Things are

Bee and I just got back from visiting my parents in Montana on Tuesday morning after two very long flights with one very awake little girl. Bee slept a total of 1:20 in about 20 hours. She is a determined one! I'm very glad to be home and to be getting closer to done with jet lag.

My grandmother passed away in July and the funeral was while we were home, so it was great to be able to attend that and help my mom out with some of the planning. Bee loved the party atmosphere and kept asking to have a party every day, even after people had left. She came out of her shell with my family and opened up, which was wonderful to see.

Bee starts German kindergarten in 16 days. It's more like daycare than kindergarten as Americans know it. Boy am I ready for her to go! She has so much energy and wants to, as she puts it, "play and play and play!" It wears me out, especially since there's no family here to help me out.

On the baby #2 front, things are not looking good. I did one cycle with a doctor in Nuremberg, but I knew from around CD 16 it was not going to work. He increased my dosage, he had me continue injections, but I just felt that it was doomed. I did the trigger on CD 22 and got my period a day or two after I arrived in the States, on the same day a good friend got her positive test after a miscarriage. So hard.

While I was home my cousin, who got pregnant with her son while I was doing treatments for Bee, told me that she was going to plan on having another baby when her husband gets home from deployment. The fact that it could be that easy for some people is another kind of blow. Just hearing that again, it's tough.

It doesn't help that youtube and the rest of the internet knows what I'm thinking and I'm being bombarded with pregnancy and ovulation test ads. Lay off internet!!!

DH and I talked about things before I left. I think we are going to be done. Done trying, done hoping against hope. Done fighting with the insurance company. Done with injections and scrambling for childcare for fertility appointments. Just done. I keep hoping for a miracle, but I don't see one on the horizon.

After this cycle that I am currently on in which my body starting producing beautiful EWCM the day before I flew home and has yet to drop an egg, DH will be scheduling a vasectomy. I want to let go of this part and enjoy life as it is. Stop thinking about the sibling that is not coming.

So, that's the plan. On to life with an only child!

Meine erste Mutterstag oder My first Mother's Day

I meant to post this on Mother's Day, but got distracted. Oh, well.

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Little Bee has been around almost five months now. She's rolling over (both ways) and is working on sitting up. It's amazing how much she's changed in such a short time. She's been sleeping through the night (eleven to twelve hours) for about three weeks. It's amazing.

Spring has been cloudy here in Germany, but we're finally seeing some warmer weather. The ice cream shop and the restaurant across the square both have tables outside. DH and I have had ice cream once Bee is asleep for the night once or twice. Last week, there was Schlemmerwoche in my town and all the wine sellers in town had little restaurants. One evening, DH and I went to one that was within range of the baby monitor after Bee was down. The move in January was hard, but this place is great. 

Sunday is Mother's Day and I can't really believe that I get to be part of this for the first time. Now that things are getting better, I am enjoying being a mother and getting to experience things that I had hoped for and dreamed of while I was trying to get pregnant. Smiles, coos, occasional laughter. Snuggles and kisses. All those wonderful things. Today I had to remind myself that sometimes when people do not smile, they might have another reason for it. I had my fair share of time scowling at women with babies. 

Life is lots different, but in some ways still the same. It's still not perfect, but there are moments that make everyday great. 

Happy Mother's Day! To those that are mothers now and those that are still on their way to motherhood.

It's hard to read, but her jammies say "kleine Nacht-Eule",
 little night owl.

Es wird noch besser oder it gets better

For weeks, months, people kept telling me that this whole parent thing would get better. It was to the point that I told my husband that the next person that told me that I was going to sock them in the mouth. I was so sick of hearing it. But, you know what? It's true.

I don't know if it's just that I'm getting better at being a parent, or if Bee is getting better at being alive, but it seems like in the past couple of weeks, we have turned a corner. We've been doing a nighttime routine for several weeks now, but in the past couple of weeks we've (I've) started a nap time routine and I am now getting some time to myself back. Bee is starting to laugh on a regular basis, which is awesome. The weather is getting better. It is getting better. This is the kind of stuff I imagined when I thought about being a mom.

I didn't imagine my husband going out of town for a week and me immediately coming down with a fever and then (ahem) unpleasant intestinal issues. Not fun, but I survived.

Also, I've been doing the cry it out. Don't judge me! It works for me. If something else works for you, more power to you. I needed to get some time to myself during the day and a longer stretch of sleep at night and not be getting up at 12 and 4 am to socialize and again at 6 am for the day. That isn't happening (regularly) anymore.

The weather is still cold, but it's warmer and I occasionally see sunshine. The ice cream shop across the market square has its tables and chairs out for the season. I'm getting out about once a week to see other moms. Life is good. And it's getting better.

Not enjoying our time out at the Easter market.

But maybe enjoying being in Mommy's arms.

How is life with you?

Neugeborenen blues und bewegen woes oder newborn blues and moving woes

Wow, life with a newborn is rough.

I've been keeping up with the blogs of others who are still in the trenches. I've been refraining from commenting, "Don't do it! It's a trap! Save yourself before you DO get pregnant and it's too late!", but just by a hair. I remember being there not that long ago and anyone who would've told me that would've been on my shit list.

But, it's been rough. Bee seems to be a mostly angry baby. There have been many several hour stretches of crying (hers and mine) and desperation to get her to sleep and get her on some kind of a schedule. Yesterday was a glimpse though of what life might be like if we can understand her better. She slept eight hours through the night and then took two or three naps during the day. In between she was alert and interactive. She seemed to even enjoy life. Last night though, DH thought she was hungry at about two, when he heard her making noises. I hadn't heard her, but I figured I was just tired and so got up and tried to feed her. After 50 minutes of bobbing on and off, we figured she was still tired and had just been making those noises babies do in her sleep. We took turns until I got up with her for the day about seven this morning. She slept a little during that time, but not much. It was a long, long night.

