I Love Turkey!

And I am so excited to dive into some tomorrow! And the mashed potatoes. And the sweet potatoes. And the stuffing. And most definitely the pie! Man I am hungry....

We have so much to be thankful for this year. It has been almost exactly a year since we arrived at Camp Lejeune and started this new chapter. So much has happened in this year and we have so many things to look forward in the coming months.

- We are finally pregnant after such an uphill battle.
- We are enjoying a great life.
- We have wonderful friends and family who support us through everything.
- We have had amazing medical care provided to us by our military doctors.

And all of these things (and many of the things that you are thankful for as well) would not be possible without the sacrifices that all our service members and their families make every day. To those who are close to us that are currently deployed and those that will be deploying soon...you are always in our thoughts and prayers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Baby's Nickname

Several of my friends have come up with nicknames for this little one...Nemo, Rio, Alpha. BJ and I have pretty much stuck with Nemo. It works for us...the movie has huge references to dentistry! But really it goes to the opening of the movie.

Remember the attack of all the fish eggs? In the end there was only 1 egg left...it was the one that became Nemo. That is defintely how we feel...just 1 little, lonely egg that somehow against all odds has become our baby. It is truly a miracle.

I do love all the other nicknames though...and my friends can refer to this baby as those names whenever they want...they all have a little story.

Alpha - This is the name given to our embryo from my friend Karen. We are military and before we even started stims we would joke around about how many embryos we would transfer and referred to them as Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta after the phonetic alphabet. We knew we would transfer up to at least 3...possibly 4, knowing that the chance of all of them sticking was fairly low. In this joking around, I told Karen that she would be taking Delta because we only had room in our current vehicles for 3 carseats. Of course in the end we only had Alpha...and Karen is off the hook for taking care of Delta.

Rio - My best friend Steph came up with this one. During my bedrest period following my transfer we had a crazy amount of rain over about 3-4 days. There was flooding and roads being closed all over the place. I joked around on FB that if I did get pregnant that I should give my child a water-related name. Of course my friends had no problem coming up with some hilarious names. Steph's contribution was Rio...not only for water but of course the lovely Duran Duran song! She took a couple of days and gave it more thought. She decided that since we live in a world of acronyms that Rio stood for Reached In Ovary. She cracks me up!

Honestly if it was not for such great girlfriends who make me laugh and keep me grounded I would not have had such a positive attitude while going through IVF. Don't get me wrong...I had bad days. Days that I would be so pissed off at the world. Days that the sight of a pregnant woman would send me straight to tears. Days that newborn babies would cause my heart to break. Days where I would see parents yelling at their children in the store and have to talk myself out of taking the child home with me. But through all of that...I smiled and carried on. Found the good in every day and tried to always be positive about what was going on...no matter what. I certainly don't think that is what got me pregnant...that would be Dr. P!....but I really believe in the power of positive thinking. Surrounding yourself with positive energy and shutting out the negativity in your life...focusing on what the goal is. To have a healthy baby.

A Bit Of A Scare

Just a fair warning that this post is going to be a bit TMI....just so you know.


Let me start by saying that I am okay and so is our little one. But we had a real scare yesterday. I had been out running errands and when I got home I went to the bathroom. (Surprise, surprise.) I instantly saw blood on my underwear...I started screaming "No, no!" Then I wiped and there was more blood. The tears just started flowing.

I called BJ right away...he was only about 5-10 minutes from the house. He was going to come home and we were going to head back on base to the ER. But in the 3 minutes that I was on the phone with him...I soaked through my clothes with blood. I ran upstairs so that I could change my underwear and pants. I felt like I had to pee again and when I went to the bathroom, there was more blood...and now huge clots. I just sat on the toilet shaking and crying. That is where BJ found me. He got me some clothes and a pad and into the car. We got to the ER just before 4:30 pm...for reference I discovered the bleeding at almost 4 pm.

I got triaged...had to give a urine sample and then had to wait in the waiting room. For about a hour. It was torture. BJ and I sat in virtual silence...I think we were too afraid to speak. Finally I was called back and taken into a room. The doctor came in (he happened to be the husbnad of someone I know) and I lost it again. (I had been having bouts of tears off and on the whole time.) I explained what was going on and he did an external ultrasound. He could see something was there but could not see a heartbeat clearly. He told me the only way to really be able to see things clearly was to do a vaginal ultrasound. He offered to get another doctor to do that since we know each other but I decided that it was fine. He is a great doctor and in the end it was actually kind of comforting to kind of know my doctor.

