Surprises!

Well, I know its been almost 5 months since I've posted and I apologize.  Things here have been extremely busy.

We finally moved into our house on February 28th. It was a great weekend to move in... it snowed and it was my birthday weekend. We now have pretty much the entire downstairs decorated. We could use some new furniture but that is going to have to wait. We are still waiting for our lawn to be put in. We bought all of the plants for the landscaping out front and promptly have 3 of our rose bushes stolen. We haven't been able to plant anything yet since we aren't able to get our dirt. We are getting a topsoil-black dirt-peat moss mix and since it's been so wet they haven't been able to harvest the peat moss to make the mixture. We are hoping for next Tuesday. Nick is excited that he gets to rent a bobcat to dig the current clay out of the ground to replace with the dirt mix. Here are some pictures of the house :)

The front of the house

Kitchen

Stairs

Living Room into the Dining Room

So now that the mundane stuff is out of the way.... news on the fertility front.... I'M PREGNANT!  Ever since the miscarriage  and right tube removal in November my periods have been kind of regular. My first one was 7 weeks after the surgery, which i'm told is normal. Then the next one was right on 28 days. The following one was 5 days late, then I had a 28 days. This was supposed to just be my 5 days late month. It was Monday April 28th and I hadn't started my period yet. Nick was at the store and I told him to just go a head and pick up a test. So on Tuesday morning I took said test. I put it on the counter and continued to go about doing my morning routine. I turned around and couldn't believe my eyes!  

Never in a million years would I have thought that we could do this on our own. I know that we didn't. This was totally a God thing. We had an appointment scheduled with Dr. Bopp to start the process for a frozen transfer on May 7th. The day we found out I called the office and asked if they would draw some an Hcg. If you recall my Hcg's were terrible with the ectopic in November. They agreed. On Tuesday April 29 my Hcg was 459!  I should have been 4 weeks and 6 days then. The number was perfect for that. Two days later, on May 1, the Hcg was 1314. It should double in 2 days and it did more than that!  We had our first ultrasound on May 13th at 6 weeks and 6 days. And there it was! In the uterus where it's supposed to be!

The baby's heart rate was 111. At this point the baby, whom we are calling beanie (named by my mother), was measuring a few days behind. Since I didn't know exactly what day I ovulated that's ok. When Dr. Bopp asked if I knew when I ovulated, I laughed. "I don't ovulate!"  We are going to have another Ultrasound on June 4th. I will be 10 weeks then. Then I'm getting kicked to a regular OB. So a couple of blogs that I follow do this weekly and I am going to try to follow the same thing. 

How far along:  8 weeks and 2 days

Total weight gain? I've actually lost some weight, I'm sure due to the nausea and not wanting to eat anything.

Maternity clothes? Not yet, although I did have to buy some new bras :) 

Stretch marks? I've always had stretch marks from being overweight, some a few new ones isn't going to be anything different.

Sleep: All the time! I've had to start sleeping with a body pillow so my back doesn't get out of whack. 

Best moment this week: Reaching 8 weeks! I am so excited that this is finally happening, but I am also extremely nervous. I know way too much.

Miss anything? I miss market fresh sandwiches from Arby's.

Movement: None yet.

Food cravings:  Not really, nothing really sounds good right now.

Anything making you queasy or sick? Yes, meat. As I said earlier, I'm pretty nauseous all the time, so I have a hard time eating anything, but meat is the worst. 

Gender: Don't know yet. Will hopefully find out sometime the end of July or beginning of August. 

Labor signs: None. 

Symptoms: My boobs are sore and bigger. I have been nauseous all the time. No throwing up yet. I've come close a couple of times, but none yet. I've been trying to keep something in my stomach at all times, but that's getting hard too.

Belly Button in or out? Currently in.

Wedding rings on or off? On, but i'm sure later in summer they will be off.

Looking forward to: June 4th when we can see our baby again :)

More on Wednesday!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

First, I want to apologize for the extreme amount of time between posts. I know some of you have been wondering how things have been going. So here are the updates!