Also, we are moving this week. The Army, in all it's wisdom, has decided that we need to move about an hour away because DH's job is moving to a new location. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's only up the autobahn a ways, but it still involves having everything packed up and unpacked and sleeping on the floor and no dishes to cook with and all the other things involved in moving. The Army is dictating this move, so they will be packing us, but there's still lots to do, and it's really hard to do things with a screaming newborn in your arms.

By this time next week, all of our stuff should be in the new place. Bee will be four weeks old and hopefully we can start settling into a routine. Maybe there will even be some sleep between now and then, for all of us.

Happy New Year!

Dankbar Donnerstag: Willkommen oder Welcome

She's here! It's hard to believe that the baby I've hoped and prayed and waited for so long is here, sleeping like an angel in her bassinet. (She's tired from the five hour nurse/cry session last night.)

She did not come on 12/12/12. She came on 12/15/12, or as the Germans write it, 15/12/12.

I went in for my appointment on Thursday last week. At that point I was 10 days overdue. Dr. H said that it was probably best to induce, that waiting for labor to start on its own after 10 days was not usually the best course of action. Since very little was happening, we agreed. DH had insisted that we pack everything in the car for the doctor's appointment. I didn't want to, but we did and since we had everything, I was admitted and we started the induction.

At 11 am on Thursday the 13th, I was given my first dose of Cytotec orally. I was monitored every couple of hours for about 30 minutes to see how things were going. Nothing happened. I think that the midwife who gave me the first dose neglected to tell me how to take it because when I was given my second dose at 4 pm, I was told to put it under my tongue and let it dissolve. We did a few more rounds of monitoring, the last of which showed that I was having 30 second contractions about 3 to 4 minutes apart, which apparently aren't effective. Then I was able to go to bed and sleep from about 11 pm to when I woke up at 6 am the next morning. I didn't get a ton of sleep and was having contractions, but I managed a little.

When I went in for monitoring, my contractions had picked up and were effective. They were closer to a minute long and still 3 to 4 minutes apart. At about 8 that morning, I called my doula and she came down to help. I was still monitored every couple of hours at that point and things were moving, but not quickly. Then, the contractions started to taper off and everything slowed down. I was dilating, but very slowly and the contractions were ebbing away. Sometime in the afternoon of Friday the 14th I made the decision to start pitocin. I was given a low dose and moved to the labor room (before I had been in my hospital room) and under constant monitoring. The contractions started getting more intense. The pitocin was turned up. At one point, they broke my water. The contractions became nearly unbearable. At some point I vomited. At about 11 pm Friday night, I went ahead and got the epidural. I had really wanted to avoid this, but I was insensible with pain. After the epidural, things became much more manageable. I could still feel the contractions, mostly, but they didn't leave me screaming and crying. I had dilated to about 3 cm at this point.

DH and my doula were awesome. DH held my hand and slow danced with me and kept me drinking water and was a rock. When I was insensible with pain from the pitocin, DH helped me decide what to do. He was so amazing I can't even express it. And my doula was fantastic. If you ever wonder about whether a doula is a good idea or worth the money, I have to tell you that having her there was such a comfort to me, especially when I couldn't have my mom there. She was a fantastic advocate and I would hire her again in a heartbeat.

After the epidural and another check and maybe an hour or so, Dr H came in a told me that he thought I should have a c-section. I'm a little embarrassed by my reaction. I was laying in bed and screamed, "Noooo!" It's everything that I was hoping to avoid. We are moving starting January 2nd and the thought of moving with a newborn and recovering from a c-section had terrified me for weeks. I could not imagine that becoming a reality.

My doula was incensed and lit into Dr H. I didn't like the way she fought with him, but I was glad she was speaking out for me. I kept saying to DH, "I don't want a c-section! I don't want a c-section!" and he said back to me, "I know. I know!" It was a nightmare.

After some heated discussion, it was decided that we would wait two more hours and then see how things progressed and if the baby would move down into my pelvis so that she could put pressure on my cervix and open things up. So we waited. I squatted, I got on my hands and knees, my doula did rebozo sifting on my belly; we did everything. After about five hours, the midwife came back in and checked me again and said I had dilated to 5 cm, but the baby still hadn't dropped. She also was getting a swollen bump on her head from trying to get down into my pelvis and not being able to. I was exhausted. DH and the doula were as well. We had done all we could possibly do. The baby was not in distress, was still doing just fine with heart rate, but I was concerned that will that swelling if she wasn't born soon that she would be in distress. I have maintained throughout this pregnancy that the end result I'm looking for is a healthy baby. I decided to have the c-section.

I was in floods of tears. I cried while signing the consent form. I did not want to do it, but I felt like it was the best option. With the swelling on her head I didn't want to get further in and then have her in distress and end up doing a c-section anyway.

They rolled me into the operating room. I was numb from the waist down. I kept thinking to myself that here it is, my first time in a hospital, and I'm having surgery. It was all I could do to keep from weeping. They moved me over to a bed that had separate sections for my arms and legs and strapped me down. There was a curtain placed at my chest level. I felt someone washing my belly and upper thighs and someone shaving the top of my pubic hair. There were a ton of people in the operating room. DH was supposed to be there with me, but I couldn't find him. Eventually, I heard him say, "I'm here." He came and sat down next to me. Dr H started with the incision. I could feel that something was happening, but there was no pain. I felt some tugging and then a forearm pushing the baby down from where she was sitting around my rib cage. Dr H told DH to stand up, and then he must have pulled her out of me because DH looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "We're parents!" It was 5:40 Saturday morning, the 15th. The first thing I heard from the OR staff was "Schwer Mädchen". Heavy girl. There was a little delay while they cleaned her off, and then they brought her over to me and I got to look at her. She had a full head of dark hair and was looking at me inquisitively. Then, after maybe 30 seconds, they took her away and DH left and I was sew up. I was so exhausted from the previous two days, that I just closed my eyes.

