weeks 8-12 + graduation from our RE's care

yeah, so i'm a little behind here... i've been struggling to figure out if i wanted to keep blogging about my pregnancy here or not, and seeing how the title of this blog is "something glorious," and our little miracle really is just that, i'll continue blogging here.

so i've lagged on posting over the last month of my first trimester, but i think that's due to the fact that i had really been pretty wiped out.  but all for a good cause: helping baby B grow each week is well worth the drain on my brainpower and energy!

here's baby B at 8 weeks looking kinda like a little mouse

and here we are at 9 weeks... looking a little blob-ish, which i think

is because the baby was moving possibly?

and this is our 10 week: isn't it nuts how much the baby is really looking 

like a little baby here?  this is just 8 short weeks after conception...

so crazy right??

alas, this was our last ultrasound with Dr. Mo at 11weeks,

which at this appointment she asked if we wanted her to check the gender,

to which i almost caved and J had to say no we wanted to wait to find out... 

then we realized later we should've had her check and just put her 

guess in an envelope for us to open later... oh well!

here's baby B at our 12 week with my OB, and this baby is such a sleeper, 

was totally content to just hang out as pictured, till the ultrasound tech had me roll on my side for about 10 minutes, to attempt to make the baby roll around a bit.  which the baby did, then

put on a little yoga-like show of stretching it's arms and legs, and proceeded to 

fall back into it's sleep mode again!  if this is any indication of the baby after he or she is born,

i will be one happy person if the baby loves to sleep from the word go!

the tech did say she was pretty certain that she could tell the gender of the baby, and so we had her put her guess in an envelope for us.  still trying to come up with a gender reveal idea so J has those envelopes with him at work till we decide what to do...

as for graduating from our RE, it was so bittersweet, which was to be expected... i had totally grown accustomed to seeing the staff and Dr. Mo each week.  they told me i need to come back once i have more of a bump, especially since my OB is just next door... and they said they for sure want to see me once the baby is here.  in a strange way i feel like this little one is partly their baby too seeing how they helped us to conceive and were there every step of the way to ensure we made it through the first trimester safely and healthy.  and i pray that when we decide to try for number 2 that we can get pregnant on our own, but in a funny way i would have no problem going right back to work with them again in a heartbeat because they really were that great and so worth the investment!

7 weeks and all is well

i'm a little late to this update seeing as we're about to hit 8 weeks, but this week has proven to be a little bit of a challenge despite the huge milestone we hit... we were able to hear baby B's heartbeat this week, something a lot of couples have to wait at least a few more weeks to hear normally.  so that was a huge blessing to know our little one has made it to that point!  but with this great development also came more hormones... and from those hormones came some awesome {totally sarcastic} symptoms.

let's see.... last weekend kicked off with a major migraine which was so bad it made me so sick to my stomach {which is the first nausea i've experienced thus far}.  it got to the point that i sent J out for a Coke slurpee + tylenol  a} because i'm craving those slurpees like nobody's business and b} because i truly needed the headache to go away it hurt that bad!

so while he was out doing that i sat on the bed contemplating should i or shouldn't i throw up to try to make my head feel better... i hate, like absolutely hate throwing up... but sitting there on my bed i realized i better move to the bathroom, and sure enough i threw up and it was as if my migraine disappeared instantly!  hey if those are the results, maybe i don't hate throwing up as much as i used to... nah, i still do.

then the morning we had our dr's appointment i lost my saltines right after brushing my teeth... but luckily the next day i was able to lay low at home so the nausea wasn't terrible that day... it seemed to be here one day and then semi gone the next.  which i totally can't complain about, and i really can't complain that the nausea showed up rather late compared with some moms i know who've been sick since the word go.  

the doc did also give me a B6 supplement to try, she said that for some people 25mg a few times a day can really help with the sickness... and by saturday morning i woke up feeling A.O.K. with no nausea!  despite my best efforts to eat healthy i have also embraced bagels again this week, i really had forgotten how much i love bagels, but i know they are only a temporary staple until the nausea lifts hopefully in a few weeks.  even though the nausea seems to have subsided a little i'm still experiencing crazy food aversions, never in my life have i ever turned down sweets, and right now they simply don't sound good! there's a whole list of things that aren't sounding good and some change each day but man those Coke slurpees are my big fave right now =)  i really should probably ease off considering they have caffeine but they just taste so darn good!

and this pretty much sums up my fatigue levels this past week 

anytime i can crash for a nap i can and do... i feel like this was a big week hormonally for me and so many symptoms were in the works due to my hormones peaking or something, who knows maybe they'll get even stronger from here.  but i am totally thankful for those hormones because they help me to know baby B is growing and developing!

