Tomorrow, I get to the six week mark! This pregnancy is moving slowly because I'm anxious to get out of the first trimester, but I really can't complain. I'm happy it's still going. Plus, WOW, did my symptoms suddenly show up! I wasn't worried about the mildness of my pregnancy symptoms earlier because I knew it was still very early. In my first pregnancy, I had nothing that made me feel far out of the normal range until about 5.5 weeks.
Well, as of Thanksgiving Day, I was 5w4d and started to notice a major onset of symptoms. My yucky bloat turned into major bloat--certainly helped by the large meal. My tiredness has turned into major fatigue. And I'm pretty sure I've grown at least half a cup size in just a few days. I FEEL pregnant, and it's wonderful.
But, Erich and I, the receptionist at my doctor's office, and the girls on thebump.com are still the only ones who know I'm in the family way. We got together with Erich's entire extended family for Thanksgiving--36 people in all. We knew we wouldn't be announcing any news at this gathering. I know the family will be so excited, but I can't imagine that everyone would be able to hide their apprehension. Heck, I'm still nervous. So we enjoyed having our little secret, though I was surprised at the number of times I had to suppress little urges to exclaim, "We're pregnant!!"
Anyway, I wish I would be further along than 9.5 weeks at Christmas, but nonetheless, that's when we've decided to tell our families. I just hope it's at a time when everyone, including me, can be purely excited and not too worried that this one will end the same way as the last. I mean, I know it CAN'T end the exact same way, i.e. baby getting choked out by uterine septum, but this is a touchy subject now, thanks to all my reproductive baggage.
There is just no erasing my happiness, above all. I love that my current worries are of the somewhat trivial nature, compared to worries as to whether I would ever get pregnant again or have kids. And I LOVE the fact that I'm virtually six weeks along with no signs of anything but a healthy, normal pregnancy. Praise the Lord!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Mantras
On the nest thebump.com, the ladies at the Success After a Loss message board have list of mantras, which I shall repost here (cleaned up for grammar and structure, because that's the kind of girl I am):
Today I am pregnant and I love my baby.
I am pregnant until someone tells me otherwise.
My past does not dictate my future. A previous loss does not mean I will have another loss.
Just because something sad is happening to someone else, does not mean it will happen to me. Miscarriage and complications are not contagious!
Hope does not make bad things happen. I cannot "jinx" my pregnancy by creating a ticker, getting excited, or telling someone. Live in the positive!
And this is the hardest one: There is nothing I can do to prevent a miscarriage from happening. Worrying myself sick won't prevent a miscarriage. And if, God forbid, it were to happen again, I know I will survive.
Today I am pregnant and I love my baby.
I am pregnant until someone tells me otherwise.
My past does not dictate my future. A previous loss does not mean I will have another loss.
Just because something sad is happening to someone else, does not mean it will happen to me. Miscarriage and complications are not contagious!
Hope does not make bad things happen. I cannot "jinx" my pregnancy by creating a ticker, getting excited, or telling someone. Live in the positive!
And this is the hardest one: There is nothing I can do to prevent a miscarriage from happening. Worrying myself sick won't prevent a miscarriage. And if, God forbid, it were to happen again, I know I will survive.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Intuition or Impatience?
Still pregnant! I took a third test in as many days this morning, and the second line was much, much darker. I'll still breathe easier when my period is actually late, but for now I can definitely say I'm knocked up!
It's funny how different I feel with this BFP compared to last January. Last January, I was definitely happy, but I was just so confused for the first three weeks. I couldn't figure out how far along I was. Actually, I thought I knew, but I turned out to be wrong--I had been pregnant for at least three weeks longer than I had thought. While I was happy to learn I was already nine weeks along and the time of greatest miscarriage risk was behind me, I still had trepidation. I couldn't bring myself to buy any maternity clothes or start registering for shower gifts. It just felt too soon. I was so glad I hadn't done those things when I did eventually find out about the miscarriage.
Did I know, deep down, my baby wouldn't live? Perhaps. But I think my trepidations were mostly a result of how new I was to the whole baby-making game. My second cycle off the pill had confused me greatly, and it resulted in a baby without my knowledge. In retrospect, I wish I had charted, but at the time I thought it would make me too obsessive. I can't say whether I really knew that pregnancy wasn't meant to be or whether I was just being cautious. It's too difficult not to view the past through the lens of the miscarriage.
