I think my belly is shrinking. That’s what I told my friend Allison, which she kindly responded while looking down at my belly (and probably thinking this girl is crazy) “no it’s not, it’s growing!” And it definitely is (as you can see from the pics)! It is weird though…sometimes I feel like it gets smaller, especially if I’m not as hungry as usual. Probably just me being worried, which I’ve learned is a common trait between pregnant women and parents. I guess the worrying just never ends! But that’s ok with me– I’m so excited to have a little love muffin to worry about!!

Still can’t believe we’re at 24 weeks!! That means there’s only 16 weeks left until we meet our little miss or mister. Speaking of which, what do you think it is? I keep going back and forth but lately have been feeling girl. When I first got pregnant I thought boy. Laryen thinks boy and then thinks girl. But we both go back and forth. It’s fun to hear everybody’s reasons as to what they think it is and why. We did do some old wives tales gender things the other day:

– heartbeat (145-150) : girl

– morning sickness/nausea (felt like crap until about 18/19 weeks): girl

– ring on a string (spun in a circle): girl

– Chinese gender chart: girl

– moody vs mellow (mellow): boy

– cravings (both sweet and salty): guess that means I’m just prego! 🙂

So….I guess the tests reveal that it’s still a 50/50 chance on what we’re having! It’s still a fun game to play! And we’re still really happy with our decision to wait and find out when the baby decides to make its debut! There are a couple tough things with it though: it’s VERY hard to find clothes. Our baby is just going to live in white onesies for its first couple of weeks of life which is fine because it’ll be pooping and spitting up left and right anyways. But you can’t really get organized in the clothing department beforehand. And also you can’t really decide on a name. We have a handful of boy names we like and a handful of girl names we like – then I guess when it’s here we’ll just narrow it down to one. But that just means indecisive people like myself keep adding more names to the list which Laryen just doesn’t understand, lol.

And…. we have kicks! I’ve been feeling flutters for the longest time but this weekend was the first time I felt actual kicks! We were just sitting there watching football after dinner and I felt a little nudge under my belly…and another…and another! Luckily Laryen got in there just in time to feel one too. His face lighting up was something I’ll never forget! I didn’t know when we’d actually feel kicks because we learned during the last ultrasound that the placenta is in the front of the uterus so that little baby needs to kick through a lot of organs for me to feel it — maybe that means it’ll be a professional soccer player or an Olympian! Or it just likes what I ate for dinner. Either way, we sure do love this milestone!

 

Halfway. Can’t believe we are halfway in our pregnancy! It is so surreal I can’t even begin to explain it!

Everything has been going good! Feeling a lot less nauseous and have way more energy that I did during the 1st trimester. Still a lot of days that I could sleep all day (I LOVEEEEE sleeping) and I feel a little nauseous every once in a while, but for the most part I feel great.

We’ve started our childbirth classes and I’ve learned way more about mucus plugs, water breaking, and babies crowning than I’ll ever want to know about! But I like to learn so I feel more prepared when the big day comes down the road — but I’m pretty sure everything will go out the window when I actually start to feel the contractions. I still think in the back of my mind the whole labor part is so far away and I don’t need to think about it…but oh yeah, we’re HALFWAY so I guess that whole baby coming out of me thing is going to happen whether I like it or not.

The best part about being 20 weeks —

we got another ultrasound and got new pics of the babe! It’s crazy to see how much more it looks like a teeny tiny human now than it did at 12 weeks (and to think how much we thought it looked like a baby back then!) Everything looked good. We need to go back in a month because baby wasn’t cooperating for some of the measurements, but hey it’s another look at our little embryo that could and I’m a-ok with that!

 

5 months. In 5 months from today this little miracle in the making is due. Wow. It’s kind of a lot to take in- to think about how wonderfully different our lives will be in 5 short months. All the waiting, praying, hoping will come down to that one day. All I can say and think is YAY!!!!!!! And hey, it’s ok with me if the babe wants to wait or come earlier than 5 months from today– you just keep baking as long as you need sweet thing! 

It’s also crazy to think that we’re almost halfway there — 20 weeks is just around the corner! Now that I’m feeling better and not as exhausted it’s going by so.fast!  I hear it only goes by faster when you watch your little one grow bigger everyday! 

Oh if anyone reading this who has been pregnant before will understand this: but the prego hormones are a real thing! I always cry when I see this Amazon commercial: 

And I cry at stupid things!! For example, Laryen was watching a show about the ocean and it was talking about how a mama octopus lays 100,000 eggs and then lays by them for 6 months, never leaves, never eats- all it does is care for its babies. Then the babies are born AND THE MAMA OCTUPUS DIES!!!! Yes, just dies. Then it showed some big starfish eating its body. How.sad.is.that?! Not really sad for a normal person but for me? Oh the saddest thing in the world! “She sacrificed herself just for her babies,” I say to Laryen through my tears. He just smiles. (I think he’s also caught me crying at heartfelt McDonalds commercials too). Oh hormones. 

If it didn’t feel real before, it does now! Not only has my belly kind of popped, we sent out announcements to our family and close friends and posted about it on Facebook! It’s so sweet to hear so many wonderful words from friends and family all over the place!

We debated back and forth whether to tell the Facebook world about everything we’ve gone through to get to this point. Laryen wanted to keep it more to close friends and family and I agreed – but part of me wants more people to know this isn’t any normal pregnancy. I’m a helper – I want others who might secretly be struggling to get pregnant like we did for years that there’s others out there. There are people just like ‘us.’ And if it’s not infertility, it’s something else. EVERYONE goes through struggles. That’s what life is all about. It’s about how you overcome and live with those struggles that tests the kind of person you truly are in the world. It’s all part of the story; and this part is the beginning chapters of our little embie. I hope he/she look back and realize just how precious life is and how much love already surrounds it’s little 17-week old heart.

