A year ago..

A year ago yesterday was the day I called the RE and my husband and I decided to move forward with IVF...several months earlier than we had planned.

A year ago today was my first appt, and day one of bcp.I can't believe it's been a year. As some of you may remember I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to work. My attitude wasn't exactly negative, I was (I thought) just being realistic and trying to protect myself. I tried not to get my hopes up. I was adamant about doing only one cycle..and if it didn't work I was going to embrace being a DINK. (obviously I have no idea what I really would have done but I really really didn't want to go through IVF again). The night before I POAS I spent about 4 hours on the Internet researching travel to New Zealand..I was so certain the cramps I felt were AF getting ready to start and I had to focus on the future and being childless.The BFP was the biggest shock of my life. Seriously I couldn't have been more shocked...I know it sounds stupid but there it is.

I remember POAS upstairs in my bathroom and seeing the blank white where the test line should be. I was not surprised, and really not even that sad. It was 6dp5dt and I pretty much knew that I should have a positive this day if it had worked. I took the test with me downstairs and was looking through the fridge for something to eat. I turned around and looked at the test on my kitchen counter and it literally took my breath away. There was a faint 2nd line. I called my mom up and said, "I think I might be pregnant". I was shaking. I emailed her a picture and she said I definitely was. I called my hubby and he was so excited! I remained in shock the rest of the day.

It became real when we saw the heartbeat on the ultrasound screen. I (naively) was pretty unafraid of miscarriage after that point. In retrospect I can't believe I wasn't terrified. If I had protected my heart while waiting for the pregnancy test result I certainly was protecting nothing anymore - my hopes were sky high and I would have been devastated had anything happened to the pregnancy.

During the bad morning sickness, the scary pre-eclampsia, the strict on my side 5 weeks of bed rest, the horrible induction with emergency c-section, and the extreme sleep deprivation of the first 6 weeks I was adamant that she would be our "only". I was never going to do this again. We got lucky with IVF working the first time - we have no frozen embryos and I took that as a sign. Out of 19 eggs retrieved we ended up with one perfect embryo (assuming our baby is the 5aa and not the 1bb). But. Now that I have a smiling, laughing 3 month old I am having some disturbing thoughts - I'd like another please. My husband is on board - he has always wanted at least two. But I don't know - it is so overwhelming to even think about. Was my second FSH level that came back elevated indicative of a decreased fertility on my part? Could we ever afford IVF again?

It is easier to just imagine that we are done. I can't fathom IVF while having a baby/toddler. Also morning sickness? God forbid bed rest?

Maybe we should stop while we're ahead.

Then I think "Thank God we did IVF when we did, or she wouldn't be here". "Thank God we picked the RE we did or she wouldn't be here". "Thank God the embryologist picked the sperm she did to inject or she wouldn't be here". You get the picture. A lot of thanking God when I'm not even a religious person.

So what if deciding that we are done means a child of ours that is meant to be doesn't get a chance? What if we had decided not to do IVF? Pipsqueak wouldn't be here. That kills me.

So how do you know when you're done?

Nursery pic

I want to put an asterisk at the end of the quote with a footnote stating "and pursued A.R.T."

Reflux

Poor baby has reflux!

The last few weeks Pipsqueak has been crying while she eats for at least one feeding a day. I thought we were dealing with some nipple confusion - that's why I had switched to mostly bottles. This last week however, she developed a high pitched IN PAIN cry while eating and was grunting all night long even in her sleep.

We took her into urgent care Wednesday night and they diagnosed her with reflux. Since then she has been on zantac twice daily. We are also feeding her while upright (and I'm back to primarily breast feeding so I'm sore from the contortionist moves I'v e been making!), she's sleeping on an incline (we are still mostly co-sleeping so I have raised the head of our bed by placing a rolled up comforter between the mattress and the box spring) and we are also doing gas drops before every feeding.

