CAN'T WAIT for my First OB Appt. Tomorrow!!

This wait has been really tough on me...very similar to the anxiety of my 2WW, but way LONGER! It's been one month...4 WEEKS...since we were released from the RE. I know, I know, that's only 2 weeks longer than the 2WW, but it feels like it's been 2 months or longer!

I realize that I'd better get used to this kind of wait since 4 weeks is the standard time between all my upcoming OB appointments until my third trimester. It's just that the last time we saw our baby he/she was only 10 weeks (1st trimester) and now I'm 14 weeks (2nd trimester). With all the horror stories out there about miscarriage in the first trimester I felt a great sigh of relief when we crossed over to the second trimester, but I have yet to have a doctor confirm that our baby is still doing great. I have had very minimal symptoms throughout my whole pregnancy thus far so I've had nothing physical to really go by. And not to mention that symptoms are suppose to ease in the second trimester so how would I know either way?

I don't mean to be projecting worry or fear that something is actually wrong with my baby or my pregnancy, because in my heart I believe that he or she is doing great. And I've had no spotting or pain or anything to make me worry, and my belly is growing. It's just that I love my baby so much already and I know how hard it was to get here, so trusting my heart or my belly isn't enough for me to be able to relax. I am so eager to SEE our little Pea again on the u/s screen. I just want to hear my doctor say, "All is well." I cannot wait to see all the changes that have happened to our growing little miracle. I am still dying to HEAR the heartbeat since our RE never turned on the sound. I'm anxious to know what the heartbeat actually is since we were never given an exact figure from our out IVF doc. He just said, "It's somewhere b/w 120 and 160." Great, huh?

I selected the OB I'm seeing based on friend recommendations and internet ratings....which were both great! He is supposed to have excellent bedside manner and is known for taking his time and never making patients feel rushed. Also he's in practice by himself so I will always be seeing him and not one of his partners. I really hope that he'll take his time with us tomorrow so that I can get a GOOD look at my growing fetus. My past ultrasounds went by so fast they felt like a blur.

I'll post the picture(s) and an update as soon as can!

Do any of you have any recommendations of specific questions I should ask or requests I could make? I have a list of the "basic" inquiries that I'd assume most people will ask, but I'm wondering if any of you might think of something that I'm not. Thanks! :)

Blogger Award!!

Many thanks to Sabine at A Land Far Away for this sweet award!! She's in the depths of TTC...please stop by and give her some support if you have a moment!!

Seven (interesting) facts about me:

1. I grew up on a horse farm and could "ride" practically before I could walk. Here is a picture to prove it...

2. My Aunt, Dellie, gave me this chair for Christmas when I was 5 or 6 and I still have it, and it's in great shape. I look forward to putting it in our baby's room.

3. In high school I was captain and goal-keeper for the women's varsity soccer team during the fall and I cheerleaded for the men's basketball team during the winter. It surprised a lot of people that I didn't play for the women's basketball team. I liked to be tough one season and wear girly skirts the next! :)

(Yes, our cheerleading unifroms were hanus and competely butt ugly!)

4. I once got my hair braided into corn-rows in the Bahamas...Those tight braids HURT so much that I have sworn to never again wear my hair like that... and I have a new found respect for those who can.

5. Only 2 short weeks after my huband and I started dating we went to the Kentucky Derby in a limo with a group of friends. It was SO MUCH fun. We sat on a blanket in the infield...hence the casual attire. It would've been fun to wear a big fancy hat....maybe some other year. (Yes, I'm wearing a great big belt buckel in a Limousine. I was sporting the "country club meets country girl" look. HA!)

6. My sister and I have the same birthday...November 3rd....yet we are 4 years apart in age. (She's older)

7. I designed and built a website for my dad. He is a painter and this is one of the paintings he has done for me and Ben. It is a portrait of our Fox Hound, Libby. Please visit our website to see more of his paintings if you are interested.

I nominate the following bloggers to recieve this award:

Sonja: On (In)fertile Ground

Tracey: Creating Baby Johnson

Emily: A hope and a wish for a gift from a perti dish

Brooke: scifibaby

Rachel: Our journey, but not our plan...

