well what do we have here?

Hopefully this will work. The post I tried earlier from my blackberry did not come through, but hopefully this and the picture will. If not, we are on our way home and I will post it when we get there.
Anyway, on to the news you are all waiting for. We have...

1 heartbeat!!! Dr. RE did not even have to tell us! A and I saw it fluttering away and both busted out into tears! We are beyond excited! More to come later.

US day

OK so this is what I tried to post at 10 am this morning....my e-mail posting didn't work how I thought it would.

We're on our way to Dr. RE's office for the US. I don't know if my nausea right now is nerves or trying to read blogs on my blackberry while on the road. I'm excited, scared, anxious and a whole lot more. We brought a video camera with, so hopefully I'll have video of the heartbeat(s) to share later today.

(not so) Patiently Waiting

I know I've been absent, and the e-mails and questions about how I am have meant so much.  Sorry about that.  The truth is I've had a tough week.  We are t-minus 45 hours to Ultrasound, and I am so anxious!  I had a minor major meltdown on Tuesday.  I couldn't help but feel totally and completely scared that something isn't right with my little bean(s).  I'm 6 weeks now, and I'm still really nervous.  My symptoms had really tapered off.  The nausea was pretty much gone, the cramping had all but disappeared, in fact the only symptoms I was having was the sore girls and the bloating every day. Now this morning it all came back full force.  I had major cramping around 6 am.  If it weren't for the fact that I didn't want to get out of bed and wake the dogs, I probably would have gotten up and puked, but I really wanted to be able to go back to sleep once the cramping passed.  So I toughed it out and made it through.  I'm glad that some of the other symptoms that I know aren't also caused by the medications are back.  Its very reassuring.  Although I wish I knew if it is the morning sickness is causing the stomach cramps or the stomach cramps are causing the nausea.  They seem to come hand in hand. 

I'll try to be better about posting updates.  I'm hoping once we get past Monday my spirits will lift and I will stop feeling all these negative feelings.  Finally being pregnant after so many cycles of trying and failing and trying some more brings with it a whole slew of emotions I wasn't really prepared for.  I expected to feel relief and overwhelming happiness.  Instead I find myself even more anxious than I was during my 2ww post IVF.  Is everything OK?  Is there 1 or 2 in there?  Are they thriving or has something gone wrong?  It almost as if I'm expecting something to go wrong.  It just feels too good to be true, and experience has taught me that things that seem too good to be true probably are.  I know its totally stupid.  There's no reason to believe there's anything wrong, but I'm still paranoid.  *sigh* It sucks that infertility does this to us.  It sucks all the joy out of the first few weeks of pregnancy and replaces it with anxiety and doubt.  Lovely.

Chugging along...random thoughts

I'm just chugging along right now.  A and I have started measuring my belly at night just so we don't miss it if the swelling starts to get bad gradually over a couple of days.  My biggest concern right now is that the ohss will flare up really bad and catch me completely off guard.

I went back on the fiber supplement on Tuesday, and surprisingly I haven't had a cramping attack in 2 days (knock on wood).  I wonder if the constipation (which I had lost track of again) was causing the ohss cramping to be that much worse?

I'm not going to be able to keep this quiet at work for very long if I keep puking at 9 am.  I barely made it to the bathroom in time this morning.  And 3 women came in while I was at it! 

I turn 30 in 2 weeks!  It's amazing how insignificant that seems now.

Our Angel Baby's due date came and went on Tuesday without even a second thought from me.  I feel SO guilty about that.  I never want to forget that day, just like I never want to forget the struggles we've been through to get to this point.  I never want to be that women who slips back into the fertile mindset just because I got knocked up.  A will say I'm being silly that out angel baby was never really a baby and would have never been know if it wasn't for treatments, and I need to move forward, but this feels like the first step on a very slippery slope.

I am sleeping more soundly than I have in a VERY long time.  I wake up in the morning in the exact same position as when I laid down.  Some nights I have the "roll-over syndrome" where  you roll over thinking you haven't been asleep at all yet and realize its morning!  I feel most rested those mornings, yet I'm still contemplating crawling into bed at 9 every night...and yet I never do.

Speaking of which, it is now 10:30 and I have to be up at 6.  I really need to go to bed.  Night!

Hellooooo Morning Sickness and Defining Weeks

Guess who came for a visit this morning?  Good old make me pray to the porcelain goddess.  And first thing this morning BEFORE I had a chance to eat or drink anything.  Helllllooooo Dry heaves..BLECH.

OK now seriously, why don't we have Internet code names for things like Morning Sickness? I mean come on we have Aunt Flo and Baby Dance and all sorts for the infertility discussions, but none for the pregnancy ones?  Or am I just so new to this that I don't know them yet...HRMMM that is a possibility I guess.

Totally switching topics, I got an interesting call yesterday from my sister (who reads my blog) and she and my dad (who also reads) were totally confused as to how I could be 4 1/2 weeks pregnant.  I just had the transfer 2 weeks ago, how was that possible?  I realized that I have quite a few folks who read my blog that are not well versed with infertility and pregnancy, and this was actually confusing for me at first too.

The human gestation period is actually 40 weeks, not the 9 months commonly thought, and is commonly calculated from the first day of the Last Menstrual Period (LMP).  Most women area already considered 4 weeks pregnant (28 days from their LMP) when they find out that they are pregnant and only have 36 weeks to go (hence the 9 month idea).  The idea is that the egg is starting to develop on Day 1 of the LMP, so that is the official first day of pregnancy, if it happens.  All of this assumes that the woman has a "normal" 28 day cycle and ovulates on day 14.  Since we all know that "normal" is very rare, this is why calendar pregnancy duration and measured pregnancy duration (via ultrasound) can vary by up to a week.  For us, we KNOW conception occurred on July 29th (retrieval day), so I know exactly where I should be time wise.  Measuring ahead or behind will be an indication of how well the baby(ies) are developing.

Medical lecture over.  I hope you took notes, there will be a test next week :-)