Our Birth Story – Part 2

So, there we were, 130am Sunday January 4th, riding through the streets of Halifax, me sitting on a towel. Sounds pretty glorious, doesn’t it?

We arrived at the IWK, parked, and lugged our bags into registration.
I’ll admit, the admitting nurse was pretty much a bitch to us. D looked at me at one point and said ‘You know she’s going to send us home, right?’ But, luck was on our side, and we never saw her again. We saw another couple nurses, and the resident doctor. They said I COULD go home if we wanted to since I was only 1cm dilated (hurray – dilation!), but since a storm had started as soon as we arrived, they allowed us to stay.

So, we were led down the hallway to a birthing room. We walked in, and I was pretty impressed with the size of the room. There was the bed, a few chairs, 2 windows to the outside, a bathroom, and an area for checking the baby once she arrives. We brought our stuff in and I prompty got in the bathtub. It had calmed me pretty good at home, so I figured it would work wonders here.
Nope. After about 5 minutes, I was done. The contractions were coming stronger and stronger and I just couldn’t relax or get comfy. D helped me up out of the bath and got me re-dressed. I tried the ball. Nope. Hated it. I tried walking. Nope.
Nothing was helping me manage the pain of the contractions. I laid in bed on my side, and just took them one at a time, while D had mini naps in the rocking chair between my contractions. One would start, I would moan for D, he would spoon me from behind, while I grabbed the arm of the bed, and pulled with all my might. Its all I could do to counter-act the pain I was feeling.

We did this for hours.

Now, all along I had said I wanted to try the birth drug free. That I wanted to be able to say that I experienced labour and contractions. So, D and I spent a lot of time talking about ways to distract me from pain, and things that he can do or say to try and keep me from drugs as long as possible.
However, I also said that I’m realistic and know that I have no idea what kind of pain I’ll be in for labour. Boy was I right.

I started telling D that I couldn’t do it, that the pain was just too intense, it hurt too much, I couldn’t keep going, that I really really really wanted the drugs. And damn him, he used every trick in the book we had discussed to distract/delay the drugs. Granted, this is exactly what I had asked him to do, but in the moment, I didn’t care about delaying and “just go one more!”. Just give me the effing drugs!
So, he finally caved and let me ask for them around 6am. They checked me, and I was only 1.5cm dilated. This was going to be a long road. They gave me some morphine and gravol, and I had a slice of toast (first thing I’d had to eat since supper Sat night).

The morphine definitely made me high, but I was still able to move and around and stuff. So, we tried the ball again – still stupid. Tried the bath again – nope. I walked around the room, bent over things provocatively when contractions came. Nothing seemed to help. The morphine took the edge off, but I was still feeling most of the pain.

Then, at some point (somewhere between 10am and noon), the nurse came in (actually, she completely walked in on me sitting on the toilet peeing, but w/e), and said they’d like to give me an epidural so they can give me pitocin since the labour was going so slow. I agreed. I was pretty scared, but I agreed.

Side note – I’m absolutely terrified of needles. I fainted once after giving blood because I had worked myself up so much. I really really really really really didn’t want a giant needle in my back.
But. Contractions fucking hurt.
So. Epidural it is.

They told me to sit up in bed with my legs hanging over the side, and they put a chair in front of me and told D to sit. They told him “That’s the dad chair. Dad does not get up from the chair until we are done.” (We later learned this was because so many dads faint at the sight of their beloved with a giant needle in their spine. Its easier with the dad chair.)
They froze me first, which was good, and then put the needle in. It didn’t hurt at all, but, I was so damn freaked out. The fact that the giant needle is going into my SPINE and if I move, I could be paralyzed! But, I was managing.
And then the anesthesiologist said “Okay, you may feel some sparks like electricity in your spine.”
“Whhhaaaaaaaaatttt?!???!???!!!?!?”
I lost it. I cried. And cried. And cried and cried and cried. I had been so mentally strong all through the pregnancy and labour, I think I finally broke. D calmed me down and everything was done. They taped me all up so I couldn’t pull the tube out of my back, and put in an IV (another fear of mine) and taped that up. And I was set. Within a half hour, my pain was gone.

Sweet lord, that’s awesome. At that point, I had been contracting about 15 hours with only a small break at the beginning, so the cease-fire was pretty awesome.

We chatted with our nurse for a long while. Told her about our birth plan, chatted about labour, and I got to ask her tons of questions (will I poop in labour????). She was really awesome.

