Ryan’s Ramblings

It Doesn’t Stop at Pregnancy

We are at 14 weeks and 6 days today. I am struggling today and the last few days. I started a Facebook post and then decided to delete it and blog instead. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been so hesitant to post. Tomorrow, we are 15 weeks pregnant. 15 weeks sounds so short and so early in pregnancy, but 4 months pregnant sounds SO pregnant. The last few days, I have been feeling weird or “under the weather”–dizzy, lightheaded, headaches, fatigue. Other than that, I haven’t felt pregnant lately. Of course, that gives my anxiety so much fuel! I’m VERY glad we have an ultrasound and OB appointment on Thursday, but my nerves until then are just gone.

I HATE how much infertility has robbed me of joy. Even though we are pregnant, I am still holding my breath. Still waiting for the disappointment to show. Even though we are in the 2nd trimester, I am still constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall. Infertility doesn’t stop at pregnancy. Infertility isn’t just not being able to get pregnant. Years of infertility conditions you for constant disappointment and grief. I’m finding now that this doesn’t stop at pregnancy. I’m assuming it won’t let up until we are holding our baby in our arms. I do feel some excitement for our miracle baby, but I can’t let myself have that sigh of relief.

This month, we have had so much going on in our lives, you’d think I could preoccupy my mind. I started a new job on July 8th. We have been house hunting the past few weeks. Last week and this week, Austin has been prepping our home for professional pictures to be done so our home can get listed for sale. We are wanting to hire movers for our move, since I am useless. Once our house is on the market, we will be able to seriously house hunt, moving about 60-70 miles from where we currently live. I’d love to get the nursery done, but since we will be moving, there’s no use in even thinking about it until we have closed! Austin won’t let me do much packing or cleaning to protect Baby A, so I’m feeling even more useless than normal. So all of that is going on and yet I am still terrified that something is wrong with our baby, I’m constantly waiting for terrible news, and I can’t let myself relax and get excited about what’s to come.

I know that Thursday will change this. We are going to one of the “entertainment” ultrasound places, so we will get to see our baby, confirm gender, and get some pictures. We will get a recording of Baby A’s heartbeat, video of the whole session, a stuffed animal with the recording of the heartbeat in it, and I think a peek at the fancy 4D/HD/3D ultrasound or whatever.

Also, I really hate posting about my pregnancy. Especially since I know some of my friends are currently struggling with infertility. I remember how hurtful each pregnancy and birth post was when we were in the thick of everything. It’s such a struggle. Again, infertility stealing the joy of something that should be so, so joyful.

Fuck you infertility.

Weekly Updates: Week 6-13

I hate posting these. I hate my fat body pre-baby. It took me a while to come to terms with it and decide to share. My mom yelled at me for not posting weekly updates like every other prego. LOL! Okay, she didn’t yell….
Anyway, here are the weekly updates til now!

Week 6: May 26

Week 7: June 2

Week 8: June 9

Week 9: June 16

Week 10: June 23

Week 11: June 30

Week 12: July 7

Week 13: July 14

I needed comparison pictures to feel better about myself and convince myself that its not just fat…there is a baby belly!

Life Stuff…

This last week has been crazy and overwhelming, to say the least. I should probably be posting my weekly updates on here, so I will be doing that later. I didn’t even think about this until now.

So, I started my new job in Mustang on the 8th. This new job comes with a salary increase, which changes our lives pretty significantly. With a baby on the way, an hour drive is a little much. So we have been talking about moving to the Mustang/Yukon area. We have been concerned with our credit scores and being able to get approved. So we decided to give it a shot on Monday. This guy wasn’t able to qualify us. I was VERY disappointed and gave up on looking at houses. We ended up getting referred to another lender, and we found out Friday afternoon that we were pre-approved! We’ve been watching houses for several weeks, so we have seen that they are going VERY quickly. We found one we LOVED and decided to make an offer. We learned that offers are only being accepted well over asking price. Basically, people are coming to Oklahoma and paying cash for homes. So our lender, our contingent appeal (contingent upon us selling our current home), and our type of loan, we are the least appealing buyer right now. Offers are being accepted at $25k over asking price. So this totally changed our budget and the types of homes we were liking at.

We decided to put an offer in for a home, and upon doing so had a stressful conversation about budget, what we want to do, and max house price. Normally, these conversations are stressful for a bit and then we work it out. How I felt when this started getting stressful was scary. I could feel in my body the stress, which terrified me! So we stopped the conversation for a while, but finally got it worked out. Our offer was not accepted. Our realtor suggested we get our house on the market NOW and not look at houses to purchase until we have a lot of interest and/or an offer on our home. So that’s where the whole house buying situation is currently. That all was Friday night and a bit of Saturday.

