The Biggest Surprise of my Life.

About 2 weeks ago, I got one of the biggest surprises of my life....at that point

We are pregnant. 

Wait, wait wait...allow me to finish your sentence for you....

"What? How? OMG? WTF? How the hell? Isn't Holden only like 4 months old? Weren't you breastfeeding? Didn't you do IVF to FINALLY get pregnant with your boys? OMG? What? How the hell?"

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY! 

And if you throw in a few tears, insane bouts of laughter, and a whole lot of thinking "OMG, what the hell am I going to do with 2 babies in 12 months" then you will have reacted the exact same way I did. 

I wrote few posts when I first found out, that I will now publish (backdated, of course). I was not ready to come clean yet, and we are still keeping it very quite. But my blog doesn't count as telling people right? HAHA! We are trying to stay positive that this pregnancy will end with a baby and not a miscarriage. However given our history, that is not guaranteed. 

However today at our first ultrasound we received an even bigger surprise.

TWINS!!! 

OMG? How in the world did this happen.

 Natural Surprise Twins, after two IVF cycles. 

I almost fell off the table, when I saw those two heartbeats on the screen today at my Dr's appointment. 

I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh, cry, or throw up. 

Finally I just had to laugh!

Today, I am 6 weeks and due on November 14, 2012 

(Holdens due date was November 9, 2011)
Both babies had a heartbeat of 120!!

Miracle? Yes! CRAZY? OMG Yes!!!!!

Mike and I are BOTH still in shock. We have been here before when I was pregnant with London, so we are cautiously optimistic that everything will work out. 

3 babies in 12 months! OMG!

If you know me IRL or on Facebook, I am NOT ready to come out of the closet yet, so please don't mention it there yet! Thanks!

 Now, go read the earlier three posts to get caught up.
The one where I find out I'm pregnant!
The one with my first Dr Appointment and first beta!
The one with the second beta!

So Far So Good!

My first beta was 485 and there was 4 days between them so we wanted it to be between 1800 and 2000. 

Yesterday my second came back at 2690! 

That is a doubling time of every 36 hours. Doubling every 48 hours is what they want to see, so every 36 hours is GREAT!

So far so good! My Dr should be calling me at some point today and letting me know what the next step is in this CRAZY process. I’m thinking we will probably have another ultrasound next week to look for a heartbeat. 

If all goes well there, I am going to let the cat out of the bag on my main blog. We are cautiously optimistic about the outcome of this pregnancy. Fingers Crossed everything goes smoothly over the next few months. 

Dr Appointment Update

So Thursday was my very first Dr’s appointment of this pregnancy. You should have seen the faces of all the nurses and ultrasound techs to see me back on the OB side of the office. One even tried to walk me to the GYN side until I told her I was pregnant again hahaha!  I went in for the ultrasound and saw NOTHING! Not even a sack. Based on my last missed period, I should be about 5.5 weeks, so I was really expecting to see at the very least a sack and possibly fetal pole. 

I immediately assumed the worst. However, since I have only had two very irregular periods since having Holden, we knew there was a possibility that our dates could be wrong. 

The Dr decided we needed to do two betas (blood tests) to help us figure out what was going on. Thankfully, I know how to handle this part of the process as it’s very common in the world of infertility. Pull the first beta, then wait 48 hours, and pull another. If the first number doubles in 48 hours, it is the first sign of a healthy pregnancy. 

My level from Thursday was 485. So this number combined with my personal bedroom calendar (No, I don’t really keep one of those, but Mike was out of town a few times so I know the few dates that it could possibly have happened.) It looks like we are right on track to be 5 weeks today. 

You can’t see anything on a ultrasound until your beta is over 1000. So having a beta of 485 explains why we didn’t see anything in the uterus. It was just too early.

I go back on Monday for my second beta. Since it will have been 4 days since my last beta we are expecting it to double twice Today, 48 hours after my beta was drawn, it should be around 1000.  And on Monday it should have doubled again and be around 2000 (although anything above 1700 will still be considered good).

I am assuming that if all looks good at the betas, I will have another ultrasound sometime the following week, when I am 6.5 weeks-ish. This way we can check for not only a sack but also a heartbeat. 