And this is where things get fuzzy and I seem to be missing a few hours of my life lol. I know my best friend showed up at one point, but I’m really not sure when…

All I know is that at 7pm, our nurse’s shift was over. I could have cried. She was so sweet to me/us and we got along so well. I told her I didn’t want her to leave, but if she had to, to make sure our next nurse was just as awesome as she is. She promised, and then went to shift change.
She came back with another nurse and told me she hand picked her for us. Yay 🙂

The new nurse turned the lights down low, and started gathering pillows. She placed them on the bed and contoured my body around them with my leg hiked up and my belly supported. All the while, she was talking to me in a really soothing mellow voice -and I drifted off to sleep. She told D and my best friend that if they needed to get some food, or a coffee, or go for a walk, that now would be a great time.

I slept from 7-9, waking up randomly. Every once in a while the epidural would start to wear off and I could feel the contractions and they’d wake me up, so we’d have to top me up again.
But what sucked was the shaking. I had read that after birth, women sometimes shake uncontrollably from the adrenaline, so that’s what everyone assumed it was. But frig, I couldn’t stop it. I tried and tried and tried. The nurse said to let it happen because if I fought it, tomorrow, not only would I hurt from labour, but my entire body would ache too. So I let the shaking go on.
The other sucky business – I was throwing up. The epidural can make your nauseous. All I was allowed was water, which I wanted super cold. I would drink half a glass, and then throw it right back up. This went on for hours.

Then, I was woken up and told I actually have a fever. THAT’S why I’m shaking and throwing up. Ding ding ding. Great, how long have I had that before someone got the bright idea to check?!
So, into my IV went drugs to stop me from throwing up (to keep the other drugs in), drugs to stop the fever, and then an antibiotic in case the fever was from an infection somewhere. And from then on, I was only allowed ice chips.

At 9pm, the nurse woke me to check the progress (I had only gotten to about 6 up until then). She checked, and said it was time to push – I’m 10 cms.

WHAT?! Holy shit, really?
“You’re gonna use the same muscles you use to have a poop, okay Tanya? Poop like you’re taking a dump in the woods, and someone’s coming!”
…… Um, okay…

So I pushed. And pushed. And pushed.
We tried a couple different positions, and then the nurse told me that the baby’s shoulder was suck on my pubic bone. We needed to get the vacuum. Also, the baby has pooped in the birth canal, so time is of the essence     now.

The nurse buzzed for the vacuum people and the resident doctor. The doctor came in and checked and said we should get me to the operating room in case the vacuum doesn’t work and they have to do a c-section. The nurse said “No way. This girl’s a champion pusher, she’s gonna push this baby out!” (I only vaguely remember that, but its D’s favorite story to tell).
So, the vacuum was put on baby as they propped my legs up and told screamed at me to push. They slid the baby’s shoulder out of the way of my pubic bone, and two pushes later – she came out.

I wish I could describe the feeling of a baby coming out of you. I was frozen, so I had no pain, but you can feel it. Something VERY large passing through a passage and hole that ain’t that big.

Because she had pooped in the birth canal, they couldn’t put her immediately on me – they had to take her over to the other side of the room and get it out of her mouth and such. The nurse told D that he could go over and watch. “Its your daughter!” she said to him. Within seconds, Ella had her first cry – and that’s when shit got real for me. Holy crap, I just had a baby…

Her very first photo!

The nurse came to my head and told me what a great job I had done, and how beautiful the baby was, and how much she looked like D. She also then told me that I had tore during the birth – a 3rd degree tear (DO NOT GOOGLE THAT! Lets just say its hole to hole with multiple layers of tissue involved). Someone (I really don’t remember if it was a nurse, or a doctor, or the janitor) spent some time ‘downstairs’ stitching me up and they then brought Ella to me and D stood at my side.

My best friend told me she was going to go, told me she loved me and I did a great job, and excused herself. I breastfed Ella while the nurse taught me a few things and D watched. We then just cuddled, with D overlooking us – tears in his eyes (but he’ll deny that).

He’s totally wiping tears from his eyes here.

Once I was done being stitched, the nurse wanted me to shower. D took Ella and did skin to skin with her while I Baby-Bambi-walked to the bathroom and had a shower. We then packed up the room and got ready to go. By this time, I had not left that room since about 2am – it was now midnight. The room no longer was impressively large, and the floor now had giant streaks and puddles of blood. I couldn’t get over the blood everywhere. It looked bad. But, I digress.

