Random tidbits

*I finally heard from my doctor after asking them if it was a problem that CP had pneumonia.  They asked what kind he had (viral or bacterial) and I wasn't sure the doctor at the outpatient clinic even told him.  But once I told the nurse that he was taking antibiotics, she said that he had the "good kind" of pneumonia- aka the non-contagious one (bacterial).  However, she was concerned that I had a sore throat and that I was producing some yellow phlegm so she put me on an antibiotic.  I didn't think that it was totally necessary as I basically feel fine, but the Z-pack is safe during pregnancy so I decided to get rid of whatever is in me.

*CP and I went to our local farmer's market on Saturday.  We were getting fresh veggies and fruits to can and freeze.  We ended up making Raspberry Preserves, Caribbean Peach Chutney, tons of pesto from basil in our garden, and tons of chicken stock.  Oh, and I was able to get 12 ears of fresh corn for $4 so I was in heaven!!

Raspberry preserves on the left, Caribbean Peach Chutney on the right

*CP started reading his Expectant Father book.  I randomly picked it up to see if it said anything about being extra nice to your wife (ha ha ha) and noticed that the author had a small section on infertility.  The author was explaining how the embryo is implanted into the uterus during IVF.  Thankfully in the front of the book the author included his email address for any comments or questions.  I decided to email the author to let him know that he should change the terminology from "implanted" to "transferred."  If all embryos were implanted during IVF then everyone would get pregnant!  To my shock the author wrote back a few minutes later thanking me for my email and saying that he was going to be doing an update of the book and that sort of information is helpful.  

*We have one more week of helping lift Fuzzy Britches up and down the stairs to take her out.  I'm crossing my fingers that next Wednesday the vet gives her the all clear to take the stairs herself because it is getting harder to lift most of her 76 pound body up and down a few stairs the bigger I get.

*The past two days my ankles have been swollen despite it not being that hot out outside.  After helping to make dinner, I sat my butt on the couch and put my feet above my heart the rest of the night to try to get the swelling to go down.  It didn't really do anything so I ended up sleeping on my back last night with my feet on the Snoogle plus two more pillows.  Of course when I woke up this morning I was convinced that I had killed the baby because I slept on my back.  I was relieved to feel movement after drinking some orange juice this morning, but I simply don't know what to do with this stupid swelling.  I keep telling myself that although it is annoying, swelling is SO MUCH BETTER than morning sickness and/or not being pregnant.

*I finally was able to sit down and watch MTV's True Life episode about infertility.  I think that the ladies did a great job and I'm proud of them for putting themselves out there.  The random thing about it was that the Chicago couple not only had the same RE doctor as me but also went to the same clinic for both appointments and for the retrieval/transfer (they were in two different locations).  Crazy!!

*On Friday CP and I have three daycare tours lined up.  I have no idea what to ask- any suggestions on things that we should be thinking about?

Our house transformed

This spring, CP and I went  back and forth on what we should do to the house.  I was worried about shelling out tons of money, CP was thinking we should just get it all done.  Once we realized the pregnancy was sticking around, we had even further discussions.  The end result?  We decided to just get everything done for a number of reasons. New windows, new siding, and new gutters.  In other words, the most expensive summer I have ever had.

Then came the arduous task of meeting with contractors.  Who do you trust?  Yelp and Angie's List certainly helped.  I did most of the decision-making because CP was either traveling or couldn't get out of work in time to meet with the salesman.

In the end, I LOVE the results and I know that our neighbors do too.  They no longer have to look at our dented, faded, very sad aluminum siding.  And we can now open more than 3 windows in the house!!

Without further ado, the before and afters of our house.

BEFORE: Sad and old windows with rotting wood- this is a living room window

BEFORE: Another sad old side living room window

BEFORE: The inside of another sad, rotting window

BEFORE: Our large picture window in the sunroom was great, but the cranks on the two side windows didn't work 

BEFORE: More sad, old windows

BEFORE:  Hard to see, but in the gutter and siding we had birds nesting (you can see the string hanging to the right of the gutter).  The birds woke us up with their chirping every morning this spring!

BEFORE: Our front door with rotting wood

BEFORE: Missing siding pieces in the back of the house

BEFORE:  Gutters not connected and working

BEFORE: Rusting gutters at the side entrance

BEFORE:  Holes in the gutters due to the rust

This picture was taken before the new siding but after the new windows were installed.

