Update on Petri and spreading the news:)

Petri is doing great! We had our second u/s this morning. I have been beyond nervous for the past 2 weeks and just terrified that I'd be getting bad news today. I was so nauseous this morning and I don't think it was because of m/s. Our appt was at 10:15am. We went in and the doctor and tech came in shortly after. Then, we got to see petri! It's crazy how much our baby has grown in 2 weeks. The doctor pointed out the head, heartbeat and rump. The heartbeat was SO fast (170bpm today!) and it was such a cool thing to see. He pointed out where the cord was and the yolk sac was and explained that it will eventually disappear after I commented on how much smaller it had gotten. I swear I could have stared at that screen all day. It was awesome. I still can't believe that I'M PREGNANT!!! Like with an actual baby growing inside me! Today was my reassurance and validation day and it's amazing.

After the u/s I went in to talk to the nurse. When we walked out of the room the other doctors, nurses and tech's were there cheering for us. We got hugs and many congratulations and so many smiles. I'm beyond thankful for the people that helped bring me to this point and I love that they're just as excited for us! We went in to talk to the nurse and she said it was my graduation day! I didn't realize that, thought we'd have at least 1 more ultrasound but I guess things are looking good enough that feel comfortable sending me to my OB. That's right AN OBSTETRICIAN! LIke a person that delivers BABIES! My baby! Oh! I can't even put into words how happy and scared and excited and nervous that made me. She also told me that I could stop taking metformin (YAY!) and gave me a timeline of when I could stop those stupid vaginal suppositories and the estridol. Then guess what... I'll only be down to a prenatal vitamin!:)

I just called to make my OB appt and it's on April 4th. The lady scheduling me asked me when my last menstral period was and I just laughed cause I can't remember. I can tell you the date of ER 1 and 2 and my transfer date but my period?? Who knows! I explained to her that I wasn't sure but that I did IVF and I can tell her the date of my retrieval and transfer and told her my due date was halloween. She tried to figure out my LMP then and told me it was sometime in late January. Fine, sounds about right. But later she looked at her little wheel thing and said that based on my LMP I wouldn't be 8weeks until early next week. So around we go again. In the end she ended up trusting that I knew my due date and just left it at that but I'd really not like to fight them my entire pregnancy. The benefit of IVF is you know the exact second you get pregnant, so no guessing on which day I ovulated... also, they assume with that little wheel of theirs, that I ovulated on day 14. HA! Newbsauce. Feel like I should do some educating of that office:P Anyway, I'm hoping I can get another u/s on the 4th just to have some more reassurance. I'll be 10 weeks that day:)

Now... onto how we told people! All of my immediate family knows now and I think everyone in Jason's family knows with the exception of his sister whom he hasn't gotten a hold of over the phone. Anyway... last week was amazing and quite eventful!

Mom and her husband/ brother:
Later this month is my mom's birthday so we gave her an "early birthday present" She opened the card thinking nothing of it and read "grandm- (couldn't even see the A since it was still in the envelope) and she started sobbing. Like full on sobbing:P Greg asked what I did to her and then he read the card and said he was getting teary eyed too:) It was so sweet! They're obviously very excited for us and I think more than that, they're relieved that IVF worked the first time for us! Later we went to dinner and while my brother was mid sip into his beer I just leaned over and said "you're going to be an uncle!" He 1/2 choked and then gave me the biggest hug:)

Dad and his wife:
Told them at dinner and they were both very excited. Not really surprised since they were suspicious of why we wanted to have dinner with them out of the blue. We made a point to call Kortnie Grandma K since she'll be 34 when the baby is born. My dad called the next day and wanted to know if he could share the news with my grandparents since he was so excited:P We'll be seeing them in a couple weeks so he decided to hold off and let us share the news in person.

Aunt/Uncle/Cousins:
I went over to my cousin's for dinner and my aunt and uncle came over too. My cousin tested me from the minute I got in the door, offering me a beer. I tried to play it off but apparently wasn't too good at it:P They did/said a few more things to make me realize they were more than onto me so I told them when we sat down for dinner. Seriously... they jumped up and screamed! It was hilarious and amazingly sweet and of course I began crying:P

Brother 2:
He was the cutest. He doesn't really know about everything we've been through so I feel like I got the most genuine reaction without having the relief/thank god something finally worked happiness mixed in. I called and he immediately asked what I wanted because I never call him. After going back and forth for a bit I told him he was going to be an Uncle. He just laughed and said "that's awesome" and then laughed some more. I just wanted to hug him for that. It was a perfect Brother #2 reaction:)

Sister:
I called her and she had other news she was gushing about (which I'll post about later) but she was ecstatic and already extremely happy. After talking with her a bit about that I told her I had some news to share as well and that I was pregnant. Didn't even finish the word pregnant and she started crying! It continued to be the sweetest crying fest ever:)

I'm so thankful to have such amazingly supportive people in my life. It means the world to me that I've been able to share this journey of ups and downs with them and that I can finally share with them the good news:) I don't think I could ever express my gratitude for these people in my life and the support and love they give me on a regular basis. I knew that everyone would be excited but I didn't think anyone would really be surprised. Surprised or not, it didn't change their most genuine excitement and love for J, petri and I! I'm so excited to continue to share my pregnancy updates with them and then eventually have them share in petri's life:)

I've been a slacker!

