coming out

All along our infertility journey I knew that when we got pregnant, I would never hide how we conceived. I do not have any shame over the fact that we used IVF...afterall, if I had any other disease I would seek out treatment and I really don't see infertility as being any different. Truthfully, making a baby the old fashioned way would have been far cheaper, but the fact that we needed help (and spent a lot of money to get here) does not embarass me in the slightest. I didn't really tell the whole world about our infertility treatments when they were going on because I just couldn't handle having people ask me how things were going. We told our families and some friends, but that was it. Now that we are pregnant, however, when we tell people the news we always share how we got here. There are a lot misconceptions out there about infertility and IVF and I figure if I can give a face to the disease and IVF, then maybe I can help people see what an amazing thing it is (IVF, not infertility). MBL is on board with this too and has proudly shared with nearly all of his coworkers that we are pregnant and that we needed not one, but two IVFs to get here.

I also hope that by sharing my story, others will feel like they can share theirs as well. MBL actually discovered that several of his coworkers went through IVF as well, something he may not have learned if he hadn't been honest. Today, I shared with a woman at work that I was pregnant (she's the only one there who knows) and that it took 2 years and 2 IVFs to get here. She shared that she too had been down that road and we commiserated on how painful it can be. Unfortunately, she was not successful with her treatments. It breaks my heart that this wonderful lady has not yet gotten her miracle BFP. And to think I never would have found out that she and I shared a similar journey if I hadn't been willing to share mine with her. I have really been thinking a lot about infertility and just how hard the whole thing is lately. I know that I am so lucky to be where I am, but that doesn't make me forget the shots, the ultrasounds, and the negative pee sticks I encountered before I got here. I'm thinking about and praying for all of you still waiting for your BFP, hoping that your wait won't be too long!!

so overdue for an update

My apologies for taking more than a week to post an update. It's been pretty busy around here and I've been struggling to come up with a way to articulate my emotions. Being pregnant after IF isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I mean I expected some anxiety, but I have been surprised with just how guarded I have felt about things. Infertility just led me to believe that the other shoe will always drop and it hasn't. My spotting actually stopped a week ago (which means only one more week until I am off pelvic rest :), which was weird at first because I had grown so accustomed to it, but now I am thankful that each trip to the bathroom isn't filled with anxiety about what I am going to find. The spotting was one of the main reasons that I felt like something bad was still going to happen and now it's gone and I don't know how to function without the anxiety. So, in the middle of last week my nausea eased up quite a bit and I was convinced something had happened. For two whole days I could eat what I wanted and didn't have any strong aversions. MBL thought I was crazy for being worried over the absence of nausea...but I was still scared over it. Then it came back in full swing on Thursday and I was wishing it would go away again. It's a crazy ride and poor MBL is just trying to be as helpful and supportive as possible.

Speaking of Thursday, it was my birthday! I am now 25. My goal was to be pregnant by this point, so I felt like I got what I wanted for my birthday, but to top it off I got the chance to spend the last three days with my family! My mom came Thursday night, my dad, younger sister, and her boyfriend came on Friday, and then yesterday was spent hanging out with my older sister, husband, and nephews. I had an awesome birthday weekend and it felt so nice to spend time with my family. We went to the local zoo yesterday for a Halloween event and then hung out with my nephews at our house and the whole experience was just perfect.

Finally...I think I may be able to start breathing a little easier. I ordered a doppler two weeks ago, it arrived early last week, and on Friday MBL and I were able to find the baby's heartbeat for the first time!! My mom and younger sister were even able to hear it Friday night! It was in the 160-175 range, so right on target :). We were also able to find it yesterday, but today it appears to be hiding. I promised MBL that I wouldn't freak out if on some days we weren't able to find it, but I'm hoping that most days we can find it beating away. It is so reassuring to be able to find the baby at home!

busy bee!

