Baby #2, 12 Weeks Pregnant

I'm 12 weeks pregnant with baby #2!

This 2nd pregnancy is so very different than my first. There are things that are the same: the exhaustion, the food aversions. But mentally I'm in such a different place. With my 1st pregnancy I was an anxious, nervous wreck until probably 20 weeks at least. I was obsessively checking my pregnancy app every day, I would have been able to tell you if baby was the size of a walnut or Christmas ornament or apple. I didn't even download any app until 9 weeks I think? If it weren't for the food aversions and exhaustion I feel like I wouldn't be thinking about being pregnant. With my first baby it took us so long just to get pregnant I was thinking 'well what else is going to go wrong?!'. This time I think I just feel a lot more confident in my body that it can do this; it can carry a baby to term. So I just sit here forgetting I'm growing a baby. Cool.

It's also very different on my body. Wit my first I wasn't showing until muuuch later, closer to 20 weeks. With this pregnancy everything is already fucked so I can't hid it much longer. But it's that awful phase where I look like I've been indulging in holiday dessert buffets a little too much. I go for walks most days, but with it getting dark and much colder by 5pm and Baby#1 needing to eat dinner at 6pm on the dot I can only get out for about 30 minutes. It's better than nothing, but not what I was doing with my first pregnancy. Oh well. Yolo and all that.

I did find out one of my best friends is just a few weeks behind me with her #2. I'm so excited! I'll have a friend to text at 3am during feedings and take trips to Target to during maternity leave! Mom friends are so nice to have!

So those are my profound thoughts at 12 weeks pregnant!

How far along? 12 weeks (and 1 day)
Total weight gain/loss? 2 lbs I think. According to the scale in the morning. According to the Dr. scale like 3,490 lbs. 
Maternity clothes? Oh yeah. Maternity leggings all day. I can still wear pre-pregnancy things in cluding my jeans and regular leggings, but they;re not comfy. I haven't told work yet so I just keep stuffing myself into my jeans and baggy sweaters (yay sweater season!)
Sleep? In bed by 9pm most nights. I get 8.5 hours of sleep most nights.  
Symptoms? Exhaustion, food aversions. 
Food cravings? Nope, none.
Food aversions? Basically everything. It mostly hits in the evening/afternoon just in time for dinner. Then, anything makes me feel sick. My lovely husband has been making dinner for himself and the 1 year old the last few nights because the look and smell is awful for me. 
Gender? Don't know, won't know.

FET #2 - Sibling Quest

Our FET#2 worked! I've been a nervous wreck for weeks and am still worried and nervous and unsure, but I'm trying to embrace this new pregnancy at 6 weeks today!

After our transfer I didn't get many symptoms. No sore breasts, no nausea, no weird smells, not hungry. All the things people say they feel right away. I did have some major mood swings though. I had them with my first baby so I tried to embrace them and say it was a good thing, but I was still miserable and convinced the FET didn't work. I tried to hold off testing but I was just so anxious I couldn't. I took a test at 8dp5dt and got a very faint positive on a frer and an even fainter on a wondfro. I took several tests over the next few days and they never seems as strong as my tests with my first, so the worrying continued through beta day. I knew my beta would be positive, I just didn't know what the number would be:

Beta 1, 13dp5dt: 264

Beta 2, 15dp5dt: 703

Beta 3, 17dp5dt: 1853

Beta 4, 20dp5dt: 2906

My first beta with my first baby was 600something, so that explains the lighter lines I guess. And I know 264 is definitely pregnant, it's just so hard not to compare numbers. I say i 'll try not to, but that's just not how my brain works. 

My first three betas doubled great, and then my 4th didn't. And I know through a lot of googling HCG doubling time slows the higher it gets, but: my brain doesn't like the easy answer. It prefers worry and Dr. Google telling me what will go wrong. 

My clinic brought me in for my first ultrasound the next day and we got to see our little soap bubble baby at 5w5d. The tech said everything looked perfectly normal, and measured right on track, but we weren't able to see a heartbeat, which we did with my 1st at this same time (please see above re: worry, anxiety, what will go wrong). 

