We had a little scare last night. It was nothing major. Thankfully, I've read thousands of things over the years about early pregnancy and all of the things that go with it. I know that it's normal, but it didn't stop the tears from flowing and the feeling of despair from creeping in. I started spotting last night. It was the teeniest amount. It was what I call tp or toilet paper spotting. I called hubs last night. He was at a friend's house building a computer for him. He kept me on speaker phone so that he could feel close to me until I fell asleep a couple of hours later.
This morning when I got up, it had stopped, but hubs insisted I take the day off and stay in bed. I've pushed myself pretty hard this week and I was exhausted, so I didn't argue. The spotting did start up for a few hours today again, but it is tapering off again and still isn't anymore than just some pink tp spotting. I did put a call in to the doc and his nurse, a lady that has been there through the thick of it for 6 years with us, assured me that this sounded very classically like implantation of the placenta and that I should stop worrying. She made me feel so much better about something completely out of my control and I am once again truly thankful for my doctor and his staff. My doc is also on call at the hospital this weekend, so she assured me if anything happened I could call the hospital and I would get him.
Poor hubs was a mess. He's so scared. I try really hard to be encouraging and positive for him, but truth is I'm terrified too. I hate that we are so jaded by disappointment to enjoy this and feel comforted by a doctor's words. The nurse assured me that nothing I did could have caused this and that if I wanted to take it easy a few days that was a good idea but only because it might ease my fears, not because it would make much difference. Still I find myself scared to do anything. I didn't want to cook today or clean up the house. I don't even want to sneeze for fear of hurting something or triggering an avalanche.
I feel the need to explain myself to people. I feel silly for our overreaction to every twinge or tug. After ten years of repeated heartbreak it is so hard to accept that we might finally have a happy ending. We tiptoe around the issue, both waiting for the other shoe to fall. It sounds silly, but disappointment is almost comforting. It isn't surprising. We are usually braced for it and know how to handle it. Hope, and faith are much harder to embrace.
I plan on resting a lot this weekend and working to stay positive and as worry free as possible. For now, everything is a wait and see situation. I wish I could blink and find myself on the other side of this first trimester when everything is so touch and go. I believe this pregnancy is just another challenge of my faith and trust. Hopefully, I can pass through it quickly and look forward to what I pray is a happy ending.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Adjustments
I had a bit of an anger problem with my infertility after so many years. I was angry that I had sacrificed so much and had worked so hard only to come out the other end empty handed and broken hearted. Last year, when things started getting really hard, and age 30 was looming over my head, I guess I sort of decided that I would show God what I really thought about what was going on. I was like an angry rebellious teenager. I let so many bad habits back into my life. My obsession with calories led me to start smoking again, and I started consuming large quantities of B12 and caffeine, both to help curb my appetite. For a short while I drank every weekend, but the calorie count quickly snuffed that. I exercised excessively, pushed myself to the edge almost every single day.
Even early on I had some nasty health problems. I cut out all fats and carbs almost overnight. Within four months, I had to have my gallbladder removed and had to have temporary stents because my ducts were blocked. My hair has thinned drastically. I suffered from a lot of little things that could be attributed to malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies. I had cramping muscles, anemia, constipation, and dizziness. My fingers and nails cracked, I bruised easily, my joints ached, and I felt miserable most of the time.
It started simply as a way for me to take back my life. I wanted a family and hubs and I were at an impasse. The only way we could move forward was for me to lose the weight and it made me angry. I felt forced into it and I think that's part of the reason control became such a driving force. There were a lot of other things that contributed, but I know infertility played a big role.
I also know that this pregnancy is an absolute miracle. There are only a couple of people that know how deeply encapsulated I was in my problems. I'm not sure even hubs realizes how bad things had gotten. The idea that a baby could have survived what I was doing amazes me!
It also made me realize how quickly I had to make a 180.
The morning I took the first test, I was about to smoke a cigarette and decided on a whim to test first. That cigarette never got lit. I immediately cut out all caffeine, and I am working very hard to sort out my eating habits. The doctor gave me a goal of 1300-1600 calories a day for the first trimester. My goal is 1000 calories most days. I've done pretty well. I'm actually hovering around 1200 calories a day right now, just because I crave food all the time. I am taking prenatal vitamins, and I have started exercising again, but reasonably with a support system to keep me in check. I am also halfway through the process of weaning myself off of the migraine meds I have clung to for so long. So far, everything is okay, but just okay.
