How Many Babies???

Baby Marker

Well, if you can't tell from the picture, we are pregnant with one baby! I was pretty nervous before the ultrasound with thoughts of more than two. It seems everyone but myself has been having dreams of me having from 3 to 6 babies! Yeah, that is enough to make me antsy...

Anyways, the most amazing part was as the Dr. kept zooming in, all of the sudden there was a flutter where our little baby's heart was beating! It is enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Of course, now, James is extremely excited. I have been in such a daze from lack of good sleep since before the craft show, that now, if I didn't have this little picture, I would have thought it all a dream. I cannot wait until the next ultrasound to see the baby get bigger.

I am extremely happy that it is just one baby. I know that I wanted twins, but I will just take this as a sign that Heavenly Father doesn't give you more than you can handle.

I have been released from the Fertility Clinic and have my first OBGYN visit next Tuesday.

The best news that I received to was.....

NO MORE SHOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HORMONAL MUCH???

Okay, we are sitting here watching True Lies on TNT and for those of you that have not seen it, it is a very humorous movie about an undercover CIA agent, Harry(Arnold Schwarzenegger) that finds out his wife, Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) is getting conned by some loser pretending to be an undercover CIA agent. She is feeling homely and unwanted and gets caught up in the story this guy feeds her because she is attracted to the excitement of it all... So a bunch of stuff happens and she finds out the truth right before some terrorists get them and then they find out about plans of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon. So, they get separated, Helen is stuck in a limo on a bridge that has been blown out. While Harry is in a helicopter trying to get her out of the limo before it flies into the ocean. So, it is pretty silly, the driver has been shot, and conveniently his foot is pushing the gas peddle still and the limo is bouncing back and forth all over the bridge... So, Arnold is hanging from the runner of the helicopter with his hand out to his wife and they are just out of reach, and then they touch and she starts to get out of the limo sunroof and into the air and then the car bumps the side of the bridge and they loose their grip. So, they are almost to the gap in the bridge and Harry and Helen lock eyes and he says "Come on Baby"...

AND I START CRYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you kidding me??? How is that sad???? It is really supposed to be funny! I was so embarrassed, and tried to hide it from James, but he knew better.

It is one thing to cry for hallmark commercials, but this was something else...

To know how it ends, you should watch it, it is a classic! Oh, there is one scene though that you might not want to watch... it is a little PG-13...

Craft Show

Baby Blanket Display
Snugga-Luv table

James and I had a Quilts by Kista booth at a Craft Show this weekend. We put lots of hours into making all kinds of stuff... There was slow traffic, but I was still able to sell a good amount of things. The main seller was my Snugga-Luvs which are basically Lovey's. (Small 15-15" satin and minky swatches that help little ones have another attachment besides Mommy. I am still trying to recover from the energy put into the Craft Show, but I am glad that it went well.

For anyone that needs a good laugh...

When you do IVF, you have to get shots of Progesterone after the fertilized embryo is transferred into your uterus, because your body is not naturally producing it. The shots are given to your "hip", but it is really the muscle/fatty part of your upper buttock.
Okay, so the other night, James gave me my shot and then exclaims, "HOLY COW, it's like a GEYSER!"
ME: "Am I bleeding really bad?"
James: "No! The medicine just shot out of your BUTT!"

I thought it was pretty dang funny, so I thought I would share. Happy Friday to those who have had a hard week. This definitely includes you Dad! (Love you!)

Gigantic Tortilla

Look at the size of that thing!!!!SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD

We were making burritos when I decided to see how big a tortilla I could make. Needless to say after eating this one I was plenty full.
- James -

Let's Celebrate!

Heather, Me and September

Spencer, James and Joe


Two of my most wonderful girlfriends decided to take us to the Melting Pot to celebrate getting pregnant as soon as they found out. Well... less than two weeks later, we found out that now we are all pregnant! Heather is 5 months along, I am 6 weeks and September is 4 weeks along. How crazy is that?!
So we had a fun evening at the Melting Pot... If only my sense of smell wasn't so strong, it would have been a perfect night!

So, how am I doing??? Well, I have to take progesterone shots to my hip every night for a month. All I can say is, I am pretty bruised (black even), kinda sore (really sore) and in one place, I cannot feel anything, seriously, it is completely numb (not a pleasant feeling)...
Just a little longer, I can do it...
As for the being sick... Well, I don't want to jinx myself, but I feel great! I have to keep something in my stomach, or I feel ill, but even if I feel icky after eating, I just pop a lifesaver and I am fine after a few minutes. Can this be too good to be true, or is this for real??? It is still early, I know, but hopefully, the sickness does not manifest itself, I am small enough as it is, can't be losing weight...

