A little follow up

My Dr. called the other day and request that I head back in for more blood work. This is where my decent pain tolerance makes this all a little more bearable. She wants to follow this until my hCG levels are back down to zero. Hopefully that’s today as god only knows how much each of these tests is costing me.
Once I’m back down to zero and I have had one regular cycle, we are allowed to start trying again in earnest. And you’d better beleive we have a plan.
What’s the plan you may ask? Well lots of practice naturally. I have been doing lots of reading about how to go about this most effectively. I’ll detail those efforts, but I think maybe I’ll do that in my other non pregnant blog. FishingForFruit if you’d like to follow.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Try.  Try again.

No chicken.  Test results came in early and my HcG levels have dropped significantly.  My Dr. called it a chemical pregnancy (this actually kind of helped a little) stating that sperm had met egg, and cells had begun dividing, but baby had not yet started to form.

I am kind of okay.  I want to be pregnant.  We want a chicken.  We will enjoy our practice time until we get it.  This was all a lesson for us.  We will learn, grow and move forward.

In the mean time, I suppose this blog name no longer fits.  I will have to begin another to chronicle the goings on of the not so pregnant after all- bartender.

Are you my Chicken?

I don’t know what to think.

I spoke with the Dr. yesterday morning and she asked me to go into the diagnostics lab and get some blood work done.  She wanted to check my HcG levels.  I had to get one test done yesterday (hopefully I will know results of that one today) and one more on Saturday morning.  The idea is that as your pregnancy progresses, your HcG levels should increase.  Hopefully, the levels from tomorrows test are higher that from yesterdays.  That will tell me that I haven’t miscarried and the pregnancy is still progressing.  If they are lower it means I have or am in the process of a miscarriage.

I went and got the blood drawn then came back home to crawl back into bed ( the Dr. wrote me a note asking that I be excused from work for the weekend as she recommended bed-rest).  Throughout the day my bleeding and cramping continued to worsen.  It peaked yesterday evening and started to ease off after I had passed a number of quarter sized clots.  What that me miscarrying?  Was it some other easily explained cramping and spotting?  Do we still have a chicken?  I was convinced yesterday that it could only be a miscarriage.  Now, who knows?

If i stand up for a while, it feels like I start to cramp a little again, so here in bed I lay.  The bleeding has all but stopped which is an exciting prospect.  I read a lot about miscarriages last night and it seems like if that’s what that was, there maybe should have been more blood.  Maybe even more pain with my cramps.  That being said, every woman and pregnancy -and presumably loss of pregnancy- is different.

The only symptom I have really had so far in this pregnancy is sore breasts.  Yesterday it seemed that the soreness was all but gone.  Today they do feel sore.  As sore as they were? I don’t think so, but they are sore.  I may be grasping at straws.

So here we are.  I don’t know what to think.  I don’t want to be too hopeful as I don’t want to be so let down.  I also don’t want to assume that it’s all over.  I guess I am prepared for it to not have been our little chick and I’ll be so excited if it is our little chick.  I’m still taking care of myself.  In bed, lots of water, healthy foods, prenatal vitamins.

Won’t know anything for sure until we get the results on Monday.

edit: Just spoke with the Dr.  She said that my test from yesterday showed nice healthy numbers for HcG levels (2100 I think) but if I’m experiencing a miscarriage, that number won’t mean anything until we can compare it to tomorrows number.  She noted that my progesterone level was low and if this pregnancy is progressing, I will need to be put on progesterone until the placenta picks up the slack and can take over on its own.  Basically she said I should keep feeling what I’m feeling.  She said it could very likely have been a miscarriage, and she also said that it just as easily could have been some random early pregnancy bleeding.  Won’t know anything until Monday.

Wish us luck.

Scary

Yesterday, I decided enough was enough.  I was tired of this house not being arranged how I wanted it.  I was determined to rearrange and rectify the situation.  this also included making steps in the direction of making my room downstairs into an appropriate baby’s room.  The day included some heavy lifting.

Yesterday evening I started getting crampy.  It was uncomfortable but I have read that cramping is normal.  Later in the evening when I went potty I noticed some brown spotting.  That’s when I started getting nervous.  I know that cramping is normal, and that spotting is normal, but it seems like everything I have read has differing opinions on whether it’s okay to be cramping and spotting at the same time.

I called and left a message for my Dr. last night asking if all was well and I can relax about it.  This early morning I woke up to more cramps and not a whole lot more, but some spotting.  But when I woke up the second time, at a more reasonable hour, there was more spotting.  A little heavier, more red-not bright read, but a deep red, and a little mucousy.  I know this is graphic but it’s what’s going on.  The cramps aren’t quite as bad as they were, but still present.  I’m nervous. I’m uncomfortable.