There are a lot of adjustments and they all happened instantly. It overwhelms me to tears sometimes how much I love this little tiny being inside of me and how quickly I knew I would do anything to protect him or her. It was much easier than I expected to quit the caffeine and the smoking, but I had such a drive to keep the baby safe. The food is a work in progress. Most of the time I am okay with it. I get really upset at some point every day. My body is having a hard time processing food again, and there is some bloating and discomfort that I'm pretty sure is exaggerated because of food. I'm sure that this will ease up, but my body will start changing soon and I'm nervous about how that will make me feel. My doctor knows about it though, and I'm sure we can make it work.
On top of it all, there are of course the normal pregnancy symptoms. I usually grin like a fool the moment nausea strikes. I try to indulge in a nap every day to help with the fatigue, and I remind myself often how blessed I am and how thankful I should be. I am scared to complain. I hear so many pregnant people around me complain about aches, pains, going to the bathroom. I just sit quietly and nod my head, acknowledging their discomfort.
I feel afraid to complain. At any moment God could decide that perhaps I'm not really ready for this, or maybe we aren't good parenting candidates after all. I feel like I am walking on eggshells. My closest friends encourage me and tell me how proud they are of my change and progress. I feel like a fraud. I am not strong or brave. I am terrified. The only reason I did these things is because I am so scared of failure. I am afraid someone upstairs will finally realize their error. I don't feel like I deserve this or that I have earned this, yet I cling to this baby with every cell in my body.
No matter the reason, I love this baby. It is forever a part of our family. No matter what happens, this little person has made us a family of three, and I will do absolutely everything in my power to see that we finally have a happy ending.
Even early on I had some nasty health problems. I cut out all fats and carbs almost overnight. Within four months, I had to have my gallbladder removed and had to have temporary stents because my ducts were blocked. My hair has thinned drastically. I suffered from a lot of little things that could be attributed to malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies. I had cramping muscles, anemia, constipation, and dizziness. My fingers and nails cracked, I bruised easily, my joints ached, and I felt miserable most of the time.
It started simply as a way for me to take back my life. I wanted a family and hubs and I were at an impasse. The only way we could move forward was for me to lose the weight and it made me angry. I felt forced into it and I think that's part of the reason control became such a driving force. There were a lot of other things that contributed, but I know infertility played a big role.
I also know that this pregnancy is an absolute miracle. There are only a couple of people that know how deeply encapsulated I was in my problems. I'm not sure even hubs realizes how bad things had gotten. The idea that a baby could have survived what I was doing amazes me!
It also made me realize how quickly I had to make a 180.
The morning I took the first test, I was about to smoke a cigarette and decided on a whim to test first. That cigarette never got lit. I immediately cut out all caffeine, and I am working very hard to sort out my eating habits. The doctor gave me a goal of 1300-1600 calories a day for the first trimester. My goal is 1000 calories most days. I've done pretty well. I'm actually hovering around 1200 calories a day right now, just because I crave food all the time. I am taking prenatal vitamins, and I have started exercising again, but reasonably with a support system to keep me in check. I am also halfway through the process of weaning myself off of the migraine meds I have clung to for so long. So far, everything is okay, but just okay.
There are a lot of adjustments and they all happened instantly. It overwhelms me to tears sometimes how much I love this little tiny being inside of me and how quickly I knew I would do anything to protect him or her. It was much easier than I expected to quit the caffeine and the smoking, but I had such a drive to keep the baby safe. The food is a work in progress. Most of the time I am okay with it. I get really upset at some point every day. My body is having a hard time processing food again, and there is some bloating and discomfort that I'm pretty sure is exaggerated because of food. I'm sure that this will ease up, but my body will start changing soon and I'm nervous about how that will make me feel. My doctor knows about it though, and I'm sure we can make it work.