We have been living with my parents in the basement since we moved back to Fort Wayne. We are sooo thankful that we have this option so that we don't have to throw money away living in an apartment. We are enjoying our time living here and have been having many card nights. We were invited to attend an Euchre tournament for New Years Eve and had a great time. I finished last, but that is not surprising since I really haven't played Euchre since high school! Nick and my dad finished in the middle of the pack and my mom won the tournament! Congratulations Mom!

Work has been nuts. I am enjoying my job so far. Not really enjoying the 12 hours shifts, but it seems that some of times I've had enough work to last that long. Nick started his job and is also working 12 hour shifts. The days get long for him since he has to drive almost an hour each way to get to work. That will change when we move into our house. He is enjoying his job as well and has really liked the opportunity to learn new things and grow within his position as a paramedic.

On the house front.... They are almost finished with the drywall. It is all up and being mudded at this point. It took two weeks of no work for the gas line to finally be put in for the heat to be turned on. The heat had to be turned on before they could finish the drywall. Supposedly the drywall should be finished tomorrow. From then on we are supposed to get a schedule of when things are supposed to be done. Next step should be primer on the walls and then the finish carpenter should come in and start working. Pictures are to come. We are having problems with the computer right now.

We are two months into our forced three month hiatus on the baby front. TMI alert....  I finally had my first period since the surgery. 7 weeks and 3 days afterward. I think that is right when it should have been or darn near close. We have one more month to wait until we are allowed to officially try again on our own. We don't think that its going to happen on our own, but it doesn't hurt to have some fun while we wait to save some money right? :) Since our move and switching insurances we no longer have infertility coverage so everything from here on out is out of pocket. Since we have 6 embies frozen everything for a while should just be a frozen transfer which is cheaper than a fresh cycle.

I told you all I would post on Christy's "to do list" and here it is:

1. Lose weight (I've lost 22 pounds and gone down a jeans size).
2. I have multiple plantars warts on my right foot which bug me from time to time, so I'm looking at getting them removed. Was told yesterday that I should just need to go to a dermatologist.
3. See said Dermatologist for foot and moles I want checked out.
4. I have a bump on the roof of my mouth, which I suspect is a cyst that hurts and bugs the shit out of me... have to see and ENT for that.
5. Go back to the chiropractor and get my back in line.

I am sure that I am forgetting a few things, but why not add to the list later!  Things are going ok at this point which I am happy with. Just can't wait to get moved into the house and get settled!

Happy 2014!

Changes

This past week has brought many changes for Nick and I. As of a week ago today we have officially moved back to Fort Wayne, IN.  We made some great memories in Akron, OH, but it was hard to pass up a chance to move home. I started my new job this week and so far so good!  Can't talk about it much on here as we are all being watched, hahaha!  I am working 12 hours shifts though and forgot how much that takes out of you. At least I don't have to get up at 4:30 in the morning anymore, only 5:30 at this point. When we are able to move into our house it will be later. I can't wait; I love my sleep. Nick also accepted a new job. He is going to be working for an EMS service in Noble County. He starts December 2. We actually get to sit through hospital orientation together.

I am sure many of you are waiting for an update after my last post. We were able to meet with Dr. Moretuzzo on the Thursday before we left Akron to get some answers. I had my surgery on Tuesday November 5th. My hCG level on Monday November 11th was 4 (it was 360 before surgery). Thursday the 14th my level was 0. This is what we were looking for. It means that every trace of the baby that I lost is gone. Our meeting with Dr. Moretuzzo went well. We were able to get most of our questions answered. It turns out that there is only a 1-2% chance of having a tubal pregnancy with IVF. We asked what the chances of this happening again; 1-2%. We laughed. With our luck we will be in that 1-2% again. We were able to see pictures of my right tube that had the baby in it. The embryo had attached pretty much in the middle of my tube. This is why the Methotrexate didn't work and why the baby didn't grow right. They weren't able to send any of the tissue to see if everything would have been ok if the baby had attached to the uterine wall like it was supposed to. We will never know.