That being said I think we will eventually tell everyone our story. Maybe it’ll happen next week, maybe when the babe is born, msybe on its first birthday. I want our story to help someone. Even if one person feels more at ease about what’s going on in their life then it’s worth it.

Here’s a look at our announcement:
The front side:

And the back:

That’s pretty much everything it took to get the little nugget pictured in the middle. We kept all our needles and medicine bottles from the ivf and frozen transfer. It’s been in our medicine closet because I knew I wanted to do something with it. I’m a visual person and I wanted something tangible to show everyone the love, science, prayers, hope and pain. And in smaller than a millisecond of time, I would do it all over again. No doubt about that.

Flutter, flutter, flutter away!! I’m in love with the little flutters I feel in my belly! I think it’s the baby — lol. I’ve never felt it before so it makes sense that it’s the babe, right? Even if it’s not our baby it makes me feel better to think it is. When we were at the fertility clinic we would go to the doctor every 2 weeks- this once a month crap gives me anxiety. 😉 I know everything is ok but I just worry because there’s no way to know what’s going on in there. I guess that’s where even more faith comes into play! And talking with all my mom friends- it sounds like you just don’t stop worrying ever when you’re pregnant and it just continues when you’re a parent lol.

It’s so exciting because we sent out announcements to a few close friends and family members — feeling much more real! And the bump is getting more real too (or I really loved that Mexican food I had for dinner!)

We also have started with the nursery! Light grey walls and white furniture feels like
the perfect nursery mood to me! I’ll add a few other artistic flairs to it in the next few months so stay tuned! 😄

 

 

Can’t believe this is where our baby is going to sleep! I also can’t believe how BIG a freaking crib is! I mean it’s for a baby and it takes up so much space! Is this child going to be a sumo wrestler or something?!

We know their story. Well not their EXACT story, but we know what they’re going through. 

We had our 12.5 week ultrasound and everything looks great! Baby S is growing like it’s supposed to! We even saw it practicing swallowing fluids and it had the hiccups! It was so stinkin’ cute! Heartbeat is 155 (even with the hiccup interruptions) 

In our hospital you get ultrasounds at one central place. It’s definitely kind of weird that it’s not at the actual doctors office but also makes sense to have all patients go to one place then put it in our file in the computer. Anyway, the ultrasound office is just down the hall from our fertility clinic. And there were a number of times we’d be in the waiting room at the clinic and expectant moms would go to the fertility clinic thinking it was where they needed to be. It didn’t bother us too much because we really tried to stay positive through the whole process, but there were times it just kind of stung. And who knows if it bothered other couples there. It’s all part of the infertility game of life- you see pregnant woman and sometimes it takes all you can to just turn your head the other way. 

Anyway, back to the couple. As we were leaving from our ultrasound a couple was leaving from the fertility clinic. And Laryen and I just squeezed each other’s hands a little tighter. We hope and pray they’ll get the answers they’re wishing and praying for, just like we were lucky enough to get. ❤️

Can it be? Can we really be almost done with the first trimester? What a milestone changing the number on our banner this morning! As my friend Trish always says: “God is good all the time. All the time God is good.” And that is just so true, isn’t it? 

We are excited for our 12.5 week ultrasound next week and as long as everything looks good, we can’t wait to tell the rest of our family and friends. I can’t describe how we’re feeling about that. The only word that comes to mind is Ahhhhhhhhhhh!! 😉

We are all signed up for “Childbirth 101” class at our hospital. Another thing to check off the list…which seems to get longer and longer every day! LOL Just one thing at a time.

Hi blog world! It’s my (and my parents) graduation day!!

(P.S. see my arms, legs, and even eyes?!! I’m getting so big!)

Yes, we have officially graduated from our fertility doctor…now we only see the OB! It was bittersweet but we are just so happy that our little embie likes its home enough to stay for a while and allow us to graduate!

 

And our 10.5 week ultrasound was the perfect way to end our time at the fertility clinic! Our baby was dancing and moving around-it was soooo cool!

I’m feeling ok. The nausea comes and goes and gets worse at night. And I’m still really tired but I think now that I’m not taking the progesterone pills that will get better soon too. But I’m so happy that I even have “symptoms,” it’s just so great! ☺️

“Does this mean we’re normal?” That’s what I asked Laryen this week as we went to our first ob appointment, you know where all the non-infertile people go when they realize they’re pregnant. Ya know, all those normal peeps. Lol.

It felt so weird there. They asked normal questions like “when was your last pap” and”what kind of prenatal vitamins are you taking” not “come in on day 3 of your cycle so we can check for cysts” or “when’s the last time your husband had his sperm examined?” And now that we’re at the “normal” stage it does give us a teeeeeeeny more sense of “ok, this is going how it’s supposed to. Baby embie is growing and growing like it’s supposed to.” Unfortunately I think because of everything we’ve gone through I think Laryen and I are both wondering when the next shoe is going to drop. But through hope and prayers we know 1) it’s out of our hands and 2) hopefully the shoes just wanna stay up there on a shelf for a while.

10 weeks not only means

we’re in the double digits but it’s time to say so long to my meds! At 10 weeks the placenta takes over and provides the progesterone and estrogen for the little babe, so bye bye pills! It’s so weird– I feel like I’m totally forgetting to do something because I’m so used to always taking some medicine or a shot or something on our calendar. Now all I need to take is my prenatals and that’s it! The good thing is less progesterone means less bloat so hopefully I’ll look more pregnant as opposed to bloated and pregnant next week! Even though isn’t pregnancy really all the same thing? 🙂