Perinatologist Appointment

Hello there! I realize it has been a couple weeks since I have posted. The perinatologist's office rescheduled my appointment for a few weeks later than the original date so my appointment wasn't until today. I'll be honest, I was pretty  nervous about this appointment. Mostly because I didn't know what to expect and the perinatologist is slightly eccentric. However, I was also excited to see my babies again and to finally get some information and definites on this pregnancy.

Well, I left the doctor's office feeling disappointed and now more confused than before. They did an ultrasound, which was great. The babies are looking so big and are doing so great. They were all moving around and looked so cute. Baby C (the singleton), which was originally smaller than the twins is now bigger than the twins! They were adorable and it was great to hear how well they were growing and how great their hearts looked and so on.

Then it was time to see the doc and here is what I learned: Nothing. He didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. It was nice to be able to talk some things through with him and just get some confirmations on things. For example, he thinks it's great that I want to start swimming and has no reservations about me doing so. He is not concerned about my weight gain and says the weight I put on has no direct affect on how big my babies will be. I was worried about being able to put on all the recommended weight. I am supposed to gain 50-60 lbs and so far I have gained 3. I know I am only 13 1/2 weeks and the weight will come, but I am still not convinced I'll gain 50-60 lbs, and I was worried I would have small babies as a result. He told me not to worry about it and just eat what was comfortable and healthy and the babies will do fine.

Now, here are some things he did not have answers for. I asked when to expect bed rest. He said he had no idea and that is not something I have to worry about until I get into my mid 20's weeks. He said I was free to live life as normal until then. Which is great! More time to decorate my house! But he still wasn't sure when to expect bed rest or to what extent that bed rest will be.

The big topic that I got no information on was the cerclage. I went into this appointment expecting him to talk about the cerclage and schedule it. We did talk about the cerclage, but ultimately he left it up to me and Justin on whether we wanted to do it or not. I have until next week to decide. The thing that makes this all so hard and confusing is what happened with our first pregnancy. No doctor, including the perinatologist, has been able to determine what went wrong with Emily, whether it was a cervical issue or preterm labor. Therefore, no doctor has been able to tell me whether the cerclage is really necessary or whether we should put it in "just in case". I kept asking him what he thought was best or what he would do if he were me and he still wouldn't tell me. He just kept telling me, "I can't tell you that, you just have to decide what you want to do". Ugh! I need a professional to tell me, "yes, a cerclage is a good idea, let's do it" or "We think you will be fine without one", either way, great! Just give me something to go off!

So I left with no more information than I already knew and now I have to decide for myself if I want the cerclage. To be honest, I am completely on the fence. Any time I think I should do it one way, I change my mind. I don't know if I need one. I don't know if I should add extra bills for procedures that aren't necessary. But there is also a "what if" that lingers. So why not just put it in as a "just in case"? Well, why would I put myself through  more procedures if it won't do me any good? Or add even more expenses to an already expensive pregnancy? I know money should be the last thing I think about but it still seems to be a factor in this decision... gah! help!

So hopefully in the next week or so I will have a better idea of what we want to do. I just hope when it is all said and done I will feel 100% comfortable with what we decide and I don't spend the rest of my pregnancy second guessing myself..

My lovely best friend came with me to the appointment since she is in town and Justin had to work. We stopped by the fire station and showed him the pictures and mentioned the cerclage issue. I briefly asked him what he thought and he doesn't know either. Plus the tv was on and all the other guys were sitting around and it just wasn't the time to make a decision so I will have to wait til he gets home to discuss it further.

So other life updates. We close on our house Thursday! That is in two days! Which is awesome because we have been with my mom the last week and a half. I love my mom and Justin has been working a lot and hasn't been around much anyway, but I am ready to have my own house again and I am sure my siblings are ready to have their beds back :)

I have an appointment with my regular doc next week and we still have to decide on the cerclage, so I am sure you will hear from me sometime soon. Hopefully I am feeling better by then too. I am entering my 2nd trimester and am so ready to feel better! Not going to lie, I am pretty tired of feeling awful. I am ready to be done with this pregnancy lol I just want to feel like me again! Not a sick and tired invalid! I just keep reminding myself that it will all be worth it once babies are here :) Well that's all for now, thanks for reading :)

Not my best pic, but you can still see my belly :) This is about 13 1/2 weeks

Triplet/Pregnancy Update

Well I am currently not quite 11 weeks and so far everything is going well! I have had a couple doctor's appointments since my last post, one every couple weeks or so just to check the progress of the little ones. There was some worry that we could miscarry one and it affect the other ones so my doc wanted to keep a close eye on what's been happening. There are two identical and one fraternal. The fraternal one has been measuring smaller and has had a weaker heart beat in the past and there was a big question on whether that third one would even make it. But here we are, getting close to the end of the first trimester and according to the ultrasound today, everything is going wonderfully! Which is a relief for sure, I can stop worrying about some things going wrong and focus now on my worries for the second trimester.

