Pregnancy Journey - Part 4

Continued from previous post.  Please go to the links below to read Part 1, Part 2, and/or Part 3 of the story.

**Part 1**
**Part 2**
**Part 3**

Ricidulously quick recap: Trying for a long time to get pregnant, got pregnant finally when not expecting it, no-one knew we were trying or that I was pregnant, pregnancy ended in miscarriage, got pregnant again and everything is looking great.

I am currently 18 weeks pregnant and I'm noticably showing.  Sometimes you can see it more than others, it just depends on what I'm wearing that day.  I'm definitely in the maternity pants stage!  We had a doctor's appointment 2 weeks ago and found out we're definitely having a boy!!

Neither John nor I had a preferance on gender so we were both really happy.  It's nice to know to help out with planning and getting ready.  We're just starting to work on names.  Boy's names are hard!!  We don't like a lot of the ones we've found so far so we're going to have to keep researching.  I hate to break the news to you, but we're going to keep the name to ourselves until he's born.  The last thing we want is people critiquing our choice or trying to change our minds.  Plus, it will leave a little surprise for his birthday.

I have been feeling really well so far.  No morning sickness!!  Woohoo!!!!  The most annoying symptom I've had is an increase in my allergy issues.  I'm congested and draining all the time, even on my allergy meds.  (Before anyone freaks out about me taking my allergy meds, given my issues in the past my doctor told me to keep taking them.  She's absolutely not concerned about it at all, so neither am I.)  In the past week or two I've had a definite flair up of heartburn.  Nothing horrific but it's been bothering me just about every day.  Fun!  I love it when it flairs up from drinking water.  Water!!  Ugh!!  Usually sucking on a piece of hard candy or chewing gum helps.  I've gained some weight but I'm right where I need to be.  Apparently week 18 often begins a period of increased appetite.  Look out food, here I come!!

We go back in to the doctor on May 17th for our anatomy scan.  That's just a really detailed ultrasound to check all of his organs, take a bunch of measurements, etc.  It's standard practice so that we can catch anything that might be an issue as early as possible.  Some issues can be reversed in the womb, some may require surgery after he's born, but it's better to know up front so we can prepare a course of action.  We're bound to get some good pictures so we'll be sure to share!!

Pregnancy Journey - Part 3

Continued from previous post.  Please go to the links below to read Part 1 and/or Part 2 of the story.

**Part 1**
**Part 2**

Ricidulously quick recap: Trying for a long time to get pregnant, got pregnant finally when not expecting it, no-one knew we were trying or that I was pregnant, pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

It was kinda weird but after the miscarriage my cycles finally evened out and started coming pretty darn regularly.  We were both really happy about that.  Right before Christmas was the start of a cycle and we decided we were ready to give it another shot.  We also decided to use some ovulation predictor tests to improve our chances.  One day in January we got the "go" signal and it seemed to do the trick because I found out I was pregnant on January 23rd.  (The line's faint, but a line is a line!)

We were of course really happy, but much more cautious this time.  We didn't want to get our hopes up in the event things didn't work out.  The doctor had said that the miscarriage we had was probably just a bad mix of chromosomes and my body knew something wasn't right.  It apparently happens a lot.  The rate of miscarriages is somewhere between 25-30%!  Armed with this information the second time around, we were happy things seemed to be going in the right direction, but we were going to just wait and see what happened. 

Again, the wait until the first appointment was agonizing.  It didn't help that the week before my appointment I developed a humdinger of a sinus infection.  It was so awful.  Horrific headaches were the worst of it.  I finally ended up going to my PCP the day before my OB visit because I felt so terrible.  He started me on antibiotics but in the end, I don't know if they really helped.  When the time finally arrived for my OB appointment I was excited to find out of things were looking ok, but still feeling really crappy.  We went through the same steps as the first time (answer questions, ask questions, ultrasound), however this visit ended on a high note!  The ultrasound looked great!  The little heart was beating just as it should be and everything was on track.  The relief was indescribable.  We were so happy!  The doctor said my estimated due date was October 6th.  She printed out a couple of pictures for us and then send me up to the vampire (lab) for the first of many blood tests.