Fast forward to today, and while the doubts and cautions are sneaking in, I am very excited. I believe that I will have a baby in July or early August. I found myself thinking in the past few days about how I want to get a onesie or a maternity shirt. I'm barely four weeks pregnant! Is this my intuition telling me that everything is going to be okay, or is it just that I'm so prepared and so ready to be pregnant that I'm not worrying too much about anything else? Either way, that's a good thing.
So it's going to be hard to keep this a secret. I feel like shouting it from the rooftops. But whenever I think about actually doing that, I do come to my senses. I wasn't sure before if we'd even tell family as early as ten weeks, but that's how far along I'll be at Christmas, and what a perfect time to announce. But we will not tell our larger circle of friends or the general public until well into 2009. I don't really want to wait that long, but from where I stand that wait looks a lot easier than the waiting I faced last February.
For now, I'm doing a pretty good job of taking this one day at a time. Now that my septum is fixed, I'm at no increased risk for miscarriage. And since I made it past nine weeks last time, I have no reason to believe I have any condition that might cause an early miscarriage. So I'll just keep taking this day by day while I stare at my three (and counting, to be sure) positive pregnancy tests!
It's funny how different I feel with this BFP compared to last January. Last January, I was definitely happy, but I was just so confused for the first three weeks. I couldn't figure out how far along I was. Actually, I thought I knew, but I turned out to be wrong--I had been pregnant for at least three weeks longer than I had thought. While I was happy to learn I was already nine weeks along and the time of greatest miscarriage risk was behind me, I still had trepidation. I couldn't bring myself to buy any maternity clothes or start registering for shower gifts. It just felt too soon. I was so glad I hadn't done those things when I did eventually find out about the miscarriage.
Did I know, deep down, my baby wouldn't live? Perhaps. But I think my trepidations were mostly a result of how new I was to the whole baby-making game. My second cycle off the pill had confused me greatly, and it resulted in a baby without my knowledge. In retrospect, I wish I had charted, but at the time I thought it would make me too obsessive. I can't say whether I really knew that pregnancy wasn't meant to be or whether I was just being cautious. It's too difficult not to view the past through the lens of the miscarriage.
Fast forward to today, and while the doubts and cautions are sneaking in, I am very excited. I believe that I will have a baby in July or early August. I found myself thinking in the past few days about how I want to get a onesie or a maternity shirt. I'm barely four weeks pregnant! Is this my intuition telling me that everything is going to be okay, or is it just that I'm so prepared and so ready to be pregnant that I'm not worrying too much about anything else? Either way, that's a good thing.
So it's going to be hard to keep this a secret. I feel like shouting it from the rooftops. But whenever I think about actually doing that, I do come to my senses. I wasn't sure before if we'd even tell family as early as ten weeks, but that's how far along I'll be at Christmas, and what a perfect time to announce. But we will not tell our larger circle of friends or the general public until well into 2009. I don't really want to wait that long, but from where I stand that wait looks a lot easier than the waiting I faced last February.
For now, I'm doing a pretty good job of taking this one day at a time. Now that my septum is fixed, I'm at no increased risk for miscarriage. And since I made it past nine weeks last time, I have no reason to believe I have any condition that might cause an early miscarriage. So I'll just keep taking this day by day while I stare at my three (and counting, to be sure) positive pregnancy tests!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Here We Go Again
It's been nine months to the day since I found out about my miscarriage. This is not sad for me, because I got my first positive pregnancy test this morning! I cannot contain my excitement. I thought I wouldn't blog about it, but I can't help myself. Therefore, this blog has become private for the time being.
Anyway, how about a story? This is our third cycle TTC since my septum resection surgery. I had a lot of hopes riding on the first cycle, as it was my only chance at a BFP before my original EDD. I was not pregnant. This was sad, but I got over it. However, I was a bit annoyed that I did not ovulate until CD28.
Cycle number two was even worse. CD28 came and went and I still hadn't ovulated! I was really depressed. I felt like my body didn't work, that I would never get pregnant. I made the decision to stop charting for a while and try to put it out of my head. I knew that trying to predict when I was going to ovulate is probably what delayed it. Sure enough, I started to feel PMS symptoms, and my best guess led me to figure that I had ovulated on CD32. Oh, and I was still not pregnant.