Next step in this process is my appointment with the high risk specialist this coming Tuesday. He will do an ultrasound and talk about the cerclage. I should have the cerclage put in within the next couple weeks which is so nerve wracking. Not going to lie, I am totally freaked out about this cerclage thing. I know many women have had it and have had no troubles with it, but that doesn't make me feel any better. After my experience with the labor and deliver of Emily I would have thought I would be ready for anything physically but the more I read about cerclages and c-sections the more I am stressing. It's okay though, I know Dr. Thompson knows what he is doing and I am sure everything will go well.

We were supposed to close on our house yesterday and spend today and this weekend moving and getting settled into our new place before I had the cerclage done. Unfortunately closing has been pushed back and we won't be moving til next week (hopefully). That is putting me a little too close to my cerclage than I was wanting but it will be okay, I am blessed to have a lot of family and friends and support around so I know I will have help with everything.

Something interesting I have come across the last several weeks since announcing our triplets is the question of how that happened. Several times people have asked us if multiples run in either of our families, implying they are curious as to how this happened. I've read several comments and different blogs of women who don't like to answer these questions and like to keep the fertility stuff private. I have never felt like it was anything to be embarrassed about, I mean many women experience this. I have been pretty open with the fact that we were going through some fertility stuff and that's why there are three. I guess I am grateful that I don't feel the need to keep it a secret or get annoyed when random strangers want to know why I am carrying three babies. I am simply grateful that we are pregnant period and I don't care what process we went through to get to this point. Fertility treatments or not, these are my babies and it is going to be wonderful :)

My doctor seemed genuinely happy, excited, and a little shocked that all three babies seem to be thriving. At every appointment I have had, she does an ultrasound and exclaims, "It's official, you are pregnant with three babies!" She seems to think that things will continue to go smoothly and we'll just have to do our best to hold of labor as long as possible :) Okay, that's all for now, I'm headed for a nap, thanks for reading :)

Drum Roll.......Triplets!

Yes you read that right. Triplets. But before we get into that let's start where I last left off. My last post consisted of celebrating Emily's birthday and how we were still in our 2ww. Even before the 2ww was up I knew I was pregnant just based off how I was feeling. 14 days post HCG shot I took a test and it was positive. I would have worried that it was a false positive from the shot, but I took a test 8 dpo and it was negative so I knew the shot was out of my system and my positive was real! I couldn't believe I had a positive test already. I was 6 1/2 weeks before I got a positive test with Emily so this early of a test was surprising. The first thing I did, after telling Justin and a few close people, was call my doctor's office. They weren't going to see me until I was 8 weeks so I had a little over a month to wait... I told the nurse I was PCOS and I was worried about my levels and miscarrying so they had me go in that week to get my blood drawn. They drew my blood again about a week later to see how my HCG levels were multiplying.

When I called to find out the results of the blood work and whether or not they needed to stick me again, they told me they wanted me to come in the next week for an ultrasound because my HCG levels had sky rocketed. If you remember during the earlier ultrasound, there were two good eggs so we knew the chances of twins was higher than normal. Never in a million years did I ACTUALLY think I would have twins, but we'll get to that later. Anyway, they wanted me to come in for an ultrasound at 6 1/2 weeks to see what exactly was going on and why my levels were so high. I immediately knew I was having twins. For several reasons. First because I had such a dark positive so early, before I even missed my cycle! Second, the exhaustion and nausea started even before my positive test, weeks earlier than it hit me with Emily. All the pregnancy symptoms I had experienced with Emily were hitting me so much harder and so much sooner so I knew this was either twins or I was carrying some super baby! But of course there was still doubt in my mind until I got the confirmation from the ultrasound.

