Saturday, April 23, 2011

In the beginning...

I don't think I've ever told the story about the beginning of our pregnancy adventure. In truth, the entire TTC process was incredibly hard on me emotionally and stripped a lot of the confidence I had been developing in my body to shreds. As I feel the little Berry moving more and more each day it takes me back to those days and really does make everything worth it.

I went off my birth control pills in mid-August 2009. Like most females I was ready to be pregnant, and I was ready to be pregnant right away. The first month I got my cycle was hard, but it was more of a "well, that sucks" kind of reaction. Surely I would be pregnant by Christmas and what an awesome present that would be to the family! This is also when we were house hunting and had a tentative closing date that fell the week of Christmas. This would be perfect!

The week of Christmas fell and I realized I was a few days late, and started to get my hopes up. We got the news Mon that the house fell through, and my period came Christmas morning. Safe to say it was a very rough Christmas for me, but I internalized most of it and kept it bottled up.

January rolled around, then February, then in March I started to feel a bit strange. I was exhausted to the bone and falling asleep at 8pm. When I attempted to do my daily work-outs I would get through the warm-up and be panting for breath and have to stop. I started to get my hopes but decided to wait until I was 5 days late to take a pregnancy test. At day 4 I started to get a pain in my abdomen, and later that day got a very abnormal period. I will spare you the details but I strongly believed that I had miscarried at 5 weeks.

April was slightly easier as we were finally able to close on, and move into, our new home. May passed, then June, July, and August. Every time I got my cycle I would break down sobbing because what kind of wife was I when I couldn't even give my husband a child. (My husband would chime in here and say "a damn good wife" but it's a very dark place you go to when faced with infertility)

I went back to work at the high school and forced a happy smile upon my face and shrugged good naturedly as my co-workers teased that they had expected me to come back pregnant and ready to pop. I looked at the pregnant ladies surrounding me and felt nothing but emptiness and envy all rolled into one. It was our one year of trying anniversary, and I went to see my gyno who set me up for fertility testing in February.

One day at school I felt as if my stomach was burning, and when I went to use the restroom there was that same abnormal period from March. I felt completely betrayed by my body and started to wonder if I would ever get pregnant. I also began to look into adoption and realized that we were at least 5 years out from being able to afford that, and that many local adoption agencies would not have worked with us anyway due to stupid factors that ultimately have little bearing on child raising (such as being an interracial couple, H being close to 40, both of us working full time, having animals, etc.)

Now in late August I had humored my mom's pleas for me to go gluten free, well, half way at least. After my Sept experience I decided to give it my all and see what happened. I also stopped charting to give myself a mental break. I figured that I would begin to chart again in December. October went by without to-do, and we rolled into November and I was preoccupied with having Thanksgiving at our house that year.

In fact I was so preoccupied that I had to check my account at fertilityfriend.com to see when I would be getting my period. I was not charting daily, but checked my temp when I noticed my CM change so I could be prepared for my cycle. You can imagine my shock when I realized I should have gotten my period 5 days earlier.

But I had been down this road before, and refused to let myself get excited or hopeful. Besides, Scott had a potential for promotion so all of our excitement was going into that! I wasn't willing to ruin that excitement with another negative test.

We received the phone call on Tuesday that he got his promotion and was being transfered and given a 4% raise. My dad joked that I should go pee on a stick and ride the good luck wave and I rolled my eyes.

Wednesday was Scott's day off, so I decided to pee on my digital test stick and see what happened. If it was negative I would just toss it with the others and he would never know. I still get giddy when I think about the moment I looked at the stick and saw YES very plainly written across it. So giddy in fact that I may have teared up just writing it.

I then proceed to jump into bed (pee stick in hand, oops) and start bouncing up and down going "omg omg I thought it was going to say no but it said yes, oh my god honey it says yes!" My poor sleepy husband didn't know what hit him. He woke up, realized what I was talking about, and got the biggest smile. This was then followed by him asking what we needed to do. Did I need to go to the doctor? Did I need to change my diet? What did I need him to do?

It was a fabulous morning.

Monday, April 18, 2011

I love you more than syrup!

