It's a....

GIRL!!! We went to the dr. on Wednesday the 23rd and had our ultrasound. We walked into our room and Anthony told the technician that we didn't want her to tell us the sex of the baby. We would like for her to seal it in an envelope so we could place it in our stocking and open with our presents (which would be Christmas Eve morning). She was excited for us. Apparently, we were the first ones to suggest that that day.

The technician went over every part of our baby, from the top of her head, to the tip of her toes. She then went to take some 3D pics, but admitted they wouldn't really turn out because she was hiding her face between her arms. Either she is defiant already, or she is really shy like her mommy. After the exam was over, while we waited for the pics to download to our CD, our technician left to write down the sex of the baby and seal it in an envelope. She returned and said she checked really hard to make sure we couldn't peak, holding it up to the lights and everything. What a fun lady she was!

On our way home I just agonized over the envelope. What was I thinking!? I just wanted to know. Anthony was strong though. He took the envelope away and took me back to work. It was a long afternoon at work wondering what my child was. It's all I could think about. When I got home, I begged my husband to open the envelope. He was pretty firm and strong about holding out til morning. Around 10pm that night though, he couldn't take it any longer either. He said we could open it at midnight, and technically it would be Christmas eve. It was such a long wait!!! We both stated what we thought the baby was. I was confident it was a boy. Anthony was pretty sure it was a girl. He said God has a lot to still teach him about sensitivity and such and so God would do it through his daughter. I handed him the envelope and had him open it. We both hung onto the paper like it was our child, slowly opened the note, and read it...."Congratulations, you are going to have a GIRL!" I couldn't believe it! We both teared up a little, and I was speechless. I was going to have a daughter in a few short months! My husband was going to have a daddy's little girl! I am still in awe!

We talked about names from the day we knew we would be a family before we were even married. We decided on the name Claire Marie. She is already such an important person in our lives! We quickly decided how we would share this with our families, and went to bed. It was 2:30 in the morning. I was exhausted!

I woke up at 6:30 sick to my stomach, so I had to get up to eat. I went back to bed, only to have my husband wake me up at 8 like a little child ready to open presents! I got about 4 hours of sleep and Claire and I were feeling it! Christmas was amazing knowing we were going to have a daughter. The feeling of being a mommy is indescribable to me. I have no words, only tears, and feelings of overwhelming joy.

Today, we went out shopping for a little while. All I wanted to do was find an outfit for Claire. I have waited for this day for so long. I couldn't wait to find out if the baby was a boy or girl so I could buy an outfit that wasn't gender neutral. We found the cutest dress ever and brought it home and hung it on our tree. I love her more than words can say already, and she already has daddy wrapped around her little finger.

Here is a picture of her hiding behind her arm.



Here is a picture of me at 18 weeks, just before we found out that we were having a girl. It's one of only 2 I have so far. I wasn't really in the picture taking mood up until recently. I've just been so sick.

So sue me...

It's been a long time since I last posted. I know. I can't help it. In the last post I noticed I wrote about how I thought things were turning around with being sick. Boy was I wrong. We are at just over 17 weeks right now, and I'm still sick. The last week has been the best I've had yet though. So do I dare say now that I think things may be turning around? In the past few months there's been a hospital visit, Dr visits, weight loss, lots of laying on my couch feeling useless as my husband does EVERYTHING around the house....it's been slightly miserable. I say slightly because my baby is doing wonderful through all this, and is healthy, and very active. I just have a few side effects. I'll take it though. Every last one. I won't lie, it gets hard sometimes. I feel like I can't do it much longer, and then I have a non-sick day, and I'm so happy to have this baby. I feel so blessed that after all we went through, in the grand scheme of things, some couples go through way more, with less than exciting results. For that, I thank God every morning that He chose us to be able to carry this baby and parent this child. What an amazing gift.

