July 9, 2013
NBHHY
My appointment was very routine, just bloodwork and an exam. My u/s will be on Friday because we couldn’t wait around 5 hours for them to fit me in today. (A friend was watching the kids and J has to work later, so I would have had to take them with me. Clearly THAT’S not going to happen.) The midwife did an internal exam and said “Yes, your uterus is enlarged. There’s a bean in there.” Thanks, that doesn’t really reassure me. I want to know if said “bean” is alive and developing on target! She felt it would be too early to hear the heartbeat with the doppler and didn’t want to make me worry more if she couldn’t hear it, which I suspected would be the case but I was still hoping.
I slept fine last night but woke up in a panic this morning. It was disconcerting—the pounding heart, the shortness of breath, the shaking. I was so scared. I’d mostly calmed down by the time we actually got there and my pulse and BP were pretty much normal. I’m trying so hard to stay calm but there are too many years of IF history for me to be truly laid-back about this.
July 8, 2013
Tomorrow is D-day
That’s how I feel, anyway. Tomorrow we will find out if this little one is OK and approximately when to expect him/her, should all go well. My appt is at 8:30 a.m. and J is coming with me. A good friend will be watching the kids—one of the two that I’ve told, so she knows why J will be there. I’m not sure if they’ll send me over to the u/s place tomorrow morning (I hope, I hope) or if I’ll have to make a separate appt (please no).
I’m nervous.
July 3, 2013
Six days…
My appointment with my midwives is in 6 days. I’ve been told that I’ll probably be sent over to the ultrasound place right from there so that they can do a u/s and date where I am. By dates, I’m 8 weeks today. I think I’m closer to 7 based on when I actually started feeling symptoms, but I guess we’ll see in a week. I’m definitely “puffier” than I was at this point with either of my successful pregnancies. I’m utterly exhausted much of the time. I’m dealing with a lot of nausea, which is likely a combination of pregnancy and adjusting to Metformin again. Can’t drink plain water, like my pregnancy with E—fortunately, I went strawberry picking a few weeks ago and froze over a gallon of thinly-sliced strawberries, so I throw a bunch of them in each time I refill my water bottle (I always have one in the fridge, infusing with strawberry, while I’m drinking the other one). I’m considering how to wean E because I’m so sore when she nurses, plus the idea of tandem nursing doesn’t really appeal to me. I wouldn’t mind having a few months of having my boobs to myself before starting to nurse another one. At the same time, my cynicism says “What if I wean her and then miscarry, and I’ve weaned her for nothing?” On the other hand, she is almost 2 1/2—she’s had a pretty good run with this and even though the Metformin doesn’t seem to be making her sick like it did with P, it would be OK to be finished. But then I think that she really enjoys it, and we really only nurse when she wakes up and goes to bed, so why not keep going for a while? Eh, I’ll keep thinking about it. Maybe she’ll decide she’s done soon. I’ve heard that a fair number of kids do that when the milk changes during pregnancy.
We were at a family reunion over the weekend. It was a really great weekend and we had a lot of fun. It wasn’t even challenging not to drink, since there were so many people and so many options. Not throwing up was a challenge, but not drinking was easy. It took a huge toll on my energy, though. J ended up driving 9 of the 10 1/2 hours home. Yesterday, the fact that I managed to run (more of a 3.3-mile slow plod, really), grocery shop with all three kids, and cook dinner last night was nothing short of a miracle. I have no intention of doing that again today. Today’s for replacing a light fixture in the kids’ bathroom and vacuuming before my brother gets here tonight.
There are times when I’m not sure how I’m going to manage to have four kids. We’ve wanted four kids since before we were married, but giving birth to this last one wasn’t in the plans. The 7+ year spread between P and E seems huge. There’s going to be a 10+ year spread between P and this newest one. I gave birth to P when I was 25. If all goes well, I’ll give birth to this one when I’m 36. I don’t know where we’re going to put this one, and especially don’t know what I’ll do if this one (like E) won’t sleep in a crib. We had a guest bed when E was a baby, so I could co-sleep on that. Now, that room is E’s and we have a twin mattress in there. Our bed is a waterbed, so I can’t co-sleep on it. We got rid of our glider rocker. I got rid of every one of my maternity clothes and almost all of our newborn baby clothes (boy and girl). We still have some of our bigger things, like the crib and high chair, but another newborn really wasn’t in the plan. At times, it makes me feel exhausted to think about having to go through all the newborn stages again.
