Friday, July 18, 2008

Well I'm still sitting here at work! :-( We had another doctor appointment yesterday and had an ultrasound. Her estimated weight is 7 lbs 3 oz. So at least she's gonna be a healthy looking baby and clothes aren't going to swallow her. Dr. Stowell then checked me and I'm not dilated. He seems to think that we will go to the due date and if I do that, she will be an 8 to 8.5 lb baby. The weight would be great but I really am ready for her to be here! My nights are getting very long because I'm anxious and I don't have anything to do to keep my mind off of it. Ernie, Mike & Mom thinks she is going to make her entrance tomorrow. I hope if she does that, Mike isn't' racing. Dad says they are babysitting me tomorrow while Mike is gone. I told them I could pick up the phone and call. I had to laugh at Mom last night after my appointment. She hadn't laid anything out to fix for dinner because she thought we would be going to the hospital.

I guess I'm going to have to do some scrapping up here during the day to keep my mind off of this. Yesterday I created Riley's birthday invitation. I hope he likes it. I thought it was pretty cool. Here's what it looks like:

Tomorrow we are all getting in the pool. Michelle bought the kids some new sunscreen and I've been using it because I am burning pretty easy. I really like it, it has really darkened me up and I don't burn. I lay in the pool forever knowing I'm getting too much sun but the water feels so good on my feet. My feet are swelling so much that they actually hurt. My left one is worse than my right one, which I don't understand what the deal with that is. I have had some days where my right one looks normal and my left one looks like the Nutty Professor. Maybe that means all the weight I've gained is water! :-) We'll say it is!

Monday, July 14, 2008

I started having some weird pains Friday around 4:00 in my lower abdomen. I called Christie to see what contractions felt like. She said it could be it! Well today is Monday and I've had them again but they aren't very often and they aren't really painful. It may be the beginning of labor but it may also be my imagination.
One thing I'm not imaging though is she has been alot more active. My stomach is constantly moving. This morning she had hiccups. It didn't dawn on me until they went on for about 5 minutes that it was hiccups and not her kicking. If it was her kicking she kicked at timed intervals.
She has also been on my left side more than usual. She rarely is on my left side, she seems to like my right but every once in a while she moves so hard she feels like she is sprawled across my whole stomach but you can see a big hump on my left side.
I'm definitely ready for her to be here now, since quitting my shots my patience I think is wearing thinner. More so that I'm afraid for her since I quit my shots. I'm sure God will look over us and keep her safe but it's still in the back of my mind.
It sure is nice though not taking shots anymore. I had planned on sleeping in Saturday morning but instead it decided to storm and between the storm and Kodi I couldn't sleep. I did get to sleep a little late Sunday morning but my bathroom breaks aren't really allowing that now. I have also had some weird dreams the last two nights. Everyone says you have some weird ones while you are pregnant but other than at the beginning of the pregnancy I haven't dreamed. Course they aren't lasting long now cause I'm up every 1.5 hrs to 2 hrs to use the bathroom.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

I am getting so anxious. I can't sit still at night, I can't sleep all I do is toss and turn. I'm uncomfortable but I'm not uncomfortable the way other pregnant women complain. I've been pretty lucky. I was nauseous the first 12 weeks but I never actually threw up. I had a spell of a few weeks of heartburn in the late 2nd trimester but it went away. I've just now started having heartburn again and now it's with everything I eat but I've only been dealing with it for about a week and a half. She's just now pushing in my ribs. I've felt her up there now for 3 days. Other than my shots though I've had it pretty easy, I think.
She is getting more active. The books say that I would feel less movement because she was running out of room, but she's actually more active or it's just a harder feeling so I feel it better. I love to sit and watch my stomach move. It amazes me! Mikey had his hand on my stomach last night rubbing her and he said it was so weird, I asked him what, and he said it feels like I have an alien in my belly. I've only been saying that now for about a month and a half. When you could really start to see my belly move. If she doesn't move, that's how we both get her to move, is rub my stomach in circles and she almost always will start moving. I told him she's gonna come out wanting her butt rubbed cause I'm pretty sure that's the bump we feel when we are rubbing.
I've had my bags packed now for two weeks and am just waiting for the time! I'm nervous about that. I'm scared but I know the doctors know what they are doing. I am just hoping I don't end up like Dawnna and have pospartumcardiomiopathy. Right now that is all I am worried about. I feel that everything with her and the labor will be okay.
We had another doctor appointment this morning. We had to see Greathouse again. Josie was active so I didn't have to lay on the non-stress test for an hour like I did last week. That was a relief. I asked her though about the likelihood of me going into labor this weekend after my last shot tonight, and she made it seem that the Heparin shots were no big deal. I think that kind of disappointed me, but then she ordered an ultrasound for next week, so I'm looking forward to that. If I make it, we'll get to see her inutero one more time and then it shouldn't' be long and she'll be here!
Maybe she will wait and my belly will have some time to heal from the shots before she gets here! I guess we'll wait and see.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

I should have started this a long time ago but I didn't. So we'll have to play catch up with this post.