Luckily, I had a plan. I had done some reading about soy isoflavones, and how, when taken for five days at the beginning of the cycle, they would help stimulate my hormones to make me ovulate earlier. So when I got my period at the beginning of TTC Cycle #3, I already had the supplement on hand, which I took daily CD3-7. And to help predict ovulation and help reduce stress, I bought a pack of ovulation predictor kits. I knew Erich had a few business trips planned, so I really hoped that I wouldn't ovulate in the middle of him being away.
In mid-October, Erich and I visited his family down in southern Indiana. On our way home, we decided to do some shopping in Terra Haute. We wanted to buy Rock Band 2, which had just come out. And I knew there was a Dollar Tree store there, and I've heard lots about their pregnancy tests. So we stopped by, and I picked up five. No, six. And, of course, a bottle of water and some paper plates. I wasn't JUST buying pregnancy tests, no sirree.
Anyway, I ran out of the first pack of OPKs and decided to buy cheap ones in bulk from the internet. That was a good plan. Because I had to use a LOT of those puppies. Even though the OPKs continued to be negative, I started to be hopeful that I would ovulate around CD21. And then... spotting?!? WTF. Was this my period? What was wrong with me? I felt really horrible for about half a day. Luckily, though the spotting lasted a full 48 hours, it was never heavy and it did cease. My cycle was still in progress.
Halloween day I got my first positive OPK. I was readying the house for our Halloween party, and Erich had just gotten home from work. I was so happy about this, because if it weren't for the positive OPK, I would have had no idea that ovulation was imminent. Even though we both got pretty sauced that night, we made sure to give it the ol' college try. I got another positive the next day, and a few more days of high temperatures indicated that I ovulated on Sunday, CD29. [So I guess the soy did basically nothing but make me spot. I only took the smallest dosage, though, and was planning on upping it the next cycle if needed.]
I worried about the chances of conception based on when we "tried," but all-in-all I felt rather at peace. I felt really good knowing that I could see ovulation coming and that we did our part to make a baby. The "two-week-wait" was not too bad for the first eight days or so. But then the questions started flooding my head like they always do. "Is this PMS or pregnancy? Was that a menstrual cramp or implantation?" Tuesday I felt a few cramps, and I really thought it could have been implantation. Yesterday, after registering my highest temperature ever, I was feeling super curious. But I scolded myself not to test early. I hated getting BFNs that first cycle, and if I had just waited a few days, I wouldn't have wasted the tests because my period arrived right on time. But THIS time I had cheap tests on hand.
I told Erich my notion of testing on Thursday or Friday, thinking my good rational husband would talk me out of it, but he was actually in support of testing early. See, he's going on a big hunting trip with the men of my extended family this weekend (my period is due Sunday), and he didn't like the thought of me testing and getting a positive without him there. And plus, even if it were BFN, I still have five other cheap tests, so it's barely a waste. So with his permission, I got up this morning after another record-high temp, peed in my special pee mug (which says "I <3 Jim Halpert"), took out the test, used the dropper to carefully drop four drops of pee in the proper place, and we watched the line of pink move across the test. The control line came up right away and no second line, but it had only been about 90 seconds. Erich walked away, but I kept staring, fully prepared for a BFN. But then... it started to appear. It was faint but undeniable. I could see it without squinting or holding it up next to my face or tilting it just right. It was there.
Erich's reaction took me right back to my original BFP back on January 5th. His logical, rational brain just cannot equate the faintest of faint lines on a cheap little object to a baby. As for me, I am excited already. It's a bit daunting that I'm only 3 weeks and 4 days along, but getting pregnant at all is a big first step. And this time, I was expecting it. I already know I'm pregnant; there's none of the confusion or wondering "When did this happen?" that I had last time. And my uterus is remodeled and, as far as I know, totally baby-ready.
Barring any unforeseen difficulties, I'm due July 26. Yippee!!!
Anyway, how about a story? This is our third cycle TTC since my septum resection surgery. I had a lot of hopes riding on the first cycle, as it was my only chance at a BFP before my original EDD. I was not pregnant. This was sad, but I got over it. However, I was a bit annoyed that I did not ovulate until CD28.
Cycle number two was even worse. CD28 came and went and I still hadn't ovulated! I was really depressed. I felt like my body didn't work, that I would never get pregnant. I made the decision to stop charting for a while and try to put it out of my head. I knew that trying to predict when I was going to ovulate is probably what delayed it. Sure enough, I started to feel PMS symptoms, and my best guess led me to figure that I had ovulated on CD32. Oh, and I was still not pregnant.
