Week 7: Morning Sickness, Mother Nature's Hazing Ritual

Hey team.  We are at the 7 week mark and our little nugget is the size of a blueberry.  It is producing brain cells at 100 cells a minute and developing arms, legs, and the mouth!




I'm still exhausted at all times of the day and have now successfully slept on all modes of transportation, in two time zones and through half of a conference call.



I'm also starting to feel things expanding and stretching.  It's like your uterus is tired of living in a studio and it has decided to flip this house into a duplex.  I struggle with the internal desire to start showing and I can't stop thinking about what I will look like.  For right now I'm just gonna say I'm carrying it in my ass.




The "crazies" are starting to surface a little more each day.  It feels like forever until you have your first ultrasound so there's nothing but blood work to calm the psycho within and remind me that yes, I'm still pregnant.  So I maaaaay have taken a couple more pregnancy tests through the past couple weeks. ( I know, I know).


I've been experiencing some food aversions this week and, sadly, nausea.  It's a weird thing to feel as I had gastric bypass when I was 18 and I think I've only gotten sick once since (tequila is a beast from hell).  So my body basically fights the urge to get sick- it's a vicious cycle.  The first real bout of "morning" sickness hit on my plane trip back from Virginia.  You don't know fear until you feel morning sickness at 33,000 feet.

Monday we went in for our first ultrasound at 7 weeks + 2 days.  It was both awkward and amazing at the same time.  The ultrasound tech located the baby quickly and, in all honesty, it looks like someone sneezed on the screen.  It's a little blip, but it's our little blip.  We were able to see the heartbeat and I really can't describe what that's like.  Imagine meeting Barbra Streisand, Idina Menzel and Bette Midler at a Nutella bar.  Then imagine your future child's beating heart.  That's all I got.  All things looked good- heart rate at 137bpm and is measuring out for its due date of November 15th.

Meg and I agreed not to buy any baby things until we're at least 3 months along, but man is it hard to resist! Since we graduated from the reproductive clinic (yay!), the next step is to see the OB next Monday. Stay tuned!

Weight & Pregnancy, or The Curse of the Junk In the Trunk

So as we have discussed before weight is a factor in a successful pregnancy (duh).  So with me "passing inspection" this is the last hurdle.  Fertility clinics have strict rules about BMI (this was one of the 'rules' clinics have accepting you as a patient) and, despite the fact you can be in pretty great health- weight withstanding, they can decline to inseminate you if you are not at or under the BMI cap.  I have been a "big kid" as a child, a "fat girl" as a teen and "heavy woman" as an adult.  Losing weight hasn't been easy for me and, granted, until I was 20-ish I thought potatoes were considered a vegetable... ...

I have, approx, 40 days to lose 6 pounds to get to the weight my fertility doc said I  would need to be to be approved to do insemination according to the clinic rules.  And it's not just about weight loss.  I also need to maintain my vitamin levels (I've been dissing Vitamin D), keep an eye my thyroid, balance new natural vitamins to help with LH (I read an article that says a natural way of helping increase progesterone/Lutenizing Hormones/lengthening your Luteal Stage (the part where your woman parts prepare for the baby bean drops itself like it's hot).  I'm on a cocktail of vitamins and will start taking Clomid soon.  Sorry everyone for the things I do and say- it is not me speaking, it's a concoction of random chemically induced personalities from a range of Tammy Faye Baker to Chris Brown.

But I've also started working out more.  And by more I mean at all.
I've been doing 45+ minutes a day of cardio for 6 days a week.  I also restricted my diet to no gluten,

no unnatural sugars, no sweets, limited cheese, reduced carbs, and maybe 1 drink a week (if I do it's 1 gin and diet tonic).  Now I know what you're thinking and I already left a message for the good folks at Franzia  so it doesn't throw off their inventory.  Most of the time I feel ok, but I don't look forward to eating.  I see my 134,985th day of salads in a row and there's only so much you can do to make a salad appetizing before it crosses the line into taco salad (just because it has lettuce doesn't make it a salad).  Meg and I were on a walk last night and I legit spent a quarter of a mile talking about fried mozzarella sticks and loaded potato skins like I was performing a live reading of "50 Shades of Gray".

Me Trying to Learn ANY Choreography.

 People at work have been telling me to change things up and join a gym with classes.  Then you can transition into pregnancy workout classes then post-pregnancy workout classes.  I am not good at attending classes.  Group workouts stress me out and I am part of the rhythm-less nation and I inevitably will harm myself/classmate/aerobic equipment with what should have been a Burpee and ended up being a Fartee or a downward facing dog that spirals into sideways falling Kate.  Then there are the people telling me to do Zumba.... have you seen me dance at a wedding?  I come prepared with "I'm sorry I kicked you in the face.  I blame Wine and Cher."

