Shortest post ever. YouTube video update.

Back so soon?...I know. You are probably sick of hearing me talk about myself so much.  I know I am. So lets switch it up.

I finally got off my lazy ass finished the second part of "Our Infertility Journey"...blah blah blah. I know its loaded with cheese but I couldn't leave my YouTube faithfuls hanging on an infertile limb wondering if I ever got knocked up. Besides I first started vlogging before blogging anyways. And I needed to finish a part two for the part one. Plus I need something to show our kids in 14 years when they are crying about not getting a new car for their birthday and saying how much we don't love them. "Here's your new car punk"((shows them their IVF a bills and walks away like a boss)). 

So if you want to endure four minutes of briefly skimming over an IVF cycle making it look like a cake walk you can click the YT button on the right side of my screen at the top or you can just click here. Yes mom...right where it says "here".  

There was only so much I could cram in to the four minutes and a lot of things like saying "OH MY MOTHER TRUCKING GAWD it worked. It actually worked!

Or....the fact that I say things like "don't look back" or "never give up". I'm sure you're thinking its easy for me to say those things seeing that I am pregnant AND with twins now. But believe me. I've always said those things. I gritted my way through annoying baby showers. (Hello never having one of those awful things. You're welcome). I sat bleeding at a funeral losing our baby. I went to many treatments alone because my husband well...was at war. So if anyone has been through it with infertility(raises hand) not to sound like I know everything or is one upping you on the infertile factor scale(who does that) I just don't ever want to come off as "hey you, suck it up you little crybaby" and all pregnant and shit with twins now. That's not what I'm saying at all when I try to be encouraging or sarcastic. Mostly sarcastic. Please pray for my unborn children. 

The past seven years of infertility and what it brought were hard. Not like trying to beat my husband in a game of Madden hard. But fucking hardest thing I've ever went through in my life hard. Even harder to losing a family member or even harder than losing my Max. But we did it. It's over and every day I am so incredibly grateful to get to carry these babies. Where is my damn cookie?

And probably some other things I left out like. How ridiculous it is that some insurances doesn't cover ART.

Ok stop me while I'm not in rantville. Let's just say I left out a lot. Cool. 

Oh and for my grammar police I had a few typos after hours of reading over and over and still I failed.  I need a better program for videos that Rachelify the typos.  However I am uploading the new edited copy now.  I know you creeps won't mind. Sorry I deleted the first. 

So Enjoy! Or don't. I'll jus be over here all "pregnant and shit with twins". (I need help). Good lord. 

K. Bye for now!

One day at a time.

I looked around and only a few people filled the small one room emergency room and there was someone standing behind me waiting to be seen but everyone felt like they were on top of me breathing down my neck waiting for me to say it. To make it real.

As I stood in front of the awkward window with no privacy; glass all the way down to the counter with a small space to slide a card under like a gas station in the city and a stranger on the other side asking for my ID and date of birth.  Everything felt the same.  I had been here before.  I tried to relay the past seven years of infertility and everything I have been through in a few short sentences.  It was more like mumbling tourettes without my usual cursing.

"...12/07/80.....I'm pregnant with twins...and I started bleeding after I got out of the shower...I've been having sharp pain in my right side since yesterday."  My hair still drenched as I tried to speak quietly so everyone in the room didn't focus on the poor girl who was trying to keep from breaking down as my emergency room visit from a year ago that week flashed back in my mind. How could this be happening? We made it so far already...and I just had a normal ultrasound yesterday. This is what I blogged about last week and being terrified of happening.  I finally let my guard down after my ultrasound was again perfect the day before. But at 8pm I slipped back into panic mode and everything felt like it was falling apart around me starting inside my space where there is a bump.

"I....I had an ectopic miscarriage last year....we did IVF.....uhh..umm... I have endometriosis."  I made no sense to even myself at this point.  Why was I telling him this?

"...stop talking, you are such an idiot, I thought to myself."

I just started stumbling over words that might help me get back to a room faster.  I was more important than the guy with the flu or the boot camp student on crutches waiting to be seen.  At least that's what was playing in my head as I sat there waiting to be seen as every second ticked by and it seemed like an eternity.

Fifteen minutes creeped by but it felt like hours..."Thank you Jesus," as she called my name. Sorry Mr. Flu, I probably would have lost it if they would have seen you first. I remember my first flu.

