Happy Heartbeat

Once again way too long of a break between posts. I am starting to feel like a broken record apologizing for my long blog absences. I am sure you all have been frantically refreshing my page looking for new updates. No? Well, that's ok too.

The past few weeks have been good ones. On December 6, I turned 28. It was a surreal birthday experience. I remembered how difficult and emotional my birthday had felt last year. Birthdays always seem to make us look back at what we wish he had done the previous year and what we hope to do in the new one. For an infertile, birthdays can be especially difficult because each year is a year lost. We know that as we get older the already difficult time we're having creating a family, just gets more difficult. And of course there is always the year you turn the age you always believed you'd be a mother by. That milestone past a few years ago for me, which only made the subsequent childless birthdays that much more emotional. It was bad enough not to be a mom by my "dream age", each birthday I was another year past it!

You may have guessed that, for the past few years my birthday wish has been to get pregnant. Now that I finally am, I was at a bit of a loss as to what to wish for when I blew out the candles this year. It was strange, amazing and wonderful to not know what wish to make this time around. (I finally did figure it out, but I have to keep it to myself or it won't come true!) It was even more wonderful to be celebrating the new life I will be beginning this year- my life as a mom!

More happy things have happened since turning 28. This past Thursday for example was as normal a day as any other until Chad and I were laying in bed. It has become part of his nighttime ritual to rest his hand on my tummy and feel Snow Pea kick. That night, he decided it would be funny to get her to kick him in the head, so he rested his head on my stomach and started talking to get her to move. He got an even bigger surprise though when he realized he could hear her tiny little heart beating through my stomach!. His face was priceless as he realized it and as soon as he told me what he was hearing, I welled up with tears. It was just so amazing! I felt so connected to both Snow Pea and Chad in that moment. Our family felt so real, and I was overwhelmed with love for both of them. I was of course, a teeny bit jealous that I couldn't hear her heartbeat too. I kept telling him how unfair it is that I am so close to her little heart but I can't bend over and hear her. Of course, I have heard her on doppler but it just doesn't seem the same. He tapped the rhythm on my arm for me, as he continued listening until finally we forced ourselves to go to sleep.

Yesterday, I finally got to hear her little heart myself when we went in for a monthly OB appointment. Of course, it was on the doppler so it wasn't nearly as exciting as what Chad got to hear the other night, but it is still the most beautiful sound I have ever heard and I was happy to listen. We met with the partner OB for the first time. Chad refers to her as Dr. Inconsiderate because she accidentally went in to see another patient and after she realized her mistake didn't seem too concerned with having made us wait. I didn't mind too much, but Chad who was on break from a busy day at work was pretty annoyed.

Dr. Inconsiderate was friendly though and said everything was looking perfect with both me and Snow Pea. Her oldest child was born from FET too so it was cool to talk to an OB that really understood everything we had been through to get here. Before the appointment ended she handed me a lab order for the dreaded glucose test and told me I needed to go before my next appointment, which she then informed me would be in 2 weeks! Holy wow! I knew that once you got to your third trimester, appointments were every two weeks, instead of every four, but I can't believe I am about to be at that point!

In case you are wondering, as of today I am 25 weeks 4 days pregnant with about 15 weeks to go! It seems like it is flying by. I guess when compared with how long it took until I had a healthy, viable pregnancy, nine months really isn't a very long time. Although I have heard that time slows down when you get really close to delivery day so we'll see if this warp speed feeling lasts. Maybe it just feels like it is flying by because I am enjoying it so much! Time flies when you are having fun, right? I really am having so much fun watching my body grow with new life and bonding with this little miracle before she is even born. I just can't wait until the day I can hear her sweet heartbeat for myself as she is laying in my arms.