So we did the vaginal ultrasound and he was able to see the heart beating. We were so relieved. But he let us know that we were not out of the woods. We needed to follow up with Dr. P. I made the call to Nurse D last night and she told me to come in today at 10 am. It was the longest drive ever. And when we got there we had to wait an hour before being brought back. I was going crazy! Finally Ms. G came out to the waiting room to call some other patients back and saw us sitting there. She told us to come back as well...apparently the people at the front desk never told them I was there. Ugh.

I went into the ultrasound room and had to wait a little bit for Dr. P to come in. He asked me what had happened and then started the ultrasound. He saw the baby right away and saw the heartbeat too. It was nice and strong at 176. Thank God! We are not totally out of the woods...Dr. P wants me resting and taking it easy...but I have another ultrasound next week. He thinks that I have a subchorionic hematoma. Lots of pregnancies go on to be successful...so we are saying lots of prayers for this little to stick around for the next 7-8 months.

Go Navy!

Game time! Notice all the Midshipmen in the corner?

We got to go to the Navy - East Carolina University game yesterday. So much fun! And the best part....Navy won! Huge! 76-35....the Navy does not take Pirates lightly. :)

We went with some friends and we all met at Ruby Tuesday's in Greenville (home to ECU). We filled up on some yummy food...can you say Lobster Mac and Cheese? Yum!....and then headed over to the stadium. We found a place to park and made the hike to the game. It was quite crowded at the gates but the line went quick. Then it was the long walk up the ramps to the upper bleachers....pretty sure the air was much thinner up there! We arrived at our seats just in time for the game to start...phew!

Navy got the ball first and scored a touchdown on the opening drive...yay! But then ECU answered back and they kind of teeter-tottered back and forth for the first half. But Navy came alive in the third quarter and never really looked back. It had started to rain and had gotten a bit chilly out by the fourth quarter...so we decided to head out since it was 62-35 with 10 minutes left in the game.

Sun setting near the end of the third quarter

After we got back to the car and we were headed out of town (with a quick pitstop back at Ruby Tuesday's for dinner!) we heard that the final score was 76-35. The Midshipmen had scored 2 more touchdowns! Awesome!

We had such a great time! Can't wait to go to a Navy home game!

A little wind blown and rained on but having a great time!

Accepting Reality

I am most definitely pregnant. We had out 2nd ultrasound and baby (or Nemo or Rio or Alpha...this child already has so many nicknames!) looked great. Heartrate is 148 and our little one is measuring 7 weeks 4 days (7w4d) and I was 7w6d...so basically right on target. It is amazing to see this tiny little baby on that screen and know that it is in there and growing! We are finally letting it sink in that we are going to be parents...a little tiny person's mom and dad. Whoa.

But my biggest reality check....nausea. I have horrible nausea. I try to be a trooper and mutter through it but it is starting to kick my ass. And while I don't enjoy throwing up at all...I wish I was. At least I would have something to show for feeling so crappy. :/ The worst part of it is that it hits anywhere between 4 and 6 pm...just in time for BJ to get home. I feel pretty okay all day until that time and then I hit the brick wall and all I want to do is lay on the couch and not move. I guess this is my reminder that I am still pregnant.

My clothes (pants really) are getting snuger (is that a word???) by the day but I am getting by with button extenders and loose shirts. I actually just ordered some maternity shirts from Old.Navy...I am thinking they will at least be long enough to cover my too tight jeans and pants! I may have to go check out Mothe.rhood Matern.ity and try on pants in the next few weeks. I have discovered that ON will not work for me at this point....they just don't fit right.

Our big announcement for today is that we have decided to be Team Green. This means that we will not be finding out what the sex of the baby is before s/he is born. Since this will be our only child, this is our one and only chance to have that moment in the delivery room. A chance for my husband to look down and tell me "It's a _____!" I know some people are going to be shocked because I am super anal about things but I am actually very at peace with this decision. I think what helps is that I can do the nursery neutral in the beginning and since we are most likely moving some time around the baby's 1st birthday, we can do something more gender specific and a bit more grown up at our new place. The joys of being military and getting to move every so often! I love the idea of getting to re-decorate every 2-3 years. :)

And since I was a slacker last week...here is the picture from last week. I did promise to put the picture up. :)