Tidbits and Firsts

Tidbits: 
Sandra donated her hair in celebration of baby. She're rocking a sweet summer bob! Baby and mom are both healthy! Wonderful heart rates, eating well, taking aerobic swim classes, and such. Sandra has very little morning sickness, and is mostly just tired. We're 14 weeks and 4 days along. 

Pregnancy has a lot of firsts. Here are a few of them with some pictures :) 

First meltdown: 
Sandra definitely started crying over Krispy Kreme doughnuts (or the lack there of) after Jeremy, Tony and Andrew all made fun of her for wanting some! (no bias here of course!) For safety, Sandra's meltdown was not photo documented :) 

First Toy: 
Of course the day we found out we were pregnant, Sandra had to get something for new Baby Lawson! So we had lunch and went to Target. Oh are baby aisles overwhelming! After about two aisles, Sandra said "Just pick a rattle and let's go, I can't handle this now!" So, Baby Lawson has a spur of the moment froggy rattle to call his/her own

First Cards: 

The emails have been pouring in as we started telling people. Everyone we love is sharing in our excitement and offering so much support! Two special people sent us our first baby cards- thank you! My pregnancy brain and sleepiness has made me a bad friend- I owe people phone calls, I have a backlog of cards to write, and so much more! Thank you for understanding, being patient, and sending us so much love!

First Gift: 

Jeremy gave Baby Lawson and Sandra our first gift. Besides the plenty of time to nap, picking up after me, and cooking dinner with Tony, Jeremy also bought me my first pregnancy book. Who knew my literature loving hubby would've have gotten me a book? 

and finally...

First Picture: 

We've had 3 pictures total, all while our baby looked like a little bean. Here they are: 

Baby at 6 weeks

Baby's first "text" at 7 weeks- our sonogram tech was super excited for us! 

Baby at 8 week 

We heard baby's first heartbeat at our 8 week check up, and again at our 13 week check up- it is by far the most beautiful sound we have ever heard! 

Ready...Set....GO!

Ready:
With a diagnosis in hand and a plan, we patiently waited for Aunt Flo. While waiting, Sandra interviewed for a full time Program Manager job at the City of Gaithersburg. Good news comes in twos- not only did she get the job, but we were ready to get set! 

Set: 
We had our prescriptions for Clomid, HCG shot and Prometrium all filled. Started taking the Clomid and waited some more. After the Clomid, we had ultrasound after ultrasound, looking for a follicle that was the right size. May 7, 2012 we had 1 follicle that was big enough- all engines were GO! 

GO!:
May 9, 2012 Jay did his drop off, and then we had our first Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). It's a super nerdy procedure with all kinds of accuracy. Sandra, of course, geeked out on all the science. Before and after the procedure, Sandra had to take two different medications. The procedure itself was quick and only mildly crampy. 

We were due to take a pregnancy test on May 24, 2012, but we were in California celebrating Andrew's high school graduation (Go Bells!). We also indulged in a few In-N-Out burgers which made the wait a little better. Even though Sandra was now technically "late" we were advised not to take an OTC pregnancy test since the medicines Sandra was taking could give a false positive. Our test was schedule for May 30, 2012 the morning after we flew in. 

Maryland welcomed us with thunderstorms, which delayed our flight by hours and we didn't home until 1 a.m. We were so exhausted! Which made a 7:30 a.m. appointment almost unbearable! But we got up and did our blood test, then came home and slept! 

At noonish, our nurse, Paige, called. She woke us up and asked how Sandra was doing. Sandra responded with "We're good just tired from our delayed flights last night" Without skipping a beat, Paige responded "Well, you're also tired because you are pregnant!" Sandra immediately started crying.  Paige went on to tell us that when they do a pregnancy blood test they look for Human Chronic Gonadatropin (HCG) levels of at least 100 to prove pregnancy. We tested at a level of 2100! So naturally Sandra told our nurse that means we're super pregnant! 

We had to go in on June 1, 2012 to test our HCG levels, which doubled and confirmed that Sandra was pregnant! 

So long story short- There's a bun in my oven!! 

In the Beginning

Happily married, first anniversary done, and hopes for a baby in sight! That was July 2010. That began a journey of many trials, many errors, lots of tears, and a deep rooted disdain for pregnancy tests. Many missed cycles, different medicines, and a year an a half later the gynecologist referred us to Shady Grove Fertility. 

The days up to our first appointment were long. We spent a lot of our evenings researching adoption options, and what our insurance covers (which was nothing outside of diagnosis) and talking and planning out what we wanted to do. On January 30, 2012 we met our doctor- Dr. Sagoskin and our nurse Paige. They explained as much as they could to us, were supportive, gave us loads of information, and an arsenal of tests to take. Our next appointment was scheduled for March 21, 2012.


Tests and Results: We spent months taking tests. A bunch of tests. Most of the tests were on Sandra, Jay only had one- no points will be awarded for guessing which one. What did we learn from all of these tests? The results are as follows:

1. Sandra has a beautiful uterus. Nurse's words, not ours. Well, they're ours now too. So there are no issues there.
2. Sandra's hormone levels are normal.
3. Jay's sperm count/shape/motility are all normal. 

March 21, 2012- So what's going on? The doctors says that Sandra's brain and ovaries are not communicating well, and as a result, Sandra's eggs are are being formed but not released. So more than two dozen are still there, sitting on the ovaries, giving the appearance of cysts. This is called PCOS, or poly-cystic ovary syndrome. It's fairly common. 

So what's the plan? The doctor is recommending another round of medication that Sandra has already used with ultrasounds, and one other medicine, along with an IUI, which is short for Inter-Uterine Insemination. It is less invasive and less expensive than an IVF, which is good because it's equally uncovered by our insurance. It will still require some money and several doctor's visits. The only risk is of twins, which is at 7%. We will be able to swing the cost of these procedures (there will be up to 4 attempts). This will however put a nasty dent in our Faberge egg collection.

And then we waited for the start of a cycle.