Good day

Today was my first ultrasound. I was beyond nervous this morning. I knew that this could go one of two ways and that this would either be a really good day or a really bad day. I was so worried about there not being a heartbeat, or the heartbeat being slow or the baby not measuring correctly. I was sick to my stomach, had butterflies, shaking etc...

BUT.... It is a GOOD day!!

With C, they couldn't see anything by abdominal US because it was small and my uterus was retroverted (tilted toward my back), so I had to have an internal US.

This time, we could see right away on my abdomen!! My pregnancy with C fixed my uterus and this baby and bubble were big enough to see. We saw the heart beating right away at 142 bpm and it measured 7w 1 day which makes my due date April 16th.

I'm soooooo relieved and happy that I think I may go ahead and announce this pregnancy to everyone :-)

The last number

After I had the spotting, I had my HCG drawn and had calculated that it should be about 33,000 if it doubled every 48 hours from the previous draw a week earlier of 2820.

The doc called last Wed and my level was 21,000. She was all "looks great!" And I was all "that's too low!!" I told her what I had calculated and she told me that when it gets up this high, it only doubles every 3-4 days instead of every 2. But, being the pessimistic worrier that I am, I didn't believe her. I thought she was just trying to give me hope by saying that SOMETIMES this is the case. I got of the phone and cried and cried. I was sure I was having a miscarriage. The baby was no longer growing at a rapid pace, and that was it.

I wished that I had not had my level drawn this time. It was my idea and optional. My doc didn't think it was totally necessary and I debated whether or not to do it because I knew if it did not climb exactly like I had calculated, I was going to make myself crazy. I wish the nurse would've warned me about the slowing numbers ahead of time.

But, as I started talking to other people and looking things up on line, I found lots of information supporting this. After 6,000 it does slow down to every 3-4 days. Why didn't I know this? I thought I was up to date on all this pregnancy stuff.

This did relieve me some, but I still wouldn't feel satisfied until I saw a strong heartbeat.

signs so far

I have very little pregnancy signs. I'm one of those people that could go many months without knowing I'm pregnant because I also normally go months and months without a period.

But, since I DO know, I pay extra close attention to any changes to catch my symptoms.

So far, the similarities to C's pregnancy are

fast growing thick black hair on my lower belly (grosss, I know, that's what razors are for)

odd tingling back pain below my right shoulder blade. It's some kind of nerve issue I think.

My friend JL gets the same thing when she's pregnant and she went to a chiropractor and he told her it has to do with gallbladder irritation that radiates to that area. Weird.

Hip pain ALREADY. It's only slight right now, but I think the relaxin hormone has already loosened everything up. My hip and pelvic pain was my biggest pregnancy complaint with C, but I don't remember feeling anything until about 22 weeks. This time I was 5 weeks. It's gonna be a long 8 months.

Mild constipation compared to my norm

THIRSTY for water all the time. I can't get enough

Blonde eyebrows. I know this one sounds really weird, but with C a few of my eyebrow hairs turned white, and it's happening again. I have no idea what this is about.

mild dull cramps/ tugging/ pulling feeling in my uterus

Differences I've noticed are

with C I was only nauseous first thing in the morning. This time it seems to hit in the evening and nothing ever sounds good for dinner. I feel fine in the mornings. It's VERY mild nausea just like C's was though. I am thankful for this

My boobs don't hurt AT ALL. With C, they were mildly tender. I remember hearing people talk about how killer painful they were and thinking that mine were just slightly sore with C and that always worried me, but this time I could punch them and not even flinch. I'm not so worried about it this time.

