Ten Times Crazier

We survived the trip to my brother’s wedding.  We’ve been back for about a week now, and I’ve been spending that time recuperating.  The plane rides with two ambulatory boys didn’t exactly go off without a hitch, but they went better than I expected.  The trip in general was pretty hectic but a lot of fun, and I didn’t throw up once (not that I felt great, but I am very grateful for the not puking).

The boys had fun hanging out with their aunts and uncles and grandma and grandpa and ten cousins (there were usually more than 20 of us in my parents’ house at any given time).  Here’s some evidence:

These are the six youngest grandkids on my side.  They were all born in the last two years.  The third one in was happy, but he’s crying because Lincoln was picking his nose.  That’s my hand in there stopping him.

JJ is held by his uncle while clapping for a cousin that just blew out birthday candles.

This is how Lincoln watched the candles.

They played lots of fun games like Rock Band.

The boys even hung out while I played a little bit.

The wedding cake was a monument to family and teamwork.  All of my sisters and my mom pitched in to help their poor, nauseated sister/daughter.

The remaining family not involved in cake making watched after the six children we have between us most of the day of the wedding while we worked on it.

What it lacked in aesthetic perfection, it made up for in chocolaty deliciousness (it was a dark chocolate fudge cake with chocolate mousse filling covered in chocolate ganache).  Except for a small portion, which was saved for the bride and groom, it all got eaten.

On the last day we were there, I started bleeding.  I was just a little freaked out, but I mostly felt pretty sure that everything was okay (it was).  I had bleeding with the boys at about ten weeks, and that never amounted to anything, and this bleed was a lot more like that one than it was like my miscarriage, so that helped me not go crazy.  It was a fairly significant amount of bright red blood (not just spotting), but after the initial bleed, things got drastically sparser and tapered off to brown in color over the next 24 hours, and I never had cramping or anything.  I had an ultrasound as soon as we got back.  The baby is doing great (growing on schedule, hb is 160+ bpm, and I saw some little wiggles), they didn’t see any hemorrhaging or clots or anything, my cervix is holding up so far, and my cyst is down to 4.5 cm.  The doc thinks the bleeding was from my cervix due to DTD.  I thought it was more blood than I would expect from that, but she offered some anecdotal evidence (which I will spare you since there’s already more than enough about bodily fluids in this post) that it’s not, so now I think so, too.  She says it’s nothing to worry about.

As far as the Reglan is concerned, it’s mostly working.  In fact, after a few days on it, I felt like the vomiting was gone enough that perhaps I was actually feeling better and skipped a couple doses.  By the evening of that day I was hurling at least hourly and was a real mess, so I have decided to just keep taking it until I get a few weeks further along.  (I’m still holding out hope that this time will be better than last, and I’ll be done with the nausea by the time my second semester rolls around.)  I think it is making me a little drowsy, but it’s hard to tell if it’s the medicine making me tired or just being pregnant.  I suppose it’s a little of both.  (In either case, I’ve been taking naps when the boys nap and going to bed early, so I’m getting 10-12 hours of sleep on most days.  As much as I feel like I’m wasting time, I don’t think I could function otherwise.)

Sometimes, though, I still get the pukes even though I’m medicating regularly.  Yesterday morning I took my dose with a little bit of water then sat down on the couch and had a few bites of cinnamon raisin toast when my stomach said to me, Hey, you are going to throw up now.

Nooooo! I told it.  I just took my medicine, and if I throw it up now, I won’t know how much of it got absorbed, and I will either feel guilty about taking too much if I take another dose or else I will be sick all morning because I didn’t get enough, so no.  I am not throwing up.

Oh, yes you are, it said as it shoved the meager contents of my stomach into my mouth.

Oh, no I’m not, I swallowed back.  We went back and forth a couple times like that before I decided it wise to have this fight with my stomach in the bathroom over the toilet and tile rather than in the living room over the couch and carpet.

We argued a bit more emphatically once I moved to the bathroom, but, the contents of my stomach being so meager, I was eventually able to win the fight by re-swallowing every time my stomach pushed out.  I did lose a few drops out of my nose but otherwise nothing.  That is how hardcore I am.

Anyway.  I’m going to post this before I put it off again.  Megan out.

Had my appointment today.  Jeff and the boys came with me (Jeff wanted to see the baby, too), and besides when Lincoln bounced his face off the coffee table in the waiting room and busted his lip, it went much more smoothly than I had even hoped.  The ultrasound room even had toys to entertain the guys which was good because even with the distraction of unfamiliar toys they still came over and tried to scale the table to get to me and had to be herded away by Jeff.