So many things to update! The most exciting is that last Tuesday we got to see our little blasty (henceforth shall be named Petri- it's cuter;)) Petri was fantastic! Measuring 5w6d (when I was 6w1d) and had a heartbeat of 104bpm. It was such a relief to see our baby and to see the flickering of our BABY's heart. I had to get another prescription for Metformin written up (other one's refills ran out... ugh) but it gave the Dr. time to find my nurse and everyone was SO excited for us:) I go back again on the 22nd for our next ultrasound.

By Friday my IF fears had crept in and overtaken all my joy. I had a major freakout at work on Friday. I'm so worried that I'll have missed miscarriage and that I'll get bad news on the 22nd. It's so hard to just trust that things are ok. I hate that I've been robbed of this joyful time because of the journey it took to get here. I'm trying very hard to just be excited and happy and not let those thoughts overtake me.

Sunday was another amazing day though. We decided to tell J's parents and my stepmom and her boyfriend. We were all meeting for brunch because J's parents had a gift certificate so they had no idea it was coming. I told J he could tell them and right after a conversation about the Tsunami in Japan had barely finished J said "did you hear the other news? Megannjay's pregnant!" Needless to say they, and I, were shocked. I didn't expect him to deliver it like that but it was pretty awesome. I'll never forget the faces of my mom and J's mom. It was amazing:) They were/are SO excited for us! I'm so happy that we FINALLY got to have this conversation with them:)

Tomorrow we're telling my mom and her husband and then thursday we're telling my dad and his wife. Throughout the week we'll be telling the siblings (over the phone). I'm excited to get all this out there so I don't have to avoid people or be worried about the conversation coming up. We can just talk about it and be excited about it:)

I'll post a picture of petri from our 6w u/s with the one from the 8w u/s. Do another comparison post:)

Symptoms:
Nausea is starting. I'm not totally sure if it's from the met or if it's real morning sickness. Today it was worse than other days and seemed to last most of the day though.
Otherwise feeling good:)

Happy 7 weeks to me!:)

Beta #3

Came back at 2194 today! Doubling time of about 51 hours:) No more beta's for me... 1st ultrasound is next Tuesday!!!! I'll be 6w1d so I'm not too sure what I'll get to see. I'm REALLY hoping to at least see the heartbeat but I know that it can go either way so not to freak out if I don't. Either way, I need that u/s to help this all sink in.

Now lets talk symptoms... it's hard for me to tell what is pregnancy related and what is because of the progesterone/estradiol/metformin/prenatal vitamins I've been taking. And, things change daily... so here's what's "different"
1. Sore boobs- they've been sore since I started stimming but I've noticed that when I take my bra off at night they hurt and just feel heavy; not to mention none of my bras fit anymore!
2. Burping- kinda. I've always gurgled, never really burped but one day I was burping alll day. WEIRD
3. cramping- I know it's normal but it freaks me out!
4. Tailbone pain- had it for 2 days and it went away. Doubt it's related at all but I had it when I knew I was pregnant so I'm adding it to the list:P
5. Last but not least- BLOATING... oh my gosh the bloat! Used to be extremely painful, now not so much but none of my pants fit very well anymore. Went out and bought bella bands to help during the "transition" time into maternity clothes. Ridiculous in my mind to have to use them at 5 weeks but I like to breathe soooo I'm bustin them out!:)

Honestly, that's about it. I'm hoping it stays that way for a long long time.

Beta #2

Came back at 1153! Doubling time of 53ish hours which is perfectly in the "normal" range (anything from 48-72 hours is normal). I go in for my last beta on Wednesday and then sometime next week I'll have my first ultrasound! Praying for a super high number Wednesday!

Keep having to pinch myself... this is all so surreal. I'm loving it though and will continue to love it for another 35 weeks (give or take whenever Blasty decides to come into the world;))

Beta day!

Friday was beta day. The day I'd FINALLY get validation that this was all really happening. I was no longer convinced this could be the trigger shot because not only was the line still showing up, it was getting darker. AND there's no way the trigger was still in my system. I went in to my RE's office and the tech drew my blood. She wished me look and I just smiled and quietly said "it's good news!" She told me I cheated and I explained that I don't know how they expect neurotic women who have been trying for just shy of 2 years to wait until 13DP5DT! She laughed and congratulated me.

