This will be quick; super long and detailed post to follow.
Molly Marie Harding entered this world today, June 23rd, 2014 at 1:32 p.m.
She weighed 5 lbs, 6 ounces, and was 18.5 inches long.
We love her beyond words.
POP! goes the baby shower
My baby shower was on Saturday.
Though it feels inaccurate to describe it that way. Baby downpour, perhaps? I wasn’t showered with love and gifts. I truly feel that I was deluged. I’m still overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness and generosity of my friends and family. It was too much! Plus, blog-based burnt toast gifts? I mean… come on!! Everyone is just too kind.
It really made me think. I’m sure if I had been fertile and I would have had a baby shower years ago, it would have been lovely. I would have been happy. We would have received nice stuff. But this… I mean, with all we went through, and with everyone following along with the drama every step of the way, this felt like finally getting to where we were headed. People weren’t excited… they were ecstatic. They weren’t happy for us… they were overjoyed. Every emotion was heightened to an extreme because it’s been SO LONG and we wanted it SO MUCH. So again, not that I’m happy for being infertile, but in a way it just made everything super dramatic, and yes, incredibly, inexplicably happy.
But pictures are worth a thousand words, right? So below I snapped photos of the decor, along with some of the gifts.
The theme and the decorations are all courtesy of my sister, who everyone agrees has missed her calling as party planner. She did such a good job. It was beautiful. The theme was POP! – complete with homemade popcorn favors and cake pops and plenty of other pop stuff. It worked, too, because I do look about ready to pop.
so pop
A table of pop!
pop games
what’s a shower without a diaper cake?
pop favors
me and pro party planner, Ashley
I was “that girl” who probably bored everyone to tears opening gifts for like three hours. But she got a MOUNTAIN of stuff. I mean… just know that each of these bags is full to bursting with stuff. And suffice it to say she will be a thousand times more well-dressed than I, and has enough clothes that she’ll never need to wear the same thing twice. Like, ever.
mountains of presents
Every gift was special and amazing. Here are a few.
First things first – I GOT MY PETUNIA PICKLEBOTTOM DIAPER BAG!! Wooo hoo!
Hand painted art from a dear friend:
Star Wars stuff to make daddy happy:
Ok, here’s a good one. Despite how overwhelmed I was, I managed not to cry. Until, of course, I pulled out a picture my sister made to honor the babies I lost to miscarriage. AND she thought it was a good idea to give it to me during this event. Yeah, I freaking lost it, sobbing, with everyone staring at me. Oh, well.
And then there was the TOAST STUFF! My friend Sarah even custom designed onesies to match my blog. How thoughtful is that?! I’m already planning multiple photo shoots for all of these items.
Finally, they pulled out a gift from Eric. I’ve never heard of that before – the husband buying his wife a gift. And this was so thoughtful and considerate… I had just seen nursing necklaces the other day on zulily, and they sound awesome! So the fact that he got them handmade on Etsy… and the card…I managed to hold back the waterworks this time, but just barely. He scored major points for this one.
So that was it. The most amazing day. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more excited about her arrival…
Due date: one month from today.
We are so, so blessed.
on this day
Hope everyone survived May 11, 2014 relatively unscathed.
You know, I was really impressed with the way my church handled things today. And last year, for that matter.
First of all, during the homily the priest made it a point to mention that we should take a moment today to think of the women who want nothing more than to be mothers, and who may not have any children. Then they took things a step further during the Supplication part when we prayed for specific things (Followed up with a “Lord, hear our prayer.”) One of the supplications today was, and I quote, “For all women struggling with the pain of infertility, that their hearts may find comfort and that their prayers may be answered…LORD, HEAR OUR PRAYER.”
It was nice. We were recognized.
Last year, they had all the mothers stand up. This might have been awkward as I had just suffered my miscarriage and was gearing up for IVF round two. But then the priest clarified, “And when I say mothers, I mean can all of the mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, aunts, or anyone who has ever shown love and motherly compassion towards a child please stand and be honored.”
