Things to Remember

On Friday, when I found out that I was pregnant, my husband came home in the evening, and we stood there, hugging, for a few minutes. And then he left for his karate class. And then he came back. Still empty-handed.

I was really disappointed. I always envisioned this day as a big one. With something to commemorate it.

My husband noticed that something was off with me, so I told him. He confessed that he’s too terrified to get too attached to the idea. He’s terrified of feeling too happy.

“But, you know, I can die tomorrow. Will that stop you from feeling happy about being with me?”

He offered to go and pick up a cake at a supermarket. It was 10 pm, so I said no. Then he went to the little 24/7 store across the street. I stayed and decided to light up some candles. He came back with fruits and chocolates. And flowers He washed and cut all of them on his own. He poured himself a glass of white wine, and I poured some cold chamomile tea in mine

And then we sat there, in flickering candlelight, eating watermelon, melon, strawberries, black cherries, apricots and my favourite round Lindt chocolates. We toasted to this miracle. And we felt utterly happy about the growing Poppy Seed.

My Thoughts are All Confused Ever Since The…

…”congratulations, you’re pregnant!”

I spent some time jotting those down as the day progressed… I am sure I will have fun reading these later. Maybe years later.

Thoughts passing through my head:

• I cannot believe this
• Is there really a baby in there?
• It’s as big as a poppy seed now!
• It’s heart will start beating next week!
• What a perfect timing with yesterday’s job offer! I’ll save some money AND accumulate enough hours to collect maternity leave money from the government!
• Well, I won’t be going to graphic design school this fall. Their program goes until e/o Feb or early March – it looks like my due date is Feb. 5^th (according to an online calculator… and since I know my ovulation date precisely, it’s quite accurate)
• I wonder why there’s no morning sickness. I heard women with no morning sickness are at higher risk of miscarriage
• So those early morning freaking urges to pee WERE a sign of pregnancy!
• And I also thought I noticed my areolas darkening… browning a bit
• Well, the growing boobs are all because of the progesterone suppositories… but they aren’t tender or anything. But then they never were even with my periods.
• What if they’re wrong? It wasn’t the regular nurse taking blood today, but a replacement. What if she mixed up the vials? What if she ran the test wrong?
• I am terrified that something might go wrong
• I wanna share these news with the whole world – but I can’t, not until the first trimester is over. I shared with ALL of you (which is a pretty damn close substitution for “telling everyone”) – and my closest friends.
•  I am so glad my new job is part time. I hope everything will be fine there (e.g. I won’t get fired or something… it’s a contract until e/o December, so I hope everything’ll be fine)
• I should start saving money for my mat leave
• I worry that I was overly active this morning (to prevent myself from staring at the phone, a prepared a long todo list and got working on it: loaded the dishwasher, cleaned both bathrooms (and I HATE cleaning bathtubs, it gives me back aches), cleaned all the winter shoes to be put away, stored away winter clothes, brought down my summer shoes, cooked vanilla-rosemary chicken…
• Will I be even able to wear all those funky summer shoes? Almost everything I posses is high-heeled and generally highly uncomfortable
•  I hope I won’t be too morning-sick. I don’t want my new boss finding out about my pregnancy too early on
• I have no clue what the next steps are. I am so used to seeing docs and nurses all the time, and from what I heard now there will be prolonged periods of time with no communication. That’s scary!
• I have to start drinking more water. And peeing more *sigh*. I really don’t drink enough. Not even close.
• I am so glad I passed on those martinis yesterday and those sushi on Monday (I went for BBQ eel sushi instead).
• I wonder if that’s pregnancy that makes me bruise even easier than ever now. My legs make me look like a home abuse victim.
• I am going to be a mom? There will be a baby? There is ALREADY a baby inside me? Half me, half my hubby? That’s a MIRACLE. True miracle.
• I’ll have to become a Costco member… diapers there are best priced!
• My parents-in-law will be visiting us in 3 weeks… should we tell’em?
• How do people dress to hide pregnancy? I am pretty slim.
• I will be working for an alcohol company – how will I be explaining my non-drinking (until I finally break the news)?
• A bit disappointed my hubby didn’t bring anything – flowers or something. Came home and went out for his karate class (after a couple of minutes of tender hugs and nervous laughs)
• What is this pain on the left side? Is this ECTOPIC?
• No, no pain… not anymore… gas now…
• Some pains again… on the left… that’s where the follicle was…
• My hubby came home and I expressed how I feel. He’s out now (it’s past 10 pm) buying something to celebrate a bit. I am putting on candles.

