Praying for a 2nd miracle - ICSI #8

[Lanee]

6wks + 1

Haven’t been feeling so great today with some nausea as well as pain/cramping in my lower ab area. I’ve noticed that as soon as I feel a little hungry, I feel nauseous. Hope it doesn’t get worse.

My boobs and stomach are also super bloated so I’m feeling really fat and uncomfortable. I don’t know if I’m going to be one of those “I love being pregnant” people 🙈.

It still hasn’t really hit me that I’m going to have a baby. In fact, I’ve passed the fun, excited talking to my belly phase and now just feeling a little down and not great. Hopefully it’s just because I’m not feeling so well.

DH has been waking up and kissing my belly each morning which is really nice. But he is also really down because his dad is sick and not doing well so it’s been tough to balance all our emotions.

I’m just glad that with each passing day we are getting closer to our first scan. My mum asked me today if I’m heading back to Oz for another cycle in December and I had to be really vague and say probably not. I can’t wait to be able to tell them at the end of next week (hoping that all goes well with the scan).

Anyway, off to rest and hopefully let these babies continue growing inside!

[FertilityFriends]

[Lanee]

6wks + 4

Thank goodness it’s the weekend! I’ve definitely been feeling fatigued and nauseous in the evenings or when I’m not eating. It’s defintiely not bad compared to what I’ve read from other women (I don’t feel like I need to run to the toilet or anything and I can still eat everything) ... it’s more just uncomfortable and a general feeling of being unwell or feeling not quite right. I really hope it doesn’t get worse.

But last night, I was thinking this is hopefully a positive sign that the pregnancy is progressing and doing well. Lately, I haven’t been feeling excited or like I’m enjoying this process. I have so many worries in my head - with my job uncertainty and not knowing what country I will be in to give birth. I haven’t picked a doctor yet to look after me (partly because I don’t want to jinx myself before the scan). I just feel worried and scared. I never thought I would feel this way after trying and trying so hard to fall pregnant. I feel so unprepared - I never allowed myself to think past the cycles and now I’m realising I really have no idea what to do and how to get myself ready.

And with not knowing what I’m going to do job wise and what country I’ll be in, it’s just adding to the uncertainty. I hope once we have a positive scan and I can tell some people that we are pregnant, things will improve.

Anyway, 4 sleeps to go before our first scan!

[Lanee]

6 weeks + 6

7 weeks pregnant tomorrow! 2 sleeps until scan day!

Feeling so tired - finding it hard to stay awake after dinner each day. That’s even after sleeping 9-10hours! Yesterday, I had to sneak off after lunch to rest for 20mins and close my eyes 😂 Luckily my workplace has a recovery room where there are massage chairs (actually very uncomfortable chairs) to rest in.

I took it upon myself to reduce my progesterone yesterday 😅😬 - 2 x 100mg instead of 3. I am just so sick of the ickiness of the pessaries and think it may be contributing to this tiredness. I read online that some people only take this dosage and another study that said it’s ok to stop progesterone support at week 5 so I’m guessing it is ok. My progesterone was really high anyway at my first blood test. I meant to call the clinic to double check today but forgot 😬

Also feeling more hungry than usual. As soon as I feel hungry I start to feel sick and off colour. It’s made it really tough to work late as I just need to get home to eat. Happy though that I only have 2 sleeps to go till the scan. Am feeling nervous. In the past week, I’ve dreamt about having a baby girl twice - a similar dream both times where I’m breastfeeding the little girl for the first time. 😅 DH believes it means we are having a boy! Time will tell I suppose but we keep reminding ourselves we will just be happy with a healthy baby!

[Lanee]

Week 7!

I got scared last night as I felt a little cramping and ended up increasing my progesterone to the prescribed amount 😅.

But I had the worst dream last night - in my dream, I went for my 7 week scan and they found twins! But then, they couldn’t find the heartbeat. And in my dream, I even had the miscarriage and saw the twins 😰. It was a long dream and they took it for testing and said one twin had downs and the other had malformations and no legs 😰😰. It was such an awful dream and felt so real. Hope it is not an omen for tomorrow’s scan.

[Lanee]

7 weeks + 1

Amazing! We had our scan and saw one little heartbeat - 137bpm and baby is measuring 10.2mm. Yay! It finally feels real and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face for the first few hours after. It was really cool to see the little heart beating.

The doctor here (not my usual FS) is super paranoid and wanted me to come in for weekly checks - at $250 a pop, I don’t think so! He offered me extra progesterone support too which I declined. I’ll wait to see my what FS in Oz says - I think the current plan is to go back at week 10 which I think makes sense and I can do the NIPT then.

Happily off to bed now! Sending baby dust to all!

[Lanee]

7 weeks + 3

Feeling a little better today - actually had energy to go for a walk. But at the same time, it’s always scary when you feel less pregnancy symptoms as you never know if something is not going quite right. I keep replaying the video of our scan to hear the heartbeat 😅.

