Small pleasures

In 2 days I'll be 18 weeks pregnant, and my tummy is huge. People on the subway and even my manicurist commented that I looked big. Do they think this is appropriate? Do they think I don't know how massive my tummy looks? While I secretly marvel at it when I'm alone, and certainly don't attempt to cover it up with baggy clothes, I don't need their opinions on how big  I should be at 18 weeks.
My skin also is a mess still. I thought I would try an acne treatment that was suitable for pregnant women, and of course instead of now having pimples, my skin is dry and flaking off. It looks worse than it did before! I can't win...

So my small pleasure is that I ordered a home doppler. And I love it. Although I'm not sure the baby does! It is SO reassuring to hear its little heartbeat whenever I want to. But last night, DH and I had a listen, and the baby really seemed to move around in there and then KICKED right on the doppler!  It was almost as if it was saying 'please leave me alone, I don't like the sound of that'. So of course I felt guilty and said something like 'great, I'm already a bad mother'. But still, it's so nice to hear the little one in there, and I think it gives DH a kick too because he can hear the baby, (and not just me complaining!)

We are booked in for our anatomy scan in about 10 days and I can't wait! We will be finding out whether we have a little girl or boy. And then we are off to Mexico for our 'babymoon'. I truly do not care whether it's a boy or girl. I read all these forums about 'gender disappointment' and am truly disgusted.

I asked the doctor how he knew if I had incompetent cervix or not, because I was nervous about it.  He said I had none of the risk factors for it, but that he could check me if  I wanted. I chose to trust him and not get checked. I hope I made the right choice.

That's all for now. I finally bought some maternity clothes last week, and I feel so much better now I'm not trying to stuff myself into pre-pregnancy clothes!

16 weeks

Tomorrow when  I wake up, I will be 16 weeks pregnant. Those are words that sound so foreign to me, and somehow just saying them makes me nervous.

Today I have absolutely scared the s&*t out of myself by reading about a lot of other women who have lost their babies between 16-20 weeks. From things like incompetent cervix, water breaking early, and other inexplicable reasons. It has scared me so much, I am now thinking about getting a home doppler so I can listen to my baby's heartbeat to reassure myself. I truly never thought that being pregnant would be such a scary time. So many things can go wrong.

My OB, who I adore, is so relaxed and casual because I guess he considers me 'low risk'. I'm not seeing him again for another week, and it can't come soon enough. Last week, I am sure I was feeling little flutters, and now I haven't been feeling them. Everyone tells me this is impossible, but I know my own body right? But this is hardly a reason to see the doctor sooner.

I have started feeling quite uncomfortable sleeping on my back. Yet my hips get so sore during the night, I find myself rolling to my back, and then wake up feeling so guilty.

My tummy is popping out and feeling very hard, and I can feel my uterus a couple of inches above my pubic bone. I am constantly checking online to make sure that's the right size/height. I think I am a mad woman.

Ok - enough of the paranoia.

Ups and Downs

Well I'll start this post with the good news:
My OB appointment on Monday went perfectly. More than perfectly. It was quite possibly one of the best days of my life. I saw our little blobs heartbeat. And it was FAST!  I was by myself because DH is on a business trip. But we spoke immediately after the appointment and I could hear the relief in his voice.  Of course my doctor (who I really do like), had to go and ruin the moment by saying 'We're not out of the woods yet!'. Like I don't know that.  But who cares, because this thing is alive! And I have the picture to prove it.

On a sadder note, I think I have lost all control of my emotions.  I have been bawling my eyes out at TV, in particular the show '16 and Pregnant/Teen Mom'.  There is a young couple on it who decided to give their little girl up for adoption. It was truly heartbreaking.

Today I decided to call Ikea in Long Island who I have been having issues with since 3 weeks ago when I asked to do a phone order. Long story short, they finally took the order on Friday. The guy that took the order was clearly miserable in his job, and had a bad cold (which I heard every hideous sniff of).  I had an inkling that he wasn't getting everything in the order. However, I had faith that they would have a system, and that system would work.

How wrong I was.

Today I call to check up on the order. I have heard nothing since Friday.  The woman who answers the phone asks me who I spoke to on Friday. I say I don't know, I can't remember his name. (And I refrained from criticizing him.)  Then she gets all high and mighty and claims that she can't really help me and that I should know his name. So I ask 'how is it my problem, that you can't find my order because I don't know the guys name?'. And she say 'WHY ARE YOU BEING SO RUDE'?  WTF!!!?
Then she calms down a bit, I finally tell her that the guy was very rude, and I am very frustrated. She tells me she gets frustrated too. Do I care? Just get me my order. Which by the way, contains a bed I need to sleep in on Friday night. 
By this stage I am actually crying a little bit, and feeling angry at myself for doing so. She tells me I should go and find a fax machine and fax her this form. I tell her I am pregnant with morning sickness and there is a blizzard outside. She seems to understand.  Now I wait for 'Florence' to call me back. We'll see.

