3rd Trimester

Whoa, the third trimester has flown by…like super fast.

I couldn’t believe how fast the 2^nd trimester went either!  But, I swear, the third went even faster. I think the holidays helped with that!

Before I got pregnant my blood pressure was on the higher side… higher for someone with my build, activity level, and age.  So, needless to say, my doctor has been keeping a close eye on it during the pregnancy.  From the very beginning it has been amazing!!!! (110s-120s over 60s) Like 20 lower than my normal. However, once I hit the 3^rd trimester, my blood pressure went waaaaaay up. Whomp whomp L  So, instead of coming in every two weeks, I had to start coming in once a week, starting at around 30 weeks.  Every now and then, at an appointment, it would be in my “pre-pregnancy normal” (120s over 80s) yes, high, but not too bad.  Well then at my 35 week appointment it went way high at 145 over 104, or something like that (she took it a couple times).  She wanted me on modified bed rest. She said she wanted to get me to hopefully 37 weeks and assess there to see if we could get to 38 weeks. However I was still working at the time. I talked it over with Ashley (friend whose son I watch), prayed about it and put it totally in God’s hands, and moments later… Ashley made the decision for me J So the week of January 8^th I was on bed rest… well, modified so I still did some things.

Then at my 36 week appointment, my bp was high again and she sent me straight to the hospital.  I wasn’t having any symptoms; headaches, seeing spots, swelling.  I also was not having protein showing up in my urine sample at the office. So she wanted me to go to the women’s center triage to monitor my bp for an hour and they would determine if I needed to be admitted for a 24 hour urine collection to fully test for dumping of protein and monitor my blood pressure. Then, based on that collection and bp, they would decide to deliver then or not.  I freaked out a bit about going to the hospital and the chance of delivering… blood pressure was not good in triage. So they admitted me. Luckily, after the 24 hour urine collection (and MY doctor being the on call dr after those 24 hours) I wasn’t dumping protein and my doctor told me I could go home on strict bed rest and we would try very hard to get to 38 weeks and most likely won’t be able to go past that……..

Pics:

24 weeks

Look at me 2 posts in one month!

So we had to have another sonogram done at 24 weeks to check to see if my placenta had moved up away from my cervix. Oh, I didn’t mention that on the 20 week post, did I?  I’m sorry. So apparently the placenta decided to attach a little low so it was about 2 cm from my cervix. Not too too big of a deal since the thought was that it would move up within the month as my uterus grew. It did. YAY!! And hey, we got a bonus sonogram that we might not have normally gotten. We were excited!

Then we had the regular appointment with my doctor and got a surprise… not a good kind either.  According to her they saw something at the 20 wk sono and just wanted to keep an eye on it and look at my 24 wk sono to see if it went away. It had not. What was it? Well I would have to go to a perinatologist for a definitive answer. My doctor said they were concerned it was an amniotic band but it didn’t seem to bother the baby. He wasn’t near it, nor was his growth being affected. Because of those reasons she thought it could be some sort of pocket of fluid that looked to be above the placenta area instead.  However, she wanted me to see the perinatologist to make sure it wasn’t an amniotic band which could be bad.

I didn’t really have time to research about what an amniotic band was since my appointment with the perinatologist was early the next week, so I didn’t really worry myself too bad.  I think Ashley telling me stories that she had heard of this particular doctor I was going to go see worried me more.  She and the doctors she works with and talked to about him are not big fans of his.  Thankfully I didn’t see him, I saw his associate. It turned out to not be an amniotic band, but rather a band of scar tissue from my miscarriage, and that it was in my uterus but not in the amniotic sac with our little guy so all was/is good. YAY!! Crisis averted J 

Side note: an amniotic band is from a partial rupture of the amniotic sac that can form fibrous bands that float in the amniotic fluid and can trap and constrict limbs of the baby. It can cause serious malformations and deformities in the baby.  One of my aunt’s sitters’ brother is paralyzed from amniotic band syndrome. She also told me about another child she knew that their head had been constricted so was severely deformed and blind.  I am so glad I didn’t do research or talk to her before I had that appointment.   