After a while, they wheeled me over to another room and moved me onto my hospital bed using a lift. Then they took me back downstairs and into the room where I had been laboring. DH had the baby and handed her over to me and I fed her. She latched on right away and ate like a champ. After a little while, they wheeled me back to our room and I spent most of the day sleeping. I couldn't feel anything for several hours, and then when I could I wished for the numbness back. It was quite painful. The nurses got me out of bed that evening and had me walk a few steps. I was only wearing a sleep nursing bra and the lovely mesh panties and compression stockings. I had a catheter in. There is a large loss of dignity in birth.

The next few days were long. The last night in the hospital, the baby cried and cried. I discovered that I don't do well with a crying baby. We got home from the hospital on Tuesday. We had been there five days.

9lbs 11oz, 21.25 inches long oder
4400 grams, 54 centimenters long.

It's an adjustment. I love how cute she is, but I'm still getting to know her. I don't feel that overwhelming love that is talked about all of the time. Sometimes I wonder why I wanted this so badly. I tell myself that things will get better with time. I cry often. I'm trying. But, today, I am thankful. This is my Thankful Thursday. I am thankful for my little Bee.

Kopf nach unten und bewegen Belastungen oder head down and moving stresses

I meant to get to this earlier in the week, but it didn't happen. Fortunately (for you) I cannot sleep, so I'll write this post now!

Last week at my 37 week appointment spawnette was breech. Dr. H didn't have any suggestions as to what might help, so I talked to my doula and she gave me several suggestions. Monday night, I only slept about 3 hours in total. Tuesday I tried to get moxibustion (more on this later), but they were just doing acupuncture at the hospital. I did get in the chiropractor on Tuesday. I was also doing inversions, as suggested by my doula. And playing classical music in my pants (which DH thought was hilarious). And using a hot pack down low and an ice pack up high. And pushing on spawnette's head. And talking to her. Basically whatever I could come up with that was safe. Or, relatively.

Tuesday night I actually got some sleep, which was great after feeling like a zombie all day the day before. I woke up Wednesday feeling kind of crappy and weird, but went on with my day. I was able to get ahold of the midwives at my hospital on Wednesday morning and schedule the moxibustion. I can't find a good link for this, but if you google it, you'll find some descriptions. Basically, the practitioner takes an incense stick the size of a cigar of mugwort, gets it good and glowing, and holds it at the outside corner of your pinkie toe at your bladder 67 point. I did this while on my elbows and knees with a midwife at my hospital. After ten minutes, the midwife did a check with palpation and said the baby had turned. Then I sat on the heartbeat monitor for 20 minutes. Usually spawnette is very active, but she seemed to be tired and taking a nap. It was good enough for the midwives though.

Monday I went in for another appointment and Dr. H checked via ultrasound, and she had turned! I was so relieved. Now I'm a tiny bit paranoid that she'll decide to turn back, but I think it will be pretty hard for her to accomplish at this point.

This week has been very busy. I've been working since last week on getting food put away in the freezer for when spawnette arrives since we will be on our own. Monday I did some more cooking and was on my feet most of the day. Tuesday, I did acupuncture and my last appointment with the chiropractor until after the birth, as well as cleaning and then a murder mystery dinner with friends that night. I didn't sleep much Tuesday night because of what was coming on Wednesday.

Wednesday, DH and I drove up to the place we will be moving to at the beginning of February. We have to find housing there, and the sooner the better. The only snag is that with us not moving for a couple of months landlords, understandably, can be hesitant about waiting to get a place filled until then. I only got about five hours of sleep Wednesday night, broken into two segments. We left home at 7 am and returned about 4:30 pm. We looked at three places. None of them are as big as the place we are in now, but there were a couple that could work. The first place had an especially good location and parking spaces for two cars, which is a luxury in town. We asked about that place and the gal at the housing office called the landlady. She said she would have to talk it over with her husband. The second bedroom in that place is very small, but will work well for an infant. My hope is that they understand that and will be willing to wait for us. We are supposed to hear back tomorrow. Otherwise, we will possibly drive back up on Friday to see another place. I had really hoped Friday would be a day to relax. We'll see.

So, with the stress of that, I slept last night from 10 until about 2 this morning. At 2:30, I turned on my light and read for about 45 minutes. (DH and I are in separate beds until spawnette arrives. It's just too crowded with all the pillows I am using, and I move around way too much.) Then I tried to sleep for another 45 minutes. No dice. So, now I'm up writing this. It's about 5 am now. At 1 pm, we will have somewhere between 10 and 12 adults coming for Thanksgiving along with 4 or so babies and at least one kid. I am not cooking the turkey, thank heavens. I do have some things to make today, but I'm hoping everyone will be out of here by 6 pm.

So, that's been the last week or so. Sorry about the novel. I'm stressed by the moving situation and needed to get it out. I would like something to be resolved there so that I can get a good night's sleep before I have real reason to be up at all hours.

To my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving!

Alles gut und schön oder all is good and well.

It's August already. I can hardly believe it.

Things have been uneventful around here. We went to a hay wagon festival a couple of weekends ago. They have an 800 meter (half mile) course set up in town and there are teams that push and pull the wagon loaded up with hay through the course. There's a couple of turns and they have to go around the water tower. The hard part is that there are two sections of about 10 feet of sand about 6 inches deep that they have to drag the wagons through. It's pretty entertaining.

My lovely house guest is still here and she has been wonderful. She's been cleaning and helping with stuff around the house and is a joy to have around. I will miss her when she goes in September.

The spawnette is kicking more and trying out some new stretches. I'm trying to get some sewing done on my big machine before my belly is too big. My uterus is already a couple of inches above my belly button!

The next doctor's appointment is the gestational diabetes screen, which I am not looking forward to. This is the test that I have been the most apprehensive about since it has such a high rate of false positives that lead to the dreaded three hour test. And, my doctor is having me do an eight hour fast before the test. Ugh.

Other than that, things are normal. I'm looking forward to fall and cooler weather which may lead to some clothes shopping because while pants are still fitting, they are getting uncomfortable and shirts are becoming too short. I'm working on the baby registry. DH and I bought a crib and dresser at Ikea last weekend. Things are moving along. All is well and good!

