14w1d

Hello, there! Yep, I'm still here, just been slacking off on blogging. Summer is pretty much in full effect over here so I've been really busy! My niece came to town for the weekend and brought my two favorite great-nephews! (OKAY, my ONLY two, but whatevs!) They love their Aunt Tonya! I have been having a great time with them so far.. They headed to Miami today, but will be back tomorrow and I can't wait! I also realized that I miiight need a refresher course on little kids and hubs DEFINITELY needs a kiddie course. Breakfast this morning was quite interesting with little hands reaching onto plates of piping hot pancakes and I was trying to work the griddle, make plates and make sure a feisty 2 year old was NOT jumping out of the chair to hit the very hard tile floor.. Also answering all ELEVENTY-MILLION questions his 5 year old brother was throwing at me while doing said cooking and watching.. Hubs was helping me until he decided to set a plate in front of 2 year old and attempt to pour syrup on the pancakes!! DUDE! WHO is gonna feed him those, certainly not himself?! *DAZED AND CONFUSED LOOK* Then a simple *Why?* OMG! OK, Tonya calm down, this is his first rodeo.. SO... I say back the plate away, sit next to him and FEED HIM!! After a look of fear, hubs did a pretty good job feeding Max.. Until Max decided to start spitting food out on the floor, LOL!! Then all bets were off, hubs was DONE!  It was a sticky fun morning.. The dogs especially like Max.. He isn't very good at NOT dropping his food and he always leaves some on his hands or face before somebody can catch him (he only knows RUN, not walk!) to wash his face off! I forgot how tiring little kids are, OMG!!! I told hubs, this is what our future is gonna be like, are you ready? He smiled and said..YEP!  In BABY news, still chugging along.. Just waiting on our appointment June 1st and then June 11th to find out the gender!! Super excited.. I have had friends send me boy stuff and girl stuff, so everyone is pretty much split on what they think it is, lol.. I told them to STOP until we know, but C'est la vie.... It's fun to look at the clothes and imagine we will have someone to fill them in a few short months! I am so excited to get my "bump shots" each week, I think once we have about 4-6 more weeks under our belts, we might get a really good showing bump shot! That will be awesome... After reading Jesse's blog today, it made me realize that we are NOT taking advantage of what we can to be even more involved in this pregnancy! I am embarrassed to say we have NOT skyped with Christy during this pregnancy...YET!! I can't believe it! That would be the perfect way for hubs to hear the hearbeat from doppler and for us to catch up instead of texting and talking on the phone.. Plus it will include hubs more, since right now I report whatever is going on to him.. I feel really bad about that now.. I plan to rectify that TODAY. And since it is early enough, I hope he will only have awesome memories of this experience! I don't know if he realized it but I am going to "man up" and tell him I NOTICED and then fix it.. So, that's my weekend confession and update! Til next time!




 

13w0d: Second Trimester!

I am in utter shock that we are in the SECOND TRIMESTER today! I NEVER thought we would see this day... I think it still hits me sometimes that we are actually going to have a baby! These last few days I have allowed myself to have unabashed joy and now my mind is racing a mile a minute on all of the things we will need for baby! I was SO overwhelmed looking at the registries online!! I am not sure I want to register at stores! WOWZA is all I can say about the amount of baby products available nowadays, it has definitely come a looong way since I had a little one.. People have started asking me if I am having a baby shower.. I say "No".. Then they give me a weird look. Then I feel bad, lol.. The reason I am not having a shower (that I know of since there is NO WAY in hell I am throwing myself a shower (that's super ghetto isn't it!?!?!)) is because aside from my Dad and Aunt, NO one in my family that I would want at my shower lives near us. And I work for myself so I don't venture far from my house much unless it is looking for an awesome deal to sell on e.Ba.y so I don't have many friends here either. All of my friends and family are either in TX or scattered in other states up the east coast. Makes it hard for them to get together, so we pretty much knew going in that we would be buying all of our stuff, aside from the things people sent us and we are TOTALLY ok with that! But it makes me feel bad when people ask me "why not?" I usually give a snarky answer then I feel like a bitch.. I know I'm weird. Anyway, do I HAVE to have a shower?? Christy said a friend of hers is giving us a shower because she wants to.. I cried.. I guess she is doing it to honor Christy for being our surrogate, but they are buying stuff for our baby.. Very cool of her friend.. This post is all over the place and I didn't mean for it to be, lol! SO much is going through my mind right now... I think looking at all of the baby stuff on the registry pages and thinking about actually having a baby by Thanksgiving is starting to overload my brain!



