The 1st Trimester

 September 21, 2020 - Beta Day! This is the day that we go in for bloodwork to check HCG levels and see if we get a positive pregnancy test. Now, I had actually taken a pregnancy test at home a day or two early and gotten a positive. We cried and told my parents, but we were still hesitant. We quickly received results that beta was positive and we were pregnant! As exciting as this was, I actually cried unhappy tears when we found out. I was so scared that the number wasn't high enough (again, comparing to round 1), and I was scared to get excited about being pregnant when it could mean another loss. Luckily, Dan is my rock and reminded me to stay positive and focused as we continued shots and medications to keep this baby healthy. 

That week, I did start feeling a little nauseated, which was a good sign, though! I also obsessively took pregnancy tests. They kept coming back positive and looking stronger, but we were still cautiously optimistic. 

September 23, 2020 - We went for repeat bloodwork where the HCGbeta number should double - and it did! We were officially pregnant and things were looking good! 

October 8, 2020 - We went to our first ultrasound! We saw that little bitty flicker of a heartbeat and immediately fell in love! There was really a baby growing in there! This was when we told our immediate family. We wanted to wait until we had seen the ultrasound. Although it was still very early (I was only around 6 weeks at this point), our family was obviously waiting for an update since there aren't many surprises with IVF. 

October 20, 2020 - We went back to the fertility clinic for an update at 8 weeks and 3 days. At this point, the pregnancy was still viable, there was still a little flicker of a heartbeat, and that tiny baby was growing! We graduated from the clinic that day and were ready to move on to our OB in Bloomington. 

By this point, the morning sickness was around. Nausea hit me early on, I remember the day before our first ultrasound we had golf sectionals. I thought I was going to have to tell the girls I was pregnant that day because I was sure I was going to puke on the bus. I made it, though! I was very tired and very picky about food. Probably around 9-10 weeks was when I started getting sick every morning, no matter what I did. It was not fun, but I kept reminding myself it meant a healthy baby and it could be worse. 

October 31, 2020 - Dan gave me my last progesterone in oil shot! I had been taking these to golf and doing them in bathrooms, on the bus, in the dark, wherever I was when it was shot time. We were glad to be done, but also a little nervous because they had been helping to keep baby healthy! 

On November 5, 2020 I had my first appointment with the OB in Bloomington. They call this an "OB Teach" appointment where they go over what to expect throughout the pregnancy, do a bunch of bloodwork and answer all the questions Dan and I had listed out before then. :) 

As I neared the end of the first trimester, I kept thinking the morning sickness and nausea would go away, they say around 12 weeks, right? Well, mine stuck around quite a bit longer. The doctor wasn't concerned, some people just have bad luck with that....great. 

It was actually a sort of blessing in disguise that Dan and I had moved to remote teaching at this point since our school went back to full attendance. Until Dan was vaccinated, we needed to be extra careful, so we were both working from home. This meant I could get sick right before a virtual class and only have to make it to my computer, then I would return quickly to bed. 

I lived off of anything I could keep down - soup, toast, crackers, pasta and bread. Lots and lots of Sprite, too. Eventually I had to switch to Gatorade just because I was so sick of Sprite. I could hardly keep water down, so all I was drinking was Sprite. 

Besides the sickness, the first trimester was emotional. It was difficult to stay positive and not worry about something going wrong. We had NIPT testing done, so we found out the gender early. Right at 13 weeks, we had planned a gender reveal, but we hadn't seen the baby since 8 weeks (I did get to hear the heartbeat at 10 weeks, but Dan wasn't able to go in with me). A couple days before the gender reveal, we visited a boutique ultrasound location to check on baby. It was so cool to see the baby moving around and growing at that point. It gave us a little comfort moving into the second trimester. 

5 weeks

6 weeks

7 weeks

8 weeks (& a tiny little bump!)

9 weeks

10 weeks

11 weeks