24 weeks

I had my 24 week check up yesterday. I gained 6 more pounds and was lectured by the Dr. about how I have gained 21 pounds now and I am only supposed to gain 35 by the end and I might have a baby who is too big, blah blah blah. I think I can handle it. Alex was 8.6 pounds and he was 2 weeks early. So shaddup.

The baby's heartbeat was perfectly strong, sounded wonderful. My tummy grew from 19 inches in week 20 to 26 inches! Growth spurt is what the Dr. called it. I have been saying that I am having the largest baby of all time since what, my 10th week?!? So for all you peeps who keep telling me "you look tiny!" "Oh... it's just a little bump" you are WRONG!!! :)

Braxton Hicks keep happening several times a day, which my Dr. assures me is normal and fine and nothing to worry about. I can't wait for 3 more weeks when I get to see my REAL Dr., who is going to deliver my baby, the same Dr. who delivered Taylor and my 2 nephews, and I am on my knees thanking someone that we changed our insurance. Kaiser just makes me feel uneasy. I like the Dr. but there is something about that place that makes me think catastrophe is seconds away.

Christmas was wonderful, baby G cooperated and let me do all the things I had to do without much discomfort. I have a bad case of sciatica which makes walking and standing increasingly difficult. But Chris was a huge help, as usual, so if I needed to take a break he was right there to step in and pinch hit for me. We are such an amazing team.

Ok, and one cute husband story then I will go. I was bothered because well I had gotten him one big gift that he really needed and wanted, I had not gotten him much else. A few little things, but nothing interesting or incredibly thoughtful. So I was telling him Christmas Eve morning that I was sorry that I had not had a lot of time to go out and really shop for him, and that I hoped he wouldn't be dissapointed on Christmas morning that I had only gotten him one really good gift. He goes "babe, you are already giving me the most special gift possible - you are giving me a baby." AWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My hormonal self stood there in the bathroom naked with wet hair and sobbed for 5 minutes - it was the sweetest thing he could have ever said!!! Life is so amazing when you are married to the awesomest guy in the WORLD!!

Ciao everyone - have a happy and safe New Year!

Bad blogger!!

I know, I know. It has been forever since I have written a blog here. Shush. I am stealing a quiet moment away - my son Zach is having his birthday party and there are about 20 little brats downstairs so I am hiding out in my room until their parents get here. I had no idea that parents had completely stopped teaching their children anything about manners or how to act as a guest in another person's home. When did this lack of manners and respect start becomming the norm in our society? No wonder kids grow up so fucked up in this day and age. Their parents have opted completely out of teaching their children anything about being proper and respecful. It is amazing. I am sitting here bewildered at how rude, disgusting, loud, and all around horrible these kids are. I would never allow my children out of the house if they acted half as bad as the rugrats here in my home tonight.

Anyway. On to news about the pregnancy. I am 22 weeks today - only 18 more to go before I meet by precious little bean. Baby G kicks up a STORM! It rolls around, and most of the time I get kicks both low in the belly and high around my belly button at the same time. Or on the far left side and far right side at the same time. The kid is so active. Oh, and when it hears music - forget about it! Goes completely nuts. It is so cool to get to know the personality of the baby so soon. He or she is always awake and active between 8:30 and 11:00 every night. It's cool because Chris is always home and I am chillin, all done with my millions of things to do everyday, so we just sit and watch our little creation moving and rolling in my tummy. It's one of our favorite pasttimes now-a-days.

As far as how I am feeling, pretty damn good considering I am raising 4 kids full time, 2 more part time, one of the full timers is severely special needs, finishing my last semester, Chris working more hours than before, and it's the holidays, which in my house doesn't just mean Thanksgiving and Christmas, but also 5 birthdays in 3 months! AHHHH!! My life is one of those insanely busy how-do-you-do-it kind of lives.............. But I have that 2nd trimester energy right now, which if you think about it is timed perfectly for me to get through all these birthdays and the holidays and be done just before my 3rd trimester hits and I am huge and exhausted all over again.

Life is awesome and amazing right now. Watching the changes my body is going through has been so neat, something I appreciate differently than I did the first time around. My marriage is perfect, my children are amazingly successful, everything is awesome!

I will try to post more often!!

Dear Baby

Dear baby,

I saw you again on Wednesday. You weigh 10 ounces already! Almost a whole pound!! You are growing and getting so big, and making me burst with pride already.

We spent our first Thanksgiving together on Thursday. You liked all the food and didn't make me have heartburn or feel sick. Thank you! Yesterday we went to your nana G's house and she couldn't stop taking pictures of mommy's tummy with you inside it. Everyone is so excited to meet you!

You have a cousin named Grayson and mommy held him for a long time yesterday. You didn't mind although you were kicking a lot while I was walking around singing to him. I think you liked the song I was singing because I sing it to you and now you have ear bones so you can hear my voice. I love that!

Your Nana K and Papa bear will be here in a couple of weeks, and your nana is so excited to feel you kick. Everyone is very anxious to know if you are a boy or a girl. I am too. I wish we could find out, but your daddy is set against it. He wants to be surprised. Pretty soon you will make your way into the world and show us all if you are a boy or a girl. That will be a wonderful day, baby G! 21 more weeks until you are due. It is going by very fast.

Daddy and I are going to go out to find your crib this weekend. We are also going to look for a bassinet and a cradle so you will be able to sleep anywhere you want to in our house. But mostly, you will just sleep in mommy or daddy's arms because I cannot imagine ever putting you down.

Your nana G got us a very cute Christmas ornament, like she does every year. This one is of 2 bears, and the mama bear is pregnant. It says "baby" with an arrow pointing to the little bump on her tummy. It has the year on it, 2007, so when you get a little bigger you will be able to hang it on the tree and we will always remember the Christmas you spent inside your mommy's tummy. I have bought you too many Christmas presents daddy says, because you wont even be here yet. But you are with me all the time, and I know you want some presents too! I even got you a baby stocking!

I already love you so much, and I can't wait to meet you. But I am enjoying every minute you are spending inside of me, and I want you to stay right there until April! No coming out early!!! It's time for us to go get our Christmas Tree. Your brothers Tyler, Dylan, and Zachy are with us and they are very excited to pick out our tree and help decorate it. Daddy will be very busy hanging all of our Christmas decorations. AND we are taking our family pictures today, your very first one! It will be a busy day for us baby.

Love,
Your mommy

18 weeks and counting

Here is a picture of our baby 2 weeks ago (16 weeks) sucking its thumb. So cute!!!


