Boy or girl?

To continue my post from Tuesday....but first two responses to two comments (I don't have your email addresses!):

Rain before Rainbow- YES!  I am not a girly-girly in any way, shape or form.  Nor do I like pink or lots of frilly things.  So hopefully not finding out the sex keeps people from buying that stuff for the baby.  :-)

Cristy- My decision has certainly been helped by two bloggers recently finding out that the sex that the doctor told them through blood tests or ultrasounds has suddenly changed!  Suddenly that almost certainty that one had once they found out the sex is not so almost certain anymore....

On to the post for the day....

While I was spending time with friends in DC two weeks ago, the friends asked whether we cared about the sex of the baby....as in, do we have a preference.  CP and I hadn't talked about this yet, so I thought about it and decided that I am scared sh*tless of either sex.  Seriously.

I didn't grow up with a brother, but I know that in general, boys are more physical as little kids.   As boys grow up they tend to do more dangerous and thrill-seeking activities.  I mean, how many times do you watch Tosh.O and see a girl trying to skateboard off a roof?  Most of those videos are of boys doing stupid things- especially when they are teenagers.

As a mother I am going to be totally freaked out about any dangerous activities a boy will want to do, because I obviously want to keep them safe from broken bones and big scars.  (Without being a helicopter parent.)  I used to think that I would want any son that I had to play football, but after playing it myself after college (I really must tell you guys about my women's professional football experience) and hearing so much about the brain injuries these days in the NFL, I will likely be steering him towards another sport (if he is athletic).

Puberty is a mess with both sexes, but I sure as hell hope that CP is willing to help out a potential son navigate what happens when they get a boner in class because I would have no idea what to say!  Then with boys you have to worry about making sure that they treat women well.  That they aren't getting girls pregnant or assaulting them.  That they aren't bullying other kids in school, etc.

In terms of girls, I am not a frilly, heavy makeup wearing, fashionista so I have no idea how I would handle a daughter that is a girly-girl.  Growing up I was a huge tomboy so if a daughter doesn't turn out to be athletic like me, I might have some difficulty.  Little girls may be a bit easier to deal with for the first few years, but man, being a girl in middle school/junior high sucked.  Despite being the youngest in my class, I was one of the first girls to grow boobs in my grade which I hid as much as possible with sweatshirts.  Any daughter of mine will surely have big boobs and get their period early.  

Like a lot of women, I don't have the best body image.  I know that I have a strong body and I love that I am tall, but the weight issue is another thing.  I played so many sports when I was young that I never had an issue with my weight and my mom was very good about feeding us healthy stuff and not giving us weird body complexes.  My mom is also in great shape- even at her ripe old age of 62.  (Seriously, I would kill for her arms.)  I worry about passing on weird eating habits and complexes to a daughter.

And then the teenage years. How do you keep your young daughter from being sexualized too early (especially with what kids are wearing these days!)?  Girls are a struggle because you have to make sure they aren't sleeping around, that they don't get pregnant too early, etc.

I KNOW that a lot of this will be decided on how CP and I are as parents.  So maybe it is just my fears on whether I will be a good parent or not coming out.  If my terror of both sexes continues, at least I won't be disappointed with whatever comes out later this year!

What do you think- does one sex scare you more?  

Surprise

As soon as people find out that I am pregnant, the first thing they ask is whether we are going to find out the sex of the baby.  A few years ago I would have said a resounding "YES!"  CP's answer would have been the complete opposite.  He is completely opposed to finding out the sex and can't wait for the surprise.

 

Now after finally being pregnant after a few years of infertility, I don't have as much of an urge to find out.  No part of this journey to get pregnant hasn't been scripted for us.  Between the Lupron, the constant dildo ultrasounds and bloodwork,  the daily shots, the exact timing of the trigger shot, the exact timing of the retrieval, the transfer, and even the scheduling of the beta test, NOTHING has been a surprise.  We didn't get to have sex in hopes that we would get pregnant that month.  I didn't even get to take a pregnancy test before my beta (that, I blame on CP).

 

So you know what?  I no longer care to find out the sex of the baby.  If CP wants this to be THE SURPRISE part of the pregnancy, well then I'm on board.  Sure we have some friends that want to send us baby clothes but only have kids of one sex so they will have to hold off sending stuff until the baby is born, but they will have to deal.  Or in the beginning our kid will wear clothes from the other sex- who cares?  Would I like to know because then it would be a bit easier to paint the nursery?  Of course....but that's why people invented neutral colors.  One of my reasons for finding out beforehand is so that I can figure out how I would like to parent and read books about parenting that sex.  But as CP pointed out, as an infant, you aren't going to do anything differently whether it is a boy or girl for a while so we will have plenty of time to figure that out.