We will be putting our house on the market, which means we need to clean it up and pack up a ton of stuff. Wonderful. Lol! But exciting. So that’s what we will be working on! Don’t worry, we will be hiring movers this time! It’s a lot…starting a new job, selling our house, buying a house, moving, baby on the way. It’s been a lot to process. Also, being an adult sucks! While my new salary is a big change, buying a house is still limited, budget-wise, and just looking forward. The realtor is coming by tomorrow to walk through and get our house on the market, so YAY!

We also probably will be changing our Gender Reveal party to a different day. I finally got called by the high risk OB to get scheduled—August 19th. Apparently they don’t see you until week 18, which would have been nice to know. Since it’s been so long (will be 9 weeks) since we’ve seen Baby A and we want to confirm gender earlier than that, we decided to schedule an ultrasound at one of the fancy “entertainment” places. We also really want one of those stuffed animals that has a recording of the heartbeat. So, we have our next OB appointment on the 29th (next week!) and we will be having this ultrasound on that day too! We will be at 15 weeks 1 day on that day. We are VERY excited. I cannot wait.

We have a LOT going on all at once! It’s crazy, but exciting. I am feeling REAL pregnant too—belly wise. In 2 days, there was a ton of growth. I felt it, so I made Austin take a pic and compare it to our weekly pic from Wednesday. I definitely have a bump and sitting/laying is getting uncomfortable. Very exciting. I guess we won’t be buying nursery stuff until we are in our new house! Which sucks, because I wanted it to be done around our gender reveal. But it’s fine! Having a new nursery will be even more exciting to decorate and plan!

Today we are 13 weeks 4 days! 12 sleeps until we get to see our baby again! SO EXCITED!

11 Weeks—First OB Appointment

Yesterday (Wednesday the 30th), Austin and I went to our first OB appointment at 11 weeks 0 days! Before that, we spent the day moving out of my office. My amazing husband did ALL the work! I was only allowed to pack boxes, and he did the rest. In the HEAT! So we were sweaty, smelly, and tired when it was finally time for the appointment. My doctor, Dr Bourne, has been my doctor since I was 16. She does general/family medicine and is also an OB/GYN. 8 years ago, when my ex and I decided to try to get pregnant, it was Dr Bourne that I talked to. When Austin and I decided to try, we went to her. She’s been with me through over half of my life, and through some of the most difficult moments in my life. It was exciting getting to talk about our baby with her, in person! 5 years of trying to get pregnant, and I FINALLY get to have her as an OB. Crazy!

The appointment details now…
When I checked in, I immediately had to pee in a cup. I hear this is the norm for prenatal visits. We went over our medical and family medical history with her and talked about what we would be doing today. She did a general physical exam of me. I found out that I have a “roomy pelvis”, so there’s plenty of room for Baby A! She then got the Doppler to try to hear the baby’s heartbeat. At 11 weeks, it is pretty tough to find it, but she wanted to try. After a little time, she found the heartbeat. We got to listen to it for a while. It was pretty cool. Dr Bourne was excited. She said hearing the heartbeat is her favorite thing. After all this, I had to pee in a cup again, because Dr Bourne ordered an additional lab and I didn’t give enough the first time, and then like 6 vials of blood for lab work. Yay for more pokes and tests. Lol! But it’s worth it!

While talking with Dr Bourne, we did learn some things. She will be referring me to a high risk OB due to my chronic high blood pressure before the pregnancy. Her and Dr Bourne will collaborate and work together to ensure my health and the baby’s health. I will be seeing Dr Jennifer Smith at Baptist every 4 weeks until later in the pregnancy. Same with Dr Bourne. Dr Smith will measure baby and will do an ultrasound. So we will get to see baby every 4 weeks! YAY! Dr Bourne will still deliver and such, unless something crazy happens and Dr Smith feels she needs to take over. Dr Bourne also said to expect to deliver some time between 36 and 39 weeks because of my blood pressure. For us, this time frame is December 22nd through January 12th. So we may end up with a Christmas or New Years baby. My Christmas break is December 18 to January 2. So having a baby during that time will be leave without using my sick days. So I am excited about that! It’s just crazy to think it’ll be even sooner than the countdowns on our pregnancy apps. Whatever it takes to bring our sweet, miracle baby into the world safely!

