16 weeks! And Christmas is here!!

Here's the current growth pattern....


And here.. is a special message for Grandma, who can't be with us this Christmas!


Here's what the goonlet looks like inside... I love this picture!


All is well, next midwife appointment is Jan 12th, and shortly after that we'll have another ultrasound, but don't expect to find out the sex of the baby, as we'll all have to wait till June for that. We love a surprise!
Hopefully you all will have a joyous and peaceful holiday weekend, filled with family, love and lots of delicious treats!

Not for the faint of heart!

So.. here's the damage.

This is what it USED to look like!

Another close up of the damage.. cause I love the gore!

And the patient :)


I'll put up some pix when it's healed a bit so you can see what it will look like. I do think there will be a trip to the hand surgeon in our future... unless the scar is less then I'm imagining!

14 weeks...
One minute you're sitting on the couch, enjoying some tea, and the next thing you know, there is blood everywhere and you're on your way to the ER.






No, I wasn't bleeding, sillies! My lovely, fantastic, talented, home remodelling husband accidentally shred his left thumb on the table saw Thursday night. He is in the process of framing in a new closet in a room that never had one (well it did when the house was built in 1916). Apparently he had the thought that he should stop for the night, but then decided to cut ONE LAST PIECE of wood. Well, as luck would have it, it was the one piece of wood that would earn him his first ever stitches!
I was sitting on the couch, chatting and finishing a cabled hat, when I heard the saw stop, and him come upstairs. I heard him call my name, albeit quietly...I muted the TV and said "did you call me?" no response. So i turn it back on, assuming he was talking to the cat. The kitchen sink is running, and I hear him again. I turn the TV off and say "what???" He replies, "I cut myself"... when silence ensued, I knew it had to be bad. I walk into the kitchen, he's leaning over the sink and he says "we need to go to the hosptial". This is when I KNOW it's bad... cause normally, I'm the one who has to convince him that he's really sick, or really hurt or really needs care. So I run up stairs to put some clothes on, as I was in my PJs and it's 28 outside.
All the way to the hospital (I had to look up the closest hospital, since we've never gone to the ER in all the years we've been living here) he was pale, and dizzy. The first thing they say, as we're checking in at the front desk is "Is it attached?" For some reason, I find this funny. Of course it's attached. If he had cut his thumb OFF, I wouldn't have said "my husband cut his thumb on a table saw" I would have said (and have been a bit less calm) "My husband cut his thumb OFF on a table saw"... duh!
Thankfully, it was a short wait (I'm sure it seemed long to him!) they took us back, took a look at him, determined he needed stitches (again, duh! pretty deep, across the whole pad of his thumb and there is meat hanging out of it!!) and put us in a room. We watched some South Park while waiting for the doc. Everyone was super nice, and relatively quick. There was a tetanus shot (um, yeah, saw blade meets thumb pad? yep, tetanus shot!) and then finally a nerve block (that they had to do three times to numb that sucker!). They cleaned it up and the nurse said "Oh it's pretty now!"... oh no, not pretty, It was fabulously gnarly! And finally the stitches. I think he ended up with 7-8 of them... and there was talk of needing to have a hand surgeon take a look at it in the future, as the scar would be bad, and likely need repair.
They dosed him with some vicodin and antibiotics and a mere three hours after we walked in, we were walking out.... him, drugged and throbbing, me tired and HUNGRY. It was decided that Mr. HandMeetsSaw would not be going to work tomorrow, so at 2 AM we stopped by his office to grab his laptop so he could work from home. We then stopped by the illustrious VooDoo donut (as they are open from 10PM-10AM) to feed the beast within.
Home again home again, jiggity jig... I'm finally in bed at 3 AM.

My plan was to post pictures of his gnarled mutilated thumb tonight... but all you get is this...


We were planning on changing the dressing tonight, but just the act of taking the outer wrapping off made Ryan decide to wait another day before taking off the gauze (it's pretty stuck to his stitched area.)
Here you can see that the over all apendage isn't too swollen.. at least not like it was a couple of nights ago.



And of course, these posts wouldn't be complete without a picture of my gut and an update from goonland. Here we are from the front... I don't see much difference from 2 weeks ago.

And here is the obligatory side view. Again, not much change, is there?

