9w1d

Ah how optimistic I sounded in my last post.  Sweet naive optimism.  S and I spent the past week at a lake in california that my family has been going to every summer for 28 years.  It’s peaceful and relaxing and beautiful and the one time of year I know I’ll see my family.  This year however, I spent puking up my meals and languishing in the unairconditioned upstairs room (yes, after years of camping we now camp in a cabin) being decididely antisocial.  I am, once again, so sick.  So sick I wonder why anyone has children.  Or at least why anyone has more than one!  So sick I’ve lost four pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight.  I’ll be the first to admit I could afford to lose four pounds since I’m starting off quite overweight, but under these circumstances I’m not sure it’s a good thing.  So sick that nothing sounds good, not even col.d stone.  I’ve tried saltines.  I’ve tried not eating.  I’ve tried constantly eating.  I’ve tried protein.  I’ve tried carbs.  I’ve tried preg.gie pops.  I’ve tried distraction.  Today I just broke down and cried and cried.  The constant crappy nausea is making me cranky and beastly and is just wearing…  me… down…  And S is feeling cranky too, because she’s lost her partner to do stuff with.  She wants to go to the farmer’s market, to movies, out to eat at really yummy sounding places, and all I can do is lie in bed and barf/think about barfing/relive recent barfing.  So now I’m counting down the days until trimester two.  I think it’s about 26. 

7w5d

I’ve been having a rough time.  For about a week I had constant cramping, one time bad enough to call the doctor.  I was nauseas all the time, throwing up at least once a day, and constantly exhausted.  Now?  The cramping is gone.  The nausea is a tad bit better (I think I’m getting the hang of eating small amounts but all day long vs pigging out three times a day like I used to).  But I’m still sooooo exhausted.  I can’t explain it enough.  I drag through each day, often with multiple naps.  It’s pathetic.  Even from my view from the bed, I can clearly see my own patheticness.  But?  It just may all be worth it.  Today we had our first ultrasound at seven weeks five days, and we saw our bundle of joy, flickering heart and all.  He/she’s measuring perfectly, and is 1.1cm long.  I thought I would cry, but mostly I just stared and squeezed the blood out of S’s hand.  S on the other hand- sweet, fun loving, laid back S- cried.  Aww… 

oh noooo…

Woke up this morning sicker than sick.  Please tell me this isn’t the start morning sickness!  Please!  Ugh, feel like I’m on a boat to h*ll that won’t stop rocking.  I’m six weeks and two days pregnant today.

I forgot to list the most annoying symptom of all yesterday!  The constant peeing!  I swear it’s every hour.  During the day who cares, but at night?  I literally get up five or six times a night just to pee, and end up going to work exhausted.  Is this nature’s way of preparing us for sleepness nights after birth?

Goodness…

I really need to get better at this blogging thing.  Let’s see…  I had my second beta on friday the 15th.  I was prepared for the worst because frankly, ever since that second pink line appeared, I’ve felt like AF is about to start.  Mild cramping, sore boobs, feel like crying, we all know the drill.  I had my blood drawn early in the morning at the hospital where I work.  By 4pm I became anxious for results and called the doctor’s office.  They hadn’t heard anything.  I called the lab, and they said that even though I work there, even though my insurance is through the hospital, that they can’t process my sample in the building.  They had to send it across town.  What?!?!  Why on earth wouldn’t a hospital process it’s own insured samples to save on overhead?  I swear!  For whatever reason all labs are outsourced, and by that time the results were gone.  No one knew what happened.  I was in hysterics.  Seriously.  I came home and all the anxiety and the crappiness and the fatigue overtook me and I sobbed for two hours.  The next morning (a Saturday) I was at work when the doctor’s office called my cell phone.  The nurse there is super nice and knew I was so anxious for results.  My labs had been faxed in overnight.  Beta two= 7,000!  Whoa!  A true 48 hour doubling would have been 5,000.  Plus I thought the numbers were supposed to double a bit more slowly once they were over a couple thousand.  So 7k is way higher than I was expecting, and some little part of me worries about that, but the nurse said it’s all good.  First ultrasound will be the 29th and we should be able to see a heartbeat by then!!  I still can’t quite believe it.  I’m simultaneously ecstatic and worried, and I expect that’s the way the next nine months will go. 

So far:

very sore breasts.  like, I can barely sleep braless sore.  hurt all the time sore. 

slight nausea at times, but nothing that’s very bothersome or consistent.  I consider myself lucky.

gained three pounds.  I’m starting out overweight as it is, so I laughingly hope I won’t gain too much.  but we’ve nicknamed the baby “b.p.” for “bottomless pit” because I swear I could gnosh all day long if I let myself.  And I seem to always want salty snacks which is weird for me.  Usually I’m a major sugar hound.

