Thank you for the HAPPY B-DAY!

I just wanted to pop in to say THANK YOU to Suessgirl from the Braces Bunch 2 for the nice birthday card! Tomorrow I will have reached the ripe old age of thirty four. A bit sobering I must admit, but a happy occasion nevertheless!

No more progesterone!

Friday was my last day of progesterone! I have been off the PIO for some time now but was told to continue with that other nasty stuff until the end of my 9th week, which was Friday. I am glad to be done with that stuff and finally be without freaky hormonal intervention for the first time in months. However, I am SUPER PARANOID that something is going to go wrong now. I spent all weekend over analysing every ache, pain and odd sensation in my body and praying there would be no blood. So far, so good. I hope there comes a point at which I lose this (irrational?) fear that something very very bad is going to happen but I don't know if that day will ever come. It's like here I am at 10 weeks, 3 days still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I did however, do something either brave or crazy over the weekend... we went to look at baby furniture. You know, JUST to price it and get an idea what we might want. Just window shopping. :-)

The first OB visit

Now that I have waited a week to post about this, I have probably forgotten half of what I wanted to say! However, I have been in the grips of the nausea monster and haven't felt too much like updating. Sorry!

Let's just say I have gotten spoiled by the way everyone is very attentive and makes sure you feel comfortable at my RE office. My initial check in at the nurse's station began with the requisite weigh in. The nurse made me feel REAL comfortable when she proceeded to announce my weight as a full TEN POUNDS more than it was. I had to, YES MYSELF, walk back over to the scale, confirm that she was wrong and give her the correct weight to enter. Umm, sister, if you can't get that much right I am worried about what else you are recording in my chart. She was also not apologetic about the error nor particularly friendly. That sort of pissed me off.

(When I bitched to my hubby about this, he did point out that maybe I should have ignored her error so nobody would give me crap for gaining too much weight a few months from now. He's right, I coulda had 10 pounds of wiggle room there, eh? Oh well, I would rather my medical records be ooohh, I dunno... CORRECT!)

She then went through the giant packet of info they give everyone. There was a hospital pre-admission packet- HUH??? Are we assuming I am actually going to deliver a real, live baby? These people are soooo presumptuous that they even included portrait package crap from some studio. Wow, have these people ever even MET an infertile???

Anyhoo, after that surreal little detour, we then proceeded to the exam where my OB was very nice but almost freaked my ass out completely. She decided we were going to "see" if we could hear the heartbeat with the Doppler. OK lady, let's not experiment with an IVF patient who was TTC over 3 years before returning to you with a viable pregnancy! I was 8 weeks, 5 days at the time so she did warn me it MIGHT be too early to hear, but that did not calm my ass down when she couldn't freaking FIND IT!!!!! She really should not have gone there.

I think she realized she had maybe had a lapse in judgement at that point. Thank GOD she told me to get dressed and meet her in the sonographer's room. Of course the sonographer was not in and the doc was not the best at operating the machine but she did get me a new U/S at 8 weeks, 5 days and I saw the damn heartbeat! She wasn't able to tell me the heart rate because she was limited in using the machine without the tech, but at least I saw it. I have to give her a little credit for not letting me leave there with my heart in my throat, flipping out over whether all was well or not, but still. She should not have whipped that Doppler out in the first place! (On the up side, I measured exactly with dates, that's good, right?!?!)

Once I found out that the next U/S will not be until 18-20 weeks when they can tell the sex I was actually kind of glad it went down the way it did. How in the HELL am I expected to go TEN WHOLE weeks without another U/S? Yeah, this is gonna be torture. I guess I am going to have to get used to not being followed so closely.

All in all, I felt better when I left. Then later, when I was on the way home from work I realized something. Nobody even told me my projected due date!!! I realize I was given one by the RE and it is probably in my records and my chart, etc. (right there with the CORRECT weight, AHEM). But STILL, dontcha think they could have gone over that little detail, corroborated what the RE told me, etc.? That didn't do a whole lot to instill my confidence in that place either.

