Annnnnnd, we have a gestational sack!

Though I am a mere 5 weeks/2 days along, this morning I found myself at my first ultrasound. My OB prescribed it when she learned I was having pains in my upper left arm. Shoulder pain, it turns out, is a symptom of ectopic pregnancy, and even though it was a long shot, she (and I) wanted to be safe. I've spent the past 5 days getting various tests to check it out.

The Bloodwork: As a precursor to the ultrasound, my OB had me take two blood tests 48 hours apart. She wanted to determine whether my HGC levels were rising at a rate typical of a healthy pregnancy. My levels were at 1600 units on Wednesday and at 4800 by Friday. The Nurse Practitioner(NP) called me on Friday to let me know that was a good sign. That meant I spent the weekend being a little less nervous about today.

The Ultrasound Experience: I was instructed to show up with my bladder full (and was happy they took me on time!). I'd had breast and thyroid ultrasounds before, and the belly one was pretty much like those: warm gel on my skin to help the wand glide as it emitted subtle sound waves I could sense. The technician did the belly one first, but at 5 weeks it was hard to see much with the belly test alone.

...which is how I ended up with a vaginal ultrasound to round out the exam. This one was much different :) But a lot more sensitive and effective in showing the embryo in early pregnancy. So I sucked it up and climbed into the stirrups to see what we could see.

The Good News: We could see the gestational sack--it was black and shaped like a kidney bean and astonishingly clear and discernable in a sea of white. Inside the little bean (taking up ~5% of its mass) clinging to the top left wall was a whitish blur that the technician identified as the yolk sack. That it was visible was a good sign. The technician checked my ovaries and said they looked healthy. since the pregnancy was visible in my uterus, there is no more fear of an ectopic.

The Somewhat Disappointing News: Most women can hear the heartbeat between 5 and 7 weeks. I know I'm only at the beginning of 5 but I had hoped, hoped, hoped, but no dice...yet. The technician wanted me to come back in next week for a follow-up but I'll be doing the family vacation thing on the east coast. Now I need to wait two weeks, 'til Monday the 4th, to do an ultrasound again. By then, we should be able to hear the heartbeat loud and clear!

Confession: It has been nerve-wracking to have to worry about complications so early in the pregnancy. To be honest, I don't know how I'm going to handle the next 8 months of worrying about random aches and pains. On the other hand, this false alarm has afforded me the ability to get a "sneak previw" of my baby! My OB's "pregnancy confirmation" appointment isn't scheduled for another three weeks and i may well have driven myself crazy worrying about aches and pains until then. ::sigh::

Thanks for all the support so far! I appreciate all your comments and well-wishes as you hope, right along with us, for the best!

The Scoop on Dollar Store Pregnancy Tests

My big sister T, keeper of the modern family pregnancy wisdom and mother extraordinaire, wasted no time giving me the skinny on HPTs. After TTC for more than a year before becoming pregnant with my niece, she knew all the tricks of the trade.

"But doesn't it get expensive?" I'd asked her when I first told her that hubs and I were going to try. I'd been late enough times before to know that a box of two tests cost at least $15.

"Yeah," she told me. "But the expensive tests are no more accurate than the cheap ones--you have to go to the dollar store."

I was understandably skeptical. How could First Response and Clear Blue Easy get away with charging more than six times per test for something anyone could get at Dollar Tree? I made every logical argument for why I thought I wouldn't work. But T insisted they'd been accurate every single time, so I did a little experiment, and here are the results!

What the Books Say: "What to Expect When You're Expecting" by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel says the following about the sensitivity of pregnancy tests:

To find out how sensitive your pregnancy test is, check out the packaging. Look for the milli-international units per liter (mIU/L) measurement, which will tell you the sensitivity of the test. The lower the number the better (20 mIU/L will tell you you're pregnant sooner than a test with 50 mIU/L sensitivity. Not surprisingly, the more expensive tests have greater sensitivity.

Yet, I could not find the mIU/L measurement on the leaflets that came with any of the tests I bought.

My Experiment: As soon as I thought I might be pregnant I began testing multiple brands: "Dollar Tree" (dollar store brand), First Response traditional, and Clear Blue Easy digital

• Day 1: Faint line with First Response. Extremely faint line with Dollar Tree test. No digital test taken.
• Day 2: Darker line with First Response. Faint line with Dollar Tree test. "Pregnant" reading on digital test.
• Day 3: Full line with First Response (i.e., same color as test line). Faint line with Dollar Tree test. (No need to take digital test)
• Day 4: No test :)
• Day 5: Darker line with Dollar Tree test.
• Day 6: Full line with Dollar Tree test.