That’s all for today…

OH… MY… GOD!!!

i called the clinic… they said: Congratulations, you’re pregnant!

WHAT?!

I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t process the news. My eyes filled up with tears, I started laughing uncontrollably. She was saying something, asking something – I could take in a single word.

Oh. The progesterone. I have only 5 pills left.

She told me to take only one in the evenings instead of two and come back on Monday for more progesterone – and for the blood test.

I called my hubby, sobbing and laughing, telling him the news. His only response was neurotic uncontrollable laughter for a few minutes. Then we hectically talked about. Discussed who we’re gonna tell right away.

We both cannot process what just happened. We do not understand.

And now I am scared as hell – there are still so many things that can go wrong – the ectopics, the miscarriages, the disappearing heartbeats…

And I spent an hour today cleaning the bathrooms, enhaling the chemicals. Surely this is NOT good for the baby? And I was running up and down, tugging boxes with winter shoes and clothes to the closets upstairs, dragging summer shoes downstairs. Surely all that heavy lifting is NOT good for the baby (I have over a dozen of summer shoes)?

I am scared.

Baby… really? REALLY? a baby???? Pinch me… Tell me everything’ll be all right…

Good News (Not On the TTC Front, Though… Well, Not Yet)

So this morning I was in bed, having a horrifying nightmare. There were some weird human-looking creatures attacking people, shooting needle-thin plastic… er… skewers? – at people. I knew that if you kill such a creature, it simply vanished into thin air. So I go around, some daggers get stuck in my face (the only exposed part of my body), I get them out, it hurts. I run and hide and duck and run for cover. I am terrified. All of a sudden some guy menacingly approaches me. There’s someone standing with a kitchen knife close to me, so I snatch the knife and swing it at the guy. He tells me menacingly: don’t do it. As my knife nears his body in slow-motion, I notice a tooth crown at the back of his mouth. WTF? A “zombie” with a crown? And that’s when I feel the impact of the knife. And see that they guy doesn’t disappear. He’s human. I am terrified witless.

That’s when the phone woke me up, thank god.

“Did I wake you up?”

Of course no. What else can I say.

Well, thanks for waking me up from THAT, anyways. Especially – with such good news. I got a job offer! It’s a fantastic opportunity for me. I’m terrified because it feels much too senior for me, but I have many people to support me and to answer my questions when I will have them. And I know I will.

So now – waiting for tomorrow. The pregnancy test. Can I have more excellent news? PLEASE?

Cleared Up

So the pink goo and the blood clots are no more. Well, there weren’t ever any clotS. Just one clot. And I am not all itchy anymore. Perhaps my vag is finding its balance on its own. I sure hope so.

I also read that during the first trimester, the uterus lowers down and gets really tender, so it’s easy to get it to bleed after sex. So – who knows? – maybe my uterus is pregnant… I’ll find out on Friday.

What else?

One of this f***ing suppositories broke in half yesterday as I was extracting it from its packaging. Shoving the halves up my @ss proved to be a much trickier task than I thought.

So I did the deed, crawled in bed, and read for a while. After about 20 minutes I switched to the side and distinctly felt that half-suppository squeezed back out of me. Yuck.

I went to the washroom and got rid of it. I hope the world won’t end due to my taking only 300 mg in the evening instead of 400 mg.

Please, let me be pregnant. That way, I won’t have to repeat at least these 2 weeks of suppositories…

CD25, 11dpo

Not Too Bad (?)

So I went to see the doc this morning. I had a blood test scheduled anyway (to measure my progesterone. Remind me, why measure it if I shove 600 mg of it up my @ss daily).

The doc listened to my whole story – how the progesterone suppositories left me all burning and itching, how I started brown-spotting and how I passed a bright-red blood clot.

She was very calm and said it sounds like yeast infection. Nothing to be done about it now. If I am pregnant, it’s better not to intrude now. The further away I am from conception, the safer it will be to treat.

And if I am not pregnant… well, we’ll find soon enough – Friday morning is the test.