We have our ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby on Wednesday the 23rd. We will have them seal it in an envelope though and place it in our stocking to open on Christmas morning. The best Christmas present has been this child, so what better than to find out if our child will be a boy or girl on Christmas! We are so excited. My husband gives me the countdown every evening. He is so adorable. I tease (though I think it is going to come true more and more each day) him that after this child is born, I will never be able to hold and snuggle him or her because my husband won't share. He will be the best daddy ever. I can't wait to see him with our baby. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it!

We are almost half way through this pregnancy. So far, I've had a slight weight loss, nothing terrible. The Dr said she isn't going to worry until we are at 20 weeks. If we don't start gaining then, she will begin to do some tests to figure out why. She did say that some people just don't gain any weight while pregnant and their babies are perfectly fine. I volunteer to be that person! Heck yes! As long as my child is healthy and receiving everything he/she needs, bring on the "no weight gain"!

We have taken one picture on my belly since this all began. My husband bugged me for weeks to take pictures, but I told him, if you had the flu and I kept bugging you to pose and smile for me so I could take a picture, I think you would punch me. Well, no one wants to take a picture when they feel like they are close to death's door. I told him now that I'm feeling better, we can take a picture every week if he wants, and believe me, he wants! I will post the pic soon. It's of 16 weeks. I seemed to have popped this past week as the sweater I wore to church last Sunday is now become a belly shirt for me.

I will try to keep this updated more. I really will, but if it's anything like the first 17 weeks, I may not be on for a while. So sue me!

I like to move it, move it

We got to see the baby move today!!! It was so amazing. When we started the ultrasound, the baby was sleeping, and just lying there still. But after a lot of probing, and probably annoying my child, he/she started moving and swimming all around. We got to see the arms moving and the legs kicking. The baby was trying to suck it's thumb at one point. It was incredible. I never thought I could feel more joy each and every time we see the baby.

This was our last appointment with the fertility clinic. We are officially graduates of that place. We couldn't be happier. The doctor said she would save a spot on the board for a pic of the baby. I hope we never have to go back there again. They were incredible though. There wouldn't be another place I would recommend higher than the Unity Hospital Fertility Clinic. Such great staff, and they just were compassionate from day one.

I am still sick, though I think things are starting to turn for the better since every few days I can eat a little bit or normal food. It's nice to sit down and have a small meal instead of just a few crackers and an Ensure. Really nice.

Here is the last pic of the baby. It's a little blurry because my bladder filled back up and she couldn't get as close to the baby as she had in the past. You can really see his/her arms and legs in this pic. This is the pic they got while the baby was still sleeping sweetly.

I just want to eat!!!!

This week has started even more nausea and vomiting. SO fun. No, but really, I am grateful that the baby is healthy. I just really want to eat. I pretty much am on an Ensure diet, with a few crackers (gluten free of course), and rice cakes in there intermittently. Last Sunday, I really really craved chicken wings. So after calling about a dozen places to find one that made them with a sauce that was gluten free, I ordered them. My wonderful husband picked them up for me and off I went. It was the first real food I had eaten in 3 weeks. I know, hindsight is always 20/20. If my stomach hasn't really had food in 3 weeks, prolly shouldn't be introducing chicken wings as the first food! Don't worry, I learned the hard way. I was up all night Sunday, getting sick, and getting sick again. Good times. Cravings aren't always good you know? What? You did know? Thanks for sharing! The next few days were a toilet hugging blur.

A friend of mine told me about SeaBands. I literally am willing to try anything. So I've been wearing them for the remainder of the week. I do have to say they help with the nausea, but I still can't eat. So I'm hungry, which in turn leaves me with some nausea. It's a no win situation at this point. Another friend mentioned to me that she chewed Bubble Gum constantly. Again, I will try anything. I bought some and along with the bands it's going pretty good. It's a jaw tiring feat though. Each day is different. I don't know if I believe it's either theory. But for now, I am not about to stop either because I don't like feeling like I'm about to lose it any second all day long.


On the dr front, we have our last appointment with our fertility specialist on Monday. That means no more weekly pictures. I will be sad, but also so incredibly happy to carry on like a normal pregnancy for the remainder of this child's stay at Casa de Womb. We have our first appointment with our OB on Friday. It's so exciting.