John and I had decided that if things looked good this time, we would break the news to our immediate family. I wanted to tell someone right then and there so we headed to my parent's house to tell my Mom.  She was of course delighted!!  We then went to John's parent's house to see if his Dad was home, but he wasn't so we went to work.  I didn't want to tell my Dad or brother while we were at work so we kept quiet.  After work we went back to John's parent's house to break the news to both of them.  They were so excited!!  Later than night my parents stopped by our house so we were able to tell my Dad.  Informing Bobby and Renee took a few days, but they were really happy for us.

We waited another month to get to the end of the first trimester before breaking the news to the world.  We were still feeling a tiny bit anxious about things going ok so we wanted to wait a little longer before "going public".  The night before I hit 12 weeks we made calls to our close family members to let them know.  It was a very fun night with lots of happiness (and screams of excitement).  The next morning when we got up at the crack of dawn to get ready for work, we posted our announcement on Facebook and then whole world knew!  As exciting as it was to let everyone in on our secret, it was also kinda scary.  What if something happened the next day???  We'd have to tell the whole world.  :(  Luckily, that hasn't been an issue.  Our little one is looking perfect and we couldn't be more thrilled!!

Pregnancy Journey - Part 2

Continued from previous post.  Please go to the link below to read Part 1 of the story.

**Part 1**

Ricidulously quick recap: Trying for a long time to get pregnant, got pregnant finally when not expecting it, no-one knew we were trying or that I was pregnant.

We had to wait what seemed like an eternity for my first doctor's appointment.  They don't see you until you're about 8 weeks along.  I hadn't been having any morning sickness and it was too early to have gained a bunch of weight so it was really easy to keep hiding it.  Finally we went in at the end of August.  We sat down with the doctor, answered a bunch of questions, asked some questions of our own, and then it was time to go have an ultrasound to see how the baby was growing and to get an estimated due date.  Up until the point the picture came on the screen all three of us had been laughing and having a great time.  As soon as the picture flashed up, the doctor's demeanor changed immediately.  John said he didn't notice but it was totally obvious to me.  It turns out that while the baby was the correct size and we saw a little heartbeat flickering, it was beating very slowly.  The doctor said that it could be that maybe it was just early and it wouldn't be an issue, or it could be that the pregnancy wasn't healthy.  This is not what we were hoping to hear!!  She said we'd know for sure in two weeks so we made another appointment and had to wait to out. 

The waiting was hard.  Over that time though, I sort of came to terms with the fact that the pregnancy wasn't viable.  I just felt like it wasn't going to happen this time.  I was hopeful of course and trying to stay positive, but it just didn't feel the same.  When we went back for the second ultrasound we saw that the little "blob" that had been in my uterus had disappeared.  It sort of looked like wispy white clouds in there.  Both John and I took the news pretty well.  We were very disappointed of course, but having the two weeks to sort of prepare ourselves softened the blow.  At that point, since we knew the baby was gone, I was most interested in getting on with things so we could hurry up and start trying again.

The doctor said that I had three options:  (1) wait for the miscarriage to happen naturally, (2) have surgery to remove everything in there, or (3) take a medication to start having contractions to remove everything.  I decided I'd rather not have surgery, and waiting for things to just happen at some point in time wasn't ideal.  Taking pills and getting done on my own "terms" seemed like the best option.  The doctor explained how it worked and wrote me a prescription.  She also told me that this use of the medication was not FDA approved (although it's been used for many years and is safe) so some pharmacies give you a hard time when trying to fill it.  I was instructed to steer clear of CVS!  Already being a bit nervous about this whole process anyways, this bit of information did nothing to make me feel better.  Luckily RiteAid filled it for me with no problems.

