I’m 9 weeks along now in my pregnancy and feeling pretty good physically. Emotionally, I’m a wreck. I have like 3 major stressors going on at the same time and I need to try to relax, but it’s not working. My husband and I have been house hunting for about 4 months now, but haven’t found anything decent- until last week. We found this beautiful house that was so much nicer than all the others for the same price. We found out it was a “short sale,” and our real estate agent explained some things about them, but the issues that turn most buyers away from short sales didn’t seem to affect our situation. We were all ready to put a bid in tonight, but last night we had a different real estate agent over to give us an idea of what OUR house would be worth if we were to sell it. Eventually the discussion turned, and we talked more with him about the short sale we might be buying. He told us a lot of information about short sales, and basically scared us away. The main thing he said, which our agent didn’t say exactly, was that MOST short sales fall through and that the banks don’t accept the offer. We knew that there was a chance that short sales could fall through, but we didn’t know that almost all of them do. I don’t want to spend money on a loan application, property inspection, & attorney, just to have it fall through down the line. We have the time it takes for the sale to go through (they take awhile), but I don’t want to lose any cash in the deal. So now I feel devastated because I DID NOT want to have baby #2 in the house we currently live in. Our house is nice from outside appearances. Functionally, it’s awful. There’s no central air so the bedrooms are HOT; majority of the house doesn’t have duct work so in the winter it’s freezing, even with the heat on; and one of the bathtubs has cracked tile on the wall which makes the adjoining room (baby #2’s room) smell moldy. My husband refuses to pay the money to get the bathroom redone, because the expenses would keep soaring since we’d also have to replace/remove the moldy window IN the shower wall, which would mean we’d need new siding outside and we’d have to put a vent in. Et cetera et cetera. My husband also refuses to switch his home office room with baby #2’s room, so that at least I wouldn’t get anxiety about the baby breathing in mold. Might I add that his office is a lot bigger than the tiny room we plan on putting the baby in. There isn’t even a closet in there. Let me move on before I get upset again. It’s also not fun thinking about selling your house when the market is down so low right now. Our house didn’t drop too much, especially compared to other people, but a loss of $10,000 is still upsetting to hear.

The other major thing that’s been on my mind lately is my dad. He died in November 2009 from cancer, so it’s been about 7 months, but it seems to be hitting me harder now, then it did when he first passed away. I think it’s because I’m pregnant and I wish he was here so I could tell him. I haven’t told my mom that I’m pregnant yet…I’ll probably do it once I’m out of the 1st trimester, but I’m not sure how she’ll react. I mean I know she’ll be happy about it, but she may also feel sadness that her husband isn’t there to share the occasion with her. I’m an only child and my 16-month old daughter is/was their only grandchild, so this would make #2. To make matters worse, since Father’s Day is this weekend, it’s even harder on me right now. I can’t stop crying and every little thing reminds me of my dad. Just yesterday I was watching the Disney movie “The Princess and the Frog” and even that made me cry when she said she missed her dad. I thought the pain would get easier with time, but it seems to be getting harder. How much longer until it passes? I know all this stress can’t be good for my pregnancy, so I’m thinking about using a massage gift certificate I received for Christmas. It’s the only thing I can think of to help me relax.

I was just about 37 weeks pregnant and the baby was still breech. People stopped saying to me that she has plenty of time to turn, because we were running out of time. The doctor mentioned that if the baby was still breech for the next appointment, then he’ll try external version which is when they try to turn the baby from pushing on your stomach (which I hear is pretty painful and doesn’t always work). My hospital doesn’t attempt vaginal births for breech babies. I began to get desperate and didn’t want to play the waiting game any longer so I started to research what I can do. I found a list of a variety of things and I pretty much did ALL of them. The funniest of which were the different physical positions, like laying on your back on the floor with your legs up against the couch sticking straight up in the air (breech tilt). Or getting on all fours and laying your arms and top-half of your body on the ground, so that your butt is sticking up to the highest point possible (cat stretch-ah, how I hope the mailman didn’t see me those days). Or laying on your back with your knees bent and putting 3 huge pillows under your butt (pelvic tilt). Or trying to do this choreographed “crawl” around my entire house on hands and knees (on hardwood floors), which gave me a lovely array of knee bruises.  I also sat on my exercise ball and would rotate my hips around in a circle for about 30 minutes at a time.