The Wife: The Non-Housewife Wife

A: Remember All the Way

I WISH I could nominate more of you, but I'm follwing the rules...

So here's what you need to do:

• Thank the person who nominated you and copy the award in your blog
• Link the person who nominated you for this award
• Share seven interesting things about yourself
• Nominate seven fellow bloggers and add the links to their blogs

12 Weeks 5 Days Update

• OBGYN: My first OB appt is still not until Feb 10th! I last saw my RE on Jan 13th...so this wait is getting tough!! At my last u/s my baby was 10 weeks and at the next u/s he or she will be 14 weeks!! I can't wait to see how much The Pea has changed and we hope to learn the gender at that point if baby is in the right position! Fingers crossed!!



• Nursery: Ben and I got started thinking about baby furniture this past weekend. It was really fun!! We rearranged our bedroom since we plan on keeping our baby in our room with is for the first several months. In fact, we don't plan on setting up a nursery at all in our current house since we expect that Ben will be relocated cross country for his job shortly after the birth. When we get to our new house, our baby will be about 6 months old so that's when we'll decorate a permanent nursery. Not to mention in the current house the extra bedrooms are kinda far down the hallway and I know I wouldn't be comfortable leaving my baby that far away from me especially in the beginning. Also I plan on breastfeeding, so having baby in our room will be the most convenient for all! We ordered the following furniture:
  

• Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper that fits right up against my bed to make midnight feedings easier and to be able to check in on baby frequently. It will hold up to 30 lbs so it's bigger and will last longer than a typical bassinet. (This also turns into a pack'n play for later on when baby is larger.) We'll worry about getting a crib later on down the road closer to our move.
• Glider Chair & Ottoman will be great for nursing and rocking baby to sleep. We also like that it looks like a normal piece of furniture so we can keep it around and it isn't so obvious that it's a nursery glider.

• Changing table will be the next thing to pick out, but we haven't found one that we love yet. I'll post pics of our bedroom/baby room when the furniture arrives and we get it all set up. I know some might think we're getting started way too early, but I don't care what anyone thinks! We're so excited that we're finally expecting that we can't help it! I'm sure we'll have everything all done and ready by the end of my second trimester. That's OK with me since my third trimester will be during the HOT summer months so I'll spend my free time lounging in a cool swimming pool with my big belly instead of running around to every baby store in town. :)

• My symptoms are almost non existent. I feel great all the time. I'm just way more hungry and I crave really healthy food all the time. Vegetables, fruit, milk and more fruit!! On Saturday night at about 3:40 AM I was tossing and turning and thinking about cereal ...what else is new...and I didn't realize it but Ben was awake. Out of no where he said, "if you want to go downstairs to have a bowl of Cheerios, I'll come with you." I jumped to my feet and said, "awesome...lets go!!" We sat in the dark on the couch eating a couple bowls together in our PJ's while watching Keeping Up With The Kard.ashians since that was the only thing on at that hour. It was my favorite part of the weekend. I love my husband and I LOVE being pregnant!!! :)

In your face, Facebook!

So I did it!! I posted my pregnancy announcement on Facebook.

I used to gag, roll my eyes, and frequently cry when others would do this. It just made my infertile situation feel so much worse when others out there could easily get pregnant and just tell the world. Ugh!

I am finally 12 weeks and 1 day, so I decided, "Dammit! I've earned the right to post my announcement. I'm gonna do it!!" Of course I was a little concerned that I might unknowing upset someone out there who might be having trouble, but at the same time I want to celebrate my miracle with everyone I know. I'm tired of being "infertile" and acting accordingly. I'm tired of being fearful and holding back my joy. I want to be carefree as if this baby were easily conceived the old fashioned way. I want to allow myself to be NORMAL!!

So I did it...

"What's up world, it's Cilla! I'M PREGNANT and I'm not afraid anymore!!!!!"

This is NOT actually what I wrote, but it's what it felt like.

Gender Poll and a Thank You to our Blog World!

