I renamed my blog tonight. I thought that Blob Blog was more appropriate (not to mention alliterative), as that is my pet name for the little fetus floating around someplace in the depths of my abdomen. The name is based on our first ultrasound image taken at six weeks. The doctor told us that it little white area in the sea of black was a baby, but to the untrained eye it appears as nothing more than a little shadowy blob.

My Blob. Our baby.

The last time I posted things were still up the air regarding Blob's well-being, but since that post it has been determined that 1) there isn't an ectopic pregnancy and 2) this is definitely (at least as of this moment in time) a healthy, viable pregnancy.

I am now 8.5 weeks pregnant. According to pregnancyguideonline.com the following is occurring:

• Elbows begin to form in the arms and fingers start to develop.
• The leg buds begin to show feet with tiny notches for the toes.
• The face continues to change as the ears, eyes and the tip of the nose appear.
• The intestines start to form in the umbilical cord.
• Teeth develop under the gums.

Exciting stuff!

And this is what that same site has to say about what is happening to me:

• Your uterus is the size of an orange now, and you may find your waistline expanding. If this is your first pregnancy, you're probably not showing. If it's not your first, you may have a "pooch" already. You will tend to show earlier in subsequent pregnancies since your muscles and ligaments aren't so tight.
• You may be feeling like a teenager if you find yourself with pimples and other skin problems. Don't fret ~ pregnancy causes an increase in oil secretions not to mention those rampant hormones! Your break-outs will go away either after the first trimester as your hormones level off or after delivery.

Man, are they right on the money with that! And add to it fatigue, nausea, and extraordinarily tender boobs. Fun, fun, fun.

I have not had any morning sickness, per se. But that merely means that while I have not actually vomited, I feel as though I could pretty much all day long. And already I feel like I've gained about 20 pounds because I eat all day long in a futile attempt to keep the nausea at bay. And since there are some foods that I can't stand to even think about without feeling ill, while there are others that I can't get enough of, I am not limiting my carb intake or otherwise limiting what I "can" and "can't" eat.* I'm going to be a sea cow, I just know it. But there's really nothing to do about it at this point, so I just try not to worry too much about it.

I'm sooooo tired. Unbelievably tired. I usually crash around 9 or 10 every night, which is completely unlike me. Unpregnant I'm quite the night owl. But pregnant me could sleep all night and all day and still be tired. No matter how early I go to sleep, I wake up tired. Exhausted. And I stay that way all day long. I just have no energy to do anything. I have to force myself to do basically anything that isn't sleep related.

I will be glad when this first trimester is over. I recall feeling pretty spunky during the second trimester with both William and Lizzie, so hopefully that's how this one will go, too. The third trimester is just miserable no matter what, there's no getting around it, and it'll be especially so for me since I'll be big and pregnant during the hottest months of the summer. All the more reason to look forward to, and appreciate, the second trimester.

This week, after interviewing a home birth midwife, consulting with a midwife who works under an OB practice in Cary, and touring the birthing center in Chapel Hill, I decided upon a prenatal caregive: the birthing center in Chapel Hill.

It was really a hard decision for me to make. And even though I've already made the appointment at the birthing center, I'm still doing a little internal waffling. I really wanted to try home birth. The whole idea of it really appeals to me: familiar surroundings, low stress, complete comfort. BUT no safety net. Well, other than an ambulance or a car trip to the hospital whereupon a complete stranger would take over my delivery. So I have settled on the birth center because it gives pretty much the best of both worlds. It has all the comforts of home birth (minus being in one's own home, of course) with the added benefit of hospital access, with the midwife in tow, if needed. Plus they do give some pain meds, if it comes to that (and that is, to be completely honest, a fairly big concern of mine since I tend to have enormous children).

I'm still considering finding the one midwife in this area that is certified to perform home births (all of the others are not certified--they're essentially doing it illegally), and who has a physician she works under who would be available in the event of an emergency or if hospital transport became necessary, and setting up a meeting with her. I certainly still have time. I have my prenatal vitamins and I am being seen by Dr. Deigan for ultrasounds and other testing, so I'm fine in that respect.

So maybe I will try to contact this woman and at least talk with her. Can't hurt, I suppose. And I can still keep the appointment in Chapel Hill.

Right now, though, it's nearly 9 p.m. and time to call it an evening.

I go back to Deigan on March 21 for some testing and a level-2 ultrasound. If I don't write before, I'll be sure to write then.

*Both lists change almost daily. Although chips and salsa remain steady as a favorite, and eggs stay at the top of my "oh-my-god-I-think-I'm-going-to-barf"list.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, damn, shit, shit, shit.

Shit!!!!

The !@#$ing ultrasound has managed to only compound, not alleviate, my worries.

Oh, there's a little black blob in my uterus, which initially sounds pretty positive. BUT said little blob didn't have any blood flow (could just be one of those things, the way it's positioned, etc., nothing to worry about, or it could mean that the fetus isn't growing) AND it was elongated instead of round (could just be the way he was pulling on me, the angle he was viewing it, nothing to worry about, or it could mean that the fetus isn't growing).

Fan-damn-tastic.

And because I ovulated three eggs, there is still the possibility that something else is lurking somewhere else, someplace it shouldn't be, in there. It's just too early to be able to tell. But there was some fluid around my left ovary, which could be nothing, could be blood from an ectopic pregnancy. . .

Blah, blah, blah.