We go in next week again so I'm trying to be happy and just think about this little one growing on track. This stage of pregnancy seems so foreign to me now. My first pregnancy only ended a year ago so I'm still used to the big belly and all the non stop movement of the baby, etc. This stage, where there's no noticeable difference in my body yet is strange. I don't feel pregnant (well....except the 4 day headache and never ending exhaustion) so it's hard to think of myself as pregnant. And having a one year old I don't have time to focus on it like I did the first time. I used to be able to take naps when I got home from work and take hour long walks in the afternoons. Not so much me time anymore! Pregnancy with a little one, even barely 6 weeks is hard work!!

FET #1 for Baby #2

We did a frozen embryo transfer on Tuesday, 10/9/18. We arrived at the clinic about 15 minutes early, and they bumped us ahead of another patient because she didn't drink enough water, while I felt like I could pee my pants at any moment.

I had a quick blood draw to check progesterone and estrogen levels and then my hubs and I were taken into the procedure room. They had me undress, pop my valium, checked my bladder to make sure it was full (and it basically took up the entire screen, so yeah...it was full)! We triple checked with the dr. and embryologist that it was OUR embryo and not the other patient's being transferred. Everything checked out ok, I gave my name and DOB about 10 times, so on we went. My stripe was a 20 (our doc wants to see anything over 7, so yay! I have a nice cushy luxury mansion for this embryo to snuggle into). The embryologist popped in our sweet AB mostly hatched embryo and we got to watch as in it went! The entire thing took just minutes. They let me lay in the recovery area for 20 minutes or so and then we were on our way to pick up our little on from daycare. All in all we were at the clinic for maybe 45 minutes.

We decided to knot chose or find out the sex before transfer. We have one male and one female embryo left so we have a 0/50 chance. We want to wait until birth to find out what we're having so hopefully we find out in about 38 weeks.

I'm sticking to a lower carb, no added sugar, warm foods, brazil nut, pineapple core diet until our beta test. Dinner was a home made chicken pot pie from our freezer.

I popped my 2nd valium at 9:00pm and happily went to sleep.

1dp5dt:
I took the day after transfer off to have some me time and actually relax. I slept in until 8:45 am and it was AMAZING. I haven't slept that long in a year. I watched a lot of tv, took a 20 minute, .6 mile walk around the block, and generally lazed around. I had scrambled eggs and cheese for breakfast and Orange Soup with chicken for lunch (butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots).

I was exhausted and took an hour and a half nap in the afternoon. Getting to catch up on sleep is amazing. I can't say it enough.

2dp5dt:
I'm back at work today, though I'm leaving during my lunch and going home because I have literally zero things on my calendar. The meetings I thought I had were canceled. Cool.

My clinic called with my levels from transfer day:
Progesteron: 29, they want above 10.
Estrogen: 650, they want above 150.

This 2nd transfer has been totally different with already having one baby because I don't get the sit down, relax time I got the first time around. Now there is a 11.5 month old baby crawling all over the place. I did my best to sit but sometimes you just have to stop a baby from trying to drink laundry soap or climb up the stairs.

Luckily, I have less time to overthink every little thing. My mind is whirling on "is the baby fed? does he need a diaper change? Yes that is a BLUE cup and a GREEN ring. Those are your toes. Don't eat the electrical cord. No we don't go down the stairs headfirst. And on this farm he had a cow eieio" etc. etc. etc.

I really want a giant chocolate chocolate chip muffin and an inced coffee.

Symptom Spotting: Nothing yet.

It's been a while....

I haven't updated this since February!

Now it is September and we are i the middle of our prep for our 2nd frozen embryo transfer. Our first baby is 10.5 months old and we are going for baby #2! I feel slightly crazy for going for #2 so soon, but the infertility world is so uncertain. We have 2 frozen embryos waiting for us. If neither of these take and we have to do another retrieval my eggs (which ended up being the issue: old before their time) will be even older and in worse shape. Sooo we just going to go for it and are hoping to have little babies close in age! #2under2

We will be doing our transfer in October.

For our prep I have had a new pap smear, new sonohysterogram, cultures, trial transfer, and infectious disease blood work (both myself and husband).

I started on birth control pills after my period in July. I only had 3 periods after having the baby in October. I got my first in May after weaning at 6 months. My clinic uses BCP to control the timing of cycles and to calm the ovaries.

Here is my current protocol. I'm currently in the patches/lupron phase. SO much fun! The headaches, the hot flashes, the night sweats. Love it! :)

As for non-medication related prep I'm doing a low/moderate carb - high protein diet as recommended by my RE. I want to keep my blood sugar nice and stable. The problem I'm having is getting enough calories! Losing the refined carbs isn't a problem, but replacing with enough calories is tough. I'm not trying to lose weight at all so I'm trying to figure out tasty ways to get protein in without the carbs/sugar.