I go back to Dr Bourne at 15 weeks, on July 29th. Now I patiently wait to hear from the high risk OB. At 13 weeks, I have to start taking a baby aspirin every day to help with my blood pressure. My labs came back normal, and I don’t have to take Metformin anymore. WOOT! 3 less pills! It’s the little things!

I start my new job next week, on the 8th, so that will be the real test of my pregnancy bod. The 14th will be the start of the 2nd trimester! CRAZY!

A Week Later…Ultrasound #2

I am so sorry for being so slow. I keep thinking I will post later. I’m not sure if anyone is dying for posts. If so, I will try to do better. I think part of it is just feeling strange about being pregnant and writing about it.

I forgot to post after our last ultrasound, so here’s all the fun from that! It was on June 16th at 9 weeks 0 days.

I have another video on the GoPro, but I need to transfer that from the GoPro and haven’t. I will eventually! It was difficult to blog about this appointment because we officially graduated from OU, the fertility specialist. We are now just normal pregnant people. We gave hugs and said our “see you laters” and I bawled. Hysterically. I couldn’t stop crying most of the day. We spent so much time together. They are an amazing staff and I will miss them so much. We also talked about the process of transferring our frozen embabies, so that when the time comes, we know what to do and what to expect. Such a crazy thing.

Today is 10 weeks 0 days, and it was our last PIO shot! I can’t believe it. Now, we are officially a normal pregnancy. 57 days of PIO shots and a total of 68 days of injections. SO INSANE!!! I will blog about this and process everything. TOMORROW. Promise! For now, the ultrasound of sweet baby A is enough.

6 weeks 6 Days: Ultrasound!

Today was finally the day!! We have been waiting so long, it felt! We were both thinking it could possibly be twins. And of course, I was terrified of not hearing anything. On our way to the clinic, a piece of the road (asphalt) flew up and hit right in front of me. Cool. Another crisis to worry about!

Nothing could take away from the excitement of our appointment though. Austin and I videoed on our phones, and we recorded on the GoPro. The GoPro video will have to be uploaded to YouTube, so I’ll add that as soon as I can get it to upload. Here’s the videos…

My video

Austin’s video

Baby looks great! Heartbeat was 121 bpm. We will have another ultrasound on the 16th, which will be week 9 day 0! The nurse said this ultrasound is fun because the baby looks like a gummy bear, we will get to see movement, and we will get to hear more of the heartbeat! I will continue the progesterone in oil (PIO) shots until June 23rd (week 10)!

The pic below is Baby A! There’s only one baby in there. The Big empty circle on the left is the yolk sac. The thing on the right that looks like Eva from Wall-e is Baby A. The black space is the brain ventricles. CRAZY!

Another…Lemon…?

🤰🏼6 weeks & 4 days 🤰🏼
I haven’t had too much to update on, and since Wednesday, I haven’t wanted to update. We have 2 more sleeps until our ultrasound. My nausea has been here and there. I’ve been exhausted still. I’m feeling cramping/pressure pretty often. The constant bathroom visits has happened, but it isn’t ridiculous amounts yet. The worst part is waking up in the middle of the night and waking up with a full bladder. I’m trying not to freak out and focus on the present, but I am just too anxious about our ultrasound!

I still feel weird talking about being pregnant. Infertility is such a ravenous bitch. I’m terrified of losing our miracle baby. I’m terrified of all of the things that could go wrong. I don’t feel worthy of being pregnant. I know, I know…so ridiculous. I hate that in sharing our journey, everyone knows so so early in our pregnancy. Then, on the flip side, people don’t want to share before 12 weeks in case there is a miscarriage because they don’t want to share that pain and sorrow. But then, if we shared about the loss and pain, maybe it wouldn’t feel so shameful and kept a secret, just like with infertility. So I feel selfish hating that people know we are pregnant so early. It’s basically a shame spiral.

When Life Gives You…..SHIT

My blog has focused on our infertility journey, so this is hard to share. It is especially difficult because my mom says not to post about it. But this is my blog, where I’m honest and sharing our journey, and this news strongly impacts our journey.