On top of it all, there are of course the normal pregnancy symptoms. I usually grin like a fool the moment nausea strikes. I try to indulge in a nap every day to help with the fatigue, and I remind myself often how blessed I am and how thankful I should be. I am scared to complain. I hear so many pregnant people around me complain about aches, pains, going to the bathroom. I just sit quietly and nod my head, acknowledging their discomfort.
I feel afraid to complain. At any moment God could decide that perhaps I'm not really ready for this, or maybe we aren't good parenting candidates after all. I feel like I am walking on eggshells. My closest friends encourage me and tell me how proud they are of my change and progress. I feel like a fraud. I am not strong or brave. I am terrified. The only reason I did these things is because I am so scared of failure. I am afraid someone upstairs will finally realize their error. I don't feel like I deserve this or that I have earned this, yet I cling to this baby with every cell in my body.
No matter the reason, I love this baby. It is forever a part of our family. No matter what happens, this little person has made us a family of three, and I will do absolutely everything in my power to see that we finally have a happy ending.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Surprise!
It's been a while hasn't it?
Posting here got so painful and I finally got to a place where I didn't want to think about having a baby anymore. I honestly gave up and decided that adoption was our only option. Don't misunderstand me, adoption has always been in our plan, but like most parents, we did hold out hope for a biological child too.
The past year has been painful to say the least. I had a student that was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. It really hit me hard. I had struggled with another horrible cycle of migraines that left me with memory loss, speech impairment, and temporary blindness. I was going to school full time, working two jobs, and still dealing with the idea that we might never be parents. All of the crazy led me down a nasty dark road. My student passed away in December, which just made things harder.
The new year rolled in with a new me. I went from a size 24 to a size 8. I lost about 120 pounds in about ten months. I won't say I did it in an entirely healthy way. The schedule I kept alone almost destroyed me. I was working out every day, going to class four days a week, working 6 days a week, and averaging about four hours of sleep every night thanks to some difficult scheduling and one vehicle. Looking back at all the crazy I was dealing with, it's no wonder I stopped paying attention to my periods. I had stopped all of my hormone medications, so there wasn't really a need to know when things happened, and I had given up, with many things taking priority.
Fast forward a few weeks, I thought my habits had caused my period to stop completely. I scheduled an appointment with my doctor to be put back on Provera and try to get things started again. On a whim the weekend before my appointment, a friend from work urged me to take a test. I finally decided it wouldn't hurt.
I can't tell you the amount of tears, anxiety, fear, and cautious joy that hubs and experienced that weekend. We have never seen this before. Ten years, and never has this happened. We had a very faint line once in our first year of marriage, but never anything like this.
The following week I went in for my annual exam and to discuss prenatal appointments. Today we had our first real prenatal appointment. I had no idea when my last period was, so I was clueless about how far along we might be. We estimated about 6 weeks and scheduled an ultrasound for today. We were off on the date it seems. We are only about 5 weeks pregnant right now, but we have a priceless picture and we heard the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. This tiny little flicker on the screen gave off a strong, loud heartbeat!
Hubs' eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas and there have been many tears and smiles all afternoon. I know it's early, but we have told everyone close to us. We decided the first day, that we had waited ten years for this and if for some reason it was only meant to be a short lived experience, we would cherish every single moment and celebrate with the people that have prayed with us and hoped with us for so long! I'm glad we made that decision. I know there are tons of people praying for and wishing that this little blueberry will stick around. Already, the love I feel for this little person is unbelievable!
I just had to share it with all of you too! You have been here in the thick of it with us. I know many of those in our fold are still in the gnarly horrible nightmare of infertility, and I pray that I can pass on a small spark of hope. It is possible.
Posting here got so painful and I finally got to a place where I didn't want to think about having a baby anymore. I honestly gave up and decided that adoption was our only option. Don't misunderstand me, adoption has always been in our plan, but like most parents, we did hold out hope for a biological child too.
The past year has been painful to say the least. I had a student that was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. It really hit me hard. I had struggled with another horrible cycle of migraines that left me with memory loss, speech impairment, and temporary blindness. I was going to school full time, working two jobs, and still dealing with the idea that we might never be parents. All of the crazy led me down a nasty dark road. My student passed away in December, which just made things harder.
