Names

Jay and I have decided on our baby names. We have been working on these for a while now and have finally come to an agreement. So, here goes:

GIRL: Naomi Rebecca

BOY: Joaquin Jose Luis (two middle names)

We hope you all like them!

Best. Husband. Ever.

Yes, I've got him.

Jay is cooking me the most amazing breakfasts that are well balanced for baby and me. Today, he made a blend of fresh squeezed apple, carrot and bell pepper juice so I started the day with tons of vitamins. It wasn't the tastiest drink ever, but it was good for me so I drank it.

Then he made me some whole wheat toast, an egg and some all natural (no preservatives) bacon. Yummy!

News from My Doctor

My doctor's office called and informed me that they reviewed the pictures from my ultrasound and I have a small cyst on one of my ovaries.

I guess this is pretty common in early pregnancy and nothing to cause alarm. However, she does want me to go back for another ultrasound a week from Wednesday to make sure it isn't getting bigger. On the bright side, we will get to see the baby again!

She also said that I am not allowed to exercise until she sees the results. Sigh. I guess I will be couch bound this weekend.

Maternity Leave Policy

This issue has been a hot topic at my job since I started in 2007. We are currently allowed 6 weeks of paid leave at full pay and an additional 6 weeks of time off which are paid at about 1/4 of our pay through state disability. We do not accrue vacation so no unused vacation or sick time may be added to maternity leave. Compared to some employers, this may seem generous. Compared to other businesses in this field competing for the same employees, this is a very unimpressive plan.

Many of the women (and some of the men) at my job have been lobbying for an improved maternity leave policy and a new paternity leave policy. The suggestions range from 12 weeks of fully paid leave plus accrued vacation of at least 4 weeks to 18 weeks of fully paid leave.

I have been told by the powers that be that this policy will be changing soon. I am hopeful this is truly the case. I will keep you updated as I learn more.

For now, I'm crossing my fingers!

Ticker Change Thursday - Six Weeks!

Today I am officially 6 weeks pregnant - only 34 more to go! Baby is the size of a sweet pea.

How far along? 6 Weeks Today
Weight gain/loss: Still not sure exactly but my clothes are telling me I've gained a few pounds.
Maternity clothes? I got my first shipment in the mail on Tuesday and am wearing one of my new dresses today. I can still fit into some of my normal clothes but they are not as comfortable.
Stretch marks? Nope!
Sleep? Love it.
Best moment this week? Seeing our baby's heartbeat!
Movement: Not for a long time.
Food cravings: Still loving sparkling water but today I am also craving a bagel with cream cheese.
Gender: If I had to guess I'd say girl.
Belly button in or out? Still in.
What I miss? Nothing!
What I am looking forward to? My first appointment with my OB, where we will get a good idea of the next steps and schedule our next u/s.
Milestones: Seeing a healthy baby!
What I'm nervous about: Trying to figure out when to tell the partners at work.

Ultrasound Pictures

Here are some pictures of our little one at 5w6d. There's not much to see yet, but we still love looking at these pictures.



and

ONE More Thing

In case you didn't put two and two together, we only saw ONE baby at our u/s. Phew! Those earlier blood results had us concerned.

Answers to Some Questions

I have been asked the following:

1. What are the chances going wrong at this point?

and

2. When will we know if the baby is a boy or girl?

As to #1, there are conflicting answers on this, but most commonly I am seeing that the risk of another miscarriage is down to about 5% at this point. See this website.

As to #2, usually they schedule an u/s to determine gender at about 16 weeks, so we have 10 weeks to go, which will be the beginning of June.

Ultrasound Results!

We saw a heartbeat!!!! Yay! 120 bpm.

Edited later:

We had a wonderful u/s technician who was nice enough to look for a heart beat right away before taking all of the other measurements to set our minds at ease. We both saw the little flicker right away before she told us what it was. I asked if that was the heart beating and she said yes. Both of us started to cry. It was the most amazing thing to finally see that.

Then she measured the heart rate - 120 bpm, which is perfect for this early on. She did some measurements as to size and the computer estimated that I was 6 weeks and 3 days along, so about 4 days ahead of schedule. That little baby is growing!

She also gave us some pictures so Jay is going to scan them and I will try to figure out how to upload them to the blog. They don't look like much, but you can see something.

Only 4 1/2 Hours!

