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 ><

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 One is kind of unusable but the other is in good shape despite being outdated.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. 

Pregnancy Symptom Round Up

I used to watch those "I didn't know I was pregnant" shows and think okay, I guess it could happen. Maybe she was a little chubby to begin with, had irregular periods, thought she had the flu, there's a lot of excuses. But now, I think I have to call bullshit.

I have had so much funky stuff going on in just the first trimester that I'd have to be living under a rock to not suspect something. I haven't even felt the baby move yet

4 - 6 weeks - crazy sore boobs, pokey nipples, lots heartburn, twinges and cramps, bloating, peeing all the time, hungry

7 - 9 weeks - all day morning sickness, sore boobs, nipples still pokey, occasional round ligament pain, major bloating, peeing all the time, sick if I don't eat frequently

10 - 11 weeks - heartburn is back with a vengeance, nausea thankfully ebbing, sore boobs, round ligament pain, still bloated, still peeing all the time, stomach and organs squashed, sick if I don't eat frequently

Now that the nausea is mostly gone, the heartburn is probably the most noticeable symptom because I have it all day long. Eating, not eating, standing, sitting, it's pretty constant. My acupuncturist and midwife S said in addition to the bloating, my middle is already so large because my organs are being pretty well squished upwards by my uterus so I'm sure that doesn't help either. I'm probably going to bring it up at my next appointment

I've also had some weird cravings for things I don't normally eat. It was meat the first few weeks, but after that it's been chocolate covered almonds, pomegranate juice,  salty chips and most recently cheetos which I don't think I've eaten in the past decade. I also briefly wanted something sweet like a donut, though that craving passed pretty quickly, and I've wanted nothing to do with my favorite vegetables. I couldn't even bring myself to eat my favorite veggie pizza, I took one bite and it was so unappealing I had to put it down. Why doesn't baby want nice, healthy foods full of vitamins? What nutritional value could there possibly be in crunchy cheetos? 

10 Weeks - Bumpin'

I know some women get through early pregnancy without showing, but apparently I am not one of them. I don't know how much of it is Endometrin bloating, or normal pregnancy bloating, all my organs being squished upwards, or just my body being thrilled to finally be pregnant. Either way, my belly has just exploded.

Bam! Baby Bump :)

Granted, I was pretty bloated from the Endometrin before the transfer, and as you can also see, I've put on some major poundage since starting the whole infertility process. But I can't suck this in and I'm pretty sure that bloating is supposed to change day by day and morning to evening, mine doesn't go down, just consistently gets bigger. This baby clearly doesn't want to stay incognito.

Our plan was to wait until after the anatomy scan to begin announcing our pregnancy but with my belly this big at only 10 weeks, who knows what I'll look like at 20 weeks. E is convinced I'm going to be the size of a house and I think he might be right. I don't mind being big already, I love having visual proof that baby is doing what they're supposed to in there, but it is making for some awkward looks from people. Everyone has been too polite to ask anything outright but this little bean is pretty noticable.

As far as the rest of pregnancy is going, my nausea is letting up a bit for which I am so, so grateful. I haven't thrown up in a week now and the constant queasy feeling is ebbing. Unfortunately, in it's place, the heartburn is coming back with a vengeance so tums are my permanent best friend.

Our next opportunity to check in on bean isn't until just before 12 weeks, so in the meantime I'm trying to remind myself that everything is okay, my belly is clearly growing so bean must be growing, even if I can't see them on ultrasound every week.

9 Weeks - Already Dancing

Today marks our official graduation from the fertility clinic! It seems surreal, trying to get pregnant, IUIs, IVF, infertility, it's all consumed our lives for the past 3 years. I can't believe we get to move forward with a real, healthy baby dancing around in my belly.

And boy are they dancing. The ultrasound tech kept having to readjust the cursor to monitor their heartbeat because they kept wiggling around and dancing away. I know it's still a long way off, but I can't wait until they're big enough to feel movement.

As part of our graduation from the clinic, Dr. D gave us copies of all my OB information and our genetics report with our embryo testing data. It turns out that we got one healthy embryo from each cycle and the one I'm currently carrying came from our second cycle, the one we thought had been a bust. All three of our affected embryos were the same gender and came from our first cycle, and our monosomy embie, who is missing part of chromosome 7, came from the second cycle. Knowing this, I'm more grateful than ever that we were able to do two cycles, this little bean wouldn't be here otherwise.