I was seated in a wheel chair with Ella against my chest, and we went to our room where we started day 1 of our new life with our little family.

Our Birth Story – Part 1

I really thought I would have posted this much much sooner than now. But holy crap, newborns take up all your time! lol.

Ella Faye is doing great and is officially 4 weeks old now! How the time flies! She’s perfectly healthy and growing. A couple hiccups in the road (gas issues, sleep problems), but we’re hanging in there.

I figured its about time I told our birth story. Before I got pregnant with Ella, and even during my pregnancy, all I wanted to hear were people’s birth stories – in all their gory details. So, here we go. You’ve been warned – I’m not holding back.

Ella Faye was due December 27th. Once we were getting close to Christmas, my Dr Graves started offering membrane sweeps (for those who don’t know, a membrane sweep is when the doctor inserts a finger inside your cervix, and lightly massages the membrane over the baby’s head. This can cause your body to release hormones (prostaglandins) which can kick start your labour) but I kept saying no. I didn’t like the idea of screwing with nature. How granola of me.
But, by December 28th, all bets were off. I was quite done with being pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, even with the groin pain, and the constant peeing, and the uncomfortableness of it all, I LOVED being pregnant. But. Its a weird thing when your countdown is done, and nothing happens. A day you’ve been looking forward to for nearly 9 months comes, and then goes, with no result you were expecting.
So, we saw Dr Graves on December 31st, and decided to go ahead with a membrane sweep.

Well, in order for the doctor to a membrane sweep, you have to be dilated a little (they’ve gotta stick a finger inside). Problem. My cervix was high, hard, and closed. So, Dr Graves actually had to stretch my cervix. AKA force her finger in.
I wont lie. It was pretty friggin painful. Thank God D was there so I could squeeze his hand. She warned me I could bleed and cramp for a while. We then set out an induction plan.

The next day was a holiday so nothing would happen then, but January 2nd they booked me in for an ultrasound on the 7th floor of the IWK just to make sure all was okay with the baby, and then January 3rd at 930 we would start the gel. If after a few rounds of gel, the baby didn’t arrive, we’d book a day for me to be induced.
As much as I hated all this induction talk, she said that because the pregnant came about from Clomid, they don’t like to screw around and let the pregnancy go too late.

The ultrasound on the 2nd went great. The tech saw no issues with the baby, and was even able to point out some of her hair! She gave us the okay to start the gel the next day.

So, 930 in the morning on Saturday January 3rd, we headed to the IWK to have the gel.
I was really unsure of what to expect. I know how my body reacted when I had my tubes tested (incredible pain!) and I know how my body reacted when Dr Graves stretched my cervix (incredible pain!). I was expecting the worst. I did some research beforehand, and even asked around on a couple mommy boards, but everyone’s experiences are so different, you can’t really judge how your body will react.

Two other ladies were having the gel done at the same time too, so we each laid in our bed, strapped to monitors and waited. The tech was super sweet, checked my cervix and said I was still zero (aka, hard, high, and closed). I told her my concerns about the gel as my cervix freaks out at being screwed with. She said she understood but that I really shouldn’t worry.
I grabbed D’s hand and squeezed my eyes closed, as she inserted the little tube. And then she was done. Didn’t feel a friggin’ thing. I laughed at myself that I had been so worked up about this stupid gel. She then moved onto another girl to gel her up.

I started feeling some…. discomfort. Like period cramps. I would say they started at almost the worst period cramps I’ve had. The tech came back after a bit, checked the monitors and asked how I was doing. I told her how I was feeling. She said that we were to go home and relax, and come back for 3:30 for round 2.

We went to the car and headed home. I think we stopped at a drug store for some tylenol and something else, but I don’t fully remember. I also think we got lunch on the way home, but again, I don’t remember. By the time we got home, I wasn’t feeling the best. The pain was getting worse and worse. I laid down on the couch, and managed to fall asleep – somehow.

I woke up around 2, and then pain had stopped. Normally pain stopping is good, but I was kinda bummed that everything had fizzled out. We got in the car, and headed back to the IWK for round 2 at 3:30 with the same two other ladies.
We all got into our beds as the tech made her rounds checking everyone. She made a slight joke that even though we’re all booked for round 3 tomorrow morning, one of us will have to go into labour before then, because another woman is booked to start – and there’s only 3 beds.

