Aching Belly October 29, 2009

I think I have a new pregnancy symptom to report. It’s pretty minor as pregnancy-complaints go, but it’s been hanging around for a couple of days now so I think it’s the real deal.

My stomach has been aching and gassy for a couple of days now and it doesn’t really seem to matter what I eat. Just now I let out an actual burp – something I never do! I was reading last night in What to Expect that progesterone causes your muscles to relax and that can slow digestion, so maybe that’s what’s going on. Whatever it is, it’s kind of uncomfortable and I’m hoping it passes.

Updated an hour later: Uh oh, now I feel really tired too.

Still Pregnant at Almost Six Weeks October 28, 2009

According to my What to Expect iphone app, this pregnancy is 5w5d along now. The app also says I might be feeling tired and nauseous, but so far things have been good. They have been so good that I still keep having to remind myself that I am pregnant – no sushi, no deli meats, no soft cheeses, no wine. (All things that have been offered to me in the past week.) I am not complaining.

Five-ish Weeks Pregnant October 20, 2009

Now that my cramps and lower backache have mostly subsided a couple of days after getting the positive pregnancy test, I almost feel like I couldn’t possibly be pregnant! Forget my previous frequent certainty about being pregnant. Forget the positive tests even. Forget that we’ve told my parents and sister, my husband’s parents and siblings, and one good friend. It’s this real sense of feeling normal that makes my brain almost believe that I’m not pregnant.

But of course, I know that I am.

Besides my own two positive tests, I took a test at the doctor’s office that same day (during my son’s appointment) and it came out positive. I’m supposed to go back in a couple of weeks for him to get the second flu shot and my doctor told me to make an appointment for myself for some reason too, though I don’t remember exactly what that reason was. My first pregnancy appointment last time around consisted of little more than a confirmatory pregnancy test, a weight check, and a warm congratulations.

Of course, I do know deep down that I am pregnant.

I have a sense of calm because of it. As much as I “enjoyed” charting my bbt, I am relieved not to have to do it anymore. My husband shoots me warm glowing smiles and I know what he is thinking about. And I am happy too when thinking about the future. I feel so unsure about our work-related future, so it is nice that this is one thing that we have already set in motion and that is something really wonderful to look forward to.

And of course, being generally symptomless right now is really, really nice.

But I am not one to just sit back and enjoy my sense of peace.

For example, I am dreading the likely onset of fatigue. Last time around it didn’t hit right away, but came on slowly over the first few weeks. I was still running last time, and I was able to go out for at least a month before overwhelming exhaustion knocked me out. And then I dragged. It took me 25 minutes to walk to work instead of the usual 15 and I arrived feeling like I wanted to take my arms off because they were just so heavy and were weighing me down. At home in the evenings I cried and went to bed early. When we traveled to Brazil in the second half of my first trimester, I managed alright when I was busy with work-related things, but whenever I had a break I collapsed in tears on the bed in desperate need of a nap. I did that once on the beach at Rio too. (I am sure it looked to those around us like we were breaking up.) But maybe I won’t be so exhausted this time. I hope not considering I really need to be productive at work right now and I also have a 19-month old to chase around.

One other negative (meaning unpleasant, not as in “negative test”!) “symptom” I’ve been having is bad dreams of spotting or bleeding. This is really strange to me because I didn’t have any spotting at all last time and I honestly don’t think I’m worrying about it this time. I actually suspect that I’m having these dreams as a sort of follow up to a period dream I had two months ago. That one was the night before my period arrived and I was feeling a lot of pressure in my abdomen (like my period was about to start) and I guess that feeling made me dream about my period actually coming. So now I am also feeling pressure in my abdomen in the early mornings, though it’s simply because I have to get up and pee, and I think my brain makes sense of that feeling by imagining that it’s really my period coming (since that is what has normally been the case, month after month, ever since I was thirteen or so). Two nights ago I had a dream of spotting and so my dream self worried about a miscarriage. Last night I had a dream of real bleeding, and my dream self was sure that was a miscarriage or at least the start of one. I guess it’s a chain of events wherein my brain leads itself further and further astray – first my brain interprets abdomen pressure as my period coming and then it interprets its own interpretation as a sign of a miscarriage. Stupid brain. I guess it’s not surprising that when I worry about things while I’m awake I also have a tendency to think in circuitous and unrealistic turns. Anyway, it’s very annoying to be having these dreams because I really don’t want to worry about a possible miscarriage. I hereby order my brain to stop this right now.

