You know what isn't fun about pregnancy after infertility and recurrent miscarriages?  The whole first trimester

My last appointment was two weeks ago.  When I scheduled today's appointment I thought, "Eh.  I can wait two weeks.  It isn't that long."  I kept that attitude until Monday night.  All of the sudden it hit me how long it had been since I had the opportunity to verify that things were still okay in there.

Monday night I was up watching some TV and when I looked at the clock and saw it was already 10:00 and my eyes were still open without toothpicks, I worried a little but decided to just go to bed.  Then as I layed in bed with the TV on, I became engrossed in the TV show on and ended up being awake until nearly 11:00pm.  Not the biggest deal in the world but to me, it led to more worry.

Then, Tuesday came.  Tuesday, about an hour before lunch, I was so hungry.  Again, shouldn't be an issue except for the fact that I really haven't been hungry in weeks now.  I usually muster up enough courage to eat something but it is only after thinking about 17 things that make my stomach turn.  Yesterday, I was so hungry and everything sounded good.  I panicked a little.  I even got out my doppler to try to listen for a heartbeat.  I know that a just over 9 weeks, the chances were pretty slim, but I was anxious for something!  I never heard a heartbeat but the digital readout kept showing me a number in the 125-130 range so it couldn't have been me.  I decided that it was enough to get me through until today. 

Before the scan, I had the unique and under discussed awkward pap and breast exam from a former classmate.  The thought had occurred to me that I would have to have her do that, but I wasn't really ready for it today.  I am not sure how one emotionally prepares for a girl I refer to by her first name to palpate my boob and give my nipple a squeeze.  She didn't seem weirded out but I am sure that there is some sort of doctor etiquette that requires them to not talk about how awkward they feel about feeling up an old friend. 

Then finally, the scan. 


All is well in the town of Uterus.  Baby was looking good and healthy!  I even saw it do a little wiggle on the screen!   Such a relief!  Now to figure out if I am done with the nausea or if I just had a 24 hour respite.  I also have to figure out how I am going to make it until 12 weeks before another scan! 

I can't begin to tell you how much all of your comments, love, prayers, and well wishes mean to me.  I am really so blessed to have you all as supporters in my life and my family's lives.  Thanks, from the bottom of my heart! 

Today I went to get an ultrasound done to check to make sure I had no cysts before starting Clomid.  I knew when I made the appointment on Friday that my doctor wouldn't be the one I would see since he is only in that office on Tuesdays and Fridays.  There is a group of something like 6 doctors that work at the 3 different offices.  Dr. M is by far my favorite.  But knowing that he wouldn't be in, I started thinking about the other possible doctors.  One of the doctors is the one who gave me an ultra sound to verify that I was having a miscarriage.  His bedside manner left me in tears and his fake efforts to appear empathetic were about at believable as a obese person feeling bad for the person who "just can't gain weight".  I didn't really care who I had, as long as it wasn't him.

One of the other doctors in the practice is a young, attractive, sweet as pie girl who also happened to have gone to the same college prep boarding school as I did.  She was just a couple of grades ahead of me and in the same class as my brother.  No big deal really but it does provide an unusual experience when your doctor is really more like a peer and I cheered for her team when she played field hockey and she cheered for my team on the basketball court.  Not awkward really.  Just unique.

When I arrived at the medical building, my heart was pounding.  It was like it was finally hitting me that we were doing this.  The information I had learned about infertility, Clomid, and Reproductive Endocrinology by reading posts on message boards and having made friends with ladies traveling that road, were now becoming part of my own world.    As my head was swimming and my heart beating quickly, I soon see, just a few steps ahead of me is the girl I went to school with.  Of the options, I was pleased that it was going to be her, even if it was a little unusual.

