13 weeks

Total Weight Loss/Gain: I gained 5-6 pounds in the first trimester. The pamphlet my doctor gave me said I was only supposed to gain 3. Whoops!

Maternity Clothes: I’m going shopping with my mom this weekend for some : ) My work pants are tight and my jeans haven’t fit since week 9.

Stretch marks: none, yet (except the ones on my boobs from puberty!)

Sleep: I’m sleeping GREAT. I’ve slept like a baby most nights. I’m really enjoying it because I know baby will get here and sleep will be a distant memory.

Movement: It’s certainly happening, but I can’t feel it. It’s the most amazing thing to see via ultrasound though.

Cravings/Aversions: Nothing huge. Early on (5-7 weeks) I needed a LOT of salt. I salted everything very heavily. But that passed and lately I just want a lot more dairy than I used to.

Gender: No clue. Sometimes I have very strong girl feelings, but when I see the baby on the ultrasound screen I always call it “he”. We’ll have to wait and see.

Symptoms: Tired, crying a lot, hungry all the time, very easily winded, belly getting bigger, some headaches. Nausea seems to have passed (cross your fingers).

What I miss: nothing. I love being pregnant.

What I look forward to: 16 week cervical scan to see the baby again, 20 week scan and finding out the gender!

Moods: Generally great. Sometimes I cry for no reason but I don’t think I can actually blame that on the pregnancy.

Milestones:  I felt like hitting 12 weeks was a huge milestone. But really, every week feels like a milestone. Every Tuesday I turn over weeks, we read about the baby’s development, and we take a belly photo. This week, the baby gets fingerprints!

Medical concerns: My doctors don’t seem concerned at all. I’m concerned about gestational diabetes because of the PCOS. I’m also concerned about my cervical length since I had the LEEP, although my NP made it sound like one LEEP is no big deal. Basically I just want the baby to keep growing and come out at the right time : )

Misc: We are gearing up to paint the nursery in December and I’ve been doing a lot of online shopping. I believe I have a crib, changing table, and dresser picked out, but won’t order until February or so. We have decided to use gDiapers so I ordered a book about cloth diapering and I’m very excited to learn more. I feel fortunate to have a caring, involved husband who really agrees with me on these decisions.

13 weeks tomorrow!

Last week, the day before Thanksgiving, I had my first appointment with my OB’s staff (first official appt – the 10 week u/s was ordered by my RE). I had called the week before to politely request an ultrasound, and was politely told that it doesn’t work that way. Darn.

When we were being taken back for the appt I saw the nurse grab the little Doppler thing. I was thrilled that if I didn’t get to see the baby I would had least get to hear the little heartbeat. We chatted about my family history, and spent a long time discussing my diet. I’ve been an aspiring vegetarian for over a year now, have completely cut out pork, and had also completely cut out beef until the nurse practitioner told me I was borderline anemic and needed to eat red meat once a week. UGH, I’ve never eaten ground beef once a week in my life, but I will do anything to make the baby happy and healthy.

We talked about my anxiety, when I should call and when I should tell myself everything is okay. We debated the merits of metformin and decided to go ahead and stay on it throughout the pregnancy.

I really liked the nurse practitioner. Here I was, 12w1d pregnant, and this was the first time anyone had sat down with me (for close to an hour!) and chatted about my pregnancy. I had a whole list of questions at my 6 week appt that I didn’t get to ask, which just grew in length at the 8 and 10 week appts, when I also didn’t get to ask them. I had nearly 15 questions by the time this appointment rolled around, and she listened patiently and answered them all at length.

Things were wrapping up and she was instructing me to get ready for my pap smear, and I started panicking that she had forgotten and I wasn’t going to hear the heartbeat. So I asked, and she winked and me and said “We’re going to take a little peek.”

She told me if she didn’t take any measurements and we just watched, she didn’t have to bill it or even tell anyone we did it. The “little peek” ended up being almost 5 full minutes of watching the baby on the screen. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Every ultrasound gets better. The baby looks like a baby, and I could tell it had grown a lot since 10 weeks.

The best part was that the baby did NOT stop moving the whole time! It is seriously an unreal experience to see this tiny human dancing and twisting and turning and waving and kicking and know that it’s all happening inside of me. It’s unbelievable.

