We had our anatomy ultrasound today where they look at all the parts (heart, kidneys, stomach, bones, etc.) and found out that we are officially going to be the parents of two little BOYS! Neither baby was shy about showing us the goods. As soon as the ultrasound tech put his wand over baby A he had his legs spread like he was telling us, "Hey guys, check out what's going on HERE!". And baby B was just as open about sharing his gender. But his little hand was up by his face after we saw the goods like he was embarrassed. It was cute :) We're pretty sure of the names we like, but we haven't finalized anything yet.
I haven't had an overly emotional pregnancy like you sometimes hear about. But after I found out for sure that I'm going to have two sons, I get choked up every time I start really thinking about it! I still can't believe this is happening to us. At the beginning of the year we weren't sure we would ever have kids, and now look where we are.
They gave us a cd of pictures but it has about 394 folders in it for some reason so hopefully Brent will figure it out when he gets home so we can post some!
Friday, November 19, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
This looks like a fun pillow
Let's face it. I don't have too much going on right now. Besides the fact that my awesome brother-in-law came up to visit us this past weekend, the main thing I think about are babies, babies, BABIES! And I figure I've waited my turn long enough for this whole pregnancy thing that I deserve it.
I feel like I've had a fairly easy pregnancy. I don't have much to complain about (and I really don't want to complain about anything anyway!), but I've realized that I am a total hypochondriac right now. I didn't realize that pregnancy was so full of little aches, pains and stabbing sensations. So when I feel something like that I automatically assume something is very wrong.
Take my poor cervix, for example. It's just down there doing it's own little cervix-y thing, all closed up and keeping my babies safely on the inside. Last week, however, it decided to start hurting. Like someone was taking a needle and stabbing it. Somehow I convinced myself that my cervix was dilating early and the babies were ready to come NOW. Luckily this happened right around my last doctor's appointment and he said it's pretty normal and it's probably just a baby positioned down there weird. That made me feel a little better, but it didn't help when the very next night I have a dream I was giving birth at 20 weeks and I wanted Drew Carey to deliver them (I guess he had some vacation time to take from Price is Right). So weird.
That's another thing. Pregnancy dreams are WEIRD. I've always had weird dreams. Like, vivid, detailed, intense dreams that I have no idea where they come from. But somehow pregnancy makes them even weirder! Last night I had a dream I was watching Mt. Rainier erupt while I was rubbing Macie's tummy. She started growling and I looked over to see what she was mad about and Chip was driving away in a truck. On his own. And he was a good driver!
On Sunday my bladder started bugging me. I felt like I had to pee right after I peed. Literally after I finished, I felt like I had to go again. I knew what it meant. Bladder infection. Yuck. So today I finally sucked it up and went to have a pee test done. And of course I have to go to the walk-in clinic where all the sick people go. As soon as I walked through the door I grabbed a mask so I didn't have to breathe in their sick germs. The funniest part was people were going out of their way to walk around me. FAR around me. And I wasn't even sick! But they probably were, so they can keep their strep germs to themselves while I go try to aim my urine into a cup the size of the top of a soda bottle.
They called an hour later with the results and it turns out everything was perfectly clear. The nurse told me that I'm at the stage in pregnancy where the constant need to pee usually lets up. I asked her if this was the case with twins and she quickly changed her tune. Apparently one of the little turkeys (I'm guessing baby A since he/she is lower) decided that my bladder seemed like a good place to relocate. And so even after I pee I will still feel like I have to pee. I bet Baby A thinks it's a pretty funny trick to see how many times I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.
Now I'm just counting down the days until Friday when we find out for sure what's cooking in there. We know what Baby B is for sure, but Baby A is trying to be mysterious. I don't have any preferences, as long as both babies are healthy and growing away like they should. But I am so excited to find out for sure so I can start buying clothes!!!
I feel like I've had a fairly easy pregnancy. I don't have much to complain about (and I really don't want to complain about anything anyway!), but I've realized that I am a total hypochondriac right now. I didn't realize that pregnancy was so full of little aches, pains and stabbing sensations. So when I feel something like that I automatically assume something is very wrong.
