Will this ever end?

I was sitting there minding my own business when I felt it. The bleeding was back. It was just as much as last time if not a little more, which was shocking because I really thought it couldn’t get worse. I sat in horror thinking that I couldn’t keep doing this. It is mentally exhausting worrying about a healthy pregnancy but when you throw in bleeding every week or two it is almost more than you can handle. I will call the doctor on Monday morning and see what I need to do now. I am sure it involves coming in for another ultrasound. One thing is for sure, I will have the biggest baby book ever since I am getting pictures of this little one on a weekly basis.

Ultrasound Update and Bed Rest continues……

Little one looked good. We got some pictures of its arms, legs and face. It looks a little like an alien (must come from the Latvian side of the family). I am measuring ahead of what I should be which is good in my way of thinking, a big healthy baby! It was dancing around and showing off and it’s little body got to moving so fast it’s head starting wobbling back and forth. It was funny, our little monkey.
The doctor still saw areas of blood so I doubt that lovely thing to deal with is going to be over soon. He also said I had a good size bruise under the placenta. I know you are wondering how you get a bruise behind the placenta. Don’t worry; I am thinking the same thing. I have no idea. In saying all this, I have to continue bed rest until the bruise is healed and the bleeding slows down. Will my pregnancy ever be normal?

another week gone by

We have another ultrasound tomorrow, one of the few perks of IVF. Even though we had one last week it was not our normally scheduled one due to the bleeding so tomorrow we get back to our normal routine. I am not as anxious as usual about going since we saw the baby a week ago. It makes it a lot easier mentally going every week than every two weeks. But…don’t get me wrong we are still anxious to see that everything is ok. The bleeding is nothing like it was but I still have a few episodes throughout the day. I hope they can see on the ultrasound that the area where the blood was is almost gone.
Karlis has been with me this entire week and I would have gone insane without him. Even though I am on bed rest and can’t get out of the house we have enjoyed being with each other. I don’t remember the last time we spent this much time together, just the two of us. He said he has enjoyed the time as well except from 7:30-8:30 every morning. This is when I wake up usually and I am beyond sick from being hungry. I roll over and plead with him to get up and get the only thing in the world I will eat for breakfast (this week anyway) a sausage biscuit and orange juice from McDonalds. He hates this for two reasons. One being he is not a morning person, he would rather the biscuit run be at midnight. Two being he hates the cold weather and lately at that time of day it has been in the 20’s. What a good husband he is. Only complaint I have is he is STILL trying to get me to eat those d@#n chicken egg rolls. Just typing that makes me sick.
So I will update tomorrow with how the ultrasound goes. Looking forward to seeing our little one again!

