8 Week Update - First Bump Photo!

The title of this post is a little misleading 1) I am technically only 7 weeks 6 days according to the ultrasound that I had last week and 2) there isn't really a bump in this photo yet! But that is ok!

 

How Far Along: 8 weeks
Total Weight Gain: I think about 2+ lbs, but I didn't weight myself today
Maternity Clothes: Not yet, but I bought a belly band yesterday that I used to keep some jeans up, but I am not entirely sure that they would have fit me pre-pregnancy anyway :)
Stretch Marks: Nope
Sleep: I am not a very good sleeper to begin with - I don't usually sleep straight through the night.  Since becoming pregnant I definitely don't sleep well! I fall asleep ok, but sometime between the hours of 1:30-3:30 am I wake up and am unable to get back to sleep.  Sometimes I get out of bed and go watch tv for an hour or so. 
Best Moment This Week: Seeing the baby's heart beat at the ultrasound, also telling my brother and SIL about the pregnancy
Miss Anything: Probably normal sleeping
Movement: Nope
Food Cravings: Soft serve ice cream - chocolate/vanilla twist!
Anything Making You Queasy or Sick: Salad.  I had been eating at least 1 salad a day and now I cringe at the site.  I still like other vegetables, but salad is a no go. 
Gender: Nothing definite, but my theory of pets says its a boy
Labor Signs: Nope
Symptoms: Not much of anything. I haven't gotten any morning sickness, I get a little crampy now and then. 
Belly Button In or Out: In
Wedding Rings On or Off: On

Feeling: Since the u/s I have been feeling much better about the pregnancy, but most days I still don't believe this is really happening.
Exercise: I have been pretty good about exercising.  Most days of the week I go for a 3-3.5 mi run.  Sometimes I walk up the big hills though!  I haven't been as good about doing weight training though.

Looking Forward To: Continuing to run as the weather looks good this week!
Next Appointment: May 10th 

7 Weeks 2 Days

I have been feeling really good since the ultrasound on Monday.  Things are starting to sink in and I am starting to feel excitement about being pregnant without the fear creeping in. 

I have been feeling pretty good lately.  I wouldn’t call it nausea, but certain times of the day I feel a little queasy, but it never gets close to wanting to throw up.  Probably because I normally eat constantly throughout the day! I have definitely been feeling more tired than normal.  Yesterday was pretty bad, from the time I woke up I was exhausted yesterday, but somehow at night I was wide awake.  I have been waking up between 2-3:30 am for the past 3 weeks and can’t get back to sleep.   I went for a run this morning with Winnie, so I hope that helps me stay awake today!

On Monday night we went to a surprise retirement party for my mom.  It was great listening to all the nice things that her coworkers had to say about her.  She is truly an awesome mom and I am very lucky to have her!  Several of my relatives went to the party as well.  Brian and I were hoping to tell my brother and SIL, but it was tough with my uncles and aunts around.  As we were leaving the parking garage after the party we saw them and Brian pulled up next to them, we got out and told them the good news.  It is so nice to have them know about the pregnancy because other than my mom, they are the other ones who have known the longest about what we have been going through.  I am excited to be able to talk to my SIL about my pregnancy. 

Last night on my way home I got a call from our RE.  He was calling to congratulate us because when we went in for the ultrasound we met with the nurse.  I thought that was nice and helped bring some closure to our IF journey. 

I think on Sunday I will start doing my weekly updates/bump (ha what bump).  Even though my week changes over on Mondays according to my ultrasound, I may fudge it and say I am starting week 8 on Sunday, because Lord knows I won’t be up for doing an update on a Monday night! 

1st Ultrasound :)

I sit here typing this with my own heart still beating a little bit faster.  DH and I went to the RE this morning for our first ultrasound.  To say we were nervous is an understatement.   I wore my "lucky socks" which are some St Patrick's day socks that my SIL gave me.  We think the baby was conceived on or right around St Patrick's day and have been calling the baby "lucky."

Up until today neither of us thought about this pregnancy as being "real" sure we would talk about it, but we needed this ultrasound to go well to truly believe that this is happening.   

One of my favorite techs performed the ultrasound, she was great - walked us through every thing she was doing and explained what it all meant.  When she first put the wand in she showed us the gestational sac, the yolk sac and the fetus.  A few seconds later we could see on the screen the little heartbeat.  At this point I started to really tear up.  After she took a few measurements she let us listen to the heartbeat and at this point the tears really started coming. I felt so relieved that there is a heartbeat. 