How I Feel When I Leave the Gym.

So, I've got 6 pounds to get to the weight my doctor wants me to be at so the clinic will allow the insemination.  Of course I want to lose more, but eye on the prize kids.

The below has nothing to do with this post, other than further proof I was a butterball of a kid, but I found it while looking at childhood photos.

Foreshadowing?

Square Peg, Round Hole

About 9 months ago we began Operation: Baby Makin' (hereto shall be referred to as OBM) with a fertility center recommended by a colleague. Granted she is straight, but I decided what the hell it's Harvard and called to make an initial appointment.  I asked if the institution has a history of working with same-sex couples.  I was told yes.  I was then asked how long I had been attempting intercourse to get pregnant.  I paused... hoping there would be a guffaw and we'd move on.  Nothing.  I responded, "Ummmm, never?".  Let's just say the conversation went downhill from there and I declined to set up an appointment.  I then started researching alternative insemination clinics that knew that "gay" did not just mean happy.  I found one nearby in Arlington that seemed to be primarily for same sex couples.  I made the appointment and went in. Unfortunately, they weren't friendly (their nurse gave me the same

look I give a heavy woman wearing white 'skinny' jeans- and I can say that because they are my people), compassionate or very informative (handing over a thick folder of pamphlets does not a consultation make).  It was the consultation equivalent of a "Wam, Bam, Thank you Ma'am".  And the award for making artificial insemination more awkward goes to...

Major Buzz-kill <salute>
After striking out twice, we took a break for a bit.  We had both just started new jobs, we had to buy a second car (ugh) and I was traveling a lot for work so it got backburner-ed.  We then started to see our friends begin their family-making journeys- through fostering or the AI route.  We had a good apartment, stable jobs with decent salaries, Batman's teeth seemed to be ok (you don't know financial debt until you have to have a cat's tooth pulled) and I wasn't getting any younger.  Side note: I had wanted to carry for a while and Meg breaks out in hives at the sight of an abnormal bug bite so growing a human inside her may push her off the Ativan charts. More on that another day.  I did further research into fertility clinics for same sex couples near Boston and came up with some options.  We, along with another same sex couple we're friends with, attended an orientation at the very gay-centric AI clinic in Boston, Fenway Health.  This was an amazing experience- to walk into a room full of lesbian couples/families and be able to speak freely.  It was there that we were informed that there was a restriction this individual place had that stopped our process.  BMI.  I'm not going into great detail about this here, as this blog is about our journey to becoming a family, but I want to touch on this for any women who are overweight and want to have a child who may stumble upon this blog.  BMI is a major factor in certain clinics allowing you to use their services.  BMI is calculated through height and weight.  Fenway Health requires you to have a BMI of 40 or less.  I have struggled with being overweight since I was 5.  It was never at the fault of my parents or for lack of trying to lose. By the time I was 18 I had reached a weight that was almost immobilizing.  After a long battle with insurance I was granted Gastric Bypass.  Over time I lost a little under 200lbs.  What I didn't know was that my body would plateau and adjust to the change thus causing me to gain back a significant amount of weight.  I've battled this daily.  My diet is restricted and my health, other than the # of lbs on my body, is phenomenal.  My weight had caused me to miss out on so much in life and this number was about to rule out our chance at a family.  I had been working with a weight management facility and I continue to, but I needed a place that would work with me and not just turn me down because there was a chance that I would sway their success rate.  Fenway Health is simply a gay friendly facility that offers insemination.  It does not cover midwifery, gyno or delivery.  Nor does it offer any preliminary services to "test the pipes".  Furthermore, it doesn't have assistance if simple AI doesn't work to get pregnant.  It is an amazing organization for our community and offers lots of guidance and support, but we needed a little more. This takes us to about a month ago.

Gold Star for Realistically Laughing at My Jokes
In my search I came across a fertility clinic close to where Meg and I both work- which is important since it would not be unusual to stop in twice a month once the process is underway. RSC - New England has a cheesy looking pride flag on their website- I excused the cheese and gave them points for the effort.  I sent them a message for more info and the response was beyond my expectation.  They were warm, open and (bonus points) funny.  The nurse even laughed at the terribly awkward jokes I make when I'm uncomfortable.  She broke down every step of the beginning process in granular detail which is fantastic when you will most likely not know what to expect.  They mailed me more paperwork than it would take to buy a house, but this started to make it feel real.  Baby steps. <see what I did there?