Sorry for the blogger silence, blog friends. Prego wise I am doing fine- I am actually feeling good again (which is so odd after feeling like crap for literally 5 weeks).

But the rest of life there is just a lot going on right now and I am trying to keep head above water.

My boss was fired with no notice to my boss or to our office. I have a range of emotions on this- positive and negative I am trying to sort out.

There is family drama galore right now with a couple of my relatives- there is geographical distance which helps keep some boundaries, but my heart is heavy with it all.

I will update soon- thanks for worrying about me.

29 weeks

How Far Along? 29 weeks

Maternity Clothes? Yep. Belly feels like it has had a growth spurt lately.

Weight Gain? not sure this week

Stretch Marks? No

Sleep? so so. mostly my mind in overdrive is what keeps me from sleeping well.

Best Moment of the Week? Hmm., not sure. I guess I would say how much I love when DH can feel the kid moving. I swear sometimes the kid responds to his voice.

Movement? Yes- a couple of times the movement is strong enough that it hurts.

Food Cravings? Food is not my friend at all right now.

Gender? will know in 11 weeks (give or take a few)

What I miss? Feeling even semi-good; It's been a rough spell.

Symptoms: Just feel yuck. Food is not my friend. Sinuses/allergies also bad. Heartburn.

Looking forward to: Holding baby on my chest when it is born

Weekly Wisdom: This too will pass.

Milestones: Glucose test (passed), the sugary stuff really wasn't that bad at all to drink.

Emotions: A bit discouraged with how yucky I have felt, but starting to feel a bit better so holding on to the hope this was just a short phase of yuckiness.

Support for fellow blogger at Full Circle

Please stop over and show your love and support for Full Circle. I have followed her story for several years as her and her husband chose to become foster parents and have been a temporary stable home for many kiddos going through traumatic times. Just last week they learned the two children currently in their care were staying for good! They were given the go ahead to adopt. This weekend, Full Circle's husband was killed.

My hurt breaks for the family. No one should ever have to know loss like this. May they know some peace and comfort from the strangers that surround them in love and prayers from the blog community.

An update

In work news, I have shortened a few of my days lately, and am feeling a tiny bit better. The extra rest and reduced pressure to perform has helped. At least a bit.

I was nervous to talk to my boss, but the conversation went very well. She pretty much said that she knows I get the job done and then some. She pretty much came right out and said that taking care of me (and baby) is number one priority and I can be as flexible as I need to be with my work schedule (and she doesn't care whether I report it as sick leave). She recognized how much I have put into my work, and said that she wouldn't bat an eyelash if I lightened up a bit right now. So I plan to work from home a bit more and shorten by days as needed. And it won't have much of an impact on the amount of paid time off I have after baby. Really the conversation couldn't have gone any more perfectly. I was shocked by her grace and support.

My midwife's theory of part of why I feel like crud is that the digestive system slows down and so everything is just sitting heavy in my digestive track. That seemed to make sense with part of what I am feeling (while not the entire answer to why I feel so yucky). But I am experimenting with eating insanely tiny portions= bite size really (even smaller than the usual small snacks throughout the day anyways). I also started taking Beta.ine HCL which she suggested as a digestive enzyme. We'll see if this all helps....

I passed my glucose test. I am a bit shocked actually. I had really resigned myself to not passing (I don't know why, I just did). It was on the high end of normal, but still normal. I also learned that my iron levels have maintained- I was was low to start with and they say they usually expect a drop even lower. But I have maintained which they said is incredible.

So, a pat on my back for my body. I was growing quite discouraged, feeling like it was failing me. The sickness and exhaustion are taking a toll on me, but having this news allowed me to have a bit of grace for my body that despite it all, it still is doing something right.

28 Weeks

How Far Along? 28 weeks

Maternity Clothes? Yep.

Weight Gain? Taking a mental break from the scale right now; Updated to add: Scale says 27

Stretch Marks? No

Sleep? Not so great all of a sudden

Best Moment of the Week? The kid is just moving so much and so much stronger. Love it! Also got a lot done on our to-do list, including setting up the bassinet.

Movement? Yep, yep, yep. Actually can no physcially see my belly move on the outside.

Food Cravings? Food is not my friend at all right now

Gender? will know in 12 weeks (give or take a few)

What I miss? Sigh...not sure how to answer this one this week

Symptoms: See yesterdays post

Looking forward to: Feeling better (hopefully...)

Weekly Wisdom: Rest. Breathe.

Milestones: Read that 28 weeks means 90% viability if babe were to be born now. Amazing.

