He's Here

Henry is here! He arrived on Friday morning April 11th at 12:56 am. He is fine and healthy and weighed 7lb15oz and was 20 inches long. We went in on the 10th for an induction. I was given medication at about 12:30 and things were going kind of slow. My water broke about 3:00 and things progressed very fast from there. By 4:30 I had dilated to a 9 which came as a surprise to everyone. At this point I still had not had an epidural and was in quite a bit of pain. I received the epidural about 6:00 and that was the greatest relief. We waited a few hours hoping the baby would move down and reduce the amount of pushing required. This did not happen so we moved on to pushing. I pushed for about 3 hours and Henry was right there but just would not come out. About 12:15 we decided to move on to a c section. Ashlea was with me the whole time as well as her husband, my husband and my son. Of course once we move to the OR it was just me and Ashlea. I tell you, that little boy coming out and hearing that cry was the greatest sound on earth.

Induction Set

We have our induction set for 4/10 at 7:30am. When I was at the doctor yesterday I had not started to dilate at all so this might be a long process. According to the doctor, it could take up to 3 days but either way, we are at the finish line.

Still Going

We are still going strong. We are a little over 3 weeks from our due date and no problems so far. At last check, 2 weeks ago, Henry was weighing in at 5 lb 9 oz. We will have one final ultrasound next week to get final measurements. He should be over 6 1/2 to 7 lbs by that point.

I'm a slacker

It has been a while since I have updated. Everything is going great, we are 27 weeks today. We had an ultrasound on Tuesday and Henry (if I haven't mentioned, that's the baby's name)was weighing in at 2lb 7oz and is 8 days ahead of schedule. He is going to be a big boy.
We are in the process of planning Ashlea's baby shower. That will be in early February. She is so excited. Henry already has a closet full of clothes!
Here is a picture of the handsome little man. I am one proud Grandma!

It's a ........

BOY

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I just knew it was a girl, so much for intuition.

Everything looked good, all of the test showed one perfect little boy. We were 17w4d and he measured 18w3d so he is still a little ahead of schedule.

Here are some gorgeous pictures of Ashlea and Bill's little man.

Check out this belly!

Here is a belly shot from 14 weeks, we are now 16w5d so it is probably even bigger by now. I have gained 10 pounds already and I think my belly is hugh to be 4 months. We find out on 11/12 what the sex is so be sure to check back. Ashlea and I have both taken that day off work. We will be doing a little baby shopping.

Today is my Birthday

So, today is my 51st birthday. Who would think about being pregnant at 51!! Actually it hasn't been that bad. I have had lots of things that I never had when I was pregnant at 21. Like heartburn and acid reflux so bad that sometimes I don't even want to eat because I know what is going to happen. My stomach muscles have been very sore, I never had this before but I understand it is from the muscles stretching. Other that fatigue, that is about it. The fatigue is much better than it was, I don't know that it will be back to 100% until the baby is born, after all I am 51, right? The good thing is that I have had NO morning sickness, not even a little, thank god for that. If I had to deal with the morning sickness on top of being extremely tired, I don't know that I would have made it through the day.

13 Weeks

We are 13 weeks today. Officially made it through the first trimester and start the second episode of this journey.

First appointment with OB

Today was our first appointment with our OB. All went well. First we had an appointment with the doctor, that was very routine, internal exam, blood test, just the routine first appointment. After the doctor we had an appointment for our nuchal transluency test.If you don't know this is an ultrasound where they check for Down's Syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities. We did not get the final results of that but the doctor said it looked good. We also got to look at the little baby and he/she was dancing around and putting on a show for Mommie and Daddy. We are 11w4d and the baby measured 12w2d. It was a very exciting appointment!!