She came to us, and asked how the afternoon was as the applied the gel. Told her how the pain was, and that it had stopped. She removed the tube, went over to the monitor to do something with it. And before she left my side, the contractions had started right back up again. She looked at me, a little bewildered and commented that my body reacts very strongly to the gel.
I think I said something akin to “Oh really?” between laboured breathing and pain. She said she was going to apply the gel to the others, but that she’d be back.
I don’t remember the hour we were there, but I do remember by the time we were to leave, the tech came and had a talk with us. She said that my contractions are convincing enough that if I wanted, we could go down to pre-admitting now. But, I’m still not dilated at all, so they won’t admit me. They’ll just make me walk the halls. We talked for a while about should we go home or stay or what.
In the end D and I chose to go home to wait it out, but she said to us “I don’t expect to see you back here tomorrow morning”.
She was right.

We went home and bunkered down. I made a nest in the couch and got some PVR’ed shows all set. We had some supper, cuddled the cats, etc. But as the time went on, the intensity of the contractions was increasing. By 9pm we decided, for shits and giggles, to time the contractions – just to see where we are. Are they 10 minutes apart? 5? 30 seconds? I had no gauge. So, we timed them for an hour.

They were pretty sporadic, to say the least. Some lasted minutes, while others lasted 30 seconds. Some were almost 5 minutes apart, while others were just over a minute apart. They say before you go into the hospital, your contractions should be no more than 5 minutes part, lasting for over 1 minute, and been that way for over an hour. We weren’t QUITE there, plus the sporadicness of it all made me feel not confident. So, we hunkered down further. We did everything we could to distract from the pain (tv shows, trivia games, a visitor), and when we couldn’t distract, we did everything we could to handle the pain (pressure on my hips, walking the stairs, peeing, moaning, etc etc etc).
Around midnight, I was getting quite uncomfortable. So I decided to try a bath. Sometimes during my pregnancy the bath would help calm me down, so I figured there’d be no harm. D ran the bath water for me, and helped me in, and I managed to stay in for just about an hour before I got pretty tired. I told D that we might as well try to get some sleep. It might not be for long, but we’re going to need SOME rest in our tanks. I got out of the bath, and dried off – and discovered I’d lost my mucous plug.

Gross.
I’m not going to go into any detail about it. If you’re curious, google.

But, the fact that I had passed the plug got my excited. That means things are happening. Awesome 🙂

So D got the bed all set up. Lots of pillows to help me stay propped up, remote for the tv, and the waterproof pad under my side just in case.
I crawled into bed, and got comfy. Finally. After being in pain most of the day, I finally found a comfy spot. I relaxed, and felt my back pop/snap.
“That’s weird,” I thought to myself, “My back snapped but I didn’t move for it to snap.”
Then I remembered reading stories where women said they heard the amniotic sac pop.
I told D to get me a towel, I shoved it between my legs, and VERY QUICKLY got off our brand new thousand dollar mattress.

And then – GUSH!

Have you ever witnessed an elephant pee? Its an odd sight because they’re so large, their bladders are so large, and its like someone’s dumping buckets of pee out of them.
That’s the only thing I could think of as this liquid is gushing out from between my legs. I looked at D with, I’m sure, the strangest look on my face as it kept coming and coming and coming.

Once it finally stopped flowing, I apologized to D “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to clean this up!”, and then waddled my way to the bathroom – leaving a trickle trail on my way. I sat on the toilet to let the rest of it come out of me, and then had a shower. I didn’t want my legs to be covered in the liquid at the hospital. Finished my shower, dried off, and walked back to the bedroom, and left a trail again! Wtf! I apologized to D again that he would have to clean that. Shoved a maternity pad into my undies, pulled on some comfy pants, grabbed a towel for the car, and headed out to the IWK.

*I’m falling asleep writing this, I’ll do the rest in part 2 another day.*

Introducing…

Miss Ella Faye Slaunwhite

Born January 4th, 2015 at 9:36pm. Weighing 8 pounds 9 ounces and measuring 20 inches long.

I’ll be posting our birth story “soon”. In the meantime, sorry for the delay. In return, you get all these cute photos 🙂 

Oh, be still, my beating heart. <3<3<3

Baby Showers

I’m really sorry its taken me so friggin long to post this. I honestly had one typed up about 2-3 weeks ago, but couldn’t finish it before I had to go pick up D from work, so I “saved” it… Apparently WordPress didn’t want me to post it, cuz its lost somewhere in cyber space. It takes a lot of energy to type out a post in your 8th month of pregnancy, so its been difficult to force myself to sit down and re-type what I KNOW I’ve already typed lol.