Aus dem Urlaub zurück oder back from vacation

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written. Since the last time DH and I went on a cruise in the Baltic Sea. We saw most of the Baltic capitals and even managed to go to the ballet in Saint Petersburg, which was amazing.

The week after we got back, it was time for the next OB appointment. This was the twenty week scan, so Dr. H took quite a while looking to make sure everything was measuring correctly. At this point they measure the circumference of the head and length of the femur to determine gestational age and any age within 10 days is considered normal. All the structures look normal. We could even see the bladder full of fluid because the spawn (that's our nickname) had been swallowing amniotic fluid. Then Dr. H told us what we had been anxiously waiting to hear: It's a girl! Both DH and I wanted a girl, so this is fantastic news!

I still don't feel like I look pregnant, just kinda fat. I think part of that is because I have been this big around before without a baby in there. I am still wearing my old pants, although my shirts are getting too short and I'm rotating some maternity tops in. I've gained less than five pounds since getting pregnant, but Dr. H doesn't seem concerned. That's just another thing that I love about German doctors.

I clearly have not been posting regularly, and don't know if I will get back to it or not. I feel like with the point of viability coming up in just a few more weeks I'm becoming confident at the prospect of bringing home a baby. If I keep writing, I think things will change a bit. Life is just different, although I still marvel at the fact that I'm pregnant and I think about how things were. Before one of our trips last month DH said to me that he realized that he hadn't woken up to the sound of the thermometer in a long time. It's a continual amazement.

So, I hope your summer is going well. Congrats to the ladies who finally have their BFPs out there! You've worked hard for it. Try to enjoy it. And those who haven't I'm rooting for you! I look forward to the day when I visit your blog and see your good news.

Happy Summer!

This is a Russian mosquito. We stayed in the room a lot in St. Petersburg.

I did cartwheels in most of the places we visited.
It just seemed like a fun thing to do!

I survey my queendom.

This was at the Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo.
One of the many interesting but slightly terrifying statues.

Zweiten OB Besuch oder second OB visit

ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! WARNING! WARNING!
Lots of pregnancy talk today.

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Today is twelve weeks exactly. The last few days have been pretty good. And, if I can get through today without throwing up (and it's looking good so far), it will be a week since the last time I got sick. Woohoo!

DH was able to come to this visit. (If you remember from the last visit he wasn't able to be there.) It had been almost six weeks since he last saw my insides. I ran into a friend in the waiting room, so we chatted, which was nice. They weighed me this time and took my blood pressure. The blood pressure was pretty good. The best thing that I can say about the weight was that it was in kilograms instead of pounds and so it was a lot lower.

Then we saw Dr. H. He told me the results of my tests, which were good. Iron levels okay, no chlamydia. Good to know. I asked about a note for the cruise DH and I will be taking in a few weeks (more on that later). They'll give me the note next time. I then nervously asked if it would be okay to have a glass of champagne. Dr H said that an occasional drink would not cause any problems. I know there are people out there who would say that I shouldn't even ask, but hey, I'm in Europe and I have a German doctor. I'm going to go for the European experience. I told him I had lost some weight, and he said that in the first sixteen weeks, they don't expect much change in weight, so losing a little is okay. Then we went to the ultrasound.

It was with Wanda again, which honestly, I didn't mind. The picture is really clear and it's not uncomfortable, so whatever. I had planned to drink some orange juice just before the appointment, but didn't. It didn't matter. The blob is no longer a blob! There are two arms and two legs and we saw at least one hand that had all five fingers. There's a brain and a very visible (and audible) heartbeat (145). We even saw it moving around, which was really amazing. We saw the umbilical cord and the blood flow there. It's 55.6 mm, so just about two inches long. I'm amazed that only ten weeks after conception, this creature is fully formed and just needs to grow bigger and mature. It's not something that is yet to be. It is. A teeny, tiny human.

I've been feeling disconnection and disbelief. Seeing my baby (writing those words is unreal) kick and move its arms and legs makes me feel like this might really be real. There might really be a reason my pants are getting tight. It's possible the reason I've been feeling crappy is because there's a person that I'm growing. It's unbelievable, but I might be starting to believe it.

After the appointment, I went to the reception desk to make the next appointment. And, I got my Mutterpass! This is all of your medical records for your pregnancy. And, if you have more than one child in Germany, it will be for all of your pregnancies. You are to carry it with you at all times so that if there's a problem, the doctor will be able to look at your Mutterpass and know your pregnancy medical history. It is the symbol that you are really pregnant. And I have one!

I'm so happy right now. I can't stop smiling. This is really happening! And I am so thankful.

Würgen die ganze Zeit

Last week came and went without a post from me. For shame. Again, I'm still around, just feeling really lousy. I've been tired which is okay, but this week the morning sickness ramped up a notch. Yesterday morning I was trying to get out of bed and downstairs to give DH a kiss good morning, but I went too fast and ended up heaving in the sink instead. All day yesterday, every time I got up from sitting or lying down, I would start gagging. Today started similarly, without the actual sick though, thankfully. DH asked me to get some bread and that made me gag. Mixing honey in with my yogurt this morning was cause for retching. Leaning over to get the cat food out of the cupboard had me heaving. Fun times.

I'm eleven weeks along, so I'm just praying that in the next couple of weeks things will get better. Pretty please?

Also, I'm still feeling disconnected from the pregnancy. DH will be coming with me next Monday to the OB, so maybe holding his hand while hearing the heartbeat will get this lodged into my head a little better.

P.S. Today's title sounds so much better in German, that I just left it that way. If you really want to see what it says, plug it into Google translate.

Dankbar Donnerstag oder Thankful Thursday: My husband's sense of humor

My husband is hilarious. He's in the States this week for work and I asked him to bring a few things back. Whenever someone you know goes to the States, you always send a shopping list because there are things that you just can't get here. Like Burt's Bees lip balm.