New windows that we can open!!

Day 1 of the siding project- take the old aluminum siding off and find old wood siding underneath (which is kept on the house for insulation purposes.  If it was rotted then it would get swapped out for new wood).

Day 2- All siding on the front of the house is off. Insulation and house wrap starting to be installed.  (We decided to insulate because we have no idea if the house has insulation on the inside or if it does, what condition it is in.)

Day 2 back of the house

Day 3- starting to make the new windows look pretty!

Day 3- more window prettiness in the back of the house (yes that is our massive new air conditioner that we put in last year)

Day 3- New working sunroom windows are starting to look good

Day 4- more aluminum siding taken off the side of the house, insulation and wrap put on.

Day 4- 2nd floor windows and basement windows get prettified and the trim starts to go up

Day 5- we finally start to see some of the "Boothbay Blue" Hardie board go up on the front of the house!

Day 5- the side entrance doesn't look so scary anymore

Day 5- Back of the house is looking great (photobomb courtesy of Buster)

Day 6- more Hardie board put up in the back

Day 6- more Hardie board put up on the side of the house

Day 7- More of the front is covered in new siding

Day 7- side door frame is covered with Fypon and looks neat and clean

Day 8- east side of the house gets some siding

Day 8- crown moulding goes up on the sunroom

Day 9- crown moulding, shutters, and S hooks are put on the windows

Day 9- side basement windows get finished

Day 9- closeup of the side window

Day 10- side siding gets finished.  Now all we need is a good chunk of money to fix the chimney.  HA HA HA HA

Day 10- front windows look great and the siding is almost done

Day 11- Fypon is installed around the front door, siding is finished and new outdoor lights are hung (we are still searching for a new mailbox, numbers, and a doorbell)

Day 12- the project is finished and new (working!) gutters are installed on the house

Day 12- new gutters on the garage (note: we didn't have the money to get the garage re-sided.  We are going to color match to the house and hopefully paint it this fall ourselves.)  Also, please ignore the Christmas lights- CP was too lazy to take them down this year!!

Day 12- the house is transformed with the final installment of gutters!!

FINAL PICTURES

Totally transformed back of the house

Looks like a whole new house!


(Now we just have to fix the front garden bed which got completely trampled!  Boooo.)

MTV and Infertility

Just an FYI, MTV will be airing the True Life: I'm Desperate to Have a Baby THIS SUNDAY.  A quick check here in Chicago shows that it will air at 1pm Central time.  Our Misconception will be one of the two infertile couples featured.  I'm looking forward to it!

Pneumonia

CP has been battling an upper respiratory infection for the past two weeks or so.  Half of that time he spent in Puerto Rico for work, but when he got home on Saturday night, he simply didn't sound good.  He had gone to an outpatient clinic before his work trip, getting an inhaler and a cough suppressant which didn't seem to be doing much.  Then Tuesday night he was having trouble getting a full breath and became anxious because it made him feel claustrophobic.

Thankfully he was smart enough to head back to the outpatient clinic yesterday to figure out if he was misdiagnosed.  The short answer is yes.  He has pneumonia in his right lung and very low oxygen content in his blood.  Yikes.  I'm a little annoyed at him for not asking the doctor whether his pregnant wife should be worried about getting something from him, but I have a message into my doctor in order to find out.  So far his new drugs seem to be helping as he actually slept through the night last night.

Make sure to check back tomorrow because the outside of our house has been transformed with new windows, new siding, and new gutters and I have lots of pictures!  :-)

ICLW July

Welcome ICLWers.  I haven't participated in a while because once I got pregnant after my first IVF cycle I wasn't sure if I should participate.  Whenever ICLW came around, I wouldn't click on the links to the women that were pregnant that I wasn't already reading.  I could handle reading someone's blog if I was with them through treatment, but I didn't want to start reading someone after they were pregnant.  Weird, yes, but it is what it is.

So whether you are pregnant or still in the trenches and came over from ICLW, thanks for clicking over!  For my infertility history, check out my timeline on the right hand side of the page.

If you don't want to hear about pregnancy stuff, then today's post may not be the right one for you.  But I do try to talk about anything and everything on this blog- not just infertility and pregnancy.

