I just want to say that I love my proactiv system. I don’t use it as much as I’m “supposed” to and so – since the max you can space out shipments is every 2 months – I have a bit of a “stash” saved… but damn, this stuff has totally saved my face. I thought about it for years, since I’ve battled acne since my teenage years… and, unlike everyone else, it never went away. For me, breakouts were a daily thing. Even when I was showering and washing regularily I’d still get breakouts every month. It was depressing. It was frustrating. And finally – finally – Den talked me into trying it. It was a lot of money… $40 a month! But by that point I’d tried a bunch of store products that dried out my skin and still didn’t really work right. So I splurged.

And I loved it. I seriously have had only a handful of pimples in the many months that I’ve been on it – and most of those were from days when I wore makeup, which I have discovered through careful experimentation causes me to totally break out. (Any makeup. I tried a bunch, even the bare minerals stuff caused zits. My face seriously hates me.) I had changed my ordering system to every two months (thus making it $20/month) and it still kept the breakouts at bay. My skin will always be pock-marked from the many scars, but I don’t have new ones starting every month. And maybe this will give my face a chance to heal itself.

Well, then I got pregnant. I read something about a different acne drug being very bad during pregnancy, and in reading further I read that a lot of acne products should be avoided during pregnancy. You better believe I flew to my bathroom to check the ingredients. Benzoyl Peroxide. Is perfectly safe to use during pregnancy. I was so incredibly relieved.

Of course my face is now twice as oily as it used to be – that just started a few days ago. And I’ve noticed a couple of zits starting. So it’s back to my twice-a-day washing routine to keep my face clean. And right now I am basking in a lovely (haha) face mask that will hopefully help with the oiliness.

I really don’t mind having to deal with oily, blemished skin during pregnancy if I have no options. It’s short-term and well worth the result! But hey, if I have a chance at managing this? I’m all for it.

PS – I just bought a Bella Band. Black. It is going to be necessary like… now.

We are back from my ultrasound. It is a very healthy baby, measuring on target, with his or her heart beating away. 140bpm. And there was only one of them.

When we stepped into the ultrasound room Den looked at me with a very worried face and told me he was scared. I had been freaking out all day and he hadn’t. Suddenly when the time was up he was the one who looked like he might bolt from the room at any second, and I was calm and hopeful.

I slid my feet into those damn stirrups (but they were fuzzy, all the stirrups at the RE are fuzzy), and the Ultrasound tech started looking around.

I felt a moment of panic as she panned around, I didn’t see any black circles, just grey. What if there was nothing there?! And then a big round black spot slid into view, with a little whitish blob sitting at the bottom. She scanned back and forth through the embryo and pointed. “See that?” I sat up a little and sure enough, one little round part of the embryo was fading light-dark, light-dark, light-dark. The heartbeat. It didn’t look like I had pictured it… not at all like a little white light blinking. It looked… organic. You could almost see the liquid swoosh in and out over and over again. It was crazy and beautiful all at once.

The tech pointed out the yolk sac… the big blob at the top of the “baby” – which we had at first mistaken for a head – was in fact the yolk sac, sustaining the baby as the placenta burrows in. The baby was a little… blob… stretched out close to the bottom of the sac. She measured it end to end, told us it’s measuring right on track.

The funniest part, to me, was when she scanned over sideways to check my ovaries. It was freaking HUGE compared to the baby! Gigantic monster ovaries! She said sometimes they calm down by 8 weeks, sometimes it takes until 12 weeks for them to go back to their normal size. IVF kind of puts a strain on them. And definitely my left side is bigger than my right, which explains the minor twinges I’ve been getting from that side. She said to expect more as they continue to shrink up.

She printed up some photos of our little babyblob for my chart and for us to take home, and that was that. The whole ultrasound seemed to fly by. I felt like I just wanted to lay there and watch the heart beat for half an hour. Any less seemed far too short… and I’m not certain that even half an hour would have been enough!

The tech said that their wheel calculates a due date of April 6, but all the calculators online I’ve done say April 5. She said one day off isn’t a big deal either way, LOL. So I’m leaving all my tickers as April 5, for three reasons: it won’t screw up my counting (do I go back and change my previous pictures with the “new” date? it just gets confusing either way); currently my “new week” starts on a Saturday, and I like that a lot, just to take a day to celebrate and take photos; and April 5 is a nicer number. (I have weird quirks like that!) It’s not like the baby’s going to come on their due date anyways, so one day doesn’t matter.

