Week 4 through 12 update

*read our journey here*

12.5 weeks

Thanks so much for all of your love and congratulations that you shared with us last week.  We are over the moon and so excited.  The amount of love that we received from y’all truly means the world to us.  Some of your comments on my blog, Instagram and Facebook left both John and I in tears.  We are so thankful for each and everyone of you.

We want to still stay as engaged with this pregnancy as we did with Henry.  Obviously, it’s going by much faster with a toddler and running a business, but I’m going to try my best to put a spin on weekly, bi-weekly or monthly pregnancy posts (whatever I have time for).  As boring as the ones with Henry might have been, I’ve always enjoyed going back and reading those posts.

I think I’ll change my updates up a bit and instead of answering the same questions each week (which typically end up with the same answers), I’ll do a summary of noteworthy experiences, feelings, etc.  Just a little something to reflect back on.

This is a long one b/c there’s so much that’s happened since the pregnancy started on April 19th.

How did we find out we were expecting?  Nothing epic, I promise you.  With IVF there’s a term called PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise), you’re considered PUPO until your first period.  Makes total sense because an “alive” embryo is placed inside of you.  Day one, technically, I was preggo.  Anyways, within 24 hours of our frozen embryo transfer I felt cramping (implanting)… so, naturally, I did as I always do best and googled, 😉 “how soon do you implant after FET (frozen embryo transfer)”.  Sure enough, most women said 24-36 hours.  I felt the same implantation cramping with both IVF pregnancies.  I ate my weight in pineapple to help the embryo stick.

I started testing out the HCG trigger shot at 5 days post transfer.  Like every round of injections that I’ve done (even the ones at my reg OB office), they came back positive.  However, with all of my pregnancies, each day, they would become darker and darker.  Of course, I tested both AM and PM 😉 and even the PM tests came back dark.  Around 10 days post transfer, my nurse brought me in for bloodwork and my levels were through the roof.  We repeated bloodwork every other day for a week (I think 3x total) until my levels reached the thousands.  Then we had our first ultrasound around 6 weeks and it was then that we saw the sweetest little heartbeat and it was 100% confirmed that I was indeed pregnant.

Test @ 6 days post transfer 

Will we find out the gender?  At first we said absolutely not.  Jokes on us.

Here’s the thing, there’s nothing unexpected or exciting with infertility treatments.  So, to us, that big “wow”, that big exciting moment would be finding out the gender at birth.  Which would be a beautiful thing.  Buuuuuut, I’m so excited and have the patience of my 2.5 year old so we’re definitely finding out.  Our clinic knows the gender because we tested the genetics of the embryos.  We just opted to wait until after the first trimester to find out.  We wanted something to look forward to and more than anything, I wanted reassurance that this baby was meant to be.  I didn’t want to get too emotionally attached early on.  Also, gave us something to look forward to later in the pregnancy.

Will we do a gender reveal?  Not this time.  We’re going to find out the old school way inside the doctors office.

What gender do we think is cookin’?  I would say boy – 100% boy!  I’ve been more nauseous and got sick often between weeks 6-9.  At week 10 when I stopped progesterone injections and estrogen patches and I’ve felt fine.

John thinks girl… he said, “this pregnancy is so much different on you”. (?!?)

Henry swears girl and only wants a baby sister.  And he’ll name her “Anna” b/c he loves Disney redheads (thank you Frozen).

12 week bump

How do I feel?  Like I was saying, the first trimester was has been pretty good.  Yes, I was extremely nauseous and vomited often… Once I got sick I felt fine.  I’m not as tired and tatas aren’t as sore as they were with Henry.  I don’t have any weirdnesses with my sense to smells (with Henry this was one of the biggest symptoms I experienced – everything smelled like wet, dirty dog).  I remember being so tired, couldn’t lift my head off the pillow with Henry.

The only thing I do feel are the lbs! I gained about 15lbs when I started my stimulation meds in January, so starting this pregnancy off heavier.  Then, like most women, I couldn’t eat protein the first several weeks… so lots of carbs and not a lot of healthy, but I’m getting that in check now.

