Lessons From My Infertility Experience

I've been taught, and I believe, that trials are important because we learn and grow from them. Today I had a couple of things occur that made me grateful for some of the ways our experience with infertility helped me grow, and I thought I might share them with you.

 1. I met my new visiting teachers today, and as chance would have it, one of them has also struggled with infertility. In fact, I'd say her experiences with it sound much worse than my own, especially since she's still dealing with it. And I realized that our own experience gave me two very valuable gifts. I am now much more aware of just how prevalent infertility is, and I can now understand, relate to and support those in the infertility community in a way you never can unless you've been there in those shoes. I'm sure that this will play a role in future relationships in my life and create opportunities for friendships that might not have been there otherwise.

 2. I've had a couple of compliments lately on my ability to be honest and sincere in my communications and my willingness to be open about my trials. I like to think that I was this way to some extent before dealing with infertility, but I do know that my experience with infertility made me more aware of why I want to be that way and less afraid of it. I learned that talking about your trials doesn't mean your weak but that you're willing to trust others to be able to help you. I learned that it is good to be honest about the fact that you're not doing okay. Unfortunately, there may be people who will judge you and think you should be stronger. But I promise you that there will be even more people who are grateful that you are willing to share with them what is really going on so that they can try and find some way to support you and help lift your burdens. And just knowing how many people care about you and are praying for you goes a long way to making your burdens feel lighter. But if they don't know you need that support, they can't offer it. And that is something I really hope I always remember as we face whatever trials the future holds for us.

Infertility isn't easy, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But, I do know that it also brought blessings and learning experiences to my life, and I'm grateful that I've been given the ability to recognize them.

Everyone faces trials, whether they're seen or unseen. So if you're dealing with something right now, (and let's be honest, you probably are, even if it's just something small), I want to bear my testimony to you that one day, somehow, there will be blessings that come from it. And if you need someone to talk to,  a shoulder to cry on, or just some extra prayers on your behalf in the meantime, please know that I'm here. So many of you were there for me while we dealt with infertility, even if was just by keeping me in your prayers, and I would be honored to have the chance to return the favor.

35 Weeks Update

So, I had my 35 week appointment today. I can hardly believe we're this far already and that Samuel will probably be here in just a little over a month! I figured things will be changing and progressing fast enough now that I might as well give you an update on how my third trimester has been so far, and we'll hope that you get at least one more update before he's actually here.

I actually feel pretty blessed with how easy I feel like this pregnancy has been. I'm not saying that it's been perfect or that I've never felt crappy or uncomfortable, but I do know it could be a lot worse, and that pattern has continued.

I had some hip pain/sciatica issues early on, but they were never super bad, and they actually seem to have subsided a bit. My right leg doesn't get numb anymore after only lying on my right side or back for a couple of minutes, so that helped make nights a lot more bearable for a while. It was a nice break before my bladder and lower back decided to start making it much harder to sleep. However, while I do have some lower back pain, especially at night, even that hasn't been super bad and only started up in the past week. I'm sure it'll continue to get worse as Samuel gains a couple more pounds and settles lower, but I know some people start dealing with back pain much earlier in the pregnancy, so I won't complain too much.

The most annoying thing I have been dealing with during the past couple of weeks has definitely been having swollen feet. They're pretty much swollen 100% of the time these days and it's just a matter of just how swollen they are at any given time. They're pretty tender from being swollen and feel bruised even they just brush up against each other at night. (And word of advice, don't drop a water bottle right on your super swollen foot, it's not pleasant.) I've been living in flip flops for a couple weeks now, but even they get uncomfortable sometimes, so I'm barefoot as often as possible.

Beyond the feet, my biggest issue is probably lack of sleep, which is made even worse by the horrible heartburn I've been dealing with. Even the Pepcid my doctor okayed earlier on doesn't seem to make a different these days, and Tums hardly do anything. And of course, my bladder makes sleeping through the night pretty impossible. On a good night I can sometimes get some 2-3 hr periods of sleep, but on a lot of nights I'm up at least every hour to pee and then have to deal with trying to get comfortable enough to sleep again. It's made it extra hard to stay alert and focused at work. You know it's bad when you're already nodding off at your desk when you've only been working for about 30 minutes.

