She’s here!

This post has been struggling to go live for about two weeks now … which is when my world filled up with incredible happiness and the most soul-nourishing sunshine… but I’ve been so, so sleep deprived, it’s been next to impossible to grab hold of the laptop and blog!

Baby girl was born 2/2/2015 @6.01 via planned c-section and she came yelling and shrieking to this world. Her first cry was music to my ears and I bawled like an inconsolable baby myself as they showed her to me for a brief second before they whisked her off for weight check etc. She was born a healthy 6 pounds 6 ounces although she lost a fair bit the first week which she is now steadily gaining back.

I haven’t slept more than 2.5 hours any night since she was born and I’ve never felt so happy about it! One look at her and all troubles, concerns etc melt away.

I had a hard recovery after surgery but I’ll write about the birth story in a separate post. I’ll also dedicate a post to Breast feeding which was extremely hard for me and how I made the decision to exclusively pump which is a different level of craziness in itself!

I also need to decide what to do with this blog now. Part of me wants to just start a new one where I can also wrote about other stuff such as film etc. Hopefully some of you will consider following me there as I would hate to lose the friendships I’ve made here.

Finally I want to end this post with an acknowledgement for those of my IF sisters who are still struggling. My heart is always with you and I’ll pray hard your struggles and transient and your joy everlasting.

Leaving you with a picture of my dumpling 🙂

No excuses!

I didn’t intend to be such a crappy blogger, leaving enough time between two posts for a whole half year and an entire pregnancy to go by! I swear I’ve come here like a zillion times (I have 7 incomplete posts sitting in my draft folder), trying to put into words the happenings of the past few months but I’ve just been unable to! I had all these plans of documenting my pregnancy, not just on this blog but also in a journal just so I would remember each and every moment of this most precious time. But not only did I not end up blogging, I could not write out even a page of what I felt. It was more than feeling blocked, a strange sense of just not being able to express in words the enormity of the everyday.

I’ve written half-finished posts only to stare at them and wonder why I just cannot finish them … and then just abandoned them altogether. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months and before I knew it I went from the first trimester to the third and well, now I’m just a few short days away from meeting my baby. MY baby (the significance of that word just blows me away every time I utter it!).

And not just this blog; I have been unable to share my pregnancy news with most other than our very immediate families and a few friends who we saw and of course could not hide this from. It’s not like I did not want to share my happiness; it’s just that I felt most at peace just curled up in my precious pregnancy cocoon living the life of a (mostly!) ordinary pregnant woman. I did not have a baby shower (we don’t have many friends here and frankly no one offered to throw one for me) and I did not set up a nursery, I did not buy maternity clothes till I was no longer able to button up my pants and I only started buying baby stuff late into my second trimester. You might think I was being superstitious or scared or both and partly that is true but more than that I have just wanted to experience every moment of this pregnancy by just being in it (if that makes sense!). I haven’t even re-activated my Facebook page which has now been deactivated for 3.5 years!

My pregnancy has had its share of highs and lows but largely I have adjusted to both physical and emotional changes surprisingly effortlessly. Of course there have been moments of utter panic and huge, fat slobbering tears (like the time when I was told I might have a suspected blood clot!). Moments where I felt overwhelmed by the everyday, moments when I just couldn’t sleep no matter what I tried, moments where my ever-lingering fears got the better of me.

But through it all there’s been such a keen sense of the miracle that I seem to be living. A sense of constant wonderment as I start each day with standing in front of the mirror and observing my swelling belly. A sense of absolute and total amazement as I watch my little baby girl perform her acrobatic maneuvers, jiggling my tummy around even as frothy bubbles of pure happiness escape from my inner being, causing me to giggle helplessly! All the physical discomfort, the daily injections, the terrible nausea, the crazy heartburn, the breathlessness, the dietary restrictions, the inability to sleep, the numerous NST’s… all of this neatly steps away to the side as my daughter moves inside me, reminding me how beautiful life is.

Some days I have found myself feeling terrified, wondering what I did to deserve all this. How did I get so lucky? I have to remind myself, then, of all the scars I’ve endured over the years… the piercing heartache, the soul-crushing disappointment, the seemingly endless bouts of sheer physical agony as I went through surgery after surgery, multiple procedures, countless tests, the never ending poking and prodding and, through it all, just one disappointment after another. It’s never too far away, those harrowing memories yet I feel unable to contain all this happiness sometimes. Perhaps that’s why I resisted blogging–my mind is so, so full. Full of what’s happening right now and yet cognizant of the huge space occupied by the not-so-distant past.

