Nope, not that kind of regular. Still pretty stopped up in that department (thanks a lot, pregnancy hormones!). BUT, when I went to Boston IVF for my ultrasound on Monday, the nurse practitioner said those beautiful words I’d been waiting to hear: “You have graduated! You are now a regular patient with a regular pregnancy. You don’t have to come see us anymore, you can go see a regular OB”. I’ve never been so happy to be regular in my whole life.
The road to get pregnant was so rocky that I guess I just felt like I would be a “special case” forever when it came to fertility. Since I found out the exciting news, I have sort of been treating myself as a high risk patient — little to no exercise, lots of sitting on the couch, not a lot of hanky panky (sorry, honey!). But those words made me feel like I could climb a mountain or train for a marathon. Ok, not really, I am still totally wiped out from this whole making-a-baby thing and in the delicate first trimester, but it certainly does feel fantastic to know that I can have a normal, healthy pregnancy from here on out.
So, then came the big question… how in the world do you pick a regular OB? Being the over-eager, Type A personality that I am, I started by comparing the reputability and overall ranking of the hospitals in a comfortable vicinity of my house. Living just outside of Boston and working in the city, I am lucky to have 4-5 fantastic options from which to choose that are both convenient and highly regarded as some of the best hospitals in the country. Then I planned to do what I always do – make a list of the youngish, female doctors who have nice faces in the doctor listings, and try to meet a few of them before I make my decision. (Note: I realize this is completely sexist and perhaps unfair, but it’s what makes me comfortable in an exam room with my clothes off, so that’s what I’m choosing!). Unfortunately the overabundance of excellent hospitals made my search more difficult, as I felt I needed to visit and rank several different hospitals and doctors in order to find the “right” one. But then a friend of mine was telling me about the great experience she had with a doctor at Mt. Auburn Hospital (as luck would have it, the closest one to my house), with a wonderful OB whose offices are within walking distance of my house. I threw my ranking system out the window and gave her a call.
Surprisingly, the doc wanted me to come in almost immediately for my first prenatal visit, even though I just had the ultrasound at Boston IVF on Monday. So this morning I headed over there for a first visit. The place was perfect! Everyone I met was nice and helpful, and I had an incredibly comfortable and extensive visit with the nurse practitioner (I will see the “real” OB at my next visit, in 1.5 weeks). They took a TON of blood and a urine sample, and did a pap smear and internal exam. I got the works! It was so comprehensive, in fact, that I also got a parking ticket for grossly underestimating the amount of time I would be there. Boo. But, the search for my regular OB was not tough at all, thanks to my friend’s recommendation. Phew! One more thing to check off the list
You are 7 weeks old today! You weigh no more than a chocolate chip, and you still have a tail (!!!) but you are also beginning to form a digestive tract, lungs, nostrils, hands and feet, and a bump of a mouth. The liver, tongue, and lenses of your eyes are forming too. There are beds for your tiny fingernails, and the buds of teeth are forming in your gums. Your nerve channels and muscles are connecting, and you can wiggle and bounce around when the cells communicate! In a few months, when you’re a bit bigger, I’ll be able to feel those involuntary movements too.
This week you’ve made me feel more exhausted than I’ve ever been IN MY LIFE. More tired than after the two 100-mile bike rides I’ve completed, and more tired than after staying awake into the wee hours of the morning studying or working in the architecture studio in college. By 9am, you make me feel like I need a nap. Growing a baby is hard work! Today you even made me turn off my alarm in my sleep and I overslept. Ok, that might not have been your fault, but it happened anyway, and I blame you!
You’ve also turned me into a different person in terms of my eating habits. I used to eat 90% vegetables; I was a total health nut. Now all I want to eat is cereal, salty rice cakes and cheddar crackers. If I don’t eat every hour or so, or even think about eating vegetables, you make me feel pukey! Once you are out of my tummy we are going to have a long talk about how important it is to eat vegetables, since it seems that you don’t like them very much right now.
Despite the nausea and exhaustion, I am happier than I’ve ever been. You are worth every minute of it. I look at my growing stomach in the mirror every day and can’t wait for the day that I have a round, little baby bump so I can show you off.
I love you more than I ever thought possible, my little blueberry.
Love,
Mama
P.S. THANK YOU for making sure you had a nice strong heartbeat at our ultrasound on Monday. You made Mama very happy! I cried happy tears just to know you were alive. In fact, I’m crying again writing this letter. Your Daddy will tell you that’s a change in me too… I usually never cry. But you, my little Piccolini, have already changed me for the better.
