Half-Baked!

I have reached the halfway point! I am totally amazed. Maybe, just maybe, I could end up with an actual baby at the end of this! Mind-blowing.

There really hasn't been too much going on in the way of pregnancy developments. I must be getting big - you should have seen my sister's face when I saw her for the first time in a week. It was priceless! Shock and disbelief...so I guess things are really poppin'!

I took the picture above myself (as if you couldn't tell). Rob is sick this week. I love him to death but it is funny how it's as if he is the only person to ever get sick with the most awful cold in the history of the world. So it's been a quiet week for me - I had to cancel my quilting lesson Monday, and I've been taking care of the dogs and scrapping together random food for dinner. I always loved to cook so much, but I have been totally not inspired or ambitious this whole pregnancy. Which is a shame because boy do I love to eat!

I feel pretty good generally, and I continue to be so thankful for that! My lower back is starting to ache a bit, but it's not a surprise when you think of how fast my center of gravity is changing. And that's about it! I am knocking on every piece of wood in my office right now that things stay somewhat smooth!

I have been feeling the baby like crazy, and at random times. So far, the morning appears to be a popular time for some baby jazzercise. I can't wait until you can feel it on the outside to Rob can start to feel more connected! I know he's jealous. He enjoyed speaking into my bellybutton (or what's left of it) as if it's a microphone to say hello. And also sticking his finger in my poor, shallow, wide bellybutton. I guess he's kind of right that it's the closest he can get to the baby right now. :) But it feels WEIRD. I always had such a cavernous bellybutton, very deep but thin, that I don't think the skin way in there ever got touched. Now it's so shallow and it's opening up like it's going to flip inside out that you can access the previously-unexplored regions. I think I'll have to put a band-aid or something on it when it flips so it doesn't rub on my clothes!

Also, my belly is ridiculously hairy.

It's fun...but definitely a little disconcerting to look down at this weird body that seems to belong to someone else!

So there!

FIVE pounds, per the scale at the OB's. Suck it, fat scale at my GP's office!

Nothing really new at the appointment yesterday - baby looked good in the ultrasound, NT scan bloodwork showed low risks of the birth defects for which they test, and baby sounded active and strong on the heartbeat scan!

I was wondering if they put the sex of the baby in your chart after the anatomy scan but just didn't tell the parents, but apparently the tech didn't write it in. The doctor was excited that I didn't know. She said it's more fun for the doctors. :) Glad I can bring some excitement to the table!

Almost halfway there!

Sometimes, it feels like I've been pregnant forever. And then alternately, time is flying by! Very strange. It's also weird how sometimes I feel very pregnant and other times totally normal. I think my belly is bigger some days than others, too. It felt really big when I took the picture above, though!

I can also say I am 100% sure I am feeling the baby! In hindsight, now that it happens pretty consistently I suppose I have been feeling it here and there for maybe two weeks. It's a nice little feeling and it makes me smile! It's also tremendously reassuring to know the little one is in there and dancing around.

So the baby is a mango this week. I was not amused when What to Expect When You're Expecting described it as a "mango dipped in greasy cheese" due to the vernix caseosa. Despite not having had more than a whiff of nausea during this pregnancy, that really crossed a line. Not cool, WTEWYE!

So that's really all that's going on right now! The baby is moving and I'm growing. My back is getting a bit sore. As I mentioned in the last post, according to my general practioner, I've gained 6 pounds since I got pregnant...but she has a fat scale and I'm waiting until I see the OB tomorrow to get the real measurement. :)

Anatomy Scan

We saw the baby again! And look, s/he is waving to you again! The position was so funny to see, with the legs way up to almost the head. Although it feels like this baby is taking up a ton of room, apparently it is folded in half. Heaven help me when it decides to stretch out!

Again, so amazing. Even more this time when the baby doesn't look like Alien. It looks like a real person!! The purpose of the ultrasound is to check on organs and such, so it was totally cool to see the four chambers of the heart. AND the technician didn't slip and tell us or show us the sex, so it was a win!