 The heartbeat was at 137 bpm which she said is great and the baby is measuring 7 weeks, which makes sense based on when I think I ovulated.  That would put my due date right around December 8th and my ovulation date right around March 17th (St Patrick's day).  

So without further ado, introducing baby lucky:

After the ultrasound Brian and I met with the nurse practitioner to go over the results.  She said everything looked great, gave us our medical records from them and some info on a healthy pregnancy and said we don't need to come back there any more!  Brian and I were surprised that we are already in the group of "normal pregnant people" almost as if we should stick around the RE longer, but I guess with good results they let you go!

I need to call my OB today and let them know the news and see when they will want me in.  

Gushy stuff:
Thank you to everyone who follows my blog, your words of encouragement and hope along the way kept us motivated (and sane).  I am so happy to be joining the ranks of the pregnant, but of course I still remember my "sisters" who are still in the trenches of IF. This journey would mean nothing if I forgot about all of you once I became pregnant.  I will still continue to follow your blogs and cheer you on (if that is ok), and I understand if you need to stop reading mine since the posts will be about pregnancy from here on out (if all continues to go well).  My heart aches for everyone out there who is still trying.  I pray for you guys daily.  

 

Tomorrow is the big day

The past week has gone by pretty quickly with everything going on in Boston.  On Friday many of my friends closer to the city were on "lock down" in their houses while the police looked for the marathon bombing terrorist.  

Thank goodness they found him on Friday night and everyone was allowed to go back outside.  I am also glad they were able to capture him alive. Although there can be no "good" explanation for all that they did, I do hope that having this person brought to justice will help the families of the victims heal (as much as they possible can).  

So tomorrow is ultra sound day.  Ever since I got my first beta back I have been both excited for and dreading this day.  It almost feels like tomorrow will be incredibly happy or overwhelmingly sad.  I just have to keep hope alive that we will see a baby in there and the baby will be well with a heart beat.  

We saw my mom today and she is eager for us to have the ultra sound so that we will tell my brother and SIL about the pregnancy.  She is looking forward to having somebody else in our family to talk to about it.  

A Sad Day for Boston

I think I have mentioned previously in my blog that I am from Massachusetts.  My husband and I live about 30 minutes north of the city and my husband works in Boston.  Yesterday was a very scary day for us as we had coworkers and friends who were either running in the marathon or were there watching it.  One of my dear friends was watching at the finish line and was in between the two explosions; thank God he was not hurt. 

I am definitely feeling a lot of emotions today: anger, sadness, loss.  Marathon Monday is a loved day in Boston and it really pisses me off that something this terrible could happen on such a joyous day for so many people.   It is hard to think about anything else today.  

6 weeks 1 day

Since I haven't had an ultrasound yet and we don't know the exact ovulation date, I am still guessing on exactly how far along I am.  It will be nice when we have the u/s on 4/22 to finally figure out the due date.  

So my nerves have started to relax a bit...I was going through a tough few days of being absolutely terrified that something was going to happen to the baby, but then I had to stop and say to myself "has there been any indication that something is wrong?" and the answer was no, no spotting, no major cramping, so what would make me think something is wrong?  For some reason I like to psych myself out and go on the December 2013 moms board where I read how so many people are nauseous or have huge sore breasts or some other pregnancy symptom that I don't have and then I freak out, when I should really be thanking my lucky stars that I don't have these symptoms...well yet. 


I have been quite tired lately, more so than my usual self, so that is something!  

Now the count down is on to ultrasound day...7 more days.  I am excited for this day because I feel that if we see a heartbeat then it will calm a lot of my fears.  I am also looking forward to telling my sister in law and brother about the pregnancy, since Brian and I said we would wait for the heartbeat to tell them.  It will be nice to have someone to talk to about pregnancy, since my SIL had my niece a year and a half ago.  I am hoping she has some books that I can read about pregnancy.  

Yesterday I took Winnie for a walk and I noticed the local book store said dogs were welcome, so I took her in.  I found a pregnancy book and said "why not" so I bought it.  I am only through a chapter or two and I am not sure how well I will like this book - it seems very preachy on certain things, and that isn't my style.  

5 weeks 4 days

I expected that once I got pregnant I would be blissfully happy all of the time.  And I am, but at the same time I am completely terrified that we will go in for the ultrasound on 4/22 and there won’t be a baby or a heartbeat and we will be crushed. 