Our next ultrasound will probably be around Christmas to find out the sex of the baby. Can't wait. That is our only element of surprise in this pregnancy because everyone really knew about the fertility and dates of possibly pregnancy. No surprise or creative stories there. It will be fun to surprise everyone in our family and our friends at Christmas with what we will be having. I've felt like it's a girl for the past 10 weeks, BUT last night I had my first good dream about the baby. In the dream I was decorating the nursery, and putting the clothes away, and they were all boy clothes. Now, I don't know what I feel. My husband wants a boy, and so do I. I think it would be nice for my children to have a big brother. We'll see. Either way, I am will be so happy for a healthy baby.





Here's our last picture of the little one. The baby is growing so much each week. It's so incredibly amazing!

"The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps"...

Proverbs 16:9

How true is that statement. There have been so many things that I had planned out in my life, so many events, so many details. Not much of it happened in the timeline that I set for myself. When I was a little girl playing with my dolls up in my bedroom, I remember thinking that if I went to college, I would find a boy. We would love each other, get married, and have children all before I was 25. I wanted nothing more than to be a mom since I could remember (well that and an elephant, but that is for another day)! I didn't meet a boy in college, well I did meet a few, but they didn't really work out....and God had a plan all along.

After I graduated college I had a new plan. I didn't want to get married before I was 30 years old, and I would start having children around 33. Perfect right? No. God still had a plan and I just wasn't really interested. I met my husband...online...on myspace...I know, I know. I didn't make it easy. I ignored his messages, I was short and tried to show I was uninterested. He was persistent. I refused to give him my phone number for the longest time. This way, if he ever got boring, scary, weird, all I had to do was delete my myspace, and voila! I would be rid of him. God had a different plan. He knew that this man was the man that God had created just for me. Long story short...really short....we are now married after 18 months total of dating/engagement.

When we were dating we always talked about waiting a year or more before starting a family. He is older than I am and didn't want to wait too long, I on the other hand already got married earlier than I "planned" and didn't want to do the kid thing too much earlier either. I really enjoy my sleep, and get-up-and-go-whenever-I-want lifestyle. After about 5 months of being married, we decided we should at least get physicals because I knew it would be difficult to get pregnant. So much for our plan of waiting a year or more. You can read about our fertility journey in previous posts, but after about a year of medications and bruises and heartache, we finally found out we were pregnant. God has a plan.

I always planned to have an uneventful pregnancy (naive, I know). I hoped I wouldn't be sick, I wouldn't be weepy, and that baby would be the healthiest ever. We went for our first ultrasound and the dr came in with worst case scenario news (you can read the last post for that). We came home and prayed, and a few elders and close friends at my church came around me that week, layed hands on my baby, and prayed. I believed that this time, our plan of a healthy baby would be God's plan as well. So much for the "no nausea" pregnancy. I can't eat a friggin thing! I am sick all day, but that makes me feel wonderful to know that that only means the baby is still alive and well inside of me. We went for our ultrasound again yesterday. We got nothing but WONDERFUL news. Our baby's sac was now at about 7 weeks, and the baby is measuring at 8 weeks. That means while the baby grew the week it was supposed to, the sac grew a week and a half! I do not have to go on the injectable drugs, and I no longer have to continue with the baby aspirin a day! Praise God! I knew the baby would catch up. We have another ultrasound next week, and can't wait to see our little one again! This child will have more pictures before he/she is born than after!

Here is the newest ultrasound, you can even see how much bigger both the sac, and the baby have grown!