 

Happy Mother's Day

This Mother's Day is even more special than the previous years! I am  finally getting the family that I wanted.. That means more to me than I can express. My boys are being perfect gentlemen today AND they are excited to have a sibling coming and I finally gave them the OK to tell whoever they wanted at school. I had waffles and bacon and only had to help some (LOL!) I was also informed that I do NOT have to help with dinner since the menfolk are making it! I asked what we are having and they said whatever you want us to order! (Gotta love them!) I chose not to go out to dinner today because everyone and their mother (pun intended!) will be out today and I don't want to fight the crowds! So we will just go out Wednesday for hubs birthday and celebrate both then! Today shall be full of couch riding and mindless tv and probably a load or two of laundry! But that's OK, I love being "Mom" I hope all you ladies enjoy your mother's day! And all of you fellas that are being both mom and dad to your little ones, Happy mother's day to you too!

12w1d: Facebook Official

Fun times over here in "Stressedville".. Hubs and I were talking since the NT Scan and he wants to go "Facebook Official"... TOMORROW.. I don't know how I feel about that.. I mean, I am happy to share it with our family and friends, BUT once you tell you cannot "UNTELL" ya know? I am NOT trying to jinx it or have negative thoughts because honestly, I really feel like this is OUR TIME.. But old habits die hard and I am terrified to tell because my security blanket feels like it will be ripped away.. And also too... I am NOT looking forward to the crude remarks from family or friends that say "Girrrl, your kids are almost grown, you crazy!" or "Ooh wee, so glad it's not me" or "Girrrl, you coulda just took mine with their bad asses!" Yeah THANKS BUT NO THANKS... I don't want anyone raining on my parade with their shitty little comments.. Methinks I will just delete them if I see any comments like that and then promptly remove said offender from my "friends" HA! So that's where I am at with it.. I wanted to go public a few days later on Wednesday (closer to 13wks, like it matters, UGH!) because it would have been on hubs birthday.. I told him that and he said no on Mother's Day was the perfect day (so love this man!) Of course when I asked him what he wants for his birthday, he said "I already have everything I could ever want.." Can't you just die at his sweetness?!?!

So if you are my facebook friend, you will "officially" know tomorrow.. and EEEEK! I can't believe we are far enough along to tell people!!! :) Enjoy your weekend everyone!


 

NT Scan: 11w5d

Today was a big day! We had the NT Scan today! So we got to see another glimpse of our little one! We got 4 shots, so I was thrilled! Christy was awesome enough to snap a pic and text it to me of one shot and then had Toby (my brother in law) scan them and email them to me!! Here are the latest pics of our miracle!:

**Edited post to add the last picture I forgot to put in! It's the very last one! Any guesses on gender? I still say BOY! Oh and baby is still measuring 2 days ahead at 12w1d!**

I have it on good authority from a fellow IVF'er that this is a girl (LOL!) but I'm not convinced just yet.. Planning on having our 3D/4D ultrasound on June 11th (if they can get her in, fingers crossed!) so hoping we can get a definite answer at that time! Christy also had bloodwork done and they will draw blood again in 4.5 weeks and then let us know our risk for downs.. Just basing it off of the nuchal fold alone, we are OK.. Anything under 2.5mm is supposed to be good and we were at 1.1mm! So this visit couldn't have gone better! Today was a really good day... I am definitely starting to relax and enjoy this ride and getting really excited that we really have a baby coming!!! OMG!! OK peeps, got lots to do! Til next time!


 

11 Weeks!

I CANNOT believe we are 11 weeks today!! The time is kinda going by really fast, which I LOVE! In 29 short weeks, we will be meeting our sweet boy or girl and I can't wait!! Christy had an Dr. appointment today and she has LOST 6lbs this month! She said not to worry she has lost anywhere from 17-30lbs each pregnancy!! :-O!!! OB used the doppler and said everything sounded perfect!! Have a listen! :)  Heartbeat


Just what I needed to hear today! Next up? NT Scan on WEDNESDAY!!! Yup, just a short wait until we get an ultrasound, yippeeee!!!! Enjoy your weekend everyone!




 

Lactation Nation: Chronicles of Induced Lactation Post 1

Thank you to the lovely Nini for giving me this awesome series title, it makes me laugh every time I think of it!

