Two teeth in the house!

We knew from the very first beta that squish was going to be an over achiever and she's kept up her streak with the new appearance of not one, but two teeth! 

Tada! I told her pediatrician at her 4 month appointment that I was sure she was teething but he didn't really believe us. I know 4 months is early, but her daddy got his first tooth at the same time so she just had to one up him by getting two. 

It's been a really rough 4 days, we're not big fans of medicating an infant, but I've had to give her Tylenol for the past 4 nights after our arsenal of night time gripe water, night time hylands teething tablets and punkin butt teething oil weren't enough to let her sleep peacefully. During the day she does great with distractions, a little punkin oil, her frozen teether and a washcloth soaked in dluted chamomile tea, but at night she has a pretty tough time. 

I'm hoping the worst is behind us now, she's exhausted and we're exhausted from waking up so much at night. I've been trying to avoid giving her two doses of Tylenol in the same night but if she wakes up struggling at 2am after the first dose has worn off, I might have to give in tonight. Her poor sore gum makes it tough for her to nurse and then getting hungry makes her extra cranky. 

We've been extremely lucky thus far to avoid that horrible teething diarrhea but just in case we've been putting on our favorite CJs Butter diaper spray at every change. 

The all natural mango, sugar and mint is my favorite scent, it smells so delicious you want to eat it and it keeps her skin clear and moisturized. We're also partial to the Monkey Farts scent but really, you can't go wrong with any of them to protect little bottoms and delicate skin. 

4 Months

4 Months old and our little squish is such a mover. She wants to crawl so badly, she can occasionally get her knees under her but can't actually coordinate them to move. She can really go on her belly though, it's not unusual for us to put her down at one end of her play space and find her on the other a minute later. While we don't see any teeth popping out yet, she's chewing on anything and everything that she can get in her mouth. Her hands, our hands, her toys, her clothes, my boob, my braided pigtails, anything she can gnaw on with those super strong gums. She can allllmost sit up on her own, you can watch her mind trying to work out gravity and the act of balance.

She really found her feet at 15 weeks and since then she hasn't wanted to let them go. She's been trying to get them for awhile but I think she had to wait for her legs to get long enough to reach around her fluffy cloth butt. She has such long legs for a little one, while she can wear a 3-6 month in pants and shirts, we've had to switch out all her jammies with feet for 6-9 months. To our absolute delight, she's started to laugh over the past month, this deep, belly giggle that just melts my heart right into a puddle.

She loves kisses from her mama, watching her kitties, grabbing her daddy's nose.

She raises her eyebrow and smiles with her mouth wide open when she roots in her sleep.

She's curious, tenacious, stubborn, full of joy and wonder.

Towards the end of three months, she started to hit the 4 month sleep regression, which seems improperly named to me since it's a permanent change in how her brain processes sleep. Prior to this, most babies experience only deep sleep, which is one of the reasons they can sleep anywhere. Around 4 months their brains begin to change and they start to experience a more adult sleep pattern - light sleep, deep sleep, light sleep - the natural sleep cycle. This leads to a whole lot of wake ups and some serious cranky babies and parents, but she doesn't seem to be too bad. There were maybe three days where she was waking up at night crying, she really values her sleep and has no more desire to be awake at 3am than we do, but she's been doing fairly well since. We really love co-sleeping with her, it's a true sanity saver for our family and I don't know how we'd get such good sleep without it. Feeling her breathe is the only way I know how to sleep now.

It's Time for Dodger Baseball

Summer is here and it's baseball season! Baseball is a pretty big part of our lives, it makes up the bulk of E's summer work schedule and he's a huge fan as well. We used to have season tickets to the Dodgers for several years until E ended up working all the games. Baby A is going to grow up around a lot of sports and sports production, the only reason she hasn't already visited her daddy at work is her lack of immunities. Since I'm so allergic, we've been working hard with her pediatrician to try and find her latex free vaccines and until we get that sorted out, we're staying away from most crowds. Until then, A and I will be enjoying the games at home! 

From Bump to Baby

My apologies everyone, I'm re-posting this because it doesn't seem to have posted correctly the first time! I think the photo might have been too so it didn't upload right.

Amelia is amazing. We're home from the hospital now and she fits so seamlessly into our lives that it feels like we've been waiting for her, saving her seat at the table before we knew there was someone else coming. It feels so much better to be home alone, just us three, after being woken and poked every couple hours in the hospital and we're able to spend all our time drinking her in and smelling the top of her downy soft head. Thus far my girl is a champion nurser, she actually worked so diligently at nursing, and screamed so loud when she wasn't immediately rewarded, that she made my milk come down on the second day when most women have to wait until day four or five. The nurses didn't believe me until they saw the milk themselves, but it was no surprise to me and E. No one makes this baby wait.

