13 week update (actually my 13w5d update)

I was traveling for work last week and wasn't able to get on to do a 13 week update.

I entered the 2nd trimester on Thursday, June 13. Ummm ... HOLY SHIT! Provided these bubs are still in there (and I'm not always convinced), things are still moving in the right direction.

New symptoms:

--- I have been feeling some fluttering / movement for a few weeks now. At first I thought it was impossible but now I am convinced it's them. My theory for why I have been feeling them so early is two-fold: (1) I'm an infertile who has spent almost 4 years paying attention to EVERY damn THING  that happens, so of course I'm paying attention like a hawk, and (2) there are two babies in one sac, meaning the equivalent of one baby twice their size, meaning there is no surprise I can feel them so early on.

--- bring on the water works. I have been in or on the verge of tears since Friday. On Sunday night, my dog asked to go on a walk and that made me cry.

--- exhaustion is back full-on, as is insomnia.

--- the hemorrhoids and potential constipation have gone.

--- I am slightly crampy, which I am trying not to worry about.

And, because a few of you really were bugging me (in a good way!) to take a belly shot, I took my first one. I actually took two, but one is in my underwear and I don't want to post it. It wasn't until I looked at the two photos that I thought "oh, I am really showing" and "holy shit, this is real!"

I'll try to do them on Thursdays so it's easier to mark the progression

This photo is from 13w4d:

12 weeks today!

Today is a day of firsts.

First time hitting 12 weeks.

First time NOT TAKING A SHOT!!!!! (I had planned on going through and including 12 weeks, having requested the 2 weeks extra past 10 weeks, but when I couldn't find a place that didn't hurt, I poured the PIO down the drain and said "no shot today, honey, we're done!")

First time RIDING MY BIKE TO WORK as a pregnant woman! The last time I rode my bike was March 27 or 28. My mum arrived the end of that week for Easter so I drove in order to pick her up. And then on April 1, I drove straight to work from dropping her at the airport that morning. Then our transfer was April 2 and our RE said "no bike riding." Met with an OB a few weeks ago and he deferred the bike riding question to the MFM. Met with the MFM last Friday and he totally ok'd it! Monday I was too sick, Tuesday hubby drove and I went with him, yesterday I had to drive 4 hours round-trip for work, and then today I RODE MY BIKE!!!! Slowly and carefully and loving every second of it. This is HUGE because I am a bike commuter. I have ridden my bike almost every day since starting this job in August 2007. I have been missing it and I loved riding it again today. When I took my bike out of the garage, I said "hello, old friend!"

Today is a super dooper fantastic day in my books.

I'm not entirely sure when the 2nd trimester starts. Some docs have told me "the start of week 13" but the MFM ultrasound tech last week told us "start of the 14th week." Either way, I am (hopefully) marching my way towards that.

Symptoms that came on during the past week:

--- hemorrhoids - mild ones but I suspect they'll only get worse. Yuck.

--- mild constipation - (TMI alert) - still having regular BMs but they are starting to hurt a bit. Double yuck. I am eating anywhere from 4-6 whole pieces of fruit a day. I can only imagine what this would be like if I didn't have a fruit appetite!

--- exhaustion went away for a few days and it's back back back! This one I don't mind as snuggling with kitties and doggies after work is always a great thing.

Our mini-resolve group of women who met regularly has formed a mini-pregnant-resolve group. There are 6 of us so far and we're having our first get-together tonight. It'll be nice to see them and also be in a room of women who are pregnant after infertility. It is a strange place to be, back feeling that I don't belong anywhere. I certainly don't feel like I belong in a room of fertile pregnant women, and I feel like I am too far along to go to the resolve meetings. So, until we formed this group, I felt back on an island by myself. But tonight, I will see my friends and we will talk pregnant-after-infertility stuff and all the other fun stuff. One of the women (who is about 24 weeks pregnant) has a bunch of maternity clothes she doesn't want so we get to go through those tonight. My first maternity gear acquisition!

The language of infertiles

I am almost 12 weeks pregnant. By now, many fertiles have officially announced, have baby shower ideas and are happily in the bliss of being pregnant.

I, on the other hand, have done almost nothing (despite showing a bit so it's becoming hard to hide).

And I notice that my choice of language is still VERY infertile sounding.

Some examples:

"If they both survive, we're having twins."

"If they both make it, we won't make our due date."

