mindless woman, mindless ramblings

Well, we have two sacs, but only one has a baby in it thus far. The RE gave us about a 33% chance that the other baby will develop normally. In that sac, you could *maybe* make out what’s possibly a fetal pole squished right up against the bottom. The other baby looks GREAT, with a very distinct yolk sac. You can clearly see what’s the head and even a little arm bud. The heartbeat was clear and rapid, though I didn’t get any exact measurments.

On the whole, I feel absolutely ECSTATIC that we have a healthy baby growing. It would have been WONDERFUL to see two perfect babies in there, but all things considered, I’m very pleased that we see at least one healthy baby in there. Anything more than one to me is icing on the cake, and with the one healthy beanie that we have, I can’t feel too sad if the other can’t pull through.

What sadness I do feel is knowing that Stephanie is feeling very sad that the other may not make it. She is absolutely elated that she has a baby growing, but is still aching from the possible loss of the other baby, which I can certainly understand and empathize with.

Terry, on the other hand, who is usually Mr. Play-It-Cool-closet-worry-wart, is pretty much matching my mindset and is focusing on healthy Baby A. I could really see his worry lift from his shoulders once he saw the baby. I know that he was always waiting on this ultrasound to take that first real sigh of relief, and I can tell that he’s finally truly accepted the fact that he’s going to be a daddy finally!

We’re all hoping and praying for Baby B, but if it’s not in God’s will that he pull through, we know that we’re all blessed to have Baby A doing so well. Stephanie did make one of her classic jokes and said, “Well Kym, if we end up with one you better be ready to go again in a year ‘cuz I want two babies!”

We’re released to my OB (WOOOOO-HOOOO!!!), and we have our next appointment and ultrasound next Tuesday at 9:45. The only thing I have to be bothered with the RE for anymore is getting weaned off of my meds (WOOOO-FREAKIN’-HOOOO!!!). I’ll get blood work done once a week for about the next three weeks and will start weaning. First I’ll transition from the PIO shots to prometrium pills, then off of progesterone and estrogen altogether.

So, that’s the update! Thanks soooooo much for all of your support! I know that I have a whole clan of Kym-stalkers out there!

…and I have the bubble guts (BG’s) like you wouldn’t believe. This won’t be a particularly long post, because honestly, I’m too spazzed and focused on tomorrow’s ultrasound that I can’t keep a thought straight in my head long enough to type out anything that makes sense. There’s so much I want to write about, but I’m so focused on what’s going on inside of me that I don’t have the focus to write at length about what’s going on outside of me. I just feel like once we see a heartbeat (or heartbeats) tomorrow, I’ll finally be able to release a huge sigh of relief and this pregnancy can become a part of my daily life and not something over and above it, if that makes any sense.

Oh ye faithful readers, bear with me; I promise that my current writer’s block (caused by nerves) will be lifted once I get to come home tomorrow and report on what I KNOW has to be good news.

Well, I’ve been a very bad slacker. Thanks so much to two of my journal commentors – Shena (a self-proclaimed Kym stalker/lurker) and Bonquisha (who is the Black alter-ego of my very White best friend Becky) - for making me get up off of my duff and post a long-awaited update. Let me begin this post with a quote from my very first entry: 

1. I have serious writing blocks that seem to come in and out of remission.
2. I’m usually terribly longwinded.
3. I’m a shameless procrastinator. The one thing I never procrastinate on is procrastination.

The truth of the matter is that the reason why I haven’t written in a while has been probably 45% procrastination and 55% chicken-shit-ination. I got that positive beta of 24 at 5dp5dt and was thrilled beyond belief, then instantly went into a state of utter shock and disbelief. I’m pregnant? It actually *worked*? Get the heck outta here!

Then, I got scared. What if this was all some cruel joke and something crazy happened? What if this was a pregnancy that started off normal, even better than normal, then began a downward spiral into oblivion? I couldn’t help but think about how crazily happy I was when I got the first positives with the first transfer, then shellshock and devestating pain that followed when things didn’t go as planned in the rest of the 2ww. After getting back the early beta, I felt absolutely ecstatic on one hand, but in a small, nagging corner of my mind, I was afraid to let myself get too happy in the fear that as soon as I did, it would all be taken away from me.

