I just realized that my four year blogoversary was this past weekend.  How the heck has it really been four years?  Not only four years, but this is my 391st post!

Happy Blogoversary to me!  Please share this lovely cake wreck with me:

Ever since we saw a friend give birth to a “delivery surprise,” D’s always wanted to not know before birth if our baby was a boy or a girl.  I’ve always been ambivalent – I don’t mind finding out sooner, I don’t mind finding out later.  But now that we’re here and we’re getting close to the next ultrasound where they not only look to make sure everything is developing as it should internally, the can also take a look at a certain area and say either one word or another word.  It’s so tempting… and funny, I don’t have a preference one way or the other, and it wouldn’t change what I’m buying for the nursery or clothes, but I’m just C-U-R-I-O-U-S.  I will not give in.  I will not make D feel guilty for wanting to wait.  I am super excited about finding out at the birth.  I will make sure to tell the tech as soon as we walk into her room that we don’t want to know and we don’t want to be tempted.

I’m also seeing value in finding out because it would help us narrow down on our name list… which is a tumultuous task for me.  Why don’t babies come already named like cabbage patch kids? I’m joking, of course, but goodness it’s a daunting task!  We will figure out this baby’s name somehow, some way.  Maybe you could help!  Can you give me some name suggestions, pretty please? I like traditional names (or as I jokingly say I like “old people” names — if we had boy/girl twins I’d want to name them Henry and Hazel), and it can’t sound like a last name (we were thinking about Bennett, nickname Ben, for a while) because paired with our last name the kid would sound like he/she was named after a law firm.

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I posted my 15 week belly shot under The Bubs tab up top, as well as my last ultrasound at 11 weeks (finally!).

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Yesterday afternoon, I walked to the convenience store near my office to get some milk (I needed some RIGHT! THEN!) and passed a glass door.  I caught sight of my reflection and thought I’m looking more and more pregnant, and I’m so stinkin’ cute. It’s probably the most conceited thing I’ve ever said , but I am so incredibly happy to finally be able to see my belly rounding out and find out that it looks just as good on me as it does those women that I averted my eyes away from in public when I was feeling raw.  Which means I might be close to the point where women might start looking away from me, which breaks my heart…

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I hope this brings a smile to your face, it brought one to mine this morning:

“Open.Your.Heart” by Mia.Doi.Todd, directed by Michel.Gondry

My friend/doula client’s husband called a few minutes before 6am this morning, I was at the hospital at 6:50am, and baby girl made her appearance at a few minutes past 8am.  After making sure they were settled in and breastfeeding was going smoothly, I headed home and took a two-hour nap before picking D up from after work. Wowza.  What a day!!

I told my friend that Bubs better be paying attention so that our birth can go as quickly as hers did this morning.  It was such an incredible experience to be a part of and I’m very excited to be six months away from that myself!

UPDATED: SWO asked how I got into being a birth doula.  A few family friends had doulas during their labor/birth and so it wasn’t a foreign concept.  In August 2005, I  attended the birth of close friends’ daughter.  It was totally awesome.  As our attempts to become pregnant became more and more medical, I became fascinated with the idea of doulas helping a typically medical situation be less medical.  I live in a relatively small town and we never get anything cool, but one day I noticed that there was a training course for birth doulas coming to town the following month.  I attended my first training courses in April 2007 and have attended four births and several other training courses since then.  I’ve probably invested about 100 hours into this certification, and I believe that this week’s birth will be the last step in my certification checklist (I need to double check their policy on the number of c-sections that can count towards certification because it says only one can count — each of the last two births were significant learning experiences for me (one 20-hour labor and one 36-hour labor) and they should count even if they did end up as a c-sections!  Anyway, I’ve struggled off and on with being an infertile birth doula, but I’ve overcome that by being a birth doula for friends so that I am invested in the labor and birth not only in the role of birth doula, but also as a friend who will get to watch each of these babies grow into adorable little people.  In some ways it was hard after my each of my clients/friends’ births to watch another family grow while we were being repeatedly denied that possibility, but I always tried to think positively that I was meeting a future best friend of my child’s… This time, it was really nice knowing that this baby will be about 6 months old when Bubs arrives (only thinking positively!).

We’ve found ourselves with the first big decision of this pregnancy… I’m all about having this baby at our local birth center. I’m a birth doula, so it’s probably no surprise that I really like the idea of a homebirth, but D’s put the kibosh on that. He said it’d be too messy, and that he’d feel safer at the midwives’.

The birth center has a transfer rate of about 15%, meaning that there’s an 85% chance that we wouldn’t need to go to the hospital. I mentioned before that I wanted to make sure that if we did get transferred, we’d have Dr. OB. At our last appointment, we asked Dr. OB if we transferred, could we have her as our doctor and she flatly said No, that our care would be transferred directly to the hospital’s attending OB. Boo-hiss.

