9 weeks

How far along? 9 weeks
Baby's size? green olive
Total weight gain: Starting pregnancy weight: 148.6lbs  Now: 149.0 Up .4lbs
Bellybutton: In
Stretchmarks: I never got rid of the stretch marks from Hailey and Lauren
Maternity Clothes: Nope
Gender: Don't think we'll find out
Movement: None
Sleep: ok, Ive been relaxing and sometimes napping while Lauren has her nap.
Symptoms: Nausea's not too bad. Exhaustion has kicked in, I want to go to bed by 8pm.
Food Aversions:None
Food Cravings: None
Best Moments this week: Finding out there's a heartbeat
What I miss: Nothing, so thankful to be pregnant again
What I am looking forward to: Dating ultrasound Monday.

I found out earlier this week that I have a dating ultrasound set up at the hospital for Monday. I don't care about my due date at this point I just want to know there's still a heartbeat. Otherwise it's been a pretty boring week.

Beating heart

Hopefully this will work ok, I'm writing on the iPad which sometimes gives me trouble.
The appointment went great today. I got there at 3:35 and was sent straight into the room. It was a different doctor so she went over the blood work and said it all looks great and she was happy with the significant rise. Then she got out the ultrasound machine and tried to find the baby. It took a little work but she managed to find it and then showed me on the screen and pointed out the heartbeat. She wasn't very happy with the quality of the image and therefor couldn't get a good measurement so she's sending me for a proper dating ultrasound and I've made an appointment to go back and see them in 4 weeks but she made sure I was being honest about seeing the heartbeat and I said yes, I'd seen enough ultrasounds to know what it looked like. They're going to contact with me with the date and time of the ultrasound but I'm hoping it'll be in about 2 weeks. When she said she was sending me for a proper ultrasound I didn't
ask to come back early as I figured I would be able to know if there's a heartbeat then.

Taking it one day at a time. I'm happy we've made it far enough that there's a heartbeat and hopefully this pregnancy will continue to progress. She gave me the prenatal blood work and discussed if we'd want to do genetic testing. I said I'd talk it over with Dan first but we did with Hailey and did not with Lauren so I had no idea what we'd do. My next appointment will be at 12 weeks and the test can do done up to 13 weeks 6 days. One step at a time for now, lets get past 10 weeks.

Nervous

I haven't gone for my ultrasound yet. Lauren's napping and I have 30 minutes before I have to leave. I can't believe how nervous I am! I just want to cry too since it's been a really emotional day for me. Of course I've been nauseous most of the day which has me wondering if it's a good sign or my body playing a cruel trick on me. I've been feeling down all day and can't stop thinking about the memories of Hailey associated with the clinic. I expect them to be a little behind so although my appointment is at 3:40 I'm thinking it'll be closer to 4:30 before I have it done. I'm going to take a water bottle with me and drink that while I'm waiting. I'll have to do a urine sample as well so hopefully my bladder will still be full from the excess water. Please please please don't let them be too far behind today. The wait is killing me. I've got my cell phone charging (the battery's been dead for nearly a week) and will take my doctor's phone number with me because by the time I get back home her office may be closed and I don't want to stress about having to call first thing Monday morning to try to get an appointment. Fingers crossed I won't need it but I'm just so unsure I want to be prepared. I'm doing my best to stay positive but it's so hard after all we've been through and lets face it we haven't had much happy news at ultrasounds. I'm trying to remind myself how shocked I was there was a heartbeat last time but then I think about how that didn't really matter because the heart stopped afterwards anyway. Better now then having to wait until 13 weeks to find out I guess. Right positive thoughts.......

