6 Weeks

Baby's now the size of a sweet pea!
Growing like crazy, baby is starting to sprout eyes, ears, nose, cheeks, and chin. Those little hands and feet -- still webbed like paddles -- might wiggle by week's end, the heart is beating (almost twice as fast as yours!), and blood is starting to circulate.

• Only new symptom so far has been round ligament pain. That settled in at the end of last week. It was accelerated by a 3.5 hour car ride followed by a bad nights sleep at my parents house on a blow up mattress, then my little sister's college graduation on bleacher seats. 5 hours long. Ow!! I was so nauseous and in so much pain, it was not a fun time.
  

• My first mothers day was nice, considering I was so so sick, we drove home on Saturday rather than spending the rest of the weekend with my parents. My mom totally understood though, and before I left she gave me a "mother-to-be" card that made me cry. It was really sweet. :)
  

• We had our second ultrasound at 6w 1day, and Stevie is doing great! We saw the fetal pole and the heartbeat, which was really awesome. Confession time: I youtubed 6 week ultra sound until I was blue in the face on Monday night so DH and I would know what to look for Tuesday morning. (Man there are a lot of shitty u/s techs who can't focus in on utes for shit out there) Well anyway, the research paid off I guess. I saw my baby's heartbeat right away and I almost cried, DH was really excited but he had a freaked out look for a second. It was suddenly real for him I think. He's been excited but he's also the voice of rationality when it come to this kind of stuff. So he's been cautiously excited. "Expecting the worst while hoping for the best," is how he usually puts it. We're down to a 15% chance of m/c, and if everything is fine 2 weeks from now we'll be down to 5% and graduate to a midwife!

So, I guess it's about time for a weight post.

I got on the scale the morning of my BFP to see 145. Eww, easily the heaviest I have ever been. I hadn't weighed myself in weeks, and I was not expecting that. Since then the number has been fluctuating anywhere from 139 to 145 again. Water weight and constipation much? My RE usually recommends that his patients with PCOS try not to gain weight in the first trimester if they are already overweight. At 5'3", it looks like I fall into that category. This is not going to to be easy considering I'm shoving anything down my face to keep from feeling nauseous. Here's my baseline belly pic, please enjoy my beer gut/bloat:



Work clothes are already pretty tight and uncomfortable once the bloat sets in for the day, (notice the bootyliciousness going on in these pants anyway? yeh...) and I'm not really sure it's appropriate to wear spanks while pregnant. Or a bella band to work. I'll have to think of something before I split my pants.

5 Weeks!

Baby's now the size of an appleseed!
Your embryo, which doesn't look like much more than a tadpole right now, is actually starting to form major organs (heart, kidney, liver, stomach) and systems (nervous, circulatory, digestive). Baby's presence in your uterus triggers production of HCG (the hormone detected by pregnancy tests), which triggers the production of other hormones like estrogen and progesterone, which triggers all those great symptoms you've probably been noticing!

Eleven days since I saw that first and faintest of lines, and I still can't believe it. I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do blog wise, so here goes:

• DH has decided to name our in utero babe "Stevie Z" after Steve Zissou. Because he's "living the life aquatic! He's swimming around in there!" I've tried to tell him a fetus does not swim, but to no avail. Stevie Z it is.

• Friday after my fourth beta RE called to tell me my beta levels are still rising very nicely but my progesterone has dropped, so I'm now on prometrium, aka vaginal progesterone suppositories. I was seriously overwhelmed and freaked out on Friday and all I wanted to do was cry. I realize that low progesterone is not the worst thing that could happen, they have medicine to hopefully fix it right? They don't have a pill to make your betas double. But it was a lot to handle when we planned on telling our families the same night. I felt like I was telling them with strings attached. But they were so excited for us and we had them promise not to say anything because it is so early and this is now considered a higher risk pregnancy.

• Guess who couldn't keep her big fat mouth shut? Yep, my MIL. We went to a wedding on DH's side on Saturday, (one of the big reasons we told Friday night, I usually drink a lot at weddings, not to mention any time I have to spend time with my ILs) and she literally announced it in the parking lot to her family members I had never even met before!! I wanted to strangle her, she just kept going! Luckily, DH and SIL backed me up later when they got her alone. He explained that we're excited but we obviously don't want to have to un-tell everyone. I wanted to scream at her "I HAVE TO TAKE PILLS VIA VAGINA TO KEEP MY BABY ALIVE YOU TWIT! CAN YOU NOT TELL THE WHOLE WORLD I'M KU?!?!?!" He probably handled it better.