I'm working on her birth story but it was such a long experience that I don't know when I'll have the time to write it all down. I'm so grateful though that after a somewhat torturous second night with her in the hospital, Amelia appears to be an incredible sleeper. That second night, while E and I were still running on basically no sleep, Amelia was famished and my milk wasn't in yet, and they had just removed my epidural and gotten me standing after my c-section was so tough. Amelia screamed, E hid under his sweatshirt on the pull out chair muttering miserably and I tried to stand and rock Amelia despite feeling cut in half. The nurse kept coming in to assure me that it was normal, that her caloric needs at 24 hours had surpassed the colostrum I was producing and all babies had a tough time at this point, but it didn't make things any easier. She was so worked up and hungry that she couldn't nurse and E was so exhausted that he told me to give her back sometime around 4am. Sometime during that early morning she finally exhausted herself enough to latch and we were all able to get some much needed sleep.

Now that we're home, it's hard to believe that this is the same baby. We're staying downstairs, sleeping on the chaise of our new couch since I can't climb stairs, and Amelia sleeps in her rock and play next to my head for 5-6 hour stretches at night. She cluster feeds during the day, she's pretty much always attached to my boob as she was in the hospital, but we're doing so well and everyone is able to rest. E is a rock star daddy, he's changed pretty much every single diaper she's worn since birth, keeps me fed and helps haul me up and down off the couch. I'm taking my Motrin and Tramadol faithfully to stay ahead of the c-section pain and moving is still really tough, but she is so worth it. We discovered in the hospital that having a full bladder makes the pain a thousand times worse so I'm trying to get myself up and to the potty even when it doesn't feel like I have to go, I'm still weirdly numb to my bladder from the epidural and catheter.

 With E's help, I was able to walk backwards up the stairs to Amelia's nursery to take the final photo of my bump.  After 38 weeks of photos I wasn't going to mess this up so I was getting up those stairs c-section or no! I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that this tiny human was inside my body and is now here in the world, in my arms, a whole new person alive on our planet. She's incredible.

Welcome Amelia Renee!

Amelia Renee

January 22, 2016

8lbs 1oz 

20.5"

D-Day Come and Gone

As of last Thursday, our little bean is officially overdue. I always assumed she'd be late so no one is surprised,  especially since I've had no real signs that labor is imminent. No real contractions, no plug lost, no dropping. Our NST this morning showed only 1 painless contraction and a very happy, comfortable baby. The closest I can get to pre-labor symptom spotting is an increase in Braxton Hicks and my breasts starting up the leaking routine again. Thankfully, her delay is giving us much needed time to work on the house. I can't believe I'm saying this at almost 41 weeks but we still have more electrical work to do and we haven't done the little extras like hanging towel bars, toilet paper holders or blinds. If you're standing on the street, you can see straight into the baby's nursery, not exactly a good thing when you want to walk around mostly naked. If baby wanted to give us another week, I would not complain.

Nooo more wires :(

The only really surprising thing about baby being overdue is probably how normal I feel. Yes I'm big, but I don't feel miserable, it doesn't generally hurt to move around and I feel pretty much the same as I felt in the second trimester, except I can no longer reach my feet. I've been making freezer meals, doing last minute shopping, washing and putting away baby clothes and generally trying to cram a whole pregnancy's worth of nesting and unpacking a house into a couple of days. Thus far I've got authentic Bolognese Sauce for 3lbs of pasta, Turkey Chili for 3 dinners with left overs and 2 lunches, Tuscan Chicken Soup for 3 dinners with generous left overs and Stuffed Shells for two dinners in the freezer. I'm planning on making some Baked Macaroni and Cheese with chicken and broccoli, some fresh green bean and mushroom casserole and maybe some meatloaf to add to the stash if I have time. 

My only real source of discomfort that I would love to see go away asap is not really pregnancy related. Our plumbers predictions of trouble with our laundry drain came true when I tried to run a heavy duty cycle and the poor little drain couldn't keep up. We were right in the middle of washing some really gross laundry so we'd used a more mainstream detergent than my typical chemical free variety. Since it started flooding the garage during the discharge cycle and I had to stop it to move all the electrical supplies and start bailing buckets of water, the clothes didn't get entirely rinsed out. I sent them home with my mother to rewash but one wash wasn't enough and there was clearly some soap left behind. When I tried to wear a long sleeved shirt from that load, I broke out into horrible, itchy allergic hives. While the pregnancy hormones are probably making it worse, it's unfortunately pretty standard for my skin so I can't count on it magically resolving after delivery. While the baby is being wonderful about letting me sleep, the hives wake me up at night when I catch myself raking at the rash on my arms and chest, even after taking Benadryl and dousing myself in Benadryl gel and Caladryl lotion. My belly was already itchy from so much stretching but thankfully seems to have been spared the hives thanks to the full panel on my maternity leggings. 

