Hey Baby,
Happy Valentines' Day! Today your Daddy and I went to Wichita to eat lunch at this amazing restaurant called Old Chicago and do a little shopping. At my insistence we went to Babies R' Us. I think we may actually agree on bedding and strollers and all of those fun things. As Daddy looked through some snowsuits on clearance, he mentioned that he's starting to feel like you're a boy too. Are we going to be in for a surprise if you're a girl. I've been referring to you as a he all along. I hope that doesn't give you issues when you get older. :) Honey, we're going to love you like crazy no matter if you're a boy or a girl. And either way, you're going to end up with some monkey things, because your dad is obsessed with monkeys for whatever reason.

Along those lines, let me again stress to you how important it is that you position yourself in such a way on March 9th so that we can see what you are. Got it?

I love you,
Mommy

I feel pregnant

Today I finally feel like I'm pregnant. If that makes any sense at all.

I've hit that stage where if you didn't know me you would be like, "Is she pregnant, or is she just a little chunky?" :) I'm going to have to pull out the rubber band for one of my two pairs of jeans. Luckily I have two pair of dress pants for work that were a little loose around the waist before, so they fit me perfectly right now. I'm just about done needing a belt for any pants.

But it's a different kind of feeling than before when I've just gained weight. I always gain my weight around my midsection (thanks PCOS!) but this feels different. I think my center of gravity is shifting or something, because I'm like very aware of my stomach being bigger. I don't really know how to describe it. It's like this heavy full feeling, but not full like I ate a big meal. Anyways, today I felt pregnant, and it was awesome!

Luke was awesome and got me a root beer to go with my meal from DQ tonight. I told him not to get me a drink (being healthy and all that jazz) but he got me one anyways. Mmmm, I do love root beer these days.

11 weeks today!

Lots to catch up on. I hope I'm better at the actual baby book than I am at this pregnancy journal. :)

I had my first appointment with my OB-GYN here in town on Friday. I love Dr. Knox. Love him. He's very kind, and a little cheesy, and I feel completely comfortable with him. Luke says I just like him because he said that it looks like I'm not going to have any problems with gaining too much weight because I'm healthy and fit now. Ha. He got out his Doppler and said if everything was positioned right I might be able to hear the heartbeat. (Luke had elected to leave the room while I was getting a culture swabbed.) It took Dr. Knox a little while to find him, but I could definitely hear a very faint little heartbeat. Obviously it wasn't nearly as clear as my ultrasound in Wichita, but you could hear it for what it was. Very cool.

Baby is still measuring exactly what he should be, and my due date is set for August 22. The ultrasound picture is really cool, because now you can tell that its a baby and not just a blob. There's a very definite difference between the head and body, and his stomach is huge. I kept asking people at work if they wanted to see my fat baby picture. :)

2 more weeks until I'm done with the first trimester. Yay! I'm feeling much better now, and have been since the middle of last week. There are a few smells and foods that make me feel sick, but not nearly as much as before. I'm eating much better. Red meat isn't the devil anymore, and I can eat peanut butter without gagging. (I missed peanut butter...) So far I've only gained 2.5 pounds, which is about right, seeing as I should only gain 3-4 first trimester. I have to say that I hate the scale at Dr. Knox's though. It's about 5 pounds more than the one at work, but since that's the one I've been weighing myself on from the beginning, I'm going to consider *that* one to be my true weight. And it says I've only gone up 2.5, so that works for me.

My next appointment is on March 9th. We'll do a sonogram then, and if Pablo will cooperate, we may be able to tell if he really is a he. I'll be 16 weeks by that point, so we should be able to tell if he's positioned right. Dr. Knox said that the technician will say it's a boy if it's obvious that it is, and if she doesn't see any boy parts she'll say she's not sure and I'll come back at 22 weeks for another one. He also said that if I do have to come back at 22 weeks, they'll sneak me in and won't even bill me for that ultrasound. Good thing, because those babies aren't cheap. I'm still waiting on my bill from Wichita, by the way. Ugh. Luke thinks it will show up the same time his bill from all of his dental work shows up. That would figure.

I'll have to post pictures sometime soon. My scanner is still a piece, so I can't get my ultrasound piccies uploaded. I do have a couple belly shots, and you can see a definite bump beginning. I figure I should start looking pregnant here pretty soon. I've always carried all my weight around my middle, and the baby's starting to push all that up higher. I'll probably be using a rubber band on my pants here within the next couple weeks. I already have a pair of jeans that are okay until I eat, then not so great.

