Pregnancy has always given me weird dreams! I am the person who normally does not ever remember having a dream, but while I am pregnant, I seem to have lots of them and remember the weirdest ones. So I have had a couple already that might even be to weird to share, but the one the other night was kind of funny but still weird. I was dreaming about delivery. Everyone was there, and things were going well, Baby B was pushing past Baby A so that he could come out first. Baby B came out as a big beautiful baby looking very much like his daddy. Baby A was taking her time, but she finally made an appearance, she was much smaller than her brother and she came out with a bow already in her hair and she was talking to us and telling us all about her experience from the beginning of being created. LOL wow... weird stuff!
We have no idea of the gender of the babies, but after that dream I really am thinking one is a boy and one is a girl. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. :-)
Now Cravings....
With feeling sick most of the time I really am not having any cravings or even want to eat at all. I have actually lost 15 pounds so far since transfer day. (which I am not complaining about as I was too heavy to begin with) But every so often I really get the urge to eat something in particular. Mostly has been fruit and salads, which is wonderful as I try to eat really healthy anyway. One thing I have learned from past pregnancies though... is when you are craving something you will not be happy till you get it! LOL
My fruit wishes have mostly been strawberries and raspberries! I have this little awesome frozen yogurt place in town that is a fix it yourself type place. It's great and they have the best fresh fruit!! I get a just a little of the frozen yogurt, generally a mix of their dark rich chocolate and alpine creamy vanilla and then I smoother it in fruit!! Maybe a couple of little carmel chocolates too... wow is it good!!!
I think I might be able to eat this every day!! I also really wanted some peanuts one day and still had the craving for fruit, so off we went to the store at 10 p.m. to make my belly happy... strawberries, raspberries and nuts! (had to add the antacids in there also, never know when you need those with pregnancy!
I happily sat and ate those raspberries for two days... all gone very yummy!! Strawberries were chopped up and put on cheerio's in the morning and later used for a wonderful fruit smoothie!
Now we have this mom and pop bakery shop in town, that is absolutely fantastic!! It is all very rich and awesome, but I have only eaten there a few times over the past couple of years. It has probably been over a year since I have been there. This morning I woke up and wanted their "Death By Chocolate" cupcake!! This thing is the richest best chocolate cupcake I have ever had!! I fully admit to being a chocoholic and I have a hard time finishing one of these! So with mommy having these neat cravings, my boys are really happy as they get to indulge in my splurges also. So off to the bakery for breakfast today! LOL
Now I wanted that death by chocolate so bad, and I gladly ate it this morning, and could not finish it, but they had so many others that looked so good, I had to get lunch and dinner to take home also! ;-)
So we will start with the fact that I am still dealing with "morning sickness", not really sure why its called that, if it only lasted through the morning it might not be so bad! But it does not... it last all day long!!! It's not just sickness either, its little headaches, light dizziness, constant nauseous feeling, just an overall yucky feeling and the gagging is driving me crazy!! I really fight actually throwing up! It is one of the worst things in the world to me. Sometimes I wonder, should I just let it happen and maybe I will feel better... but oh I hate to throw up, so I hold it back as best I can every day, all day!! So instead I just walk around trying to hide the fact that I gag at almost every smell and quick movement. With all that being said, I have not had any worries for this pregnancy in the past couple of weeks, since I feel sick everyday, I know the babies are growing!!
I really did not start this post to complain about feeling sick every day, I still am very excited to be doing this and very grateful it is all working out for us on our first try! But with as crappy as I have felt, I have not accomplished much of anything in the past 3-4 weeks. Which means my house is a total mess, and I have not spent any time on the computer at all which also means no blog posts. My favorite thing to do is lay in bed, the world is not spinning then and I seem to be able to at least think straight then. My boys have been great, trying to help mommy feel better and have been doing wonderful keeping themselves occupied alot. Although they have had a lot more free time on the Wii, but they are happy.
So to try and catch up on blogging... We had another ultrasound at 8 1/2 weeks. (On September 10th) My husband, our boys and a friend of ours came along for this one. We skyped with one daddy, heartbeats were really fast and strong, could even see one baby move a little. It was a great appointment and all is going well so far.
