Thanks everyone for all your comments today!! They really mean a lot to me. Let me start off by saying I’m 12 weeks along. I am so sorry for holding out on you guys, but people IRL, and more importantly work, follow my blog and this was too important to ‘hope’ others would keep quiet. So I decided to wait to say anything. On to the details.
If you remember, we had a health fair at work last November. The chiropractor I made an appointment with was really pushing a nutrition plan which cost thousands. He wanted me off all drugs. That morning I had taken my first Femara for the month. Since I didn’t know what it would do if I only took one, I decided to at least continue out that cycle on it and then I would stop. I turned to my blog and you all recommended acupuncture. You all said he was crazy, which I agreed with, and I decided to look into acupuncture. Not only was I on the Femara, but I was also charting my BBT still. I went in to see the acu. on December 1st for my first appointment. She said the same thing about the drugs, that she wanted to do three cycles drug free to see how I responded. Based on my BBT, I ovulated the day of my first acu. appointment or the day after. I went to her once a week for the next two weeks. On December 17th I hit 18 dpo which I had never done before. I had gotten to 17 dpo, but AF always showed up. That kind of stuck in my head that maybe something was up. I had to work all weekend and decided not to test until I was off. December 18th I woke up – my temps were still high, and no AF. When I woke up on December 19th and my temps were STILL high, and no AF I really started to wonder. I went to work and counted down the minutes till I could go home and test. By the way, JJ had no idea any of these thoughts were running through my head. Even though I was tracking, I had lost all hope of this happening naturally. Sure we did all we could for the cycle, but I was not getting my hopes up at all until 18 dpo.
On my way home, I called JJ to see what he was doing. He had just left to go run some errands with new Dave. Part of me was happy to have the house to myself, but I wanted him home like right after I tested. I got home and grabbed one of my cheapy tests. I dipped it and set it down and within seconds a second line appeared. There was no twisting and turning of the stick – it was bright as day. I just sat there and smiled. Then I had a stash of digital tests that were about a year and a half old that I decided this moment called for one of those. I grabbed one and dipped it. Usually it says to wait 3 minutes but within 30 seconds it said PREGNANT! Now I knew what it felt like to see those two lines and that word pop up. It was surreal. I couldn’t believe this was happening right as we were going a different way with our journey – doing the acupuncture instead of seeing the RE. I didn’t want JJ to get suspicious of anything so I didn’t call him for quite a while. After about 2 ½ hours I text him asking when he would be home and he said another 30 minutes or so.
I decided to wrap the gift up and give it to him as an early Christmas present. I wasn’t sure if he’d go for it, but I knew that’s how I wanted to tell him. I wrapped up the stick, yes the one I stuck in urine, and put it in a box. I took pictures of it and everything just to have. He got home and my heart started racing. I let him get settled and then I said, I have an early Christmas present for you to open. We hadn’t gotten around to wrapping any other gifts so he asked why he got one early. I said just because, and to my surprise he didn’t fight me on it. I really wanted to record his reaction, but without setting him off that something was up, I just kept the camera down on the couch next to me. He started to unwrap it and his reaction was just priceless. I am SO glad I caught it on tape!
Of course I was very cautiously optimistic. I have heard of too many people getting a false positive on a HPT. Even though the RE wasn’t treating me this cycle, I called first thing Monday morning to see what I should do. They had me come in for a beta. My first beta at 20 dpo was 3,467 and my progesterone was over 20. That number seemed super high to me, but I was also about a week later than most people test. I went back in two days later for a second beta and at 22 dpo it was 6,706. Our first doctor’s appointment was with the RE on January 6th. They were running about 20 minutes late which was very unusual so JJ and I were just sitting there with our nerves rising. They finally called us back and said they were doing some training that day and asked if it was OK if others were in the room. I said that was fine. I think JJ was a little intimidated. Not only was this his first time in “the room” but in walks about 4 people. Instead of training a nurse, they were actually training the doctor on the equipment. So not only was my appointment long, but most of the time we couldn’t even see the screen. They finally turned it around and showed us what we had been waiting to see. One little sac. We weren’t able to hear the heartbeat, but it was 156 bpm. They printed out some pictures and sent us on our way. They did however want me to start taking progesterone again. They said my progesterone levels were fine, but I think it’s so standard for them to have their patients take it, they told me to as well. Of course I will do anything to make this pregnancy stick. So I was on that for 5 whole weeks.
I was still in a bit of denial. It didn’t feel real. But boy did it hit JJ. He got super emotional that first week after the ultrasound. He put the pics up on the fridge and told me that he would just stare at it several times a day while I was at work. I saw him cry more in that first week than probably ever before. It was the sweetest thing. Since the RE had not been treating me, they released us to my OB after that first appointment. We had our second appointment, first with the OB, on January 24th. They didn’t do an ultrasound that day, but they did use the doppler and we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. I couldn’t believe how fast it was. It was 177 bpm. They said everything sounded good and that I didn’t need to come back for another month.
So that’s the doctor side of things. The week we found out back in December, I got pretty sick. I had a fever and cold symptoms or the flu. I didn’t want to take anything though which made it worse, and last twice as long. Luckily I had two weeks off of work b/c there is no way I could have worked through that. Over Christmas I was still feeling crappy and finally the following week started to get over my cold. But then the morning sickness set in. Still to this day I haven’t gotten sick, but for about 5 weeks I felt like I could at any moment all day long. It was quite miserable. We tried everything and just learned that I needed to be constantly eating. I also am not able to swallow pills anymore. It’s like my throat closes up and I gag. So we had to find some chewable vitamins for me to take instead. Over the last two weeks I’ve started to feel better so I think the end is in sight. I’ve also started to get uncomfortable in my pants. Most of the time I keep them unbuttoned and it is much better. Yesterday I went and bought the Bella Band and put it on during lunch but it was almost just as uncomfortable. I got a small which I think would be the right size for me, but maybe I was wearing it wrong. I’ll work on that some more.
We told my dad last weekend. We gave him a “late Christmas gift.” It was a “this is what the world’s greatest grandpa looks like “t-shirt. He opened it up and laughed at first, and then looked at me and said, do you have something to tell me? I nodded and we both just started crying. We called my brother that afternoon to tell him and he was actually more excited than I thought he would be. He’s a 21 year old boy who doesn’t care about much, but he did genuinely seem happy. Now that we’ve reached the 12th week, we are telling everyone. I told my grandma and some extended family yesterday and obviously all of you today.
Whew - kudos to you who made it all the way through this post! Basically what it boils down to is I think acupuncture worked for me. I have to believe it did. Even though the doctor only really had one appointment that could have affected the outcome of that cycle, we had failed on our own numerous times, and then as soon as I start seeing her, I’m pregnant. I have continued to see her, but just not as often. We went to every two weeks and just yesterday she bumped me to every four. For those of you still TTC who have not looked into acupuncture, I strongly recommend it. I don’t know what she/it did, but it worked. Now, I think that has caught you up on everything that’s been happening the past several weeks. I went through a bit of a dry spell on my blog because I wasn’t sure what to write about. Now that I’m open about this, I will definitely do updates, but also my normal blog posts about projects, cooking, JJ spilling ice cream in the bed – love you, honey. I really appreciate all the support you have given me over the last year and a half. I have learned so much from all of you and made it through some of my toughest days. I will still be there to support each and every one of you as well. I don’t feel like I will be out of the woods until we bring a healthy baby home.