According to the ultrasound tech, I am 6w1d pregnant, and the baby’s heart rate is a healthy 130 bpm.  Oh, and I have a big ol’ (6-7 cm) cyst on my right ovary.  This explains the pelvic tenderness I’ve been experiencing when one of the boys grinds a knee or a foot or a head or some other appendage into my stomach.  Hopefully it’ll just go away quietly.

I have my doubts about the ultrasound tech’s estimation of 6w1d.  I think I’m further along.  First of all, I just don’t believe they can be very accurate measuring a blurry blob which they may or may not have a good angle on.  Secondly, the heart rate for a baby at 6 weeks is normally 90-110 bpm, but our baby was at 130 bpm.  And thirdly, if she’s right, I started throwing up before 5 weeks?!  Ugh.  I seriously hope not.

Also, since Zofran is so dang expensive, I asked the nurse practitioner about an alternative, and she gave me a prescription for Reglan.  She warned me multiple times that it causes drowsiness.  Anybody have any experience with it?  Is the drowsiness really that bad?

Coming up in four weeks:

• A follow-up ultrasound to make sure the cyst is going away (hopefully I’ll get a peek at the baby, too!)
• A visit with the high-risk specialist because of my previous early dilation issues
• An appointment with my actual doctor (rather than a nurse practitioner like this time)

So for the past several days I have spent the majority of my free time curled up in a ball on the couch.  The puking has commenced.  And, if my calculations are correct, a whole week earlier than it started when I was pregnant with the boys.  Argh!  It was supposed to be easier this time around.  In all fairness, it isn’t as severe as it was with the boys (yet), but I had such hope for it to be virtually non-existent.  I know.  I am an idiot.

So far I have managed a level of care of the boys that does not make me feel guilty about neglecting them, and the house is still in passable order, but Jeff has been working from home this week and has been immensely helpful (like, for instance, feeding the guys when the smell of their food makes my stomach churn and then making food for me), and he goes back to regular work next week.  I’m not sure how well I will do after he goes back.  I am armed with Zofran (thank goodness I had the foresight to ask the doc for that even though I was feeling just peachy at my last appointment), but it is not well-covered by our insurance, so it costs quite a bit (not $10/pill, or anything, but enough to make me think twice about taking it), and it doesn’t make me feel better, it just keeps me from puking.  I hope I can trudge through this next month without losing any significant amount of weight, my house going to pot, or my babies or husband feeling neglected.  Oh, please let it last only another month.

Then there’s the whole matter of my brother’s wedding in less than two weeks.  There will be flights and parties and lots of people around, and I’M MAKING THE CAKE.  Ack.  Luckily my sister has pledged her assistance; I’m sure will need it.  I mean, I’ve already done several of my siblings’ wedding cakes but never while severely nauseated.  His wife-to-be has requested a pretty simple design, so at least there’s that.

There is one thing that makes the hurling just a little bit less horrible this time around.  We have our living/dining area gated off to contain the guys.  Just outside the gate is a half-bath.  When the urge hits and I tear across the room and hurdle the gate to get to the toilet, the guys run after me and stand at the gate imitating my heavings.  It cracks me up every time.  It is a very singular experience.

Anyway,  I’ll be back at least by Thursday with an update from my appointment, and I know I promised to continue my love story, so I’ll get to that soon (I’ve already started on the next installment).  But in the meantime, I leave you with a list of some observations I’ve made of the odd behavior the pregnancy pukes bring out in me.

Pregnancy Pukes:  You know you’ve got it bad when…

• you fantasize about getting all your fluids and nutrients intravenously
• you run around like a crazy person in the brief feeling-moderately-okay moments after a puke session so you can get a few things done before you can’t stand up anymore
• you think ten bucks for one Zofran is totally worth it
• it takes you three or four times as long as it usually does to eat because you have to have a battle of wills with your stomach every time you swallow
• you choose your food based on how it will taste coming back up
• you go to sleep at eight p.m. even if you’re not that tired just so that you won’t be conscious of the nausea

Have any to add?

I didn’t want to spring this on the ICLWers, but that is over now, and anyone who is coming back has been warned about what’s going on TTC-wise.  Plus, my BBT chart is getting much too wide for my sidebar, so I will hold off no longer.

I am pregnant.