First OB appointment - kind of

We had our first appointment yesterday at the new OB clinic. There is not much to report on that, we met with the nurse to go over our history and had some blood test and 2 hours later we were on our way. That was about all there was to that. We do meet with the doctor on 10/1 for our first real appointment. I'm not real sure what the appointment will consist of but we do have an appointment after that for the Nuchal Translucency Test. That is an ultrasound to check for downs syndrome and the such. Ashlea and Bill are super excited about the ultrasound and getting to see her little baby again. On the other side of things, being pregnant at 50 really has not been that bad. I have had no morning sickness so that is good. I am now beginning to come out of the tiredness, that was a butt kicker with have to work a full time job and trying to maintain a household. Luckily I have a super understanding husband, we ate out a lot and I spent pretty much my entire weekends on the couch. Hopefully I will have a cute little baby picture to share with you next week.

Ultrasound update

First, let me apologize for posting so late. I have been swamped at work and have been so exhausted I can hardly function. The ultrasound results were great. We had the test on 7w5d and the baby measured 7w6d so that it good. Better to be a little ahead than a little behind. The heartbeat was 160 and that is right where it should be so all in all it was a great appointment. We have now graduated from the fertility clinic and will be going to a High Risk OB, not that it is necessary but at Ashlea's insistence. I'm not sure how that will be any different but I guess we will find out more at our first appointment. More to come!!!

Beta # 2

2642 - Pretty amazing. We have our ultrasound appointment for September 3rd, we will find out if it is one or two but most importantly we will find out if everything looks good.

Beta #1 - results are in

959


We had our first beta test on Monday. I went to the clinic to have the test done and then went to Ashlea's house to wait for the results and to take a pregnancy test. The test we took that morning was a very strong positive, the test line was darker than the control line so we knew we were pregnant. We just had to wait for the number to come in. I'm sure some of you know what a long wait that 5 or 6 hours can be. We literally sit there and watched the clock. Once it was close to time for the call we were ckecking the clock about every 4 minutes.

The call finally comes and they tell Ashlea that our number is 959, WOW!!! That is a good strong number, in fact, the doctor wanted me to increase my Folic Acid because he said it could very well be twins. TWINS, that makes us both very excited and very nervous but we will have to wait for the seven week ultrasound to see if it is one little baby or two. Just to have one would be such a great blessing, two would be unbelieveable.

We have our second beta test this morning and should have the results by early afternoon. We just need that number to at least double!

Transfer # 2

Since I last posted a lot has happened. Ashlea has had her egg retrieval and that went well. She has 13 eggs retrieved and 8 of those fertilized. We went in on Monday for our transfer and would find out at that point how the embryos were doing. Our appointment was later in the day because they realized on retrieval day that Bill had taken one of his test too early and he had to retake it that day and they wanted to make sure the results were back in time.

Back to the embryos, so on Monday (transfer day) all 8 were still going but it looked like 3 were not going to make it so that left us with 5 - 8 cell embryos on day three. That is just where they should be. So, as I sit there with my full bladder, the test results are not there and because of FDA regulations they can not transfer until they have the test results. We hear them calling and talking to people and calling again. Finally about an hour later the doctor comes back in and says that the results are not going to be there until the next day so they will take the embryos to 5 days and we will transfer on Wednesday. Now we get to wait 2 more days and wonder and worry what the embryos are going to do, will they make it to 5 days, will we have any to transfer?

So fast forward to Wednesday, transfer day again. I meet Ashlea at the clinic and we go back to talk to the doctor and we have 3 - 5 day embryos (I say we like they are mine, I should say they). Two look good and one might not make it so they are going to transfer the best two and let the one grow one more day and see if it will make it to freeze, it does not. The two we transferred look good, one was hatching already as you can see from the picture below.

We do not plan on taking any pregnancy test until the morning of the blood test. Do you remember we said that last time but we did end up taking a test about 3 days before and had a weak positive and we googled ourselves into insanity. Hopefully we will stick with the no test this time but I will not promise that. We have our first blood test on 8/12 and the second one on 8/14. There are no embryos left but that is OK because we are not going to need them. This is going to be the one!

Round two

We are moving on to round two. Ashlea and I will both start our meds on July 8th and should transfer sometime around the end of July. This will be a fresh transfer, the last was frozen. Fingers crossed and say a little prayer that we get a viable pregnancy this time.

