Trick or Treat

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday and everything went great. Most importantly all of baby's organs looked healthy and were in the correct locations - normal heart and brain, intestines inside the abdomen, diaphragm looked complete, kidneys not too bright. It was amazing to see that the fluttering sensation I feel is when the baby kicks off one side of the amniotic sac. We also were able to take a peak between babys leg and are so excited to anounce we are having a little...

Boy!

Now the night before our first ultrasound I had a dream that I delivered a baby boy and had originally thought I was having a boy, but K and all of my family though the baby was a girl so they slowly convinced me otherwise. We were suprised and very happy to find out that baby is a boy (even though we would have been equally happy with a girl). Knowing the baby is a boy just helps make everything a little more real and helps me imagine what our life will be like as a family of 3.

We're still here

Hi loyal blog followers. Thank you for all of your inquiries as to how I've been doing. I am sorry I have been so absent. I kept wanting to update you, but I've been anxious to post... I kept waiting to feel more confident in my pregnancy, and that has taken a lot of time. That's not to say I haven't been enjoying my pregnancy, it's just that infertility and loss makes early pregnancy very difficult. Even after seeing our little baby twice, I was scared that we might lose him/her.

The good news is everything is going well. We had our first OB appointment at 12 weeks and were able to see our baby again during the ultrasound for the nucal transulency measurement, which baby measured great at. I was honestly very suprised (even though I knew baby would almost certainly be ok because I heard the heartbeat on doppler that day) when the ultrasound started and baby looked like a healthy, human baby.

We enjoyed annoucing to our family and friends shortly after our appointment. It was so exciting to be able to share such happy news with everyone. Then last week we made an announcement on facebook, because we have a lot of extended family and friends that we keep in contact with through facebook (and also to inform my classmates, without me having to tell everyone individually when they look at my growing stomach.)

I will try to do a better job in blogging for the rest of this pregnancy. I am 16 weeks today and have my next OB appointment on Monday. Then at 20 weeks (on Halloween) we have our anatomy scan to check all of baby's organs and hopefully to see if baby is a girl or a boy. I think at that point I will finally be able to breath a bit more easily. Each day is better than the next, and I honestly never thought I would be 16 weeks pregnant.

I still read your blogs everyday. My heart breaks with your loss and waiting, and celebrates with your good news. I am rooting for each and every one of you.

I've been outed!

Today at least 10 individuals learned of my pregnancy. Here is how it happened: today was the first day of my otho rotation. I've been worried about ortho because I thought the lima bean might lead me to a. pass out in the OR or b. run out vomiting. But alas, neither of these scenarios happened. I joined my team in the OR partway into a case after orientation, so I hadn't met anyone yet or even had the chance to consider discussing my pregnancy in private. I did scope out the OR for any sources of radiation, and everything seemed safe. We were doing a total knee replacement and were getting ready to put in the replacement joint when one of the residents ask, "You aren't pregnant, are you?" Oh... why yes in fact I am. So I turned bright red (I'm sure) and stuttered out "Actually I am." It turns out the cement they use to fix the joints isn't safe for pregnant individuals, so I was kicked out of the OR and set to clinic, where the remaining resident asked me what happened so I had to inform him (and the 2 nurses and 1 other medical student who were also in the room) that I was pregnant. I was able to rejoin the team for the remaining 2 surgeries of the day, and I feel safer in the OR now that everyone knows I'm pregnant so they will let me know if I ever need to leave, but it's not the way I was planning on sharing my exciting news with the first 10 people outside of the few select individuals who already know. The whole thing does make me worried about our scan this Thursday, because if something is wrong I will either have to tell them or continue to let them think I'm pregnant for the next week. But I will try not to worry myself with that! I'm thinking healthy baby, good heartbeat, appropirate growth thoughts.

2nd ultrasound: 6 weeks 6 days



I slacked on my blogging last week - sorry to keep you waiting. The second ultrasound went well. The baby measured on track and had a heart rate of 137. After the ultrasound I was told that I had graduated from the IVF clinic and should set up an OB appointment. What?! I'm all for being positive, but I can't believe that I'm ready to join the land of appointments only every 4+ weeks.

 

I think there must be a whole lot of fertile people in my city because the earliest I could get a new OB appointment is at 12 weeks 3 days (Sept 9th). This was after I had explained how we did IVF and I was very nervous and wanted to be seen sooner rather than later and the nurse told me they usually see patients between 7-11 weeks. So I am pretty bummed about waiting so long.

 

 

I am still incredibly nervous. I received an email from my resolve group asking when I would be 12 weeks (which is generally when you "graduate" until the pregnancy is completed) and it totally caught me off guard. Me, make it to 12 weeks? I still am taking this pregnancy on a day-to-day basis. I look forward to the future, but I'm always hesitant, waiting for the next scan.

 

In my head 8 weeks is the magical number where I will feel more comfortable (although I'm sure I'll always be scared until I have a baby in my arms). My sister-in-law who had so many miscarriages said that 8 weeks was the latest she had a miscarriage, but she also had a missed miscarriage where the baby died at 8 weeks and didn't know till her 12 weeks scan. I am 7 weeks 5 days today. I'll be 8 weeks on Friday. I feel like I will need an ultrasound after I make it to 8 weeks in order to become more comfortable. I am just so scared of missing something, like in my last pregnancy when I thought everything was ok and it wasn't, or in my sister-in-laws pregnancy where the baby had died but she didn't know.

