Sea Bands and Meds

I must be messed up or something. Last night I went to Walgreens to pick up my prescription of nausea meds. While there I also picked up some Sea Bands. Sea Bands are a natural form of anti-nausea treatment. The way it works is with pressure points. The product is two fabric wrist bands with button things that when placed correctly rest on a certain pressure point on your wrist that will combat nausea. Supposedly it is supposed to work well with motion sickness and morning sickness. Well there must be something wrong with me. I tried wearing them last night and did not feel well. I wore them while at the mall and ended up needing to stop for preggie pops to make it the remainder of the way to my car.

This morning I woke up and put them on as I got out of bed. A few minutes after putting them on and I began to feel nauseous, so I took them off and began to feel better. Who knows, maybe they just don't work with me.

On the other hand I took one of my nausea pills today (they say on the bottle take one pill three times daily as needed for nausea), I took it in the morning and felt great till about lunch time, then I combatted my nausea the way I usually fight it and so far have been able to make it the rest of the day without another pill. I am hesitant about taking drugs while I am pregnant and even though these have been prescribed by my fertility doctor I still want to be careful with them.

In the meantime I have been on the hunt for large focal pendants. Mostly of the donut or teardrop variety and all in Jade. I want to make a few nursing focus necklaces, as I have seen a few online and am interested in the idea. The premise is to have a sturdy necklace with a large pendant that a baby can focus on and play with as they nurse. I am thinking serioiusly about creating a few and seeing if I can sell some online. Let me know what you think about the idea.

Amusing interactions

Today I had quite a few amusing interactions with different people and I wanted to share them.

Setting: Phone call from Kevin
Me: Hello?
Kevin: Maple Meeper.
Me: Yes, I know, I remembered.
Kevin: Maple Meeper?
Me: Yep, I have it with me and have written out the check.
Kevin: Maple Meeper!
Me: Yep, love you bye.

As a background for this, we have a bill for our storage location which is with Maple Storage. I needed to get a check in the mail to them this week for the rent. Kevin was supposed to remind me about it today before I left for work, but he was sleeping so I reminded myself.


As a lead up to the next one, I have a habit which I have actually picked up from Fae, I tend to look up at the ceiling at random times, often to see if there are any creepy crawlies up there. This habit confuses Kevin and he has often asked me what I am looking at.

Setting: Phone call from me to Kevin
Kevin: Hello?
Me: Hey, you know how you always ask me why I am looking up at the ceiling?
Kevin: Yea...
Me: Well I have a good answer for it.
Kevin: Ok...
Me: Ninjas, you never know when one might be up there!
Kevin: (chuckling) That is pretty good. Is that it?
Me: Yep, that and I wanted to say I love you
Kevin: Ok, love you, bye.
Me: Bye


And by far the best interaction of the day...

Setting: Walking through the mall on my way from one end to the other end, Lotion Booth Guy (LBG) notices me.
LBG: Hi ma'am, can I interest you in...
Me: Hi, I'm sorry but I am pregnant and dealing with morning sickness, if I have any scents near me I may throw up, it is probably best that I keep moving.
LBG: (Suddenly looking not so sure about me) Ahhh, yea that is probably best, have a great evening.
Me: You too.


And lastly, something Kevin said when he got home while I was waiting for my shot.

"Society is based principally and primarily upon the fear of pregnant women."
-Kevin

Nausea Meds

Yesterday was good in regards to vomiting, none happened, but I felt sick most of the day. This past weekend was so bad that I finally broke down this morning and called the fertility clinic and asked them to give me nausea meds. So when work is over I can go to my local Walgreens and pick up some nausea meds. I am so happy about that. It will be nice to have a little bit of a break from all of this.

This Thursday is my next and last appointment with the fertility clinic, and this weekend shoud be the end to my progesterone shots. That will be nice.

It is kind of funny, for Christmas last year Kevin's mom sent me an Anne Geddes calendar, which as you might know is full of babies as that is what she photographs. She said it was in hope that something might happen this year. I have used it as my work calendar and I have to say that it is very fitting. Especially since I use it for writing down all my doctor appointments so that my managers and my co-workers know where I am on any given day.