Emotions: Love my husband like crazy. Drained.

Pandora's box of yuck

I'm not sure where to even start. I'm afraid to even let the flood gates open, as I am not sure of all that will come out.

My midwife (whom I love, just love) started off my 28 week check up today with the most compassionate look and truly inquired how I was doing. I shrugged and gave a pat answer. She said, "cuz, hon, you're lookin a little green, really green actually."

And green is how I feel. As she prodded to inquire more, I realized just how terribly yucky I have been feeling and for many weeks now. On the one hand, it felt so freeing to finally just admit- and even moreso to have someone see it in my face without me saving anything. But on the other hand it is just so hard to admit. I don't know why that is so hard to admit. Well, I do know why...

I am not feeling good and I am blaming myself. (ugg- tears starting to well up). I have no doubt that preggo hormones are mixed in to these emotions. I know at an intellectual level (or at least I try to tell myself) that sometimes, somepeople just feel yuck-o in pregnancy. But I can't help but feel that somehow I am failing. That it is my fault that I feel so yuck. For goodness sakes, I am only 28 weeks!

Like if only I had been healthier before being pregnant, that I should have been eating better, that I should be excersizing far more that I should, should, should.

I know there is nothing about "should" thinking that is remotely helpful. but that's where I am at.

I have felt pretty cruddy for 4 weeks. It came out of no where- for weeks and weeks I felt on top of the world. And it seems like overnight, I crashed. And I don't know why. I can't put a finger on why I feel cruddy. I have tried and keeping trying a bit of this and a bit of that. Iron, probiotics, allergy meds, sinus rinses, papaya enzymes.

And the kicker on top of all of that yuck feeling is I am SO tired. And once again, I have had a hard time letting myself admit it because I feel like it is too early in the pregnancy to be feeling this tired and this yuck. I truly almost melted in a puddle on my drive home from work on Friday. It is just too frickin' much. And then I stayed in bed all morning the next day. Skippin' even my yoga class cuz it was all just too much.

My midwife suggested cutting back to 4 hour days at work and reclaiming some daytime hours for myself to take care of myself as I wake up feeling pretty good- it is just as the day goes on that I am spent by early evening. I've been starting to ponder how I could cut back at work anyways, but having someone else give breath to it gave it more weight. But also scares the daylights out of me.

But I feel like having to admit to my employer that I can't do it all is killing me. I ALWAYS get the job done and get it done well. I am just feel like I am destined to finish out this last 12 weeks of work before maternity leave doing a half-ass shitty job. I feel like it is so lame to say "I'm just too tired and feel too yucky to work a full day."

Sigh...

So, for tonight, I am taking a hot shower, crawling into bed, and finding the nerve to talk to my boss tomorrow. I will swallow my pride and trust that who I am - in my job and in life- is defined by far more than how many hours I work during my third trimester.

I'm due for my weekly blog update for 28 weeks, but given my mood tonight- I think I'll wait until tomorrow to post it.

Strange moments in pregnancy- take 2

- I have been fascinated lately with the fact that pregnant bellies are SO ROUND. It struck me at my recent prenatal yoga class, watching all the other bellies- that were all so round. How does that happen? I mean the kid itself, and other organs in there are lumpy blobs. If the belly took on their shape, there would be lopsided lumps and bumps. But I suppose it is the round shape as a result of the fluid filled uterus, but it is quite amazing if you think about it. Fascinating that they become so round.

- I find myself thinking often about the kid's world in there- in utero. And frankly, I am kind of worried that it might be bored. When I think of it in my arms, I think of the touch, and sounds, and smells, and interactions with lots and lots of people and things. But in utero? Doesn't it get boring?

- I have been reading a lot of I.na May Gas.kin lately and starting to really really get excited about the actual act of giving birth (previously I was starting to get pretty anxious). But my anxiety has shifted to thinking about the kid's experience! I've been seeing pics and video that show the tight fit through the birth canal, and I worry about the kid feeling claustrophobic having its face and head all squished up like that. Yikes. Especially if it is a slow birth. If I think about it too much, it makes me get a little ancy. I guess again I have to trust that mother nature knows what it was doing in the design of this how process. (oh my! poor kid)

I am "that" woman

For 3+ very long years my reality was filled with the sharp pangs that cut deep through when I saw a round belly on a glowing women walking past me, or when a FB friend made yet another pregnancy announcement, or as I watched as my younger sister had not one, but two kids- and we still had none.