Well, today arrived. FINALLY. I thought it might never come. For those of you who were anxious about it with me, I’ll cut to the chase.
Guess what we saw?
ONE HEALTHY BABY. With a little, tiny beating heart. The tech said it looked perfectly healthy. Good size, strong heartbeat (139bpm… apparently anything above 100 is great). Measuring 6 weeks and 3 days (which is pretty close to what I assumed based on my ovulation date).
Last night was Kate’s company’s holiday party. It is a fancy affair that they hold at the Four Seasons with a charity auction and food and drinks and dancing. For a work event it is generally a good time. We got decked out. I wore a suit, and Kate wore a very pretty dress that she bought in the spring and wore to a few weddings this year. Now Kate has only told one person at work that she is pregnant (her boss, who works in Toronto) and she didn’t feel the need to bring it up quite yet with her coworkers. We went to the bar to get drinks; I got wine and Kate asked for a cranberry and tonic (what I am now calling “The Cover-up Cocktail”). Again, since I think everybody is thinking about the possibility of our pregnancy (read here), I wanted Kate to have a cocktail-looking drink.
Within a minute or two of having our drinks one of her coworkers commented that her drink looked fancy and asked what she was having. Kate, who apparently would make the worst liar in the world, said “cranberry and tonic”. No gin. No vodka. So much for “The Cover-up Cocktail”. But that was the end of that conversation and we went on with the party. About twenty minutes later we were standing with this coworker and her boyfriend when she whispered to Kate “Are you pregnant?”. Obviously at this point lying would have seemed silly, and Kate said “yes”. The coworker and her boyfriend quietly congratulated us, and then…
And then…
And then the coworker said, “I totally knew it”, while grabbing Kate’s arm and said “I could just tell. You’ve put on a little baby weight.”
WHAT? EXCUSE ME!
Now I am a guy, but I know that it is a cardinal rule, especially among girls to never comment on another woman’s weight even during pregnancy, and especially after we told her we were only 6 weeks along.
Kate, who lets most things rub off her pretty easily just laughed and smiled. The coworker’s boyfriend and I stood there somewhat stunned. The coworker went on to say “And I could tell by your dress. This wasn’t a Kate-going-out-dress. This was a hide-your-stomach dress.”
Again, WHAT?
Kate bought this dress in the spring with no intention of it being a maternity dress and frankly I think it’s stunning. And for the record, I am not sure I have noticed any real difference in Kate’s body at this point, despite the fact that she says she has gained a little weight around her stomach (like A LITTLE).
The entire conversation was just remarkable. I excused myself to the bar just to get out of there and a little later I was talking to the coworker’s boyfriend who was flabbergasted that she said that. Kate really laughed off the situation but I think she had a good excuse to smack the girl, even though she was being more idiotic than hurtful.
You know what has crept up on me over the last few days? EXHAUSTION. I’m not talking about the “Oh, I’m tired after a long day at work” kind of exhaustion, or even the “I just ran 5 miles” kind. No, I mean a mind-numbing exhaustion such that I have never experienced before. I wake up in the morning, and I’m exhausted by the time I finish showering and put my clothes on. I get tired just doing my normal walk to the subway from my house. At lunch, when I used to bop around and run errands and go shopping, now I’m hunched over in my desk chair, praying that my eyelids don’t shut because I may never wake up.
At no time is this more apparent than early evening. Since there is still work to be done and a dog to be walked, unfortunately I can’t just sit on my [rapidly growing] ass, as I would like to. So by the time early evening rolls around, I have become undeniably zombie-like. My feet are heavy with every step, and my eyes close at will. Last night Benjamin and I went out to dinner with friends and by 8:00pm I could feel the backs of my eyes ache with sleepiness. I actually felt proud that I made it that long! (As I’m sure Benjamin would add, I was far from a nightowl to begin with… I am more on grandma’s schedule than my weeknight-happy-hour-attending friends. But really, I used to make it a bit later than 8:00pm. Really.)
This doesn’t make for very scintillating conversation with my husband, who I haven’t seen all day.
Nor does it lend itself well to watching DVRed tv shows or (heaven help me if I am able to stay up this long) a movie.
As with the rest of my [minimal] pregnancy symptoms so far, I welcome this change, as it seems to prove, in some little way, that I really am growing a tiny human being inside of me. I should be tired. But why can’t the rest of the world be tired with me? Or why can’t the exhaustion come when I have an adorable baby bump to show off, so everyone thinks, “What a cute, tired, pregnant lady” rather than”Who brought the loser?”?
P.S. Four more sleeps until our first ultrasound first thing Monday morning. CAN NOT WAIT.