8 weeks

How far along? 8 weeks
Baby's size? raspberry
Total weight gain: Starting pregnancy weight: 148.6lbs  Now: 148.6
Bellybutton: In
Stretchmarks: I never got rid of the stretch marks from Hailey and Lauren
Maternity Clothes: Nope
Gender: Don't think we'll find out
Movement: None
Sleep: ok, Ive been relaxing and sometimes napping while Lauren has her nap.
Symptoms: Occasional nausea. It's not too bad and seems to come in the afternoon/evening.
Food Aversions:None
Food Cravings: None
Best Moments this week: It's been a pretty boring week 
What I miss: Nothing, so thankful to be pregnant again
What I am looking forward to: Doctor's appointment tomorrow for an ultrasound

Well tomorrow's the moment of truth. We see if the pregnancy has progressed and there's a baby with a heart beating away. Honestly I'm not sure how I feel. Sometimes I'm hopeful yet sometimes I feel like we're going to get bad news, it really depends greatly on my mood. I'm doing my best not to think about it but it's hard. Last week made it pretty obvious to me how sad I'd be if this pregnancy failed as well. I'm scared, not just to lose another baby but to go through another miscarriage. I've contemplated moving my appointment back because I'm not sure I'm ready to hear the news but in the end I need to know. I don't want to go another 2 weeks wondering if the baby stopped growing and my body is fighting what it should do. 

I've already got the plan in my mind of the 2 ways things can go tomorrow afternoon. If there's no heartbeat I'm going to immediately call my doctors office to set up an appointment. The reason for this appointment will be to get the referral to the recurrent pregnancy loss clinic in Vancouver. I want this to start as soon as possible. I haven't spoken to Dan about it but I've pretty much been pregnant or had products of conception since November. I feel like my body needs a break so I'm thinking while we go through the clinic and do the testing we will not try to get pregnant and will use prevention. 2 maybe 3 cycles down the line we will hopefully have some answers as to how to have and keep a successful pregnancy. We still have yet to tell anyone so I do plan on telling my mum tomorrow if there's no heartbeat. I'll need her support while I go through another miscarriage. Hopefully everything will go well and I'll see a baby squirming around with a beating heart. If this is the case I'm going to ask to come back in 2 weeks to make sure everything's still ok. The thought of waiting another month to find out if there's a heartbeat would kill me. If there still is after 10 weeks I'll ask for my doppler back and use it once or twice a week. Hopefully we'll be able to find it easily like we did with Lauren. We'll tell our parents if there's still a heartbeat at 10 weeks. As for the rest of our family and friends, I've no idea when we'll share the news with them. I haven't even thought that far ahead but am in no hurry.

Please keep me in your thoughts tomorrow. I promise to update as soon as I get back from the doctors office but since my appointment isn't until the end of the day, it may be a while. In 25 hours I should know if everything's ok so far.

update after speaking with the doctor about HCG

So I may have gotten a little ahead of myself this afternoon. Before the results appeared I'd decided on my strategy. If the test had doubled I wouldn't call just wait until next Friday for the ultrasound and assume all is well. If they were decreasing I'd call my family doctors office to book an appointment so she could refer me to the recurrent pregnancy loss clinic and if the results were in between I'd call and find out what that means.
Since the results were in between I called and waited for them to call me back. She called around 4:15 and told me they still hadn't gotten the results of the test from today. I told her I saw them and that they'd been online since around 2:30 to which she made a joke about how I knew the results before she did. Anyway she asked what they were and when I told her it was 12 560 she was very happy with them. I asked her if I should be concerned that they didn't double and she said no because after 6000 they no longer double every 48-72 hours. She said what's important is that they're going up and substantially, she'd be concerned if they were only 9000 but she said 12 560 was great and she's confident that the ultrasound didn't go as planned because I was too early especially since I have no bleeding or cramping and the only reason for concern was the ultrasound.

I've decided I'm going to put trust in the doctor's intuition and expect that everything's ok. By no means am I excited or expecting to have another baby in the house in January but I'm not stressing about it. Now I just have to wait another week for the second ultrasound next Friday.