ugh

The rash aside, since 42 weeks is creeping up, the doctors have predictably started to talk induction. My only priority is to get baby here safe and healthy, but if I could pick, I would love to have a natural birth once baby decides she's ready. Her window of opportunity for that scenario is getting a lot smaller though, I'm 41 weeks this week and if she doesn't decide to make her entrance, we're going to have to evict her. I scheduled a second NST for later this week to keep an eye on her since we're officially overdue and if she continues to look happy and healthy, we'll give her until next week to come on her own. She's definitely head down, fluid levels look good and she's finally become so big that she's unable to turn anymore. Even if she wants to be stubborn, her body knows it's time too. Either way, whether it's on her terms or the doctor's, we're going to have this baby in our arms by the end of next week. 

Spinning Babies (Or Not)

Although our little lady was head down at our growth ultrasound, she had decided to wiggle into a transverse position by our first NST. Our fluid was totally normal, 23cm, but they like to see babies head down by 36 weeks so we agreed to give an external version a try. 

An external version is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Using their hands, the doctor tries to turn the baby into a head down position by pushing the baby through your belly. To make this easier, they give you a shot of muscle relaxer about 5 minutes before so your uterus should be relaxed and not contract. They also monitor the baby before, during and after the version to make sure the baby tolerated it well. 

Since I still have a good amount of fluid, I think they measured it at 20cm, our version was as easy as it could be. Baby looked great on the monitor, I got my injection, and it took 2 minutes with one hand on her tush and one on her head to nudge her from transverse to vertex. It felt like a slightly too firm deep tissue massage and I was a little tender in one or two spots for a couple days after, but I wouldn't call it painful or even particularly uncomfortable. The doctor was so pleased with how easily she turned that he said he'd have no problem trying it again if needed.

Unfortunately, baby girl is a stubborn little thing with her own ideas on position and timing. It only took her an evening to decide she liked things better from a different perspective and by the time we went into our NST the next afternoon she had settled into a full on, head up breech position. Whoops. My fluid was 18cm at this appointment, still normal. 

There are things I can do to try and turn her, like hanging off the couch on my hands and knees, but the reality is that she's going to do what she wants regardless. Sometimes I turn her and she stays for a bit, other times she flips back around and even though I'm 37+ weeks, I can still feel her turning summersaults. Our next NST and check up is in the morning and she's already been in 3 different positions today. It would be nice if she decided to be head down but I'm not going to over-analyze it if she isn't. I'll just keep my fingers crossed.  

Gorgeous Girl

After having our ultrasound canceled because the doctor was running behind, E and I were able to reschedule for 35 weeks 1 day. Normally the growth ultrasound isn't done until 36 weeks, but since our little peanut is bigger than average, S wanted us to have it done sooner.

I've known for a couple weeks now that baby girl his head down. She was riding high and transverse until one day I woke up with a waddle and what felt like a bowling ball in my pelvis. The second the ultrasound wand touched my belly, the doctor said "Wow! She's really all the way down there!"as if I hadn't noticed lol. So for now, she's in a vertex presentation, head down and facing my spine, ready to go.  It was tough for them to get a shot of her face but they managed to snap one for us and we haven't been able to stop looking at it.

Our gorgeous girl

The doc also noticed, as everyone has, that I seem to have a lot of amniotic fluid. I'm right at the high end of the normal range but don't have any of the issues associated with having "too much" fluid. High fluid levels can come with some pretty scary worst case scenarios like birth defects, placental abruption, premature membrane rupture and still birth. With mildly high fluid levels you might see a smaller baby who doesn't turn head down, since they have more room to move, putting them at risk for having the cord deliver before the baby and cut off their oxygen supply.

Thankfully, baby girl looks perfect and it appears that a slightly higher fluid level might just be my normal. Far from being small, she's right on track for her high growth curve. With a current weight estimate of 6lbs 9oz, the 82nd percentile, she should be about 8-9lbs at birth as predicted. And as I've already said, she's definitely head down with that big noggin' lodged against my cervix like a cork.

Just in case, we're going to have a NST at our regular appointment to keep an extra close eye on our girl and make sure everything continues to go well. We already had an NST when she took a longer than normal nap and she had perfect, textbook tracing so they don't anticipate any problems. 

31 Weeks

Somehow, time keeps rushing by and we are getting closer and closer to baby arriving. Last Thursday marked 31 weeks and if baby actually makes their appearance on time, we'll be meeting our little bean in less than 10 weeks! 

According to our every 2 week check ups, baby is doing really well. Active, growing, doing all the things a baby is supposed to do. There is still a good amount of room in there for moving and lots of fluid so we've got a lot of position changes going on. The baby usually doesn't hang out in one spot for too long, not when there are somersaults to be turned and a bladder to bounce on.