Everything was the same. The smell, the sounds, the routine. Get undressed, give your "story", take some vitals, the Dr. will be with you shortly.  It was like I was falling in the same pit and there wasn't anything I could do. "Remain calm...don't cry...don't do it...think about something happy," I repeated in my head over and over.

Whoever said don't stress because it is worse for your pregnancy must have to be Gandhi in this shitty nightmare situation.  I was doing pretty good holding it together on the outside. I didn't want my husband to worry. Who knew what was going on at this point. It could be nothing I tried to convince myself over and over.

I had some blood drawn and then was wheeled down to have an ultrasound done just like before.   She was clicking away on the keyboard and moving the probe over my abdomen. The waiting in those minutes are endless.  She flipped the screen around and we saw our two little babies moving around like they were in Vegas at a Cirque du Soleil show.  She printed off some ultrasound pictures and let us know that she wasn't a doctor but everything in her eyes looked fine but the Dr. would talk to us more back in the room.

I laid in bed back in my room and started ugly crying for a solid ten minutes.  You know the one.

I had made it this far tonight but everything that happened and the flashbacks from last year consumed every part of me.  There was no thinking of happy thoughts to distract myself. My nurse walked in and tried to reasure me everything was ok.  All I could do was cry.  "Hormones?" she asked, I nodded yes but really it was just so she would stop looking at my dumb bawl baby face.   I was so upset at my body, overwhelmed with fear and overjoyed with some relief that so far everything was "ok."  I was fucking bleeding after everything I have been through thats what I really wanted to say.  Really I was just spotting and had cramping but simply there wasn't a definite explanation.  I was terrified.  My blood work came back normal.  I peed in a cup and that came back fine. Thank god they missed that gonorrhea....wait what?(lord I hope the non followers know I'm kidding).... A cyst perhaps is what they came up with.

I'll take it.  Understatement.  We made it home around 2am and I was ordered to rest and call my OB. So that is where I am at.  The bleeding has stopped. The cramps are minimal. The relief is coming back.

As long as these babies keep growing and they stay put for at least another 5 months that is all I ask. I repeated in my head that I will never do this again. I will never ask for another miracle or to be pregnant again. Just this one time please is it too much to ask. Please God just get us through the next five months.

I have some more testing next week at our hospital and again the following week at another hospital with better equipment and a 4D ultrasound to rule out any abnormalities. I will be 12 weeks on Monday and even though I felt a huge relief earlier this week after my appointment, last night made me take a few Mother may I steps back.  Hopefully after all these upcoming tests are finished I can breathe a little easier and share a little more of these two miracles.  Thank you to everyone for all your comments on my posts. I've been slacking at responding and feel like a turd but I read all of them and the support from women who understand even a smart ass such as myself, that doesn't need coddled or to post on social media that my vagina hurts every five seconds, I appreciate the time you take to follow this beautiful disaster of a blog. I really do. So thanks ladies.

Hopefully next time I won't bore you with my bloody pregnant vagina and will have a better update for you. Much love.

Bye! For now.

Torn

What does it mean to be infertile once you become pregnant? It's not like its a title I want to hold on to.  Tonya Harding is the infertile of fertility while Nancy Kerrigan skates along with ease while snagging an Olympic medal. Please excuse my age for all of you  born after 1986 and have no idea who that is.  

Infertile.  I have been that label for so many years and now that I am knocked up via IVF,  I am at a crossroads as to what will become of this unorganized, hot mess of a blog. But more so how I feel about sharing being pregnant.

I will forever be infertile.

Duh. Points to no tubes in my stomach region.

I am not the "we did IVF and had twins then magically got pregnant years later." That can never happen. But what does it REALLY mean now that I am about to end my first trimester with two tiny precious minions growing inside me.

I couldn't be more grateful that's a given. I am still terrified everyday that the world will tilt on its axis and all hell will break loose starting in my uterus.  The saying elephant on your back really equates to the elephant on Rachel's back. If I wake up not sick or the heart burn goes away for a day I go into panic mode. I know there are women out there that know what I'm saying and get why I feel crazy when all my ultrasounds have been perfect. The ones who don't get my antics and who easily say just relax, have never had some real shit happen in their lives. I'm not talking about breaking a nail on Prom night. Or getting stuck in traffic when you are late for a hair appointment. Or heck even your dog dying. That was a bad year. Lets not talk about it.