But aside from the dreams, perhaps I’m generally doing so well this week because I’ve been sleeping so much at night! My husband was out of town this weekend and won’t be back until Wednesday evening, so when I’ve been putting my son to bed, I’ve just gone to sleep with him. He goes to bed very late (10 pm!), but this is early for me. And because I have late work hours, I’ve been able to sleep until 8 or 9 am every morning. I guess it would be hard to feel fatigued after all that sleep!

(Hm, maybe sleeping so long is why I have to pee so badly when I wake up and why my brain is working extra hard to interpret this new feeling? That is, besides however much extra I might have to pee anyway now that I’m pregnant.)

So here I sit in my quiet apartment, after a long night’s sleep, and with no one to disturb me. My husband is still out of town. My child is still sleeping. And I am still in my pajamas. Even better, my babysitter will be arriving in a little over an hour and I plan to work from home. (Normally I stay home with my son today, but because I would otherwise be missing out on some work time because of my husband being out of town, we agreed I could hire a babysitter for today. I didn’t tell anyone at work though because I thought I could be much more productive working at home without any work distractions! So it’s a “secret” work day, and I can work in the bedroom while hearing my son play with the babysitter. I actually can’t wait!)

BFP October 13, 2009

Two Positives

This morning (as yesterday morning) I woke up around 4:40 am because the cats were fighting. I asked my husband to get up and lock one of them out of the bedroom, and since I was awake already I decided to take my temperature. 97.9. Hm, is that a drop? I looked over the list of temperatures I’d typed into my iPhone this month and saw that it was still well above the coverline. Well, that makes sense, I reasoned. Either I’m pregnant or I’m still a few days away from my period.

I tried to go back to sleep, but shortly afterwards I heard my son awake in his room. He talked to himself for a little while and I hoped he’d fall back asleep, but after a little while I realized he was wide awake. I got up and found him standing in his crib, delighted to see me.

So I brought him over to the futon mattress we have set up in his room and laid down with him. He was tired enough to go back to sleep with me, and I love these morning cuddles with him, so I made sure my alarm was set and then burrowed under the covers with him.

When my alarm went off at 7 (the time I usually take my temperature), I debated whether or not to do a pregnancy test this morning. I was feeling a lot better than I have been the past week. Maaaaaaaybe I had a slight bit of tenderness, just where my c-section scar is. But maybe that’s because I had to pee.

Then I remembered that when I was pregnant last time (but not checking my temperature or obsessing about symptoms) I had kept thinking I was getting my period and then my cramps would disappear. So maybe the same thing was going on this time.

I got up and fed the cats, then grabbed a plastic cup from the cupboards and headed to the bathroom. I wanted to use the cup method because I planned to use an HPT I’ve never used before and I wanted to be able to run a second test if I felt like it was necessary.

I pulled out the LifeSign 1 test that my husband had picked up at work (he works at a hospital). I had read on epinions that a positive result can be very light and make you wonder if it’s really there, so I was a little wary about using it. The instructions said to dip it in the cup for at least 10 seconds, so I counted. As I reached 10, red dye started to seep into the test window from the left. I thought I’d oversaturated it and ruined it! As the moisture reached the middle of the window, the red line filled in, but then the whole window was overrun with the moisture and there was no line to be seen. The control window worked just fine.

Crap. So what does that mean? Does the fact that the test line filled in as the moisture hit mean that I’m pregnant, or did I oversaturate the strip? I set it down in frustration and reached over for my expensive ept tests.

The instructions for the ept test said to hold the tip in the cup for 20 seconds. Fortunately, it also warned me that I might see a wave of blue wash over the windows for a moment, so when that happened, I felt a little more confident that I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Looking back at the LifeSign 1 test, I now saw that the flooded test window had dried out and it was now white, with a faint pink vertical test line. Faint, but unmistakable.

I set the ept test down and watched as the blue flooding the test window quickly passed over. The horizontal (control) line was clear. And the vertical (test) line came into view, faintly, but moreso than the LifeSign 1 line.

Two positives.

I’m Either Pregnant or These Are Gas Pains October 12, 2009

As I write this, I feel decidedly un-pregnant.