And then, oh the guilt!
We tried for so long to get pregnant with P, then even longer with E (if you include the time on both sides of K’s adoption, it was over 5 years before achieving E’s successful pregnancy). How can I possibly be at all upset that I managed to get pregnant this time without any of that? Without a single doctor’s visit! Without wands or medicines or tests! In the privacy of our own home!
But I kind of am. I’ll get through it, I know I will. It’s exciting that, if all goes well, we’ll get to celebrate the arrival of another family member in February. I’m just trying to readjust my plans. In my mind, we waited another year or two and then adopted another older girl between the ages of K and E—preferably from Ethiopia but we were open to other options to ensure an ethical adoption, given Ethiopia’s current corruption problems. E was going to be the youngest and so every stage with her was the last time I’d experience it, and I was OK with that. I was particularly OK with the fact that E is potty-trained for days (and almost at night) and YAY, no more diapers!!! Since we would adopt older, we would never have to travel with multiple giant carseats when flying to visit my ILs. (I actually have no idea how that’s going to work—two Britaxes and four kids to manage in an airport?!) We’d put bunk beds into E’s room for she and her sister to share a room.
Now? It’s all muddled, and I’m not a person who deals easily with changing plans midstream. It seems so ridiculous and selfish and ungrateful, and I know it is. I was looking forward to running a half-marathon with a friend later this year—that’s going to have to wait, and the idea of going back to being a lump and out-of-shape isn’t one that I like. All of our friends are done having babies; in fact, most of them were done before we had E, so they’ve moved on past this infant stage. This year is going to be a tough year professionally anyway—I’m up for tenure (not sure how wanting to be out for 3 months as they’re making that decision will work), my department chair just left and our interim one really needed a smooth year (this is going to dramatically ruffle her year since she and I are the only ones who teach certain bio classes; her schedule is reduced with her new responsibilities, putting more of the burden on me), J’s law practice is not going well, etc. Now we’re adjusting to this new reality. It will be great, it really will. It’s just a big change in mindset. I hate feeling this way. I want to just be thrilled and excited, and those thoughts ARE in there, but there are all these others also. I just need to work through this period of rearranging my vision of the future.
June 22, 2013
The eagle has landed
I went to the doctor the other day. She confirmed that I am actually pregnant and agreed that it would be good for me to go back on Metformin for the rest of the first trimester. She also (luckily) had on record that my last period was May 8, putting me around 6 weeks pg. While I think I’m actually ovulating around d17 instead of d14, it gives me a due date of around February 12. That would put E and this baby 3 weeks shy of 3 years apart. P and K are 2 weeks shy of 3 years apart. It’s a great spread if it actually works.
So the doctor? She used a pee test to confirm. No blood test. My midwives will do that in a few weeks. And I haven’t taken another HPT since Thursday, even though I have another one in the cabinet. This is bizarre. I’m trying to be so laid back about this, unlike when I got pg with E and took a test every single day until I got a blood test, then several more times until I got my first u/s. The first u/s was right around this time, while this time I don’t even have an appt with my midwives yet. I’m sure I’ll use the last HPT on Thursday, a week after the last one, and the day that we leave for a family reunion, just to be sure. Of course, we will tell exactly no one at the reunion. I love my family dearly but if anything goes wrong, they’ve got a history of saying really hurtful and insensitive things.
I did tell two of my best girlfriends. If something does go wrong (NBHHY, NBHHY), I need some people around who can and will support me in the right ways.
