Remembering Baby J

Today is a hard day.  It's my due date for the baby that I lost after my first IVF. 

I feel more than what I can/will write here, but I just wanted to say that although I am very thankful for the blessings headed my way in the spring, I will never be okay with the loss of Baby J.

So today, I am thinking about my angel baby gone too soon. 

12 Weeks

I thought I would do a pregnancy post update. You know, how big is baby?  How big is uterus? How big is Mommy's butt?  So, if you aren't interested, I understand. If you are, please read on.

What's going on with Larry and Balki?   Umm, their fingers and toes wiggle.  They are peeing in their sacs. They are practicing swallowing. (Which makes the previous statement a lot grosser.) Their little brains are producing testosterone/estrogen.  They are as big as large plums and weigh 1/2 ounce.

What's going on with the Mothership?   I am finally getting a handle on my nausea, thanks to uni.som and vitamin B6 (thank you, Emily!!)  I am trying to get used to eating smaller portions, as I am well aware of the heartburn that is about to replace the nausea very soon.  I'm tired all the time.  My boobies are huge and they hurt and they are covered in fantastic blue veins.  I have a hard time going "two". Hard being the operative word there - ouch!  Hmmmm, sex? No, thank you.

Highlights of the previous week:  I am able to find the babies' heartbeats easily on my home doppler.  I like having that reassurance between appointments.  I also made my u/s appointment to see what the babies are for January 5th!! That's so soon! Off topic, but still noteworthy, we took our boys to San Antonio this past weekend and enjoyed a day at Sea World and just being away for a few days.  DS2 got to be a part of the Shamu show and it was so precious!  DH and I were on the "Kiss Cam" before the show started and he opted to point to his WVU hat the whole time, while I looked up at us on the screen, looked back down, and continued texting. Ooh, we bought a house, too! Very excited about that and hoping to move in the middle of next month!! That's about it. Sorry if I bored you to tears!

Hope you are all well!!

You Gotta Pick and Choose Your Battles

So, I spent most of Monday evening just being generally annoyed that my OB never got back to me about my request for Zo.fran.  I went to bed nauseous, woke up nauseous and all morning Tuesday plotting how I would chew the nurses out for not getting back to me.  Thankful for common sense, I called the pharmacy just to make sure that there wasn't a prescription waiting for me.  Well, there was.  Since the day before. Oops.

I rushed off to pick it up and just couldn't wait to gobble it up and start feeling semi-human again.  I took my first dose immediately and six hours later, like clockwork, I took my second.  I was feeling great.  Until I wasn't feeling great. At all.

I woke up at 11:30 Tuesday night with a splitting headache. Like full-on migraine pain.  After I rolled back and forth on the bed holding my face in my hands for a good hour, I got up and staggered to the kitchen for a cup of tea. I figured a little caffeine would probably do the trick. Wrong. Three hours later, I was plotting driving myself to the ER.  You see, typically, when I have a migraine, at some point I puke.  That signals a turning point in the headache.  After puking, I always am able to go to sleep and when I wake up, I'm better.  Well, there would be no puking this time. You see, I was on Zo.fran and couldn't throw up. I wasn't even nauseated. Just had severe head/neck pain.  Anyway, at some point, I fell asleep.

I woke up to my DH saying goodbye as he was heading off to work and wondering why I was sleeping with a "towel on my face" (it was a washcloth).  He was completely unawares of the night I had.  When he left, I got up and went out to the kitchen, feeling a little better and eager to eat a little something even though my nausea was sneaking up on me again.  After I gagged down a piece of toast, I reached for my Zo.fran.  Before I could take the pill, I checked out the side of the bottle and there it was. Plain. As. Day.

"May Cause Headaches"

Well, eff that.

A Cry For Help

Came in the form of me calling my OB's office for a prescription for Zo.fran.  I shouldn't have to suffer like this while others tell me that they wouldn't be able to function without their Zo.fran.  I throw in the towel.  I am reassured beyond what I can describe that this pregnancy is going well, but I cannot.....CANNOT allow the children that I have to endure a deadbeat mom who cannot get off the couch. 

