Happy (1st???) Mothers Day

I heard that quite a few times yesterday. Evoked mixed feelings in me. Part of me said yes, it is my first, the other part of me said no, it isnt my first.

I guess I have a love hate relationship with ‘my first mothers day’ …I love that I finally got to celebrate having my boy here with me, but I hate that my babies that didnt make it didnt get to celebrate it with me. I (literally) shed tears for them.  If that makes any sense at all. 

Social media was flooded with Mothers Day stuff nonstop from Friday on I believe. The remnants are still floating around. I took part in posting some things, because I did have a great weekend & I did enjoy celebrating it. And I fought hard as hell to get here. 

But my heart still went out to all those hurting. I spent many years grieving on this holiday, and like I said, part of me still did mourn. However my miracle made it a joyous day overall for me. I hugged and kissed him a little more than usual (if thats even possible?) & thanked God a million times over. 

A few pics from our weekend-

Thinking of everyone who had a rough few days, the best is yet to come ❤️ 

First OB Appointment

Today was our first OB appointment with this pregnancy. Last pregnancy we also made it to our first OB appointment, only a week later to be devastated with a missed miscarriage. 

The timeline of our last pregnancy has been haunting me a bit this week. I think a lot of it has to do with the dates starting to overlap…like our last pregnancy our 8 and a half week ultrasound was great, but at our 9 and half week appt there was no heartbeat.  Our 8 week ultrasound is approaching this week and I cant help but be incredibly nervous. I cant fathom bad news. 

Anyways, today’s appointment was pretty run of the mill. Bloodwork, urine sample, paperwork. My urine showed I am slightly dehydrated, which is my fault. I know I havent been drinking as much as I should. With the stomach wounds, I have been trying to limit the amount of up and down movement each day. More water=more up & down. But I am feeling much better surgery wise, so I will make more effort in the H20 department now. 

We were able to set up our 12 week doppler scan in a month, and also the Panorama blood test. Ive set both of these up before and had to cancel due to loss, so of course I was hesitant. Yes, part of me is extremely excited, but I dont want my heart broken into a million pieces again. 

In healing news, two of my bandages fell off as the RE said they would, only 1 left and its the big daddy so I suspect it will be around a bit longer. I have had very light brown spotting when I wipe the past 2 days again ((sigh)), but I am trying simply to ignore it. I am not sure if its leftover from the surgery (which I was told could be very likely to happen) or if its from the SCH. Who knows at this point. 

Since I have been bedridden, we have hired a cleaning lady. We talked about this in the past, and decided now would be the time to do it. We both like a clean house, and I simply cannot do it right now. My husband tries his best, but it is too much for just him. It is his busy time at work now and there is just no way. This being said, she starts Wednesday and I hope she is good and can continue throughout the duration of our pregnancy.

Mothers Day was strange for me this year. I wasnt really sure how to act. It was my first one pregnant, as the past few years I have been recovering from IVF losses. Those sad thoughts stayed with me through most of the day although I tried my best to stay positive about the life growing inside me. Pregnancy after loss is hard, but my mom & I spent the day watching a movie, ordering take out, & making the best of it all. Im so glad I have her. Things could be a lot worse and in no way do I want to sound ungrateful, because that is far from the case. 

Any symptoms, etc?

Itchy on my stomach this week (have heard sometimes thats a pregnancy thing), cravings, tired, thirsty in the middle of the night, and swollen boobs. Ive gained 5 pounds in a week…Im sure its a combo of the bedrest and cravings. Oh well, they didnt seem to concerned today about it. I still cant bring myself to do bumpdates yet even though I think about them frequently. 

Prayers this week for a strong, growing baby!!!

Faith

The ups & downs of pregnancy after loss continue. I do feel like I am starting to get a little bit accustomed to it which seems bizarre since its so early on (6 weeks, 3 days).  

The bleeding stopped for a few days & has revisited as of last night. I had some slight cramping (for about 10 minutes) and when I went to the bathroom, pink it was. I showed my mom today because I cant really decide if its bleeding or spotting, and she said its spotting. This makes me feel somewhat better. Hubs says the same. At most, I have like a quarter size drop of blood on a pad over like a 5 or 6 hour span.  Thanks to all the ladies out there who have reached out to me & comforted me with their stories of bleeding during pregnancy that did not end in miscarriage. That & God get me through these long days. 

Anyways, due to my wonderful aunts who were in not long ago from out of state, my mom & I had about $250 worth of free coupons to a local department store here in town. When they were here, they earned “bucks” for all their purchases and the bucks could only be used on certain (future) dates. Well, the date for the bucks to be redeemed was today & they have already gone back north. Hence, we got to spend the bucks! Awesome right?

