20 weeks and appointment tomorrow

Back in July, when our RE called to tell us we were pregnant, all I could do was walk around my house (since I was home alone at the time) and ask the furniture, "How did this happen???" Of course I knew how it all happened, it was just the miracle of it all coming together and really working that was so hard to wrap my brain around.

Now that I am 20 weeks (and 1 day), I am still a little bit in disbelief. I look down at my growing belly and there is a part of me that still feels like all I have done is had a big (big) dinner. Even though I live in maternity pants or sweats and all my t-shirts are all becoming too short, I still have an image of boxes of Lupro.n and Men.opur stacked up in my fridge when I open the door (even though they have either long been polished off or donated).

And now? Tomorrow morning I will be back in the stirrups. This time my full bladder is so that the OB can get a clear picture of our little growing baby. We are going to see the little one who surprises me with little flutters during the day.

We are going to hold hands and smile huge and be forever changed. I have always felt like this will be the moment when this becomes much more real. I can't wait!

before everything is different

I have tried to post a couple of times this month. Started posts, written a sentence or two or even paragraphs, but ultimately saved them for later or hit the delete button.

My inability to post is much like my inability to finish just about any project I have started lately. My mind is so full of good and exciting things, it is just that my focus is completely out the window.

I feel like my brain, and my body for that matter, is broken up into a 100 piece puzzle and while I am in the middle of putting a piece in, I get distracted (usually by food, or a new idea or my endless to-do list) and have to start all over again.

There are a few freelance job opportunities that I would like to pursue. There are so many projects in my home that I would like to start (completing a few would be nice too). Paperwork that needs to be organized. My brain is torn and I know that at least half of what I want to do doesn't have to get done before my due date...but I feel this self imposed pressure to do so.

I know I am all over the place with this post, this is so indicative of my life right now. I feel this urge to...straighten up my past to be ready for the future...which is coming fast.

The straightening I want to do is not big things, just dozens of small things. Weird organization things, things I never thought much about other than finding comfort in knowing that they are there. Things like my box of elementary and middle school projects and cards. I need them in order. All my pictures both digital and the zillions in boxes, organized by event and year. Clearly marked. Everything in its place.

I guess it is just that I know my life is changing and I don't want to leave anything behind. I'm scrambling to remember myself, my old self before I am different. Before I go from pregnant woman (from 6 years of overwhelmed infertile) all the way to someones mom. I don't want to rush. This might be the only time I get to be pregnant (although my mom hates when I say that and my husband doesn't think this is the only one for us) and I don't want to rush through it. I am having so much fun. Watching my belly expand is unbelievable. Buying a maternity bathing suit last month was awesome. I'm even going to shop for maternity jeans this weekend (I'm over it with the belly band).

I was tired today. No reason especially, I think it is just my brain that is tired. When I told my hubby, he said, "Well, you are almost halfway through." I want to slow this down. I prayed and wished and tried so hard to get here and now it is moving too fast.

I have so much I want to do.

Before everything is different.

Never alone

As vacation wound to a close, we had one last family dinner out. Walking out of the restaurant I noticed a man about my age holding a sweet baby girl about 9 months old. I smiled at the little girl and caught the eye of the man and told him how sweet she was, I also told him I am newly pregnant and have spent the week chatting up anybody with a baby.

He told C and I that it took he and his wife about 5 years to get pregnant and as we nodded in understanding he confided that they had been dealing with "fertility stuff." C and I instantly felt a connection to this stranger. As his wife came out onto the porch of the restaurant and smiled at us too, he introduced us as fellow climbers on the fertility mountain. His wife's face lit up and we immediately started sharing stories about panic attacks over shots and crying jags because of over the top hormones. Our husbands were smiling and commiserating right along with us.

In this single moment, infertility connected 4 strangers that normally would have walked on by with nothing more than a smile and nod. We are all out there. It was so freeing to talk to someone who understood. I'm still smiling about that moment. C and I felt so good, that we are never alone. There needs to be more moments like this. We will keep talking about it...long after our baby is grown with babies of their own, we will keep telling our story.

New to me

Everybody warns you about unsolicited advice when you get pregnant. I feel like I am prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was what happened tonight.

C and I have been on a two week vacation and it has been awesome. We spent the first week on the west coast and week two on the east coast spending time in both oceans and hanging with family. This vacation has been so long overdue and we are completely loving it.

This week we have been with C's family and they are so excited for us. Some of the extended fam heard the news for the first time (over a toast at dinner last night from C) where I found myself really chatty and excited to share our news for the first time since our BFP. It was a great dinner.