the thoughts of loss and the past, present and future

When I thought we had lost our baby it was one of the deepest saddest feelings I had ever had. No woman should ever have to endure such pain. I am sure a spouse will hurt just as deeply but they don’t have to feel their body rejecting their child. I started thinking about how I would write what I was feeling if that had happened. I kept thinking that I never knew it was possible to love something so deeply that I had never even seen or met. From my perspective when we found out we were pregnant with our future child we fell in love with every aspect of them. You begin to dream of many happy moments and memories to come. Sports, sleepovers, band aids for skinned knees (my Alabama self so badly wanted to write skint knees), bath time, Christmas time, etc. Things look brighter outside, the air feels clearer, and moments begin to feel richer because you are constantly on a cloud of happiness that you never had before. We have always been happy and knew we could live a great life without a child but it wouldn’t be the complete happiness we had longed for. There is nothing like knowing a piece of you and the one you love has been created to carry on happiness and love for generations to come.
Since we had been trying for a little over 2 years I have known many people who have easily gotten pregnant or gotten pregnant by accident and had their children while my husband and I struggled. It is not an easy ride. I was always happy for the other couples but wondered if it would ever be our turn. I would dream about how we would tell our parents or how I could maybe surprise Karlis with the news. Since that moment never seemed to come for us there were some really disappointing times.
If we had lost this child we would have tried like any other couple would to get pregnant again but our journey to get pregnant is such a more stressful one than the perfectly fertile couple. It is amazing to me that people get pregnant by simply having (WARNING about to say the “s” word) sex. Imagine! That concept is so foreign to my husband and me. My mind cannot even wrap itself around that thought. How easy, how convenient, how painless, how completely FREE (hmm, guess that one can be debatable). No doctors in the room (well I don’t guess unless you are married to one or are really into some kinky stuff), no shots that inflate you like a Thanksgiving turkey, no popping up to 15 pills a day, no vaginal suppositories, no 3 times a week blood draws, no bed rest, you get to skip 2 different minor surgeries, the list goes on and on. Last but not least is you save thousands and thousands of dollars and I mean some serious money.
I am one of the few women that can say my doctor got me pregnant and my husband completely understands. Heck I even had Karlis’s consent and hopes and prayers my doctor would get me pregnant the first time. Plus the actual creation of our baby happened not by a special moment between my husband and me but it was me laying on a sterile operating room table and my husband probably looking at some girl named Bambi who loves skydiving, horseback riding and ice cream cones. I have never asked my husband the specifics of that experience and I never will. I guess whatever works to get the job done in a stressful situation is ok but it is definitely not a fairytale story of how you conceived your child. IVF is not normal stuff.
IVF is truly an emotional, financially, physically draining roller coaster. BUT we were truly blessed to get pregnant our first time. I keep up with some other women’s blogs and they are on their 4th or 5th time, my heart truly goes out to them. I cannot imagine the frustration and the thoughts of failure that must creep into their minds. It is the last thing from failure but I must admit I have thought it many times before. It is something about your body abandoning your ability to reproduce naturally that messes with your head. Not sure why, it just happens.
Today we are happy, we are blessed and we are sincerely content to be pregnant another day, another minute, another second.

scariest few days to sweet relief

So we thought we had lost our baby. I started bleeding on Saturday night around 5:00. When I say bleeding I don’t mean spotting or a drop here or there, it was A LOT. Karlis had just left for his hockey game and I couldn’t get in touch with him. I called his coach (who was awesome) and he immediately had Karlis call when he got to the rink. Karlis instantly came back to the apartment to be with me. We called our doctor and he increased my dose of progesterone, told me to start bed rest again and be at his office at 8:00 on Monday morning. The bleeding only got worse throughout the night. I had to sleep on towels and get up every hour to go to the bathroom and re-group; it was miserable. Not only because it was impossible to sleep or get comfortable but because I thought I was just cleaning up what was left of our child; it was horrible. Sunday was even worse. Karlis and I had completely decided it was over because of the amount of blood. I cried and he did his best to comfort me while I am sure he was hurting just as much. We came back to Nashville and just waited for our appointment. By Monday morning the bleeding had slowed but not completely stopped. The ultrasound tech was great and immediately showed us what she saw. Our little baby was laying there with his/her heart beating at 172 beats per minute and was dancing all around. It looked like it was throwing some punches….hockey punches maybe? It had grown so much since last week. I was even measuring 4 days ahead of what I should have been. We have never been so relieved. We spoke to the doctor when the ultrasound was done and they could tell the bleeding was coming from outside the placenta and off to the side. My doctor said he felt it was this one’s twin that never really formed from the very beginning. He said that IVF patients bleed 60-70% of the time (now you tell us) and he thought at this point we had a 1% chance of losing it. Great news!
Karlis made a good point to our doctor. The doctor was kind of acting like this was normal and something he saw all the time. Karlis said “well a hockey fight is not scary to me but to you that might be a different story”. The doctor laughed and agreed that yes it would be scary to him and he understood why it scared us so much and went on to say that as parents you are always scared of something. Point taken.
One funny moment of the day was we stopped for Karlis to get coffee on the way in to our appointment. He got it all ready and then spilled the entire thing all over the place. It even went on the lady beside him. He told her sorry and she said it was ok that stuff like that happens. Then this is when the conversation should have ended before opening his mouth again (happens a lot with men, don’t you think?). He said in all seriousness “Could have been worse, I could have spilled it on me”. She then gave him “the look”. Who is this man? That’s not my sweet husband. I think the stress had gotten the best of him. Understandable.
So I am back on bed rest for the remainder of this week and then I am to take things very easy for the next few weeks. Karlis is missing a few games to stay with me and help me maneuver around the house. Good thing Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here soon. That will be lots of time for me to rest. I am also hoping I will enjoy food by then. Currently I am living off of Cheerios, Sonic slushes and Super Bubble bubble gum. Yum!