The Verdict: Though the Dollar Tree tests were accurate, they were notably less sensitive (which corroborates what was said in "What to Expect When You're Expecting"). However, they were not six to eight times less sensitive despite being six to eight times cheaper :) That said, my conclusion is that you'll save a lot of money TTC if you surrender to the dollar store brand. Sure, this may make for an extra day or two before you know, but over time it will save you tons of cash.

And, now to you--what have you discovered comparing/contrasting HPTs?

Should I even attempt to conceal early pregnancy from relatives at Christmas? 7 reasons why not...

1. I will get the "are you pregnant?" question just like I do every year, and it will be hard for me to lie.
2. I will have to endure the "you guys really ought to start having kids" lecture just like I do every year, and I will be tempted to spill the beans just so they'll get off my back.
3. I really like drinking and I will be under suspicion for not touching alcohol (I rave about my uncle's Brandy Alexanders all year and I am usually in charge of choosing the wine)
4. In past years, I have joined my MIL in the occasional cigarette and I never mind when she smokes in her house or car--this year I will have to ask her not to
5. I'm extremely tired and lethargic these days, and I can only pass it off as jet lag for so long
6. I am already sensitive to smells, nausea, eating at strange times, and am having other "dead giveaway" pregnancy symptoms
7. If anyone finds my prenatal vitamins (which I was taking anyway ::rolls eyes::), speculation will abound

Can I really get away with keeping this a secret? If so, how? Would love to hear thoughts and advice!

OB visit for H1N1 vaccine turns into ectopic pregnancy check

My first "official" order of business as a pregnant lady came yesterday, when I headed out to see my OB. I'm not scheduled to go in for my "pregnancy confirmation" appointment (yes, that's what they call it and yes, I just rolled my eyes) until Jan. 11, which will find me in my 8th week. Since I will spend ~20 hours in airports or on planes this holiday, I wanted to get vaccinated against H1N1 sooner rather than later, so that's how I ended up at the doctor's early.

While there, I got the vaccine (the assistant didn't realize I was pregnant and almost gave me the nasal spray that contains the live virus instead of the shot that contains the dead virus--glad we caught that one) and asked my doc about some meds I take, two of which are for motion sickness/travel anxiety and one of which is a Salonpas pain patch for some arm pain I'm having.

"Arm pain?" she asks.

And we got into a discussion. Turns out that arm pain is a symptom of ectopic pregnancy, and based on my dates and lack of other symptoms it's a long shot (thank god) but since I'll be traveling for two weeks away from my regular medical care, she offered to check. I accepted. The program? A sonogram next Monday (by then the embryo should be visible in my uterus) and blood tests every two days to monitor whether my HGC level is going up at the right rate.

I'm nervous about the possibility of ectopic pregnancy (but relieved that it seems like a long shot). At the same time, I'm happy to be getting the sonogram early. I want to see my little sesame-seed-sized bean!!

Barely a Mom-to-Be and already trolling for goodies for pee-wee!

I've only been blogging and tweeting in in the TTC world for a month or two now, but I've noticed a pretty clear pattern: the TTC/MTB world seems to be chock-full of awesome giveaways.

Today I came across a blog called Faithfully Frugal and Free. Today is the last day to register for a baby gift basket for your favorite Mom-to-Be!

Check out this blog posting for details and follow directions to enter!

The second test confirmed it. We are pregnant!!

Last month, the first month we went off of birth control, hubs and I joked that it would be crazy if we got pregnant right away. Then we had a false alarm and I started reading up on TTC and realized with discouragement that the road could be very long.

For the past month I have been stressed, wondering whether all my justifications for waiting to try for kids would turn out to be false. What if 31 was too old? What if I would follow my mother's and sister's footsteps and this was just the beginning of years of trouble conceiving? What if there was a problem with hubs' equipment? What if there was a problem with mine? But this morning I took my second pregnancy test in as many days, and for the second time it was positive.

We are feeling happy and blessed and more than a little scared. It was a tender and beautiful moment when I showed the test to hubs, but we have a lot to hope for and much to learn. I am symptom-free so it doesn't feel real yet, in many ways. Though, there is some tangible little piece that does.

Please send us blessings. Please wish us luck. Please embrace us as we embark on this journey. I am happy I have already begun to find a community to share this, one of the most important experiences of my life!

Body, meet pregnancy test. Pregnancy test, meet body. Now, why can't you agree? ::sigh::

So I've been away from the blog for awhile, in no small part from the discouragement of having been sure I was preggo and finding out I wasn't.