And since he'll probably never read the blog, Rob is almost as much fun to watch as the baby during these things. He has such a grin and gets all teary. :) Also, aren't those feet the cutest picture ever?

Besides the appointment, not much else is new! I'm feeling good but getting big. I'm up 6 pounds since getting pregnant...which I think is borderline too much, so I should reign it in! Some days, though, I am just a remorseless eating machine - I can't stop!

I had an appointment with my general practitioner yesterday and she literally squealed when I told her I was pregnant. My last appointment was right around my first IVF cycle and I was definitely at a different place in my body and mind.

I hope everyone who actually reads what I have to say had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am thankful for all my family and friends. :)

Infertility - Getting here

So now that I'm "out" on Facebook and have shared my blog, I thought I should finally update with the last piece of our story on getting pregnant. I've really been avoiding it, honestly. I'm not sure I've really recovered from some of the emotions, but I am hoping my sharing I'll seem (a little) less neurotic. Maybe people can understand some of my hesitation to just enjoy and relax.

The picture up top is not the first time I've posted embryo photos. But these two are no more - they're the ones transferred during my "fresh" (vs frozen) cycle. They didn't make it. I'm not trying to get into a philosophical place here with when life begins, etc. Despite my liberal views on these issues, there are emotions that linger from these two beautiful little potential babies not making it. I think I mourn them (as well as the potential twin to the child I'm carrying now), and I also feel varying degrees of sadness, remorse, guilt, and shame. I'm still rocked by the idea that my first cycle didn't work despite our success with the second.

So an IVF cycle. How to sum it up without getting too bogged down in the details? It's intense. It's a very strange thing to put your body through. It's all-consuming when you're going through it. I've been pretty laid-back through treatments and got pretty good at distancing myself mentally from the physical procedures, but IVF is just so in your face. Let me explain what my cycle consisted of here. "CD#" refers to the cycle day, or days after my period. Also, you start with a month of birth control pills (a heavenly tease for someone with PCOS).

CD3 - 13: Injection of 150 iu of Gonal-F (FSH, or follicle stimulating hormone)

CD8, 10, 12, and 14: Monitoring appointments (bloodwork and internal ultrasound)

CD14, 15, and 16: Injection of Ganirelix (a drug that stops the follicles that you'd normally ovulate from releasing, allowing the smaller ones to catch up)

CD16: Injection of Novarel (a "trigger" shot to stimulate release of all mature follicles)

The process is strict about exactly what times drugs are injected, so I had a few times where I sat with an ice pack on my belly in a parking lot to prepare for the Ganirelix injection (that one is particularly painful for some reason). For the most part, Rob did my injections. Not because I couldn't (I could and I did!), but so he could see what I was going through and feel more involved. Share the pain, you know. :)

Then on CD18 was the egg retrieval. They put you under (thank goodness) to remove the follicles using a vacuum needle guided by ultrasound. Not as painful as it sounds! Then three days later, they put the best embryos back, also ultrasound-guided. This was on Memorial Day to give you some reference. The embryos that aren't transferred are then frozen if they're high enough quality. You start a progesterone injection nightly until your pregnancy bloodtest. It's weird stuff, though - suspended in an oil, so it leaves weird butt bumps.

Physically, the act of producing that many follicles is painful. We retrieved 20 eggs, 14 of which were "mature." I gained several pounds in bloat over the process. And it got to the point where I swore I could feel my ovaries bounce when I walked. Ironically, I looked pregnant with the bloat. Mentally, it becomes completely impossible to see how this could fail. Until it does.

Oh my gosh, that telephone call. After sweating every little symptom for two weeks, you go in for a pregnancy bloodtest. And then wait. When my phone rang that afternoon, I can't explain how excited I was. But then I heard the doctor's voice and just knew it had failed. I had failed.

