Nudge, nudge...

Actually it was just one single, tiny, almost imperceptible nudge. I felt it yesterday morning from inside my belly on the left side, while I was standing on the subway platform waiting for a train. No, there were no trains entering the station and rumbling the platform. No, it wasn't gas. No, it wasn't my Thanksgiving dinner working its way through my system. These are all theories that J came up with, since he didn't quite believe it could be anything else. But I am almost entirely convinced that it was Mr. Bean (whom we have now taken to calling "Shim", for "she" or "him"...)saying a little hello. That was the first thing I've felt, but I am at 18 weeks now, which is right about the time they say you can first feel something. I was expecting a flutter, which is how it is most often described, but this was not a flutter. Is it too early for a tiny little nudge?

Feeling thankful

We have certainly come a long way since last Thanksgiving. We were not in the mood to celebrate the holiday, and decided to just make turkey enchiladas for the two of us. The year before, we actually had an IVF transfer on Thanksgiving day, so I relaxed on the couch while J. finished up the preparations of food I had started the day before. It was a very surreal Thanksgiving and we have certainly come a long way since then. I can't believe how long our journey has lasted, nor can I really believe that we have finally come out the other side. I'm not sure I'll believe it for another five months, but in the meantime, I do feel thankful. Thankful to have had the means (thanks to some insurance, some savings, good credit, a wonderful husband who makes good money, and very generous parents) to pay for all our IVF cycles to get us where we are today. Thankful to the wonderful support system I have found here online, both at IVFC and here on my blog. Thankful to my amazing IRL friends who have been there for me over the past few years. Thankful again to my fabulous husband who has been my strength throughout this whole process, and continues to support me and spoil me every day.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, no matter what stage of your journey you find yourselves at. For those who are not feeling so positive, I know how you feel and I send you lots of hope and love. Thank you all for the support and help you have given me - I couldn't have done it without you!

Not sure what to write about...

I've been feeling lame about this blog lately, but also don't really know what to write about. I've been thinking a lot about my friend R over at One Egg Please, who is facing yet another disappointment in a long string of IF let-downs. I so admire her strength to carry on and am excited to see how her next steps of using a GC will go. But as several friends have faced sad news lately, it seems hard to write about my pregnancy. I know that when I was at my lowest points, I just wasn't able to stomach reading about any good pg or baby-related news. However, as I always wrote in my comments to other people, this is my blog, so I guess I should be able to write about whatever I please. I do understand that not everyone will want to read it on any given day.

On to what's going on with me...last week I thought I had a UTI. I was really sure of it, and went into the OB's office on Monday morning to give a urine sample. There was blood and white blood cells in my urine, so she started me on antibiotics. We didn't get the culture results back until Wednesday, and it was actually negative for infection. Weird. She said I could stop the antibiotics, but I took them for one more day. I wasn't going to entirely believe that I didn't have an infection. She said it could have been some sort of non-bacterial cystitis, but that is very rare. Oh well. I do feel much better now, and am still drinking cranberry juice everyday as a preventative measure.

I'm getting impatient about the fact that my belly isn't growing. I'm at 16 weeks now, which seems amazing to me. That is four months! But other than getting kind of thick around my waist, not much is happening. I do feel like my pot belly is getting bigger, so maybe my uterus is starting to push my flab out a little bit.

I starting looking for a maternity coat, because I know I'm going to need something by January. Most of the ones I found online didn't look so great and didn't seem too warm. Plus I wear petites and the pickings were very slim. But I found a really cute coat yesterday at Fil.ene's Base.ment just by chance. It is not maternity, but is a petite coat with an empire waist (sort of, maybe a little lower) and a cute peplum skirt to mid-thigh. It's not too long or overwhelming, and fits me perfectly through the shoulders and arms. The bottom two buttons could be moved over pretty far to fit an expanding belly, and even without doing that there is plenty of room in the skirt area for expansion. It is black and pretty warm, so I'm glad I found it. This way I'll be able to wear it even in the future, and I didn't even have a black wool coat, so this is perfect. It seemed silly to buy a coat that I would only really wear for one winter. So we'll see if this one will last me.

We are still working on getting settled into this apartment, even though we've been here since the end of July. We are starting to clear out the third bedroom, which is currently full of junk that we don't have a place for yet. This of course is going to be the nursery one of these days. I have plans to put up some sort of temporary wall back there, with some built-in closet space for various house-stuff on one side and baby stuff on the other. So we will probably get someone in in January to do that, and then start working on decorating and furnishing (it is a very small room, so furnishing will be minimal). In the meantime, we are just working on finding a place for all the junk.

That's about it. I've got a few busy weeks ahead of me work-wise, as we are drawing to the close of the semester. I can't believe how fast this semester has flown by!