That's about it, am I being too hyper-sensitive and spoiled or would these things have concerned you???

Still Here, Still Sick!

First of all, I hate to complain about my blessings here but DAYUM the stomach is not liking much of anything the last couple of weeks. I have to say thank you to Alison at http://thebabycrusade.blogspot.com/ for her nice note wishing me well with the tummy troubles. Thanks so much, the "morning" sickness has not gotten any worse, but the afternoon and night sickness is going strong I am sorry to report. Also, thank you Sandra for your wishes and the cute little card as well! So nice for you to think of me! :-)

I had my first doctor visit as a regular OB patient today. All is well but I am afraid it warrants a post of it's own! I will try to update on that tomorrow. It was an interesting contrast to what I have gotten used to, let's just say that for now. Hehe.

THAT was graceful!

This morning I began to feel a little queasy in the car on the way to work. I thought, EH, it's nothing I can't handle. Just a little icky tummy. I figured I would get to work, eat something and feel bettter. I really felt no worse than I have from time to time for a week or so.

About the time I was walking from the parking garage to the building and was hit with some nasty gasoline fumes, I started to think maybe this was a LITTLE worse than usual. Then, it was the elevator that really did it. Must have been the motion or something. By the time I got my key in the lock of my office door I was literally LUNGING for the waste basket to puke my guts out right into the fresh new trash bag.

Luckily my co-worker I share the office with was out this morning. She is a nosy one and would have had something loud mouthed to say I am sure. Before she got in I managed to get past everyone to dispose of the nasty trash bag and freshen things up. Interestingly, once I had puked I was fine to eat breakfast, drink soda, whatever.

Now mind you, I have been secretly wishing for the vomits to come so I "know" things are going as they "should". I am starting to re-think that. I guess I need to eat before I leave the house and/or not take my prenatal vitamin on on empty stomach.

Anyone have any other suggestions? I mean other than drink ginger ale and eat crackers before you get out of bed. Something practical for someone who is not an early riser! :-)

A HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF!

I am sorry for not updating sooner but we were in utter bliss last night and went out for dinner, then by the time I got home I was exhausted! The word is- there is one baby! I am actually quite relieved about this cause while twins would be cute and all, WOW. There was a beautiful heartbeat of 129. Is that beats per minute? I dunno, all I know is the RE said that was perfect.

So, my friends, I have GRADUATED. I have been punted right on out of the RE's office and on to the regular OB. That's gonna be weird! But first, before they sent me on my merry way, I received a copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting". Uhh, that's very nice of them but I read that book cover to cover somewhere around three years ago. Even DH had a snarky comment about that one, hehe. My first OB appointment is in 2 weeks on July 17th. It seems surreal to even type that.

Oh and here is a funny- I asked the sono tech what I should tell the OB's office about dates. They were confused by a non-28 day cycle before, so imagine the loop a pack of IVF dates would send them on. She said, "it was May 17th, that was your last menstrual period. It's the date we made up for you to shut them up so they get the due date right without getting all confused." HAHAHA, loved that one!

HAPPY 4th OF JULY TO YOU ALL! :-)

Is it Thursday yet?

I had been doing ok with the latest phase of waiting until last night. That's when I really started to freak out and worry about the ultrasound on Thursday. Yesterday I experienced a twinge of nausea in the morning while getting ready for and on the way to work, but other than that I have no symptoms. At least nothing that can't be attributed to the copious amounts of PIO.

I am worried that this is not ok. That there is something not right and it's just the PIO keeping A/F at bay. I know that is silly considering my strongly rising HCG levels but the last reassurance of that was last Monday, so that feeling of confidence is starting to fade.

The last time I had a 6-7 week ultrasound was in July of 2005. That was the one where we determined I had lost the baby. I think maybe that's why I am so scared. I so desperately want, no- NEED- it to be a different outcome this time. I NEED everything to be ok.

Only about 52 hours to go. Ultrasound is at 2:00 p.m. EST on Thursday. Everyone please send your good vibes my way!