I think one of the biggest issues I had with it was feeling like I was depriving my husband of the chance to have children. Watching him with kids is magical and I felt for a while he would be better off without me. Also, there was such a profound feeling of being broken, that they actually put these beautiful, handpicked embryos in me and my body killed them. I don't think the broken feeling goes away. I still don't understand how anything worked after that cycle didn't.

This is all very heavy, I apologize. There was a bright side - the doctor really thought it would work in the future and thought my ovaries had been hyperstimulated, preventing implantation. And I had nine high-quality embryos frozen and waiting for me to be ready to try again. The frozen cycle worked and was so much easier on me, mentally and physically.

But I'm still sorry for those first two, and I'm still hurt in places I'm not sure will scar over until I can actually hold my baby.

Checking in!

Surprisingly, I have less to say than I would've imagined. Hard to believe if you know me, right? Ha. But being pregnant is not the action-packed adventure I might have expected. I just took this picture so you can all marvel at how much I've grown in 3 weeks!

Nothing is really new! I'm 16 weeks tomorrow. It definitely feels different in the past few weeks. I actually feel not pregnant at all! Pretty much since hitting the second trimester I feel more like myself. Not that the first trimester was miserable at all, I know how lucky I was! But I was definitely exhausted. That has passed for the most part, thankfully!

I had an obstetrician appointment this week, so that's new. It was the first time I actually heard the heartbeat with the Doppler (basically, a belly microphone). Super cool! I think the heartbeat was at 151 beats per minute. It was also neat to hear the baby moving around, it sounded like static. Rob was upset he missed it, but he's been working crazy hours. Thankfully, I have a friend who is letting me borrow her Doppler - isn't that the sweetest thing? I am so grateful. Rob is dying to hear it, and I think it will be nice to check in on the babe when the mood strikes.

And call me crazy, but I think I may have felt some movement! It was kind of like little bubbles near my belly button. Of course, it could have been gas... :)

We also scheduled my big anatomy scan, the next ultrasound. For 12/1. I'm looking forward to seeing the baby again! But I'm definitely disproportionally worried about them slipping and telling us the sex. Fingers crossed no one breaks the news!

You've gotta see the baby!

He's breathtaking! (one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes ever!) And totally waving at you, can you see it??

Anyway, it's not a boy or a girl yet, so don't get all excited! The ultrasound tech explained that there is a genital tuber (awesome), that will either get bigger or smaller in a few weeks, depending on the sex. Hee hee. So it's both.

But everything looks good with the baby! Who is the size of a peach this week, by the way. Because I AM THIRTEEN WEEKS PREGNANT. Holy crap. This scan was done to measure the NT fold for potential cardiac defects, including Down's, but things appear to be within the normal range! (Knock on wood)

It was truly amazing, though, especially remembering the last time we saw the baby - a cashew at 7 weeks! Which really looked like a blob with a little bright spot (the heart). This looked like a baby! Well, it kinda looked like Alien. Something about the jaw, I think. But way more human in just 5 weeks. Can you imagine if we all grew and changed that much, that quickly?! It blows my mind.

So despite being late to the appointment thanks to people who don't know how to drive and I'm sure having a blood pressure much higher than normal, the baby was sleeping when we got in! The tech was funny, poking me and shaking me to get it to move certain ways. But it was sweet to see it all curled up. Literally the "fetal position," which I guess makes sense. :)

Rob's face when we were watching the screen was so sweet I couldn't help but tear up. The whole experience is just so unbelievable. I can't believe there's really a baby in there.

Happy Birthday to Meeeee!

I am writing now as a woman in her 30's. No more straight-up 30 for me. THIRTY ONE. I would totally be dead if I were a dog. (This dog looks just like my beagle Layla, by the way!) My birthday was actually Saturday the 16th but I've been in a deep depression.

Ha, ha - that's not true! It's not really a big deal. It was a super wonderful birthday and I am so appreciative of my family and friends making it so special. But as an aside, and I hope this doesn't make me sound like an alcoholic, but jeez it's weird not to drink on my birthday!

