11w5d - The Pukes Have Returned!

Oh man. I haven't had a single incidence of morning sickness for several weeks now. I thought I was in the clear, almost 12 weeks, it should be gone. But no.

Yesterday, E bought me donuts, because he is wonderful. I was rushing this morning to make it to work for a meeting and I swallowed my prenatal vitamin, grabbed an old fashioned and jumped in the car. I was about halfway there, and 95% finished with my donut when I started to get that "feeling". For a few seconds I thought it might pass but when it didn't I decided to pull over and get the ziplock out of my purse just in case. I pulled down a side street that had no parking, so I pulled into the first driveway I could find, reached for the bag in my purse that was allll the way at the bottom, and promptly vomited all over myself before I could get the bag into place.

This was me before the puke. BWHAHAHAHA

It was disgusting. The first one got my shirt, pants and the seat, and then I threw up 6 or 7 more times, thankfully into the bag. I was now halfway to work, late, covered in puke, holding a bag of puke with no paper towels in the car. Ugh. I had wanted to wait until 20 weeks to tell my boss about the baby, but we had a conference call meeting in 20 minutes, she knew I was already on my way, I very clearly needed to go home and change and this is one I couldn't explain away. I shot her a quick text explaining the news and the puke, turned around and went home for new clothes.

Thankfully, she was very pleased for us and had horrible morning sickness with her pregnancy so she had many vomit in the car stories to share. I was able to conference into my meeting from the car on drive to work attempt #2 and everything else went okay.

Late afternoon, I had some tax things to go over with our tax guy and then FINALLY, our OB appointment. I had eaten a grilled cheese for lunch, which is my morning sickness go to food, but it turned on me and I had to throw up again on the way to the OB. Double ugh. This time I was ready and did not have a disastrous mess but I'm pretty disappointed in my stomach.

However, and most importantly, our little bean is OKAY. I've been having major anxiety leading up to this appointment but there they were on the screen, little arms raised up over their face, with their tiny heart beating away. It's such a huge relief to see them alive and well despite all my fears.  They measured exactly on track, 11w5d and looked so much bigger than last time, even though the ultrasound photo kind of sucks. The OB and I talked through our screening options and agreed that we should go ahead and skip CVS since we're not comfortable with the risk. The CA screening panel we did will look at some of the PGS stuff, down syndrome etc, and if we want to later we can get the amnio.

E had to miss this appointment which really sucked, but we're having our nuchal translucency ultrasound next week and he will be able to come to that one. Maybe baby will put their arms down and let us have a peak at their face for that one.

7 weeks 2 days - Second Ultrasound

Eeeee, this weeks ultrasound actually resembles a tiny person! I think I can even see the hint of a face there,  little bean is looking at us with their face turned slightly towards our right. Their heart was fluttering away, I think the tech said 148bpm, but it's still too early to hear it out loud. If we're lucky, we should be able to hear it next week at our first Kaiser ultrasound.

Everything is looking really good thus far but I do have a tiny SCH to the right of the baby. Both the doctor and tech said it's really small and not anything to worry about, they're super common with IVF and I haven't had any spotting or bleeding. I'm already taking things really easy since I'm nauseous all day long and not up for anything, but they told me to take it even easier if possible.

As far as symptoms go, thus far the biggest challenge has probably been the morning sickness. I'm still having difficulty keeping down my Estrace, prenatal, aspirin and probiotic in the morning but Dr. D isn't overly concerned because my body seems to be making a good amount of estrogen on its own. Every time I find myself hugging the toilet, my first thought is always that I'm so grateful to be pregnant. It's a totally weird paradox to feel so miserable and grateful at the same time, I may be puking up this slice of toast/banana/random bland food but it's because little bean is doing everything right and growing strong.

Along with the morning sickness I've got the ever present crazy sore boobs and extreme bloating. My belly is so large that I can't hide it in regular clothing, for only being 7 weeks it sure looks a lot more like 7 months! It has me wondering whether the bloating will go down before the baby starts to legitimately bump or if there will just be a seamless transition between bloaty belly and baby belly. I don't mind either way, it's just leading to some awkward looks from people thankfully too polite to say anything about my massive tum. I'm not sure how long I can pass our little bean off as tacos lol.

6 weeks 6 days - Intake Appointment

Oh man, this is one I'm typing up through some serious queasiness. Even though it's super early, S asked me to pick a hospital and pre-register so I could get on the calendar for prenatal appointments. The hospital choice was a difficult one, more difficult I think because of our location. We live about 5 minutes from Kaiser A. They're a smaller Kaiser but I absolutely love my OB, who is the head of the department there. Unfortunately, they don't really have a rated NICU (it's not even on the state list) and my OB is the only OB I'd want to deliver with there. S wants me very much to deliver and receive care at Kaiser B.

