Update (including bump pics!)

There's been quite a bit going on since my last update.  Here's a run down of what we've been doing:

• Travel:  Matt spent about 2 weeks traveling for work.  His trips to him to Las Vegas and Dublin, Ireland.  I'm really glad those trips are done!  In the weeks leading up to his trips I really dreaded him leaving.  Thankfully he doesn't have to travel often.  I'm hoping there are no more trips for at least a year. 

• Daycare:  Over the past month, we've toured multiple day cares trying to find the "perfect" place for the girls.  What we've found is there is no perfect place, but we did find a place we really liked that met our requirements and our budget.  Since we need two spots in the same classroom, at the same time we needed to act fairly quickly.  So, as of yesterday our girls now have a spot on the waitlist at our daycare of choice.  

• Nursery:  Our ideas for the nursery are coming together.  We've picked the cribs, paint color, and fabric. We'll probably order the cribs in the next few weeks.  I've become a Craigslist fiend searching for deals on a couple of dressers and a glider.  My hard work paid off last weekend when I found a $600 glider for $150!

• New car:  This past weekend we traded in my 10 year old Honda Accord for a Toyota Highlander.  It was a bit bittersweet because the Accord was the first car I purchased all on my own.  The sadness didn't last too long as I drove off in my shiny new car.  I'm excited for the day when there are two babies in carseats sitting behind me.

• Bump:  I haven't posted any pics of the babies bump on here so I thought it would be fun to show the progress of the bump so far.  I got lazy on picture taking after 16.5 weeks, but I took one last night in an effort to start documenting it again.  The weight gain is a bit scary, but I'm right on track for the recommended weight gain for a twin pregnancy.  

GIRLS!

I know I've already announced this on Twitter, but I thought I would document the "big reveal" a bit more here.  

Say "Hello!" to Baby Girl A 

and Baby Girl B!

We are still in debates about their names.  Our plan is to wait to share names when they are born.  Before we knew their genders, M was calling them Barack and Michelle.  Since Barack isn't a great name for a baby girl, I think we'll have to come up with new nicknames for them.  

Both girls were wiggling all over the place during the ultrasound.  I feel them occasionally, but nothing close to the moving and shaking that is going on in there.  As of Friday, Baby B was positioned so that she was kicking her little sister in the head pretty frequently.  I guess the sibling battles are already beginning in there.  Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come!

Both girls looked absolutely perfect during the ultrasound.  It was so amazing how much we were able to see.  There were several points where I had to ask if the things the ultrasound tech was commenting on was normal.  I had no idea there were actually supposed to be fluid pockets in the brain. Talk about a split second of panic!

As of Friday, Baby A was measuring right on target at 17 weeks 6 days and Baby B was measuring a bit ahead at 18 weeks 5 days.  I'm really happy with those measurements.  We will have monthly growth scans from here on out.  I'm really excited to be able to see them every month and watch them grow and change.  

Now that we know we are going to have two little girls, this all seems more real and even more exciting.  If you follow me on Pinterest, you already know I've gone a bit crazy with nursery ideas.  I can't wait to start painting and decorating.  

In addition to the fun stuff, we've started doing a lot of reading.  Right now, I'm reading Mothering Multiples. It's super informative and I think it's going to be really helpful when it comes to breastfeeding.    

We are so incredibly happy!  M has already started the habit of asking "How are my girls?" every day when we wake up and when he comes home.  It melts my heart every single time.  

Cravings and the less discussed aversions

It seems like the standard questions when someone finds out you are pregnant are:

-Was it a surprise? (ha! hardly!)

-When are you due? (Late March/Early April)

-What are you having? (Puppies! No really, we don't know yet.)

-Have you had any cravings?

I've really been surprised at my lack of cravings.  The only thing that I can think of that I've actually craved is Baba Ghanouj (hummus-like eggplant dip) from Neomonde.  I think I've eaten it at least 3 or 4 times in the past 6 weeks.  Thankfully M likes to eat there too!  I did have a slight sushi craving the other day and was able to satisfy it with a California Roll, but a spicy tuna roll would be divine.