Back in November, I started doing a couch-to-5K program and changed my diet somewhat. I’ve been working hard. I lost 12 lbs, my resting heart rate is down from 88 to 64, my cholesterol is back into normal ranges without any medication. I usually run 3-4 miles every other day, but do a longer run on the weekends (I ran 5 miles for the first time this morning) at a pace of about 10:30/mile. (I was supposed to do a half-marathon in November but I think that has to wait.) I’m starting this pregnancy healthier than I was at the beginning of either of the other ones that worked. I’ve just started Metformin again. All I can do now is hope and pray that this works. I didn’t even know I wanted this a week ago, and now I can’t do anything but hope for it desperately.
June 19, 2013
Did you know people can get pregnant for free?
I thought it was some sort of rumor spread by those who didn’t want to admit using fertility help or confirm their own obsessions with mucus, temperatures, etc.
It turns out it’s true.
My period has been ridiculously regular since it came back for good last September. Every 30-31 days, it would come around with a vengeance, which was a far cry from the 7+ weeks that my cycles had been since I was 13.
When not chemically modified, of course.
Originally, I planned to get an IUD shortly after E was born. Between the time when I made the appointment and when the appointment actually happened, a space of only a couple of weeks, I had two friends with IUDs who had ectopic pregnancies. It scared me enough to not get one. With my history of PCOS and since I was (am) breastfeeding E, I wasn’t worried. Every once in a while, I’d mention that J should get a vasectomy. He never did take me seriously—it squicks him out to consider it. But recently, we had a good friend who had one and seeing him shortly afterwards has made him actually start to think about it. He’s close but not quite there yet.
I last started my period on May 5 (I think. It might have been the 7th), so I was expecting it around June 5-6-7-ish. My ILs got here on the 7th for a 10 day visit. Whee, I thought. 10 days with the ILs with my period. That sounds like a recipe for a joyous and stress-free time.
I had some spotting around June 9th, so I figured my period was about to come. But then it didn’t and, believe it or not, I didn’t really notice. It’s amazing how when you’re not actually trying, not even thinking or hoping, you can not notice things like that.
On Monday, the ILs left and I realized that my period never came. And my nipples were insanely sore (which I’d put off to E nursing rather forcefully). And last Friday, I all but fell asleep while watching a play with J. And again, there was that whole “my period is pretty late at this point” thing.
And I started to freak out. J’s had a tougher time bonding with E than with the boys. E has been a much more challenging child than either of the boys. While we’ve always wanted a fourth child, we’d planned to adopt him/her in a few years. Nothing else was on the horizon.
Until it was.
Of course I couldn’t fall back to sleep after I realized that, and I did actually confide my concern to J. He was a little taken aback but completely on board with the whole idea, whether it was real or I was just worrying about it. He was encouraging, reassuring, and said all the right things. He also supported my original plan to wait another week to test since I thought it was maybe just my cycle lengthening again.
But yesterday, I realized that the reason that I wanted to wait was that I already had my hopes up and it would suck to dash them before I had to. Plus, I haven’t been on Metformin in years and knew that I should be on it if in some way, shape, or form, I was actually pregnant.
I bought a 3-pack of tests. The checkout lady asked which was I was hoping it would go and I replied “I’m not sure.”
I took one first thing this morning. And it was +. I told J that we might need a bigger car. He said “We need to wait at least a month. When things go bad for us, that’s usually when they happen.”
Sometimes, his scars from IF sneak up on me.
But I had been kidding, so that wasn’t a problem. I have an appointment with my regular dr tomorrow to confirm and get a prescription for Metformin.
I think I’m about 6 weeks, but it could be a couple of days less than that. I’m having hot flashes, I’m crampy, I get a little nauseated from time to time, and I’m really tired.
And a week after I had my period in May, E patted my stomach and said “E***’s baby brudda”. I hadn’t even ovulated yet. It’s just freaky.
November 1, 2012
Look Ma, I’m a girl!
