Kicking

My husband felt the baby kick for the first time yesterday (19 weeks and 5 days).  It was very exciting.  Tomorrow we hit the 20 week mark.  Halfway there and 12 weeks away from our minimum goal of 32 weeks.   Our 20 week ultrasound is scheduled for Wed.  Can't wait!  Praying everything is still going well in there.

The Green Eyed Monster

I am a little embarrassed to admit this but I think getting it off my chest will make me feel better. Hopefully if others feel the same way, they will know they aren’t alone.

My brother has 2 children, a 7 year old from a girlfriend who would become his wife for a short time. And a 2 year old that he conceived less than two months after getting married. His second wife has wanted another child for awhile but my brother has been content. As I have been going through my infertility test and treatments I have secretly hoped that she wouldn’t become pregnant until I did. I didn’t think I could handle it. Apparently my brother has gotten all of the fertile genes in the family and my parents were all out when they made me. I know that’s stupid but I feel that way sometimes. He’s one of those people who says, let’s have a kid and bam 9 months later one pops out. Or in the case of his first, doesn’t wear protection and has the same result.

My brother called last week and I jokingly said something about him having another kid. He replied that his wife wanted one so sooner or later she would get it. I said not to wait too long, he’s not getting any younger (he’ll be 39 in Dec). So, Wednesday I called my sister in law for her birthday to find out that she is 7 ½ weeks pregnant. Don’t get me wrong I am very happy for her but I am jealous. She’s on vacation, she got to fly there, she’s still having the occasional cocktail and living life as normal. The only medicine she’s on is prenatal vitamins, I’m on a cocktail of 49 pills a day and this is a drastic decrease from what it was 2 weeks ago (that will be another blog). Might I also add that my brother travels all the time for work and is only home for a few nights a week so it’s not like they are home trying a lot. Once again, the fertile member of the family strikes again.
When we went to the dr. at about 10 weeks, my husband asked “So, she’ll be out of the woods after 12 weeks right” and the dr. laughed and said, she’ll never be out of the woods. My lovely unicorn uterus doesn’t afford me the luxury to every settle into this pregnancy and be confident that it will result in a baby. I feel sort of robbed of that joy. I can’t travel back to the States to see my family or for anywhere for that matter, there is already talk of bed rest starting in 3 weeks, I still check the toilet paper every time I go to the bathroom (which is quite often) to make sure nothing is there and have been banned from sex and any type of exercise for my entire pregnancy. My best friend who went through multiple failed IUIs before conceiving twins with IVF told me yesterday that she had the same feeling so maybe it’s an infertility thing compounded by my unicorn uterus.
I don’t want to be jealous but I am. I wish that at 7 ½ weeks I just assumed that everything would be fine and I’d have a healthy baby. I wish I felt like that at 19 ½ weeks. Instead I worry about another miscarriage, preterm labor and the rest of it.

So if you are an infertile like me and still find yourself jealous of those people who can get pregnant at the blink of an eye and not worry about their pregnancy, know you are not alone.  You can keep telling the green eyed monster to hit the road but I don't think it will every completly go away.

What do you say...?

For the first time yesterday, someone I just met asked me if I was pregnant. Yea! I guess I'm finally showing. But her first question was, is this your first? What do you say to this? It's the first time I've gotten this far? Yes, it’s my first? No, I had two miscarriages? Saying it's my first seems wrong but why do I want to discuss my miscarriages with complete strangers? What's the proper protocol here? Any suggestions?

Over the Shoulder Boulder Holder

Yesterday I finally broke down and went shopping for some new over the shoulder boulder holder. Not as easy as it would be back home in the States as I never quite know where to go, if the person helping me will speak English. One thing I do know for certain is that buying a bra here means you will get felt up by the clerk. Happened to me the first time I came here 9 years ago and wanted one of those bras with clear straps. So my then boyfriends mom took me shopping. In the middle of the department store, two clerks (one was her cousin) felt me up to determine my bra size. I kid you not. They were all speaking Greek so I had no idea what was going on. I just stood there. I had only met my now mother in law a couple of days earlier and the other women were strangers.  

Last week, my MIL took me maternity shopping. We looked for bathing suits where once again I got felt up. Not out in the open this time, in the dressing room. The clerk reached right inside the bathing suits and moved my boobs around. I didn’t buy anything that day because 1. the bathing suits made me look like a porn star  and 2. the top cost about $100.

I was so uncomfortable at work yesterday that I kept undoing my bra in the bak.  As soon I left, I went bra/bathing suit shopping. The good news is the clerk spoke English, was very helpful, I got good prices and while I got felt up, it wasn’t quite as invasive as last time. Bad news is that b/c of my giant chest, I didn’t have a lot of choice in bathing suits but at least I got one that fits! 

I have gone from a C to an E cup. Yep, up 3 sizes and I think they are still growing. Pretty soon I will need a real bolder holder. I told my mom we could use my bra as a tent for the baby when it is born it’s so big. Dolly Parton has nothing on me.

Is that our little one?

If I have a unicorn uterus and am missing the left side of my uterus, why do the movements that I think are the baby on that side? The movements are about an inch above my pubic hair line and a about 2 inches off center (on the non uterus side).  Any suggestion?s  Is it not my baby?  It doesn't feel like round ligament pain at all but king of little jabs, they are a little painful and stop me in my tracks.  Some of them feel quite low like they are in my cervix.  I don't have gas and actually went to the bathroom today so I don't think it's that either.  It's only 12pm and I've already had two full trays of ice and there is a lot of movement.  After some research I found out that ice water wakes up the little one.  Go figure.  You think I would have put two and two together but pregnancy brain has kicked in full force. 