That was the last appointment the fertility clinic wanted or needed. Just a couple more weeks of checking my hormone levels so that hopefully when we got to 10 weeks I could stop all the meds.
Last friday the 19th was 9 weeks and 6 days so it was the last day for meds!! Yea no more shots!!! my rump is very thankful!!
Monday had to have blood work done to make sure my body has kicked in and is doing what it needs to, to support the pregnancy without the meds... and test results came back good! I am officially released from the fertility clinic and a full fledged patient of the Birthing Center now!
Monday I also had my first appointment at the birthing center as a "real patient". It was just a normal ob appointment, with questions and bloodwork and all that. Nicole one of my midwives tried to hear heart beats with doppler on my belly and we could not quite get it. So we hopped over to the ultrasound room for a minute and she found both of them real quick that way.
Both babies were laying in opposite positions of each other, it was cute. Baby B had a good strong heart beat at 158 and Baby A had a good strong heart beat at 167.
All is moving along well for now minus the sickness stuff... here's to hoping in another week or two the sickness will leave us!! :-)
Yes I know that title sounds funny, but its true. IVF and surrogacy is so different than just a normal pregnancy. With all of my own I only had morning sickness with my first, and it was horrible! I threw up for 16 weeks straight every day all day non stop! One morning woke up and felt good... never threw up again and it was a good pregnancy the rest of the way through. My other three while I had a bit of nausea here and there, no real big deal.
Now this pregnancy is totally different. I think it is because there is more risk at the beginning of losing it or it not working. So as a surrogate, for me I have always been looking for a sign that in fact I am still pregnant. Once pregnancy is confirmed, there is a lot more monitoring that goes on as a surrogate than with a normal pregnancy. So we look forward to these weekly appointments, for blood work and monitoring as it confirms every week that things are going well and staying on track. In between each appointment though there is 6-7 days and if you feel real good and seem to have no symptoms, you begin to worry, or at least I have. Just before my first beta test to confirm pregnancy I was getting a little nausea happening, nothing big just a little, which was enough for me to know the pregnancy was happening. A few weeks later, after seeing heartbeats on ultrasound, I had two days were I felt great... so then worry set it. What if something has happened and they stopped growing ... I had to go buy another pregnancy test, just to ease my mind. A few days later I felt yucky again and had another monitoring appointment and of course all was well!
I sit and think about this, and I had none of these concerns with my own pregnancies. I knew I was pregnant and all was good. This time it is just so different, and so many other things to think about. So since my last appointment almost a week ago, my morning sickness as progressively gotten worse every day! Thankfully I am not throwing up as of yet, I really fight that till the bitter end. Of all things... I hate to throw up!! So on the positive side, I have not been worried about the pregnancy all week, with the way I am feeling I know the little babes have to be growing with leaps and bounds. Getting excited for tomorrows ultrasound, can't wait to see the changes!!
Since my last post I have had two more ultrasounds. The very first one, while we found the sacs, they were both measuring a week behind from where they should be. The second ultrasound they were almost caught up in size and we could see and hear the heart beats! I was skyping with one of the dad's so he was able to see and hear all that was going on. It was awesome!!
Today was my third ultrasound, both daddy's flew down late last night to be here this morning with me and my family to go see the babies progress again. We are using a birthing center, and everyone there is so welcoming and awesome! They were all excited to meet the dad's and the dad's had a great time meeting all the ladies who are helping to take care of us! We had ultrasound, we were able to see both babies easy and see and hear both heart beats! Both babies have caught up in size. They are both measuring a day apart in size and right on track with gestational weeks. Both heart beats grew faster and stronger this week. We could actually distinguish heads from bodies and see a big difference in just one week. Getting excited to see the differences next week.
