up in the house, and starting to research Kiddo stuff like car seats and strollers.

So, to fill in the gap until that post, I'll leave you with a bit of humor from R's online browsing session this evening...

Apparently, he caught the Kiddo-related research bug from all the info I shared with him over the weekend, because he's sitting here next to me exploring di.ape.rs.com.

All of a sudden, I hear:

(in an incredulous tone) "186 results??!?"

Followed a moment later by "19 different brands of diapers!" (still half incredulous, but now I can tell from a slight shift in tone that the enormity of all the different baby stuff that you need to wade through is starting to sink in.)

There's a big sigh.

Then, "Even better, here are diaper types..." And he proceeds to list off about 20 different ones. (Most of them, I can tell he has no idea what they are. But heck, neither do I, so there's no judgment from me on his lack of knowledge.)

That's followed by "17 different sizes??" and another big sigh.

And then, finally:

"So I think I'll leave diaper ordering up to you..."

Third Trimester! And Quick Updates

Yikes, I can't believe it's been two weeks since I last posted! I have lots of posts I want to write but haven't gotten to them yet. Hopefully I will have a little more time this week and next.

For now, some quick updates, and I will come back and do a proper post within the next day or so:

* I finally, finally, finally finished the last of the 3 papers I had to do for my fall class at about 2:30 a.m. today. That's part of the reason for my lack of posts - I made a rule for myself that I would not do anything else online until I got that done. It was due sometime around Oct. 23, which was about 10 weeks ago. I have no good excuse, just that I hit a writer's block with this particular assignment and couldn't figure out how to get through it. The professor was very kind to grant me an incomplete and allow so much extra time to finish it, and he was very generous to give me a B in the class overall. I would have been grateful for a C. I had toyed with taking a class or two this semester, but you'll be happy to hear that I have come to my senses and decided not to do that.

* I have gestational diabetes. The downside is that I have to stick my finger four times a day to test. The upside is that as a result, I am back to weekly appointments. Thank God! These last 2 weeks between appoitnments were some of the longest of my life, and that was the only time I had gone more than 11 days between appointments. They are going to start doing cord blood flow checks and biophysical profiles on Kiddo with this next appointment, and they're starting my twice-a-week non-stress tests and biophysical profiles a week early, during the 31st week instead of the 32nd.

* Kiddo was up to 2 lb. and 14 oz. on Friday, which measured in the 67th percentile. I was just hoping for more than 2 pounds, so I was thrilled we were so close to 3 pounds. It was the best appointment we've had so far, one of the happiest days of this pregnancy, even with the gestational diabetes diagnosis factored in.

* The doctor was a bit shocked that I was actually willing to have a conversation about delivery methods and a due date. Apparently the hospital only schedules four C-sections a day, so she said if that is a route we are considering, we need to get on the calendar now. We can always cancel if we decide to try for a vaginal birth, because apparently it's easier to schedule those closer to the day of. So we opted for March 23 or March 21. Hopefully we'll find out on Friday if she was able to get one of those dates.

And, for a bit of humor, I will leave you with a real conversation my mom and I had this morning:

In true Borderline Personality Disorder style, everything has to be about her, so she has taken on the gestational diabetes diet with a vengance and decided to do it with me. She has called at least half a dozen of her friends to tell them about the diagnosis and that this is how she has to eat for the next few months. (I haven't told R he has to change his diet one bit, so why she feels compelled to do this I'm not sure, other than because of her BPD.)

So this morning, she was looking over the list of portion sizes for each food. She has a huge sweet tooth (which I inherited), so she was very excited to see that cake was listed on there.

I pointed out to her that the serving size is 2 inches by 2 inches, and I held my fingers apart to show her just how big - or, rather, how small - that is. Her face fell, because really it's not more than two bites' worth of cake.

Then she thought for a moment, looked down at the list again, and said, "Yeah, but it doesn't say there's a limit on how high you can pile the frosting!"

Only my mother... :-)

Small Steps, and Questions Answered

We reached 26 weeks on Dec. 23. We are at least 2/3s of the way there. I am still very nervous, very scared about how this will turn out. I still make no assumptions that are are definitely heading toward a happy ending, although I know the odds of that are good at this point.

But you will be happy to know I have started to make small, small steps toward preparation.

I have researched pediatricians and picked three to meet with. I have not called their offices yet to schedule appointments, but assuming we make it to 28 weeks (the day of our next appointment, Jan. 6), I will.

I have started to put together a list of things we need to do. It is still very short at this point, but I will continue to work on it.

We will be hanging out at R's parents' house on New Year's Day, so I told R that we should inventory our baby stuff while we are there that day.

And I have ordered a book, The Expe,ctant Pare.nts' Compa.nion, that promises to tell you what you do and don't really need for baby. I've read through a lot of it. At this point, all I can say is carriages, cradles, bassinets (I still don't get the difference between those last two), playpens, strollers vs. travel systems, ect. - I feel completely overwhelmed. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please feel free to chime in. * * * * * About the doppler...Thank you to those who encouraged me to get it. It has been a sanity-saver. I did some searching online and found wav files with the sound of a baby's heartbeat on doppler vs. the cord vs. the placenta, so now I can identify all three. What would we do without the internet?

I try not to use it every day, but if I get nervous, I bring it out.

I've been feeling more movement, so that helps. The other night, while I was icing for the Lo.venox injection, I noticed that a spot on my belly moved. I kept watching, and it happened again. I texted R to come quick, but then there were 4 or 5 jabs in a row and it was really funny to see my belly looking like there was popcorn popping inside of it trying to get out, so I started laughing, and that was the end of any movement.

So R still hasn't seen it yet, but hopefully he will soon. I think I'm starting to feel some rolling types of movements now instead of just individual jabs here and there. * * * * * Picking a date, inductions, and such...The doctor didn't push us to set a date at our appointment on Dec. 23. Unlike the nurse practitioner, she said as long as we pick one by 30 or 32 weeks, it's fine.

The reason they like to pick dates so early is because it's exclusively a high-risk practice, a lot of their patients wind up being induced. They only deliver at one hospital, and it's a popular hospital for deliveries, so they like to get on the schedule early.

I don't yet know for sure if the plan in our case is induction, because I keep telling the peri that that's a conversation for another trimester. But since we're coming up on the end of the second trimester (the peri's office counts 28 weeks as the start of the third trimester), I won't be able to say that for much longer. :-)

But my guess is that it probably will be an induction, because my understanding is that I'll need to stop the Lov.enox a couple days before delivery to reduce the risk of hemorrhage. So we'll need to know when the delivery will be in order to time the stoppage.

Which brings us to the whole C-section versus vaginal delivery question.