Basically I know NOTHING, except that anything is possible, it would seem. Could be viably pregnant; might not be viably pregnant. Could have another tubal pregnancy, on top of whatever is in my uterus; might not have a tubal pregnancy.

And I don't go back until NEXT MONDAY!!

An entire seven days of waiting and worrying.

And I know full well it does me no good to worry, but what the hell else can I do? I can't drink, I can't smoke, and I can't even take my Wellbutrin! I can't think about anything besides this. And whatever is going on inside of me, it's causing my hormones to go crazy and I alternate between feeling overwhelmingly depressed and completely enraged.

I've never had these issues before. I've always just gotten pregnant and had a baby! Simple as that. No problems, no worries.

The hardest part of this is, of course, that I have absolutely no control over the situation at all. There's nothing I can do except sit and wait. And hope. And worry.

Shit!

I do know this: if this doesn't turn out to be a viable pregnancy, I'm not trying again. This is it. No more. I've tried and if I fail, I fail for good. I've got enough going on, I don't need this, I don't want this. Don't get me wrong, I want the baby, if there is a baby, but if there isn't, if it doesn't work out, I'm not going back through all of this again.

Decision made.

Where did I leave off?

Something about the saga continues, I think.

I wasn't going to write anymore until this evening, because today at 4:30 I have an appointment to have an ultrasound to determine whether or not this new pregnancy is a viable one. But I'm so nervous about this afternoon I need to write. Get these jitters out and calm down a little.

Yep, pregnant again! Already. Wasn't even a month after the surgery, which isn't "good" because according to both Bhiwandi and the ultrasound doc I should wait from six weeks to three months before getting pregnant in order to let my innards heal. But you know, Bhiwandi said that she "cleaned out that tube" really well and there was nothing blocking it, nothing out of the ordinary, so based on that I guess I just pooh-poohed the whole notion that there was a valid, scientific reason to hold off. Not that I was trying to get pregnant again so fast, but rather that I wasn't not trying. Obviously I'm an extremely fertile creature.

I found out last. . .Tuesday? night that I was pregnant again. Took two tests, one that night and the other the next a.m. Failed both. (Or did I pass? I guess it all depends upon one's perspective.) I immediately went to see Dr. Deigan, the ultrasound specialist. He scanned me, but it was too early to see anything that day. Well, anything that would indicate where a fetus might be hanging out, that is. What he could see, though, was that I'd ovulated, from the side that was not operated on (a good thing), and that I had ovulated not just one egg but THREE!

Now this does not mean that I'm going to have triplets, necessarily (and hopefully), only that there is a chance that I could be pregnant with more than one fetus. Which is the second purpose of the scan this afternoon. (First purpose being to find out whether this is a "good" pregnancy, or if I'm going to have to go back through the hell I went through in December.)

I'm so nervous and anxious. I'm fearful that it will be another ectopic pregnancy, and I'm not sure that I could stand that again. I'd have to, I know, but I am hoping, hoping, hoping that's not the case.

C'mon 4:30. . .

So last month I found out I was pregnant. I wasn't trying to get pregnant. On the contrary, I had an IUD that had been working just fine since it was installed over two years ago. In fact, it was the IUD that I initially blamed for the missed period, since in the past I'd often either bled like a stuck pig or barely experienced anything at all during "that time," completely missing a period wasn't outside of the realm of IUD side effects. But when two weeks came and went and still nothing had happened, yet I had all the classic symptoms indicating that something should have been happening, I began to get suspicious. And worried.

One evening I just couldn't handle it anymore and I sent Donald to the store to get a pregnancy test. Naturally he got the least expensive one they had (not that they had much to choose from at Lowes Food, which is definitely NOT the place to go for such things). So when the little indicator window flashed the telltale '+' sign, I immediately blamed it on poor test quality and promptly sent him out for a "better" (i.e. one that would not result in a '+') brand. This time he came back with one of those fancy EPT tests that either say 'pregnant' or 'not pregnant' so that you don't have to get all bent out of shape wondering if the '+' is really a '+' and not just a '-' inside a poorly manufactured testing stick.

Of course, the EPT said, with no hesitation, 'pregnant.'

I spent that evening in tears. Panicking.

What would I do? My life as I knew it was going to end! My career was over! My children would hate me! And of course, the ultimate of horrors, I was going to get FAT(ter)!!

Fortunately things looked not so bleak the next morning when I rushed out the doctor's to confirm the findings. By that point, I was had almost reconciled myself to the idea. I was almost, sort of, kinda happy.

But my happiness was not long lasting.

The pregnancy was ectopic.

Another common "side effect" of having an IUD.

To make a long story somewhat short, I was ultrasounded (to create a verb) twice, given a shot of a chemotherapy drug, and instructed to give blood once every few days to ensure that my hCG levels were going down. But my hCG levels didn't go down, they went up, and on the day I was supposed to go to the doc's for another shot I experienced excruciating (or ecruciating, as mGma would say) pain accompanied by bleeding. Not good. Instead of having a second shot I ended up in the ER at Rex, where I was later admitted and prepped for surgery.

I was only there two days, but it seems like so much longer thinking back on it. Surgery, no matter what kind, is no fun. I always, without fail, get sick from the anethesia. And did I mention this all happened on December 21st? Yep, four days before Christmas. Not that there's ever a "good" time to have surgery, but the week before Christmas is a really, really bad time.

So. . .

No more pregnancy.

At least not then.

But the saga continues. . .