Pregnancy after Infertility

I am currently during my latest pregnancy freak out, so bear with me. By freak out, what I mean is, worrying something will go wrong or has gone wrong undetected etc... It seems to happen after I start to get too close to believing it is real and enjoying it. Suddenly I find myself worrying and being scared and playing AC/DC through headphones to my stomach, even though I am not a fan, just because its loud, to get baby moving... And I have figured out why it is so. It may be obvious to everyone else, but it took a while to filter through the fear... Its that whole "this is too good to be true, something must be about to go wrong" thing. "This doesn't happen to us" etc.

I feel like its all a game. It doesn't feel real, its still are we are we not... even though I am almost 17 weeks now. It just feels like its all this maybe fun silliness, not real. When will that click over? Will it? I found myself in the midst of worrying last night (even though I had felt movements) hugging Finn, fighting back tears and thinking "I always have you kiddo" thoughts, which is what I used to do with negative tests and the like... I should be past that now, I shouldn't be thinking that way anymore. Am worried that the baby will arrive and I will be hit by this big scary unprepared for the reality shock and get PND or something. Was talking to J about it, and he is confident at some point in the next 23 weeks it will click, and I will believe it and so on. I hope so. Its still so scary, I wanted to enjoy it and instead I find myself either worrying, or wishing it away (eg I will feel better at the 6 week scan.. the 12w scan... when I get movements.. when the movement is more defined... past 26 weeks... etc etc). Need a big slap perhaps? Its just not the exciting and wonderful experience I sort of naively expected. I love it, but I spend most of it utterly terrified - and thats not fun! Need to just suck it up and get over it and force myself to be more positive.

ooooh!

Something I have just realised - the year Finn was born, we bought a fairly large xmas stocking - a felt one with patchwork type prints on it. I said to J at the time, we ought to buy 2, because we will need another soon (pfft, HA!) and this way they will match and won't be impossible to find!

I held onto that bloody thing for a good 4 years+ and came across it today in the garage. I almost burst into tears. I can finally use it!!!!!! I cannot believe I had it all this time, hoping, and that it will actually be used this year. Oh, my, god. Very special!

Alternatives to christenings etc

J and I are not at all religious. I was christened as a babe, he was not, but neither of us are church goers or remotely religious. I like to think I am spiritual, but I am not a fan of organized religion.

So, when Finn was born, we did not christen, baptise or otherwise him. We would have had a naming day type celebration, but at that time, we were still in Warrnambool, and family was a considerable distance. So we didn't do anything.

With child #2 on the way, I have been thinking about this again. I don't want to give it a naming day celebration that Finn didn't have, so I thought I might do something combined for them, of my own invention! This will be our last child, so it could be some sort of completed family type thing... And if we do, do we get some sort of 'replacements' for godparents. And call them something else.. guides? What? Something non spiritual, but I would like to have some kind of people each child knows they can turn to etc.

Help!

P.S.

The bugs and fossil are from Hullabaloo Parties. Turns out they don't have the T-rex fossil in stock, so we are getting the stegosaurus and they are throwing in a t-rex in a tube (!) to compensate. Great service!

Dino Party - Part 1!

For the first year, Finn is set to have a proper birthday party this year. In the previous 4 years, we have just had a simple family BBQ with the aunties, uncles, grandparents etc. It was all Finn's favourite people and suited his up til now fairly shy demeanour.

This being his second year at preschool though, he has a few good mates, and has been to a few parties himself and so has requested he have one this year. I suggested a few themes, and he chose dinosaur, so dino it is!

Must say, am rather overwhelmed by it all. Its my first time throwing one and its a bit scary! I want it to be perfect... It won't be though! Bound to make some mistakes. Anyway, thus far are my ideas:

Dino cut out footprints leading up the driveway (assuming its not raining and soggifying them); a table of sand play in which I will bury a toy dino for each child to excavate. Pin the horn on the dino, pass the parcel, maybe some cardboard cut into dino shapes and craft things for each kid to decorate... That enough for six 5-year-olds? Finn is getting a trampoline for his birthday, so again, if good weather, is another activity they can do.

These are the invitations I have ordered:


They come with envelopes, magnets and seals. Also, matching cards that can be used as either tags for party bags, or thank you notes:


And matching napkins:


I also got the favor bags from the same collection, though they are not so obviously matching, I just thought they were so cute!