I’m currently waiting for a call back from my Dr.  Ultimately I think everything is okay…I think…  But I want the advice of a medical practitioner to tell me so.

Until then, trying not to move too much (not sure how this is going to help) and trying to keep myself distracted.

Lucky Girl

I am a lucky girl.

In my life I have a man named Ryan.  Sometimes I call him Ry-Ry, sometimes it’s baby, doll, baby-doll or Gordon- whatever it is I call him, I am so lucky I found him, and I wouldn’t want to embark on this journey with anyone else.

I know that when my ankles are swollen and i can’t see my toes, when it’s midnight and I get a craving for a grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough with fontina cheese and Italian dry salami, he’ll get up and make one for me- even if I can only eat three bites cuz there isn’t any room left in my stomach with baby Gordon/Berry taking up all the space in there.  I know that if I ever get to a point that I throw up everything I try to eat, he will be up and to the grocery store as many times as needed to get me any and all supplies to get and keep some sort of nutrients in my body- chicken broth, Gatorade, toast etc… I know that when I inevitably feel ugly, fat, bloated and crappy, he will (honestly) think I have never been sexier.  He’ll be around to rub whatever parts of me need rubbing, to read me to sleep when the sandman is taking a night off and to brush my hair when it hurts to try to reach it.  For all of this and more I feel so lucky.

For all of this and more I also am trying to take care of him the best I can until I run out of steam and can care no longer.  I spent much of yesterday washing all our sheets, all our camping stuff, and all the clothes of his I could find around the house (I will say I didn’t venture into his room to fetch them from there, I had my hands full with what I found elsewhere).  He worked yesterday and when he walked through the door, I was just finishing dinner and had a plate ready for him within minutes (it’s only fair to also add here that I left all the dishes for him to do, which he has been working on all morning :))  

He’s been so much fun to talk to about baby.  We talk about names (more on this later), plans, playing catch and/or painting toenails.  I tell him little tidbits about what I’m reading (some he knows, others he had no idea- chicks poo during labor, although I almost never shut the bathroom door (don’t judge me) so this shouldn’t be too far from normal for us.  Don’t get me wrong, he has had his little freakouts about the whole thing, but with every passing day he settles into the idea a little more.

We are both a little sad that things will never be just us again.  Things will never be the same.  Here’s the thing though, we have done this.  We spent our first year and a half going up and down.  We broke up more times than either of us could count.  We both gave up.  We moved on.  Then we didn’t.  We came back to each other and have been going strong ever since.  How? Well that’s another story, but here we are.  We overcome.  We adapt.  We grow.  We stick together.  We argue and compromise, love the crap out of each other from our opposite ends of the couch, we snuggle then sleep separately.  We make life and love work.  Some days are harder than others, but every day I go to bed glad to be sharing this life (mine and the new one we are growing) with him.

Guilt and Work

Guilt

While I have been wanting to tell anyone and everyone who will listen, especially those who I also think might care, I have been working so freaking hard to keep my trap shut!  While I don’t have any established reason to worry that things won’t go well, I have heard too many stories and read too much advice about waiting to tell the world until after the first trimester is over.  I doubt I’ll make it that long, but at the very least I’d like to wait until after I see my Dr. and she confirms that I am in fact pregnant and that it’s okay to tell people.  At which point I will still likely keep it quiet from the general public, but will be excited to tell the people I trust and am close to. It took every fiber of my being to not tell Tawny last night.  She’s my girl!  Others can figure it out for themselves.

This brings me to the guilt.  While It’s not in our current plan to spread the news, it has leaked out to a few close friends (and even a few relative strangers).  And with each person who finds out before my parents and sister the guilt gets a little heavier.  It’s so not fair for anyone to know before they do (with the exception of Ryan), I understand this.  Here’s the thing though.  The people who know so far didn’t get any cool surprise.  No puzzle, no treat, no planning.  I would have told my family the day I knew if I had everything planned, ready to go, and in their hands, but alas, I did not.  So they wait.  And I feel endlessly guilty.  At least they don’t know they are waiting.  Hopefully they don’t even notice that they weren’t the first to know. (I’m hoping that the “you’re going to be grandparents/ and aunt” thing will keep them distracted enough to not mind.

And that is a perfect segway into…

Work 

I have to tell one more person.  My boss.  I’m going as far up the ladder as I can and requesting that the information stay between the 2 of us for now as there is no need for the others to know at this point.