So for the fun part… pictures!!!!

Rooting for our Rangers in the World Series!!

Isn’t he just the cutest thing ever!?!?! I know!!! He totally is!!! :D

20 weeks

Ummm… so I guess I’m pretty awful. I said I was going to be better and I was worse. Oh well I’ll just have to be awesome now. (hmm we’ll see)

So, if you didn’t notice on facebook, we had our 20 week sonogram on September 20^th and found out the baby looks healthy and that….It’s a boy!!! Definitely a boy!!

We were also surprised with some 3D shots of our little boy! They had just gotten new systems/computers/sonogram-whatever-ness ;) so we weren’t expecting that until they just switched it over to 3D, it was so exciting!

Here is a belly pic just a couple days before we had our sonogram.

the first joys of pregnancy

Well the first trimester is a distant memory now… YAY!!!

OK, first off I want to applaud those women out there that have morning-sickness throughout their whole pregnancy and choose to have another baby!! Bless your heart!!

Now on to me! Because… well, isn’t that why you read this??? ;D

I did have morning sickness throughout the first 12 weeks. It started off with just HORRIBLE nausea but then turned into to the vomiting part. Even eating bananas brought on the chunks :P  I had to drive strategically (farthest left lane) so that, if needed, I could pull over quickly and throw my door open and not get my vomiting head taken off by a fellow driver. During my 8 week appointment I got two prescriptions for the nausea. One that was dissolvable and didn’t cause drowsiness, but gave me headaches and I only got 12 at a time, and one that wasn’t dissolvable, caused drowsiness (aka knocked me out), didn’t cause headaches, and got 30 at a time. (note: the dissolvable is helpful in that it gets into your system faster in case you vomit, and I have lost vitamins due to that occurrence) They did help a great deal. However, your gag reflex (or at least mine and Ashley’s) is much more sensitive and no amount of medicine helps when that is tripped.  A side note about pregnancy nausea and then vomiting is once you vomit you do not feel any better like you sometimes do when something you ate didn't sit well with you.

Another lovely and attractive symptom that I have had really bad is bloat and gas. Oh my goodness! On a number of occasions, I thought I was miscarrying because the pain was so awful.

I also got to, and still am for the most part, experiencing “stomach issues” (if you know what I mean), runny/stopped up nose, heartburn (sadly no more pizza or chili for me), and a wonderful bladder infection.

YAY FOR BABY COMING!!!!!!  I just have to keep remembering the end result!!!  And people keep telling me all the symptoms are a good sign. I’m taking it since I don’t remember any symptoms the first time.

So we have had an appointment at 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks, 14 weeks, and one this Wednesday. We had a sonogram at 6 weeks and 8 weeks. This spoiled Ben a little, and he now thinks we should be able to get one every appointment. :) 

PS   I will be better about updating. I have had a hard time updating here and writing in my journal because I’m afraid I will jinx it and lose the baby. I know its an irrational fear but… HEY, I’m pregnant! And I think that is another side effect, irrational fears have flooded my mind….oooooo topic for another post I think ;)

SONO PICS!!!!!!

6 weeks – our little peanut! (the circle is the yolk sac)

6 week – close up (head is to the left)

6 weeks – close up with the measurement (on the bottom right)

8 weeks -  our little gummy bear (we thought that that’s what it looked like with the little nubby arms and legs) head is on the right

8 weeks – the dark spot in the head is the brain

8 weeks – measurement 2.07 cm!!!

8 weeks – heartbeat 166 beats per minute - one of the most beautiful sounds in the world :) LOVE IT!

What A Blessing

Well since it has been so long since I’ve updated I’m sure you have all figured it out……..

I’M PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12 weeks to be precise!!! 

We had to go ahead and tell our parents right off the bat of course. Since, it’s kind of a hard thing to hide when everyone knows what’s going on, we decided if we were asked we would tell.  Since our brothers live out of town we got away with waiting a couple weeks with them. Then we waited to tell extended family until 4^th of July time. We had decided that we would wait to put it on the blog and Facebook until 12 weeks. So here we are at 12 week!!

