21 Week Check in

Here is a quick update on me this week. I can't believe I'm 21 weeks!!

Weight gain/loss: Still down a few pounds last I checked. I feel like I’m getting huge though!
Maternity clothes? Absolutely! Pants anyway. I tried to wear my other pants and I had to unbutton them an hour into my work day.
Stretch marks? Still not 100% sure. A couple of red marks on my belly but I’m sure if they are from too-tight pants or if they are early stretch marks
Sleep? Not bad! Zantac helps so much and the extra hour with the time change was heavenly.
Best moment of the week? I feel the babies!! I was able to confirm it with the Doppler. I thought I was feeling them and we had the Doppler on and I felt the kick and heard the movement at the same time.
Food Cravings: Milk and ice cream. I wonder if I need more calcium?
Belly button in or out? Still in
Movement: Now that I know I am feeling them, I feel them all the time! It’s amazing and creepy all at the same time. LOL
What I miss: I’ve had a few nights where I really wanted a drink, but overall I’m doing alright.

Anatomy Scan was Today

And the babies looked great!!! Scrappy was in a great position so the tech started getting measurements right away. No abnormalities (aside from a single umbilical artery on Scrappy, which can be totally incidental). 2 little hearts, 2 little brains, 4 little kidneys, everything on both babies was where it should be and looked totally normal. Scrappy is small, measuring about 2 weeks behind, but that could be from the single umbilical artery and me not being able to eat much in the past few weeks.

And the sexes are......














Girls!!! We are team Pink all the way. Two little girls! I am so excited and ready to move forward with this pregnancy without constantly worrying about major genetic issues.

Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers. I truly believe that they helped with the wonderful results we got today. :)

The high highs and the low lows

I'm pretty sure in the past 4 months, this pregnancy has resulted in as many tears as the 2 1/2 years we spent trying to conceive. Don't get me wrong, a lot of those tears have been happy, but it has certainly been a roller coaster. From the moment I saw the flickering of those two little heartbeats on the ultrasound screen, I have felt some of the happiest and some of the scariest feelings in my life.

One thing I have absolutely loved about being pregnant is how much stronger I feel things, particularly in relation to the babies. I hear a song on the radio that makes me think of the babies and I will cry, no matter where I am and what is so awesome about being pregnant is that I don't care that I'm crying. I have no shame. I have pulled up to the Starbucks drive thru with tears running down my cheeks from a song on the radio and I'm not embarrassed.

The flip side to that is when we get bad news or I feel that the pregnancy is threatened, the emotions I feel are amplified beyond my imagination. I have had several bleeding scares during my pregnancy. The first was around 8 weeks. I was at the point where I was feeling pretty confident about things. I hadn't had any spotting or cramping in the first month of pregnancy and I was really starting to get smug about how well things were going. Then I went to the bathroom and there was blood. I was so scared and in total shock. Being forced to face the fact that this pregnancy can end at any time without warning was the worst feeling. I cried and hugged Tim and prayed that everything would be OK. An ultrasound the following morning showed both babies where they were supposed to be with strong heart beats.

More recently, I received some not-so-good news from my MFM (maternal-fetal medicine doctor). I had a first trimester screen done at 13 weeks and the results were not normal (my bloodwork was lost and we didn't get the results until 16 weeks!). My bloodwork showed a 1:46 chance of either trisomy 18 or 13. I was devastated and I cried big ugly tears when we got home. Tim and I spent the next 2 days in a state of shock, fear and depression. We talked about the 'what ifs' at the same time trying to squash the horrible sadness and fear that kept creeping up.

Follow up bloodwork showed a dramatic reduciton in the risk of trisomy 18, unfortunately, there is no way to gather more information about trisomy 13 without doing an amniocentesis and Tim and I decided that the risks of the amnio outweighed the benefits of knowing the results. After speaking with my OB, we feel that although there is a chance we may have a child with a genetic issue, it is still unlikely, and if our anatomy scan does not show any major abnormalities, we can feel fairly confident that things will be alright.

Tomorrow afternoon is my anatomy scan. I am so excited to see the babies, but at the same time, I am so incredibly scared about what they might find. I don't know how I will handle it if one of the babies is sick. I would give anything to be a blissfully ignorant teenager right now. I'm sure that 16 year old girls who get pregnant don't spend a lot of time fretting over the possibility of genetic abnormalities in their babies.