Meanwhile, no sex. My vagina is sore and feels like sandpaper. Already notified my hubby. He took it stoically

So… 3 more day left until I find out whether anything happened this month.

Meanwhile, I have an informational interview with an art director of an ad agency today – to ask questions and advice for my future new profession – illustrator and graphic designer. Looking forward to it!!

CD24, 10dpo

Bright Red Blood Clot?

I am worried.

Two days ago I started feeling hopeful upon finding some vague brown on my toilet paper, thinking this is it, this is the implantation bleeding.

Today I discovered a bright red blood clot in a bunch of mucus (I am not even going to apologize for TMI). It was tiny, like a piece of bright red thread.

Now should I be getting worried about something going wrong (ectopic, early miscarriage, sex-inflicted damage, etc.) or could implantation look like this? Or what could this be?

CD23, 9 dpo

UPD: I noticed many people find this blog posting through google. For all of you, 4 days after this post I found out I was pregnant. It remains unknown whether this was implantation clot or yeast infection triggered by vaginal progesterone suppositories (I started taking them rectally since and the problem cleared itself).

Good luck to all of you!

From Ejaculation to Fertilization – How Long?

I watched this awesome documentary from discovery channel – The Great Sperm Race (eighteenyears, thank you for the reco!)

It’s not your typical youtube video – it’s much longer, with commercial breaks – but so worth watching!

But – I have a question now. In this video, the fertilization happened 36 hours after the ejaculation. THIRTY SIX HOURS!

So now I am absolutely confused: how long does it actually take for the sperm to reach the egg?

I’ll explain my concern.

In the last cycle, I was given an ovulation trigger and got the ovulation confirmed 48 hours later. So it’s safe to assume it happened withing those 48 hours (they say it usually happens within 24-40 hours from the trigger).

Last cycle, I was told to have sex the same day as the trigger – and the following day. Hmmm, if it takes 36 hours for the sperm to reach the egg – then they all missed the ovulation?

Now, even more mysterious. This cycle, the doc said to have sex on the day FOLLOWING the trigger day and the one after that. In plain English – he suggested we have sex 48 hours after the injection. Which, as we know from the previous cycle, is waaay past the ovulation time. WTF? Especially if it takes that long for the sperm to reach the fertilization zone?

I am glad we had sex the night before the trigger. I am banking on those swimmers.

But seriously – how long from ejaculation to fertilization?

The Sad Stats, the Hopeful Brown, and Some Sex Ed

A friend of mine gave me a book on conception, pregnancy, and… probably, giving birth. I can’t recall. Most of it is all old news to me. But there are some new, interesting facts

Sad stats: while I thought that it’s about 25% chance of getting pregnant each month, it’s much less. The 25% number is for those in their early 20s – and healthy! I am in my early 30s. Which already puts me at 10-15% chance each cycle. And then add PCOS into the cocktail… Sigh. I hope that adding FS as a savoury part of this cocktail brings the chances right back to at least those 10-15%. Or 7-10 months to get pregnant. Argh.

Hopeful Brown: Yesterday and today my toilet paper has been showing very light, almost-not-there shade of brown. And boom! – if before now I was sort of relaxed and laid-back about this cycle results, now my hopes are getting high. Because I keep thinking this is it, the implantation bleeding! I am on 8dpo, if my calculations are correct. And my luteal phase is loooong.

Sex Ed. Now, here’s something I didn’t know about how sperm reaches the egg. So, imagine this: it’s ovulation time. Your cervix is all slippery with sperm-friendly egg-white substance. The battalion of sperm runs for the os (the gates of cervix), most of them heroically die on the road, but some of them make it in there. Typically, the fastest ones. No news here, right? Well, wait for this: only a small portion of sperm head straight towards the fallopian tube and reach the DWA (designated waiting area) within an hour from ejaculation.

What do the rest do? Some stop at the tube entrance. Some stick around in cervix caves and pockets. And they head towards that DWA later, in groups. Over a period of 5 days!!!

This ensures that there’s always some sperm around when the egg comes in, all glamorous and shining (it’s unlikely that it actually is shining, but you get my point).

Now how amazing is that? I had no idea that sperm behaves in such well organized strategic fashion, leaving someone on-call at all times!