That's me! You see three years ago when I was fresh out of college, I decided to jump straight into my Master's. The program I chose usually takes nearly 3 years. Well, I had somewhat of a young-twenties crisis after my first year in the program and took some time off. I just wasn't sure if I wanted to stay where I was living for two more years and since I could only transfer up to 18 credits, I had to step back and think about the long term. I decided to stay (and good thing since it allowed me to meet MBL), but because some of the classes are only offered once a year, I had to push back my graduation date. So, instead of graduating this past May, I will be graduating next May. But before I can do that? I have to finish a 700 hour internship. In order to graduate on time, I need to put in at least 24 hours/week at my internship, but some weeks I will have to put in a little more than that (because I am interning at a school and they are closed for 3 weeks due to christmas/spring breaks). On top of that, I have to continue working at my job. Which means that when I am doing the absolute minimum, I have to put in 44 hours between my job/intership. I'm only two months in and already I am exhausted. I have dust balls the size of our beagle (only a slight exaggeration there). I am trying not to complain too much about it, but I do wish I wasn't working on top of my internship. But, since making babies doesn't come for free in our house, I will do what I gotta do.

But, seriously? I am counting down to May 14! No, that's not my due date, that's my graduation date!! I just have to persevere until then! (oh, and the cherry on top is that my due date is 9 days later, so if all continues to go well, I will be a big ole preggo in my graduation pictures).

I feel like I'm a bunch of drama...

So, like I said in my last post, when I went to my appointment on Friday they told me that they recommended I not get an ultrasound because they didn't think my insurance would cover it. They told me that my next ultrasound would be at my 20 week appointment, but to call if my spotting changed at all. Well, this weekend, it seemed like my spotting was slowing down, nearly stopping at one point. I was excited thinking things were finally going to feel "normal" and not have to wear pads all the time. This morning I woke up to dark brown spotting. Darker than it has been and heavier, too. Still all brown, but it scared the poop out of me. I woke MBL up, kind of prepared him for the worst, told my internship supervisor I wouldn't be there (and why), and then waited for my OB office to open. I called the nurses' line right away and basically told them what happened and that I would appreciate it if I could come in for an ultrasound. They were prompt in getting back to me and said that I could come in for an ultrasound, but that my insurance might not cover it. MBL and I talked previously and decided that since our insurance has yet to deny a claim, we were willing to take the risk. Plus, I knew that until I saw that everything was okay, I would be assuming the worst.

They weren't able to get us in until the last appointment of the day, but it was worth the wait to see what I was hoping was still there...a little baby! Measuring exactly 8 weeks with a heartbeat of 157bpm! YAY!



The tech was *so* sweet and when I told her I was self conscious about having to come in again, she said it was their job to be there for me. She assured me I was far from being the most paranoid/annoying patient in the practice. I just hate being so much drama!! But, I feel good about my choice to go in and it was nice to get a peek of the baby. I am now just going to try and believe that everything is going to work out!

honesty is not always the best policy...

That's what I learned today. I had my first OB appointment and an ultrasound scheduled. I scheduled the OB appointment before I was even 4 weeks pregnant. The ultrasound was scheduled after my spotting incident as a follow up. And although I had an ultrasound just a week ago, I was very much looking forward to having another one. Well, because I brought in the sheet from my RE that said we got an ultrasound last Friday, they told me that if I wanted one today I would have to pay for it out of pocket---$400!!! They didn't think my insurance would cover another one. GAH! I told MBL that if I hadn't brought in the sheet from the RE (which they didn't really seem to need anyways), they would have gone on as planned and I would have gotten my ultrasound. Boo. I won't get another ultrasound until I'm 20 weeks!! I have another appointment in four weeks and she'll use the doppler to measure the heartbeat, but that's it.

In other news, my spotting had basically stopped on Tuesday. I didn't have any Wednesday or Thursday, then this morning I woke up to a bit of brown!! Ugh. It has basically stopped at this point, but I still don't like it. My OB said it could have happened because I am *way* backed up and apparently that can cause spotting. Who knew?? I may have more later today due to the exam from this morning. Fun fun.