I’m a lot less scared about this now. Sure having another pregnancy and baby this soon is going to be tough, but I’m taking this as a personal challenge from God. I mean after 2 IVF cycles, only 4 months after having a baby, and while exclusively breastfeeding, we fall pregnant. What are the chances? If this isn’t a test from God, I’m not sure what it is. 

I may not sleep for the next 3 years, but it will all be OK! Didn’t I just get that new coffee maker? I’m gonna need it!

I'm Pregnant!

Yes, you read that right! I am pregnant again. How the hell did this happen? I mean after all I did not go to the Dr put my feet up in stirrups and have him manually inject embryos into my uterus. That is the only way we have ever gotten pregnant before, so for the life of me I can’t figure out how we got here.

I once read that people get pregnant from sex, but quickly dismissed that theory because Mike and I tried that. I only ever got pregnant after being hopped up on hormones and having a needle shoved up my lady bits.

No matter how it happened, the fact of the matter is that I AM PREGNANT AGAIN!

I wish I could sit here and tell you all that I want to scream this from the roof tops and dance around my living room with elation like I have both times in the past. However this time, I am TERRIFIED!

I have a 3 year old and a 4 month old right now. I’m exhausted all the time because Holden doesn’t sleep yet. I’m still fat and feeling gross from the baby I had only 4 MONTHS AGO! I am NOT ready to go through another high risk pregnancy again.  I have difficult pregnancies. How am I supposed to take it easy and do modified bedrest starting at about 24 weeks if I have a 8 month old (AND a 3 year old!) IMPOSSIBLE!

Holden and the new baby will be about (if not less) than a year apart! OMG! Just take a minute and think about life with a 3.5 year old, 1 year old, and NEWBORN!

I know all of that will be fine eventually. I know once the baby gets here I will figure everything out, but you can’t blame me for being terrified about it now.

I’m happy(ish) I am  just really overwhelmed by the whole idea of having another baby so soon.

Mike on the other hand is THRILLED! He keeps laughing and smiling, it’s almost making me feel bad. He is right, we are married,  financially stable, and even have the extra space. It’s not like we as a family won’t be able to handle this…my fear is that I won’t be able to handle this with my sanity still intact.  

Another thing that I am afraid of is NOT HAVING THE BABY! Let’s face the facts, Mike and I have been pregnant 4 times naturally over the years, each and everyone ended in a relatively early (before 8 weeks) miscarriage. While I am NOT doing back flips about being pregnant right now, I sure as hell DON’T want to go through another miscarriage.  This another reason why I can’t seem to get excited about having another baby. Right now, even though I am pregnant, it is just a possibility that we will end up with a baby in the end.

For this reason, we are not quite ready to tell everyone IRL, and most of our friends and family read my main blog. I didn’t want to NOT blog about this new pregnancy for a full 12 weeks so I decided to start this private blog, invite the few of you who know, and then eventually import the posts into the other blog when the cat is out of the bag.

I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow Thurs March 8 at 2 pm. I’m not expecting much since I THINK I am only about 5w2d. However it will give us a much better idea of a due date. Wow, I can’t believe I am pregnant and don’t know how far along I am. This will definitely be a new experience for us.

7dp3dt and 8dp3dt

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. I was definitely dreading turning 30 but I must admit it was definitely the best birthday I have ever had. Want to know why? Because I woke up to one of these...

This is not my own test, just the closest I could find to it online.

Yes, that's right! I'M PREGNANT! 

I wanted to wait until this morning to post on here so I could have time to take another test and let it sink in. I was hoping that todays test would be dark enough for a better picture, but it was still pretty faint this morning though so I just snatched an image off google. Faint lines are really common for this early, the important part is just that 2 lines are showing no matter how faint.

 Yesterday, we told our families. They all knew we did IVF so there wasn't much point in waiting to tell them. Everyone was super stoked for us. 

Now, we are definitely not in the clear yet. Just because I am pregnant right now doesn't mean that we will definitely bring home a baby. We have had our fair share of miscarriages and I had a really rough pregnancy with London, so we still have a LONG way to go. I am going to stay positive though, because today, I AM PREGNANT!