My face is breaking out. With C I remember thinking how great pregnancy was for my skin because I never broke out. This time, it's a zit farm on my chin.

seeing brown

Yesterday morning I had two tiny streaks of brown spotting. WORRY!!! I know they say a lot of people spot throughout their pregnancy, especially in the first trimester, and that it can be no big deal, but I also know that it CAN be a big deal. How do you know when to panic? I had some pink and brown spotting when I was pregnant with C between weeks 5 and 6. I'm 6 weeks today. The fact that C made it here ok despite the spotting is reassuring, but I can't help but worry a little. My doc said that brown is GOOD, it means that it's old and I'm not actively bleeding. She guesses that it's from implantation, and just took a while to come out. Sorry for the visual. But I asked if I could have another HCG drawn again today just to make me feel better since my ultrasound isn't for another week. She agreed. Now I just have the torture of waiting until tomorrow to get the results. I've calculated that the number should be at least 24,336. That's a big number. I hope this baby can make it!

such an overachiever :-)

My HCG needed to be 1806 yesterday in order to be doubling every 48 hours and my doc called this morning and it was 2820!!!!!!!! Sooooo relieved. My progesterone was 24, which is a perfect number. My first was too low at 12.2, and the second was crazy high at 56, but I think I know why.

When I ovulated back in June I had asked my doc for a prescription for progesterone that I could take until I found out if I was not pregnant and then I would stop taking them. I took those pills with me to california and they went through a suitcase and plane ride and sat in a sometimes hot and humid and other times cold cabin and then I quit taking them when it was negative and the leftovers have been sitting in my nightstand drawer for over a month.

I didn't take them right when I ovulated this time because I decided that was unnecessary and just decided to start them when I got a positive.

Well, I didn't want to let the old ones go to waste before buying a new $20 bottle. They weren't expired. I took one immediately when I got the positive and then we left to go out to dinner. By the end of dinner I felt so dizzy and lethargic like I had taken an ambien. I could hardly eat or walk. At the time, I didn't know what was going on.

The next night the same thing happened and I realized it was always about an hour after my progesterone pill. I read the bottle and it said "may cause drowsiness or dizziness". But this didn't happen with C??

Well, these leftover pills had become a little "squishy". They were soft and the outer shell was gooey and if you shook the bottle, they all stuck together and didn't rattle in the bottle. I think they had broken down at some point in all of the weather change during travel and when I would take them they were releasing all of the hormone at once in my body and it was like taking a sleeping pill! So when I had my first level drawn it was low I'm guessing because I had taken my pill the night before and because it released so fast, it had also gotten out of my system fast instead of having a slow continuous release.

Then because of the low level my doc told me to take it twice a day, night and morning. So, when I went to have my second level drawn, I had just taken the pill and my level was really high!

Friday I started a fresh non-squishy bottle of pills and they don't make me as sleepy or weird and my levels are more normalized. 24 is right where it should be :-)

I am beyond happy today. My first sono is scheduled for Aug 30 to see a heartbeat and confirm a due date. According to my July 25 ovulation day, my due date should be April 16, but I know that I ovulated between 5-7 pm because I had killer cramps, so I'm guessing the egg didn't get fertilized until sometime the next day which would make me due April 17. So, I'm guessing the 17th, which will make me 7 weeks exactly at my sono. Although, with the lower HCG levels compared to C's, I'm wondering if it was a very late implant and my due date might even be a couple days later? We shall see :-)

I'm so excited and elated!! I was crying and shaking with joy over this HCG level. THANK YOU GOD for this gift! I feel incredibly fortunate.

I hate this part

I hate the first trimester. I actually have it pretty good in terms of symptoms.. I only get mildly nauseous from weeks 7-12, my boobs never hurt and I don't get the extreme fatigue everyone talks about. This is great right? Well, sort of. Without these symptoms to assure me I'm still pregnant, I worry all the time. At least this time I know this is normal for me.

I hate this trimester because you can't just be excited. I have to be worried all the time that I'm going to lose the baby.

It started pretty much immediately. After I got my first positive, I took another test friday morning to see if the test line had gotten any darker. It had, but only slightly. So, I had one leftover regular first response test at home. The previous tests were the "early result" first response tests. I decided to take that regular test on friday night. I didn't think there could really be THAT big of a difference between the early and regular tests. Right? I always kind of thought those labels were just a marketing ploy anyway. Wrong. The test came up NEGATIVE! I freaked out and had E run to the store to get me a new box of early tests so I could take one and reassure myself that I was indeed still pregnant.