Anyways, here we go again.

This girl is going to be the best dressed little thing ever. We have so much clothes! Don’t get me wrong, I’m super happy about it, and I’ll keep accepting what people give to us. But she’s probably not going to wear anything twice.
In fact, I’ll have to have some sort of fashion show photo shoot so we can say she wore things and have a photo since we probably have more clothes than days haha.

To date, we’ve had four baby showers. Kiiiiiiiiinda insane.

First was the valley baby shower put on by my mom. The guests were most of my family, and a childhood friend.

A few shots of the guests

D drove me in, and stayed long enough to be embarrassed with this photo before he ran away from all the estrogen

We got some great gifts such as a diaper genie, a baby recliner/bouncer, a play pen, tons of cute clothes, useful bathroom stuff, and two gorgeous home made blankets – a crocheted one by my childhood best friend, and then a quilted one by my aunt which has an extra special patch in the middle of my late Nanny’s material. And lots and lots of other stuff.

Next was actually a surprise shower thrown for me by some old co-workers who couldn’t attend my other showers. We have a monthly lunch date, and they surprised me with a decorated room, and some gifts.

A photo collage of me, the gifts, and the people attending (missing one person though)

We got a GIANT box of diapers (I actually dropped an f-bomb when I saw what was in the big box haha), a beautiful Baby’s First Christmas ornament, a couple stuffies, and some adorable clothes again. Plus, the bonus of Thai food for lunch! 🙂

Next was my big shower. It was here in the city, hosted by my best friend, and was attended by most of my friends I’ve made in the 6 years I’ve lived in the HRM. Tons of old co-workers from nearly every job I’ve had, and a few friends from the valley.
Also, I had a MAJOR surprise that day. A very good friend of mine from grade 6 flew in from Ottawa to surprise me for my shower. I had no clue until I showed up – and I 100% cried when I saw her.

This is my best friend on the far left, me in the middle, and the friend that flew in to surprise me on the far right. The three of us have been friends for 18 years.

My best friend is an amazing baker, and among other things, baked up these gorgeous cupcakes. The icing was tinted pink with the juice from maraschino cherries. And its hard to see from the photo, but the icing was delicately done to resemble a rose. Absolutely gorgeous – and delicious!

A few shots of the crowd.

A good shot of all the gifts we got… There were a TON!!! 

For gifts, where to begin!? We got a few packs of diapers, and a ton of wipes. We got lots of bathroom useful stuff (shampoo, baby wash, toothbrushes, etc), kitchen stuff (a few bottles, bottle cleaners, utensils, a baby bullet), a bunch of blankets and sheets and receiving blankets, a spa gift certificate for me to unwind, a gift certificate for house cleaning after the baby arrives, and tons and tons of clothes.

One of my favourite outfits we got. D, like all his friends, are really into super heroes. A friend of ours got the baby a Supergirl sweater and diaper cover. Too cute!

Lastly, just this past Saturday, D’s side of the family held a small baby shower for us as well. This was super low key (no photos were taken), but we still got some great stuff. We got a cute stuffed animal D has coined an Alphapede (its a stuffed centipede with 26 sections, and each section has a letter on it, and then a photo of something corresponding with that letter), quite a bit of cash, and some gift cards. But D’s mom got us a massive “gift basket” (which was actually a clothes hamper) full of tons of stuff. Useful bathroom stuff, diapers, wipes, rattles, etc etc etc.
And, like all the other baby showers, we got some super cute clothes!

So. Here we are. Week 38. Less than 2 weeks to go.
I absolutely can NOT believe its almost over. What a whirlwind this pregnancy has been. So many ups and downs.
Actually, there weren’t really many downs. Sure, I had some nausea in the first three months along with being exhausted, and my hips started separating quite early so my hips and groin hurt pretty much all the time. But, we didn’t encounter gestational diabetes, or thyroid issues, or group B strep – nothing. This pregnancy has been absolutely text book.
I’d like to say my body handles pregnancy well. I’d also like to say that because actually GETTING pregnant was such a pain, karma decided we deserved a break. And who knows, our next pregnancy might not be so great. But, I’m going to enjoy the rest of what’s left. She could come at any moment. Like…. ANY moment. Sure, I’d love for her to come nowish, but she could also be up to 2 weeks late.