So, yay for meds, yay for shots ending soon!

Not such a fun day

Not so much fun, this post discusses my troubles with vomiting, if you would rather not read then do not click on link.

Hot Cocoa

Today I entered my work breakroom and smelled cocoa. And having smelled it I realized that I wanted some. So I had a cup, and then another cup and then another cup. In total I think I have had about 4 cups of hot cocoa today. Great thing about it is that I have not felt nauseous much at all today. Not that I plan on drinking four cups of cocoa every day, but maybe a cup a day would be nice. I guess the baby likes cocoa.

Last night I stopped by the mall and visited the maternity store there. I picked up some shirts because I really don't have many casual shirts that work with my maternity jeans for casual Fridays at work. While there I noticed "Preggie Pops" supposedly a natural way of releaving morning sickness. They come in 7 flavors: Peppermint, Spearmint, Lavender, Ginger, Sour Lemon, Sour Tangerine, and Sour Raspberry. Today I tried the Sour Lemon. Interesting. They are suckers that are flavored to help with morning sickness. I don't know how well the others will work, and the lemon one only lasted so long before I was done with it. I think I might stick with gum. It's cheaper than the suckers anyway.

Kevin's problems with his car/driving is all taken care of now so he is finally returning to his commute life of driving to and from work. For those of you who have been missing us at church this also means that you will see us this Sunday. The last two weekends we have been stuck in Rochelle and thus have not been able to attend our own ward/congregation. It also takes the stress of the situation off of my shoulders.

Kevin called me today from home to talk about distribution of work around the house. Since I have started my morning sickness phase of pregnancy I often get home and start to clean something just to get too nauseous to continue. It has been aggrivating because with Kevin stuck in Rochelle nothing was getting done. Now that he is back he is looking at figuring out a way for all of this to work. So here is his solution, he will take care of the physical parts of upkeep of the house and I will take care of the secretarial aspects of the house. This includes but is not limited to: paying bills (which I already do), opening and sorting mail (which I already do), managing our medical (which will include changing his doctor, and possibly making appointments for him), filling out and submitting any paperwork needed for selling our home. I am completely fine with it. I am much better at doing this kind of stuff and I keep things better organized when I am taking care of this stuff, besides by doing it I can make sure that things get done (like getting him to an oncologist).

Anyway, hopefully this will help him feel more helped out around the house. I really do have a wonderful husband I mean how many women can claim that their husbands clean the house, wash the dishes, do the laundry, take out the trash, take care of all the yardwork, and cook meals without complaining about it? He is pretty awesome!

8 weeks

Yesterday I went to my third ultrasound appointment. My baby is now the size of an olive or grape and looks as the ultrasound tech said, like peanut with legs and arms. The appointment went strange compared to how it usually goes. The usual ultrasound tech was on vacation and so their back up tech was filling in for her. She was unfamiliar with that specific machine and got frustrated during the ultrasound. This resulted in me not being able to see anything except for the picture she printed out for me, which Kevin said later was not a very good picture of the baby. It makes me kind of bummed out, but it is ok. Kevin was able to be there and he was able to see it all he even got to see the heart beat this time. Since he missed the last ultrasound I am glad he was able to be at this one.

Ironically after the appointment Kevin and I went to get lunch and ended up at the toll road oasis. He got chicken strips and I got a smoothie and a pretzel. Here is the ironic/sort of gross part, one of his chicken strips looked like the silhouette of the baby in the ultrasound picture. Kevin shared his chicken strips with me, but I was unwilling to eat that strip. I could not eat it when it looked like my baby (even if it was a chickeny, breaded version).

I am currently 8 weeks 3 days along. At 10 weeks I get to stop my progesterone shots/injections, and hopefully at 12 weeks I will stop getting sick. Hopefully. Next week is my last appointment with the Fertility Clinic, and the week after that is my first appointment with my regular OBGYN. I am hoping for another ultrasound at that time, but we will see. By that time I should be off the progesterone. Yay!