Faithful blog readers - I am 18 weeks 3 days pregnant today! Yippee!!! I have been blogging a bit on the pregnancy in my myspace blog (myspace.com/greenhalgh_family) because I am on myspace everyday. So when I have impromptu things on my mind to blog about, chances are I either am on myspace, I have just left myspace, or I will be on myspace soon. So I am sorry my blog has been suffering a teeny bit. But I am here now!

Baby G has been moving like a crazy person. This is by far my most active baby. I don't remember Taylor or Alex moving this much. Chris says the baby is a mover and shaker just like its daddy. Even cuter - Chris says the kicking is not actually the baby kicking, it is morse code for "I love my mommy and daddy." Yeah - I like that idea! :)





The kids are loving being able to feel the baby now. Last night when we started our family movie, Alex said "Mom, feel free to take the remote from dad, stop the movie and yell THE BABY IS MOVING!!" He is obsessed with the baby moving. When he comes home from being anywhere he asks me if the baby moved. Did the baby move while I was at school? Did the baby move while I was outside? Did the baby move last night after I went to bed? Is the baby moving? Is the baby moving now? Mom, is the baby moving? ........................ He has missed feeling it a couple of times, so yesterday he was going to feel it! And he did, baby G kicked his/her big brother several times!





Last night we had a name-the-baby-fest too. The best suggestion came from Alex - Phinneus Fern. Who comes up with this stuff???? Zach liked Riley, and Taylor is stuck on Hayden which I do not like. She simply cannot understand why I like Aiden, but not Hayden. It is not something I can explain, I just KNOW that my baby will not be Hayden!





Ultrasound is Wednesday. We are not finding out the sex, but it will be awesome to see the precious little one moving all over the place - I wasn't really feeling the movements a lot at the last ultrasound 2 weeks ago. We love seeing our creation dancing on the screen for us. Have I mentioned how happy I am, how much I love my life, how loved I am, and how freakin lucky I am???

Growing by the day!

I am definitly in the growth stage of pregnancy. My tummy get bigger every day. For pictures please go to my myspace page (myspace.com/greenhalgh_family) because blogger is not very user friendly in the way of letting my put pics up. It is far easier to do it on myspace. So I have been putting tummy pics up about every 4 weeks - since I will be 5 months along this Friday I will get another one up this week. I have also been feeling movements regularly now - in the same spot each day. So the little bean is growing and sprouting right up!

I have an ultrasound in about an hour - but we aren't finding out the sex so DON'T ASK!! I will have pics from that too to share with everyone - again on myspace. So check there this week for pic updates.

The best sound in the world

Mothers all over the world would have to agree that one of the best sounds in the world is that little "swishswishswishswishswish" - the sound of your unborn child's heart beating. I heard it just a little while ago and it was AWESOME! Even though it is my 3rd baby, and Chris's 5th, the sound never ceases to choke us up. Our little precious bean is still sitting over on my right side - which was where it was hiding on our 11 week appointment causing the Dr. to give us an ultrasound because we couldn't find it. He started looking in the middle of my tummy today, and I told him, "I think it's over here" and sure enough there was the swish! The coolest thing is that Chris and I are changing insurances, because I am NOT having my child in South Sac, or even worse, at the dreaded Morse Avenue hospital. So I'm getting one ultrasound with Kaiser on Monday, and then I will get another one in my 20th week with our new insurance, who will be the Dr. who delivered Taylor. So on Monday I will have ultrasound pictures of our baby, who should look very much like a baby! Yay!!

A butterfly lives within me

I started feeling flutters 2 days ago - and I didn't want to post about it until I KNEW it was the baby.... it happens everyday about the same time, when I sit in the same position, and am very still and everything is quiet, and I researched it and YES, you CAN feel the baby starting in the 14th week, which I am in today. Since this is my third pregnancy, and I am very in tune with my body (honestly I think any woman who has gone through IVF is in tune with her body from weeks and months of over-analyzing every single feeling in her body trying to figure out the ultimate question, "did it work?") it is possible to feel it earlier, so the 2 days early when I first felt it I feel accounts for it. So we officially have movement in the belly!! YAY!!

** Note to Baby G: Mommy can feel you moving! Daddy cried the first time I felt you, he is so happy to be having you. We talk about you all the time and we can't wait to meet you in about 24 weeks!!!! **

I am starting to feel more and more normal again, finally. Now I just have to let my body convince my mind that things are getting back to normal. My mind still thinks we are going to get sick if we move, eat, don't eat, lay down, sit up, etc. so as soon as my mind and my body are back in sync I should be back to being the super-mom super-wife super-student super-woman!! My husband and children will be happy to have the woman in their lives back to doing everything for them!

My kids. How wonderful are my kids?!? Let me tell you something about my kids. Taylor, Alex, Dylan, and Zachary are the most wonderful children. Taylor the other night was sitting next to me and it was about 8:15 and I needed to put Dylan to bed, so I said "be right back I have to go put Dyl to bed." I had not yet put him in his jammies. So she tells me "I already did it." My baby girl changed her baby brother, put his pajamas on, read him a story, brushed his teeth, and put him into his bed WITHOUT being asked to do it and WITHOUT coming down and bragging about it. She just did it for me. I said to her "why did you do that?" And she simply said "to help you." Amazing. Alex has been helping so much - he does things without being asked to and without arguing with me. Dylan can't really help but he comes to my tummy all the time and says "my baby" with his little hand on it, I tell him "no MY baby" and he says "No, MY baby," it is the cutest thing. And little Zach is the cutest too. The minute he sees me the first thing he asks me is "how ya feelin?" and "how is the baby doin?" AND the other day the ice cream man came and I asked him to run out and get me something, I said "surprise me!" So he brings me back this sparkly pink strawberry ice cream. Chris asked him "why did you get that one for mom?" and Zachy said "I thought the baby would like a pink one because I think it's a girl!!" Although Andrew isn't here very much anymore, being 16 and driving who ever sees him except his girlfriend - but he still asks me first thing "How are you feeling, how is the baby, are you showing yet?" and he is involved in his way. If it is a boy the middle name will be Christopher, and we asked Andrew if he was okay with the baby having his middle name. I think he was honored, he seemed very proud. We will give the baby, if it is a boy, Andrew's initials. ACG - Chris says, so his oldest and youngest are both ACG. I think that means a lot to Andrew.