You are 6 weeks old today! I am so thankful that you are still apparently quite happy hanging out in my tummy. This week you made me feel sick for a whole day. Since then I’ve been feeling much better, but I do appreciate that you took the opportunity to say “Hi, Mama!” and let me know you were still in there. You’ve been so quiet, I wasn’t sure I was even still pregnant! Every day that passes I am relieved that you are still happy and healthy, as far as I know.
We are less than a week away from seeing you for the very first time. Although you will probably just look like a dark, little blob in the cavern of my uterus, I can’t wait to see that little blob pulsing with a heartbeat. You are so much more than a blob to me and your Daddy
This week you are growing like crazy — you are nearly 10,000 times the size that you were when you were conceived! No wonder I have been feeling so tired… it is hard work growing a baby. And even though you are the size of a little pea, you are already starting to sprout eyes, ears, nose, cheeks, and a tiny, little chin. Your little hands and feet — still webbed like a frog – might even wiggle by week’s end. Your tiny heart is already beating, almost twice as fast as mine, and blood is starting to circulate. I really, really hope we can see that little heartbeat next Monday at our first ultrasound. Please make it beat nice and strong for me so I know you’re doing ok.
I love your little beating heart so much that it hurts.
Over the last week I have chattered to so many people about how I feel relatively normal, and how it is surprising not to feel all that different than when I wasn’t pregnant, and how I really haven’t experienced any classic pregnancy symptoms yet.
Until today.
This morning I got up and had to pry my eyes open and peel myself out of bed when my alarm went off at 6am. Usually I jump out of bed lickety split; I am a total morning person. I felt so starving from the moment I woke up that I had that sensation that my stomach was devouring itself. You know, the totally empty feeling when you would stuff anything into your face? As someone who is very affected by low blood sugar, I know this feeling quite well so I knew I would survive if I just showered and got ready before eating breakfast, which is my normal routine. So I hopped in the shower and started to blowdry my hair. As I flipped my head over I felt sweat pricking my forehead and got a little dizzy. I attributed it to the bending over, and returned upright to continued drying my hair. But when the feeling didn’t go away, I began to realize that maybe this wasn’t just normal hunger (it doesn’t usually progress that quickly to the fainty/sweaty feeling). Maybe this was the elusive pregnancy nausea.
I threw on my clothes, slapped on some makeup and headed downstairs. As soon as I dug into my big bowl of cereal the feeling dissipated. Ahhhh, relief. However, right after I took the last bite, I started to feel it again. This sort of swaying, dizzy, sour stomach and closed-throat feeling. As I walked the two miles and took the 15 minute subway ride to work, I felt increasingly disgusting. I had brought a water bottle with me, and sipping water seemed to help, but then of course I got that sloshy stomach feeling where you can almost feel the liquid making waves in your stomach when you move. Gross.
So now I’m sitting at my desk at work, contemplating the odds of if I would make it all the way to the bathroom or not if I end up having to see my breakfast again. Chances are, probably not (my desk is practically miles away from the nearest women’s bathroom). So I will do my best to avoid that. Maybe I should just eat cereal all day long? That seemed to help!
As if feeling queasy wasn’t enough, my eyelids are already closing and it’s 8:30am. It’s going to be a long day, folks. So the moral of the story? I think I’m really preggo! And now I can say I have the morning sickness to prove it. While I know there is something twisted about being happy about that, I kind of am!
So for the first 5 or 6 days since we found out we were pregnant I was on cloud 9. I couldn’t believe we did it, and I was so excited to share our news with our friends and family. Then I got back into a busy work schedule, was gone for the last 5 days, and am working long hours all this week, then away all next week. All this busy-ness and travel has made me have to redirect my focus back to non-baby things, and I sort of feel bad about that. Plus there is nothing to indicate that Kate is pregnant just from looking at her. No bump. No change. She seems the same as a month ago, so it’s sort of hard for me to really believe and concentrate on the fact that we are pregnant. I think I was sort of hoping to have the high I was feeling after we found out last until the due date. But again, reality has set in and it’s back to the tasks that are in front of me now.
Not that I really would like to change the way babies are made, but I do think that guys miss out on quite a bit of the process. While her symptoms are mild right now, Kate is getting to experience some changes in her body and how she feels. But to me she looks and acts the same so it’s hard to tell if anything is really going on. I assume that in a couple months once she starts to show, and hopefully even sooner (once we go for our first ultrasound), there will be more of a sense of definitiveness for me.