They’ve booked me for another ultrasound on August 27, though I think they booked me with the wrong doctor (I was too far in lala land to correct them) so I may have to call tomorrow and just ask them to double check that.

She said that I can stop taking the baby aspirin (one less pill at night – woo hoo!) and the estrogen patches. I continue the progesterone until August 25, then stop those too! And I can book an appointment with my Midwife for anytime after the ultrasound on the 27th when they officially “release” me. :D

PS – Sorry Jen and others who are waiting! I took a while to write this!!

I have got to stop mentioning how my morning sickness isn’t bothering me. It never fails, as soon as I type that I get sick. Okay, so this time it was several hours delayed… that’s not the point.

I was trying to sleep… honest I was. But that’s the problem with mid-day naps, especially extremely long mid-day naps: I can’t sleep at night. (No, so far in this pregancy fatigue is not one of my symptoms. Just watch, though, now that I said so I’ll get knocked off my feet.) So I was tossing and turning and trying to sleep. No such luck. I turned on a light and read the end of The Girlfriend’s Guide (still, on the whole, a very good pregnancy book, despite a few things that irked me).

I still say my nausea is just the weirdest thing. I get a slight “ick” feeling… like I want to burp, but I know if I do it could get messy. So after a while, after finishing the book, I wander over to the bathroom and pee. The weird part is that I’m sitting there peeing, thinking, Yup, definitely need to puke before sleeping. So I do. It’s weird that I can plan it (usually). I can wait until I’m done peeing, or reading, or whatever I’m doing at the time, and then puke when I want to. And it’s not like I’m puking my guts up either… I dry heave a lot, throw up a tiny bit, and I feel a million times better.

Very, very strange.

And so ironic at the same time.

Den: “I always have to watch what I say to you… I never know what’s going to end up on the internet.”

He knows me so well. (I told him it keeps him in check. Haha!)

Oh, and yes, he reads this blog now. He always knew about it, but when we were going through infertility he refused to read it. He said it was too painful. :( But now that it’s mostly happy things he’s been reading along. So now I have to be careful what I write… damn! ;)

My morning sickness was okay today… only a few minor bits of nausea that passed quickly. I noticed it seems to not bother me at all when I’m laying down. That seems very counter-intuitive to me, but hey, if it works… Unfortunately it led to me not getting out of bed. I got up to use the bathroom and eat breakfast (another preventative measure) then went back to bed. So apparently the baby wants me to stay in bed. Right? Right? (Just agree with me.)

Today Denis came home from work, said hi, and then wandered off. I found him scooping the kitty litter and taking out the trash… then he took his dog out and watered the plants. Very ambitious of him! I certainly appreciate having a non-stinky kitchen. It was getting a wee bit ripe.

While we were taking our dogs out, I was actually dressed in a bra, shirt, and those size 12 sweatpants that I’m getting seriously addicted to. Den looked at me funny and said, “You look pregnant.” I laughed, but he said, “No really!” He softly touched my lower stomach, “There, that looks different.” Apparently the shape of my stomach has changed a little bit and instead of looking bloated I’m looking more pregnant to him. I don’t really see it, but it’s cool if he sees something. He also said my boobs look bigger, but I’ll take his word for it. They’re still fitting in my bras just fine and look the same from my viewpoint. (And besides, he’s always telling me my boobs look bigger. I think it’s wishful thinking. ;) )

I guess I’ll see with my photo on saturday if things have changed much. My weight is still a solid 142 every morning. (I admit it… I step on the scale frequently. It’s much more fun to weigh yourself when gaining weight is a good thing, and not cause for freaking out that I’m putting on weight yet again despite trying to lose some.) I don’t really really know how that’s possible, seeing how my stomach sticks out a little bit more every day, and I certainly seem to eat a lot! Den even said I’m looking a little skinnier on my sides… maybe it’s all just migrating from my sides to my stomach. I won’t complain.

