The ups and downs of the 3rd trimester

The third trimester was not nearly as “bad” as I had imagined it would be. There was no magical switch that went on at 27 weeks that made me tired and miserable. The one thing that did notice around that time was the beginning of daily heartburn, which as I mentioned yesterday, was eventually solved by Ranitidine. My only complaints so far have been the SPD, which has only been bad for the past couple of weeks, and the fact that my little girl is pretty fond of wedging her big ole head in my right ribs. Oh, and over the course of the last week or so, I’ve had some pretty painful contractions that wake me up at night…those I could live without as well. But for the most part, the third trimester has been nearly as enjoyable as the second. Yes, I get tired easier and it’s hard to pick up things that I drop on the ground, but I would trade those things any day to feel all of the movements my little girls is making inside of me. As her space to wiggle around freely dwindles, the movements I feel are so much more magnified. It’s absolutely amazing to feel and see her cram her head as far out my right side as she can.

I have had an absolute ball putting our daughter’s room together. My mother-in-law made us an absolutely amazing Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt before she even knew that we were pregnant, and after much effort, I was able to convince my husband that the quilt should be the inspiration for her room. It’s not babyish and is definitely something she can grow into and use for a while. More importantly, while the Very Hungry Caterpillar is a branded image, it is not an “in your face” kind of brand like the Disney Princesses theme that he wanted to go with. If our daughter grows up and decides that she loves the Disney Princesses more than anything in the world, I’ll deal with it then. I just don’t feel like we need to be forcing the Disney brand down her throat from the moment she is born. Plus I’m not a huge fan of pink, and if my husband had his way, her nursery would be pink with big Disney wall decals all over the room. No thank you. Winning the nursery theme “battle” was a huge victory for me, and I could not be happier with how it turned out thanks to a good chunk of hard work by my parents (painting, sewing and hanging). I think my husband is quite pleased with it too, as well he should be…the reason my mother-in-law picked The Very Hungry Caterpillar for the quilt is because it was my husband’s favorite book when he was a kid.

I also had a fantastic time at my baby shower. The girls who threw it for me definitely went above and beyond and I was blown away by all that they did. They knew that the nursery was going to have The Very Hungry Caterpillar theme, so they took the theme and ran with it. The invites were official Eric Carle Very Hungry Caterpillar invites, with the caterpillar positioned prominently on the front. The hostess’ house was decorated with flowers, caterpillars and butterflies everywhere. There was a platter of food with holes carved out of each piece to resemble the food in the book as he ate through each item. There were cupcakes frosted and strategically placed to look just like the caterpillar in the book. There were games and prizes galore. And the gifts, oh the gifts. Everyone was so generous, it was such a fantastic feeling to know this baby is so highly anticipated and will be welcomed by all who were in attendance. It was an absolutely wonderful day and I could not have asked for more.

On the flip side, there have been a few disappointments to deal with too. The biggest disappointment, of course comes from her positioning. At 32 weeks we went in for our “big ultrasound” and were disappointed to find that we wouldn’t get the 3D sneak peek at her that we were expecting since she was facing my back. This was only a small disappointment because as cool as it would be to have a preview of what she looks like, the thought of seeing her for the very first time when she’s born is just awesome. The anticipation of wondering what she’ll look like is one of the few surprises that we have left since we already know that she is a girl.

Of course the bigger problem was discovering that she was breech, which really didn’t alarm me at first. I figured that at 32 weeks, she would have plenty of time to turn. Even at 34 weeks when we tried to do the 3D again and she was found to be transverse, it didn’t really click with me that it could be a problem down the road. It wasn’t until the doctors started talking about doing the version and scheduling a c-section that it hit me that this was, in fact, a very serious issue if I had any hopes of a vaginal delivery. The enormous disappointment of the failed ECV and subsequent scheduling of her birth hit me harder than I ever thought that it would. The past two and a half weeks have allowed me to come to some sort of terms with the entire situation though, and I am so glad that we pushed back on scheduling her birth at 40 weeks instead of 39. Nothing about her birth will be as I envisioned it, but that makes it no less special or miraculous.

I am also slightly disappointed that her positioning has meant that I haven’t been able to experience a lot of the movements that I so looked forward to feeling and seeing. I love watching my right side expand and contract as she pushes her head in and out of my belly, but I do feel pangs of loss for the movements that I will never see or feel because of how she’s been situated. The consistent pattern of her movements and kicks leads me to believe that she has always been in some variation of transverse or breech positioning, and I’m 99% certain that she’s had her back towards my front the entire time. She’s also been frank breech (in the pike position with her feet by her head) every time we’ve seen her, so I’d assume that she’s been like that nearly the entire time as well. Those things mean that I’ve never been kicked in the ribs, or punched in the stomach. I’ve never felt her hiccups on my cervix as I would have if she had been head down. I’ve never really felt much movement at all on my left side since the only thing that’s over there is her butt. I’ve never seen a hand or foot pressing out of my stomach, nor has my entire belly danced with a back flip or complete change of position.

Even though I mourn the belly movements I will likely never see and the vaginal birth I will likely never have, I know that I am so incredibly blessed to be where I am. Today I am 39 ½ weeks pregnant, a place that I never thought I would be. I never expected to see the white flicker of a heartbeat inside of my own body. I never dreamed that I would ever be lucky enough to endure the constant fears of the first trimester. I never allowed myself to believe that one day I would feel those kicks and hiccups and head mashing. I didn’t think it would be possible that I could be so close to giving birth to our daughter.

The last 3 months have been quite a ride, one I wouldn’t miss out on for anything in the world. We are just one short day away from meeting our daughter and we couldn’t be more excited.

I’m pregnant…meet my new friends

I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to some new friends I’ve made during the past 8 1/2 months. Maybe you can become friends with them too, they sure were good to me!

Craigslist is my friend. I’ve found so many great things on Craigslist, let’s start with maternity clothes. I am so incredibly frugal, it was hard for me even consider paying the exorbitant prices that stores wanted for clothes that would be worn for less than six months. I turned to Craigslist and found loads and loads of great clothes for just a fraction of what I would have paid at full price, some things for only a dollar or two a piece. Buying the majority of my clothes on Craigslist at huge discounts (and of great quality, I might add), made me feel better about buying just a few things at retail sale prices when I needed to or wanted to. I have bought very few items new and don’t feel like I missed out on anything by doing so. Plus, it helped us to save some money that can go towards the IVF bills that we’re still paying off. But Craigslist isn’t only good for maternity clothes. I bought a couple of cloth diapers off of Craigslist, one of them used only a couple of times, and one of them brand new, for less than half of retail prices. Even the co-sleeper that my parents bought us came from Craiglist (at my insistence) at a steep, steep savings. There are so many great things to be had on Craigslist, I feel somewhat guilty when we buy or are given things that are brand new. In fact, Craigslist made registering for baby items really, really difficult for me. It was hard to scan a brand new Bumbo and play tray for nearly $50 when I knew I could pick one up a used one in great condition on Craigslist for $25. It was hard for me to open the $70 swing my sister bought us knowing that I could likely find one for $30 or less on Craigslist. So many of the “necessities” are just not used for very long and it seems like such a waste to invest in for the short period of time that they will actually be used, if used at all. I will definitely be turning to Craigslist again when it comes time to buy the bigger baby things, like exersaucers and high chairs. Craigslist is my friend.

Ranitidine is my friend. For a long time I dealt with the heartburn reactively, popping Tums when I needed them. Then a girl in my birthing class told me how great the over the counter acid reducers worked for her. My husband had been pushing me to try them for a while (he takes acid reducing medicine on a daily basis), so with the two of them giving such glowing recommendations, and with my OB’s approval, I took the plunge. Oh how I love you, Ranitidine. This stuff completely eliminated all of my discomfort and any need for Tums completely. About a week and a half ago, I ran out. I decided to make sure that it was safe for breastfeeding before buying more and discovered that it wasn’t as safe as other medications like generic Tagamet. So sadly I said my farewells to Ranitidine and picked up a package of Tagamet instead. Oh Ranitidine, how I miss you. The Tagamet is far better than nothing at all, but definitely does not hold a candle to my beloved Ranitidine. If you are struggling to keep your heartburn under control, I cannot recommend Ranitidine enough. Ranitidine is my friend.