So to make an analogy for those Twilight fans, I feel like Bella after she became a Vampire and it was a piece of cake, when the whole time before the "turning" she worried about being a crazy "newborn". I am pretty sure that only Twilight fans will understand that...

Oh yeah, one more update... So I e-mailed James's cousin who had twins from IVF and asked her if she had any hints that she was having twins. She said "Sorry! No hints AT ALL!
You have to wait for that ultra sound. It is possible for you to have more than TWINS too. Even though they only put 2 embryo’s in you, those embryo’s could have split –
Waiting is just awful. Let me know what they find!!"

...................................YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Life's memorable moments

I cannot believe I forgot to write this story out earlier...
Okay, so the day that I did my final blood test, James told me that morning that he would call me around 2pm. So, I called him at about 2:15 and the phone at the bank rang FOREVER. So I hung up and called from my cell phone (the bank has caller ID, so I hoped that he would see that it was me calling)... I rang and rang and then James picked up the phone and said, "Hey, can I call you back, it is really busy today..." I said, "Are you KIDDING me???" And then he said, "Well, is it good news?" And I said, "YEAH!", and then he proceeded to tell me he loved me and he'd call me later....
So, that pretty much took away any excitement that I had been feeling...
Regardless to say, I didn't really make any other phone calls that day because I figured that everyone new on Tuesday that the news was good and didn't think that I would have to call everyone again...
Well, that evening(after James came home with roses and Chinese food for dinner), James's mom called to see what the results were. It was a short conversation and then a couple of minutes later my Sister-in-law, Jes called and started yelling at me. It took me a minute to figure out why she was upset...
Apparently, because I hadn't called anyone that day, all of James's siblings were worried that it meant that the news was bad news and they were all afraid to call us. They ended up calling each other to find out if anyone knew and none of them did. They finally called James's mom and she called us.
Don't kill me Jes, but Bethany was the first Marker to know. She and I had e-mailed that day and so she knew...
Anyways, I thought that this humorous story had to be posted...

Baby's First Gifts

So my sweet sister-in-law wrote me a special lullaby just for our children. I asked her to write it for me and was so surprised when she sent me a rough draft of it. First in written form via e-mail, and then right before the actual week of procedures, she sent the recorded song to me. I love it! I cannot believe how perfectly worded it is.

She also sent a care package with the little lamb on the right of the picture above. The lamb is a TY and so of course it is extremely soft. I took it with us the day of the transfer and hugged it the entire way home. Thank you Kaisie!

Then just yesterday, my good friend Candy, came over to "drop something by", I immediately knew that it was going to be some baby related "something". It is the "Got Candy?" bib on the left of the picture above... I love it! We started chatting and Candy realized that she might need to get another bib at the end of the month!

I have such wonderful friends and family, Thank you so much!

The First Glimpse of our little one/ones...

Okay, so we did IVF and it has been almost a piece of cake... I think that the hardest part has been... waiting to find out the pregnancy results! Of course, there were lots of shots and Lots of hormones... I am surprised that James still loves me!

So on Tuesday August 26th we had a retrieval where the Dr. goes in and takes out all of the eggs that had grown. We had ten eggs, but not all of them were good. From those ten, five were fertilized. Three days later, we went back to have the eggs transferred back into my body. I had to be on bed rest for the remainder of that day. The pictures above are the pictures of our two best fertilized embryos. The Grade is based on a 1 - 5 grade scale with 3 being average and 5 is the best. Considering that our embryos only incubate for a three day period with our Dr.'s office, they never see 5's. So I feel pretty good about the grades that my little embryos got!

The three remaining embryos, grades 3+, 3 and 3- got put in the freezer for possible future use.

Science is so amazing!

Okay, so like I said, the hardest part for me was waiting for the phone call the first day of my pregnancy test. I have never had a positive test before and I guess I just kept thinking that it was too good to be true. My wonderful girlfriend, Heather called me and kept me on the phone until it was time to call the Dr.'s office. She was such a lifeline to me that day...

So, finally almost an hour later, they called to tell me that my results looked really good. I had been told before that there was a chance of chemical pregnancy results for the first test, so I asked her what the chances were that on Thursday (two days later) the results of the pregnancy test would be negative? She told me that usually if it is a chemical pregnancy, the numbers are a lot lower. This news pretty much helped me to stay positive and not as nervous two days later when I went to do the blood work for the second pregnancy test...

They call before 3pm on Thursday to tell me that yes we are for sure pregnant! My hormone level had almost doubled and I now have a due date! Never thought I would utter those words!

I am due on 5-19-09 and I am almost 5 weeks along right now...

Okay, for those that think that makes absolutely no sense, I am 5 weeks along based on a 10 month cycle with week one being the first day of my last period. James is having a really hard time accepting this information...

If you have any other questions about me being so far along....Google it.