Well fast forward to this week. My ultrasound was scheduled for today (Friday). Earlier this week on Wednesday I had some cramping and a tiny amount of spotting and was totally freaked out so I called my doctor's office and went in for them to check me out. They had to do an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay so I got to see even sooner than I thought I would. Justin was working so I was by myself. The Nurse midwife that is in my doctor's office did the ultrasound and informed me that I was in fact having twins and that besides a small cyst on my right ovary, everything was looking fine. Even though I had suspected I was having twins, I still wasn't prepared for the over all panic and shock that hit me when she actually said there were two babies. I mean holy moly! She continued to poke around and look at some stuff which I thought was strange considering we had already heard both heart beats and she confirmed everything was fine. After a few minutes she quietly said, "let me show you what I am looking at", she turned the monitor back around and showed me the three sacks and proceeded to explain that there was a third baby. I was completely floored! 3 babies?!?!? How is that even possible? There were only 2 good eggs! What is happening!?!? Needless to say I didn't say much I was just speechless. The nurses were worried I was so shocked I shouldn't be driving and asked me if I wanted to call someone to pick me up lol

The third baby was measuring smaller and the heart beat was much slower than the other two which caused some concern on whether it would make it or not. They decided to keep my originally scheduled ultrasound for Friday to check the progress of the third one. Even though I wanted to announce our triplets immediately, I wanted to wait to make sure it would even make it. The next two days went by SO SLOW!!! I was just dying! After I left the doctor's office I went straight to Justin's fire station where he was working and showed him the pictures. All he could do was smile. He just giggled because it was so unbelievable and we were both in shock!

So fast forward to this morning for the ultrasound. My doctor was there this time so that was nice to be able to talk everything through with her. The ultrasound today confirmed that there are in fact three babies. One egg split so there are two identical and 1 fraternal. Absolute craziness. We were finally able to hear the heart beat of the third one and it had caught up to its siblings which was a comfort.

So how am I feeling? Every emotion possible. And it changes by the minute. So normally if anyone asks I am mostly speechless. I have had a few moments of being excited, but getting all three of them here safely is so far off and so many obstacles away at the moment. I am only 6 1/2 weeks with three babies so anything could happen at this point. Makes it very scary. I could end up miscarrying one and bleed out the others in the process and lose all of them, worse case scenario (well one of them). So our first hurdle right now is to make it to 12 weeks with all three babies still in there. Obstacle number 2 is the cerclage. I will see the high risk specialist at 12 weeks and will get stitched at 13 weeks. The thought of getting my cervix stitched is so incredibly scary, but also a bit of a comfort too. Gives a little reinforcement. But then there is a big risk with the cerclage. My doctors are not 100% sure that I have an incompetent cervix. Losing Emily could have been from just preterm labor. If that is the case, a cerclage will not help preterm labor and I could tear right through the stitch. Very scary.

My doctor said weeks 22-28 will be the scariest simply because the babies will be getting bigger and that's my biggest risk of preterm labor. She said we can breathe a huge sigh of relief once we get to 28 weeks. Because that means viable babies that have a higher chance of surviving the NICU. She said if I happen to make it to 32 weeks we will have a party :) wahoo! So long weeks ahead of us full of worry and stress and the possibility of anything happening!! We debated whether or not we should announce our news yet, whether we should wait til we were "out of the woods", but then we realized this whole pregnancy is a risk and we will never be "out of the woods" until all babies are here safely. So we couldn't keep it a secret forever and I figure the more people who know, the more prayers there will be :)

One thought I keep coming back to is there has got to be reason for this. Heavenly Father must know what he is doing. Because to have BOTH eggs fertilized and then have one split to give us triplets is just so astronomically crazy! The nurses told me I should go buy a lottery ticket lol. I can't help but think that this happened for a reason and I am supposed to have these babies, because the chances of it happening otherwise is just practically impossible. So maybe they all will make it here safely :)

In a moment of panic after our first ultrasound Wednesday I thought to myself, "not that I wish this, but I wouldn't be heartbroken if the third didn't make it and I just ended up with two". But to be honest, when the nurse midwife couldn't pick up its heart beat I panicked. I was so worried there was something wrong with one of them. I had no idea how instantly attached I became to these babies as soon as they told me there were three. And I realized that even though I know it is going to be the hardest thing I will ever do, I really want to keep all three babies. Which to be honest, surprised me. After losing Emily I told myself that I would remain detached in future pregnancies until I had that baby safe in my arms, but here I am at 6 1/2 weeks and am already attached to these three little babies :) Holy Moly Heaven Help Us!!! Thanks for reading:)

Emily's 1st Birthday!

One week ago was Emily's first birthday. It's taken me awhile to write this post because we were out of town for awhile and then Justin had the camera while he was Turkey hunting. I was getting anxious to share our day with you!

The few days leading up to her birthday I had been preparing myself for a hard day. For weeks before hand I would start crying just thinking about her birthday (course it could have been all the crazy hormones in my body too). Surprisingly, however, her birthday was a great day :) I got choked up a little in the morning but I was distracted by a marketing test I had to take.