I'm a little bit torn about this one. I'd been thinking C-section, because I want the doctor to be able to get Kiddo out as quickly as possible in case of an emergency. Since Kiddo has a 50/50 chance of inheriting R's Brug.ada Syndrome and since the irregular heart rhythm it causes (ventricular fibrillation) is fatal 90 percent of the time if the person isn't able to be shocked back into a normal rhythm within two minutes, I wouldn't want to wind up in a situation where Kiddo gets stuck in the birth canal, goes into v-fib, and they have to scramble to get him/her out (or worse, can't get him/her out) in time.

So, in all likelihood, that's probably the route we'll go. However, I have read online in the past week about how when a baby is born via C-section, its lungs aren't squeezed as tightly and therefore don't expel as much fluid, which can cause complications. And I hadn't even thought of the challenge of not being able to drive for at least a few weeks afterward while recovering.

Because of those things, we will have a conversation with the peri during one of the next couple of appointments about which approach she thinks is the best one in our particular case. If she thinks it's a vaginal delivery, then that's what we'll try for - I just want to do whatever will be best for Kiddo given our particular circumstances.

* * * * * MC - I'm so sorry your beta dropped after your BFP. I know how devastating it is to have hope rise (even if it's just a little bit) and then come crashing back down again, and it's especially hard this time of year. But it sounds like you're regrouping, and I hope your next attempt results in a much happier outcome.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Just a quick note to say all is well here. Christmas always comes too quickly, mostly because I get very over-ambitious about all the stuff I want to bake. So much baking to do, so little time... :-)

But the day was lovely. I will post some pictures as soon as I figure out how to download them from my new digital camera, which was a gift from R.

Also, thank you to all of you for your comments on my last post. There were several comments/questions about choosing a date/induction/ are we having a C-section/how is the doppler working, so I will write more about that soon too. Our next appointment is on Jan. 6.

In the meantime:

Merry Christmas! (albeit a day late)

Happy Holidays!

Happy New Year!

You Want Me to Pick a Date For *What*??

Our 24-week appointment was on Monday, and it was a bit surreal.

Kiddo still looks good. This was the second growth scan, and s/he measured 1 lb 9 oz, in the 56th percentile. Never have I been so thrilled about an "average" number as I am about average numbers like that...

After the scan, we had our usual appointment. The peri's office is a very personalized practice, and they all know our story, so they all know how detatched we're trying to stay from hope.

So at each appointment lately, the nurse or nurse practitioner asks a few questions to gauge how we're doing on that front. (And probably to check the state of my sanity.) Have we opened the envelope? What are we doing to prepare? Have we met with any pediatricians? Have we thought about signing up for classes at the hospital?

No; absolutely nothing because it's still entirely too early; no; and if anything, I will contact a nurse educator to do a private class for us.

I explained to the nurse that I had told myself that if we made it to 20 weeks, I would create a list of things we would need to do, and if we made it to 30 weeks, I'd consider starting to do the things on the list. Then 20 weeks arrived, and I told myself that 6 weeks was still plenty of time to create a list, so I moved the 20-week plan out to 24 weeks. Then when last Friday arrived, I told myself I'd wait and see how Monday's appointment went before making the list.

She looked at me, took my hand, and said, "Hun, it's time. Make the list."

I still haven't done it.

Then the nurse practitioner came in. At one point, she mentioned that during our next appointment (12/23) or the one after that (1/6), we'll pick a date with the doctor.

I looked at her and, in total sincerity, asked, "A date for what?"

Yes, she was referring to a delivery date.

It honestly did not even occur to me. Picking out a delivery date is what people do who assume they're going to take a living, breathing baby home from the hospital. Apparently the people at the peri's office think we will be one of those couples.

In my head, from a totally logical point of view, I know everything looks very good and there's no reason to think we won't be one of those couples. But all these years of heartache have made it a lot harder for my heart to get on board with that idea.

I'm not sure I can pick a date.

I've avoided knowing due dates as much as possible, and while I know the due date for this pregnancy, I also know we're not going to go that far. The last thing I need is yet another date on which to pin my hopes and dreams. I told R we may have to give the peri a list of dates we don't want, tell her to schedule a date that's not on that list, and then if we make it that far, just let us know a day or so in advance what day and time we need to show up at the hospital.

He was not fond of that idea, but it may be the best I can do.

Am I Doing This Correctly? (And, 24 Weeks!)

The doppler arrived a few days ago, but I'm not sure I'm really finding Kiddo's heartbeat.

I've used it 4 or 5 times so far, and every single time, the sound that I think is Kiddo's heartbeat has been in the exact same place - right above my hairline, just to the left of center. The rate has been in the 130s-140s, but should it always be in the same place?

I do think it's been Kiddo at least once or twice, though. The first time we used it, there was a lot of static as I was moving the probe around and figuring out how to use it. Kiddo was not happy - I got kicked a couple of times. :-)

The next time, I found the heartbeat pretty quickly, but then I think Kiddo tried to hide by burrowing deeper toward my back, because the sound got more faint after a few seconds. I'm sure s/he must be thinking "Oh, great, here we go again..." every time I turn the doppler on... :-)

On a related note, we reached 24 weeks on Friday. I still can't believe it. I have now started a new countdown to 28 weeks, which the peri's office has repeatedly mentioned as the point at which there's not just a chance of viability but 90 percent odds of viability with a good outcome.

So, 3 weeks and 5 days to go 'til 28 weeks...

I'm Having a Moment

Please forgive me, but I'm having a pity party moment.

I know I have a lot to be thankful for, and believe me, I am. I'm very grateful to be pregnant, to be less than 24 hours away from the 24 week mark, to be able to feel Kiddo moving around.

I'm still an infertile though - 100 percent. I've read a lot of women who have gotten pregnant after infertility say at some point that they feel like they've "crossed over", and others who feel kind of in between, not like a completely "normal" pregnant woman, but also not totally in the IF world any more, either.

Neither of those are me.

Some people live the nightmare for a year or two and then go on to find success in treatments without any miscarriages or other setbacks. They have all the kids they planned to have, and while infertility touches their lives and leaves its painful mark, their lives seem to eventually evolve into "normal": it winds up being pretty much exactly what they had envisioned, even if it took longer to get there than planned, and the mark eventually fades or disappears altogether.

Then there are those of us who have lived the nightmare for a much longer period of time. There's not just going to be a temporary scar; instead, for a lot of us, infertility has literally altered who we are. It hasn't just taken us on a brief, inconvenient detour - instead, it's changed our lives in irrevocable ways.

And it turns out that even being pregnant, even feeling Kiddo's movements, doesn't make it all better.

What has brought on this statement of the obvious, you ask?

Really, I have no one but myself to blame, because I brought it on myself. 'Tis the season. I opened a Christmas letter from one of my college roommates. She has two kids and generally leads a great life - great husband, great job, great house, annoyingly slender (I say this with affection, really), etc.

