The news is out

Well...we've finally shared the news. Talk about SCARY! Once you start telling people there's no turning back. I know the doctor has told us that it's completely safe to start sharing our excitement, and the odds of something bad happening now are very low, but it's still quite scary to make the OFFICIAL announcement! I never in my wildest dreams imagined I wouldn't want to tell people!

Matthew has been chomping at the bit to finally be able to make the announcement. He was SO excited when Dr. H told us it was safe to finally tell people. So since today was the last day of school (YEA!!!!) I took pink and blue cookies as a treat for the staff and to tell everyone. We sent postcards to our grandparents, the soon to be great-grandparents, and a fun email to the rest of the family and close friends. Then came the REALLY big announcement...Facebook. Once it's on Facebook there is absolutely no turning back! So it's out there now. The FB world knows and I've been slightly panicked ever since! Hopefully that feeling passes quickly!

Today is 9weeks 4days. My first OB appointment is on Friday at 10w1d. And here is the best news of the week...my progesterone shots are over on Friday! My butt is SO happy!!!!!!

9 Weeks!

Well today is the 9 week mark! The bump is getting bigger. I only have one more day of my steroid, so it makes me wonder if it'll go down a little once I'm off of that for good. I also only have one week of the progesterone shots to go! WOOHOO! Some of the bloating could go down after I stop the progesterone as well, so my 10 and 11 week photos will be interesting.

But anyway, since I don't really have much to report, here's the weekly pic. Enjoy!

Moving right along

I called the OB this morning and have my first appointment set! Next Friday, June 3rd I will head to the OB for the first time! I will be 10w1d at that point, and they're going to do another ultrasound! I can't wait to see the change in our bambino! Matthew can't make this trip unfortunately, so hopefully I can remember everything they tell me so I can fill him in.

This first appt. I will meet with one of the midwives, and the next time I go I should meet with the doctor. I think I need to start making a list of questions now. I know there will be a bunch of things I want to know, but if I don't make a list ahead of time, I'll never remember to ask them.

On another exciting note, I only have 10 more progesterone shots left! The nurse told me yesterday that I can stop them when I hit 10 weeks. Next Thursday is my last one! WOOHOOO!!!! My butt is rejoicing already!

May 23 ultrasound

This is the video I took during our ultrasound today. Dr. H points out the various body parts and you can hear the baby's heartbeat!

We Graduated!

Today was our 2nd ultrasound with Dr. H to check Baby K's progress. Everything looked great! Baby K is growing like crazy and Dr. H said that everything looks perfect! Talk about music to my ears :o) We got to hear the heartbeat again (I never get tired of hearing that sound!) He pointed out the baby's little arms and legs, the head, brain, and umbilical cord. It is starting to resemble a baby instead of just a blob! It definitely has a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go, but I can't get over the change in just 2 weeks! I'm sure by the time we have our first u/s with the OB it will have changed even more. Dr. H told us that he only needs to see the baby one more time, and that's after he/she is born!

It is so bittersweet graduating to the OB. I am so happy to finally be "normal" but leaving our RE's office was hard. The office staff and doctor are seriously some of the nicest, most compassionate people, so walking out of their door for the last time today was kind of hard, but we do still have 5 little tot-sicles chillin away, so we'll be back in a few years, I'm sure of it!

Well here are today's u/s pics! I'm sure this is going to be more entertaining than my rambling! Here ya go! Enjoy :o)

The baby's head is to the right, and the black blob is its brain!

I think this is a pic of the baby's back side :o)

This picture was measuring my uterus. It was amazing how much Baby K moved around and flip flopped. Clearly he/she has plenty of space right now!

8 Weeks!

Well we've made it to the next developmental week! Only 4 more days until we get to see our little raspberry again! (Yes I'm referring to the baby as food...that's how several of the baby sites compare the baby's size each week.)

If it's possible I think the bloating MIIIIIIGHT be going down a little bit. My belly doesn't look quite as big in the week 8 pic as it did in week 7. Maybe it'll actually be a baby belly soon, and not just chub! It is definitely getting harder to hide the growing mid section though. I'm sure there won't be a single surprised person at school when I make the official announcement in a week and a half, but oh well.

Thankfully I'm still feeling great. I kind of feel a little guilty/bad that so far everything for me is going so smoothly. So many women are incredibly sick at this point that I almost (notice I said ALMOST) feel bad that I'm not. :o) I had one day of it...that's enough to make me appreciate what some go through day in day out. I've been eating like food is going out of style. I was brave enough a few days ago to actually weigh myself, and I've only gained one pound since before our IVF cycle started, so that's a relief. I was really afraid the scale was going to tell me some outlandish number because of the way I've been eating. Whew! Dodged that bullet for now :o)

Well I'll stop my rambling, since I know the picture is what you're really interested in. Sorry it's a little blurry. Matthew isn't the greatest photographer and he hates my camera.

Nothing new...

There really isn't anything new to report, sorry for the boring post :o) Tomorrow I am 8 weeks! At times 8 weeks doesn't seem like very far along, but then at other times I'm amazed that I'm already 8 weeks into the pregnancy. It seems like we JUST went through the retrieval and transfer! Now to be completely honest, it's only been 6 weeks since the procedures, but when doctors are figuring up how far along in a pregnancy the patient is, you're given the first two weeks as kind of a gimme. No one is technically pregnant the first two weeks of their pregnancy, but somewhere along the line someone decided that a 40 week gestation was a more round number than 38 weeks I guess. Not to mention that for most people it's pretty hard to actually pin point conception, so the "two weeks free" deal is basically because they have to estimate when conception actually occurred.

