Welcome June ICLW'ers

Greetings and Welcome to The Life of Liv!

For those of you new here I'd just like to first thank you for stopping by and let you know that my posts are currently dealing with pregnancy. If this is hard for you than I can completely understand. You are more then welcome to go back to the list to find another ICLW'er to read. No hard feelings.

Here's an introduction.

Wednesday my beta was 131 and Friday it was 326. Good enough for me to not have to stop by for a third and go straight to the ultrasound on July 3rd.

My husband is who I refer to as Marvy, short for Mr. Marvelous...because, well because he just is. A perfect example was this last week when he announced to me that I was pregnant in the most beautiful way imaginable. If you'd like to check that out real quick you can read it here. We've been together for 12 years (as of yesterday) and married for 8. We've gone those eight years without bcp's and in a perpetuating state of anticipating children. The last two years being the more hard and heavy TTC years leading up to ART and a third time's a charm IUI.

I'm currently trying to reconcile many things. How and when to tell people. How to avoid questions and raised eyebrows when I opt out of things like hot tubs and alcohol. Is it better to keep it to ourselves than to share the news? How to maintain my identity as an infertile on the other side of a BFP. How is it possible that in one short day pregnancy bumps no longer torture me? How to continue documenting a journal about a dream fulfilled when so many others have not. How to plan for a baby when pregnancy feel so surreal. How to be cautiously optimistic.

It's all pretty heavy.

One of the things that I have decided is that I'm going to enjoy this one day at a time. I normally have a really hard time with this. I become overly concerned about miscarriage. But it occurred to me that if I celebrate this right here and right now then no matter what this child will always know we knew he/she was here. They were daydreamed about, rejoiced for and loved. Even if the worst possible scenario happens in a few weeks - at least we had this time. Others may have known and then we'd have to deal with that horrible scenario with more than just us and our two cats. But that's a few more people to pray for us.

Meanwhile, here's a few other random thoughts going on.

Today, Father's Day, we found ourselves in church and loved every minute of it. Even though he didn't get to stand up and be recognized as "one of the dad's", we still smiled right through it.

We stopped by JCNickels today after church to pick up a couple of skirts. (For me not him silly.) I figured they'd be easier to wear than my slacks that are a little snug from my current progesterone bloat. My cell phone had died so I had to look for my husband the hard way by combing the departments for his cute head. I found the cute head in the children and baby section. I just had a feeling I'd find him there. He walked up to me with a polo style shirt that had a built in "undershirt". Which is how he wears his shirts. Here see... cute head on polo shirt? Okay, well you can't see the undershirt but trust me it's there. But, having him walk up to me with an infant shirt was so darn cute. He also confessed that he was perusing the other baby things. When we got home he said that we had to get drapes for the baby's room and our bedroom. Even though we have blinds, he thought this could help keep out a draft for the baby. Too cute.

I attribute part of our success this cycle to acupuncture. I don't consider this a solution per se. It's kind of hard for one to provide evidence to the one who says, "Oh, yeah? Prove it!" But, I had a uterus lining of of 14.6 at the time of insemination. I've never been over 9 before. And I think that it helped.

I started feeling small waves of slight nausea the night before our beta, and during the afternoon and evening that next day. So far nothing in the morning, which begs the question as to why we call it morning sickness? I haven't had a chance to try preg.gie pops yet but so far Sour Patc.h Kid.s work pretty well. I've gone through more ga.torade than I'd like to admit given the 21 g of carbs in the small bottle. And lots of water.

Giving up caffeine and particularly coffee, has been much easier than I thought it was.

The "girls" have been painful in the worst way since the morning after insemination. (Which was still many hours before my first experience with my friend the frozen progesterone bullet up the whooha) Which I find crazy to actually be a pregnancy symptom. Who knows if it was for reals... But, it's got to be now. I tried going to bed with a sports bra last night and that helped. (One that I bought accidentally last month in a bigger size than I needed which now is a good thing) It also seems worse in the evening than in the morning.

Okay, enough of me now...I'm off to start commenting! Happy ICLW everybody, and thanks again for stopping by!