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."