Just an outlet for me to share my day to day happenings of married life, life with our goldendoodle, Parker and my journey with infertility and IVF and now finally the joys of pregnancy!
I hope everyone had wonderful holidays! I know they aren't over yet...we still have New Year's to get through! I thought I would share some of our Christmas photos with you all, since not much else has happened!
Mommy and Parker in our Christmas jammies!
Christmas is hard
My sister got me this awesome necklace for my seahorse!
Parker got me a little jewelry dish. it says, "if I didn't have you as a mom, I'd choose you as my friend"
Some pregnancy scrapbooking stuff
I know that Christmas isn't all about gifts, but other than my little miracle waving to me which was amazing, I also got some great gifts under the tree! My sister got me a fetal Doppler and we tested it out, even though I figured it would be too early, but I managed to find a little galloping heartbeat in there and that was pretty exciting! When I get further along and the baby is bigger, I'm sure it will be much easier to work!
Now that Christmas is out of the way, we are officially in stress mode for the next month or so! On top of our little miracle making an appearance in July 2014, we decided to tack on another big event for the beginning of the year! We have 3 weeks to move from New Jersey to Charlotte, North Carolina. J got a new job and we are excited to move somewhere new and even have more space, but the actual move will be extremely stressful, as we don't really have much help and J will still be finishing up his last two weeks at his present job. Packing up an entire apartment alone, with my pregnancy exhaustion is going to be really tough! I hope my baby lets me wake up next week, because if I continue how I have been feeling the last couple of days, we are in big trouble!
Anyway, if I don't post beforehand, I am wishing everyone a Happy New Year and I hope that all of my friends out there will get their beautiful miracles in 2014!
This is my 9th week of pregnancy and the nausea is full on real! I have hardly eaten anything and drinking fluids is still slow and a little at a time, but I got to see my gummy bear today and that makes everything better!
Baby is measuring right on time at 9 weeks, had a strong heartbeat and as the ultrasound nurse was doing the measurements, she goes "Oh hey! He's moving!". We look at the screen and there is my little seahorse, wiggling his/her little arms and legs, waving at us! It was seriously the cutest thing ever! It was the most perfect Christmas gift for this mama!
So, yesterday was the beginning of my eighth of pregnancy and obviously still in the beginning stages!
This past week has been much more eventful with symptoms though...the morning (not so morning) sickness has kicked in and I basically can't eat or drink many things. My body is hungry, but nothing sounds, smells or looks remotely appetizing and drinking makes me gag. I have tried water, flavored water, Kool-Aid, juice, Sunny D, ginger ale....with little success. Popsicles are the only things I want/can eat and at least they give me fluids.
I hope that my little seahorse wants to eat next week, so I can enjoy the yummy Christmas food we are supposed to have! Plus, baby is going to starve me if (s)he doesn't let me eat things!
Anyway, according to my pregnancy bump phone app, the little seahorse should be growing about a millimeter each day and even has fingers and toes forming and can move his/her arms and legs. (S)he should also be forming taste buds this week (so maybe (s)he will like food more after that! LOL)!
I have my first "regular pregnant lady" OB appointment this week, but I am disappointed that I wont get to see my little seahorse (probably for a while) because how will I know they are still in there growing like they should be!? It seems like cruel and unusual punishment to do that to a pregnant lady.
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Other than feeling blah because of my sweet baby seahorse, I haven't been up to a whole lot lately, though I am seriously enjoying our new king bed and think this was definitely a good investment before I start expanding! J wouldn't have fit with me, Parker and baby seahorse in the old bed!
Think he likes it???
We also had the first real snow of the season this past weekend and Parker was so happy about that! He gets so excited when he see's the snow and snorts it up his nose like a drug!
