the undeniable signs

first on my list today, is the most painful stretch mark i've ever gotten. i swear none of them have ever hurt me, but given the rapid body changes that can occur during pregnancy, i guess i understand it. i have a few new ones on the underside my left boob, but the one that hurts, is directly in the middle, and its right where the skin stretches from my rib cage. it feels sore randomly throughout the day, when im tossing and turning at night, and whenever else it wants. its already been a few days, i want the soreness to go away, now!

cravings/inability to control my desire for food. i'm not eating like a monster (yet) but i have noticed a few changes in my day to day life. one, i am now stashing food everywhere. my fave cheesedoodles (Jax) in my car, candy in my desk at work, and im responsible for the small amount of junk food that is currently living on top of our fridge/in our freezer. two, cravings. absolutely everything i see on tv in terms of food, i want. cooking shows are torturous for me. even commercials for friggen tac.o bell (which i do not eat) are making me drool with their nacho cheese dori.to taco shells. i want to eat everything i see, or talk about. the other night at work, the night secretary and i were talking about knishes. don't you know that i had to go to the grocery store on the way home to get some. the thought of them was just too incredible, i had to have one, and trust me, it did not disappoint. i'm doing a pretty good job of controlling my sugar levels and i haven't been spiking too high at all. most days im under 170 all day, the weekends are harder though, less controllable food situations (eating at family's houses, chicken wings with super carby delicious sauces), and my timing is usually poorer in making sure to do my insulin 15-20 mins before i eat. but i think i've been doing great, and the fact that your body is doing so much work forming the baby makes insulin resistance a lot lower, and lets me make more use of less insulin. that has been a help for sure, i'm not looking forward to adjusting for the insulin resistance in the 2nd and 3rd trimester. i've read that you can need up to 3x the amount of insulin per day by the end of your pregnancy. thats crazy! on an average day right now im doing 50ish units of insulin, to think i might need 150 to get me through the day by the end of this is completely insane. i'll be going through pods (the insulin pump i use) like crazy. they only hold a little over 200 units, so if it gets to that point, i'll be changing my pod every day and a half. wow, not really looking forward to that.

prego face? i think im starting to look weird in pictures that are taken of me. i (think i) can always tell prego face on others. i don't know exactly what i look for or see in women who are pregnant, but its something with the eyes. i'm not sure if its minor signs of tiredness around the eyes or what, but i think i have it now too. lovedove thinks my nose is getting pointier. i have kind of a polish nose, its pretty round on the end, and now this one thinks its getting pointy. i have no idea but it just sounds weird, and ugly lol.

that might be it for the undeniables.

what else.

oh the dog is sick. im not sure what happened to her. we think it was an ear infection (that we thought cleared up) but it must have gone down into her head more bc her eye got all swollen and she was in pain when she would open her jaw to eat, yawn, play, etc. took her to a local vet (i ususally go to one in the city where i used to work) and they gave us antibiotics, eye drops, and ear ointment. of course i have to pill her/open her mouth and shove a pill down her throat, which hurts her, to administer the antibiotics. its terrible. i cried the first 3 times i had to do it. i pill her every single day to give her pep.cid ac to control her chronic sour stomach, and that is pretty much how we discovered the problem/knew it was serious. i went to open her mouth the other morning and she yelped in pain. i felt terrible. i feel better now that we took her to the vet and got her the meds she needs, but she's still not eating or drinking much at all. this is all so stressful for us, i hope this passes quickly. my poor disa pup. <3

i meet my doctor for the first time this coming thursday. im excited to have another appt and get the ball rolling with a new doctor. i have to find out if i can bring Sofia to the appt though. i know she wasn't/isn't allowed at the sono appts, but i wonder if ill have to find care for her for dr appts too. that is a bit inconvenient but whatever, it will all work out, it always does.

oh, the thing im struggling with lately... i kind of feel like a dope bc im starting to use pregnancy products and im not even out of my first trimester. a few times in the last 2 weeks ive used lovedove's bellabands so that i dont have to button the top button of my pants bc its starting to get uncomfortable. i know that my belly changes have been super slight and lovedove and i are prob the only people that can notice it, but it definitely is starting to change. also i bought a boppy body pillow. i don't know why i have weird issues about using pregnancy items early, i am certainly pregnant, i have the pictures to prove it. just my weird brain i guess.

yea thats it for now. gonna try to rest for a bit before Sofia wakes up again. speaking of that little angel/monster, one of her new things is to ask why. when i ask her nicely to stop doing something or not to do something, she asks why. i tell her. sometimes that answer is followed up by another why. SHES NOT EVEN 2 YET!?! how in the world is she asking why already? i love her so much, my God. oh, the best thing ever yesterday.  it was father's day, i guess grandfather's day in her case, and my dad loves music/instruments etc. he had two different guitars out for the bbq, her little set of drums (seen here), an amp with a mic hooked up, and his harmonica. they played on each one of those one at a time. she even taught herself how to play the harmonica. it was so cute! once she got the hang of it she was doing these mini performances and would wait for her applause! i was afraid she would pass out from breathing so deeply/rapidly at one point but she was really into it. it was so fun. we  had such a great time. oh man she's a great kid, and a hysterical entertainer. we truly are blessed.