The weird thing about last month is that my body went haywire (appetite, emotions, energy level, and my period was late)--so much so that I skipped a trip to Chicago that involved seeing the most adorable niece and nephew in the world because I thought I was either throwing-up pregnant or something was seriously wrong with me. However convinced I was, no pregnancy test would ever confirm it and I eventually got my period.

Fast forward to this month. Honestly, I'm not sure whether I'm late (it's been 28 days since my last period but I just went off of Ortho Tri Cyclen two months ago so my body could be adjusting). In any case, I have been feeling very much like myself (e.g., no symptoms) but I took a pregnancy test yesterday and today, mainly because I want to know whether it's OK to drink since I am taking my sommelier exam next week.

And guess what I got? Faint lines on both days!! The pic you see is of this morning's actual test--the faint line even showed up on film, so I know I'm not crazy!

Now, I don't want to get my hopes up, but I don't think the tests detect the hormone if it's not there. I am thinking maybe I should get a different brand of test just in case this one is defective. But if it's not, does this mean I am really pregnant? My complete lack of symptoms is making it difficult to believe...

Any insight or advice around how to get through the monthly emotional roller coaster is welcome!

My first false alarm + pregnancy books = scare the bejesus out of me

I got my period this morning, proving my "I'm pregnant" hunch false. Am I disappointed? Yes. But this false alarm served a higher purpose: getting me up to speed on tons of things I needed to know.

It all started last week when a set of tangible pregnancy-like symptoms emerged. My period was late, I was tired and nauseous, and none of my regular foods seemed appealing. I had pelvic cramping that didn't feel like cramps, sometimes I felt euphoric, and my emotional state completely changed. Figuring I'd better be safe than sorry, I ran out and bought "What to Expect Before You're Expecting" and "Eating Well When You're Expecting" and dropped everything to get reading.

When I went off of birth control, my plan had been clear: live life like normal and hopefully get pregnant. Our OB/GYN told us to assume we could get pregnant naturally and to try for six months before even considering fertility diagnostics. She put me on prenatal vitamins and made sure my vaccinations were up to date. It never occurred to me that there was more to consider.

For example, I didn't know how important the first 10 weeks are to baby's development. I didn't know that drinking during this time could be damaging. Drawing on common sense, I figured that many women drank before they knew they were pregnant, so I thought this would be fine. And, maybe it is. But the point is, I didn't know this was even a "maybe". Just like I didn't know to avoid green tea, or the importance of being at the right pre-pregnancy weight, and how certain of the fathers' habits (such as marijuana smoking) are related to birth defects...

So, I am disappointed that we're not pregnant. But I'm also relieved. There's a lot more I need to find out. Giving up things as if I were pregnant also gave me an appreciation for what I will miss. This morning I spent a good long time in the jacuzzi and right now I am enjoying a glass of wine. I'll do all this and more until my first day of ovulation. Carpe diem!

And so it begins...

I stopped taking birth control four weeks ago. For months, we disagreed about timing. I'm sure you can imagine what DH and I argued about and who was on what side: I was eager to get started and he wanted to wait.

"I'm not getting any younger!" He heard that a few times. I want to be done with having kids before I'm 35. I turn 31 this year, and we want to have two. Conclusion: now would be the time to get cracking.

"But I'm home from work!" That's argument number two. I got jaded by the corporate world and opted out. For nine months I've been home launching a career as a writer. Nine months I could have been writing and being pregnant.

"We crossed everything off of our B.C. list!" That's our Before Children list, to you. We actually had one, and we did most thinks on it. Finish grad school? Check. Get married? Check. vacation in exotic places? Climb Mount Kilimanjaro? Check and check. We even got a fair bit of spontaneous fun in from time to time. How's that for sowing our oats?

"Honey, we can afford a baby." That's my argument number four. It responds to his one and only argument. He wishes there were more money in the bank. By no means are we poor (this year we took a $25,000 vacation), but I walked away from a six figure salary and he's upset that we don't own a house. We live in one of the most expensive housing markets in the U.S., and lots of folks here don't own a house. I figure if we put the kibosh on $25,000 vacations, we'll be fine :)

So, how did it happen? How did we decide to start trying? Or, rather, how did I get DH to agree? I wish I had something exciting or dramatic to report, but the truth is, we learned a couples' negotiation technique that helped us settle it. My preference before going into the negotiation was to actively try. He wanted to start in no sooner than six months. We walked out of the negotiation somewhere in the middle: we'd let the universe decide.

Letting the universe decide meant going off of birth control. Not trying to conceive, but also not trying not to conceive. So, here we are, four and a half weeks since the first day of my last period. Technically, I'm late :)