I know people mean well, but the "don't stress" "relax" "everything will be fine" advice, I've heard them all.  I haven't "let" it sink in, that this is actually happening because as hard as I damn well try; I am just not there yet.  I have nightmares and flashbacks waking up to a bed full of blood or being wheeled down the hall of the hospital back and forth from ultrasounds to exams the night I started to miscarry.

The biggest dilemma I have along with allowing myself to relax since my Dr. knocked me up and looking like just another dependa robot spitting out kids at the military hospital is the guilt.

Why is there so much guilt surrounding me and this oversized lump on my stomach? I feel like I am stuck in a tug-of-war and one part of me is being pulled to shout to the world how happy I am and the other part of me is being pulled feeling immense guilt for finally actually being pregnant. I don't post pictures of stupid bump updates.( I don't mind them that much but I know how yall infertile girls feel...kind of been there).  I don't have conversations about how tired I am or will I about the burdens and trials of being a mom in comments or posts about how sick I am or how my Crinone progesterone is the devil. I don't think you should feel bad for doing it either after everything you have been through. I'm just stuck in a quicksand of guilt.

My sweet friend posted a quote not long ago which went something like this.

 

We live in a world where everyone is always camera ready to capture and post every detail of their dumb lives. My dog taking a walk. My dog eating lunch. My dog getting a bath. My dog jumping for a treat. My dog took a shit....so on and so on. Hell I used to be guilty of this and now I am bored of it. Actually I like dogs more than people but seeing "Fido" every five minutes of every day is like watching Kim Kardashian get married. Again. Oh and again and probably again for safe measure. The point isn't about your dumb dog. It's people who complain about the stupidest(yep that just happened) shit on social media.  Our society actually lives in a time where we sit down take a picture then post it online complaining about the dumbest shit like they really have a rough life. Its the few friends that I am so blessed to call my framily that have been through what I'm sure felt/feels like hell to them that amaze me. They don't cry online to the world or post pictures of their cancer coming back or the love of their lives leaving this earth before his or her time. Even though I feel like they have every right more so than you getting a flat tire on the highway snapping a picture and needing sympathy from stranger's online.  If you are laughing at your stupid day I'm not talking about. Come on people you know who I'm talking about. You probably just rolled your eyes over their post. 

 

These few amazing people I speak of are stronger than these others will ever know. 

Personally so you don't think I am full of shit and think I know everything about the world, I will share with you this. I laid on my couch recently holding onto and crying with my friend for hours who lost her husband as her sweet baby slept upstairs with my husband as they were visiting that weekend.  The world is cruel and I still have a hard time understanding why such good beautiful people leave us too soon but I have learned from her strength how grateful I am to be where I am even after years of what seems so minimal now compared to the past year for her. Honestly, I really think she isn't human. But I am so lucky human or not human to be in her and her sons life. And the people that post humor and sarcasm when the world is literally spitting in their face. I love you guys too. #samesies

I know I am not making sense seeing that I went from talking about feeling guilty to rambling about talking more about your blessings.  The thing is, I want to talk about my blessings but the guilt I feel for the women still waiting for miracles to happen is holding me back. I don't want anyone to think I am not grateful for being blessed with a successful IVF cycle, with twins, no doubt.  That the 30% chance of both embryos sticking replayed in my head over and over again up until my 6 week ultrasound.  On the other end of things I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  Why is this so hard? Why do I care what anyone thinks? How do I get over this feeling?  This isn't typical of myself.

That's more like it. My idol. Thanks Nene.

Now I feel better. I need to get it together and stop acting like a crazy, emotional, infertile now pregnant person who is trying to walk the Great Wall of China made of egg shells of infertility. Blessings are much better than burdens to speak on. I am not sure where this will go from here. I am not here to rub in the fact that you are still infertile and I will have two babies come July. Maybe I should change my name? "Guilty Infertile" "Sorry I beat the odds" "Tubeless with Twins".....if you have any suggestions please pass them along. And if you are tracking on what I'm saying please let me know I'm not crazy.  In the meantime please think about my beautiful friend(look at that smile...geez she amazes me) and her sweet little boy when needing to take the time to post a picture out of  needing sympathy for your kid not sleeping all week and how hard life is.

Posting pictures of bad pedicures or jacked up haircuts is acceptable as long as you can laugh at yourself. Texting them to me is even better.

Byeeeeee.