Until my first u/s. I can't wait. I thought I would be really terrified today but I'm feeling pretty good. I'm mostly worried about how I have to drink 32 ounces of water 2-3 hours prior and NOT PEE until after the u/s! Anyone who has taken a road trip with me (or driven from Orange County to San Diego with me) will know that this is no easy feat.

Note: It is really early so I have been warned that we may not see a heartbeat this time but that doesn't mean I (or you) should worry.

First Guess

They say that expectant mothers have some sort of intuition about their baby's gender before they actually find out. Today I had my first intuition - I'm thinking it is a girl. We'll see if I am right in about 10-11 weeks.

1 Day and 4 Hours To Go

Until my first ultrasound! I can't wait. I am feeling much better after my blood results from yesterday so I am hopeful that we will be getting very good news tomorrow.

I will keep you posted.

More Beta Results

at 25dpo: 24,312

The woman at the doctor's office said this was good. I was hoping for a slightly higher number but if they aren't worried I am happy. My progesterone is dropping too, which makes me nervous, but once again the doctor's office says it's plenty high enough and they aren't worried.

The good news: they said that I can get an u/s earlier. I am currently re-scheduling for this Wednesday afternoon at 1:30! I can't wait.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

I'm somewhat impatiently waiting until 4:00, which is when I assume my doctor will have my blood results from this morning.

Let me just share what an ordeal it was going to the lab to get my betas drawn.

I called my OB's office at 8:30 on the dot to ask if it was okay if I went today instead of Wednesday for another blood draw. They told me that was fine and they had already faxed the paperwork for me.

I went to the lab after a conference call for work. When I showed up they couldn't find my paperwork. They looked for about 10-15 minutes with no luck. Then they tried to call my OB's office and they told me that every time they called the line just kept ringing.

I tried calling with the same result. My OB's office is across the parking structure from the lab so I decided to just walk over and get the paperwork myself. When I got there I heard sirens and noticed that everyone was standing around the building. They were having a fire drill. Of course.

I walked back to the lab and tried to convince them to take my blood and just use my last lab sheet. They didn't go for it.

I waited for another 10 minutes and walked back to my OB's office. The sirens were off and everyone was inside. When I got to her waiting room, all the lights were off and there were about 25 hugely pregnant women in the waiting room sitting in the dark.

I ran in, grabbed my paperwork and got out. Finally. They put a "stat" order on the bloodwork so I am hopeful that when I call at 4:00 they will have some (hopefully good) news for me.

Trying to Stay Positive

I always knew that being pregnant after a loss would be difficult, at least at first. I had no idea how difficult it would be. I just keep hoping that I start feeling nauseous so I know that everything is going well.

I think I am going to call my OB in the morning and ask for another beta draw tomorrow so I can set my mind at ease.

Until then, I am trying everything I can to stay positive. Wish me luck!

Searching for a Perfect Place

We are currently in the process of finding the perfect place for our (hopefully) growing family. After brief entertainment of the idea of buying a place, we have decided to continue renting and trying to pay down our cars and student loans so that eventually we will be in a position to purchase the home of our dreams. We just sent in a painfully large check to pay for the Prius and have finished payment on one of our ten(!) student loans. Baby steps. Next up - my CRV. We hope to get rid of that payment as soon as possible so that our monthly bills become slightly more manageable.

We have begun looking at rentals in Newport Beach. Jay wants to be as close as possible to the beach so he can sneak out and surf every once in a while after the baby comes and I want a 3 bedroom place with a ground floor entry and its own laundry. We took a look at a place that fits the bill today, but is slightly above our price range. Jay is going to work his negotiating magic and I am hopeful we will be moving into this place in mid-May.

It is in Newport Shores, which is the area north of the Peninsula off of PCH (near Big Belly Deli for those who are familiar with the area). It is 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, with one bed and bath downstairs and 2 beds and one bath upstairs. It is a cute little beach cottage with a great roof deck (no real view) and a nice little front grassy yard for the puppies.

Keep your fingers crossed that we are successful negotiating a more reasonable price!

We think that all of you from out of town will absolutely love visiting us in this new place if we can pull it off.

3rd Betas In

I just got a call from my doctor's office from a lovely lady named JoAnn. She told me that my betas were 5679! Yay!

So let's recap:

14dpo: 434
16dpo: 1426
20dpo: 5679

So we are right on track. My next blood draw will be on the 24th.

Ticker Change Thursday! 5 weeks today.

Today marks the beginning of my fifth week of pregnancy. Only 35 to go! Every Thursday I will try to do a silimar post to this one so everyone can track how things are moving along. Baby is currently the size of a tiny appleseed.