 

I got really anxious yesterday thinking about how we had to go 4.5 more weeks until our next ultrasound and had a bit of a panic attack. I called the clinic today and after a lot of explaining and insistence, the IVF clinic agreed that I could come in next Thursday (8/15) for another scan at 8 weeks 6 days.  I feel a lot more comfortable with this schedule. This way we will have 2 weeks between our 6w6d scan and 8w6d scan then just 3.5 weeks till the 12w3d scan.

 

I know I will have to get more comfortable with less visits / ultrasounds, and I am sure I will to a degree. It will be a lot easier once I make it to the point where I can feel the baby moving or have a visibly growing belly. But at this early stage of pregnancy I don't have any signs as to the status of our little baby and I worry about him/her.

A birthday wish

It was my birthday yesterday. When K and my sister asked what I wanted for my birthday I told them all I wanted was for my baby to be a healthy and keep growing for 34 more weeks - a very big request I know! Hopefully that birthday wish will be granted, but in the meantime K bought me lovely earings, and my friends gave me thai food, cupcakes, cookies, and a DQ blizzard :)

Our next ultrasound is this Thursday. I am feeling more hopeful due to increased nausea - it is way more intense than it was last pregnancy at this point, which I find reasurring even though I don't feel well. I am hoping that it is a good sign the little one is growing.

In other news I have developed my first reaction to a progesterone injection. I woke up this morning and where K had injected me the night before I had a red, itchy, nodule. Per the advice of my IVF expert friends I have applied cortisone cream and am trying to massage the area. K said that last night oil came out when he pulled out the needle, so I don't know if the oil migrated out of my muscle and into my subcutaneous tissue???

Little Legume

Thank you all for your love, support, and prayers during this nerve wracking time. This morning we had our first ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was amazingly kind and understanding. She must have read my chart because she knew that I would be anxious. She started off by saying we wanted to see a gestation sac and yolk sac today and if we saw a fetal pole that would be extra. As soon as she put the ultrasound probe in she let me know that she saw a great looking yolk sac and a baby with a heartbeat! Baby measured on track for 5w6d and had a heart rate of 93. The Dr told me that the heart rate is on the low side of normal, but ok since we are so early. The baby's heart only started beating recently and the SA node (electrical center that sets the rate of the heart) is still immature. In the first few days the fetal heart rate can be lower than what we would expect in a week. Here are some pictures: 

 



This one shows the fetal pole. Babies heart made him/her wiggle with each beat. I wish we had taken a video!

 

This one shows the baby (arrow) connected to the yolk sac.

There is dispute in my family on the proper legume nickname we should call him/her. K says Snap Pea, my sister says Lima Bean. I think Little Legume is pretty cute :) The ultrasound tech even said baby looked like a cute Bean.

Today we are feeling much more comfortable with this pregnancy. This morning I was on my knees praying in the bathroom when I woke up. We hope the Little Legume continues to grow and flourish. We have a followup ultrasound next Thursday to ensure he/she is growing appropriately and to check the heart rate.

I know a heartbeat still isn't a guarantee, but it was reassuring to see today. I still am scared, but I want to enjoy this pregnancy by focusing on living in the moment.

I hope each and every one of you gets a chance to see a little heart beating inside of you. You each deserve it so much. Sometimes my heart aches when I think of all of you and the pain we all are going through. I don't have any answers but I will continue to root for you, pray for you, and support you until you get a take home baby.


Anxiety

I am  having a hard time remaining calm this pregnancy. After I lost my last pregnancy my whole world came crashing down. I believed that we had made it through the hard stuff; that a pregnancy would equal a baby. But now I know things aren't that simple. And it sucks. I feel like I have been robbed. Robbed of my dreams of how I imagined my children would be conceived, and now robbed of my dreams of enjoying my pregnancy.

I am having hard time even thinking of myself as pregnant.  I logged onto fertilebook and saw a pregnancy announcement from one of K's friends, who I am not that fond of to begin with, and I felt pure jealousy. I couldn't muster up any happiness for them, and it made me feel lousy. I was jealous that they were in a secure enough place in their pregnancy that they could announce it on face.book. Jealous that they were pregnant - at which point I tried to remind myself "you are pregnant too." But I couldn't over come the feeling.

Despite this, I will be destroyed if the ultrasound is bad on Thursday.

I don't want to have to do IVF all over again... But we have no more frozen embryos, so we will have to do IVF again if this pregnancy doesn't result in a live baby in 35 weeks. And if we have to, we will do it all over again. I would go though IVF many times over again for a baby.

I don't want to have to do IVF again... because if I have to go through it again it means we lost another baby. I want this/these baby(ies) that are growing inside of me. I wanted the baby that was growing inside of me 3 months ago. I can't help but wonder what life would be like if we hadn't lost our first baby. We could have been the ones posting on facebook this week.