As has been the case over the past few months, today also the temptation of just leaving this post right here & shutting the laptop is so strong. But I am determined to hit ‘publish’ today before I change my mind. I might have been a real lousy blogger but I can’t be so lousy as to not write for 6 months and then just blog about my baby’s birth!

Which brings me to now. Today. Three days away from my planned c-section (because of a prior myomectomy) at the completion of my 39th week. I am quite literally swirling in a cesspool of emotions right now. I am beyond thrilled to finally be meeting her and to be able to hold her in my arms. I am scared, so scared and crazy nervous about everything. I am nervous, I am excited, I am full of prayers.

Life between ultrasounds

Disclaimer: this post is about pregnancy and the stuff that goes along with it. Please feel free to not read beyond this point if it bothers you. I know that when I was TTC, the last thing I wanted to read about was someone whining about their pregnancy symptoms. My intention is not to hurt any one of you, nor is it to exhibit my inner brat. It’s been a challenging few days and I’m just chronicling that here. I continue to pray for each and every one of you and nothing would give me greater happiness than to see you all become mommies!

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When there’s too much to say, bullet points it is:

1. I’ve been trying to finish this post since forever. There are many reasons why it has stayed unfinished, listed here in no particular order

(i) I get overcome by nausea/ held up by puking

(ii) I am so tired I can only imagine my fingers typing on the keyboard

(iii) I begin to write about my nausea and it makes me gag

(iv) I start feeling anxious about my pregnancy and I wonder whether I should be blogging about it at all

(v) I feel like I have so much to say and don’t know where to start

(vi) I feel like I lack the ability to articulate what I’m really feeling

(vii) See (i)

2. My nausea started in full force at 5 1/2 weeks. The night before my first ultrasound (6.5 weeks) I threw up for the first time. The next two weeks were agony. I was in constant discomfort, gagging, dry heaving or puking. I was still (amazingly enough) eating a fair bit but the nausea was non-stop. It was like a crazy force within me kept urging me to eat, eat and eat. My doc started me on diclegis, upping it to 3 a day but all it did was help me sleep through the night.

3. (THIS IS SERIOUS TMI, SO CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!!) Around the 8 week mark my doc took pity on me and prescribed Zofran. One pill in and the nausea reduced. The puking almost stopped. Well, so did everything else. The medicine completely and absolutely shut down my system… never have I experienced such severe constipation. I have been eating like a starving castaway just back from a deserted island but it just all sits there. I cried to my doc; he asked me to take an enema. Poor K didn’t know which one to get so he got the mineral oil type. Bad mistake. It did nothing except make me feel utterly grossed out. I called and cried to doc again. He asked me to repeat it. No dice. Off we went to the ER. One shot of lactulose and there was some movement. Then it was strike time again. Thanks to the lovely ladies on my FB board, I finally caved in and upped my fluids intake and started taking daily miralax. It seems to have finally started working a bit. Fingers crossed. The things I pray for nowadays!

4. In prepping to become a mommy I think for some time I, amusingly enough, reverted to being a baby myself. I could only eat mushy foods, threw up whatever didn’t agree with my tummy, moaned and wailed a lot and my bowel movements were the highlight of our daily conversations. The only thing that has changed in all this is that I am eating much more diversely and I’ve stopped wailing quite as much.

5. Our next ultrasound is this coming week. At the 8 week u/s baby was measuring 8w1d on 8w3d (which is consistent with the first u/s) and had a heartbeat of 171 bpm. CCRM was happy with the measurements. I hope baby continues to grow strongly and I worry incessantly before every ultrasound.

6. I confess I still haven’t fully absorbed the reality of being pregnant. I remain cautious and in constant ‘watching over the shoulder’ mode. I don’t know if this will change. It doesn’t, however, take away from how incredibly thankful I feel on an everyday, every moment basis.

7. In the not-so-long-time that we’ve been married, I’ve come to know, appreciate and cherish what a wonderful human being my husband is. 3 years of IF struggles only brought us closer and strengthened the love and respect we have for each other. But this pregnancy has shown me like nothing before how incredibly patient, giving and loving he really is. I haven’t been able to even enter the kitchen, let alone cook for the past 1.5 months and he has juggled bringing me meals, going to office, taking me for my appointments and much, much more with no complaints. He also tolerates my sudden flareups with amazing grace. He rubs my back gently when I have trouble digesting my food, holds my hand when I sit up in bed at night, overcome by nausea and wakes me up every single day with a smile, a hug and my currently favorite breakfast–cucumber slices with gluten free bread! I thank God every day for blessing me with the companionship of this wonderful human being. Makes the several crappy years before I met him so, so worth it!

