Happy (Early) Birthday to Me!

My birthday is actually tomorrow but I won't be able to post then, so I'm doing it a day early. I'm turning 31 - gasp! I'm officially an old hag and I can prove it with a head full of gray hair which I am incidentally having covered today with a strong dose of dye. I remember back in my innocent days, thinking that 31 was so old to be having your first baby - hah! I was going to be one of the first of my friends to have a baby - hah! Well, that really came back to bite me in the butt! Oh well, one big lesson I've learned through out this is life doesn't always turn out the way you plan, no matter how hard you try. I must say, this birthday is MUCH more pleasant than my last one, considering that I'm pregnant and all :).

In other news, I'm now an aunt of three! My sister gave birth to a little girl, her second child, over the weekend. Everyone is happy and healthy which is a very good thing. We will be making the trip down to meet her in the next couple of weeks!

Feeling incredibly lucky with a healthy dose of guilt

As I enter the second trimester (YAY!) of this relatively uneventful pregnancy which appears that it very likely will result in a healthy baby, I am feeling so incredibly lucky and grateful to be here. The road to get here was long, painful and hellish at times, but looking back, I wouldn't change it. I'm not going to say that these things happen for a reason because I don't really believe that, but I am grateful for the experiences that I have had. I have met some of the most incredible women through the world wide web who have also dealt with infertility who have been a lifeline of support for me when I had no one in my real life who could relate. I have grown as a person and have realized that I am stronger than I ever thought possible. I have learned an ENORMOUS amount about my body and the miracle of conception - I should have an honorary MD in infertility! Brad and I became closer as a couple and we realized that we can endure through the hardest of times. We were able to have so many wonderful experiences that we would never have had if I had gotten pregnant immediately, like travel to Italy, Mexico a few times, the Virgin Islands, the list goes on. We are more prepared financially and mentally than ever for a child. We KNOW how much we want this - how ready we are for this life change of starting a family.

So, why the guilt? Well, I have what you would call survivor's guilt. I feel guilty that I was the "lucky" one who managed to get pregnant on my first IVF try but have left so many behind. My heart breaks for my fellow "soldiers" still fighting the war - especially those who went through their IVF cycles at the same time as us, whose cycles failed or worse yet, ended in miscarriage :(. It is just not fair and it completely sucks!!! I pray for those women in the trenches constantly and I will never forget my pain - their pain.

I recently found this blog written by a woman in South Africa who has been through far more infertility wise than I went through, including the loss of twins at 21+ weeks, multiple miscarriages, and 6 IVFs, but she is now the mother of boy/girl twins! She is also a published author of a book on infertility and has become somewhat of a spokesperson for the "industry". Anyway, she has had this blog for years and reading her entries regarding infertility are like reading my own thoughts, if I was as eloquent as her! I know that most people don't have the time or patience to sit and read all this stuff, but I thought I'd post the link anyway because it really has touched me - I found myself laughing one minute and crying the next.

http://www.tertia.org/so_close/infertility_reflections/index.html

Enjoy!!

More good news...

I got the blood test results from my NT scan and it was normal - yay!! One less thing to worry about now! My OB appt went very well yesterday too. I have only gained about 2-2.5 pounds which I'm very happy with - yay me! This is right on track with the recommended 3 pounds in the first trimester. I just hope that I can hold it to no more than 30 pounds total because I really don't want to have to lose a ton of baby weight plus the weight that I needed to lose before I got pregnant. We got to hear the heartbeat and she found it fairly quickly which was exciting! Still holding strong at 161 beats per minute! Oh, and Dr. K asked me if the peri made a guess at the gender at my NT and we told her that he guessed girl. So, I asked Dr. K how often he is right and she said that he is almost always right, like 95% of the time - hmmm...I'm still not calling this baby a she!

I think that I'm going to have to break down and start stocking up on maternity clothes now. I'll probably go on a shopping spree this weekend. I have bought a few things, but it's definitely not enough. I'm going to have to buy like three seasons worth of stuff - it's going to start adding up, yikes!

Finally spilling all the beans...

Well, I think we have officially told everyone our news! I finally broke down and told work yesterday and I'm still enjoying the trickle down effect of the news spreading to the other departments. It's been really fun actually with all the congratulations and hugs that I've been receiving! One of the ladies who I work with who is so sweet and a grandmother herself even started crying and that of course made me cry! Brad has kind of been in charge of telling the world because I've been a big chicken about it, so this was my first time really telling people in person that I'm pregnant, if you can believe that. It's really fun to say by the way! Of course, I'm the 4th girl here at work who has announced their pregnancy in the last year or so, so I'm getting lots of there must be something in the water or it must be contagious comments - I want to say, oh well if that's all it takes, maybe I should ask for a refund for the thousands of dollars that I gave my Dr! I don't say that of course, I just keep my mouth shut and say something like this baby was a long time coming or years in the making. I'm not shy about it. My entire department knew about my miscarriage so they know how long we've been trying, at least since then. I was really nervous about telling my boss because I know how much he relies on me and how afraid he is of losing me. I haven't told him yet that I don't plan to come back, but of course I feel so bad because it's obvious that he already stressed out about me being out for just a few months based on some of the comments that he's made - ack! I haven't figured out when to break that news, but it will definitely be at least a couple months in advance to give them an opportunity to try to find a replacement.

So, I'm officially 13 weeks today!! Yippee!! I'm still feeling about the same and haven't yet experienced the so-called second trimester rejuvenation, but I'm waiting patiently! I don't really think I'm in the second trimester yet, even though some books and websites say that I am. I believe that it begins at 14 weeks because of course 40 divided by 3 is about 13 weeks, not 12. I'm pretty exhausted all the time still and still pretty queasy at night, but it really isn't too bad - it just makes it tough to find things that I like to eat that are also good for me. A new thing for me is that I woke up at 3 AM literally starving to death. My stomach was growling loudly and full force, so I had to get out of bed and eat something. Hmm, I wonder if this will be a recurring thing. Maybe I should start keeping food by the bed!

In other news - I have my first just regular OB appointment tomorrow afternoon and I am guessing that we'll get to listen to the heartbeat and who knows what else. I'm also still waiting on the bloodwork results from our NT scan. I'm not stressed about it, but I would like to just get the results and be done with it. I'll keep y'all posted!

Here are the new pics!

Here is the profile shot!



This one is the face shot. You can see the skull and facial bones and a big round belly :)!

Breathing a huge sigh of relief!!

We're back from our NT scan ultrasound and everything looked just great!! The baby is measuring just fine with a good strong heartbeat (160 bpm) and we got to hear it today for the first time! We also saw Stretch's arm waving around in there but otherwise, she/he was just chilling in there (must have been napping like mommy wanted to be!), so the Dr was able to see all kinds of stuff. The NT measurement was 1.1 and we wanted it between 1-3 so you can't get much better than that, and now we wait for blood results to come back to complete to test and that should be in about a week or less. The Dr. actually got a great between the legs shot and took a guess at the gender though he stressed that it's way too early to know for sure but he guessed........Girl!! I'm certainly not going to get my heart set on a girl just yet - we'll have to wait for the big u/s to know for sure and I haven't made that appt yet. I can't wait!! I'll post the u/s pics tonight when we get home.

I'm so excited and feel like I can finally start breathing easier and truly enjoy this time in our lives - woohoo!!!