 

It's funny how so many people are itching to still figure out what sex the baby is, even though we are telling people that we are waiting.  I have a law school friend that is two months farther along with her pregnancy and as soon as we emailed out the good news, she told me all of the wives' tales and wanted to know the results of the tests.  (If you are curious, so far half the tests shows that I am having a boy, half the tests show that I am having a girl.  Maybe because the reproductive organs are still forming at this point?)

 

So in a few weeks when we head in for the long 20 week ultrasound, we will be asking the ultrasound tech to not give us any hints or tell us the sex.  We'll just have to hold out until late November to find out.  :-)

Slowly spreading the news

CP and I have taken a little-by-little approach in telling family and friends about the pregnancy.  My parents got the phone call about the pregnancy right after we found out the beta test was positive.  With CP's parents we waited until we were a bit farther along and had a few ultrasounds under our belt since they knew nothing about the IVF treatment.  A couple times we have had to tell people prior to making it out of the first trimester because of the circumstances- such as during a happy hour with two of CP's coworkers who have also become friends.  But for the most part, we have been trying to hang on to the secret as long as possible.  And surprisingly enough, it is not me that wants to be open and tell the world, it is CP!

 

After our genetic ultrasound two weeks ago went well, we decided to tell all of my friends that I saw while I was in DC. Then last week we emailed friends from law school, friends from CT, and friends from college.  But doing that was harder for me than I thought.  My heartbeat quickened after emailing out the news because what if something went wrong at this point?  Maybe we should have waited until I had another ultrasound....  But it was too late.

 

Yesterday we had our block over to our house for a party.  CP and a neighbor smoked some meats and we had a nice gathering on our patio.  Some of the neighbors even got a tour of the house (and were pleasantly surprised at all of the work that we have done in less than a year).  CP and I had decided that it might be time to tell the neighbors about the pregnancy as well.  It turns out that a neighbor I haven't seen around lately is pregnant as well and is a month ahead of me (with her second).  So as soon as I said we have news too, out came the jokes about "what is in the water on our street?"  I laughed and joked around about it as well, all the time thinking, oh neighbors, there is nothing in the water that could have helped me!!  Another neighbor commented on my pregnancy that "oh, as soon as you move to suburbia..."  I decided not to let him know that we lived in suburbia in CT as well and that didn't seem to help.  It was nice to have everyone so excited for us though.  

 

I can't seem to out myself on Facebook yet.  I have a sorority sister that is having twins that posted her ultrasound recently- from the size and shape of the babies they looked to be about 9 weeks.  I just thought to myself....wow that is EARLY (and especially with twins).  With Facebook I definitely want to wait until the next doctor's appointment (next week) when I will be just over 16 weeks.  CP doesn't understand why we are waiting this long, but I need to make sure everything is okay.  Hopefully by the end of next week I may feel comfortable telling the world about this pregnancy.... 

Ultrasound pictures- 1st trimester

WARNING.  This post is of ultrasound pictures through the first trimester.

It's pretty amazing just how fast a baby grows in the first trimester.  I know that the growth will continue throughout the pregnancy, but to go from a group of cells, to a blob and by the end of the first trimester to actually look like a baby?  Incredible.

I know that ultrasound pictures are not everyone's cup of tea so I made this a separate post.  I had a few extra ultrasounds because of the SCH, so you can truly see the progression.

5 day blastocyst on the day of the transfer

5 weeks 6 days.  I have no idea how the ultrasound tech was able to decipher what was going on here.

6 weeks 6 days.  The plus signs are measuring the crown to rump length.

8 weeks 3 days.  Here you can see the SCH.  It's the funny "L" shaped dark spot to the left and below the baby. This was the "beluga whale" phase.

9 weeks, 2 days.  This was the "Teddy Graham" phase with the SCH still present.

11 weeks, 1 day.  Longer arms and legs.

Finally, 12 weeks, 6 days.  No arms in this shot, but the baby looks like s/he is chilling in a hammock with one leg crossed over the other!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Spring garden edition

Over the course of two days Memorial Day weekend, CP and I were VERY BUSY planting all over our property.  I was exhausted and sore by the end and hope that we don't have to do much more this year!!

