Prom Dates and Cabbage Patch Kids

I am becoming convinced it is easier for a dorky clarinet player from the high school marching band to land a date with varsity-football prom king than it is to get an H1N1 vaccine.

Last week at my appointment at the RE's I asked the doctor about the vaccine. She told me I definitely should get it but for political reasons her department didn't get any and won't get any.

I called my OB and after two calls, Nurse Rachel told me, they are out of dosages now but I am not high priority. First priority goes to people with chronic illnesses (and pregnant) such as diabetes, asthma, and so on. Second priority goes to pregnant moms who are near full term 36 weeks or more.

I am in the bowels of the third priority group. I was told to call back next week to see if they had a date for the new dosages arrival. I did ask if they were getting the vaccine without thimerosal and she said she hadn't heard of it but it is about the amount of mercury you'd eat in a seafood dinner.

On the news I saw some community colleges were offering the vaccine up for the public. A friend of a friend has a kid with a heart condition so they stood in line for 2 hours and got turned away. My sister-in-law said her pediatrician doesn't have any.

The reminds me of the hey day of Cabbage Patch Kids when I left the store with my sad little rain check in hand.

I Scream You Scream

Why is it that the only thing that sounds remotely appetizing is ice cream? I don't even have much preference on flavor, pretty much looking for cold goodness without the taxing chore of chewing.

Up until yesterday, I have been wishing I had some real pregnancy symptoms just to let me know the baby was growing. Even though I saw a heart beat Friday, by Sunday, I was nervous again. I felt kind of blah when I woke up yesterday but it quickly subsided.

Today is a different story. There is no throw up involved, I just feel gross. I think the adult word to use is queasy. I started my morning with saltines-in-bed, courtesy of my doting hubby. It is now 2pm and I haven't shaken this feeling.

This makes me think how hard this must be when you already have one kid and are pregnant with a second or third.

Last week me is telling this week me, "be careful what you wish for".

Heart of the Matter

Today was the day I have been building to for 1.5 years, my first real, non-emergency, ultrasound. I was a wreck. By the time my doctor came in, I was in near panic mode. In my heart of hearts, I knew the baby was fine. But the lack of symptoms and the flashbacks of the miscarriages gnawed at my confidence.

Once the ultrasound wand was in place, I immediately saw something and the doctor said, "We have a baby!" I was fighting back tears and once she said that flicker was my baby's heart beat, I just sat there with tears streaming down my face. It was such a relief and made it feel so real. It is such a bizarre notion that there are two hearts within me now.

The dating of the pregnancy was utterly confusing to me. If I went by my last period, I would be due 6/18. But I ovulated on day 16, not 14. Fertility Friend put my due date at 6/20, which happens to be Father's day. I thought I was 5 weeks 5 days. My doctor said she was surprised we say the heart rate so soon. She came back after tabulating my due date and said 6/19. So a day sooner than I expected, but said I am not going to be 6 weeks until Monday, not Sunday as I had thought. It's a day in the other direction. I was too happy to try and figure it out.

I asked what my chances are of miscarriage after seeing a heart beat and she just said, "much lower and it goes down each week". Since that does nothing for me, I looked it up on the Internet and different places report ranges of 4-10%.

So now that my baby is doing great, it is time to celebrate that I haven't had any morning sickness. Maybe this is my body's way of making up to me for the mutant fibroid and miscarriages.

She said I should definitely get the H1N1 vaccine and was happy I already had the seasonal flu shot.

H1N1 Vaccine while Pregnant

The H1N1 vaccination is the hot topic for pregnant women and nursing moms. The vaccine contains a mercury preservative and some believe mercury is linked to autism. Researchers however, assert there isn't a link between mercury and autism. They are making a vaccine without thimerosal, the additive that has mercury in it for pregnant women and children.

Here are some links from the CDC and American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which both strongly recommend vaccination.

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/pregnant_qa.htm
http://www.acog.org/departments/dept_notice.cfm?recno=20&bulletin=4983

I am planning to call my OB next week for her recommendation. However, on the ACOG link, they give doctors a script to say to their patients, so I have a feeling she is going to recommend it.

I still haven't decided what to do. I luckily got the seasonal flu shot prior to being pregnant. What have you decided? What did your doctor recommend?

Where'd you put my symptoms?

Truly, is there anything greater than over-anlayzing every twinge, hunger pain, and wave of nausea in the two week wait (TWW) between ovulation and the anticipated date of your next cycle?

Well this time around, I had almost nothing to read into whatsoever. The only "symptom", which isn't even a text book pregnancy sign, was a weird, heavy feeling in my uterus. It felt like an anchor pulling down on it. Had it not been for the fibroid surgery, I wouldn't even know what my uterus felt like, but this bizarre feeling felt similar to how my recovering uterus felt when I went for a long walk post op.