I just love being able to give this oppurtunity to the kids - I think it is so cool because they are all old enough to remember everything about it and will always remember their baby brother or sister coming into this world, and their mommy being pregnant. This whole thing is not only amazing for Chris and I, but so great and wonderful and amazing for our whole family. We have always been a very close family, there have never been lines in our family about who is your kid or my kid, your mom or my mom or your dad or my dad, there is none of that. We are FAMILY, moms dads sons daughters brothers sisters. So having this baby wouldn't be necessary to bring our family together, but it sure will bond us in just another way, someone who belongs to all of of us not only in our hearts and minds, but by blood. I have had a lot of time to reflect a lot on what this baby means not only to me, but to every member of my family. To Chris, Taylor, Dylan, Alex, Zach - to our family unit. And I can tell this baby right now, at 14 weeks pregnant, that you are going to have more love than you could ever know what to do with, and you are such a gift to the Greenhalgh family, and that you are SO lucky to be born into this family, with this mommy and daddy who want you more than we want anything in the world, with brothers and a sister who are going to love and cherish and spoil you rotten!!!

Okay, so obviously I am still hormonal..... :)

Ya know, Chris and I have been best friends for almost 8 years, since we have been together, and we would have remained married and best friends until the day one of us died, actually until both of us died, and we would NOT have needed a baby to keep us married or to keep us happy. We had known and decided long ago that we would never have a child together, and we have always known that having a child together was something we didn't need. But we wanted to, and were able to recognize that dream (through lots of money, time, pain, etc.) and I can say that it has made our love, not deeper, but different. When he hugs me as we sit in the booth of a restaurant, and has his arms around me, and he is rubbing my little tummy bump, and when he leaves in the morning he says "let me kiss baby" there is something different happening there. Something so intimate. And to love someone the way we love each other, it honestly, completely honestly feels so intense that it brings tears to our eyes. When I imagine how he will be there next to me while I am having his child, holding my hand and looking into my eyes, exerting the control over me to calm me down in a way that no one else in this entire world has ever or will ever be able to do, it makes me tear up too.

Okay. Well, that blog should make up for all my short blogs and boring blogs and not blogging at all!!! I told you I am back to feeling normal again!!! :)

Finally.......

Today marks the official beginning of my second trimester - or more importantly - the last day of my first trimester!!! Yip-a-dee-doo-da! I am still feeling tired, and can't be super active for a very long time - I tire out quick - but at least I'm not spending 8 hours in bed every day!

I have started to really show - like a lot. Still not enough to fit into those giagantic maternity jeans - is it me or are they big in the weirdest places??? - but way too big to wear my old pants. So I'm in sweats most of the time for now. I also have started feeling the wonderful pains in my abdomen and legs - called "round ligament pain." This is from my uterus stetching and growing to hold the baby, who will miraculously grow 3 times its current size over the next 2 weeks.

I have settled on a name that will work for either gender, so if I can convince Chris that it is a great name we might be able to actually start calling this child by something other than "it" which I really hate doing. I usually go to the trouble of saying "him or her" "he or she" and it would be nice to just say "________ is moving!" _________ is making me hungry!" and so on. Of course no name announcement will be made until we have decided for certain.

For the most part I am enjoying my pregnancy, but I did forget over the last 10 years some of the shitty things - like not being able to have coffee and everything tasting funny and the terrible aftertaste that anything I eat leaves in my mouth. But I so cannot wait to have this baby, I am so excited to have a baby in the house, in my arms.

Happy 2nd trimester to me!

My third pregnancy

This is technically my third pregnancy. However, it feels so much like my first. Not literally - it does not feel the same way my first pregnancy felt, it feels like it is the first time I have been pregnant at all. Don't get me wrong, I still compare this pregnancy with the first 2, and I am sure as time goes on I will do so more and more. This time around, I am such a different person. Eleven years will do that, and there is no doubt that there is a very big difference between a 20 year old and a 30 year old!

Everything feels new, like a first. I am married to a different man, and we are having our first child together. The first main difference is that I have been with this man for over 7 years, versus about 2 years with my first 2 children's father. Chris and I are married and have been for almost 4 years. Ryan and I were not yet married when I got pregnant (planning the big wedding already, yes.) Chris and I had planned a life with no children together, and now we have found a way to make our baby. The planning of it has been so much different, and I think that is one of the biggest differences for Chris. He feels so different because for the first time in his life, out of 4 previous children, he planned this one. He had not planned on any of the first 4 - and that comes as a big deal to him that we worked so hard to have this child. We own our home, he has a wonderful good paying secure job with great benefits, we have a retirement fund, we are really grown-ups!

I was just reflecting on this a little and thought it would be an interesting blog, mostly because I want to have this as sort of a memoir of my thoughts and feelings through IVF and pregnancy, and this feeling is one I want to capture. Also - this little bean has already had it's picture taken 3 times, and I am only 11 weeks along today! Things have changed so much from my earlier pregnancies. They offer as a standard a "dating ultrasound" at your first prenatal appointment - to make sure your dating is correct and that your due date is based on the actual size of the fetus and not your best guess of when your last period was. Of course we knew the actual date of conception so our due date was right - April 17, 2008. But that was new, and the 4d ultrasounds you can get a little later on in pregnancy are new. And all the things to buy! the swings that go in 8 different directions, the pack and plays that have music and vibrate, the bassinets that rock, even the carseat/stroller combo was not around the last time I did this! We are just so excited about the shopping alone!

This time is such a different experience, and maybe that is partly because I went into it with a different mindset than before. Becoming pregnant naturally is wonderful, but having to try so hard and go through so much, the shots and surgeries and more shots, the hoping and waiting and knowing every single step your little embryo is undergoing in its quest for life, it really does make us appreciate the miracle living inside of me so much. Chris loves to hug his baby, and whenever I throw up I crawl into bed and he puts his arms around my tummy and holds us. He asks me every day how his baby is. I am already talking to the little bean!

My third pregnancy is wonderful!

Week 10!

http://www.ehd.org/pregnancy-calendar.php?id=2366

Go there - it is pretty cool! Save it to your favorites along with this blog and you will never be in the dark about how my pregnancy is progressing!!

I have been slowly feeling better, a little bit each day. I have moments of feeling normal again, but the sickness always comes back. That should get better and better over the next 2 weeks and then be completely gone!! I was nursing a horrible cold/flu for about a week - I still have remnants of it lingering on. So that makes things worse, of course.

Our first Dr. appointment is this week, which we are so excited for! We should get an ultrasound, the letter they sent me said we would at this appointment. We will get to see the little bean moving all around! *~* Cool *~*

We are starting to seriously consider beginning to shop. We have wanted to wait until the end of the first trimester, which is almost here!! I can't wait. I have had to get some new clothes - I can't into my size 3's anymore (haven't in a while) but I am in no way big enough for maternity clothes yet. So I have just been buying clearance stuff in sizes that fit me. I suppose they will be good after the baby is born too - I hate spending money on stuff I will only be wearing for a few weeks!