I'm going to write about it briefly because I want to remember it! And also because I owe you a big post since I had my NT Scan yesterday, but I need to scan the pictures so I am holding off. Teaser! I need a scanner at home. I hate having to remember to scan ultrasound pictures before anyone comes into the office in the morning.

I woke up not-too-late on Saturday, after Rob got up to feed the dogs at 7, and took them for a nice walk in the park. When I got home, Rob got up to give me my presents! A really sweet teddy bear (the baby's first!) and a beautiful necklace. It's a heart with little diamonds and in the middle is a mother and baby. Awwww! So sweet. I teared up. It's absolutely beautiful and Rob is the best.

After that, we went apple picking! It was such a gorgeous fall day! I'm so happy we enjoyed it that way. We went with Rob's brother Ian, his girlfriend Brittany, and one of the autistic kids from their school. It was great fun! I learned lots about apples from Ian, who apparently went to "apple college" while working at a cider mill. Ha.

We went to one of our favorite restaurants, a little Mexican place, for dinner with my parents, sister, and sister's boyfriend. Great times! And everyone went in on a sweet flatscreen for Rob and me. I am very lucky and spoiled. :)

Then we went bowling with friends! I thought it would be a good way to do something where people could drink but I didn't feel like a tool for not! It was great and some of my favorite people. :) I love that one of my friends kept buying me Shirley Temples.

All in all, a great day. Also, I had broken down and gotten some maternity pants earlier in the week - I totally popped! I'm 12 weeks and I really look pregnant. Crazy!

I'm happy, lucky, and loved. And thrilled to be adding a baby to this life, family, and group of fabulous people!

Oops!

Ha, I really stink at updating. :) There really hasn't been much going on, though! Here is a random picture of one of my dogs in a laundry basket to apologize.

I had my first obstetrical appointment last week! I was so excited and was really hoping for some kind of proof I was still pregnant...an ultrasound, hearing the hearbeat, something! But nope. I was so disappointed after the appointment. When I was telling my mom about it, I kind of realized what the issue was. For most other pregnant woman, and for the nurses/midwives/doctors that see them, it's really no big deal. I would venture that most women don't spend the time thinking about what could go wrong that those of us with infertility do. I feel like I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. What can I say, I'm a delicate flower! ;) It makes me realize how deep infertility reaches. And how differently you're treated at a fertility clinic than at an OB office!

I had my first gestational diabetes test, since I'm at a high risk due to my pal PCOS (and the extra pounds, of course). I didn't get the results, so I am hoping things are so far, so good in that way. I still feel like my blood sugar gets low if I don't eat often enough. And the office should be calling me this week in order to schedule my NT bloodwork and ultrasound. Probably sometime next week. I am so excited to see the baby again! It's the size of a lime this week, by the way. I'm 11 weeks and 2 days pregnant today. :)

So this week I am feeling a little different, though! I feel like the fog of exhaustion has lifted! I'm still not quite normal but I'm getting there! My nausea, which was already minor, has continued to decrease. I do know how lucky I've been in that area! And also, I think I can feel my uterus. Which is super weird. :) It's really hard and feels like a little muscle knot just above my pubic bone. I can see it below my normal gut. Hee hee. And Rob felt it, too!

He is so cute, by the way. I love how excited he gets when we talk about the baby, or I tell him a new feeling I have, or read the week's entry in "What to Expect." :)

Anyway, I swear I'll try to post more often. Scout's honor. Also, I'll be officially "In my Thirties" in a few days...my 31st birthday is this weekend. Eek.

Life Doesn't Stop

For so long, getting pregnant was the goal. I think I definitely didn't think through all the "what I'll do when I get there" details. :) So really, it's not that exciting right now. There isn't much going on. I'm hoping I've escaped the morning sickness beast for the most part, as I'm feeling much better and really wasn't that sick to begin with. I'm still so tired, but I'm managing! I have to say how wonderful Rob has been. He's really stepped up around the house and I truly appreciate it. I'm really very lucky! I finally made an obstetrician appointment, I have two (weird?) next week. I'm worried sometimes that I'm not pregnant anymore. I can't wait to be able to really see a bump and feel the baby, because it's hard not to obsess!