I worked from home that day and kept my phone attached to my hip. I wanted to actually talk to the nurse in case they didn't actually leave the beta number on a message. She finally called around 1:30p and said I was definitely pregnant! Beta came back at 448!!! Fantastic starting number but the important thing is that it's doubling so I go back in on Monday (Feb 28th) to get the 2nd beta done. I'm anxious to get that number back and anxious to find out when I get to have my first u/s! It's starting to get more real but I'm still in disbelief and still so scared that my world is going to drop from under me and I'll have a miscarriage.

I've been eating better and of course take all my medicine (did that before too). I rest a lot and just try to take it easy:)

On Tuesday J did the sweetest thing! We had a meeting with our financial planner but we went to have dinner first, which happened to be right next to the Babies R Us near us. I had thought about asking to see if we could go there but decided not to since I didn't want to overwhelm him baby stuff when it wasn't even for sure I was pregnant. Well while we were sitting at dinner he asked if I wanted stop by BRU before going to our meeting. I may have teared up and of course said yes. It was such a different experience to go there knowing that in 9 months our house would be filled with all that stuff and that I could look for myself, not just for friends. We looked around and I was excited to find the city mini stroller out on display. I had seen it online and loved it and loved that it had good reviews. I told J about it a few weeks ago and he was just like we'll see when the time comes. Well that night we took it off the display shelf and played around with it. I LOVED it and J did too. He said " found our stroller!". I'm sure we'll do some more researching when we get to that point but for now we know what we're getting. Then we went over to the bedding section and to my surprise the bedding I fell in love with (and posted about earlier) was on display! I loved it in person just as much. J really liked it to but decided it was too boyish so if we have a girl, we'll have to find something else (oh darn, more nursery searching;)) We left shortly after that but I just couldn't help but be the happiest girl in the world:)

On Saturday I went and bought 2 belly bands. This bloat is RIDICULOUS and barely any of my work pants fit. Hopefully these pants will help do the trick until I actually need maternity pants. Looking forward to being comfortable at work again:P

Hi my name is Megan and I'm a POASaholic!

I called my nurse Monday morning to share the fantastic news that I had gotten a +HPT both Saturday and Sunday and wanted to see if I could come in earlier for the beta. She was very happy for me but said that it could still be the trigger shot (cue minor freak out === what if she's right?!?!) and she said they wanted to make sure there was enough HCG in my system to have a positive beta. So as I suspected, I'd be waiting the ENTIRE week before getting the beta done. My only consolation was that I had tons of pee sticks and I planned to take one each morning until my beta. Each day the line got darker until Thursday when it was finally darker than the control line. Friday morning, the morning of my beta, I took a digital and for the first time I got to see the word "pregnant" WITHOUT it saying NOT in front of it! I knew it would say that but it was still pretty awesome. After the beta I decided to stop peeing on things. It was real enough and even if the beta didn't double it would still be high enough to make 2 lines show up so it was no longer a good indicator of whether or not I was actually pregnant:P

I made a couple baby related purchases during the week. 1: more pee sticks, 2: What to expect when you're expecting and Belly Laughs books. I can't wait to start reading them and learning everything there is to learn about this pregnancy. Any other good pregnancy book recommendations?

The day my life changed forever!

I took a FRER test on Saturday February 19, 2011 when I was 7dp5dt. I sat on the toilet trying not to stare at it. It was taking FOREVER to even start working so I freaked out that I didn't pee on it long enough:P Finallly it started to work. The control line came up and I sat there and prayed and prayed that I'd get to see that second pink line. Well, God finally answered my prayers. That second pink line popped up and I just sat there in shock for a minute. With a huge grin on my face:) I went in and told J "I'm having your baby" and showed him the test. I was so proud and SO happy. We hugged and cried and then snuggled the rest of the morning. It was way more anti-climatic than I expected but I didn't want to get my hopes up too much just in case. But, I couldn't help myself from daydreaming about what the next 9 months would be like. It was the best day! We spent the day running errands and J was so cute! We had a friends son's 1st birthday party that afternoon to go to so we went to Babies R Us and J told me to park in the expectant mothers spot. I didn't since it was still so new and since I wanted to save it for mothers who were a lot further along than me, but it was such an awesome thought that the coveted parking spot is now available to ME! Then when we were checking out the cashier asked us if we wanted sign up for the Babies R Us rewards program. Without a second thought J said yes! It just makes me so happy that he's excited and this day has finally come.

We still have many hurdles to jump, not the first of which is getting that beta number back. I was hoping I'd be able to go in early since it wasn't scheduled until I was 13dp5dt. That was SOOO far away and I just knew the week would drag on and on but since I had already gotten to see those 2 pink lines, maybe they'd let me come in sooner. I did the math over and over and convinced myself it couldn't be trigger shot from 14 days prior.