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

Dance, babies! Dance!

I might be biased but these wiggling burritos (that's what we call them) are pretty darn cute. I love in the second video that when one stops moving the other starts.  Turn taking already :)

Doppler & end of IVF Calendar

I caved and bought a Doppler last Thursday morning and to my surprise it was hanging on my mailbox when we returned home from grocery shopping Saturday afternoon.  I was so excited I wanted to just throw the groceries on the counter and tear off my pants to hear the heartbeats lol. Saturday was 9w2d and we had no trouble at all finding a heartbeat!  J was too nervous to let me play around and find both so after a few minutes we gave it a rest.  Now, J likes to pretend he is the doctor and find their heartbeats and after a day or two he actually found both with only about 1/2 inch separating them.  It is such a reassurance that anytime I am feel unsure about what is going on in there I can hear their heartbeats.

In other super duper exciting news, tonight is my last Progesterone in Oil shot and EV2 suppository!!! I royally screwed up my shots the last few nights, sticking myself in the same side two nights in a row (not a big deal, but boy does it hurt) and then also handing J a syringe which still had the needle I use to draw up the medicine.  The problem is that needle is like a 22 gauge, which is ginormous.  J didn't realize and tried to poke me twice with it and it wouldn't go in, thank goodness.

The only other medication I will continue on (besides prenatals and extra folic acid) is the Dexamethasone.  I have to taper off it, taking it every other day for a week.  I cannot believe that I am at the end of my IVF calendar.  If my RE was close I would be having my graduation ultrasound with him for 10 weeks and graduating to my OB.  Since he is in Vegas, I will just continue to be cared for by my OB.  We actually have a schedule appt tomorrow (not just a freak out appt) and I am hoping my babies are moving like crazy!

9 Weeks

We have made it to 9 weeks! Yesterday I had an ultrasound and both the babies arms and legs were moving like crazy! It was so neat to see.  I was pretty nauseas for a good 2-3 weeks straight and then I got some relief for a few days.  Unfortunately, along with the "relief" came spotting.  My doctor got me in right away and they discovered I had a small sub-chorionic hemorrhage (SCH).  Basically it is something that can happen when the embryos are implanting into the uterine wall, and it is more likely to happen with twins.  My doctor said it wasn't too big of a deal, but that I should take it easy.  Whatever that means! Week 5 my doctor told me to stop working out and I have not been able to lift anything over 10 lbs since week 2, so I have to say I have been taking it easy already.

A few hours after I left the doctors office, my doctor called and asked if I could come in right away.  I have a negative blood type and he was afraid that the bleeding may have also been cause by my body trying to reject the babies.  Seriously, if it's not one thing is another.  The solution was easy.  I got a Rhogam shot to help protect the babies in case they have a positive blood type.  I will have to get another one around 32 weeks and then one after they are born.

Then on top of the SHC and negative Rh, my doctor tells me my thrombophilia panel came back and I have a blood clotting disorder.  What. The. Hell.  I'm not even surprised any more.  My OB prescribed baby Aspirin and my RE prescribed extra folic acid.  I don't feel like figuring out who is right and who is wrong so for the moment I am taking both.

In spite of everything I am feeling pretty confident about my little babies.  I have nausea almost all the time, but when I don't I am starving and tired!  All good signs of a healthy pregnancy, right?  Seeing them moving around yesterday was just the best feeling and made it feel so real.  They are like little people and can do people things!

Basic Beet Juice recipe

I am just getting back into juicing. I wasn't able to stand the smell of ginger for a few weeks, but now that my nausea has decreased I wanted to start making some of my favorite juicing recipes. I especially wanted to start drinking a beet recipe because beets help in red blood cell production and can serve as a detox of other chemicals in your system.

Basic Beet:

1 Beet (I start with 1/3 of a medium size beet and work myself up to 1 full size beet.  If you start out with too many beets it can wreck havoc on your digestive system.)
2 Carrots
2 Celery Stalks
1 Apple
1 Orange
Ginger- Put as much as you like in!


Yum! Enjoy

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. 

Welcome to the part of the day where I can't breathe

I guess I have a slight case of OHSS (Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome).  My stomach is so distended I look about 3-4 months pregnant and it is rock hard.  After I eat it becomes so hard to breathe! ugh.  I asked my nurse about it and she said that as long as I am urinating in accordance to how much I am drinking it is perfectly normal, even a good sign.  I have been reading blogs of two other women who have moderate-severe OHSS and basically unless you are gaining 5 lbs a day, there is nothing the doctors can do anyway- except tell you to drink Gatorade.  So, I have been chugging away on the Gatorade and thanking God for summer dresses.