Oops. Still here. Honest.

Sooo.... it's been a while since I posted, yeah? And I left you with a question of how many buns do I have in the oven. [Begin A Chorus Line music here...] One. Singular sensation. Every little breath [he?] takes...
One baby. Apparently the right size, and a 'within normal ranges' heartbeat. That was determined at the ultrasound, what... 5 weeks ago? Sheesh. What a slacker!
Actually, I've been pretty depressed lately. Last time around, all my ailments went away. My clinical depression, allergy to citrus, lactose intolerance, migraines, acid reflux (although it came back the 3rd trimester,) and carpal tunnel all went away during pregnancy; they didn't start coming back until she was around 16-months old. Heaven. My husband called it a "Mary Poppins" pregnancy. No morning sickness, no varicose veins, no stretch marks. My flab did sag a bit, and apparently muscle mass turned into more flab, because while I lost my "baby weight" fairly quickly, my body LOOKS much saggier and flabbier than it did before. But I didn't balloon up like my mom, which was totally what I was expecting. Apparently I got my dad's more "skinny genes." Got my mom's chin and nipple hairs though, so ya' win some, ya' lose some.

This time around: no morning sickness, although I was getting a little nauseous at night. Carpal tunnel still around, although once it started up again, I immediately started wearing the brace, so it never got really bad. Acid reflux still here. V*E*R*Y gassy, same as last time, and boy does it STINK! (Also same as last time.) Still getting migraines, which kind of blows, since I can't really take much for them. More sinus pressure and pain this time around too (which is what causes my migraines.) Maybe that's due to the seasons. Last time I got preggers in September until June, so maybe since the Spring crud didn't all come out until my magical healing-baby powers were well underway, I got off easy. This time I got pregnant during the Spring crud season. Possibly still lactose intolerant, but I take a daily pill for that, and I'm still so gassy and crampy I'm afraid to stop. While I haven't been guzzling the lemonade and OJ (yet,) I'm not getting the sores on my tongue when I have spaghetti or pizza, or the occasional lemonade, so probably my citrus acid issue went away again. Yay! Man. Last time, my sister told me I needed to cut down on the juice, and ratted me out to my midwife, who scolded me too. But man. I looooove OJ and lemonade, and after years of having to endure excruciating pain in my tongue for weeks just to enjoy a glass, you can bet your bottom dollar that I chug-a-lugged it down! And will again! Suck it, bishes!
One weird thing this time is my lack of hungry. I had a cold early on, and had no appetite. One meal a day and I was stuffed. I wasn't hungry at breakfast, then ate a moderate lunch, and was still full by dinner time. And wasn't even feeling hungry in the middle of the night. A few weeks ago I started feeling hunger occasionally, so that's good. Since I kind of forget to eat if I'm not hungry. Lunch is the one meal I do regularly, since I have to feed her. She often eats breakfast while I'm in the shower, so I'm not eating then either. And Unka Seesee makes dinner most nights, so I sometimes forget to serve myself, if we're not all eating together.
Other than the depression, which makes it hard to do anything that I don't HAVE to do (like feed the Oompa-Loompa,) I'm soooooo freaking tired all the time! After a 12-hour night's sleep, I wake up and am ready for a nap. Seriously. And the Princess is starting to phase out her naps, darn her. She now only naps if we're in the car in the afternoon. So unless I want to risk waking the snarling beast, that means if *I* want a nap, I need to sleep in the car too. And I don't like to leave it running, since I could be sucking all the exhaust back in of it's not real windy out. So I leave a door open, to give us a breeze so it's not too hot. And I usually have a leg or two sticking out, to make myself more comfy. I'm sure we look pretty freaky. That's another reason I don't leave the car running. One time we were out napping in the driveway with the car running, and Unka Seesee came out and freaked. He thought I had passed out from the exhaust!