So I told work last week. One woman actually knew, because she knew about the cycles and how things were going. She has twins through IVF eight years ago. That support has been great! But I also told my immediate supervisor. Ugh. We don't really get along and this has not helped. He was supportive in a way, but this week he is actually pressuring me to tell the HR person and the (male) VP. I also told the owner last week. I like her, but her reaction was very "what about work?" focused. Which is fine, but I did expect her to be a little happier for me, since she also has a child through IVF and knew about my cycles.

But my supervisor pressuring me is really pissing me off. It feels like an invasion of my privacy. He's threatening to tell them for me, which is a huge breach of trust. I'm only 9 weeks! I don't see why I have to advertise yet. I only told him because I don't want to be asked to do certain sampling events due to exposure risk. This definitely hurt our already struggling relationship. Seriously, I feel very violated and offended by the way he is acting.

So work is not going well and I wish I could put it on hold to just focus on being pregnant. What a silly, self-absorbed dream, I know! :) Also, I'm a little bitter that the company is too small to have to adhere to FMLA and I get only 8 weeks (unpaid, of course). I expected more from a small, woman-owned company, to be honest. One of those times it doesn't pay to be an American woman, I guess. Our maternity benefits are just awful compared to other countries.

Sorry for the complaining post! It's raining and (surprise!) I'm tired. But I'm thrilled to be pregnant and thankful for all I do have.

Infertility - Starting with ART

So since there's not anything to really update - I'm still pregnant, as far as I know! - I thought I'd detail our experience after a year of trying to get pregnant, when we started to use Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). I hope sharing all of this can teach someone something, or at least help people understand why I can't just relax and enjoy this. Pregnancy doesn't cure infertility - does that make sense? I will always identify myself as an infertile.

After just about a year of being off birth control, I was ready to admit to myself and Rob that my body had let us down. It's a really weird feeling to not have a period naturally. I felt...broken. Combined with the many masculine changes from the PCOS over that first year, I really felt like less of a woman. I'm also the furthest thing from vain, but the physical changes had left me feeling like some Quasimodo. I could see things I didn't like in other people's eyes. So I wanted to start at least doing something proactive to get pregnant and move on with my life.

The first step was to take clomid under the care of my gynecologist. Clomid is an oral medication that works to trick the body into thinking estrogen is low, therefore stimulating the ovaries to produce the hormones necessary for ovulation. It has numerous unpleasant side effects, but I got pretty lucky with it. I had some hot flashes, mood swings, and headaches. But I ovulated! I know I did because I charged my basal body temperature every day (and because I got my period without having to take medication to bring it on).

I started suspecting I was getting some irresponsible care during my second month of clomid. Basically, it can have side effects that contradict the body's ability to get pregnant, ironically. And my doctor wasn't checking for those effects, nor was she checking to make sure I wasn't producing multiple follicles. Kate Gosselin was actually on clomid when she conceived her sextuplets. However, her doctor knew she had over-produced and told her to abstain from sex to avoid high-order multiples. Obviously, she didn't listen. And my gynecologist really wasn't listening to me or taking my questions seriously. Plus, I was ovulating, which I always thought was the huge problem, but still not getting pregnant.

After 3 months of clomid with the gynecologist, I decided to move to someone who really knew how to handle infertility: a reproductive endocrinologist. The doctor was wonderful - our first appointment in December 2009 went a long way to making me feel like someone understood my condition and how to treat it. Both of us felt a lot better after the first meeting. I started on a drug shown to help PCOS women that my gynecologist had refused to put me on called metformin, which treats the insulin resistance that is believed to cause PCOS. I started feeling better and things were looking up.

With the RE, we continued on clomid but added in monitoring of my follicles and uterine lining as well as intrauterine insemination (IUI). In an IUI, the man produces a sample that is "washed" to concentrate the sperm by removing the seminal fluid. That sample is injected into the uterus through a catheter, kind of cutting out the middleman. In this case, the vagina. :) We did 3 IUI cycles with clomid before moving on to injectable medication.