Take my poor cervix, for example. It's just down there doing it's own little cervix-y thing, all closed up and keeping my babies safely on the inside. Last week, however, it decided to start hurting. Like someone was taking a needle and stabbing it. Somehow I convinced myself that my cervix was dilating early and the babies were ready to come NOW. Luckily this happened right around my last doctor's appointment and he said it's pretty normal and it's probably just a baby positioned down there weird. That made me feel a little better, but it didn't help when the very next night I have a dream I was giving birth at 20 weeks and I wanted Drew Carey to deliver them (I guess he had some vacation time to take from Price is Right). So weird.
That's another thing. Pregnancy dreams are WEIRD. I've always had weird dreams. Like, vivid, detailed, intense dreams that I have no idea where they come from. But somehow pregnancy makes them even weirder! Last night I had a dream I was watching Mt. Rainier erupt while I was rubbing Macie's tummy. She started growling and I looked over to see what she was mad about and Chip was driving away in a truck. On his own. And he was a good driver!
On Sunday my bladder started bugging me. I felt like I had to pee right after I peed. Literally after I finished, I felt like I had to go again. I knew what it meant. Bladder infection. Yuck. So today I finally sucked it up and went to have a pee test done. And of course I have to go to the walk-in clinic where all the sick people go. As soon as I walked through the door I grabbed a mask so I didn't have to breathe in their sick germs. The funniest part was people were going out of their way to walk around me. FAR around me. And I wasn't even sick! But they probably were, so they can keep their strep germs to themselves while I go try to aim my urine into a cup the size of the top of a soda bottle.
They called an hour later with the results and it turns out everything was perfectly clear. The nurse told me that I'm at the stage in pregnancy where the constant need to pee usually lets up. I asked her if this was the case with twins and she quickly changed her tune. Apparently one of the little turkeys (I'm guessing baby A since he/she is lower) decided that my bladder seemed like a good place to relocate. And so even after I pee I will still feel like I have to pee. I bet Baby A thinks it's a pretty funny trick to see how many times I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.
Now I'm just counting down the days until Friday when we find out for sure what's cooking in there. We know what Baby B is for sure, but Baby A is trying to be mysterious. I don't have any preferences, as long as both babies are healthy and growing away like they should. But I am so excited to find out for sure so I can start buying clothes!!!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
My First Craving
I haven't really had any cravings during my pregnancy. Sometimes certain food sounds good, but for the most part I'm just trying to avoid stuff that makes me gag. Last week, however, I got my first craving. Caramel popcorn! Normally I LOVE dessert and sweet stuff, but since I'm not eating chocolate while I'm pregnant (I haven't had it since August 3rd and I actually don't miss it anymore!) and super sweet stuff like cake and cookies is overload for me, I think caramel popcorn is the perfect mix of salty and sweet. And man did I want it!
I went to the outlets with my friend and her two boys last Friday and got some at the Rocky Mountain Candy Store. It was good, but not what I was looking for. Then I saw the Target weekly ad on Sunday. There it was! Holiday Poppycock! I had to have it, but since it was Sunday I was forced to wait a day. So yesterday morning off I went to Target.
I got there and they were finishing up the holiday section. I didn't want to have to ask where it was, but I couldn't find it so I had to give in. Even though it was in the ad, they didn't have it yet (BOO!) but they said the normal poppycock was in front with the nuts. So I went up there. I couldn't find it there either, so I asked one of the male workers. Do you know how embarrassing it is to ask for Poppycock? I had to say, "Do you guys have Poppycock, you know, caramel popcorn, in stock?" I was afraid if I just asked for poppycock he would think I was hitting on him. We looked high and low, but they didn't have any.
So next I went to Safeway. Nothing. Big fat fail. I was getting hungry and tired so I decided to make Bartell's my last stop. Negative. Seriously! It's not THAT uncommon! Give a pregnant girl a break! I got home and ate lunch and started calling around to places. Luckily the first place I called (Walgreens) had it! I had a blood draw and an ultrasound yesterday so before my appointment I left some extra time to stop. I bought 2 bags and when I checked out the lady that rang me up said, "You must have been the one that called earlier." I guess it's not every day you have a frantic girl calling in to see if they have Poppycock in stock.
