The First Trimester

The first trimester was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Due to our past troubles we were quite anxious to get this part behind us so we could breathe a little bit easier. Lucky me, the baby made sure I got the full first trimester experience. I actually lost weight due to food aversions (like meat), nauseating smells, tastes, and textures, and an all day morning sickness that didn't let me keep very much down. Even brushing my teeth made me sick! Exhaustion was pretty evident as well. I'm so glad I happened to be on summer break, I don't think I would have been a very happy or energetic teacher through all that. Now that we're at the end of the first trimester, I'm getting a bit more energy, and slightly less sick. Evenings/nights still give me lots of trouble, but I'm so thankful everything is going well with baby!

Mother's Day 5/8/11These are the four embryos that were transferred as part of IVF. The mass of cells you can see inside the larger two are the baby cells, the cells around the outside are placental cells

7 weeks Baby 1We had two embryos that took. This is the first one. It just looks like a big blob at this point, but we could see the heartbeat and baby measures 10mm.

7 Weeks Baby 2
This is the 2nd. It was measuring small (5.4mm) and couldn't detect a heartbeat. As the doctor predicted, this one sadly did not make it. 

11 weeksOur little alien! I was concerned after this sono that our baby would have Jon's large head. Baby was moving around like crazy (1.7 inches, 155 heartbeat).

13 weeks
As always, baby was swingin' around like a monkey, but you could now make out little hands with fingers and feet with toes and see all the facial features

End of 1st Trimester BellyMy belly is still pretty small because it's my first. Goodbye waist, goodbye clothes, goodbye view of my feet!

Our Baby Story

For those that may not be aware...it's been a long road for us to get to this point, and looking back I can't believe it's only been 3 years! After several miscarriages early on, we found out that I have a rare chromosomal abnormality that results in the genetic viability of only a small percentage of my pregnancies, thus the remaining non-viable pregnancies end in miscarriage. Unfortunately, there isn't a fix for genetics. We were referred to a wonderful reproductive endocrinologist who performed my surgery to correct a couple of other issues that were roadblocking our path to parenthood. After a couple of years of trying a variety of medications, injections, and procedures... no luck! We began looking into adoption but opted to try IVF (in vitro fertilization) first. If you're not familiar with this procedure, it's basically where they retrieve eggs from my ovaries, fertilize, then place them back in to attach and grow. Lucky us, it worked and has brought us to this wonderful point in our journey!
Thank you to all our wonderful friends and family who have supported us with all your amazing thoughts and prayers. We are so blessed to have such incredible people in our lives. Keep up the prayers, we have some risk involved in carrying this child to term.

With appreciation and gratitude,
Jon, Teresa, and Baby V