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.