I know, I can't believe it either. Well, I can believe that I can't find Burt's Bees. What floored me is that Amazon wouldn't ship it over. I like the honey flavor the best. I asked my mom to get some and she sent the peppermint, which I knew she would, but I was just happy to get some. 


So, DH was sent to the States with the warning, "Come back with my lip balm or else!" He got a chance to go shopping yesterday and this is the message I got this morning regarding the shopping trip.


*Edited slightly to maintain privacy*


Nobody I talked to had ever heard of the brand *sunscreen I wanted*, but let me tell you the saga of Burt, his Bees, and his crazy honey obsession. 


So I go to the mall. This huge mall that's supposedly the biggest mall in Iowa. I weep for the rest of Iowa if that is the case. Our mall in *Montana town* was bigger. I found nothing. Not a single thing on my list . So I ask somebody for directions to Target. Surely Target will have something. They had the *other thing I wanted*, but apparently Burt and his Bees didn't feel that Target was worthy of honey. Just peppermint and pomegranate. So I got a pomegranate. 

Honey goodness

Then I got directions to the Evil Empire (Walmart). Alas, if Burt and his elusive Bees forswore to grace Target with honey, he definitely wasn't going to deign to bestow it upon the Evil Empire. Just more evil peppermint. I walked out empty handed but with directions to a grocery store. I walk in and find the lip balm section and Burt is quietly absent. In dejection I make my way back out and catch a glimpse of honeycomb out of the corner of my eye. Burt and his elusive Bees felt this store was so worthy it deserved an entire half row of pure honey products. In ecstasy I grabbed six and made my way to the register. The cashier told me I was lucky, Burt and his elusive Bees sell out quickly.


May this stockpile of honey goodness grudgingly bestowed upon you by Burt and his elusive Bees last you and your lips until your return to the world of American consumerism. 

I read this and just started laughing. That guy is so fun to be married to. He always surprises me.

Alles klar oder all right

I called Herr Doktor's office yesterday at about three. The spotting had tapered off, but it was still there. At around seven in the evening, I got three or four sharp cramps on my left side, which is I'm pretty sure, where the implantation occurred. After that, I got some dark blood, but still not very much. I tried to stay as still as possible all night.

Herr Doktor is on vacation this week, so I saw Frau Doktor again. DH was able to come with me, even though the appointment was not at seven in the morning and he had to do some finagling with work. Anyway, once we got there, I promptly spilled his coffee all over the waiting room floor. Way to go me.

Right now, mostly fett.

We got shown in to Frau Doktor's office. She asked me what was up and I told her that I had been spotting since Wednesday. It was brown, and there wasn't much, but it was there and I had slight cramping. She went ahead and did an ultrasound after doing a swab to check for infection and looking to see if she could find where the bleeding was coming from.

No bleeding from the cervix, no intrauterine bleeding, and the cervix is still long and closed. What a relief.

And, we saw the heartbeat.

DH is beside himself. He's going to be gone for basically the next month, so this was the only chance he had to see the heartbeat before he left. He tried to get me to say the p word as we were leaving. I still can't quite do it. I can say, "Ich bin schwanger," but not the English version quite yet.

Frau Doktor thinks it's possibly an infection. She said to stop helping people move, to not do any sports, but to go ahead and be up and moving around. She prescribed more progesterone and magnesium, which apparently helps with cramping and will keep the uterus from contracting.

It's amazing to think that just last week, all there was was a gestational sac and this week, we can see a little blob floating in the sac and a heartbeat. She said that the growth rate is "perfect", 6.6mm, exactly the correct size for the gestational age.

DH is planning to call his family tonight and let them know. I should probably call my folks and tell my dad, since Mom has known for almost three weeks already.

So, I'm glad that I went in and had it checked, but relieved that everything is okay. DH wants to tell face.book, but I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. The heartbeat is there, but I still have reservations. I'm trying to give in and fully attach, but it's difficult. Right now, though, I'm focusing on one thing. Alles klar.

Infertility has changed me.

I finally have that BFP but it hasn't really sunk in. I just stopped charting today. I still occasionally POAS, just to check. I'm nervous because I haven't had any nausea. The only symptoms I've had are sore, slowly enlarging, boobs and a slower run time.

DH and I went in on Thursday for another ultrasound. Herr Doktor wanted to make sure there wasn't an ectopic pregnancy going into the long weekend. (The Germans have a four day this weekend because of Easter.) I now have a gestational sac that measured 9.2 mm. My beta was 6269 on Thursday, so that's progressing okay. Even with all of that, I can't claim the P word. I can't say it out loud.

I had coffee with a friend yesterday who is 7 weeks along. She was talking about how long it took (10 months) and how she's sort of obsessed because she's still doing the POAS thing and has eight pregnancy tests still at home. I think I have about forty. But, the thing that really struck me is that she's still confident she's pregnant. She hasn't heard a heartbeat yet or even had an ultrasound, just positive blood and urine tests. But, she knows she's really pregnant. She is sure of that fact.

I, on the other hand, do not think of myself that way, and probably won't until there's a heartbeat. Right now, I have a gestational sac and I can manage to get BFPs on home tests. I still find myself looking enviously at strollers and little kids toddling around playgrounds. Swollen bellies still throw me off. Hearing someone else's good news still makes me feel that happy for them, sad for me, thing. I actually had to remind myself the other day not to have a beer with dinner. It's a surreal feeling, like I'm having a boring dream with an exciting background note.

Infertility has indeed changed me. I don't think I will be confident until I bring a healthy baby home.

And that's when the real worrying starts.

Beta #2 and ultrasound/Ultrawelle

Monday has finally arrived. I don't think I've ever looked so forward to a Monday. DH and I went in together for the latest appointment with Herr Doktor, since Herr Doktor's secretary said we would be doing an ultrasound. Which we did. But, there was nothing to see. I saw the uterus, and it looked pretty much like it always does. We did not see anything in there though. Herr Doktor thinks it's too early, but he said, "I am convinced there is a pregnancy," which did make me feel better. I need to find out how to say congratulations in German, because the woman who was in the office before me is graduating to an OB and she looked so happy, I just wanted to say something. I smiled instead.