I found out yesterday that our office manager is leaving us.  I had asked months and months ago to be considered if she needed help at any point or decided to leave.  Apparently that conversation was forgotten as the fill in has been chosen and isn’t me.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love my job.  I love my regulars (it’s so so hard to not tell them too!).  I also like the idea of learning new things and not letting work get too stagnant.  I was thinking maybe I could do both.  Apparently a reminder is needed that I’d like to do both and at this point, it seems to me that I would be a good choice to do both because at some point in the not too distant future, I may not be able to fit behind that teeny tiny bar of mine.

Ultimately, I want him to know so that if something else like this opportunity does come up, I want/need to be considered for it.  I also want to start his wheels turning on what other options might be good for me when I’m too big to fit in the bar. (maybe I’ll be one of those pregnant chicks who only looks (and feels) like she’s 6 months pregnant when she’s really 9 months, but I’m not counting on it)  I also want him to know my plans, and that I have been thinking about this seriously, taking it seriously, and want and need to keep working in whatever capacity as long as possible.  I’d hate for him to find out some other way (he knows all) and feel blindsided or worried that I wasn’t going to tell him.  So.  We have a meeting setup for tomorrow afternoon in which I will spill the beans and share my plans and thoughts on the matter.

And then I’m done.  I refuse to tell anyone else until my parents and sister know first.  Even when the booze distributors come to see me with new samples that I can’t drink (yesterday).  It’s only right.  I feel like a bad kid for keeping them out of the loop this long.  I hate that I didn’t opt for overnight shipping on everything I have ordered so far.  I want them to know so badly!

All in due time I suppose.

Updates on how I’m feeling:

So far, still not feeling very different.

Everything I read about where I am in this adventure talks about how I may be feeling crappy and how to combat it, how to get workouts in when I feel like I’m going to yak and all that, but I feel fine.  (I guess I really don’t have an excuse for not going to the gym)

When I’m hungry I’m really hungry.  Not in a low blood sugar kind of way, but in a my stomach is so empty it’s eating itself kind of way.

Sometimes I feel like I have superman sense of smell, other times it seems normal.

I am peeing a lot which they say I will do based on hormones and all that, but I’m not convinced that it’s not just because I have been drinking extra water (like they say to do).

I have heard lots about constipation ( I think that’s supposed to happen later and not something I look forward to) but so far I have been more regular than ever. (possibly due to all the apricots I have been eating.  Apricot season is my favorite)

Lots of water, lots of fruit. Yum!

Some back story

The Back Story

5 days ago, 2 days after the 34th anniversary of my parents I took a pregnancy test.

For a few weeks I had been experiencing sore breasts.  I was aware but didn’t think a whole lot of it until around Sunday evening when the app I have on my iPhone alerted me that I was 2 days late in starting my period.  I have never been a 28 days on the nose kind of cycler, but that alert in conjunction with my super sore top half got my wheels turning.

I thought about it all day Monday as the cramps and spotting remained illusive, and could ignore it no longer come Tuesday.  I finally got the house to myself for a bit in the afternoon and took advantage of that alone time to pee on a stick.  The results came quickly as did the breaths as the little windows filled completely with color, then emptied slowly leaving me with a faint (but clear) plus sign.  I was (am) pregnant.

I made my way back to the couch and was in the process of working out how best to tell Ryan when he walked through the door.  Turns out verbal diarrhea was the way to go, at least, that’s the way it went.

Ultimately he voted that we not count our chickens (hopefully only one chicken) and in a week, if I still hadn’t gotten back on schedule we take another test and go from there.  That week turned into 5 days and here we are, test number 2 and you can see for yourself,

still got a chicken.

Naturally I have spent the last 5 days devouring anything I can baby/pregnancy/child rearing related.  Here are some basics that those who care may wish to know.

As of today I am 5weeks and 4 days along.

My due date (based on the pregnancy app I now have downloaded onto my phone) is February 6,2012.

I have not yet made my first Dr. appointment (will call to schedule one tomorrow as today is Sunday)

So far I really haven’t felt a whole lot different aside from the sore tatas (fingers crossed that I stay that way for a while)

The Blog

The idea of this blog is simple.  My immediate family is not close by.  They won’t get to be here to watch me grow or listen to me whine.  My family is wonderful and I know that once they find out about this little chick (that’s right, they don’t know yet.  More on how we plan to tell them later) they will have lots of questions and all want updates.  I will be happy to share everything i know and can, but this blog will be here to help clarify, hopefully fill in the blanks, and visually document the journey for all (who wish) to see (and aren’t unable to get in touch).

Facebook is not an option

Like I said, more on the reveal to come.

As Ry just said after another chat about the goings on, “Here we go!”