The swimming pool is my friend. Way back when my friend Jill miraculously got pregnant on her own after two IVF pregnancies that ended in miscarriage, she started going to a prenatal exercise class. It was both land and water based, but she really appreciated the water part of the class the most and talked often about how great she thought it was. Of course I fully intended on taking said class once I finally got knocked up, but like most things I fully intended on doing once I finally got knocked up, it just didn’t happen. It wasn’t until 22 weeks that I got in the pool for the first time and that was just a quick swim during an overnight hotel stay. It was heavenly though, and definitely served as a reminder that I wanted to sign up for the prenatal exercise class. Of course I completely forgot about it and didn’t go swimming again until we visited my in-laws in Florida at 29 weeks. I remember thinking to myself how I MUST sign up for the class when I got back into town, which of course I never did. I was 36 weeks when my chiropractor asked if I’d been swimming to help turn the baby that I finally got back in the pool again. The pool is divine. The pool takes away all of the extra weight and the result is heavenly. To just be able to float without all of the pressure and compression felt on land is a feeling unlike anything else. The pool let me once again move my body without feeling as though all of my muscles were completely atrophied. I felt like a regular woman again, despite the enormous belly I was sporting. A leisurely float in the pool, enjoying the water sliding across my body…the pool is definitely my friend.

SPD makes me waddle

Yup, I’ve consulted Dr. Google and diagnosed myself as having SPD. I’d never even heard of SPD before Existere was afflicted with a particularly horrifying case of it, so I’ll assume that unless you’ve suffered from it yourself, you probably don’t know what it is either. Simply put, SPD is pain in the pubic area, attributed to both high levels of the hormone relaxin and also misalignment of the pelvic structure. I remember reading her blog and hoping that I would never have to endure any kind of hell similar to that. Well, in no way does my seemingly minor case of SPD even begin to compare, but it is pretty darn painful nonetheless. In my case, only my left side seems to have the problem, which I guess makes sense since my baby girl is lying so awkwardly in my belly. Her butt is typically down near my left hip, so I suppose it puts some extra strain in that area.

I first started noticing the pain around 34 weeks. It was nothing serious, just some pain that seemed to creep up particularly at bedtime and while trying to put my pants on. Gradually I noticed it at other times of the day as well, like taking off my shoes or getting in and out of the car. Currently, it is absolutely at its worst when I want to roll over in bed from one side to the other. The pain is excruciating and I feel like my left leg may literally just snap right off of my body. It’s progressed to the point now where walking is taking a toll on me as well.

I’ve finally adopted the pregnant lady waddle. Not because there is a little baby sitting low in my pelvis, for I assure you that is not the case. I have no pressure of a little head wedging itself lower and lower, no sensation of a bowling ball in my crotch. No, instead I just have an intense pain on the left side of my groin, which seems to be eased only by adopting a slight waddle when I walk.

My chiropractor is doing what she can to help the situation, but it really doesn’t seem to be improving any. Perhaps maintaining the status quo should be the goal, rather than reducing the current level of pain. That seems a much more achievable goal at this point.

Part of me thinks that had I simply taken the advised section at 39 weeks, I’d have only 2 more days of pain to endure (until a whole new pain takes over, that is). Then I remember what a blessing this little girl is and how I would do anything for her. This pain is temporary and it’s for the best that she stays inside of me and grows nice and big for as long as she can. Having said that, the official countdown is on…only 9 more full days until we meet our little girl!

Our daughter has a new birth date

Thank you, lovely ladies, for all of your kind words and suggestions on our current situation. I continue to do everything thing that I can to encourage our little one to move, though it doesn’t seem to be doing a whole lot. She does seem to have a bigger range of motion now than she did before, so I suppose it’s possible that she could still turn, but I can tell that she is getting even more cramped in there than before. Even so, I continue on with the chiropractic, acupuncture, reiki, swimming, crawling, inversions, etc, while at the same time bringing myself to terms with the fact that she will likely be born via c-section.

And speaking of c-sections, at my appointment last week, we discussed with one of the doctors exactly why they schedule breech sections for 39 weeks. He gave me some pretty weak answers, answers that definitely did not convince me of any medical need for her to be born early. I tried to push for a later date, but he wasn’t really interested in talking about it with me. He suggested that I go ahead and schedule my pre-op with the doctor who would be delivering her (if we went with the scheduled Feb 11th section), and we could talk it out with her.

So that’s what we did yesterday. We met with her and I asked her what the harm in waiting to go into labor naturally would be. She provided the same list of reasons as the previous doctor, again, reasons that I don’t feel carry a whole lot of weight. So I (tearfully) explained to her that this is likely going to be the only baby that I carry and have an opportunity to birth myself and I wanted to experience as much of a vaginal birthing process as I could. She flat out asked me why, as if I was a crazy woman for wanting to experience labor and contractions. I explained that for all we’d been through to get to this point, I wanted as much of the whole package as possible. I may seem like a lunatic for wanting to experience the pain of labor, but it’s still something that I looked forward to long before we even tried to get pregnant. And I know that she will probably never understand my position, but that’s how I feel and I’m entitled to my opinion.

My waterworks did little to change her mind. So I asked her that what happens if we agree to disagree on this point? Her response was that we should probably talk about transfer of care. My jaw dropped in disbelief. I questioned her, asking that just because I didn’t want to be sectioned at 39 weeks they were going to drop me just like that? She said “well, I don’t know of any OB’s in the area that will even let you attempt a vaginal breech birth.”

Whoa. Hold up. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in a vaginal breech birth. None. I know it can be done perfectly safely, and is done routinely in countries all over the world with better success rates than one would ever imagine, but that’s just not something that I personally am interested in. Not at all. And I told her as much. I told her that all I want to do is be able to experience a tiny bit of labor.

She questioned me as to where we would draw the line as to how much labor was enough? She didn’t want me showing up at the hospital at 8cm dilated and have me “crash and need an emergency c-section.” I told her that I’m not at all interested in laboring with this baby for any sustained period of time, I just want to experience a little bit of it. In my mind, I was thinking that we’d wait until I knew that I was in labor, and then head to the hospital. I have absolutely no intentions of trying “cheat the system” by showing up dilated with a breech baby. I just want a taste.

So we compromised. She agreed to schedule the section for 40 weeks and I agreed that I would not eat or drink anything if I were to spontaneously go into labor before that point. I am to call them after contractions are established at 5/1/1 and then we would go in for the section. I will also be checked at each appointment to make sure that I’m not dilating to an unreasonable level, which would put me at an increased risk for a cord prolapsed. Neither the baby’s head nor butt is anywhere near my pelvis, so my cervix is still long and closed and I don’t really see that changing at all since she seems pretty comfortable right where she is.

To be honest, I really don’t have much faith that I will go into labor on my own prior to 40 weeks, so the scheduled section seems to be the most likely scenario. I just wasn’t comfortable with the idea of my daughter being born early with very little medical indication for her to be so. Obviously we are quite certain of the date that she was conceived, so we know that even if she were born at 39 weeks she should be in good health, but a huge part of me still wants to give her as much time to choose her own birth date as possible. Even one more week was a major victory for me. Plus, I’m just not ready to be done being pregnant yet.

So that’s where we’re at. Our daughter will be born no later than February 18th, her exact due date. We are so excited to meet her!

My daughter has a birth date

It is with a very disappointed heart that I can announce our daughter will be born on February 11th, 2010.

Despite all of my efforts to encourage her to turn, she is having none of it. The four times a week chiro appointments, the weekly acupuncture, the swimming, the moxabustion, the crawling around on the floor…none of it worked.

