totallyshadowything

[totallyshadowything]

Posting this makes me feel old but I can’t figure it out. 😂

Is there any way to make it so my blog is only visible to those currently following me and invisible to everyone else? I’d love to post more pictures and videos of my daughter and my life but don’t want to do it publicly.

Thanks!!!

[totallyshadowything]

I decided to keep track of all my daughter’s big words for the last two weeks and this is the list so far. She’s seriously a 30 year old in a just tuned three year old’s body. These are also not words she’s parroting from shows she watches but she’s actually using them correctly and regularly.

Cautious

Predator

Appointment

Actually

Correctly

Carefully

Energy

Suction

Liquid

Completely

“According to my map”

Esophagus

Trachea

Character

Hero

Carnival

Refreshing

Impressed

Position

Maze

Master

Permission

Stethoscope

Destination

Hormones

Bacteria

Villain

Semi-Circle

Bladder

Cremated

Neurotypical

Cylinder

[totallyshadowything]

The heartbeat stuffie my daughter got at the last ultrasound we had at 8 weeks and 5 days. So strange to think my baby’s heartbeat is immortalized in this tiny purple octopus. (Volume up)

[totallyshadowything]

And I’m miscarrying. At almost 11 weeks and after seeing the heartbeat two weeks ago. I’m so sad and so angry. 💔

[totallyshadowything]

I just got my SneakPeek results back and it’s (supposedly) a girl!!!! I cried out of happiness. I would have cried no matter what the sex was because I had zero preference but it was so exciting to just get a little more information about this tiny babe growing inside me. Also my daughter wants a baby sister sooo badly. I’m waiting until I get my NIPT to confirm and then I’ll tell her. :) I’m kind of taking the results with a grain of salt since it’s still so early as I’m not even 9 weeks. If it turns out to be a boy I’ll of course be just as thrilled.

This pregnancy is so drastically different. I have “normal” morning sickness. Ya know the kind where you eat a cracker and your nausea subsides? It’s so weird after being so sick and losing so much weight last time. I did half throw up once but it was nothing. Ultrasound tomorrow!

[totallyshadowything]

This is how many babies I have in me right now...😳

One!!!!!! There’s just one! 😅❤️😊

The relief that flooded over me instantly was incredible. I didn’t realize how scared I was of having triplets + until I almost had a panic attack as I was walking in the clinic. I felt light-headed and like I was going to pass out.

It’s not caring for triplets that I’m afraid. I’m actually confident I could do it. It’s the incredibly high-risk pregnancy, possibly losing all three if they’re born before viability, or having all three have life-long issues. The long NICU stay. Also being in the devastating situation of having to seriously consider selective reduction.

Before the ultrasound I told my nurse I was scared and she laughed and said “Me too! Your HCG is high!” She looked around carefully and even looked at my ovaries /tubes as best as she could to try to make sure she didn’t see anything growing in the wrong place.

Of course now that my initial fear is over I’ve moved onto- but wait- then why is my HCG more than triple what it was with my daughter?

I know Down syndrome babies have higher HCG but is it high straight off the bat or does it only become elevated around 11-14 weeks when they do the first trimester blood screen?

Then of course I’m worried about a heterotopic pregnancy. One in the womb and one in a tube. My HCG levels are consistently doubling at exactly the same rate so most likely that’s not an issue but I’m keeping an eye out for symptoms.

[totallyshadowything]

I don’t remember how much I mentioned it on here but I was sick my WHOLE pregnancy with my daughter- starting and ending pregnancy at the same weight but actually being 25 pounds lighter than my starting weight after birth.

Anyhow I’m so thrilled I haven’t started getting sick yet. I remember I was 5 and 3 when I first started throwing up regularly and I’m 5 and 1 today. This makes me feel less worried about multiples - surely if I had triplets I’d already be 🤮 my brains out right? Then I’m thinking - we’ll maybe that means it’s a boy (or boys). My grandmother was sick with one sex and not the other. Don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely queasy a bit every day but no food aversions yet and last pregnancy all food was disgusting. Eating was very much a chore and then had to eat only “safe” foods. This time around I’ve actually felt ravenously hungry every day which never happened with my daughter.

[totallyshadowything]

I have to say it was SO wonderful and heart-warming to hear from my old friends on here! ❤️❤️❤️

My HCG levels are more than three times what they were with my daughter at the same time (16 DPO). 🥴 I know HCG levels aren’t considered a reliable indicator of multiples and that they can vary drastically between pregnancies but from studies and charts I’ve looked at I strongly believe I have at least twins. It’s crazy that at this point twins would be a relief because I’m so convinced I have 40 babies in me right now. Obviously just one would be ideal.

Beta 1: 200 (13 DPO)

Beta 2: 634 (16DPO)

I’m definitely happy to see that the numbers doubled appropriately. I’ll have an ultrasound on Tuesday at 5 weeks/ 3 days so I’m hoping whatever we see relieves my anxiety rather than reinforces it. 😳🥴😩

[totallyshadowything]

Baby #2 is due March 2022

After working with my fertility clinic since October I’m finally pregnant via IUI! Not bad for just turning 42.  Now I wasn’t exactly trying all those months but it was one thing after another with my clinic and I’ll maybe explain it in another blog post someday.  

I’m honestly very afraid there could be more than 1 in there. With all the issues with my clinic and way too much time passing and a larger than desired age-gap growing larger every day and only two vials left of my donor’s sperm (and no more to be found anywhere) I went ahead with an IUI that most people would have cancelled. 