I'd love to show you pictures of an in-progress nursery, sweetly painted with furniture being assembled, but the truth is our house is still in the electrical stage. We have made really good progress though and are at the point where things start happening really quickly. We passed our rough electrical inspection for all the rooms except the 3 that weren't ready to be inspected yet. Both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms were patched AND painted, holy crap two mostly finished rooms, and the second round of inspections is this Thursday. Once the last 3 rooms get signed off on, low voltage stuff can be run, patching can be kicked into overdrive and the floor refinishing crew can do their thing. This month is going to be a flurry of activity and I think we have a really good shot at actually moving, with nursery furniture, in the early part of December.

Although we have a lot of stuff in storage, we've got a pretty big shopping list going of things we're going to need. The biggest is definitely the sectional for the living room, followed by nursery furniture (crib, two dressers, lamps, bookcase, rug, chair), side tables and lamps, a desk and filing cabinet, bookcases for the living room, possibly some chairs. We're going to have more space than we've ever had and while we don't have to furnish everything at once, I'm very aware that if I don't do it now, it's not likely to get done once the baby is here.

I've got another appointment coming up at the end of this week and will hopefully have photos of fully painted bathrooms to share!

Happy Halloween!

I think there's a spooky little someone in there who would like to wish everyone a Happy Halloween!

Bumpdate - Another line complete!

I've been so busy trying to coordinate things for the new house, I can't believe I forgot to post our bumpdate photo with our 24 week update!

E and I have been super vigilant about taking our photo each week, it's become part of our Thursday routine. As you can see, it's pretty obvious that I've got a baby in there so most strangers feel pretty confident making that assumption when I'm out and about. Interestingly, everyone seems to assume that I'm 34+ weeks pregnant and must be due sometime soon, perhaps next month? I get a lot of funny looks when I tell them no, I'm actually not due until next year.  Our little bean is clearly enjoying making their presence known to the world.

Although the new house is keeping me busy and exhausted, I'm still dealing with some anxiety about the baby's health. I have complete faith in our PGD and PGS, but with baby's fluttery kicks my fears have shifted from miscarriage to stillbirth. Those fluke events that take babies at full term without any warning. I'm not feeling movement regularly enough to rely on it as a marker for baby's health but when I don't feel kicks I still get anxious. Thanks for the logic brain, just another reminder that the nerves don't go away ><

24 Weeks: Babies and Branches

This week is week 24 which means we've officially hit viability! It's a huge milestone and thus far baby looks wonderful. We got a peak at them on Thursday and even though I'm still down a pound, baby is growing in leaps and bounds. At 24 weeks exactly, they measured 25+1 and a whopping 1lb 11oz. Their measurements could be consistently off at each appointment but we do have a family history of large babies so I wouldn't be surprised if baby was just big.

I'm starting to feel them a lot in the morning and evening but still not consistently enough to get a kick count. On the ultrasound they were sort of transverse breach with their feet to my right, the opposite of where they were the day before judging by the solid kicks I felt on the left.  We could see them kicking hard with both feet but I couldn't feel a thing. I think they need to be head down, feet up or have their feet in front of them for me to feel the most movement.

The house is still keeping us crazy busy scheduling contractors and repairs, but as of last weekend we have an unexpected new baby to add to the mix. Last Saturday, after working on the house all day, I was running through a drive through for some food when I looked to my left and saw a tiny black kitten sitting next to the road attempting to eat a stick. The restaurant was busy and there were lots of cars in line but no one did anything or got out of their cars to get the kitty.

I asked my mom to get out and grab her but she darted underneath a bush next to the restaurant dumpster. Obviously I couldn't leave without her so I ordered a drumstick, pulled my car around and lured her out with the chicken. It was much easier than it should have been, she was starving, flea anemic and obviously malnourished, living in a hole under the bush, eating leaves and sticks and whatever wrappers fell out of the dumpster. When I scruffed her to pull her out of the hole, she didn't even pull away or try to bite and scratch me. I think we got to her just in time.

I gave her a dish soap flea bath and we got her into the vet on Sunday morning. Thankfully, she tested negative for FIV (feline aids) and FeLV (feline leukemia) which were the big, contagious baddies we were worried about. She was pegged at 8 weeks max and about 2 pounds, though I'm not sure how much of that weight was worms. She definitely had a tapeworm and most likely roundworms too so we wormed her for everything just in case, did some blood work and got her supplements, flea meds, fluids and antibiotics for a little infection.  Essentially, we chose to pay her medical bills instead of replacing our super gross dishwasher. I think it's a worthy sacrifice.