There have been some years that I have just not even opened her letters because I knew I couldn't handle it. But this year, I did.

I try really, really hard not to count anniversaries. And don't ask me how, but for the most part I manage to be pretty successful at it. But she was due with her second within just a couple of days of the due date of my very first pregnancy. And her daughter will be 8 in a few weeks.

Eight. R and I should have an almost-8-year-old second-grader now.

And - valid or not, I'm choosing to blame this on the pregnancy hormones - somehow all I can do is sit here and cry for all of the losses that represents. All of the milestones, all of the little moments, all of the big celebrations.

And yes, hopefully we'll get to experience those soon with Kiddo. But one child does not make up for the loss of another. Or, in our case, 7 others. I knew that intellectually, but I guess I'm just now recognizing it emotionally.

You would think I would be smart enough to stop there. But no...

Then I go on to read about her younger sister, who is probably about 34 and had a child several years ago and has severe endo. And got married a couple months ago. And is now apparently 3 months pregnant. You know, the way "normal" people do that. And has already picked out a name for the baby, because she's Just. That. Sure. that she'll be bringing a living, breathing, healthy kid home from the hospital in about 6 months.

I don't think I can blame the pregnancy hormones for my feelings about that news. Good old fashioned bitterness and jealousy get the credit there.

Like I said, pity party. And still an infertile, 100 percent of the way.

I Caved

No, not on finding out the gender. The envelope is still hidden. :-)

Instead, I gave in and ordered a home doppler this afternoon.

I've been hesitant to do that because I've read that sometimes you can pick up the sound of blood flow of the placenta or umbilical cord instead of the baby's heartbeat and therefore wind up with a false sense of security. Or, on the other hand, have a hard time finding the heartbeat when it really is there, and therefore become panicked about it.

But a couple of you suggested it after my last post, and between those comments and realizing that this is not likely to get much easier in the coming weeks, I went ahead and bought one on eB.ay. Please feel free to share any suggestions or tips on how to use the thing.

On the bright side, I should mention that on some days the movements are now strong enough that R can feel them. The first time he felt them was on Wednesday night. It was a very brief but amazing moment to share with him, a moment I wasn't sure we'd ever get to experience. Friday night was another active night for Kiddo, so he got to feel it again a few times then.

One other thing I'm looking for thoughts on: short-term disability. Work has been unexpectedly even more stressful than usual for the past month, and my blood pressure is starting to creep up a little bit when I monitor it during the day (typically in the high 130s over the high 80s). And mid-December through February is our busiest time of the year, so the stress isn't likely to ease up much between now and March.

I mentioned this to the nurse practitioner on Friday. My bp was something like 138/87 at that appointment. She said there aren't many things that they/we can control, but stress is one of them, so she asked if I'd be open to short-term disability until delivery.

For the most part, the answer is yes, but I have a concern. From what I've read online, it seems like short-term disability applications for pregnancy get denied a lot, and you don't know what the outcome of your application will be until you're already out of the office. If the application is approved, I would still receive 60 percent of my salary, but if it's denied, I wouldn't. And while it wouldn't absolutely make or break us, it would put a major drain on our emergency fund.

I didn't think to ask the nurse about it, but I will bring it up at my next appointment. For now, we agreed to just monitor things for the next couple of weeks and see how it goes.

If any of you have experience with applying for short-term disability for pregnancy-related reasons, I'd love to hear them. * * * * * MC: Since you don't have a blog I can post on - thank you very much for your kind words. I'm glad our story has somehow helped you and your partner. Congratulations on her finishing bed rest, and I hope you receive BFP news very soon!

Movement Is Not Making This Easier

I do not do well with Kiddo moving only intermittently. I have a feeling I'm going to be an obsessive kick-counter.

Last Tuesday, I noticed I wasn't feeling movement as often, and it wasn't as strong. I began to worry. I called the peri's office. The nurse reassured me that this is normal, that it's too soon to feel consistent movement.

That helped. For about 12 hours.

On Wednesday, the movements were even less, even lighter. By early afternoon, I was in tears and couldn't take it any more - I knew I was going to be a basket case all weekend if I didn't have some reassurance. So I called and asked them to fit me in, and they did.

And of course Kiddo was moving around a ton, which wasn't surprising given the amount of sugar I'd consumed in the 18 or so hours leading up to the scan in an attempt to get him/her to give me a definitive kick.

It turns out s/he was head down, kicking into the biggest part of my uterus, which was why it was so hard to feel.

Thankfully, by the weekend, I started to feel movement more regularly again. And yesterday, it was even strong enough that I could feel it externally when I put my hand on my abdomen. Just barely, but I could feel it. Unfortunately, R had already gone to bed and he was in the guest room because we both have minor colds right now, so he didn't get to experience it yet.

But I still get stressed about it. For instance, I feel movement the most between 8-11 p.m., and now here it is 10:30 p.m. and I'm realizing I'm not sure if I've felt it tonight. So now I'm nervous again, although there was definitely movement earlier today.

In other news, I managed to finish one of my papers but not the other. I requested an incomplete, so I have a month to finish it, although my goal is by Monday. The incomplete means a 10% penalty to my overall grade, but right now my goal is just to get the classes done. As long as it's a passing grade, the grade is not my highest priority at the moment...

And since we went for a scan last Wednesday, we moved yesterday's appointment to Friday.

Ten (almost down to 9) days to the edge of viability...

19 Days to the Edge of Viability

A quick post...

Everything still looked good during Friday afternoon's ultrasound. The Kiddo looks like s/he is starting to add a little bit of fat/chub - very adorable.

I've been feeling movement more regularly throughout the day for the past few days, which helps me to worry a (tiny) little bit less. I am still so thrilled every single time I feel something. I've had R put his hand on my abdomen to see if he can feel it, but invariably the Kiddo stops moving then. I know it's probably still way too early for that, but he's been right beside me through every bit of these last 9 1/2 years, so I want him to be able to get to experience this (happy) part of it, too.

I have two major papers to write for school between now and Thursday. I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. I like school, I really do. Yet I procrastinate, which is why this will be a short (for me, anyway) post.

The peri's office is closed on Friday, so for the first time we are going 10 whole days (gulp!) between appointments. If not for the regular movement, I don't know that I'd be able to survive until next Monday without another peek.

I am behind in commenting, so please forgive me. I will catch up after the papers are done.

Meanwhile, I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

20 Weeks, and Emotional Progress

There have been small steps in emotional progress this week, but steps none the less.

We've been hanging out at R's parents in preparation for having a garage sale at their house. Most of the stuff we're going to be selling is down in their basement, which is also where all of the baby stuff resides from our failed adoptions. (After we sold our previous house and moved, I refused to let any of that stuff cross the threshold into our new house.)