Check out our new raised garden beds.  We planted herbs in this one and lettuce in a second one.  Weeding is so much easier on the back because they are so tall (and remarkably easy to put together!).  Both of the beds are sitting on our patio in the back of the house.

When the landscapers pulled out the huge shrubs along the side of the driveway, they created a bed.  We had to fill it with something so we found flowers called "Blue Hawaii" at the local nursery.  They are annuals so they will die off come fall but hopefully the bed fills it a bit more throughout the summer.

This is the closeup of the Blue Hawaii plant.

We needed a plant that never lost its leaves throughout the year to try to hide the ugly water meter at the front of our house.  Euonymus to the rescue!  We bought the biggest plant possible and hopefully it grows quickly!

On the side of the house we have another Euonymus plant.  In addition, the cages are hard to see but on the left we planted snap peas and farther back on the right we planted green pole beans.  Both crops are loving the colder Chicago weather right now and shooting up the cages!

We needed some color to line our patio in the back so we bought 48 small salvia plants.  

On the side of the house was to be our daylily garden bed.  Well, most of the roots came up but spots looked a little bare, so we added some more perennials- including lavender.  (I LOVE LAVENDER).  See the big bush on the right?  That is a random peony plant that shot up this year that must have been around but choked out by all of the ground cover that used to be in this area.  It's about to bloom pink flowers and I can't wait!  They don't like to be moved, but I will probably move it to a better spot for next year.

This is the "before" when we were putting landscape fabric down to choke out weeds.

Here is the after with mulch making the beds look nice.  Can't wait for all of the flowers!

We pulled up some of our sod to put our tomato garden in.  The red things you see are called tomato halos (we found them on Gardeners Supply.  They supposedly help keep out insects/bugs/worms while keeping the roots moist.  Hopefully they work!

Finally in the front we planted zinnias to add some color after the tulips died and we are waiting for other things to bloom.  Next year I will probably plant the bulbs and save some money instead.

Random events

*As a large breasted woman, I was hoping that the pregnancy boobs would skip me by.  I mean, I was already starting at a 36DDD.  Well, I waited until the very end of the first trimester to finally go shopping for new bras- I definitely should have gone earlier because the older woman helping me was aghast when she saw the red marks on my shoulders and rib cage.  Whoops!  But who was I to tell her that I wanted to make sure that this baby was sticking around before buying a new bra?

Needless to say, I now have porn tits (as Esperanza likes to call them) because they are a way too big size G.  Yes, G.  I fear that once my milk comes in I will be visiting a specialty nursing bra store as I might need a fitted sheet to rein these puppies in.  Hold me.

*A few weeks ago I was visiting with our next door neighbor and she began to tell me about a dream she had, but then stopped and told me that she would have to tell the rest of it to me later.  It was quite odd.  We kept talking and after a round-about discussion, she finally confessed that in the dream I was pregnant.  She has had this dream three other times previously and every other time the person was pregnant.  She even wrote the dream down in a journal so she could point to it if she was right.  Well, I didn't keep her guessing for long and spilled the beans.  She obviously doesn't know how long it took us to get to this point, but she is excited for us and will be giving us baby stuff.  :-)

*While I was in DC last week I saw pregnant bellies EVERYWHERE.  I'm sure some of the bellies I may not have noticed a few months ago because a jacket could hide the belly, but there they were.  And there I was, jealous of their bellies.  I know, it doesn't make much sense does it?  I'll have a belly soon enough.  I can't explain it...but I was still jealous.

*The first night in DC I spent with my best friend, a good friend from college and his pregnant fiance.  The pregnant fiance assumed that I was fertile as well and made some weird remarks about IVF only being for people that want to find out the sex of their baby.....clearly I didn't tell her how we conceived.  Ugh.

*The third night in DC I met up with law school friends.  The wife, A, knew about the IVF cycle, but when I saw her husband in Chicago for one night about a month ago, I decided not to say anything about the pregnancy because of the SCH.  Well A has been trying to get the goods on me for a while, including asking our mutual friend how I'm doing.  The mutual friend has been good and kept her mouth shut, but when A and I were making plans, she asked whether I had any dietary restrictions if she decided to cook.  Although I do have dietary restrictions, I really wanted to tell her about the pregnancy in person so I said that I didn't have any.  :-)  Waiting was totally worth it- they are super excited that we are pregnant.  