All in all things are good. Eating has resumed again, and the last barf episode was brought on by a bad smell in my office, not by food alone. I think I've felt movement, once or twice, like something painting from the inside out. No weight has been gained, but such is life. I eat when I'm hungry, till I'm full, can't do much more than that!
We finally chose a midwife last week. She is one of the homebirth superstars in town. Everyone loves her, and subsequently so do we. She has a stellar reputation, and great experience. At our interview with her, she used the doppler to let us hear the heart beat. Swoosh swoosh swoosh. love that! My first prenatal is next week, where we weigh in, get measured and pee in cups and what not.
Hopefully tomorrow or the next day I can show you the damage Ryan did to his lovely left thumb. I wish I'd taken the camera to the ER, as it would have made blogging much more interesting, but since he was in pain, and a little freaked out, we left before I could think of it. (but yes, I was composing this entry in my head as we waited for the nerve block to kick in.)

12 weeks!

Most people get lucky and the morning sickness ends at 12 weeks apparently I'm not so lucky. I had a 3 week non barfing streak that ended tonight during my dinner... but I won't regale you with that story, cause trust me, you don't want to hear it. Let's just say that this little goon had better be pretty cute cause he/she is trying my patience. (hahaha) Other than constant nausea and the occasional vomit action, things are pretty good. Have been noticing more pinching sensations but nothing that I would consider 'flutters' which is what everyone says movement feels like. i really don't expect to feel movement for some time, although i'm trying to be concious and aware.

Thanksgiving was a great time... lots of food (which all stayed down!), laughter, shopping and card playing. Grandma went a little crazy in the shopping department, and the goon may be clothed at least for the first year already. Although we had a great time, I was so happy to be home, in my own beds with the kitties. Especially since it's 45 degrees here, and it was 12 degrees on T-day.... Um yeah, no thanks. ;)
So... here is what he/she looks like right now....


And here is what I look like right now....(these pix are just post barf, so they may not be accurate, haha) I'm wearing my fave PJs in these pix... they have glow in the dark black cats.

Not reallly much change from last time. I've still only gained about 2 lbs, but since I puked about 2 lbs out this evening, I may be even, ha ha ha.

10 weeks today
Here is what our counter looked like with all the post - IVF paraphenalia. baby asprin, estrogen patches, oral progesterone, injectable progesterone, prenatal vitamins, tums... in the back ground you can see the numbing solution and the topical arnice for reducing bruises. yes.. this was a fun adventure! You can also see our 'little black book' - our folder of info from the doc, how to do all that we had to do.

This is what all the IVF shots look like in the sharps container. (yes, all of those were poked in me at some point)

Here are all the shots that went in my belly...


Here are all the shots that went in one of my poor bruised butt cheeks.


And here is why every single one of those shots was worth every ounce of pain, every drop of blood, and every freaking penny....

Here's another internet pix.. to show you the amazing development. :)


This was quite possibly my most enjoyable vaginal ultrasound experience ever. The moment he got up in there, the little guy was moving around. Kept bringing his/her hand to face. Could see the little heart beating, see the brain (or at least some sort of fluid) in the head, two legs, two arms. heartbeat at 183 - that glorious swoosh swoosh swoosh, placenta functioning wonderfully (that's more of a duller swoosh swoosh swoosh). I can't find the words right now to describe how amazing this experience was. I actually feel drunk from the whole thing. I have such an endorphin rush. I just want to curl up and stare that these grainy pictures for ever. For the first time today, I think it really really hit me, I'm going to have a BABY. Before it still seemed so surreal, but today, there it was, moving, measuring right on schedule, with arms, and legs and a little heart just beating away. THERE IS SOMEBODY IN THERE.
I feel so profoundly grateful that I get to experience this. I feel so profoundly grateful for being a woman. I feel so much like this is the most amazing dream I've ever had, and I dont' ever want to wake up.

Thanks for dreaming with me.

