16 week update

Wow!  16 weeks already.  I am feeling great and really starting to enjoy this pregnancy.  The nausea and headaches are gone as long as I don't skip a meal.  The baby's kicks are getting stronger and I enjoy being able to feel them more now.  The 20 week u/s got pushed back a week to Dec 9th.  Everything else is the same.  The guys fly in on Friday and we are going to my OB appointment then going to the hospital tour.  Then Saturday we are going to the Ga Aquarium and having a big dinner with the family later.  I can't wait.  The guys are so excited to come and see me and meet my kids and our family.  They already have their flight, hotel and rental car booked.  December will be here before we know it.

I had a checkup last week and everything looked great.  All my test results came back negative and the baby's heartbeat sounded great.  "I" was on the phone during the checkup and was able to hear the baby's heartbeat.  It was the first time he has been able to hear it without it being a recording or something so he was pretty thrilled about that.  Then the midwife happened to mention something about the optional ultrasounds they offer to find our the sex of the baby and of course "I" was all over that.  He said they had had a really bad week and would love some good news to cheer them up.  Unfortunately the last u/s appointment for the day had just been taken and they didn't have another one available until Tuesday (5 days later).  I could tell he was very disappointed so I told him I would call up there every day and see if they've had any cancelations.  The next day they still didn't have any openings so I got her to see if their other locations had any.  Score!!!  We got an u/s scheduled.  I had "I and A" on speaker phone and the u/s tech told them they were gonna have a boy.  They were so excited.  I loved hearing their reaction.  They both started screaming, it was so funny.  Later I asked them if they'd told everyone yet and "I" said, "Everyone, literally everyone!" and they were out shopping for baby clothes and sent me a picture of an outfit they picked out...LOL!!!  They are so funny and they are going to be such great parents.  They sent me some flowers today to tell me thank you for everything and happy belated birthday.

Now, onto the pictures :)

14 weeks

15 weeks

15 weeks

he looks surprised in this one...lol

it's a boy

4D ultrasounds aren't quite as cute this early as they are when you have a 30+ week chubby baby in there, still pretty cool though.

16 weeks

16 weeks 2 days

flowers from the guys :)

Quick Update

My IFs decided that they would wait until the 20 week u/s to come up.  They are going to come up on Friday and go to the appointment with me then we will go to the hospital tour and we'll probably do lunch or dinner sometime too.  Then Saturday the plan is to go to the Ga Aquarium which should be fun.  Zoe hasn't been since she was a baby so I'm sure she will enjoy it.  Gonna have to make sure I bring my leash for that wild child.  It should be interesting to see how the kids take to the guys and how the guys handle being around a kid in the middle of her terrible twos.  After the aquarium we are going to go out to dinner with a bunch of the family so everyone can meet.  And hopefully on Sunday we can meet up one more time before their flight and maybe go to lunch or something.

My next appointment is on November 3rd.  Until then I leave you with this...

...a picture of me at 13 weeks 4 days.  This looks much better than the one in the white shirt :)

13 week u/s pics and rumors

I am 13 weeks along now and the baby is doing great.  Growing right on track and heart rate was 151.  I mentioned something to her about how that was the lowest the heart rate has been so far b/c it's usually around the 170s or 180s and she said that's normal really early on in the pregnancy and the heart rate usually slows down a little bit after that.  Why couldn't any of the other doctors explained that?  I was hoping to be able to get a video today of the baby and the heartbeat but they had some stupid rule about not being allowed to video the ultrasounds.  At least we got a couple of pictures.

The guys (IFs) have been going a little crazy lately b/c they are dying to know the sex of the baby.  They were wanting me to talk to the doctor today to see if we can schedule the 20 week u/s at 17 weeks.  Of course they said no, I figured they would.  They've never been very big on changing the way they do things unless it's medically necessary.  I e-mailed the guys today and let them know what the doctor said and told them that the doctors up there are very good and they are just going to have to trust that the doctors know what they are doing and I know what I'm doing. I got this!  And I told them not to worry so much b/c all they're gonna do is make themselves (and me) get grey hair...LOL! 