Any thoughts and prayers you can spare for the scan tomorrow would be appreciated. I will update as soon as I can.

18 week update

Here are some stats on my progress:

Weight gain/loss: Amazingly none so far, I go between a 2 pound loss and maintain since my BFP. Food is starting to stay down better though, so I'm sure it will become an issue soon

Maternity clothes? Sometimes. I have a few pairs of mat jeans that I wear sometimes, but my regular jeans still fit. I don't think I have any mat. tops.

Stretch marks? Aside from the ones I already had?? I think I see one starting across my belly.

Sleep? OK. I have been battling reflux for several weeks now and that has kept me up, but I started taking Zantac 2 days ago and it seems so much better now!

Best moment this week? We have a little doppler so we can listen to the babies at home. I had the probe on and Tim came over and tapped on my tummy, a second later, Scooby tapped back. It was pretty awesome :)

Food cravings: Carbs, mainly bagels. Frozen coffee drinks, which I can't have nearly as often as I would like.

Sex: The u/s tech made a guess at 16 weeks, but I'm reserving an 'official' announcement until our 20 week scan.

Belly button in or out? In, but OMG it's getting shallower! So weird!

Movement? Maybe? I think I can feel Scooby sometimes, but not Scrappy. Scrappy is smaller with an anterior placenta so I bet it will be awhile.

What I miss? Unlimited caffeine. Not puking. LOL

What I'm looking forward to: Anatomy scan in 2 weeks. I can't wait to see them again!

Highlights of First Trimester

I have been a horrible blogger and I promise to be better in the coming weeks/months. First, let me fill you in on the highlights of the past few months. I am 18 weeks 2 days pregnant today, so we have some ground to cover.

My pregnancy started out like any other IVF pregnancy, with Beta Hell. Beta Hell consists of multiple blood draws over the course of several weeks. The RE likes to look at HCG levels to ensure that the numbers are rising properly. It is expected that the beta HCG level will double every 48 to 72 hours. My betas did OK, but weren't stellar. They typically doubled every 50-70 hours. On one hand, it was really nice to see the numbers go up and know that SOMETHING was happening, but waiting for the phone call with the latest numbers was BRUTAL! I did betas about every 72 hours from week 4 to week 6. Once my levels were over 1000, my RE scheduled my first ultrasound which happened at 7 weeks exactly.

Tim came with me to the first u/s and we were both so nervous and excited. Dr. Cof came in and explained what we should expect. He said that there were 2 things that he wanted to confirm at this time. First, he expected that the baby would have a heartbeat, second, he needed to confirm that the baby was in the uterus. If both of these things were confirmed, the risk of miscarriage dropped from about 30% to about 5%. I braced myself for the u/s, so scared of what we might find, but so hopeful for our little one.

Dr. Cof inserted the u/s probe and I quickly identified my uterus. Almost just as quickly, I saw a little blob with a quick flicker that I knew was our baby. I immediately burst into tears. Dr. Cof said 'I see a baby with a heartbeat' and I said, through gasping sobs, 'I know! I see it too!!!' Tim did not know what to do. He doesn't have experience looking at ultrasound images, so he had no idea what was going on and when he heard me sobbing, he immediately thought the worst. Once Dr. Cof pointed out our LO, he was in love. I continued to cry through most of the scan. Dr. Cof scanned around before measuring our little 'Shortround' and after a moment he said 'I see a second sac and I think there might be something in there'. My heart stopped - Oh my God, twins!? I didn't know what to think. I was so happy and so scared all at once. I couldn't believe that both embryos took, but I could see that this little one was smaller and didn't look quite the same as the first.

After a few moments of watching this little sac/blob we were all convinced that there was a little flicker in there too. We had 2 babies, with 2 heart beats! Dr. Cof did his measurements and showed that Baby A (who we have since dubbed 'Scooby') was measuring exactly on track and Baby B ('Scrappy' of course) was measuring several days behind. The doctor informed us that it was a 50/50 chance that Scrappy would not be there at our next scan.