My tummy is really starting to pooch now, and my bbs are probably almost a full cup size bigger. That is big considering how big they were anyway! They fall out of almost everything, so I have had to start wearing mostly t-shirts or sweatshirts. It's not flattering and doesn't help the ego on this already-growing-and-getting-fat-feeling-mommy! I just want to look pregnant, not like I am putting on 5 pounds a week! :)

Chris has been completely amazing. He has made me fall in love with him all over again, in a whole new way. He is so patient with me, he does not want me to do anything, even such things as carrying my backpack up the stairs. He came home and I was vacuuming, he unplugged the vacuum, asked me what the hell I was doing, and sent me up to bed to rest. Then he makes the kids dinner, finishes helping with homework, does all the things Dylan requires, cleans up the house, and feeds me food in bed all after working all day long. I feel bad, but it is his way of being pregnant too. So, I let him - I mean who wouldn't?!?! He is the most amazing man, honestly. I am so lucky.

First Trimester Woes

First: I was going back through my blog, and realized I never posted on the 31st - the day of our Ultrasound when we went in to see if I was in fact pregnant..... in case you havn't guessed - I am !!! We saw the little heartbeat and we heard it as well, which is rare in the 7th week but transvaginal ultrasounds, while a bit invasive, sure do have their plus-side.

So here I am, 8 and 1/2 weeks along, and I think I want to die. It is quite possible that I did die, and I was wrong about the whole God not existing thing, and I am actually in hell. I hurt all the time, I want to puke from the minute I wake up until the minute I go to sleep, and probably during sleep I just don't know it, however I rarely actually do puke. I think puking might be better than constantly feeling like I am going to. Although the other night I was laying in bed watching TV while Chris was packing, Taylor was talking to me, and suddenly here it came.... I jumped out of bed, did 3 leaps over things on my bedroom floor while simultaneously gagging, and made it to the toilet just in time for the purging of my insides. Lovely.

And then there is the exhaustion. I know that one of the common pregnacy symptoms is "extreme fatigue" but you have no idea how extreme it is. I am close to tears when I have to make dinner. I want to kill myself when I have to start the daily rounds to pick the children up from their various schools. It is RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!! Now I am not the most active person by far, I don't like to excercise and am not really a busy-body, but THIS. IS. INSANE. I have literally had to explain to my kids that I am in bed because of how sick I feel from the pregnancy, and they can come lay in bed with me whenever they want to. And they do - kids are great in that way. They totally understand, it's really awesome.

BUT. We are all so excited about this baby that it makes every single second of my misery worth it. The payoff will be absolutly amazing and I know that. I am going to give my husband a wonderful gift, my children too, and of course myself. And I do have the most supportive husband, who tells me not to do anything but be pregnant. I only have about 3 and 1/2 weeks left of the first trimester and then we coast for the next 3 months. That is when the glow will come, the constant urge to urinate will leave, I can eat like a normal person, I will have some energy back, and I will feel good and normal again! 3 months of rest before I grow as big as a house and have to lay around all the time waiting to meet our little creation.

God.... I cannot WAIT to meet our creation. OUR creation. Our little human, our son or daughter, ours. Just the thought of it brightens my entire day.

From someone else's mouth

I copied this from another blog - so people know I am not the only one who feels the feeling I displayed in my previous blog. :)


So you are finally pregnant after however many heart-wrenching soul-and-budget-destroying tries at IVF.

Is it time to relax? To cut loose, feel normal again, to let your soon-to-be-luxuriant-thanks-to-pregnancy-hormones-hair down? Time to join all the other smug pregnants shopping at Egg and flaunting their bellies at every snatched opportunity?
By all means feel free to try but there are those of us, who, after so much worry and hopelessness, find it hard to stop worrying and rid ourselves of the nagging spectre of doom. After the euphoria of the positive pregnancy test wears off a feeling of anxiety, even fear can replace it.

Oh my God, how am I going to cope with twins/triplets/quads? What if after all this I miscarry? Will my baby/s be normal? Why am I thinking this stuff?

Maybe part of the reason lies with the fact that an IVF pregnancy is illuminated at every step of the way. There’s barely a minute when you aren’t being tested for something and monitored for something else long before you even conceive and beyond, until the end of the first trimester.
Firstly there’s all the blood screening tests then the drug screening tests, the ultrasounds, then when your baby is barely more than a four cell genetic (and oh so cute – looks like DH when he first wakes up) cluster you get to see it on a screen and it gets a rating.

Meantime you are following its progress like you’re the paparazzi and it’s Paris Hilton. You’re obsessed with every detail, how many cells is it now, is it a Grade One or Two, how’s it doing? Is it transfer-worthy? Is it implantation worthy? How’s it doing? It’s only eight cells and you’re turning into an anxious parent mulling over its achievements.

On the day of the transfer, you’re up at dawn, having not slept a wink. After the transfer you feel every little twinge, you don’t want to drive or make any sudden movement in case you dislodge it. You become constipated for fear of it falling out when you go to the toilet.
You cross off not the days but the hours, the minutes, until the pregnancy test. No wonder, by the time you get it, you’re exhausted. Then there is the scan to wait for before it becomes an official positive. You get to see the tiny pole beating. Then, if you’re 35 or over you have the further abnormality testing to get through and another scan at the end of the first trimester.
Meantime the non-fertility challenged woman has had sex, merrily gone on her way probably drinking and generally obliviously enjoying herself. At some stage she realized her period was late and peed on a stick. Oh, OK, I ‘m pregnant. A couple of months later she rocks up at the obstetrician’s office for her first appointment.

So it’s little wonder the woman experiencing pregnancy after IVF may suffer higher anxiety levels than a non-fertility challenged woman and surprising that more of us don’t end up sedated.

What do the statistics say? Is the IVF pregnancy less likely to succeed? Marginally. There is a higher rate of miscarriage although this is largely due to IVF being prevalent amongst those over 35, where the rates of miscarriage are higher anyway.

There is a higher risk of premature birth but again this is so for multiple pregnancies or older women too. So there is nothing conclusive to say we should worry more but, I say, after all we’ve been through you can hardly blame us, can you?

By Jodi Panayotov, author of 'In Vitro Fertility Goddess' a non-fiction book about her fertility-obsessed absurd journey to motherhood.

Can you be a little pregnant?