At 2 weeks passed conception, so 4 weeks, I took a pregnancy test in the morning.  Ben and I both watched the test and the control line showed up right away and not the test line so I thought I wasn’t. I just threw it away and got back in bed very upset.  Ben crawled in there and rubbed my back and tried to comfort me before he started getting ready for work.  I fell back asleep. (Ben gets up a little after 5 for work, not I)  Then all of a sudden Ben wakes me before he was about to walk out the door. Apparently, he felt like he needed to dig the test out of the trash. So he did that, saw a very faint line, and then woke me up. I told him they say any line is a positive line.  He wasn’t too too convinced so he wanted to get another one for me to take the next morning.  Getting hopes up is always so easy to do and hurts so bad when they fall through so I think he was just trying to protect us.

He bought three tests after work J

My mom and Ashley both texted me the morning we took that first test.  I had to lie and just told them that it was a bad test, so we were going to try the next morning.

The next morning’s test was very clear that we were pregnant. YAY!!!! My mom and Ashley texted again and I sent them a pic of the test.  Ashley texted back all excited and my mom texted back with this big apology and words of encouragement. Oh my mother… soooo pretty.  (Family joke that we say when we do something dumb. It derives from “it’s a good thing you’re pretty cuz brains you are not”)  I called her and spent about 20 minutes trying to explain the test to my mom. Yes, she has taken them, she has 2 kids, and it took many months to get my brother so many tests in that time.  Oh well, she was of course very excited once she understood J

Then we called Debbie, our wonderful fertility nurse.  She was so excited too and scheduled me to come in for a sonogram two weeks later.

At that 6 wk mark we got to see the baby!!! It was unreal! We hadn’t seen the first one at all so this just made it so real.  (If the morning sickness wasn’t a giveaway) The regular sono tech did it, but Debbie came in to see how many took, because remember, I had four follicles.  She could not believe only one was in there.  No one else really could either.  Ben and my mom were just absolutely sure it was twins and Ashley kept thinking triplets.  I had even gotten ok with the idea of twins after the thought of triplets kept being brought up. Luckily no one thought of quads except me but that probably entered because one of Ben’s really close friends is a quad (NOT by fertility treatments).

We then got to have another sonogram at 8.5 weeks.  That’s when we got to hear the heartbeat!!! 166 bpm!!! Such a wonderful sound.  We both teared up.  We also had a 10wk appointment but that wasn’t anything exciting.

We are just so excited!!! With every bad symptom that I lovingly get is an amazing reminder of what is going on inside me. I didn’t have any of these symptoms with the first pregnancy so it has been an exciting ride.  But I’ll get into that later J

May 16, 2011 - please be a turning point

May has been a crazy emotional month.

Long story short on the April round of Clomid… no go. This hit me extremely hard. Harder than any other month before.

Also, my “bestie” Ashley gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on the 10^th. I am not lying when I say beautiful by the way.

SO, this month we are “no longer insane,” as Ben says.   We are trying IUI this month. IUI stands for intrauterine insemination. After another 5 days a clomid and an injection to ovulate they take Ben’s sperm and do a “washing” of it and then with a catheter through my cervix they inject the washed sperm into my uterus. My nurse doesn’t see anything to cause my infertility so she is thinking that my cervix may be “a hostile environment” so IUI would allow the sperm to bypass my cervix, hopefully allowing me to get pregnant.

Side note: I went in today to check my follicles and get the shot. I had 4 mature follicles ranging in size from 19mm to 26mm.

We are doing this with insurance coverage YAAAAAAAAAY!!! Our infertility coverage starts today May 16^th and we are doing the IUI procedure tomorrow, May 17^th.  We are hoping this is a good sign because our anniversary is today!

It has been 3 years since I married my best friend in the whole entire world. It has been 8 years that we have been together. Yes, if you didn’t know, we got married on our 5 year anniversary. (keeping dates simple for Ben so he won’t ever forget, not that he would ;-D )  We went to Six Flags this past weekend to have a little fun and then had a special dinner at Simply Fondue tonight. It was fantastic! … both outings.  