There is healing, undoubtedly, that has come to all of that darkness because of this pregnancy. But the emotions, the scars, are still close enough to the surface that I know I will never forget the journey it took to get here.

But I am also very aware of that fact that I have become "that" woman. I am, to the many women (and couples) still walking the long uncertain journey of TTC, I am "that" woman. That woman with the pregnant belly walking down the street, announcing a pregnancy on FB, and joining the "club" of motherhood.

I carry this awareness with me all the time- I am careful as to when and where I rub my belly in public places, I frequently scan the room when in groups of people- assessing how many in the room are of the age/place in life that they might be dealing with IF, and I have made a point to not go public with my pregnancy on FB.

But I am still "that" woman.

Last week I had a meeting- with a group of fellow board members that I meet with quarterly. At the last meeting I wasn't showing enough that it was obvious and I didn't make a public announcement. Overtime I shared the news one on one with many of the board members. One in particular, we'll call her Anne, is becoming a good friend of mine. We have actually bonded over the last couple of years over talk of TTC as she has been pretty open with me and others of a miscarriage she had last year. And she has just started to dip her toes in the waters of Fertility Specialists and testing. She knew early on that I was pregnant, and I have made a point to be as sensitive as possible with her and around the topic. But I forgot, until this recent meeting, that many of the board members still didn't know my news. And when I walked into the meeting room, as coffee and doughnuts were being had, there was a collective gasp and a very exuberant mob of people that surrounded me literally at the entrance to the board meeting. They reveled in my belly, and my supposed "glow", and asked all of the typical questions. "Do you know the gender? when are you due? how are you feeling? OMG, I had no idea!! Congrats Congrats, I am so excited for you" Etc. Etc.

And I will be honest that there was part of me that absolutely loved every second of it. It is in my opinion one of the rites of passage of pregnancy, and one in which I had so looked for to for so long. It is absolutely beyond comprehension to me of how much joy other people feel for this child in the making, that they have not even met yet, and how much I feel loved by the community in my life as they celebrate this with me.

But the part of me that will forever be an infertile was also very much aware of Anne's presence. She was just off to the side in the meeting room. Watching this scene unfold from a distance. And while I don't know for sure what she was thinking or feeling, having been in her shoes, I can only guess. And as much as I was loving every minute of it- a huge part of me wanted slink away and protect her from the hurt. Being "that" women that even unintentionally is a source of pain for those still in the trenches tugs mightily at my heart.

DH made a point of saying early in this pregnancy that as much as he understood my wanting to be sensitive to not boasting or parading this pregnancy in front of others, he also didn't want that to take away from the joy and celebration that this new life deserves. This long awaited, long prayed for, long fought for life. And I agree with him on that side of the argument as well.

Finding that balance and embracing both is tough.

I took this picture a few weeks back. I think that it is so telling of this dual reality we live when pregnancy occurs after infertility. When we started going through IVF I decided I needed to create a space to keep all (ALL!) of the swabs, needles, meds, and other paraphernalia. I emptied out a space on my bookshelf. and there we set up shop every night as DH gave me my shots. Over time, as we watched IVF turn into pregnancy, turn into the third trimester, that same shelf has accumulated new stuff- books on pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding, binder from my midwife, etc. And I am struck by the irony of this shared space on the shelf. BOTH are my reality. and BOTH are part of my identity.

 

I have since cleared out the IVF stuff from that shelf as the shelf has become purely dedicated to this new chapter in life. But this picture will always be for me, i think, a more truthful depiction of the shared reality of pregnancy after IF.

27 weeks- Third Trimester- OMG!

How Far Along? 27 weeks

Maternity Clothes? Yep.

Weight Gain? Not sure this week

Stretch Marks? No

Sleep? Fine. Few mild cases of restless legs (and arms)

Best Moment of the Week? Bought our first baby item, a little sleeper at a consignment store. Also got our new bike rack for our car so that we can carry bikes and baby in car seat at the same time.

Movement? yes, daily. But definitely ebbs and flows. some days are quieter then others.

Food Cravings? Hard boiled eggs (never really cared for them much before)

Gender? will know in 13 weeks (give or take a few)

What I miss? wearing my wedding rings

Symptoms: I felt quite yucky several days this week and the week before. I think it is getting better. Not sure what the deal is- maybe low iron? maybe sinus stuff? Wish it would go away whatever the yucky feeling is.

Looking forward to: Our first shower later this month.

Weekly Wisdom: The to-do list will eventually get done, and if it doesn't, oh well.

Milestones: Third trimester (hard to fathom)

Emotions: Just an even keel enjoyment.