Yesterday during the day I felt like she was feeling much better. She actually had a long 2 hour stretch of being awake and not fussy in the afternoon (unheard of!). I was able to lay her down for naps (last week she cried whenever she was by herself. Then around 7pm she was crying through her entire meal - she was desperately hungry - rooting around, etc - but cried at breast and bottle. I got about one ounce in her and then soothed her to sleep with a paci and white noise. 2 hours later she took the bottle fine.

I so hope this med helps. It takes up to a week to work. We have her 8 week check up Friday so if it hasn't worked by then I am gonna demand something else. I can't stand seeing her face fall as she realizes that eating makes her hurt. It breaks my heart!!

Anything else I should be doing to help her?? I've also been bicycling her legs to help gas escape.

On a brighter note she weighed 10.02 lbs on Wednesday so she is growing like a weed! Only 1 lb and 8 oz to go to double her birth weight!

7 weeks

 As of 7 weeks she is:

• sleeping 3-4.5 hours at a time at night consistently while in bed with us (less if in her bassinet).  We go upstairs about 10pm, have a bottle and go to sleep.  She then awakens around 2-3am for a bottle and diaper change, and then up again around 6 or 6:30.  We then head downstairs where she naps pretty much until about 10am.
• eating almost exclusively from a bottle (I am pumping, maybe we introduced the bottle too early bc I think we are dealing with nipple confusion. Since I go back to work in 3 weeks it is more important at this point for her to have bottle skills so we may be saying goodbye to the breast completely :( )
• smiling consciously at objects and just starting to laugh!
• still grunting and growling all the time!  Sounds like a piggy :)
• still getting the hiccups a few times a day
• just starting to dislike bath time - she used to love it!
• wearing size 1 diapers (outgrew newborn last week)
• just starting to outgrow her newborn clothes - SO SAD!
• at 5 w 6 d she weighed 8lbs 10 oz which is the 20th percentile but 70th percentile when accounting for her prematurity
• still a redhead :)
• napping in her bassinet by herself ( I so love just letting her nap on my chest that I was afraid she wouldn't ever learn to sleep by herself so this week I have made a conscious effort to give her some solo sleep time.  She is taking 2 naps of approx 45mins-1.5 hrs in her bassinet daily, then several naps in our arms or in her swing.)
• We took our first walks in her stroller this week - it has been in the 60s here!

Hope all is well with everyone.  I read blogs daily but can't always comment because I often have my hands full.  I am rooting for you all.  xoxo

First smiles :)

These make the sleep deprivation worth it!!

I feel rested today! Hubby fed her 2 bottles of expressed breast milk last night and I was able to sleep from 10pm-3:45am!!! That's the longest I've slept Consecutively since I was about 22 weeks pregnant. Bliss!! I looked like Dolly Parton when I woke up though :). I usually am only able to pump 3-4 oz total at a time..well at 4am I pumped 8.5oz!

The first month

Pipsqueak turned one month a few days ago.  Boy time flies - even though I feel like she has always been here it has been such a whirlwind!  I am so deeply in love it's not even funny.  She has everyone wrapped around her finger - especially me and her daddy. Tight on time here and I have a few thoughts I want to get down so I am going to do some bullet points.

• Still exclusively breastfeeding and overall it is going great!  Depending on the day she eats anywhere from every hour to every 4.5 hours.  Since she just passed her due date on the 13th I am not too concerned, she is still catching up!  I pump once a day and get anywhere from 2-5 oz.  We have given her a bottle a few times just to get her used to it and she does great!  Mostly though we are freezing a stash to help when I go back to work in March.
• She weighs over 8 lbs already!  We don't go back to the dr until her 8 week checkup but I have weighed myself and then added the baby and she is at about 8 lbs 2 oz.
• I lost 30 lbs in 10 days after delivery - water weight mostly.  I am now 10-12 lbs above pre IVF weight and I think I have plateaued and will now have to work to lose some.  Not too worried now...breastfeeding makes me so hungry that dieting would be impossible.  I do need to start working out though.  It's just hard when you are SO TIRED!
• Speaking of tired..sleep deprivation sucks!  We have good days and bad days.  She sleeps mostly in bed with us.  This weekend she slept 3-4 hours at a time and went right back down.  Then last night she was up every hour and half.  So that's about what it has been, 2 good nights followed by a bad night.
• She naps for about an hour in her bassinet a couple of times a day and then has a couple of naps on one of us. 
• She smiled AT ME for the first time yesterday and I melted.  

