29 weeks! A long overdue update

29 weeks. I can't believe it, I'll have a baby, in my arms, in less than 3 months. I am amazed and humbled every day.

Nugget is progressing perfectly. Our 20w scan was great, everything looked just as it should and we managed to keep the sex a secret.

I've gained too much weight for my liking but honestly, I'm ok with it. I can lose the weight I just want to enjoy every single bit of this! No weird cravings but I'm still a HUGE fan of cereal and baked potatoes (not at the same time of course). I never got sick, I get heartburn if I don't eat often enough and I swell a little if I'm on my feet too much but my wedding ring still fits!

Nugget is head down with his/her little face smooshed into my anterior placenta by my right hip bone and feet up right under my ribs. We had a 3D ultrasound yesterday, I'll post pics once I get them downloaded to the computer!! We have a lot of active time first thing in the morning and around 5-6pm and again right when I'm trying to fall asleep at night. N is still weirded out by touching my belly directly but I snuggle up behind him at night and he gets the crap kicked out of his back while I sleep through it :P

I've had a couple of emotional outbursts but they were so insane that I was LAUGHING while I was CRYING because I knew it was ridiculous. One of these happened in the middle of Lowe's... and one happened when N laughed at me because I couldn't roll over quickly and got semi-stuck!!

We made the insane decision to basically remodel our whole house. All new paint in every room but the bathrooms, all new carpet and finish the basement. It's been crazy but great and I'm so glad we did it. Especially the carpet, that old stuff was GROSS!!!

I'm still pushing off doing the nursery. I know I need to get it done as I'm starting to run out of time BUUUUUT I feel like everything is moving too quickly!!! If I had it my way, I'd stay pregnant for another 5 months or longer!!!

My sister and best friends threw me an adorable shower. I don't have my pics back yet but will post those soon too. It was a rustic honeybee theme and it was AWESOME minus the fact that the only one from N's side to show was his step mom... That was pretty sad. We got a crib, our travel system, a mamaroo, and a ton of little essentials. Oh and N's sister threw him a diaper party the week before and we got a TON of diapers so that's great!

Ummmm what else. Oh work sucks, that's a whole other post. Maybe I'll blog that one out to get it off my chest!

So that's my super fast, not even proofread update!!

13weeks? Already?

I'm officially 13 weeks today and still feeling fairly awesome! Besides the tiredness... and the waking up at 3am to eat and then not go back to bed, that part kind of sucks.

I'm taking a break from Twitter for awhile. It was getting overwhelming and I can't seem to keep my feelings in check so hubs strongly suggested that it might be best to take a little break and try and focus on me and Nugget for awhile. I don't think it's a bad idea but it's weird.

Things have been really great lately. I think the roommate has a plan to be out by mid-August which is a month before the deadline I gave her. She's been keeping more out of our hair as well so that's been good.

I did have a little work breakdown on Friday, apparently someone said I'd been "complaining" too much. Well here's the thing, it's my job to make sure shit gets done and when you don't do your part and I have to chase you for weeks, OF COURSE IT'S GOING TO SEEM LIKE I'M COMPLAINING. So now I'm trying to be so sweet it makes your teeth hurt to all these jackasses and take every single grievance to my boss so he can be the asshole for awhile.

I finally came out to my co-workers at our agency (they're in another location... state, timezone!!) that I'm pregnant and will be taking maternity leave. The one person I spoke with directly (I chickened out and emailed the rest) was so excited but also so nervous. Apparently I'm the example of my position that "no one worries about" so he's concerned about who will cover me and how they'll interact. I get it, it makes me nervous too!!

So now I'm totally out. To work, to my family, to Facebook, to the world. It is starting to feel a little more real. Especially now that I'm starting to get a little bump that isn't bloat!!

So that's my update. Hope all is well. I've been stalking from afar so if you haven't updated your blog, here's your friendly reminder!!!

First Scan

Still no official date but I'm dating myself at 5weeks.

We had our first scan this afternoon. Lovely dildo-cam action,  There is one gestational sac, one yolk sac and a teensy tiny little bright spot that will turn into our little nugget. It was awesome and surreal but I still don't feel pregnant...

I had this overwhelming feeling this morning that I was going to go to the scan, it would be an empty womb and they'd lock me up for insanity because I'd made up the whole thing. Guessing hormones are nice and active....

ANNNNNND not only did I ovulate (which dr didn't think I did) BUT it came from my right ovary!!! So looks like meatwad didn't ruin that ovary afterall!!! So that's exciting.

I go back again in 3 weeks to hopefully see more and even maybe a heartbeat!!

Still no morning sickness and this hunger is getting REAL.. I mean I'm STARVING all the time.. only up 1lb though because I'm stuffing my face with healthy choices... let's see how long that lasts.

It's Mother's Day...

and I'm home alone, sitting on my couch, watching Vampire Diaries and drinking vodka and lemonade.

It's actually the 2ww and I'm pretty sure 11/12dpo even though I'm not tracking. I just have a feeling and my boobs are super sore like the normally are in the 2nd half of the 2ww IF I ovulate.

I picked up my Clomid today. I thought maybe getting it in my possession on Mother's Day would be a good omen. Two awesome things happened. First, it was super cheap. I guess I was just expecting it to be more but it was under $20! Second, the pharmacist was awesome. She asked if I was TTC #1, I told her I was, she wished me good luck then told me "Happy Mother's Day, you already have a mother's heart."

I made it to my car before crying. I was genuinely touched by her words. Today can be rough so having people recognize that makes it a little more bearable!

Speaking of random recognition... Ok well not random, but unexpected. BOTH of my closest friends (N the uber fertile and H the child-free for now) AND my mother shared the lovely picture that Resolve.Org shared on their Facebook today. It was so heartwarming. PLUS my sister sent me a lovely text this morning as well. It was nice to know they were all thinking of me.

