10 weeks!!

So at just over 10 weeks we got to have our first "normal" OB appointment. To my surprise we even got to schedule an ultrasound beforehand. The dad of the babies was there, but the mom couldn't be and I couldn't reschedule, so I brought my video camera and let him take a video of the ultrasound so I could put it up on YouTube. This way she could watch it while she is out of town. Technology is so amazing! Both little babies are just looking perfect - measuring right on, heartbeats in the 160s, and really just the cutest things you've ever seen in your life (hey, they're not mine, so I can brag!!) :) Getting an ultrasound at all is just an amazing experience, but to get to see 2 babies at the same time - it just takes my breath away! I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that there is more than one in there. My jeans, on the other hand, are not having a hard time believing there are two at all!! I'm already busting out, and we have 30 more weeks to go (yikes!). I'm trying to go for the "hey, I'll just unbutton and unzip my pants and pull my shirt down and no one will know" look, but I think it has already backfired on me a couple times out in public - oops. Guess it's time to pull out the glorious stretchy comfortable fat pants!

So lots of good things this week. I was feeling pretty rotten at the beginning of the week - tired and nauseous mostly. But today, I feel great! I just jinxed myself, I know. But my doctor said if I have gotten this far without throwing up I am in the clear and things should start getting a little less gross feeling. AND best news of all, I get to stop all my meds in 3 short days. FREEDOM!!! What a wonderful feeling knowing that I get to stop all the injections, patches, creams, pills...... ahhhh! I don't think I'll know what to do with myself all day not having a schedule of these things to follow. It will be wonderful!

I'm just so thankful things are going well so far. I truly need this to be a good experience, and knowing I am on my way now feels so incredibly uplifting. And I get to have the pleasure of chilling out with these 2 amazing little babies for the next 6 months or so... pretty lucky I think!!
Now if I can just get my emotions in check. I am not a very emotional person, but good lord, I not only find myself tearing up at commercials, songs, stories.... but come on now, crying at an episode (although a very moving one!) of Dora.... yeah, I need to get this in check. Darn hormones..... :)

7w6d.... chuggin' along...

There are the babies - although they still look like little blobs, they have grown so much the past couple of weeks!! :) They both measured 8 weeks exactly and one had a heart rate in the 160s and one in the 150s. ***cheering*** This appointment is a big deal to me! These first few weeks and appointments of a pregnancy always scare me and keep me on the edge. I think this is because when I had my miscarriage, I was thinking I was 11-12 weeks along and an ultrasound (after the doc. couldn't find the heartbeat via doppler) showed the baby had died at 9 weeks. Ironically, that was the only pregnancy I have had (out of 5 now!) that I didn't have any type of bleeding/cramping, and it was the only one where the baby just stopped growing. Everyone always told me "Oh, don't worry - if you have a miscarriage, you will definitely know it!". Well, I guess I proved that theory wrong, and now I always tend to expect the worst at this point because of that. I don't trust my instincts. I remember thinking when that happened that I must be a horrible mommy because my baby had died and I didn't even know it :( Even 5 years later it makes me cry remembering how that felt. I obviously know it wasn't my fault, but you can't help but feel like a failure when something you are solely responsible for doesn't make it. But seeing these babies growing right on schedule and having perfect heartbeats puts my soul at ease (at least until the next appointment!).

So, I am in the process of playing this little game I like to call "Morning Sickness..... or the Flu??". A few weeks ago I felt like death - really. It took all my strength just not to throw up and I would just cry thinking how could I possibly feel this way for several more MONTHS?? But then miraculously last week I woke up and felt pretty okay, and felt that way the whole week. At first, being the person I am, I decided that I was feeling better because something was going wrong with the babies. But an ultrasound last week showed that wasn't the case. So then I am thinking, well, OK, I was right - it WAS just the flu!! I still didn't feel great, but at least functional. Well, today I am getting the horrible yucky awful feeling back. So morning sickness.... or just the flu?? Hmmmm. I know the flu has been spreading like wildfire around here, and Leo has thrown up twice today, so I wouldn't be surprised. But maybe again I am just living in a dream world and this is just how it's going to be for a while. Either way I am just happy to be at this point right now. I think I only have a few weeks left of medications/injections and I should be released soon to my own OB so I can continue as if this is a normal pregnancy. So I have many things to look forward to in order to keep my spinning nauseous mind (and stomach) off of the fact that I feel like I may just die :) I mean, this feeling can't last forever....RIGHT??!!!