My blood draw took 5 minutes (even though I left time for an hour since it took forever last time) so I had a lot of time to kill before my doctors appointment. So i spent my time in the car stuffing my face with Poppycock. And it was as gloriously delicious as I remembered it. After our doctor's appointment I went back and bought two more bags. Will I eat it all before I move on to something else? Probably not. But at least I have a food storage amount of Poppycock in our cabinet that would make our bishop proud.
I went to the outlets with my friend and her two boys last Friday and got some at the Rocky Mountain Candy Store. It was good, but not what I was looking for. Then I saw the Target weekly ad on Sunday. There it was! Holiday Poppycock! I had to have it, but since it was Sunday I was forced to wait a day. So yesterday morning off I went to Target.
I got there and they were finishing up the holiday section. I didn't want to have to ask where it was, but I couldn't find it so I had to give in. Even though it was in the ad, they didn't have it yet (BOO!) but they said the normal poppycock was in front with the nuts. So I went up there. I couldn't find it there either, so I asked one of the male workers. Do you know how embarrassing it is to ask for Poppycock? I had to say, "Do you guys have Poppycock, you know, caramel popcorn, in stock?" I was afraid if I just asked for poppycock he would think I was hitting on him. We looked high and low, but they didn't have any.
So next I went to Safeway. Nothing. Big fat fail. I was getting hungry and tired so I decided to make Bartell's my last stop. Negative. Seriously! It's not THAT uncommon! Give a pregnant girl a break! I got home and ate lunch and started calling around to places. Luckily the first place I called (Walgreens) had it! I had a blood draw and an ultrasound yesterday so before my appointment I left some extra time to stop. I bought 2 bags and when I checked out the lady that rang me up said, "You must have been the one that called earlier." I guess it's not every day you have a frantic girl calling in to see if they have Poppycock in stock.
My blood draw took 5 minutes (even though I left time for an hour since it took forever last time) so I had a lot of time to kill before my doctors appointment. So i spent my time in the car stuffing my face with Poppycock. And it was as gloriously delicious as I remembered it. After our doctor's appointment I went back and bought two more bags. Will I eat it all before I move on to something else? Probably not. But at least I have a food storage amount of Poppycock in our cabinet that would make our bishop proud.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
IVF
I wanted to blog about our IVF procedures and I figure I should do it now before I forget.
We had to do two invitro fertilization (IVF) procedures to get these two little turkeys to grow in my womb. We did a fresh and a frozen cycle and the two were so different in terms of how I felt both physically and emotionally.
Towards the end of February we started our first (fresh) cycle. For the first two weeks, all I did was take a birth control pill. They want to have complete control of my hormones so taking the pill flat lined them so the fertility place could make them do what they want. After two weeks I began Lupron shots. Lupron is the hormone they give 8 year old girls that start their period too early to make them stop. It has other functions, but that's what I got out of it. Basically it was just another thing to suppress my hormones. I did the Lupron shots (in my stomach) until the day before the egg retrieval.
After a couple weeks of shots, they checked my hormones and they were low. So I got to start my stimulation medications. I did my Lupron shot in the morning and then in the evening I had to do two different kinds of stim meds. One of them burned like a mofo so I got a free swear word ever night when I did that one. Some nights I didn't have to use it, but for the majority of the time, I made it count. After I started those I had to go in to the fertility place every day/every other day to see how my follicles were responding. They had to monitor me VERY closely because they didn't want me to hyper ovulate, which can be extremely dangerous. I was a slow responder for the first couple days (they had me on a super low dose just to be careful) but once the meds kicked in my ovaries did a great job! The first few days I was paranoid I wouldn't respond and they would have to cancel the cycle so I would lay on the floor with my legs up on a wall in an 'L' shape to get the blood to flow to my reproductive parts. Hey, it might be silly, but I would do whatever I could to help. So I would go to Seattle every day to get an ultrasound and a blood draw to make sure my follicles were still growing. Finally, 10 days after I started the stim meds, my follicles were ready to go!
