You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2008.
Today I called the hospital, as I need to find an obstetrician to get my files transferred to and start my pre-natal care. I’ve decided to go public for a few reasons… I don’t really have my own doctor, I don’t want to pay the out of pocket expenses from my private health insurance (full obstetrics don’t kick in for another month after Bub is due) and because I was born in the same public hospital – and if it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for my bub too.
They have advised that they do shared care with GP’s and that I should continue (?) to see my own GP until my 12 weeks scan. I had to explain that I don’t have a GP, but that I will try to find one. I can have my appointments at the hospital, but they don’t have after hours appointments, so it’s probably better if I find a GP that can help.
The ante-natal clinic has advised that I see their specialist for a one-off appointment, and then the specialist will decide if I should continue to see him, or if I’m okay with the GP. That’s scheduled for two weeks away, so I will have to leave work early… no idea how that’s going to happen yet.
In addition, I need to do my “booking in” appointment with the midwives, which will take 1 ½ to 2 hours! At least that appointment is early December and scheduled for 8.30am, so might be easier to fit in.
All these appointments are going to be tricky as I will be starting my new job on Monday and need to hide any doctor visits until at least my 12 weeks – I’ve decided to tell my boss before the end of my probationary period, but as soon as my safe period has passed – no point in upsetting the new company with my news if something terrible happens.
Today is the day I find out if I’m still pregnant…and if I’m having one or two babies!
The last two and a half weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions. There’s a part of me that hopes it’s twins, ready made family, no having to go back to try again for a sibling and therefore, reduced costs of IVF, and less disruption to my work. On the other hand, twins bring more expense of having two of everything up front, more potential medical risks to the babies and myself, and a whole lot more work for a single mum to contend with. So while I hope its twins on one hand, I equally hope that it’s just a single too. And overall, I just want the clinic to confirm the heartbeat is still there!!!!
By the time I made the one and a half hour drive to the clinic, I’d worked myself up into such a state that I was going to learn that I wasn’t pregnant anymore! The office was unusually empty, something that I had never seen before as every other morning appointment I had been to there was a hive of activity and patients everywhere.
My doctor called me in to have my scan and she was so positive and happy for me being pregnant, even though I told her I was excited (to learn I was pregnant), worried (that she would now tell me I wasn’t) and nervous (that she would tell me it was twins).
The scan was straightforward, another internal of course. A nervous few seconds until I saw movement on the scan… and there was my baby’s heart beating! Wow! What an exciting moment in my life.
She was really pleased, she took pictures, told me that there were some early signs of a twin pregnancy, but it’s definitely not there now (no real idea what that meant), and that the baby is 0.4mm long. After that, she checked my blood test results and said she was still pleased with all my levels and just reminded me to use iodised salt in my cooking as the baby needs iodine, and Elevit doesn’t contain this. I asked her how long to keep taking the cartia, and she advised for at least the first 2 months, and I also asked if it is safe to take fish oil supplements as well, and it is, so now I’ve added that to my morning pill popping routine too.
I confirmed my donor details that were used, asked about siblings and how soon I can start again (3 – 6 months after bub is born) and how to go about putting aside more sperm from the same donor for the future. After that, I was told to find a local GP so that my files could be transferred, and that was it!
Later this afternoon I went “window shopping” with my girlfriend to see what sort of furniture and other big items are available, and what sort of prices I’m going to be up for. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, and after a few price comparisons and internet comparisons, I think Baby Kingdom has the best bargains for the car seat, cot, mattress, basinet, pram, change table/chest of drawers, baby sling and change mat – all up, around $2,500.
I’m not sure if it’s too early to lay-by or if that would be tempting fate. The great thing I learned was that I can lay-by now on a 30% deposit, and then pay nothing until I pick up the items, and more importantly, the guarantees will commence from pick-up, not from the date of lay-by.
My niece is staying the night, and so I organised a family lunch at my place, and this time… my Mum came. So I’m planning on telling her now instead of waiting until after my scan.
We were sitting outside eating lunch when Mum announced HER great news – she’s given up smoking – so at least I’m not going to have a problem with her cuddling my baby haha.
So after we all congratulated Mum on her news, I asked her if she still knew how to knit. She said “yes, of course I do”, so I told her that it might be pretty cold in June, and my baby might need some winter woollies to keep it warm. She did a bit of a double take and was quite speechless. I then went into the details about IVF and I don’t think she really understood that too much, but her jaw well and truly dropped when I told her it could be twins!
Overall, she was very happy with the news, but I’m still not sure if she has grasped the concept of IFV and donor sperm and that I’ve been pursuing this proactively… her comment as she was leaving was “well, I’m happy if you’re happy” – it’s like she thinks that I’ve found out I’m accidentally pregnant and have decided to keep it.