I wanted to try to describe what kind of person Ben is in this post, but I am having a hard time.  I’m looking at him right now as he has fallen asleep on the couch while watching “How the states got their shape” with our Chihuahua cuddled up next to him. I think about how much we have gone through. I mean, we have always been extremely close and best friends since the time we started dating when I was 16 and he was 18. We reminisced tonight about when we each first had a crush on each other and knew we wanted to date the other. So long ago… ahhh simpler times… in the same breath we also discussed about what we are facing tomorrow and our deep desperate hope of becoming parents.  Ben is a guy that I really haven’t seen or heard of a match to.  Most think he’s a quiet guy. HA!!!!! People, this boy talks and talks and talks! I don’t know why everyone else doesn’t get to see this. One of the many wonders of the world. J  He is genuinely the nicest, most sweetest person in the world.  His dad is a very close second.  I am not sugar coating anything. He is a generous, compassionate, supportive in every way, and would do ANYTHING to make me happy. ANYTHING!!!!!! If I have the smallest wish to do/see/go/have/etc. something, he will and would do anything and everything he can do to make it happen.  He puts me and our families ALWAYS before himself.  He always bites his tongue if something comes up with anybody in any situation to keep peace.  He is extremely laid back so nothing he holds in really ever festers inside so he doesn’t really explode or get really mad in general. He also doesn’t hold grudges over any situation or person. Seriously, he is amazing! I just don’t know the best way to get this across. AHHHHHH He’s just super husband, and there is a reason that he is known as “Perfect Ben” in my family.  Of course, we know no one is perfect but seriously, this boy comes frighteningly close.

I L-O-V-E love you babe!!!!! I can’t wait to see you as a daddy!!!! Thank you for everything you do for me!!!

PS I know “most sweetest” isn’t grammatically correct but I was trying to emphasize a point J

Another month

Update…. YAY!!!!!! I know J

Well in March we did our 2^nd round of Clomid. I took it according to period math as before and then went in to get a sonogram and shot on day 15. I had 3 mature follicles. YES, THREE!!! Debbie was nervous about giving me the shot to make me release the eggs. Because she didn’t want me to get pregnant with triplets, she wanted to one of the doctors. Ben missed this appointment, which normally doesn’t happen but with so many appointments he just can’t miss so much work anymore. So as I sat there, I frantically texted Ben what was going on.  I was so scared that I wasn’t going to get the shot. I wanted to guarantee my ovulation and giving us the highest chance to fertilize at least one egg.  Well Debbie came back in saying she would go ahead a give me the shot. YAY!!!!!!!

I came in about 10 days later for the blood test to check my progesterone level.  It was an 81. Pretty good right?

Nope. Started my period L I went in for another sonogram to make sure no large cists were starting. (Ben came with) Debbie walked in to the room and said “well I am totally shocked to be seeing you. I was so sure it was going to work”. Not a good sign that she doesn’t understand why this is happening.  Well no large cists.  We then discussed what was going to go on this month. I hadn’t had this procedure where they shoot dye into my fallopian tubes and take x-rays to see if they are open because I had gotten pregnant before.  Well they decided to go ahead and have me have it done just to make sure. Plus, Debbie said if there was any little stuff on the tubes the dye could blow it out and clean it up.

After the test, it was concluded that my tubes were open. And we have done another round of Clomid.

Ben reminds me that the definition of being insane is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Well our hands are tied at the moment. Our insurance is amazing, but the infertility coverage won’t start until May 16 (hmmm also our 3 year anniversary) Ben had to argue to get it there from June but whatever, I’m very tired of fighting battles so this is one I’ll let go. I’m also not in the mood to vent about it so I will do that later J Because of this, we can’t move any further (trying IUI or IVF).

SOOOOOOOO, we are doing Clomid again this month. I had 3 mature follicles and 1 a little smaller than mature. After last month, Debbie just went ahead and gave me the shot.

Now, it’s the waiting game again……