For the cake, we are going to hire a dinosaur cake tin, do a cadbury cake mix in it, and loads of colored buttercream icing. This is incredibly adventurous of us... wanted to order a bakery cake, but J wants to have a go himself... good luck to him I say!!!! For the top, have ordered these cute dino candles:



All the above are from Pink Frosting.

The other things I have already ordered from are a prize for each kid in pass the parcel, these gorgeous little "bug in a nut" things that wriggle when opened like real bugs: http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif


And to go on the food table as a decoration, for Finn to keep afterwards, this cool tyrannosaurus fossil:



Next week I will order the little toys to bury in sand, party hats, the worlds easiest party favours (comes with 2 dino toys, spinning top, activity sheet, and whistle per bag, just add lollies!!) and these really cool dinosaur masks for each kid.

Then its just food, sand to bury things in, balloons + helium, cardboard for craft, and pin the horn on the dino prize(s)... right?! I am exhausted already and there is still almost 7 weeks to go!

Baby stuff

I laybuyed these the other day, love them! We went for a dark wood color since the nursery room is light colored pale blue painted:



And the change table/robe that matches:



And the following set, from which I bought most everything except bumper for the cot, curtains, wall border and peg shelf.




Few months before I get it all home, but that works for me while I get used to being pregnant! Cute though eh?

I am pregnant

Yes indeedy I am. Up the duff, well and truly. IVF #3 was a success, though it really did not appear that would happen. I had no faith in the cycle working at all. The details are all over at My Face Tube, but in summary: Took ages to get the follicles growing, looked for a while as though the cycle may again be cancelled which was scary. Managed to get to egg retrieval, and many follicles joined the race at the end and 20 eggs were retrieved. I woke from anaesthetic feeling really crappy. They made me stay a lot longer than usual for observation but I conned them into letting me go eventually. I was bedridden for the better part of a week, aside from faking my way through transfer 2 days past the pick up. Transfer was devastating. I found out that from 20 eggs, we only had TWO embryos. They leaned heavily on me to only transfer one or nil, when I had felt I needed two in to have a real chance. The danger was that my hyperstimulation could become life endangering to me or babies should both embryos implant, because I felt so damn sore and sick I decided to go with head over heart and just had one embryo transferred, the other frozen for later use. I cried through transfer with disappointment. The retrieval had been so painful and to only have 2 and face the possibility of another stim cycle so soon was awful. A week later I was able to move around as normal, and was enduring the wait to find out if it had worked or not, but was assuming not.

At 10 days past retrieval, I caved and did a test mid morning. To my shock a second line appeared immediately, though faint (as it ought to be that early!) I was shaking, showing Josh, and he too could see it. Many more tests later and the same result. The next few days were surreal. blood tests confirmed we were pregnant, very much so. At 6 weks (4 weeks after I first found out), we had a scan and saw a tiny blob with a flickering heart beat. How on earth did this happen?! This doesn't happen to us, we fail here! My Doctor was stoked for us, which was lovely, and the next 6 weeks were awful. I was scared the whole time, full of fear, waiting for it to all go wrong. It didn't.

At 12 weeks, we had another scan, and there was our baby, legs kicking, arms waving, healthy and perfectly formed. 2 weeks later and I am just over 14 weeks pregnant, and to be honest, it still doesn't feel real. I am still finding to hard to connect. Four years of training myself to expect failure and negatives where conception is concerned is hard to change. It is really hard to adjust to the idea of potential success. I still have vague morning sickness, though improved from the horror it was at 7 weeks or so! Got a bump that feels like lying on a ball when I lay on my tummy. So far, it has all mimicked Finns pregnancy closely.

The downside is not being in Warrnambool anymore, where it was all straight forward and simple and great. Here, the care has been crap. I am booked in at the royal womens in the city, and I hate it. I wish I had gotten a private obstetrician but I am so clueless about things here being new to the area still - and having never expected to fall pregnant I never wanted to research it and tempt fate. Going to fight to do shared care with a GP here though if I can get my glucose test to go well...

So thats the update. Apologies in advance if this blog becomes the baby show a bit. Will try to still have some semblance of a normal life... but I never did before so why now!? Anyhoo... Till next time. :)