I need to find a better scanner to scan the ultrasound pics onto the computer. Once I do then I will post the last two ultrasound pics. Until then you will just have to be patient.

New friend

The trashcan has become my friend, it sits by me waiting for the next emergency. The last few days I have needed it at least once a day. I am finding that if I keep my tummy full that it will happily stay mostly quiet. However, finding foods that will fill me up and not make me feel sick seems to be a harder and harder prospect to fulfill.

Things that make the tummy happy:
Pasta
Starbucks Strawberries and Crème
Mint gum (helps to fight my nausea, does not fill me up)
Stacy’s Simply Naked Pita chips
Almonds
Slightly salted rice cakes
Homemade mashed potatoes (the fake stuff makes me feel sick)


Other than this list it really varies, some days I may be able to eat something and then not be able to eat it the next.

Things at home are going crazy, we are having issues with car/driving abilities, which has resulted in some crazy maneuvering of schedules. Hopefully it will be able to be cleared up before the end of this week. Here’s hoping for things to work out.

Foods

I have surrounded myself with food at work. And all of it is stuff to help my volitile stomach. Today I am snacking on oyster crackers, their hexagonal shapes creating interesting designs on the napkin I have spread on my desk. I am not so good with oysters, or clams for that matter, but oyster crackers and I do great together.

On the other side of my desk lies the growing pile of other food. My lunch banana sits watching me, joined by the baggie of animal crackers, the Kix which form little flowers in their bag, almonds, cheese crackers, fruit snacks, saltines, and my lightly salted rice cakes.

Last night I had to go shopping, the dogs were out of food and I could not come home without food for them. Ronan would have thrown a fit. So I bought dog food and then went over to Target, because I really needed some maternity tops to cover my maternity pants. Target has a maternity section, but none of the tops, pants or other things worked. In fact nothing in Target worked, except for a tiny purse that I found for $5. I have been getting fed up with carrying my wallet around because the maternity pants either have no pockets or pockets so tiny I can't fit my ginormous wallet into them. The purse carries it all, my keys, my wallet and my cell phone. It is a change for me, because in general I HATE purses. Have no problem with other people using them, but can't stand using them myself. Having a purse is unusual for me.

After Target I went over to Walmart, where I found two shirts that worked, and picked up more lightly salted rice cakes as I had finished off what I had the day before. While there I also picked up naked pita chips (not really since they have sea salt on them), which I idiotically left at home today (they would have been tasty), and a bag of sweet potato chips, which I ate some of last night and found them tasty but strange, something I will have to eat when I feel like them and not at any other time.

I thought about eating pickles last night but ended up eating some of the oyster crackers instead. Remembering the oyster crackers is what brings them here today. All this food, and all of it so bland, but if that is what it takes to keep it all down I am good with it. Prenatals stayed down today, and I am feeling good. Got probably about 10 to 11 hours of sleep last night, I don't know whether to feel happy about that or embarassed. Oh well, hopefully tonight I can keep awake enough to get some housework done.

Tossing Cookies

As a warning, this entry discusses vomiting, if you would rather not read then stop reading now.

What to expect

Yesterday I came home from work and discovered a package in my mailbox. Turns out my sister sent me a book. "What to expect when you're expecting", it is a book I have been wanting to read for awhile now. I looked through it last night and have to say, "Wow, what a fantastic book!" It contains a ton of great information and not just for expectant moms either, it has good info for expectant dads too.

Kevin and I talked about it yesterday and today, I still need to give my sister a call and thank her for it.

The book goes into so many aspects of pregnancy, what to eat, what to expect each month, what drugs are ok and which are not, what to expect from the doctor appointments, what happens after the baby is born, and much, much more. It is a very nice book. I am looking forward to having some time to just sit down with it and read through a good bit of it. So far I have only skimmed it.

Counting by Weeks

Over the weekend Kevin asked me how much longer we have to continue the progesterone shots. And I told him till about week 10. Currently I am in week 8 and next Saturday I will begin week 9. So we have about 2 to 3 weeks left of shots.

