Symptoms

I've been pretty fortunate with the pregnancy symptoms, mainly by dodging the morning sickness bullet. My weight gain has been kept within reason. There's the standard round ligament pain and now that I'm getting bigger I have some back pain by the end of the day. I've had some cravings, but not too many. The weirdest one being meat sauce. For a while there we had spaghetti or some other meat sauce based dish at least twice a week. Honestly, I could have just eaten a bowl of meat sauce, hold the pasta! Then it was on to fruit. I'm not much of a fruit person (I prefer veggies), but I would eat at least 3 pieces of fresh fruit a day. That one too has passed (but I still try to eat at least two pieces). Right now I don't think I'm craving much of anything in particular.

Actually, I do have a craving...I crave the day I can eat a black bean and not worry that I'll be up all night with trapped wind! I heard that pregnant women fart more, but really that hasn't been an issue with me. It's the stuff that never comes out, just moving around my belly causing me major pain. I learned the hard way that cabbage is out for the rest of this pregnancy. I'm afraid to eat Brussels sprouts, which I love. On our anniversary we went out for a late dinner (problem number 1). I had a plate of carby pasta (problem number 2) with spicy sauce (problem number what-the-heck-was-I-thinking!). It took TWO DAYS until I finally felt better after that meal! Another problem is that a meal that's perfectly fine one night, will have me up all night the next time I make it. If this baby comes out with even half the gas that I've been having we're in for some long days and nights.

Oh, and I told Wes if this is a boy we're probably going to want to name him Steven Gerrard since it seems he already has his shootin' boots on! I've been feeling the baby move since about 17 weeks. It was funny because at an earlier appointment, before I could feel the baby, the doctor had the doppler on to hear the heartbeat. She had a slightly horrified look on her face when she told us those noises we were hearing were the baby kicking. I think she was nervous  for me! So far no karate chops to the bladder, but I know they're in my future. Last night was the first time I could actually see my stomach move when the baby kicked which was pretty cool. :)

Well, hello there bloggity blog!

See, I told you I'd be back!

Things are settling down a bit at work, but there's lots going on at home.

Where to start?? I'll just throw it out there....I'm pregnant! Last time I talked about the trials and tribulations of our fertility life I was making yet another appointment for my husband at the clinic. It felt like the poor guy was in there giving a sample every other week! In November we were both being treated for the various infections secretly making their rounds around our bodies, and I had to be vaccinated again for German Measles because my results were in the gray area. Since we weren't supposed to get pregnant for a few weeks after that vaccine, plus the holidays coming up, we had decided we wouldn't pursue anything at the clinic until after the first of the year. In mid-December we had a follow-up appointment at the urologist and all signs were pointing to IVF with ICSI. The plan was to really try and get my husband's numbers up so we could try and IUI which was covered by our insurance.
Christmas came a long and my monthly present didn't show up. Those freakin' tests are so expensive so I decided I would wait one day longer than I ever did before and sure enough...two lines. Holy crap. I called the clinic when I got to work and told my nurse I had a positive test and I didn't know what to do. I've never had one before! She just laughed at me and I went in the next day for a blood test. By that time I was 5 weeks, so the next week we went in, had the ultrasound to see the heartbeat, my progesterone was good so I didn't need supplements, and they told us we were off to the OB!
Today I'm 22 weeks! My due date is September 1st. We had our anatomy scan last week which was the first scan we'd had since 6 weeks. I was excited and nervous, but we got some good shots of the little one and everything looked good. Pregnancy is weird, so expect posts about it. Now that I have more time I'm going to try and post more non-pregnancy related posts too.

The other good thing that's happened since I've been gone?? My husband got a J-O-B! Yahoo!!!! Obviously this couldn't have happened at a better time. We've never had two incomes while we were married and well, it's pretty nice! What's going to happen with my job once the baby's born? That's all up in the air and hopefully it will become more apparent over the next couple of months.

So, I know some of you aren't into babies, but expect this blog to become a bit baby-heavy. I totally understand if you skip reading for awhile. No need to ask if we're excited. This question is my biggest pet peeve. I'm a 37 year old married woman who has been trying to conceive for 18 months. What do you think??