I stepped into the elevator behind her and as she looked at me, I could tell that she knew that she knew me but was unclear how.  We made small talk and she would give a clue here and there that she had figured out who I was, but then she she started talking to me as if I were an employee.  As she realized that I was going to the same door as her, I could tell she was eager to go and look at the charts and solve the mystery.  I could hear the chatter through the glass as she must have told some of the others about her inability to place me.  I felt bad but I am still not sure how one goes about gracefully saying (in the company of others on an elevator), "I'm the one who is the little sister of your classmate. I am also a patient of Dr. M's but you are going to scan my ovaries today."

I had joined two other ladies in the waiting area and they were each called back almost immediately.  I waited quietly in the room contemplating picking up a magazine but recognized that it would probably only be a minute until I got called.  I fiddled with my purse instead.  Then, through the same door that I had just walked, came a guy in a white jacket.  I fear that there are no words that can accurately describe what I saw but I will try my best.  He looked to be about 24 years old at the absolute oldest.  His head was shaved bald and probably would not been laughed at if he auditioned to be a Calvin Klein underwear model.  But, despite being good looking, if instead of the white jacket he was wearing a baseball cap turned slightly to the side, I might have clutched my purse a little tighter.  After a brief hello and he passed through the next door, I stood to grab a tissue to stifle my almost impossible to stifle laughter.  It was hysterical to me that a really attractive young Eminem look-a-like was about to be involved in my ultrasound. 

A few moments later, my name is called.  I am lead back to the ultrasound room and undress from the waist down.  I wait with the crinkly paper sheet draped over my lap.  A minute later, in walks Dr. Classmate and Dr. Eminem.  I am introduced to Dr. Eminem and just as I had feared, I am asked if it is okay if he is in the room.  What am I supposed to say?  I say, "Sure!" but I finished the sentence in my head with, "Only if you put your hat on backward and say, 'Dawg!'"

Now all three of us are in a small room with the ultrasound machine and Dr. Classmate stands infront of the machine and hands "The Wand" to Dr. Eminem.

"Really?" I ask myself.  "A young female doctor and a pint sized rap star are in a room with a half naked infertile woman.  Who should insert the wand, do you think?"

Dr. Eminem lifts up the paper sheet to get a better view of the target and in it goes.  I am almost 90% sure that I was smiling.  Not because of the technique but of the situation and the conversation in my head.  *Note to self* Work on keeping a straight face when a wand is inserted into my vagina.  I am pretty confident that my smiling during that procedure only makes an awkward situation more awkward.

The good news is that I had no cysts on my ovaries!  Today I took my first dose of Clomid 50 mg.  I am on cycle day 4 and go back for a shot to trigger ovulation in about a week.  I am really hopeful but trying to keep it in check so that if this isn't the cycle for us, I am not completely feeling busted.  Any words of wisdom, encouragement, hope and prayers are always welcomed! 



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I am pretty certain that the next baby I want to keep the gender a surprise. With Gavin, about 30 seconds after I saw PREGNANT on the test, I wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl. Doug was in the same boat. At an ultrasound at just over 15 weeks the technician asked me if we were finding out the gender. I said, "Yes! But it is too early to tell now, right?" Doug wasn't with me since I just assumed that there would be nothing remarkable at this ultrasound. The technician had a big smile and asked if I wanted to know. Now." After about 3.2 seconds of very thorough consideration I said, "Yes! I want to know!" She warned me not to buy everything in blue just yet and if I did, to keep the receipt just in case but she was pretty confident that he was a boy. We were thrilled!

When I was pregnant with Joey I was kind of hoping for a gender surprise but Doug wanted to hear nothing of it. I must admit that he didn't have to do much to persuade me. I posted the whole story about finding out that I was expecting another boy in a post called As Long As She's Healthy. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled initially. Because my pregnancy was night and day compared to Gavin's, I was sure that I was having a girl. It didn't take a really long time to get excited about Joey being a boy, but it makes me feel a little guilty about not being excited about the news. I should have been jumping for joy that I was pregnant with a healthy baby boy. How horrible of me that I was, even for a second, not recognizing how blessed I truly was to be carrying a baby in my stomach that was healthy. I still feel bad about this.