Every night I wake up at least once to pee ... which is highly unusual for me so I guess that is definitely a pregnancy symptom. And I’m still feeling more hungry than usual so am definitely gaining weight 😦

I’m having quite a dilemma career wise with what to do next. I’m trying to go with the flow but the overseas role is looking promising. But it’s a lower job level and lower pay and I’d have to move in February. And I’m not sure if I want to do that right now when I could hang in my current role until I have to take maternity leave and get paid more while on leave. Hmmm ... when I think about it like that, it’s not looking attractive at all!

[Lanee]

7 weeks + 4

We took my parents out for brunch today and shared the news. My mum cried and it was so amazing to see how excited she is for us. I’m a sympathetic crier so shed a couple of tears too. 😅😅 She then proceeded to give me all her motherly advice - about 100 different tips on what I should and shouldn’t do! 😅😅😬😬

But at the risk of sounding super ungrateful, I am not enjoying being pregnant one bit. I’ve been feeling cramps and sharp pains all day and generally continue to feel out of sorts. It’s funny - I’ve never been someone who really wanted to experience pregnancy. I’ve always wanted to have kids but would have been perfectly happy to skip the process of getting there.🙈 I really hope the second trimester is better like all the articles and women say it is. I feel uncomfortable already - I can’t imagine when my belly gets bigger.

It’s hard to cope with a full day of work and we have a pretty full on week this week. Counting down to Christmas when I have a week off!!

[Lanee]

8 weeks today!

I stopped the progesterone pessaries yesterday on the advice of my FS. Surprised to stop so early actually as I saw most people stop somewhere at the 10 week plus mark. I told myself that I’d keep going and reduce the dosage until I finished the pack I have at home but I’m just so over the mess, I stopped anyway. I’m also hoping I will feel less fatigued now (as I read it can be a side effect of the pessaries) but so far it hasn’t made a difference 😬 (probably too early).

I’ve gained 1kg since last week because I feel hungry all the time! And if I don’t eat, I feel nauseous... so the only thing to do is to eat regularly and quite a bit more than I usually do. Definitely feeling fat with my belly now .. it’s definitely not a baby belly but it sure looks like one 🙈😅

Anyway, enough complaining... I’m keeping busy with work so hoping the baby is growing well inside until my next scan at 10 weeks.

[Lanee]

8 weeks + 4

Had a bit of a rough day yesterday with an upset stomach - not sure whether it was food poisoning after my lunch or my body rejecting eating junk food. Both times, immediately after I ate a Tim Tam, I had bad stomach cramps and after I ate some chips, I had it so bad I was sweating from the sharp pains and ended up vomiting (sorry TMI!).

Hope the little one is doing ok inside. I felt so horrible yesterday I’m a little scared to eat today. I see women’s beautiful pregnancy bumps and they look like they are glowing and that the pregnancy is easy! Even though I’ve been really lucky without morning sickness, I still don’t feel great ... definitely not glowing! 🤣🤣🤣

Counting down until when I can do the Panorama (NIPT) test. Will feel a lot more confident if that test goes well. Have started reading up a lot more about pregnancy & birth. It’s still a mental shift I haven’t fully made yet after years of infertility. I wonder if others out there feel the same way but I really feel that after years of struggling with infertility, it’s not an easy mental shift to be positive and excited about the baby.

There’s so many doubts and fears and perhaps it won’t be until the second trimester when I can fully wrap my head around it. Talking to a friend who is 3 weeks ahead of me, she is in such a different head space. She’s planning the nursery and excited and positive. I worry that I’m not there yet. Perhaps also because she announced really early to everyone while I’m holding out till at least after I get the NIPT results back. 

I can’t wait to be able to share with my best friend who lives in the UK. I know she was awfully sick when she was pregnant and it will be nice just to feel some reassurance that you don’t have to love being pregnant to love the baby.

[Lanee]

8 weeks + 5

After thinking I was feeling better yesterday, I woke up this morning to bad stomach cramps and bad diarrhoea 😰. Took the day off from work and slept most of the day - felt so horrible I could barely move and couldn’t keep food down - seemed to go straight through me 🙈😰

Totally horrible day - I’m not sure if I will make it to work tomorrow even though I have a tonne to do. My stomach feels better sometimes but then the pain will come back at weird times and overall, I’m still not feeling well. Feel weak and uncomfortable. I’ve never had food poisoning like this over 3 days with today being the worst. I hope the bug is out of my system now.

DH and I are so worried about the baby. Hopefully he/she is doing ok inside. At least I kept fluids & food down the second half of the day so fingers crossed.

Despite sleeping all day, I’m still feeling extremely tired so off to bed now! Hoping for a better day tomorrow.