Writing this has helped me to calm down, but I'm sure in normal circumstances (I.E not pregnant) I would not have cried at this experience.  Screw them!

Scared out of my brain

It's 4 days until my next OB appt, and I'm so so scared. Since yesterday, I have no pain in my boobs, and am not nauseous at all today. I feel so nervous.  DH is leaving for a work trip on Saturday, and won't be back until next Friday. If there's bad news at the doctor, I'm on my own.  Do all woman get as scared as this?  Everything I read online just makes me feel so much worse.
I don't know what else to say. I don't even want to leave the house. I don't think behaving like this can be helpful, but I have such a bad feeling about things.  I know that outside the apartment, normal life is happening. But in my head, I am totally freaking out.

Maybe?

Ok so it seems maybe I overreacted on Tuesday.  My symptoms are back, and the 'baby' was visible on the first ultrasound. Phew!
We are spending a couple of days in Toronto, and the flight here was ok, but I was nervous the whole time that something terrible would happen as a result of the cabin pressure. I tell you, reading so much online is not good for mental health!
DH has gone off to the Toronto office for work, and I decided to go exploring, but it was so cold and windy that I'm back in the hotel room. What a bore I am!  However, I have slight nausea, and would rather be taking it easy.  Please let the nausea stick around!!!!
The embryo was .55cm long on the ultrasound, and I'm scheduled to go back on the 11th Feb for the week 7 scan.  DH will be in South Africa, so I can only pray that everything is ok, as I'll be by myself.  It's tough living in NYC with no friends when you're pregnant!  I mean I do have a couple of friends, but none that I'm really close to.

So - 2 weeks and counting. Time is going slow!

Sadness

Well I really hoped I would never be writing sad posts like this, but last night I think I had a miscarriage.
We found out we were pregnant only 3 nights ago, and have been so happy since then. But last night I was woken up by a sharp cramping, and suddenly my breasts were not sore anymore. Today I would be 5 weeks and 1 day. 
I remember a friend of mine (who now has 2 healthy children) telling me about her miscarriage, and she said 'I knew something was wrong because my boobs weren't sore anymore'.  So as soon as I woke up, I felt mine and immediately they felt different.  And I felt that I just knew something had changed.
We have a doctors appt at 12.15 today, and I just want it to be over.  I haven't even seen this doctor before, so I don't know what he will be like.
I feel such a sense of guilt, and when I look at DH, I feel like I've let him down. I wonder if other women feel like this?  Secretly I am hoping that it hasn't happened, and that I've just had a scare. But sometimes you just know your body.  And I just don't feel pregnant anymore. 
Funnily enough I don't feel like crying right now. I just feel kind of empty.  I feel depressed.

Scratch that. DH just called to see how I was, and the tears are coming. 
I have to think of the positives of this.  At least we know now that I can get pregnant. After months of trying, that is some solace.  But at the same time, it took so long, so will we have to wait that long again? I don't think I could cope with that.

Still on my mind

Well it's been forever since I posted anything, and so much has changed since August. We got married! And we moved to NYC! But we are not pregnant...yet.
New Years Eve was a really tough night, and I ended up crying into Tom's chest until I fell asleep. I truly believed that we would be pregnant by Christmas/New Years. And we're not.

I have been doing acupuncture 3 times per month (now with a new acupuncturist in NYC who I really like), I go to the gym 4 times per week, I've stopped obsessing (kind of). Yet nothing has happened. One of the worst things about this whole experience is that our sex life has taken a complete dive. At the end of 'trying' this month I announced that I needed to take a break from trying. Whether I really believe this is possible, is another story. But more than anything, I really just want normal loving sex!

Now we are on insurance here in the US, I've been doing some more research. I found a group of Reproductive Endocrinologists online (they had come recommended), and they had an email service. So I emailed them. And they replied saying that they think it's time I saw one. Which kind of threw me, because I figured we still had a few months until we hit the technical '12 months of trying' IF deadline. And I also wondered if they just want the money. I haven't yet mentioned it to Tom, because I told him I didn't want to talk/think/cry about it for a month. I know it's silly for me to be thinking about something and not telling him. He's overseas now for a week, so maybe once he's back we can talk about it. Am I ready to take that step?