*CP has been trying to tell his sister about the pregnancy for a few weeks.  He would email her to see what was going on with her and her family and she would spend the entire email talking about herself and the trips that she has taken, etc. (she is living in Belgium for 3 years).  She didn't once ask him how we were doing, so he never offered up the information.  It almost became a game.  (And I thought my sister was self-absorbed!) Finally he devised a plan where he would tell his niece and nephew and then tell them not to tell his sister/their mom (knowing that they would).  Last weekend he called them up to carry out his plan and what do you know, his sister asks what is up with us.  Plan ruined, but his sister and the kids are super excited about the pregnancy as well.

I promise a pregnancy-free post tomorrow!

First trimester recap

Now that I am officially out of the first trimester (WOO HOO!), I decided to do a recap of the few months.  

Start: The day of my transfer, March 16th when I was officially pregnant until proven otherwise. 

Throughout my 10 day wait until the beta test, I did my best to not freak out (only two days out of the 10).  I had absolutely NO symptoms.  No twinging in my uterus to signal implantation, no implantation bleeding, etc.  Let me repeat.  I HAD NO SYMPTOMS.  I just want to make sure that everyone reads that because I was freaking out that I didn't have any symptoms, so please know that you can be pregnant and not have any symptoms!!!

On March 26th when I got the call from my clinic about my beta results, I went into complete shock because I was FINALLY pregnant after three years!!  

Right around my beta test I started to get lots of cramping that felt l like period cramps.  It made me very scared even though my beta doubled.  In addition to the period-like cramping, I started to have to pee all the time and get constipated.  The cramping stuck around for about two weeks and then disappeared.  The need to pee all of the time has continued throughout the first trimester.

Only three days after my beta, I threw up for the first time during the pregnancy.  I am a LUCKY, LUCKY lady in that I only threw up once more time and sailed through the first trimester without morning sickness.  :-)

At 5 weeks, 5 days I went in for my first ultrasound and thankfully the ultrasound tech found everything!  Heartbeat, gestational sac, yolk soc, and the fetal pole.  

A week later at 6 weeks, 5 days I was still feeling good and everything still looked good at my second ultrasound.  

My next ultrasound was not until 8 weeks, 2 days and although most everything looked good, the ultrasound tech did find a large subchorionic hemmorhage (SCH).  l  I wasn't put on full bed rest, but the nurse at my clinic terrified me enough to sit on my butt for the next couple of weeks.  I was SO LUCKY to not have ANY bleeding from the SCH.

My first OB appointment happened at 9 weeks, 1 day.    The SCH was unchanged, but everything else looked great.

Around this time I was able to phase out the Crinone and boy was I happy to do so!!

At 11 weeks I had another ultrasound to see how the SCH was doing.  It finally looked smaller and this was the first ultrasound where I didn't have to drop my pants!

Around this time I started to get some round ligament pain- especially when I sneezed or coughed.  It is most often felt in the second trimester, but I guess I started to feel it a bit early.  So far it hasn't been too bad and it goes away pretty quickly.

At 12 weeks, 1 day the SCH was almost fully resolved and all of my time on the couch felt like it was finally making a difference.    My OB wasn't able to find the heartbeat using the hand-held doppler, which made me question getting one for at-home use (I have since decided not to get one.  If the professional has a problem finding the heartbeat, what makes me think that I can?).  

My final ultrasound of the first trimester was at 12 weeks, 6 days. The SCH was gone and the baby looked great.  The baby passed the ultrasound part of the genetic screening with flying colors....I'm still waiting to hear about the results from the blood test portion.

My diet during the first trimester was interesting.  I had cravings for carbs, pineapple, and Panera Bread's Chicken and Wild Rice Soup.  I have always loved PB's soup, but whenever I had a craving for it and it wasn't on the menu that day I got very angry.  Seeing as how I didn't have any morning sickness, I probably could have eaten a little better, but even with the lack of exercising and all of the carb-eating, I didn't gain any weight during the first trimester.

As a brief recap:

-no pregnancy symptoms before the beta

-stomach cramping for the first two weeks after beta

-the need to pee constantly

-bigger boobs

-VERY tender boobs

-only two instances of throwing up 

-not quite bed rest because of the SCH

-heartburn/reflux (but that is fairly normal for me)

Onwards and upwards to the second trimester!

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, the HOLY POOP phrase with the smiley face went up on our kitchen chalkboard.  Every Wednesday I have been changing the number to reflect how many weeks I am.  This chalkboard was originally supposed to be for other things.....  :-)