I had the big appointment today at the OBGYN to determine if my pregnancy is “viable” or not. Before my appointment I went to the gym to de-stress and kick up my happy endorphins. I hate when you go to the doctor’s office and they call you in right away, and you get undressed, but then you sit there FOREVER- naked, cold, & bored. At least there’s magazines in the waiting room. Well, that’s what happened this time. Because I was nervous to begin with, sitting there doing nothing made it worse. So I started to visualize seeing a heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor, and even tapped the machine and said, “show me good things!” My nervousness was getting the best of me though, so I finally just laid down and sang the song “Dizzy” in my head from the band Ours. That song always does the trick–I was relaxed and happy. The doctor who I like came in and said my blood work from last week looked good, so he’s going to do the ultrasound which will be the final determining factor–I guess the factor of whether it’s a miscarriage or not. I noticed he didn’t turn the monitor towards me in order for me to see the results immediately, which I was grateful for, because I didn’t want to look. He then turned it towards me and said, “We have a baby, and a heartbeat.”  Yay!! I was ecstatic, but as usual I played it off like I didn’t care and said calmly, “oh good.” Inside I was freaking out though! He said I have to get a Dating Ultrasound to determine my due date, since I’m “sizing small,” based on my last menstrual date, but we both acknowledged that it’s because I have a crazy cycle, so I know I got pregnant later than a normal cycle would.

As for my pregnancy symptoms this time around, I do get morning sickness (and evening sickness), but as with my last pregnancy, it’s not too bad. At least not enough that I vomit. I only get nauseous, especially if I have an empty stomach, so once I eat it goes away. I have a “beautiful” pregnancy mask. Ugh. Actually that was one of the reasons I took a pregnancy test to begin with. Nothing like looking like a freak to tell the world you’re pregnant! Haha. I have killer sinus headaches that make me miserable. The other day at the food store I actually had about 10 minutes of blurred vision, which freaked me out a little bit, but once I went outside it was fine (followed by a terrible sinus headache). My blood pressure is really good though, so the doctor said no biggie. I’m already urinating a lot and already have a belly, which is crazy to me. It must be bloating since I think I’m only about 7 1/2 weeks, but it’s weird since I didn’t show at all until I was about 5 months pregnant last time. They say it happens with 2nd pregnancies though. One symptom I DON’T have, which made me nervous about going into this appointment, is breast pain. With my last pregnancy, it was the most obvious symptom to me…but with this one, I have none at all. That’s fine by me. I told my husband the good news, and I started “telling” my 15-month old daughter by pointing to my belly and saying, “there’s a baby in there.” Hopefully she doesn’t start saying the word “baby” and repeating it to her grandparents because I don’t plan on telling them yet.

My husband and I decided a month ago that we should start trying to have another baby. I don’t know if my reason for wanting another child is one that people will understand, especially because it sounds pretty awful and not lovey-dovey enough, but my feelings are my feelings. Actually the idea of having another baby around freaks me out and fills me with anxiety (especially when I think about my daughter’s Colic when she was an infant), and having a 24-month old running around while a new baby is here just seems disastrous. I want to have another baby now to get it over with. There I said it. Does that sound horrible? I’m an only child and always thought I would be perfectly fine with having just one child. But since the time my dad died 6 months ago, I changed my mind on the issue. It was really hard for me to go through my dad’s death basically alone. I had no siblings to cry with, I had to put up a strong face for my mom, and recently my mom told me she did her will and I’ll have to handle all the paperwork stuff, power of attorney, etc. when she passes away, all while going through the grief. That’s not something I want to even think about, especially trying to figure all that out by myself, without any siblings to help me through it. Plus, currently my daughter has a small family, and once my mom and in-laws pass away, she’ll have nobody. She has no uncles, she has only 1 aunt who still lives at home and is incapable of being a productive member of society, and she will never have any cousins. I don’t want my daughter to be alone once my husband and I pass away. So that’s why I want to have another child.

I’m 32 now and I’d like to have a baby before 35, so I thought we better start trying now because I had pregnancy issues in the past, so it could take awhile. Well, one month later I felt super sick, like I had food poisoning. I couldn’t even stand up without feeling like I would vomit everywhere. I had just gone to a restaurant 2 days earlier for Mother’s Day, so I thought for sure it was food poisoning. But 2 days after feeling that way, it went away on it’s own without vomiting, so I thought something was up. I took a pregnancy test and immediately it was positive. I was ecstatic and couldn’t believe it happened so fast! This was how it was with my first pregnancy- the one that miscarried- I got pregnant within 1 month of trying. After the miscarriage  it took me almost 2 years to get pregnant with my daughter.

Now, because my menstrual cycle is FUBAR (f*ed up beyond all recognition), I knew there would be a problem with dating this pregnancy. Since having my daughter, I’ve only had 4 periods because I breastfed, and they were all wide apart: 35 days apart, 39 days, 40 days, and the last period I had on March 31st was a whopping 49 days from the period before that. They say “normal” is around 28/30 days apart. Not so for me. Well my first prenatal appointment was today, and I explained about my irregular periods and that I didn’t know how they would date it. They used the March 31st date anyway, and said that that would mean I’d be about 8 weeks now (if I had a normal cycle). They then did a vaginal ultrasound, and it showed there was only a gestational sac and yolk sac so far. The doctor (who I love), told me not to worry because it’s probably still too early since my cycle is weird, and that he remembers my history, so he knows I’m scared. This is how my miscarriage happened the first time–they did the ultrasound and only saw a sac, so I had to have lots of bloodwork done over the week and a few ultrasounds, and they determined that I was not progressing so they told me it was a miscarriage and I had to get a D&C (Dilation and Curettage). My stomach is in knots now. I really didn’t think it was possible for this to happen again. A few weeks ago someone in my Mom’s Group told me a story of how her son was almost “aborted” so to speak, because they told her there was only a sac and no heartbeat/baby, and on the day of her D&C surgery, they did one last ultrasound to make sure nothing grew, and sure enough, there was a heartbeat. So her son wouldn’t be here today if they didn’t do that 2nd ultrasound. They dated her wrong. That story gives me hope that it’s probably just too early, and that even if there isn’t a heartbeat next week when I have to go back to the doctor, I’ll just tell them I’m going to wait for everything to play out naturally instead of getting a D&C. Maybe it will make a difference. Two days from now (Thursday) I have to get my bloodwork taken to see if my hormone levels doubled, and I also have to schedule a dating ultrasound at this place that has a good machine. Then I have another appointment with the OBGYN next Thursday. I’m not sure when I’m supposed to schedule the ultrasound for though…I’ll find that out tomorrow. Wish me luck. I’m terrified.