First stop of the day was to go find a girl's baby dress. We found one we liked and wrapped it up and took it to the hospital. We went to the birthing floor and explained to the nurses that today was our daughter's birthday and we wanted to donate the dress to the first girl born that day. We asked the nurses to take a picture of us with the dress though before we handed it over.

You can't really tell from the picture but it was a yellow dress with little flowers on it with a little sweater. Justin and I were holding ourselves together quite well. I think we were enjoying being able to remember Emily this way. The nurses however, were a little more emotional. They cried and thought what we were doing was so sweet. We told the nurses they didn't have to explain to the recipient why they were getting the dress, just that it was donated anonymously. I am curious who ended up with the dress and if they liked it :)

Next up that day was balloons at the cemetery with my sister and my niece and nephew. It was a really windy day so we had to stand a ways off from her grave so the balloons didn't land in the trees. We didn't get very good shots of them floating away since the wind was so crazy.

After the balloons we had cake at our house. It was amazing! I will definitely be making this again!

A few weeks prior to Emily's birthday I had a sister in law and some cousins interested in doing something for Emily's birthday. I sent out a mass message to the family telling them about the balloons and asked that if they participated to send me pictures so we could see all the balloons! The response we got from our family was just incredible! How blessed we are to be apart of such a wonderful loving family! The following pictures are from various families celebrating Emily's birthday :)

Chris and Amy's family, Wyoming



Andrea and Justin's old work buddies, Arizona

Teresa and Gorie's family, Arizona

(I love that they did it at the temple Justin and I were married in)

The rest of our family in New Mexico!

They are a little small but I couldn't get them larger without making them fuzzy :(

 

Overall it was a wonderful day and we loved celebrating her birthday. I can only imagine how much she was celebrating with her other angel babies up in heaven :) Happy Birthday baby girl!!

Thanks for reading :)

Temple Open House

As many of you know we are in our endless 2WW. Although this thought never leaves my mind, fortunately we have a few things going on that are keeping me occupied. Other than the constant flow of homework, Justin and I had the wonderful opportunity to head to Kansas City and participate in the Kansas City Temple Open House. What an amazing experience this was! We went through the tour ourselves Friday evening and stayed over night. Saturday we did some shopping around town and then went back to help with the open house Saturday evening. I got help take the foot coverings (booties) off people's shoes as they were exiting. It was so great to be able to see people's expressions, both members and non members alike, as they were coming out. Justin was part of security, with a little ear piece and everything. I think he had way too much fun :) I am so grateful for this experience and opportunity to serve. How thankful I am to be so much closer to a temple now that we can attend regularly.

At one point I was standing inside the temple watching tour groups go through and opening the door for the groups that were finished. As I was standing there, there was this young family with a little girl in front of me. Her dad was holding her hand and she was so precious looking around at the beautiful building. As I was standing there quietly, I immediately thought of Emily and what it would have been like to be taking her through the temple and to have her there with us. Most occasions this would have made me sad, but as I was standing in the temple and feeling the spirit, I was filled with peace and gratitude. Of the knowledge that I have that we are an eternal family and that I will see her again. She is not lost to me forever and it is because of the wonderful temple that we have such a great blessing. It was a great weekend :)

You will have to excuse the bad picture. It was really late and really windy

 

Egg Hunting

Hello again! Before I get to the update, I would like to post a little disclaimer... I realize my blog started out as a way for me to release thoughts, feelings and experiences from losing our daughter, and has morphed into a blog that follows our attempt at conceiving a second baby. I completely realize and acknowledge that this topic is not something everyone feels is appropriate to share with the world and it may be a little unorthodox to share our step by step process. If you feel this to be true, I completely understand and it will not hurt my feelings in the slightest if you just don't read my blog! :) I choose to blog this experience for a couple reasons. The first, is that Justin and I both come from large families. There are many relatives that are invested and interested in this process we are going through and I have found that my blog is a great avenue in which to share our experiences and keep everyone updated. Yes we still talk to people on the phone, but this allows me to tell everyone everything and not have to worry about phone calls I have missed or things I forgot to tell someone. We have been greatly blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful family members and friends who like regular updates :) The second reason I blog is because I find it to be extremely therapeutic. Things I post on my blog are not normally things I share to everyone in a normal conversation. I don't always get the opportunity to spill my guts and all my emotions in an everyday type of conversation.  Before my blog, I would try to keep a journal but would always fail. I normally would have the same conversation with a couple close confidants and keep the rest of it bottled inside. After losing Emily I realized that is not healthy and I needed an outlet. So far I have received nothing but love and support from family/friends and strangers alike. However, I do realize that some out there may feel it is not appropriate to share with the world where I am at in my cycle or how successful/unsuccessful we have been at conceiving. Which is fine, I respect that opinion. But please realize that this has been helping me immensely and I am doing it for me, not for other people :)