So there we were on Wednesday night, and curiosity got the better of me. I had R pull out one of the suitcases of stuff. It had somewhat less emotional stuff in it - a baby carrier, the thingamajig you put into a carseat to make it smaller so that an infant is snug in it, some plastic-backed swatches of rather stiff fabric that I'm thinking are maybe mattress protectors that go under the mattress sheet.

I think it would have been harder if I had opened the suitcase to find all the onsies, receiving blankets, towels, etc. we had bought. But what was there was okay - I could handle it.

We have more stuff in boxes down there, but R's brother had piled a bunch of clothes on the boxes, so we couldn't easily get to them for now. That was okay, too. But R also showed a little bit of emotional progress/forward thinking/hoping: he asked his brother to begin removing some of his stuff over the next several weeks so that we could eventually get to it.

And I also got a pleasant surprise - we have more baby furniture than I remembered.

I knew we had two cribs, given to us by two different friends, a very cute dresser R had refinished, and an armoire from my mom. But I had forgotten that the friend who gave us one of the cribs also gave us a tall chest of drawers and shorter chest of drawers that match the crib. So I'm thinking (imagine me, allowing myself to consider the possibility of a happy ending in the near future!) that we could put one of the cribs and the small chest of drawers downstairs so that we would have supplies more easily at hand without having to always run up and down the stairs.

Then, in a sign of even more progress, when we went to our appointment yesterday, I forgot to stare at the ceiling until the heartbeat was announced. It took a couple of seconds of staring at the ultrasound screen before I realized what I was doing. Then, just as it occurred to me and I quickly glanced away, the tech announced the heartbeat.

But there are still backwards steps sometimes, too. I was at work on Thursday when I began to have a lot of anxiety about not having felt the sensations I think are movement in a while. I texted one of my friends to say that I was tempted to leave my desk and drive around in my car with the radio on to see if I could elicit some movement from Kiddo. I didn't, but I was still super stressed about it until I finally felt some movement again late Thursday night.

So, like I said, small steps, but steps none the less.

Almost Half Way to Goal

At 19 weeks, you'd think I could walk into an ultrasound room feeling a little more confident that we'll see a heartbeat on the screen. Yet there's still a twinge of anxiety and nervousness every time.

I wasn't planning to ask the peri about what she's thinking in terms of the timing of delivery; it feels way too soon to even be thinking about it. But when she commented that I was almost half way there, I told her I was hoping that today was half way, that she wouldn't make me go any farther than 38 weeks.

She said studies have shown that 39 weeks has the most optimal outcome rates, so her goal is for me to go to 39, but she won't make me go any farther than that. But she said she'd also be happy with term (at least 37 weeks) if that's the way it turns out, and okay with late pre-term (35-36 weeks), but that if there were signs that the best thing would be for the baby to come out earlier, that's what we'll do.

I told a few more people this week.

I hadn't shared the news with my VP yet, but I had decided I would tell him if the big scan went well, because he and my boss are starting to plan 2012 and they need to factor in my absence. He was very supportive and also understood why I'm still not ready to let the rest of the team know for another several weeks.

Last night, I got together with a group of friends. All of us used to work together, and one of us was visiting from out of town for the first time in several years, so we went out to dinner together. I almost chickened out - I still look pudgy rather than pregnant so I could've gotten away with hiding it - but I took a deep breath and shared the news. They know what we've been through so they were very excited. But I still can't talk about it like a normal pregnant person.

Five weeks to the edge of viability...

Movement?? And Other Craziness...

First, about the movement. I can't say with 100 percent confidence, but I think I might have felt it for the first time last night. Either that, or I have been hoping for it so hard that my mind has resorted to manufacturing the feeling.

It wasn't really a fluttering, more like a foot or hand (I'm guessing) very softly bumping up against the wall of my uterus repeatedly. It's kind of hard to describe. I wouldn't call it a tapping feeling, either. It happened when we were laying in bed before turning the lights off, so after I finish this post I'll go upstairs and see if it happens again tonight. (I know it doesn't always happen every day in the beginning.)

The other craziness...

Remember when I was feeling restless while on bedrest and decided to set up an exercise program for R? Yeah, well, that didn't go so well. He did it sporadically a few times, and then that was it.

So, after hearing a couple of my friends rave about an exercise program called crossfit that's gaining popularity, I got the bright idea that he should try it.

I found a crossfit gym that is literally two blocks from his office. I called to inquire about price and whether it's something someone who is not in shape can do. Yes, absolutely, each participant works at their own level, I was told. They offer to let people come in and try out one session for free to see if it's something they want to commit to.

I prodded R into attending, which he did reluctantly on Saturday morning.

About the time the class was ending, I got a phone call. He sounded tired and annoyed more than anything, so I knew he was ultimately okay, but the words "doctor" and "fracture" and "wrist" came up. Thankfully, he didn't actually break his wrist - after spending several hours at urgent care, it was determined to be a sprain, and he's now wearing a splint.

Since he called me at the end of class, I figured he'd hurt it around then. But it turns out he actually injured it during the first drill, which involved running forward 25 meters, running backward 25 meters for a total of 250 meters. During his second backward run, he leaned his body too far back and fell. He twisted around to try to catch himself, which is when he landed on his wrist. Still, he continued to press on through the rest of the session.

To add insult to injury, he was the oldest participant there, and it was the day before his birthday.

Apparently my attempts to get him into better shape are actually dangerous to his health. Maybe someday I'll also tell you about the time I set him up on a man-date with another tennis player and he came home with bloody feet as a result.

And yet more craziness...

Work has not been a super happy place since layoffs were done several months ago. Due to the manager I wound up reporting to, I've been spared most of the pain, but 20-25% of the folks in my department who were not laid off have since left, and I know another 15% or so are actively looking. Meanwhile, more and more work continues to be added, and it's not like we were light on work to begin with.

So with all of these people leaving or looking around, it's kind of become contagious. I searched online, and I found a position that sounds like it would be a great fit. The scope of work is narrower (i.e. more reasonable) that what I'm trying to juggle now, and it would be a significant salary boost. I meet all of the qualifications.

Except that FMLA only applies if you've been with a company for 12 months or more, and obviously Kiddo's going to come out before then.

Still, I think I'm going to apply for it and just see what happens. (Don't worry, I happened to have a therapy appointment this week, so I talked it through with her before deciding this.)

Maybe I won't even be called for an interview. But if I do happen to make it to the point of a job offer and they can't give me a written guarantee that they would keep the job for me while I'm out, or if any complications arise with the pregnancy between now and then, I can always politely decline.