What do you think?  Could my half uterus be off center by that much?  Is it not the baby?

17 weeks

We had our 17 week appointment and ultrasound on Wednesday and all looks good. We don’t have pictures to share as there weren’t any really clear images. I thought the belly was the head if that tells you anything. According to the Dr., all is going well, the baby has long legs and from what I could see a big body. Heartbeat was fine.


The doctor said she could tell if it was a boy or girl but I don’t want to know so she didn’t tell us. I think my husband may find out later. We’ll see at the next appointment. I think it may have been a little early to tell but although I may feel like a doctor after the year we’ve had, clearly I am not! My mom and best friend at home also want to know for logistical reasons. My mom wants to stock up on baby clothes in the States before she comes for the birth because it is so much cheaper. Well that and let’s face it she can’t take surprises. This is the lady who we hide her Christmas presents unwrapped in her closet until Christmas Eve so she won’t find them. Counter intuitive I know but it works. Then every Christmas Eve my dad and I get together and wrap them. Once we hid something at the neighbors. If they are wrapped under the tree she will unwrap them and wrap them again and you’ll never know. While she claims she wouldn’t do this anymore, we don’t think it’s true. As for my best friend, she had twins last September, a boy and a girl and she is going to keep all the clothes for which ever sex I need. This is awesome, I am so excited. Our kids will be almost exactly a year apart so seasons won’t matter and I’m not kidding you in the pictures I get of them (almost daily) they are never wearing the same clothes

Back to the appointment, the Dr. said I had put on a little too much weight (about 6 pounds in 3 weeks) so I have to watch what I eat a little more. Basically I’m a fat ass but what do they expect when they won’t let me exercise? Hopefully it will settle itself out since my appetite is back to normal and I don’t want to eat everything in sight. No threats yet of being put on the fat ward like my mom. I kid you not, she gave birth to my brother and I at a military hospital and she said they kept threathening to put her in the fat ward if she didn’t stop gaining so much weight. I need to figure out how much she gained. I think I’m going to blame it on my giant chest, I think I could give Dolly Parton a run for her money. I went from a 36C to a 38E and looks like I’m still growing. I’m talking porn star boobs. Too bad they aren’t good for anything as we are on a Dr. order sex ban (more on that later.)

Good news…it doesn’t look like we are going to have to have a clearage. The other ultrasound tech will check again at 22 weeks but so far so good. What a relief!! I was not looking forward to that.
My husband’s grandma is here from England visiting so we invited her to the ultrasound. I think she enjoyed being part of the experience. I say I think because while I’ve been here a year, I still don’t speak Greek and she’s lived in Engand for about 40 years and doesn’t speak English. Actually we both speak about 10 words of the other language so communicating is entertaining.

All in all things are going well. Though we’ve seen this kiddo quite a few times with the ultrasound and heard its heart beat, it still doesn’t seem real. Even when I went to look at maternity clothes yesterday I thought I was an imposter. Maybe when I feel it kicking or when my bump gets bigger. Guess this is the life of the infertiles, we are too cautious and scared to believe it is real.

The Bathroom

I can’t believe about to do this but yes, this will be a whole post related to the bathroom. It seems to be such a big part of my life right now and I wonder if I’m normal. While I hope that you aren’t going through the same thing, it would be comforting to know that there are others out there.

It started a few months ago when I started to get super constipated. I’m talking a week without going #2. When I finally did go it took a lot of work for little results and it sounded like I was having a baby. I would lay on the couch in pain from being so backed up. I had some spotting (info for another post) and wound up in the hospital overnight. The dr. came in when I was on the bed pan and I told her I was having trouble going to the bathroom. While I was talking about #1, she thought I was talking about #2. She said the nurse could give me an enema. At that point it had only been 4 days and the thought of my insides exploding while I was spotting and had passed a blood clot scared me so I declined. 3 days later I took some over the counter (dr. approved) laxatives. It took them 2 days but they finally worked. Thankfully I’m a little more regular in the #2 department, the down side I’m taking iron pills so everything that comes out is black or dark green which is GROSS.

All in all though I thought I was out of the woods, then the need to pee every 30 minutes began. I keep reading online this happens in the 1st trimester, gets better in the 2nd and worse again in the 3rd. For me, it was so, so in the 1st trimester and has gotten progressively worse. Before I got pregnant, I would drink about 1 ½ gallons of water a day and only go to the bathroom 5 or 6 times. I never had a problem. Now, I drink less and go all the time. I’m talking about 10 times from the time I get home from work till I go to bed, a minimum of 3 times in the middle of the night but on average 5. We even went to the beach this weekend a mere hour drive. I had to stop half way home, it was an emergency!! Then, when we got home I had to run to the bathroom.

And the best story of all, a couple of weeks ago I was asleep on the couch and had a dream that I had to pee and I went. A while later I woke up and had to pee for real, only to find out that I had not only peed in my dream, but all over the couch. How gross is that. I’ve never been a bed wetter and here I am at 35 peeing in my sleep. I thought my husband was going to joke about it after I told him but he didn’t. Have I become so gross that these things aren’t even funny? A few days later he came back from the grocery store with some bed pads that I think old people use when they wet the bed. Yes, this is what it has come to. I haven’t peed in my sleep again but it is comforting to know that if I do I’m protected!

Hope you are all doing better in the bathroom department than me.