This of course brought him to one of his pet peeves. Counting by weeks. So he says, "Why do we have to count by weeks?? I hate counting by weeks!! How long do we have to count by weeks for??" And I say, "Oh, probably until the baby is a few months old."

I then explained to him that different things happen each week, things change and the best way to track those things is by weeks. Then once the baby is born there are different check ups and such that happen based on how many weeks old the baby is, thus you have to know how many weeks something is.

He still hates it. He hated it when the dogs were puppies. "Why do we care how many weeks the dog is?? Can't we just count by months??" "No sweetie, the dogs get certain shots based on how many weeks old they are, we have to keep track of the weeks so that they get their shots on time."

Thankfully after a few months I am sure that things change (at least that is how it seems) and the counting by weeks will be over until the next one. Hopefully Kevin can make it till then without going crazy over the weeks.

Oh noes, the tadpole!!

Those of you who have played WoW might be familiar with the title of this post. We are on week 8 of my pregnancy, and my baby looks like a tadpole. On the parents connect website they have a 3D pregnancy calendar that shows what the baby looks like each week. They also have a description of what changes are going on this week and what I am feeling and they have great tips on foods and other things. I think it is a great website. So here is what we have for this week.

"This week, your little tadpole is starting to look a little bit more human. Other exciting developments include:

Your baby's eyelids, ears, upper lip and the tip of his soon-to-be adorable button nose are forming.

Junior will also sprout webbed fingers and toes this week—which you'll be well aware of in a few months, as baby starts early gymnastics classes inside you.

Baby's tiny heart has separated into four distinct chambers and is really ticking now—at a rate of 150 beats per minute. That's more than twice your resting heart rate.

Your baby is now a little more than ½ inch long."

It is neat to see what changes are happening and how my baby is developing. This weekend I was out in Rochelle again. Kevin got stranded out there and so I ended up having to go out and help him. We were able though to get a good part of our house loaded into a moving van and taken out to our storage unit. One step closer to moving. Hopefully once we get our house on the market it will move quick.

Over the weekend I asked Kevin a silly question. I sometimes ask Kevin if he loves me, not because I doubt it, but because I want to hear him say it. So I asked him a variation of that question. I said, "Kevin, do you love our baby yet?" And he said, "What a silly question. Of course I do, I have loved our baby since I was a child. I have always looked forward to becoming a daddy." I thought it was such a cute answer.

I bought maternity clothes over the weekend too. And I discovered something about them. Though I don't really need them yet, because I have not gotten really big enough for them to be justified, I have found that they don't press on my stomach and tummy very much and thus I have less nausea. Less nausea equals a happy Rachel, so today I am wearing my brand new maternity work pants. There is something almost ridiculous about nice work slacks with a maternity belly, but I am grateful to them all the same.

Scents and Pants

When you are hungry and nauseous things you CAN eat suddenly become so tasty. And some things taste better than they did before. Last night my parents made ribs for Kevin’s birthday. They made garlic bread from the French bread I brought, Brittney (my sister in law) made mashed potatoes, and Mom had made up corn on the cob. Oh so yummy. I couldn’t handle the ribs, I ate a bit but couldn’t make it much farther after that, a pity because they were super tasty. Everything else was very good as well. And the corn, oh the corn was awesome! I can’t wait till summer sweet corn really gets going. Hopefully the morning sickness doesn’t ruin it for me.

The problem with my morning sickness is that almost any scent can trigger me. It doesn’t have to be food. This morning as I drove from Rochelle to the doctor’s appointment the smell of my shirt began to make be queasy. And right now it is the smell of myself that is making me feel sick. I ended up having to drive out to Rochelle last night and did not have deodorant so now I can smell my own BO and it makes me feel ill. I will be heading back out that way this afternoon and will probably stop along the way to get some deodorant.

