My DH

DH is the name that women use for their "dear husband" on pregnancy sites. My DH thought it was important that we have the "pregnancy experience" to get ready to have a baby. He said this once when we discussed adoption as an option. He preferred we go through the physical pregnancy experience, and indeed if we could not conceive, he was more open to adopting an embryo than adopting a baby.

So here we are having the pregnancy experience. There are definitely emotional, psychological and social aspects. But much of the experience so far seems to be physical. So that would be Me. The newest fun thing was last night when I took off my bra and discovered I now have sticky boobs, for lack of a better term. This is a little early, and may be due to the switch of my progesterone from shots to vaginal suppositories. Yes, I have had daily intramuscular shots of progesterone in my tush since April... and now I get to move to lovely vaginal suppositories. (This is standard with IVF, and supposed to help keep me from miscarrying).

DH has claimed several times to have Couvades of some sort or another, especially craving ice cream, but I doubt that he'll claim to have sticky boobs at any point in the near future.

Apart from the sticky boobs, some of my pregnancy symptoms have stopped, including the little nausea I had. So naturally I'm freaking out a bit, even though nausea often abates in the tenth week because the placenta starts producing estrogen and progesterone itself. I rented a fetal doppler monitor, which arrived yesterday. It's often difficult to detect the heart beat in the first trimester, but try I did (so did DH). The placenta blood flow sounded like a whirlwind, but no fast beating baby heart.

I woke up this morning hoping little boogie baby is still tucked away somewhere in my tummy. I had my hand on my abdomen. Then I felt a tiny, fast push. It's impossible that I'm feeling boogie baby kicking because baby is the size of a kumquat. Logically it's gas or another one of my biological processes gone awry, but it's nice to believe that boogie baby is dancing away the early morning hours.

Boogie Baby

We graduated from UCSF! Pea baby is looking a lot larger than a couple weeks ago, and was dancing. Really. Kind of boogying between its top-half/bottom-half. Looked like pea baby had some good rhythm, but I couldn't tell whether it was grooving off its 176 bpm heartbeat or some other tune.

Nine weeks. The doctor said that my chances of miscarrying now are less than 5%, probably 2-3% given my age. I am 39 - thanks to those of you who pinged me when I erroneously thought I had already turned 40 in my last post. Fixed that.

I did miscarry at nine weeks with my last pregnancy. The doctor said they usually like to see patients a week after the point of a previous miscarriage, so it's good I have an OB/GYN appointment next week.

Until then, lots of music for boogie baby.

One

Finally, the day of the anxiously awaited first ultrasound.

There was a little blob on the monitor. And it's heart was beating! It blinked on the ultrasound. Almost indiscernibly, because the embryo is so small. So much uterus and so little baby. 9.1 mm, less than half an inch. Oh it's really a pea.

The doctors confirmed there wasn't a second embryo or sac lurking in my uterus or fallopian tubes. Just one. I was mostly relieved, as I was having difficulty imagining carrying two. My thoughts drifted from comical images of being as wide as I am tall (as I'm not that tall), to babies spending months in NICU because they were born too early. But, I have to admit that twins had some appeal, as I would be done. I don't know if I'll have enough runway for a second child. If all goes well with this pregnancy, I'll be 40 when my first baby is born.

Well, I'm not going to worry about what happens after this pregnancy yet... There's a little being in me, and its heart is beating. That's really amazing.

My next appointment is 15 June, when I will be at nine weeks. Dr. Rosen says there is a big drop-off in miscarriage risk at nine weeks, so the next appointment is a milestone. Right now, I have an 85% chance it will be ok. If all looks good on 15 June, I "graduate" from the IVF program and am mainstreamed with a regular OB/GYN.

After all of the injections and special procedures with IVF, I'll be glad to be mainstreamed, though this pregnancy thing seems to be no walk in the park. Yesterday, I started experiencing sour stomach. Not morning sickness, but a sour feeling in my stomach and mouth. This is also in the not sexy category.

I always walk by A Pea in the Pod on my way to my acupuncturist, and fancy myself a sexy pregnant lady, just like Heidi Klum. The breathlessness, bloating and now sour stomach are really interfering with my projected self-image...