Tonight, some friends of C's sister came over to have dinner with us. They have a 9 month old son who we were all meeting for the first time. Since talk was all about babies tonight, I realized that even though I am pregnant I will always be a little different than the women who got pregnant naturally. It was so obvious while talking to this new mom. She was determined to tell me all about her pregnancy, which tests they took, how many ultrasounds they had, how her delivery was and all the challenging things I have to look forward to (her words), breast feeding, getting peed on...

I found myself backing further and further away from her (both in my head and physically) and when someone tasked me with chopping broccoli, I jumped at the opportunity to take a break from what felt like a surreal pregnancy lecture.

Invitro is a part of me. Every day it makes me appreciate all these little milestones, like telling family at 14 weeks (which she practically rolled her eyes and said, "it's about time"), and making a decision with C and the approval of our doctor not to do the NT scan (which she totally disagreed with and proceeded to tell me all the reasons why).

This is someone I don't ever want to be. One who doesn't understand that some women struggle, that there are a ton of different ways that people become parents and that there isn't only one way to experience a pregnancy. That it isn't her way or its wrong.

I just need to figure out a new way to express myself when I am uncomfortable or feeling intimidated instead of silently chopping broccoli seething with every chop.

Flashing between two worlds

Our first OB appointment was yesterday! I went in thinking that we would walk out having heard the heartbeat (check...162 BPM), get a beautiful new image (check...9 pics) and have an overload of information (check...not overload, but definitely a big folder full).

But, it was stranger than I thought it would be sitting in the waiting room. It was bright with big windows, there were small children playing on the floor, there was music and smiling women with big bellies and warm smiles from everyone from the receptionist to the nurses to the doctors. I couldn't help but compare it to the waiting room at my RE's office. I realized that there were no windows in that waiting room, there was no music, there was barely any eye contact, even from the receptionist and the tone of voice of the nurses was much more dry and flat.

Sitting in this new, foreign waiting room, I felt relieved and slightly uncomfortable. Like I finally got invited to the party, but I was still standing up against the wall. It also made me want to stand up in the middle of the room and ask if anyone else was an IF'er. If anyone else was like me, still feeling like I didn't quite fit in. Like I belonged back in the quiet waiting room, keeping my smiles to myself, waiting in the silence to hear my name being called while hiding behind a magazine.

When my name got called for this ultrasound, I jumped up and asked if we could wait a few more minutes for C, who left work early to meet me. They smiled and agreed right away (again, so different from the patient conveyor belt feel of the RE's office). It took less than a minute before C walked in and I jumped up like a little kid and said maybe a bit too loud, "He's here!" I felt like I was quickly informing the waiting room that it was my very first time.

We went in to the ultrasound room and it was warm and inviting. Beautiful hardwood floors and soft artwork on the walls. I immediately flashed back to the RE's ultrasound room, the stark walls with the florescent lighting, the "uplifting" poster hung half-heartedly from one of the ceiling tiles. The chine.se conception chart taped to the cabinet door, edges curling from age right next to the pricing list of fertility drugs from the local pharmacy.

C held my hand while I laid on the table, feet in the stirrups and lights dim. We saw legs and arms on a beautiful body and a sweet round head and there was a quick moment where we got a wave. A wave. From deep inside my uterus. This little baby, the size of a big green grape, waved its little arm and C grabbed my hand a little tighter. I flashed again, back to the other table and stirrups I spent so much time in, the times C held my hand while the RE looked for cysts and mature follicles and the times that he looked and my uterus was empty.

Finally, we met the doctor. She is short and bright, and came into the room like a light whose eyes and smile said, "You belong." She had read my file before she met me. I came in expecting to have to tell her my whole story, but all she did was confirm a few details and tell me that things were perfect. Perfect. That is a word I have waited 6 years to hear. Finally something was right. It wasn't a shrug, or a "it's different for everybody" or the guessing and trying new things game that is IF sometimes. We got past the unexplained infertility part of our diagnosis. The thing that has defined our family of two for almost as long as C and I have been together. I am a pregnant woman. But, I am still that wide-eyed patient that first walked into a fertility office 6 years ago, and one who walked into a new fertility office a year and a half ago, someone who should be an honorary cowgirl for all the time I have spent in stirrups.

I started blogging just before my first IVF. I was overwhelmed with the emotion of it all and needed an outlet that was more than my mom and friends who could only sympathize and not truly understand (no matter how much they tried). At certain points it was easy to be happy for the happy blogs, the ones who were getting BFPs and delivering babies. It was during the times when I felt hopeful and strong. But, sometimes it wasn't possible to even click over to a blog that might be happy, it was too hard to read and impossible to comment. Sometimes it was too much to even log on at all. The times the tears came down so hard that I couldn't see past my eyelashes.