Oh, and I must stop myself from buying anymore baby clothes until I know if this baby is a boy or girl. Today we bought this two pack of onesies that say "Daddy's Little (picture of the sun)" and "Mommy's Shining (picture of a star)". Both white, one with light green trim, the other yellow. Totally gender neutral. A couple weeks ago I bought a sleep and play that's light green with frogs and dragonflies on it. And now I stop. Because if it does turn out to be a girl, there will be a lot of pink. So I have to wait. Five more weeks. You better behave yourself and be in a good position Pablo. Got it?

Ultrasound #1

Finally getting around to updating this.



We went to my doctor's appointment on Wednesday. Everything was perfect. Dr. T kept saying that over and over, that everything was perfect. Baby was measuring at 6 weeks, 4 days, which is exactly what he is. The heartbeat was 130, which I guess is just right for how far along I am. And there was only one. Thank you Jesus!

(A friend of mine at work keeps saying that Baby 2 was just hiding behind him, and the heartbeats were synchronized so we can't tell that there's two yet. So not funny.)

I have to go back on the 14th for one more ultrasound in Wichita, and then I'm free to go on to a OB here in town. I really need to get an appointment set up, but I cannot decide who I want. My goal is to have that done by Wednesday this week.

I think we're going to go ahead and tell Zane Friday evening, then tell both of our families over the weekend. I'm excited to see my mom's reaction!

Beta on Monday came back great. My hCG levels are in the 10,000s now, which means that they're doubling like they should. Our first ultrasound is scheduled for next Wednesday, the 31st at 1:45 p.m. My first picture of our baby! I can't wait!

My appetite is slowly coming back. I was able to eat an entire meal for lunch today, which is a first for the week. I don't know how my mom's chili is going to go down tonight, so I may just hover by the cheese and crackers. I haven't been nauseous at all today or yesterday. However, my hormones are c-r-a-z-y right now. I've cried 3 times today, and I suspect that I'm not done yet.

I found the cutest K-State baby clothes while I was in Manhattan last night. I really need to know if you're a boy or girl so that I can buy something. Because if you're a girl, you are going to have the cutest cheerleading outfit ever. :) So behave when it comes time to do *that* ultrasound, please.

Merry Christmas, baby! I can't wait until next year, when you can spend your first Christmas with our family.

There are only about 10 foods I can tolerate right now

If this is all the more morning sickness I get, then I *guess* I'll take it. I would rather have food aversions than be vomiting, right? Although, there were a couple moments during church this morning that were a little touch and go, and I really thought I was going to puke. I'm sure the bell choir director would have really loved me then. ;) And I was sitting by her, so who knows how that would have gone. Ha.

And I cannot watch the news. Especially all the footage about Caylee Anthony. It makes me want to bawl. How could you? How could you hurt such a beautiful little girl? How could you hurt your own child? (You can tell my presumptions on who did it, eh?) Like Luke said, there are so many people who want a child and can't have one. Why not relinquish your rights rather than kill your child? And that's all I can say about that, because I'm welling up right now.

Tomorrow is my last beta. Then we set our appointment for the ultrasound. With the holidays, its hard to say when I'll be able to get in, because they are closed for the better portion of the next two weeks. Not to mention the fact that Luke HAS to go with me on this appointment, so what will we do with Zane? Obviously we have family, but that goes back to the whole not wanting to tell them yet. Actually *whispers* I'm really hoping they'll work us in on Tuesday (23rd). Because then I won't have to wait. We still aren't telling at that point, even though I would love to tell my parents on Christmas Eve. But I just want this waiting to be over so that I can stop worrying quite as much. Of course, will I really stop worrying? Ha!

My husband and I have a date this afternoon. Just going to a movie, but still. We don't really do anything special anymore, so I'm excited. This will be the second movie we've gone to this month actually. Luke's really been very sweet to me since we found out. I told him that things would be different this time around, and me being pregnant won't be the awful thing it was the first time around. We're a lot older than he and Regina were then. We're adults with jobs and money. We're married. We actually love (and even like) each other. And I'm not heinous. hehehe Sorry. Okay, off to my date.