We have been married for 13 yrs as of Dec 3, 2007. During this 13 yrs we have never taken birth control. We have always wanted a family, we didn't necessarily agree upon how many children. I wanted 4 and Mike only wanted 2. However, God had different plans for us. It has taken alot of trial and tribulation to get to where we can say we are going to be parents. We have gone through several fertility treatments, we have discussed adoption, and we have also even considered a child free lifestyle. To be quite honest, I thought the later was what we were destined for.

When we went through fertility treatments in 2000, I kept all of our problems to myself. We didn't discuss it with anyone other than immediate family and even that was limited. Well within the past year, a friend's daughter was having difficulty becoming pregnant. Her mother would come and discuss situations with me. Then another friend's brother had problems. Well, in discussing openly about the problems, I realized we aren't the only ones and that infertility affects alot of people. Both of these couples have became pregnant and had healthy children.

I had another laparoscopy surgery January 2007. When Dr Stowell and I discussed this, he gave me three options. 1st- laparaoscopy 2nd- Lupron injections 3rd- hysterectomy. I was devastated, I never imagined in my wildest dream that I would ever really hear those words. I knew in the back of my brain that hysterectomy was a very good possibility. Mike & I discussed our options and decided to do the laparoscopy. My endometriosis was definitely back and had gotten worse. He wanted to then put me on Lupron shots. We wanted a second opinion so we decided to see Dr Gentry in Indianapolis.

Dr Gentry wanted me to go ahead and do one round of Lupron shots to give my body a break after the surgery. We decided that with two Dr's telling us this, we had better do it. I was told to take the shot and when it wore off to call Dr Gentry and we would discuss our options. In the meantime we also had a blood test ran to see if that might be our problem. There is only one place in Indiana that does it so we had to go there. That was St Francis in Indianapolis. The nurse called with the results and that was most definitely a problem. We didn't know if that was the only problem but it definitely was a factor. The way she explained it to me was that I could have been pregnant a million times and not known it because my body would reject Mike's half of the baby. In other words, like an organ transplant and I rejected the organ. They wanted to do Heparin shots and a low dose baby aspirin to see if it would correct the problem when we moved forward. The Lupron shot then finally wore off September of 2007. Dr Gentry, Mike & I then decided to try and use the two embryo's that we still had frozen from 2000 and see if they would work. We were given a schedule of medication that I needed to take to prepare my body for the transfer. Mike got very good at given me shots. We had the transfer on November 15, 2007. The embryologist told us that if it worked to let the baby know that it had already taken a ride in a minivan before it was even thawed. (She had to go pick them up at the previous doctor)

We found out on November 29, 2007 that the blood test was positive! We were finally pregnant, it seemed so surreal. After all this time and effort it finally worked. We don't know if it's because of the shots or not but God definitely had our backs. We then had to wait 6 wks to find out if they had both taken or just one.

We went in for our first ultrasound January 8, 2008 (Mike's Bday). There was only one heartbeat. Mike was happy, he was scared of having twins, I was kind of disappointed but still very happy! We had several more appointments with Dr Gentry and was released from him to go to our normal doctor at 12 wks. We then began seeing Dr Stowell, Dr Weiler and Dr Greathouse.

We found out at 20 weeks that we were having a girl. I had pretty well felt that from the beginning. It took the ultrasound technician forever to figure out what she was because she had her little feet tucked up under her butt and her legs squeezed together. She got her to move for a split second and got the shot. She then went back into the exact same position. She was already stubborn!

That night I was expected to go home and get the quilts ordered so we could decide on what we were doing her room in. Mike was anxious to do something. I ordered three quilts from Pottery Barn and waited for them to be delivered. The night they were delivered I had to make a decision and we went to Lowe's that night to get everything to do the room. Mom then came over that Friday and painted for me and then Mike & Brad hung the wainscoting Saturday and we finished the room up on Sunday.