Pretty cool. I felt OK standing up. I’m definitely a godmother, an aunt, and I’ve definitely mothered children. And yeah, this year I might be more noticeably a mother, but I’m no more a mother than I was last year.
So on this day, I want to continue that tradition. Because whether or not you’ve physically birthed a child makes no difference. We are the mothers – the ones who have mothered a child, any child at all, or even the ones who have longed to.
This is our day.
dirty, flirty 30
So yesterday was my 30th birthday.
I’m going to preface this by saying that I’m going to complain again. When we were TTC, and experiencing loss, and when I was staying up nights crying into the darkness about how I’d do anything for a baby, hearing anyone complain about pregnancy made me irate…and understandably so. That’s why I just want to acknowledge, again, that I know complaining may sound ungrateful and it may cause some of my homegirls to want to punch me in the face. That’s OK. Please feel free to skip these posts (or, you know, punch me in the face if you really think I deserve it). But I have decided that since I’m all about honesty, and since this is my blog, there’s no use in sugarcoating the ugly reality of the third trimester and how uncomfortable it’s been making me. I’m not glowing…I’m dripping with sweat. I’m not all belly…I’m pretty much obese. And HAHAHA! is what I have to say to the me of several posts back – it turns out you CAN look pregnant from behind. I look pregnant from behind. I definitely do. Do I know it’s going to be worth it? Heck yeah. Do I take back asking for all of this? HECK NO. But still, to properly document my life, I must tell it like it is right now. And right now… it’s rough.
I take birthdays very seriously, and not only do I take the day off work (I now have a 30 year streak of never working on my birthday, and I don’t plan to break it anytime soon), but I also force my mom and sister to take the day off and hang out with me. Generally the plan involves going out to breakfast (by far my favorite meal of the day) and lots of shopping, and then going out to dinner. Most years we drive an hour and a half to the King of Prussia mall (KOP, affectionately), which as anyone in the Philadelphia metro area will tell you is pretty much the best mall ever. It is MASSIVE. Any store you could hope to shop is there.
This year I knew my limits well enough to know that KOP was out of the question. I have a list of nursery needs that I’ve been carting around, and I figured these items were best procured from a discount store, like Marshalls or Ross or Big Lots or Christmas Tree Shops. These are my favorite places to shop lately anyway.
We started out our day running two hours behind schedule just because that’s how it worked out. The birthday crew included my mom, my sister, and my two nieces (aged almost 3 and just turned 1). We drove to my favorite breakfast place, paid for parking, dragged the kids out of the car, walked over and… it was closed for renovations! Boo, hiss. Loaded everyone back up, consulted Yelp real quick, and ended up finding a perfectly respectable place with yummy food. Crisis averted.
We went to Marshalls and spent a couple hours hunting bargains. I was pretty disappointed because of course last time I was there I found a TON of items that perfectly matched my intended nursery decor (and of course I didn’t purchase anything because I wasn’t ready to commit to the theme or the fact that I was actually having a baby just yet), but this time I found nothing. Strangely, they had a lot of cute boy nursery items but not as many things for girls. The one thing from my list that I did find was a robe and comfy pants for the hospital so I don’t have to take pictures in the ugly hospital-issued frock. The robe is black and white, made of a really cool and comfortable stretchy microfiber, and it was $12.99. Score one for Marshalls.
Even though we were running behind schedule, we still had time to go to a few more stores. I should mention here that by this point, after approximately 2 hours of shopping and walking and standing, my feet were completely miserable. These days I can’t help but think of a friend who was pregnant a few years ago who wore these intense white orthopedic shoes every single day, even with skirts and dresses. At the time I was thinking, Oh, weird, if/when I ever get pregnant I’ll never do that. But do you know how much I would have paid to have orthopedic shoes yesterday? Infinity dollars. My feet were K-I-L-L-I-N-G me. My sister and my mom were apparently laughing behind my back because usually on Birthday Shopping Day I’m the one dragging them around and rolling my eyes at how long it takes them to do everything. Yesterday was a huge role reversal, and I was the one constantly seeking out chairs and bathrooms and walking at the speed of molasses. I couldn’t even handle the checkout line, and opted instead to go sit in the car and wait for them.