I'm not going to go into the details of the actual miscarriage here, but it was crappy.  Luckily it wasn't as awful as I expected, but it hurt a lot and I was glad when it was over.  Two weeks after taking the pills we had to go back to the doctor so I could get one last ultrasound to ensure everything was clear.  If not, I'd have to have surgery.  Thank goodness we got the "all clear" from the doctor!  She told us to wait two cycles before trying again.  She said that was mostly for our mental health and not my physical health.  Being the good folks that we are, we followed doctor's orders and spent the rest of the fall focusing on the holidays and the other events you've read about here on our blog.  We were so glad we hadn't told anyone about the pregnancy!  It would have been awful to have to share the miscarriage with everyone at that point.

I have to say that my doctor was amazing through this whole process.  She was so supportive and took time to chat with us and answer all of our questions.  I knew I had liked her before, but this really showed me that I had found right doctor for us.  (John and I also like her because she's funny.  She's very quick on her feet and doesn't miss a beat.)

To be continued shortly ...

Pregnancy Journey - Part 1

Posted on Facebook 3/24/11

It's been over a month since our big secret has been revealed and now I'm ready to write about our journey.  It hasn't been an easy one, but that makes us that much more excited to be where we are now.

We started "trying" right after the wedding (Nov. '09).  We didn't want to waste any time in having a baby!  I had been on the pill for many many years so we knew that it might take awhile for my body to get back into the swing of things.  Unfortunately my body was really unhappy about having to think about ovulation and cycles on its own.  Everything was really erratic, which made timing things right really difficult.  My cycles ranged from 43 days to 74 days long.  They definitely weren't coming monthly!  At my regular gynecological visit in July (8 months later) I talked to my doctor about it and she just said that it's really common, don't worry about it, things will get better, and if I get through 12 cycles with no luck I should go back to see her.  She was saying things that should have been really reassuring, but I was discouraged.  I wanted her to make it better!!  John and I decided to wait until my next cycle started and then use an ovulation predictor kit to better our chances of success.

Then, lo and behold, a couple of weeks later I noticed I was feeling a little odd and for some reason decided to take a pregnancy test.  I couldn't believe it when it came back positive!!  John and I had given up hope for that cycle and there I was pregnant!  We were ecstatic!!

All along we had decided to not tell anyone about our plans so we didn't share our news with anyone.  Trying to get pregnant was already stressful enough with just the two of us going through it all, we couldn't imagine having to deal with people asking about it all the time.  I eventually let my best friend in on what we were doing because I needed someone besides John to share the ups and downs with.  People would good-naturedly ask us about when we were having kids or talk about babies.  They obviously had no idea what what going on and didn't mean to hurt us, but it was literally like getting punched in the stomach every time.  Every comment was a reminder of each of our "failures" along the way.  It sucked.  And because of that, I've resolved to NEVER ask anyone about kids in the future.  I refuse to bring it up.  I would absolutely hate to unknowingly make someone feel the way we did when we kept getting questions and comments about the one thing we so desperately wanted.  Especially given what happened to us next ...

To be continued shortly ... I want to break this up into a couple of posts so it's not one big monster!!

Spiffin' up the house

After over two years of procrastinating, I finally took the "bull by the horns" and called the cabinet refinisher to work on my Nana's china cabinet.  We had meant to do the work ourselves but it ended up being a bit too much of a task for us.  He came and picked it up and had it done in days.  Why did we wait so long?!??!?

The cabinet before:

The cabinet after:

Doesn't it look great??  Once we had the china cabinet positioned in the dining room we could FINALLY hang the chandelier over our table.  Yay!!  We love how it all came together and love that it's done!!

Dining room before:

Dining room after:

And, while we were at it, we decided to completely redo the office.  It worked the way it was, but the desks weren't really all that functional and I dreamed of having more space to spread out.  It was a TON of work to research, buy, build, and arrange everything but it was definitely worth the effort.

The office before:

The office after:

Special thanks to my Dad and John for all their work running electrical both in the attic and under the house!