But all day today I was sure that I was pregnant. First, I woke up with cramps and the feeling of having to pee especially badly. Then I was so tired, even after my morning coffee. On the walk to work, I stopped at one point and said to my husband, “ugh, I’m just so tired.” I was tired most of the morning and a little lightheaded and spacey. I hudled at my desk in my fall coat, and the feeling of being warm and swaddled helped my cramps.

When I got home, my back was aching and my abdomen hurt. Eventually I figured out that I was constipated and after a trip to the bathroom I was feeling much better. But I still have what I think are gas pains – they are in my abdomen, but closer up near my stomach, and they are in my back, but slightly higher than the spots where I usually ask my husband to rub my back when I get my period.

I’m actually getting tired of this back and forth. I enjoy the moments when I’m sure I’m pregnant, and it’s only a matter of time before a pregnancy test shows it. But when I don’t feel pregnant, I just feel stupid. I wish I hadn’t said anything to my husband (who already doesn’t rely on my passing symptoms and is perfectly happy to wait for the “real” verdict). And I almost feel silly for what I’ve already said on this blog, even though the whole point of starting it was to give me an outlet for my thoughts, feelings, symptoms, and all the rest.

If I had to test right now, I don’t think I would. That’s how un-pregnant I feel right now.

And after Saturday’s negative result, I had told myself that I wouldn’t test until the following Saturday. It might have been too early and I should learn my lesson.

BUT.

My son has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and his doctor is my doctor. If I am pregnant, it would be nice to know before going so that I wouldn’t have to make a second trip one or two weeks later.

So I probably will take a test tomorrow morning. The problem is that I really, really don’t know when I ovulated. I had cramps on September 28th and that was the closest I got to mittelschmertz. But my temperature stayed pretty low for four more days, so I think that I ovulated closer to October 1 because the day after that my temperature rose consistently over the next four days and was finally over what I later established was the coverline on October 6. So if I ovulated on Oct 1 and if my luteal phase is 14 days, then tomorrow will be the day before my period is expected. But those are a lot of ifs.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Pregnant, Not Pregnant, Pregnant… October 11, 2009

If only this could be solved by pulling the petals off a daisy one by one.

I started out the day pregnant. (In my head of course.)

A couple of hours later, after breakfast I was feeling pretty good, so I concluded that I must not be pregnant. This feeling lasted a few hours.

In the middle of the afternoon, after a couple of hours of the tightness/pulling feeling back in my abdomen, I comment to my husband that I hope I’m pregnant because otherwise this is really annoying PMS to have to deal with. And then a couple of hours later, I broke down crying over work-(and thus life-)related stress. I spent maybe half an hour sobbing to my husband while tears ran down my face. And on top of it all, was I pregnant? Not pregnant? I had a thought – if I am pregnant, then once my period comes, all of these kinda crappy aching/tugging/crampy sensations will go away and so will my weepiness. So that’s a bright spot, right?

And now in the evening, I am back to thinking that I am definitely pregnant.

It will be nice to know for sure.

(At the same time, I’m actually a little nervous to find out. If I’m not pregnant, then how will I trust what I’m feeling in my body in the future? Of course, maybe that’s the point. If it’s really not possible to intuit when you’ve conceived, then it’s a waste of time and energy to try! And if I am pregnant, then … wow. Even though we’re planning for this, it would be really life changing. I am nervous about being pregnant again, giving birth (will I do another c-section or not?), taking care of a newborn, and raising two children together. But those are all things for another post.)

I’m Either Pregnant or Getting My Period October 10, 2009

A couple of nights ago my husband commented, “you could be pregnant right now.”

He could have said this anytime in the past six months and it could have been true. (But it never was.) I surprised him this time by saying, “you know, I think I might be.” A look a cautious hope flashed across his face, but then he caught himself and with a touch of eye rolling, he asked “what, did you feel a twinge?”

The first time we tried to get pregnant, we were successful the first month, so I never experienced a two week wait and all the phantom or misinterpreted “pregnancy” symptoms that go along with it. Now as we’re trying for a second child, I spent the first two months sure I was pregnant, only to be truly surprised when my period came. After that I learned not to read so much into every twinge and cramp, learning along the way that it’s possible to have PMS symptoms unlike any I’d ever had before. Nausea, fatigue, cramping, etc. In fact, I had previously thought I didn’t get PMS symptoms at all. And maybe I didn’t before. But I do now and they are exactly the same as all the symptoms I’ve since read about on pregnancy and trying to conceive (ttc) forums. (Yes, forums, the source of all unfounded claims and hypotheses on the internet.)