It's amazing to see what a difference a week has made. Her legs are steadier, she's gained some weight and she's starting to show more spunk and playfulness. She's the sweetest feral kitten I've ever rescued and E has started to talk about her growing up with the baby instead of finding her a good home as was our original plan. We're still keeping her separate for now, but our jealous kitties are starting to come around slowly and I'm sure it wont be long before they accept her into their routine.

In the meantime, it feels like we are finally making some headway on the house. The walls have all been washed to remove any third hand smoke and primed with special primer. Both toilets and the hot water heater have been replaced and the laundry plumbing and broken pipe under the house are next. The electrical is underway and while we were originally just going to ground the outlets, we decided to go ahead and rewire them completely while we have the wall open. It was giving off some funny voltage readings and since we have to make the holes anyway, this is definitely the time to update the electrical.

We're also making major progress outside. We ripped out all the dead bushes that the termite tenting killed, removed the vines that were eating our deck and just scheduled some tree removal and trimming. We have a really cool old Sycamore in our backyard that I was hoping to hang a baby swing from but it turns out the tree is on it's last leg. The arborist didn't know what killed it, but said we definitely had to take it out, it's not salvageable and the branches rip right off. It's disappointing but not unexpected. The wild card here was our Maple tree in the front. It looks happy, green and healthy, but has apparently been compromised by something that got inside the trunk. Unlike the Sycamore which has really deep roots and dies slowly, the Maple looks great until it falls on your house. This one we weren't expecting so we're going to try cutting back the large tree branch near the house and hope that the whole tree isn't rotten on the inside.

We bought a house! And then it broke.

As you know, E and I have been house hunting for awhile now. After a crap ton of house hunting, several offers, some accepted and other rejected and a few bidding wars E and I officially closed on our very first home.

And then it broke. 

I should back up to our initial viewing of the house where we first met the seller. We had just submitted an offer on a larger and more expensive house down the street that needed some major work when we decided to look at back up houses. This house had just come on the market and we had an appointment to see it but the agent didn't show. Whoops. As we're waiting outside, the seller pulls up, apologizes, and opens the house for us to see. Only he didn't stop there. Instead of stepping to the side, he takes us on a full tour of the cutest little cape cod you've ever seen. He was charming, the house was charming AND updated, the backyard was a miniature paradise and we loved it from the beginning. Lucky for us, the seller also loved us and when we submitted our offer that day at $8,000 over asking, they accepted over the 20+ other offers they received.

Thus began the weirdest home buying process you can imagine. The seller wanted to be extremely involved and loved to talk, he would send me text messages or call and keep me on the phone for an hour and a half. He wanted to share his life story and seemed obsessed with the fact that E and I are white. He was there every time we viewed the house, wanted to come along for our inspection, and continuously assured us that whatever the house needed he would take care of. It was unusual, but we loved the house and wanted to keep the seller happy so we rolled with it.

Our home inspection take one went pretty well. The house was built in the 1940s but seemed to be in good shape.  The inspector gave our house an 8.5/10 but said he couldn't go under the house due to a flea infestation. The seller, who you'll remember was home during the inspection, called an exterminator on the spot, they came out a couple days later and the fleas were taken care of. The inspector was able to go under the house for home inspection take two, checked it out, noted some minor things but so far so good.  The seller was following through with his promise to take care of repairs.

Finally, our home inspection report arrives. Since our house is older, it needs major electrical work to ground all the outlets. The foundation needed a couple posts swapped and some plywood sheeting, the roof needs some flashing and the stairs weren't to code so they pose a trip hazard. The termite report required by our state also requested that the seller trim back his trees and bushes that were growing onto the roof and fix a small plumbing leak. With the electrical being the big ticket item, the most basic safety repairs, excluding the little things, came to about $10,000. We sent over the report and request for repairs and this is where things really started to fall apart.

Instead of countering back or deciding which items he wanted to fix, the seller became personally offended by our repair request. He felt we were making up the numbers and decided he didn't want to pay for anything. An awkward few days pass before he contacts me via phone and I explain during the 1.5 hour phone call that we asked only for the quoted amounts from reliable and affordable people. He takes the time to tell me all about how licensed contractors are only out to get your money, electrical outlets don't really need to be grounded, knob and tube was better anyway and he can do the work himself because his family member was an electrician. Oh boy. Major red flag that he's cheap.

While all this is going on, our agents are dealing with his agent who is not at all on the up and up. He can't seem to get his paperwork together on time and they have to bug him repeatedly for basic forms. They tell him his seller has gone rogue, isn't licensed or qualified to do the work he's now decided he wants to do, he's liable for everything he's tinkering with and we need to reach some sort of compromise before the deal falls through. The agent finally stops the madness, and the seller, his agent, and our agents give up a little money to get us to just under 5k in closing cost credits. It's a far cry from the 10k we needed but at this point we just wanted him to stop touching our house. More red flags but we still love the house.