The less physical methods included meditation and focused thinking, such as picturing my baby turning; putting an ice pack on my stomach; very light self-massages in a circle motion on my belly. I would shine a flashlight on my belly from up high and slowly move the light down to where the head _should_ be; the idea being that the baby wants to follow the light with its eyes/head. I would sit at work and do this in between my work assignments. I would also do the same thing with tapping my hand, instead of using a flashlight, hoping the baby would follow the noise. My husband would talk to my pelvic area in hopes that the baby would follow the sound. But the method I used the most was playing music from my mp3 player and putting the headphones up to my pelvic area. I found myself using a set mix of about 10 songs, mostly softer-sounding alternative rock-type songs, and a few slow pop songs.  I tended to use higher pitch songs since I heard that babies seem to like high pitched voices. My song list included “Dizzy”, “Meet Me in the Tower”, and “Places” by Ours (these became my “staple” songs throughout my pregnancy), “The Frail” by Nine Inch Nails, most of the “Ok Computer” album by Radiohead, “Angel” and “I Love You” by Sarah McLachlan, “Turn My Head” by Live, “Angel Standing By” by Jewel, and “I Grieve” by Peter Gabriel. I also put some original songs from my husband on my mp3 player, one which included both of us singing, and played them to the baby down low, since she would prefer our voices over anyone else’s. One day I finally got some validation that the baby could hear the music. I didn’t realize that my mp3 player was up on full volume and I started to play a song to her, while holding the earbud down very low in the pelvic area. When the music started (very loudly), I felt the baby jump. I scared her! I felt bad, but then I was elated, because I knew for a fact she could hear. After that day I made sure the volume was on a better level.

I had read that being so far along in my pregnancy, you can feel if and when the baby turns. Some women said they totally felt the baby flip, and that it was the biggest baby movement ever. My baby had always kicked/moved a lot and you could see her moving if you looked at my belly. But during this period of trying to get her to turn, I felt nothing like a huge movement and was convinced that she was still breech when I walked into my Week 38 doctor’s appointment. I was shocked when the doctor felt my belly and said she turned! I don’t know which of the 20 or so methods did it, or if it just happened anyway, but I was thrilled! So to all those women carrying breech babies…don’t give up. And keep trying these methods you hear about, because I am one case where it DID work, so stay positive and get on all 4’s girl! haha.

Anyway, all those tests came back fine, so it was time for me to have this procedure done called a Hysterosalpingogram (HSG). It’s where they shoot radioactive dye up you and take an x-ray to make sure your uterus and fallopian tubes are clear/normal. From reading online it made it sound like the procedure felt like you were in labor for about 3 minutes or so and some women said it was worse than labor. Fun. To help deal with the pain I brought my mp3 player since nothing relaxes me more than music. So now I’m laying there all ready to go, listening to “Our Final Hymn” from the Neverending White Lights music collaboration, and I’m waiting for this intense pain to begin. All I feel is what can be described as a few seconds of strong menstrual pains. No big deal. The song wasn’t even over and it’s done. I do have a really high pain tolerance, so I’m thrilled about that. The good news was that the HSG didn’t hurt. The bad news was that the results showed that BOTH of my fallopian tubes were blocked. What the??? How did that happen? I wondered if the miscarriage could have caused that, and of course no doctors wanted to answer me on why it happened. All they said was, “here’s your referral to an IVF (in vitro fertilization) specialist; lots of women have successful outcomes with IVF; Good luck!” And I’m thinking Slow Down! Aren’t there other options first? Again, no answers. They said the IVF specialist will have to answer any other questions I had.

I made my appointment with a specialist, which was a month away. For the entire month I researched on how to clear blocked fallopian tubes, which suggested everything from surgery to special massages to relaxation/meditation techniques. Since I truly believe in the mind-body connection, I embraced anything that was affordable and within reason. I got a hot stone massage, and I would do relaxation techniques every night, which normally involved some “Ok Computer,” and various Sarah McLachlan and The Cure playing in the background. Since I couldn’t afford the fancy massage that’s designed to clear your tubes (yes that actually exists for a few thousand bucks), I just massaged my own abdomen in hopes of it doing something. And of course I went to two Ours concerts because nothing makes me happier than their live shows. Even during the show I got a little psycho and tried to visualize my tubes clearing out. I had recently read the book, “The Secret” which basically says that what you visualize will occur. Because of that, I made a “vision board” which is a cork board with inspirational images on it, like babies, pregnant women, etc. I figured it couldn’t hurt!

Sperm Donation Collection Testing Instruction Form

Semen Donation Collection Testing Instruction Form Page 2