The early test came up positive and was even a little bit darker than the friday morning test. Relief. I didn't test on saturday because I was making myself crazy, but tested one last time on sunday morning to see if it was darker. It was slightly, and I mean SLIGHTLY.

Tuesday Aug 9 I had my first HCG and progesterone drawn. I started taking my progesterone supplements the day I found out this time because it was so low with C's pregnancy, so I had them ready to go. Usually progesterone is over 20 when pregnant, but HAS to be above 12 at the bare minimum. Normal HCG at 4 weeks is 5-426, which I've never understood why there's such a huge range.

My doc called on Wednesday and my HCG was 104 and progesterone was only 12.2 even WITH my supplements. I was not happy at all about these results. I was exactly 4 weeks with this test and when I had my first level drawn with C, her HCG was 582 at 4 wks 2 days. Why is this one so low? What if it's not a healthy baby? I started analyzing. I thought that pregnancy tests detected HCG at a level of 20, so if I got a positive on thursday and it was 20, HCG should double every two days which means it should have been 120 by Tuesday. 104 is too low!!!! I balled hysterically, I was sure I was miscarrying. My doc assured me that every baby is different and said it's not was your HCG IS, but rather what it DOES.

Then I talked to my sis and she said that the regular tests detect at 20, but the early tests detect at 12. Oh good. That means that it wasn't even at 20 on friday because I got a negative on the regular test. So, lets say it was 12 on thursday... 24 saturday...48 monday...should have been 72 by Tuesday? So this means 104 is actually good. Small sigh of relief. Still wondering why it's so much lower than C's was, but I was two days further along with her and maybe she implanted earlier than this one did. Who knows?

So I had my second draw on Thursday and traded days at work. I was supposed to work friday, but I didn't want to get my results from the doc that I was miscarrying while at work, so I traded out of friday and into saturday :-/

Friday morning my docs nurse called and said "how much do you love me?" I knew by that statement, that the results must be good. My HCG was 301 and progesterone was 56! My doc had increased my progesterone from once a day to twice a day with the last result. It helped I guess! I was soooo relieved that the baby was growing at a good pace. The way my doc office works is once you have two HCG's drawn and they're doubling, you can make your first appointment for 6-7 wks. So, I was pumped to make my appt, but the nurse said that because they caught the pregnancy sooo early, my doc wants to test the HCG one more time the following week before I make an appointment. This bummed and worried me because I'm not any earlier than I was with C, and they didn't make me do a third with her. They must clearly be just as concerned as I am with the lower numbers, but don't want to tell me? If they were so confident in the pregnancy then why won't they let me make an appt?

I had that final test drawn today Tuesday Aug 16 and will know results tomorrow. I'm soooo nervous and praying for a healthy growing baby. Ugh, when will it be the second trimester already?

Telling everyone

Right away when I got the positive, I ran out of the bathroom and yelled out to E "I'm pregnant". He was on the phone with his mom at the time and sort of paused and hesitated what he should say to her. I gave him the go ahead because I was so excited and so he told her over the phone. After they got off the phone I was a little bummed that we didn't get to announce to them as planned. They were coming over on saturday and I had already bought C a shirt a week before in hopes of a positive that said "I'm the big sister." I was going to dress her in it and see how long it took for them to notice. It was a little anticlimactic when they came over on saturday, but oh well, the excitement of the moment was just too much on thursday :-)

I immediately called my friend/ coworker JL to tell her directly. Then I texted my older sister, friend M and 7 other coworkers who knew I was waiting to test (CO, LB, BK, JW, JD, KH and CS). I decided not to announce to everyone on FB and at work this time because last time I had some scary progesterone numbers and spotting in the beginning and was horrified at the thought of telling everyone I miscarried RIGHT AFTER I had announced a pregnancy. I wanted to avoid random people asking me "how's the pregnancy" and me having to say "oh, I lost it". I only announced to people that I talk to about this kind of stuff all the time anyway and wouldn't mind talking about a miscarriage. In fact, I would probably WANT to talk about it to them.

