On fathers

My relationship with my father is pretty much non-existent. I think I've mentioned before that he left when I was around 6 or so and was in and out of my life the rest of the time. Right after my parents divorced (his doing, not my mother's) he had visitation with us and we stayed with him and his new wife/girlfriend for two weeks in the summer. It was awful. Shortly thereafter, he stopped paying child support and made little effort to see/parent/support my brother and I for the remainder of our childhood. About once a year he would pop up with a new wife or girlfriend (I've pretty much lost count of how many times he's been married) and visit us for a day, but it was awkward and I never felt like I had a father. When I was a kid I was the only one of my friends that had divorced parents. I always felt weird around the fathers of my friends. I did have a very devoted maternal uncle and grandfather, plus my father's two brothers (who thought my father was an asshat) and paternal grandfather, that were all pretty good male role models in my life. However, being a girl growing up without a father can be pretty sucky. I turned out okay but I know there are issues that maybe I could have dealt with better had my father been an active participant in my life. Presently, my father lives somewhere in the same part of the state as me, I'm not exactly sure where, with another women, this one he doesn't seem to be married to (yet), and he's a fairly sad shell of a man. I think he's finally come to the point where he might be realizing how much he effed up were my brother and I were concerned. 

I say all this to get to my point - I am 110% sure, with every fiber of my being, that my husband is going to make an incredible father. Over the weekend we watched our 18 month-old nephew, who adores his uncle and is indifferent to his aunt (me) and every time I see my husband interact with our nephew I almost cry because he's so good with him. My husband lost his own father far too soon (at age 12) and so he also grew up without a father, but from different circumstances. I am so lucky to have found the partner in life that I did. Not only is he going to be a great dad but he's a great husband, honestly he spoils me. Several of the IF bloggers I've followed over the years have had troubled marriages, strained and pushed to the limits by their infertility experiences. Others have had their marriages made stronger by infertility, I am thankful to be one of the latter. We still have troubles like most married couples, but they aren't foundation-shattering, they're small and forgettable. Since we started this journey it's always felt like it was just the two of us against the world and soon (hopefully) it'll be us and a little one against the world.

26wks

Another week speeding by. I had my gestational diabetes test/appointment on Tuesday. The glucola stuff wasn't too terrible, per my doctor's orders I ate some scrambled eggs and canadian bacon for breakfast (no carbs) and then drank the glucola. It made me a little flushed but not nauseous thankfully. Lucky for me my number was normal so I passed the test. 

I had a pretty quick appointment with the doctor, unfortunately I gained 3.5 lbs since my last appointment, despite going to the gym every day last week. My doctor said I'm just a little above what she'd like to see but she didn't seem very bothered. She asked me about what I was eating and she made suggestions as to what to replace those things with. I probably eat the worst on the weekends, donuts, dining out, baking, etc. But through the week I have a pretty decent menu. She thinks the issue is too many carbs, which makes sense. I eat Kashi granola bars a lot and greek yogurt, which has protein but still a lot of carbs. She suggested I eat low-fat string cheese, low-fat cottage cheese, eggs (I really don't like eggs), raw almonds, use low-carb wraps instead of bread for sandwiches, etc. I told her I'd been eating a lot of raw strawberries and she said a few is fine but because they have a lot of natural sugar I shouldn't eat too many. I joined BabyFit (the same people that run SparkPeople) and it's been helpful. I've also cooked every night this week, expect for Tuesday, which also helps. I just really, really don't want to gain too much weight and not be able to loose it. Although I'd much rather be overweight and finally have a baby than still be without a baby and what I weighted prior. 

Everything else is fine, blood pressure, etc. My doctor did confirm what I described were Braxton-Hicks and they're totally normal. My next appointment is in two weeks and we'll have an ultrasound then. I can't believe I'm almost in the third trimester and we'll be going every two weeks from now on. The baby is moving around a lot these days. I've started to be able to feel the difference between kicks with feet/legs and kicks with hands/arms, it's a surreal feeling. We registered for a childbirth class in June, honestly the actual birth part has been the last thing on my mind. I'm not that concerned about it right now but I know we should probably get a little knowledge on how everything will go down and tour the hospital we'll be at.

Some days I'll start thinking about the reality that there is a tiny little person inside of me and I start crying. We aren't at the finish line yet but it's so close and I'm taken aback by the emotions I feel when I think about where we started on this journey and where we are right now.

National Infertility Awareness Week: Don't Ignore Infertility

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week and this year's theme is "Don't Ignore Infertility." You can read Don't Ignore Infertility Blog Posts from other IF bloggers here.

This year's theme made me think about how relatively lucky we've been throughout our years of IF. We've been pretty open about our situation from the beginning with friends and family and most everyone has been very supportive and sympathetic. While there have been times when I was upset about insensitive comments or uncomfortable situations, most everyone in our inner circle has been great. Personally, for us, I feel like the being ignored part comes from average people out in the world who either have preconceived notions about people who are dealing with infertility or those people who just plain don't know anything about infertility. I wish those people could understand that we aren't desperate, we aren't plotting to steal babies, we're not immoral for using assisted reproductive technologies - we just want to be parents, we want to grow our families and we want to be understood. 