I know I have royally sucked at keeping this blog up over the last 2 weeks. It's not that I haven't thought about it, it's not that I don't want to blog. It's just that this whole thing is such a roller coaster and it's hard to know what the right things to be saying, are and what aren't. For one, I wish I had handled this whole thing differently. If I have it to do over again, or could have done this try over, I would have not made it so widely known that we were doing the fertilty treatments. I would have saved the news for after I had this ultrasound which is coming up on Friday at the very least. Perhaps I would have waited until I was 12 weeks along to tell our news. It has been very complicated to go through what I am going through mentally, emotionally, and physically, and to still have to field questions all the time to make other people feel better about what I am going through mentally, emotionally, and physically. It truly truly truly is something you can never understand unless you have been there.

80% of miscarriages happen in the first trimester. Having a pregnancy through IVF is a very high risk pregnancy in the first few weeks. These are real facts, not things I am making up in my own mind. There are stories of countless women who thought the first pregnancy test was all they needed to know they were pregnant, and go in to find an empty yolk sac, or a gestational sac with no fetus, a placenta with no fetus, a fetus who died somewhere between the third and sixth week, etc. etc. etc. The stuff goes on and on. It would be idiotic of me to assume that I am going to maintain this pregnancy when the chance that I wont is just as high.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, please stop acting like my concerns are not valid. I am going through this and I will go through it any way I want to. If I want to be negative sometimes I will be and I don't need to hear people saying "you need to stop" "would you quit with the negativty already" when are you going to relax?" I am a REALIST. I know what could happen at that ultrasound and I will be prepared for it and I will prepare in whatever way I feel necessary. Again, no one knows what this is like unless you have been there. It is not like any other conception or pregnancy. Between Chris and I we have had 6 kids and we agree that this in no way compares. You just don't know.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

Now - on to updates.... Today I am 6 weeks and 2 days. I have my ultrasound on Friday morning. If all goes well, then I will be released to my regular ob to start prenatal care. I really hope we see that little heart furiously beating!!!

My symptoms so far have consisted of extreme fatigue, heartburn, irregular body temperature, emotional instability, extreme hunger, and as of Sunday a little nausea. I threw up once yesterday - pizza. I should have known - Italian food has always gotten to the pregnant version of me! I am gaining weight because I am always hungry and I am putting away meals that even Chris couldn't eat. I have been having headaches also. Some, if not all, of these could be caused by the Progesterone shots, but they are getting a little more severe as time goes on. I consider that a good sign, but not a tell tale sign. It is possible for the placenta to have attached and to be growing, releasing the HCG hormone in increasing amounts, while at the same time the fetus has died. That's why nothing, NOTHING, is certain. Nothing is certain until we see that heartbeat, and even then we still have 5 weeks of miscarriage risk. I will be so happy when I know.

If this pregnancy didn't sustain, I think we will wait a while to try again. I was all gung-ho about starting again immediatly, but now I'm not so sure. I think we will need some time to reprogram after all this. A failure at this point would be devastating, far more than a negative test from the beginning would have been.

The big news will come Friday. Stay tuned! As for now - where is the damn FOOD?????

Insomnia

It's official. I can't sleep. WTF?!? I have been wide awake since 4:30 a.m. I don't get it. I am exhausted all day long, longing for my bed to nap in, and every morning I wake up sometime between 4 and 5 and I cannot go back to sleep. We are talking wide awake and bushy tailed, coherent enough to blog for God's sake. I am a sleep-in-er, I never wake up before 9 if there is no reason to, and rarely get out of bed until 11, again if there is no reason to.

Also, I am starving all the time. This is new to me because I am not a big eater. I am the kind of person who is starving to death, and eats 3 bites and I am absolutly stuffed and couldn't eat another bite. It probably takes me all day long to actually eat what would constitue one meal to someone else. Well over the last few days, I am just hungry all the time. I wake up hungry, I go to bed hungry, and I am hungry throughout the day. I eat and never get full. This baby is smaller than a sesame seed right now. My body is definitly doing some strange things.

I want to relish in every feeling, take it in and experience it because this will be the last time I am ever pregnant. This morning when I realized I was up, I just told myself, like it, because you will never ever wake up and be 4 weeks and 3 days pregnant again.

I also can't get that Tim McGraw song "If you're reading this" out of my head. It's been stuck there for days. It's depressing - good song, hell it's a GREAT song, but enough already!

Second hurdle

Hey bloggers:

I had my second blood test yesterday - which was to make sure the little bean was growing the way he/SHE should be. ;)

My level of HCG should have doubled since Thursday. Thursday's count was 52, so we were looking for 104. My level was 107. SO - we are right on track, doing what we are supposed to be doing, and the little bean is growing and burrowing into its home for the next 9 months. Chris and I are really starting to get excited now. We have our ultrasound on the 31st - then after that we will really be excited and I will begin my 7 month shopping spree!!! YeeHAW!!

I have found such cool websites that show pictures of the baby during every week - so today I am technically 4 weeks pregnant and my due date is going to be April 20th. I know - 4/20 - what are the chances?!? Anyway, the bean is going to grow this week from being the size of the head of a pin to the size of a grain of rice. The kids are so cute - they tell me that my stomach is already starting to grow. I tell them I wont be showing for at least 3 or 4 months, but thanks. LOL. They are just excited.

Chris has indicated that I am not permitted to do anything but sit in bed or in the recliner on my heating pad for the whole pregnancy. Haha. He does not want to take any chances with this pregnancy he says. It is odd how much this means to both of us when we already have kids, and not a small amount! I have to say, having kids the natural way, where one day you wake up and feel a little queasy, and kind of tired, and you think to yourself "I think I should have started last week...." and bam, you are a few months pregnant, is A LOT different than this route where you know the date of conception, each and every stage of the baby, what is going on from before day one. It is much more stressful. I can't make a move without wondering what it is doing to the process. But I think we have a strong little gal in there. Grow baby grow!!!

Now I will just be posting more of how I am feeling and how I am growing, barring any bad news. I went out on a limb and bought a baby scrap book yesterday. I wasn't going to buy anything until after the 7 week ultrasound, but I couldn't resist. I have to start it with the embryo pictures!

The verdict is in.........................

We are......




PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, yes, yes, we are having a baby! It worked! I got my call this morning about 11:30 - much earlier than I expected. I go back on Saturday for another blood test with the hope that the HCG level doubles which will indicate a nice healthy growing embryo. Then, I make the appt. for the ultrasound 3 weeks later, and we get to see the baby and the heartbeat. After that hurdle, I am all cleared to go off to my regular obgyn for all my prenatal care. I will no longer be a high risk pregnancy at that point, no longer an infertility patient.

Yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The joy is amazing!