So now the whole family knows… and my close girlfriends too. My best friend has known since ten minutes after I found out, and another friend rang me a few days ago to check the progress so she knows. I had coffee with another one yesterday afternoon in the city and told her, and I rang another girlfriend on the way home. Another one returned my call later last night and I left a message for the last one on Facebook and gave her access to my blog. She called this morning to congratulate me, and was soooooo excited, but I had a house full of people here so I couldn’t talk for long.
So now, everyone knows… let the celebrations begin.
My niece and her 7 month old son have arrived from interstate yesterday to visit for a week, so today we had a big family BBQ. Everyone was there except one niece and my Mum.
After I went home from my sisters place last night, I started to contemplate telling the family. I found a great poem online to use to tell Mum, and I decided to buy Anne Geddes cards for each of them and write in the cards… “Just when you thought that I’d never make you an Aunty… SURPRISE! But shhhh it’s a secret”.
I discussed my thoughts with my sister who has known all along what was happening when I arrived at her house, and told her that it was too hard to hide the changes in my personality from the family – going from drinking at EVERY social function, to not drinking at all, was going to be a hard ask to convince the family, and I certainly wanted to tell them on my terms, before anyone guessed … or even joked about it to me.
And just as I thought, as soon as my step-niece arrived, she was offering me alcohol haha. I definitely had to bite the bullet and tell my sisters, so at the first opportunity, I gathered all three of them in the bedroom and handed them the cards. My eldest sister was shocked – in a happy way and asked me if I was pregnant? I admitted to them that I had been going through the process for quite a while now, and that my second eldest sister and her husband were aware of what was going on. After a lot of hugs and kisses and congratulations, I then dropped the further bombshell that it could be twins! My eldest sister nearly fell over haha.
We then discussed telling the rest of the family (kids and all), as there were another 14 people in the house that still had no clue as to what was going on. I didn’t fancy explaining everything to the kids given that I was only 4 weeks along, and it is still very early days and anything could happen. My eldest sister said that I should go out there and shout it from the rooftops – “hey everyone, you’re going to have another cousin” haha and that this is something in life that children are very resilient about.
My niece was holding her son, so I took him out of her arms. She picked up her camera to take a pic, and I asked her if she thought the look suited me because I was planning on having one of my own in June. She didn’t believe me… just said, “yeah, whatever” a few times and I kept having to repeat myself haha. My step-niece twigged to the fact before my niece did… but they both came over and gave me a hug and a kiss and congratulated me. And the kids were all asking questions and trying to follow the adult conversation. My step-nephew’s girlfriend was there, and she gave me a hug and a kiss and then headed outside to tell him.
Then my brother in law and nephew came inside so I filled them in on what was happening, and my step-nephew came inside, gave me a kiss, and asked me how far along I was, and promptly announced that his girlfriend was 6 weeks along haha which of course was a joke, but very funny.
Overall, everyone had lots of questions and wanted to know why I had decided this, and how I came to the decisions, and what it all meant and what was going to happen, and overall, it was fantastic to get it all over and done with in one day.
The kids started getting a bit more in tune over the course of the day with more conversations going on about babies, and I kept expecting the inevitable question to come up about me not having a partner. Then after lunch, my 9-year-old nephew found out that I was pregnant, and promptly announce that it couldn’t be true. When I asked him why, he kept saying that he didn’t believe it, and that I wasn’t pregnant. His mum kept asking him too, because we both thought that the question of having no partner was about to come up, when he finally admitted that I couldn’t possibly be pregnant because I was too skinny! Oh, how I loved him for that, the response was priceless.
As apprehensive as I was about telling everyone my news, it was also great to know that the whole family is now aware of what is happening, and I can openly ask for advice and talk about my experiences.
Later in the afternoon, I printed out this diary and it got passed around so I could share the details of my journey to date with everyone. I’m so glad I started this diary!
The only person that I haven’t told yet is my Mum… but I am planning on waiting until after my scan on 23 October 2008 before I tell her.
I woke up early this morning, and was wide-awake, so I got out of bed with all intentions of getting back into my exercise routines. Now that I know that implantation has occurred, I figure I can take it easy with at least some daily walking.
But yayyyyyyyhhhhhh! My sister is home!! I got a message on MSN from her last night saying they got home at 8.30 last night. I’m so excited. I sent her a message back telling her to let me know when she gets up because I want to talk to her about my job opportunities. Which I do, but I really want to tell her my great news. I had already told her that my home tests were negative, and when she came online to tell me she was awake, she asked me about my blood test, but I told her I had no news yet.
For my birthday last year, she bought me a t-shirt that says “I’m the most important person in my life”, and I’ve decided that I am going to take that back to her today and let her know that its no longer true.
But she has 4 kids, and getting her alone was a struggle, so I just took her into the computer room and got her to read my online blog from when I found out I was POSITIVE! She read it, looked at me and said…. “Are you?” with the hugest grin on her face. So after going through it with her, she went to get her husband, and we made him read it too.