• I feel like I'm under a lot of pressure. I was nervous enough without the news of the low progesterone. Now, it's regular nerves x2, since I actually have something real to worry about. Add telling people, and my stupid MIL telling everyone DH's entire family, and here comes more pressure. UHG. I just keep hoping and praying and trying my damnedest to be positive.
  

• Lets move on to symptoms, those wonderful things that make me feel pregnant, and reassure me mentally by making me physically sick. Cool! Disclaimer: I don't want to say I had "symptoms" immediately after O, because I don't now for sure if I can actually attribute those to pregnancy. But either way this is what I felt. 1) Right after O I had cramps for a few days. Not regular cramps that I get when I O or when AF is on her way, but what felt like a combination of ute cramps, sore abs, hip pain, and having to poop cramps. It was literally a cramping I had never had before. It started up again around 7DPO and since the BFP I still have odd crampy feelings off and on. 2) I had to get up to pee in the middle of night almost every single night since O, and still do. This was definitely out of the norm for me, I rarely if ever have to get up and pee at night. 3) Around 9 and 10 DPO I was so tired, had a headache that felt like I had hit my head on something (like when I'm hungover) and I started having waves of nausea and lightheadedness. Most of those are still going strong, especially the nausea and fatigue. No actual puking yet though, which has been nice. 4) Boobs are sore, slightly bigger, and my nips are huge and a little darker, that also started around 9-10 DPO.

And last but not least, the BFP chart:

B.F.P.

I truly can't believe it. I'm still in shock & so is DH, but it's been confirmed with cheapies, frers and my first beta, so it looks like after a long and bumpy road, we're actually KU. Cautiously, I'm going to say we're actually having a LO! More details about symptoms and how I told DH to come, for now, I'm still reveling in these 2 beautiful pink lines. :)

This overdramatic temp spike is playing with my emotions

GAH!!!!

Add to that phantom symptoms, and you have an HJK all wound up for eventual disappointment.

I'm not one to put a lot of stock in phantom symptoms either, (they suck, obviously) but I've had every one in the book in previous cycles and I didn't even O. So I tend to take them with a huge grain of salt, but lets just go down the list:

1) Cramps. I can't really say what is "normal" for me in this department because I've been on BC for a year and with that I only cramp the day before and during AF. This cycle I've had them off and on since O and getting more frequent, it's probably period related and just different from what I'm used to.
2) Nipple pain. This I can say for sure is NOT normal for me, I have occasionally sore boobs and nips, but this takes the cake. I actually had a dream that someone was winding a thread around my nipple and pulling it tighter and tighter, I've been having horrible pains even in my sleep. Also probably period related even though it's not "normal" for me. Who knows what's normal for me off of BC?
3) Fatigue. (but I'm always tired, I probably didn't drink enough coffee those days)
4) Lightning Crotch. I'm even laughing at myself typing it. As though a sudden shock in the crotch is the way mother nature tells women they are pregnant. Oh well.

I ovulated! Suck it PCOS!

Woot!!! I freaking did it! I’m so proud of my ovaries. My chart was looking awesome too until today with a big ol’ temp drop. (Which I can’t even be upset about because I’m still 8dpo WTF?! I’ve never been 8dpo! Anyway, I’m excited to see where this goes. I don’t expect to be KU this cycle, but hopefully this is an indicator of things to come, more ovulatory cycles with less intervention. Fingers crossed!

PS> I also swear I'll be a better blogger in the future, I started back up with good intentions only to get ridonculously busy with guests, vacations, snow removal and everything.

CHs?

I'm not too excited yet. My cat's have been behaving horribly in the morning, which is their usual MO after we've left them for a weekend or for vacation, :::sigh::: whatever. Basically, Stan scratches up the carpet outside the bedroom door to get our attention (if we let them sleep in the bedroom he just scratches my side of the mattress, the little dear) and we have tried everything we can think of to curb the habit. All I know for sure is they usually give up and go back to being good kitties in a few days.

Our timing is ok, but we weren't really focused on TTC this month. I was just focused on getting back into the swing of things and trying to get my ovaries to release an egg. We'll see if those CH even stick.