There wont be much more to update y’all on, but I’ll post when there’s something post worthy.

Cross your fingers for me that she comes sooner rather than later, and that labour isn’t awful 🙂

Thanks 🙂

Bonus photo! This was me a couple weeks ago when we had 30 days to go.

31 weeks!

Whaaaaaaaaaat?!
Frig, that’s crazy. Tomorrow I’ll be 31 weeks along. Even more crazy, that means that as of tomorrow I have only 9 weeks left.
!!! That’s insane.

The pregnancy is going pretty good! For the past 4 weeks or so, I’ve had a lot of groin pain. Totally par for the course – my hips are starting to part. I’m seeing my chiropractor every week and my massage therapist every other week to try and manage it.

I also caved and bought a pregnancy pillow haha. I’m a horrible sleeper to begin with so tack on everything pregnancy related, I needed to get something to help get some shut eye.

She’s also kicking and moving an INSANE amount. Its funny, when she first started moving, I wasn’t even aware because they feel just like gas bubbles. But I then realized that its all baby down there, and that those little pops were her kicking me.
NOW THOUGH… holy crap. She’s running out of room, so her moves are really violent. Sometimes its a giant kick that makes go “oof”, sometimes (like 2 days ago at work), she spends 10-15 minutes just … moving. I told D that she was having a dance party lol. She’s definitely more active at night when we’re lying in bed.
I managed to get a video the other day. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152380021931867&set=vb.506266866&type=2&theater

We had our 3D ultrasound a couple weeks ago. THAT was amazing. They also do a live feed so we were able to let some family and friends watch too.

It was great to see her little features, and she even smiled. The tech was quick and able to catch a photo of it.

We also had birth class early September. What a valuable tool to have under our belt! We took it through Birth Happens (http://birthhappens.ca/). Its two doulas who put it on and taught us things about birth that we’ll need to know, including how to avoid medical interventions or drugs. That’s right – we’re gonna try to do this thing drug free. I know, I know – I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. But we’re gonna try 🙂

Time is flying by though. I have two baby showers – 16 and 22 days away. And then, in 38 days, I’m done work (hurray!), and then in just 64 short days, it’s her due date.

Anyways, thought I should post some sort of an update since its been a while since my last one. I imagine my next update will  be from the baby showers. 🙂

It’s a………

*dramatic music*

A GIRL!!!!!!

 

Meet our little girl

 

Its getting quite real now. Talking names, getting clothes from friends, buying things for the nursery. Ack! So exciting. Still kinda crazy, but at least I’m not feeling 100% under-prepared as I was the past 20 or so weeks.

She’s due December 27th, but I have a feeling the time is going to fly by.
This weekend is Labour Day weekend – and we’re supposed to spend a night somewhere with our moms.
And then on Monday, celebrating our birthdays with my mom (mine is Sept 7th, and D’s is Sept 11th).
Then, Sept 6 and 7 we’re attending birth classes put on by two local doulas. I’m pumped for the class! And then the evening of the 6th we have a bbq to attend. The 7th I’m sure we’ll go for supper or something to celebrate my actual birthday.
Sept 13th I have a bachelorette party to attend about an hour away, and then Sept 20th, D has a bachelor party. While he’s partying with the boys, I’ll be hanging out with my girls having fun.
Oct 9th we have our 3d Ultrasound!!!!!!! !!
Oct 13th is Thanksgiving with my mom’s family.
Nov 1st we have a wedding to attend a couple hours away.
Nov 9th is my family baby shower.
Nov 15th is my friends baby shower.

And then we’re just 6 weeks away from the due date. And we’ll have work Christmas parties to attend, and actual Christmas itself.

Wow.

Exciting!

I have an update!

I just got the call from the ultrasound department and we finally have the date for our ultrasound! August 15th 8am! Eeeeeeee!!

This is all happening so fast haha. We’re 18 weeks now – almost half way. Blows my mind. I told D and a couple friends that it feels like a freight train that’s just going full speed ahead. I just want to take a moment, slow down the train, and just breathe. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve wanted this for at least 10 years, and we were actively trying for 2 years. Its not that this is a surprise or anything lol. Its just crazy. 

I think I just feel un-prepared because we don’t have anything for the baby yet, we haven’t talked about names, etc. D wants to keep the house normal for the summer so we can host bbqs and such, so once September hits, we’ll start moving stuff around, and bring in the baby furniture. Plus, once we find out the gender from this ultrasound, then we can talk names, and start getting clothes from all our friends, and buy an outfit or two 🙂
Now that I’ve “talked” that out, that makes total sense as to why I feel like its going SO fast and its scary.