6 weeks + a heartbeat

God continues to blow me away.  about half way through last week i started to get a little antsy sorta stressing and wondering if we would even be able to see a heart beat come yesterday's appointment... 

as if God hasn't already taught me many times in recent past that he's got this baby and everything {really} under his control. 

so i began over thinking and googling the likelihood of seeing a heartbeat at a 6 week appointment.... i was also concerned that even though we saw the gestational sac last week that there wouldn't be a baby visible this week.  a friend of mine with an "old fashioned pregnancy" went for her first ultrasound at 8wks and they didn't see a baby, then went in for a 10wk with her doc thinking they were just off on the conception date.  but they still didn't find a baby in the empty gestational sac and that certainly was not the news they hoped to hear.  so that of course got me a little concerned 

about both of these things for this week.

so yesterday as soon as Dr. Mo started the ultrasound she said "there's a flicker!" and sure enough there was a tiny little heartbeat to which I said "no way!!" that she found it that quickly, easily, and it was crazy yet again to be shown God's goodness, despite my silly ability to doubt his faithfulness.

i guess i'm just still a little in shock that we're pregnant, and that this little one is progressing wonderfully so far!  and apparently i'm still supposed to be learning how to relinquish control of this child to the one who's given this amazing gift i expected was still a ways off in the future.

so here's our little miracle that according to my app is the size of a pea right now... oh and they gave us a tentative due date of October 15th, 2 days before my mom's bday!

it's kinda funny because i remember reading blogs of other IF ladies thinking man when i'm pregnant i will not obsess over everything and will just enjoy that i'm pregnant... haha easier said than done!  and it makes sense since a friend said that her OB recently told her it's a maternal instinct to have concern for your baby while still in utero and that you always will as a mom, even more so once they're born.

so last night i went to bed feeling so blown away by the little miracle growing inside me, and that God is so faithful by continuing to proving to me He's in control with his promises for 

"a hope and a future" as a mom.

this just tugs at my heart strings!

i stumbled upon this awesome little video, which has totally inspired me for when our kiddo{s} are growing up... i've seen it before, but it was before we were actively trying to start a family... i'm pretty sure i cried then too.  but man... go grab some tissue before you press play...

... don't say i didn't warn you =)

but man, seeing it now, i have to thank God... thank you for creating such amazing technology so that we can do things like blog and email our future children, long before they are old enough to understand or appreciate it.

5 weeks...

how very true this is...

and after this weekend at the Choose Joy Event this fact was confirmed incredibly for me.

but more on the event in another post.

so after our positive and growing beta HCG tests last week, J and i went in for my "5 week" appointment with Dr. Mo yesterday for a progesterone check and our first ultrasound... 

yes, i said first ultrasound!  

this seems a little too good to be true and being the control freak + planner that i am i wasn't content knowing we had positive betas, no i had to start googling what we should expect to see at 5weeks.  and it didn't look much more than a little black dot in the uterus.  i will admit that i'm not naturally a worrier, but this had me freaking out that we might not see the dot in my uterus, rather it might be in my tube, meaning it would be an ectopic pregnancy.... oh how easily Satan would love to swoop in and shake my faith, and my trust that God's got this pregnancy in His hands and under His control, not mine... i swear Satan can just swoop so easy and pull the rug out from under me so i lose focus on leaning on God.  

and you know, my worrying is so pointless, because God is so good... 

because here is our little black dot, and the emphasis is on LITLLE... 

but that little black dot is miraculously right where it's supposed to be, in my uterus.

just for the record, it's crazy to actually see something in there finally, after over a year of empty uterus ultrasounds, i'm so thankful and relieved to see a something that i pray will soon start looking like a baby!  but the little black dot is actually the gestational sac, it's so tiny it's probably about 3-5mm in size right now.  and can you believe that there is a tiny embryo in the black dot and it's heart is ALREADY beating! it's just so small that the ultrasound can't quite pick it up yet.

 and i found this awesome site that shows ultrasounds for each week of pregnancy, along with all the crazy and miraculous developments that happen each week.... 

and this is what baby B is up to this week!  

if you've been praying for us, please keep praying that God will keep growing our little miracle baby, and that we will be able to see it's heartbeat at our 6 week ultrasound! 

so surreal...