Day 3

It's day 3 of the wait. In my wildest imaginations I never could have began to think what this would be like. There is an entire culture of women going through IVF and entire discussion boards dedicated to the 2ww. There are so many acronyms you would think it was owned and operated by the government!!

As for me: I am miserable. Yesterday I was convinced that this didn't work and that there was no way I was pregnant. Then I started researching signs that you are pregnant, and I found that I have fallen into one of the cruelest games known to man. See, all the things that give women their early pregnancy symptoms are the same things they have us injecting ourselves with. Basically every single pregnancy symptom is created by progesterone, of which I take a shot of every night. So pregnant or not - you get the signs. If the sign is not caused by progesterone, then it is caused by HCG, which again, you shoot into yourself before the retreival and it stays there for at least 10 days. So the signs are there and they do not tell you anything. Your own body is deceiving you each and every minute of each and every day.

And talk about helpless - there is nothing, NOTHING you can do to help this along. You just get the embryos put in and sit and wait and hope. No amount of rest or activity, eating certain foods, abstaining from or having sex, nothing will help those embryos stick around. IT IS HELL.

I am tired but can't sleep, bored but don't want to do anything, cold with goose bumps one second and deathly hot and sweating the next, hungry but want nothing to eat, one minute I cannot understand how my kids can just walk right over the pile of laundry in the living room and the next minute I am crying at what beautiful specimens of life they are, I am crying while watching Oprah for God's sake! I don't feel good but can't take any medicine, I really don't even want to be writing this blog right now and I was just overcome with irritation at myself for even doing it.

Bye.

Transfer Clear!

"Transfer Clear!"

The last words spoken by our embryologist today after they put our perfect little blastocysts into my belly. Now the wait has begun - I feel like a little kid in the back seat of the car on a long drive, "are we there yet? are we there yet?"

My pregnancy test is on August 9th.

My clinic made me a little crown that says "Princess Misty" - and instructed my husnand that I was a princess for the rest of the week and he had to do everything for me! LOL. It was very cute.

I will have a pic of our blast as soon as I can get up and go to the scanner. Any false movement and who knows what will happen!! Our blasts were grade "A" or grade 1 embryos. We had 2 of them that were the highest grade possible and those two now reside in the calm, dark, quiet confines of my thickened uterine lining. Grow babies, grow!

I am sure I will over post over these 8 days, trying to keep my mind off this pregnancy!

More good news

I just sit here and research embryos all day long, and I came across something that made me call the embryologist today. I just HAD to know my embryo grading. I know, it's stupid, kind of like caring what your babies APGAR score is, but I wanted to know.

The news: I have 7 grade A embryos and 4 grade B. Ain't that sumthin?

I know in the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't make much of difference, but whatever. I'm happy.

Those Greenhalgh Embies

Our embryos are going strong! The embryologist called this morning and ALL of our embryos are still dividing, we have not lost one yet! We have 5 ten cell embryos, 4 nine cell embryos, and 2 eight cell embryos. The criteria for a 5 day transfer is to have 3 that are eight cells or more, so we are way over the criteria and are all set and scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Hopefully some of them will weed themselves out so we know which ones will be best for transfer. If we have all 11 it will really be a shot in the dark as to which ones will be the best 2 to transfer back. I guess it's possible that they could all be viable embryos and that they all could potentially become babies. That is not likely, but I suppose possible.

After Wednesday we will begin the two week wait - which I will refer to as the 2ww. It is going to be a stressful, long 2 weeks just waiting for the day when we see if this worked or if we go back to square one next month. Although it wont really be square one, because I will have the embryos already and all I will have to do is go in and have them transfered in. No egg stimulating, no retreival surgery, just the progesterone and the transfer. I really believe that we will get a baby, seeing how well our embryos have done. It just might take one or two or three tries. When it is meant to be... it will be.

So talk to me people - and help this 2ww get over sooner!! :)

It's good, it's good!

I was awakened this morning by my cell phone singing Eminem into my ear, and knew in my shadowy sleep that it just HAD to be the fertility clinic. I reached out from under the covers, leaving my head buried, and read the blurry screan through sleepy eyes - "CAL IVF" - the clinic. My stomach churned, what if none of the eggs survived ICSI, what if the vasectomy made Chris's sperm unusable, what if none of them fertilized.... our process could have ended with that phone call. The ever somber embryologist asked for Misty Greenhalgh... she is so professional. "This is me" I say.

"I'm calling to update you on the fertilization status of your eggs. Out of the 12 eggs we ICSI'd, 11 are showing signs of normal fertilization." Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!! I was so excited, I told her that the results were beyond my wildest imaginations. She seemed surprised, "really?" she asked me - "I am a bit of a pessimist" I told her.

But the first hurdle has been crossed - the eggs and sperm have fertilized and we have normal fertilization on more eggs than usual in this process. I just have to get through these miserable progesterone intramuscular injections every night until I either get a negative test (gasp!) or until the 11th week of pregnancy. They are terrible - the shot itself was not that bad, Chris is really good at that kind of thing and he knows how to do it so I barely felt it, but about 10 minutes after the shot it started to hurt and has not let up since. I sit on a heating pad so the bruising doesn't start, and I slept on it too last night. I don't have a bruise yet, but the needle hole is pretty large and I am sort of limping around. I was minutes away from getting the suppository form, but I knew if I didn't get pregnant that would be the one thing I could blame myself for. So I am sticking it out with the shots and hoping I am going it for a reason!

More to come on Monday when I find out how the little girls and boys are progressing. Send lot of energy to Davis and to the little Greenhalgh embryos!

Recovering

I'm home from the retreival and recovering. I asked for an extra shot of pain meds in the IV before I left, and I think it is finally wearing off because I'm feeling cramps and getting nauseated.

But... I just got good news! I had 28 mature eggs! That is just amazing, a good cycle for a woman is 10. Which means my recipient and I each got 14 eggs. I just hung up with the embryologist, and 12 out of the 14 eggs survived the cleaning process and were ready for ICSI, which she performed and said it went well. She only used 1 vial of sperm, so we have 9 left!!! Tomorrow morning she calls me to let me know how the little eggs and spermies did together over night - send hope to them to multiply!

Everything is going well, I am going to take a nap. Chris just took the kiddos and the dog to the park so I can rest. I am going to enjoy the peace and quiet while I can!

I'm ready!

A day earlier than expected, I am ready to retreive. Yesterday I went to the Dr. and I have responded the best I have ever this time around. I have 31 countable follicles, with 18 measured and guaranteed to be "good." I usually am not ready until between days 12 and 15, but yesterday was day 11 and the eggs were as big as they were on days 12 to 15 in previous cycles. I also have more than I have ever had this time. Yay!