With that deal in place, we move on to the termite tenting which somehow hasn't happened yet because the seller is dragging his feet. We're closing in 3 days, 2 days, 1 day and finally refuse to fund escrow until the house has been tented and we're given termite clearance. The seller tried to trim the plants himself (Cheap, cheap, cheap!), couldn't because he's not an arborist or gardener, and told us the termite company would take care of it. Thus begins yet another disaster with our house.

The termite tent comes off, we get termite clearance, fund escrow with our down payment and officially own our first house! Hooray! Except not. I pull up to the house, take our key out of the lock box, and our house is a disaster. The termite company didn't trim anything and instead opted to tent OVER our beautiful yard. Everything was dead. When I went to unlock the front door I heard a hissing sound. The termite company had stepped on our water service pipe, cracked it, and it was now leaking under our house. The phone lines had been knocked down. Our drop sprinkler lines had been pulled up. Welcome to home ownership. 

 Before

After

Our Realtors, who are the one amazing decision we made 100% right, stepped up to the plate and helped us fix the immediate issues. They called in and paid for an emergency plumber to clamp our cracked pipe, contacted and met with the termite company to negotiate some repairs, dealt with the sellers agent over the blatant violation of our contract and we made some baby steps forward. The termite company agreed to cut out the plants they had killed, doing more minor damage in the process, and insisted that they had been following the seller's orders. Apparently he tried to negotiate a cheaper price and insisted that we didn't want the plants cut. We now can't see around all the red flags waving.

Of course though, the damage wasn't isolated to the exterior of the house. Because the seller was cheap and didn't want to hire movers, they scratched the crap out of our original hardwood floors taking out their furniture. They took chunks out of our plaster walls. He smoked like a chimney and the walls were saturated with his cigarettes. And without all their crap in the house, we could see what they'd been hiding. The seller was super into DIY and being a fucking cheap ass. He basically DIY'd the pretty but CHEAP and not terribly functional kitchen that looked so nice. He DIY'd the bathrooms. He DIY'd the deck. And he did it all badly.

Not only were the fixtures and materials cheap, the seller didn't hire a designer where he should have so the layouts are awkward and don't make the best use of space. The kitchen has no pantry. The bathrooms don't have storage. Everything he did "looks" nice on the surface but isn't quality when you examine it more closely. I don't know what he was thinking.

Now the good news, because there is good news. We are home owners. Despite the sellers colossal mess, our dead garden, our scratched floors, our nicotine soaked walls, and our busted pipe, the house itself has fabulous bones. The neighborhood is quite. Once everything is redone, it's going to be gorgeous. Despite all this crap going on, we still love it and we still can't wait to bring our baby home to their first home.

TWENTY WEEKS!

Oh my god, I know I haven't posted in forever! Between a huge work event, buying a house, and growing a human, I haven't had any time or energy to spare. Actually just buying a house could be considered a full time job, who knew it would take so much work and time?

With so much going on the time has flown by and this week marked the long awaited halfway point in our pregnancy. At our official 20 week mark, we finally went public and revealed our pregnancy to friends, family and facebook.

E and I had been anticipating this moment since we got our positive, had planned out the announcement photo and carefully selected the perfect pair of tiny vans. We probably looked at over a hundred pairs before we found these Crayola rainbow checkers on eBay and immediately fell in love. With so much planning and anticipation you'd think that the announcement would be full of excitement but I have to admit, it was more nerve-wrecking than anything. Going public can't be taken back, it makes everything so real that we sat there with our finger hovering over the post button for a good few minutes before we could bring ourselves to click.

The main condition for going public with this little bean was a clean bill of health via the anatomy scan. We had ours the morning of our 20 week prenatal appointment on Monday and little bean was anything but cooperative. They wiggled and turned and made it nearly impossible for the tech to take all the necessary measurements, so much so that our scan ran over almost 35-45 minutes. We ended up late for our prenatal appointment and with several people ahead of us to see the midwife, E was almost late to work. The tech of course couldn't tell me anything about the baby at the actual scan, but we got an email a couple days later giving us the all clear and my prenatal appointment with our midwife went really well too.

As of 20 weeks I am DOWN a pound in weight, don't ask me how that happened since I had Bob's Big Boy with a chocolate malt the day before, normal blood pressure and my urine was all clear for protein and glucose. Baby is growing right on time, they measured a few days ahead again, and their sex matches their chromosomes from our PGD/PGS testing. The one bummer thus far is that I still can't feel the baby move. I thought for sure I'd be feeling some kicks or little flutters but unless I'm mistaking them for something else, baby's acrobatics are still a mystery.

Hopefully in the next few days I'll have good house news to share too. It's been a beast but we're so close to having a place that's really ours to bring baby home to, a place for them to take their first steps and mark their height on the door frame. We're almost there!