I feel a lot of ways about this:

• Guilty – I feel guilty that this happened so relatively easy for us while others out there are fighting so hard for their first baby.  While it is true that we had not been using any form of birth control for the last eight months and hadn’t gotten pregnant, I don’t feel like it counts as any kind of a struggle since we hadn’t officially started “trying” yet inasmuch as “trying” means timing BD to correspond appropriately with ovulation.  We were going along with our regularly unscheduled program as far as BDing goes, and I have no idea if I was ovulating or not, anyway.  I just started charting my BBT part-way through my current cycle mainly so that I’d have data to present to my doctor when I asked her for Clomid.  I’m glad it happened this way, but I can’t help feeling the weight of the unfairness of it.
• Nervous – I’m nervous that since I don’t know why I had my first miscarriage, I still feel like whatever caused that one could cause another.  Also, although I know that having twins played a large part in my issues with my last pregnancy, I’m nervous that my cervix will go all crappy again and land me on bed rest or in the hospital.  Luckily, my mom’s a teacher and doesn’t work during the summer, so she said she could come help take care of Link and JJ if need be (my third trimester is to coincide nicely with the summer months).  That helps allay my nervousness in that respect as long as cervix issues don’t result in a premature birth.
• Annoyed – I’m not annoyed about the pregnancy itself but at the reaction to it of a certain person who shall remain nameless (but her initials are MIL).  I am not interested in whether or not she thinks the timing of this pregnancy is ideal.  Historically I’ve not really been in a position to time my pregnancies exactly how I want them, so I will take them as they come (and I’d rather have them sooner than later).  If I really thought I couldn’t handle another baby, I would’ve taken measures to make sure I didn’t have one… not that any of that is her business.    I don’t want to hear about anything she has to say on the matter that would not fall into the general category of “Congratulations!”
• Relieved – I’m relieved that I didn’t have to go through years more dealing with fertility issues and all the doctors and medicines and obsessing and sadness and all the other yuck that fertility issues bring.
• Excited – I’m so excited to be one step closer to adding another member to our family.  I am happy about the timing of this.  If I could pick the spacing between my kids, I’d like it to be about as far apart as my siblings and I are — we’re all just less than two years apart.  The boys will be about 22 months around the due date.  I’m excited to see what kind of big brothers Link and JJ will be, and I’m excited to meet our next new little person and see his/her personality unfold and intertwine with the other members of our family.
• Hopeful – I know it won’t be easy to have three kids so little, but I am hopeful that it will be worth it in the long run, that they will be close to one another and be great friends all their lives.

And lots of other stuff, too.

Anyway, here’s the technical bit:

* This is where Fertility Friend thinks I ovulated.
** This is where I think I ovulated.

I didn’t test anywhere between CD39 (BFN) and CD51, and when I got the BFP on CD51, it was very dark.  If FF is right about my ovulation, that would mean I am four and a half weeks pregnant, but it would also mean that I got a very dark BFP on 10DPO.  I doubt that.  This leads me to believe that ovulation was earlier than FF thinks.  If I’m right about my ovulation date, then I am currently five and a half weeks pregnant.

I have a date with the ultrasonic dildo on January 7th.  Hopefully that will clear things up.

We had a lovely Christmas.  It was very low-key and relaxed.  It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those, and I really enjoyed it.

The highlight of the day was probably the first ten minutes of gift opening.  Here is why:

• JJ opened his first present with two hands, his second present with one hand and his mouth (because the other hand was occupied by his first present), and his third present with just his mouth while Jeff held it for him.
• Link took his first present, a hairbrush, and started brushing his hair with it while it was still wrapped.  He wasn’t particularly interested in opening any more gifts after that one.  It was all he wanted.

We have video of it, but by the time I get around to uploading that video, Christmas will be really old news.   Instead, I give you some video taken a few weeks ago (The aspect ratio on the last two is not right (we got it figured out by the time we uploaded the one I posted first here), so my dudes are actually chubbier than they appear.):

By the way, yes, he is playing with a Vaseline container in the following video.  My boys prefer to play with non-toys any day.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope you had a wonderful day.

…and you can make your own!

Sorry I’m late getting this up (not that anyone would notice one way or the other).  IComLeavWe snuck up on me.  I just wanted to post a little blurb about me for all my ICLW peeps.  So here it is:

Four and a half years ago, after having been married for about a year, my husband and I decided to start trying to make some babies.  It took us two years to get pregnant, which in and of itself was hard, but then at eight weeks I had a miscarriage.  It was devastating.  Another year later, with a little help from Clomid (because my cycles are wonky and only occasionally ovulatory), we conceived again.  At 37 weeks, after three months on bed rest mostly in the hospital (because I started dilating by 24 weeks), I gave birth to my two sweet little dudes, Lincoln (Link) and James (JJ).  They turned one in October.  In the last couple of months we have started trying for number three, and I am currently trying to decipher BBTs that are all messed up because of a UTI.  I have gotten BFNs on CDs 35 and 39.  I’m pretty sure I am somewhere in the 2WW now but can’t really tell where exactly.