In a text to my two SiLs today: "When / if it comes time, can you ladies help me set up a baby registry?"

At any given ultrasound recently, with total surprise: "Oh, they're still in there!"

There are more. What other ones have you ladies found yourselves using?

I must reek of infertility with my choice of words. I wonder if / when it goes away!

11w2d and our first trip to the perinatologist

Things could not have gone better yesterday.

At 11w1d, we had our first appointment with the perinatologist. He came highly recommended by someone I know who went through modi twins and TTTS and laser surgery. She warned us that he was direct and didn't have a good bedside manner, but that he's really really REALLY smart and knows his shit.

Turns out we like him! (and he is wicked smart). His bedside manner was no different than most of the REs we've met (technical, nerdy, geeky, smart) but we're used to that and are fond of it even!

First stop yesterday was the geneticist. We talked about trisome 13, 18 and Down Syndrome. After weighing all options, we decided to do the available blood draw that day, followed by the nucal scan that day and if all looked good on the nucal scan, we'd wait until the anatomy scan at week 16-20, and if need be, decide on an amnio at that point.

Next stop was the ultrasound. Again, I expected to have to get undressed, but she did only a belly ultrasound. Oh, to feel so NORMAL! The u/s tech, Barbara, was simply amazing. She and her hubby went through 9 years of IVF before getting their (now 14 year old) daughter. She hugged us both and chatted happily away through the u/s.

The babies: THEY ARE BOTH STILL IN THERE!! One measured at 11w2d, the other at 11w5d. One had a heartbeat of 172 bmp, the other of 176 bmp. And BOTH were having a DANCE PARTY in there!

Barbara quickly got to the nucal scan part. BOTH HAVE VERY SMALL (less than 1 mm) nucals which was music to our ears.

At that point, I started crying. I had been good about staying more detached this pregnancy, but when we heard about the good nucal scan, I lost it.

At the end of the hour-long u/s, a random doc came in to read the u/s and she smiled at us and said "your babies are perfect." More music to our ears!

Before leaving the room, hubby and I made a deal with the babies. We told them - and all 4 of us shook on it - that they can have a car when they're 16 if they stay in until 34 weeks or beyond.  We then left the room and I gave my first pee sample as a pregnant lady. Apparently they test proteins and stuff in my urine. 

Final stop was meeting with Dr. J. He was great and he also said "your babies are perfect." He went on to tell us things we knew: TTTS is a risk (but only a small one) and we won't make our due date (but he wants us to get to 37 weeks!!!).

He also told us some things we didn't know, including I COULD STILL HAVE A VAGINAL DELIVERY! I put that in all caps mainly because I was shocked it's possible, not because I'm overly excited about it. I had become very comfortable with the idea of a scheduled c-section, and in fact even said last fall "If I get pregnant, I want them to just cut the babies out so my body can't fuck anything else up." So c-section was actually sounding pretty perfect to me. Now we have more to think about and decide. But not right now, since it'll be a game-time decision if we decide to try a vaginal birth. It all depends on the way the first baby is facing.

And then we learned something VERY cool. The idea of a breach baby is not a danger to the baby per se, but the legs and hips are not the widest things so they won't stretch the cervix the proper amount to let the baby / babies out. What this means is that if the FIRST baby is facing the right direction and comes out head first, then the second baby came come out however it chooses, even feet first!

Next appointments are 3, 5 and 7 weeks from now. The  week appointment is the full anatomy scan!

10 weeks - lots to update

First of all, I am really sorry it's been a week - and a big week at that - with no updates. I used to hate when bloggers did that to me, and even stopped following a few blogs because the women would get me so anxious / excited for their updates and then make me wait forever for them. That made me worry something terrible had happened.

I vow to try to never do that again.

Onto a more fun subject. I am 10 weeks pregnant today! "More pregnant than I've ever been." That sentence applies to every day I wake up until and unless someone tells me bad news.

Last Friday, at 9w1d, we went in for our graduation ultrasound. And we graduated! With flying colors, in fact. Both bubs were still in there, hearts beating away. We asked to see a doctor rather than the nurse practitioner since we have a high risk pregnancy and have a lot of questions. We lucked out and saw our former IVF doctor and she hugged us and spent so much time answering so many questions for us.

