The unintended secret

Before I start, I must sincerely apologize. I always resented the bloggers who dropped off the face of the earth for months, and now I have become one of those bloggers. Second, before I get into the meat of this post, I should let you all know that I'm doing fine. I'm 31 weeks along, and beyond hemorrhoids and a potential yeast infection, I'm perfectly healthy. I'm currently spending the week at a marketing agency as a writer-for-hire. Basically, that means I sit here in case they need a writer while their full-time writer is on vacation. A sweet gig, yes, but it makes for a long day--especially with pregancy-induced back problems that make it difficult to sit. And now for the main event... At the beginning of this pregnancy, I vowed I would not be secretive at all about how this baby was conceived. I was not ashamed that we underwent IUI, and certainly all our close friends and family know our story. But I have realized I have told our story to very few people outside our inner circle. Not because I don't want to tell, but because the subject has never come up. The simple truth is, people see a pregnant woman and they don't care how she got that way. All they want to know is the due date. And if I endeavor to bring up the IUI in casual conversation, it feels awkward. I could tell them I underwent IUI, but then that brings blank stares, and I must elaborate further: intrauterine insemination. And here's where my fifth-grade sensibilities come in. I have a difficult time saying the word "insemination," mainly because of its inclusion of the word "semen." If we had done IVF, that would have been much easier to talk about. But when I say "semen," chances are you're getting a mental picture. And that mental picture is not ideal in a casual conversation. So I just smile and answer their questions about how I'm feeling. Sometimes I'll slip in "...and it took us a long time to get here." But nobody ever asks whose eyes I was looking into when sperm was sent on its way to meet egg. In this case, the means doesn't really matter to my extended circle of acquaintances; it's all about the end.

Good news

We have kidneys! And it's a boy!

That's all I have to say. :)

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the baby's kidney ultrasound.

I have spent the past half hour or so reading my posts from 2007, when we found out Zach had no kidneys and terminated the pregnancy. At one point, tears were running down my face.

I'm not a wreck today. In fact, I honestly cannot fathom what it would be like if we found out there were no kidneys again. I just very much want to get this ultrasound over with so I can move on.

I seem to remember that I was a wreck the day before Tyler's kidney ultrasound. So much so that I walked into my boss's office, burst into tears and announced that I was pregnant and might be receiving bad news the next day.

Here are the facts: A genetic counselor found nothing in our family history that would indicated that the bilateral renal agenesis was genetic. That said, my own research has indicated that we have a 3 percent chance of recurrence. That's 1 in 33. Not terrible, but not great either.

I am 97 percent sure things will be fine. But...well, all you have to do is take a look at my blog title to know how I feel about percentages and me.

Grr

A friendly acquaintance (who recently revealed she was pregnant on Facebook) just posted yesterday that she had the 19-week ultrasound and found out it's a boy. That's all. Nothing about the health. She had several posts leading up to it where she hosted a "contest" to see who could guess the gender. Incidentally, this is a woman who used to be a better friend of mine, and who was a huge support when we lost Zach.

This drives me. Absolutly. Nuts. What about the rest of it? Is the baby healthy? I actually wrote a commment and then erased it: "I'm glad to hear the baby is healthy!" I erased because I thought it sounded kind of snarky, and she doesn't deserve that. Plus, she never actually said the baby is healthy.

People, IT IS NOT A GENDER ULTRASOUND! The purpose of the u/s is to see if all the important organs are present and healthy. And yes, often you can see genitals. I just wish people would acknowledge the other part of the ultrasound.

Am I going to be this sensitive on this issue for the rest of my life?

Yay!

I am woefully late with this post. My only excuse is that I have spent most of the past week either lying down, wishing I were lying down, or reading The Hunger Games.

My u/s on Thursday was successful--he found a heartbeat. My due date is Sept. 29. I'm relieved, but I know this is just one step in the process. I am very aware that I could have a baby that's growing perfectly fine, and a belly that's slowly rounding--yet I could find out that my baby is missing vital organs. (It has been known to happen--women have had more than one baby with bilateral renal agenesis.)

Don't think that I'm all doom and gloom; I'm not. I'm thrilled that everything is going along swimmingly, and if it weren't for the extreme exhaustion, the sudden moodiness (I went off on my friend a couple of days ago) and the depressing winter weather, I'd be walking on air. We've also started telling a few family members and close friends, which is a bit of a load off my back.

For now, I'm just looking forward to showing a bit more so I can start wearing maternity clothes again. The good news is, because my due date is just three days before Tyler's due date, I'll be using the same seasons of maternity clothes.

5w1d

It's amazing how much you can forget in four years.

For example, I completely forgot about the fact that after you get a positive pregnancy test (and good betas), it's another waiting game. Of course it's a waiting game--I mean, isn't that the whole point of pregnancy? I don't know whether I was expecting fireworks or something, but I'm finding myself incredibly, incredibly impatient. Four years ago, I was mired in grief over Zach when I first got pregnant with Tyler, so I was perfectly fine with pretending I wasn't pregnant. This time, I am literally counting the days until our heartbeat ultrasound (it's 13 now).

Yes, part of it is wanting to make sure the baby is OK. But another part of it is wanting to tell the world.

Well, most of the world. My friend just confided in me in an e-mail last night that she has been trying since September, and is getting frustrated. She wants to talk to me because I, presumably, am still in the trenches, just like her. When we get together next week, I'm going to have to be very careful with what I say. It is certainly not the right time to tell her I'm pregnant, but I don't want to outright lie, either.

Then there's this other, nagging little thing: Besides lots of "stretching" feelings in my uterus (when Tyler pounces on me, I have to gasp), I haven't had any symptoms. No nausea, no exhaustion. I feel perfectly, absolutely fine. One part of me knows that every pregnancy is different, but the negative part of me says, "If you aren't tired by now, does this mean there's something wrong with the baby?"

Gotta love the old crazy coming back...

The results are in

And so it is that on a cold, snowy January morning, I have a positive pee stick sitting in my bathroom wastebasket.

Yep, I'm pregnant. For now, at least.

That's all I have to say about that.

IUI #1

On Tuesday, I took an OPK test and got a negative. After getting a positive on Wednesday (CD 16, for what it's worth), I called the clinic and set up an appt. for an IUI Thursday morning. Then, Wednesday night at about 10:30 p.m., I started experiencing enough cramping that I had to take an Advil. Sure enough, when I took my temp Thursday morning, it was just high enough to make me wonder whether I had already ovulated.

See, I had elected not to do an u/s this first time, because OPKs have been working so well for me. But I was so paranoid I requested an u/s before my IUI at 10:45 a.m. on Thursday. I was right--I had already ovulated. The doctor told me the IUI could still work 12-24 hours after I ovulated, and I was at 12 1/2 hours, so I went ahead with it. After all, a 102 million sperm count is nothing to scoff at! But I have to laugh at the fact that my first $1300 IUI may very well be a bust because I was too late. It figures.