I had 7 follicles. The nurse seemed completely unconcerned.  Maybe because of my age and egg quality? Also it looked like “only” 4 would be mature at the time of trigger although it’s possible the small ones could catch up.  I think the thing that convinced me (and probably the nurse) that it would be okay is that when I did IVF with natural fertilization (without ICSI) I only had 3 out of 9 eggs fertilize (round one) and 4 out of 18 eggs fertilize (round 2). This is a very low fertilization rate for the number of eggs and indicates poor egg quality as I used quality donor sperm with great numbers.

(FYI: If you’re confused about why I did IVF before I started IUIs I wanted to store some embryos in case I wanted a third child down the road. Knowing how long it takes for me to get a cycle back now (over 2 years!) and knowing I’ll be almost 43 by the time I deliver baby #2 I’d be looking at age 45 by the time I wanted to try again. If I choose to try again- although I’m not even sure I’d want a third I wanted the option)

Each IVF rounds resulted in one good quality embryo and one fair quality embryo and the others were all extremely poor (like extremely unlikely to make a baby poor). I know the womb is different than a petri dish but this made me think likely 2 max would take.  Now that I have a positive test I’m of course beyond grateful and excited it worked BUT I’ve been close to having panic attacks thinking I will have triplets or more.  Now if course I feel what I did was reckless but at the time I didn’t feel it was such a bad decision. Please be gentle with any comments. I’m already beating myself up over here. The reality is that there could only be one or two and if so I’ll be breathing the biggest sigh of relief.

My daughter just turned three and just weaned before her birthday. She’s so excited to have a sibling. There will be an almost 4 year age gap which is so not what I had planned. I thought I’d have my kids close together. Clearly with any pregnancy there are still many hurdles to overcome but for now I’m happy and will have to wait for the ultrasound in a couple of weeks to see how many I have. I’m doing my beta tomorrow and my second one on Monday. 

[totallyshadowything]

My baby is 2 years old and still no cycle. 😭 I know it can be induced but I really wanted to wait until my body was officially ready to try again. We are most likely moving out of state and am going to try to do IVF with CNY in August or September. I’ve told them I’m still breastfeeding when I did my consult and they said it’s fine to continue and will adjust the meds accordingly. My daughter continues to amaze me everyday. She uses words like actually and impossible on a regular basis and told me that I was weird the other day. She exclaims “Whoa! That’s amazing!” to almost anything she finds vaguely interesting. 😂 She said her longest sentence two days ago. Actually it was two sentences but it was one long thought. “Please open the window mama. I want to see the birds hiding outside right now.” She loves Blippi and Moana and her dollhouse dolls. She keeps wanting to go to the playground and I feel so bad that I can’t take her. Hopefully soon. She asked “where’s my daddy?” The other day which took me by surprise but I talk about the donor all the time so I just explained that she doesn’t have a dad but that she has a mom and a cat and hopefully a brother or sister some day. ❤️

[totallyshadowything]

I unfollowed a bunch of random blogs and WOW what a difference. It’s so much better. Now I don’t have to individually type everyone’s name in the search to see if they have posted. 🌸🌞🍄❤️

[totallyshadowything]

My baby has 7 sisters and 5 brothers and 1 unknown. They are called diblings which stands for “Donor Siblings” and I’m now in touch with the moms of all these babies who were born in 2017 & 2018. Three were born within a few weeks of her. 😲

[totallyshadowything]

Just a Quick Update

I’m still here at the hospital. All is well. Just going super slow which I expected. 5cm, -1 station and they just ruptured my water. Epidural. I’ll give a very detailed post soon about everything that’s happened at this point. ❤️❤️❤️

[totallyshadowything]

Induction! 38 weeks 1 day

Liver labs still elevated and climbing so I decided to go ahead with an induction. It’s most likely cholestasis but bile salt labs will still take a few days to confirm. They just placed a Foley catheter to try to open the cervix so hopefully that gently starts the process. A very different plan than my birth center birth. I really hope I can have a vaginal birth. 🤞🏼

[totallyshadowything]

38 weeks!

The last few days I’ve been a little paranoid about having cholestasis. Tomorrow I’m going to see if I can get a Bile Acids test done to ease my mind. I’ve had itchy palms and feet (and belly and other places but not as intense) on and off for the last few days. I also had an elevated ALT level on my metabolic panel indicating that my liver function is off. If I do indeed have cholestasis they usually induce you right away (if you’re over 37 weeks). It’s definitely not something to mess around with. I’ll update tomorrow. Going to try to get as much stuff done as I can today just in case she ends up coming home earlier than planned.

[totallyshadowything]

[totallyshadowything]

37 weeks, 1 day!

I now have the go ahead to do all those crazy prepping for labor things. I started taking evening primrose oil to ripen my cervix and am going to start using the Epi-No today. If you don’t know what that is it’s a balloon that you insert vaginally and slowly, over a few weeks, blow up to ten centimeters. It starts off small. You then practice pushing it out at each stage. It’s supposed to help with tearing!

I still could easily be pregnant for another five weeks. Although technically I’m good to go anytime. My apartment is definitely not ready. I still need to buy some more stuff and clean and sort and make my tiny apartment ready for my mom to stay here too.

Pretty soon I’ll be chugging raspberry leaf tea and eating dates by the handful! But not quite yet! Still too much to do. Still having a lot of night/ breathing anxiety and because of that I’m starting to feel ready for this baby even though I’m not ready ready and don’t feel even semi-close to labor.