Am I still working out?  I was doing Orange Theory Fitness until  the first week of April when it was suggested that I stopped working out.  The progesterone injections are pretty hard core on your booty and it’s just uncomfortable to run, sit or move your tush for that matter.  The main reason, is that they don’t want any physical activity to jeopardize the pregnancy.

I wasn’t released to workout until around 9 weeks.  So, now I’m slowly getting back into Burn Bootcamp and Body Pump.  I loved Orange Theory, but with my bootcamp I can modify a lot more.  With Henry I ran and did Body Pump my entire pregnancy.  I think at 32 weeks I stopped running and continued 4-6 mile power walks and did that thru week 37.  No, you couldn’t tell bc I love to eat food.  Bad food.  Had no self-control and portion control is in non-existence with me.  Therefore, I gained a lot with him.

I’ve been waking up early for bootcamps, so getting that out of the way before the boys wake up.  Then Body Pump on Tuesday and Thursday mid-mornings.

How does the hubby feel?  Y’all know my hubby.  He’s the most emotional man ever. He tears up a lot.  He’s always wanted a family and children, so now that I’m pregnant with our second he’s the one that’s glowing (lol), not me.

How does Henry feel?  He’s so excited and totally understands that he’s going to be a big brother to his little… “sister”, b/c if you say BROTHER he FLIPS OUT.

He’ll randomly walk up to me at pat my belly’ish area and said, “hi baby” or “hi baby sister”. If I’m laying down he’ll lift my shirt and try looking through my belly bottom.  He swears he can see baby “sister”.  I play the What To Expect app video of the baby and he loves watching the 2 minute video.  He will occasionally ask if the baby’s kicking mommy in the belly.  And most of the time when he rubs the baby, he rubs my boobs.  So, there’s that. 😉

We were on a family vacay with his 5 cousins and he was NOT very accepting when I held them or played with them individually.  He’s very attached to mommy right now.  When I pick him up from school and all of his friends huddle around and hug me, he’s totally fine with it and thinks it’s super cool… but that one on one with other kiddos makes him a little jelly.

Over the weekend he said… “mommy’s my best friend, daddy’s my best friend and baby’s my other best friend”.

According to Henry, baby already has a favorite color and that color is green.

11.5 weeks

Cravings?  Since I love food, I have to cover this subject.  Greek salads.  Carrots & celery with ranch.  Regular JIFF peanut putter.  I die over some Showmars Greek Salad, no shell – substitute with pita, extra olives.  With Henry I craved Greek salads as well, but more so BLT sandwiches, cake and pancakes.

Highlights of the week?  Spending the week at the beach, announcing our pregnancy and celebrating my hubby’s 39th birthday.

Things to note:  My pregnancy pillow came out around 8 weeks.  I had a bump before I was pregnant.  I’ve lost all drive to keep the house picked up and organized.  I’m not craving sweets so far like I did with Henry.  Biggest thing to note… a week or so ago I was laying in bed with Henry.  As still and calm as could be… and CRAZY enough, I swear I felt little flutters.  Call me crazy, I know.  Then I googled and women were saying they felt their 2nd move as early as 11 weeks.  At our 9 week ultrasound the heart rate was 192bpm.  Wowzer!

12 weeks

Thing’s I know I’ll do different?  I’m not going to put as much pressure on myself to breastfeed.  I struggled with milk supply big time with Henry.  Spent hours in lactation appointments.  Ate my weight (literally) in lactation cookies and grains.  Never got a bottle ahead of the pumping game and frozen milk… YEAH RIGHT.  I fought it for 5 whole months and even though at the time I didn’t admit it, I was miserable.  Knowing that unfortunately, this will be my last, I was to enjoy every moment of this pregnancy and having a newborn.

Up until 12 weeks of Henry’s life our feeding rotations took an hour and 30 minutes!!!!!  I was so determined to actually breastfeed, so I would put Henry on one side while pumping the other side (30 minutes), then switch sides for the same amount of time.  Because my output of milk was such a small amount of milk, I then had to feed Henry the bottle I just pumped.  An hour and 30 minutes, not including the clean up.  HELLZ to the NO will I be doing that again.  If it comes easy – GREAT.  If not, these tatas are closed for bidness and I’m confident that my baby will be just fine.