I am still on all medications from fertility clinic, they test my hormone levels every week also, and they are looking great and hoping to be able to start weaning off meds within the next two weeks. (My rump will be so thankful and my poor husband who feels so bad everytime he has to give me a shot in my butt)
We had a wonderful morning and afternoon with the dad's. We took them to my boys favorite science center to visit for a while, and then we all went out for a nice relaxing lunch together at Olive Garden, (since salad is my favorite meal these days) ;-) Then they had to head back to their home for work schedules. Sad for the short time together, but so glad they were here and got to be a part of it first hand!
Looking forward to next weeks ultrasound and some good pics!
On a side note, the morning sickness has kicked in pretty good the past week or so :-( I do not like to take medicines so I was just starting to suffer it out... when I was told about Sea Bands from one of my support groups. Holy Cow are these things awesome!!! They are little wraps to wear around your wrist that use acupressure points and oh do they work!! I can function through out the day now wearing these.!!! Can not recommend them enough!!
Well since my last post, I have had a second beta (HCG test) which confirmed that I am pregnant and HCG is rising! Then I had my first ultrasound, which we all new we would not be able to see very much, but was hoping to see a gestational sac or two.
For my first ultrasound I thought it was only fitting to wear my lucky transfer socks once more...
I
was able to Skype with one of the dad's throughout the ultrasound. The
tech found one sac right away, took measurements and all looked pretty
good, but did not see another sac. So we were thinking that maybe only
one embryo made it. After looking around for a few other things they
want to see, we found another sac. :-) As of now it looks like both
embryos have made a home and are starting to grow.
My
HCG was tested again, only to confirm that my numbers were growing the
way they are suppose to which was great to hear! First HCG at 8 days
past transfer was 88, second which was 11 days past transfer was 229 and
the third which was at 20 days past transfer was 7159.
Here is the first ultrasound picture
So
congrats to my IF's, so hopeful they are getting the twins they
wanted! We will have more ultrasounds almost weekly for a few weeks, to
make sure things stay on track and are developing the way they should.
Can't wait to share some ultrasound pics that you will be able to tell
what it is you are looking at!
It was not but a few days after transfer, and I was "feeling" pregnant. I know all women are different with pregnancy, but I have always known I was pregnant very early on with my own. With all four of my pregnancies I knew I was pregnant before I was even late for a period. So with all this fertility stuff in play now, my cycle is not normal and I was not sure how I would feel or anything. Within just a few days though, I had these very familiar twinges. It is a very hard thing to explain to someone else, never the less it is a feeling I know well... and they were there.
We had discussed before transfer, that if I took home pregnancy test, the guys did not want to know about it, they wanted to wait for the blood results. I am sure with all we have gone through to get to this point, they just did not want any false hopes. So I respected their wishes and told them, I probably would test before the blood work, but I would not tell them about it.
Once we got home I went to walmart and bought 5 of their cheapie tests, (.88 cents a piece) I planned to start testing 3 days after transfer. This was really funny because originally I told my husband I would probably only test once or twice just a day or two before blood work. For some reason, an over whelming urge came over me to want to keep checking every day, to see what day it would show positive. I did test on day 3 and test was negative, I really didn't expect anything other, so I still can't figure out why I actually did the test... LOL From all I have read and learned from other surrogates, it seems most women who transfer 5 day old embryos, which is what I got, if they take they normally get positive test between day 5 and 7. Although there were a few who got positives on day 4 and some as late as day 9 or 10. It seems the average is around day 5-7 though. Day 4 was positive, Day 5 was positive... lines were light and took a few minutes to show up, but never the less they were there. So I was getting really excited by this time, I so wanted to tell my guys. I know this was something that was weighing heavy on them, in all honestly me too since knowing they had no other embryos to work with.
Day 7 after transfer, my lines showed real fast and darker than the other days, which is great!! I have not taken any more home test since day 7.
So me being me... ha ha, I contacted the clinic and asked if I could have blood work done on Friday instead of Monday. (just a couple days early) :-) Clinic said sure. So we set up appointment and did not let the guys know. I was hoping to be able to give them positive results early. As it turned out, the clinic had a policy about giving medical results, and the clinic had to call the guys first. :-( boo hoo...