I also need to soon book our 3D ultrasound. 

Anyways, wanted to send along the update!

14 Weeks

Hey y’all

I know I said I’d update more often, but I haven’t really had anything to update you on. 

Still pregnant, so that’s awesome, and we’re officially in our second trimester. Woo hoo! Good bye all day nausea, good bye only eating mashed potatoes, good bye pure exhaustion, good bye constantly worrying about mis-carrying. 

We heard the heart beat on Thursday. I cried. It was pretty insane, and totally surreal. Another one of those moments that blows your mind. When you realize a living thing is growing inside of you. At this point in pregnancy, you don’t have that daily reminder like a baby belly, or feeling it kick. So things like hearing the heart beat snap you back to reality pretty quickly 🙂

We should have an ultrasound in 4-6 weeks to determine the sex of the baby. I can’t wait! 

We picked up our first baby thing today. A friend of mine gave us a exersaucer that was given to her, but we got pregnant first. So weird to walk up the stairs and see it on the living room floor. D said “Shit just got real”. haha.

Speaking of D, he’s been SOOOO great. I haven’t been too bad during the pregnancy so far (I think). I haven’t had crazy cravings that sent him to the store at 3am or anything, but he’s been so great about accommodating whatever I needed. There were days all I could eat was mashed potatoes, and he didn’t care at all. There were days I came home from work, and went straight to bed – he didn’t care that I didn’t cook supper. He gets me whatever I need, and is always thinking of me. And he finds my mood swings humourous 😛

So far, life is great. The nausea really sucked. Out of the 3 months, I think I only had a handful of days that I felt good. So now that its passed completely, I’m pretty happy 🙂

I’ll update you when I have an update!

I’m sorry – an update

I’m really sorry I dropped off the face of the planet and stopped updating. The surgery being cancelled was the final straw on the depression and losing hope of this baby journey.

But I ended up having my surgery! 
I was re-scheduled for January 17th, and it went great! I was the first in the morning, so no chance of being bumped or cancelled. No starving myself for 12 hours. I was still nervous as hell, but at least it was happening.

Because the IWK wanted to get me in as soon as possible (apparently bawling when your surgery is cancelled puts you on a priority list), I was put in the next cancellation. Which wasn’t with Dr Abu Rafea. Instead, it was with Dr Graves. Which, if you go back to last January, that’s who I was initially referred to. Awesome! 
We got to meet Dr Graves while in the waiting room. She’s a sweet lady, a little spunky (she called me a princess) – I knew I was in good hands. So off I go.

I woke up a few hours later quite groggy and in pain. I don’t handle the anesthetic very well. It makes me feel sick, and cry like a baby. Anyways, over the next hour, Dr Graves came to visit and explained what she found in the surgery. I don’t remember much of what she said, because I was pretty drugged up. But what I do remember her saying is that my right ovary was actually all tied up with endo cells, pulled away from my tube.
Interesting!

After a lot of nausea, I finally was released. D took me home, and that’s where I stayed for a week. 

The first day was mostly sleeping, combined with calling out to D that I needed to pee, and him coming and supporting me like I was 100 years old as we walked across the hallway to the bathroom, helping me down to the toilet, helping me up when I was done He was so great 🙂
It was very clear when I took a step with my right foot that Dr Graves had worked a lot to free my ovary. It literally hurt to step on my right foot. I had to wear slippers to walk on our hard wood floor.
By the next day, I was more awake, but still needed help walking and the down-up to pee. It took me a full week until I didn’t have to have someone around ‘just in case’. I worked from home that week – all was good.

 

8 weeks later (March 17th), I had my follow up appointment with Dr Graves. D and I had discussed what we wanted out of the appointment. I wanted 2 or 3 more rounds of clomid just so the surgery wasn’t for naught, but I was willing to accept the fact it wasn’t going to happen and take a year-ish off and work on us. Weight loss, financial gain, etc. The appointment went super well. We talked about the surgery and she re-explained what she found, we talked about weight loss and how belly fat can mess with your hormones. She suggested that she might as well take me on as a patient now. I agreed since I was initially referred to her anyways). She then wrote me a prescription for 6 months of clomid.
Oh! I definitely wasn’t expecting that much. But that’s cool. I guess we’ll try for these 6 months.

