WE HAVE A HEARTBEAT!!!

149BPM to be exact, and we heard it loud and clear!

Thumper (embie's new name - popped into my head as soon as we saw that little heartbeat) is measuring 8w0d, and is right where (s)he belongs!

I'm so relieved. Breathing feels good.

Not even 6 weeks in, and it's already come to this:

I really need to go shopping...

I'm happy to report that I am much calmer than yesterday. Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. You really helped me to relax and stop assuming the worst.

The spotting has completely subsided, and all feels normal again. Yay!

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this in a post, (I think it was in my profile info a while back, before I decided to cull it to more reasonable proportions) but prior to my pregnancy with M, I had a miscarriage at about 8-10 weeks (we hadn't gotten as far as a dating ultrasound by the time I miscarried, and well... you know how wacky my cycle lengths are!). Luckily, M was conceived the very next cycle and obviously everything went very well that time around.

Unfortunately, the emotional trauma that that miscarriage caused is still as raw today as it was almost eight years ago, and it's weighing heavily on my current experience. I am so utterly terrified that after all of this time and hard work, history will repeat itself. There is absolutely no rational reason to think that, after all so much has changed and we have such a good handle on what's going on, but rationality isn't really my strong point right now.

One thing that is really upsetting me is that I don't have a clear recollection of how that miscarriage started. Did I have brown spotting first? I know I didn't bleed red until the very end, but I don't remember what came before that. I know I had very intense cramping. But I can't remember if there was any spotting. I think there was, but I'm just not sure.

Anyway - there's nothing going on now, and I'm just going to sit back and try to enjoy that. I have to keep reminding myself that no matter what happens, there is absolutely nothing I can do right now to change anything, and therefore worrying and stressing is futile and not good for me at all!

In other news... Strangest pregnancy food issue development? I've developed an aversion to bread crusts. Very very odd. I've always loved loved loved bread crusts, but now they totally make me gag.

I discovered this after hubby delayed his tee off time (I so love that man!) to go to store to get me sandwich fixings, because I was having a craving for a roast turkey sandwich. And yes, you did read that right - my vegetarian self was craving a roast turkey sandwich. In fact, I've been craving meat (mostly chicken) like crazy the last couple of weeks, and I've been giving into the craving because I figure if I'm craving it there must be a reason.

I have been so so hungry lately. This morning, I ate breakfast at 9, and then was starving again by 11. I scarfed down my sandwich (sans crust), then I absolutely HAD to have yogurt. But I couldn't decide on what flavor I wanted between vanilla and strawberry, so I ripped open two containers and made strawberry vanilla swirl. It was super yummy, and I'm glad that no one was home because I probably looked like I was possessed while I was preparing it!

Well, I'm supposed to be studying for the midterms I have this week, but right now I'm feeling the strongest desire to soak in the tub with a good book, so I'm going to take a half hour break to do that.

Thanks again everyone who commented on yesterday's post!

Somebody *please* help me breathe!

I'm sitting here trying to calm myself down but my heart is racing and I can't take a deep breath.

Discovered some light brown discharge this morning on my TP. Immediately thought to myself 'It's okay, this is normal', but then I googled (why oh why did I google) and for every person that says they had brown spotting and went on to have a perfectly successful pregnancy, there's two that say they miscarried! Now, I know that the stats say different - 20% of pregnancies have some spotting, and in 80% of those everything is perfectly fine - but I can't help but be terrified right now.

Time to dig out one of my meditation CDs...

Appointment this morning went well. No surprises.

They made me pee in a cup, because I guess even if you tell them you've already pee'd on eight tests they have to make you do one more to make sure you're not hallucinating! ;)

We discussed whether I should stay on Metformin. At length. I want to stay on it, but he advised that I stop taking it. I still don't want to stop taking it, even after our discussion, but I don't want to go against his orders either. Regardless, I've only got a weeks worth left and he clearly has no intentions of writing me another script, so I'm done then anyway.

He's calculating me at 6 weeks 3 days, going from LMP. I know that's wrong, but he says that's what's going in my chart until we do a dating ultrasound. First scan is booked for the 30th, but I won't get any info from that until November 16th because he's away for the first two weeks of November. Hopefully they'll tell me *something* at the scan, but I actually quite doubt that.

He brought up the possibility of multiples again, and added specifically to my U/S rec that he wants them to check for multiple embryos, but said that his gut feeling is that there is only one in there. I'll be happy either way, but carrying one would certainly be easier!

I guess that's it... He didn't feel there was any need to move forward with any further bloodwork until after we go over the scan results, so we're basically in limbo for the next month! Eeeek!

In other news, still nauseated all the time, still suffering from nasty heartburn, boobs still hurt, right ovary is still having a fit (Dr. says it's probably a corpus luteum cyst, and it'll clear up on its own soon), still exhausted, still starving all the time (which really doesn't go well with the heartburn), etc. etc. But I feel GREAT because all of this is because I'M PREGNANT!