How far along? 5 Weeks Today
Weight gain/loss: Hmm... not sure. I don't have a scale at home and I'm kind of glad I don't. Only certain clothes still fit me so I guess I have gained a little bit of weight.
Maternity clothes? I just ordered some online and am waiting for them to arrive. I think I am going to need them very soon.
Stretch marks? Nope!
Sleep? Eh... the dogs have been annoying for the last two nights.
Best moment this week? Getting my second betas numbers on Monday
Movement: Not for a looong time.
Food cravings: Sparkling water - lots of it.
Gender: I have no clue.
Belly button in or out? Still in.
What I miss? Nothing!
What I am looking forward to? My third set of betas today and my first u/s in a week and a half.
Milestones: I can't wear my pencil skirts anymore.

More Betas

I just had my third set of betas drawn at the lab and will get results tomorrow. I have been to the lab 3 times in the last two weeks and always happen to have the same lab technician. She is so nice and always asks if my levels are going up.

I will post an update as soon as I hear from my doctor.

BFP Picture

Just to prove I'm not making it up - here's a picture of our BFP on March 11, 2010. I've never been so happy to see two pink lines before.

Next Steps

My first ultrasound (or u/s) is scheduled for Monday, March 29th at 7:30 am. Only 13 days to go! We are crossing our fingers that we will finally see and maybe even hear our baby's heartbeat at the u/s, something we never had the pleasure of experiencing the first time around. Once we get past that point, some of my anxiety and fear will make room for a little bit of excitement.

I have my first OB appointment on April 1st at 4:00 p.m.

Betas!!!

First, let me apologize in advance for some of the technical terms that I will be using in this blog. I have become a veritable expert on miscarriage, trying to conceive (or ttc) and at least the early part of pregnancy. I will try to explain things in plain English as often as possible but may forget at times because I have learned a whole new language in the last five months.

Okay - moving on to the fun part. After I had my miscarriage, I was concerned about extra monitoring and tests for my next pregnancy. As some of you may know, I enjoy information gathering and *may* become a little obsessive about things from time to time. So, naturally, in the last 5 days, I have already had two blood tests and I have an appointment for a third tomorrow.

On Thursday, March 11 (at 14 days post ovulation, or 14dpo), I had my first blood draw. It revealed a beta level of 434! This is good. I also had a Progesterone level of 39 - also excellent. Woot!

On Saturday, March 13 (at 16dpo), I had my second blood draw and had a beta level of 1426. Double woot!

You may be wondering - what the heck are beta levels? Well, they are the levels of the hormone HcG (the pregnancy hormone) in my blood. In a healthy pregnancy, they generally double every 2-3 days. You can check out this chart to see a chart of "normal" beta levels for a single pregnancy (versus a twin pregnancy).

If you clicked on the link, you may be thinking what we were thinking... um my numbers are way higher than normal! This is actually a good thing, so please do not worry. However, it may also be indicative of a multiple pregnancy, so we will have to wait to see on that one.

So, in summary:

14dpo: 434
16dpo: 1426

Progesterone:39

I will update with my numbers from March 17 (or 20dpo) on Thursday.

The Start of the Journey

I started this blog as a way to keep those special people in our lives informed of what is going on as we travel through this journey from being a happily married couple to joyous parents.

As many of you know, this journey has already been more difficult than either of us could have possibly imagined. After 4 years of marriage, we finally decided that we were ready to start trying to have a child (much to all of our parents' relief!). We were lucky and I got pregnant right away - getting my positive pregnancy test (or BFP = big fat positive) on August 31, 2009. I had my first ultrasound in the middle of my eighth week of pregnancy and we found out that something was wrong with our baby. On October 12, 2009, at exactly 9 weeks, I had a D&C and my pregnancy was over. We were devastated.

Over the next five months, we simultaneously grieved for our lost child and prepared for the journey of becoming pregnant, yet again. My body did not want to cooperate and I began seeing an acupuncturist, taking herbs, taking supplements, consulting my doctor, taking my temperature every morning, and reading every book I could get my hands on about miscarriage and trying to conceive after miscarriage.

On March 11, 2010, the 67th day of my freakishly long cycle, I got my second BFP. We were shocked, excited, overwhelmed and totally terrified.

Over the last few days, the goods news has begun to sink in and we are cautiously optimistic that we will be welcoming another member to our family on (or about) November 18, 2010. It will be the best birthday present I ever get.