Welcome To My New Blog

Welcome to my new blog and a new chapter in our journey.  As I write this post, I am officially 6 weeks pregnant (it's crazy to even type that!), which is way too soon to be official and there are many hurdles and many things that can go wrong, but in the interest of full disclosure, something we felt we wanted to share.  There is a reason that people traditionally don't tell anyone until 12 weeks because so much can go wrong between now and then, but this journey has been far from traditional.  And if God forbid, something does go wrong, we are going to need all the support we can get.

As the name of my blog suggests, I will always be a part of the infertility community, just getting a positive test results doesn't mean that we have overcome the emotional toll that infertility places on us.  We are still dealing with infertility even though I am pregnant, which sounds like such a conflicting statements.  Because this pregnancy was created through ART, we have different challenges, both mental and physical, than a spontaneous and traditional pregnancy.  I will explore those issues as we progress.

Parker is glued to my side.  I wonder if she knows...

Right now I am on bed rest, I've had complications and my doctor is concerned, so living on the couch it is.  I've had a lot of bleeding, coupled with severe cramping.  On my last ultrasound he found a blood clot in my uterus.  So couch life it is.

Huge shout out to my family!  They have been awesome and take turns coming over.  I am so thankful to be home in San Diego and to have their help.  I'm rotating through my Mom, Dad, Brother and Grandmother. And of course Ryan is here too and Parker.  Every time I take a few steps, the pain gets much worse so having them around has been great.

Our last ultrasounds was too early to take measurements of anything so all we have really been able to see is the gestational sac and the yolk sac.  We go back in a week and at 7 weeks things should be big enough to get accurate measurements and be able to tell how viable this pregnancy really is.  I asked my doctor when I can get excited and feel like this is actually something real and his answer was at 9 weeks, so we have 3 very long weeks to go.

At this point, we both go back and forth from happy to scared to death.  I am trying to stay positive but have been sucked into dark thoughts and have had several bad days. Every time I go to the doctor, we get some good news and some bad news.  Plus being so involved in the infertility community, I have heard so many awful stories.  For the last 5 years, every time I have felt a glimmer of hope, it has been a hard awful crash back down. Mentally just trying to protect myself and not get too excited just yet.  I will say though that making it to this point has been a giant relief on one very significant level.  Up until now, I had no idea if my body would ever make it to implantation.  Now at least we know that I can which is amazing in and of itself.

Thanks for Reading,
HEATHER