I'm going to start to try to keep this updated with my diet, partially as a way of holding myself accountable and partly to offer encouragement to anyone who stumbles across my blog and could use a little pick me up. It's been an interesting few days living both gluten free and now with a diet for gestational diabetes. I have discovered that I definitely was not eating enough carbs and proteins which is not so hard of a realization given that I can't eat the majority of "quick carbs" that are out there, like crackers, breads, bagels etc. It's also been hard because my staple carb is rice now, which is very high on the glycemic index and rough on my blood sugar. But, we are adjusting and thanks to my testing I can tell what is working and what isn't. Here is my food diary from yesterday (minus the measurements because I don't feel like getting up and grabbing my book). You can see how tortured I am right now ;) Fasting BS reading - 68 Breakfast - Cream of rice with frozen berries, cottage cheese, and peanuts BS reading of 109 Snack - String cheese and 5 Glutino crackers Lunch - (went out to Applebees after my hospital tour, did I write about that?) Steak and Potato Salad. Heaping portion of spinach with red pepper, onion, tomato, eggs, steak, potatoes and a dijon vinegarette. BS reading of 69 (tad low) Snack- plum after lunch to counter the BS reading being slightly low, then some Lays chips with Deans dip and peanuts for protein Dinner- leftover spagetti made by my wonderful husband. Quinoa pasta, tomato sauce, sausage, beef, green pepper, onion, mushrooms. with grapes BS reading of 125 Snack - 3 oz of plain Greek yogurt (blah) and 5 Glutino crackers I think the biggest thing right now is just how much food is going into my body, and the variety of food. My old diet would have been like this: Breakfast - Rice chex and milk Lunch - Salad greens with ranch Dinner - Pasta dish or canned soup Um...yeah, ya think I was a little nutritionally lacking? *smacks forehead* I also don't know if it's just because she grew a little bit or because I'm sleeping a little lighter, but the Berry has been a crazy wiggle worm since I started testing/dieting! Last night she was moving around and I could feel little body parts sliding across my hand instead of just feeling the wiggles or the small pops from random movements. I'm curious/anxious about our Dr. visit on May 2nd to see if she's growing large or still regularly.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

From family, with love

People keep asking what the theme of our nursery is, and it finally occurred to me. From family, with love. See, I'm not a matching type of person, especially when it comes to the nursery. The furniture is not a purchased set so there's a variety of colors, wood types, etc. I also don't want to spend the money on a decor kit but instead am pulling things that are near and dear to my heart in order to surround the baby with family and love. So far here is what we have -Dresser from when I was in high school, refurbed about 5 times through my changing phases -bookcase my dad made me in high school - wall hanging created by my aunt as our wedding gift - poem about being a mom written by my mom when I was born - dreamcatcher made by my amazing friend and talented author, Kristina Circelli - dreamcatcher given to me by a dear friend over 10 years ago - picture that was hanging in my parents house forever it seems - moving picture thing (I'll have to take a pic) given to me by a dear friend as a graduation present We also are planning on getting - paper mobiles that have hung in my grandparents house for all of my aunts and uncles. I was fascinated with them as a kid and threw it out there that if they were looking to get rid of them it would be neat. They will soon hang above our baby :) - needlepoint sayings that my parents made when I was born. - an afghan my great-grandmother made for my aunt

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Anniversary part 2


That's a lot of moving pictures!



The master bedroom was another blah room. I am still surprised at how big it feels after we got our bedroom set in there. Scott came to the relationship with a massive bedroom set which has been a large pita with house hunting. We actually managed to fit the massive headboard, side wardrobes, and large dresser in the room with a bit of walking space to spare!





We painted the room a steely blue and hung up Scott's black out curtains. Yes, you may make the joke about having black leather curtains in the bedroom but when he has to work from 10pm until 8am and sleep during the day they are definitely a necessity.

1 year house anniversary!

It's hard to believe but we have now owned our house for an entire year! It's amazing how it can feel like we have lived here our entire lives and also feel like we just moved in yesterday all at the same time. We've done a lot but there are still many projects we want to do once we get the time/money. We were planning on using our tax refund to put in carpet this year but...that didn't happen so maybe next year. The carpets are still in decent shape so we'll live.








So let's take a little walk through time and see what we have changed, and where we want to go :)




The biggest change, in my opinion, is the dining room. Note the lovely green hues on the wall which took Scott back to his military days, the stained carpet, and the..well, generally attitude. I have a feeling an animal once lived in this room as well, because Katie frequently had accidents in here when she is very well house trained.












And our new and improved room. Thanks to a generous gift from my parents we were able to put in new flooring (laminate, super easy to put in and so far wonderful) and they also helped me paint the walls white and green. We actually eat in this room now, who would have guessed?








The front hallway was the 2nd biggest impact, although I may change my mind later and argue that it is, in fact, the biggest. Who doesn't love 30' (estimating here, could be totally off) salmon pink walls? Um..most people I would imagine. Also the lovely green...ish wall on front, which then goes down to the military green that you saw in the dining room lower on the wall (not pictured). These three colors are totally logical...








This is actually the same white paint as we used in the dining room! It's slightly, very very slightly, tinted with green so it actually reflects light differently in each room and has a slightly different appearance which is pretty awesome. We're going to hang small cafe curtains (red or black) on the windows for a little privacy at night as well as to give the room some color. One day I would also love to stain/paint the door frame a darker color as well as the wood that surrounds the small window. I also want to get a small stained glass decal to put in the small window. I think that would look fantastic and make the hallway really colorful.