Even so, I felt confident that all of those things would have at least had made it easier for her to turn today with the assistance of a doctor during an external version. As it turns out, she did not budge an inch.

The version was not comfortable. In fact, it was a lot more uncomfortable than I ever imagined it would be. I knew going into it that it wouldn’t be comfortable, but I really felt that she was ready to turn and might do so with minimal pressure and discomfort. I was wrong.

I was hesitant to even have the version done in the first place. The success rates weren’t that impressive and I knew that with the way she way situated (frank breech, with her feet up by her ears) the chances of success were even lower than with a complete breech. The low success rates are why I tried all of the alternative options first, hoping that she would turn prior to this morning’s version. I weighed the pros and cons of the version and decided that if I didn’t try everything that I could to have a vaginal birth that I would definitely regret it in the long run, so we went ahead with the version.

Having been through it, I can say that no part of me regrets doing it. I know that our daughter was safe since they were monitoring her the whole time and she didn’t even seem to notice what was going on. For me the physical discomfort was entirely temporary. The long lasting pain comes from knowing that I will not have the birth that I had always envisioned.

It seems ridiculous to say, but I’ve had a vision of what I wanted my birth experience to be like since long before we started trying to get pregnant. I can assure you that it absolutely did not include a c-section. Of course there was always the chance that a c-section might be necessary in the long run, but I always envisioned my husband and I hunkered down at our house in the early hours of labor timing contractions. I imagined us driving to the hospital while I tried to cope with the pain of the contractions. I imagined laboring and giving birth in one of our hospital’s fantastic birthing suites. I never once imagined a scheduled c-section.

I am completely heartbroken that I will never get to experience these things that I was so looking forward to. After the initial discomfort of the pressure on my belly, I could feel the tears begin to fall down the side of my cheeks and into my ears. A small part of it was due to the pain of the procedure, but mostly it was because I could tell that she just wasn’t going to move. The tears continued to fall long after the doctor stopped trying to turn her. He kept asking if I was OK and I kept mumbling yes, which I don’t think he believed until I told him that I actually felt fine physically, I was just extremely disappointed.

My OB’s office likes to schedule breech births at 39 weeks, so that was the recommendation after it was apparent that the version was not successful. As much as I do not want to have a scheduled c-section, I didn’t have the emotional energy to fight the recommendation. We went ahead and scheduled it, and that was that. The nurse was very sweet telling me that they will definitely do an u/s before the c-section to make sure that she is still breech, and reminded me that some babies do turn prior to the c-section.

I don’t really believe that our daughter will turn, nor do I think I will spontaneously go into labor before 39 weeks and I feel like I’ve been robbed of something that I really looked forward to experiencing. I am not at all excited about having surgery in order to give birth to our baby. I am not looking forward to recovering from a c-section during a time that I want to be able to be there 100% for our daughter. I want to be able to hold and cuddle our daughter after she is born. I want to be able to pick her up when I want to and not have to ask someone to get her and hand her to me. I want to be able to drive soon after giving birth. I want my baby (and me) to benefit from the hormones released during the birthing process. I don’t want to spend weeks receovering from major abdominal surgery. I want to have the birth experience that I always expected to have.

I feel awful complaining about this as I feel I’ve already been exponentially blessed by even being able to experience pregnancy in the first place. For a long time I honestly thought that I would never find myself in this position. I feel greedy asking for and desiring a normal vaginal birth, but it’s what I want.

In the end, I know that I’ve got to keep my eyes on the prize, and that’s a healthy daughter at the end of all of this. She is the greatest reward and though I am definitely disappointed today, I have no doubt that her arrival will completely erase any of the sadness that I feel today.

Life at 36 weeks

My absolute least favorite time of the day is bed time. I feel rather fortunate that up until recently, sleeping was not a big deal for me. Having said that, sleep is now something that I feel like I have to put effort into. I don’t have much trouble falling asleep, but staying asleep is not something that I excel at anymore. Sleeping on my back has sadly become not a comfortable option anymore, which leaves me with only my two sides, which isn’t horrible since I tend to sleep on my sides anyway. However, the pull on my back from the enormous weight of my belly limits that amount of time that I can tolerate each side. So I wake up frequently and need to roll over to the other side. This wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have a nagging pain on the left side of my crotch that makes turning over somewhat painful. Then there are the times that I wake up to painful contractions. I have contractions all day long, but they are just painless tightening of my belly, but for some reason the ones I get in the middle of the night are actually kind of painful. Maybe it’s just the contraction combined with the strain of supporting my belly, but it’s not comfortable. I will count myself as fortunate for not having to get up multiple times a night to go pee, in fact, I rarely ever get out of bed to pee. I guess I should just be thankful for this small bit of good fortune.

As a counter to the discomfort of sleeping, my morning shower is by far and away the best time of my day. I have become increasingly late to work (which is not a big deal since we have flex time) due to my extra long showers. The hot water streaming over my achy body is the sweet relief that I look forward to every night as I crawl into bed.

According to random people who seem to think it’s appropriate to weigh in on my perceived size, I am simultaneously “small” and “huge” for how far along I am. Personally I tend to believe that I fall more into the huge category (especially since I’ve already gained 35 pounds), but I do love to hear from my acupuncturist and chiropractor that I look small. Either way, I’m not at all concerned with people’s opinions on this topic. I’m pretty sure that my body knows what it should be doing as far as weight gain goes, so I’ll just let it do what it wants to do.

The baby’s room was finally painted this week. My very generous mom offered, no insisted, that she be allowed to paint the room so that I wouldn’t have to inhale the paint fumes. I’ve come to learn that putting up a fight against my mom on issues such as this will bring no good. Now that the room is painted, I was finally able to assemble baby’s dresser today, which means that now I can load all of her little clothes and diapers into it. This is huge as I no longer have to have all of her clothes stacked on her co-sleeper, which means the co-sleeper can now be disassembled and moved out of her room (and I’m still not sure how it ended up in there in the first place). So all this means that we can finally start making her room HER ROOM and not just a storage place stacked full of all of her stuff. Yay for progress!

I have an ultrasound scheduled on Monday to check baby girl’s current position. As of this very moment, I can say with 99% certainty that she is still breech or transverse depending on how she feels at the moment. My chiropractor says that she’s making lots of progress loosening up the ligaments in my pelvis, hoping that will allow her the space she needs to turn. She also said that she’s never seen anyone with ligaments as tight as mine. The moxibustion treatments are going, well, I guess I don’t know how they’re going. She moves around a whole lot when I am doing them, so I know that it’s having some effect, but she hasn’t turned head down just yet. I just hope that all of these crazy things that I’m doing all add up to a head down baby sooner than later. My OB stated that if she’s still head up on Monday, that they’d like to schedule an external cephalic version around 37 weeks. I’m not even remotely sold on this option as it’s rather uncomfortable for me and I think it’s a lot trauma to put the baby through, not to mention the risk of complication like premature labor or placental abruption. I will keep the faith that she will turn on her own and I won’t even have to worry about making the decision.

Our baby girl has no name. We affectionately call her Tina (as in “Tina, come eat your ham!” from Napoleon Dynamite), but that’s just her temporary nickname. As of two nights ago, we had a list of 22 names that were under consideration. I kept on my husband until he was willing to sit down and review the list with me at which point we were able to cut the list in half and are now down to a respectable 11 names. Sigh. I really think that she won’t have a name until she is born. I am confident that we could cut the list in half again before she’s born, but I think we’ll end up at the hospital with a baby girl in our arms and a iphone list of 5 or 6 names to pick from. Hopefully she will help us out by definitely “fitting” into one of the names that we’ve got left.

My baby shower with my friends is next Sunday. While I’m excited to finally get to have a baby shower, I’m also kind of nervous as I don’t really enjoy being the center of attention anymore like I used to just a few short years ago. I’m also worried about how I will handle things emotionally. Only 3 people at the shower know of our struggles to get pregnant and everything that we went through to get to this point, so I’m hoping that I don’t turn into a blubbering mess when it all hits me. I suppose if I did, I could blame it all on the hormones, right?