Okay, so now back to where we left after my last post! I took the Clomid last week and thankfully did not experience any side effects other than the hot flashes and an occasional mood swing. Justin is probably thankful he spent a lot of time at work :) Anyway, this morning was my ultrasound to see how much/if the Clomid helped. The ultrasound found I had 2 perfect follicles in my left ovary (18-22mm) and 2 in my ovary which were not great (12-13 mm). My doc said the ones in my right ovary were small and typical of a PCOS follicle so we are mostly counting on the left ones. She said with 2 healthy follicles there is an increased chance of twins, but also an increased chance of getting pregnant. At this point I am not concerned about twins, I really do not think it will be a problem. Anyway, after the ultrasound I got my shot. I thought it would be in my arm. The nurse said she could do it in my arm, but since my arm was "so small" (She is now my favorite nurse :)), she put in smack dab on my butt. Ouch. I thought I hated shots and needles before, but now I REALLY REALLY REALLY hate them. Most unpleasant shot of my life. So then I was free to go after I paid the 500.00. So in reality I left the doctor's office feeling totally assaulted and completely broke, but yet I still find it all so exciting! :) I then went to school and took an accounting test while trying to ignore my throbbing buttocks!

So there it is! I am very excited the Clomid was successful and I have viable follicles this month. I know Clomid doesn't work for a lot of women and I am just grateful it worked for me :) So within the next few days we start the dreaded 2ww. Thankfully we have enough going on to (hopefully) keep us distracted and occupied. Thanks for reading! :)

Doctor Appointment #2

So! I had my second doctor's appointment this morning and had to rush to the school to write this post before class starts because I am so excited to share my news!

A little background of the last two months to catch you up. No positive ovulation tests, a skipped period, right ovary pain the last few weeks and strange bleeding.

Thankfully Justin and his partner were able to drive the ambulance over to my doctor's office so he could be there with me. So we started out by talking to my doc, I told her what happened the last couple months since our last visit just to confirm that I was in fact not ovulating on my own. I then told her about the ovary pain that has been off and on over the past few weeks and she was worried about an abnormally large cyst. If that were the case, any fertility stuff we did would be obsolete so we needed to take care of the cyst issue first. She did an ultrasound to look at my ovaries, which I am glad she did considering they haven't been looked at since the fall of 2010 and all this ovary pain has been happening recently. She didn't find any abnormally large cysts, just the typical small ones throughout, which is normal for a PCOS ovary. She did say my right ovary is larger than my left and that is probably why I always feel it and it is so sensitive, but as for big cysts getting in the way of conceiving, not a problem!! :)

So she gave me the prescription for Clomid! Yahoo! The good news is, the doctor appointment and my days lined up perfectly so I can start the Clomid next week and I don't have to wait another few weeks to get started. The scary news is that is happening so fast!!!

So here is what will happen now, I will take the Clomid next week (bring on the hot flashes!) and on April 9th (in a week and a half) I will go back for an ultrasound so she can make sure I produced some eggs. She also wants to make sure I don't produce too many eggs. After all, with an incompetent cervix, we don't want multiples! At the appointment on the 9th she will also give me an HCG shot (yikes) to guarantee that I will ovulate within the next 24-36 hours. We all know what that means... :) Then I wait for two weeks and take a pregnancy test and see if we were successful! :)

That is the road map, so how am I feeling? I can't even describe how I am feeling. As I left my doctor's office and headed to the school I just cried. Out of excitement, out of relief, and out of sheer terror. I find it so exciting that this is a real possibility this month! No more guessing and waiting. I mean we've actually started this process and it is exciting, but so so so so scary!

I also realized something as I was looking at the calendar. We will know whether we are pregnant or not just a few days following Emily's first birthday.... I am having mixed feelings about this. Emily's birthday is going to be so hard for me, I mean I start crying just thinking about it. Having to mix in the excitement/nervousness of being pregnant again so soon after celebrating Emily's big day is confusing for me. So like I said, I don't really know how I am feeling. So there it is! We could be pregnant this month :)

My normal nature is to be a realist. I am always preparing myself for the worst possible outcome, just so I know I am prepared for whatever may come my way. Given the history of my life, I hate getting my hopes up only to be utterly crushed later on. So I am always prepared. Right now I haven't taken the time to think through all the possible outcomes of the next month. Right now I am simply enjoying that there is HOPE this month. Yes I know the Clomid might not work and I will think of that next week, but for now, I am going to relish in the wonderful possibility of starting our family :) Thanks for reading :)