4 weeks HCG beta tests #2 + #3

so i went in wednesday for my second HCG beta test which turned out great, my number was 355! which they said was great and had doubled from our 150 on monday.

then i went in again today for our third beta test and the phone call from my favorite nurse in the office came and she said my betas look beautiful and were up to 866 today... that means come monday i'll be well over 1600... so we got the green light for our first ultrasound on monday!! i'm still trying not to get my hopes up, but i am growing more accustomed to the idea that we are pregnant! i'm just praying that on monday at our 5week ultrasound we'll be able to see the gestational sac and yolk sack, and maybe if we're really lucky... the fetal pole too, but the baby may be too small still since the u/s is scheduled for 5 weeks on the dot.

they sent us home with all the do's and dont's brochure this week

on another note, tomorrow my mom and i are headed to the Choose Joy Event... i wrote about that event here.  i hadn't imagined that at the time when i first wrote about the conference that i might actually be attending it pregnant.   funny how God's plan goes =)

15 dpiui: HCG beta test results today

yeah things really have been pretty quiet this past week, so when i found the above encouragement it made so much sense!  i've been a little quiet myself this past week since my last update, but truth be told i've been trying to find anything i can to distract myself from thinking about the outcome of this iui cycle... while it included making darling baby headbands for some client/friends, and even though making those are fun, they weren't the best method of trying to keep my mind off of the elephant in the room! but, today was the day... i had my HCG beta test, so by the end of today we found out the results  of how our first iui went.  not going to lie, it's pretty nerve-racking sitting around waiting all week to go test, and then more waiting for the call to come back from the bloodwork.  so i'll show you the constructive things i "did" to fill my time this past week...

it included getting my progesterone checked on tuesday 1/29... which i was totally convinced was going to be low and i was going to need suppositories to help.  anything over a 10 confirms that you indeed ovulated {which was the other reason for the progesterone check},  but given my history of low Prog. levels i thought for sure they would be low... but God blew me away with a  level of 18.1!

and talk about a war wound from that blood work!  the newest nurse on staff drew my blood from the inmost vessel in my arm, and i don't know if she missed or what happened but i had this nice bruise just a few hours later, and it's still there a week later.  needless to say today i asked for the stealthy-barely-feel-a-thing nurse and now have no bruises on my left arm from today! yay =)

then, after reading about another blogger doing this after her HCG injection, i thought this would be a totally brillant idea to pass the time....

i stocked up on a bunch of dollar tree tests to "test the HCG out of my system," J just shook his head when i explained what/why i was doing this!  so the logic behind it is this: since the hormone you're injected with is the same hormone for pregnancy, i figured i'd test till the "false positive" went away... so if you look closely at days 6+5 there's a faint line {yeah i know they're out of order}, then days 7+8 there's no second line... i figured once the false positive from the HCG trigger shot was gone, then i could wait a few days then start testing for the real HCG to see if this round worked.

so last friday morning, unbeknownst to J i took this test and saw this faint, faint second line... to which i showed J and asked for his second opinion {while making his breakfast i might add, hey don't judge the kitchen has the best light}!  and he said why aren't you just waiting till monday??

which in a way i agreed with him because i didn't want to get my hopes up that this was the real deal on our first IUI cycle... but because i just couldn't help myself i wanted to check on a digital because let's be honest they either give you a "pregnant" or "not pregnant" option, no fickle and barely there line to scrutinize over like the cheap-o tests.

so last friday evening while i was waiting for J to get home i picked up some digitals, and i had every intension of waiting till the next morning to test again... i just couldn't help myself, as soon as J got home i buckled and took one and it didn't really even think very long,
and it popped up with this word...

it was at that moment that i knew this was really happening, but the true test would come today to see how high my HCG beta levels were.  and before i share that, i just want to share that again after taking this test J asked why i wasted the money on these hpt's because we were going to have to pay money to get blood work done anyway today... i explained to him that i've never in more than a year and a half have had the satisfaction of seeing a positive pregnancy test, to which he kinda understood my logic... or maybe he was just humoring me a little.

soooo... that brings me to today's appointment i told the nurse that i had gotten a few positive hpt's at home over the weekend {yes i took the second one to make sure i hadn't been dreaming}.  and she congratulated me and said that i will need to go back again wednesday + friday to make sure my betas are doubling each time... then if things go the way they should we will have our first ultrasound to finally/hopefully see something other than just the empty uterus we've grown accustomed to seeing for the past year + a half!

so i guess that means we're pregnant {and not quite celebrating yet} i think it will feel a little more real once we get to see a growing tiny baby and hopefully a tiny heartbeat to go along with it!

we certainly aren't out of the woods yet {i know a lot can happen over the coming weeks}, so if you are reading this please include my body + uterus in your prayers, that they cooperate and keep sustaining a healthy environment for this new little life.

i am just blow away and still processing this news {cautiously of course}but i think we're now one step closer to God's "something glorious."