A little gift from the clinic for good luck :)

My labwork also came in from yesterdays Kaiser blood draw and my estrogen, 1565, is high enough that I'm able to stop the Estradiol pills. It is still too early for my placenta to be making tons of progesterone though so they're going to keep me on Endometrin for now. It was 16.9 which is perfect for a natural cycle, but some extra support can't hurt and I've got almost two boxes left anyway. This is pretty much the outcome I was expecting and I'm thrilled that I get to stop the Estradiol, it was making me kind of light headed and made my nausea much worse in the mornings.

Our next appointment is at Kaiser with a doctor we haven't met yet and won't be until 11 weeks 5 days. Waiting that long is going to be so tough after getting used to seeing little bean every week. I can only hope they keep growing and dancing right on schedule and that my nerves can be patient in the meantime.

Grumpy Cat

Since getting our positive, I've noticed some changes in our wonderful pets behavior. Some things are mild and innocuous but others might potentially be cause for concern.

Our boy kitties are solid. They're in a serious bromance and usually don't pay too much attention to the humans since they're too busy grooming and cuddling. Since our positive, they're a little more cuddly, they want to sit on my belly and get pets whenever I'm sitting down in one of their spaces and will seek me out a little more often for attention. Aside from that, they're not concerned with change as long as their meals keep coming on schedule.

Your belly is my new favorite bed

Milou, our soon to be big sister, is a little more protective. She's fine with other people around, loves children, but she's really not loving other dogs in my space. My mother's dog is particularly upsetting for her, she doesn't want him near our "personal" space - my bedroom, her bed, her crate. On Saturday in her agility class, the instructors dominant male dog tried to lean into my side for butt scratches and Milou basically draped herself across my legs and laid in my lap. She usually backs off from him since she's on the submissive side but it was pretty clear she would not be doing so this time. Her mama is off limits. I'm not really concerned about this behavior, it's normal for dogs to get a little more protective when their people are pregnant and she's still perfectly happy with people, both adults, kiddos, and littles.

I might be smiling but I'm not happy about this

I think the wild card here is probably going to be our girl kitty, Button. She's a 100% mamas girl, shy and scared of other people, and she's making it pretty clear that she is Pissed. We've always known she wasn't a huge fan of change, but in the past she's done really well moving houses, accepting new pets, making things work as long as she had her mama. Now, she's quite literally lashing out. For the past few weeks, she's been reaching out with a paw whenever I stop petting her to grab me. Today, I was walking by her cat tree on my way to put away laundry and stopped to pet her. I only gave her quick pets since I had clothes in my hands and on my way back past her tree she reached out and whacked me right in the face. She actually gave me two teensy scratches and I can't remember her ever intentionally scratching me before in the 10 years I've had her. I gave her a stern talking to and she wouldn't even look at me, she is not a happy camper.

Don't let my big eyes fool you, I'm really grumpy right now

I'm not really concerned about Button with a baby, she's an under the bed, in the closet cat who has her little space that she doesn't leave.  I'm fairly sure she's going to keep as far away from baby as possible. But in the meantime, I need to find some way to make her feel secure and loved so she knows these changes are good ones. I can't have her taking swipes at me every time I go by and I don't want her feeling upset and stressed for the rest of the year. 

8 Weeks - Heard Bean's Heartbeat!

This morning we had the absolutely exquisit pleasure of hearing little bean's heartbeat for the first time. It was such a beautiful sound, thumping away, beatbeatbeatbeatbeat like a strong, steady drum. I can't stop listening to it, I need to take a longer video of it next time so I can listen on repeat.

8 week little bean! Not a great photo but still adorable

The downside of the appointment is that we really didn't love the doctor we met with. She's not on my schedule for any other appointments so I'm hoping she was just the ultrasound dating person and not one we're going to have to see again. She argued with me about how far along I am, didn't seem to understand basic post IVF medication (estrogen and progesterone are pretty much standard), wasn't going to look for my SCH even though I told her I had one and more importantly didn't seem to understand PGD/PGS. I introduced myself, explained that this was an IVF/PGD/PGS pregnancy, these are the medications I'm on etc. And she's like oh....I see here you're a FX carrier? You know you could pass that on to boys....and E and I looked at each other like WTF? Is this lady for real? I explained again that yes, I knew I was a carrier since I JUST said we did PGD/PGS and that I was aware my mutation could be passed on to both boys AND girls HENCE THE PGD. Then she asked if I had seen the genetic counselor to talk about passing on my mutation. OMFG.

She was nice and thorough otherwise, I just don't think she has any idea what PGD/PGS is or she wasn't listening when I tried to explain what we'd done. It was disconcerting and we definitely don't want to see her again. We worked way too hard to get this baby to continue care with someone who doesn't understand everything involved.

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.