I'm still trying to keep it a secret at work as long as I can in the first trimester, but it's hard at work when you have to ask people to assist with xrays because you can't. It becomes pretty obvious at that point. So far I haven't run into this problem. Hopefully I can avoid it for another 7 weeks. We'll see.

Back to that thursday night: my family had already arranged dinner out that night at jose peppers to celebrate my youngest sister getting a big job! I thought this would be the perfct time to announce to everyone at once but didn't want to steal my sisters thunder. So, we dressed C in normal clothes and went through the whole dinner without saying anything. We didn't put a bib on C on purpose so after she was really messy, we had to change her clothes into the "big sister" shirt. No one really noticed at first so my older sister who already know piped up and said "I like C's shirt!" Then everyone looked at her and said "are you pregnant?" Then there were cheers and clapping and hugs and it was great.

What is cool is that we went to jose peppers the night I found out with C as well. That time my mom had called the instant I found out, so she was told over the phone and my parents took us to dinner there that night to celebrate. That restaurant will always have a special place in my heart.

I think it's funny that with C my parents found out immediately over the phone and E's parents had the big planned eventful announcement, and this time it was the other way around. Cute. I think I'm feeling way to sentimental right now ;-)

Getting the second baby

I'm pregnant again, which means it's time to blog so everyone can stay up to date. With C I began blogging long before actually getting pregnant, so to be consistent, I think I'll give some back story of getting to this point in the second pregnancy. I'm five weeks today or tomorrow, I haven't got the official date from my doc yet.

Before I had a baby, I had thought I wanted my kids about three years apart, but once I had C, I quickly changed my mind. Our lives changed so much. We had very little free time, we were constantly busy and limited in what we could do. We discussed it and decided we don't want to be in lock down baby mode for very many years, so we decided to have our two children close together to just get the hard part over with. Yes, it will be hard with two little ones in the beginning, but then they will both go through stages together (roughly) and our years of parenting small children will be fewer/less spread out. Don't get me wrong, I love C more than anything and she is the biggest blessing I will ever have, but it's also hard work.

They will be able to play together and be interested in similar activities at the same time. This will make vacations and even daily life easier. Example: taking an 8 and a 4 year old to an amusement park would be much more difficult than a not quite 6 and a 4 year old because they can ride the same rides, do the same things etc.. We also didn't want to be paying for daycare FOREVER. This eats our money and I want to be paying for this as few years as possible and then BE DONE.

So, anyway, we decided the earliest we would start trying is when C was 9 months old. We wanted them close but thought any closer than 18 months might be near impossible for us to manage.

I had quit taking my metformin in January because of the nasty GI side effects and it wasn't making me ovulate any more regular than I normally would without it (I ovulated once in early November after I quit breastfeeding C and then still hadn't again by late January). In March, I ovulated on my own and we contemplated trying, but it was a little on the early side of the plan and a December baby sounded like no fun. Don't get me wrong, if I had been trying for a long time, I wouldn't care what the month was, but since we weren't really trying yet, we decided to skip it.

Then I ovulated AGAIN in late April (crazy) and we went for it. I kinda freaked that I wasn't on metformin, so I started taking it again to help normalize my hormones (it's theorized that it can prevent miscarriage in women with PCOS). But, two weeks later, my test was negative :-(

So, I quit taking the metformin again because it was making me sooo sick, which is weird because it didn't do that with C??

I consulted with my doc and she said she's not so much a believer in metformin anymore anyway and she didn't think it was necessary or helpful for me to take it. YAY.

Miraculously I ovulated AGAIN in early June. Freaking amazing. We of course tried, and got really excited, but two weeks later the test was again negative :-(

I got really bummed about this because with C my problem was just a lack of opportunities to try, and I was simply waiting for ovulation, but once it came, I was pregnant.