I can’t tell if I should feel guilty that 100% of my brain is not focused on the little piccolini right now. I wish I could be around more for this first stage of things to try to glimpse whatever it is that is changing. While I was gone last week I watched our video every night before bed just as a little reminder. (I have filmed lots and lots of things in my career, but I have to say, I think it’s the most powerful thing I have ever shot.) Anyways, I am so glad I had that just to bring my mind back to what should be the most important thing on my mind.
Sorry that this seems like sort of a ramble. I think that I am overly tired from work, and would like a day off to spend the day with my pregnant honey.
To me, the Christmas season officially starts the day after Thanksgiving. No, not because the stores start to go crazy with holiday sales, but because Thanksgiving marks the beginning of a season full of delicious food and time with family. And Christmas decorations. I LOVE Christmas decorations.
But it never really feels like Christmas until the first snowfall. And guess what I woke up to this morning? Glittering, white snow covering the cars and trees and sidewalks. Yay!
With all of the excitement of the last week and a half, I have not even begun my Christmas shopping. After a morning yoga class, it’s time for Christmas shopping for this girl! Christmas has a special excitement about it this year, too, because oflittle piccolini. As Benjamin and I decorate the tree and travel to see my family, I can’t help but fast-forward one year and think of how much fun it will be to have a sweet, little 4-month old (or two!) to share the Christmas joy with. I can’t wait to play Santa!
The first few days after we found out we were pregnant, Benjamin and I were floating on air. With silly grins plastered on our faces, we just looked at each other with stars in our eyes and could barely see straight. Then, of course, reality set in, and some of that innocent bliss was replaced with fear. Mostly a fear that this baby that we’ve put so much of our hearts into already won’t make it. Or a fear that there is something wrong with the baby. Or fear that, somehow, this was all some kind of cosmic joke, and I’m not really pregnant.
We have since put the last one behind us… after those two good betas, I’m pretty certain that I’m really pregnant As for the other two fears, however, I just can’t get them out of my head. The other day I said something about the possibility of miscarriage, and Benjamin said to me, “You’re not allowed to worry about things like that. Because you’re always the one who tells me not to worry… you just can’t be the worrier, because I already am”. It’s true. I am usually the voice of reason between the two of us, but pregnancy has seemingly turned the tables. So, apparently I’m not allowed to worry. If only it were that easy.
Statistics say that 15 – 20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. Once you hit 8 weeks, the chance of miscarrying goes down to 3%. And once you hit 12 weeks? Down to 1%. But, as anyone who has struggled with infertility knows, statistics don’t mean ANYTHING to the people who are on the losing side of them. If you are someone who has a miscarriage after 12 weeks, it doesn’t matter that statistics say your experience was highly unlikely… it’s your LIFE.
Anyway, even though my beta numbers were quite high, I have an excellent diet and healthy lifestyle, and I’ve been preparing my body for pregnancy for over a year, there is still that little voice in my head that keeps talking about miscarriage. And the logical part of my brain knows that if the unthinkable does happen, Benjamin and I will be ok, and the fact that we know I am capable of getting pregnant is a huge, huge step forward. Also, this cycle was really our first cycle EVER to “try” (since it was the first time I ovulated in, oh, 10 years), and now that we know the magic formula of Clomid to take to make me ovulate without turning me into Octomom, getting pregnant shouldn’t necessarily be such a struggle next time.
But honestly? I just can’t think about it. The bottom line is that if something is wrong with the baby I’m growing, and it is destined for miscarriage, there’s nothing I can do to change that. But, chances are that we will have a healthy pregnancy and a bouncing baby in our arms next August.
Our first ultrasound (December 14th) can’t come soon enough, though. Until then, I’m holding my breath.
So, then came the big question… how in the world do you pick a regular OB? Being the over-eager, Type A personality that I am, I started by comparing the reputability and overall ranking of the hospitals in a comfortable vicinity of my house. Living just outside of Boston and working in the city, I am lucky to have 4-5 fantastic options from which to choose that are both convenient and highly regarded as some of the best hospitals in the country. Then I planned to do what I always do – make a list of the youngish, female doctors who have nice faces in the doctor listings, and try to meet a few of them before I make my decision. (Note: I realize this is completely sexist and perhaps unfair, but it’s what makes me comfortable in an exam room with my clothes off, so that’s what I’m choosing!). Unfortunately the overabundance of excellent hospitals made my search more difficult, as I felt I needed to visit and rank several different hospitals and doctors in order to find the “right” one. But then a friend of mine was telling me about the great experience she had with a doctor at Mt. Auburn Hospital (as luck would have it, the closest one to my house), with a wonderful OB whose offices are within walking distance of my house. I threw my ranking system out the window and gave her a call.
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