I started going to the gym, we had sex when the ovulation kits told us to, but I didn’t expect anything different.

 

 

And then.

 

 

Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.

It all started on April 21st: Day 31 of my cycle. Clomid makes me ridiculously regular. So on the 21st when I woke up, I knew my period would be coming. Put on a pad, went to work. By the end of the day, my period hadn’t come. ‘That’s odd’ I thought. Maybe its just coming a little late, and I’ll get it through the night or in the morning.
But morning came, and no period. Went to work. Had a little spotting and a little cramping. ‘Ah, there it is.’ But by the end of the day, the spotting was gone. D and I discussed it on our way home from work that day. I told him I still hadn’t got it – I didn’t know if something was wrong, or should I get a test. He supported me in whatever I chose. I decided the pregnancy test companies have already got too much of my money, so I’ll wait it out.

Next morning – still no period. So, I bought a test. Haha.
But, I didn’t want to take it at work. Something about that seemed… tacky. But I didn’t want to go home and take it while D was at work. He had people coming over that evening after work, and I had a Survivor date with a neighbour at 9.
So, at 10pm, I went to the bathroom with my test in hand and told D to wish me luck. Peed, and then proceeded to stared at the test. Stood there for what seemed to be an unreasonable amount of time, and then decided I didn’t want to stand there any more, staring at an hour-glass on a screen. Test in hand, I went to the den where D was, sat down, and chatted with him while I glanced at the test every millisecond or so. 
And then, I saw the lovely P word. I gasped and shrieked in the same second (I don’t even know how that’s possible), grabbed the test, and jumped up. D’s eyes went wide as saucers, he stood up, said “What?! Really?!” We hugged while I half bawled-half laughed.

I couldn’t believe we had actually done it. After 2 years of near torture – FINALLY its our turn.

 

Because I was on the fertility meds, I had to go in to see the specialist for an ultrasound to make sure it wasn’t an ectopic pregnancy. So even though I was only 6 weeks, I had my first ultrasound this past Tuesday!

The black circle on the left is the sac, and the white spec inside the sac is our little fetus. We even got to see the heart beat. It showed just as a flicker on the screen, but it was completely surreal.
I high-fived D in the elevator after we left. Haha. We did it! 

 

So! Here we go!
I can finally use this blog for what I thought I’d be using it for from the get go!

For those who know me IRL, please don’t post congrats on Facebook or tell anyone. We’ve told some select people and don’t want others to find out through someone else. Especccccccially the parents.

 

We leave on the 17th to head for Alberta to visit my father whom I haven’t seen in a full year. We’ll be telling him and his new wife while we’re there, and telling my mother and D’s mother the day before we leave.
I know most people suggest waiting before you tell people, but I don’t want to tell my father over the phone or via facebook or text or something. We’ll tell him while we’re there, but prepare them that anything could happen. We’ll only be 8 weeks at that point, and while the chance of miscarriage is 5% or 10% (depending on where Google leads you) – there’s still a chance.
We have our next ultrasound on June 3rd, and will probably proceed to tell Facebook after that appointment. Also have to tell my boss somewhere in there too…

Anyways. 
😀

We’re RIDICULOUSLY happy. It hasn’t quite hit D yet, but I understand that. Nothing is different for him – aside from dealing with his emotional and nauseated other half who’s peeing all the time. I feel once the image in the ultrasound starts looking like an actual baby, I start showing, the baby starts kicking, we start talking names, arranging a nursery, etc – it will slowly become more and more real to him. Leading him to the day he holds his first child in his arms. 🙂
Oh my fluttery heart :):):)

To everyone who’s supported us in the past 2 years, thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I really couldn’t have stayed sane without you all.

I’ll post updates super regularly now.

 

A Dream

I woke up in a cold sweat this morning, images of the dream I’d had still flashing in my mind.

I was pregnant, which was exciting. And I was going into labour. I could feel the contractions (or, at least what my mind thinks my body will go through), and there was excitement in the room about twins. So that’s cool. And I even had done some pushing. 
But then I started to bleed. Quite bad. 
The nurses had set up a mirror for me to watch the birth, but I couldn’t see anything through all the blood. The nurses took the mirror away because the scene wasn’t anything anyone else should see. And then I remembered the contractions stopped. 

I’m positive that’s not how this works in real life, but in my dream, it was known that the babies had died, and we were all heart-broken.

 

Lovely way for my mind to process what’s been happening, eh? 😦