They came out of the store and started sorting out everyone’s items and loaded up the little girls into my sister’s car (she had driven separately because she had to leave earlier). Then all of the sudden, my sister ran over in complete hysterics. She had accidentally locked her keys and her babies in the hot car, windows up.
The whole thing was so scary. I mean, when I say hot car, it was 65 and sunny, not like 90 degrees or something. Otherwise we would have found a brick and broken the window. But as it was, it was pretty terrible watching the kids cry and sweat in there with no way to comfort them and no way to open the damn doors. We called 911 and the cop came and used some giant hanger looking thing to pry the lock. The whole experience felt like it took hours but really it was only about 25 minutes start to finish. Sweaty girls were comforted, water was distributed, and we ventured on.
We were supposed to hit like four more stores but after all the drama of the morning and due to the fact that my feet felt like I had just climbed up and down Mount Everest 14 times, my heart just wasn’t in it. We stopped in two more stores quickly, but again I didn’t find anything. Honestly, the most stuff I got was at Wegmans about an hour later. Leave it to a pregnant chick to do her birthday shopping at the grocery store. (Favorite purchase of the day: Turkey Hill All Natural Mango ice cream – a new flavor!).
As I may have mentioned, Eric is away on a business trip in New Orleans, so he wasn’t even there to celebrate with me. I guess it’s not that big of a deal and we can just celebrate later. He did send me lovely flowers, which were waiting for me when I got home. I had just enough time to put away my groceries before heading back out to dinner with my parents, sister + fam, and a friend I haven’t seen in a while. It was a nice way to end a physically and mentally exhausting day. Well, that and the ginormous bowl of mango ice cream I indulged in later on.
30 feels a lot like 29, except when it feels like 85, which is to say every day lately. I’m so run-down and exhausted and I hate that I can’t physically do the things I need to do (LIKE…SHOP). I don’t know why I was kind of expecting this in the last two weeks or so of pregnancy, but totally was not expecting it for the entirety of the third trimester. If I had to do a pregnancy breakdown, it would go something like this:
Weeks 1-4 – Hope against hope.
Weeks 4-12 – Absolute terror that something will go wrong.
Weeks 12-16 – Ok, all right, this is pretty cool. Cute bump!
Weeks 16-18 – Wait… why am I getting so fat?
Weeks 18-22 – Seriously, I need to stop gaining so much weight.
Weeks 22-26 – Ice cream is a food group, right?
weeks 26-30 – Now I feel stupid for saying people can’t look pregnant from behind.
weeks 30-34 – Feet! Oh, my feet! Is there somewhere I can sit down? I just need to sit down.
I’m pretty sure the solution is to be more physically active from the get-go, which would allow me to be more physically active now, which would just make me feel better overall. If I ever get pregnant again, that will be the goal. My excuse for not doing this is that I was so terrified in the first trimester that even low-impact exercise seemed ill-advised. That, and I’m a little lazy.
Anyway! My mom loved her thirties. My 87-year-old grandmother called to wish me a happy birthday and said that her favorite years were 30 to 35, which is pretty specific, and seeing as how she’s lived through almost 8 full decades I’m thinking she would know.
All in all, turning 30 isn’t so bad.
a good heart and a registry
Greetings, blog world.
I know I keep saying “things just got real,” but honestly that’s how it is – every day it sinks in a little further that this could actually be happening and we could be bringing home a baby in just a smidge more than three months. A baby! I guess the closest thing to compare it to would be our wedding, but even that was not quite so hard to picture since (much to my mother’s dismay) we were already living together for a few months before the event. So while I really had no concept of how it would feel to be “husband” and “wife,” envisioning myself in a similar close situation with a man I already knew, with the added security of a ring on my finger and a really nice Kitchenaid mixer, just wasn’t a stretch. I knew what I was getting into. I dipped my toes. With a baby, it’s like I’ve been sitting on dry land for so long and now they’re slowly lowering me over the water, about to loosen the net and throw me in. It’s gonna be crazy, I can tell.