I’m already finding it hard not to buy everything.  I know, no-one should buy a crib at six weeks pregnant, but I find myself really, really wanting to!!  I want to buy bedding, and onesies, and car seats, and pretty much everything!  For now I’m just feeding the need by surfing through amazon listings and reviews.  But geesh.  I’ve got baby fever bad.

Beta

Today was my first beta.  160.  Which was just about where I thought it would be if my first faint line was last thursday.  Yay!  So I feel relieved.  The first hurdle.  Still doesn’t feel real though.  I can’t seem to stop worrying!  I may as well just resign myself that I will worry until a baby is birthed.  I was sooo worried the beta would come back low that I barely slept.  Now I worry about the next beta in ten days (the 15th)- that it won’t increase like it should.  After that comes the first ultrasound.  Ironically we went to see ‘knocked up’ today, right before getting the beta results verifying that we too are knocked up (and the movie is totally hilarious).  S told her parents already, I haven’t.  Boy howdy was I mad when I found out she told them already.  We had agreed to wait a little while, to enjoy it ourselves, to make sure the first ultrasound went okay.  One thing about my girl though, she can’t keep a secret for sh*t!  Hey, at least I know if she’s ever trying to hide something from me!   

 News from the rest of my life?  I’ve been a bit preoccupied obviously.  Let’s see, we had friends from our hometown come up last weekend, and tomorrow S’s dad will be here to help us install a ceiling fan.  We have a family of mice in our garage that shredded a bag full of stuffed animals to make the worlds largest rodent nest.  That’s about it.  Mostly?  Freaking out.  Did I mention?  This could be it!!  Stick baby bean, stick!! 

Ummmm… now what?????????

So, I suppose we need an update…  Turns out the doctor changed his mind about putting me on birth control last month, opting instead for a trigger shot to try to burst the cysts and then just cancelling that month’s cycle.  So this month I started anew, this time with femara rather than clomid.  I fretted and fretted over this, because in Canada there’s some controversy over whether this drug may be linked to increased birth defects.  Plus, it’s a breast cancer drug for goodness sakes, which just seems weird to be taking when trying to get pregnant.  But in the end I decided to put trust in my doctor.  I can only hope that was a good decision.  So, femara 5mg for five days.  One Menopur shot.  Ultrasound cd12 showed one 24mm follicle.  They triggered me that morning and I went in the next day for the IUI.  My lining was less than spectacular at 7.2.  And the post-wash sperm count was only 7 mil motile.  So truthfully, I just figured this cycle was a bust.  I haven’t even been posting, just feeling kind of deflated.  And in my mind I had even decided to take the next month or two off, enjoy the summer, concentrate on losing some weight and getting my body in better shape to try to increase our chances.  I haven’t had any symptoms other than ravenous hunger and non-stop light cramping, which I figured meant AF was on her way early.  So yesterday at 10dpiui I tested and there was stark whiteness (top test).  Not surprised at all.  This morning at 11dpiui I peed again and saw the faintest pink line (middle test) which shows better in person than in that picture, but both S and I saw it.  But it was faint, and I figured maybe a false pos??  I went to a union meeting all day, but it kept nagging at me.  So of course I had to stop off and get some more tests on the way home.  The bottom one is from this afternoon, still 11dpiui, but the line is definitely darker.   So now what???  I’m freaking out.  S is freaking out.  I want to believe it, but I’m so scared.  I’ve had three friends with early miscarriages, and one with a full term stillbirth that haunts me to this day.  I’m not so naive to think that this is “it”.  That one double pink line means you get to bring home a healthy baby.  My beta is on tuesday.  What if it’s low and they tell me I’m losing the baby??  What if tomorrow the second line doesn’t show up?  When can I start getting excited and stop worrying?  Because right now, it doesn’t feel real.  And I’m DEFINITELY freaking out.

Cysts

Ultrasound today.  27mm and 28mm cysts.  of course.  I knew.  Pain on the left side.  12mm “follicles” on cd3.  The odds weren’t good.  And yet, I hoped.  But now it’s just another wasted cycle.  And they want me to take bcp’s again, which last time led to a 65 day cycle.  which means most likely we won’t get to try again until late june.  sigh.  i’m tired of this…   :(   

Take two…

Ultrasound this morning.  Weird results.  The good news?  the cyst is gone.  The weird news?  I’m on cycle day 3 (full flow started wednesday) and my lining is already thickening (yes, while I’m still finishing up my period, how does THAT work??) and I already have two 12mm follicles.  HUH??  So he wants to do clomid for five days anyways (double HUH?) and I’ll go in next friday for another ultrasound/probable trigger.  In the meantime I do opk’s at home to make sure we don’t miss a surge.  But really, cd3 w/ 12mm follicles?  I don’t know, feels “not quite right” to me.  But hey, I’m all go-with-the-flow these days.  Heh.  So bring on the clomid induced night sweats and here we goooooooo!