Which is why I'm super excited and relieved that I'm going to be done with my job this week! Thursday is going to be my last day at Boostability. And while I'm going to miss the totally awesome people I've worked with, I'm definitely ready to be done working in the office. I was planning on being able to do some at-home editing for them in the future, but they're working out some stuff with the at-home team right now, so I'm not 100% sure that'll happen anymore, so I guess we'll see. The job has really been a great experience for me though, and I feel pretty confident that if I feel the need to find some freelance editing work in the future I should be able to thanks to the solid experience I got in my 2+ years at Boost.

We're also finally starting to get the nursery set up. I haven't had much time to work on any cute decorations, etc, for it yet, but we do at least have a crib and changing table up. We still need to get a mattress crib; we're having a hard time knowing what brand to get. So if you have any recommendations, please do share. However, we plan to have him in our room in the playpen bassinet for at least the first few weeks probably, so I guess I don't need to stress about that quite yet. And once I stop working, I'll finally have some time to maybe work on a mobile or some paintings to put up.

I had two baby showers in May and got lots of cute clothes and other necessary supplies, which helped me feel much more prepared for Samuel's arrival, and Jacob and I have also had fun picking out some cute outfits ourselves. (Including the onesie we plan to bring him home in, which we're both a little obsessed with, especially Jacob, it's super cute.) I've still got some shopping left to do for essential items for Samuel, like bath towels and a few more burp rags, but we are getting there.

I also need to do some more shopping for me. Mostly for nursing supplies. Our insurance should pay for a breast pump for me, which is super nice, but I'm still not sure exactly what brand I want (or what they'll have available), and they like you to be within 30 days of your due date to get them, so that's still on my to-do list. I also probably need to go shopping for nursing bras sometime soon, but I'm totally dreading that and will try to put it off as long as possible. I've always been busty and finding bras in my size is never fun/easy, so I'm sure finding good nursing bras will be just as hard and torturous. I even looked up some articles on places with good plus-size nursing bras today and looked at some options online, but even some of the recommended sites didn't have bras in big enough sizes. Sigh. So, if any of you are bustier and have some good recommendations for me, I would totally appreciate it.

Jacob and I also attended a prenatal/birthing seminar last weekend. I feel like I have a better understanding of what all the birthing process will mean, but I'm still somewhat anxious about it. I totally don't feel the need to go natural and figure I'll probably want something to help with the pain, but for some reason the idea of an epidural kind of freaks me out. Mostly I know my own inability to stay still, and I get paranoid that I won't be able to hold still enough for them to give me one since they have to be very careful with where they put it, etc. But I'm guessing it's pretty normal to have some anxiety about the actual birth process, so I try not to feel like I'm being too silly to have my concerns. I figure that if I'm in enough pain to want an epidural, I won't be worried about it anymore and will totally be willing to hold still for however long they need.

So there's the general update for you. As far as my specific appointment today, it was mostly good news. Samuel is still doing well (and moving a lot) and growing on schedule to come on July 31st. He's a total stinker and has yet to give us a great view of his face during an ultrasound, but I can't be too annoyed with him because he looks so cute with his little arms crossed up there blocking the view. Unfortunately, my blood pressure was a little high today. Not high enough that they're super alarmed yet, but if it keeps creeping up at my next appointment or two, they may decide to have me deliver a little early. So we would definitely appreciate prayers that that won't be the case.

Second Trimester

Well, I mean to write this while I was still in the second trimester and things were fresh on my mind, but obviously that didn't happen. But, we'll see what I can remember to share with you.