It figures that as business hours wind down on the day where morning sickness got the best of me, I have yet to hear from my OB. Please let them call that prescription in tonight.

Please.

Things Are Uncomfortable...

...between my blog and I.  We started this journey together trying to get pregnant and trying to work through our feelings about secondary infertility. Now that I'm pregnant, I feel like my blog and I are growing apart.  We wanted the same things in the beginning, but now that we've gotten there, we are just kind of awkward together. I have tried time and time again to write a post, any post and it just doesn't feel right.

I have been given two beautiful boys and now I am expecting twins.  I feel so blessed, I need a new word for blessed, I want to write about it all and have it to look back on.

But to stop blogging about IF and start blogging about pregnancy seems so.....weird. I think I understand why some start a new blog about their pregnancy.

Anyone else experience this?  What did you do?

Graduation and Eye Wandings

My RE's office called on Monday and asked to move this morning's u/s to tomorrow because he had to do three retrievals this morning (apparently the infertility business in BOOMING).  I couldn't do tomorrow because my FIL is coming to visit, so they ended up rescheduling my appt for yesterday afternoon.  My symptoms had taken a dramatic turn for the better, which had me freaking out, so I was actually happy to see the littles sooner even though DH couldn't make it because of meetings all afternoon.

The wanding began and I made my RE aware of my fears over my symptoms before we started. He said that symptoms are not a hard and fast rule of pregnancy. Regardless, I looked away from the screen as I was in no mood to see shrunken sacs and babies with no heartbeats with my own eyes. (How effed up am I from my m/c still?)  Anyway, he immediately told me to look at the screen as he saw Baby A had a heartbeat and went about his measurements.  She measured 8w2d (right on track) and had a good strong heartbeat of 161 bpm.  We listend to the heartbeat and then he held the wand on her for just a moment longer and told me to lay real still and watch closely.  After about three or four seconds, she did a little wiggle!!  It was so sweet, I got very teary-eyed.

Onto Baby B who is just a little bit further away from the wand and a titch harder to get a good view of.  Measuring also at 8w2d, this one had a heartbeat of 170 bpm.  A few more moments of looking around and a handful of pictures later, my wanding was over. :(  I won't see the babes for another 2 weeks, but when I do.......

It will be my first OB appt!!!!! I am a graduation girl!! How cool is that?!

Onto the eye wanding portion of the visit (and let me just say that this mortifies me, but at the same time, it is just too funny and if you can't laugh at yourself, well, you need to cause life is too short to take yourself seriously).

I spoke with Dr. Awesome RE's nurse for a few minutes after he left the room and when she left, I jumped off the table to go into this little closet area they have to change back into my clothes. I dropped my paper skirt on the ground when I jumped off the table and when I bent over to pick it up, wouldn't you know that I lined my fricking eye up to the u/s wand that was back on its holder and wanded my EYE?! Beside the initial "Ouch! Oh my god, my eye!!" reaction, I also had the "Are you freaking kidding me?! That thing has been inside every infertile in the Oklahoma City area!! Gross!!!" thought.  I was completely alone, but was so embarrassed.  I guess it was a good thing that DH couldn't make the appt.  I still haven't told him. I have no plans to do so, either.

Lesson learned: Never a dull moment at the RE's, people.

MIA

Apologies for my late update on u/s #3.  DH has been out of town all week and my m/s has amped up big time. The last two days have been particularly bad as I have been sick all day and my eating small meals often hasn't helped as much as it did in the past. I am by no means complaining, just sharing. The gags are the worst part of it all. I really feel that if I can get a good hurl in, I would be a new person, but alas! I cannot spew.

My u/s on Wednesday was great. Baby A - Larry, measured right on track at 7w3d and had a heartrate of 137 bpm.  For your viewing pleasure:

Baby B - Balki, measured at 7w3d also and had a heartrate of 140bpm:

And the shot I had to life my ass up off the table for my RE to get (thanks to my introverted uterus!):

                                          My Babies!!

Next u/s is this coming Wednesday where I will be 8w3d.  If all looks good, I will graduate to my OB. :)