I had not experienced having multiple ovulations and still not getting pregnant. What was this about? How could I NOT be pregnant? It seemed impossible. The amount of sperm after trying four days in a row leading up to, during and after ovulation should be plenty, right? Can not once of you little swimmers find your way? Losers.

So, I worried something else was wrong. I was ovulating fairly regularly, but my doc had said that sometimes with PCOS, your eggs aren't quite mature enough at the time of ovulation. Explanation: my estrogen levels are always at a higher level than a normal person. What makes you ovulate is a drastic change/rise in estrogen which then tells your body to produce the LH hormone which pops out the egg. Normally, after a womans period, her estrogen is really low and slowly begins to climb. As it's climbing, the FSH hormone starts maturing the eggs and getting them ready to come out. But because my estrogen is always a little on the high side, I don't have this gradual climb. This is why I don't ovulate often and because my climb is smaller and last minute, my egg pops out before it's really ready to be fertilized. Example: normal persons estrogen will go from 5 to 50 in 14 days time (arbitrary numbers) whereas mine will sit at 35 for 30 days and then jump to 50 in 5 days time.

So, my doc gave me femara. This is an ovulation induction drug like clomid but works a little different. Clomid binds to your estrogen receptor sites and tricks your body into thinking the estrogen is low. Estrogen and ovulation feed on eachother.... estrogen makes you ovulate, but also ovultion makes you have estrogen. So in response to clomid, your body panics and sends out FSH, LH to make you ovulate in order to bring your estrogen back up.

Femara is similar but different. It actully prevents your body from converting androgens into estrogen, so your estrogen is actually low. This drug has a lower risk of twins (2-3%) as compared to clomid (10%). Normal risk of twins for everyone is 1.5%. I think this is because with clomid, your estrogen isn't ACTUALLY low, your brain just thinks it is, so the estrogen that's already there once the clomid wears off might make you hyperovulate on top of the drug reaction making you ovulate?? Just a guess.

I REALLY didn't want twins. Oh lord no. So, I was willing to try this drug. I took it late June and waited and waited to ovulate and finally on day 35 of my cycle, I ovulated (July 25, the day after C's first birthday party). I had also put E on a multivitamin and limited his caffeine intake because I heard these things helped sperm quality and count. I think it also helped that he did not ride his bike to work the week leading up to ovulation. This wasn't planned, but worked out. I can't remember why, but something got in the way that week and he couldn't ride his bike. He's been riding his bike to and from work all summer to get his cholesterol down, but it's been like 105 all summer and I was a little worried about the heat killing those little guys.

I began taking my temp occasionally after ovulation to see what the trend was. My temp rose on day 12 post ovulation with C and that's how I knew I was preg with her because it always starts to fall at that time and I start spotting.

On day 9 this time, my temp went down just a little. I started to think I wasn't pregnant, but tried not to analyze just one temp because you're supposed to look at a trend. On day 10 it fell a little more. I was starting to get really bummed. I just knew I wasn't pregnant AGAIN. But all day at work I had mild cramps and had been having them for a couple days. I had these early on with C (implantation cramps?). So I didn't know what to think. I asked E to pick up a box of tests on his way home so I could take one friday morning. Well, I got home from work that thursday night August 4th and saw the tests sitting on the table and couldn't resist the temptation to take one a little early. I had taken one Tuesday evening (day 8) as well because I had heard some people say they got positives that early. It was negative, which kind of bummed me out, but I knew it was REALLY early, and then I was mad at myself for wasting a test. So, I kinda knew I shouldn't take a test in the evening of day 10 either and I didn't even have to pee, but I just couldn't resist. Curiosity was killing me. I literally squeezed drops of pee out to take that test.

I sat there and watched the pee go across the stick. First the control line showed up, which started to bum me out because with C, the positive result line showed up first. I waited and watched for about 30 seconds more and slowly a faint positive result line started to show up!!!! YAY, I was pregnant!!!!! I get to have ANOTHER baby, how fortunate I am!