Every Silver Lining Has A Cloud

Well. After such a depressing post, you'd expect a little radio silence, yeah? The day after was my blood test at the clinic. I'd spent the day before yelling at myself and stomping on any spark of hope that the pee sticks were wrong. I spent the day I decided to stop peeing on sticks saying goodbye to my Maybies and yelling internally and stomping on any spark of hope. Then I went the next morning for my bloodwork, and again said goodbye to my Maybies as I waited for the walk light as I crossed from the parking lot to the clinic building. Slapping myself internally and putting the smackdown on any little niggle of hope. Every time I felt my breasts tingling it was like a cruel slap in the face. Which was all the time.
After the blood test, they said it would be hours before they got the results, and then would get around to calling me, basically, when they got around to it. "Then they do their rounds, so whenever they get to it..." Thanks. It's not like this is important to me, or anything. So I met my husband and daughter at her kiddie gym class, and we went out for brunch after. Some point before our food arrived (maybe even before we'd ordered. I can't really remember...) I get a call from the clinic. You know in those moves, where they do some camera zoomy trick where suddenly everything in the world is focused on one tiny little thing? That's how I felt.
It was my nurse, which was weird, since I thought she only worked weekdays. And she sounded cheerful. Could this mean...? "Congratulations!" Whaaaaaaaat? Seriously? "You're pregnant! Your number was at 147, and we're looking for anything over a 50." Oh. My. God. I was crying so hard, and I thanked her and hung up and couldn't even function. I knew that my husband was sitting there, and I knew what he must be thinking, but I couldn't even form a thought coherent enough to consider how to let him know the good news.
Until my daughter's voice asked, "Mommy. Are you sad?" I look over and her mouth is downturned in her little sad moue, and her lip is starting to quiver and her eyes are filling with tears. So I say "Oh, no, baby. I am so HAPPY! I am so happy there was just no room for my crying, so it had to all come out." My husband isn't an idiot, so he understood, and was also pleasantly shocked. My daughter was not convinced. So everything else took a back seat to calming her down. I couldn't really blame her, especially after she found me crying periodically the day before. Now whenever I laugh really hard she asks me why I'm crying. Poor thing.

It's weird. I'm totally thrilled and happy, but I'm also still all withdrawn. I don't want to talk about it. I don't mind people knowing. I just don't want the focus to be on me right now. I don't want to talk about it. I made him call his mom (I mean, she's his mom, after all.) If I could have gotten away with having him tell my sister, I totally would have. Luckily my sister was at my mom's house so my mom heard her side of the conversation, so that saved me having to make another call. And his mom told his sister, who had no cell service until she got back from her camping trip on Monday. I didn't call my stepmother-in-law until many days later. Mostly because I only thought about it while driving or too late at night, and I didn't want to text her.

I Love You One Cheerio

1 November, 2007
I go again for my second ultrasound. And my final visit to this clinic. From here on out, I need to find an OB or midwife. Squee!
This time my husband was present. So this was his first live view of our little miracle of science. And this time it looked vaguely humanoid. Like a little Kewpie Doll Gummy Bear. Big Kewpie Doll head, with Gummy Bear arm and  leg nubs.

And then... it moved. Waved one little arm bud at us. We were goners. That one little involuntary arm bud movement, and I felt all my love for everyone else in the whole world drain away, all moving over into a big pile of love for the baby. I told my husband on the way home that it was like all my love was a box of Cheerios. There was a Cheerio for him. All the rest was for the baby. This feeling didn't go away for a while. But eventually I restocked on Cheerios, and had some left for other people too.
But it's fun to say to him "I love you one Cheerio" on special occasions.

To make a long story short, and one I will probably eventually get around to typing out at length on another blog, we had a baby girl 32 weeks later (full term. I'm subtracting the time before the final U/S at the infertility clinic.) And because we got the money for the IVF treatment from my Grandma, I like to joke that I got knocked up by my Grandma!

If you want to read more about her and us now, my main blog, Biting The Hand That Feeds You, is about activities and crafts, but mostly food and fun meal ideas (and my ineptitude in the kitchen.) I (much) less frequently post on War And Peas about toddlerhood and Motherhood issues. I chose different venues both for the fun titles, but also because our families are subscribed to my main blog, and I don't need his Grandma reading about his sperm count, or his mom reading about what days we're scheduled to have sex, or my dad reading that we even have sex. Hahaha! And no one we know needs to read about how much I hate him some days. Irrationally. Probably hormonally-driven. But still. I don't need anyone testifying at my trial that smothering him with my pillow for snoring all night wasn't temporary insanity!