7 weeks

How far along? 7 weeks
Baby's size?blueberry
Total weight gain:Starting pregnancy weight: 148.6lbs  Now: 148.2 (lost .4lbs)
Bellybutton:In
Stretchmarks:I never got rid of the stretch marks from Hailey and Lauren
Maternity Clothes:Nope
Gender:Don't think we'll find out
Movement:None
Sleep: not good, I seem to have very broken sleep and even though I'm exhausted can't seem to fall asleep easy.
Symptoms: Nausea. It seems to have died down a little but it's still there occasionally. Don't think I'll have my wish of trips to the bathroom to vomit :( The bloating has really started, at night I look about 24 weeks pregnant.
Food Aversions:None
Food Cravings: None
Best Moments this week: First doctor's appointment (even though it didn't go exactly as I wished, it's still a milestone)
What I miss:Nothing, so thankful to be pregnant again
What I am looking forward to: Doctor's appointment next friday for another ultrasound to see if there's a baby growing

I'm currently impatiently waiting for my second set of HCG results. I made myself promise to only check every 15 minutes, which means I've currently got 2 minutes to wait. Normally they're up by now so they must be having a busy day. This blood test was an interesting one today. The reason being that I work in a lab where we take the blood to send in and I really don't want any of my co workers to know I'm pregnant. After the doctor's appointment Monday I went to a different lab in my city and chose one person to tell and ask to enter and do the test for me. My boss wanted to talk to me about "cutting" into the cue so I had to explain to her why. She was really sympathetic and told me not to worry about it. I mentioned that I had to do another one for this morning and that I really didn't want anyone to know so my plan was to enter it as my thyroid test (same tube) have the blood taken then erase the entry, re enter as the hcg then relabel the tube. She said this was a big no no and would find out a way around it for me. I kind of started something at my work! The issue for me is I can't go to the hospital to have my blood taken because my sister works in the lab and may see the tube and the test ordered, also it doesn't really work out well for me because I can't see my results online I have to wait for them to be mailed as well as the doctor wanted the test done in the morning so I'd have to take the day off work and go to a hospital in a different city (20 minute drive). The issue really is that my strive on privacy and confidentially yet it seems like I can't have that. I'd have to tell someone I'm pregnant for them to enter and take my blood. Of course they couldn't tell anyone else for risk of being fired but after so many miscarriages I just don't want anyone to know. Up until Monday afternoon the only people who knew were Dan, myself and the followers of this blog. We've yet to tell our parents or a single friend, infact my doctor left a message Tuesday night saying my tsh was normal and since I wasn't on meds I didn't need to go in monthly for the test until I become pregnant then to go in straight away. Ooops, guess I forgot to tell my doctor too (still haven't). My boss was going to be in a meeting so we were trying to find away around it. In the end it went up to the CEO of the company and they decided that I could take my own blood but I was not allowed to enter the requisition or the tests. Since the test results need to be with the doctor this afternoon it needed to go out in our first courier run at 9:30 so we decided that I'd go in early, take my own blood, handwrite my name, etc on the tube and my boss would be in around 8:30 to quickly enter the request then leave for her meeting. This is what we ended up doing. It was a huge pain in the ass for my boss but I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am to her for doing this. It may seem minor that I'd have to tell someone I'm pregnant and in the past I've been very open about our miscarriages and am so glad I have as it's brought many women to me who haven't felt like they could talk to anyone about their fertility struggles. At some point though, I don't want to become someone people pity. If this pregnancy doesn't work out it'll be my 4th miscarriage and my 5th pregnancy loss with who knows how many afterwards. I don't want to be defined by this, yes it's a part of me and I've been very open about it but there comes a time when it just becomes too much. I just don't want to talk about this pregnancy at this point. When/if I'm ready I will, until I want to do this as privately as possible.

I've changed the weeks to 7 weeks as there's absolutely no way based of the ultrasound that I could be turning 8 weeks. Time to check if the results are in yet........ Nope, ugh it's driving me crazy! Currently 1:30, will update then publish this once they're up.

It's not looking good. For them to double they should've been at least 16 000 since it was 8128 Monday night. They're 12 560.  I called the clinic and the receptionist said one of the doctors would call me back.

Doctor's appointment

Well the doctor's appointment didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. She went over all my history and decided to do an ultrasound. She warned me we may not be able to see the baby since I could be anywhere between 6 weeks 2 days and 7 weeks 2 days and they don't see the baby until 7 weeks but they couldn't even find my uterus. I do have a retroverted uterus which is what caused the problem with Lauren's ultrasound at 6 weeks (same thing, no baby and measured over a week behind with a transvaginal ultrasound) so that may be the issue. She even got another doctor to come in and see if they could find it.