8w1d

after feeling completely abandoned by the lack of continuation of care in the medical community (no hard feelings towards my RE, they did their job, very well) i contacted my uncle's niece, who is a CDE, certified diabetic/diabetes educator, at a hospital not much farther from here than the one i really wanted to be delivering at. truth be told, i really wanted to deliver at LIJ because they just renovated the women's wing, and its like a fucking hotel. you get a private room and its super fancy schmancy. every medical person i have spoken to though, has recommended Winthrop's OB dept over LIJ's. given that information, and after weighing what really matters, i figure that i need to be cared for well throughout my entire pregnancy more than i need to be staying in a very fancy room.

so after contacting my family member via email and expressing my frustration, she jumped on board the get-Amy-seen-ASAP train. she has been so supportive and reassuring and has reviewed every little detail with me as she is working on setting up an appt for me in the next few days/week. one thing that i seem to find interesting is that when i was going to North Shore Diabetes in Pregnancy Center, originally (a year ago) they told me that once i was pregnant i would be set up with one of their doctors and i was under the impression that those drs are the drs to do the deliveries. when i went back to get clearance again before my ivf, they informed me that they no longer do deliveries. after speaking with (cousin?) Sharon, she said that apparently this is a common thing recently. the rising costs of malpractice insurance have led to this type of change. apparently, the statute of limitations for a malpractice suit in a birthing situation is 18 years. due to this, high risk ob's are generally not doing the deliveries of their patients anymore. a "hospitalist", whom i assume is an on call doctor with a great deal of experience in birthing babies, will be the one to assist the mother in birthing the baby. does this sound crazy to anyone else? you spend your whole pregnancy working with a particular doctor/set of doctors, and then you get a random personon baby's birth day?? i just hope the person isn't a stranger, like i hope that i will have met them at some point in the next 7ish months. it really boggles my mind, but whatever. truly i dont care who delivers this baby (God willing) as long as baby and I come out the other side of this safe and healthy.  she was able to recommend a female practitioner who comes highly recommended and i think im waiting to hear back on when i can have an appt with her.

i've had it with north shore's bs and run around crap. im ready for a change. Sharon said that once i get started i will have "appointments quite frequently". this is completely fine with me. i think that i rather be monitored closely as that is what i've become accustomed to after going through all of this fertility stuff. i hope i can get in there and get started soon.

my symptoms have been more abundant lately. nausea has come on pretty strongly, but i haven't puked yet. im not sure if i hope i do or not. i find that im most nauseous when im just sitting around doing nothing. i do find myself snacking more to try to cope with the nausea. im fatigued a bunch, and i DO NOT want to get up in the morning. ive continued to have some spotting every few days, but im reminding myself that as long as its not accompanied by "constant painful cramping" that everything is probably fine. ive been feeling less bloated lately which is strange, but i do feel like my belly is starting to change a little, and by little, i mean ever so slightly. anyone hoping for belly pictures, sorry, they wont be around for quite some time. im a pretty chunky monkey so until i feel like a picture of my belly will show you proof of a baby being in there, and not just of past beer consumption, there will not be any. im such a fan of other people's bellies. i love the pics and watching babies and bellies grow!

im glad its thursday already, i mean i felt every day of this week, but it seems to have gone faster than i expected. i have to get the oil in my "new" car from my dad changed. it seems my dad really kept up with the appearance of the car, but was a little lax with the mechanical maintenance. it "growls" when you turn it on after resting for a few hours, we looked into it online, seems to be a model wide glitch. the prob is located in the engine, and a fix seems pretty pricey, but i think we're going to take it in (at some point). i would like to drive that car for the next 20 years, its a honda it certainly has the potential, so we'd like to take the best care of it possible.

overall im feeling good and very comforted when im experiencing symptoms. i've got 4ish weeks left in this first trimester so hit me with your best shot prego hormones! show me that this little blueberry is doing what s/he should!

not much news

so i told my coworker, because she told me that she also just found out that she's prego! i knew that we'd be trying at the same time, we talked about it a lot, but i didn't expect that we'd be literally 2 weeks apart. our place is going to fall apart without us for a few weeks, holy moly, thats like 40ish clients that will either be getting a surprise vacation from therapy, or who need to be seen by other therapists... talk about a headache for my admin people. oh well, happy joy for us, we're prego together.

