Baby Blogging - Where It All Began!

Blogging can be a strange one at some points. While the 'New Post' blank page is so full of opportunity, it can also be intimidating. Not just from a 'what am I going to write?' perspective, but also because once I hit publish, it's out in the world forever more.

Sometimes sharing experiences make for an easy blog post - we did this, this was how we found it, go do it or don't. It's a record of an experience and it's nice to look back on as well as highlighting great (or not so great) places to others.

Then there is the sharing of personal experiences like coming out, being in a lesbian relationship, the relationships with loved ones, our wedding, etc that are a little harder to write. They share things that we wouldn't necessarily tell friends unless we were having a deep and meaningful. They are things that capture thoughts and feelings at a particular moment that may not remain true over time.

And then there is this. Pregnancy.

That's right! We. Are. Pregnant (in case you missed the previous post :) ).

We have been pregnant for 13 weeks now, and it's scary for me to write that.

It involves me confronting something that internally I am a mess about. Swinging from complete excitement and skipping around the house to being overcome with emotion and bursting into floods of tears at an emotional song. And then there is the fear. At first the fear was, what if the pregnancy is ectopic? What if it disappears? Now it's what if something isn't right? What if it's fine now and then something goes wrong? As much as I try to silence it, the worry is ever present.

I think it's because, for the first time, I have to give up control. No amount of exercise, eating the right thing, sleep, reading the internet - anything, will change the outcome. Absolutely, it might help - and as I have done pregnancy yoga, dancing around shaking my hips and filling up on smoothies with 'super foods' for pregnancy - it better help. But I know deep down that this pregnancy will go in whatever way it is meant to. We hope that means that we get a beautiful, healthy baby, but never has July seemed so far away.

Our baby's first photo!

This post will cover week 0 to week 6 and we'll be back with more at some point soon.......

So here's the short version. I, Sarah, am pregnant. We went with  IVF after originally planning to go with IUI. We started with consultation for IUI but my cycles seemed to go from low fertility to peak fertility within a day which meant planning anything became difficult - especially with work. Frustratingly I was away with work when our best opportunity arrived. It was at that point that we decided IVF would provide the much needed predictability we needed.

We picked an anonymous donor from a sperm bank recommended by our fertility clinic. We found a donor that shared traits with Laura and after that things were straight forward.

I had previously wanted as natural a pregnancy as possible so had wanted to avoid the injections, hormones and meds but it was not to be, thankfully the side effects were minimal for me. In fact, my stress level reduced as I was able to plan for the month. My visits to the clinic for follicle scans were mainly early morning and our egg collection day was narrowed down to two days.

Image: Etsy

We got 5 eggs on our Friday the 13th of October collection, all 5 fertilised and 4 made it to blastocyst. They picked the best one of the 4 to implant. That one is our baby!

For the first few weeks, it was hard to even contemplate that I may be pregnant. We focused on believing we were. From the moment of embryo transfer we Googled everything! What will be happening at day 2, at day 4. We checked every symptom on numerous sites. I became hyper aware of my body - was that a twinge, did I cramp, why do I need to pee so much and why am I falling sleep watching TV (that's never been me before this!). Am I drinking enough, what should I be eating this - all of it. Never have I ever been so aware of what was going into my body. I became a health freak - Maccy D's - get that away from me!

Going out to eat became a minefield and Laura downloaded an app that meant I texted her with every meal option when I was out to eat. I'm in Pret - should I have the Mac and Cheese or the Duck wrap - what's safest, what's got more nutrients - argh! Mac and cheese wins but the prosciutto has to be removed. Pics of menus, and pre-checking where I'm going, happened daily. I even convinced colleagues to change our lunch destination as I couldn't find anything easily acceptable on the first menu. Growing up as a fussy eater has given me plenty of practice in avoiding food but this takes on a whole new level of importance.

And then as you check the symptoms and read the blogs and forums you start thinking maybe we are pregnant. You read stories of those who got positives and start looking for the similar symptoms. Then when you have a day without symptoms you start convincing yourself you're not. The phrase 'roller-coaster of emotions' was so, so applicable.

When the end of the two week wait finally arrived and we could do the pregnancy test, we woke up at 4am - the need to pee was overwhelming but I crossed my legs and we Googled if a 4am pee counted as the first pee of the day, and would it be long enough since my last pee to have the pregnancy show up if it was there. It was. I've never been so nervous to pee.

In no time at all, two lines appeared. But one was faint. Was it too faint? Google it. Find images upon images of varying degrees of strengths and then decide that as long as it's two lines it positive. It's positive! WTF! First time and it's positive. But wait, is one test enough?! It's 4am, what shops are open? Should we do more? Why didn't we buy more? Why were we so unprepared?!

So it's 4am and the waves of excitement are now more than any worry. We spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the stick. We wake up the dog - she's not impressed. We try to sleep and fail. We sit and talk and get excited, the dog grumbles and we try to sleep again. It's almost 6am at this point. We doze until 7.30am.

We wake and it doesn't feel real. Thankfully we have a clinic appointment for a second test at 12.30pm. Never has a morning ever felt so long. We get there at 12.20, we wait, we wait more. It's Halloween and the TV has some costume thing on Loose Women, we try to focus on that. It doesn't work. We get called in, we give the pee sample and we wait. We wait for almost 10 mins and then we get it....confirmation....we are pregnant!

Returning to work my head was a blur. How had we got so lucky. Was it the yoga? The dancing to 'Faith' by George Michael? Or the smoothies? Or luck? Whatever it was, we were grateful. Although shock prevented any further emotion. I just spent the day in some sort of weird trance.

The we had to wait again - for the first scan, when we would hopefully be able to detect the heartbeat. The wait to the scan is strange.

After weeks of symptom tracking, my cramps eased up. I got the odd twinge as we approached 5 weeks but nothing like before. I felt nauseous and then decided I was just hungry. My need to pee calmed down and the bloating I initially felt eased. In fact, I felt great most of the time. There are a few moment of wanting to curl up as my insides were doing somersaults but that only seemed to hit late in the evening - maybe it's the lack of space for dinner and the growing uterus. Whatever it is, it usually eases with a back rub and water. OMG the amount of water consumed is insane. I am at least 75% water at all times! Oh and the heat - I feel hot, a lot! I spent fireworks night in a strappy top as I was so hot, quite the sight as the wife was wrapped up in her winter finery.

At week 5, in some ways I felt less pregnant. And that in itself was a cause for great joy and great worry. Joy as, for the time, I didn't need to plan my day around bathroom locations and I was actually feeling on top form. After the odd snivel, but it's winter and compared to the other people on the train coughing up their guts or blowing their noses I felt lucky. Then worry - do the lack of symptoms mean Tater Tot isn't developing?! Google more....

By the time we hit 6 weeks pregnant my Googling was of most common time to have a miscarriage - turns out up to 6 weeks. At that point the blueberry sized embryo has a heart beat and once you get a heartbeat the changes of miscarriage reduce significantly. Week 5 was pretty easy, in fact only one sickness incident and that was at home in the evening - turns out you can call that morning sickness too! And a 4th pregnancy test on the Friday morning confirmed - still pregnant.

Week 5 had also included a mad search for maternity jeans, not because I was showing but because the significant amount of time on trains and sat down means regular jeans cut in at just the wrong point so I might as well be comfy. Oh and 'the pregnancy photo' outfit has been bought. Got to prep for when a bump appears right?! What's a pregnancy without bumpie photos?

Thank you so much for all the love and support so far - we look forward to sharing the journey.