While others on the baby boards are feeling sore boobs, nausea, exhaustion, I had pretty much nothing. I started to get really discouraged. Despite my lack of symptoms I tested positive on 9dpo and eagerly waited for my symptoms to arrive.

Yes, this seems masochistic, why would I want to feel crappy? Once you have a miscarriage, you stop feeling so much sympathy for people complaining about pregnancy symptoms because the symptoms mean everything is going great, your hormones are ramping up and the baby is growing. I needed some reassurance.

By my 4th night away, I had to test, just to make sure I was still pregnant. I told myself I just need to get through 14dpo, to rule out a chemical pregnancy, and then I would feel more secure.

The test was significantly darker than the barely-a-line for 9dpo. It kept me happy for a couple days, but it didn't quell the craziness.

At first my DH was hesitant to be cute about the baby, which upset me because it made me feel like he didn't think it was going to work out. Then he became so cute (i.e. asking me to pick a letter as we walked around Florence and we would rally baby names back and forth) that I worried that I was setting us both up for major disappointment. Isn't he lucky that he gets to deal with me?

By the time I was 4.5 weeks, I had only the slightest pain in the girls. I started to get really concerned. I wasn't particularly tired and wasn't even sleeping well from the time change.
3 days before we left, the breast pain ramped up and I felt much relief.

At 8am, the day after we returned, I went for a blood test and had my results at 10:30am. I was hoping for my number to be 1408 (based on the doubling of the original 22 beta result) and it was 3598! They said I should come in for an ultrasound this week, my 5th week.

My appointment is in three days and I have to say I am utterly freaked. My breast pain has diminished significantly and I am nervous that when I go on 5weeks 5 days for the ultrasound, it will be too early to see the heartbeat and I will be a wreck until they test again next week.

So to date, my only symptoms are fleeting breast pain, finger nails grown at crazy rate, I wake up hungry in the middle of the night (could be jet lag) and a bit of dizziness when I get out of bed.

I know, I know, be careful what you wish for.

After 8 and a bit of history

After 8 positive home pregnancy tests and two betas at the doctor's office, it is starting to set in. I am pregnant! No small feat. I firmly believe it takes the precision of a rocket scientist to get pregnant.

Actually, my problem hasn't been so much getting pregnant, it is staying pregnant. I have had 2 miscarriages. We (my team consisting of my OB, fertility doctor, mom, reflexologist, and best friend) think that the reason I m/c'd was because of a giant fibroid that was living rent-free on my uterus.

It was discovered during an ultrasound in my second pregnancy. My OB ran a ton of tests (blood work, HSG, MRI, Ultrasounds) to rule out anything else before operating. Everything came back negative. She then started consulting with a fertility doctor who was actual present in the operating room.

After surgery, a full year after my first miscarriage, I met directly with the Fertility Doctor. We also confirmed that I had luteal phase defect (something I knew in my heart of hearts I had but my OB wouldn't treat with supplements). My second month trying after surgery, I started taking progesterone supplements 2dpo. The plan was to continue until a BFN or if pregnant, continue through the first trimester.

So let me back up. In April, when the mutant fibroid, as I affectionately call it, was discovered, my doctor said I wouldn't be able to try to conceive until 6 months after surgery. It was a huge blow. My husband and I decided that we would plan our last hurrah as a lone couple and go to Italy for 10 days. We wanted to do something we couldn't do with a baby, and truly, I needed something to get me through the next nine months of waiting to try again.

2 days after my surgery in July, the fertility doctor stopped by on her rounds and said I could try in 6 weeks! It was the only happy surprise this whole process brought me.

The first month I was certain I would be pregnant and spent way too much time daydreaming about telling my husband the big news on his bday. And of course, that didn't happen. On to the next month.

The day before we were to leave for Italy, my baby diversion trip, I was 9dpo. I decided I could take a Dollar Tree test since it is only a dollar. I took it and seriously thought I would go blind trying to see a line, but I kind of sort of saw something. Luckily for the Dollar Tree tests you have to pee in a cup. I decided to use the holy grail of HPTs, First Response, Early Result. Now this was quite tricky as I had already packed them in my suitcase and my husband was sleeping in the dark. I started lugging the suitcase into the bathroom, waking him up, so I could ravage through the bag to get my test. I waited the full three minutes and another line, that in just the right light, you could kind of sort of see. It was so faint, I told Greg, "I might be pregnant but I don't know".

I waited a couple hours, used another FRER and it was definitively positive, though as faint as faint could be. The best thing about the fertility doctor is you can get same day blood results. I went to the office and couple hours later, heard I was pregnant and my beta was 22 at 9dpo.

My conceptionmoon officially turned into a babymoon!