ive been feeling nauseous every morning about 2-3 hours after breakfast, but thankfully it passes really quickly. i feel like ive been really lucky with my lack of annoying symptoms, though i would welcome them to feel more pregnant. my biggest issue right now is my skin. my forehead seems like a mountain range, and certainly not a pretty one. i guess its not that bad, but its certainly worse than what my skin usually looks like. i also think im starting to get more vein-ie on my chest. i still have next to no cm which makes me kind of nervous, but im trying to tell myself that everyone's pregnancy is different.

all this car stuff is getting moving. bought our new insurance policy, we're officially grown-ups now, and im headed to the dmv tomorrow with my dad. i was going to ask my mom to watch sofia, but she said how much fun my dad would have running after her in the dmv. i forget that grandparents usually love the tasks that parents get annoyed with because they do them constantly. im hoping its a fast process.

sono is a week away still. sigh. I JUST WANT TO GET THERE AND SEE WITH MY EYES THAT EVERYTHING IS GOING THE WAY IT SHOULD BE, ARG!! clearly im having a difficult time with my patience. whatever, today is my last day of work for this week (i NEVER work on fridays, one of the perks of part-time-make-your-own-hours-employment) and then we have a 3, well 4 for me, day weekend. im hoping we get some decent weather and i wish someone's pool would be open already. we have no set plans as of today for memorial day but im sure we'll wind up doing something. then just 2 days of work and then its thurs. time should fly right by, right? i hope so.

anyway, loving reading along with everyone's journeys, good luck to you ladies starting ivf, and double congrats again to Roxx!

almost 6 weeks

so im getting there, slowly, slowly. tomorrow i'll be 6 weeks officially, but all of the calculators have me a day ahead (claiming that today im 6 weeks... liars). my gums are a little swollen today which is new. mild fatigue continues, super smelling continues, falling asleep fast continues, oh, and the feeling of fullness started yesterday. i dont think its as noticeable today, but i guess thats because yesterday was the first time i felt it. im also getting those annoying sore at the site pimples here and there. ive only had 2  that id consider that annoying but im wondering what pregnancy will do to my skin. currently i have one on my shoulder thats pretty annoying. whatever.

here in ny its pretty gloomy and supposedly its going to stay gloomy pretty much all week. to make matters worse im stuck in the house until the fedex guy comes to bring me round 2 of my suppositories and baby aspirin. at least its not raining today, not that i mind the rain, i love a good downpour (and can not wait until its warm enough for sofia and i to run around in the rain in the summer)i just dont love the gray hue of the day when its crappy out. i would really like for the guy to come at like.. um.. 11:45, which will hopefully be right when sofia is waking up from her nap and then id like to head out to grab some fruits and veggies and visit my mom for lunch.

my sugars have been pretty steady which im really thrilled about/thankful for bc i have a fucking conniption every time im above 180 for more than like 30 minutes. peanut butter or pb products have seemed to be the culprit each time ive had a problem. since pb is a protein it slows the absorption of sugar into the bloodsteam, which is usually good (prevents spiking* a very fast rise in blood sugar) but it can also delay the rise of blood sugar so that the active time of your insulin may expire before all of the sugars are broken down. its just hard. i feel like if anything goes wrong a way we dont want it to, im going to blame myself. how could i not?  as a diabetic controlling your blood sugar is an annoying and constant job and you dont always have control over what happens. the weight of knowing that if your sugars aren't on point while your baby's major organs are developing is just so much to take in and deal with. i think that things are going well, i try to hang out under 100 most of the time and not to go over 160 when i eat. im doing pretty well with a few difficulties here and there. im just trying to take it day by day, hour by hour.

did i mention that i can not wait to get to this sonogram next week? by that point, according to my calculations ill be 7w1d so im really interested to see what the lentil (not sure how im going to refer to embie over the long haul yet) measures in at. clearly im hoping that all is well and there is a detectable heart beat, spinal pole etc. im kind of dragging my feet on finding an ob, but i just dont feel like its necessary until i see that things are going well on the sonogram. i know it will be kind of late to be finding/meeting with an ob for the first time at 7/8 weeks, but ive been under the close care of my RE this whole time and ive already visited my regular endocrinologist. plus the further along i am in the first trimester, the less they'll be able to scare me with the percentages and statistics about things that go wrong early. im hoping my RE has a nearby recommendation, if not, lovedove did find an all female practice not far from here. sounds right up my alley, only ladies in my alley from here on out, badum ching! oh man, thats the other thing. ive almost completely lost my filter as far as what comes out of my mouth. after my mother-in-laws concert on sunday, lovedove, her pops, and i were waiting outside for mom-in-law. lovedove's dad said something about me having bad taste in something, i cant remember what it was in reference to, but this pregnant genius come back with "we have the same taste in women so i wouldnt be judging my taste in anything". ps lovedove's parents are divorced but still very friendly towards each other. needless to say my little joke wasn't met with any laughing, and overall it was simply awkward. i felt bad about it later. it was just weird weird weird. i usually think odd things but manage to keep them from escaping my mouth. i wonder where that symptom will take me. i hope i dont wind up as the mayor of i-say-really-awkward-things-and-constantly-alienate-those-around-me town. God help me.