Differences I'm noticing

Changes I've noticed so far:

-Chocolate and sweets are not really appealing to me anymore. I love chocolate. Looooooove. And all week long, if I've eaten very much I start feeling really queasy. I've already had a little talk with the little one about how this is not going to work, because Mommy is not going to go without sweets for the next 8 months. Meat also seems gross to me.

-Salad is my favorite thing EVAR! Which is also weird, because I'm not a veggie person. I don't eat salad. And all of a sudden I have salad fixings and I'm eating it every day. I guess at least this baby likes healthy food.....

-Yesterday everything made me cry or want to cry. Everything. A good friend at work gave me an ornament that has a cross on it that says, "Everything is possible with faith." (She got it for me specifically because of my pregnancy. Right now she's one of four people that know outside of Luke and I.) So when I got home and showed it to Luke I started getting all choked up and teary eyed. And then I was talking with him about another friend at work whose baby had open heart surgery last week and I started getting all weepy again. I think if this continues Luke will be counting down the days just to have the hormonal thing done. :)

-I've lost two pounds. I assume it's the lack of sweets and addition of salad. And I'm trying to eat healthy. Not dieting certainly. But just avoiding as much fast food as I was eating and making better food choices will make a difference on the scale. I can honestly say that I am not a very healthy eater. It's a lot easier to be motivated when I have a really good reason.

The Beginning

I guess I better start this journal off with our story. Feel free to skim if you've heard it already. It has a lot of squicky female stuff in there, so male readers should proceed with caution.

I was diagnosed with PCOS in June 2007. PCOS stands for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. You can Google it, but what it boils down to for me is that my body doesn't produce the hormones necessary to regulate my reproductive system and cause me to ovulate. No ovulation=no chance of getting pregnant. I've always known in my heart that something was not quite right with all that girly stuff, and I wanted to get the ball rolling so that by the time Luke and I were ready to start trying, it might not take as long. I tend to be impatient, and trying to conceive when you are infertile can be a very long road.

We officially started trying May 2008. I was seeing a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) at this point, and I spent the summer taking Clomid, which is a fertility drug. Obviously I didn't get pregnant, and the most it did for me was give me horrendous hot flashes and mood swings like you wouldn't believe. Just ask Luke! :) After 3 rounds of that, with the last one ending in September, it was time to move on to something more.

We took about a month off, then went to see a fertility specialist (Dr. Tatpati), also in Wichita. We decided to take the route of Clomid, plus injectibles. Injectibles are the things that can give you multiples, but not in a Jon and Kate Plus Eight way. 2-3 babies, tops. We started that round on November 15th. 5 days of Clomid followed by a shot of Gonal-F that I had to give myself. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a HUGE problem with needles (even though I've been having routine monthly bloodwork done for how long now?) so this was definitely in the category of Least Favorite Moments in My Life.

I went back to Wichita on the 26th of November so that they could make sure my ovaries weren't overstimulated and that I had some good sized follicles (these being the things that turn into eggs - most women have one every month, but I say it plural because that's what these drugs do.) I had responded well to the Gonal-F and had two good sized follicles and one a little smaller. So we went ahead with the Ovidrel to induce ovulation, did our thing, and waited. My day to do a home pregnancy test was December 13th.

I couldn't wait, and finally tested on December 12th. Immediately positive. No two minute wait there. I had blood work done later that morning to confirm it and I was indeed pregnant. Now we're on the last leg of my time with Dr. Tatpati. They monitor with bloodwork for a couple weeks to make sure that the pregnancy is progressing normally (because so many things can go wrong this early on). When I had more bloodwork done on the 15th, my hCG levels had gone up.

I go back Monday for one more round, and then we'll schedule an ultrasound in Wichita to make sure this little sprout is implanted in my uterus and to count how many there are. That's exactly what the nurse said to me on the phone: count how many. Gulp. We should also be able to hear the heartbeat at this point, which is one of the blessings of having to go through a specialist and having every minute of your early pregnancy monitored. At that point, I think we'll feel comfortable with telling our families. Can't wait for your reaction, Mom! It is killing me not to tell you, because I get the feeling you may be just as excited, if not more excited, than I am.

So that's the story of our little miracle. One round is all it took. You have to understand that this is 100% God that did this, because these things don't happen in a month when you have infertility. And very few couples with infertility get pregnant within seven months of trying. I praise God daily for this.