8. I’m addicted to food. I eat and about an hour later my body has no memory of having eaten. Everything I eat tends to disappear somewhere within the confines of my newly bottomless tummy. Sometimes I wonder how much weight I’ll end up putting on at this rate. I was a skinny 95 pounder when we began so a little bit of weight won’t hurt I suppose!

9. I have boobs! Overnight they went from the ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ variety to the ‘omg look who’s got boobies’ type. No complaints here! Me likey 🙂

10. There’s some real nice stuff happening on the blogs lately. It really warms my heart. I continue praying for my blogger friends who are still struggling and I know that soon enough they will all be on the other side. That will be one heck of a wonderful feeling.

Quick update

Crazily enough, I’ve been trying to type up this post for four days now but I’m so, so sick I’ve been unable to get past the first few words. Today I’m snatching a few precious nausea-free moments just to let you all know that the first u/s went well… baby had a hb of 123.5 and all measurements looked fine. To say we were relieved is going to sound like the understatement of the year.
I’ve had a few blips with less than optimal results on some immune panels. My OB does some immune related work so I’m on lovenox and IL infusions as per his advice. Also considering contacting Alan Beers and have an MFM appointment set up for next month.
The nausea and vomiting are relentless. No complaints though. On to stressing about ultrasound 2 which happens about 10 days from now.
Thanks for all your support and sorry I’ve not been commenting on your posts as much as I’d like to.

Tomorrow…

I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I knew it wouldn’t be stress-free. I knew there would be fear. I knew there would be worry. I was ready for it all (or was I?). That’s why, when the past two weeks brought some highly unnecessary stress in the form of some troublesome immune panels and a suddenly aggressive OB constantly putting me in the unenviable position of making hard choices (esp. considering my CCRM doctor is on the other extreme of the ‘believe in immunology’ spectrum), I wasn’t too surprised. Not happy, of course. But not surprised. Almost, perversely, relieved. I felt as long as it was just that little bit hard, it would be okay.

When the nausea hit me last week, I welcomed it with open arms. I’ve been relentlessly, 24/7 sick since a whole week now. I wake up nauseous, I sleep nauseous. I eat a bit, it abates. For about 30 minutes. Then, off we go again. I feel like I’m watching my own body from outside as it panders to the whims of this invisible dictator. But I don’t complain. Not just because I feel it might indicate that ‘stuff is happening’, but also because I’m used to having it hard. I’m used to slaving my butt off for what I want. That’s usually when I get results. So every morning I dutifully wake up and try my damnedest not to let my churning tummy get the better of me as my hubby injects me with PIO/ lovenox. It’s baby food, I reason.

I met a friend the other day. Someone who knows of my struggles. She walked into my bedroom and saw my ‘stash’ of syringes, needles, patches, suppositories etc. She told me I’m so brave. I felt like she was being exaggeratedly complimentary. I felt embarrassed. I’m not brave, I told myself. I’m just a mom, doing everything she can for her baby.

And that’s my soft spot. For all the treatment, the maniacal preparation, the doc visits, the shots, the blood draws and the ‘I’ve got to be ready for anything’ attitude, fact is that I’m so deep in it already. I keep telling myself I’m not involved but who the heck am I kidding? I might not sing lullabies to my little lentil sized wonder or constantly rub my tummy in gentle wonderment but I would be lying through my teeth if I said I’m anything less than madly in love. I might gently chide my husband as he wonders if we will have a girl or a boy but secretly, I look for names when he isn’t watching.

Which brings us to tomorrow. Tomorrow-my first ultrasound. The day when things fell apart last time. I so badly want to believe that it will go well tomorrow. It takes but a few seconds of quiet contemplation about what tomorrow means for me to start squirming in intense nausea-induced agony as my heart beats fast and my mind tries hard to calm it down.

 

Cautiously excited!

After the longest 9 days of my life which were spent agonizing over every little twinge and twitch and desisting from peeing on a stick, I finally did the deed right after getting my blood drawn for my first beta. Three different tests, all telling me I am pregnant! CCRM confirmed my pregnancy shortly thereafter. Here are the numbers:

9dp5dt: 351

11dp5dt: 892

Thanks to all of you who wrote to me. Means the world to me that you cared enough to want to find out.