Things calmed down for a little while after that. Then we had my shower on June 8th. That was something! Friday evening we had torrential downpours and major flooding. Saturday the water kept rising in Dad & Mom's field. We went to bed Saturday evening thinking we were going to have to call everyone and move the shower to my house. If we were going to have to do that then I had to clean the house, Mike had to clean the garage and our driveway had to be fixed from the rain water. At 7:45 Sunday morning, mom called and the water had gone down. We were back on for their house. Then at 10:00, dad called Mike's cell phone and they had no electricity. At this point all we could do was laugh! Well the electricity came back on and everything worked out great. The heat was a little warm but it wasn't raining! When I got done opening everything up and stood up from my chair, I had sweated so much that it looked like I had peed my pants and my feet looked like Professor Clump! But the stash we got was well worth it. We loaded everything up in Michelle's van, the chevy truck and my Jeep. When we unloaded everything the family room was full. Mike wanted to go through everything that night. I finally made him go to bed at 11:00 pm. Riley wanted to stay and "help us situate Josie's stuff" So Monday evening when I got off work I went and got him and he helped us put some of her stuff up. Mom ended up having to help me get all the laundry done. She took half of her clothes and blankets home with her and I would stop each night and pick up a load from her, wash a load at my house and put Mom's load away. It took us the whole week after the shower to get everything washed and put away. She is definitely not hurting for clothes for the first year.

Now it was time to just wait for her to get here!

I have another Dr appt tomorrow and I have 3 shots left!

GOOD NEWS!!

I've finally calmed down enough to type. On Nov 15th we went in for our transfer. It was suppose to take place at 1:30 p.m. By the time we got in the room it was 3:00 p.m. We definitely had two embryo's. One was at the morula stage and the other was at the 8 cell stage. Dr. Gentry thought they both looked good so we transferred them both. The embryologist came to introduce herself to us and told us when they babies were born to let them know they had rode in a minivan before they were even conceived. She was the one that had gone to pick them up from Dr. Bonaventura's. We both laughed and thanked her for keeping them safe.
Mike would not sit still the whole time that we were up there. I don't know if it was nerves or what but he sure wasn't like that the last time we went through this. In one of his many standing walks he read a book that was in our room that had patient information in it. All of a sudden I hear "Well I didn't need to know that!" I asked him what and because I am over 30 and we are putting two embryos in that I had over a 50% chance of having twins. Fine by me!
We stayed at the hospital for an hour after the transfer and then went home.
Mom came over Friday and done the laundry and watched movies with me. Saturday we went to Riley's basketball game. He was disappointed because I didn't bring my camera. After the game was over he wanted to go with Mom & I. So we took him with us and went back to my house. Mom was suppose to take him home because he needed a nap but Riley didn't want to go home. He wanted to stay with me. So I called Michelle and we told Riley he could stay but that he had to lay and watch movies. He did! We watched Toy Story.
Mikey got a deer that night so he was home late. Sunday we went and showed the deer to Riley and were going to take it to K&W's for processing. Riley kept hinting around that he wanted to go with us so we ended up taking him. He got out at K&W with Mikey and decided that all the deer was smaller than "his" deer. He then went back to our house and they played pool after Mikey fixed his lunch.
Fast forward to Thursday November 29th I got to take my blood test. I couldn't wait though and ended up buying a home pregnancy test and took it Wednesday morning when I got up. It immediately turned positive. That was a mixed emotion. I couldn't stop smiling right after I took it and I went and woke up Mikey to show him. After the initial shock wore off I kind of didn't believe it. It turned to quick so I think I thought maybe it was a bad test. Then I went and got the blood test done and had to sit here all day waiting for the results. I ended up calling the Dr's office again because I was tired of waiting. The call came at 3:15 in the afternoon and I was PREGNANT!! I could not sit down. I paced back and forth around this office all afternoon calling everyone to let them know. Friday I still really couldn't sit still but managed a little better.
Saturday, I went to Riley's game with mom. Emily showed up to watch and she ended up going with us shopping afterwards. We went to Sam's so I could get my medicine and then went to Kohl's. I had to buy something for the babies so I bought a pack of 5 onesies. They can go both ways for whichever sex.
Sunday was raining here so Mike and I went and ran around town. We went to look at cribs and so far I haven't found what I want around here.
Monday was our 13th anniversary so we went out to eat. We also went to Walmart and looked at cribs there. Mike has been on the Internet all day trying to find the bed that I want. I'm hoping that I can find one. I want a log one just like mine & Mike's bed but I don't know that I'm going to find one. Big Mike thinks they can make one but Mikey doesn't want to. So I guess time will tell. I have one other place to call and see if they will make one. I think it is finally starting to sink in with Mikey. He is getting better at looking at stuff with me. I think he's like me and a little paranoid. I can't wait until the 12 wks is up so I can breathe a little easier. Won't be completely able to enjoy until I have it/them in my arms! Count down until summer! :-)