My last day of school was Thursday. The calendar had been changed several times at the beginning of the year, and I didn’t realize that we didn’t have a “work day” on Friday until Wednesday. Last Friday, my boss had a conversation with me regarding some complaints about me, and he was being required to create an “improvement plan” for me. The complaints were bullshit and basically came down to certain people being sensitive and not caring about anything but their world. One of the things was that I didn’t answer my phone when I was out for IVF. Another thing was I didn’t tell my boss on one of the days I was going to be out (I hadn’t decided until like midnight, and didn’t want to text). Upper admin knows about my IVF. I’ve argued with them regarding other things, like getting docked 20 minutes of sick leave for getting to work late, due to an appointment at OU, even though I always work past our “contract time”. The district is in a shit ton of trouble right now, and I have held upper admin and others to the law on different issues and occasions. How dare I?!? This was my second year here, so I am still on a “temporary” contract, meaning I have to get rehired each year, until I’ve been there for 3 years.

The board voted on the “rehire” list in April, but you can’t find the list anywhere. So I’ve been wondering if I was getting rehired or not. We have a mass exodus happening, too. But I chose to stay put. I love my job. I love my district, minus upper admin. Well, on Wednesday (the day before the last day of school), my boss asked that I come see him, around 11am, so I went over to his office. He let me know that they (upper admin) decided not to renew my contract. That’s right, I was essentially fired. Less than a a day before my contract was over.

I’m devastated. I love my job. I know that there’s probably a blessing in it, but with being pregnant, this is NOT something that needed to happen right now. I’ve been working on saving up sick leave for maternity leave. Starting a new job, applying & interviewing, etc is NOT a fun thing when I’m early pregnant and supposed to refrain from stress. Starting a new job in August only to start maternity leave in January, maybe December is NOT a good time. Especially since my job is usually done by not many people. My mom works for the company I have my flex and disability policy with, and she brought up something I didn’t even think about…my disability policy starting over MAY not cover my pregnancy because it could be a pre-existing condition because of starting a new job. The short term disability policy pays a percentage of my salary for 6 weeks (natural) or 8 weeks (C-section) and there are many other benefits with birth that are paid out. But if my pregnancy is considered pre-existing, then it won’t be covered, and I’m essentially fucked. Thanks mom! Lol!

So applying for a new job, interviewing, getting, starting a new job, changes in salary/pay day/insurance, etc is too much in general, but even more so when pregnant. FUCK. It seems we can’t ever have anything without struggle. My life and what I’ve been through. Our infertility journey. We FINALLY got pregnant, and now this. I just want to enjoy the good things in our lives instead of being knocked down by life….again. So, prayers, good vibes, positive thoughts, crystals, whatever you believe in, for us please! I’m trying not to stress and think about it, but as you can see, it’s so hard not to. Damnit.

5 Weeks & 6 Days

Today, I am 5 weeks 6 days pregnant. It’s still so strange to say, to type, to think…

Tonight I get to give myself my progesterone shot. Yay… But at least I know what I’m doing now. As far as symptoms, my nausea is now hit and miss and I am stocked up (as of today) on nausea lozenges. I’m still constantly exhausted and pregnancy brain is at 100%. I have gas really bad at night, which I found out that progesterone makes you gassy, so that totally makes sense. My boobs are already getting bigger. My areoles are dry and darkening. I had to get some nipple balm it was so bad. Nips are constantly erect still. So, that’s about it. My last day before summer is Friday, so I’m just trying to relax and count down the days.

You want something for so long. You work for something for so long that is completely out of your hands. You dream about the moment for so long. Now that its here, it is hard to process and accept as truth. I’ve been a nervous wreck about pregnancy. If I’m not having symptoms at a specific moment, I am freaking out. I’m terrified of something happening. I am trying to be grateful and calm my thoughts, but it is very difficult. I have some diagnoses that dictate my thoughts and my ability to control them. That being said, yesterday, I panic bought pregnancy tests. I searched for a while for some “one day delivery” ones on Amazon and did the “BUY NOW” option, which only requires a slide. They came in today, and I took both of the ones in the box.

Yep, still pregnant! I feel like an idiot now, but yesterday I was freaking out. We have our scan next Tuesday, so 7 more sleeps! I hope that when we see our sweet baby on the screen and hear the heartbeat, my panic and anxiety will subside. 🤞🏼

I need to try to blog earlier in the day, because my brain is toast.

Test Day and Beyond

Test Day

For the last few days, I’ve been feeling similar to what I have been since the transfer—a little cramping, bloating, etc. I’ve been EXHAUSTED the last few days, regardless of how much sleep I got. On Tuesday, when wiping, I had some light pink spotting. I’ve never had this before. So I look it up…and of course, it can either be an early pregnancy symptom OR a side effect of the progesterone shots. So I have really given up on figuring out what I’m feeling. Lol! I’ve also had some throbbing of my uterus area and general discomfort if there’s a lot of bending in that area. So I try to sit or lay so my lower abdomen is somewhat flat. My butt is permanently bruised from the shots, but they aren’t painful anymore. The bruises on my belly and my arms (from blood work) are healed and back to looking normal.