For the past several days I’ve been counting down to my ultrasound, thinking Is it here yet? Is it here yet? Is it here yet? Just now I’m sitting here and I realized, It’s almos there!… and my stomach did a big flip-flop. I’m excited and so scared all at once. It’s almost like that day before my first IVF beta… when I was so sure I was pregnant (but wasn’t)… when I was sitting here excited and scared, wondering if I was going to get presents or coal the next morning. This time I’m feeling far more positive, since my body is sending me some pretty clear pregnancy signals here. But at this point we don’t take anything for granted. I don’t think I’m going to exhale until we see that heartbeat.

And the worst part is that I have to go to my client’s tomorrow to work for 5 hours before my appointment. The client that I have not told about this pregnancy. I figure this could either be good, in that it will distract me for a good five hours (as long as I have actual work to do – if I don’t, it will be very bad), but there’s a good possibility that I’m going to be a total spacehead tomorrow. Eeeks. Eeeeks.

The good part is that after the appointment we’re coming straight home so I can post. Because I have a ton of friends who either read this blog or one of the forums I’m on and I think there will be a revolt if I don’t post straight away. (And we don’t want that.) And yes I even have a scanner, so I’ll get pics up right away too.

My stomach is still doing flip-flops. I just want a healthy baby. I just want a healthy baby. If I can’t have anything else in the world, please please let it be a healthy baby.

And a completely random note… I’m out of panty liners and I forgot to buy more at the store today. This is not good.

Spoke too soon. All evening I felt nauseated. Puked twice – once at my boss’s office (I did run to the bathroom) and once soon as I got home from my meeting. I was eating things during the meeting – nuts, a cookie, crackers, yogurt – nothing really helped for long.

I came into the meeting and gave an “Eh” when they asked how I was doing. The ladies laughed and said, “You wanted this – just remember that.” Then one of the ladies spoke a little bit about when she found out she was pregnant and how she fainted during the childbirth video they showed her. Meetings are always interesting. My boss threatened to throw a water bottle at me at one point (joking, of course!). :lol: Ahhh, so fun. I work with a wonderful group of ladies and I sure hope I can continue in some capacity even after baby is here. (And it’s funny because the job pays not very much at all, is totally not related to my career/business, and yet I love it. It kind of feels like I found my calling, in a way.)

So yeah, the sickness is now an evening sickness too. Waahhh. I was so happy with how it was.

This evening while driving to that meeting I felt a tiny tiny little bit of cramping on my left side, and later in the evening I found the tiniest is-it-even-there little spot of pinkish on my panty liner. I’m not freaking out. No. Not freaking out. Just.. concerned. Yeah. Concerned is a good word. I’m sure it’s nothing. It was so small. Maybe it’s just the placenta getting started up or something. (According to the JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar, the placenta is supposed to start up around now.) And besides, it stopped.

I’ve been shopping for diapers. Den’s really put a crimp in what I can buy, since he’s not letting me buy any used diapers. (He says it’s totally disgusting, USED diapers. So he’s making me buy brand new. I know I should be more excited about that, but man they can get expensive!) So I’m keeping an eye out on DiaperSwapper for any brand new size smalls that gets put up for sale. For now all we’re planning on is buying a big stash of chinese prefolds and some covers and then trying out others on a one-off basis. I’m not going to spend money on size smalls. When the kid hits a medium, though? Watch out.

The coolest thing about this cloth diaper thing is that my husband is totally open to it! He does think I’m a wee bit crazy, but he told me he’s totally willing to try it out. And when I explained the differences between the AIOs and pockets and prefolds he’s all in favor of the prefolds! I’ve never seen a man who wasn’t put off by the prefolds. He’s like, “What’s so hard about it? Fold it, pin it, put a cover on.” o.O I gotta say, he surprized me there.

He did mention that everyone whom he’s talked to about it (people he works with, his brothers, etc) think I’m absolutely batshit crazy. Okay, that wasn’t the exact words, but I get that general impression. ;) They totally think I’m going to hate it. And I honestly think they have no idea what kind of diapers are out there. I think I’m going to have a ton of fun picking out the cutest dipes to wear out in public to show off. I really do think they’re going to be shocked. :) I mean, it’s not like I broadcast to people (other than my blog readers) that I’m using cloth menstrual pads – they’d probably think I was batshit crazy about that too. But I don’t mind the washing at all, and they’re so much more comfortable that it’s worth the little bit of extra effort.