But I digress. Yesterday I had an hour-long in depth fetal heart ultrasound at the Perinatal center. I was told that this is standard practice for all IVF pregnancies, as there is an elevated risk for heart defects for IVF babies as compared to naturally conceived babies. I wasn’t about to complain because I was hoping to get another 3D shot of her face on the fancy schmancy ultrasound equipment that they have there. (Unfortunately, my little contortionist was folded up like a pretzel the whole time, knees to nose, so no such picture was possible. She’s still cute though).
As I was lying there, I heard a song. It’s a song I haven’t heard in a long, long time – in fact, the last time I remember hearing it, I was lying in the pre-op area waiting to undergo my D&C after my miscarriage with the twins. Awful, right? I’m sure I’ve probably heard it since then, but that’s the last time it really stuck out as memorable. The contrast between these two situations – the feelings I had, the emotions, the outlook – it was just so different. Even though yesterday I was in a happy place and every couple of minutes the doctor kept saying, “Looks perfect. Everything looks just right,” I couldn’t help crying. Tears of happiness and of gratitude just started pouring out of me. How did I get here? How did I make it this far?
It’s funny, I have a lyrics analysis for this particular song in my drafts and I just never got around to posting it. I’m sure most of us have a song or songs that we relate to infertility and loss for one reason or another. I can’t even read the lyrics to Pink’s “Beam Me Up” without dissolving into a puddle of messy emotion (if you’ve ever had a miscarriage, go listen to it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s literally the saddest song ever). But in regards to infertility in general, and to having my baby, I’ve always been drawn to this one song – the one I heard yesterday. It’s from Twilight, please don’t judge me. The song is called “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri. Here’s the chorus:
I have died every day waiting for you
Darlin’ don’t be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more
It speaks to me. Dramatics? Check. Hyperbole? Check! It so perfectly puts into words the extremity of feeling that I’ve been carrying around for years now. I’ve DIED every day waiting for this child. Not just mourned, not just yearned – died. My love for her is so big, it encompasses a thousand years before I existed, and it will go on for a thousand years more. Plus, the singer’s voice is really beautiful. I know she’s technically talking about a guy who she’s pining for, but ignore a few obvious lines and the song could easily be about an unborn child. I’ll post the lyrics to the entire song below in case you’re interested.
Anyway, the song played, I cried, we finished up the ultrasound and everything looked great. She has a good, strong heart, as far as they can tell.
Eric and I had been throwing around the idea of going to register (reality: I’ve been nagging, he’s been procrastinating). We finally decided that going out right after work might be easier since we’d already be out and about, plus the store was likely to be less crowded. In a sort of impromptu move, we decided to go last night, on Thursday. He made me swear we’d only be there for 30 minutes (for anyone who has ever done any kind of registry: this is your cue to laugh heartily).
We got to the store and were sitting down to relay pertinent information and get our handy dandy scanner, and you’ll never guess what song came on over the store’s loudspeakers. Yes! I haven’t heard it in ages, and then twice in one day? In such baby-centric situations? So bizarre. This time I didn’t cry…I smiled.
Registering was overwhelming, to say the least. Since my sister, my mom, and some of my friends who are done having kids are giving me a bunch of stuff, I almost felt like we wouldn’t need to do one at all. We have the crib… the changing table… swings, papasans, and a bassinet. Tons of clothes. (Mountains of clothes. I mean… she is fully clothed and covered for hourly outfit changes for 6 months solid. No lie). I went in to the store knowing that I needed to get a new Bobby cover, a Sophie the Giraffe, and a car seat. Other than that I figured we needed nothing. Ha. Ha. Ha.