I spent the following weeks on a cloud. All I could think was 'I am pregnant, OMG, I am ACTUALLY pregnant!' I started telling people our good news pretty quickly after that u/s, but I kept the news of twins mostly to myself and our immediate family. Knowing that it was a 50/50 chance that Scrappy was going to make it, I didn't want to have to un-tell a lot of people if the worst happened.

Fast forward to week 9. I have graduated and I am going in for my first OB appointment. The doctor came in and went straight to the ultrasound (again internal). I don't think that Tim or I took a breath in the first moments, we were so scared about what we might find. After taking a quick peek at Scooby, the doctor turned her attention to where Scrappy should be. In a moment we knew, Scrappy was a fighter! There was little Scrappy on the screen, still smaller, but definitely growing with an obvious heartbeat at the same pace as his/her sibling. I couldn't believe it!

As the weeks have gone on, we have had a lot of ultrasounds. Initially we were going in almost every week to make sure that little Scrappy was growing. Every week, we have been amazed at both babies' progress. About a week after we first saw Scooby move, we saw Scrappy move. Now they both seem to be doing great and we are getting scans every 4 weeks now (along with cervical ultrasounds every 2 weeks). We came out with the news about our double blessing around 13 weeks. Here I am 18 weeks and I still can't believe it. I am pregnant. I am going to have 2 babies. I am so happy (and scared, I'm not gonna lie!). I am doing my best to enjoy every minute because I know that it is going to go by so fast.

Without further ado, here's a picture of little Scooby and Scrappy from around 10 weeks. Scrappy is longways on the left and the top of Scooby's head and little hands are on the right. I am so in love!

Preparing for Parenthood

So I think the dogs are trying to prepare us for parenthood. I should start by saying that all of the dogs are in our bedroom, but they each have their own kennel 'room' that they are expected to be in at nigh and whenever we aren't home.

Last night at 3 am, Flash started whimpering. Just a quiet little whimper, but it almost seemed like a scared noise so both Tim and I wondered if he was having a bad dream or something. We said soothing stuff to him and he quieted down for a minute, but then he started up again. Tim got up and took him outside and he peed and went back into his room, but then started crying again. So I turned the light on and low and behold, he had thrown up in his room. Tim cleaned it (thank God!) and tried to put Flash back, but he wouldn't lay down. So Tim let Flash into the bed (I was not happy about this, but what can I do?). So after about 5 minutes Flash finally lays down, but I can feel him moving and so I turn a light on and sure enough, he's eating the blanket (and that was why I didn't want him out of his room!). So we put him away and he settles in and goes to sleep.

Meanwhile, Brew is snoring away so we have no worries there, but Cricket is licking incessantly on her feet and bed. We both tried telling her to stop, but she won't. The late night disturbance has upset her and I know it isn't over. About an hour later, I hear the horrible sound of Cricket making herself throw up. She does this occasionally. I don't know what her deal is. She rarely actually produces anything, but she will make that horrible retching noise and it sounds like she just puked up a gallon of something. So of course we get up and Tim lets her come into bed with us (again, I'm not happy). But she did let us sleep for the next couple of hours which was good.

I'm Pregnant :)

In the days following my ET, I began taking HPTs daily to watch my trigger shot disappear and hopefully see a real BFP. We went to visit my parents a little over a week after the ET and I brought my tests with me. By Saturday, the line was faint and by Sunday, the line was gone. I was a mess. I tried to keep a happy face knowing that I was only 10dpo and it was really too early to expect a BFP, but more than anything, I was convinced that the IVF hadn't worked.

I tested again Monday morning and still nothing. Well....maybe a little something. I stared at that test for a good 20 minutes trying to convince myself that the line was there, but it was too faint to call. I tested again on Tuesday and sure enough, there was a very faint, but clear line. I couldn't believe it. I stood in the bathroom staring at that stick in awe. I finally headed back to our bedroom and climbed into bed. Tim woke up and asked me if everything was ok and I said 'well, I think I'm pregnant, but other than that....' His response was a very subdued, half-awake 'yaaaay' followed very quickly by a very awake, 'Wait, what?!' And I told him that the line was back. In the days that followed that very faint line got darker and darker until I finally began to realize that I am, in fact, pregnant.



My first beta confirmed this with a level of 113. I was in disbelief. I still am a lot of the time. I am pregnant.