We sure love our rice!!!

This is Christian at six weeks! On Saturday we took the first picture of my belly- just a bit bloated for now. Baby Tolentino also had another photo shoot today. Now baby's crown to rump length is 8.2mm; that's 6mm bigger than last week. Yes, about the size of a piece of rice!!! The growth rate is about 1mm per day for now and (his) heart rate is 118 beats per minute. Still so absolutely amazing. On Sunday, I started to have some nausea which I thought was just anxiety. We were at Ashley and Andrew's graduation party, and it was so difficult to keep such an exciting secret! But when I woke up on Monday, I struggled to get ready for work and stuck a big ziplock in my pocket just in case I couldn't make it through the car ride. Bring on the saltines... the nausea has begun! I still felt the same ALL DAY on Tuesday, but today I feel great. No nausea, but I managed to sneak in a 3 hour nap after meeting Grandma Liz for lunch. We went browsing for clothes and I had more fun looking through the baby section than looking for clothes for myself. Ohhhh, how exciting! Now Lola Rosie is here visiting us. We've gotten our first few baby gifts already from a few of my co-workers. Chris got us an adorable soft little angel rattle, and Linda gave us our first baby healthcare kit- the perfect gift from one nurse to another. Thank you!

Truly a Miracle

On Wednesday, June 18th, we had our first appointment to confirm a healthy pregnancy. We were so nervous! All that excitement had suddenly escaped us and we were just plain nervous! We would find out today how many babies and make sure the pregnancy was in the uterus. Every thought was racing through our heads! When the picture showed up on the ultrasound screen, she confirmed we had one baby in the uterus. Relief came over us again as we filled with a whole new set of emotions. Christian and I were holding on to each others hand as she explained what we were looking at; the gestational sac, the yolk, and the fetus! Then I saw the most beautiful thing in my whole world... she zoomed in on the fetus, and there it was. My baby has a beating heart!!! Words again escaped us, but Christian said his happiest moment was looking at me watching the screen as a big smile came upon my face. This is the ultrasound picture from that day at 5.5 wks pregnant. The arrow is pointing to the fetus. What a cutie patootie!

Can you play that message again?

Well, the short story goes...
We started preparing for our second embryo transfer back in late March. On Wednesday May 28th, we went to our clinic, where they had already thawed two embryos for transfer. At 9:30am with a full bladder... no- a bursting bladder... the transfer took place. The next 12 days would be some of the longest yet. The first few days were manageable, I was on bed rest, and filled with hope. By day 8, I was DONE. I was angry, sad, frustrated, and anxious. By Friday, I had been rejuvenated by my mom who reminded me to take it one day at a time instead of focusing on how the heck I was gonna make it to Monday morning for our test results.(This picture was taken on Friday, June 6th at Ryan Inlow's wedding). Monday morning came, Christian and I went for my blood work, and then came home and took a nap. I found great happiness in sleep during this 12 day period- anything to make time pass. He went to work and came home at 1:15pm with lunch. We have a voicemail set up at our doctors office where we can check in for updates on medication dosages, lab results, etc. He asked me to check the messages, but there were no new ones. We ate. Then checked again. Nothing. Then again. And again. I told him I wouldn't check any more, cause I was going CRAZY!! We had to wait at least a half hour before I'd check again. At 2:34pm we called again and this time heard, "One New Voicemail"!!!!!!!! We sat on the couch together with our insides flipped inside out and upside down in anticipation. When I heard the nurses voice, I was sure the news wasn't good. Her voice was soft and gentle; like she was about to give us difficult news. And then she said the words we'll never forget..."Congratulations!! You're pregnant!!" The rest of a message was a blur- something about a future appointment, meds to continue, and considering an OB doc... blah blah blah. Our mouths hung open with no words coming out. Just tears in our eyes as we stared at each other. Christian said, "Uhhhh... Can you play that message again, so I can here the part where she says you're pregnant?!" Once we heard it the second time, we just cried and cried, and hugged, and cried. Ahhhhh. No words can explain the pressure relieved from my body. I just began to giggle.

What were we waiting for??!!

Our journey really began all the way back in October of 2005. After about 6 months of "trying", we decided to consider some fertility testing. Another 6 months went by before we decided to move forward with Dr. Peter Weeks. If my dad heard me say to someone, "Yeah, we've been trying for about a year; it gets frustrating", he would say "Trying...They're Trying... Geez, quit complaining! You know how much I wish mom and I were TRYING??!!". He's good for lightening up a situation.Time went on, and one fertility procedure would lead us to the next, and we had our ups and we had our downs. When I was feeling sad, Christian would pick me up and the opposite was also true. When all else had failed, and another year had passed, Dr. Weeks recommended us to see a fertility expert. We met Dr. Michael Zinger who reviewed our medical history and suggested we consider In Vitro Fertilization as our next step. We were anxious about this, as it seemed like the last resort for us to conceive together, and it was difficult to hear that this was our best option- already. We thought about it, and knowing how badly we wanted to be parents together, there really was no doubt we would take this step. After a few months of ovary stimulating medications, I went in for an egg retrieval on October 20, 2007. They took 20 eggs (I felt like a hen). In the end 5 of them accepted fertilization (yes- half me, half Christian!) and survived 5 days of observation in the lab. On October 25th, they brought me back and transferred 2 embryos back into me and froze the other 3. That's when things became complicated for us. After some more ups and downs, and some unfortunate events, we decided to take some time off to heal- both physically and emotionally.