Our options boil down to: (A) Stick with the birth center and if we get transferred we take who we get; and (B) Switch to the hospital to be with Dr. OB, sticking to my no-drugs plan, but having Dr. OB if we need her.  I want to have a natural birth because every time I have a procedure, drugs really affect me… the last thing I want is to be the walking dead when meeting Bubs.  Dr. OB is fully supportive of my no-drugs plan, it’s the nurses I’m more concerned with.  Thankfully we don’t have to make this decision any time soon.

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Have I mentioned how excited I am about this whole thing?  It still feels too good to be true, but I am SO THANKFUL that it actually is true!!!  I’m such a nerd… I figured out yesterday that I’m officially one-third of the way to “overdue”!

For his birthday, D asked for baby stuff.  Plus, last weekend my dad and his wife threw us a “maternity shower” since we probably won’t be visiting them for the next several months (I keep trying to tell them that the road between us goes both ways). We got so much stuff!  We got outfits, bibs, blankets, a cute bouncer, and a big diaper bag.  Plus we got some gift certificates to use for stuff we need to get the house/our lives ready for Bubs.  I’m so excited!

A friend of ours lent me some of her maternity clothes a few weeks back and I was loving the new comfy wardrobe.  I got an text from her late last week that said something like Um, so yeah, uh, I’m going to need those maternity clothes back sooner than I expected. I couldn’t believe it!  I’m really excited for her, although she’s having a heart attack right now, but man, I was finally a stylish dresser, and now I have to give it all back!  I’ve cleaned and packed up her things and on Saturday went shopping at a second hand shop and got tons of clothes for $60!  Phew!  UPDATED: So, turns out she isn’t pregnant… not sure what’s going on, but she got a positive HPT and negative beta… she’s relieved and we went out shopping this past Saturday and she gave me all the clothes back!

The shopping spree continued with D’s birthday baby gift certificates and bought a few storage bins for the changing table I got as a hand-me-down from my boss a few years back.  I came home and pulled everything from the closet.  Spread out on the guest bed, I looked at the tiny clothes and couldn’t help but smile… the baby that will wear these things is in the room with me right now… incredible!

I cannot say this enough: I’m so happy to be pregnant, and even after three months of knowing I cannot believe that it’s finally happened.  Everyone keeps telling me that the second trimester gets easier, but I feel like I’m more tired and moody than ever… we shall see!

Today’s D’s birthday!  Unfortunately, we couldn’t take the day off, but we celebrated with dinner (Vietnamese), a walk around the lake, and a movie (Youth in Revolt, which was cute but very quirky).  I bought and wrapped a big stack of presents for him and threw one at him every once in a while.  He asked if he could announce the pregnancy on FB today, and I nervously agreed… it’s just that I’m still getting used to this whole thing and it’s scary to announce it to all of our friends, all at once.  He’s gotten over 50 responses so far, which makes me excited and happy, but still a little queasy.  I’m excited, but it scares me that so many people know now.  Then again, if I couldn’t hide my growing belly under sweaters and a puffy coat (14° in Florida?!?), it would be pretty obvious.

We’re also celebrating hitting 12 weeks (according to babycenter: “With the most critical development behind the fetus, the chance of miscarriage drops considerably after this week.” YIPPPPPPPEEEEEE!) and starting the second trimester!  Speaking of second trimesters, why are there three calendars for trimesters – development, gestation, and conception?  I’m going with the development calendar, because I’m impatient and it’s got the earliest start date for the second trimester.

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I’ve had a little bit of spotting during the last week, specifically only when I go to the bathroom.  They suggested taking a softener so that I don’t strain, which could be irritating the cervix, but it hasn’t mattered because I still spot when Igo.  We went in for an ultrasound to make sure everything was fine, and it was.  Bubs is WAY bigger and was SO active.  He/she looked just like this, with a big ol’ head (just like D!).  I’ll post the u/s picture when I have it scanned.  Bubs kept kicking out his/her legs and moving all over the place.  The first time Bubs did a little jig, shifting from a lying down position to standing on his/head, I looked down at D and his jaw was wide open in amazement.  We were so stunned at how much Bubs had changed in the month since our last ultrasound.  He/she was moving so much I wondered how Icouldn’t feel it (I can’t wait until I can!).  Everything looked just as it should, and they couldn’t find a cause for the bleeding which, I guess, is better than finding a cause. I’ve had spotting a couple more times when I’ve gone, but it goes away shortly afterward and I’ve had no cramps at all.  We’ll go in again at 14 weeks to make sure everything is still looking good, then hopefully I’ll be able to move over to the midwives’ care.