As we walked and scanned and got fawned over by the employees who were obviously bored out of their minds working on a Thursday night (I can’t recommend weeknight registering enough. It’s the perfect time to go), I was completely floored by how many things we actually DID need. Bottles, pacifiers, bath towels, diapers, nursing covers… as much as we were getting secondhand, we still needed so much. And I’m sure the store is meant to make you feel that way. Like, duh, it’s a store.
I knew to pass over silly things like wipes warmers. I’ve read the articles, I’ve talked to the experienced moms; I sort of know what’s just a waste of time and money. But all that crap aside, we still just need so much stuff. And don’t even try to talk me out of the $188 Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag, because at heart I am a total bag snob (I worked at Coach for 3 years), and I’ve been coveting one of those since my days of selling them to the snobby new moms at Nordstrom. Eric may have begrudgingly scanned it, but it’s a need, not a want. It has a fold out changing pad! Genius, I tell you!
Plus, a funny thing happened over the course of the night. I started to think, wow, this is not just stuff… this is stuff for a real live child who will be joining us in our house soon. That little pink sun hat will go on her head at the beach. This stroller that folds so conveniently will come with us to Musikfest in August, so instead of filling a mug with straight vodka and staunchly avoiding eye contact with pregnant chicks at the ‘fest (like I’ve done every year so far), I’ll be pushing my baby in a stroller. My baby. This baby who I’ve loved for a thousand years, and who I’ll love for a thousand more.
We have so much to do. Completing the registry was supposed to make me feel accomplished, but instead it made me feel woefully unprepared. And yet, at the same time, I feel a sense of calm. No matter what we do or don’t do, my baby is coming. She may not have all the stuff yet, but she’ll get what she needs. In the end, what more does she really need than so much love and gratitude for her existence?
Oh, that’s right. She does need that Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag.
Here are the words to that song I was telling you about:
Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave
How can I love when I’m afraid
To fall
But watching you stand alone
All of my doubt
Suddenly goes away somehow
One step closer
I have died every day
waiting for you
Darlin’ don’t be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I’ll love you for a
Thousand more
Time stands still
beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything
Take away
What’s standing in front of me
Every breath,
Every hour has come to this
One step closer
I have died every day
Waiting for you
Darlin’ don’t be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I’ll love you for a
Thousand more
And all along I believed
I would find you
Time has brought
Your heart to me
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I’ll love you for a
Thousand more
One step closer
One step closer
I have died every day
Waiting for you
Darlin’ don’t be afraid,
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I’ll love you for a
Thousand more
And all along I believed
I would find you
Time has brought
Your heart to me
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I’ll love you for a
Thousand more
viable
It’s been a while, I know.
Here’s the thing: I’m boring. I’m so, so boring. I get up, I go to work, I come home and cook dinner and then I collapse in front of the TV or disappear into the pages of my latest book until I drag myself into bed. It’s not that I’m tired, per se… not mentally, at least. It’s just my body is not my body anymore. My chair at work is insufferable. I cannot get comfortable. My legs are too fat to cross, my fingers are too fat for rings, my back is in constant pain. I can find no comfortable sleeping position. So physically, yes, I feel like a 90-year-old. One flight of stairs leaves me huffing and puffing. I find myself always looking for somewhere to sit down. No wonder so many old people are grumpy.
Glamorous pregnancy? Please.
That’s not to say I’m taking it for granted… far from it. Baby girl has become quite active over the past few weeks, and the novelty of feeling her move still has not worn off. So far it’s still pretty low and internal, but Friday night she must have found a new position because for the first time, I could feel her kicks on the outside. Pretty awesome. Haven’t been able to feel that again since, but I suppose it was like a preview of things to come.