It is just so incredibly exciting to me that I can now buy diapers. For MY kid. I have a ways to wait for him/her to come and use them, but it is so so much more exciting now that there’s a baby on the way. I can’t wait to start my diaper stash. :D

Is it Thursday yet?

Today I’m actually feeling more excited than nervous about our ultrasound. I want it to be Thursday already! I’m so annoyed with any work-stuff I have to do, because all I want to do is sleep until Thursday. (My preferred method of being unconcious while time passes.) I’m really excited at the prospect of seeing our baby. A bunch of my friends have gotten early ultrasound recently and it’s just very exciting to know that I’m next! I can still hardly believe that it’s my turn, my baby.

Of course the fear is still there. While talking to my supervisor at work yesterday she asked about my ultrasound and I mentioned how scared I was. And I swear to god, I couldn’t even get one sentence out without choking up and getting watery eyes. Just the thought that something might not be right sends me into a panic. I told her if there’s no heartbeat, I really don’t know what we’ll do. I really don’t. I think I will completely fall apart. I think we both will.

But there’s no sense dwelling on it. I want to stay positive.

I had a dream last night/this morning about the baby. I was pregnant, and we had arrived at the hospital. I had my clothes all over the sidewalk and was hastily stuffing select items in a little bag for delivery. (A security guy came over to tell me I couldn’t have my clothes all over like that!)

Then the next part of the dream I was in the L&D wing, walking past desks to sign in. I think that was about the point in the dream when I realized I was only 16 weeks pregnant, and I started freaking out because it was way too early for the baby to come. I was trying to explain to my parents (who were there) and Den why babies need to stay in longer, and it’s too soon. Then the thought of being on hospital bedrest for months started freaking me out.

And at the end of the dream, when I was set up in a room, someone came in and took my TV away! Wheeled it down the hall for something or someone else. I remember being upset because there was a special video in it (of an ultrasound or something?) and I wanted that video back!

So yep, first pregnancy dream so far!

It’s funny talking about fears, because the things you fear aren’t usually the things that get you.

I was so worried about morning sickness hitting me. And it did. And… it’s not that bad. No, dry heaving in a toilet isn’t pleasant (especially when the smell of the toilet makes me feel worse). But it comes and it goes, and eating seems to make me feel fine for an hour or two. It’s not what I expected at all. I expected it to be like… food poisoning. Like throwing up again and again, and not finding relief. But this on-again off-again thing I can handle. The mild nausea feeling reminds me that someone’s in my belly, and that’s not really a bad thing.

On the other hand, that gas stomach ache I had last week I didn’t expect at all, and that was aweful.

I was also afraid the last few months that the progesterone pills would make my pregnancy feel less “normal” – that it would be a hassle and detract from the good stuff. And really I don’t even notice them. I take them three times a day, but it’s not something I obsess over or think about all the time. The panty liners are a bit of a bummer, but again, not something that’s really in my span of conciousness for too long. I just go through a lot of them, that’s all. Even the patches on my ass aren’t so bad anymore… I figured out how to make them come off without hurting quite so much (either that or I have no nerve endings left on my ass), so that’s just another ritual to perform.

Other things I’m starting to be afraid/worried/concerned about with this pregnancy – both the foolish and the serious:

* Losing my boobs. I’m looking forward to having big boobs during pregnancy and breastfeeding. But everything I read says your boobs shrink to SMALLER than they were when you’re done. You know how many years it took for my boobs to grow to a C-cup? I’m irrationally proud of them. I like my boobs. I hope I don’t lose them completely. That would suck.

* My belly button popping. I have a super sensitive innie (Den is even not allowed to touch it, drives me crazy), and I think it popping out is going to really freak me out. Just a hunch.

* That I’ll never be able to not be scared of something happening. “Once we get the second beta… ” “If I could just see the heartbeat… ” “Once I’m out of the first trimster… ” “Once the baby’s born… ” I don’t think I’ll ever start worrying. Shit even watching things on TV with older kids now has me freaking out. You let your kids do that?! Someone’s going to break their neck!! OMG my kid is never doing that!! I just hope I can find it in me to relax a little.

* That my kid won’t love me.

I’d write more, but I’m so tired and I need a brief nap. I hope it doesn’t compromise my ability to sleep tonight. But.. who cares, I don’t have to get up at 6am tomorrow. Ha!