My options at this point are to do an HCG today and then again on Thursday morning to make sure they're rising properly or go back for another ultrasound in a week and a half. I asked for both which after all we've been through she said was fine so I went and had my hcg done this afternoon and I'll find out the results tonight before bed. I made the appointment for next friday because that'll be nearly 2 weeks and I should be around 8 weeks if I'm only 6 right now. I can't be much later based on when I got my positive test. I'm doing ok emotionally. I didn't get my hopes up this time, it just sucks and the thought of going through another miscarriage and the physical pain associated isn't very appealing. At least if this fails we'll start the process of testing to find out what's happening to my pregnancies.

Now the other emotional aspect of this appointment today. It was the first time I've stepped foot in that maternity clinic since my 17 week appointment with Hailey. I was fine all day and started getting a little upset on the drive there but reminded myself that my thoughts of how it's going to be is always worse then the actually experience. I was fine in the waiting room, it wasn't until I was brought into the room and waiting for the doctor that it really hit me. The room I was sitting in was the room Dan first saw Hailey on the ultrasound at 8 weeks and the room next to me was the room that I saw Hailey with her hiccups at the 17 week appointment. I managed to calm myself down before the doctor came in but when she opened my chart (and commented on how large it was for 1 pregnancy) I told her it's because it was a complicated one and that the pregnancy in the file wasn't the child we had at home. That's when I started to cry. She was really nice, sweet and understanding which is why I think she's so willing and helpful with what's going on with this pregnancy.

I'll update Thursday afternoon after my second set of HCG's.

6/7 weeks

How far along? 6/7 weeks
Baby's size?sweet pea/blueberry
Total weight gain:Starting pregnancy weight: 148.6lbs  Now: 149.2. Gained .6lbs
Bellybutton:In
Stretchmarks:I never got rid of the stretch marks from Hailey and Lauren
Maternity Clothes:Nope
Gender:Don't think we'll find out
Movement:None
Sleep: not good, I seem to have very broken sleep and even though I'm exhausted can't seem to fall asleep easy.
Symptoms: Nausea. It's been good because it seems to be worse in the afternoon. I only work until 12 and it usually starts around 11:30. The past 2 days I've had moments of thinking I should head to the bathroom but then it passes. Hopefully I'll be throwing up soon (I know, strange to want to vomit!) The bloating has really started too. At night I look about 24 weeks pregnant.
Food Aversions:None
Food Cravings: Water
Best Moments this week: Nothing really. It's been a boring week pregnancy wise.
What I miss:Nothing, so thankful to be pregnant again
What I am looking forward to:Doctors appointment Monday!

5/6 weeks

How far along? 5/6 weeks
Baby's size?Appleseed/sweet pea
Total weight gain:Starting pregnancy weight: 148.6lbs  Now: 148.6lbs
Bellybutton:In
Stretchmarks:I never got rid of the stretch marks from Hailey and Lauren
Maternity Clothes:Nope
Gender:Don't think we'll find out
Movement:None
Sleep: Good
Symptoms:Occasional nausea,extreme tiredness, occasionally cramping but they've gotten better and get them a lot less often now.
Food Aversions:None
Food Cravings: Water
Best Moments this week: Nothing really. It's been a boring week pregnancy wise
What I miss:Nothing, so thankful to be pregnant again
What I am looking forward to:Doctors appointment in a couple weeks.

Nothing's really happened this week. The cramping has pretty much stopped and the nausea has lessened. I'm back to not really feeling pregnant like last time and it's a little worrying. With all my other pregnancies I've always been super hungry which is why I've always gained weight quickly (10 lbs in by 11 weeks last time!) I haven't been hungry at all lately, in fact my appetite is less then before. At this point I'm trying not to stress or think about my symptoms. I've come to except that whatever is going to happen will happen. I'm keeping my hopes low because with all the losses we've had, lets face it the odds are not on my side. Hopefully this will lessen the disappointment if the pregnancy doesn't work out. 10 days until my first doctors appointment. Hopefully they will do an ultrasound and maybe see the baby. I'm not going to be concerned if we don't see anything as it's not a high tech ultrasound and I may be as little as 6 weeks for that appointment.