Despite all the bleeding, and doubting, and how early on the pregnancy is, we decided to spend the free money on baby items. Meaning, we decided to choose faith & believe as much as possible today that this is our take home baby. Let me tell you, doing this was not easy at all for me.  In fact, I had a lot of fear, knowing things could easily go left at anytime.  But I have to try and embrace this. 

Here is a pic of what we got (tried to keep it gender neutral)–

Adorable right?!? I also got a casual blue dress that I will wear to one of my bestest friends gender reveal this upcoming weekend. I havent mentioned it before, but she is about 3 months ahead of me. We are both so excited to go through this together & I pray everyday it continues to stay this way.  Ive already lost several pregnancies while pregnant at the same time as close friends. It sucks to say the least. 

Symptoms? 

Pimples!! I never break out but right now I have about 4 popping up. Extreme thirst in the middle of the night. Peeing all the time, & pretty tired. Mostly hungry this week rather than a lot of aversions. Craving fried food, I know, bad!

Praying for a heartbeat this Thursday at our ultrasound. Praying to defy all the odds stacked against us. It would be really really nice to have a Mothers Day down in the books without so much heartache. Please pray for us. 

Father’s Day

Well, we survived another Father’s Day.

As Sunday came to a close, the hubby & I discussed how we have come to dislike Mother’s Day & Father’s Day for the most part.  I dislike Mother’s Day because of my yearning to be a mother, and my hubs dislikes it because of the difficult relationship he has endured with his mother throughout his life.  He also hates the fact that I want something that he can’t give me right now.  He isn’t a fan of Father’s Day because of his own desire to be a father, and I have trouble with it because of the not-so-easy relationship I have had with my own father growing up.  And then of course, I loathe that I can’t give my husband what he wants.

Despite our disliking, we decided to make the best of it.  And thankfully we still had a great day, or weekend for that matter. Saturday we had “date night.”  We enjoyed dinner at Bonefish Grille, and the movie, Jurassic World (I highly recommend it). However, only I would get teary-eyed during a dinosaur movie. And I’m not even on any hormones!  My husband reassured me several times, “It’s just a movie & it’s just a dinosaur.”

We usually don’t get each other presents for Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, but I figured this year should be different. Although we do not have any children here physically, my husband is still the father to our 5 angel babies, and our fur babies. That being said, when he woke up, there was a gift bag on the counter for him with a card.  Inside, there were 2 new shirts from Macy’s (his favorite place to shop). Then we went to Target, and he got all new underwear and socks. Unreal that 3 packs of “X-Temp” underwear cost $60!! But hey, we will pay more to keep it cool down there! LOL. Afterwards, I went to Publix and picked up T-Bone steaks for dinner, and his favorite dessert, cheesecake, as a surprise.

  
During all of the running around on Father’s Day, I managed to get stung by a bee on my pinky toe, and good, old, Aunt Flow came in town.  Nice Father’s Day present, right?  Not! Oh, and how could I forget that as I was carrying in the groceries, my rotten Beagle, found a way to devour a pack of uncooked meatballs that I just bought. These events could have been a recipe for disaster, but I chose for them not to be.  Instead, I chose to make it all about my husband; making sure he knows just what a great father he is, and will be one day!

Letting You Go

Another Mother’s Day gone with no baby or baby bump.  I didn’t really feel the need to post yesterday because there wasn’t much to say.  I didn’t want to look at the negative part of the day if at all possible.  And to be honest, it really wasn’t that bad for me.  Every day surviving infertility is pretty damn hard, so the way I look at it is why should this one day be that much worse.

Yes, it stings, but not to the point of staying off social media curled up in my bed crying as I did with each miscarriage. Maybe I have become a little numbed to it all by now.  Maybe I just know that I am a mom, and I will see our kids again one day. Maybe I am confident our time is coming soon.  Maybe I felt more recognized this year because everyone finally knows our pain. Or maybe God just gave me peace all day.  I don’t know.  However, I do know that I still completely respect the feelings of all of those women out there who did curl up in their beds crying, shutting out the world.  In no way am I down playing your emotions, I have felt them all. Especially last Mothers Day, as I was in the midst of our first loss after 3 grueling months of IVF.

This year I decided to try to focus on the positive, and enjoying spending time with my mom.  We spent the day not talking about IF, or RPL, or kids.  Instead, we laid out by the pool, had lunch, & did some retail therapy (I did spoil myself a little!).  I bought her some pretty, bluish purple, Hydrangeas and she got me a beautiful necklace, too.  I must say, if I didn’t have my mom with me on Mother’s Day, there is no doubt I would have felt A LOT worse.  In fact, I am sure I would have been curled up in my bed angry at the world.  I have read many stories of women who are not only infertile, but who also do not have their mom here with them anymore–something I cannot even imagine.  I pray for these women.  For this reason alone (in my opinion), I have no business moping around on Mother’s Day when I could be spending quality time with my mom.