After two months of sure pregnancy symptoms and the negative pregnancy tests that followed it, my attitude relaxed. I realized that just because it happened quickly the first time doesn’t mean it’s going to happen on the first or second try this time. I read that it can take couples six months on average to get pregnant, that it’s very common for it to take time to conceive a second baby even if the first pregnancy happened quickly, and I have heard anecdotes from friends about trying for several months to get pregnant a second time.

But maybe a bigger factor in my new “relaxed” attitude was that I started focusing my energies on charting my basal body temperatures (bbt). All of my Google searches seemed to end up in the same place: a forum in which women listed and compared details about their cycles. I learned that it is possible to know when you’ve ovulated (but not predict it) just by taking your temperature every morning. (I’d heard about keeping track of your temperature as a method of birth control, but I never really gave it much thought because it seemed sort of complicated and would depend on me keeping really track of my cycle and I didn’t want to have to do that. Also, I just assumed you had to take your temperature vaginally and that idea vaguely grossed me out.)

It’s been four more months since I started charting (see the last four months below) and still no baby. But yet, because I know exactly what’s going on in my cycle, I am much more relaxed about my supposed symptoms and I haven’t wasted any more pregnancy tests.

Until this month.

BBT Charts: June - September 2009

The month started out as usual. The first week I’m moaning about my period. The second week I’m making sure we’re BD-ing (I first thought it stood for “bed down”, which I thought was amusing, but apparently it stands for “baby dance”) at least every other night. The third week I’m wondering whether my thermometer is broken. Shouldn’t I have ovulated by now? The previous three months I felt a sharp pain in my right side (mittelschmertz!) so I knew when I’d ovulated, and as verification my temperature always rose immediately afterwards. Though if you look at my charts above, you’ll see that my temperature rises verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly, so that my husband and I become frantic about how long we need to keep BD-ing for. Not that we don’t want to, but right around ovulation we try to do it more often than usual. Without going into any detail, I’ll just say that we get a bit tired.

This month I felt some cramps, but never ovulation pain and no subsequent temperature rise. Then my husband’s parents came to visit and while they were here I felt no twinges but my temperature did rise from its most recent dip back up to the coverline, and after hovering at the coverline for one more day it finally went up for real. So when did I ovulate? I have absolutely no idea. And that means that I have no idea when I’m supposed to expect my period.

So now all of the symptoms I feel in this “two week wait” (tww) are under extreme scrutiny. Is it too early for me to be feeling cramps? Or what about the twinges in my breasts? I’ve never had those as part of PMS. But then again, who knows what this month’s PMS has to offer. And what about the fact that I broke down last night, tears streaming down my face because I really, really just wanted to lay on the couch and watch tv (in fact, I’d been looking forward to doing that all day while I was at work) and my husband wanted to watch the baseball game. (The tears clinched my victory in that domestic disagreement, but I can honestly say that I did not encourage them. In fact, I spent a few minutes sobbing as discretely as I could in the kitchen hoping my husband wouldn’t think I’d totally lost all sense of perspective.) Ever since I’ve been paying attention to my PMS symptoms, I’ve learned that I do tend to get tired, emotional, and crampy in the couple of days leading up to my period. So is that what’s going on this month?

I just have this sense that this month is different. It’s like, most of the time, I’m aware of something in my abdomen. It feels heavier or achier or fuller or something, although I know these adjectives are far too strong for what I feel. I keep wanting to place a protective hand on my abdomen. Is this wishful thinking?

Last night I dreamed that I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. (Last month I dreamed of my period the night before it actually came.) Although it was kind of a fractured and confused dream, the belief that I was pregnant was so real that when my alarm went off this (Saturday) morning for me to take my temperature, I almost just turned off the alarm thinking I no longer needed to take my temperature since I was pregnant after all! But I did take my temperature and it was 98.1 – definitely not my usual drop before getting my period, but of course, I could still be a week or more away from my period. I went back to sleep.

When I got up a couple of hours later, I decided that for peace of mind, I should test.

Negative.

No big surprise, right? And after I tested, I felt more heaviness, almost like cramps, almost like my period might sort of be coming. I’ve felt like this all day. In the morning, I believed the test so strongly that I interpreted my symptoms as indication that my period really was coming. But as the day has gone on and my symptoms haven’t changed at all – I still want to put a protective hand on my abdomen – I am wondering if this test is really the final word.