There’s no real reason for it – my morning sickness has indeed managed to restrict itself to mornings – but this evening I am hormonal. Which means that I am on the verge of tears – for no good reason other than I have this overwhelming feeling that I’m going to do something wrong and people are going to be mad at me (???) – and I’m irritable. Very, very irritable. The combo is not so amusing.

Also wondering if Pringles counts as “healthy” food. It’s a potato, right? (Okay, maybe not!)

Today, to combat the morning sickness, I ate breakfast, and then ate lunch. I was a little late with the lunch (as I was at work) but I ate a cookie to stave off the tummy rumbles that were starting. I probably shouldn’t have eaten the whole sandwich, but I was pretty much fine after that. We ordered pizza for dinner when I got home, and it arrived just as I was feeling things get unhappy in there. (Oh, and I had a… peach?… before it arrived. Very good fruit, whatever the hell it was.) Now I’m chomping on pringles and thinking that I ought to go find some “healthy” food to munch on. My tactic is to eat right up to bedtime (unlike last night…), so it won’t be quite so bad in the morning. And then eat first thing in the AM.

Now if I could just figure out how to kick this work stress I’d be fine and dandy.

Remember what I said yesterday? Yeah. I think I do have some morning sickness going on. It’s just not what I expected.

It started with just pressure this morning…. like the food I ate still was sitting there. Burping a lot. I was cuddling with Den and he was rubbing my back (which felt good), but I didn’t want to burp in his face. I sat up and felt… eeek… ran to the bathroom, gagged then puked in the toilet. Ugh! Nasty!

It’s weird, I kind of always imagined morning sickness to be… worse, somehow. Less controllable. But I feel pretty much fine, except those weird times when I feel that “pressure” in my stomach/throat that triggers my gag reflex. I’ve been noticing it being triggered more often, too. (That’s all I need… an even worse gag reflex!) I can usually just breathe through it, but sometimes it just feels better to dry heave. If that makes sense??

In any case, I’ll take this over the gas pains anyday. I just hope it doesn’t get worse.

ETA – Yup. Definitely morning sickness. Uggghhhh. I walked in and yelled at Den after I was done heaving this time. “I’m going to kill you! Didn’t you say yesterday that I didn’t have morning sickness and it was making you nervous?? You jinxed me!!”

Is it possible to have morning sickness and not even know it?

Today I was fine. Hungry, but fine. For dinner I ate, let’s see now… I ate half a crepe left over from breakfast, a bowl of soup, a bowl of cereal with strawberries in it (yum), and then we went and got ice cream. To say I am a little bit bloated right now is a major understatement. It’s not sitting well. Should NOT have eaten all of that in quick succession.

An hour later I took Zoe out into the woods for her to do her business and ended up heaving over a bush. Didn’t throw up, but UGH. And it was weird, because I was just standing there thinking, ugh, my stomach feels so uncomfortable, and the moment I thought about that pressure in the back of my throat…. URP. As long as I don’t really think about how uncomfortable I feel, I won’t puke.

So, whatever. This is pretty typical of me after a giant meal. it just takes less food now to constitute a giant meal. (See why Den and I were so sure I’d get morning sickness? I deal with nausea frequently anyways.)

On the up side, the Maalox seems to have kicked the gas pains for now.

The bad thing is that I’m still craving every food I hear of or (worse) see a picture of. I would like nothing more right now than to eat a whole pizza, or some fried chicken, or have a big bowl of kraft dinner. However I do value my non-pukiness, so I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow when my stomach doesn’t feel so distended.

::

My parents are away for the week – camping, again – and I’m feeling a little sad about it. I created this whole site basically for my mom (and whatever family she tells about it – we all know how fast mom spreads news!) and I want her to read it, lol. I’m still not one much for phone calls, but I still want to keep in touch!

They’ll still be away on thursday when we have our ultrasound, so I’ve been instructed to call their cell phone. (They rarely ever use the cell phone, it’s for emergencies only. And using a cell phone while camping is paramount to a felony in my dad’s book.) They’re anxious to find out if everything’s okay and of course to confirm that there’s only one peanut in there.

Okay, so then mom just called to check up on me, they’re apparently heading out tomorrow morning. :)