I'm not a fantastic wordsmith like some of you lovely ladies. I don't often speak eloquently or in ways that touch people to the core. It's been said a thousand times in a thousand different ways today but it's very true:

You become a mother the moment the seed is planted in your heart

Happy Mother's Day to all of us, booze it up if you can :)

Survey says....

Hubs SA came back today, I'll get more specific numbers tomorrow but the Dr. said his count was "phenomenal" so I'm pleased with that. Morphology was a little on the low side but nothing to be concerned with.

OB/GYN wants to do 3 rounds of Clomid. I'm ok with that now. Hubs and I had a long talk and he's more comfortable doing things with as little intervention as possible to start. I get it and maybe we'll be that couple that just needs the Clomid kickstart and we're good to go. In the meantime, we're going to start saving up the extra cash for further treatment if necessary. The clinic I want to go to is typically around $500 for the first round of labs/HSG/consult. He's been picking up extra shifts to help put most of it back for baby and some back for basement finishing :)

Nurse C is going to call tomorrow with specifics on protocol so I'll know more. I think he wants to push Provera to start my cycle but... well I need to time that so N's days off are 8-14 because no amount of Clomid will help if we don't see each other before ovulation :)

That's the update for now.

-h

New beginnings

It really sounds much more pleasant than it is. A new beginning in my world means violent mood swings, random bouts of tears, zits on my chin, feeling like my uterus is in a vice, and something that rivals a B horror film when I go to the bathroom...

That's right ladies, CD1 is upon us. I'm not really THAT sad about it. I'm actually ok since tomorrow is the "How the fuck are we going to make me a baby" appointment and I figure that starting fresh will mean that any testing that needs done can just get done that much sooner. I did realize that this cycle was my last chance to birth a child in 2014. That's weird to think about.

• 2015, year of the sheep... Guess that kid's getting off easier than me (year of the rat).
• This kid will graduate high school in/around 2033 (are you reading this?!?!?!)
• My grandparents will likely not live to see this child graduate high school (If grandpa makes it to 99 though, I'll be THRILLED)
• These are the things this kid will wear to "retro" parties

It's a strange thing, time. It doesn't wait for us at all but we count on it so much. 

Here's to a whole shit ton of 2015, year of the sheep babies for all of us! 

Meal planning, prepping and weightloss

When I started my weightloss challenge (you can read a little about that here) I learned a lot about meal planning. We started out small, cutting out the bad, adding in the good, first went the soda and tea (which I can only drink with about 1lb of sugar in it) and I started drinking exclusively water. That was difficult for me, I didn't really like water. I craved the sweet stuff. So I used Mio to flavor the water and slowly weaned myself off of that. Drinking 3L of water or more became easy for me.

Next were foods: I cut out my massive amounts of carbs. I'm not a pasta eater but potatoes... I'll eat them just about any way you can make them. Breads were cakes, donuts, muffins, chips etc. I was taking in a massive amount of carbs and not nearly enough proteins. I started tracking my foods using MyFitnessPal and learned where I needed to make my changes. I started prepping my meals. Making most of my foods on Sunday for the week. I had smoothies for breakfast, chicken and veggies for lunch, healthy snacks, fish and veggies for dinner, etc. I lost 30 lbs with no real nutritional coaching. Then I hit a wall. I've been stuck.

So I paid for a nutrition consult with one of the trainers at one of my gyms (yeah, one of them... I have rotating memberships at 4, I'm insane) and we sat down and went through my meals day by day. We took my body fat, my goal size (not weight, I don't have a goal weight) and he put together a carb cycled plan for me. Not a "you eat this, this and this" plan but a "you need this much protein, this many carbs and this many fats each day" plan.

Turns out, I was not eating enough fat!! Funny how that works. I also learned I'm potassium deficient (I used to swell like a tick after ingesting too much sodium, potassium naturally counteracts that) so he gave me a recipe for a drink mixture (coconut water, a couple juices and water) to help me get in more potassium and fixed my swelling without cutting out the sodium my body NEEDED.

I stuck to his plan for 10 days straight, no deviation and lost about a pound A DAY! And then we went to Hawaii and that went right out the window. I gained back what I had lost, BUT I managed to sustain right where I was. So I know how to maintain, and I know what I need to do to lose, I just need to DO IT.

I spent like 4 hours the other night planning my meals for the next week. Then I spent about $120 at the grocery store yesterday getting supplies (for me and hubs, same meals, different proportions) and today I spent about 4 hours cooking meals for today, tomorrow and Tuesday and Wed. I'll make the rest of the weeks food on Wednesday. I'm using real recipes, not just plain baked chicken and steamed veggies. I was getting burnt out on the same stuff after 8 months of it.

So, let's see how this goes!

-h

Holy O (well according to my temps)

According to my lovely Fertility Friend app I have actually ovulated!

On my own!

No meds!

For the first time since I've been temping, I actually have crosshairs on my chart! I'm excited about that, but trying to keep my hopes at a level I can handle. We did manage to get some lovin' done during the "fertile" phase so I guess I'm now actually in my 2 week wait.

It's weird, I think I actually felt ovulation on Friday night on my way home from work. A sharp pain on my left side (which would make sense since my right ovary doesn't cooperate at all). Honestly, I dismissed it as gas when it happened! My temps spiked Saturday and were elevated yesterday and today so I got crosshairs! Usually, my temps look like a kindergarten version of a mountain range, or alligator teeth.. Up down, up down up down down up down..but this month they have been more stable.

Now we've got steps 1 and 2 down.
1)do the deed
2)ovulate

Let's just see if the rest of the steps fall in place. Fingers crossed but I'm trying to stay realistic.