I go in for retreival tomorrow morning which means I should have the embryos transfered back on Wednesday. The Dr. told me that all my previous donations have all gone to day 5 embryo transfers.

I am convinced of 2 things, that my heating pad and my relaxation have been factors in how well I have responded to the medications this time around. I have had a huge break from the kids and have been resting for the most part of the days this week. I have been really nauseated so I have been laying or sitting with my heating pad for several hours a day. Those 2 things for me seem to have made a difference. I'm not in school so I have no stress there - so I have been pretty stress free this time around as well.

The hardest phase physically is almost over, and now the difficult mental phase is going to begin. The waiting, the hoping, the thinking. All I can try to do is not stress myself out about it working, and know that I will have the chance to try again if this cycle fails. The Dr. said he has never had a patient not have embryos to freeze for another try. So if things don't go as planned this time around I know I will be able to try again. That in and of itself is going to be the fact that saves me from undue stress this time around!

Oh. Ow.

Tomorrow is my ultrasound. I sure hope I am ready. My stomach is so big, I am retaining water and have had to take my wedding rings off. My face feels swollen. I can't wear any of my jeans. All I want to do is lay in my bed on my heating pad and read or watch TV and SLEEP. This is the worst phase of this... I know I will feel this way if I get pregnant, but the thing is I will BE pregnant. Now I am doing this and I don't know what outcome it will have, I just know I am miserable. I had lunch with a girlfriend today, it was so nice to see her but I came right to bed! I feel like a loser but I just cannot get up. I cook my kids their meals, keep Dyl's diaper changed, bathe him, and play with the kids in my room. I am just getting by doing the bare minimum right now until these eggs are out. I will get a couple of days to feel regular again before they put the embryos back and a whole new flood of emotion will sweep over me. God, I want to get out of bed but if I get up my stomach hurts so much and the nausea overtakes me, and I get all sweaty and my heart beats fast and it just sucks! Oh well - here's to the shitty part of this whole process - no pain no gain! If it didn't hurt then everyone could do it, right? I will let everyone know what the US shows tomorrow.

Starting to feel real

Well, I have been on the stims for 5 days now, and my tummy is starting to pooch out from all the stimulating going on in my ovaries. We know I am never ready until about day 12, so I don't get to have an ultrasound this time until day 11, which means I don't know how many follices there are this time. Hopefully there are many!

Last night Chris and I went to "egg class" - which is where the embryologist gives a 2 hour class that covers everything from what I am doing now through retreival and into the embryo transfer. We saw pictures of each phase our little embryo will go through, from fertilization to implantation. Pretty exciting stuff. Chris is so sure it is going to work - I am a little less sure. I guess that is just each of our nature. The other night he told me he can't wait to see me with a big fat belly - I told him it might not even happen - he told me how can I say such a thing of course it will happen - I told him how is he so sure - ........ and on and on and on. He is the forever optimist and I am the constant pessimist.

I feel normal and good, just like I always do about this time. I am getting a little less energy and I feel guilty about it. I am a little edgy with my moods, and I feel guilty about it. In a couple days I will be tired and moody and I wont care one little bit! Last night the embryologist said that we are to be in bed or on the couch on the day of the transfer and the following days and only get up to have our meals. She then said "If you don't want to go to the table for your meals, you get HIM" and she pointed directly at Chris "to bring them to you!" It was great. No cleaning, no stress, no excercise, no sex, and no orgasims are what she told us. Nothing to cause stress or make our body temps go up or down. So no swimming of any kind either. She said that she feels that an embryo will want to stay in a nice calm stress free environment. I hope she is right! So, Chris is on strict orders not to tell me anything that goes on with the boy's mother - I told him I don't want to know if she calls, texts, emails, if he talks to her or if he ignores her I want to know nothing! I am going to listen to calming music and read books and be a princess for about 3 days. If that doesn't help the embryos implant, then at least I can say I did my best. I have been taking pre-natals for over 2 months to get my body all ready to go and trying to keep all the stress out of my life that is possible. Of course some people who are mad that we are having a baby are deliberatly trying to stress me out - but I refuse to allow it. This baby is my top priority right now!

Next week will be retreival - the end of next week that is. And 3 or 5 days later we will transfer. I wont know if it will be day 3 or day 5 until day 3. We make that decision on the morning of day 3.

Until next time...

Regularity

There is not much news to report. Things are pretty normal right now. I am on Lupron and off the birth control pills, and I start stims on Sunday. I should be ready for the retreival sometime around the 29th, and then the transfer 3 or 5 days after that. Then we wait for the pregnancy test! I am so not looking forward to that time in my life. I am going to wonder about every symptom I have ("I must be pregnant!") and then self-doubt ("No, I always feel this way after a retreival.") It is going to suck. But if we get a baby then it will all be worth it, the waiting, the hoping, all of it.

I should have more to talk about after I start the stimulation meds on Sunday. Then it will be really like I am in cycle - growing those eggs and making sure they are healthy.

Ciao ~

My first appointment today

Everything went great! I was expecting to get a shot today like I have received the last few times I have been a donor, however since I am doing this cycle to get pregnant they were unable to give me that same shot. It's not a big deal, it just means I have to give myself two shots a day instead one this time around. That is something I had to do in some of my prior cycles. I start those shots on Sunday and my stimulation meds the following week.

I had lots of questions for my Dr. today since I could not sleep last night after all the excitment of the 4th of July which caused me to go online and do research since I was tossing in bed thinking about getting pregnant. That is easy to do when the love of your life is laying next to you resting his hand on your tummy. So I found out some interesting facts - such as in my last donation I had 26 follicles of which 90% fertilized into embryos!! That was so exciting because in woman who produce 10 or more follicles there is a 50% greater chance of success with IVF. Needless to say I was very pleased when he told me the numbers. He looked at my past cycles and found equal success with all of them.

I am now on a special recommended diet which is designed to provide my body with all the energy it needs to produce numerous wonderfully healthy eggs and so that I am fueled when they transfer the embryos back into my uterus. No more sugar, flour, baked goods, caffeine, or alcohol. I am most upset about saying goodbye to my starbucks - but of course it is worth it!

This is such an exciting time for Chris and I and we just cannot wait to be parents again. There was a 9 month old little boy at the bar-b-que we went to yesterday and we could not stop holding him. It felt so good to have a baby in my arms! My clock is most certainly tick-tocking away right now. I have to say that my body always tells me what it wants, I listen to it and have stayed in really good shape just by doing what my body tells me to - eating whatever it is craving and doing as much or as little as it wants to, and right now by body is screaming at me to have a baby. Hopefully I am reading the signals right and this procedure will work. But with the wonderful news about how many embryos I can expect to have, we should have enough for even a fourth or fifth try if that is necessary.