Okay, she is calling for me :)

I hope everyone gets to experience this.  It is amazing and I am rooting for every single one of you!

Birth story of Pipsqueak (with baby pictures)

Oh my goodness there have been so many changes in our lives.

     So last Tuesday at 1pm I went in to L+D for a non-stress test, blood work and to turn in my 2nd 24 hour urine collection.  I was having contractions at home but thought they seemed completely irregular.  After being hooked up it was evident that they were regular, every 4-5 minutes.  The nurse checked me and my cervix was not dilated, high and thick.  So no action there.  2 hours later the on call OB came in and discussed my results.  The protein in my urine had doubled over the weekend and it was time to induce.  YIKES!  I knew it was coming soon but it was actually pretty scary hearing the words.  She checked my cervix then and informed me I was 1cm dilated.  By looking at the contraction pattern I was in she thought my body knew it was time for the pregnancy to be over and I was in early labor already.  

    I was moved out of triage and into a LDR room.  My pressures were through the roof so to prevent seizures during labor I was started on a magnesium bolus and then a drip.  My amazingly awesome nurse stayed with me every second.  She told me what to expect and had great sympathy for me as she also had received mag during her labor.  There was no sugar-coating - it was gonna suck.  It causes crazy heat sensations to envelop your body.  To help relieve this Dana the nurse continuously applied ice cold washcloths all over me during the 30 minute bolus.  It helped so much!  The entire time I was on mag I felt loopy, nauseated, flushed and had a headache but I know the initial hellish part was made easier by Dana.  Nurses rock!

     At 6pm the first dose of cytotec was placed near my cervix to soften it.  It was repeated at 10pm and 2am.  During this time I stayed 1-1.5cms but my cervix softened and thinned out.  All night I had the worst headache and was nauseated.  Contractions started to feel like really severe menstrual cramps.  They gave me zofran IV which made my stomach settled but couldn't give me oral tylenol for the headache because I was NPO except for ice chips.  My mom asked if I could get a tylenol suppository.  Best thing ever.  Finally I slept about 1 hour. 

     At 6am a pitocin drip was started.  This obviously made the contractions pick up.  By 8am I was moaning through them.  They were lasting about 60-90 seconds and coming every 2-3 minutes.  I was checked again around 8am and was almost 2cm and my cervix and come down and was completely thinned out.  

    Things get hazy here.  The pain was all encompassing but I felt powerful - my moaning kept me focused.  As long as I was getting a break in between them to re-center myself I was doing good.  Around 10 or 11ish I started having 2-3 contractions on top of one another with no break in between.  This I couldn't do.  I was still moaning but could tell I was losing control.  Dana offered me fentanyl and I accepted.  I got two doses one hour apart and they kept me sane.  Around 1pm I was checked and told I was 4.5cm dilated so I got my epidural.  I had been lying in bed this whole time (can't walk around on mag) so sitting up for the epidural made me sick as a dog.  I had 3 contractions while waiting for the anesthesiologist to prep my back.  I got pale, sweaty and vomited twice.  Luckily the actual epidural was painless and worked within 10 minutes.  My husband and I immediately fell asleep and my mom kept watch over the monitors and kept dabbing my face with a cool wet washcloth.