I don’t believe this Mothers Day was all that bad for my husband either.  He was on call all weekend, so he kept super busy.  We barely saw each other, as he worked over 60 + hours total for the week.  That’s the typical amount of working hours of a HVAC tech in Florida during the months of April-September.  I’m pretty used to it by now, even though the dogs & I miss him when he is gone.  He will also be on call for Father’s Day weekend.  Everyone he works with have their own children, and rightfully so, they want the day off to spend with their families.  Of course, we have discussed this and sure, it bothers us from time to time.  But, on the other hand, we understand, and we know that when we eventually have our family, we will want to spend those days together as well.  So, all we can do is make the best of it for now, right?

Anyways, as you know, last week we wrote a letter to our future child.  Since I wrote it, I have thought about it several times. Mostly about how I am excited to give it to him or her one day.  It is strange that I feel excitement for something that is probably at least a decade away.  This is one of the first times in my life I have experienced a feeling like this…a feeling a mother has about a specific, future event in their child’s life.  Yes, I have been excited about the thought of our child many times, but never a feeling like this about something in particular.  I must say, it was awesome!

There was something else that kept creeping into my mind all week though.  It was the need to start letting our twins from our last loss go.  As I was thinking about this, I started being brutally honest with myself, and I saw how I haven’t let the babies before them go yet either.  I never really had any time to; it was one loss right after the other.  Consequently, I should rephrase my statement to how I need to start letting all of our babies from every loss go.  Please realize when I say “letting go” I don’t mean forgetting about them, or never talking of them again. This isn’t possible.  They are our children and always will be. What I mean is letting them be at peace like they already are. I can still feel the tight grip of my hands and heart around each pregnancy and loss, and it is time to let it all go.  I can’t do it anymore.

So, stay tuned because we plan to do something very special to honor them soon.  There are several ideas that we have come up with. We even found a cemetery for the unborn in the area.  What’s most important is that we have come to realize that honoring these babies is another step for us in the healing process.  No different from us creating this blog, naming Isaiah when we found out his gender, or getting a bracelet with all of their birthstones.

There is no doubt that letting go will be the hardest part, but it will allow us to move forward with our heads and hearts.  It is the right thing to do.  I think for the very first time, I am starting to see the real meaning behind the saying, “let go and let God.”

Sheltering Her from the Storm This Mother’s Day

A different perspective for all the mom’s out there this Mother’s Day…really beautifully written.

Waiting for Baby Bird Ministries

Hey there Sweet Momma,

I know we have never met, but I’m going to venture off to say that Mother’s Day is a time of celebration for you. You wake up to eggs and burnt toast in bed. Flowers picked from the yard next to your pillow. You open gifts handcrafted with love. And read cards made by tiny hands and broken crayons. It’s a great day for you. And how could it not be as you are showered with lots of hugs and kisses from your little’s? Which is great!  You should be celebrated for all the sacrifices you make for your family. You should be recognized.  And applauded.  Because being a mother? It is not always easy.

But in the midst of your celebration this Sunday? Can you remember her? She is the one hiding in the back of the church. Last pew. Staring at her feet with…

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This is What it Feels Like When Dates Collide

As I sit at Quest this morning, waiting to get more tubes of blood taken, I cant help think of all the dates starting to collide. Every day is a now a day that could have been, or should have been, something special in one of our babies journeys.

Exactly a year ago today, we were undergoing our first egg retrieval for our first IVF.  A few weeks later, we celebrated the news on Easter Sunday that we would be having our family finally.  Well, the due date of our first child passed on Christmas Eve 2014, the same day we celebrated the news of our 3rd pregnancy.  If our first pregnancy would have continued, as we dreamed it would, our baby would be 3 months old today.

The due date of our second is now slowly creeping up, in early May to be exact.  Just in time for Mothers Day.  I would soon be taking my maternity leave. This is around the time that all of my pregnant friends will start delivering their babies (I have 9 friends in my life currently pregnant-save that for another post).  Their deliveries range anywhere from May to September.

If our last pregnancy would have continued, we would be more than half way through it by now.  My mom, aunt, & cousins had already begun planning our baby shower, looking at places to rent & food to have.  We intended to put all the finishing touches on it this month while they are in town. But all that baby shower planning has been thrown to the wayside.  Instead, everything beautiful that could have been, or should have been, has been replaced by serial betas, hysteroscopies, blood tests, and Aunt Flow among so many others.

And the kicker to all this… the lady who just drew the first round of my blood (I’ll be here for a few hours), started talking to me about her prior pregnancies as if I was pregnant. No, ma’am, sorry, just because I get all the blood tests pregnant women do, doesn’t mean I am actually pregnant! So, please don’t assume in a carefree laughing matter that I am. Or, you might just get hurt.