Progress (Making Some)

Happy Belated Holidays! We are finally home and settled in again after two weeks away with family. I may never leave again. This post will be a pregnancy update. Just the facts, not much in the way of feelings. Feelings are on hold until we know if the inhabitant is healthy.

I am now eleven weeks pregnant and still having trouble believing it's real. I got the all clear to stop all of my support meds and have been released from the fertility clinic. I guess I've graduated. I do NOT miss the PIO shots or the estrogen patches. Not even a little. I had gained three whole pounds as of my midwife appointment last week. I suspect one of those pounds was my lunch, since the previous weigh-in was at a pre-meal appointment. Considering the number of Christmas cookies and cheese logs I consumed in the interim, I'm feeling OK about that. We also got to hear the heartbeat at the midwife appointment, so we know the inhabitant is still alive in there. Massive relief.

Who'd have thought, but those three pounds mean I've had to put away my regular jeans and workday slacks in favor of some in larger sizes that I stored after losing weight a while back. The styles are a trifle dated (three years or so) but I'm hoping to avoid buying maternity clothes for a little while yet. It feels like jinxing things somehow. Not sure how long I'll be able to swing that. I asked the midwife how my short-waisted torso would impact things and she said I would definitely start showing sooner.

I still don't have much to tell in the way of symptoms. The heartburn has gone away and I'm certainly not constipated. My gag reflex is still off the hook, but I haven't actually vomited. No consistent food cravings or aversions, but my thoughts on any given meal are generally pretty strong. A food either sounds good, or I'd rather just go hungry. I've also had to reduce my portion sizes, as I just can't hold as much food anymore. Seems early for that but perhaps it's the short waist at work again? I'm peeing a lot, but that's nothing new. My tiny bladder is a longstanding family joke.

My one major symptom is fatigue and it is starting to get me down. Napping doesn't work for me, so I find myself thinking about bedtime as early as 8:00 and finally giving in and crawling in bed between 9-9:30 at night. I can sleep for 12 hours and eight hours after I wake up, I'm wiped out again. I'm getting nothing done after work and I really miss those extra hours with Prof, but I can't keep my eyes open. Prof is my hero, as always. He is supportive and accommodating without being fussy. He never complains about me being too tired to do anything or too picky about meals.

We have our first trimester screening next week, and we are suitably nervous. I know that with (nice, young, proven) donor eggs the chance of a problem is greatly reduced, BUT... with eleven eggs resulting in only one embryo, I can't help but wonder at the odds of the resulting fetus being perfectly healthy. I suppose that's the main "feeling" right now... nervous.