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Yesterday was my 20 week ultrasound.  I had a Level II ultrasound because my due date is only 6 days before my 35th birthday.  We didn't get any great pictures of the baby, but thankfully everything is progressing normally and looks good.  My silly fears on having an incompetent cervix were unfounded (woo hoo!).  Also, I am in awe of ultrasound technicians and their ability to figure out what is actually on the screen.  Our tech was pointing out features on the baby and I was like, "huh?"  Things like the head, spine, hands, legs, heart, etc. were easy enough to find but that job definitely takes some skill.

We asked the high risk doctor to tell us when he was checking out the gender just in case we thought we saw something (or didn't see anything!).  I turned my head towards CP and kept my eyes open, watching him to make sure he didn't look at the screen.  He peeked quickly but assured me that it was just to check to make sure I wasn't peeking!!  Of course as soon as the doctor told us we could open our eyes we were both DYING to know the sex!  But it continues to be a mystery....

Yesterday was also the last chance to get an amniocentesis.  We received good news from the 12 week ultrasound and the bloodwork that dropped our chances of having a Down Syndrome baby from 1 and 312 (the risk for my age group) to 1 and 2293. Based on everything my risk has dropped to 1 in 5000 or so.  There is no way that I would risk doing a procedure that could result in a miscarriage in 1 out of 300 pregnancies when our risk for Down Syndrome is so low.  Not to mention even if the results from the amniocentesis came back positive, I'm not sure we would do anything anyway.

My only bad news was that at least one of my fibroids has grown. At the last ultrasound it was only 2cm....yesterday it had grown to 5cm.  They couldn't find the second fibroid.  The high risk doctor didn't say anything about the fibroid (the ultrasound tech pointed it out)so maybe it is not a big deal? I would like to talk to my doctor to find out if it is going to create a problem with the pregnancy.  She mentioned that fibroids can either shrink, stay the same size, or grow larger with pregnancy and I guess my fibroid picked one of the options that I didn't want because it often causes pain. Booooo.

My uterus seemed to be a little bruised or sensitive the rest of the day yesterday.....I guess it wasn't a fan of someone pushing down on it for an hour.  Otherwise I am happy and anxiously awaiting my next ultrasound!

20 week checkup

Yesterday I had my 20 week check-up with my doctor.  I should have, but didn't realize, that this appointment would have been more beneficial AFTER my 20 week ultrasound.  Oh well.  Now I know.

• We discussed the swelling incident because it happened again on Wednesday night!  I didn't eat anything particularly salty, but there it was, a ridiculously swollen ankle/leg at only 20 weeks.  I could even leave indents in my skin from just pressing on the area. My doctor was also able to leave indents on both legs during my appointment, despite the fact that I slept with my foot up most of the night (which made the swelling subside) and I had only been up for 1.5 hours.  She suggested lots of water, lots of watermelon and asparagus (natural diuretics), and that walking would help.  

Scary swollen foot and leg!!!  Check out the indents!

• I asked about a weird ridge I feel sometimes running down the top of my belly.  It is my ab muscles pulling apart, which is normal.  Nothing I can do about it, and no more ab exercises for me (I wasn't doing them anyway).
• So far I have gained 10 pounds which was quite a shock to suddenly jump up that much.  The doctor said some of the weight was probably the swelling in my legs and that my weight gain is totally normal.  I may continue putting on weight at a faster pace in the second trimester, but it will slow down in the third trimester.
• Baby's heartbeat sounded normal and strong on the doppler- I can't wait to actually see the baby on Monday though (also worried about that appointment but that's another story).
• I told the doctor that I thought I was feeling movement in the past week or so.  Generally about 20 minutes after I eat something (especially when I eat fruit), I start to feel weird sensations in my uterus.  People usually say that they feel like gas bubbles, but I guess fluttering is what it feels like to me.  It certainly is unlike anything that I have felt before and I can't wait to feel real kicks!!
• For my crazy question of the appointment (there is always one!), I asked if there was any way for a doctor to know that you have an incompetent cervix.  I'm sure most regular pregnant women out there have no idea what IC is, but I have read enough infertility blogs that I am seriously scared of having it.  According to my doctor, that is one thing that they are going to check out on my 20 week ultrasound on Monday.  If I had ever had surgery on my cervix, an abnormal pap smear, or if I was experiencing lots of discharge then those would be two warning signs.  None of those apply to me so I am most likely fine and we will find out more on Monday.