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My friend Liz asked me yesterday if I’d been having any weird dreams.  I’ve really been sleeping heavily so I’ve been dreaming less than normal, and most of the ones I can remember have had the normal level of strangeness.

I’ve really only had one strange pregnancy-related dream that I can recall: In the dream, I was at one of the last doctor’s appointments before birth and the doctor (someone I didn’t recognize) took the baby out of me, placenta and all, inspected HER, told me she was healthy and would be ready in a few weeks, then put her back inside.  It was so neat to see the baby still inside the placenta but outside of my body, but then at the same time I have to wonder what’s up with my imagination!?!

I fell asleep on the couch last night at around 8:30pm (prenatal yoga makes me sleeeeeepy), and had a dream all about ham.  How to cure it, how to slice it, how to season it.  I even think I had an argument with someone in the dream about the best way to cut cured ham.  I’ve never had cured ham!  I blame D — he’s been watching lots of the show No Reservations, and the host LOVES pork.  There was an episode we watched recently where he went to Sardinia and it was full of cured  meats.  Even though I’m vegetarian, I appreciate meat.  I miss fried chicken any time I smell it cooking, and turkey, especially at Thanksgiving.  But still, dreaming about it is a totally different story.  Maybe my body’s craving ham and I just don’t realize it?  Maybe it’s the saltiness of ham — I feel like I have been liking salt more than normal.

D totally made me cry today when he posted this on my FB page:

The warmth of your love’s like the warmth from the sun
And this will be our year, took a long time to come.
Don’t let go of my hand, now the darkness has gone.
This will be our year, took a long time to come.

And I won’t forget the way you helped me up when I was down.
And I won’t forget the way you said “Darling I love you…”.
You gave me faith to go on, now we’re there and we’ve only just begun.
This will be our year, took a long time to come.

P.S. Can I just tell you how annoyed I am at this lilypie mini ticker in the sidebar?  I’ve refreshed it several times and it always finds itself a day behind.  I know that it’s only a day, BUT STILL.  I have waited so long to be able to have a ticker, and now that I have one, it’s off.  Jerkface ticker.  Here’s a big one that’s right:

I’m finding myself at a crossroads – do I continue blogging with regular updates, or do I only post when really big things happen?  Maybe a little bit of both until it settles into one or the other, I guess.  I just don’t want to hurt the ladies reading who are still waiting for a bubs of their own…

You might be wondering where I have been and how I have been doing.  More likely, you have been away from the internet just like I have, and, just like me, are barely making it through the end of the first day “back to reality” after a week full of holidays, food, and overall laziness.  The break was welcome and appreciated.  We had very nice Christmases with our families, and although I wish the branches of the Family Tree lived closer, it’s nice celebrating four times instead of just once!  We spent a few nights around New Year’s Eve at the beach with a large group friends who can not only make us laugh but are all great cooks.  And I found out something crazy — more on this below.

Everything’s going really well.  Like as-well-as-we-could-have-hoped well.  I’ll be 11 weeks pregnant tomorrow.  I’m still in awe.   I’m feeling at about 95%  (lots of napping required during the last week or so) and still haven’t had to really wrestle with anything besides constant hunger.  And I’ve got a little belly!  A little belly I worried I’d never have.  And yet, it’s here, and it’s rounding out beautifully!  I started measuring myself at 5 weeks, and my bloating had lessened and the belly started getting bigger by 9 weeks.  Can I just tell you that I truly thought this would never happened… if you feel the same, please know that you are allowed to doubt the future, but if you really want it to happen, you must persevere.

We have our next appointment with Dr. OB at the end of January and will hopefully get to see Bubs again.  I’ll be 14 weeks by then, so he/she will probably look more like a baby and less like a teddy graham (you’re so right, Betsy!).  We’re hoping to get “low-risk” clearance so we can transfer to our local birth center.  I really like Dr. OB a lot, and she’s been so incredibly helpful and supportive, but I’d like to give birth outside of a hospital setting, and want her to know if we do transfer to the hospital during labor that we’d like her to be the one to catch Bubs.  We definitely want to emphasize to her that if we end up at the hospital, we REALLY want her to be there for the birth.  My aunt, who is also a patient of hers and just so happens to be the chair of the hospital board this year, says she will do everything in her power to have her there for me if we transfer.