First Ultrasound...

So THERE'S the reason I have been feeling so awful this past week! I've been living in a cloud of denial that this nausea/achiness/crabiness was just the onset of the flu. But seeing these two little amazing sacs puts those thoughts of the flu to the back of my mind. It makes sense now :) I have also been so incredibly hungry. Pregnancy hunger is unlike any other. Sure, you may have just ate lunch an hour ago, but out of nowhere you feel as if you have been deprived of food for an entire week. And you must shove something, anything, into your mouth like NOW. And if you don't, you might just die of starvation right then and there. This hunger may result in waking up in the middle of the night for a bowl or cereal, or maybe sneaking into a bathroom stall while shopping with a friend to stuff a granola bar in your mouth (embarrassingly I have done both!). Now it is super early in pregnancy for me to be feeling these things - about 3 weeks sooner and twice as worse than I have had in any of my past pregnancies. But it's TWINS!! Twice the love, twice the magic, twice the sickness and twice the stretchmarks :)

The dad was there to share in today's news. He was so incredibly cute! He was just thrilled and kept trying to take a video on his phone of the ultrasound to text to his wife, asking all kinds of questions to the tech. With tears in his eyes he was able to call her and tell her what we saw. It is such an incredible experience to share with somebody, and when you can actually see in a person's eyes how much what you're doing means to them, it makes every little uncomfortable moment worth it.

Both sacs were measuring right on, and we even got to see a little flicker of a heartbeat in one! The tech said beforehand we would not see any heartbeat at all at this point, so that was a wonderful surprise! And we go back in a week just to check both heartbeats by ultrasound. I do have a 3mm SCH like I had the last time around, but it is already starting to clot up and heal, so I am not concerned about that right now. I brought the parents a gift of a book that shows pictures and images of a baby from conception to birth, and a calendar that will tell them every day what changes are happening for the baby. I was thinking maybe they would feel more a part of it if they knew exactly what was happening and when. I cannot wait for the next few months to hit all the fun milestones. Feeling TWO babies move around, getting to find out the sexes, planning for their arrival. It is going to be an incredible experience!! Don't get me wrong - carrying twins scares me to death! I know we are now at higher risk for all sorts of problems. But I am going to just take it a day at a time, and if there are bridges to cross I will do so when I need to. For now I am determined this will be a positive experience with the best outcome possible!

(FINAL) Beta #3...

Alright - last (hopefully) bloodwork came back at 14,591!

That is great news - everything is going up and that is what should be happening. BUT (and of course isn't there always a "but").... starting this morning I have been having some cramping and bleeding :( This exact thing happened at almost the exact same time in my last surrogacy, and it ended up being a subchorionic hematoma. Once I stopped taking the baby aspirin last time it healed up and was fine. So I am stopping the aspirin today, increasing my progesterone injection to every other night instead of every third (oh my poor butt!), and hoping hoping praying that this is the same thing happening this time. Bleeding is extremely common in IVF pregnancies, so I am not too terribly concerned at this point. But I have orders to take it easy and notify the nurse if it gets worse. The one good thing that has come of it (I guess good??) is that I got to bump up my ultrasound from next Friday to next Monday. We probably won't get to see heartbeat(s) at that time because it is still early, but we should be able to see how many babies are in there!! A won't get to be there though because she will be in Germany, but J hopefully can make it. And then we can find out what this bleeding deal is about.

