Thursday, October 29, 2009

More good news

Yay! I had a great appointment today!
The baby could be seen via transabdominal ultrasound (though we spent some time with the dildocam too and got some great detail). The little one is wiggling up a storm and the heart is beating along happily and steadily. Everything looks perfect.
Thank you so much for your good wishes and thoughts, it is much appreciated.

Nervous

I have an appointment in 2 hours with my nurse-midwife and I've been nervous off and on for several days. Last week I felt so calm and excited, but somehow over the weekend the anxiety crept back in and I haven't been able to shake it.
I'm so thankful that we've made it this far. We've seen a healthy little one on the ultrasounds that we've had so far, that's wonderful!
Still, I'm scared that our luck might suddenly change. It sometimes does. I really, really hope that everything is still okay. Please send any good thoughts you have to spare my way.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Mini-Marshmallows

This morning I stopped for a hot chocolate on my way to work. Perhaps not the healthiest beverage, I do love the cheap, hot-chocolate-in-a-machine-hot chocolate (though I like the fancier stuff too!) and today it was even better because there was a little container sitting near the machine full of mini-marshmallows!
I was delighted and surprised to find these little tiny reminders of childhood and winter days sitting there on the counter for the taking. I sprinkled them on my hot chocolate and spent the morning with a smile on my face. Sometimes it really is the little things.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Pregnancy update

I'm 10 weeks, 3 days today and feeling great. Yesterday I had my final ultrasound with the RE and everything looked wonderful- in fact, yesterday the baby was measuring at 10 weeks 3 days already which made me very happy. Hank and I got to see it wiggle and move the little hands and feet and were both in absolute giddy awe.
Next week I'll go in for my next prenatal visit. We're feeling really positive about all of this and hopeful that things will continue to go so well. I'm finding it a little bit hard to believe, especially because I continue to feel pretty normal. I am still getting up at night to pee 2-3 times and am wearing the bella band over my pants (which button, but barely so I opted not to bother).
I have so much to say and there's lots I've been thinking about with regards to this blog and to the blogging community. I'm not sure I'll be able to articulate it properly today, but the infertilty & loss blogging community is full of such incredibly supportive, caring, smart and funny people. I feel so attached to it in many, many ways. However, as I'm moving into a new stage of my life, while certainly not leaving my experiences of loss and infertility behind, leaves me pondering how I will use this space and how I can offer support and receive support from people going through so many different experiences.
At times, the sadness of the stories I've read in the blogosphere has overwhelmed me and in the past months I've realized that I have to limit my exposure somewhat or else the sad stories begin to encroach on my mind and send me to very dark places and I know for my own mental and physical health that I have to distance myself a little. That's really, really hard because I don't want to distance myself from all of you very real people and your stories. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I will try to be there as much as I can for all of you who I value so much and that I hope you know that I'm deeply grateful for the support I've received from you over the course of this very difficult year.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

MeMe

Over The Top
I was tagged a while ago by BabyHungry (go give her a big hug, she could use one), and it's taken me forever to get to it, but it is a fun distraction!

Rules

1. You Can Only Use One Word!
2. Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers
3. Alert them that you have given them this award!
4. Have Fun!

The Fun Part

1. Where is your cell phone? table
2. Your hair? messy
3. Your mother? wonderful
4. Your father? kind
5. Your favorite food? cheese
6. Your dream last night? weird
7. Your favorite drink? water
8. Your dream/goal? healthy
9. What room are you in? hotel
10. Your hobby? blogs
11. Your fear? Miscarriage
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? happy
13. Where were you last night? hotel
14. Something that you aren’t? skinny
15. Muffins? blueberry
16. Wish list item? Baby
17. Where did you grow up? newengland
18. Last thing you did? dinner
19. What are you wearing? bathrobe
20. Your TV? hgtv
21. Your pets? old
22. Friends? great
23. Your life? busy
24. Your mood? okay
25. Missing someone? husband
26. Vehicle? subaru
27. Something you’re not wearing? bra
28. Your favorite store? grocery
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When was the last time you laughed? earlier
31. Last time you cried? yesterday
32. Your best friend? several!
33. One place that I go to over and over? work
34. One person who emails me regularly? students
35. Favorite place to eat? many

I'm not up for tagging right now, but if you'd like to do this meme, please feel free!

What else? Pregnancy mentioned.

I didn't mean to disappear. It's been a busy few weeks and lately I've been caught up with work and now I'm on the other side of the country for business travel.
For a good week or so I didn't write anything because all I could think about and write about what how nervous and worried and anxious I was feeling, how unsure I was that things might really be okay. I'm still not sure, of course, how can anyone be sure? However, I am feeling much better, largely because of my great appointment with my nurse-midwife on Wednesday. I didn't know if she'd be able to reassure me at all, but not only did her presence & great listening skills help, but she was already planning to do an ultrasound so I got to see the good strong heartbeat again and see that the little tiny embryo had grown over the week since we'd seen the little one last. Everything was looking really good and the midwife said she puts my risk of miscarriage at 2%- it literally doesn't get any better than that!

She also told me I wasn't allowed to worry about this, but I am a little anyway (but really, I feel SO much less worried). The embryo had grown over the 7 days since the last scan, but it measured only 6.4 mm larger than the last week. All the things I read say that embryos should grown 1 mm a day, which would put my little embryo a tiny bit smaller than it should be (less than a mm, but still, nervous me). I knew that if anyone would understand this worry you all would. Is it crazy to worry over a millimeter? Perhaps. Nonetheless, anyone feel like reassuring me on that front?

Aside from that, I'm going to be super busy all week with work and then when I get back early next week I'll have my RE appointment at which point I'll hope to be done with that office for a good long while (they're fantastic, don't get me wrong, but I'll be okay being done, I sure hope I am!) and we'll get to see what's going on inside again!