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Okay, so the crazy story about New Year’s.  We’re walking with a large group of friends on the beach the first or second day of vacation, and our close friend E asks if she’s allowed to share our news with everyone else there.  One thing leads to another, and another friend, one of E’s closest friends, is asking questions about how long we’d been trying, what we tried, and what finally worked.  She starts talking about how they’re getting ready to start down that road, and I assumed she meant they were just starting to try.  She goes on to tell me they were getting ready to go to the urologist so her husband’s biopsy.  My head started spinning and I asked her what caused their doctors to want to pursue that, and she says that her husband was recently diagnosed with azoospermia.  I could hardly believe my ears!  I kept telling her how shocked I was.  With the rate of occurrence at less than 1% in all males, and only 10-15% in infertile males, I never thought I’d ever know anyone else with that diagnosis that I didn’t “meet” through an azoo blog.  I couldn’t believe it!   I told her that we had been diagnosed in 2005 and that although it’s been a long road, and even though he/she isn’t bigger than a golf ball yet, Bubs is totally worth it all.  I told her to not only keep me posted on how things go, but to feel free to ask any questions, any time.

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On a different note, it’s International Blog Delurking Week!  Please leave a comment letting me know you stopped by.  It doesn’t have to be much, just a hello, or you can tell us a little bit about yourself and lead me to your blog, or you can tell me what flavor of ice cream you’d be (I’d be neopolitan ice cream, and the strawberry portion would have large chunks of real strawberries in it).  I’m stealing this ice cream idea from the Stirrup Queen, because although I’ve not really been into ice cream recently, I typically love the stuff.

I’ve decided on a nickname for this little one on the blog… Bubs.  Not only is it cute, it’s also the nickname of my favorite character on The Wire.  I’ve also decided to create a photo page for this pregnancy at the top of the blog.  I’ll update it as I get the pictures off my camera from here on out.

We had a third ultrasound (my last for a while) Thursday, and Bubs is waaaaaay bigger than he/she was last Friday.  As soon as Dr. OB zoomed in on the sac, I said Is THAT the baby? because it was huge.  Well, huger than before.  Bubs measured at 1.7cm (about 3/4″) and the heartrate was 144bpm.  Based on the old wives tale, this would mean this baby is a girl.  Bubs had doubled in size in six days, and instead of just being a tiny oblong shape, we could make out the head (circle on right), belly (circle on left), and little arm buds (dots above and below left circle).

Speaking of gender, I don’t think we’ll be finding out if Bubs is a boy or girl until the birth.  Some people have scoffed when we’ve told them that, but most have been supportive.  When we were there for a friend’s daughter’s birth, the birth was incredible and the few seconds’ wait to hear It’s a Girl! was so exciting.  D really doesn’t want to find out, and I’m perfectly fine finding out at either 20-ish weeks or at the birth.

The thing I’m most anxious about (besides everything continuing to go well) is Bubs’ name.  I wish babies came with names.  We’ve been throwing around several names the last few weeks and I think we’ve narrowed it down to a few.  I’m sure this conversation will continue for quite awhile, and possibly even until after the birth.  I wasn’t named until I was three or four days old.  My parents couldn’t agree on a name (I was called Megan by my mother and Angelina by my father until they settled on L), and it was mostly set off because the ultrasound technician told them I was to be a boy so they had only discussed boy’s names before then (I was to be named Clark).

I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend.  Ours has been tiring (lots of Christmas shopping) and warranted a nice nap for me this afternoon while D went to see The Road.

Merry everything!  I hope that all your dreams come true in the coming year!

Today, I am 8 weeks pregnant.  I’m still in shock, and still adjusting to all of this.  I’m thankful for every single moment I’ve had so far.  I have to remind myself pretty often that I really am pregnant, not just wishing that I was.

I’ve been wondering if the kittens know that something’s up because they’ve been super lovey on me recently.

We had another ultrasound this past friday with the RE. It was our last official appointment with him — I’m an RE graduate! He couldn’t stop saying congratulations… actually, it was pretty funny because he’d interrupt his own thoughts to say so! We were able to take a video of the heartbeat and after we got out of the appointment we called our families and played the video for them over the phone. The heartrate was somewhere between 140-150bpm, and the baby measured at around 8mm.

I’m getting used to being hungry all the time. I eat SEVERAL (maybe seven?) times a day – sometimes a handful of raisins or some cheese and crackers, and sometimes a more normal sized meal like a bowl of tofu, rice, and veggies. I’ve had a couple bouts of nausea, but no actual tharsheblows! My belly is still the same size, maybe a little bigger… gotta love the IVF belly turned baby belly… I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep it quiet at work.

The other day, D told me I was glowing.  I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

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I’ve been really excited to share this.  My brother-in-law, G, loves MegaMan.  I had this great idea to quilt him a MegaMan wall hanging, and although I wanted to quit more than a few times during the project, I am so happy with the way it turned out!

I feel like I’ve been spending every waking moment knitting and crocheting, and can’t wait until I can share those photos with you, too.

D’s been doing some crafting of his own, only his media is chocolate and toasted coconut.  Too bad I don’t like coconut… ;P