Meanwhile, I have continued to POAS most mornings and am still getting BFPs. The lines are getting progressively darker, so I'm still hopeful. It was a bit of a letdown though, not to see anything in there. I'll get the results of the beta this afternoon. Based on my last one, I'm hoping for 1,500 or higher. I'm trying not to focus on getting through the next week, which is how long I think it will be before the next appointment, but getting through the next few hours. This is proving difficult.

A seven week deployment, huh?
Photo credit:
dramaqueenmoments.tumblr.com/bitchplease

I went to the bakery and got some quarkbällchen for breakfast. I think I'll work on the Rosetta Stone for a while. Then I'll watch some TV and do some sewing. I am sewing a pocket onto a baby carrier for someone in our church. I'm doing the sewing by hand because it's easier than fussing with the carrier in the sewing machine. This woman, by the way, is one who got pregnant while "not even trying", is suffering through the long seven weeks that her husband is gone, and offered to let me borrow a dress for the ball, and when I pointed out that we aren't the same size, she let me know she wore it while pregnant, so it would probably fit me. Yeah. I don't know why I'm doing this little job for her, but I can tell you, it's not because I want her to be my best friend.

Enough complaining about fertiles (for now). I'll post an update with the beta once I get it. Fingers crossed!

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Update: Beta 2426! Doubling time of 37.97 hours. I was hoping for anything over 1500, so I'm pretty stoked. Back to Herr Doktor on Thursday for another ultrasound.

Diese Woche schleppt oder this week is dragging!

Or your Monday realizing it's only Wednesday

A week is a long time to wait until the next beta.

I have continued to POAS every morning. This morning, the line was slightly lighter than yesterday's line, which was the darkest I've had so far from the cheapies. I went to the commissary yesterday and bought 6 dollar tests and did one of those too this morning. That one has a decent line, so that makes me feel a little better. I ordered more cheapies last week before the news and am waiting for those so that I can do more obsessive testing more cheaply.

Other than that, I'm a little nervous at my lack of symptoms. I know it's very early, but the only thing I've really got going on is sore boobs. I've had a tiny bit of nausea and have been grazing a lot to try and help that. Oh, and I'm pretty sure I've got the start of a yeast infection, which means that my hormones are out of whack and I'm eating yogurt. (I used to get a yeast infection every other month on Clomid.) Other than that, nothing's going on.

I've been having bad dreams about my temps dropping (I'm still temping), but they are still mostly up, although not climbing.

DH is gone for the week. I wish he were here to reassure me. We don't normally talk very much when he's gone, but I may call him tonight to see how he's doing.

I'm keeping busy sewing and helping out at the library, alternately thinking about what's going on and trying not to think about it at all. I'm terrified of losing this pregnancy. I'm not even thinking of myself as pregnant. I just can't yet. Until I hear a heartbeat I'm trying to protect myself. Even then, I'm not sure that it will feel real.

The one concession I've made to the news is to wear my cute, more expensive than the usual jeans more often. They are fairly tight and it's possible that I won't be able to wear them in a little while, so I'm trying to get my money's worth out of them.

Only 5 more days until my next beta, and it cannot come soon enough!

CD 31, 19 dp trigger

Sehr frühe Schwangerschaft

This is a difficult post to write. I've been avoiding it since last week. I just got off the phone with my mom.

You may have noticed that I've been a little vague the last few days. That was partly because it was the weekend and I was busy, and partly because I haven't known how to share this news with you. I've read this on other blogs and it has made my heart sink and my guts wrench.

I got a BFP.

I thought that I was seeing lines on the cheapies, so I went and got a box of three FRER tests. I tested on Friday again, like I had been testing all week. I saw the line on the cheapie, but DH didn't see it. So, before he left, I went up to my saved FMU (gross, I know) and dipped in the FRER. After a few minutes, there was a faint line. I showed it to DH and he saw the line too.

I tested again on Saturday with a FRER and got a darker line. Of course, DH and I have been very excited while simultaneously terrified of anything going wrong. I've been testing with cheapies the last couple of days and am still seeing faint lines, although they are getting a little darker. Today I went in for the blood test, and it was positive. Beta is 113. I go in next week for another blood test and an ultrasound to see if there is a heart beat.

I started this blog because I was tired of seeing other people's TTC journey's come to an end. I would follow along with them, and then, when they got that BFP, I would stop reading or just to the blog version of the face.book lurk. I decided that I needed a way to tell my story, even if it was to the ethernet and no one else.

Now, here I am with the thing that I have been working for, hoping and praying for and I feel a little bad about starting this blog. It will probably change in tone if those lines keep showing up. I am excited, but terrified at the same time. Not of being a mother, but of finally getting my BFP and not getting a baby at the end of it. This blog is one of the first in line for getting the news, after DH, my mom, and a couple of good friends. I don't intend on telling anyone else before hearing a heartbeat, and maybe not even then. I may wait a while longer just to be sure this thing isn't going anywhere.

If you have been reading and decide to stop, I completely understand. I've enjoyed having this one-sided conversation and will go on with it for as long as it feels like a good thing to do. If you decide to stick with me, great! I hope to hear more from you as the time goes on.

So, that's my news. On a personal front, I am ecstatic, but any readers have been on my mind because I know how it feels for me to here someone else's good news. I hope to be sensitive and I hope you'll be understanding.

Thank you.

CD 29, 17 dp trigger. BFP, beta 113.

Sommerzeit oder daylight saving time

Today is the time change here in Europe. We are behind the States for the changeover. I'm not sure why, but that's the way it is.

This weekend has been pretty nice so far. I went to a quilting class yesterday and then came home and went for a run. It was a good way to spend a Saturday.

The blood test is tomorrow and I'm looking forward to the results with bated breath. DH leaves tomorrow for a conference and will be back Friday. I'm bummed that he won't be around for the results of the blood test, but that's the way it goes. It will be nice to have the week to myself.

