2 Heartbeats!

Drove an hour in the snow to finally see two beautiful babies in there..with wonderful heartbeats, both beating at 153 bpm. One measured 7w3d and one 7w5d. And then drove an hour back. It has been snowstorms for every single sonogram.. 3 in a row. Now we are home with our sonogram picture, and a video that we took on my iphone. I highly recommend videoing your sonograms.. very exciting. I was going to post it but there was no way I could do it without including identifying information. So here is our pic of both twins inside their gestational sacs with yolk sacs, too. The yolk sacs are the little round things. The embryo on the right is very easy to see, above the yolk sac, and you can even see arm and leg buds! Wow. This all happens very very fast.

We stopped at my honey's mother's house on the way home to finally tell her that I was pregnant. We waited this long because we haven't told anyone in his family that we are doing fertility treatments. We have both been afraid of being judged about it, from past comments his sister had made, and from reading the stance the Catholic church has on IVF. (his family is Catholic, while he is more of a spiritual person) The church's stance is quite chilling, in fact. Words like "gravely evil" are used. I don't want to expose myself to any of that kind of negativity. Anyway, the good part is that his mom was incredibly excited and happy, with lots of loving hugs and kisses. No questions were asked about how someone as old as I could conceive, etc. She's pleased about the twins, too. Whew! That went well! She even sent me home with a box of crackers for the morning sickness.

So I'm off to the city to work, and do my supervision groups and see friends. I'll be there for the whole weekend, an escape from my little cabin-fever inducing cottage. One of my peers is expecting a baby with his girlfriend in February, and they are having a baby shower brunch in the village. I'm totally chuffed that someone I know, who is my age is becoming a parent the same year that I (hopefully) will. He is 51.. I'm sure his ladylove is younger.

I'm feeling better than I have been, the depression seems like it's lifting, and I have a little tiny bit more energy. And I have been feeling excited. Finally. It's very good. Your comments have been really helping me through.. you are all SO GREAT!!!

Pregnant, Newlywed Almost-50-year-old... Bwahahaha

Ahhh all of your wonderful posts, ICLW and otherwise, are truly a balm for my heart. Thank you for supporting my feelings, and thank you for being cheerleaders for the wonderful embryos I am incubating! The joy, when I allow myself to feel it, is almost blinding. It has only lasted split seconds so far, but I guess that's good because otherwise I might just be completely vaporized by it.

Despite intermittent blasts of joy, I realize I am in the throes of a depression. Not a deep deep one, but an uncomfortable, hormonal, emotional, puddle of yuck that is totally exacerbated by the fact that I have absolutely no energy, am nauseated many hours per day, and that I live in a tiny cabin buried under endless snow right about now, in a town where I have acquaintances but no friends. I could really use a friend or two at this very strange, new, confusing and amazing time in my life. I am a person who usually has wonderful, intense one-on-one friendships which sustain me, and I am just plain bereft at this time in my life.

Being totally new to being married, I think I'm having trouble integrating my old life of wonderful friendships with this new state. Plus I moved away from NYC... into this married life, and somehow just haven't made new friends. Boo. I just haven't got the hang of what one does with brand new people.. My mother, who is the queen of dinner parties, says, throw a dinner party.. of course she's right, but my style is different, I don't really like groups of people that I don't know very well.. while I love groups of dear friends.. I throw a marathon 3 day weekend party around twice a year for a group of beloveds from my past, most from my gestalt training program, and a few from way back in teenage days when I was a regular in Washington Square park. These are very fun and wild and amazing weekends, then everyone goes back to the city. Except me. I'm discovering that I am pretty shy around very new people, that's a fact.

Besides all of this, This life now is so very different from spending hmm about the last 15-20 years totally focused on myself, and on building a career as a private practice psychotherapist. I was totally one-pointed and gave it everything I had. I was also quite lonely (which is a terrible thing to suffer), and wished for a mate, but there was a huge satisfaction in creating my life's work.

There was a point a while back when in one of my prayer/meditation states I owned up to the fact that I had completely indulged myself for years, in totally minute examination and focus on my own emotional and spiritual life, and on following any and all self centered pleasures and pursuits, and that I was ready and willing, finally, to give my time and energy to another human being or beings. Well look at what happened!

I just feel all unbalanced at this point, especially with this pregnancy, it is an embarrassment of riches, as it looks like I am receiving all of my dearest wishes coming true. It's just throwing me all off! Who am I again??? And trying to find a peer group who can relate to a pregnant, newlywed almost-50-year-old... bwahahaha. Ok I know there are a few of you out there who can probably relate. Thank god for the internet.

I'm 7 weeks 5 days today. Day after tomorrow we will go for a sonogram to see if we can see a heartbeat from the second babe. This is all such a miracle.