I know this is starting to turn into a different blog, one that talks too much about food (I'll put up that BLT taco recipe in my next post I promise) and nausea. I won't be complaining about Crin.one suppositories anymore, now that today was my last one and the stories of REs and shots are slowing turning into stories about OBs and heartbeats. I'm treading lightly into this new world. I am thoroughly enjoying this new person I am becoming. I love her and I feel confident in my body and my mind for the first time in a long time.

I get it though. I know when a happy blog is impossible to read. I understand. I will never, ever forget what a BFN feels like, especially when it happens over and over again. I have peed on more than my share of sticks, taken my temperature when all I want to do is jump out of bed and go to the bathroom, sat across from doctors who shrugged, climbed into stirrups and waited. Waited. Waited. Waited. Cried. Felt hope that was dashed. Cried. Curled up next to my hubby and cried. Cried the tears of a lost dream and the path that felt impossible. I stood at the bottom of the mountain of drugs and needles and said, "I can't do this."

But, I did. I could. And I did. There are no words to describe how the support from this community pulled me up and pushed me through. I am forever a part of this community and I will continue to lift others up as I was lifted.

Just can't POAS and BLT tacos

I seem to have this weird aversion to POAS. I am 10 weeks and 1 day today and still haven't done it. A stick has never, ever, ever brought me good news and now I think I have convinced myself this is all a dream and I will wake up after I finally buy a stick and stick it under the stream.

In other news...my first OB-GYN appointment is on Thursday! I am very ready for this appointment. It would have been about two weeks ago, but they couldn't get me in until Thursday. This makes me raise my eyebrows a bit because I don't know if that means this doctor is super busy and its going to be hard to get a regular appointment. I am going to see how Thursday goes and there are plenty of other doctors to check out if I'm not feeling the love.

I'm thinking strong heartbeat, beautiful new picture and an overload of information at this appointment. Must remember to bring a notebook. I don't find myself thinking of a ton of questions to ask and I don't know if that is a bad thing. I don't feel worried or stressed, just kind of going with the flow, which is nice because I haven't had that feeling in a long time. Long. Time.

I do finally feel a touch of my regular energy back. Not 100%, but I don't feel like just laying down wherever I am (whether that is my living room, bedroom or the supermarket), which is nice. Beef is still completely offensive and I do feel like my sense of smell is a little extra strong. I was making chicken last night and it was making me make that face we make when something smells funny. Hubby said it tasted great, so it is all me.

I am definitely craving fruit more than veggies, and veggies and beans more than meat. I was having an insane craving last week for BLT tacos from a place back home (back home is 7 hours away, so we were not exactly getting there in time for my craving). I ended up at the grocery store and by memory recreated (pretty exactly to pat myself on the back) BLT tacos. It was awesome. That will probably need to happen again.

Oh and frozen yogurt. Mmmmmmmm

Ok, so enough about food. And enough from me today. I'll be back after my appointment on Thursday. And I'll be really smiling on Friday (last day of Crin.one!!!!)

9 weeks today

Beef is still very much off the list of things I can eat and right now the smell of leftover bean salad from a family BBQ is overwhelming my nostrils in a way that makes me recoil in scrunched up nose horror.

Today I am 9 weeks pregnant and it is just as hard to believe as it has been since that first beta.

I never did POAS. I had considered it a few times, even tried (to no avail when the stick went blank) and vowed to do it after our positive beta. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I still plan to do it. I do still want to see what a positive stick looks like for the first time ever.

We had family and friends in town last week. It was great because they all know our news and were happy to celebrate with us. We only told the handful of people who knew we were doing IVF. I am definitely not comfortable putting the news out there for all to see just yet and have recently disabled my Fac.ebook wall to prevent any unintentional outing from well-meaning folks.

I am finding myself frustrated by my lack of energy. I was completely wiped out by the end of the week and never got out of my pajamas yesterday. Even today, I didn't get into the shower until 3pm. I am one to always have a craft/knitting/sewing project in the works, but after I get through just what I need to do, the idea of a craft project is exhausting. I just need to lay down. C is being really good and understanding when I need to rest, but I just feel lazy and lame. Of course, I do know what is causing the exhaustion and that is all good. ;)

The one big thing I learned is how all the symptoms wax and wane on a completely irregular basis. At first it was making me Crazy. The second I felt good, I worried that I wasn't pregnant anymore.

I had to change my way of thinking.

I know I am pregnant. I know I am and I tell my sweet baby all about how healthy he or she is and how much they are wanted and how I am taking care of my body to give them the best start possible. So in the moments that I feel like myself and have a burst of energy, I had to retrain myself to take advantage of it and get a few things done instead of dwelling on the negative.

I don't know about you, but during our years of IUIs and IVFs I always kind of thought and expected that the moment I pregnant everything would just be simple and awesome all the time.

I think I am going to learn a lot of these little lessons between now and March.