Because it feels good to have as little pressure as possible on my stomach I have been walking around my parent’s house with my pants unbuttoned. This morning Kevin said to me, “You need maternity pants, if your current pants feel that uncomfortable then you need to get some maternity clothes. Go get some.” This was something I was holding back on because I didn’t know how he would feel about it, but he told me to go out today and get some maternity clothes, because I obviously need them. It will be good to get into some pants that have less pressure on my stomach.

My nose is a bloodhound

My nose is a bloodhound, hunting down just the right smells to make me gag. This morning as I checked all four floors that our region resides on I learned what a dangerous adventure it is to wander a building when one is suffering from morning sickness. I staggered from one floor to another, holding it all in by breathing through my hand.

On my way up from the first floor I found myself in the elevator with two of my coworkers, an employee from a different department in our region and the manager who is three managers over me. The employee from a different department had gone downstairs and gotten herself a breakfast burrito. I am sure it was super tasty and all, but the smell caused me to gag, so I covered my nose and mouth with my hand and smelled in the neutral smell of soap. My senior manager looked at me and said, "What are you laughing at?" To which I began to respond by saying, "I'm not laughing..." and one of my coworkers (the office gossip) finished for me by saying, "She is about to puke." Of course my senior manager looked a little closer at me and I said to forestall any other questions, "I am dealing with morning sickness." Which should have answered all other questions. But of course he followed it up with, "Is there a reason for this morning sickness?" To which I said, "Yes." and he congratulated me as I got off at my next floor to check.

Still have not tossed my cookies yet, but I have had close calls. I am sure that this gagging is going to turn into something full blown soon. What I wonder is will I want to stay at work if I am throwing up? And will my manager let me work from home if I end up puking a lot? I need to sit down with her and have that discussion. And soon.

Crackers

Yesterday I was hit by a day full of super nausea. I still haven't thrown up yet, but I did come close, gagging a few times and standing over the toilet just waiting for it to come. Kevin and I went shopping for foods that will help my tummy be happy. We got lots of crackers, and other bland foods.

This morning I put my hair in a pony tail, but then after a second's thought put it into a braid as well. Judging by the way I felt yesterday and the way I felt this morning I would not be surprised at all if today is the first day I puke.

I have been visiting pregnancy sites all morning and have been checking out their advice on morning sickness and nausea and how to fight it. Ginger is one of the things they brought up. So after work today I will head out and get some candied ginger, and maybe even some ginger candy. Anything I can do to keep from tossing my cookies would make me happy.

Tired of course, I seem to be always tired. I am beginning to wish that they included nap time at work.

Other things learned at doctor's visit

I am 5 weeks 6 days along, the baby is at six week size.
My due date is January 28th. I don't know if we have many January birthdays in our family or Kevin's family. In fact I don't know that we have any in our family. This also means that I will be my biggest during the winter, something I have heard as being a good thing.

I am continuing the progresterone in oil shots. I had to call for a refill this morning. I also requested a new sharps container, more needles and syringes, and alcohol wipes. I have my own alcohol wipes but I like their's better. Also discovered that Kevin perfers Johnson and Johnson sterile gause wipes, as opposed to the Walgreens brand.

Found out that when it comes to exercise they really only want me walking. When Kevin asked about using the eliptical they said no. I think I have exercised using the eliptical twice during the pregnancy, maybe it is a good thing I haven't done more. Looks like I need to do more walking though.

1st Ultrasound of the baby

Today was my first ultrasound to see the baby. It turned out that it was an internal ultrasound. They told us that they were looking for the yolk sac and they were able to find one. So we are having one baby. It was awesome to see the little thing that will become our baby. Right now it looks like a grain of rice. We were also able to see the heartbeat. I guess today was the first day we would have been able to see it! How exciting. I think the best part of it all was watcing Kevin as the ultrasound techs showed him what he was looking at, he had this look of happy awe on his face the entire time. They pointed out the baby, and the yolk sac and the heartbeat. They said that the heartbeat is currently at 90 beats per minute. They also took a picture of the baby for us. I have the picture below, the little white thing inside the red circle is the baby, the black area around it is the yolk sac. My next ultrasound is scheduled for next week. I can't wait to see how much the baby will have grown!