The injectables work more directly than clomid, they are actually synthetic versions of the ovulation hormones meant to stimulate your ovaries to produce high-quality follicles. It's surprising how injecting isn't a big deal after a few days. Although I did it myself occasionally, I generally had Rob do it. Not because I couldn't, but because I wanted him to realize how hard I was working on getting us a baby. But 3 injectable IUI cycles went by with no success.

Then the doctor mentioned in vitro fertilization (IVF). Whoa. That's one hell of a big step.

The First Ultrasound!

A few days late, of course, but I had my first ultrasound - and last appointment at the fertility clinic for quite a while - on Monday! We saw the baby! THE baby. Just one. :) Hooray for that!

It was the most amazing experience. It was certainly an odd feeling to go back to the office where I've received so much bad news in the past for such a happy occasion! Rob was able to get out of work early for the appointment, and I planned to work from home. We were ushered right into the ultrasound room when we got there. Heidi the u/s tech is such a sweet person. I certainly feel like I know her well, after all the times she's had to insert the good ol' dildo cam (the vaginal ultrasound, FYI). Right away, she exclaimed that there was one baby on board! She walked us through the measurements and all that could be seen. The little "cashew" (her size comparison) is measuring perfectly - right on track.

It's hard to even describe the feeling of seeing the heartbeat. I've never been so truly amazed and awed. Rob's face when he saw it was the sweetest thing ever. It is measuring at 149 beats per minute, also right on track.

So I've "graduated" from the reproductive endocrinologist. Another weird feeling! It's still just so unbelievable. Through all the treatments, you really lose sight of why you're doing it. I don't think I truly believed I would ever get pregnant.

The rest of the week has been good! I travelled some for work and it went well. I have to pack little snacks for myself, though, because if I don't eat every 2-3 hours, I feel like I'm going to pass out! I'm trying to eat as healthy as I can, but it seems like I'm eating so much more!

I know I need to get an obstetrician. That's the next item on the list.

Quick cloth diaper post

I really, really want to cloth diaper when the time comes. This website is a great resource. And they're having a giveaway, so I'm posting this link because I want to win. :)

http://www.clothdiaperblog.com/cloth-diaper-blog-super-stash-giveaway/

Infertility - The First Year

I was never someone who dreamed of being a mother. The idea still scares the heck out of me, honestly. Even a few years ago, it wasn't something I wanted. I'm not really sure when exactly it changed. Rob and I had been married about a year, and he was getting ready to turn 30, when we looked at each other and started the discussions. I think close friends having a truly awesome baby (quickly followed by another awesome baby) had a lot to do with it.

So we found ourselves ready to throw out the ol' birth control pills right around my birthday that year - October 2008. I turned 29.

Now, birth control pills at that point were part of my life. I had been on them since I was 15. Not for their originally intended purpose back then, I swear! Rather, to help with some of the issues I was having at that time: bad skin, weird periods, and recurrent (painful!) ovarian cysts. The Pill was my BFF for almost 15 years. It wasn't until I went off of it that I realized how "normal" it made me feel. Because - whoa, did it hit the fan when I went off!

I blew up like Violet Beauregard. Seriously. I haven't been a skinny girl in year and years, but I gained weight at an amazing pace. But in a different way than before - I was always very pear-shaped, but I started gaining a gut. My face broke out. Not in that way girls with not bad skin whine about - it REALLY broke out. Worse than even when I was a teenager. I started finding weird black hairs...one on my upper lip, on my chin, on my boob, on my "happy trail." And I started losing the hair on my head at an alarming rate.

And then there was the one non-appearance related issue, but it was a biggie: I didn't have a period. For months. I went to the gynecologist for a routine appointment a few months later, and when they asked "When was your last menstrual period?" And it was four months prior.