Nursery progress: none yet. We’ve narrowed down paint colors and finally on Saturday we are going to register. As I might have mentioned, we have some gorgeous furniture in the attic (Allie’s old crib and dresser), so really all we need to do is bring it down and set it up. Plus remove the few items that we have in that room. It’s not a huge clean out and I can’t imagine it taking longer than a day (maybe a weekend?), but still I’m starting to stress a little. February was fairly tame events-wise, but the closer we get to spring, the more packed our weekends are going to get. I just want to have everything taken care of sooner rather than later. Maybe this is what they call “nesting.” But really, I think it’s more fear in the knowledge that Eric and I are both hopeless procrastinators. If we don’t start now, we won’t finish it until June. And my energy is already waning, hardcore.
Ah… what else. As of today I am 24 weeks pregnant, or officially at the stage of viability. This is exciting, though not quite the reassuring comfort that it should be. Rather than pre-term later, I’m still afraid of just inexplicably losing the heartbeat, in which case being pre-24 weeks or post-24 weeks would not really make a difference. I’m working on getting over this fear. The constant movement is helpful. I haven’t even needed to use my doppler in a really long time.
Like, literally nothing else going on. I feel bad with these horribly mundane updates that are boring to write and probably much more boring to read, but I also like to check in every now and again to prove I’m still “actively blogging,” or whatever. As I said, even after she’s born I plan to keep this up to the best of my ability, but hopefully I’ll have more interesting items to discuss. You know…more interesting than unrelenting low back pain and a blossoming sugar addiction.
Thanks for sticking with me. Hopefully next update will show some nursery progress. I’m pretty dang excited to get it going… I’ve had big plans for that room since we bought our house in 2011, and the fact that we are finally getting to put them into play is so gratifying. Also exhausting. But mostly… yeah, gratifying.
halfway
Today I am 20 weeks pregnant.
5 days until we find out the gender.
4 weeks until viability.
20 weeks until we (oh, hopefully) meet our child.
This is amazing.
I am so grateful, it’s not even funny.
20 weeks
on the eve of the second trimester
Since the day that second line appeared, December 4th has been etched in my brain as “the day.” If I could just make it there, everything would be fine. I pictured having a mini party, posting my announcement on Facebook, maybe even cracking a bottle of bubbly (and you know… having half a sip or something). I figured December 4th would be the best day EVER.
But alas, it is not. Or maybe it is. I don’t know. That’s the kicker, isn’t it? I have no idea what’s going on in there. And I can’t help but assume doom and gloom because… well… that’s all I’ve known so far. I don’t know how to be hopeful and optimistic. I don’t know how to just assume that everything is just as it should be.
Here’s how it goes: the day of my ultrasounds I feel elated, joyous, hopeful, gratified. Those warm fuzzy feelings continue throughout the whole day and into the next, and then gradually start depleting and getting replaced with hopeless anxiety and an overwhelming sense that something could go wrong. Things could be going wrong at any moment, and how would I know? That’s how it happens. It could be over in an instant. So within a week I’m all in a tizzy expecting the worst, and by the day of the next ultrasound I’ve just come to accept my fate of whatever, half expecting there to just be no heartbeat at all. That’s how I’m feeling right now. So damn scared.
Yeah…I need the doppler. I broke down and ordered it today, and even just seeing the little confirmation email pop up to say that it shipped made me feel a tiny bit better. If there would have been a personal pick-up option, I might have driven to Atlanta tonight to get it (and this after a 16 hour round-trip jaunt to Virginia last weekend to visit family). Anyway, estimated delivery time is between Thursday and Saturday. I’m a bit concerned at what might happen if I can’t find the heartbeat myself using it (cue panicked emergency calls to the OB/GYN) especially since at this point I really SHOULD be able to. I was on the verge of going out at lunchtime to get one at Babies ‘R’ Us but the reviews on that one are so terrible that I was sure it wouldn’t work. I ended up going with the Sonoline B, a mere $50 on eBay. Now it just needs to get here. And find me a good, detectable heartbeat so I can stop freaking the hell out.