The appointment put me in the best mood. I woke up the next morning – Thanksgiving – and just cried in my dining room about how thankful I was. We were in such a tough spot last Thanksgiving that this one just seemed surreal.

My next appointment is 12/22, at 16 weeks. I would have to wait all the way till 20 weeks, but I had that nasty LEEP done so they need to monitor my cervical length. I can’t wait to see the baby again!

12 weeks! And a giveaway!

Hello everyone. I am VERY thrilled to say I have made it to 12 weeks. There is some debate about when the first trimester ends, but this calculator says that I'm out of the woods developmentally. So I'm celebrating : )

12 weeks means I'm going to announce on facebook - probably on Thursday (Thanksgiving). Now, we all know that pregnancy announcements are like a knife in the gut - probably worse - when you're infertile. I know that I want to reference my infertility in some way, but I'm not sure the most perfect way to phrase things.

Right now I'm thinking something along the lines of "A and I are very thankful to announce that we're expecting! The past two years have been difficult, but I can honestly say that now, it was all worth it."

I don't know how much detail I want to go into. Do I want to mention IVF or the word "infertility" specifically? I don't want to totally overshadow the pregnancy part of the pregnancy announcement, but I want to give a clear shout out to any of my 263 friends who may be having trouble conceiving.

I know this is a fabulous "problem" to have, so for your trouble, I have something in return: I am giving away my copy of the Circle + Bloom IUI/IVF Mind-Body Program!

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post letting me know either:
1) what gives you hope in your darkest days of treatment/waiting/TTC or
2) what you'd like to see in a facebook pregnancy announcement

I'll use a random generator to pick a winner on December 1st and contact the lucky lady.

11 weeks

I am 11 weeks pregnant today. While I know anything can still happen, I am settling into the role of “pregnant woman”. It still kind of blows my mind to think about it.

I think the best thing I did for my anxiety was to start telling people. In this case, people’s naivete came in handy. Once they found out I was pregnant, they treated me like I was truly going to have a baby…which was a novel approach for me (and anyone going through infertility/loss).

Overall, I have found that when people treat you like you’re pregnant, you start feeling more pregnant yourself.

The best response I’ve gotten from my pregnancy announcements was from a co-worker. We aren’t close, but you wouldn’t know from her reaction. She immediately asked me if I got pregnant naturally, and when I said we did in vitro, she asked if it was covered under our company’s insurance. I said our state has a mandate for it to be covered. Then she asked me how much I paid out of pocket for each attempt (!). The icing on the cake was when she said “Is that why you’ve been missing so much work lately?”

Physically, I am definitely getting a round tummy. I wouldn’t call it a baby bump - it could still look like a beer gut to strangers. But if I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a while, she would probably suspect I’m pregnant.

As far as symptoms go, I’ve still been lucky. I’ve had a few fits of nausea that have made me ill, but they go away pretty quickly. No vomiting. I have discovered the tummy-settling magic of sprite with grenadine and I drink that all the time, even ordering it at restaurants (to my husband’s embarrassment). I have crazy blue veins on my chest and boobs. I feel tired and/or dizzy a lot. I have crazy mood swings and sometimes I’m convinced my husband hates me.

All in all, I’m enjoying this roller coaster, and thankful for every moment.

9w6d

We had our 10 week ultrasound today. Everything went great. Baby looks good, measures well (measured at 9w4d but with a margin of error of a couple days, so perfect), heartbeat is 170, and we watched it wave its little arms and legs at us.

When I came home I had a meltdown. Because: anxiety. I haven't completely let go of it like I thought I had.

But after crying it out, I spent a long time staring at the sonogram photo crying tears of joy, too.

And then we bought some tiny newborn socks.

Any day now this will feel real.

9w1d - bella band is my new best friend.

Today a girl at work brought me a Bella band. As previously mentioned: BLOAT. Apparently others have noticed ; )

It was fun putting it on, and it was so much more comfortable. I feel silly for needing it at 9 weeks, but I have a road trip and concert next week (Indigo Girls) and had been dreading the drive in jeans. Jeans are impossible right now.

You know when you go shopping for wedding dresses? And no matter how poorly the first dress fits, or how it's not at all what you want, or for whatever reason, you'd never dream of buying it, you still catch your breath when you look at yourself in a wedding dress for the first time?

That's how this felt.