After getting my blood drawn, we got to talk with some of the nurses and Angie, our person before IVF. We call her Dr Angie. That was fun. We LOVE our nurses! Austin still hasn’t met Dr Craig! After that, we went to Jimmys Egg. Normally, I have a sweet tooth that cannot be satisfied. I usually get the cinnamon roll pancakes. When we came after egg retrieval, I did not want sweet. I haven’t craved sweet since before the retrieval. This trip, I had a normal adult breakfast. It was so out of character, that I took a picture! We were finally heading home. All of a sudden, a few miles before an exit, I felt sick. I felt like I was about to throw up. I was able to make it to the exit & gas station. I went number 2 and felt a little better. The toilets were gross, so I decided if I had to puke, it would be outside in the grass. So I went outside and hung out in the grass. Finally, I puked. All of my yummy breakfast. My nose bled too. At first, it was hard to tell where the blood was coming from! I cleaned up and then we got back on the road. We were 20/30 minutes from home. If I puked and am not pregnant, I’m gunna be pissed!

We knew we wouldn’t get the call until after 1. They run all of their lab work in the afternoon, and they take lunch 12-1. So we patiently waited. We got the GoPro ready to record the call and our reaction. Austin got me set up with crackers and Powerade. And we waited….

The call FINALLY came…
PREGNANT!!!!! We could not believe it!! All of the nurses got on the call to tell us. It was so sweet! I love them so much!! My HCG was 337, and they want to see at least 150. My progesterone was 15, which is the lowest number they want to see. Because of this, they increased our dose of progesterone shots from 1 mil to 1.5 mil. I will go in for bloodwork again on Monday. My HCG should quadruple and be above 1300 and my progesterone should increase above 15.

We still could not believe it! Austin wanted to have something tangible, so he went to buy some pregnancy tests! The pack he got had the digital one and the line one. We did both. The line one showed positive in less than 30 seconds. CRAZY!!!! We’ve never had a positive before. Then Austin took some pictures, because he’s awesome! While he was at the store, he called his stepdad. We FaceTimed my mom and recorded it, of course! I think we had her convinced it was negative before we showed her the tests. My dad is deployed, so we had to call him. We recorded that too. We ended up talking to him for over an hour. It was so great to finally get to share GOOD news! After talking to my dad, Austin called his sister.

After that, we went back to normal…lounging and watching TV. I think Austin posted on social media at some point. Still unbelievable.

The Days After…

In the days after test day, because I suck at blogging, I really have been feeling it. Nausea, exhaustion, all of it. Friday I was back at work, which felt so weird. Then it was the weekend. We still just were in shock! Then set in the fear…I was terrified about the bloodwork on Monday. Would our numbers be enough? Did we hype for nothing?! I even had some nightmares over the weekend. I was so glad when Monday finally came.

They drew my blood quickly, and then the wait. Again, I knew it would be after 1. I couldn’t think about anything else. As 1 became 2, and 2 was almost 3, I began to think that they were waiting to call because it was bad news. I was about to call them, blaming my impatience on my hour long drive coming soon, when they called. My HCG was 1651 and my progesterone was 23.90!!! My numbers looked great, the nurse said. WHEW! I texted Austin, and he also felt relieved. So we are officially pregnant. My body knows it, but my brain can’t comprehend it! We will have our first ultrasound on June 1st at 6 weeks 6 days! I feel like that will be emotional and probably when it will hit us.

And now…I’m pretty much always nauseous and exhausted. No amount of sleep helps. I’ve been having ridiculous gas at night. I’m moody. My boobs hurt and my areolas are dry as shit! My leggings already hurt, so I’ve been wearing maxi dresses this week. Austin had to help me dress, and when we got the dress over my boobs, it HURT. And its compressing them. My bras are already too small. And pregnancy brain….it already bad. I’m thankful for these things, because otherwise, I would be worried and anxious that something was wrong.

So, we are 4 weeks 6 days today. Sorry for the slow update. My brain has not been able to blog in a while. I don’t even know where to begin with pictures and videos, so that may come later…

Literally Just Rambling and Processing…

Podcast!!!

