20 weeks - nesting

Nesting has started to kick in. My husband has been away for some training so I've had the last ten days to myself. I've been knitting, cleaning and preserving veggies from our garden for this winter when the baby arrives.

The images above are items that I want to knit for the baby. I've already completed the sweater, but I have to find the right yarn to knit the lamb and the socks. 

Pregnancy symptoms:

• Baby is kicking and wriggling around. This feels awesome. I love the quiet times at night when baby starts moving and I can just lay there and feel him/her. 
• My belly is itchy - because it's expanding!
• heartBURN -- I had it all day today. Major yuck.
• Sleep disruption - I can't seem to sleep for more than two hours straight without waking up because I have to pee or waking up because I'm uncomfortable. 
• Happy GLOW - I'm just happy that we have our baby in our life! Every so often I come across the story of someone who couldn't have a child and I pause and let the miracle of what has happened to my husband and I wash over me. We have been so blessed. I am so thankful for our donors. 

Things I'm doing:

• Taking prenatal vitamins and fish oil supplements. 
• Eating tons of fresh veggies from the garden.
• Walking daily to work and with the dog when I get home. 
• Preparing for birth by researching natural birthing methods - also researching birth stories so that I'm prepared for what ever may come. 
• Yoga! (I'm also teaching yoga at my office)
• Praying daily and expressing my gratitude for all the gifts in my life. 
• Rubbing organic sweet almond oil on my growing belly
• Loving on my husband
• Knitting hats and sweaters for the baby. 

Our anatomy scan is next week. I'm trying not to think about that too much so that I don't stress. I'm praying that the scan is uneventful and joyful. That we learn the sex of our child and that I am carrying a child that is developing healthily. What a miracle it will be to get past that milestone.

Praying for all of you walking the path of infertility, may we be blessed with the joy that is waiting for us all.

xo
Jill

new year

Hello everyone:

Today I sent in the all of our paperwork to have our home study reviewed by the National Fertility Support Center. Our anniversary is just around the corner - next Wednesday to be exact - and a hot copy of our home study will be in the hands of the NFSC staff for their review and approval.

Ever since our failed IVF back in early September, I have been counting down the days to our 3rd Anniversary. In a way the days seemed to drag, but they also seemed to fly by. The holidays are over and I do not mourn their passing, they were darn hard to live through this year.

My husband asked me what I wanted for our Anniversary and I said I didn't want anything. I just wanted the day to finally get here.

Tomorrow I'm going shopping to stock up on all of the vitamins, supplements and healthy ingredients that I will be needing for our upcoming frozen embryo transfer in March. I've already cut out coffee.

For our first (and last) IVF cycle last summer I pumped up and avocados, whole grains, fresh fruits and water. I suspect I will try a combination of all of those things this time around. I will be starting up acupuncture again at the end of January and I will be doing an herbal cleanse during my upcoming period.

I'm considering doing an endometrial biopsy scraping the cycle before our transfer in March.
Does anyone have any feedback that they could provide me on that? Do you think it works, doesn't work? I would value some feedback.

Plus any other advice that anyone can give me on supplements or foods to load up on in the months leading up to our FET transfer.

Sending love and hope:

Jillian

baby board

Hoping for the best. Praying for God's blessing. Trying to find peace in this journey.

I made this collage last weekend from a bunch of old magazines. I love to make collages. For this one I focused on all of my baby-making hopes for the immediate future and the years ahead. This bulletin board is on the wall beside the table where I've set up my med injection kit. I take my shots in the morning and at night and then imagine myself into the place where all of these images live.

Stim shots are going good. But I'm a bit worried that they didn't give me enough Follistim. Right now I'm on 200 IU dose and I only have 1300 IUs left in the fridge. I will have to ask at my next appointment - which is Labor Day.

Hope everyone has a good holiday.

keeping it together

I made it through the family gathering. It was better (but also more terrible) than I thought it would be. On the surface everything went fine. There were two infants there - one a nephew and the other a cousin - both were born during the time that my husband and I have been trying. It was just bittersweet to look at them. 

If things would have worked out differently . . .

My sister-in-law was there (with the nephew). It was difficult to see her - though I tried not to show it. Two years ago we were gabbing all about how we wanted to start families and, well, hers started and ours didn't.

She never said one word to me about my infertility. She just ignored me.

I was (and still am) very hurt by her behavior. She did explain self-righteously after I asked that she felt it wasn't her place to comment on our infertility, that it should be personal and private. It was so hard last summer being a despairing wall-flower during her pregnancy. Always asking her how she was doing while she pointedly ignored our struggles.

I just don't think her behavior was right, but she feels justified and this entire situation with my husband's family has turned into a nightmare.

I guess I was raised to try to comfort and help people. If I knew someone was suffering I would try to help them. I feel bad about the times that I know I've said insensitive things to people in the past. I know I probably say a dozen insensitive things every day. But if I know someone is struggling I try to help them. And I don't like seeing other people slighting them.

Infertility is hard. I think most pregnant people would wish to see their infertile friends get pregnant, but you just can't order that sort of thing up.

There have been other women who have reached out to me and said kind things - just not my in-laws. Anyway, it's hard to go to family get-togethers and watch my sister-in-law bouncing her baby around. She has no idea how gutted she would feel that baby was just a hopeful dream that kept slipping out of her reach and someone else was smugly jiggling their baby in her face while giving her a pitying look.

I'm going to avoid family gatherings for a while. I went to this last one because I felt like I had something to prove, but when I came home there still was no baby and I don't think I proved anything to anyone.

uplifting thoughts

Just love the dog flying sideways through the air after the frisbree. My dog loves to catch frisbees. Everyday I get home from work and she's waiting for me. She really lifts me up. My husband and I just adopted her three weeks ago. It took us a while to get a dog. We were back and forth.

In 2011 we said:

"Should we get a dog? We'll be having a baby soon, there will be no time for a dog.

In 2012 we said:

"The baby is just around the corner, it wouldn't be fair to the dog if we got one."

Then came 2013:

"We can't even think about a dog, we're too busy running back and forth between work and fertility appointments."

Finally 2014:

I said "Honey, we're going to adopt a dog. Let's make a positive step forward in our life and take this leap."

And our dog has been the best thing we've done in the last two years. Funny, but now that we have her, I feel like there's this positive energy in our life now . . . things are going to start to happen for us.

Ever hopeful:

Jillian

(Source: handmadebycharlotte.com; blogg.amelia.se,magicinbatureblog; lifespotting.tumbler.com; claudia.d.k)