But it was still great!! They got a call from the clinic on a day they were not expecting one, so at first they were concerned something was wrong. The last few phone calls the guys have got from the clinic have not been full of great news. The nurse gave them the positive news right away, which totally took them off guard, as they were not expecting it till Monday. So after the shock wore off, and I was able to talk to them, it was a wonderful happy conversation!!! Lots of tears and excitement!!
This is a little weird for me, I am full of excitement feelings but they are all for this new family I am helping to create, and the excitement does not revolve around me at all. I am jumping out of my skin happy for my guys, because this is something they have waited for, for so long and want so badly!! I am so excited that I am able to give this to them, and so hopeful there are no issues, and this pregnancy goes through smoothly. (which all mine have, but this is pregnancy and anything can happen)
So now I will have more blood work done again on Monday, which is to make sure my hcg level (pregnancy hormone) is climbing. I am confident it will be, I still have my little twinges non stop. After that we will start scheduling ultrasounds, so we can see if one or both embryos have decided to stick around.
Will be back with more news as soon as I get it... but as of now, I am officially pregnant with someone else's baby! LOL that sounds funny!! but great!!
So last week we headed to the soon to be daddy's house to spend some time together and get ready for embryo transfer. Some of these meds have not been making me feel too great, we took our time getting to their house. Finally arrived Tuesday afternoon. As usual we had a wonderful time just being together, me, my husband, our young boys, and both "daddy's". Everything we did, I was the only female in the group. It was a blast!
From my last post to the time we arrived there, they had 13 eggs that were retrieved, only 12 were mature. The clinic separated them into two groups, 6 for each daddy. They were fertilized and watch for a couple days, by day 4, each dad had 4 growing embryos left. Sadly not all were making it. Day 5 which was transfer day, each dad had one really good embryo. So both of those embryos were what was transferred to me. The clinic said they would watch the other 6 embryos for another day and decide which ones were good to freeze and save just in case first transfer does not take.
~Transfer day~ Our appointment was in the early afternoon, so we all enjoyed a nice relaxing morning together, although I think each of us adults were all getting a little anxious! :-)
So here is me with my lucky socks on, on the way to transfer!! :-)
After arriving at the clinic, they took me back right away to get ready. We got to see really magnified pictures of the embryos, its amazing to look at these pictures and imagine that a little human being will be created from this little blob. You will see one is very round and the other is what they call hatching, the embryo is actually already coming out. The one that was not hatching yet, they could see it was starting to, so it was not far behind. This is so interesting and exciting!
The transfer itself was very easy, no pain and really no big deal. The dads were in the room with me and were able to watch it all on a monitor and see their little embies transferred to my uterus. Here is a pic of the monitor screen after the transfer was complete, the little tiny white dot is the two embryos that were transferred to me. Which is about dead center in the middle of my uterus. Now we wait and hope the little embies attach themselves and continue to grow and develop!! In the meantime I have to continue meds, estrogen pills, and progesterone shots daily in my rump! :-( They are not as bad as I was afraid they would be, but they still do not feel good by any means!
Here is me, my wonderfully awesome husband and my two little gorgeous boys right after transfer.
We went back to the dad's home for a relaxing evening and wonderful company. All three men put together an awesome dinner, even the boys helped get it all together, while I laid in bed and rested for a few hours. The guys even let my hubby take the grill over, one of his favorite things to do! :-)
We brought some fresh squash out of our garden to share, and cooked on the grill with the steaks, pork chops, hamburgers and hotdogs the guys got. It was a feast for all of us! Dinner was fantastic and we all had a wonderful evening! Spent another day resting, before making our long drive home.
The day after transfer the clinic notified the guys that none of the other embryos made it to the point of freezing. So the only two good embryos out of 12 eggs, are in me! All fingers and toes are crossed, with nothing but positive thoughts this will work out our first try.
We are now
playing the waiting game until Monday August 11th. I will have my blood
drawn and they will check my hormone levels. We should know the
results by Tuesday the 12th at the latest. Of course we are all on pins
and needles until then.
So until next week.... stick embies stick !!