Subsequent betas, which thankfully came back very high, helped to quell my disconcerting fear even more. Our first official beta at 9dp5dt was 274. I nearly had a heart attack when Jan called. First she called me, then called Stephanie on the other phone and put the both of us on speaker phone. When the number “274″ came out of her mouth, both Stephanie and I exclaimed, “WHAT!?!” For you non-surrogacy/IVF folks, at 9dp5dt, an average beta number would have been around 100. Numbers far in excess of that can indicate multiples. Obviously, we were way above average. Beta numbers are expected to double (or at least have an 80% increase) about every two days. Two days later, our 11dp5dt beta was 647, so we more than doubled. Rapidly increasing betas can also be an early indication of multiples. Mmmhmmm – from the information regarding this pregnancy that we have so far (early positives on home pregnancy tests, high betas, and rapidly rising betas), the indication is that both of the Pizzas (as Stephanie calls them) seem to have stuck.

Of course, it could go either way, as there is a wide range of what is considered normal for betas. We could have a singleton growing, but I’ll honestly be more surprised if there is one growing than if there are twins. Our first ultrasound is still a long, long, looooonnnngggg 7 days away. People who transferred after we did are going for their first ultrasounds this week; such cruelty to make us wait so long! The good thing is that we’ll be 7w2d along, so we should see more than just barely-perceptible blobs.

Symptom-wise, morning sickness is starting to kick-in in full swing. I haven’t actually tossed my cookies yet, but I thought for sure I was going to be seeing my lunch and dinner again today. I’m fairly sure that I’ll be tossing my cookies by the end of this week. I’m honestly pretty happy about that, as sick as it sounds!

Something interesting about the morning sickness: earlier last week was when the first fleeting moments of nausea started kicking in. One thing I noticed last week that was  different from my own pregnancies was that my nausea seemed to start in the evenings after dinner. With each of my pregnancies, the first twinges of nausea started in the morning and lasted all day. Last Thursday was a long workday for me because it was the last day of pre-planning and afterwards, Open House was from 3-6. Stephanie called around 5 thinking that I’d be home, and chatted with Frank for a while instead. She mentioned to him that she was anxious to see if this pregnancy would give me any symptoms that she had during her pregnancies since I was pregnant with her babies, and as an example, told Frank that her morning sickness started in the evening after dinner and would last all night. She was very surprised and tickled to hear from Frank that my m/s was creeping in at night. It will be fun to continue to compare and contrast stats through the pregnancy.

I’m also already popping out of my clothes. I had Frank drag my maternity clothes storage box out of the garage last week, and most of what I’ve worn have been maternity pants. I can fit my regular pants, but the snug fit aggravates the nausea so I avoid them altogether. When I was pregnant with Kyra and Jaiden, I was in maternity clothes 24/7 by the time I hit 8 weeks, and with Jordan and Kaelyn it was around 10 weeks. I’m definitely an early popper, and this pregnancy doesn’t seem to be any different.

Exhaustion. Almost right from the start, I’ve been tired day in and day out. Now that I’m back to work, one of my first thoughts upon waking up is, “How much longer until I can go back to sleep?” Generally, I’m a night owl and can function on 5-6 hours of sleep. Now, I’m lucky if I can make it past 9:00 without falling asleep. When I was pregnant with the twins, I missed half a season of ER because I couldn’t stay up to 10:00 no matter how hard I tried. The new season of Nip/Tuck starts September 5. Thank you, oh ye inventors of digital video recorders.

Speaking of exhaustion, it’s now 20 minutes past my mental pregnancy shut down time of 9:00. There will be more updates in the days to come as there’s a lot that I need to get caught up on in the other important area of my life – the twins started kindergarten last week, and I’ve been given the honor of supervising a first-year teacher and a student teacher this year.  I’m very excited about those things, and can’t wait to start writing about them. Actually, I can wait. I’m just too danged tired right now to do anything other than go to sleep.