The Big Scan

These past few weeks, I've been pretty calm, not too nervous before our appointments. But for some reason - maybe because today was the big scan - I was much more nervous.

Last night when I measured my belly, it had shrunk a little. (I know, I know, stop doing that!) My chest has been sore and having shooting pains all week (which I read was normal, so I didn't freak out about those), but when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night last night, I realized they weren't very sore. So the boob-poking, which I hadn't done in weeks, recommenced. Thankfully a few hours later, the soreness returned.

And, thankfully again, there was a heartbeat on the screen this afternoon. As well as:

a brain that was symmetrical

a four-chamber heart

a three-vessel umbilical cord

two kidneys

Kiddo is now exactly 1/2 a pound, about 7 inches stretched out, and measuring in the 60-65% range for all measurements but one. That one (I think it was a skinfold measurement on the head) was at 27%, but the ultrasound tech said it's tough to get an accurate measure of that and it was still within the normal range, so we're not worrying about it. Today is 18w0d, and everything except that measurement was in the 18w1d to 18w3d range.

The only thing that concerned the tech was that my placenta appeared to be "marginal" - not covering the opening to the cervix, but right next to it. So she wound up doing a transvag ultrasound at the end, which thankfully showed it wasn't quite as close as she originally thought. It was more than 2 inches away (apparently within 2 inches is considered marginal), so she said it's low-lying. They'll recheck it again at some point.

And that lady already knows me well. I asked her how long my cervix was and that I was worried about an incompetent cervix. She said she would only tell me it was more than 3 inches long and that she wouldn't give me an exact number because I'd obsess about it during every appointment. This was during the transvag ultrasound, and she also pushed hard on the lower end of my uterus to put pressure on my cervix. It didn't change, and she said the fact that it didn't soften or open a little bit was a good sign. Maybe doing that was just BS and wouldn't cause a change even in an incompetent cervix, but it worked, because it did reassure me a little bit.

Two more weeks to the half-way mark. Six weeks to the edge of viability. Here's hoping those weeks pass really quickly. And, more importantly, uneventfully...

About What You Said...

I love blogs, but one thing they don't seem to accommodate so well is a back-and-forth kind of conversation. There are a lot of times I want to respond to comments, but I figure if I do so in the comments section, most of the time you won't see them. Or if I respond via a comment on your blog, you may have to find your comment on my blog to figure out what the heck I'm talking about.

So, if you have any suggestions on a better way to do this, by all means, please share. In the meantime, since this is the best idea I have, this post is going to be a random collection of responses to recent comments...

* * * * * Enjoying this pregnancy - Based on a few comments some of you have made, clearly I'm not doing a good job of making it obvious how much I'm enjoying this pregnancy. I am, I promise. Truly, really, honestly.

There's an underlying concern about whether it will end well, and I'm realistic enough to know that concern isn't going to go away. Sometimes the concern overshadows the joy, and I realize that's when I tend to post, so you're reading that part of it more than the rest. But the joy is definitely there, and in the day-to-day, it's usually much more prominent than the concern/worry/fear that something may go wrong. I'm even starting to relax a tiny little bit if you can believe that.

* * * * * My weight and the brownies - I didn't mean to imply that I was going to try to gain 6.5 pounds in 3.5 weeks, only that that's where I should be if I was exactly spot-on with the peri's recommendation. But I know being a few pounds off from that is okay, and ultimately as long as Kiddo is growing appropriately, it's alright to be on the low side of weight gain. The brownies weren't an attempt to try to gain all of that weight, I promise!

Speaking of the brownies, I definitely enjoyed them. It's very rare that I encounter a form of chocolate that I don't enjoy. :-)

* * * * * Increased blood pressure / pre-eclampsia - Thank you for the reminders that a sudden increase in weight gain is something to pay attention to. I'm definitely concerned about blood pressure / pre-e issues, so I'm monitoring my bp at home a couple times a day. I took the monitor in to the peri's office a couple weeks ago to see how accurate it was compared to their readings, and it was very close.

I'm also keeping an eye out for swelling, but so far I've only seen a little bit of it at the end of the workday, and once I come home and put my feet up, it's usually gone by bedtime. When I'm not pregnant, it's not too unusual for me to gain a few pounds over a couple days depending on what I've been eating, so I took the wait-and-see approach to this week's weight gain since I wasn't noticing any swelling, and I'm back down about a pound and a half.

* * * * * Gender - A couple of you mentioned that you thought it was a boy for various reasons. I hope you're right!

Someone (I think IRL, though I can't remember for sure) told me they knew of a couple who found out by giving a baker an envelope with the gender in it and instructions to tint the cake pink or blue on the inside so that they would find out when they cut into it. Given my fondness for baking, that sounded like a pretty neat idea, so I think that's what R and I might do. Although still not unless we make it to 30 weeks. For some reason, that's the milestone that's sticking with us as the point at which we might be comfortable finding out.

* * * * * On a related note, attachment - We're definitely already very much attached to the baby, even without feeling the kicks/movement yet. We have been since seeing the heartbeat for the very first time. I know there's no point in pretending otherwise.

But somehow in our minds, we've made distinctions between 1) the baby we see on screen each week, and 2) the idea of actually taking a living, breathing, baby home from the hospital, and 3) that living, breathing baby progressing to the point of us being able to do things like dress her up in a tutu for ballet class or R taking him to fly model airplanes with R's best friend and his son.

We know without a doubt that it would hurt like hell if something were to go horribly wrong. I guess what we're trying to do is limit the loss to that point. If we don't think about taking a baby home from the hospital and all those other fantasies that follow that stage, maybe we wouldn't feel those losses as much.

* * * * * Planning - This one kind of goes along with the last one. As much as we're trying hard not to assume too much and plan for any of it right now, I did (albiet very cautiously) discuss picking a pediatrician and pre-registering at the hospital when the nurse practitioner brought it up during our appointment on Thursday. She was very proud that I was willing to engage in any sort of conversation about it at all. :-)

* * * * * Maternity clothes - Since I still have all of my clothes from my pre-thyroidectomy days, so far I haven't needed to shop for anything other than larger underwear and bra extensions. But I was in Ta.rget the other day to buy a gift for someone, and I decided to be brave and wander through the maternity section.

I don't think I'll be doing much shopping there, though. First of all, it was a tiny section - all of about two rows of racks. Secondly, half of the stuff in those racks was XS! (And the racks were full, so I don't think it was just that they were all out of the rest of the sizes and this was all they had left.)

I get it that if you're petite to begin with, you're still going to need sizes that are on the smaller side even in maternitywear. But most of this stuff looked like clothing that would be tight on a thin 10-year-old, much less an expectant mom. I had to wonder, just where exactly are all of these super-skinny 30-weeks-along pregnant women that the store's buyers are obviously buying for?