Apropos of nothing, I have a question.  Is it just me, or is the latest Y.az commercial trying to tell us that Y.az will make you go freakin’ crazy?  I mean, there is a girl giving herself a bad impulse haircut, a girl jumping into bubble bath with all her clothes on and then blowing bubbles (Where did that bottle of bubbles come from?  She keeps in by the tub just in case she goes crazy?), a girl changing her clothes in the very non-private backseat of a car, a girl looking very impressed with herself after doing an awful paint job on one of her walls, and a girl designing a hideous dress (Seriously, it looks like an 1880s dress and a 1980s dress both took a crap on a cupcake foil.), and they’re all just thrilled about it.  Freakin’ crazy.

So yeah.  That was just a little intro.  See real posts below.

I went to a ladies-only Christmas party a couple weeks ago.  It was really nice to actually hang out with adults again.  Besides Jeff, I’ve hardly done that at all since we moved here in July.  Plus, I got to do it without having to worry about babies.  Well, I worried just a little bit — it was Jeff’s first time doing bedtime all by himself — but I got to eat without having to also feed two other mouths, protect my plate from being flipped onto the floor, or make sure my drink was out of little hands’ reach, and I got to talk and laugh and enjoy other women’s company.  Like I said, it was really nice.

The woman who invited me is many months pregnant.  She has three older children (tweenish), so if I had been forced to guess, I would’ve said that the pregnancy was unplanned.  In talking with her, I found out that it was unplanned but not in the way I would’ve thought.  After they had their first three, they weren’t quite done building their family yet, but after over a year of trying with no luck they decided to get medical assistance.  They discovered problems existed on both his end and her end (the doctors were surprised they’d been able to get the first three with no problems).  They ended up trying IVF, and after six years and many failed cycles, they decided to give up.  Shortly thereafter, she got pregnant with no help at all (well, except that of her husband).  I told her about my three-year struggle with infertility and remarked about how hard it would’ve been to have had to deal with it for twice as long  as I did.  She said it was probably both easier and harder — easier because she already had her three children, so her hopes of motherhood weren’t pinned on it, and harder because people who knew about what they were going through gave them a hard time about all the time, money, and energy they were putting into it when they already had three kids.  I just don’t understand why some people think that when a couple is struggling with infertility it gives them license to tell the infertile couple how they ought to go about building their family.

Anyway, the party was loads of fun.  It started at 6:30pm, and I told Jeff I might be home by the boys’ bedtime at 8pm but not to wait for me because I might stay a little longer.  Long story short, I got home after midnight.  Jeff even called me a couple times during the evening wondering if I was okay.

When I got home, it seemed my concerns about Jeff handling bedtime were unfounded.  The babies were asleep, and he said it went well besides the fact that he skipped the brushing of the teeth.  But when we went in, like we do every night, to see them sleeping before we go to bed, they both shot up, wide awake, like they had been waiting for me, like they knew the earlier bedtime farce with just Daddy didn’t count and that their REAL bedtime was yet to come.  It made my heart happy and made me feel important.  So we re-did bedtime stories (if we’d just cuddled and kissed them and left the room, they’d've screamed their heads off — they definitely like the comfort of their routine), and they got their goodnight cuddles and kisses from Daddy AND Mommy, and they went peacefully back to sleep.

As much as I enjoyed a night of adult time, I was so happy to come home to my wonderful husband and my sweet babies.

I went to the doctor on Wednesday and came home with a UTI.  Well, I took the UTI with me, but I came home knowing I had it.  The lab said I had “multiple flora”.  It sounds so pretty, doesn’t it?  (Pretty or not, it burns.)  They also did a pregnancy test on my pee which was negative, of course, but the doctor wanted to know if he needed to take a pregnancy into account when prescribing antibiotics.  It didn’t make a difference; he still prescribed an antibiotic that he said was safe during pregnancy.

So this infection may have caused a mild fever thus obfuscating ovulation or lack thereof.  Basically, my recent BBTs are pretty much useless.  Thankfully the persistent, desperate hope so familiar to us infertiles has managed to help me see the bright side in this whole mess.  As I’ve been taking my meds and my symptoms have dropped off, my temperature has not.  Maybe I did finally ovulate!  The bad part is that IF I did ovulate, there’s pretty much no way to know when it was.  Fertility Friend even thinks I ovulated, but it keeps changing its mind as to when with every new temp I add.

Fun.

HPT > BFN at around midnight Saturday night

temp > still up as of this morning

AF > hasn’t reared her bloody head

guts > still crampy

feeling  > quite perplexed about having peed on that stick — I don’t know where I got the audacity to think it would be so easy — and also perplexed about when I might’ve ovulated, if at all, since if I ovulated when I thought I did, I should’ve gotten a BFP or started AF by now

actual blog post > stuck somewhere between my ears… my words aren’t working right