 My beta is scheduled for Thursday, March 3. So for the next 4 days I will continue obsessing and peeing on sticks. (I'm a crazy woman, I know!) According to my schedule my RE will do a  6 week u/s to determine how many babies we have growing in there. I'm guessing they will give me a date for that appointment after my beta. 

I can't believe I'm actually pregnant! It definitely hasn't sunk in yet for us yet, and I'm sure it won't until I actually start showing. 

If you know me IRL, I'm not mentioning this on my personal Facebook page for a few weeks. So please don't comment on my wall about me being pregnant.

Happy 4th of July!!!

What a difference a year makes!!!

Last year I was looking at this:


And announcing that we were pregnant:


And this year I am looking at this:

I will update later with details and more pictures.

Beta #1

Well all of the HPT's I took were correct, I am indeed pregnant. I went in this morning for my beta (blood pregnancy test) and the number came back at 84!! Both my Dr's were really happy with that number. I personally think that its only one baby in there, but my nurse told be it could definitely still be 2, but more than likely not 3. Either way, Mike and I are THRILLED!!! :) I will go back to the Dr on Wed morning for another beta. On this test they want to see the number double. So we are looking for something in the 160's or higher.

I'm starting to feel a little pregnant. I'm ALWAYS tired but usually can't sleep, and my stomach appears to be bottomless these days!

Mike left today for a MONTH :( He wont be back until Aug 8th. I'm really hoping I don't get sick with this pregnancy. It would SUCK to be here all by myself and be sick the whole time!

So I spruced up the blog a little, I added a poll to see how many babies you guys think I am pregnant with, as well as a little pregnancy count down thing. Its kind of scary though, doesn't our baby look like a sea horse right now? CRAZY!!!

4dp, 5dp, 6dp, 7dp, AND 8dp3dt!

OK so I do realize I have not updated in a few days and here is why

4dp3dt (Jamie and Ashley), this means "4 days past my 3 day transfer" (they put 3day old embies back inside me so I am 4 days past the 3 day transfer) So this morning I woke up and got what I THOUGHT to be a positive pregnancy test, I took another kind though, and that one was negative. I got a little excited but counted it as a negative.

5dp3dt: One test again had a super super super faint line on it, but again the other test had a negative.

6dp3dt: All tests were negative, I started to get REALLY discouraged. I just didn't feel pregnant. Mike and I had started to move money around in our bank account to cover the $7,000 we spent on IVF, and I started to have buyers remorse because I'm just NOT pregnant!

7dp3dt: Two more test had faint faint lines on them, I QUIT!!!!!!! I can not sit here and stare at two F-ing tests for another day. I was pissed why can't pregnancy test either have one line or two, why do they make them to show FAINT barely visible lines. A few cuss words later, I tried to relax. I mean I went back to look at the tests and maybe they are not so faint, wait, WHAT? Why don't I have to squint to look at that pregnancy test? Wait, there are really TWO PINK lines on that test? Ugh, I guess I will have to wait until tomorrow to take another test to know for sure.



8dp3dt (TODAY): If a picture is worth a THOUSAND words this one should be worth 7,000 ($)



Yep, that's right ladies, I AM PREGNANT!!!!!! I will still have my beta on Monday which will give us a exact NUMBER of how pregnant I am, it also might give us an idea of how many babies we have growing in there. Everyone please keep praying that this baby sticks. The first hurdle is down but I still have about 9 months worth to go. Mike and I are ECSTATIC!! There is really something so magical about a digital pregnancy test, something about the word PREGNANT popping up, just gives me chills.



Ok, I'm off to make Chicken Salad, Mike and I and his entire family are going to Callaway Gardens for the 4th of July activities. We have decided to go ahead and tell his family today (They ALL know we did IVF, I mean I actually stayed with my MIL, so they are kind of chomping at the bit) Here is how we are telling them. We bought this t-shirt a few months ago to give as a present to Mikes 18 month old niece, Lily. We are going to give her the present today and see how long it takes the whole family to figure it out. EEEKKK!!!, I'm so excited!