The new year rolled in with a new me. I went from a size 24 to a size 8. I lost about 120 pounds in about ten months. I won't say I did it in an entirely healthy way. The schedule I kept alone almost destroyed me. I was working out every day, going to class four days a week, working 6 days a week, and averaging about four hours of sleep every night thanks to some difficult scheduling and one vehicle. Looking back at all the crazy I was dealing with, it's no wonder I stopped paying attention to my periods. I had stopped all of my hormone medications, so there wasn't really a need to know when things happened, and I had given up, with many things taking priority.
Fast forward a few weeks, I thought my habits had caused my period to stop completely. I scheduled an appointment with my doctor to be put back on Provera and try to get things started again. On a whim the weekend before my appointment, a friend from work urged me to take a test. I finally decided it wouldn't hurt.
I can't tell you the amount of tears, anxiety, fear, and cautious joy that hubs and experienced that weekend. We have never seen this before. Ten years, and never has this happened. We had a very faint line once in our first year of marriage, but never anything like this.
The following week I went in for my annual exam and to discuss prenatal appointments. Today we had our first real prenatal appointment. I had no idea when my last period was, so I was clueless about how far along we might be. We estimated about 6 weeks and scheduled an ultrasound for today. We were off on the date it seems. We are only about 5 weeks pregnant right now, but we have a priceless picture and we heard the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. This tiny little flicker on the screen gave off a strong, loud heartbeat!
Hubs' eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas and there have been many tears and smiles all afternoon. I know it's early, but we have told everyone close to us. We decided the first day, that we had waited ten years for this and if for some reason it was only meant to be a short lived experience, we would cherish every single moment and celebrate with the people that have prayed with us and hoped with us for so long! I'm glad we made that decision. I know there are tons of people praying for and wishing that this little blueberry will stick around. Already, the love I feel for this little person is unbelievable!
I just had to share it with all of you too! You have been here in the thick of it with us. I know many of those in our fold are still in the gnarly horrible nightmare of infertility, and I pray that I can pass on a small spark of hope. It is possible.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Pass it along!
I hope some of you have gotten a chance to check out the new digs. I had trouble with the formatting on this blog not working, so I just started out fresh. I got an email today that I wanted to pass along though..... ( the formatting will suck, I apologize in advance)
Dear PCOS blogger,
We are researchers at the University of South Carolina and
are conducting an innovative study on dietary approaches for weight loss for
women with PCOS. We are looking for women with PCOS who are trying to conceive
who live within an hour or two of Columbia, SC (study conducted at the
University of South Carolina) . Women will need to come here up to 3 times for a
check of their weight but everything else is delivered via e-mail. There seems
to be a demand for this type of approach to helping women with PCOS but it is
hard to find ways to let women know about the study. If you could post
information about the study to your blog, I think it would benefit your readers.
Even if they can’t participate, they may know someone who can. Information about
the study is below and can be found at www.PCOSstudy.com
Thanks so much and please let me know if you have any
questions.
Sincerely,
Charis DavidsonResearch coordinator for the Health Eating
for Reproductive Health (HERHealth) studyE-mail: davidsoc@email.sc.edu
Dear PCOS blogger,
We are researchers at the University of South Carolina and
are conducting an innovative study on dietary approaches for weight loss for
women with PCOS. We are looking for women with PCOS who are trying to conceive
who live within an hour or two of Columbia, SC (study conducted at the
University of South Carolina) . Women will need to come here up to 3 times for a
check of their weight but everything else is delivered via e-mail. There seems
to be a demand for this type of approach to helping women with PCOS but it is
hard to find ways to let women know about the study. If you could post
information about the study to your blog, I think it would benefit your readers.
Even if they can’t participate, they may know someone who can. Information about
the study is below and can be found at www.PCOSstudy.com
Thanks so much and please let me know if you have any
questions.