How exciting… now I have three people who know, and I just have to hold out for the next 6 weeks or so until I start telling everyone else.
I’m so glad I spent the last week telling everyone that I had a negative test, because now they will really be surprised.
My plan is for my sisters and I to take our Mum out for her 70th Birthday in early November and tell them at that time. By then, I will have had my 6 ½ week scan and so will have more information, and will be 9 weeks pregnant, so will consider myself safe enough. Oooooh, can I wait that long? That’s only 4 weeks away, so I need to try really hard!
I rang my best friend this afternoon to let her know the great news! She was in a change room in Target with her daughters, and obviously very excited to hear my positive results.
I’m disappointed that my sister and her husband are still away with the family as I would have loved to tell them too, but I’ve decided to wait until they get home tomorrow night to let them know.
I headed over to my besty’s for dinner and she bought me 2 books – a pregnancy journal (but it is actually a baby journal) and a book of baby names. I’ve already decided that if it’s a girl, I will call her Matilda – which is named after me and my great grandma on Dad’s side, which I think will make Dad very happy to have a family name to be his legacy (he passed away suddenly last year). I’m not sure on boy’s names at all, so I’m sure the book will be of great assistance there.
I’m PREGNANT???? Oh my god, words cannot convey my excitement! I didn’t hear Toni for about 5 minutes as I was crying and she tried to tell me that Bub’s due date is 12 June 2009, and that I have to have a scan at 6 ½ weeks which is 23 October 2008!
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!!!!! Is this really happening? My first cycle of IVF! I’m going to be a MUM! Finally! I’m sooooo lucky!
Words just cannot convey what I am thinking. I started this journey a number of years ago as I started to get older, and realise that I might never be a mum. I never wanted to be a single mum (hey, I still don’t), but I truly didn’t want to NOT be a mum. And for me, the choice between the two became easier as I got older.
Towards the end of 2007, I really started to get serious about doing something about it… I actually started surfing the net for information, and talking to my friends about the potential of it all. What I struggled most to find out was about how single women went about this whole process, as every piece of information I could find out about IVF was for couples, and for donor sperm said that you had to find your own donor.
The only research I could find in Australia on treating single women was that they could not discriminated against by refusing to treat them. But you still had to find your own donor.
I floated possibilities in front of my single male friends, I even put profiles on dating websites to see if there would be guys out there that would be willing to come to some sort of business arrangement (on an IVF basis, wasn’t looking for a series of one night stands).
As time wore on, I decided that I was now working in a great job that I could financially do this on my own – great work/life balance, close enough to home to not be a huge issue, a few months maternity leave and back to work part-time and working from home, easing myself into it. But I still had to find a donor.
And then I hit pay-dirt when I found a clinic that would assist single women. I found them by accident as I was researching American Sperm Donor Banks, and just started checking out their websites to see what information they had etc. And later, I googled the name of their company and found a clinic that imports donor sperm, complies with Australian legislation, treats single women AND has no waiting list!
So I made myself an appointment (after more discussions with friends and research) and the rest as they say… is history!
I’m finally going to be a mum! My dreams are about to come true!
(but I’ve not forgotten that I still have a long way to go for a live birth… the forums that I’ve been reading over the past few months have certainly pre-warned me about that, but just for today… I’m excited!)
This morning I went to the local Pathology Centre for my early pregnancy blood test. It was pretty straightforward (as usual), they just took blood out of my finally healed up veins and that was it.
Now starts the long, long, long, wait until the Clinic calls me this afternoon. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed all day that they want me to re-test on Tuesday (although I secretly already think that they will get me to retest on Tuesday anyway, as I was pre-warned that today’s test might be too early to detect results).
Aaaarrrrggghhhh! No wonder they tell you not to do a home pregnancy test… it’s such an emotional roller coaster. I remember reading the blogs and forums when all the women lamented about how long the TWO WEEK WAIT actually is, and how many home pregnancy tests they took (daily in most cases!) and sitting there thinking smugly to myself “oh seriously, how hard can it be to wait two weeks”?
Last night I did more research online and discovered that the levels of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in the urine don’t increase until after implantation occurs, and that implantation can take up to 12 days (which is the reason for the 2 week wait in the first place!). Wow, I thought, there IS still hope for me.
So this morning I caved AGAIN, and took another test. And what did I find? Another faint line!!!! This time I timed it exactly, and after 3 minutes, there was a definite faint line there.
And now I’m back to being all consumed by “what if” scenario’s…. oh, I can’t wait until Friday’s blood test results, which of course may just keep me hanging again over a long weekend until Tuesday’s results (but hey, if that happens, then it means that I’m actually pregnant, so that should be a good thing… right?