I thought it would be fun to add a poll to my blog so my readers can try to guess my baby's gender. I have absolutely NO CLUE what I'm having, so I thought it would be fun to see what you all think!! Some days I think boy and some days I think girl....what would you guess?? We'll find out for sure in a few weeks so in the mean time, I'm having some fun!! (The poll is on the left side just under my profile description.)

Also I got my hair cut and colored today so I thought it would be fun to give my blog background a makeover too! (The blue means nothing...it used to have more pink....I'm just going for variety!)

I feel great and I'm more and more grateful as the days go by for having a healthy and uneventful pregnancy so far. It really is a miracle when I think about this time a year ago. I wasn't sure I would ever know these feelings, but here I am!!

I want to give a big blog shout out to Emily who just learned that she too is expecting her first baby after a long, tough journey! And to my other bloggy IFers turned pregnant: Babygaga, Sonja, Nicole, Tracey, The-Non-Housewife-Wife, and Lin I just want to say its a total joy to follow your pregnancies and I keep you in my thoughts often! I am beyond thrilled for all of us!! I also want to send positive thoughts and prayers out to Mom Genes who's currently in her two week wait after IVF #1. And last but definitely not least...to Rachel, A, Brooke, One Who Understands, and Jem: I have faith that each of you will get through this agonising battle. I think of you often and pray that you will get all that you're dreaming of!! And to anyone else I may have missed: Thank you for being a part of this wonderful community. I know how much it has helped me and I hope that the rest of you feel the same way! xox

Thank you ladies for being here offering the endless support and cheer leading that you have given me for months. In my real life there are often times I feel misunderstood, but here in this blogosphere I know you get me and that is totally priceless!!!

Thank you!!! Love, P.

NEW NAME...Same blog.

It's 5:40 in the morning and I'm sitting in my kitchen eating Cheerios while my husband is fast asleep upstairs. This has become a fairly regular ritual of mine in the last several weeks of my pregnancy. I wake up and cannot stop thinking about food. This baby makes me hungry!! :)

As I read through others' blogs, it occurred to me that my blog's title has become a little outdated. I first started it as a journal of our second journey through IVF, hence the name, "Ben and Priscilla IVF #2," but at the time, I wasn't sure where it would lead. Now, as I continue to write about my experiences, I recognize that we and this blog have thankfully moved past In Vitro treatments....for now. (It's something we know we must face again if we want to try for more babies, but that is far from our minds as we relish the gift we have currently been given.)

As our journey continues on a much happier path we will never forget how we got here...

Prenatal Yoga Rocks!

Last night I attended my first Yoga For Pregnancy class and was very happy with the experience. I have always enjoyed regular yoga classes for the centering in brings while using muscle and breath in unison. Last night's class was particularly enjoyable because it was so focused on surrounding my energy around my baby. The instructor was genuine and brought a certain calm to the room. It was a very peaceful environment to be in.

I learned some alternative poses that will come in handy as my belly grows. We also did exercises that worked on certain areas that are not focused upon in your average yoga class. We did Kegels as a group!! It made me want to giggle as I thought of the Samantha Jones' character from Sex and the City smuggly annoucing to her friends that she was doing hers "right now."

In the beginning of class we all sat in a circle (there were about 17-20 of us) and took turns telling our name, how far along we were and if there were any particular areas of discomfort that we'd been feeling so that our instructor could incorporate a targeting exercise or stretch into the evenings class. The majority of the women were 2o - 38 weeks along and most of them had these big, beautiful, round belly's. Being only 11 weeks I felt like the youngest one there (even though I was definitely not.) I felt like a freshman or something so I didn't mention anything about my sore back since I imagined that everyone would roll their eyes at me for having any type of physical discomfort so early in my pregnancy.

After years of being a pregnant wanna-be as Ben and I endured our infertility, last night I still had the same old familiar feelings of being among the enemy. All those round abdomens that I had literally run from not very long ago. There I was choosing to be in a room FULL of women who's very presence had caused me many tearful breakdowns in the recent past. How can I actually belong here now? Weird!! Obviously I'm still in disbelief about my pregnancy. I can't wait until my belly is big and round too. Maybe then I won't feel like such an imposter. Then again, I will always remember what it was like to live on the other side. Perhaps my new challenge is to learn how to live paralleling the two existences. Infertile turned pregnant....its like poor turned rich. I feel like I won the lottery and now I am learning to adjust to the good life leaving all my grief and pain behind.