Really, though, the BEST NEWS of that ultrasound was that Dr. B found the membrane. So our pregnancy went from ultra high risk, a doctor will potentially suggest we abort, to just plain old high risk. Here's an explanation: our twins share the same placenta but have separate umbilical cords and separate embryonic sacs. The membrane we saw is so vital because without it, our twins would share everything, as they do now, but would also share embryonic sacs and be at a high high risk of having their umbilical cords get tangled and knotted around each other. If you'd like to learn more, you can google "momo twins" (the super scary, no membrane twins). Ours are now "modi twins."

We left on cloud 9.

Here they are, pictured at 9w1d. They're still little blobs, but we got to see them moving a little bit and saw and heard their heartbeats (each measuring at 178 bpm), each measuring right on track as far as their s. Our doc took this photo and told us "here's a family photo for you." Interestingly, you can still see the remnants of former-baby-A's sac in the top right hand corner. So it really is a family photo, with former-baby-A continuing to act as guardian angel to his / her brothers / sisters.

Back at our first ultrasound at 5 weeks, I made an OB appointment. That was just 5 days after our RE graduation appointment, and happened on May 21. We had an hour-long ultrasound where the tech measured everything. It was also my first tummy ultrasound (she also did a vaginal ultrasound) and it was so awesome to see the kiddos that way. Made me feel like a "normal pregnant lady" and like things might continue to go well for us (knock on wood). This ultrasound tech was ALSO able to see the membrane and, like last Friday, it was as clear as a well tuned bell. It was so cool to see and really made our hearts relax just a little bit.

We got to see them moving a LOT and saw baby A (the one I used to call baby B1) moving legs and arms. We also saw the BRAIN of one of them! We could see both lobes of the brain and the split between. That was wild as all get out.

We were just blown away with how quickly they have grown and how much they have changed. In just 5 short days, they went from the blobs pictured above to baby-shaped blobs! Here you go, them at 9w5d. The angle of the vag cam makes them look different sized, but they are the same size:

Our OB was out sick so we met with another doc in the practice. He didn't know us from arthur, which was annoying, and he said things like "so why IVF?" (to which I wanted to jump across the room and strangle him and my husband wanted to say "why not, the old fashioned way was too boring and we wanted to drop $60,000."). It also turned out that we knew more about our pregnancy than he did and he kept punting questions. I get to go back and actually see our OB on June 10, and I am really excited about that. She has helped us through everything, including the ectopic, the D&C and the emotional roller coaster of the last 3 years. I am thrilled to (hopefully) continue to see her as a pregnant lady!!!

Our next stop is on May 31, and it's with a perinatologist. We'll continue to see the OB but the perinatologist will take over this high risk pregnancy and monitor us closely (at least every 2 weeks but likely every week) to make sure twin-to-twin-transfusion and other complications don't go unnoticed.

There is almost no way we'll make it to our due date (December 19) and I will almost definitely have to have a c-section (fine by me!). That aside, today we are 10 weeks pregnant and over one quarter of the way there!

I am showing a little bit - have been for a few weeks because there were three in there for the first 6 weeks of pregnancy so my uterus stretched a LOT - but I want to try to find a blackboard this holiday weekend before I take my first bump shot. So, fingers crossed nothing terrible happens, and expect a bump date shot at 11 weeks.

9 weeks today

And I am quite sure I'm still pregnant. Don't know whether I'm still pregnant with one or two, but I do feel confident I am still pregnant.

Had a scare on Monday. I passed some beige / fleshy stuff that was stringy and mucousy. It really freaked me out and I spent the morning writing emails and making phone calls. My OB's office said it was nothing to worry about as long as there was no blood (there was no blood - but telling an infertile not to worry is just plain stupid). My RE's office granted me an early ultrasound but when I called the local clinic to make an appointment for Tuesday, they could only get me in to see the nurse tech. We don't want to see her and our appointment tomorrow (Friday) is with our old IVF doctor, so we ended up deciding to just wait it out. I figured I'd either start bleeding or have a loss of symptoms if shit had gone really south.

Turns out my symtpoms are still here. And they're getting stronger.