For those of you that made it through this post on a Friday, here are two cute pictures of the dogs from last night.  :-)  Have a great weekend!

Buster thinks this heat is for the birds

Koda snuggling with her favorite toy

An ode to my Snoogle

My pregnancy book advised me at 16 weeks to stop sleeping on my back because in some women the uterus cuts off blood flow and a person can pass out.  (My doctor said that it's more like 20 weeks and it's doesn't happen to all women.)  It's also not great for the baby. Knowing that I wanted to be safe, and also knowing that I would be pretty unhappy sleeping on just my sides for the rest of the pregnancy, I knew that I needed some help.  

I had heard about pregnancy pillows and thought that they sounded a little silly until IRL friends told me how awesome they really were.

Image found here

Oh, Snoogle, how I love thee.

I'm so glad that I picked you up at a maternity store.  I didn't even tell CP that I was buying you- it was quite a surprise just how big you were when I took you out of the packaging.  CP is not a fan of you because you do take over a lot of the bed, but I certainly am.  Or, he says that he is not a fan, but if he gets in bed before I do, he has been caught snuggling up to you.

Right now I sleep with the "c" at my back, use the top part as my head pillow and put part of you between my legs (similar to the top picture).  I do my best to sleep as much on my left side as possible, but sometimes I switch it up and sleep on my right (like the bottom picture).  I was excited to see that you should be helpful after my C-section as well!

You do make it a bit harder to get out of bed to pee in the middle of the night.  And I end up doing a whole lot of flopping around when I turn from side to side, but it is all well worth it.

Truthfully, I'm not sure how easy it is going to be to give you up once the baby comes.....

*I was not asked to review this product nor given compensation for this post.  But I would highly recommend it!*

Thoughts on my baby belly

I wrote the post below on Friday while taking a break from work and went to post it Monday morning.  However, while CP and I were at Whole Foods on Sunday, the guy handing out wine samples offered me some and even when I said cheerfully "not until at least December!" he didn't get that I was pregnant.  So then I just felt really fat and sad the rest of the day.  And then I couldn't post this because the first sentence was clearly not true and people just thought that I looked like a big tub of lard.

Thankfully a coworker made my day yesterday.  She is not someone in my division, but someone that I see occasionally in the hall or bathroom and have talked to her before.  We happened to be in the bathroom and she said, "Can I ask you something personal?"  I said yes.  "Even if it might offend you?"  I said yes because at this point I knew she was going to ask if I was pregnant.  "Are you pregnant?"  I shot up my arms in the air like I won the lottery and got really excited that someone actually NOTICED.  Then when she found out that I was basically 5 months pregnant she said that I looked small.  I almost laughed when she said that because I don't think that I have ever been called small, but okay.  I'll take it.

Then today I was talking to a manager in another division who wants me to speak at an upcoming conference they are putting on in the fall.  He gave me the dates and said, "are you going to be okay at that point?  Are you still going to be around?"  HA HA HA.  It was such an awkward way of putting it, but I was happy because he NOTICED that I was pregnant.  

So now I feel like I can actually post this.  Even though I don't get recognized as a pregnant lady by strangers, at least people that I work with and haven't told about my pregnancy are recognizing that I am not fat.  Phew.

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I think that I finally, finally getting to the stage where I don't look fat, but I look pregnant.  It probably has something to do with the fact that I am wearing more maternity clothing, but I'll take it.

But I'm having conflicting thoughts about my baby belly.  On one hand, I am excited that I finally have a real baby belly instead of just looking fat.  Instead of a stranger on the street thinking "is she or isn't she?" they are hopefully easily seeing that I am pregnant.  Maybe not though because as of right now, I feel like people are just staring at my belly still.  No stranger has asked me about my pregnancy or has tried to touch my belly (thank goodness).  I think both of those things will be a bit awkward when/if they do happen.

However, with my expanding belly, I worry that as I walk down the street I may be making some people sad or jealous.  I had those same thoughts before my IVF cycle worked about pregnant women on the street, so it's safe to assume that there are others out there in Chicago.  There is not much I can do about this though- it's hard to hide a growing belly, especially in the summertime.