17 Weeks - Home Offers!

Today E and I officially signed a sellers counter offer to accept our first house! This house and lot is a little smaller than the previous one we offered on (with less closets, boo) but it's got good bones and is very cute. It's far from a done deal though, there were counters sent to several people but I have a feeling they're going to pick ours. Then, we move into a whirlwind of inspections and contractors because the house we offered on needs some work before we can move in.

Another row of bumps!

Actually, some work might be an understatement. It needs a new kitchen, with walls knocked down, a small addition to add a bathroom, flooring replaced, laundry moved to the garage and the sliding doors moved to a different wall. It also needs some fencing, drywall and insulation in the garage, and floors refinished. So really, most of the house when you think about it. As long as the addition is done, we could probably wait to renovate the homes two existing bathrooms. One is kind of unusable but the other is in good shape despite being outdated. The floors could also probably wait to be refinished, but it would be so much easier to do that before all our furniture is all moved in.

In the meantime, our house hunt has started to merge with my pregnancy in my dreams. The other day I dreamt that I had to meet the contractor but I couldn't because I went into labor. I was trying to find someone else to meet the contractor while sitting in my hospital bed arguing with the nurses that I couldn't be in labor because I had a house to renovate. Clearly I've got a lot on the brain!

16 Weeks - Little Cutie

After several more unsuccessful house hunting ventures, I finally had my 16 week OB appointment yesterday. Although it's not usually an ultrasound appointment, I got to have a little peak at our baby anyway. They were so darn cute, kicking their legs and waving their arms.

Such a cutie already!

This was my first appointment with my awesome midwife S who I haven't seen in a few weeks since I stopped acupuncture. Although she prefers to use her hands and the doppler to check on baby, she hadn't seen our bean yet in person and knew I wanted to check on them so she obliged me with the ultrasound. I'm so glad she did, seeing their heart beating and legs kicking always makes me feel better. Overall I'm doing pretty well with the pregnancy too, no more morning sickness and I've come to accept that heartburn is clearly my new way of life. Considering that I'm a couple weeks into the second trimester now, I thought I would have gained a few pounds too but it looks like I'm still at 0. It's not a problem since I started off so chubby to begin with, thanks FXPOI and IVF, but I'm sure that will change over the next few weeks. 

That morning the traffic had been absolutely horrible, apparently Vice President Biden was in town blocking roads, so I'd ended up getting to my appointment at least 20 minutes late. S had been planning on putting in some needles for me but now we didn't have the time, which was a bummer. I think I'm going to schedule a regular acupuncture session at the center instead, certain points in my foot and on the inside of my knee are feeling kind of sore. Plus, I always feel better in general when I'm doing acupuncture. 

I also had a little bit of an upset tummy yesterday, something I ate the day before didn't agree with me. That coupled with skipping breakfast since I had to leave so early meant that I was super dehydrated by the time I got to Kaiser. I couldn't pee for them for over an hour, even chugging down water, and once I finally did, they weren't thrilled that my urine sample had some protein in it. I gave them a second one that looked much better that they had tested in the lab and thankfully it came back totally clear. No bladder infection, no protein, no sugar, nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary. Basically, I have to be more careful about drinking even more water in this heat. Otherwise, everything looks nice and normal with little bean and I won't get to see them again until our anatomy scan at almost 20 weeks.  

15.5 weeks - So busy!

Oh man, it's been such a busy couple of weeks! It's still early stages, but E and I have officially thrown our hat in the game to buy our first house. As exciting as it is, it's also kind of terrifying. SoCal has an incredibly competitive and expensive housing market and trying to break into that is not easy, especially at a price point where we're comfortable.

For starters, our current neighborhood is totally out. The properties here are all well over a million, as are in they in pretty much every other neighborhood we'd like to live in. To find a place in a "normal" price range,  you know, half a million (can you feel my sarcasm from there?) we're having to stretch both our budget and our location comfort zone. A good school district is pretty much out of reach as well, so we're looking at a charter, private school or moving in 5 years.

We've been trying to avoid falling into the usual pitfalls of first time home buyers. The market here is so competitive that most people need to offer on 5-10 properties before they get accepted. We told ourselves this over and over but of course, we ended up getting caught in the most obvious, giant, glaring pot hole. We fell in love with a house. It was gorgeous, the neighborhood would work for us, and we wanted it, bad. 3 beds, 2 baths, hardwood floors, a gorgeous, spacious kitchen and a huge yard I could picture our baby and dog playing in. Since this is SoCal, it already had two over asking price offers on the table, so we put in an offer 5k higher with super appealing closing terms. Then we began dreaming about where furniture would go, made an appointment to bring our dog to walk the neighborhood and show our parents and.....

We didn't get it. 

Of course we didn't get it. 