Sincerely,
Charis DavidsonResearch coordinator for the Health Eating
for Reproductive Health (HERHealth) studyE-mail: davidsoc@email.sc.edu
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Bed
We've been in our new place for several months now and we've had plans for our second bedroom here for much longer. I was so anxious to move here. I didn't sleep for days. I knew that the moment we moved we would make the call and start things rolling. I had the names and numbers for everyone we needed to talk to, I had websites marked, and I had furniture lined up. We moved on Thanksgiving weekend. The weekend came and went, then Christmas. I thought maybe once the holidays were over I would call. Then I thought maybe once spring arrives I will call, then summer. It didn't feel right though. Friends asked us constantly how things were going, did we need any help, did we have an eta? I had to be honest and tell them I wasn't ready yet. It had nothing to do with money or Hubby or technical hiccups. It was me. I felt so sill. After all of the years, I had finally gotten what I wanted. I've wanted to adopt since I was a little girl. Lots of my friends growing up were foster children, so I had a very compassionate soft spot for adoption early on. Yet, here I was, our dreams sitting just outside the front door after so many years of disappointment. Our lives had been on hold for this very moment for years and I was the one that wasn't ready. Something strange had happened to me in all of those years though. I realized that not only did I have a dream of motherhood, but I had other dreams too. The knowledge that at any moment I could put into motion our plans to have a child, plans that would no doubt be successful this time since my body had nothing to do with the equation, was so empowering. Knowing that the dream would come true whenever I wanted it to allowed me to consider other dreams too. I want my children to know they can reach for their dreams. Our children will most likely come from a long life of disappointments and I need to show them that even adults have dreams and that it's okay to go out and get them. I wouldn't feel like an honest mother if I didn't reach for my own dreams. The ghosts of "what if" wait patiently on the sidelines. The room is an office for now. The decorations are tucked carefully into the closet in that room. We had a bed picked out. It was a white brass day bed that my sister and I had as children. We had that bed picked out long before we signed the lease here. It was a perfect little girl's bed. It would be a great reading spot for me as it had been for so many years until we were ready to put a little person in it. This weekend at a benefit for Baby Noah, I found a bed. I wasn't even looking for one. We had one. This one is a maple colored wooden day bed. It is incredibly well built and heavy. It is very simple and it needs a good sanding or a coat of paint, but it's beautiful. It was unsold so technically we could have it for free, but we paid the $25 price tag happily. It even comes with a mattress. When I saw it, I just knew we were supposed to have it. I argued for a long while in my head. We already had a bed. It needed some love too, a coat of paint, and a few extra nuts and bolts, but nothing that wasn't easily found and fixed. I mention this because I couldn't shake the pull this bed had on me. The feeling truly caught me off guard. I felt perfectly fine putting this bed into our room long before a child would sleep on it. Still, there was no doubt a child would someday be there. More than anything it shocked me that even when our plan was one of the lower things on our list of priorities, things could still fall in place to remind me that the dream would come true someday. It was as if God had sent me a gentle reminder that He had not forgotten us. That He remembered all of our plans, even the far off plans. He was telling me that He was there with us, and that His timing is perfect. Even though I had put those dreams away for a while, God still remembered that they were some of my deepest desires and He would help me reach my dreams someday. *** I have done everything I can over several days to get this post to leave spaces and paragraphs in it, but apparently it just isn't gonna work. My apologies.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The Darndest Things
This year I'm working with the first grade. The kids do a center time where they rotate around the class at various activities each morning and I help one of my classes with center time. This week at one of our centers the vocabulary words were one, two, three, four, and five. Recently we have encouraged the kids to try to fit all of the words into a story, combining more than one word into a sentence.
Today one of the boys, one that struggles more than others and has a hard time catching on to things usually, set up shop at this center. Just a few minutes later he raises his hand and loudly shouts "Mrs. Arian! I'm finished!" The kids can't leave the center until I have checked their work, so I walked over to inspect his writing. Normally it takes him the entire center time to do this center so I was already suspicious. I couldn't hide my laughter when I read what he wrote though....
"I can count numbers like one two three four and five."
I almost gave him a check for ingenuity!
Today one of the boys, one that struggles more than others and has a hard time catching on to things usually, set up shop at this center. Just a few minutes later he raises his hand and loudly shouts "Mrs. Arian! I'm finished!" The kids can't leave the center until I have checked their work, so I walked over to inspect his writing. Normally it takes him the entire center time to do this center so I was already suspicious. I couldn't hide my laughter when I read what he wrote though....
"I can count numbers like one two three four and five."
I almost gave him a check for ingenuity!
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