Good news, lots of upcoming dates and I am exhausted

The appointment this morning went great. My RE doctor did my ultrasound and he said everything looked “perfect”….yay! Perfect is a great thing to hear when it comes to your little tiny baby. Its heart was beating 179 beats per minute, looks like we are back to a little girl! When the doctor was trying to measure this everyone (me and him) have to be really still. I have never heard of this before and I guess he was just trying to be really accurate so he told me to stop breathing. Yes, stop breathing. I thought maybe this was some kind of joke but he asked twice. The first time he said stop breathing for just a second. He must not have a good sense of time because it was more like 10 seconds. Then he asked again. It was strange but you do whatever you have to I guess. If he had told me to stand on my head I would have done it. You start to trust these people with your life, maybe because they gave us life.
I get to stop all my medication on December 19th and will have my last appointment with my RE doctor on December 22nd. We finally have a due date, it is June 17th. I am measuring right at 8 weeks. Based on things I have read the baby is now the size of a raspberry. Wow, how can something as small as a raspberry make you feel so tired and sick. It is truly amazing.
Since Karlis has been home today we have been running around 100 mph. Since he is home once every week or two we have to fit tons of things in when he is here. We have done more cleaning, grocery shopping, yard work, laundry, etc. than I thought imaginable in one day. As I lay here writing this, he is still going strong sweeping all the floors, washing clothes and making me this awesome Latvian dessert with boiled strawberries, cool whip and almond slivers. What a good husband. I on the other hand am done for the night. The bed is calling my name. I didn’t sleep well at all last night. I finally fell asleep around 11:00 and then woke up after being asleep for about thirty minutes. I was anxious for Karlis to be home. It always makes me nervous when he travels that late at night. When I woke up last night I HAD to have blueberry muffins. So that’s what I did, I started cooking muffins at midnight. Well that was a first. The bad thing was I had been addicted to the cheap 99 cent frozen pizza the week before, the same pizza I can no longer stand. Some of the cheese had fallen to the bottom of the oven so my muffins smelt like pizza burning. It totally ruined my appetite. So Karlis had a good surprise when he finally got home at 1:00, hot freshly baked muffins. He thought I had lost it. Oh yeah, that is another thing we did today, clean the oven.
So things are well. We can rest easy and enjoy being pregnant for another couple of weeks. I will still see my doctor for blood work and ultrasounds every other week until he releases me on December 22nd. That will be a day of excitement because we made it but I will hate to leave all the staff we have come to know there. The one-on-one care is awesome.
Thank you all for your kinds words, thought and prayers. We could not have done this without you!

Let the worrying begin

For some reason the day before an ultrasound is my most nerve-racking. I can do ok from day to day and then when it is time to check on everything I get nervous all over again. I most hate worrying because what is going to happen is going to happen. It is out of anyone’s control. I have to remind myself of that daily. But anyway I almost feel like we did before we took the pregnancy test a couple of months ago. I would rather just not know and assume everything is moving along nicely. I guess it is all normal.

I still don’t feel great and even though it can be somewhat miserable I am thankful that at least I feel something. It gives me hope that things are still ok. I still am struggling with food. I have more food aversions than I knew possible. That has been really hard for me because I generally love food and can always find something to enjoy. I can’t even stand to see food commercials. I have to hide under the covers like it is some scary movie when one comes on TV; I look like a nut! I understand this should get better and I look forward to the day. I still enjoy sleeping as often as I can. Indigestion is something that has been occurring more often but has not been too bad. I am still hiccupping on a daily basis. I am beginning to wonder if that is something I will do daily for the next 7 months! Wow I can’t believe we might only have 7 months left.