You always hear about pregnancy cravings in movies, books and tv shows.  Something that I've never really heard much about are the aversions.  I'm not a huge meat eater normally, but the pregnancy has made it nearly impossible.  The idea of chicken and pork is completely disgusting to me.  I made a chicken casserole when I was around 8 weeks along that M claims was delicious, but I told him we may never have it again because I was so nauseated while trying to cook it.  It still makes my stomach churn when I think about it.  Thankfully, I do still like burgers, steak, and most seafood.  

I pretty much eat the same two or three green veggies over and over.  Spinach, kale and green beans are about all that sounds good.  You can forget broccoli and asparagus. I can chew it, but can't seem to swallow it.  It's so weird!  Roasted broccoli has been my go to side dish for years. 

Aversions are definitely on the list of pregnancy weirdness that no one ever told me about.  Thankfully I still love ice cream!

Gender Poll

Our anatomy ultrasound is November 9th.  I honestly have no feeling one way or the other.  M really thinks at least one is a boy, but I think that's just wishful thinking on his part :)  First and foremost, we want healthy babies, but a boy/girl combo would be nice considering this is probably our only pregnancy.

What's your guess for Baby A and Baby B?

First Trimester Update

I'm really going to try to get better about blogging more regularly.  I feel like I have a ton of stuff to write, but I keep getting distracted when I sit down to blog.  I'm going to try to get caught up with a recap of the first trimester and then maybe sitting down to blog won't seem overwhelming.  

Weeks 1-5:  I really didn't have any indication either way if I was pregnant. I was on so many hormones during this time that any early pregnancy symptoms could have been the result of any of those.  I didn't take a single pregnancy test until the morning of my beta.  I woke up at 1:30 a.m. that morning and had to go to the bathroom, so I decided I might as well test.  About 5 minutes later, I was waking M up to tell him the good news.  Needless to say I didn't sleep much more that night.  My first beta at 14dpo was 185.  This seemed a little high, but my mind didn't jump to multiples right away.  The next beta at 17dpo was 774!  This is when I had the first clue that multiples were a possibility.  My final beta at 24dpo was 8850.  M and I were both pretty sure there were two babies growing, but we honestly didn't talk about it too much.

Weeks 6-7:  These weeks were very exciting.  I knew I was pregnant and my beta levels hinted at the possibility of multiples, but we wouldn't know for sure until we had our first ultrasound.  The day for the ultrasound finally came at 6 weeks 4 days.  We saw the two sacs on the ultrasound right away.  At first the doctor said that she wasn't sure if both had heartbeats, but when she zoomed in you could see both little hearts flickering away.  Matt and I just stared at the screen with huge smiles on our faces.  We went back one week later to confirm both babies were still hanging in there.  Since they both looked good, we were released into the "normal" world to my regular OB/GYN office.  

Weeks 8-10:  Several days after being released from the RE's office, I experienced some bleeding.  I was freaked out, especially since the few early pregnancy symptoms I had been feeling had subsided the day before.  What started out as brown spotting turned bright red by the time we were seen at our OB/GYN office later that day.  After waiting for hours (literally!), we finally were able to see our little ones on the ultrasound screen.  They had very strong heartbeats and the u/s tech could see no reason for the cause of the bleeding.  I was told to take it easy for the next few days.  Thankfully, the bleeding stopped later that day and I haven't had any more issues. For the record, the nausea that had mysteriously disappeared showed back up a few days later and didn't really leave until around week 14.

Weeks 11-14:  Week 11 was we we FINALLY got to stop the intra-muscular progesterone injections.  We had been doing these nightly since a few days before the embryo transfer.  The lumps, bumps, and bruises from those injections didn't completely go away until around week 14.  These weeks also brought the NT scan and first trimester screening.  We were both nervous since IVF with ICSI takes some of the "natural selection" out of the process, there is a slightly increased risk for chromosomal abnormalities.  We were thrilled to hear that our odds for these types of issues are extremely low.  As you know, at this point we told our families and then made our announcement on the blog.

Overall, I've felt pretty good.  I was extremely tired up until around week 12 or 13.  There were quite a few days that I left work early to take a nap.  I also had pretty bad nausea during this time.  Thankfully I never actually got sick, but there were days that felt like I was car sick or hungover from the time I woke up until I went to bed.  