Thank you to those of you who have suggested mail-order shopping to start with. I hadn't even thought of salespeople descending on me in the store. That's definitely something I want to avoid.

* * * * * This post is getting ridiculously long, so I'll wrap it up. Next up: The details of our one-hour scan this coming Friday (18 weeks), unless I think of something brilliant to post before then.

More Happy Progesterone News

It seems my body has gotten on board with its progesterone-producing responsibilities.

During the previous test, it was 29 on one suppository a day. Monday's test showed a level of 39 after having been on one suppository every other day. So now I'm off the suppositories and will have another recheck next week to make sure the level is still okay.

Also, about that weight gain thing - apparently all I needed to do was blog about it, because somehow I am now up 4 pounds in 5 days. I'm not quite sure how. I know I baked that pan of brownies, but there is still about 1/4 of the pan left, and R and my mom have eaten their fair share...

An Unexpected Challenge

Since I've struggled with keeping my weight in a reasonable, healthy range for pretty much all of my life, I worried that I'd gain 40 or 50 or even more pounds if I ever made it to the end of a full-term pregnancy. I can honestly admit that back before we even started TTC, while we were still just in the thinking-about-it stage, it was more of a vanity concern than anything else.

Now, I could care less about the vanity aspect of it, but I know that additional weight increases the risk of a lot of complications that I'm already at risk for. There are some risk factors I can't do anything about (age, IVF, PCOS), but I'd like to at least minimize the ones that are under my control.

So imagine my surprise that here I am at 16 weeks, and I'm only up 3.5 pounds.

This, despite 6 weeks of bedrest and minimial exercise since then. (Although I am trying to get into a regular, albiet very low-exertion, routine.)

I don't need to gain a lot of weight during this pregnancy. The materials the peri gave me match what I've read online, which is that someone in a healthy BMI range (19-24) should gain 25-35 pounds for a singleton, a BMI of 25-29 should gain 15-25, and a BMI of 30 or above should be around 15 pounds. Since I was at a BMI of about 29 at the start of this pregnancy, I figure I should aim for an amount closer to the 15-pound end of that range.

I think the peri is thinking something slightly higher, because I asked her in general about my weight gain a few weeks ago, and she said to aim for about 10 pounds by 20 weeks. Which means I've got about 3.5 weeks to gain 6.5 pounds.

Normally that wouldn't be a problem for me. But I guess my body is burning a lot more calories than I realized in this process, and apparently I'm not eating enough for that. Although I certainly am eating!

It's not like I'm dieting or skipping meals or anything at all like that. In fact, I baked a pan of brownies yesterday. (Accidentally used 1 1/4 cups of water instead of just 1/4 cup, but it turns out that if you turn the oven temperature down to 250 instead of 350 and bake them for an hour instead of 30 minutes, they turn out just fine.)

I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining about this at all. I just don't want it to have a negative impact on the baby, although Kiddo seems to be growing fine at this point as far as all the ultrasounds show. At 18 weeks, we'll have the big scan where all the bones and organs get measured, so hopefully at that point we'll find out the percentile range the baby is in for size.

With regard to the progesterone, I was supposed to get it re-checked on Thursday, but the order wasn't faxed over until Friday, so I just continued with the every-other-day suppository routine. I'll go get it checked tomorrow.

As you've probably guessed, Friday's ultrasound went fine. This time, we could see the ribs. It still amazes me how we see something new during almost every scan.

Gender! It's...

...still a mystery to us.

The answer is somewhere in our house, an ultrasound photo with a note on it, slipped inside a folded piece of the perinatologist's letterhead, stuffed in an envelope. I say "somewhere" because I told R to hide it, lest I become tempted to peek.

During our weekly ultrasound yesterday (15w0d), Kiddo still wasn't cooperating on revealing the gender. Then suddenly the ultrasound tech told us to look away if we didn't want to know. She said she's 99% sure, because she was able to see both from the bottom and the side.

At first, that made me think boy, because what would you see from the side if it was a girl? But then it occurred to me that not seeing anything from the side would also be a confirmation if she was thinking it was a girl. So who knows? Well, I guess the ultrasound tech does. But not us.

I'm not sure yet when we're going to open it. Probably not unless we make it to 30 weeks. Maybe not unless we're on the way to the hospital for delivery.

Or maybe we'll just let it be a surprise and then open it after the suprise has already been revealed.

If we were "normal", if we hadn't been through the hell of the last 9 1/2 years, we would have found out yesterday. But R wants to stay as detatched as possible. We're afraid to start forming fantasies in our heads, and that's easier to do if we know "girl" or "boy", so for now we'll just hold off on finding out.

And hope that when the time does come to open the envelope, R will remember where he hid it...

P.S. I know I still need to post about progesterone. I underestimated the time it would take me to do schoolwork last weekend, which spilled over into last week. The short of it: three weeks ago, while on 1 suppository a day and 1/2 cc of PIO every other day, my level was at 19.7. And on Thursday, being on just 1 suppository a day and no PIO in more than two weeks, it was up to 29.something, so I'm feeling a bit better about it and hoping it's a sign that my placenta is kicking in. I'm now on 1 suppository every other day, with another recheck this coming Thursday.

Second Trimester!

Those are two words I wasn't sure I'd ever be writing in regard to myself. Yet, here we are.

I know some people count 12 weeks as the 2nd trimester, and others count 13. The peri counts it at 14, and for some reason I felt compelled to follow that - maybe because I wanted to be able to say it without any doubt about whether we really had reached the milestone.

To celebrate, R and I went out to dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant.

The ultrasound was pretty uneventful. The techs aren't measuring the length every time anymore, just doing a really quick check of the heart rate. It was in the 150s today, which is where it's been for the last few weeks, so nothing new there. This time, Kiddo was facing in a way that was difficult to see much, so the tech couldn't get a shot that she felt was worthy of printing.

She casually mentioned that normally at this time, with most of their patients, they might not do another ultrasound for a month. I just laughed. Then she suggested that maybe I could try to stretch it out to two weeks.

I told her I could be okay with that as long as we could hear the heartbeat with a doppler at the appointment during the weeks that didn't include an ultrasound. She said we're just at the cusp of being able to hear the heartbeat that way and that she knew I'd freak out if they had problems finding it. So ultrasounds it is, at least for a few more weeks.

Given our rather tense conversation on Saturday, I thought it might be a kind of uncomfortable appointment with the peri, but she was actually very nice. She is trying hard to do anything she can think of to ease my fears (other than monitoring my progesterone levels). She mentioned the AFP (alpha fetal protein? - I haven't looked it up yet) test, which is a blood test that checks for spinal issues in the baby. It's supposed to be done between weeks 15-18, and she said "Why don't we just go ahead and do all of your tests at the beginning of the testing windows? The sooner you have results showing everything is okay, the better you'll feel." So we'll also be doing the big 18- to 20-week scan at 18 weeks.