Speaking of hormones, I don’t seem to have any of them. Or any of them that effect me emotionally, at least. The couple of times that I have cried while pregnant were 100% justified, and not at all induced by some sappy commercial on the TV. I don’t feel like I’ve had a shorter fuse than normal and I don’t really feel like things affect me any more than they ever did. Maybe it’s the acupuncture that evens everything out for me, or maybe I’m just lucky? I should rephrase that and say that maybe my husband’s just lucky. :o)

That’s life at 36 weeks for me. I’m still in awe that in less than 6 weeks, we will be holding our long sought after baby. We are so fortunate.

Project Flip Baby

There seems to be no doubt that this baby is in fact part me and part my husband. I say this because so far she has been incredibly stubborn. The OB confirmed my suspicions that little baby girl remains in a non-head down position. This has me rather frustrated at this point. Somehow I didn’t realize that after a certain time frame, most babies are in fact head down. I just thought that they turned when they turned and that was that. Apparently 34 weeks is really the point where they’d like to see babies head down. I’m now 35 and a half weeks. And she’s head in my right side.

As I mentioned in my last post, a c-section just isn’t what I had in mind for my first, and likely only, birth experience. So I’ve begun Project Flip Baby. The project is somewhat time consuming and, quite honestly, rather expensive.

Step 1: Get chiropractic treatment using the Webster Technique. Of course none of the chiropractors that are covered by my insurance practice the Webster Technique. So I will get chiropractic treatment 2-3 times a week, hoping to realign my pelvis and provide her with a uterus that is welcoming to a head down position.

Step 2: Increase acupuncture treatments to once a week. Sigh. I so thought I was done with weekly treatments. My savings account was finally starting to grow again after months and months of weekly treatments to the tune of $280 a month, plus whatever herbs, vitamins or crazy new “miracle” item my acupuncturist could think of to add to my tab.

Step 3: Start a daily regimen of moxabustion treatment – 20 minutes of holding a smoking stick of dried herbs over each pinky toe.

In studies, the moxabustion was shown to increase the spontaneous correction rate in breech babies from 73% for those who did nothing, up to 92%. I will definitely take that extra 19% chance of having her turn.

The Webster Technique was shown to result in an 82% success rate in turning malpositioned babies.

I have no idea what the success rate of acupuncture on its own is, but I’m really hoping that my three pronged approach to getting this little girl to flip works out for us.

If not, then the only other option prior to a scheduled c-section (assuming she doesn’t flip on her own later), is an external version, which I am definitely not comfortable with yet.

So far I’ve felt lots of movements following my first Webster and moxa treatments, but she’s most definitely still head to the right.

Flip girl, flip!

My dirty little secrets

There are times when I feel like I’m hiding a whole slew of dirty little secrets. Like what kind of birth I want to have, how I plan to feed my baby, and what kind of diapers she’ll wear.

I live in what many consider to be a pretty progressive city. Even so, I frequently feel as though I need to hide my plans, thoughts and ideas for fear of judgement.

For example, I’d really like to have a med free birth. It’s not something that I’m going to be absolutely devastated if I don’t get, but it’s still something that I’m striving for. Living where I do, I don’t really think that this is an uncommon sentiment, but there are always people who think that the desire to birth med free is absolute lunacy.

Take, for example, my boss. I’ve mentioned her before, she’s technically due about a week and a half after me, but is scheduled to have her baby on February 22nd. She ended up having her first son via c-section which was scheduled immediately after they discovered that the baby was breech and he was delivered two weeks prior to his due date, as planned. Her second son arrived by scheduled c-section two weeks prior to his due date as well, since she had no intention of attempting a VBAC. Her third son will arrive one week prior to his due date, which makes her incredibly nervous that she may actually go into labor on her own before the surgery is scheduled. Yes, that’s right. She’s afraid she will go into labor beforehand. She has never felt a real contraction before, and she doesn’t ever want to.

When I was talking to her about how my little girl was breech, she said “well, that may work out to your benefit and you can have a c-section and not have to go through labor and birth the regular way!” She also made the comment that she thought that recovery from birth is so much easier when you’ve had a c-section versus a vaginal birth (not that she would know, having only experienced birth one of the two ways).

But she’s an extreme example. There are plenty of other women I know who are more than willing to sing the praises of modern medicine and how crazy anyone would have to be to even attempt a med free birth. Let me set the record straight: I’m no martyr and it’s not about feeling like I’ve earned a gold star for going through some horrific pain without taking meds. I’ve never birthed a baby before, and I obviously have no idea what it is like. I do know that sitting here right now, not feeling any contractions or discomfort, that I would like to try to give birth without drugs. If it comes down to it and I can’t hack it, then I’m not afraid to accept meds. It won’t ruin my birth experience. I won’t forever be disappointed that I didn’t get a med free birth. What’s most important to me is that I bring our daughter into the world healthy. How she gets here is much less important to me than her health.

I would also really love to breastfeed my daughter. Again, living in the city where I do, this is not uncommon. However, in my support group, which has seen four babies born since its inception, all intended to exclusively breastfeed, yet most had given up on it within four months. And please understand that I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I know they all really wanted to breastfeed and I know that none of them took the decision to stop breastfeeding lightly; it was a difficult decision for all of them.
The problem I have now is that they seem to almost shun breastfeeding. They too easily write off the benefits of breastfeeding and too quickly say that formula feeding is the way to go. They seem to put on an air of “been there, tried that, didn’t work, so you shouldn’t bother with it either.” And I don’t want this to come off as them not being supportive of my decision to try breastfeeding; I know that they support it up front. I just feel that if I were to go to any of them with a problem, they would just suggest giving up and moving on to formula feeding.

And I know that this may very well happen. I don’t know a single woman who had a perfect experience with breastfeeding. I know so many women who went through everything that they and their lactation experts could think of to try to keep breastfeeding. And it’s one of those things that women really beat themselves up about, feeling that they should keep breastfeeding because it’s what’s best for their child. There are so many potential reasons that women are unable or unwilling to continue breastfeeding and I’m trying to prepare myself for that, should it happen to me. Just like a med free birth, it’s something that I want to try, but if it doesn’t work out for me, I won’t let the fact that it wasn’t what I originally wanted to taint my experience.

Then there’s the whole subject of diapering and this one seems to be the most controversial of all. I’m really looking forward to trying cloth diapering. I’m definitely interested in the cost savings aspect of cloth diapering, and putting nice fluffy fabrics on my daughter’s bum definitely appeals more to me than chemical laden paper and plastic. Of course the benefits to the environment are nice as well. It seems like a win-win situation.

But so very many people do not see things the way I do. In fact, a lot of people that I would expect to be all for cloth diapering just turn up their noses and comment that they would never, ever consider it. It’s too messy/gross/time consuming; just a hassle in general. And they may be right. Who am I to say…I’ve never tried it. But then again, neither have most of them. I’ve got a fine stash built up, hoping that it will work out for us, but if I doesn’t, then I’m not going to be crushed.

Like I said, I live in a really progressive city where a lot of these desires of mine are considered commonplace. Even so, they’re not things that I share with most people, not even my closest friends in most cases. It just seems like everyone’s got their own opinions and if yours doesn’t match theirs, then you are constantly defending yourself. I don’t want to feel the need to be constantly defending my choices and decisions. I especially don’t want to end up not doing any of these things and have someone come back and say “I told you so.” When people ask me if I have any plans for my birth I just reply to them “we’ll see how it goes.” And when they ask if I’ll breastfeed, I tell them that I’m definitely going to give it a shot. And diapering? Well no one asks about that…they just assume that you’ll use disposables, and I just keep my mouth shut.

And so I carry these hopes and desires silently inside me. These are my dirty little secrets.

Shhh…don’t tell anyone.