So. I’ve been breastfeeding E since she was born—she’ll be 20 months next week. My period came back once in July, just a normal one. Then, at the beginning of October, I fell down our front stairs. The next day, I got my period. By the next day it was so heavy that I was completely bleeding through a super tampon every 60-90 minutes. I had NEVER had a period like that. But I didn’t go to the doctor because I was sure it would stop soon and I figured that my fall down the stairs had just pulled off lining too quickly. The spiral arteries would clamp off soon. That night, when I finally realized that I was bleeding more than I did postpartum, I agreed to go to the doctor the next day. Plus I was starting to feel dizzy on occasion. But by the next morning it had slowed to not-quite-normal levels, and so I decided not to go. It got back to normal by that afternoon. I’d been told that the first one postpartum was always wickedly bad, so I thought “Well, maybe the July one was just the warm-up. It won’t be that bad again.”
Now pre-E, with my PCOS and all, I had periods every 6-7 weeks. Here it is, 4 weeks and 1 day later, and I have my period again. I’m even pretty sure I ovulated (though at the time, I thought “There’s no way I’m ovulating—it’s too soon!”). And I bled through one normal tampon in 2 hours this morning. It seems to be getting heavier even since then.
Ironic, isn’t it, that now that we’re done trying to conceive I’m getting a regular cycle? I just hope I have enough tampons to last through my day. I have 5 hours of straight teaching today. I’m going to have to duck out every hour to change.
I’ve long suspected that I have endometriosis. This is strengthening my belief. *sigh*
April 28, 2012
Fuck me. I’m back, kicking and screaming.
This isn’t a happy “back”. This is a “I need a place to write, and suspect I may REALLY need a place to write soon.”
Anyone see this article? This family traveled with us. They were in our group. They used the same agency. They met their daughter the same day. They came home the same day. We spent a week with them while we got to know K and they got to know their new daughter. P and their older son, who traveled with them, bonded. We have a picture of P and their son in the boys’ bedroom.
I am freaking out, primarily because this is something I’ve long wondered about. I think I’ve posted about the video we have of K with his firstmom, which is a precious thing to us. But I’ve long wondered how they got that video. How could they know she was going to relinquish him before she did? I asked the day we first saw it if they had brought K back to do the video. At the time, that idea horrified me—that they might do that to a confused, scared, grieving child and then take him away again. It wasn’t until we left Ethiopia that I wondered about how they could have gotten the video. Then I consoled myself with the idea that maybe she brought K to the orphanage and they asked her if she could keep him so that they could take a video for him to have, but that there was no complicity beyond that. Even having talked myself into believing that scenario, a part of me wondered. It always has.
We put off doing a search because J has been out of work for so long. We had already planned to start one this summer if we could afford it. Having read this article, I will go hat-in-hand to my IL’s and beg them to lend us the money if we need to. Clearly, we need this story. We need to know K’s truth.
May 4, 2011
Happy endings
Forgive me for not updating in…well, forever! (I’m flattered that I have lurkers who care enough to check in on me!) Things have been busy here, to say the least. On March 7, our third Family Day (the anniversary of the day we brought K home) and two days past my due date, our family grew by 8 lb 14 oz as we welcomed our new DAUGHTER! She was born perfectly safely and healthy at home in the water. E is a wonderfully sweet baby who never leaves us bored—she has a very strong personality and will let you know right away if she needs something! J and I are terrified of her as a teenager. She may be me x 10, and “me” was tough enough! I’ve decided that I will employ constant reverse psychology and tell her she can’t dye her hair, can’t get more than one ear piercing, etc. so that she will rebel by doing those things…and then I can secretly snicker because I really don’t care about those things. *sigh* If only it were going to be that easy.
E is now almost 2 months old and we have fully settled into life as a family of five. That sounds so big somehow, even though I grew up in a family of five. P and K, love their little sister to pieces. P holds her hand and sings songs to her anytime she cries. K loves to hold her and be around her. Yesterday as I was nursing her, he put his hand on her head and said “My baby is so pretty!” And he’s right—she is just beautiful, with a fringe of brown hair and her daddy’s blue/gray eyes. I hope they stay that way. At 6 weeks old she weighed 11 lb 10 oz, so I’m sure she’s now over 12 lbs at 8 weeks old. She’s also very long and is already stretching the toes of some of her 3-6 month clothes.