Oh My, Oh My

We had our 6 week scan yesterday and as soon as the image appeared on the screen I could clearly see two sacs. I said "Is that two?" I was totally shocked. I had been thinking twins, with the high betas, but somehow that scan last week with the dot had me convinced that there was only one. Oh my.

In any case we only saw one heartbeat (which was very exciting and moving to see!), but two gestational, and two yolk sacs, and the nurse said we couldn't get that good a picture, (I wondered if it was my fat in the way?)and we will look again next week for the other heartbeat. She seemed pretty positive, but I'm on pins and needles to know.

I am experiencing a great difference in the feeling of wishing for twins (which I did) and actually being faced with the reality of two inside of me! I have been panicking. Alternating between thoughts of two sweet armfuls of joy, and two screaming needy babes taking over my whole life. worrying about my lack of a support system. I'm sure there's plenty of reality in all of that, but I realize you can never know what something will really be like, till you're there.

I have had a very hard week. My body has just hurt everywhere. I'm feeling unhappy and out of touch with my joy. I haven't really felt happy about this pregnancy yet, which is pretty tragic, I so want to, I've waited so long for this. I finally came off of the steroids (Dexamethasone) which I have been suspecting of causing some of this havoc. I have always been super sensitive to drugs, particularly hormones, and prone to depression, though I had not experienced it in about ten wonderful years.

I have had terrible back pain, which was close to immobilizing for a while. For some reason my arms hurt. My breasts, of course, hurt. My neck. I have cramping on and off (always). I have sharp pains on either side of my uterus sometimes when I move or cough, that the nurse says is ligaments. I have started feeling queasy for a chunk of hours from about noon-8. I have also been spotting. If I could only feel like myself emotionally I think I would be more able to handle the rest. Is this what it's like being pregnant with twins? Oh my. What a ride.

My wonderful husband is over the moon thinking that we will have twins. "Two for the price of one, honey!" "Honey, just think, you won't have to go through this again". "Honey, this was one of the best days of my life!" He is so sweet. He also doesn't seem to get how scary it is for me to be doing this with a 49 year old out of shape body. I am praying that I get my soul back from the steroids, or the hormones, and can share in his great happiness, really soon.

A Dot

Listening to NPR on the computer while I type, enjoying a yummy decaf coffee and a biscotti as my honey walks in and out carrying wood for our woodstove. As a lifelong New Yorker (city that is), I am always amazed that we actually heat our house entirely with wood, instead of having a super who did who-knows-what to overheat my apartment so much I kept the window open all winter. Yes I did. Now I wear sweaters and slippers and a cat or two. The laptop is also pretty warm.

I have my feet up, and have actually been pretty much glued to the armchair, because of a severe back spasm that I have had now for a few days. Pre IVF I started out as a large woman, but the hormones and steroids this time around have caused a weight gain, that combined with my now giant, sore breasts, has triggered this back issue. Ow.

We are expecting a big snowstorm tonight and tomorrow, which I am really looking forward to, tho my honey and I have an ongoing battle.. he always goes out early and shovels, and I wake up and am like hello.. you ruined the snow! I moved to the country so I could see pretty snow! He has agreed to leave it tomorrow until after I see it, and maybe go out in my boots for a gander. Tho I may have to remind him of this.

All is well and I am still pregnant as far as I can tell. Here is a very early sonogram from a few days ago.

22 dpo or 5 weeks, 1 day

It shows a gestational sac. See the little black dot under my finger? That's it. The nurse warned us that we may not see anything at all.. and also that is was too early to say whether there was more than one in there, tho it looks like just one to me. I have another scan in a week. They do one a week until I graduate (god willing) at 8 weeks.

Can you see the alien that is also apparently residing in my uterus? Oval face and long eyes? Just to the right of the dot.

I have also had 3 betas. 13 DPO 159.5, 18 DPO 1,429 and 22 DPO 6,938.1. The last beta was on the day of the scan, which is why I am OK that we couldn't see anything in the sac yet. I think these are pretty high betas, but I would love to do one of those nifty charts I've seen on other bloggers sites, comparing, but I can't find it anywhere. Anyone know where it is?

Since I last posted, I have found myself struggling to adjust to the so called "reality" that I am pregnant. See? "so called "reality"". I can't get myself to put it more definitely.

I have a full feeling in my uterus (which I have had since a few days after transfer), painful breasts, constant heartburn, and I do find sleeping anywhere, at any time, to all of a sudden be a thing I do. I have a scan of a dot. But does this add up to pregnancy? Oy. I guess I have the proof so far, but I need time to get it. I can really appreciate that most people have 9 months to get used to the whole thing before baby is here. My friend P who adopted last year, was informed that she had a baby a day before she got to go pick her up. She had struggled and waited and dreamed for 48 years to become a mother, and it happened in 24 hours. Life is amazing like that. And like this! I keep trying to comprehend that I have a growing person inside of me. Can't really do it yet, but I'm getting little flickers of it, and I'm really looking forward to the process!