Tomorrow’s an unknown but today, I am pregnant and I fill my heart with this knowledge!

6dp5dt

I’m a wreck. I thought I would be all zen waiting for my beta through this 9 day wait. But I’ve been obsessing over symptoms like a crazed freak. I don’t feel much which is really bringing me down. My breasts are just not getting sore (and they always do on natural cycles!) despite the copious amounts of progesterone I’m pumping in via PIO and Endomet.rin suppositories. I’ve had some ridiculously bad and extremely painful constipation (TMI, sorry!), I’ve been feeling bloated and gassy on and off with some light cramping. I suppose you could call these symptoms only I know the meds can mostly have these side effects.

My beta is scheduled for this Sunday but since it’s super tough to find a lab that will do it on Sunday, I will probably go in for a blood draw on Monday. That leaves us with the conundrum–do we test at home or not? I haven’t even bought any HPTs yet. I had truly thought I would be able to hold out till the beta but I am rapidly going insane. I keep bursting into tears, feeling like utter crap about the fact that I do not ‘feel’ anything. I am deathly scared of testing and seeing that terrible stark whiteness. Yet, I don’t know how I can survive these 3.5 days.  I’m reminding myself again and again that God has not led me here only to abandon me. He has my back and I need to trust and have faith.

A Transfer Tale/ How I became PUPO!

I’ve been sitting on this post forever. We had our FET at CCRM this past Friday. It’s been a roller-coaster ever since. Here’s our transfer story:

We booked an early morning flight to Denver one day before transfer (cheapest fare we got!) and somehow K managed to convince himself that the flight was at 630 when it was actually at 6. There was some rushing about and some angry muttering involved but we managed to make it in time for boarding. We reached Denver nice and early, found our rental and reached our favorite hotel, The Element, all in good time. That first day we didn’t do much -had some yummy pho at Viet Pho for lunch, came back to the hotel where I alternated between reading trashy novels and dozing off intermittently while K worked remotely. Dinner was takeout from an Indian place which we paired with a Bollywood movie on the computer!

Friday morning I got a call from CCRM to confirm that we were thawing one 5AA embryo. I had a quick non-soap shower (we had instructions on not using anything heavily scented), changed my patches, shoved the endometrin in and K gave me his first (and my third) PIO shot. It wasn’t all that bad; I mean it does hurt like a %@$#@# and throbs through the day but nothing I can’t handle. While he got ready, I paced the room partly out of nervousness and partly to let the PIO absorb. It was then that I heard a telltale whoosh sound. I yelled at K through the bathroom door–no babe, not the deo!!! I heard him cursing repeatedly as he remembered he wasn’t supposed to use it. Poor guy went right back in and took a second shower all the time yelling SHIT! SHIT! SHIIIIIT!!! We were concerned he wouldn’t be let in but it wasn’t an issue in the end.

We reached CCRM around 11.30 and checked in at the front desk for our labs. They took half an hour to call us in. The lab work itself was quick and painless after which we headed upstairs to the surgery center for the transfer. I was chugging water at a rapid speed by now. Soon enough, I was called in for acupuncture. We were directed to a room outside which was a whiteboard with my name which for some reason I really liked! I changed into the hospital gown and wore my lucky super girl socks (at least I hope they will turn out to be lucky!). K took a few pics of me, hopefully my last pre-pregnancy pics!

The lady who did the acupuncture was kinda reserved and a little aloof but I suppose she did a decent job for I was asleep pretty quickly. Although the valium might have helped! A little while later the lights were switched on, and the show was ready to begin. The embryologist wheeled in the incubator and Dr Su strode in, all smiles. He shook hands with both of us and asked me if I was ready. I nodded hard and he got to work. We signed some paperwork as he readied himself. He was pretty tickled with my blue and pink super girl socks which have little pink ‘capes’ behind them. He even showed them to John, the embryologist and they both solemnly agreed they hadn’t seen cooler socks before! He took my permission to tuck the capes in though cause they would’ve come in the way of his doing his stuff!

As soon as they showed me my little embabie, already hatching, on the screen, silent tears of overwhelming joy and love started streaming down my eyes. This is my child, I thought to myself. The transfer itself was a smooth, seamless affair. We could see where baby was in the uterus; kinda floated upwards in a gliding motion. It was beautiful, moving and precious all at once. Both the nurse and John agreed it was one of the smoothest transfers they had seen.