I spoke to my mom and Brian about it and they tell me not to worry everything will be fine, but I just can’t seem to relax.  The last week I have been waking up in the middle of the night and unable to get back to sleep.   I know I have no indication something bad is going to happen, no bleeding or intense cramping and my betas were normal.  It just scares me how quickly I could be back to the longing and sadness of IF. 

I just need to keep repeating to myself “today I am pregnant and I love my baby.”

Still haven’t been feeling much of any symptoms, other than yesterday I was exhausted, but that is probably due mostly to the fact that I can’t sleep through the night.  

5 weeks 1 day (I think)

I haven't really been feeling any pregnancy symptoms other than some light cramping that usually comes in the morning.  To be honest I was kind of hoping for some reassuring sore breasts or something!  The lack of symptoms makes me nervous, but I probably should just thank my lucky stars that I feel so good, because in few weeks that might all change.  I haven't had any spotting or sever cramps, so that is good news.  I just wish the ultra sound day would get here - and it is 2 weeks away. 

We went over to a friends house last night to hang out.  There were about 10 of us there including the hosts (which I heard through the grapevine were dealing with IF) and one of my close friends who knows we have been struggling.  I really didn't want anyone to see that I wasn't drinking because obviously it is super early and I wouldn't want to make the hosts feel uncomfortable.  

They had a nice bar set up with wine, beer and mixed drink items.  So I slily (or so I thought) made myself a club soda, cranberry and lime drink.  I figured it looked like a cape codder so nobody would be the wiser.  One of the guys there asked me at one point during the night "what are you drinking Caity" and I said "oh just cranberry and vodka." 

Later on in the night my close friend said to me "that was pretty slick of you to say there was vodka in your drink."  I guess she was watching as I made it and saw there was no alcohol in it.  She said "I am hoping this is a good thing" and I kind of just said "I can't talk about it."  I really don't want people knowing about it just yet - it is really early and we haven't even heard a heartbeat yet!  Social situations like this can be tough.   

Beta #2 is in :)

It is slowly starting to sink in.  Today's beta went from 126 on Monday to 306 today - doubling time of 37.5 hours.  I think this was a big hurdle for me to get over to believe this might actually happen. 

They scheduled my ultra sound for Monday 4/22 which is a little over 2.5 weeks away.  I was hoping it would be sooner, but just thankful to be in this position. Going by when Fertility Friend said I ovulated, I should be due December 6th.

The other exciting news is that one of the women I manage is pregnant too.  She has a 5 year old and was having secondary IF and did her first round of clomid.  She is due about a week and a half before me!  It is too crazy since we started sharing our IF struggles with each other about a month ago.  I am so excited to be pregnant at the same time as her and have someone to talk to that is at the same stage and dealt with IF.  

As if the day couldn't get any better, I also had my annual review.  I got a 3.9% raise (which is great because I was thinking it would be less) and they promoted me from "supervisor" to "manager." 

I don't know how so much happiness can come within a weeks time.  The sad part is that I am starting to look around for a big blow to come, just because I can't believe how good things are going.  

Still Doesn’t Feel Real

I don’t really have any symptoms of being pregnant yet, but some bloating/cramps that are sort of period like, but different.  They are hard to describe, more like a pain in a specific area rather than all over crampy like I would feel with AF.  I get a pang of fear several times during the day that this pregnancy won’t work out.  I am not sure when those will go away, but hopefully some of them will go away once I get beta #2 done tomorrow morning.

Brian keeps calling me “my pregnant wife” but it just seems so odd, like I don’t really believe he is referring to me.

My mom is going to put her house on the market soon and needed to get her septic system inspected yesterday.  Well the inspection failed and it looks like she is going to have to put in a whole new system which is like $20K I think.  She called me yesterday and asked to come over for us to help her research engineers and septic system installers.  DH and I thought telling her about our pregnancy would lighten her day.

So after she came over and we chatted a bit I said “well I have some news that will brighten your day, you are going to have another grandchild” and she looked at me and said “are you pregnant?” and I said “yes” and she immediately started to cry and gave us a big hug.  It was wonderful.  My mom has been a big support through all of this and it was so nice to see her so happy for us. 

We aren’t planning on telling anyone else for a while.  

Beta #1 is in :)

I just got the call from the Nurse Nicole.... 


Beta #1 is 126!  and progesterone is at 22.5.  She told me to keep taking the crinone for now so we don't "rock the boat."  Is it true that the effects of crinone doesn't show up in bloodwork, so the 22.5 is what I am producing myself?  

I am thankful that we can breathe a sigh of relief, at least until Wednesday.