What else is going on? I love when people ask me that. As if freaking out over assumed tragedies isn’t a full-time occupation. Well, I had a good Thanksgiving, deliciously gluten-free. As mentioned earlier, my whole fam traveled down South to visit my dad’s side of the family, so that was cool. There was a Cracker Barrel at every exit… I’ve never seen that many Cracker Barrels. And yes, we did stop to eat there…twice. Other than that, not much. I have a slew of Christmas parties coming up and this will be the first year that I can’t drink at all. It’s not that I’m some huge drinker, it’s just that a glass of wine here or there really helps to get me nice and sociable, you know? I tend to be shy and reserved at parties and sometimes I have a bitchy look on my face without trying to (ever hear of Resting Bitch Face?) So yeah. I hope I can be fun and have fun while stone cold sober.
Such problems to have, right? To have this go well, I’d gladly give up drinking for the rest of my life. I don’t need liquor to be happy…I need this baby. Come on, doppler… ship faster!
It’s the eve of the second trimester, and all through the house…yeah, I have no rhyme for that. Sorry.
three for three
Well… I’m pregnant.
I know, what’s up with that? No exclamation marks? No joy? Nope. Not for this girl. Pure, unadulterated terror over at my house. Eric barely glanced up from what he was doing when I told him this morning. “Not a shock. Now let’s get to twelve weeks so we can really celebrate,” was his reply. I don’t blame him. I feel the same way.
I’m grateful that I can get pregnant easily. It would seem that I am my mother’s daughter in that respect. But unfortunately, I also follow her pattern of RPL. Now I just need to find a way to make it stop, once and for all. After that I’ll study up on how to be less of a control freak, which I so clearly am.
I got back the results of the clotting disorder tests: all normal. Just as I figured they would be. I’m going to keep taking the Lovenox as an added precaution, because I already bought it, and because I’m a glutton for punishment? I don’t know. I just can’t bear to do everything the same this time around and then wonder why it goes wrong. I have to try something.
So much thanks to everyone who offered advice on making the shot more bearable, especially Ashley who gave me a whole paragraph on what to do differently. It went sooo much better last night (except that Eric kept making me giggle as he said, “sloooowwly, oh so slooooowly” and it’s very nerve wracking to giggle while you have a needle inside of you). Below is my bruise pic. The big one is from the first night, the tiny little dot below it is from last night. For some reason the other side didn’t bruise one bit.
evil, evil LOVENOX
So what’s different this time? Let’s see, I knew I was probably pregnant because my throat is being funny already. It’s nothing like last time… not even close, but I couldn’t help but panic a little. It got that “weird feeling” after drinking my water with lemon, so I nixed lemons from my ever dwindling list of things that are OK to eat. It also happened after a salad, so avocados got cut from the list, too. One of the great things about an elimination diet is that you are so, so sensitive to what’s bothering you that it’s easy to figure out what the culprit is within hours. It’s also one of the crappy things about it. Bake sale today at work = no fun for me at all.
I’ve also been chugging water. Because I got up so many times to fill my cup at work, I brought in a half gallon pitcher to keep track of how much I really was drinking every day. Yeah… I’ve been drinking more than a gallon. Almost two, probably (I don’t measure at home). Is that even healthy? I can’t figure out if I’m really that thirsty, or if I’m just desperate to stave off “weird throat feeling” because I’m so terrified of it. All I know is I hit the bathroom upwards of 10 times a day and it’s terribly distracting. This should not be the case when you’re only 3 weeks pregnant.
I’m trying my best to remain calm. Beta tomorrow. Important beta Monday.
But for today, I’m pregnant.
gettin’ weird
Ever have one of those weeks where you think to yourself, “Where am I and what happened to my life?” That’s how I’m feeling right about now.