Kaiser B is about 30 min - 1 hour from our house which is a pain in the butt. It's a larger Kaiser with what is considered to be the best labor and delivery unit and a NICU. I had originally planed to go with my awesome OB at Kaiser A but after weighing all the options, it seemed like a better and safer bet to go with Kaiser B, even if it means giving up my beloved OB. The chances of actually delivering with your OB aren't great and I'd be pretty upset if I couldn't have her. S is a Nurse Midwife at Kaiser B and her partner midwife is also supposedly wonderful along with the OBs. If I have any sort of emergency, I can always go to the closer Kaiser A but everything scheduled will take place at Kaiser B.

The next step was actually making the appointment which was mentally harder than it should have been. It felt a lot like tempting fate and I was really hesitant to make those kinds of plans with a pregnancy this new, but I finally went ahead and had my intake appointment today.

This appointment started out with lots of questions answered via tablet. They were mostly basic pregnancy and health questions so it was kind of cool to get them out of the way without wasting my face to face time with the nurse. Once I got to her, we were able to focus entirely on our story and the calendar.  Holy balls was S right about the calendar.

After explaining about our IVF journey and briefly discussing the available prenatal screening options, the nurse opened up "THE CALENDAR" and proceeded to book me for the next 4 months. And she wasn't just booking me to get ahead, there were practically no appointments left for the date ranges I needed! I asked to try and have my appointments with S but she was only available for my July and August appointments. I also needed an OB since I'm not delivering with my wonderful Kaiser A one, so this nurse booked me with the head of this labor and delivery unit. Then, since I'm over 25 and I'm an even chubbier chubster than usual thanks to IVF, the nurse had me take the gestational diabetes screening test.

(Source)

OMG this stuff was disgusting. It tastes like some sort of burning, chemical orange soda and is in no way, shape or form morning sickness friendly. It's now been over 6 hours since I drank it and I still feel sicker to my stomach than normal, and my intestines are making all sorts of angry noises. I somehow managed to choke it down and not vomit, finished up the appointment and then went to have my blood drawn an hour after the drink. I guess the nurse didn't see my previously updated STD panel in my chart that I just did for the clinic so she ordered another full panel along with the glucose and urine test. 10 vials of blood after drinking the Glucola and not being able to drink water or throw up? Not fun. 

My next appointment with Kaiser is in just a week or so to have my physical and first Kaiser ultrasound. Luckily, we won't actually have to wait that long to see our little bean since our next clinic appointment is this weekend.  Two ultrasounds in less than a week? We're going to get spoiled :) This time I just need to remember to ask E to get some video footage for me.

6 weeks 4 days - Morning Sickness

It has begun! I've been feeling queasy for a couple of days but today was the first day I actually threw up. I woke up feeling nauseous and was just getting out the crackers to see if nibbling helped when I had to run for the bathroom. It seemed to be entirely bile but my big worry is the medication - I take my estradiol, aspirin, prenatal, and probiotic first thing since the Estradiol is time sensitive and taken every 12 hours. If I throw up the medication, which I'm not even sure how I'd track since it dissolves so quickly, do I need to repeat the dose?

(Source)

I called the nurse to ask and she said I'd need to repeat my lab work at the end of the week to see if my numbers are falling. It's not helpful if I throw up 15 minutes after taking my pills but we don't want to overdose since estrogen is a powerful hormone. I know 80% of women get morning sickness but my clinic seems to be a bit fussier about it. They asked me to try preggie pops and call back in 48 hours to report on the puking, which I hopefully will not be repeating.

Still, it's a small, welcome price to pay to have this little embie on board :) Anything for this little bean!

Over Achiever on Board!

We had our wonderful ultrasound yesterday and we officially have one over achiever on board! And a tired, slightly nauseous mama lol. Our little bean is growing right on time, they correctly measured 6 weeks 1 day yesterday which is fabulous and much to my amazed surprise, we actually saw a tiny heart beating away!

Everything looked good, the sac, yolk sac, fetal pole and tiny flickering heart. Now that we've seen a heart beat, even though it's only 6 weeks, Dr. D says that our miscarriage risk has dropped to 5%. It felt great to hear him say that but the anxiety is still there. Our next check in will probably be next week and I think I'm going to ask E to video the screen so I can peak back at that heartbeat whenever I want to.

Hi little bean :)

I hope one little bean means an easy, healthy pregnancy. I'm feeling a good deal of queasiness but haven't thrown up so I consider that a win. The bloating is also getting even more noticeable, even from last week to this week. Our embie is still tucked way behind my pubic bone but with all the progesterone I'm shoving up my girly bits, my stomach is huuuuuuge. I'm already getting looks from people side-eying my belly but my lips are sealed, we're planning to keep things under wraps for quite some time. I don't think we'll be announcing even a hint until after all our genetic testing and our anatomy scan at 20 weeks.