They want your follicles to be around 15-18mm for them to do the procedure. I had 18 follicles growing. That means that my ovaries were the size of lemons and I was super tender and looked a little pregnant without actually being pregnant. Once we got word the egg retrieval was a go, I had to get my first butt shot. 36 hours exactly before the procedure was scheduled, Dr. Brent Anderson had to administer the shot. It was an HCG shot to get my eggs to mature the rest of the way and get ready to be harvested. I was terrified because the needle was huge, but it actually wasn't that bad.
So in we went to get my eggs taken out. The worst part of the whole thing was the stupid IV they gave me in my hand. It hurt so bad! And I remember being worried the medicine they gave me wouldn't knock me out. So they gave me extra. And boy oh boy I was out cold. Brent and I had a goofing around conversation before I went in for surgery about his part in all of this and apparently when I started coming to that's the thing I was most concerned about. I turned to Brent (I don't remember this. It's just what I'm told) with the nurse in the room and asked, very seriously, if he spilled his specimen. I guess drugged up me doesn't have a good memory, because a few seconds after he answered me, I asked him again. In front of the nurse. "Did you spill your stuff?" Poor guy. And then I wouldn't stop talking about how amazing the apple juice they gave me was. I liked it so much I asked for another one. Because it was the best. apple. juice. ever. This is why I'm glad I never did drugs.
The next day they called to update us with our eggs. They had gotten 17 eggs, 13 were mature. Out of those 13 they did ICSI (where they pick a sperm and put it in my egg) to those 13 and 10 fertilized. Of those 10, 9 divided and started growing. They watched the eggs for 5 days and after 5 days we had the embryo transfer. When we went in for the transfer 7 of them were blastocysts (excellent quality embryos, so they were very excited) that we could use for IVF. Since we didn't want to have a future reality show, we used two of the 7. The other 5 got frozen for later use.
5 days after our egg retrieval we had the embryo transfer. 90-45 minutes before the procedure you have to drink 35 oz of water and not pee. And I had to take Valium. I learned two things. Drinking that much water at one time and not peeing is torture, and Valium is fun. Really fun. I laughed a LOT. I was a lot more outgoing than I normally am, too. So we went in to the transfer room with my bladder as full as could be. They showed us our little embryos on the screen. They did assisted hatching, where they take a little laser and make an incision in the shell of the egg to help the embryo hatch out. Apparently when you get pregnant naturally, your body had to do this on it's own. So they do it to help it get out of the shell and (hopefully) implant. They did a stomach ultrasound (and pushed down very hard on my full bladder) and inserted a tube into my uterus where they wanted to put the embryos. After everything was all set up (and I was mostly focused on not peeing on the doctor) they brought the embryos in and we watched on the ultrasound as they transferred them to my uterus. I had to lay there for 10 minutes after everything was done to make sure they settled. I have never had a more relieving pee in my life as I did after the embryo transfer.
The next 48 hours after were spent on bed rest and for ten days after the transfer I had to take it easy. I also had to do daily progesterone shots in my butt. Dr. Anderson administered those (seriously if you ever need a shot in your booty, Brent is your guy). I was terrified of these because they were supposed to hurt so bad (and the needle is HUGE), but it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be. I also had to wear estrogen patches to help with that hormone. They were just little sticker-like things that I put on my stomach. Ten days after the transfer I went in for a blood draw to see if I was pregnant. I wasn't. So I cried a bunch of tears, ripped off my estrogen patches, and then chugged a bunch of Diet Coke and went to Las Vegas for my birthday.
At the end of May we started our first frozen cycle. From May until the middle of July all I had to do was take the birth control pill. Then I had to wear the estrogen patches to help the lining of my uterus grow. I had to go in to the fertility place twice before my egg retrieval to make sure everything looked good. TWICE! That's it! 6 days before the transfer we started progesterone shots. It was heaven.
So the transfer went the same as the first for the most part. We used 2 of our leftover 5 frozen embryos and they said they dethawed beautifully. We did the transfer on Brent's birthday and I told Brent that when our kids learn about sex and calculate when they were conceived I can tell them not to worry because they weren't conceived on dad's birthday, they were dethawed. I drank all my water, they pushed on my stomach and off I went to bedrest. At 5 days after the transfer everything started smelling stronger. That's the first thing I noticed the first time I was pregnant so I started wondering. At 7 days after I couldn't wait anymore and I took a pregnancy test (somehow with the first cycle I had the willpower not to do this). It came up with two dark lines RIGHT away. I also did tests on day 8 and 9. Both super positive! We went in for our blood test and our number was through the roof! The nurse actually told us, "I don't say this very often, but you can be VERY excited about that number".