We are incredibly thrilled to have her as our daughter. She has just made the love and happiness in our home increase tremendously. Not a day goes by when I don’t hug her tight and tell her how much I love her, as I do with my boys. I can’t believe I’m a mama of three amazing kids!
I didn’t blog here a lot during the end of my pregnancy because it was pretty miserable, and I’ve found that if I write about things, I remember them more. I don’t need to remember that part of it in any more detail. I had said all along that if I got lucky enough to give birth to a second biological child, I was completely done with fertility treatments, and my entire being is at peace with that decision. My body didn’t respond well to a second full-term pregnancy and I’m pretty sure that even if I wasn’t done having children biologically, it simply wouldn’t be a good idea health-wise to try it again anyway. I actually feel even luckier that I was OK with that decision anyway before I was forced to make it. I’m getting an IUD put in very soon.
On another note, I don’t know where this blog will go, if anywhere. I started this blog before P was 2 years old to have a place to write about the journey to building our family. He’s now 7 1/2 years old and we have our third child. We still plan to adopt a fourth child (and I would still adopt siblings if it were up to me, but I don’t think J will go for it—it’s several years away though, so who knows) and I may have more to write in the future but I think for now, postings to this blog will be extremely few and far between.
I’ve always been really touched by your comments. The blogging community kept me going and kept me supported when I really, really needed it as we were trying so hard to get to this point. It’s hard for me to believe that we did get here. It’s surreal but I feel so peaceful about the way things have turned out.
If you’re interested in keeping up with me, I do keep a family blog (but please, please, don’t mention this one on there) that I update more often. I even talk about adoption and infertility on there sometimes. Or I’m on Fa.cecbook. Just e-mail me at pcosbaby at gmail dot com and I’ll send you my name—if you do send a friend request, please include that you know me from here because I’m kind of careful about only taking people that I “know” from somewhere.
Thank you all for keeping me company on this journey.
December 3, 2010
Crawling back in
It’s been 6+ weeks since I’ve written. There just doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to write. I’m about to run smack into the third trimester, which is staggering—I’ll be 27 weeks tomorrow with a VERY active baby. There are some things much easier about this pregnancy than P’s, and some that are much harder. The contractions multiple times a day are more irritating than anything else, although they’re definitely more frequent than last time. I’m not anywhere near as swollen as I was while pregnant with P, which means I can still wear my wedding ring at 27 weeks pregnant—I had to take it off by 21 weeks pregnant last time. It’s also making it easier to get around and I know I’m more comfortable than I was last time. I’m pretty sure I’d already entered Miserable-land by this point last time.
I’m just feeling overwhelmed right now. I probably have gestational diabetes and have to do the 3-hour glucose test, which means I have to make time to do the 3-hour glucose test (thankfully my wonderful hospital-based midwife is having me do it at home and report the results to her). I worry that the reason the baby’s so strong is because he/she is big and that my tiny ute won’t be able to grow him/her to full-term, so we’ll have a preemie with all the associated and scary health problems. When the contractions get frequent and start to get painful, they make me worry about that more. I’m stressed about how work is going to go in the spring semester, because there are factors that I think I’ve partially brought on myself that were stupid and will impact my maternity leave. It’s finals for this semester, which is always stressful—and student complaints are not making it easier (and they’re not even all directed towards me, but I still need to listen to them and direct them to the right people). We’re having a lot of behavioral issues with P and are getting him evaluated for both speech and occupational therapy. All in all, it’s just a lot at one time.
I really have no right to complain about anything. The worries are mostly in my own head—no one has told me the baby is bigger than normal, I’m measuring right-on, and none of my midwives are concerned about the contractions—so I’m bringing that on myself. I’m bringing most of the work stress on myself. I did NaBloPoMo on my family blog and that was more that, you guessed it, I brought on myself. If I could just overcome myself, I’d be in really good shape 😉
PCOS Baby 