Also, the other day when I talked to "I" he said (if we were able to get everything scheduled for a 17 week u/s) that they were going to come up on Friday (day of the u/s) and leave on Saturday.  That really kind of upset me, and I didn't go into details with him about why, but I did say something to him about it today.  I just feel like it's a really strange situation if you ever stop to think about it (which I happened to do a couple of weeks ago).  I am pregnant by someone I've only met once or twice and while I know this is what I signed up for and I don't regret it at all I just feel like I wish there was a better process for getting to know your IPs and really getting that friendship to grow.  When he said they would be coming up Friday and leaving Saturday all I could think was, what am I doing wrong?  Do they not like me?  Why are they not interested in spending time with me and my family esp. since that was going to be the only time I would see them again until delivery.  I am spending all this time and energy growing their baby and they can't even give me at LEAST one full weekend of their time?!?  I know that we have a good relationship and we text almost daily but it would just be nice if they put a little more effort into getting to know me and my family and spending some time with us.  Thankfully after I talked to "I" today he said that they would stay for the weekend like I requested and they were going to talk about whether or not they wanted to come up before the 20 week u/s (around the beginning of Dec) to do a 3D/4D u/s to find out the sex of the baby.  I'm hoping they will decide to do it b/c that's one more time I get to see them before the baby is born :)

Anyways, on to the important stuff......PICTURES!!!!!

And, because I had requests from a couple of my surro sisters to wear a white shirt for my belly picture, here you go.  I hope you're happy b/c I feel HUGE in that shirt :/

Oh, and about the rumors.  My mother-in-law, Paula, got a call from an old friend/neighbor of hers the other day and she said her sister told her that Paula was pregnant.  Of course Paula thought she was crazy and told her that she's XX years old and she's DEFINITELY not pregnant.  Then the friend went on to say that her sister said that it was a surrogate pregnancy and that Paula was doing a surrogacy.  Now I don't know where this sister got her information from but I'm guessing it was some kind of rumor that got going around (probably started by something someone read on FB) from someone who knew someone who knew someone and it happened to get back to us but how in the world it got turned around to say that Paula was the one doing the surrogacy I will never know.  Guess that's just what happens when you live in a small town.  People like to talk and half the time they don't know what they're talking about.

12 weeks

I am now 12 weeks and a couple days.  I had my first OB appointment today and it went great.  I called the guys and put them on speaker phone so they could talk to the doctor and ask her any questions they had.  Last time the guys talked to Kolb he suggested I see a "high risk pregnancy specialist" for my 20 week u/s which I never understood since I'm not high risk.  My OB felt the same way.  She said that there isn't anything high risk about me or this pregnancy but if any of the routine tests or u/s showed anything out of the ordinary then I would of course see the high risk specialist.  Before I left I got her to write me a Rx for Zofran b/c I had just ran out 2 days ago.  So happy to have more :)

In some ways I am feeling better since being off meds but in some ways I am feeling worse.  When I was on all those meds I constantly felt bloated and it was really hard to eat even half of what I would normally eat b/c it made me feel terrible.  Since stopping meds that has completely gone away.  But something else popped up.  I normally get headaches and migraines every once in a while when I'm not pregnant but with my last pregnancy they completely went away during the pregnancy.  I was hoping that was how this pregnancy was going to go and that's how it was going until I stopped the meds.  Since stopping the meds I get a headache or migraine every day and the worse the headache gets the worse the nausea gets.  I'm hoping this is just from my hormones adjusting to being off the meds and everything will level out soon and I will start feeling better b/c this is no fun. 