It didn't take long for the diagnosis of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome - or PCOS - to come. I was a classic case. It's one of those things that's hard to explain, but it seems to be related to the way my body handles glucose. The insulin I produce doesn't do it's job, causing the excess glucose to be stored as fat. This stimulates the ovaries to produce excess male hormones (androgens) and luteinizing hormone. These combine to cause the less-than-pleasant physical impacts as well as the annovulation. And you get fatter. And the cycle juts keeps going.

My doctor recommended trying fertility medication. But I wasn't ready. So we spent the rest of that year trying different herbs and supplements that were supposed to help, and trying on our own.

A year later, we decided to take the next step...

A little bit pregnant

I have a feeling it's going to take me a while to get the hang of updating the blog. :)

Anyway, I am back at work after a nice and low-key Labor Day Weekend. This weekend definitely brought some changes physically. I am now 6 weeks pregnant, and I'm starting to feel a little different. I've been getting waves of nausea here and there, although not enough to really affect anything. I get dizzy occasionally, too. And I find myself getting really tired without any reason! It was definitely tough to get up and go to work today, especially with the mornings getting darker and the long weekend behind me! I notice I'm having to get up and go to the bathroom much more than usual. I'm not sure if that's a symptom or coincidence.

So I didn't update with my blood test results on Thursday like I was supposed to! But my third beta was 3,396. So I have had two subsequent results that increased as they were supposed to. Apparently the level itself doesn't tell you much, it's the rate of rise that's important. So I went from 82.5 to 216 in 48 hours (it's supposed to double in 48 hours, so that was good), and then from 216 to 3,396 in 7 days, which was also good.

My first ultrasound is Monday the 13th!!! Eeek. :)

So anyway, above is the first photo of the baby candidates! We transferred two because it just seemed like a gamble to only put 1 back. However, now I'm freaking out a bit at the thought of twins. I guess I never thought it would work, you know? Anyway - I think it's just one. As disappointed as that makes my sister!

I do want to write a long post about our journey to get here. I have hesitated, though - it seems too soon to look back as if we've succeeded, really. Plus it'll be a pretty long post. So bear with me.

It made me a little sad at first to miss a big trip with friends this weekend, but we've been trying for this for so long that I'm happy to have a reason to take care of myself. :)

Starting Words

Hi! Thanks for finding my blog. I've never thought of myself as someone who would pick this up - I mean, why am I so interesting people would want to read what I think? But given recent developments in my story...and my admittedly poor memory...I thought I'd give this a try!





So I'm Jill! I'm married to an awesome guy named Rob. I consider us "Already a Family," hence the title. It drives me nuts when people ask "When are you going to start a family?" As if our lives aren't complete. We started a family the day we got married! You can totally be a family of two. Or a family of five in some respects - we do have three dogs that round out the house! I'm so happy with our life together, we're incredibly lucky.





The event that drove me to start recording my experiences was finding out our latest in a long line of fertility treatments was successful! Woo hoo! I'll detail our journey in another post, but it was a long time coming. The only problem - I totally don't feel pregnant, and it totally doesn't seem real. I love Rob, and it's adorable that he's over-the-moon excited, but he's telling every person in the world and I'm afraid to jinx it. I have a follow-up blood test this Thursday (my third), so maybe I'll be more comfortable after that?



Speaking of not feeling pregnant, the photo I added here is of Rob and me on our recent day trip to Block Island. Where I did a few things pregnant ladies are not supposed to do...share a pitcher of spiked frozen lemonade and ride a moped. (Wow, that is totally one of those words where if you look at it long enough, you can't figure out if you misspelled it! How can moped, i.e., a motorized scooter-y thing, and moped, i.e., pouted, be the same word?!) I guess I just spent so much time in past cycles acting like I was pregnant, just in case, that I let it all hang out after this frozen embryo transfer. Maybe another reason it doesn't feel real!

Anyway - I ramble. As usual. I have nothing new to report pregnancy-wise. I have exactly zero symptoms. So I worry in the meantime!