OK.. So, as I have said several times, I planned on inducing lactation to breastfeed this baby. My goal is to exclusively breastfeed for AT LEAST ONE YEAR! This will include Christy pumping colostrum and breastmilk for us in addition to me pumping too. In order to induce lactation, I had to start on a medication protocol of progesterone (the same drug that is used to support a pregnancy such as crinone, pio shots, or in my case PROMETRIUM taken orally) AND a drug called Motilium or Domperidone. This medication is used to treat motion sickness, but was found that a side effect it had was causing lactation in women AND MEN. As soon as I was reasonably sure things were going to progress normally with the pregnancy, I jumped in there and started my pills.

 You start off on 1 Prometrium pill ideally at night (DO NOT take this during the day if you want to be able to function, OMG I learned that the hard way!) As well as 40 mg (4 pills) of Domperidone a day. After 7 days, you up the dosage of "Dom" to 80mg (8 pills a day). You are supposed to do this for AT LEAST 2 months, but ideally 6 months so you can have the full effect. Also you are not supposed to pump until approximately SIX WEEKS before baby is due. This plan would not work for me for several reasons.

1.   I have no patience
2.   My previous breastfeeding experiences were MORE THAN SUCCESSFUL, meaning I produced enough milk to feed a small village! (NOT KIDDING)
3. In the event I couldn't pump a full supply, I wanted to start stockpiling.
4. I have no patience (yeah, I know I said that already!)

So I started on the protocol and waited for the changes that are supposed to happen. (Your boobs grow about a cup size bigger AND become very tender all the time!!) I started noticing a tingling feeling approximately 1 to 2 DAYS in to meds.... Just for kicks, I tried to see if I could express a drop. To my surprise I got about 5! I was super excited! So excited in fact that I texted a pic of my drips on my fingers to Bobbie! (She is my official "Milk Buddy" since we are inducing lactation together!)

 She was very encouraging and that really pushed me to keep going. I love having a buddy to go through this part with! So then I noticed the cup size change about a week after that. I was anxious to try pumping but was scared I would mess something up. (After researching, I realized I couldn't mess anything up, as some women exclusively induce just by pumping) I would say about 2 to 3 weeks of meds later and I felt like I was going to BURST! I decided to give pumping a try. Now the actual pumping schedule is something like every 2-3hrs for 20 minutes at a time. I just wanted to casually pump when I had that painful full feeling. So on my first pumping session I didn't keep because I take a blood pressure medication for pre-hypertension and it is NOT baby friendly. So I had a few sessions of pump and dump (throwing the milk out! Yes this pained me beyond words!) So I decided to cold turkey stop my meds and ask my Dr. for a breastfeeding friendly bp medication. I waited about a week to 10 days of stopping my bp medication and then started gearing up to pump and KEEP! My first session of pumping to keep I produced this:

 That is about 2.5oz!!! Not a bad showing at all! I am sure you noticed one bottle has more. Apparently just like before, one side is going to be my slacker side and one side is going to be my overachiever side! The overachiever is ole righty! After this, there was no stopping me! I started pumping one time a day at night and drinking LOTS of water and juice during the day. I can tell when I have had lots to drink because I FEEL it almost immediately! I have also had to purchase a couple of nursing bras because the girls are not OK with being squished in to one of my regular cutie bras.. Annnywho, so I have been on my pump once a day schedule now for a couple of weeks and I continued to see progress:

This is about 3.5oz, so definitely building up a little bit of a supply! I decided NOT to pump yesterday because I didn't feel like it (LOL!) and I was feeling kind of blah and tired.. I slept terribly last night and had pains all night in the girls! By this morning I was dying from not pumping and super engorged, so I am at the point now that not doing it is no longer an option. Today when I got up, I immediately got my supplies and headed to my "pumping station" or my chaise in my reading spot in my room, LOL! When it was all over 15 minutes later I had this:

5.5oz= BOOYAH!

So far that is a record, but I am sure it was due to me not pumping at all yesterday. My norm for the day is about 3.5oz to 4oz, nowhere near the 28oz to 30oz a baby will drink per day (Thank you Med.ela for putting that info in the pump booklet!) So knowing this, that is part of the reason I wanted to get ahead of the game with pumping so as of today, this is my stockpile:

 Not a bad start, huh!? Most of these bags have 1.5oz-2oz in them with the more recent ones having 2.5oz to 3oz. I plan on having MANY of these bins full by the time baby makes his/her debut! I am a looong way off from 30oz a day, but I am hoping to be close to that by September or October! I will update on my progress along the way! Wish me luck!