Good news quickly turned bad

Well, the good news quickly turned into bad news. As posted earlier, we received out beta on Friday and it was good, it almost tripled and we were so excited. I went to my brothers house on Sunday for a Memorial Day cookout and started bleeding. It wasn't very much at all and it stopped quickly. I was hoping everything would be OK but I called the doctor and they assured me that it could be a number of things and just go in for another beta on Tuesday since Monday was a holiday (why do things always happen on weekends and holidays).

I went in for my beta Tuesday morning, and it came back at 97 and I was told to stop all meds. Needless to say, we were devastated. We really did not expect that. I guess I am somewhat naive and I though once I was pregnant I was pregnant, that's how it always worked before. Ashlea says I don't think like an infertile person, she was excited but very reserved the whole time and I was on cloud 9, thinking that nothing could go wrong, we made it, we were pregnant.

We will both be fine, we will just pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and move on. We will give it one more try but I have to wait about 2 months before we can try again. This waiting is for the birds, it took us months to get to this point just to start over and wait again. Life goes on I guess.

Beta Results

We have now received the results of out beta/hCG test. We had our first test on 5/22 and it was 113 and our second test on 5/24 and it was 309. It more than doubled, which is what it is supposed to do so it is now official....WE ARE PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!

We have our first ultrasound on 6/10 and get to hear the heartbeat and confirm that there is just one.

POSITIVE - So far

So, Friday I got off work early and ran some errands. I went to get the oil changed in my car and while I was waiting I called Ashlea just to pass the time. In the process of our conversation she tells me that if I want to take a home pregnancy test that it is fine but just not to tell her if it was negative. I told her that I was not going to take one because if she didn't hear anything from me she would know it was negative and that would not be good, she would have a terrible weekend and the days would drag until out blood test.

Well, she gave me permission and I couldn't resist. I stopped and picked up a test on the way home and would take it first thing when I got up Saturday morning. I took the test and could not believe when I saw the faintest of a second line.Since I am such an early bird, I had several hours to decide what and when to tell Ashlea. My initial thought was to just stick with our original plan and let her come over on Wednesday morning and we would take a test together. I just wanted her to be involved in the knowing and I didn't want to just call her and tell her. Then I decided that it was better for her to know and not have to worry for four more days even if she did just hear it on the phone. So I called her ans we talked for a couple minutes and I told her that I had taken the test and that it was positive. She was convinced that I was lying to her and just playing a joke. Come on now, do you really think I would do that. So once I convinced her that it was not a joke and I was not lying she said Oh, OK. Just OH, OK. It took a few minutes for it to sink in that I was pregnant and she was going to be a Mommy.

I say positive so far because we have not had our blood test yet so we don't know our numbers. We will both feel more confident once we have the final numbers and they are doubling as they should but we have taken a test the last three days and all have been positive so I am going with definitely pregnant.

8DP3DT

We are now on day 8 past our 3 day transfer. This is driving me crazy. I never knew how long this 2ww could be. I think Ashlea is doing fine, she says she is not as stressed with this transfer as she has been with the others. Only 5 days until Beta!

Transfer went great!

It has been such a busy weekend. I had the transfer done on Thursday and spent the day at Ashlea's house, we had graduation on Friday, a wedding on Saturday and everyone came over Sunday for Mothers Day. I am usually a couch potato so I am not used to all of this activity.

The important stuff: The transfer went great. As I mentioned before, Ashlea had 4 frozen embryos and they were going to thaw all four and transfer the best two. Ashlea agreed to this because she has always had about a 50% thaw rate so we thought we would only have two anyway. Well, all 4 survived the thaw. She started with two 7 cell and two 6 cell, after the thaw she has three 7 cell and one 6 cell and they chose the best two to transfer. Now we play the waiting game.

We will not be taking any home pregnancy test before the beta test. Ashlea is coming over the morning of the 22nd, I will have the blood test and we are going to do a HPT that morning.

So far in this journey, everything has gone better that we thought it would. We joke every time we have something done that once again, it has exceeded our expectations. Now we just need the most important part to exceed our expectations so it will all be worth while. Fingers are crossed, prayers are floating around everywhere, we just need that little bambino (or two) to stick.

Mom and Ashlea before the transfer

Ashlea - transfer day

Mom - transfer day