Here is the living room. It just...was. Rather blah and not horribly exciting but eh, not too shabby. We did find it interesting how 2 of the walls were a different color though. We thought they were a very light lavender/beige type color. Um...not so much. Once we started covering them with the white they showed just how purple they really were! We used the paint with primer but still had to do two coats. Then again, two coats to cover purple with white is not something to scoff at. We also painted the trim green to give the room a little pop and added chocolate brown curtains.

Green trim, oh so pretty




(Purple/brown/beigey color)

Friday, April 15, 2011

Dun dun dunnnnnn



Well, I got the "fun" phone call from my doctor yesterday where she informed me that I have gestational diabetes and had to attend a class today where I would learn how to use my testing kit. Cue instant overdramatized panic. I held it together long enough to get directions to the class, excuse myself from my bosses presence, and make it to the small book room in the back of the library where I totally lost it. Here are all of the thoughts that ran through my head.


"I'm going to have a big baby and no chance of a natural birth"

"I'm scared of needles!"

"My baby isn't going to be healthy."

"Omfg I'm going to have to poke myself with a needle"

"My baby is going to get diabetes and hate me forever."

"I'm going to die."

"My baby is going to be sick."

"Wtf? Why me? I eat right, I exercise, this isn't fair!"


Just imagine that circling through my head, plus a healthy dose of general crazy pregnant lady hormones and that would be my morning. My boss sent me for a walk around the building and told me to really consider going home if I needed to do so. I opted to stay considering I had already taken off Tue for my glucose test and now was taking off today for the class. I was fine until someone asked how I was doing that day and then lost it. Luckily I surround myself with science teachers who all knew something about it and were able to help me mentally get on track.


Today I had my class at an offshoot of my hospital and it was really good. I have a strict meal plan to follow (1800 calories, holy god that's a lot of food for me) so I'm going to work really hard on that. The hardest will be getting 3 servings of milk a day. "Milk" also includes yogurt, but not cottage cheese, cheese, etc. I hate milk, really really hate it. I think I'll be eating my weight in yogurt.


Then we went over risk factors and the only thing that applies to me is being over 25 and having Native American genes. I also have a family history of diabetes. It was also encouraging that out of the 10 women in the room 8 of us were taken completely by surprise by the news and had total break-downs when we were told. It definitely makes you feel not quite so alone and the entire situation less scary. I'll be working with a nutritionist and diabetic nurse to make sure my levels are staying good and we'll start doing fetal non-stress tests at 32 weeks to make sure that we're growing ok and everything is going well with the baby. So much for working right? I'm hoping I can schedule them for holidays or possible early morning/late afternoon so I can have some sick time left for leave after she comes!


But, so far I'm feeling much better about it today than yesterday. I just had my first successful solo sugar test which was a nice mental boost. The lancet doesn't hurt anymore than tweezing a brow hair, but it's the emotional hump of sticking myself and drawing blood that is the most difficult right now. We'll get through it though.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Nursery progress



Yay progess! Well, we still haven't been able to get paint on the walls because in the past week my poor husband was hit with an insane tooth ache. He's on antibiotics for two weeks at which point he'll get a cavity filled (1 possible cuplprit) and then if he still has pain he's looking at oral surgery to fix a botched root canal that was done a few years ago. He's also got hydrocodone to keep the pain away which makes him loopy and not feel well, so he's avoiding taking that whenever possible.



We've still managed to get quite a bit done lately though thanks to the help of my parents and having Scott do little jobs here and there. Today Scott and my dad managed to move our monster beast out of the nursery and into the dining room. Hopefully it will eventually get Craigs Listed, but for now it's out of the nursery and that's all I really care about. It really opens up the room and makes it pretty huge which is good.


Above the blue line will be a light rose pink, and below will be an aqua/teal. It should look pretty awesome.


I also got some sweet deals from one of my mom's neighbor friends who is getting rid of her baby stuff. I got a glider chair + ottoman, swing, bouncer, boppy pillow + 3 extra covers, baby gates, and tons of clothes/towels all for $85. Not too shabby!








Today mom and I worked on making covers for the chair to make it a little more me, plus I figure it would be far easier to wash a cover than the actual cushion. The original cushion was just your basic white deal. We made the cushions out of an old sheet of mine that I've held onto for a few years because I love it and can't bear to part with it. Yay for re-using things I love :) There was also enough left over to make a crib skirt so yay for that as well.









I also was able to redo the closet a bit more. The original shelf and rod design dad helped me with did not work at all once we got some things in the house. I took out one shelf/rod and then cut a hanging organizer from Ikea in half to make two shorter storage areas. I think they will work out pretty darn well.