So the ultrasound tomorrow should show the baby measuring around 8 weeks. I don’t think we will hear the heartbeat yet but that’s ok as long as we can see it on the ultrasound monitor. Karlis has a hockey game tonight but will come here afterward so he will be here to go with me in the morning. I don’t think he would miss an ultrasound for anything; he will be a great dad. We still don’t talk about the baby much because we are still nervous something could go wrong. Karlis has suggested we don’t get too carried away with baby things until after the first “trisemester” is over. I don’t know if he has school work on his brain or he is just confused with the pronunciation of trimester. Either way I have started saying this too and our doctor will probably think we are two hillbillies when we let this slip when talking to them. Oh well, I am sure they have heard worse.

Guess that is it for now. I will update tomorrow with the results of our appointment.

Breaking the news to our Fur Babies, among other things

So we love our fur babies and treat them better than probably some children are treated in the world. Sad but true. We have been a little concerned with telling them that there will be a new addition to our family. In their presence we have sort of spoken around the issue and haven’t really let them in on the secret yet. Imagine my surprise when I realized that Zamboni did know. I know this because whenever the dogs and I travel to see Karlis, Zamboni ALWAYS rides on my lap. I drive this massive diesel Ford Excursion when I travel so actually it is more on the arm rest and not on me. Well Karlis warned me that that must stop since my stomach is now carrying not only our future child but something that caused us much sweat, tears and money to produce. So when we went down on our trip to see Karlis for the weekend I was shocked when Zamboni didn’t even make a move for my stomach. He has to know, there is no other explanation. What a good little dog! I think we will still wait to break the news to the other two. There might be a problem with each of them. Biscuit is a t-tiny bit possessive of her mom. OK, I have family that reads this and they are gasping at this statement. I must fess up she is really really possessive of her mom. I don’t know how well she is going to take to sharing HER lap with someone else. She usually loves children but they kind of make her nervous so we will probably have to do a little extra work with her. Lastly, on to Slim. He has a completely different issue. He likes to, well um, I am stalling here. Ok I will just say it…he likes to hump small children. We have no idea where he got this undesirable act. I swear we don’t. He just gets so excited that he starts shaking and then he makes a move. We will really have to do some extra work with him.

So a week has gone by since our last ultrasound. I feel like every normal sick as you know what pregnant women. I feel like pooh 87.6% of the time (and yes that is exact, I did a study on it). If my stomach is not COMPLETELY full I don’t feel good, almost flu-like. I can sleep for about 12 hours with no problem. Then I can lie in the bed the entire day and not think a thing about it. On an interesting side note I have had the hiccups at least once every day since the day I found out I was pregnant; very strange. I still don’t like anything to touch my stomach and that really makes wearing a seat belt hard. I am one of those people that have to pull it out and hold it a little loosely at my shoulder to keep the pressure off my stomach. I know not the safest of things but I am hoping that will get better as soon as my belly is so ginormous that it goes over the belt; which shouldn’t be too long from now. I have many friends that still think I have more than one in there. Guess we will see at the next ultrasound on Tuesday of next week. We are still cautiously excited but I look forward to seeing the heartbeat again. It was amazing.

Lastly the sex of the baby has been a really hot topic. There is a little story behind this that comes all the way from Latvia. When people get sick there they have so many rituals, superstitions, etc. that we don’t have here. My mother-in-law, Gaida got sick a few years ago and visited a wizard (I assume this is what we call a psychic but Karlis insists it is a wizard). Anyway after she got the answers she wanted regarding her sickness she asked about us and if we would have children. The lady said yes and was about to say 2 but then changed it to 1 and said it would be a girl with curly hair. Ok I generally don’t believe in that stuff but the curly hair statement was a little ironic. Now I wonder if her first instinct of 2 was possibly the twin we maybe lost with this pregnancy. If we go by the heartbeat rate we heard the other day it is definitely a boy. Karlis and I have felt strongly from the beginning that it would be a girl. We have some family and friends that feel strongly that it is a boy and others that are convinced it is a girl. A little IVF fact is that more girls are overall produced from IVF but more boys are produced from a 5 day transfer, which we did. Either way it will be exciting to see.