In terms of coworkers, I find myself shy to talk about the pregnancy.  A never-married and childless coworker (in her 50s) in my division was asking how I was feeling and commented that my bump was bigger this week.  I quickly changed the subject because I didn't want her to think that she has to mention my pregnancy if she doesn't want to talk about it. She may be fine with never having a child, but she may also still be sad about it- who knows?  Other coworkers have definitely checked out my growing belly, but have yet to say anything.

On one hand, I'm not a fan of people staring at the baby belly, whether they are strangers, coworkers, or others.  Maybe it is my insecurities about my pre-pregnancy body?  If people had checked out my belly this much just a few months ago I would have been even more insecure about my body than I already was!

But on the other hand, I WANT people to check out my belly and know that I am pregnant.  It may sound silly almost 20 weeks into this pregnancy, but I am still having a hard time believing that I am pregnant.  Sure I can blame my hands swelling in the heat on pregnancy, but the fact that there is actually something living in my belly?  I'm still not sure about that. Maybe it's because I hit 20 weeks tomorrow and I still haven't felt any movement.  I know that I could and should take longer because the placenta is in the front and is acting as a "buffer" for any kicks, but this all doesn't seem real.  The fact that viability is only a month away and I haven't even started looking at baby things or bought anything for the baby is kind of scary.

 Maybe one of these days I will own my belly and realize that I am actually pregnant, but it is not today.

Still trying to come to terms

Last week both Esperanza and Too Many Fish to Fry posted on birth plans and expectations of pregnant women (posts here and here).  The discussion in the both of the comment sections were fascinating and got me thinking about my expectations.

Although I have known for two and a half years that I have to have a C-section, I still haven't come to terms with it. Every time someone gets to have a natural birth I am jealous. I often see professional articles that vaginal births are "better."  I watched The Business of Being Born before actively trying to have a family and now feel as if I am somehow part of the problem (although from what I remember, the movie doesn't address medically-necessary C-sections). A vaginal birth is what I wanted. I hear about various problems people have after C-sections such as breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact, etc. and it makes me sad and angry that I too may have the same problems. 

I know that there are some positives to having a C-section.  One of them being that we can schedule the birth date.  However, what happens if I start to go into labor early?  I have been told that I basically need to rush into the hospital if this happens because my uterus could rupture.  Awesome.  So unlike regular pregnant women that just have to worry about their water breaking in an inopportune moment, I have to worry about the possibility of dying if I don't get to a hospital in time.

Why am I not able to let the fact that I have to have a C-section go? Why am I defensive about needing a C-section when talking about it with others? Why do I feel like I am "less than" when my prenatal yoga teacher talks about her unmedicated water birth and the "amazing" experience she had and the resources that we can use to research these kind of births?  Why do I get so annoyed when coworkers or family members that have no knowledge of my surgery joke that I could have a Christmas baby?  "NO!" I want to shout.  "This baby won't even have the chance to be born in December." I don't feel the need to explain my situation or the fact that I will need a C-section, but still get annoyed because I know that I don't even have the choice.

There is absolutely nothing I can do about my circumstances. No, it is not my ideal situation, but maybe instead of worrying about what I can't change and how it could affect things in the future, I just need to focus on the positive.

For me, a C-section means that my child and I will come out of his/her birth alive. In the end, it hopefully doesn't matter how he/she was born. I will try to work through any breastfeeding problems I have. I will do research on what kinds of things I can do after a c-section to promote a healthier birth and baby.  In the end though, I will have the baby that I have been working for and really that's all that matters.

I need to work on the things that I can control while trying not to focus on the things that I can't.  In the end, I like the advice from Too Many Fish to Fry- your birth is like a wedding. Both are only for one day. Marriage and parenting are for life.

Bump pictures through the first half of the pregnancy

I know some people are not fans of bump pictures, so here is your chance to click away if you don't want to see them.  Since this is basically an online journal for me and I won't be posting these on Facebook, I do want to make sure that I memorialize them somewhere.

Without further ado, my almost weekly bump pictures through the first half of my pregnancy:

8 weeks

9 or 10 weeks (not sure)

12 weeks

13 weeks (in a hotel room- what an odd pose)

15 weeks (ignore CP's clothes on the floor)

16 weeks

17 weeks (ignore the hole in my tshirt)

19 weeks