It's all good in (and under) the hood

 I have been doing a lot of blog and message board reading, but I have not been doing a good job of posting on my own blog.  Partly, because I am too lazy and partly because nothing too interesting has been happening.  We just had a 14 week appointment with a maternal fetal medicine (MFM) specialist.  I was referred to the MFM only because I am pregnant with twins.  The babies looked great and measured 4-5 days ahead of their fetal age.  Their side angles are cute.

Their front angles however, look like they are wearing a Lucha Libre mask. Not a good look kids.

My nausea started fading out around week 9.  I get bouts of it now and then, but it is just so much better than it was in the beginning.  I haven't experienced the fatigue like I hear other people talk about (not yet anyway).  I attribute it to a great work schedule, no children to take care of and a wonderful hubby to make his own dinner :)  Don't get me wrong I enjoy a nap here and then, but I am not feeling run down like I hear have been other's experiences.

I have been taking weekly pics of my stomach so far the biggest difference was week 4 to week 8.  My stomach was huge at week 4 from OHSS and then back to normal at week 8. At week 14 some days I have a bump and others I don't!  I am suspecting that I will have a definite bump for my week 15 pic, but I just finished a weekend of eating nachos, pizza, and hot dogs so I may just have a food baby in addition to the other two babies right now.

WARNING:  I'm gonna show bare belly pics.  Don't worry I have a shirt on.  I suspect that I may have been grossed out by bare belly pics the first time I saw them, so I won't be offended if you want to X out of the blog now, but I love looking at these pics now and making comparisons in myself and others.

J likes my 8 Week pic.  He says I look like a female fighter....didn't realize my hubs was into that

14 Weeks

The moment of truth...

I haven’t abandoned my blog, I swear.  J and I decided that we weren’t going to say anything about the outcome of the IVF until mid-July- whether it was good or bad.  If things were bad we wanted that time to deal with our feelings together and if it was good we wanted to make sure we got to the first ultrasound and heard a heartbeat.

At the end of June I got my two Hcg blood beta tests.  13DPO- 177 and 15 DPO- 385.  So, at this point we know that I am pregnant and it is most likely not a chemical pregnancy.  I should have been ecstatic-over the moon happy at this point but I wasn’t.  All I could say was that I was about 5% excited.  The other 95% was scared shitless that this pregnancy was not going to work out.  It was such a weird feeling.  We worked so hard to get to this point- only to feel fearful of the past repeating. 

My OHSS symptoms really started to decrease about a week after getting the positive blood tests.  My stomach went back to a near normal size and I felt like I could breathe again!  Around 6 weeks pregnant my left side really began bothering me and being the crazy infertile lady I couldn’t help but believe that I was having an ectopic pregnancy (when the pregnancy grows outside of the uterus).  I made an appointment to have an ultrasound done a week earlier to check out whatever was going on inside. 

J and I sat nervously inside the same ultrasound room with the same ultrasound tech that gave us the bad news two years ago.  She did the transvaginal ultrasound for about 7-10 minutes before she even said anything to us.  This woman has the best poker face I have ever seen!  We should have taken her to Vegas with us maybe we actually would have won a few bucks.

She turns the screen towards us and wipes her forehead as if this is about to be an exhausting conversation.  In my head I’m just thinking, ok here’s the bad news get ready.   Instead, she starts describing what she sees- the gestational sac, the pole, the itty bitty baby and it’s humongous beating heart.  Ah what a relief.  She measured the baby and it was right on target.  We even got to hear the heartbeat. 

After that she says “And over here…”  I started to tear up and asked “There’s two??” and she motioned with her fingers- two.  J yells, “Oh SHIT!” hahaha.  We just could not believe it. Obviously we knew there would be a possibility of having twins because we put two embryos back in, but to actually see those two babies on the ultrasound screen was unreal.   We were able to see Baby B’s heartbeat but it was too far back to hear this one.  Baby B also measured right on target.  We were just hoping to have our fears relieved that everything was going ok with the pregnancy, but to be able to see TWO heartbeats at 5 weeks 6 days (5w6d) just blew our minds.

We went back for the original ultrasound we had scheduled at 6w6d and were able to see that the babies had grown as they were supposed to and this time we heard both heartbeats!  What a blessing. 

At this time I can say that we are both 100% excited.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t have any fears, because I still worry a lot, but we are trying to enjoy this time because it has been such a journey to get here.  J and I just want to say thanks again to everyone who has supported us throughout this time and for all of the prayers we received.  We are soooo excited to begin planning for our two little blessings. 

Let's pop my cherry

My first blog entry! How exciting.  First things first I'll explain why I felt the need to blog.  Over the past year and a half my husband (J bird) and I have been trying to get pregnant.  We got pregnant on our wedding night (woohoo!!) after 4-5 months of half-assed trying.  We felt so incredible lucky and blessed.  We had been sorta trying a few month before the wedding at the time when we knew I would not be showing for the wedding day.  When we saw the two lines on the pregnancy test we were both shocked...it was so easy! I spent the next month in a haze...doctors appointments, FitPregnancy magazines and tons of online research.  My brother and his girlfriend were 4 months pregnant so we flew home to share the incredible news with my family and to set up a registry at Babies R Us.  Yes a little early, but we were so caught up in the moment that we could not resist.

Fast forward to 8 weeks.  My first transvaginal ultrasound.  That morning I cooked eggs and had cracked an egg with 2 yolks.  Oh my gosh...does this mean we will hear two heartbeats at the ultrasound?  I hope so!  J Bird and I held hands as the nurse slathered my belly up with jelly.  The room was silent.  The nurse said she would have to get the doctor in the room to speak with us.  Immediately my eyes welled up with tears. The doctor delivered the news that there was no heart beat and the baby was not looking to be 8 weeks.  Heartbreak.  We waited another week to see if possibly the baby had grown at all and it was a fluke.  But it wasn't. We schedule the D & C immediately.

I can't begin to describe all of the emotions that I went through after hearing this news.  At first we were just shocked to get pregnant so fast and now we could not believe that we were not going to be having a baby.  We decided that we were just going to live like the newlyweds we were.  Spur of the moment trips, sleeping in as late as we want, doing whatever our hearts desire.  But that feeling was always there...we want to have a baby.

After a year of trying and no results I went back to the doctor and he prescribed Clomid almost as fast as I told him we had been trying for a year.  No bloodwork, no other questions.  After my first cycle of Clomid I began to experience very painful periods.  Debilitating.  After 3 very painful cycles I spoke with my doctor.  I had began experiencing pain with intercourse soon after the miscarriage and now had very painful periods.  He suspected it was Endometriosis and we scheduled a Laparoscopy and Hysteroscopy.  Basically a surgery to go in, have a look at my lady parts, find endometriosis, and treat the endo by (yuck) burning it off.

In my next post I will talk about the results of the Laparoscopy and what has happened since!