Right now, we're counting down to November 9th when we have our anatomy scan.  We CAN'T WAIT to find out if we're having boys, girls, or one of each!  

Long time no blog...

After a 1.5 month hiatus from posting, I'm back!  I've had a billion thoughts swarming around in my head and now that it's time to put them in writing, I'm having a hard time putting the right words together.

So, here goes....

Remember this pic from back in July?

Well, baby Jesus worked his magic and....

I'm pregnant......with twins!

(Not a great pic, but I promise they are beautiful!)

At 12.5 weeks we're still in shock, but we couldn't be happier!  Our little ones are due to arrive April 12, 2013.  Realistically it will probably be a bit earlier, but I'm going to keep these little ones baking as long as possible.  We have a long way to go until we bring these babies home, so we would appreciate all the prayers and positive thoughts you've got!

After great results from our NT scan last week, we FINALLY told our families this past weekend. There's no more keeping it a secret.  They were all super excited.  My mom was on the phone with some of her friends within about 10 minutes of us spilling the beans.  

We probably won't do a big Facebook announcement for a while, if at all.  I'm also still trying to keep it quiet at work, but a few close friends and my boss know (more on this later).  Of course, it's getting harder every day to hide the fact that my usual wardrobe doesn't really fit anymore.  Maybe I'll get brave and post a belly pic soon.

I'll do separate blog posts to catch you up on what's been going on so far, but I want to add a quick note to this announcement to all of the amazingly strong women that I have met through this infertility journey.  I know so many of you are still fighting this battle.  Please don't hesitate to still reach out to cry, obsess over symptoms, ask questions, or just talk.  I know sometimes it feels like you're all alone in this, but you're not!  I couldn't have made it to this point without the support of many "real life" and "internet" friends.

Valuable Lessons from Infertility

Infertility sucks! There's no way to really sugar coat it.  Since the point of this blog is to try to look at the positive aspects of life while struggling with infertility, I thought I would take a few minutes to write about some valuable lessons I have learned through infertility.

1)  Stand up for yourself with the medical profession:  Before infertility, I always took information from doctors and nurses at face value.  I assumed that since they were experts in their filed, that they were infallible.  I didn't question test results or do any of my own research.  I got burned pretty bad with the misdiagnosis by my first RE, so I've learned my lesson. Now, I'm the annoying patient that asks a million questions and then emails with even more follow up questions if I don't think the answer I've gotten has been sufficient.  I've even brought in studies and information I've read online to support my questions and concerns.  I'm sure they LOVE me bringing in medical advice from Dr. Google, but on more than one occasion it has been useful.  Don't be afraid to do your own research and keep asking questions until you're happy with the answer.

2)  Dealing with tough situations as a couple:  Before getting into the height of our infertility treatments, M and I had never been through anything really hard in our relationship.  Sure, we've dealt with some pretty stressful things together like planning a wedding, buy/selling a home, changing jobs, but with all of those things there was an end in sight. With IF, you never know when/if there will be an end.  Every cycle is a roller coaster of emotions.  M and I really have learned a lot about each other and how to communicate with each other through the ups and downs of infertility.  We both agree that have become much closer though all of this  and have really learned so much about we each handle stress.

3) Find an outlet:  Running used to be my outlet for stress, but with an HA diagnosis that had to come to an end.  For a while, I felt really lost with what to do with my free time and how to relieve stress.  There were a lot of days with tears and frustration because all I wanted to do was go for a run, but knew that would only make things worse in the long run.  M kept pushing me to find something to replace running, so there wasn't a huge hole in my life where running used to be.  I hope to get back into running someday, but for now I'm filling my time with long walks, lots of reading, and blogging. I've probably read more in the past 6 months than I have in the past 2 years combined.  When I was running and working out so much, I was always too tired to read before bed.  While I don't get the same endorphin rush from reading a good book as I do from a great run, it's a great escape from everyday life.

4) Don't be ashamed:  I kept my IF struggles pretty private for a while.  I didn't really talk to many people about it because I was worried about how they would react.  After dealing with it for a while, I realized IF is like any other illness.  There's no reason to be ashamed of IF or HA.  It is my diagnosis and I'm doing every damn thing possible to find a cure.