I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve graduated from my fertility clinic to a regular OB-GYN office! We started this process in August 2017 and now 5 years and 5 months later, it might actually work out.
This morning we had our 9 week ultrasound to make sure that everything was still looking good. We made the trek up to Sandy Springs yesterday afternoon so we’d be there bright and early for today’s 8:15am appointment. They took us back relatively on time (for a doctor’s office), inserted the ultrasound wand (it’s not yet an exterior ultrasound), and there it was! A tiny, tiny little figure that’s starting to resemble a human. We could see the fluttering that indicates a heartbeat, and while we were watching, it did a little wiggle movement.
It’s measuring at 9 weeks, 2 days and the heartbeat is still good. According to the doctor, while anything is still possible, the likelihood of a miscarriage due to anomalies with organ development/creation is now reduced to 2% since most of the organs have almost completed that initial creation stage. Let’s hope that’s true and I manage to avoid being part of that percentage.
I have 1.5 more weeks of the nightly medication injections. I started weaning off of them last week and my last shot will be Feb. 3. While I’m nervous about not being on them anymore and trusting my body to do its thing, I can’t say that I’ll miss doing nightly injections or having to plan most evening events around being able to setup and do injections in my upper butt/hip area at 8pm sharp.
I have an appointment next week to meet with a midwife at my new OB-GYN’s office — I needed to find a new doctor since the one I had been seeing closed last year. This new office was recommended to me and is literally out my back door and at the bottom of our street. I don’t think it’s even a 2 minute walk from door to door. It’s hard to say no to that, especially after we’ve been doing 3.5 hour drives one way to the clinic.
In the meantime, I’ve been dealing with all the fun parts of the 1st trimester: queasiness, nausea, exhaustion, food aversions, more frequent bathroom breaks, and so forth. My husband has been amazing, not only in always asking if I need anything, but also in accommodating my currently-strange diet to make sure I have easy-to-grab food that I might be able to tolerate. (Although today he finally decided it’s okay if he doesn’t eat the same thing as me for dinner — apparently he doesn’t want to eat mac and cheese from a box every night.)
That 1st trimester queasiness/nausea is no joke, and the inability to eat most things combined with pregnancy-induced exhaustion makes me even more exhausted. I’m hoping that this lifts with the start of the second trimester in a few weeks. I’m also trying to get more protein in liquid form — either through a Carnation Instant Breakfast (I know, lots of sugar but I can tolerate it) or through something like Orgain Nutritional Shakes, which was recommended to me and is healthier than the Instant Breakfast. Both taste like some form of chocolate milk and both stay down, which is a plus at that the moment (or really any moment I suppose). Luckily, the folks at my job are REALLY good about things like this and don’t give me a hard time for being less productive or working less hours because of the exhaustion and general crappiness.
It’s pretty weird to be where we are — we know it’s still early and anything is possible so we’re trying to take our hope/excitement cautiously, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was difficult now. And, it’s weird to be cautiously optimistic at the same time we put our yet-to-be-born embryo (it’s not officially a fetus yet according to my pregnancy tracker app) on a waiting list for daycare for Jan. 2024 and be told that it is definitely NOT too early to do that. Talk about planning for the future!
Speaking of future — this blog was started to share our infertility journey. Since that’s now resulted in a pregnancy (which is SUPER weird to say) for the time being, are you interested in me continuing it through the pregnancy journey? I’ve been discovering all sorts of things I never knew about pregnancy, but I suspect they’re not new to many of you.