Hang in there...this one will be long

It's been a while since I've posted. I wasn't sure when I would post again. I left off with my husband and I having been inseminated and waiting to find out if it worked. We had to wait two, looooonnnnnggggg weeks to find out if we were pregnant. On September 14th, around 7:30am we took a pregnancy test, and within seconds it was POSITIVE!!! We were so excited. Sources say I may have even teared up a bit. My husband was still sleeping, so I went downstairs to take a picture because I didn't want to loose the lines (now I know they won't go away). I climbed back into bed next to my husband and whispered in his ear that he was going to be a daddy! He was so excited. I showed him the test, and we were ecstatic! I had to finish getting ready for work, and while I was getting ready I heard him tell our dog that he was going to be a big brother. That made my heart melt a little more. I am so in love with my husband. He may be a big, muscular, tough guy on the outside, but he's such a softy! (Shhh, don't tell him I let out that secret!)

Well, because it was so early, I didn't want to post it on here yet, because the only thing I regret about this whole fertility process is the amount of people that know all our deadlines and important dates. Can't keep a secret, and definitely can't be creative with how to spread the news! Anyways, I called our dr that day and went in for blood work to confirm. They had me go for blood work every other day that week. My numbers were rising normal, so I was done with that and got to schedule the ultrasound. It has been the LONGEST 3 weeks of my life waiting for this ultrasound. When I scheduled it I was thinking about taking the last possible appointment so that I could work a full day. What a mistake that was! I couldn't think about anything else all day long. So, that mistake won't be made again, 1st available appointment for ultrasounds in the future. Our ultrasound was yesterday afternoon. We went in, couldn't keep the smiles off our faces. We were both so excited to see our baby. This was really real! We went in and saw our little grain of rice (that's right, just ONE for all those out there who were hoping for multiples), and the top half was flickering with the heartbeat. My husband couldn't see, so the dr. said she would try to hear it, and we did! We got to hear the heartbeat! It was the most incredible moment of my life. I will never forget the first time we heard our baby's life! Makes me tear up just thinking about it! The dr. had to leave for a phone call and would be right back. I got dressed and my husband and I gushed over the pictures. Really, it doesn't look like a darn thing yet because it's still so small, but we know what it is!

When the dr returned the mood in the room slightly shifted. She said she only wanted to talk about one thing that concerned her. Red flags went up, blood drained out of my face, and I don't think I could feel my legs. We sat and she began by saying our baby measured right where he/she should at 7 weeks, however, our sac was measuring at 5 1/2 weeks. It could mean an array of things that we won't know for at least another week. It could be fine and just mean we will have a smaller sac, it could mean chromosomal abnormalities, it could mean the baby won't make it much longer, the list goes on. In the beginning of our fertility route, I was tested for EVERYTHING. My antibody levels were slightly raised, that is one reason they found I had Celiac's Disease. She said that it wasn't anything to worry about at that time. She brought up those levels yesterday. I had to be retested to see if the pregnancy changed my levels at all. I also started on a baby aspirin a day. Next week we have another ultrasound and the dr said if the sac hasn't grown then we will worry more. I will start on an injectable drug called lori-something-or-other, and along with the baby aspirin, see if that helps at all. It has something to do with the network of blood vessels, and such, transporting the correct amounts of everything to the baby. I asked all the questions I could think of, listened to as much as I could take, and left to schedule my next week's ultrasound. We left in kind of a whirlwind, at least I did. How come nothing is ever just normal for me. I can't go in and leave with a perfectly normal exam/bill of health. My husband is a rock though. In the elevator he told me he rebuked the dr's every words. He said our baby is in God's hands and God has a plan already. We will be fine with it, and that our baby will be fine, and we will pray even harder over this little life inside of me. He told me not to stress, and I am really trying. Next week won't come quick enough, I know that much.

All this to say, I decided to let the cat out of the bag early to get as much prayer as possible for our little one right now. We will know more next week, and until then I will be praying with fervency like never before, as I hope you all join with me in doing. I will keep you posted, I promise. Thanks for your prayers, and thanks for your inquiries all of you who couldn't wait for this post and contacted me personally. This child belongs to the Lord, so His will I pray is done with this little life. Just please God, let your will be a healthy, strong, beautiful baby!

I'll leave you with this image...(it's a little blury, but really it's not much to see just yet!)