I've also cut out caffeine (except for today apparently, when I forgot to make my coffee order a decaf. oops).

I will do the pomp juice, pineapple core, brazil nut, warm foods, crazy shit I did last time. It worked then, so I might as well do it again, right?!

Currently I'm still exercising, running/fast walking 45 minutes, 5 days a week. Once we do the transfer I'll stop such strenuous exercise and just do casual walking instead of the fast, blood pumping kind I'm used to.

I'm so excited, anxious, nervous, and terrified. I'm so scared our transfer won't work. Our first baby has been such a wonder and joy and we know how amazing parenting and babies can be, so if it doesn't work out I think I may be more devastated then the last time. With our first fresh and frozen transfer we were still striving for our goal. We wanted a baby and wanted to be parents but didn't know what it would be like. But now we do. I'm so hopeful it's going to work. All we can do is follow our protocol and wait.

3 Month Gear List

Another list!

3-Month List of Things I Love (In no particular order, just as I think of things while I should be working instead):

1. Oballs. These are great for little fingers and hands to hold. Baby loves holding and shaking and eating these. This was the first toy he grabbed with two hands and the first he intentionally brought to his mouth. The brand also makes other shapes!

2. Links/Rings: Such an easy toy to throw in a bag, attach to the car seat, or dangle from something. So versatile and baby loves the different textures on his mouth.

3. Kirkland Diapers: We did a diaper raffle at my baby shower and so we have used all sorts of different brands of diapers. I've found these have been the best diapers at containing blowouts! He has yet to leak out of one of these. I may actually need to get a Costco membership!

4. A&D Ointment: I said I liked this before and here I go again. Recently we've used this on his cradle cap and it cleared up very fast!

6. Fisher-Price Sit Me Up: We started sticking baby in this a little over a month ago. The high back of the seat makes it easier for smaller babies to use. A baby has to be a little bigger with better neck control for something like a bumbo seat, but the Sit Me Up let baby see the world from a new perspective and he loved it. He would get cranky being on his back all the time so this allowed him something new. It also was great for mom to get stuff done in the kitchen while he sat and watched.

5. Fisher-Price Space Saver Jumperoo: I registered for this jumper because the smaller profile. We have a smaller house and have see how much room jumpers can take up at my friend's houses.  Baby is 16 weeks old as of two days ago and recently started loving to stand (when held, obviously. He isn't that advanced haha) and last night started boucing while standing so it seemed like the perfect time to open the jumper! He is just barely tall enough for it right now (He was 25 inches at 3 months, don't know what he is now), and has just enough neck/upper body control. It's not something we can just plop him in to contain him yet. He still needs help and supervision, but he loved being able to stand bounce and was reaching for all the toys above him, though getting frustrated and mad he couldn't actually reach them. As he grows I think he'll love it more and more!

7. Toy straps/tethers: These are the ones I have from Amazon. They make it so easy to attach toys to things! I attach his oball to his glider and to his car seat. I attach toys to his playmat so when he flings them I don't have to go running for them. They will be great for attaching things to highchairs so baby can't throw things around restaurants.

 

Tether toys to the elephants nose!

8. Books: Little Blue Truck is my favorite. It's a fun story to read and the story has a good heart.

Beep Beep Beep!

9. Full Size Bath Towels: After years of reading blogs and baby recommendations and registries I decided to register for full sized towels and not baby towels. But of course we received quite a few baby towels at our shower. I decided to try them because, why not? Well I'll tell you why not. Because they are very thing and not absorbent. When we would take Baby out of the bath and wrap him in a baby towel he would cry and cry because he was cold and wet. I finally switched to the full sized towels (one lovely person did buy them for us!) and since then he hasn't been nearly as upset after his bath. The towels are much warmer and really dry him off well. Get full sized towels.

10. And of course. The greatest baby toy of all time:

When he gets fussy or I need a few minutes to get something done I plop him under the ceiling fan. Works like a charm every time.

16 Weeks - Breastfeeding

This Saturday Baby will be 16 weeks old! Some days I can't believe it has been this long. There are times I look at him and think oh my goodness this baby is mine! He is the best baby. Everything changes so fast I try to soak up as much as possible.