So the next time I become pregnant I want to be surprised. I think that God's design of women is nothing short of miraculous. He designed our bodies to host, grow, deliver and feed another human being. (That is probably a post for another day.) I think that immediately after delivering Joey, that euphoria that I felt when his weight rested on my stomach was instant (something). Honestly, I can't find a word that really represents that feeling. That love wrapped up in excitement, peppered with the knowledge that my world was never going to be the same again. I think that at that exact moment is the best time to find out the gender of my baby. If I am blessed to have a third boy I am sure that there will not be one split second of regret. It is easy to feel let down when your eagerly anticipated baby isn't much more than a black and white fuzzy picture on a screen every few months. Even though the books and websites tell you that there is a human being growing inside of you, and you are reminded of it with jabs and pokes and kicks, it is almost a foreign language until the birth. I can only imagine that when a pink, crying baby with arms flailing about, locks eyes with me I am going to be overjoyed to have whatever gender God felt was right for my family. That moment is when God intends for me to learn the gender. It will be hard to wait but I know it will be worth it in the end.

Okay... now if only I could get a couple of lines on a pregnancy test. I will do a more in-depth review of the Baby Confirm pregnancy tests in a future post but for now I will say that they have given me a very clear negative on both the dipstick and the midstream tests. Not even a hint of an evaporation line. It is still early so I am not ready to give up hope just yet.

I don't think anyone realizes exactly how long 9 months really is until they are pregnant. On TV a pregnancy only last 4 episodes. The one where they find out they are pregnant. Then the one where they have an ultrasound to find out the gender. Then the one where they are giant, uncomfortable, swollen, and highly irritable. Then, of course, the one where they deliver a happy, healthy baby. In real life, not to point out the obvious, but 9 months is only 3 months shy of a whole year! That is 40 episodes! I think it might even feel like a bit longer when faced with the fact that giving birth to a live baby is the only sure thing when it comes to pregnancy and bringing home a baby.

The early weeks crept by. I continued taking the Welcome Womb each day depite it tasting like licking a bar room floor. I do not know if it was related to the herbs but I did have significant morning sickness. I would often throw up shortly after most meals. While not by ideal means, I did manage to lose 5 pounds! I was going to Dr. Mooney's office weekly and getting to peek at the baby. Every visit was a challenge though since I knew that there was always a chance that the doctor would have bad news. Almost like an drug addict, I would feel a rush when I knew my appointment was coming up. I would anticipate how wonderful it would feel to get the reassurance I needed to get through another week. Then, as I would wait in the office, I would start to feel the nerves of what would I do if they told me that there was no more baby. Thankfully, I never had to wait too long so I would get my ultrasound fix then get to go on my merry way until a few days later when I would start to crave my next ultrasound.

Christmas was approaching and I had one gift topping my list. I wanted a Home Doppler
so that I could listen to my baby from the comfort of my own home. I didn't want to have to wait a week to be reassured. I wanted instant gratification when it came to knowing my baby was still alive. I told Doug what I wanted and thankfully he thought it would be a good idea. Since I had an appointment on Christmas Eve for an ultrasound I was able to wait a few days before trying out my new toy. I wasn't able to find the heartbeat right away but I also didn't think to ask for ultrasound gel for Christmas. After getting some gel a few days later, I managed to hear the heartbeat while laying in my own living room. It was the best Christmas gift ever. I was able to have peace of mind every day if I needed it.

At 13 weeks I graduated form Dr. Mooney to the care of my regular OB. It was then that it started to hit me that there was a baby in my tummy. Walking into Dr. Nannapaneni's office again, this time pregnant, was like walking into a old friends house. Instead of being asked my name at the window like every other time I had been to the office, I was greeted by my name and smiles all around. It felt really nice to be happy again and, dare I say, confident.