Got to see baby seahorse again today! Heartbeat went up to 157 BPM, so I am super happy about that! And the baby was more than just a dot today, which was pretty exciting! His/her picture actually looks like a little seahorse right now, which I found amusing! The picture shows the baby upside down right now (silly baby), so the head is on the bottom and the little bit sticking out is a limb bud! My baby has limb buds! How cool is that!? (The dot off to the left side is the yolk sac, which the doctor says eventually goes away)
The doctor said that today will probably be my last day going to the fertility clinic (which makes me sad!), so I will be graduated to my OB like a regular pregnant lady now! I have my first OB appointment next Friday (December 20th), but I don't know if they do an ultrasound at that appointment and I am going to miss my weekly baby picture! I know being graduated is a good thing though, so I should feel comforted that the RE feels happy letting me go.
**Update** RE's office just called and said I am definitely being released from them (where's my cap and gown??) and that I can stop all my meds! This means NO MORE BUTT SHOTS!
Today is the beginning of my 7th week and even though that doesn't seem like much, it's a lot as far as baby's development and growth! This week, baby should be getting as big as a blueberry and his/her brain is becoming more developed and even beginning to have a more defined face!
A visible baby now!
As far as symptoms, nothing crazy yet, but definitely more nausea and I have moments of random and total exhaustion where I can't keep my eyes open! I am also having some "baby brain" memory issues (yes...I am blaming the seahorse for why I almost drove out of a one way entrance into a busy street yesterday!) and I think it is totally legit, because according to my pregnancy app, the blood from my brain is now being redirected towards the placenta for the baby! J doesn't believe me though and just thinks I am an airhead.
I have another ultrasound on Thursday, December 12th and I hope to see baby seahorse's heart beating even stronger! I think J is going to come to that appointment, since he was disappointed he missed the first one, especially since the doctor said the heartbeat will be easier to hear this week!
Yesterday, we went and got our Christmas tree and I started putting up the lights around our windows. I LOVE Christmas lights and I would seriously have them up all year round if it wouldn't make me look like a crazy lady! We went in a different direction this year with our tree...We normally go to one of those cut your own tree farms and pick a nice big 7ft tree, but this year we went to a more local farm that had pre-cut trees and the tree that caught our eyes was only 5.5ft! It's super cute, but feels weird not to have a bigger tree, though this one was is much easier to decorate!
Today I had my second ultrasound and was shaking at the prospect of not seeing my seahorse's heartbeat. I am 6 weeks 4 days today which is early, but I knew there was a possibility of at least seeing the little flicker.
When he put the ultrasound wand in, at first I was looking at the screen and didn't really see anything! My heart dropped thinking my baby was gone and I was going to get bad news....then he shifted the wand around a bit and there (s)he was! Baby seahorse has gotten bigger than last week (which is the goal obviously!) and then the doctor says "See that little tiny flicker??? That's the hearbeat!" It was sooooo tiny, but I saw it!
You can actually see the baby dot this week!
My baby's heart is pumping at 131 bpm and he even managed to catch it to be able to hear a few beats too! That amazing booming sound was the best thing I could ever hear! I wasn't even expecting to hear anything today, just see the flicker since it's early! Seeing the flicker alone and knowing that my baby is alive and moving, was so BEAUTIFUL and I feel so much better about everything! I know I am far from out of the woods, but I am glad that so far my seahorse is progressing as (s)he should.
**The heartbeat is difficult to hear in the video, but the bigger white dashes during the sound testing are the baby's beats! We heard it much better of course when I turned off the video camera, but the doc said it will be much easier to hear it next week! You can also kind of see my little seahorse flickering on the screen at the beginning!
So today marks the beginning of my 6th week of pregnancy
This week, my little seahorse should be the size of a pea and his/her heart should be starting to pump blood! He/she also starts to take a less "blobby" form.
I have my second ultrasound on Thursday, December 5th and I am just praying every day that the seahorse has grown since last week and that there will be a little flutter of a heartbeat!
As far as symptoms go, the biggest one I have had so far is not having an appetite at all... I take two bites of food and I feel full and turned off of it! I have had a few other tummy issues on and off, but I am not convinced those are from my seahorse and not just vacation food.
An idea of what seahorse is doing...Kinda looks like a seahorse! Lol
Dear Baby Seahorse, Mama wants to see/hear a nice strong heartbeat this week, so if you could do that for me, I would be very happy! I am excited to see you again, so make sure you aren't shy and show the doctor that you are a strong little bean! Love, Mommy!