i love the blog world, but sometimes i wish i didn't read as much sad/unfortunate stuff as i do. it only makes me crazy. i know as a now pregnant woman that i should just be aware that things like this happen, and in turn be extra super thankful to be preggers, but it just makes me worry so much about what might go wrong.  im just so ready for this baby, i want him/her to stick around and bake for as long as is needed/doable, and then be born a healthy baby. i still rely on my little mantra to keep me calm sometimes and im glad that i started doing that as early as i did. i do actually think it helps.

anyway, crossing my fingers for the ladies trying/testing this week, and hoping that all you pregos are feeling good!

symptoms and randoms

i feel like i have very few of them. the one that strikes me the most is my sense of smell. i can smell everything. sometimes its wonderful, when you pass an eatery and think, oh that smells so good. sometimes its torture. for example, as you may have read i went to my regular endocrinologist on tuesday. im usually a baby in comparison to the other individuals in the waiting room. on tuesday when i walked in, i was met with a pretty much empty waiting room, but the overwhelming stench of elderly ass. im not sure how i know what elderly ass smells like, but im pretty sure thats what this room smells like with a pregnant lady nose. it was strikingly disturbing to say the least.

im not really getting specific cravings yet, but anything that sounds good to eat or looks good, or anything i think of, I WANT, and i want it NOW. this has been rare and is not that far from my non pregnant food cravings.

ive been having cramping probably every day or so. im ok when they're just noticeable but i do tend to get a little nervous when they're strong-ish. i just have to tell myself that my body is doing what it needs to do. ive also had some hints of color on my pantyliner daily. i think its mostly tan tinted, the nurses said to expect that from the progesterone. ive had a little spotting, pink, but pretty rarely, and not a lot. doing my best to stay calm when that happens, i think im doing a decent job.

also, im irritable, sometimes.

i think the thing i love the most is that im falling asleep quickly at night. i feel like i put my head on the pillow, and as soon as i am comfy enough, im out like a light, which is super nice because ive never been that good at falling asleep quickly.


onto the randoms..

1. i forgot to write that during our 2ww, both lovedove and i had dreams that i got bfns.

2. ive seen the justin beiber "boyfriend" video twice in the last 2 days, and i feel like a super old lady watching it. he's what? 18? which means that pretty much everyone in that video is what.. 18-23 which makes the oldest person in that video 5 years my junior? its strange.

3. yesterday was our anniversary and lovedove and i had a wonderful day. she let me sleep in until about 8:45(which was amazing, today im returning the favor), and then we got ready to go to the all-star games for the NYCGBL. we also did dinner, my parents had called to pick up the tab, (thanks mom and dad!), and then we went to the movies to see the dictator. it was hysterical and a little offensive, pretty much par for the course for sasha baron cohen.

4. sofia has always had an obsession with shoes. it was probably one of her first words. now she's big enough to put her feet in ours and shuffle around the house. i love every second of it.

5. we're getting a new used car from my dad. he gets a new business car every 4 years, so he gives his "old" one to one of his daughters. my sister got the last one in 2008 because they bought me my hyundai in 2003. so, i guess its my turn again. we'll be inheriting a 2008 honda accord in wonderful condition. a few minor issues here and there but clearly a large gift. i kind of have mixed feeling about it because i absolutely love my car. granted its 10 years old now, but it has been such a good car. no huge issues, lots of flat tires and headlight changes, but thats about the worst of it. its a small sedan that was always able to haul everyone and anything, and was small enough to fit into tight spots. according to the specifics i just looked up, the accord will only be a foot and a half larger than  my current car, but im not sure thats true. we'll see. once we get this car, we'll officially be complete adults bc our parents have paid our car insurance to date, and this will mark the end of that. luckily for us we found a great quote through geico because lovedove is a teacher. thank god, car insurance in ny can be so insane. so long story short, ill be heading to the dmv at least once in the next few weeks (SHOOT ME). i might try to talk my dad into going out to long island bc dmvs in queens are terrifyingly packed and slow as shit, always.

this is too long and sofia is getting antsy.

hope all of you ladies are doing well!