Adventure Girls and Ferd

Loss moms tend to experience a tremendous amount of guilt. When your baby dies with no official explanation as to what happened you constantly search for how you might've contributed to the situation. Was it something I ate? Something I did? Something I didn't do? It takes a while to accept that often things just are, and that's the best explanation we can hope for. One of my biggest moments of guilt isn't so much about what I could've done to save Sylvie but related to how I handled her loss. The day we lost her we went to L&D because we had made it to 21w so it was now a baby and not just a fetus. The nurses hooked me up to the monitor and Sylvie was doing great a strong heart beat and lots of swooshing sounds that indicated her movement.  The monitor was so loud and her movements were so loud that at one point I asked the nurses if they could turn down the monitor because the noise was distracting.  Little did I know that would be one of the last times I ...

5w6d today and the pregnancy symptoms are starting to kick in. Not fun but I will embrace each of them if it brings us our take-home baby. Symptom #1: Gagging while brushing teeth.  I've been managing to get the teeth brushed but when I get near my tongue, well it isn't pretty.  Symptom #2: Upset tummy. Last pregnancy I had issues with "things" stopping.  This time I seem to be having the opposite. Yuck.  Symptom #3: Morning sickness. For me this is actually more of an all day issue. With each previous pregnancy the nausea and food aversions began around 6 weeks, so this one seems to be following right on track. So far the mornings have been okay and the evenings have been worse.  I think as long as I keep small amounts of food in my stomach things are better. At work I have some trail mix and I asked T. to pick me up some pretzels to crunch on. Constantly eating without weight gain is a challenge.  At the moment fruits and veggies aren't th...

Well, we told my parents. Yesterday we invited them over to help hang some art work. My dad has a good eye for decorating and we're in the process of getting the house ready for our Mardi Gras party. Originally we weren't planning on telling them until after our u/s on the 5th but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that we should share. After all we've been through I felt they should know and I would need their support if this pregnancy doesn't turn out like I hoped. How sad is that? Sadly, that is the reality of pregnancy after 3 losses. The naivety and innocence are gone. I'm still feeling optimistic about this pregnancy but it is tempered with a big dose of reality. When my parents got here I didn't tell them right away.  I think I was driving T. crazy because he kept pacing around and standing next to me and putting his hands on my shoulders to comfort me.  I didn't want to tell my folks straight away because I worried then the rest of the ...

Today was a day where our attempts for a family came to a crossroads.  When I started this blog it was with the intent to document our adoption journey. After our loss in July T. and I decided that if we weren't pregnant by January we would pursue adoption. (We also decided not to stop trying on our own.) Neither of us felt right spending money on IVF and with the history of adoption in our family we felt it was a better choice for us. So when December came and went with no bfp we arranged to meet with the social worker. Today was that meeting. We've been honest with her in our attempts for a bio-kid and she's been honest with us about how it would affect the adoption process. They will work with families with one or fewer children but won't place a child in a home with a new child for at least a year. Life may change our plans but at the moment we are discussing adopting our second child. T. is 41 and I am 36. Assuming that the current pregnancy goes full term and we...

T. and I have discussed when and how we should announce our pregnancy, should it be determined to be viable. I go back and forth on this idea. I haven't announced it yet on TTCAL or PGAL because it is so new. Our first ultrasound is on Friday, should that go well then I will probably announce on the boards then. And should it not go well I will probably announce that on the boards then as well. For the rest of the world I'm not sure. For bfp #1 we boxed up a raspberry and gave it to my parents as a gift. We were 8w along at the time and raspberry was our fruit of reference size. It was the day after our Mardi Gras party and my sister was visiting and hung over in bed. I can still remember the excitement on my mom's face. For bfp #2 our announcement came in the form of a panicked phone call to my sister, again visiting my parents, at 11pm. I had some bleeding, T. was out of town, and I needed someone to talk to. She told my mom and dad and she and my BIL escorted me to t...

I titled this post on 1/16 but didn't have the nerve to publish it until today. On Wednesday, after 6 months of trying to get pregnant, I peed on a stick and got the 4th BFP of my life. I could barely believe it! T. was on his way out the door for work and I yelled, "T! Come here!" and he yelled back, "But my ride is here." And I said, "I think you want to come here." He came running up the stairs and I showed him the two tests and he looked at me in disbelief and followed up with a kiss. I called my doctor that morning and they set me up for blood work. During lunch I ran to the lab and by 3:15p I had the results - HCG of 372 and Progesterone of 23.9 and instructions to repeat the labs on Friday. It seemed like forever but finally Friday came and I once again went for blood work at lunch. I waited an agonizing hour and a half before I called for results. It isn't hard to believe that they weren't ready. I left my number and told them to leav...

I thought I'd give blogging a second chance, this time on a new platform and only partly because I can't remember the e-mail or password I used for my other blog.  I suppose that tells you a little something about my dedication to blogging. :)