No news yet...

but maybe in a week! After my last post it was a whirlwind of dr's appointments. I was getting my blood drawn every other day, and the days in between I was getting ultrasounds done. My thigh was bruised in multiple places, both my arms were bruised, and I broke down crying multiple times over the constant needles and just the thought of the whole procedure. I know many people endure this for many more years than I have, and I absolutely give them props. I can't do this much longer. It's emotionally draining, not to mention it doesn't help that the medications make me even more emotional.

So, after 21 days of shots and blood draws, and ultrasounds, my dr was excited to see that I had 2, maybe even 3, viable eggs to be released! Yes! Not 8, and not 1! 3 - 4 is the ideal amount to have the most success. Last Saturday we went in for an ultrasound and my follicles were at 17 and 18mm, the perfect size. So she wanted me to have one more shot Saturday (we'll talk more about that later), and then on Sunday have the HcG shot. Monday was the scheduled IUI. We were so excited. It worked, it actually worked! I couldn't believe I was going to ovulate, let alone the possibility of pregnancy. I just haven't ovulated in an abnormally long time! The dr took us into her office to show us how to do the shots I would be receiving that weekend. It's hard to explain, but the shots I had at home came in a pen with 450ui. Needing only 112.5 of that, it would be wasting a lot of medication, as well as money. So, our dr gave us the last dose of medicine for Saturday. It came in 3 viles, 1 water, 2 powder. There was a mixing technique and then the dreaded shot. Only this time instead of the 1/2 in needle in my thigh I was used to and could tolerate, it was a 1 1/2 in needle in my muscle in my butt. Scary!!! We went home, Anthony mixed the medicine later that day and I iced my butt for 1/2 an hour. Yeah, that's right. I wanted it good and numb. I laid down on my bed, and my husband (nervous and scared he would hurt me) mixed my the meds and I started hyperventilating and crying so hard. I have an INTENSE fear of needles. It was ridiculous, but I couldn't help it. My husband kept walking me through deep breaths and then it happened. He stuck me right in the muscle with that ENORMOUS needle. It didn't hurt that bad, some burning is all. After though, it felt like growing pains down my butt and leg. It was uncomfortable to sit or lay on my right side for the remainder of the day and night. Unfortunately, my husband then had to go to work for the night. I was upset about that as well, but it's life. Sunday I woke up any my right side felt fine again. Thank God! It didn't last that long. But, now it was time for the other cheek. We had to have our HcG shot by noon on Sunday, so when my husband got home from work that morning, he slept and I watched church online. I had to wake him up, he mixed the medicine again. This time there was 1 vile of water, and 1 of powder. My husband reminded me that it wasn't so bad last time....and you better bet that I iced my butt for 1/2 an hour again so that it would be numb. I started crying (again, I can't help it), and deep breaths, and my husband stuck the needle in. I screamed, literally. I started screaming and crying hysterically. It hurt so incredibly bad, a pain I can't even describe. It felt like he went in my side directly into my hip bone. Obviously, he didn't, but he pulled the needle out before he injected the medication. Yes, I was screaming that bad. After, I settled down, deep breaths, he put the needle back in and injected the medicine. Not that bad. Monday morning we went in to drop off the "specimen" at 9am. Then, we needed to return at noon for the insemination. It was a quick procedure, out of the office by 12:15 and home to lounge around with my husband. I've had mild cramping on and off for the past few days, but nothing alarming.

We are praying this works because I am not sure I can go through this again. I would take a thousand shots in my thigh over the one in my butt, I know this for sure. We will know if we are pregnant 2 weeks from the IUI. We are taking a pregnancy test on the 14th of September, and then we have to call the dr office on the 15th. We are super excited for what God can and will do in our lives through this process.

**on a side note** I have a daily calendar on my desk with a verse for every day. It's been pretty amazing through this process that many of the scriptures are exactly what I need to hear or study on that day. Yesterday's (when I was really wondering "what if this doesn't work?") it was "And the child grew, and the Lord blessed him." Judges 13:24! If that's not God's divineness, then I don't know what is.