For more information about NIAW visit www.resolve.org

25wks

I made it to 24 weeks and now another week has passed and I'm 25 weeks. Everything is still going well. Doug and I took vacation last week and worked on the house. We painted the baby's room on Monday (zero VOC paint + good ventilation) and luckily it didn't take too much time. We were finished by the early afternoon. He also put together the crib and changing table too and we have them in the room now. On Wednesday we drove to Atlanta to visit Ikea and to just have a little getaway. Our trip to Ikea was good, we bought picture frames, curtains, a small rug, and two storage cubes for the baby's room. Afterwards we had a really delicious dinner and frozen yogurt. Unfortunately that night I slept horribly, I kept waking up every few hours. There really was no reason for me to not be asleep, the room wasn't too hot or too cold, there wasn't noise (except Doug's snoring) but I just could not sleep. We ended up leaving earlier on Thursday than we intended to because I was so tired from the lack of sleep and just wanted to go home. Friday we (Doug) put together the storage cubes and hung the prints in the frames we had bought. I have to hem the curtains because they're a few inches too long but the room is coming together. On Saturday we went to an estate sale and scored a vintage wood rocking chair. It has some minor issues that Doug is going to fix. It still seems so weird to have a crib in our house. 

I feel good, I have to go to the bathroom a lot but I'm also drinking a lot of water so that's to be expected. I have started to feel more and more movement. The other morning I was sitting down eating a bowl of cereal and I could feel something moving around and I watched my belly for a few minutes and it kind of shuddered, which was pretty cool. Of course that hasn't happened since and I haven't been able to show Doug but hopefully the little one will start kicking harder soon so Doug can feel it. 

I think I might be having Braxton-Hicks contractions off and on. Occasionally I'll feel my abdomen get tight, just for a few seconds. It doesn't hurt, it just feels different, I'll ask my doctor about it next week. I'm a little concerned about the gestational diabetes test, I hope I don't fail. I've started back to the gym during my lunch hour and doing at least 30 minutes on the treadmill. I'm also trying to lay off the sweets/bad stuff. The numbers on the scale are really freaking me out, they're numbers I've never seen on a scale before. 

All in all, everything is still going well. It's starting to feel more and more real that we're having a baby this summer.

23wks

I didn't post last week because I got busy and truthfully (and thankfully) there wasn't much to report. Today I had an appointment and everything went well. Blood pressure is good, gained a little more weight (eek), baby had a good strong heartbeat. My doctor gave me the instructions for the gestational diabetes test, which I'll have at 26 weeks. She also gave me a packet of information on the hospital we'll be delivering at, which seems crazy (crazy that I'll actually be delivering a baby). 

I'm still doing well, nothing new to report. Although I have been feeling more and more of what I assume is movement. It's still rather subtle, maybe like a turn or a roll. It feels slightly odd but not in bad way. I'll be really happy when they get strong enough for Doug to feel. I've really been craving ice cream and strawberries recently. Strawberries are coming in to season here so they're popping up at the grocery and they look so good. I haven't been as active as I should be lately, which is probably why I gained more weight. I have to get back in a exercise routine, I don't mind gaining healthy weight, I just don't want to gain more than I can loose. 

We've been working a lot on our house, purging, (hired) painting, etc. We hope to paint the baby's room next week. I ended up ordering the crib and changing table last week because the changing table was on back-order until the end of July almost everywhere. I felt like I was tempting fate by ordering it but I did it anyway. They came in pretty quickly and are living in their boxes in our storage area until after the room is painted.

I can't say enough how surreal this still is to me but I'm trying to enjoy every second since this very well could be the only opportunity I have to experience pregnancy.

I'm still infertile

It feels weird to be "on the other side" of the IF battle. For seven years I've been in the battlefield. Some times forgetting we were infertile and other times not being able to stop thinking about it. Being pregnant, having a baby seemed like out of reach, unattainable goals. Now I'm pregnant and it still seems foreign to me that we're going to get a real, live baby. Pregnant or not I'm still infertile, we're still infertile. Doug is still sterile and my FSH is still higher than it should be and it still took us three rounds of IVF to get here. We're not cured and we never will be, I still define myself as infertile and when we (hopefully) become parents we'll still be infertile. Infertility has been awful but in some ways it's been good. It's been good because our marriage has become stronger, we have seen and felt support and love from so many friends and family. It's also been good because when this baby finally gets here we will do our best not to take anything for granted. I know that it's going to be hard to be a parent, to have a newborn, to miss sleep and all the other things that we do with ease these days, but it's going to be worth all the pain, the money, the procedures, the tears and everything else.