First, the bad:
I think I may have thrown up more during the second trimester than I did during the first. I know that's kind of weird, but in my second trimester my mucus production started going out of control. (Sorry if that's gross to know.) It didn't help that I also had a bad cold. Anyway, the drainage and congestion in the back of my throat kept wreaking havoc with my overly active gag reflex, so that really didn't work well. And then, a lot of the time once I threw up because of the congestion, my stomach would decide that it was obviously supposed to be feeling nauseous and feel that way for the next while. It wasn't fun.

That was pretty much the worst part of the second trimester for me. Another thing I didn't like was worsening heartburn. I've always had bad heartburn that I was keeping under wraps with Omeprizole, but it's not the best to take when you're pregnant, so I stopped taking it. Anyway, eventually my heartburn just got too bad for me to handle with only Tums, so I talked to my OB about taking something and go approval to take the equivalent of Pepcid AC.

And finally, I started to feel more uncomfortable. But hey, that's par for the course. My least favorite discomfort was probably that I started to get numb in my right leg anytime I slept on my back or my right side. In fact, I think my sciatic nerve was even pinched off and on, because I had a couple of days where my leg felt half numb all day long. That was super annoying.

Now for the good stuff:
We found out the gender! I seriously was feeling like it would be a girl, so Samuel kind of surprised me a bit, but now I can't imagine it any other way. We had started to think just maybe it was a boy simply because we'd  been planning to name our first boy Andrew, but after I got pregnant that just didn't feel right. We figure that was Samuel telling us that he wasn't supposed to be an Andrew. But I still was really leaning towards it being a girl until the ultrasound proved otherwise. And my entire family was pretty darn surprised as well. But we're happy to be adding another boy to even out the numbers a bit on both sides of our family.

Speaking of ultrasounds, they were definitely a great part of the second trimester. Samuel didn't really want to cooperate and let them see everything at the appointment we had at 18 weeks, so I had another at 22 weeks. He still didn't cooperate then, so they sent me to a specialist a week or two later and I got to have another ultrasound with a better machine. Getting to see our little guy that much was super awesome.

But, my favorite part of the second trimester was definitely starting to feel Samuel move. It is the most amazing experience. Everyone kept saying that the first movements felt like little flutters and being poked from the inside, but that wasn't really my experience. What I very first felt was almost like someone had a fist inside my belly and was trying to massage it from the inside. It actually was a lot like what I started feeling again a couple of weeks ago as he got bigger. I guess another way people describe it is almost like a slithering? Anyway, I felt that for a few days, and then I had a couple of days where I didn't really feel anything. Of course I started to get paranoid that something was wrong, but then I started feeling the fluttering little movements every had told me about and knew it was all good. And that's probably part of why I love feeling him move; as long as I can feel him moving, I know he's still probably doing okay in there.

One funny little note about feeling him move: he really didn't want to cooperate to let Jacob feel him. In fact, even though he moves more now, he still doesn't like to cooperate. So, Jacob has only really felt him moving a couple of times, and it took a couple weeks for him to be able to feel it the first time. Samuel can seriously be moving all over the place for a couple of minutes, and then as soon as Jacob decides he wants to feel him move and puts his hand on my belly, Samuel calms right down until Jacob takes his hand away. I'm hoping Jacob just has a magical calming effect on him that will continue once he's out of the womb as well. Though, I did get Jacob to feel Samuel having the hiccups the other day while we were seeing a movie, and that was fun.

Another note about Samuel's movement habits: I've read a lot of things saying most babies move the most when their mom goes to bed at night and lies down. Samuel apparently wanted to be different though. He used to hardly ever move much when I went to bed. What made him move the most was when I'd sit back in my recliner reading.

Another favorite thing was that Jacob started asking more about how Samuel was doing, etc. It's not that he didn't care before, but I think he was always paranoid something would go wrong. The farther along I've gotten, the easier it's been for both of us to really believe that this is going to last. It also helped that I was actually feeling Samuel move and Jacob had something to ask about.

And...that's probably about all I have to say about the second trimester. I wish I had lots of fun stuff to tell you about getting a nursery set up, etc. But, that still hasn't really happened yet since we're still unpacking everything in our new place. But, I'm sure we'll get it all taken care of by the time Samuel comes.