     Around 1:30 Dana ran in the room and put an oxygen mask on my face. She said something along the lines of "The baby just isn't as happy as she was before."  I looked over at the heart rate monitor and saw her heart rate was in the 70s.  NOTGOOD.COM.  Dana told my mom to pull the call light out of the wall to "get everyone in here".  She then hoisted herself onto the bed and rammed her hand up my vag.  As nurses and the OB ran in she said, "I'm afraid we have a prolapsed cord".  Another nurse also put her hand in me and the doctor started palpating my abdomen.  The pitocin was turned off and I was given a shot of something to attempt to stop the contractions.  Suddenly I could hear the heart rate dropping further.  I then passed a few clots and there was worry about placenta abruptio (spelling?).  About 5 minutes later my contractions decreased and Pipsqueak's heart rate normalized.  I was left alone and fell right back to sleep. (I was drugged and had slept only one hour in a day and a half so even with the drama and worry I was out!).  According to my mom about 15 minutes later the OB came back in.  She said she reviewed my contraction and fetal heart rate monitors and decided she just didn't like the way the baby was handling the stress.  We needed a C-section.  Within 10 minutes we were on our way, they weren't playing around.

     I was wheeled to the operating room and felt like I was having an out of body experience.  I don't remember kissing my mom and husband goodbye but I know I did.  As I was waiting to be transferred over to the table I got scared and started to cry.  The OB held my hand and said she would take good care of me and my baby.  I was then transferred, prepped, and the cutting began.   My hubby came in soon there after.  He held my hand which helped me stay calm.  Just before she was born I started vomiting again and feeling awful.  They held her up briefly over the drape and I glanced up.  She was beautiful but I was feeling so awful that it wasn't a big magical moment.  Soon thereafter I heard them say, "She's still losing blood".  I told the anesthesiologist I felt like I was passing out.  She said my blood pressure was really low and she was giving me some medicine to correct it.  I looked into her eyes and said, "Don't let me die".  She promised she wouldn't.  They brought the baby over at some point and I kissed her but I know this only from the pictures...I was fighting to stay conscious.  I then vomited yet again and fell asleep/passed out.  I woke up later as they were sewing me up.  I asked if my baby was okay and they told me she was in the NICU.  I am so thankful that I didn't ask for details and that they didn't bombard me with information.  If I had known she was having problems I don't know how I would have handled it at that point.

     I was wheeled back to my room for recovery and received several meds, had my epidural removed, and slept.  At some point that evening Pipsqueak was brought to me and I got to hold her.  She looked so good I don't think I even asked how she did immediately after the birth.  Sometime later that night I got the full story.  She wasn't breathing when she was born.  She was completely floppy, was bluish all over, and made no noise.  Her first Apgar was 2 (she only scored points for heart rate, got zeros for everything else) and the second was 6.  Here is photo evidence -

Poor Baby!

     They breathed for her with mask for one and half minutes, then placed her in an oxygen tank.  The extreme floppiness is because she was "all magged out".  Magnesium = bad evil drug.  But no seizures so I guess it's all relative.

Getting the NICU spa treatments

    Luckily she was a superstar.  Off all oxygen within an hour or two, then satted 100% on room air from then on out.  When she first attempted to breast feed she had a super strong suck reflex which is uncommon in premies.  Her blood glucose stayed stable on a small IV drip throughout the 24 hours I was unable to breastfeed her.  The only health hiccup we came across was some high bilirubin levels which was stabilized with 8 hours under the bili lights :

Her first tanning salon visit - note the cute shades!

     They pushed formula supplementation to help lower her bilirubin more quickly and I adamantly refused.  I had to fight several nurses and a pediatrician who all acted like I was a terrible mother but I knew my breast milk would be enough.  And it was. Her level came down and we were discharged Sunday.

    This week has been great.  She eats well, poops all the time, and sleeps sometimes even!  It is so not as hard as I thought it would be.  We are all so in love it is ridiculous.  Pipsqueak is super healthy, her pediatrician appointment today revealed that she is above her birth weight of 5lbs 12oz at 8 days old (usually happens about day 14) - Go Mom's titty milk!!!  I am so proud.  She has also already grown a quarter of an inch.  

    My blood pressures are still high but slowly coming down.  I was on procardia for 2 days which was hideous, now back on labetalol.  I am losing about 3 lbs a day and swelling is almost non existent.  Hopefully everything will stabilize soon.

    Thanks for all the prayers.  When all was said and done it was a sucky, scary birth but worth every moment.  She is our everything.