The labs that we did a couple of weeks ago to see if there was something wrong with me that we could change did come back. Everything was normal. There doesn't seem to be a reason for me not to be able to get pregnant or carry a baby other than what we already knew. Of course these labs were drawn before we knew that this was a tubal pregnancy. We can't try again for 3 months after the Methotrexate. Which means that we can't try until February. Apparently, the Methotrexate can stay in your system that long and will destroy fetal tissue if we were to get pregnant before than.

We also asked how much weight he thought I needed to lose to raise our chances of getting pregnant. I was told that if I could lose 10% of my weight it would certainly help. That means I would need to lose a total of 31 pounds. I've already lost 17 pounds since I went gluten free. Obviously he said it would be ultimately  better if I got down to a healthy weight. Some to aspire to. We also asked if there was anything that we could do on our own while we were waiting to have enough money to be able to do a frozen transfer. We have 6 embryos frozen that we could still use. Basically the only things that we can do on our own are to lose weight and use ovulation predictor kits. He didn't sound too optimistic for us to get the job done on our own.

We are going to take the forced 3 month hiatus and try to lose some weight and focus on our new jobs and building our house. I also have a "Christy Do" list that I'm going to be looking into completing. More on that in another post.

The house is going well. We've had a few hiccups, but overall we are happy with everything. Here's what the house looks like now:

As of today all of the electrical, plumbing, and heating and air is in place. We had our framing and electrical inspections today. Next week they will start putting in insulation and the dry wall will go up. We are looking at being able to move in to our house at the end of January 2014. 

Another thing I wanted to share is that you won't find me on Facebook much anymore. I am having a hard time seeing all of the baby pictures and announcements of people that are pregnant. I am happy for all of you, but it's too much for me right now. I will continue to post links to the blog on Facebook so you can find me, but I won't be on there personally. 

Grow, Grow, Grow

Today was the first ultrasound since we starting doing the Follistim and Menopur on Sunday night. Our appointment was at 8:30 this morning and when we first walked in there weren't that many people in the waiting room. The more we sat and waited the more people showed up. This time I didn't have to deal with any ultrasound pictures or pregnant women. First, the phlebotomist (her name is Kim) drew my blood for an estrogen level. She had a hard time this morning, but I think I've probably not been drinking enough water. Then we went to have our ultrasound.

I had forgotten that Dr. Moretuzzo had said he wasn't going to be in the office today, so when Dr. Maseelall walked in I did a double take. It's the first time I've ever met her. She was very nice. When she put the probe in to do the ultrasound I knew my ovaries were big. It hurt!  At this time during our cycle in April we had 14 follicles that measured from 8-11mm. Today we have 6 on the right and 6 on the left for a total of 12. The ones on the right measure from 9-14mm and the ones on the left measure from 8-13mm. They are definitely bigger this time compared to last time. If you recall we are looking for a measurement of at least 14mm to be considered mature. I only have 1 at this time. I guess being on Lupron also allows you to push past the 1 that is big enough already to be able to grow the rest of them (or so I'm being told).

My estrogen level was 755 which is apparently right where it should be. The nurse that called me said that everyone is different and there isn't a right or wrong number. It depends on the ultrasound a lot.  The plan is to continue on our current medication (225IU of Follistim and 1 vial of Menopur) for tonight, Saturday night, and Sunday night. Then I'll go back for another ultrasound on Monday morning. Hopefully retrieval will be Thursday of next week.

Last night I got to thinking about the fact that I haven't had any nausea since I went gluten free. Well that was gone this morning. I'm pretty sure its the medications and that my estrogen level is so high. Darn hormones :)

As far as the move goes, I am still waiting on credentialing at Parkview. The house plans are moving right along. The mortgage application is with the underwriters and we are just waiting for their go ahead. We are hoping to get ground broken soon. Nick is spending the weekend working with his family at the Johnny Appleseed Festival in Fort Wayne. Check him out at the Ye ole Candy Shop. Tomorrow is my first call shift at work. Wish me luck!