So much for coasting through this time! But what journey wouldn't be incredible without a few bumps along the way?? Although I am a hormonal mess (yeah, I've been acting pretty crazy these past few days - I admit!) I am striving to get to Monday without having a nervous breakdown :) One day at a time...

Beta #2....

So Beta#2 is officially in.....
6701!!
Oh boy.... so I need to schedule one more blood draw this Thursday and then an ultrasound next Thursday. How oh how can I wait that long to see what's going on in there??? The nurse assured me on the phone as I semi-freaked out that I should not worry, should not compare my #s to other people online, and to just wait until the ultrasound because it can go any way at this point. So I can be carrying either one little bean or a litter and I am not supposed to WORRY??!! Crazy nurse lady - of course I am going to worry and compare my #s online - hehe :) What else would I do with my free moments during the day??! This is going to be one. long. week. until next Thursday, that is for sure!!

Beta #1 !!

So I pretty much knew going into today's appointment I was pregnant. Especially after taking the multitude of tests I have taken over the past week - I knew it would be "positive". But what I didn't know was the crazy Beta (the level of the pregnancy hormone in my blood) I would receive!! I waited nervously holding my cell phone all day long waiting for the call, only for the nurse to tell me.... (((drumroll please))) ...... 2014!!!!
Here is a summary of some betas that have been posted by other girls on the surrogacy forum I am a member of:

12dp5dt
Singleton: 46, 72, 89, 97, 126, 226, 252, 298, 300, 342, 351, 376, 423, 430, 505, 526, 580, 699
Twins: 389, 766, 971, 1045, 1149, 1155, 1250, 1507, 1709, 2065, 2408
Trips: 473, 746, 801, 1129, 2085

Yeah - SCARY!!!! I have a repeat draw next Monday and then next Friday (to make sure my #s are doubling every 48-72 hours), and they will schedule an ultrasound for the following week after that. The ultrasound is to confirm the heartbeat (s) . Okay, so I am really okay with the prospect of carrying twins. But triplets is a whole other ball game. Not saying that is what I am carrying. The beta really doesn't hold TOO much weight. I could be shocked and only be carrying a single baby with a super high freakish level. You never know!! So I am not going to get too worked up over it yet. Monday should give us a better idea, and of course the proof will be at the ultrasound. The parents are super excited! They have never been pregnant before though, so I don't think they totally understand what all the levels mean and what not. But I'm the type of person that has to research every single last detail and find every comparison any person has ever even begun to mention on the internet so that I can over-analyze every bit of it :) That's just me. Oh, and I've been feeling pretty nauseous today too. I am hoping it is just from the nerves of having an appointment today. Because if this is the start of morning sickness....well, lord help me!!!!

BFP!!!!

So there you have it - my series of BFPs (Big Fat Positives for those not savvy to the addiction of peeing on sticks!!). Now, to most people you may not be able to see the second lines on the first two - but with my super surro-pee test vision, along with the confirmation from my fellow surrogates, they indeed are there!! (plus in my defense they are much harder to see when captured on photo than in person - you must believe me!). But regardless of squinting and taking apart tests, the word "pregnant" is all I need to put a smile on my face. The first (at 4 days past transfer) I was CERTAIN would be negative. After spending a small fortune on tests at Target, I scolded myself as I even took the test because I knew it was early and would be let down. I envisioned just flushing $10.00 down the drain as I "wasted" it just for the sake of being impatient. But the faintest of faint line gave me hope! Darker the next day, and digital test today confirms! A & J are super excited but still cautious - but what they don't realize is that this is a MAJOR hurdle we have overcome. So many times IVF cycles fail, so to even get this far is a huge leap in the right direction. My beta (bloodwork) that will give us my hormone levels isn't scheduled until April 5th, which might as well be an eternity away. So I am going to try and reschedule it for this coming up week. THEN, instead of obsessing over little pink lines, I can start obsessing over the number (is it too high, is it too low, did one stick, both??, what if there's a splitter??) - that's when the fun begins :) But for right now, in this moment and today, life is GOOD and I am thankful!!!