In this case, there's nothing we could have done to get it. The owner was a real estate company who was acting as their own listing agent and who we're pretty sure was representing their own buyer. Super, super sketchy. They let over asking price offers pile up, told their preferred buyer what to offer over, and then accepted. We didn't stand a chance and predictably, I am heartbroken. 

We're now back at square one and none of the other houses seem to measure up. There are so few in our price range to begin with that finding something to look at is difficult enough, let alone finding something you actually want to offer on. Luckily, we're not in a huge rush to buy and we still have 5 months before we need to start moving if we want to get settled before baby comes. Although there doesn't seem to be anything special out there now, I'm hoping that our new home will be among the properties that hit the market over the next 5 months.

12w4d - NT Scan

Today was our NT scan and I don't think I've ever enjoyed an ultrasound more. Little bean was much less bean and much more tiny, wiggly, stubborn person, I couldn't stop smiling and laughing watching them. I was holding my breath when the tech first put the wand on my belly but before I could ask if baby was okay and had a heartbeat, they started waving their arms around and squirming. They wiggled left, then right, arched their back and squirmed all around. It was beautiful.

Turning on their side, wiggling their little arms

We saw them swallowing big gulps of amniotic fluid and begin to suck their thumb. We got a peak at their brain, which is developing perfectly, and when we went to check out bean's organs, we caught them practice peeing! Their little bladder was full of amniotic fluid and they just happened to empty it right then. It was incredible to see them moving and dancing so much when they're still too small for me to feel. I can't wait to feel some of the acrobatics going on in there.

Baby on their side, showing off their tush

The whole point of this ultrasound was to perform an NT scan, a nuchal translucency scan. The NT scan measures the fluid in the tissue at the back of baby's neck to look for markers of chromosomal abnormalities. Babies with chromosomal problems often accumulate a build up of fluid in their neck which results in a larger fluid space and a bigger measurement.  To get a clear reading, the tech needed baby to look up so we could get good measurements of the back of their neck. It seems simple enough but little bean clearly had other ideas. Every time the tech got close to the right shot, baby would roll over onto their side and give the tech their butt. The tech would ask me to cough, which makes baby jump, but bean would just wiggle and squirm and show off their tush again and then I'd laugh which also makes baby jump.

Profile shot the tech was looking for

Eventually we were able to get a couple shots and baby's fluid is measuring a perfectly normal 1.3mm. Amazingly, although I'm only 12w4d today, baby is in the middle of a growth spurt and measured an impressive 7.08 cm which correlates to 13w2d! Clearly they're still an over achiever. Their heartbeat was also perfectly on track, 156 bpm. I wonder if this growth spurt is why my morning sickness came back, although they were measuring perfectly on target at my last appointment which was the day I started throwing up again.

Our next peak at baby won't be until the end of July, another long stretch without getting to see our little bean. They already look like such a perfect little person now, I can't wait to see how they've grown at 16 weeks. If anything funny shows up in my blood tests, they'll call at the end of this week but since we added on PGS and know baby has normal chromosomes, I don't anticipate any problems. Baby just needs to keep doing what they're doing and grow, grow, grow.

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.

11 Weeks - Progesterone Freak Out

Ugh. I'm having a bit of a freak out over progesterone. As I've mentioned, I had a natural FET with this baby. This means no estrogen priming, so no hyperovulaton to leave behind lots of corpus luteum cysts to produce progesterone.  Just one, naturally ovulated egg. I also skipped progesterone in oil, which is easily measured in the blood stream and greatly increases progesterone levels. For me, it's been just Endometrin suppositories which don’t show up in your labs since it's absorbed directly by the uterus.

My progesterone has been increasing pretty consistently at a "low normal level" as my pregnancy progresses, which the RE has been happy with since the transfer was natural. With PIO, they'd be looking for levels over 20 early on and a big jump when the placenta takes over. As you can see, the biggest bump I've had was 16.6 a couple hours after I'd put my progesterone in.

I am supposed to be weaning off the Endometrin since I'm 11 weeks today but my labs at 10w5d showed my progesterone was only 15.4. I would have thought that my placenta would have taken over and be producing progesterone on it’s own by now, but it’s not making the jump. The RE isn’t super concerned since this is still technically the lowest side of normal and my estrogen is increasing, but I am freaking out. There's all sorts of studies suggesting that "91% of pregnancies with progesterone lower than 15 ng/ml will end in miscarriage" (source) and "Average progesterone in pregnancies that miscarry is 14 ng/ml; in healthy pregnancy: 32 ng/ml" (source). I'm terrified that my levels are low enough to endanger our otherwise perfectly healthy baby.

I know some women just have lower progesterone but I don’t feel ready to stop the Endometrin without a real increase.  I only have 1 day of Endometrin left and I just don't feel good about stopping.