I’ve finally converted my blog posts into podcast episodes! Right now, its auto-generated, so it may be weird. Eventually, I will record myself reading it. Maybe. Lol! I am obsessed with podcasts, so this is a bit exciting for me. It will be available soon on all podcast platforms, but for now you can add it using a URL with this link or add it on Spotify with this link. I’ve added by URL on Apple, and have instructions on my Home Page. I will update whenever it changes and/or I learn more. Let me know what you think! I could choose a man’s voice or a woman’s voice. This is a weird thing about me, but once I publish a post, I don’t read it again, so I don’t listen to the podcast episodes either. It’s just weird to me! Also, I have an anxiety disorder and OCD, so nothing is ever good enough to me. Sooo…… Please, give me feedback!!!

Random Thoughts…

We have been taking pictures and videoing the progesterone shots (called PIO in the fertility world). Because this doesn’t change much and we are doing this every evening until 10 weeks pregnant, I haven’t been adding these to my posts. If you want to see these, I will gladly start adding them! It’s just very repetitive. We are mostly documenting for ourselves. What I am thinking I will probably do is just make a Google Photos album shareable or something. WordPress has limits on how much media you can have with the free version. I’m kind of just thinking while blogging.

Another thing…people that have donated to us. I feel really weird about saying something on social media. I want to do a “thank you” post, but I don’t want to tag everyone. You never know. I’ve thought about tagging them in the comments so it doesn’t show on their page, but it’s still public. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but I want to respect these people but I also want to shout out their support! If you have an opinion or guidance, please comment!
P.S. Can you tell my overthinking is clinical?!? 🤣

Cash Money

HEY! Must be the monay!
Sorry…had to! Lol! I haven’t talked much about money. With us taking out the loan, I’m not really stressed about it. We are still doing out Puzzle Fundraiser, and we are about halfway to that goal. The money that is donated is being moved to an account only for IVF purposes. The loan is super long term and high interest, so as soon as everything is paid off at OU, I will put whatever donations toward the loan. I was expecting OU to be super strict on payment and such, but it’s been a little weird. We definitely had to pay for our “package”, so everything included in that, obviously I don’t worry about. But for example, the cryogenic freezing of our embryos is not included and is listed as $800. I thought we would have to pay that on the day of the transfer, but it STILL hasn’t been billed. The egg retrieval, which was 4/28, was only added on 5/6. I paid $500 early, not knowing they don’t like prepay unless it’s for the “package” and when that’s due. So I have a credit and some charges from before IVF. So I’m waiting for all of that to clear before paying anything. While money isn’t an issue or struggle, it’s still on my mind. Especially with an added monthly bill. I will update our total costs when all of that clears as well.

How I’m Doing

We are now 7 days past transfer, or in TTC/IVF lingo, we are 7dp5dt. LOL! Since transfer, I have just been exhausted. No amount of sleep helps. I have to remind myself every minute, basically, the crazy that my body has endured in the last 20+ days. Last night, when trying to fall asleep, my uterus area was throbbing. Not like pain or anything, but like I could feel blood pumping there more. If that makes sense. Again, I’m trying not to think too much into ANY feeling, symptom, etc, but that was something I hadn’t experienced before. My butt, where the PIO shots go, hurts and is bruised pretty bad. Bruises on my butt are worse to avoid than the belly ones, so….super fun. That’s pretty much everything about how I’ve been feeling.

Another thing that has been on my mind is the fact that we have been so open since finding out we had to move onto IVF. While I’m happy to do so (OBVI), it does pose some not fun things. I can’t hide the negative like I was able to before. I would only tell people that asked. I can’t hide the positive. I’m concerned about miscarriage once we finally get pregnant, and always have been, but there is increased risk with IVF. So we will be finding out at 4 weeks pregnant 🤞 and then having our first ultrasound at 6.5 or 7 weeks. I don’t want to hide either way because everyone has been so amazing during this and my whole point has been to be transparent about the process. Sharing our result, no matter what, is part of my purpose. It just sucks, either way. I still feel so protective of our infertility journey. Can you believe it?! I have how many blog posts?! It makes no sense, I know. But all of those things that I have shared that I feel because of infertility are still there and I am still fighting. That doesn’t go away. If anything, be encouraged that I STILL struggle with feeling inadequate and lesser than because of infertility. I know it doesn’t define me or my worth, but at times, it’s really hard to believe that.

Now for some happy…I got us a frame for our embaby picture! It makes me smile SO MUCH!!!! I never knew I could love a bunch of cells so much. 3 more sleeps until we find out how our embaby is doing!!!