Once they were done, Dr Su untucked my sock-capes, wished us luck and confirmed that my tears were tears of happiness! I got the post-transfer acupuncture (was awake throughout, dying to pee!), got up to unload my bursting bladder and was then wheeled to our car and back to the hotel. I stayed on bed rest for the requisite 48 hours and we flew back home Sunday night with hope in our hearts and prayers on our lips.

Lining check 2

Yesterday’s lining check was encouraging. My OB checked it at various places and it ranged between 11.5 to 13 which I am happy about. My labs also came good with e2 at 434 and p4 nice and low at 0.5, which is what they want at this stage. I was a bit freaked out with all the EWCM I’d been getting but the u/s showed many follicles on my right ovary; I think the elevated estrogen is probably causing the CM. Too bad this isn’t an IVF cycle, it’s funny how I almost felt bad about them going waste!

I’ve been asked to stick with my current calendar. A teeny bit worried that my lining might get too thick with all the estrogen I’m consuming but I’m going to trust my doctor and go with the flow.

I took my last lupron shot today. Tomorrow night I start the endometrin and the doxy. Monday onwards the endometrin gets bumped up to thrice a day and I also start the much-dreaded  PIO which shall get its own post once I get through the first one!

I go in for my last blood draw before transfer on Monday and then if all looks good, we fly out Thursday morning to Denver. Fingers, toes, everything tightly crossed!

How do I feel?

It’s coming sooner than I can say hello. In a week we leave for Denver for my first ever IVF transfer. It always amazes me that despite almost 3 years of TTC we’ve done so little when it comes to baby ‘cooking’. We did all of two IUIs and swiftly moved on to IVF. Our first cycle was a bust with no normals to transfer and we’ve spent the past year just making our embabies who sit cozy in a Colorado freezer as I type. Between my first (and only) pregnancy, the miscarriage and subsequent D&C, the swollen ovary that refused to go down for months, a gazillion different vaccines and shots that require you to abstain from sex and the IVF cycles, there’s been a TON of waiting around. So it stands to reason that my approaching FET inspires some crazy shit in my mind.

I flip-flop between feeling immensely hopeful and sure that this is it and then, immediately after, wondering why should I be so lucky now. Which is crazy, for ‘lucky’ is sure as hell not how I would describe the past three years of my life, ttc-wise. I know I have done everything possible to ensure the best outcome; controlled my diet (and my temper!), exercised, meditated and in general avoided stress and stressful situations to the best I could. I know that my body is capable of implantation at the very least and that my uterus looks good and makes a good lining. I know pregnancy and motherhood is in my fate. I also know that I damn well deserve this to work out. I wonder, though, if all this is enough.

I’ve been getting these signs (at least I am interpreting them as signs!)–a couple weeks back I found a pacifier on my patio. Granted, I have new neighbors who I suspect have a baby but then we’ve always had a family with a baby living next door to us and there have been no mysterious paci spottings ever in the past 2.5 years! I’ve been dreaming a lot about babies which, for me, is R.A.R.E. I remember a time when I would force myself to visualize cute, snuggly babies before I went to bed just so I could coax them into my dreams. None of the babies in my recent dreams were mine, however, and almost all were baby boys. A gender hint?

When we went to Cabo last week, the car that came from the resort to fetch us had a baby seat in the back. The driver was apologetic saying he did not know why there was a baby seat in the car when there were clear instructions to pick up a couple! And then today, I got this email from Shutterfly:

 

Ermmm… to the best of my knowledge I have not signed up for Shutterfly or announced that I’m having I’ve had a baby!

So well, we’ll just wait and see how it goes. For now, I’m hunkering down and trying not to look beyond the present day. Preps-wise things are going fairly well. On day 6 of the patches, my lining was at 7.7-7.8 although e2 was low at 38. After an exasperating 3 days of waiting, I was finally told to add oral estrace to my daily regimen. Next check is this coming Friday and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a healthy lining and appropriate estradiol levels.

While the terrible hot flashes have finally retreated, daily lupron and estrogen make me look like I swallowed a massive watermelon. I am seriously bloated and unable to fit into any of my jeans or pants! I’ve heard progesterone makes it worse so I’ve that to look forward to. Next up on the ‘eeks–I can’t do this’ list are the PIO shots which start on the coming Monday. Fun times.