We've had some challenges for sure. Breastfeeding has been a very tough process for us. For about 10 weeks I was exclusively breastfeeding, but Baby wasn't gaining weight. He was in the 50th percentile at birth, then went down to 20th percentile at his 2 month checkup. 2 weeks after that he was down to the 6th percentile. For 2 months his normal feeding sessions would last about 40 minutes, 20 per side. But then around the end of December he started going longer and longer, the longest I let him go was an hour and 15 minutes and he was still unsatiated and crying when I took him off the boob. I made an appointment with an LC and she said his latch was fine and positioning looked good. We did a weigh/feed/weigh and he took about 2 ounces in 30 minutes. She thinks I just have a low supply. The LC recommended feeding him for 30 minutes, because going longer than that won't be very helpful, and then supplementing with formula. She said to start offering an ounce at a time until he is ok. She also suggested pumping after every nursing session, pumping every 2 hours at work, not going more than 3 hours between feedings or pumps, and taking fenugreek supplements (3 pills 3x a day) to boost my supply. 

I tried these suggestions for a month and have seen no increase in my supply whatsoever. I have also tried every other suggestion on the internet to boost supply including: oatmeal, blessed thistle, moringa, blue gatorade, brewers yeast, flax seed, chia seed, fennel seed. Nothing. I still pump one ounce after nursing and 2 during a stand alone pump session.

My last ditch effort is going to be stopping birth control I started on the mini pill after my 6-week check up. The mini pill isn't supposed to affect milk supply which is why it is prescribed for nursing moms. In some rare cases it can, though. And seeing how I've ended up on the 'rare case' side before (i.e. infertility.....), I might as well try. Looking back at my logs my supply started decreasing a few weeks after starting the pill so I might as well try!

....It's not like I actually needed it for the 10+ years I was taking it before....why would now be different......

8 Weeks Old

Baby H is 8 weeks old!

It's crazy how fast babies grown and learn. 5+ weeks brought us Baby's first smiles and also Baby's first rolls from tummy to back. At 7 weeks he started sleeping for longer stretches at night. We put him to bed around 9pm and he will sleep for 4-6 hours before he wakes up to be fed again. He will then sleep for another 2-3 hours before waking again. It's game changing! getting longer stretches of sleep has been amazing. He does have days where his sleep isn't so good (like last night when he fussed most of the night) but knowing he can go longer is great, especially because most of the time he does. 

Items I love for Baby:
1. Mam pacifiers: These were the only pacifiers he would take to begin with.

2. Halo swaddles: We stick him in a body suit and a swaddle for bed every night! We use the fleece kind since it's winter and cold where we live.

3. JJ Cole Car Seat Cover: This thing keeps baby nice and warm during harsh Midwestern winters

4. Chicco Viaro Travel System: I love the three wheels of the stroller; the maneuverability is excellent. I have a friend with the Chicco Bravo (4 wheels) and when I pushed her stroller I found it so much harder to control. The click system makes it really easy to put the car seat into the stroller and the car seat base. It's also easy to get baby strapped in and then out of the seat pretty quick. The stroller isn't too heavy or hard for me to get into and out of the car. I'd definitely buy this again!
 
5. Diapers: I like Huggies the best so far! They fit Baby the best. Pampers have leaked/blown out quite a few times. Unfortunately we have mostly Pampers from our diaper shower. We'll just deal since I don't want to take a ton of boxes of diapers back when it really isn't too bad.

6. Wipes: Meijer baby wipes! They are the softest and wettest! The only thing I don't like about them is they stick together in the pack so when you pull one out you pull 5 out.

7. Diaper Genie: I registered for this on a whim. I had heard a lot of negative reviews saying it didn't do anything. I ended up getting one for our shower and we love it! Our nursery doesn't smell and it's super easy to use. The good news is Target's Up and Up refills fit and cost waaay less.



8. Gas Drops and Gripe Water: YES! We use both of these fairly regularly. They definitely help with gas and fussiness!!!
 

9. A&D Ointment - We first use the A&D ointment on Baby's circumcision and it healed really really well. Then we started using it for diaper cream. I tried Desitin since that seems to be what everyone uses but I hated the small. The A&D works really well and keeps his bottom perfect! I also have used it on his dry scalp/craddle cap and it cleared up so quick.

P.S. It's now 15 weeks post-partum and I'm just getting to post this.....I'm terrible at upkeep....