She also said she has another patient (further along than me) who is from the same RE and has had a very similar history to me. She said she thought it might be helpful for me to talk with someone else who is now progressing after so many losses, so she offered to ask that patient if she'd be willing to call me. I said that was fine and gave her my cell number to pass along.

I also reminded her that it was another friend of mine who is also the RE's patient who referred me to her, and she said "Yeah, but that's not the same. Her history is different than yours, so for her, the pregnancy experience wasn't the same as it is for someone with your history." I'm glad she gets that, and understands that someone with as many losses as we've had is going to be so much more nervous than even the typical high-risk patient.

About the progesterone...I'll write more on that in the next couple of days. It's late, and I'm finding myself yawning and struggling to keep my eyes open as I type this post, so it would probably be a rather incoherent update. For now, suffice it to say that I'm still taking the suppositories...

I'm Making Progess, But Not *That* Much Progress

Unrelated to the topic of this particular post, I've noticed people writing on other blogs that they're also having the same problem commenting on blogs that I am experiencing. Today I was able to post comments on two Blogger blogs, so I thought everything was resolved, but then the next ones that I tried to comment on, no such luck. So if I haven't commented on your blog lately, please know that's why.

* * * * * On to the post...

An envelope arrived in the mail the other day. It was bright pink, and addressed to me in handwriting I didn't recognize, from an address I didn't recognize. I had no clue what was inside.

It's the baby shower invitation for one of my former co-workers, who also struggled with infertility but didn't pursue any treatments and had resigned herself to living childfree. She confided her pregnancy to me this summer, right before we left town to do our transfer.

I honestly can't remember the last time I received a baby shower invite. Some of our friends are single, some are older and finished the child-bearing phase of their lives a while back. Of those who have had kids in recent years, I think a lot of them just decided it was best not to send an invitation, especially our IF friends.

Opening the envelope and seeing that pink and brown bottle wasn't nearly as difficult as it would have been if I was not also pregnant.

I still don't think I'm going to go, though.

If I do, I will cry. I don't think I will be able to hold it together. I will stand there and look at all of that baby stuff and see the cute baby cake and (heaven forbid) have to play the guess-the-flavor-of-this-baby-food game, and the whole time I will be thinking "Will I really get to have this kind of a day someday soon, or is this going to end in disaster and heartbreak, too?" Like I said, tears. And that would be bad form for a party guest.

So I will have another co-worker help me shop - I still need moral support and hand-holding to walk into a store like that - and then I will make a plan to meet up with her and give her the gift before the shower. * * * * * In other pregnancy-related news, it seems morning sickness is kicking into gear more in the second trimester than the first. For the most part, it's been more low-grade. Then again, I'm wearing the acupuncture wrist bands I had R buy last month pretty much constantly, so I don't notice it too much unless I take them off for an extended period of time.

Last week, I did have my first-ever experience with tossing my cookies during pregnancy, but I'm not sure it was morning sickness so much as it was that I had gone too long without eating. It's been years since I've gotten sick in that way, and the next day, my upper abdominal muscles were sore from all the heaving involved, which just goes to show how truly out of shape I am.

And speaking of shape, I'm beginning to notice changes in mine. I think my tilted uterus may finally be all the way in the correct position, because things seem to be pushing up a bit - I now have a natural muffin top even when I'm not wearing anything. I've only gained a 3 or 4 pounds so far, so I don't think that's what's causing it.

But whatever the reason is, I'm fine with it. Excited about it, actually, because it means maybe things are still on track.

What To Do?

First of all - Libby, please know I'm thinking of you and hoping the transfer results in a positive outcome. I've tried to post a comment on your blog about a dozen times, but it just clears the comment without posting it after I submit it. Not sure what's wrong, because I've been able to comment on other blogs. For those of you who don't know Libby, please go wish her success with her recent transfer.

* * * * * I'm still unsure with regard to what to do about the progesterone situation.

The score: 4 doctors think my level is fine and doesn't require additional support, 1 suggests additional support for a week, and 1 potentially suggests additional support until 20 weeks. You would think that having 2/3rds of them solidly on one page would put my mind at ease, but no.

The 4 who think things are fine: Both of the perinatologists in the practice I go to, my RE, my RI.

The peri who isn't the one I see was the first to respond to my call over the weekend. She doesn't think I need additional progesterone support but said it would be fine for me to take 2 suppositories a day until Friday if it would make me feel better. My peri called about 5 minutes later. It was clear she was annoyed that I was calling her about something we've already discussed and was very blunt in saying she absolutely would not order progesterone for me nor would she order any tests to monitor my levels. (To her credit, she also did her very best to try to reassure me that everything looks perfect and that she doesn't see any reason for me to worry.)

I haven't had a chance to ask the nurse why my RE is fine with my level being below 20, because it came in a voicemail.

And really surprisingly, the RI's office says anything above 10 is fine at the end of the first trimester/start of the second, even though their website says immune patients should continue progesterone support until 16 weeks. 10? Seriously??

The 1 suggesting additional support for a week: The RE who was on-call for the clinic this weekend.

The surprise of this one is that the nurse had told me on Friday that there was no point in asking him what his recommendation was, because that particular RE requires all his patients to be off all progesterone support by 12 weeks, regardless of their levels, no exceptions. But then she decided to go ahead and ask him anyway on Saturday since my RE hadn't responded yet. And the one who never recommends supplementation past 12 weeks told her to have me continue taking a suppository until this Friday, which will be 14 weeks.

The 1 potentially suggesting additional support until 20 weeks: Another RI who I had consulted with last fall but decided not to work with because the additional treatment he recommends for some tough RPL cases is a drug I won't take. One of the risks of it is an increase in the likelihood of developing leukemia, and with my dad's and grandfather's history, I'm not going there.

But he has a forum on his website where you can post questions. And while he didn't directly answer my question about what he likes the level to be at the end of the first trimester or directly comment on my particular level, he did say that for women who have had low progesterone levels and a history of losses, he keeps them on supplementation until half way through.

If I was already his patient and he was already involved in managing some aspect of this pregnancy, I'd just go with his recommendation. But I'm not actually his patient (we only did a brief consult about a year ago), and I think it could potentially create an uncomfortable relationship with the peri if I bring in another doctor who will do what I want because she won't.

If she was an average ob at a typical practice, I would shrug off that concern and find another ob if need be. But this is a fantastic practice in every other respect - they get what we've been through, they let me come in as often as I need to put my mind at ease, and I know I will get really careful and frequent monitoring. (Most likely weekly until 32 or 36 weeks, then twice a week at that point.) My friend who recommended this peri can't say enough great things about her c-section experience.