What a difference a year makes

It seems that at some point nearly every infertility-turned-pregnancy blog that I’ve ever read has a reflective post about how different things are this year versus last year at the same time. Generally speaking, I try to avoid blogging about subjects that have been written about by the vast majority of the infertility blogosphere because most bloggers are simply better writers than I am and can more eloquently put into words the emotions that are so common in this community. Having said that, this is one subject that I simply cannot pass up; not because I think I can write about it better than or even as well anyone else, but because I feel the need to put it all down for myself.

Two and a half weeks ago, our company had our annual holiday party and as much as I tried to, there was no avoiding the comparisons between this year and last. Last year I had just had my first retrieval for IVF the day before the party, and the day of the party I learned that we only had 3 embryos from the 19 eggs they had retrieved. I was still shocked and grieving from the terrible results of the fertilization report and was not really in any mood to party. On top of it all, I had to figure out how to do my very first intramuscular shot just prior to the party. I distinctly remember my husband anxiously pacing, not because of the looming progesterone shot, but because he was ready to go to the party and didn’t want to be late. Meanwhile I stood in the bathroom sweaty, nervous and absolutely terrified of shoving that huge needle into my backside. The resulting gushing blood, fantastic bruise and crazy sore leg muscle that got only worse as the night went on and had me hobbling around like a gimp at the end of the night let me know that I most definitely did not execute the injection properly. It would have been the perfect time to throw back a few drinks and really enjoy myself, but instead I was one of a select few sober people, hoping and wishing that in two short weeks it would all be worth it.

As the days passed I paid close attention to my body, desperately wishing that it would send some sign that one of our two little embryos was making itself comfortable inside of me. The sign never came and I knew in my heart that it didn’t work and the negative pregnancy test on Christmas Eve confirmed it. Despite the disappointment of not being pregnant, I was able to enjoy my holiday and was actually quite thankful for the distraction that all of the family gatherings provided. It wasn’t until all of the holiday festivities were over that I told my husband the bad news, and that’s when the gravity of the situation finally hit me. Seeing him so disappointed was much harder than seeing that negative test, more difficult than I could have imagined. Knowing I was not pregnant meant I could eat of all of the goodies that I had been avoiding and drink alcohol again, which I took full advantage of on New Year’s Eve. My husband and I drowned our sorrows in naughty food and lots of alcohol and had a fantastically fabulous party with all of our friends. The new year was certain to bring more happiness than 2008.

And I ended up being right; this year did bring more happiness to us than last year did. I took us half of the year to get what we wanted, and that first half of the year was extremely difficult on many levels, but we are finally right where we wanted to be.

This year, as I was preparing for our company’s holiday party, the part that nearly made us late was not determining where to thrust an enormous needle, it was trying to find a dress that sufficiently covered my rapidly expanding baby belly. This year I didn’t have wine, not because it could interfere with implantation, but because I’m actually pregnant and there is a little person growing inside of me. This year I danced because I wasn’t in pain from having a needle poked through my vaginal walls and into my ovaries and no sore leg from a botched attempt at an injection. This year I fielded a seemingly endless line of questions about how I was feeling and if I was excited and when I was due. This year my big belly and I were complemented more than once as being “too cute.” This year I marveled at the little girl squirming around inside of me as I watched my husband and friends enjoying themselves on the dance floor.

This year at Christmas there was no need to try to smile through the disappointment of a failed IVF cycle. This year I was able to give my husband a present from our daughter he was able to give me a gift for her. This year we received presents for our daughter at both Christmas and at a surprise baby shower at one of the family Christmas celebrations. This year various family members sat with me with their hands on my belly and felt our baby kicking, punching and wriggling about inside of me. This year nearly all of our farewells ended with “good luck with the baby and we can’t wait to meet her!” This year we daydreamed of next year, when we will celebrate our first Christmas with our little girl.

What a difference a year makes. I truly hope that the same holds true for the upcoming year, for all of us.

My belly brings me joy

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’ve only taken 2 belly pictures of myself this pregnancy. I can’t really pinpoint why we haven’t done it, and I’m beginning to feel like it’s going to be something that I really regret not doing, especially if this ends up being my only pregnancy. Obviously I see myself in the mirror several times a day, and I’m usually pretty surprised by how big I’m getting, but I guess I always felt like I was kind of on the smaller side of normal. People generally seem surprised when I tell them how far along I am, or when I’m due, saying that I look much smaller than they’d expect. In fact, just the other night at book club a woman asked me and another friend who is due about 7 weeks after me which one of us was due first, and without waiting for an answer said “I’m guessing you” and nodded in my friend’s direction. To be fair, she’s having her second baby, and she’s super tiny to begin with, so her belly is more noticeable on her smaller frame, but I would have never thought that I looked “less pregnant” than her.

So it came as a shock to me when my dad posted photos of our local family Christmas celebration on Facebook the other day and I saw just how big I actually am. I am really, truly, definitely, unmistakably pregnant. I know, I know. I sound like a broken record. But it’s really something that I still can’t wrap my mind completely around. It’s something that people around me just accept for what it is, but for me, it seems like I’m constantly having reality checks and no matter how many times I get the same result (yup, I’m still pregnant) I still can’t quite believe it. I always wanted to believe that I would be pregnant eventually, but I’m not sure that I ever actually truly felt it would happen for us. I did my best to convince myself that it would happen, you know, the power of positive thinking, but it just seemed like such a long shot. Something for other people to experience, not me.

And in some ways, I think my inability to functionally come to terms with the fact that this is reality has made the entire thing more meaningful for me. Every time I feel her kick or change positions, every time I glimpse myself in a reflective surface, every time I have a contraction I feel a sense of excitement like I did when I saw two pink lines on my pregnancy test. I am simultaneously reminded of and surprised by how lucky I am and for that I will be eternally grateful.

I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Miley Cyrus intended

I had to pick up some essentials the other day, so I headed over to my local Wal-Mart (yes, I shop at Wal-Mart for basic items, don’t hate me for it). On my way to the back of the store I passed by a display table of long sleeved shirts that were marked down to $5 each, which was not a super stellar deal since they were only $8 to begin with, but I’m a sucker for inexpensive clothes, so I stopped to take a look. I picked up one of the shirts, unfolded it and saw that it was a nice generous length, definitely long enough to fit over my rapidly expanding belly. My wardrobe is well stocked with short sleeved shirts that still fit, but I could use a few extra long sleeved ones since the temperatures are beginning to drop around here, so I hunted around until I found an extra large and threw it in my cart, happy with my $5 find.

It wasn’t until I went to put my new shirt on this morning that I realized that it is branded by Miley Cyrus. I’m pretty sure that Miley has absolutely no intentions of having her line of clothes worn by pregnant women. In fact, I’m willing to guess that it was the exact opposite of her plans. What would Miley, role model for countless young girls, think knowing that her shirts are actually perfect maternity shirts?

In other, more relevant news, we had our 32 week appointment yesterday. My clinic is different in that they don’t do an anatomy/anomaly scan at 20 weeks like most others do, instead opting to wait until 32 weeks and check everything then. So we went in to our appointment knowing that we would get to see a lot of our little girl yesterday. Our clinic also does has one of those fancy 4D ultrasound machines, so we were looking forward to getting a sneak peek at her little face.

The good news is that she looks absolutely perfect. Everything measured right on target, with a few things measuring a week or so ahead. The u/s tech estimates her at 4 pounds right now and puts her in the 56% percentile for size. She said the average birth weight is around 7.5 pounds, so she estimates that if I go to term, she will be right around that size too. Our baby girl is currently breech and folded in half, with her head and feet below my right ribs and her butt near my left hip. I guess now I know that the hard lump that sticks out of my right side occasionally is in fact her head, and not her butt/elbow/foot like I had thought it might be. We were very happy to see and hear that everything looks great.