But, I started feeling movement yesterday, that's always fun :)  It's just a little bit every once in a while (maybe 2 or 3 times a day) but it's a start.  I can't wait till the kids can feel the baby move and kick.  That's going to be so much fun to watch.  I see lots of cell phone videos in my IF's future :D

And here's a picture of me at 12 weeks maybe starting to get a little bit of a baby bump.  My 4 year old tells me my belly's getting bigger...lol.  Kids are so honest :)

Better late than never I guess

I am currently 11 weeks along.  I went to my 10 week checkup last week and everything looked great.  The baby was measuring 10 weeks and a couple days and the heart rate was in the 170s.  After last weeks appointment I got the wonderful news that I could stop the estrogen injection and cut my PIO down to .5cc a day and take 1 estrogen pill 2x a day for the next week.  I had to go in today for some more blood work to make sure my levels are staying up after weaning off the meds and they looked great.  Soooo...I am officially off ALL meds!!!  Yay!!!!  Wooohooo!!!  *Happy Dance*  I'm still pretty tired a lot of the time and nauseous.  I think I'm starting to get a handle on the nausea and I've still only thrown up once.  *knock on wood*  If I get hungry I get nauseous and the sooner I eat something the sooner the nausea will go away.  If I get nauseous and don't eat something soon then when I finally do eat it still takes FOREVER for the nausea to go away, if it does.  Besides the nausea, heartburn and indigestion (which I'm hoping was from the extra progesterone I was taking) this pregnancy has been great so far.  I will be glad when this kid moves out of my pelvis and off my bladder but can't wait till I start feeling movement :)

The guys are just over the moon excited about everything and can't wait to find out what we they are having.  They are really wanting to do an early u/s to find out the sex of the baby and hoping for a girl.  I've only been pregnant with girls so hopefully I won't break that streak now :)  I go to my first appointment with my regular OB next week and with the guys on speaker phone we will talk to the doctor (they have lots of questions).  Hopefully they will be able to find out the sex of the baby early (b/c that means I won't have to wait until 20 weeks to see them again).  I'm thinking that maybe when they do the u/s for the first trimester screening they can try to find out the sex then.  Guess we'll see.  Also, the guys talked to Dr. Kolb the other day and he suggested that we have a level 2 u/s done by a high risk pregnancy specialist.  That doesn't really make since to me b/c this isn't a "high risk pregnancy".  Plus, I thought after the first trimester we got released to our OB and were supposed to do what they recommend, not some doctor on the other side of the country.  I know some OBs will recommend seeing a high risk specialist if a test says something may be wrong but besides that I'm pretty sure I am fine with my u/s tech and I really don't like the idea of having to go who knows where to get an u/s done by a "high risk pregnancy specialist" when I don't need it. 

Guess we'll wait and see how everything goes and maybe the guys will be happy doing whatever the doctor suggests.  I'll leave you with this picture from the 10 week u/s.  Not a great picture but here you go.  Head is towards the bottom and you can kinda see 2 little hands :)

8 week checkup

I went to my 8 week checkup on Monday and we have a perfectly health little "kidney bean" (according to babycenter).  I have to say I got a little worried the day before because I was feeling too good.  I'm sure I'm probably crazy but if I'm not nauseous or tired then I worry that something might be wrong.  Don't think I had that issue with my own pregnancies.  I've talked to other surros who say they are the same way so maybe it's just a surro thing and I'm not actually crazy :)

I thought it was pretty cool that you could actually start to see the little arm and leg buds and the umbilical cord.  Can't wait to see how the 10 week picture looks.  I'm not really sure about the lady that did my u/s this time.  She wasn't the same lady that has done it the past few times and she didn't seem to really know what she was doing.  A few minutes into the u/s I asked her if we could listen to the heartbeat and she told me that you usually can't hear it this early.  So I told her they didn't have any problem hearing it last week!  So, after a few minutes of fiddling around with the machine saying we should be hearing something when we weren't hearing anything, and I could tell by looking at the screen that she wasn't doing it right, she finally called my usual doctor in there to show her how to do it.  YAY!  You would think that would be one of the first things they learned how to do was listen for the heartbeat!  She said the heart rate was 180 bpm which seems crazy high to me b/c both of my kids were in the 130s-140s but I've been assured that it's normal.  After listening to the heartbeat and getting some pictures and a video where you can see the heart beating and one where you can hear the heartbeat she had to check my ovaries (which they always do) and she couldn't find them.  I didn't say anything.  I was just thinking, whatever lady, they were there last week so I'm sure they're still there.