I had to continue with my daily butt shots and estrogen patches until 10 weeks of pregnancy. So the total shot count of the first cycle was 57 (43 in the stomach, 14 butt) and 59 the second cycle (all butt) for a grand total of 116. And I had 25 blood draws. After all this I will never complain about a shot again.
Brent and I are so lucky that we had the opportunity to do IVF. All the pain, tears, shots, money and frustration was more worth it than I could ever describe. Being pregnant is the most amazing experience and I am so lucky that I get to go through it. Now our next big milestone is finding out what these babies are for sure (they have a guess, but aren't positive) in a week and a half!
We had to do two invitro fertilization (IVF) procedures to get these two little turkeys to grow in my womb. We did a fresh and a frozen cycle and the two were so different in terms of how I felt both physically and emotionally.
Towards the end of February we started our first (fresh) cycle. For the first two weeks, all I did was take a birth control pill. They want to have complete control of my hormones so taking the pill flat lined them so the fertility place could make them do what they want. After two weeks I began Lupron shots. Lupron is the hormone they give 8 year old girls that start their period too early to make them stop. It has other functions, but that's what I got out of it. Basically it was just another thing to suppress my hormones. I did the Lupron shots (in my stomach) until the day before the egg retrieval.
After a couple weeks of shots, they checked my hormones and they were low. So I got to start my stimulation medications. I did my Lupron shot in the morning and then in the evening I had to do two different kinds of stim meds. One of them burned like a mofo so I got a free swear word ever night when I did that one. Some nights I didn't have to use it, but for the majority of the time, I made it count. After I started those I had to go in to the fertility place every day/every other day to see how my follicles were responding. They had to monitor me VERY closely because they didn't want me to hyper ovulate, which can be extremely dangerous. I was a slow responder for the first couple days (they had me on a super low dose just to be careful) but once the meds kicked in my ovaries did a great job! The first few days I was paranoid I wouldn't respond and they would have to cancel the cycle so I would lay on the floor with my legs up on a wall in an 'L' shape to get the blood to flow to my reproductive parts. Hey, it might be silly, but I would do whatever I could to help. So I would go to Seattle every day to get an ultrasound and a blood draw to make sure my follicles were still growing. Finally, 10 days after I started the stim meds, my follicles were ready to go!
They want your follicles to be around 15-18mm for them to do the procedure. I had 18 follicles growing. That means that my ovaries were the size of lemons and I was super tender and looked a little pregnant without actually being pregnant. Once we got word the egg retrieval was a go, I had to get my first butt shot. 36 hours exactly before the procedure was scheduled, Dr. Brent Anderson had to administer the shot. It was an HCG shot to get my eggs to mature the rest of the way and get ready to be harvested. I was terrified because the needle was huge, but it actually wasn't that bad.
So in we went to get my eggs taken out. The worst part of the whole thing was the stupid IV they gave me in my hand. It hurt so bad! And I remember being worried the medicine they gave me wouldn't knock me out. So they gave me extra. And boy oh boy I was out cold. Brent and I had a goofing around conversation before I went in for surgery about his part in all of this and apparently when I started coming to that's the thing I was most concerned about. I turned to Brent (I don't remember this. It's just what I'm told) with the nurse in the room and asked, very seriously, if he spilled his specimen. I guess drugged up me doesn't have a good memory, because a few seconds after he answered me, I asked him again. In front of the nurse. "Did you spill your stuff?" Poor guy. And then I wouldn't stop talking about how amazing the apple juice they gave me was. I liked it so much I asked for another one. Because it was the best. apple. juice. ever. This is why I'm glad I never did drugs.