So, first you might be wondering why we've chosen to refer to our growing fetus as 'goonie'.... well to explain that, I kind of have to tell you a little story.
A long long time ago ( I think it was at least 7 years - cause I was still in Chiropractic school) I was having lunch with a friend from school, and the song 'Sweetest Taboo' by Sade came on. I laughed and said Ryan was my sweetest Baboo ( like Sally called Linus on the Peanuts ). When I came home, I told Ryan he was my sweetest baboo, and he thought I said "sweetest BABOON"... so I started calling him Boon. That morphed into many things, boon dog, boonie mc booner of the boons farm mc booners, b-dog, and so many others I can't even remember. For the longest time he had been calling me 'Sweet pea'.. (yes, i can hear the groans from many of you, but quiet down, this is OUR love story, not yours)... that morphed into Pea-dog, pea-ness (as in highness, nothing dirty!), PJ, and eventually, poonie, and poonie-J.
When it came time to name the growing mass of cells in my belly, being the dorks that we are, we had to choose somehting that rhymed... so goon, goonie, goon-dog it is.

For those that don't know, the making of this little goon has been a long long time coming. We started trying to add to our collection of furry babies (the two cats - Mik and Oscar) a couple of years ago... month after month, nothing ever happened, and we finally decided to make sure all was well down under. So we saw a Naturopath, who ordered some preliminary tests, where everything looked fine, and we decided to just keep working on it. 6 months later, after many tears, and long conversations, we decide to consult an RE (reproductive endocrinologist - ie: the big guns) He looks at us, says 'well theres nothing wrong with you! - that's the good news and the bad news!' ... so we began on our journey of infertilty treatment. After several IUIs (insemination) with me on Clomid (ie: a drug that makes you CRAZY) we did some further tests, and found that our problem was Male factor, Ryan was creating antibodies to his own sperm, they were more than plentiful, and perfectly healthy, they just had a little trouble cracking into the ol eggs. Our only true hope was IVF (invitro fertilization)... but we decided to do a few more IUIs while we got everything (ie:money/tests) ready for the the really big guns.
Mid august, it all began, first with birthcontrol pills (yeah, those will make anyone a little crazy) and ovarian suppressants (1 shot a day in my belly) then when i was sufficiently oppressed, i mean, suppressed, adding in two more shot in the belly to start stimulating my ovaries to make a crap load of eggs. All of this was a barrel of laughs, really, it was great fun. No, actually, it was a little scarry, and not fun at all, but you know, you do what you have to do, right? Right.
Finally, Mid september, 14 eggs were retrieved from my bloated, sore and aching ovaries, and manually fertilized by the fabulous Embrylogists at our awesome clinic. I won't tell you how horribly painful that proceedure was (afterward, I was completely out for it).. but I'll just let you imagine - and again, you do what you have to do. Five days later, we had 8 fabulous, wonderful blastocysts hanging out in a petrie dish. Two of them were transfered back to me, and six were put in the deep freeze, our own little embryo savings account.
A mere 10 days after that we were given the wonderful news that not only was I finally pregnant, but that the blood test results made everything look really good. Now we waited (you see this infertility game has lots of waiting) for the first ultrasound to see how many of these little blastocysts had decided to take up residence in my uterus. At 6 weeks, (end of september) we went for our first US, and found out that we had one lovely perfect little blob living firmly attached to my uterus. We got to see, and HEAR the rudimentary heart beating. That moment, that one perfect moment, made every shot, every vaginal ultrasound (yes there were a LOT of them) every painful proceedure worth it. There is nothing like that Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh to make you feel like it was all worth it. I'd show you a picture of the ultrasound,but honestly, it's just a blob, nothing to see.
So, now here we are, 9 weeks 2 days pregnant. Morning sickness sucks, but it's better than infertility, hands down. I have to eat all the time, and a lot of the time nothing sounds good. There is a little throwing up, and a lot of gagging. I have cleavage, for the first time ever! ;) Our next ultrasound is coming up, and I'll probably post a picture of that, as there should be something to see. I can't wait to see what the little goon is up to in there. Some days I think he/she is building a fort, with all the action I feel, lots of pinching. pulling, hammer and nails, I think i even heard a miter saw going off down there the other day, yes, our little goon is very industrious!
At this point, here is what he/she looks like (this pix is taken from the internet, not from me!

And this is what i look like so far... notmuch happening, but it's definitely different to me. It's not uterus, it's merely my guts being pushed up by my uterus, I call it my 'poop pooch'... yes, I'm so so so funny!

This one is same, but with my shirt up, cause it shows just a wee bit more.

And this last one is from the front, so we can document the growing Om on my belly, which I had done when we first started trying to concieve... I love the symbolism of the Om, and wanted it over my growing babe. Om Sweet Om. :)



So.. there is the story thus far. Stay tuned for whatever comes next!