Anywho...after I got over my silly 11 week insecurities that were all totally in my head I thoroughly enjoyed the class. It moved at a good speed I loved focusing my energy inward to my miracle baby. He or she is really in there and last night helped me get one step closer to truly believing it....cause clearly the ultrasounds weren't proof enough. Gawd! I must sound so silly!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpUVXlGqkSM

11 Weeks Along

A lot has happened since I last blogged so I will use bullet points to update:

• Chiropractor: Evening of first visit = blissful pain-free sleep. Next day at bed time I started getting sciatic nerve pain radiating ALL the way down my left leg after I did the floor exercises my chiropractor instructed me to do. As I lay in bed I was in so much pain it was almost impossible to sleep. I still don't want to take anything, so no Tylenol. After a couple fitful hours of tossing and turning a heating pad finally helped me get some rest. The next morning I went back to the Chiro and told him about my pain. He did an adjustment, and as I walked to my car I felt even worse. Decided that maybe it was these visits that were aggravating (NOT helping) my lower back pain. Chiro = Not not for me right now! I need a new plan!

• Yoga!! I went to a Beginners Plus class with a good friend last Friday and felt fantastic after the class and ever since. I go back tonight to a prenatal yoga class. I'm hoping that I continue to feel better as a result of this type of stretching, strength building, breathing and inner focus. Yoga = Good so far!! Hope this is the answer to my lower back discomfort!

• Pregnancy Symptoms: Other than the back pain I have been feeling pretty great. No sickness at all, my energy is returning, and I've had a good appetite! Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and cant stop thinking about Cheerios so I end up heading down to the kitchen to eat a bowl or two of cereal before I can get back to sleep. I have gotten back to walking a lot, which feels good, but my pace has slowed some since I seem to get out of breath pretty easily. Just going up the stairs makes me huff and puff. I've read that its totally normal, but it makes me feel very out of shape. I get a little crampy here and there, sometimes its a sharp feeling when I move too quickly, but nothing too alarming or worrisome. Oh, and my memory....not so sharp these days. Pregnancy brain has totally set in!! :)

• OB visit: I couldn't wait until Feb. 1oth to see the new OB a friend of mine recommended, so I made an appt with another highly recommended OB group for next week (Jan 28th). I kept the Feb. 10th apt with the first OB too. I will determine which practice I like better and stick with them! If neither of them make me feel completely comfortable I will keep looking. To some I'm sure this may sound a little overboard, but I really want to find a practice who I click with since I never felt a closeness at all with anyone at my IVF clinic. I just want a more personalized type of care. My sister, who's a midwife in Oregon, has suggested that I find a CNM practice and interview with them. I'm considering it. To be honest I'm feeling very overwhelmed about choosing my next provider. Since this is my first baby I have no idea what to really expect, therefor I'm not sure what I really want. Do I want to try an all natural birth with no interventions? Maybe a water birth? Or will it be far more painful and awful that I could possibly anticipate so will I want an epidural and all the drugs they can give me to make it easier? Will I need to be induced? Would that really be necessary? Will I ultimately need a C-section? Obviously I don't know the answers to ANY of these questions and I'm sure it may seem WAY TOO EARLY to worry about them. But I kinda feel like they do matter now because all doctors have different protocols about when its appropriate to induce, or do a c-sections, or administer drugs, etc, etc. I And to make things even more confusing for me is that everyone I know who's given birth has their own stories, suggestions and advice. I feel lost in all the information and options and fear that I've lost my own vision of what I want. I haven't even started meeting with the new doctors yet and I'm already feeling exhausted by the process. Part of me wants to just give up and go to the first practice I see. I am so tired from the fight of trying to get pregnant that the idea of fighting for the birth plan I want seems like to much work. Maybe it would be easier to just do whatever my doctor tells me to do. As long as my baby is healthy then I'll be happy, right? Maybe not? Maybe I'll regret not choosing one thing over an other! Ugh! Why is this so frustrating for me, and why do I feel like I'm the only one who feels this way? AHH! (Sorry for all the venting, it helped to get it out. Hopefully the first doc I see makes me feel really at ease and I can stop feeling anxious about the birth that is still 6.5 months away. Perhaps its just the fact that I've been released from my IVF doc and haven't yet found a new OB that has me feeling so vulnerable...who knows! Maybe its all my hormones!)