I'll post once I get those results. Hopefully it will be tomorrow, but I've never done this before so I don't know how long their lab will take.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

I'm driving myself crazy aka Ich mache mich verrückt

Ah, the two week wait. The time that I go from being a rational (ha!) person to someone who pees in cups and then saves that pee for a couple of hours just in case I decide to test again.

I tested on Friday morning before DH and I left for vacation. The night before I had had some weird twingy pains in my left side; it felt like near my fallopian tube. I figured it was from sitting too long because I had been in the car a lot that day. Since we were going on vacation and I expected to be drinking, I tested just in case. It was super early. I got a positive that even DH saw. I decided though, that it was still leftovers from the trigger the week before. I took a couple tests with us.

Is that a line? Nope, just a cat hair.

I tested Saturday morning and got another, fainter positive. I didn't test Sunday or Monday. I tested yesterday and, while I saw a line, DH didn't see anything. I am notorious for seeing lines where there aren't any. I tested again today. The first test was hard to read because it had been banged around in my backpack while traveling, so I decided that was inconclusive. The second test (taken from my FMU after DH went to work) I thought I might have seen a line, but like I said, I am good at imaginary lines. I think this overactive imagination comes from being an only child.

Then I broke out the big guns. I took a Clear Blue Digital. I bought these yesterday when I was picking up cat food. I've never used one before, but they are all kind of the same. I kept telling myself it would be a BFN. It was. Shocker.

Not my tests, though I may be this crazy.

I decided to order some more cheapies off of Amazon. I only ordered 25, because I shouldn't need that many and I didn't order any ovulation tests because I'm hoping that I won't need those again. I like to torture myself by looking at other people's positive tests, so I was looking through the pictures of these tests on Amazon. I showed DH this picture from Amazon to show him that I am not alone in my craziness. The "approximately" in the time past o made me laugh. If it were 7days 9hrs, maybe that would be the difference. But, I save my pee for hours and hustle my husband out of the house so I can do another test, so am I really any more sane?

So, today it'll be another day of trying not to think about my uterus. I'm going to work in my sewing room. I should go running, but I just really don't feel like it, so I'm not going to unless I feel like it later.

Tomorrow I'll be back at the library morning and evening to help out. Friday night is the ball (ugh, balls) that DH is dragging me to. Saturday I have a class in a town about an hour away. Hopefully today will be the day that I have to most chance to be crazy and subsequent days I will be too busy. I'll try not to go cross eyed looking at my latest test.

CD 23, 12dp trigger

Aus dem Urlaub zurück oder back from vacation

It's kind of a long post today because I have a few days to catch up on where I was actually doing something and there are more pictures than usual.

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DH and I got back from vacation yesterday. It was a short trip, but it was just what both of us needed. We went to Palma de Mallorca, Spain. There's an airline here in Europe called Ryanair. They are cheap and no frills; I mean none. A few years ago Ryanair floated an idea to have passengers pay for toilets. Definitely no frills, but they are still cheap and the flights aren't too long.

We got there Friday early evening and took a taxi to our hotel and got a first look at the sights. Everything looked great. The hotel that we stayed at promised free bicycle loans, but it turned out that all (four) of their bicycles were out for repair. Bummer.

Ice cream disguised as coffee. I like it!

Saturday, we got up at our normal time, about seven a.m. We got a slow start and found a coffee place at about 8:45. They weren't open until 9. I had forgotten the way places in Spain get to a late start in the mornings. We came back in a few minutes and had coffee. I had an "iced mocha", which was pretty much chocolate ice cream in a coffee cup. Yum!

Palma Cathedral

We walked around a bit more, and went to the cathedral in town. It was really beautiful, with a different style of stained glass than I've seen in other cathedrals. After that was lunch, and then a siesta. Since DH and I are getting old, it's nice to take a break and rest for a while in the afternoon.

St. Pat's Day Guinness

After the siesta, we headed back out to dinner. Since it was St. Patty's Day, DH wanted to have a Guinness. He had had one earlier in the day, but it was St. Patty's, so we headed over to one of the Irish pubs that we found in the city. It's amazing how there is nearly no city that you can go to that doesn't have an Irish pub. DH got his Guinness and then we decided to have dinner at the pub. Unfortunately, there was no where to sit at the bar and all of the tables were reserved, so we had to change plans and had Chinese for dinner instead. After dinner there was a second stop at the pub for another Guinness, and back to the hotel.

The next morning, since the hotel's bicycles weren't available, we decided to find a place to rent some. After picking up the bicycles, we started to make our way up to Bellver Castle.  We took a couple of wrong turns and ended up at the Nuevo Pueblo Espanol instead. It was really cool and totally worth the diversion. There was practically no one else there and it was really fun to wander around all the different buildings. It actually reminded me a lot of the Tomb Raider video game. 

Walking down the empty streets of
Nuevo Pueblo Espanol.

After wandering to our hearts' content, we made our way to the castle. It was uphill quite a ways, but the bicycle had low gears and I wasn't too sweaty at the top. The castle was free, for some reason, and it was another fun place to wander. Next we headed out on our bikes and rode east for a while. It was beautiful, riding next to the ocean, with the sea breeze and sunshine. We rode out for about an hour, plus a couple of stops, then turned around and made it back to Palma in forty-five minutes. We took the bikes back, and then it was siesta time. We had dinner at the Irish pub that night. I had a Cobb salad with chicken. Pretty tasty.

We saw kite surfers while we were riding our bikes

Bellver Castle

Monday morning we woke up kind of slowly and then checked our flight information. The flight was about two hours earlier than I had thought. Whoops! We packed up our stuff quickly and had the front desk at the hotel call a taxi. Within half an hour, we were at the airport. Security was the quickest I have ever gone through it, which was nice. Then it was the normal waiting for the flight and then flying home. 

Ah, the sun and the sea. I'll get back there again, someday.

It was a quick trip, but it was very restorative. Both DH and I were surprised at how needed this vacation was. We reconnected and spent some quality time together. We saw some beautiful new sights. It has made the last few days of this 2WW much more bearable. I see more vacations in the future.