After my appointment I got the word from Kolb's office that they are going to start weaning me off my meds...YAY!!!  That's when I heard my 3 favorite words...Discontinue Progesterone Lozenges :))  I am so happy to be done with those things.  I was also told to decrease my estradoil injection from .3cc to .1cc and the estrace tabs from 2 pills 2x a day to 1 pill 2x a day.  So happy about weaning off meds b/c it means I am that much closer to being released to my OB :)
In other news, I'm feeling HUGE!  Probably b/c I feel like I'm constantly eating to keep the nausea away.  But, I've only thrown up one time and I had been felling fine all that morning but I hadn't eaten anything and I was doing laundry and around 10:30 it just hit me all the sudden.  It wasn't bad though b/c I hadn't eaten so I just went back in there and finished my laundry.  Lesson learned.  I've also noticed that cereal works better than a waffle at keeping the nausea away.  I will probably be starting my weekly belly shots very soon :)

Beautiful Flowers and a Blueberry

Yesterday I got a beautiful bouquet of flowers from "I and A" to brighten my day.  I love them and they definitely did the trick.  The kids were as excited to see them as I was.  It's always nice to get flowers especially since I usually only gets them once or twice a year.  Tommy said if they weren't gay he'd be jealous (other guys sending me flowers) LOL! 

On Monday I started having some minor spotting.  I wasn't really cramping much so didn't think it was really a big deal but decided to go ahead and e-mail the doctor and just let him know what was going on.  I figured he would just tell me the usual (take it easy, try to rest, no sex) so I was shocked when he said he wanted me to go in for another ultrasound.  I just had an ultrasound about a week ago and already have another one scheduled for next Monday, the 12th.  So today I went in for another ultrasound.  I LOVE ultrasounds!  Especially early on in the pregnancy before you start to feel movement.  I knew everything was ok because my nausea has been getting worse the past couple of days and I'm constantly exhausted.  Even though I knew everything was fine and told the guys not to worry (which is apparently impossible) it's always nice to see that ultrasound and hear that beautiful heartbeat.  At my last u/s it was very hard to see the baby b/c he was so tiny and the doctor could just see the flicker of a heartbeat.  This time it was great to see the baby looked much bigger.  I am 7 weeks and the baby is measuring 7 weeks 3 days and he had a heart rate of 150 bpm.  I was so happy I actually got to hear the heartbeat this time.  It's a sound I will never get tired of hearing :)

You can see the baby on the right and his little yolk sac beside him.  Isn't he so cute!  According to babycenter.com he's about the size of a blueberry now.  So I guess we'll see this little blueberry again on Monday and see how much more he has grown.  Can't wait!  I am going to see if i can record the heartbeat with my cell phone next time for the guys :)
I've been debating lately about when to start belly pictures.  I'm not showing or anything, although I would love for that to be the reason I have this huge belly.  I'm sure that 99% of this belly is all me.  OK, it's ALL me, there, I admit it.  Still, I'm not sure if I should go ahead and start taking belly shots now so I will have something to compare it to or if I should wait until I'm actually showing (which will probably be a long while).

I fixed a big pot of chili for dinner last night and had a delicious bowl of chili for dinner.  Then this morning whenever I would go to the fridge I could smell the chili and it made me wanna vomit!  Well, so much for leftover chili for dinner, guess this baby has had enough chili for one day.  I had a wonderful dinner tonight.  I had 3 or 4 handfulls of cashews and an oatmeal cream pie for desert.  Food does not sound good today :(  I did manage to have a decent lunch though.  I had a chicken salad sandwich with a side salad :)