New symptoms to add to this past week:

--- Insomnia (not new, but returned - it went away around 6 1/2 weeks but it's baaaack!)
--- Nausea, full on
--- And, today, the need to rush to the work bathroom because I was on the verge of puking. Turns out the beautiful peony roses a woman left for me yesterday (that I adored the smell of yesterday) were turning my stomach. They are now in a co-workers office and I have another co-worker's garbage can about 6 inches away from me. Pukey pukey perhaps? Not yet, but it's threatening.
--- Exhaustion - it's been here a while but this week I haven't been able to get to work before 9:30. I am so slow in the mornings, have to lie down a lot, feel nauseus, and just plain old exhausted. Fortunately, the weather has turned back to rainy and chilly and my cats are super happy to sit on topf of me and fall asleep / lull me back to sleep. It makes for a lovely but very late morning!

I have never been this pregnant before. Last summer, for those of you following my old blog, you remember that I blogged about "never being this pregnant before" when I made it to 5w3d. On Monday (the day of the scare), I reached my "never been this pregnant before" mark. Last summer, the fetus measured 8w4d at my ultrasound. So that's as far as I got. Given how I feel, I think I made it past that.

We breathed huge sighs of relief last time ... when we made it past ectopic diagnosis ... when we made it past 5w3d ... when we saw and heard a heartbeat ... and then we lost it all.

No sighs of relief this time. We have a long and potentially very bumpy road ahead of us. Provided tomorrow goes ok, we have our first OB appointment set for 5/21 and then our first MFM (specialist in idential twins) appointment on 5/31.

For now, though, I AM STILL PREGNANT!

8 weeks today

Today, I am 8 weeks pregnant. I have been feeling rather confident that there is at least one still growing in there, so hopefully that confidence will continue.

I don't have another ultrasound until May 17 (when I'll be 9w1d) and I must admit that feels nice. Sure, it would be lovely to be able to use a wand at home and check they're still there, but going into a doctor's office and having the stress of waiting for them to come into the room to deliver good or bad news is just not in the cards for us this week. Or most of next week!

I didn't write any of the symptoms I've been having since I was really early pregnant, so I'm going to try to recount them here for my blog purposes.

3w3d (5dp5dt) I found out I was pregnant with an hpt. By that point, I had some twinges (not quite cramps) and was very bloated.

3w3d-3w5d I had some serious cramps, insomnia, food aversion and weird cravings (all I wanted, for example, were apples smothered in peanut butter - I salivated at the idea of them and wanted nothing else).

At 3w5d, my symptoms disappeared and I freaked out. That was my first OB beta.

The symptoms came back.

During weeks 4 through 6, I had tender boobs, cramps, hunger, food aversion, bloating, burping, itchy nipples, and exhaustion.

Weeks 6 and 7 were filled with hunger. All the time hunger. My symptoms did subside a little bit, and it turns out we had lost one of the three growing fetuses. I was also exhausted and took naps every day after work and for 2-3 hours each weekend day.

Some nausea set in around week 6, it went away, it came back at the end of week 7, and now it seems to have gone again. I haven't thrown up, I have gagged a few times, and generally just feel cruddy.

Week 8 symptoms (now that I'm sort of caught up):

--- my left nipple and boob was TO DIE FOR itchy last night. I woke up this morning with a hicky looking thing on my chest from, presumably, scratching during the night.
--- exhaustion still (not as bad, though)
--- some cramping, on and off
--- blood pressure was lower than normal at my naturopath's yesterday (120/62)
--- my boobs are enormous
--- total food aversion yesterday (followed by scarfing down the high-protein food I forced myself to eat)
--- interesting new addition to the symptom rack: loose stool (sorry, TMI). I am hoping it's because the placenta has started to take over, my body is now generating its own progesterone along with the injections I'm still taking, and the added progesterone has caused stomach problems
--- burping - after every meal, I burp a million times
--- white cottage-cheese-like (no odor) discharge - again, a new symptom and one I am hoping is a sign of increasing progesterone levels (I called my OB about this and they weren't worried provided there is no odor)

I officially (and hopefully) have 2 weeks of injections left. My hips are full of tiny knots that I massage and apply heat to. The injections themselves don't actually hurt, which is quite lovely.

Fruit season is happening here and I am excited to load my pregnancy up with local and fresh fruit. I found some local strawberries yesterday and, while not yet local, also found some CHERRIES! My favorite!

Mini resolve meeting tonight. I am really looking forward to seeing the women who have become good friends. There are two of us who are pregnant and one woman had her donor egg transfer on Tuesday and is PUPO. Of our small group of 14-16 women, we're slowly having some lucky ones (hopefully) exit this rat race.