10 Week Ultrasound

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a FEISTY FETUS!!

That's right! Our embryo is officially a fetus today and we saw lots of movement! It was incredible to see our little miracle kicking wildly during the ultrasound this morning. I'm still in total awe. It was a jaw dropping sight that I will never forget.

I have been studying this picture all morning. If you look closely you can see its FACE profile...eye, nose, lips!! WOW! I'm just beaming! This is MY BABY!!!!



Our doctor said, "The fetus is very big and healthy. Everything looks really, really great!" Music to my ears and the answer to my prayers!!! We were also told that we have now graduated from the IVF clinic!!! WOO HOO! This was our last appointment, and now we get to move on to 'normal' land!!

As we walked in this morning and waited for the elevator, I felt my anxiety beginning to rise. I looked at Ben and told him how I was feeling. As we rode up to the 4th floor, we reflected on how MUCH we've been through in that building. Every appointment had so much hope weighing on it and there was never any guarantee that things would work out. We learned this the hard way after our first IVF failed. No wonder just the sight of the building causes my heart rate to increase and my fear to bubble up. It will be wonderful to start fresh with a new doctor in a new office that doesn't hold so much baggage for us.

My first appointment with our new OBGYN is scheduled for February 10th. That is a WHOLE MONTH away!! Oh well....more waiting. What else is new?

At least now, after the wonderful appointment this morning, I'm feeling much more confident about this pregnancy. Like I told Ben, "I think this is really going to be it for us!"

It's still hard to believe after everything we've been through trying to make this baby, OUR BABY!!!

My Chiropractic Visit

I LOVE my new chiropractor! What a wonderful change of pace after all the months of needle pricks and vaginal ultrasounds.

It felt great when he gingerly moved his hands up and down my spine gently pocking and rubbing in certain areas along my back to get an understanding of my unique spinal structure. For the first time in along while I didn't feel like I was on an assembly line. Ahhh...I'm an individual again!!

The appointment itself was really nice. He and I got to know each other (more him getting to know me than vice versa) before he did any adjusting. Once he was ready to work on me he took his time just running his hands up and down my back. His touch felt very sure and knowledgeable. It trusted him immediately. I easily was able to take a deep breath, let him manipulate my position, and "CRACK!" Amazing relief!! I had no idea how tight my entire body I has really become. I'm sure this whole IVF journey might have a lot to do with it.

It may sound a little barbaric to have a man wrap his arms around you and use force to get a tension releasing crack from your spine, but I promise it didn't hurt at all. It was pure heaven! I feel so much looser already after one appointment.

He also gave me some exercises I can do at home to help strengthen my hips. He explained that building those muscles will help take some of the strain out of my lower back along with regular adjustments.

I'm going back twice this week then the doc thinks I should be able to get by with once a week or just a few times a month. I am so glad I have chosen to do this throughout my pregnancy. I can tell already is it going to be very helpful!

My chiropractor also suggested I start some prenatal Yoga classes. I told him I have already been considering it, so his advice gave me the push I needed. I'm definitely going to get started! I have done Yoga in the past, and loved it...not sure why I ever stopped going.

After all this crazy conception intervention I realized that I've forgotten to take care of the rest of my body. I have been taking all kinds of vitamins and getting exercise, but I've only focused on the health of my uterus, my eggs, and now my baby. I had forgotten what massage, yoga and chiropractic adjustments can do for the mind, body and spirit! I have felt lost in all the infertility and the impersonal doctor's office visits that I have been feeling a bit worn out lately. After today's appointment I feel more vibrant and whole! What a relief!! :)