Randomness

So Hope’s spa day went oooookaaaaay I guess.  She’s shaved anyways.  When we picked her up the groomer said she was “a big baby” and “doesn’t like her feet touched”.  Yes, they actually said big baby.  So basically I don‘t think my dog was real nice about being groomed.  But they didn’t say don’t bring her back!  Heh.

In other news I had a birthday!  I woke up to find “happy b-day” spelled out on the counter with cad.bury eggs.  Could life get any better!?!?  S is the best, I really lucked out finding her.  We went and had a divine dinner at out.back, my new fave. 

Period has started, just lightly today.  So due to work schedules, most likely ultrasound on friday.  I’m crossing my fingers that the cyst is gone!  I “feel” like this is our month.  Probably stupid to jinx it by saying it here.  I mean, I’ll take what comes.  But I have high hopes…

I’m going to my first union meeting on thursday.  Our town is not uber-union-friendly, so I’m not going to talk about it very much on here.  Just sufice to say I work in nursing and our contract is up and I have a feeling things are going to get ugly.  Healthcare is a mess people.  I mean seriously.  I can not give the care people need or want under current conditions.  Patients get short changed and take it out on me even though I haven’t peed in eight hours and won’t get a lunch during my 13 hour shift.  The problem is I *know* there’s not money for more staffing.  Nobody wants to pay for healthcare.  Insurance costs a ton as it is, just for the current crappy system!  So where is the money for extra help going to come from?  But we need it people.  So if any of you find yourselves in the hospital, and it takes 20-30 minutes for your pain medicine to arrive, or your ice bucket to get filled, or even your call light to get answered, try not to yell.  Think how you’d feel if you’d been running your butt off for twelve hours straight with no breaks.  Offer a smile, and maybe even a thank you.  It makes our day.  Because trust me, though it may not seem like it, that nurse is doing his/her best for you.  It’s not their fault that the care isn’t what it should be, it’s a broken system.  And it’s a shame.

Humiliation Complete

I was finally feeling better today, so after completely disinfecting our house with bleach (I do not ever want to be that sick again, omg), we headed out with the dogs to enjoy the spring sun.  First stop was the dog park, a real gem in our town.  There’s this huge open field, gotta be a few acres, that’s open to dogs off leash.  On the weekends there’s tons of people and dogs there, it’s a real social place.  So much fun and the dogs love it. 

After the dog park, we had a random idea to stop by the pet store to see how much it would cost to groom Hope the shih-tzu.  I’ve groomed her at home for her entire life (all six years) mostly to save money.  But I’ve kind of had it with dog hair flying all over the house and my clipper blades are dull so I figured maybe just maybe she’s ready for her very first spa day.  So we went into the pet store with all three dogs.  Chaos insued.  Simon escaped his collar and ran around with wild abandon unwilling to be caught.  A store employee finally tricked him with a bag of cookies that he buried his head in.  She held on to him, but oh, did I mention he was muddy from the dog park?  Got a nice grimace from that employee when I finally caught up to them.   She  suggested that most people with small dogs put them in the carts.  Fine.  Simon went in a cart.  I wandered until I found S, but right at that moment, Loki the big black dog slipped his collar and ran around with wild abandon.  He was not easily tricked by cookies, and pretty much danced around just out of reach of S and employees alike while I rushed to check out and leave the store with the other two dogs to secure them in the car.  Loki was finally caught, and fitted for a harness right there on the spot.  Everyone teased him because he got a purple one that makes him look a bit like a girl.  He doesn’t seem to care though.  As I was on my way out to the car, Simon took a leap out of the cart, into the parking lot, and took off.  Yes folks, the ol’ small-dog-in-a-cart-trick did not work.  Fortunately, after a few spins he took off back into the store where the grimacing employee tackled him again.  At this point, I was beyond humiliated.  Way…  beyond…  humiliated.  I went and sat in the car with the two littles until S met me there with the big.  I’m thinking Simon needs a harness too!  Oh, they look so inncoent don’t they???

At least I got Col.d Sto.ne out of the deal.  S took pity on me and bought me my favorite flavor.  Yum!!  Hope has her first real grooming next Friday.  Here’s hoping it’s not quite as eventful.  I’m a bit worried about how she’ll behave since it’s the first time…