We were disappointed, however, to find that she is facing my spine, which meant no pictures of her face. Because of her positioning the tech was unable to get a few measurements that she needed, so we’ll take another peek at my next appointment in two weeks to see if she’s moved and get the missing info if she has. I’m hoping that maybe she’ll have moved to a better position by then, but I won’t be too upset if we don’t get that sneak peek. It will make meeting her next year all the more interesting.

Can I Have Your Baby?

A few weeks ago a co-worker of mine came into the kitchen at work and after exchanging pleasantries, asked me if he could have my baby. I’d heard from my husband who worked in the same department as him that he had made a few comments about how he and his wife were trying to have a baby and how he had to go to “fertility doctor” (his words, not my husband’s) with her sometimes. This was the first person that I knew of (outside of my support group) who was struggling or had struggled with infertility and I wanted to help in any way that I could. Of course he didn’t know that my husband had told me about their troubles, so I couldn’t just bring it up out of the blue. I simply said “what?” He said that his wife wanted a baby and it would make her happy, so could he have ours? I didn’t really know how to ease my way into the whole subject of infertility, so I asked him if she wouldn’t rather have his baby instead?

Just as he was telling me that they’d been “having some troubles in that department” in walked another co-worker. While I was more than willing to discuss what we’d been through with this guy, I wasn’t necessarily interested in sharing it with the other random co-worker who had just joined us. I told him that I was sorry to hear that they were having issues and left it at that. He said that they were probably going to try to adopt a Jamaican baby soon and I wished him good luck with that.

I felt awful. Absolutely awful. I’m certain that he just assumes that getting pregnant was easy for us, as it is for most people. Murgdan over at Conceive This wrote about the “Infertility Closet” as a guest post on Fertility Authority a few weeks ago. For the most part, we are very nearly entirely in the infertility closet. Both of our parents know and my sister too, and a few select friends of mine. None of our “couple” friends know (or we haven’t told any of them, at least), and none of our co-workers either. And for the most part, I’m happy with our decision to keep our situation private. Not because I’m embarrassed or afraid to talk about it with people. Truth be told, I love talking about infertility, but with people who can relate on some level to what I’ve been through. When in the midst of all of the heartache that infertility brings, it’s hard to share your emotions with people who don’t know where you’re coming from, and difficult for them to understand and support you.

And even more important to me personally, is the added pressure of other people knowing what you’re going through. The seemingly endless questions of “how are things going,” “when is your next appointment,” “did your last cycle work?” I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle answering all of those questions over and over again and that was the main driver behind not telling people what we were dealing with. As it was, my mother in law was most interested in the details of our cycles and when things were happening. Fortunately my husband fielded all of those phone calls; I’m not sure how I would have handled it if she was asking me and not him. It just felt like a lot more pressure piled on to an already tense situation, not to mention the difficulty of having to tell everyone when things didn’t work out. In fact, I never even told my parents that our second transfer didn’t work…I just didn’t want to deal with it, so I completely ignored it. It’s hard enough to come to terms with a failed cycle without having to deal with telling other people about it.

For myself, I felt and continue to feel good about our decision to not tell many people, especially as the months went by and we were seemingly no closer to having a baby. Now that I am finally pregnant and will hopefully be bringing a baby home in just a couple of months, I am much more open to the idea of discussing what we’ve been through with others. I know from personal experience that having real life people who can relate to what you’re going through can be a life saver sometimes. I don’t like the thought of others assuming that our pregnancy was easily achieved. Even more than that, I hate the thought that there are other women out there who might need a support system and aren’t receiving the fantastic outpouring of support that I had. I would love to be a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on for someone who’s in need. I would love to let someone else know that they aren’t alone, even though they may feel as though they are the only one going through this.

The same coworker and his wife came over to me at our company holiday party on Friday and she started asking me about the baby and when I was due and how I was feeling. I felt horrible, having at least a vague idea of what she’s going through and answering her questions as if my pregnancy was something I took for granted. There’s really no way to let people know that you understand what they’re going through without getting into the gory details, and really, a holiday party with a loud DJ is no place for that kind of discussion.

But the thing is that once you say something, you can’t take it back. If I were to tell this coworker or his wife our history, I could never un-tell it. And I think that for the most part, I’d be OK with that. There could be some potential for downsides in the future, but I think that the potential for good far outweighs the potential for bad. So for now, I’ll remain in the closet, but I’m willing to come out for the the right person or situation.

What about you? Are you in or out of the infertility closet and how do you feel about your decision?

29 weeks and I have no ankles

Today marks 29 weeks of pregnancy. I noticed the other night that I have no ankle definition anymore, to the point that if you were to look at my ankles, you literally could not pinpoint where my ankle bone is. It came on suddenly and is probably due to the 4 hours of time I spent on airplanes on Tuesday night. We flew down to Florida to spend a week with Mark’s parents in Florida. Our last hurrah before the baby arrives, if you will. So combine the time on the plane along with lots of walking the past two days, and my ankles are completely unrecognizable to me.

Also unrecognizable to me is my suddenly huge belly. It seems to have really popped within the past couple of weeks and there is absolutely no denying that I’m pregnant. Today, for the very first time, I wore what I considered to be a true maternity shirt. You know the kind…all cinched up above the belly and flowing from the cinch on down. Holy cow. Somehow I seem to have gone from “you look pretty small for “x” weeks” to “holy huge belly.” It’s been kind of strange to go from ambiguously pregnant to unmistakably pregnant so quickly and I find myself admiring my big ole belly in the mirror for minutes on end. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, and it actually makes me feel somewhat better about the more than 30 pounds that I’ve put on already.

Gaining over 30 pounds and not having ankles anymore are sacrifices that I am so happy that I have the opportunity to make. I would gladly make them every day for years to come for our little girl.

This year I’m thankful for…

I’m sure that anyone who has struggled with infertility can understand exactly how I’m feeling at Thanksgiving this year. Instead of going into a bunch of mushy sentiment that is probably pretty obvious, I will instead leave you with what I’m superficially thankful for this year:

Bra extenders

Thank you to whoever came up with this fantastic invention. My ribs and back are deeply appreciative. So is my pocketbook.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving.

90 days

Today marks exactly 90 days from my due date. I can’t believe that in less than three months our baby girl will be due. Of course when she decides to actually grace us with her presence will be an entirely different matter, but she’s due in 90 days. In some respects, the past 190 days have passed by quickly and in others they seem to have crawled by. I feel like I’ve been pregnant for a really long time already, but also feel like it was just yesterday when I finally saw those two pink lines for the first time. What a mixed bag of emotions it all is. I know that the next month and a half will fly by with the holidays and I’m sure that February 18th will be here before I know it.

So far the second trimester has been treating me well. My bleeding/spotting seemed to stop pretty much right around the start of the second trimester and I am so thankful for that. I still have moments when I panic thinking that I may be bleeding, but upon further inspection find that everything is ok. On the whole, I feel good emotionally about this pregnancy. I’ve moved beyond the “afraid the other shoe is going to drop” stage and am just trying to enjoy things.

Appearance wise I feel like I’ve finally “popped” within the last week or two and actually look like I’m pregnant now versus ambiguously chubby. It’s amazing to catch a glimpse of myself in a window reflection or mirror and realize that the large bellied woman staring back is actually me. It’s very surreal for me and I’m still getting used to it.

I have another OB appointment on Monday and I’m a little afraid to get on the scale. I’m pretty sure that I’ve gained over 30 pounds since my transfer and assuming that I have at least 13 weeks to go, I could do some serious damage. I am definitely interested to see how my uterus is measuring though. At my last appointment my doctor said I was measuring “a little small,” but he wasn’t worried about it. 97% of me is not worried about it either, but 3% of me does think about it though and I hope that I’m back “on schedule” on Monday. I know that these measurements aren’t the most reliable and I shouldn’t read too much into it, but if it continues to be lower than it should be, I will ask what can be done to reassure me about the situation.

All in all, things are good and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 90 days hold for us!

I know THAT girl

My closest friend from my support group is THAT girl. You know, the one who had some absolutely odd defying thing happen to her and people talk about her anecdotally like “My best friend’s, husband’s, sister’s cousin…” Yes, I know her.

