Monday, December 31, 2007

12/26/07

Was I this tired when I was pregnant with Tanner? I swear I need toothpicks to hold my eyes open! I need to go back and read my old pregnancy diary to see how I was feeling at this time with him. Probably sick. :o)

We survived Christmas and thankfully this year was a lot less chaotic than last year. I know I wouldn’t have held up if we had to replay last year. We had our Prokup Family Christmas last weekend and hosted Christmas breakfast for the grandparents on Christmas morning. I didn’t step foot out of the house yesterday, napped with Tanner and lounged all day long watching Tivo with Scott while Tanner played with all of his new loot. I selfishly enjoyed every single minute of it too!

I told Scott this morning that I would take the nausea over this exhaustion any day. I could end up regretting that statement but honestly, even my arms feel like they weigh a million pounds. This is ridiculous! I have been eating plenty so I know it isn’t food related fatigue.

On a fun note, I ventured to Motherhood Maternity and got some cute jeans. I only have one pair left that still buttons without feeling like I am doing damage to our unborn child. I love the fact that this time around I can fit into them (with lots of room to spare) and not just have to wear plus size pants or athletic pants, although I am still not happy with the shirts they offer. I can’t stand all of the ties in the back. YUCK, YUCK YUCK!

We have yet another ultrasound on Friday to take a peek at how the baby is growing and will update again at the end of the week.

12/21/07

Another ultrasound revealed that s/he is growing well with a heartbeat of 170 bmp! Our baby now looks like a Teddy Gram and you could totally see his/her head, and moving arms and legs at today’s ultrasound.

Papa Bill is convinced it is a girl as well as Tanner. If you ask Tanner if he is going to have a baby boy or baby girl he will tell you a “baby goil” and that he is going to name her “Ruthie”…I think he is still hoping that Mommy is going to have a puppy in July. I guess she would have to be Ruthie, Jr. Why my dad thinks it is a girl…I have no clue, but he has it set in his mind and refers to the baby as a girl and wants to know what girl names we have. Which is ZILCH, by the way.

Unlike when I was pregnant with Tanner, I have only had a few bouts of nausea but I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open during the day and have found myself in bed at 8:00 p.m. with Tanner on most nights. Pathetic, I know! So instead of nausea I just feel like someone has kicked my butt all day long. I am not sure which I prefer more yet. :o) Needless to say, not much has been getting done at Casa de Tice and we have Christmas morning breakfast to get ready for!

Other than general exhaustion I have a little bit of heartburn…ahhhh, MEMORIES, and severely vivid dreams. Vivid enough that I am not sleeping well at night…maybe a cause of the tiredness? Again, buy stock in Tums, it is about to go up and I am still a fan of the “smooth” ones. :o)

All symptoms aside, I am over the moon and cannot be more thankful.

12/18/2007

Well, here we are again! This time around took a little bit of extra help, more on that in a minute, but we are THRILLED to be adding to our family.

Once I had lost my extra pounds and maintained at a nice healthy weight for over a year we were ready for Baby #2. One of my friends had suggested that I buy ‘Taking Charge of Your Fertility’ as good luck because in her words, “If you just touch the book you will become pregnant.” Well, I didn’t, BUT it did help me to learn that I was not ovulating simply by taking my temperature every morning.

Flash forward to a trip to my trusty ol’ OB/GYN who delivered Tanner and is now practicing at Delnor, a hospital which I ADORE! Yea for ME! He confirmed what I thought with a progesterone test. My doctors believe that I needed a little hormone boost due to my weight loss. Who’d a thunk it?

To say that I was devastated was an understatement but I had options for which I was thankful for. I could try a round of Clomid my next cycle with him or see a Reproductive Endocrinologist. We decided to do both. Thankfully our insurance would have covered $15,000 worth of infertility treatments if we would have had to go any further, but obviously it didn’t come to that. The Clomid wasn’t horrible but wasn’t pleasant either and I am happy I didn’t have to take it for more than one cycle.

The day before my initial consultation with the Reproductive Endocrinologist I got a FAINT positive on a pregnancy pee stick. Freaking out I called both doctors and my OB/GYN had me in for blood work that night and the next day it was confirmed that the Clomid did indeed work and I was a whopping 10 days pregnant! YIPPEE! I still kept my appointment with the RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist) just in case, at their suggestion, and that was when we were hit with the second bit of info, the Clomid had worked so well that I ovulated TWICE! YIKES! Panic immediately set in that we could be having twins. Scott was thrilled, I was internally freaking out but excited that the medicine actually worked! I still have no clue what the ultra sound tech said to me after that bit of info. :o)

As my beta numbers continued to “way more than double” in the 48 hour time frame they look for I came to accept that if God wanted us to have twins, that is what we would be having and we would survive mentally and financially. An ultrasound later that week (I swear this was the longest week of my life!) discovered that there was only one and I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed but ecstatic none the less that we would have a little one in our home again in a little less than 9 months.

We decided to continue treatment with the RE for the first 12 weeks of my pregnancy based on the bump in the road we hit getting here. Having an ultrasound every week has been exciting. I have seen our baby grow from just a tiny sac at 5 weeks to seeing and hearing a heartbeat! I forgot how thrilling all of this is. I haven’t been pregnant in over 3½ years! To say that my RE has given me an extremely special opportunity is an understatement. I have literally been given the gift of watching the little one grow week by week from right after implementation until my 12 week appointment which will be sometime in January. After that I get released to my OB/GYN and I know my ultrasounds will be few and far between so I am trying to enjoy these as much as possible.

So here we are! It has been sooooo hard keeping this a secret but we wanted to make sure we saw a heartbeat before we announced the new arrival. At our last appointment on Friday I was measuring on target and the baby had a heart rate of 158 bpm.

Daddy and I are super thrilled but Tanner would rather have a puppy. This is how our conversation went one day while watching A Baby Story:

Momma: “Tanner J!, We are having a baby in July!”

Tanner J: “NO! I want a puppy!”

Momma: “You are going to be a big brother!”

Tanner J: “NO! A puppy is better!”

Momma: “No, a baby.”

Tanner J: “I am going to chase it with my monster truck!”

So there it is, Tanner would rather have a puppy, but will settle for a baby as long as he can chase him/her with his monster truck. This is going to be a wild summer!

So far I have not been sick like I was with Tanner but I have had some days of just feeling “icky” and have been exhausted to the point that I go to bed before Tanner. I will take that over my previous morning, noon and night sickness ANY DAY! I probably just jinxed myself! :o)

Oh yeah, I guess I never said my due date, 7/28/08. Although I am guessing he or she will arrive earlier in July as I will have another c-section for safety reasons.

Thank you to everyone who has shown us support and love in this super exciting time in our lives, AGAIN!