MrsC, your husband might be right about the doppler. It was really great for my anxiety, until I realized 3 weeks later I had actually been listening to my heartbeat the whole time! Yes, in my lower stomach/upper vagina area! I'm such a genius. Haha. I later realized thanks to YouTube it should sound like a galloping horse which helped me out, but it still is easier to pick up the mother's heartrate or the blood pumping through the umbilical cord.
re: stretch marks, I did buy a special cream from a Baby Boutique last time and will again. I haven't yet as I'm put on some weight over the past 5 years with all the cycles and stress, and have basically stopped exercising the past 2 years through non-stop donor cycles. This means there is some extra fluff unfortunately for the baby to grow into this time, so I don't think I will show as early. (Though last time I was in regular clothes until 20 weeks despite being smaller!) I would definitely say the cream worked for me and my friends. Just buy a quality product intended specifically for this purpose. In my last month I got a couple tiny little marks, but they turned silvery/skin colour after.
I shared with three girlfriends so far, including my two closest friends at work, considering I'm off work and disappeared mysteriously for many weeks without communication while I was on m/c risk for a month. They were all so lovely to me. When my friends from work came over, they actually brought over flowers and some meals, despite not knowing what the heck was going on with me. So kind!! They immediately felt bad realizing I couldn't eat the meals but I said it was a huge help for DH, who now takes care of everything at home, with our son, and me too.
We will share with our son at Christmas, I will be 21 weeks. By default our families will then know at Christmas time. It may sound funny to people whose families are very close and who have been very involved/supportive of their inferility journeys, but our families have kind of been a disappointment over the past 10 years. Definitely no flowers or meals, much less any other form of support or notable empathy/emotional support, so that's been hard for us. They are well-meaning people who just don't get it, even when we try to explain it. Infertility treatments of any sort are not covered in the Canadian health care or insurance system, so it's been quite a stressor for us, and they have no idea about the overseas donor cycles. We felt we needed to protect ourselves based on how they responded to our OE cycles in another city, and the one miscarriage they know about. So all this to say, I've really had a lot of time to think about the kind of person/friend/mother I want to be, and how important emotional and mental help is, as well as lending any form of support that can help assist a time of depression or emergency in a loved one. Since I have a few friends that have been great at this, I feel those are the people that helped our child and hopefully second child into this world, their love and communication was so critical for us. In a way I hope I can kind of communicate this to our families (whom I'm sure will be shocked to learn I am pregnant, who don't even know I'm off work) - that I will be 21 weeks when they learn of this. If they express how I could have kept this a secret, I'm trying to work on a way to share that we did tell people who have been really supportive and involved in our journey, whom we knew would be there if something went wrong. Trying to figure out a gentle way of saying this (especially at holiday time) will be challenging, but it's really important to me. I have had to grow and learn and sacrifice so much, and for many years put others feelings and comfort first... I think our families could do a bit of reflecting too.
We could have found out the gender at 9 weeks as we did the Panorama test, but I was still high risk at that time, so didn't want to know that. But now I do! DH would be happy to have a suprise this time around, but has admitted he knows that won't happen with me wanting to know, haha. We are thinking of maybe doing a little family reveal together the 3 of us at viability in January.
I love hearing everyone's plans and thoughts, whether they are the same or different, it really is interesting to hear of everyone's journeys and perspectives on things xo