We have kept completely quiet about our fertility issues with all of the parents from the beginning, to avoid the ritual interrogations we suspected we might be subjected to if they were in on things. R's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and his dad took him out for lunch that day. His dad started asking him a bunch of questions regarding our family plans, so R decided to spill the beans, and gave him a condensed version of the last 17 months, including our current treatment plans.

Fast forward to later that night, when we had R's parents and my parents over for dinner, and as R's parents were getting ready to leave his mom out of the blue makes a comment about fertility drugs, and how anyone considering taking them should come hang out at her work (daycare) for a few hours (!!!). At this point, I'm still in the dark about the conversation R had with his dad earlier, so all I'm thinking at that point is that it's a damn good thing she doesn't know what's going on!

Well, apparently R's dad had quite the chat with her on the way home about not 'shooting her mouth off about things she doesn't understand', and then he fills her in on everything R told him earlier at lunch. The next day, she calls R to apologize and says she hopes I wasn't too upset by her comment.

At this point, I'm still in the dark, but later that night he told me about the conversation with his dad, and the apology from his mom, and all is well. I was surprised that he didn't discuss it with me before telling his dad, but I wasn't upset because I was already starting to think that maybe we should open up a little more about it with the families.

Fast forward to this weekend... After our positives and after we've decided that we want to wait several weeks before we spill our good news...

Saturday was FIL's birthday, so we were at the in-law's house for dinner. Of course, when MIL was asking what everyone was having to drink with dinner, I chose to have juice. I didn't really think anything of it, but apparently she did! Later when she and R were in the kitchen getting FIL's cake ready, she flat out told him that she thought I must be pregnant because I was drinking juice.

Now, it's quite a leap, because I don't drink wine more often than I do, but at this point she's convinced. Ryan tells her she's jumping to conclusions, but she clearly doesn't buy it.

Now, had that been the last family dinner of the weekend, we would have been fine. However, being that this weekend was Thanksgiving, we also had Turkey dinner the next night at the in-law's, and this time my parents were going to be there as well. We knew my MIL wasn't going to buy it if we continued to deny her suspicions and I again turned down the wine (because, you know, I apparently never turn down wine), so we decided to just spill the beans before everyone figured it out for themselves.

M was excited when we gave her the shirt I bought a few months ago, but it did take her a few minutes to really understand what it meant. She wore it to dinner, but she kept a sweater over it until we all sat down at the table. People were so focused on eating that it wasn't noticed for about 15 minutes. Everyone was very excited once they figured it out, and several toasts were given, one of which was by my dad congratulating R with a "good work son!". If only he knew everything we've gone through - not a conversation I really want to have with my dad though!

Now, since then, R hasn't been able to stop himself from telling everybody, so now most of our friends and family know. I'm going to have to tell my work soon, because we're in a small enough town that now that people know my employer could hear the news second hand if I don't tell them first.

So, yeah, even more terrified now, because now if something goes wrong there will be a lot of people that will have to be told. But I'm trying to stay positive and tell myself that everything will be fine and I'm worrying about nothing.

First prenatal appointment on Friday!

Hoping Dr. Wonderful sends me for a scan ASAP so my fears can be relieved a little!

R found my pee stick collection this morning. He told me I need help. I told him that he's nuts if he thinks I'm the only woman out there who has obsessively pee'd on anything they could find that might confirm their positive. He rolled his eyes and shook his head and headed out the door to work. He was smiling the whole time, so I think deep down he thinks it's more cute than crazy. ;)

I took a picture of my collection, which I was going to post but Blogger seems to be having issues with pictures right now. I'll have to add that later. And work a little harder on that blog change I was talking about... (which, because I know at least a couple of you are wondering, I have done absolutely no work on since the day I posted about it!)

Thank you all so much for your comments over the last few days. It really means so much to me that so many of you have taken the time to leave your thoughts. I feel so loved and supported and blessed that I have you all in my life.

I'm still obsessively dipping sticks... Still can't quite believe that this is real, but the lines are getting darker and appearing faster and now it is starting to sink in a little that this.is.actually.happening!

We've told a couple of very close friends, but haven't decided yet when we're going to tell the families. When we've discussed this in the past, we've always said that we would wait until we were past the first trimester. Now that we're here, we're having trouble picturing keeping the news to ourselves for over two more months. If it weren't for M, we'd probably have spread the news already, but we don't want to tell the families until we tell her, and we don't want to tell her until we've at least seen/heard the heartbeat. At the same time, we don't want to wait until everyone has figured it out on their own - which could happen quickly because my uterus seems eager to rapidly increase in size - so far it's only noticeable to me, but I don't think it'll stay that way for long.

I've been really surprised by how quickly the symptoms have come on. R has been laughing at me, because I've been so happy to have heartburn, nausea, "dog nose", and exhaustion. The only symptom that isn't making me smile is the bb tenderness and size increase. I'm already busting out of my bras, and the texture of the fabric of my favorite bra is driving me batty. Good excuse to go shopping though!