Sooooooo like I said, nothing new to report. Sorry for the boring post today. The belly is continuing to grow (or bloat...whichever you prefer.) It's actually getting hard to hide already! That just doesn't even seem right, but that's what's happening! I guess I should just embrace it and be excited :o)

First Belly Pic

Well I have to admit, I feel a little silly posting this picture. While I'm very excited that the weekly belly pics have begun, at this point it's just bloating and fluid. The majority of it, I'm sure, is from all of my meds. I also feel a little silly about this picture because I'm much larger than a "typical" belly at 7 weeks. It's getting a little hard to hide it already! I do have to admit, I'm a little afraid of how huge I'm going to be come December if I have a belly like this already!

Well without further a-do...here we go. My belly at 7 weeks!

Pregnancy Calendar

So I borrowed the idea of using this site from our neighbor. Thanks K! Every week it updates with what the baby is doing and how it's developing. It's so cool! There are also videos to watch that show what various organs are doing each week and what the baby looks like in utero. Definitely check it out! It's been really cool to read the development week after week!

Here is the website for our page: Pam's Pregnancy Calendar
You will need the password to get in. Type "Baby Kuntz" into the password site. I hope you enjoy it!

First Ultrasound...1 baby or 2?!?!

Wow...what a day! Sorry for the lack of posts lately. There really hasn't been anything to report until today. I have been feeling great since my one small bout with nausea. My appetite is back in full force! I travel with food now. lol!

Well here's the info I know you're dying to hear :o) We had our first u/s today and everything looked great! We have one little bambino growing like a weed inside! We were able to see AND hear the heartbeat! Oh my goodness...what a sound it was! I couldn't believe that I was actually listening to my baby's heartbeat! The little flutter on the screen was pretty tiny, but Matthew and I did both see it. So crazy! The heart was beating about 113 beats per minute (bpm). Dr. H said that the 4 factors he checks at the first u/s all looked and sounded great so he told us our miscarriage risk has now dropped to only about 2%! I am so relieved! Even though I've had no physical reason to make me think I could have lost the baby, I was definitely paranoid about that going into the appointment. I was afraid of the sac being empty. Thankfully that wasn't the case and our little bean was fluttering away in there! It's pretty tiny, but here are our first pics of our actual baby! The embryo pics were definitely cool, but this is so much better!

I'm sure you're thinking what in the world is even in those pictures?!?!? Well, the black oval on the left is the sac. The whitish oval inside of it is the baby. The doctor has marked where it is positioned with little asterisk looking things. It's being measured from "head" to "rump" and I use those terms loosely still. lol! The baby is about the size of a sweet pea this week.

Oh and did you like the message Dr. H typed on the screen for us? I didn't notice that until I was getting ready to scan the pics to my computer. It put a huge smile on my face (as if I needed ANOTHER reason to smile today!)

So anyway, there you go! Hello Baby Kuntz! We can't wait to see you again in two weeks! Keep growing, growing, growing! If all looks good in two weeks, we should be clear to go back to our regular OB! Thank you again for all of your thoughts and prayers! We greatly appreciate them, and will gladly continue to accept them!

Gone for now...hopefully it stays that way!

Whew! Well thankfully my nausea was short lived this time. I swear I'm not complaining. I'd gladly be throwing up every day if it was the only way that I'd be able to carry the baby to term, but I was glad that there was only one occurrence of actual vomiting. Yesterday I was still a little queasy, so I went with mostly bland foods, but today has been back to normal. I don't have quite the crazy appetite like before, which temporarily freaked me out a little bit, but my frequent bathroom trips are reassuring me that things are ok. I will feel SO much better after we get a good report on Monday afternoon! It's hard to actually admit that I WANT Monday to be here. This may be one of the only times in my life that I'm hoping the weekend goes quickly! Although, I have to make it through the rest of this week first. That may be a little difficult considering how slowly it's going!

Here comes the nausea...

I'd been quite happy that really my only symptoms have been extreme hunger and constant peeing. Well today, hello nausea and smell aversion! I woke up from a 3 1/2 hour nap feeling like I could just go back to bed for the rest of the night. I managed to get myself out of bed and moved to the couch instead. Although my stomach has started to growl, nothing sounds good and the idea of putting food in my mouth made my stomach lurch a bit. Then Matthew decided to heat up some left over BBQ.

O M G...NOT good! It should also be noted that I've been eating this same BBQ throughout the week. It hasn't caused me any problems up until today. Boy things change quickly! He walked down the stairs and the smell of that bowl of BBQ made me want to hurl! I (oh so lovingly..ha!) told him he needed to eat it quickly and get it out of the living room because the stench was horrible to me. Thankfully he did, but too bad for me, the smell has lingered. As I type this (here's a lovely visual for you) I'm lying on the couch with my North Face zipped all the way up with my nose and mouth tucked into it, in order to avoid the smell of his dinner. Even though his bowl is now in the dishwasher being washed, I can't get the smell out of my nose. Matthew has found it incredibly humorous...glad he finds it funny! He's not the one about to toss his cookies over the smell of someone else's dinner! I can only imagine how this is going to go over at school now with the lovely smells that accompany a classroom full of 5 and 6 year olds. Lucky me!

**UPDATE** Well...I had my first experience with tossing my cookies as a preggo. It's so strange...on one hand I'm incredibly thankful for the increase in my pregnancy symptoms. It's reassuring to know that things are progressing well. On the other hand, wow...puking isn't fun no matter what the reason! Lol! Although, it is slightly more tolerable knowing that it's because of a baby and not the flu!