In other news, I couldn't believe that the OB was actually telling me what to expect during pregnancy. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I still don't fully believe that in four weeks there will be a heartbeat on the doppler and that a few weeks after that we will find out what we are having. It just doesn't seem real. The OB says that after seeing a healthy heartbeat twice, at my age, drops my miscarriage risk to 2-3%. Then, after 13 weeks, my risk will be less than 1%. So, statistically speaking, the odds are good that I will have a baby in May. I'm still holding my breath, but deep down I'm trying to believe that our baby dreams will come true.

still here!

I'm still here! I cannot believe that I haven't posted in a week! Whew has the time flown by! So the reason I have been MIA? We went to Chicago for the weekend to tell my family :). We also had an ultrasound with our RE. We drove down Thursday night and got there kind of late. We stayed up for a bit chatting with my mom and then snuggled in for the night. Friday we got up and headed to our RE's office for our ultrasound! They were super generous and snuck us in even though they were all booked up. To my surprise, the RE actually did the ultrasound. I was SOO thankful that we were able to talk with him about how things were going. We explained to him that due to my spotting we had already had an ultrasound that week and that they had seen an implantation bleed. The ultrasound tech at our OB also said that she thought I had a heart shaped uterus, so we asked him about that as well. He didn't see the implantation bleed at Friday's ultrasound, but he did explain that about 2/3 of his patients spot in the first trimester. He also said that, in his experience, spotting does not correlate with miscarriage. Basically he said 10% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, 10% of the spotters and 10% of the non-spotters. He also said that he doesn't think I'll be one of those people. The baby was measuring 6w2d (even though I was 6w4d). That measurement was perfect because it showed me that it had grown since our appointment on Wednesday. The doc assured us that measuring a bit "behind" at this point is not a big deal and that they would only begin to worry if we started measuring a week or more behind (we got the same schpeel at the OB). We did see the heartbeat (again!), but the doc did not measure it. He said he does not like to use the doppler, especially this early. From what I could tell, the baby's heartbeat looked faster and was definitely still beating (YAY!).

After our appointment, MBL went back to my parent's house to work and I went to the pumpkin patch with my mom, my sister, and my nephews. It was SOOO fun! I just loved walking around with my nephews and seeing their wonder and awe at everything. We got chinese food for dinner for a very special reason...we used fortune cookies with specialty messages to tell our parents that we are expecting! Basically I goog.led creative ways to tell people and that was my favorite one. It went a little differently than I was anticipating, but it was still super fun to see my parents' reactions. My mom asked for a cookie first (while my dad was outside) and when she opened she just yelled and smiled. It was perfect. When my dad came in, we had him open one as well and he just smiled and asked if it was real (it is :). We told MBL's parents on Sunday. They didn't want chinese, so we ended up wrapping up Grandma and Grandpa ornaments for them. They were surprised and asked if we knew what we were having. Overall, I am very happy with how things turned out!

MBL and I are feeling pretty hopeful about things. We've had three good ultrasounds and my spotting has basically stopped. It is also reassuring that I have been pretty sick. I haven't thrown up yet, but not because I haven't tried or felt like it. I've been on uni.som and b6 since last Monday night and yesterday I broke down and called my OB for a prescription for zof.ran. Don't get me wrong, I am beyond thankful to be pregnant and I will not moan/complain too much...but, I guess I wasn't expecting my nausea to be as bad as it is. It's only hard at this point because I am doing my internship and working and so I am out of the house about 50 hours a week...and feeling all pukey away from home is not my fave. Oh well. I'll take it...especially if it means that my baby is growing as it should!

Phew! That was a long post. I promise to be better from here on out. We have our OB appointment and a follow-up ultrasound on Friday...so, I'll definitely be posting after that!