I met Jill about a year and a half ago at my first support group meeting. She had been trying to get pregnant for a little over two years at that point and there was absolutely no explanation for why they weren’t succeeding. Her willingness to honestly and openly share her feelings about what she was going through and her ability to see the humor in something that, by definition, was anything BUT funny drew me in. While I love all of the girls in my support group, she was the one I was rooting for the most, she was the one I most wanted to see succeed. I could envision her as just the best mom that any child could ever want, and the thought of her not having that opportunity broke my heart.

As the group floundered through last summer, trying desperate last ditch attempts at IUI, or special diets or herbs, Jill and I were preparing for our first IVF cycles in October. October came and went, my IVF was cancelled due to poor response and I was devastated. Part of what helped me through the disappointment of my cancelled cycle was being able to follow along with Jill’s cycle and be a cheerleader for her. Her cycle went great, and though she ended up with a positive beta, it was low and didn’t double properly; she had a chemical pregnancy. While she was heartbroken at the outcome, she picked up the pieces and was looking forward to cycling again soon. She was part of a shared risk program and was happy to have two more fresh tries left.

As she and I were getting ready for our second attempts at IVF, we found out that another woman in our group would be trying her first IVF cycle at the same time. It was so exciting to have the support of real life people during that time and knowing that we could potentially be pregnant together and have kids right around the same age was fun to daydream about. Right before Jill was going to start her cycle, she got a call from her clinic telling her that her cycle would be a frozen one, not fresh, since she had one embryo frozen from her previous attempt and her shared risk contract required her to use her frozen embryos before doing another fresh cycle. She was beyond depressed about the news, thinking that her one little embryo couldn’t possibly have a chance and it would just be a waste of time and money. We did our best to cheer her up and give her hope for her one embryo and we all went through our two week waits together cheering each other on along the way. Though things didn’t work out for me or the other woman, we were ecstatic to find out that Jill’s one little embryo did indeed take and she was pregnant with a nice high beta.

Everything appeared to be going well and Jill’s first ultrasound showed her baby with a healthy heartbeat and her doctor told her that her chance of miscarriage dropped from 20% to 8%. She was feeling confident about things and was therefore absolutely shocked to find at the next ultrasound that her baby’s heart had stopped beating. She went through a horrible miscarriage and eventual D&C in the ER and came out of the whole situation as just a shell of Jill that I had known before. I felt absolutely awful in that I didn’t know what to do for her or how to support her best. I did the only thing that I could think of and reminded her of all of the really great things that she had in her life and what a fantastic partner her husband was through everything. She decided to focus on those things and scheduled a vacation for her and her husband in Mexico.

Meanwhile, she was having her betas checked with her OB to make sure that her HCG levels were dropping appropriately and also met with her RE to discuss the next steps. Her RE wanted to do an SHG to make sure that nothing was left in her uterus and then move forward with another IVF cycle, which Jill agreed to. Surprisingly, the SHG showed a polyp that hadn’t been seen previously, and the RE felt that it would be best to remove the polyp before going forward with the next IVF cycle. The hysteroscopy was scheduled for a Friday and on Thursday Jill had another check to make sure that her beta was still dropping from the miscarriage.

Amazingly, miraculously, her beta, which had been below 50 for a couple of weeks came back at nearly 600. The “polyp” that they found during the SHG was, in all likelihood, her baby implanting itself in her uterus. She and her husband had sex just once since the miscarriage, on Valentine’s day, no less, and now she was pregnant. Completely naturally.

In the early morning hours on Sunday, my friend Jill, who had been pregnant 3 times in less than 6 months and suffered through more heartache than any woman should ever have to endure, finally saw her deepest desires come true. She gave birth to her beautiful, healthy son. Her Facebook status says that she is in love with her little miracle, and I know that nothing could be more true. My heart could not be any happier for her right now.

Beyond my sheer joy for Jill and her family, her story gives me hope for all of the women who are struggling with infertility. We hear about women who conceive in the most unlikely scenarios, after years and years of trying. We want to believe that maybe, just maybe, one day we will be one of those women. While the women who get pregnant in such improbable ways are few and far between, they are out there. I know one of them. And that in itself gives me hope.

A reemergence, a new goal, and some rambling

Yes, I’ve been well aware of my absence over the past five, nearly six weeks. It crosses my mind every few days that I should really post something to my blog. And I have stuff to post; thoughts, emotions, experiences that I’ve been thinking about and wanting to document. I just haven’t had the motivation to sit down and actually write them down.

I’ve determined that it would be absolutely awesome if I could blog in the shower. I do a lot of thinking when I’m in the shower. Not on purpose, my mind just seems to wander as I thinking about the prior day or what’s on the schedule for the current day. I think about situations that I experienced, how I react to them, how they affect me and I think “that would be such a really great blog post.” And then I never get around to writing it out.

I’ve gotten bogged down in what any normal, sane person would consider to be mundane. You see, I’m what some would call obsessive. Anal maybe is a better term for it (oooh, can’t wait to see what kind of searches are going to be linked to my blog from using that term!). I’m a research queen. I need to know all of the facts, opinions, reviews, school of thought, etc. before I can commit to anything. And by no means is anything baby related exempt from this compulsive behavior of mine. In fact, anything that has to do with our baby is probably subjected to even more scrutiny than my average obsessiveness. And I’m drowning in my own desire for knowledge.

I find myself spending hours a day on the computer researching my newest obsession, cloth diapering. My desire for knowledge (and cheap diapers) cannot be quelled. I’m pretty sure that I know everything there is to know about cloth diapering at this point (without having any actual hands on diapering experience), but I’m still not satisfied. I cannot even begin to estimate the amount of time I’ve spent on this matter. And it makes me sad and a little bit angry when I think of all of the time that I’ve spent obsessively going over little things like this that, in the end, probably don’t really matter all that much.

So today I resolve to try to spend less time planning out what products we will use, how I will give birth, and how everything in our life will work out after this baby girl joins our family. Instead, I will let try to let our lives just happen and focus on enjoying today what we have now. And if we make a poor choice on something now and again, well isn’t that all just part of experience?

20 week reflections

I am officially 20 weeks pregnant today. There were so many times that I never allowed myself to imagine getting this far. Now that I am here, I am so thankful that we’ve made it this far.

From my perspective, the first 20 weeks have gone by relatively slow. In the beginning it seemed like one agonizing wait after another, first with the early ultrasounds and then with the later testing and regular OB appointments. Then, when I started to feel more secure about the pregnancy it because we seemed to have passed out of the “danger zone” it was a matter of waiting for a different set of things – the fun things. Waiting for my belly to get big enough that I could consider myself showing and not just chubby, waiting to find out the gender, waiting to feel those first movements. That’s where we’re at now. We know that we’re having a little girl, I finally feel like I’m starting to look a little bit pregnant now, and I’m pretty certain that I felt our little girl’s first kicks yesterday. And all signs show that things are progressing well as far as the growth and development of the pregnancy is concerned.

Of course the emotional side of things has been a completely different story. There was the initial bleeding scare between my first and second betas and the fantastically delayed notification of my appropriately rising second beta. The huge relief and emotional high of seeing our girl’s tiny little heart beating away at our first ultrasound, followed quickly by the terror of the gushing blood episode. The seemingly nonstop spotting and bleeding that continued through my entire first trimester and left me, for the most part, on edge.

And beyond the fear that I think any woman would have if they had all of the spotting and bleeding that I did was dealing with the fact that nothing was as I would have expected it to be. As I’ve mentioned before, I knew from real life infertiles that the transition from infertile to pregnancy is not always all sunshine and rainbows like I expected it to be. Even thought I knew that, I never quite believed it, and to then live it firsthand and understand what they were talking about was a completely shocking experience.