I'm supposed to get my levels re-checked again on Friday, and I see the peri that day as well. I guess we'll see how it goes.

This Is Why I Don't Trust My Body

The ultrasound went well today. Test results, not so much.

Kiddo is still measuring on track - 6.7cm (about 2.5 inches) at 13w0d. I was thinking that measuring on track is a good indication of the health of the pregnancy, but the ultrasound tech dispelled that notion today. Apparently, because the size is so small at this point, the chance of being off on the measurement is too high to be a good indicator of the pregnancy's health.

She said they don't start to use measurements for that until about halfway through. Still, we've had consistent growth, and I'm hoping that's at least a good sign.

But test results are proving to be the bane of my existence.

We got the official results of the NK scan today. Risk of Down's is 1 in 6,600, and risk of Trisomy 13/18 is 1 in 6,800, so both of those are very good. We saw the nurse practitioner today, and she went over that table of results with us.

I didn't look at the results of the 3 individual tests that make up the results until we were in the car. The NT itself was 1.3, which we already knew was normal, and it was in the 50th percentile for results. PAPP-A was 0.90 mlU/ml and was in the 60th percentile.

Then there was the free beta HCG, which was 20.88 ng/ml, in the 5th percentile.

I know beta levels drop as the second trimester approaches, and free beta is much lower than the quant beta measured at the beginning of pregnancy. The one reference I was able to find for the difference between the two said that the free beta is generally about 1/2 of 1% of the quant beta, which would put my quant somewhere around 4,000.

The 4,000 is pretty low for this point, but I've been focusing more on the free beta results. From what I have found online (I know, shame on me for Googling), free beta results that are in the 5th percentile or lower on the NT screening have 2-3 times the risk for delivery before 37 weeks and the baby being in less than the 10th percentile for growth, and about 5 times the risk of fetal loss before 24 weeks.

So, I don't see myself relaxing much before 30 weeks.

Then after that, I got this morning's progesterone results. I'd been off of everything for 2 days. It was 17.45.

It was the optimistic nurse who called, and even she seemed rather concerned. I asked her if this happens often, and she said pretty much everyone is off of everything by 12 weeks and has a level above 20 at that point. I'm a week further along, and still not there.

She is checking with RE to see what he recommends. I may not hear back until Monday, but she explained that either way, it would just be a recommendation. Since I'm at 13 weeks, they won't continue my care, so the peri would have to be the one to prescribe it if he recommends I stay on it. She also wouldn't tell me what I should do over the weekend, but she asked me what I thought I might do, and I told her I was going to immediately restart the suppositories.

I was going to wait until Monday to call the peri, but my friend who referred me to her said to just call the peri now rather than stress all weekend, so I'm going to call her tomorrow morning. I'm going to insist on continuing the progesterone and regularly checking the levels for the duration of the pregnancy. We've approached our whole infertility experience - and this cycle in particular - with a "no regrets" attitude. I realize progesterone won't stop something bad from happening if there's something else that is a problem, but if something does go wrong and I'm not on it/don't have good levels, I know with 100% certainty that I would always have regrets about that. If she isn't willing to prescribe it, I think the RI would, so I'll go that route if need be.

From everything I've read and been told, there's no risk or adverse outcome associated with being on it in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters, Given that, it doesn' t make sense to me to not treat it and have me worry about it the whole way through. And let's face it, I would worry, big time.

No Ultrasound Today

I decided to be brave and canceled today's appointment.

So far, I haven't been too freaked out. I felt lots of round ligament pains yesterday, which always makes me feel better. I told R that Kiddo must be going through a growth spurt. I've had hardly any today, but they seem to occur a lot one day, then ease up for the next few days, so I'm not panicked about it.

Also, I'm still having the fatigue. I slept 9-10 hours both days over the weekend, and I still needed two naps on Saturday and one on Sunday. I know the fatigue is supposed to ease up around this time, but I'll be fine with it if it sticks around.

The last PIO shot was on Sunday. My backside is rejoicing. Tomorrow is the next blood test to check the levels - hopefully it will be good news. My chest seems less sore, but it's grown about an inch during the last three or four days according to the tape measure, so hopefully that's another good sign.

66 hours to go until the next ultrasound. Not that I'm counting or anything...

More on the NT Scan

Of all the things I've been freaked out about so far with this pregnancy, ironically the NT scan wasn't one of them. I think it's probably because we had already done chromosomal testing on the embryos, so we know the chances of Kiddo being normal (in that respect, anyway) are 90%.

Both of the things that the tech looks for during the scan - the nasal bone and the nuchal fold thickness - looked good. The bone was visible, which is a good sign. And the fold measured 1.3 at 12 weeks; anything below 2.18 is normal at that point based on what I could find online. Both the tech and the peri said everything is looking exactly as they would expect it to look at this point.

Blood was drawn for the other part of the screening, and we should get those results back in a couple of weeks.

The rest of the appointment went fine, too. Not surprisingly, the peri isn't concerned about my progesterone level - she never measures it in her patients, so she said to just do whatever RE recommends. The current plan is for tonight to be the last PIO injection, continue the endometrin once a day, and recheck levels again on Wednesday.

I told R that I will see how I feel tomorrow, and if I think I can make it until Friday's appointment, I will cancel the Tuesday appointment. I know at some point I have to stop going twice a week...

On an unrelated note, to answer Libby's question on my last post: we downloaded I.Q.. It's a romantic comedy from the early 1990s, starring Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins. I'm very basic when it comes to movies - I like romantic comedies, or, occasionally, a regular comedy, and it better not have a sad ending. (I don't care if the ending is predictable, I just want to be entertained for a couple of hours, and I certainly don't want to wind up depressed at the end of it...)

We hadn't seen this particular movie before, and it was cute, at least the part of it that I saw. Meg Ryan was her perky romantic-comedy self, so however you felt about her in You've Got Mail, you'd probably feel the same in this movie. I fell asleep halfway through, not because it was boring, but because the fatigue that eased up for a few weeks has returned again. But R watched the whole thing, and he said it was my kind of movie. That's about as much of an endorsement that can be expected from a guy forced to sit through a chick flick...

12 Weeks: NT Scan

More to come tomorrow, because I've promised R that I will watch a movie with him and not spend the evening on the computer, but just a quick note to say there's still a heartbeat, and the scan went well.

Kiddo was sleeping, so it took a really long time to get the correct positioning for the scan, but we certainly didn't mind all the time we got to spend watching him/her.

And my progesterone went up ever so slightly, to 21.6. Who knows, it could just be a time-of-day fluctuation and still virtually identical to Wednesday's levels. But for the moment, I'm enjoying the fact that the scan went well and not freaking out about the progesterone.