I thought of the most adorable name a few days ago also. This one I am really in love with. Cejai Dawn. Cejai after her daddy (Christopher John - C.J. is how you pronounce the name) and Dawn which is my middle name. I know I should definitly NOT be naming the baby that I am not even pregnant with yet, but this name came to me while I was laying in my bed much like the name Taylor did when I was not yet pregnant with her - or at least I did not yet know I was. My children and I have a bond that transcends this world, and I fully believe that is possible. Part of me is so sure it will be a girl, that she has been pressing her daddy and I to bring her into the world. I know that is typically a mormon belief but I love it and even though I am not religious the thought of spirits and little beings trying to get their parents to create them is so neat to me. It allows the thought that your children choose you. So little Cejai has been waiting for Chris and I to have her for a long time!! But even if I am wrong and it is a boy - that would be wonderful. I love baby boys. My son is so important to me and I do believe that mother's and son's have a vey unique and special bond.

I suppose that is enough reflection for today since I have four hungry children who want their mother to cook them dinner!

Ciao for now ~

Tommorow it starts

Tomorrow is the day that I will get my first injection that will tell my body not to ovulate. I think the birth control pills are doing a fine job of that though. It's very weird to be taking birth control pills to GET pregnant! Everynight before bed I take a birth control pill and a pre-natal vitamin, and maybe it's the philosopher in me but I really ponder that contradiction each time I do it. I am very sensitive to hormones, and the birth control pills make me blah. At lesast these particular ones don't make me gain weight and retain water like some have in the past. Anyway, we are doing great and anxious to jump this off - last night at dinner we were talking about how in a few weeks we will be sitting there talking about having a baby, or we would be sitting there talking about how everything was a waste. But it even if this cycle fails, it isn't wasted because we will have little frozen embryos that we can use for another try. In my research I have read that it is not that common for women to have over 10 good transferable embryos - I usually have around 18. So I was surprised to read that. I have such good odds at this working that I'm nervous it wont. That might be the philosopher in me too... LOL. It should work, there is absolutly no reason for it not to work, therefore it most likely wont work. I do feel a strange calmness about it, like this is really what I am supposed to be doing. I never felt like I was only supposed to have 2 children, and I have always talked (or at least thought) about having another child, so I think that I am doing what the universe wants me to do. There is a little spirit there that has been trying to get into my womb for years!! Well, at least that's a nice way to think of it.

Think of me tomorrow -
M

Beginning the Baby Blog

I have thought of doing this for the last few weeks, and I am finally getting around to doing it. For those of you who do not know me, I will do a little explaining about who I am, and what our situation is. For the rest of you who are here because you know me and want to keep up with the happenings of our baby-having, skip the next paragraph! :)

My name is Misty, my husbands name is Chris, and we have been married for three and a half years. We have been together for over seven years. We are not your typical childless couple going through IVF so that we can have our first child. Our situation is quite different from that, indeed. Chris has four sons from two previous relationships, and I have two children from a previous marriage. Both Chris and I decided before meeting each other that we were done having children. So Chris had a vasectomy shortly after his fourth son was born in 1997, and I had a tubal ligation shortly after I was divorced in 2000. We were both quite young to have the surgeries, he was 25 and I was just 22. We came together, and have been raising each others children as our own for the last seven years. Chris has always been a very hands-on father, extremely active in his boys lives and never was a "weekend dad." He gained custody of each boy over a period of about four years, which is a long and ugly story and not at all what this blog is intended to discuss or describe. My children's father was a very involved dad as well, until he met and married someone who did not want him to be a part of his children's lives, and that as well is a very long and ugly story and will not be discussed on this blog site. I have sole custody of my two children, and my step-sons live here full time, and that means that Chris and I are very much parents already!!

For about two years we have, in a semi-joking way, talked about having a child together. We mostly dismissed the thought because fertility treatments are very expensive and we have a lot of children to raise and care for. One of my step-sons is severly mentally handicapped, and he is ours 100% of the time, and that needed much consideration as well in the thought of us having another baby. It all happened one day when just the two of us were out in the middle of the lake on our boat. We were talking about adopting a baby, and I told Chris that I felt that we both had adopted kids, I have adopted his kids into my heart and raise them as my own, and he has done the same for my kids. No, I was not interested in adopting more children. "I want to be pregnant" I told him, "I want to have 'our' baby." He reacted in shock, because I had never told him that before, because I never thought it would be possible or probable. The love on his face at that moment, the look he gave me, I will never forget. He came to me and wrapped his arms around me, rested his hands on my tummy, and said in my ear "I would love for you to have my baby." It was an emotional moment, and it was then and there that we decided we would do whatever it took to have a child together.

It so happens that I have been heavily involved in fertility as an egg donor for several years, and I have worked with the best doctors in the state. I called the clinic I was working with and told them that Chris and I had finally decided to proceed with having a child. They were so excited!!! Chris and I went in to have our first appointment to discuss what we would have to do, our financial arrangments were made, and off we went. Chris had to have a sperm aspiration, a procedure for which he was put fully to sleep and was down in bed for about four days following. The doctor was able to check that day and assure us that Chris still had lots of viable sperm that were going to be fine to use for IVF. Yes! The first hurdle was cleared!

Now we are at the present day, where this blog will begin documenting the steps to what will hopefully be our first child together. Perhaps, even, our first and second child together (twins???).

I had my baseline ultrasound appointment, and my ovaries are ready to begin the stimulation process. I start my medications next week, and we are looking to transfer the embryos before the end of July. It has been so hard to wait for this, as things with fertility happen in terms of months, not days or weeks. We hear so many positive comments from everyone, doctors and family and friends, that we will be successful because we are not dealing with unexplained infertility or anything like that. We just have what they are calling a "communication problem" and nothing else. We throw around names, and I confess, I have bought an outfit! I keep telling myself not to do that stuff because it will only make it harder if it fails. I can't seem to stop it though, in my mind I am already pregnant.

I will use this blog to note important events, I will write when I feel in the mood or have something to say, and I will use it as a diary of sorts. It is my hope that it will end up very long and will hopefully mark milestones such as first steps, first birthdays, and things like that. The reality is that it could be only a couple of entries long, the treatment may fail, and we may end up being unable to have a child together. We will still have very full lives, with the six children we already have, and that will be enough if that is what fate has in store for us. I will remain optimistic until the bitter end, and of course, we will try more than one time. We will try until the embryos are gone or until we are pregnant.