Ultrasound tomorrow

Tomorrow is my first ultrasound since finding out that I am pregnant. To say it is my first ultrasound would be untruthful though as I have had many internal ultrasounds since starting our attempts at getting pregnant through the fertility clinic, and I had an external ultrasound during the implantation of the embryos.

Tomorrow is the ultrasound that should show me how many babies I have in there. There were two embryos implanted, so we could have one baby, or we could have two, or if the embryos split we could have three or even four. We could have more than four as well, but I am pretty sure that will not happen.

It still seems crazy to me that this early on they can do an ultrasound and discover how many babies we will be having. I have feelings on how many it will be, but I am not going to say what those feelings are until tomorrow. I don't want to jinx it. This week has been a good bit stressful, what with a very important meeting at work this morning and the spotting that happened earlier this week. But the meeting is now over, and the spotting has for the most part gone away. I am feeling better about it all. Still worried, but better.

Tomorrow should show that everything is ok, and should tell us how many babies we have to look forward to. I will be asking the doctor a bunch of questions as well, most important of those being, "Can I get off the progesterone shots? Because 1. They hurt, and 2. I am running out of the medication itself." Hopefully the answer is a good one. Either way I wil probably have an overnight shipment of progesterone to me, I might ask for a sharps container while I am at it. It depends on what she prescribes me.

Stress, fear, I no longer know my emotions

Yesterday I began to spot. I have been told that spotting can be normal in pregnancy. I noticed it right before going to a friend's house. One who knows about my pregnancy, but really hadn't been able to wish me congrats in person yet. With the spotting on my mind it was difficult to be as thankful as I should have been for her congratulations. I felt unsure and awkward.

Last night was terrible. After I returned I googled "spotting at 5 weeks pregnant" of course it pulled up stories from people who miscarried. I pretty much freaked out, I prayed, I wept, and I begged for everything to be ok. This morning I called my doctor's office at 6 am, the message said they didn't open till 6:30 am. The closed office message didn't go down though until about 5 minutes to 7 am. The nurse I needed to talk to wasn't there and so I left a message. (It didn't help that last night I had a dream about going to the doctor's office and speaking to the nurse face to face and having her tell me that it sounded like I lost the baby and that she really couldn't care less) At about 11 am she called me back and told me that it sounded like I would be ok, and that if I started having severe stomach pain and cramping and began to bleed a lot then I should worry and contact them immediately. I took that to mean that if that happened then I would be definitely losing the baby. She told me to take things easy and not to lift anything heavy. I told my manager and she had the meeting I had scheduled for later that day then and there and then sent me home. The meeting itself stressed me out a good deal. And tomorrow I have another meeting that will stress me out pretty good.

Today has been weird for me. I don't know quite how to feel. I feel tired, worn out, and worried about this. I have not really wanted to talk to anyone and so I fear I was snarky at work with certain people. My father in law called and left a message to see how everything was going. I could not call him back, I really did not want to talk about any of it at that point. I still feel torn, what if it all fails, now, now that I have told everyone? I just don't know anymore...should I let things out, should I keep things in? All I feel I can do now, is keep up hope, and wait till Friday for the ultrasound. It seems strange now, I know I should be excited, like I was, about the ultrasound. But at this point I can only worry, and hope everything is ok.

5 weeks

Last night I decided to try and figure out my due date (because so many people have been asking) using a pregnancy calculator. But all the calculators I found out there ask all the wrong questions for me. So I googled IVF Pregnancy Calculator and found one. It was nice to have a calculator that asked for the date of egg collection to determine pregnancy. And based off that date I am 5 weeks along. This Friday when I have my first ultrasound I am going to verify that, but if it is correct then I am farther along than I originally thought. It is exciting.

I am looking forward to Friday. It will be nice to find out how many embryos took, and I have questions I would like to ask the nurse anyway.

Also last night I found a few sites that help prepare people for becoming parents, I figure I can use all the help I can get.