I’ve been repeatedly surprised by my behavior during this pregnancy. I waited longer than I ever imagined to become pregnant. The entire time we were trying, I was planning out how things would be once I was pregnant. The very first month we tried I was absolutely convinced that I was pregnant. I went out and bought a pregnancy book and immediately started reading it. I was disappointed to find out that I may not start showing until 4 or 5 months into the pregnancy. I wanted the world to know that I was pregnant immediately! I read that book nightly until it was determined that I was, shockingly, not pregnant. I put the book away, knowing that I would need it again in a few short months. I daydreamed about telling all of our friends and family about our pregnancy and how exciting it would be. I read labor stories and bought books on natural births and fetal development. I browsed “belly shot” picture galleries imagining the day that I would post my photos there. I couldn’t be stopped in my enthusiasm for all things pregnancy, birth and baby related.

And I assumed that once I was pregnant, the first thing I would do would be to pull out all of those pregnancy books and start devouring. I would run out and buy super cute maternity clothes. I would sign up for those weekly e-mails that tell you all about your baby’s development and compare her size to a specific fruit. I came up with the off the wall idea that instead of a weekly photo, I would take daily photos and create a flipbook of my growing belly.

Nothing could be farther from reality. Instead of wanting to scream from the rooftops that I was pregnant, I wanted to cower in the corner. To this day I’ve spent less than a half of an hour reading my pregnancy books. I never signed up for the e-mails. Instead of buying all kinds of cute maternity clothes, I’ve been hiding behind baggy, oversized shirts. The thought of telling our friends and family made my stomach turn with nerves and fear. I’ve taken only three belly pictures.

Nothing is how I thought it would be. And it’s not that these things are bad, they’re just different than I had imagined. A small part of me feels like I may be missing out on all of those things that I had looked forward to so desperately, but a bigger part of me feels just right about the way that things have unfolded. I’m not the same person that I was when I developed those grand plans, and I suppose it’s only natural that my feelings, reactions and perspectives have changed as well. And that’s OK.

My day was just brightened

I just got a phone call from my RE. When I saw the number come up on my phone, I began to panic, just a carryover from all of the times when a phone call from that area code only meant one thing…bad news. It took me a moment to realize that the clinic couldn’t possibly be calling with bad news as they are no longer involved in my care and have no idea how things are progressing. I couldn’t quite figure out why they would be calling, so I picked up the phone with no expectations.

It was my RE, which shocked me. I had guessed that it would be my nurse, so when I heard a man’s voice, it caught me off guard. He introduced himself and asked how I was doing. I told him everything was going well and he asked how far along we were. I told him 20 weeks and he was very happy that everything was going well.

I kept waiting for him to get to the point of his call, and he finally did. A couple of weekends ago, my husband and I were in town to go to a concert. We bought some cookies and a thank you card and dropped them off at the office, just to show how appreciative we are of all that they did for us. Our IVF experience did not go anything like I had anticipated, and having the unwavering support of our clinic behind us really made a difference for us. I wrote all of that in the thank you card, and dropped the card and cookies off with the receptionist (along with two large OJ containers full of needles).

So my RE was calling to say thank you for the cookies and card, congratulate us on our baby girl, and wish us luck with everything to come. I thought it was such a great gesture. I don’t know how many RE’s would take the time to do that, especially ones that aren’t even in the same state as their patients. It was such a nice end to a long and arduous process and I couldn’t have asked for more. It made my day.

Not what I expected, part 2

NOTE: I thought long and hard about actually writing this post. I hemmed and hawed thinking about how it might come off and might be upsetting to some readers. The last thing I want to do is upset anyone, but in the end, this blog is for me. I intended it to be a record of my thoughts and feelings as I dealt with infertility and now pregnancy. As such, I feel I would be remiss in not writing this post because it has been at the forefront of my mind for days now, which means that it is meaningful enough to me to document. I apologize in advance if anyone is upset, but please understand that these are my thoughts and I can’t really control how I feel. As always, I welcome comments, but if you don’t have anything nice to say, please don’t say anything at all.

I’ll be completely honest. Both Mark and I had hoped for a boy. The reasons why are numerous and I won’t go into a lot of details, but we both really hoped for a boy. Though we wanted a boy, we both figured that we would have a girl, not because of any intuition, just because it seemed like that’s what would happen. As pessimistic and awful as it sounds, after all that we had been through to get pregnant and all of the things that went wrong along the way, we figured that we would end up with the opposite of what we wanted. A “things never go the way we expect them to” kind of mentality, I guess. I tried to prepare myself for that possible outcome, but try as I might, I still had it stuck in my head that we would have a boy.

In my mind’s eye, I always pictured our family with a little boy. Long before we started trying to get pregnant I always thought that we would have boys. Obviously I was very aware that the odds were just as good that we would have a girl versus a boy, but it just never really clicked with me that we would have a little girl. In fact, I was so confident that we would end up with a boy, I bought a handful of little boy clothes at a garage sale last summer before our first IVF cycle.

At an appointment a few weeks ago, I asked the doctor about my prior bleeding episodes and asked if he thought that since I’d been spot free for a couple of weeks that I was done bleeding completely. He humored me and offered to do an u/s to check on it. During the u/s he asked us if we were going to find out the sex and if we wanted to know that day because he thought he caught a glimpse of something. We said yes, but our baby didn’t want to cooperate anymore and both the doctor and u/s tech were unwilling to tell us what they saw since it was such a quick glimpse at an early stage. I left the office disappointed that we were teased like that, but feeling pretty confident that it must be a boy. To me it seemed that boy parts would be much more easily recognizable at a quick glance than the three lines that indicate girl. I talked to other women about it and they all agreed that it was probably a boy if they “saw something.”

Any progress that I may have made in trying to prepare myself that the baby was a girl, which was minimal at best, was completely shot at that point. I would catch myself referring to the baby as “he” and looking at nursery ideas for a little boy. I found myself gravitating towards the boy sections at department stores, adoring all of the cute little boy outfits and imagining our baby wearing them. I was sure that we were going to have a little boy.

On Friday, as I lay on the u/s table, those three lines came up on the screen and absolutely took my breath away. I choked out the words “It’s a girl, isn’t it?” and tried to maintain my composure. I was inexplicably on the verge of tears. I couldn’t even look at my husband, knowing that I would completely lose it if I did. The rest of the u/s was a blur, but I managed to keep it together. We were sent back out to the waiting room, where I sat in shock looking at the u/s pictures until we were taken back to an exam room. We found ourselves alone in the room waiting for the nurse practitioner and I tried to put on a brave face. I looked over at my husband and asked him if he was disappointed. He said he wasn’t and that he was just excited to know so we could start planning. I told him that I was disappointed and I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. They came in an uncontrollable flood.

It seemed so irrational to me, to be crying over the gender of my baby. All we ever wanted was a family. There were no gender conditions on our dreams of having children. So why was I so upset? Without realizing it, my vision of our family with a little boy had slowly become a dream, and while our dream of having a baby appears to be coming true, an unconscious, yet no less significant, dream appears to be dying. In all likelihood, this baby will be our last. I cannot put myself though all that we went through emotionally to get to this point again, it’s highly unlikely that we will be able to afford adoption in the near future, and the chances of us conceiving naturally are close to zero. We will probably never have the little boy of my dreams. And not having a boy is by no means a bad thing, it just takes time to adjust. I have no reservations whatsoever about having a girl, it’s just not what I expected.

After our appointment, we got in the car for a four hour drive and spent a good chunk of the time discussing room ideas and little girl names. When we arrived in our destination city, we went to a consignment sale and picked out our very first gender specific purchases for our little girl. We called the grandparents-to-be and told them they were going to have a granddaughter. Little by little, it’s becoming a reality to me. Last night I grabbed all of the little baby clothes that we’ve purchased along the way and threw them in the wash. The vast majority are gender neutral, but as I was pulling them out of the washer and putting them in the dryer, I’d come across a pink sleeper, or a little pink sock and think “these are for our baby girl.” This time the thought took my breath away in an entirely different, and good, manner.