Aren't Pregnancy Tests Pass/Fail?

My sister had told me that I should be extra sleepy on the day an embryo implants in the uterus lining, and she remembers exactly the day she got pregnant, since she took a nap. I didn't feel the need for a nap.

Roughly a week after the ET, I started feeling... different. Sensitive boobies. Plus a little... something. Undefinable. I took a pee-stick test the first possible moment I could expect to see any results.
I. Got. Another. Line. I'd never gotten another line before (or a plus, or whatever.) Never. No false hope. No miscarriages. Nothing. Not that miscarriages would have been a blessing or anything. But I'd never ever had that little flash of an inkling that my body actually worked properly, or that my eggs or uterus had ever been good enough to at least fool the test. I'd never even gotten anything other than an inconclusive result on the ovulation predictor pee sticks. (I got a line, but fainter than the faintest example shown on the instructions.)
What to do? Call my husband? Wait until he got home? Plan some cute and clever way of telling him? Bah! I called him. But we were both very aware of a few depressing facts. There are false positives, and we had a good risk of miscarriage for the first trimester.

Some time in October, 2007:
A few days after my in-home test, they had me come in for a blood test. On my way to work after, they give me a call.
Nurse: "So, we got your test results back. 110."
Me: "Umm.. Okay." Gee. I'd thought this was a pass/fail test. I didn't realize we got graded! 110. What does this even MEAN?
Nurse: "Oh. You don't sound very excited."
Me: Suck it, bee-otch. "Um. Should I be? Does 110 mean I'm pregnant?"
Nurse: "Oh! Ha ha! Yes! It's a very high result. It may mean multiples."
Well. Every silver lining has a cloud! :) But really, this was a silver lining, with a possibly slightly less silver lining. I mean, multiples would be hard. I mean hard. But we were emotionally prepared to embrace the concept.

We decided we'd tell no one until the second trimester.
That lasted until about 30 seconds after encountering any female in our immediate families. I think I was able to stand firm for the first few weeks. Except at work. I mean, they all knew what was going on. It's hard to get them to juggle schedules at the last minute, or give you a moment to pop back and jab needles into your tummy during your shift, unless they kind of know what's going on. And, being in pharmacy, they could all do math. They knew when I'd be able to start getting test results.

18 October, 2007:
I forget how many weeks along I was when I went in for my first ultrasound (math says... 30 days after fertilization... so 4 weeks. But then you add 2 for the average weeks before ovulation. In a normal conception.) But this one would tell us how many barnacles I'd be hosting. So naturally, my husband was out of the country! He actually had a convention for work in Germany, which was a huge opportunity for him, and it was a real treat for him to get to go. I think this was only the second time he'd been chosen to go to this annual event, and he'd been working in this field for almost 14 years at this point. So I only begrudged him a little because it was impractical for me to go with him. I've only ever been to Canada before. (And Mexico when I was 2, but I don't remember.)
His sister harassed me until I acquiesced offered to come with me to my first ultrasound. She snapped pictures of the whole thing. Plus I got U/S printouts. And a CD with all the pics. She rushed home to email him a picture of the ultrasound after. I got to go to work after.
They found one fetus. One beautiful, perfect, booger-shaped little blob. I'm pretty sure I cried like a little girl. With joy. With relief. But mostly joy.

After I got back to my car I called my husband. He was at lunch (or dinner. Some kind of meal) with peers. He tried to play cool and not say stuff that would make them ask what was happening, but he failed, and got to tell a bunch of industry folk our little tale of joy (so far!)

We had a substitute pharmacist at work, so she got to hear my news. Then she says the stupidest, least thought-out comment humanly possible.
RPh: "Well. I hear that the third one's the charm! You usually lose two before you get lucky."
Me: [crushed and horrified] "Um. This is my first pregnancy."
RPh: "Oh yes. I meant that you lost the other two that were transfered in."
Um. Thanks. I hadn't ever thought about it that way. Here I was, stupidly thankful for the one that "took," blissfully ignorant of the fact that this meant I had lost two of my babies. They didn't last more than a few weeks, if that long. But they had been alive. My babies. Thanks for nothing, Bitch.