The next day they called to update us with our eggs. They had gotten 17 eggs, 13 were mature. Out of those 13 they did ICSI (where they pick a sperm and put it in my egg) to those 13 and 10 fertilized. Of those 10, 9 divided and started growing. They watched the eggs for 5 days and after 5 days we had the embryo transfer. When we went in for the transfer 7 of them were blastocysts (excellent quality embryos, so they were very excited) that we could use for IVF. Since we didn't want to have a future reality show, we used two of the 7. The other 5 got frozen for later use.
5 days after our egg retrieval we had the embryo transfer. 90-45 minutes before the procedure you have to drink 35 oz of water and not pee. And I had to take Valium. I learned two things. Drinking that much water at one time and not peeing is torture, and Valium is fun. Really fun. I laughed a LOT. I was a lot more outgoing than I normally am, too. So we went in to the transfer room with my bladder as full as could be. They showed us our little embryos on the screen. They did assisted hatching, where they take a little laser and make an incision in the shell of the egg to help the embryo hatch out. Apparently when you get pregnant naturally, your body had to do this on it's own. So they do it to help it get out of the shell and (hopefully) implant. They did a stomach ultrasound (and pushed down very hard on my full bladder) and inserted a tube into my uterus where they wanted to put the embryos. After everything was all set up (and I was mostly focused on not peeing on the doctor) they brought the embryos in and we watched on the ultrasound as they transferred them to my uterus. I had to lay there for 10 minutes after everything was done to make sure they settled. I have never had a more relieving pee in my life as I did after the embryo transfer.
The next 48 hours after were spent on bed rest and for ten days after the transfer I had to take it easy. I also had to do daily progesterone shots in my butt. Dr. Anderson administered those (seriously if you ever need a shot in your booty, Brent is your guy). I was terrified of these because they were supposed to hurt so bad (and the needle is HUGE), but it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be. I also had to wear estrogen patches to help with that hormone. They were just little sticker-like things that I put on my stomach. Ten days after the transfer I went in for a blood draw to see if I was pregnant. I wasn't. So I cried a bunch of tears, ripped off my estrogen patches, and then chugged a bunch of Diet Coke and went to Las Vegas for my birthday.
At the end of May we started our first frozen cycle. From May until the middle of July all I had to do was take the birth control pill. Then I had to wear the estrogen patches to help the lining of my uterus grow. I had to go in to the fertility place twice before my egg retrieval to make sure everything looked good. TWICE! That's it! 6 days before the transfer we started progesterone shots. It was heaven.
So the transfer went the same as the first for the most part. We used 2 of our leftover 5 frozen embryos and they said they dethawed beautifully. We did the transfer on Brent's birthday and I told Brent that when our kids learn about sex and calculate when they were conceived I can tell them not to worry because they weren't conceived on dad's birthday, they were dethawed. I drank all my water, they pushed on my stomach and off I went to bedrest. At 5 days after the transfer everything started smelling stronger. That's the first thing I noticed the first time I was pregnant so I started wondering. At 7 days after I couldn't wait anymore and I took a pregnancy test (somehow with the first cycle I had the willpower not to do this). It came up with two dark lines RIGHT away. I also did tests on day 8 and 9. Both super positive! We went in for our blood test and our number was through the roof! The nurse actually told us, "I don't say this very often, but you can be VERY excited about that number".
I had to continue with my daily butt shots and estrogen patches until 10 weeks of pregnancy. So the total shot count of the first cycle was 57 (43 in the stomach, 14 butt) and 59 the second cycle (all butt) for a grand total of 116. And I had 25 blood draws. After all this I will never complain about a shot again.
Brent and I are so lucky that we had the opportunity to do IVF. All the pain, tears, shots, money and frustration was more worth it than I could ever describe. Being pregnant is the most amazing experience and I am so lucky that I get to go through it. Now our next big milestone is finding out what these babies are for sure (they have a guess, but aren't positive) in a week and a half!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Happy Halloween!
Even though he spent the majority of the day causing mischief, he still let us put on his costume for a little bit to take pictures. He didn't mind the cape, but he wasn't a fan of the crown. It didn't stay on too long.
Both doggies stuck in Chip's cage. They weren't even mad. Apparently they thought it was hilarious. Macie didn't even care when Chip kept pinning her against the side. She just kept smiling!
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