Luckily, I had a plan. I had done some reading about soy isoflavones, and how, when taken for five days at the beginning of the cycle, they would help stimulate my hormones to make me ovulate earlier. So when I got my period at the beginning of TTC Cycle #3, I already had the supplement on hand, which I took daily CD3-7. And to help predict ovulation and help reduce stress, I bought a pack of ovulation predictor kits. I knew Erich had a few business trips planned, so I really hoped that I wouldn't ovulate in the middle of him being away.
In mid-October, Erich and I visited his family down in southern Indiana. On our way home, we decided to do some shopping in Terra Haute. We wanted to buy Rock Band 2, which had just come out. And I knew there was a Dollar Tree store there, and I've heard lots about their pregnancy tests. So we stopped by, and I picked up five. No, six. And, of course, a bottle of water and some paper plates. I wasn't JUST buying pregnancy tests, no sirree.
Anyway, I ran out of the first pack of OPKs and decided to buy cheap ones in bulk from the internet. That was a good plan. Because I had to use a LOT of those puppies. Even though the OPKs continued to be negative, I started to be hopeful that I would ovulate around CD21. And then... spotting?!? WTF. Was this my period? What was wrong with me? I felt really horrible for about half a day. Luckily, though the spotting lasted a full 48 hours, it was never heavy and it did cease. My cycle was still in progress.
Halloween day I got my first positive OPK. I was readying the house for our Halloween party, and Erich had just gotten home from work. I was so happy about this, because if it weren't for the positive OPK, I would have had no idea that ovulation was imminent. Even though we both got pretty sauced that night, we made sure to give it the ol' college try. I got another positive the next day, and a few more days of high temperatures indicated that I ovulated on Sunday, CD29. [So I guess the soy did basically nothing but make me spot. I only took the smallest dosage, though, and was planning on upping it the next cycle if needed.]
I worried about the chances of conception based on when we "tried," but all-in-all I felt rather at peace. I felt really good knowing that I could see ovulation coming and that we did our part to make a baby. The "two-week-wait" was not too bad for the first eight days or so. But then the questions started flooding my head like they always do. "Is this PMS or pregnancy? Was that a menstrual cramp or implantation?" Tuesday I felt a few cramps, and I really thought it could have been implantation. Yesterday, after registering my highest temperature ever, I was feeling super curious. But I scolded myself not to test early. I hated getting BFNs that first cycle, and if I had just waited a few days, I wouldn't have wasted the tests because my period arrived right on time. But THIS time I had cheap tests on hand.
I told Erich my notion of testing on Thursday or Friday, thinking my good rational husband would talk me out of it, but he was actually in support of testing early. See, he's going on a big hunting trip with the men of my extended family this weekend (my period is due Sunday), and he didn't like the thought of me testing and getting a positive without him there. And plus, even if it were BFN, I still have five other cheap tests, so it's barely a waste. So with his permission, I got up this morning after another record-high temp, peed in my special pee mug (which says "I <3 Jim Halpert"), took out the test, used the dropper to carefully drop four drops of pee in the proper place, and we watched the line of pink move across the test. The control line came up right away and no second line, but it had only been about 90 seconds. Erich walked away, but I kept staring, fully prepared for a BFN. But then... it started to appear. It was faint but undeniable. I could see it without squinting or holding it up next to my face or tilting it just right. It was there.
Erich's reaction took me right back to my original BFP back on January 5th. His logical, rational brain just cannot equate the faintest of faint lines on a cheap little object to a baby. As for me, I am excited already. It's a bit daunting that I'm only 3 weeks and 4 days along, but getting pregnant at all is a big first step. And this time, I was expecting it. I already know I'm pregnant; there's none of the confusion or wondering "When did this happen?" that I had last time. And my uterus is remodeled and, as far as I know, totally baby-ready.
Barring any unforeseen difficulties, I'm due July 26. Yippee!!!
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Another Septum Resection
Thursday night I managed to procure three pumpkins for carving. Actually, I really just wanted the seeds, but if you're going to cut open pumpkins, you may as well make jack-o-lanterns, right?
Why am I telling you this? Because one of the pumpkins had a definite septum! It was broad and three-pronged near the base and extended up into the cavity of the gourd. I successfully resected it by hacking away at it with a steak knife.
Happy Halloween!
Why am I telling you this? Because one of the pumpkins had a definite septum! It was broad and three-pronged near the base and extended up into the cavity of the gourd. I successfully resected it by hacking away at it with a steak knife.
Happy Halloween!
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