CD 23, 10 dp trigger

The journey to now, part one, oder Reise zum Teil jetzt zwei

If you didn't read the first part, you can find it here.

It was so frustrating....

On 11 May, we flew with our suitcases and our cats and, at least for me, without enthusiasm or patience. I didn't want to be back in Germany. I wanted to be close to home, to Mom and Dad, because I expected to be getting pregnant soon and wanted to be close enough for my parents to get to be grandparents.

We landed on 12 May. It was beautiful weather, and in some ways I relaxed a little bit. Our house in Colorado still hadn't sold, and we would have to establish ourselves in this new community, but at least we were here and could begin the process. On the way from the airport to the new base, I could hear Shadow yowling from the luggage compartment under the bus. Poor thing.

Imagine this, but smaller with less chairs.

When you get to a new place with the military, they put you in a hotel until you can find housing. In our room, there was a bed, a desk, a dresser, and one chair. It was DH and I and the two cats in that room for a month. The cats don't get along that well, so we ended up putting the luggage rack in one corner with a suitcase on top so that Shadow could sleep on there and Moo could sleep on the bed with us.

We went about getting settled. When you move overseas, there are a lot of things to do to establish normal life in your new location. There are driver's licenses, some basic language classes, finding a home, getting put into the medical system at the new MTF. Lots to do. We moved into our house (the only one that we had been able to look at) in the middle of June. At the end of June, I finally got in to see the OB/GYN on post. This was the next step in the referral process.

This doctor seemed nice enough, but he was dismissive of what I had been doing to try to help things along. We hadn't been trying quite a year at that point, so he seemed hesitant to work with us, but since I had been diagnosed with PCOS he deigned to give us his expertise. I'll call him Dr. Insensitive.

Dr. Insensitive told me to stop charting, that that didn't do anything anyway. He didn't seem to like that I was on Metformin, but refilled the prescription since I had already been taking it for six months. He prescribed Clomid at 50 mg, told me to get a blood test on CD 21, and we would go from there. He was very sure that I would be able to get pregnant, no problem.

Clomid, the crazy maker

I didn't stop charting, mostly because it's one of the very few things that makes me feel like I have some control over this process. Round one of Clomid was determined to be non-ovulatory by blood test. I was given another round at 50 mg. Same result. The next round was 100 mg, and that was determined to be a proper dosage, due to the bloodwork. That was August. I did another 100 mg cycle in September during which I know that I ovulated late, but Dr. Insensitive had stopped ordering blood tests since one came back positive at 100 mg.

Early September of 2011, my mom had had surgery on her stomach to repair some lingering problems from childhood. The surgery didn't go well and she had another one three weeks later. After I heard about the second surgery being scheduled, I went ahead and got a ticket back home. I left in early October and returned in early November. Those cycles I did not take Clomid; October, because DH stayed in Germany and November because I didn't have access to the medication early enough in my cycle.

In December, I called Dr. Insensitive's office. I hadn't seen him since June and I wanted to have a change in prescription or blood work done to verify ovulation (or lack thereof) or something to move this process along. The receptionist went ahead and scheduled an appointment with the doctor for the week after Christmas. At this point, I felt so discouraged and broken down. We had passed the year mark and the officially infertile status rang loudly in my head.

At our appointment, Dr. Insensitive was, well, insensitive. I told him that the Clomid wasn't working, that I wasn't ovulating. He said that the blood work proved otherwise. I tried to show him my charts and he told me that those were useless and that I really shouldn't bother with them. He asked if I wanted to keep going on Clomid. I said no, but I wouldn't mind trying Femara. He harrumphed at that, and told me to go get an HSG done, and after that, he would put in the referral. His parting words were, "Maybe you won't even need the referral. You could be pregnant by then." His false confidence made me break down. I needed some real hope, not placating words.

DH and I went over to the lab. They used to do HSGs, but didn't any longer because the community that we are in is in the process of shutting down. I had to go to Landstuhl, the big military hospital over here, to get the HSG done. I called them and they said that I should call on CD 1 of my next cycle to schedule the HSG. I was on CD 3, but it couldn't be scheduled for that cycle due to New Year's being in just a couple of days. I had to wait out another cycle.

February came around, and with it, the chance to do the HSG. I called the lab and scheduled the test. I had to get a blood test done for pregnancy beforehand, which is kind of crappy. Dr. Insensitive had put the order in wrong, but the people at Landstuhl were able to work it out. (I got a call the next week, asking if I was going to be in the next day for my HSG. Dr. Insensitive was apparently having some major problems with getting the orders in correctly.)

Ouch

The HSG was painful. I wouldn't call it excruciating, but I would rather not to have to do it again. I had been researching HSGs as soon as I heard about them, so I pretty much knew what was going to happen. There were four people in the room, six including DH and I. I have gotten to the point that I really don't care who is doing or seeing things, if it's going to help get me pregnant. One tube had some adhesions, but the radiology doc managed to get it to open up and the dye spilled through on both sides. I was uncomfortable for about half an hour afterwards and took it easy for the rest of the day, but was fully recovered very shortly.

After the HSG was done, I called and got the ball rolling on getting the referral the rest of the way through. At the end of February, I finally had my referral in hand. I saw Herr Doktor for the first time on February 27th, 2012.

It's been a long road getting here. I've learned that I need to be my own advocate, that no one else is going to push things as much as I will. I've learned that research can be my best friend. Knowing what the next step typically is is very helpful for me. I can anticipate what is coming next and ask about the next step if the doctor doesn't mention it. I've learned that you have to know the system to be able to use it. Checking and double checking is okay.

Through all of this, I have tried to hold on to hope. Hope is the most elusive, slippery, crazy thing that I've found on this journey. The ups and downs of each cycle and the hope that keeps me going despite so much heartbreak. I hope to get pregnant. I hope to have a healthy baby. I hope to be a mother.

CD 22, 9 dp trigger