First – the new job. Without giving away too many specifics, I will tell you that I’m working for a pretty big cigar retailer as their first official full time copywriter. Me, a girl who has had approximately two puffs of a cigar in her entire life is now tasked with speaking eloquently about a topic that has a shocking number of insanely knowledgeable devotees. Intimidating? Yeah, a little. And lest you think I’m sitting there filling out new hire paperwork and smiling sweetly, the answer is no, I was thrown right into the mix with a gigantic amount of copy to write on my very first day. My motto of the week? Fake it ’til you make it, baby, and hope like hell that these cigar dudes don’t see right through me. I can’t help but compare it to a fertile Myrtle introduced to an infertility blog with no compass, attempting to decipher “ZOMG the bitch got a BFP after my BFN on an HPT on 9dp5dFET after an IUI, good CM, primo SA and so now I hope AF doesn’t come before the beta!” That’s me, at work, except it’s all like puro and figurado and ligero and I just look at them like, “Whaaaaa?”
Granted, my employer knew my level of interest/exposure to cigars (um, NONE) prior to hiring me, so they must have just liked something about my writing. Or, they made a terrible mistake. Hopefully not the latter. So far it’s been fun, and everyone clearly loves working there, and I feel important and respected with less than a week under my belt. So it’s not bad, it’s just… different. Just wait, in 6 months I’ll be this kickass cigar smoker with a terribly refined palate. And if you’re a true friend, then right now you’re saying, “No, Amanda, in 6 months you’ll be pregnant and not smoking cigars at all.” Right?!!
Next – I got my period today! And a week early by my count. Which is good, because I was about to bust out the zipper on my fat jeans (you may recall that I’ve done this once before) and have been crying at Zillow commercials for the past few days. Good to know it’s for a reason and not because I’m going cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Aaaanyway, the first thing I wanted to do when AF showed up was call the doctor, because seriously, doesn’t everyone call the doctor when they get their period? I texted Eric and said, “We need to talk about my period,” to which he was understandably confused, but yeah I just felt like more action was necessary. I have spent the entirety of 2013 calling people to announce the advent of my period. Literally, since January. I’ve either been pregnant or getting ready to get implanted. This is my first break all year… it was weird to accept. But I did sit down with me and ask, very gently, if I even wanted to call New Hope. And the answer was no, I’m not ready. I know we had already decided to wait, but I was secretly worried that when the time came, I wouldn’t want to wait. The truth is that I do need to wait, and I want to wait. So it’s alllll good.
And of course a tiny annoying voice kept saying, “Maybe you’ll conceive on your own this month,” and of course I was like, “Shut up, stupid tiny voice, what makes this month different from the freaking two and a half years preceding our IVF cycle?” It’s not. I mean, the difference is that I’ve been pregnant. So now I think my subconscious got cocky, and she’s like, “Girl, we got this.” But we don’t. I got pregnant from pre-fertilized embryos, not from a glass of wine and an OPK. It’s just insane to think it could happen. But damn, that would make things so much easier.
Which brings me to my next weird moment. Today I was perusing my new benefits package when I came across a line that made my little heart stop with hope. Under Infertility Services it said “covered in full after deductible.” Which is totally too good to be true, and which isn’t true at all, it turns out. I went running in to Eric squealing like we hit the Powerball until I saw the next line, which said Assisted Fertilization: not covered. Why are those two things separated out? Could it be any more unclear? I’m assuming it just means they cover the testing and not the treatment, because they are total and complete assholes, but did they really have to get my hopes up like that? I guess I will have to ask to confirm (hello, awkward conversation with HR department at a new company).
One thing that is surprisingly covered, however, is infertility drugs. They give you up to $2,500 for your lifetime. Of course we’ve already spent more than that, but there’s more to come, and that’s pretty good. Better than what I had before ($0), so no complaints here. Why are they covering drugs and not treatment? Because they suck. Insurance companies: blah.
That’s all for now, dear friends. I no longer have time (or, ahem, permission) to sit there catching up on blogs and Facebooking all day, so I’m frantically trying to catch up on all my feeds at night while still doing the cooking, general household maintenance, and oh yeah, working later in the evening. Phew. Is it Friday yet?