What do you want for Dinner?

If you have ever lived with a pregnant woman, you know that food cravings, food likes and food dislikes come and go. Lately picking dinner that we both want has been a battle, so I usually succumb to her wants...but I had to draw the line the other night.

Caroline suggested that we have baked potatoes, with chicken, broccoli, cheese, and sour cream all piled on top.
Three Problems...

A) that sounds awful

B) You would have to find the world's largest potato to fit all of those toppings on to one potato

C)Yeah, I run marathons, but I don't ever burn enough calories to eat triple stuffed cheesey baked potatoes...ever.

Heartbeat(s) ??

Heartbeat. That is always what you want to see is the heartbeat. We had yet to see one, and had always heard once you see a heartbeat, the chance of miscarriage goes down to 5%.

The night before our appointment we tossed and turned, sleep was at a premium and our minds were racing at warp speed. I was confident, Caroline was anxious, neither of us knowing what we would do if we didn't get the news we wanted to hear. Caroline was 6w4d pregnant on the day of the sonogram. Dr. Lee was as calm as ever when she said, "Well there's a sac it looks good, and there's the heartbeat" I was relieved. Then as she keeps talking..."and here's another sac, and there's the heartbeat"

Yeah...so we're rolling with twins, as in two babies, as in two babies in one small belly, as in crap, our house is already too small!

All We Want is a High Number

After doing one more IUI, the one we swore would be our last, the one that was going to make or break our fertility experience. Caroline "felt" pregnant, but she had "felt" it before, and nothing ever materialized.

If you're not aware, when you become pregnant your body produce the pregnancy hormone, HCG. HCG is measured in all at home pregnancy tests, as well as in your blood by the doctors. We knew too much about HCG, the highest Caroline's ever got was a 60, the doctors consider you to be "pregnant" at a 20, but want it to be at 100 the first day after a missed period, and then it is supposed to double every two days. We never sniffed a 100, we also never saw anything double.

She had all the symptoms of a pregnant person, her boobs were sore, she was tired, and all of the sudden food was smelling and looking weird. So we took a test...positive, but we had been there done that before, so our emotions were tempered.

Caroline, being the numbers whiz she is, was going to outsmart the system. She Googled every pregnancy test and wanted to find the ones that only showed a positive with the highest HCG level...needless to say 6 positive test later and $123 poorer, she had them all lined up on the counter. We had digital smiley faces, faint pink lines, dark purple lines, plus signs...we had seen it all. But, we still weren't believers.

So off to the doctor we go, blood drawn...and then the agony of waiting to hear back from the nurse. We had to wait for 6 hours for the phone call, it seemed like a month. Phone call comes and Caroline shattered her record...277 was the new number to beat. Then three days later when the number should have doubled...she shattered it again...1,592.

Then we were like oh crap...that's really high...oh well twins would be awesome, triplets would be manageable...and any more than that was never mentioned.

Background

Fertility issues...not everyone has them, but we did. We started this whole journey in hopes of starting our new family right away. Timing would be perfect, Caroline would almost be done with school, we both had jobs even though the economy was in the tank, and quite frankly...life was pretty good.

After a several months of "trying" Caroline was told she would need to go to a specialist. We chose a doctor we had heard of in Dallas, one who had a good reputation, and one Caroline and I would eventually feel completely and 100% confident in. The doctor was Dr. Karen Lee at DFW Fertility Specialists, although the results each month weren't what we wanted or expected, Dr. Lee always kept our spirits up and our confidence high, even at it's very low moments, and OUR best interests at heart.

We went through six months of fertility shots, 3-4 doctors visits a week, and basically turned Caroline into a human pin cushion, as she was having blood drawn almost every visit. We would sit in the doctor's office, staring at the screen looking for follicles...or any other good news we could see. We did everything from IUI, to regular "date" nights, and sometimes we even did both. We had a real miscarriage, a chemical miscarriage, no pregnancies at all, and loads of frustration...it seemed that everything that could go wrong, was going wrong...As we became more and more frustrated, we decided that we would give it one more chance.

DISCLAIMER
Things this blog will be:

Real
Informative
Funny
Awesome

I am not a doctor and non of my statements have been reviewed, viewed, or even looked at by the FDA...They've actually probably never been seen by anyone with the initials FDA...Actually, this blog has probably never been seen by anyone.

PS- Each time you read this blog you will be forced to send my large sums of diapers.