Week 13

Total weight gained: 1 pound

Current craving: Nerds... either regular Nerds or the Nerd jelly beans. Either work wonders! I suppose milk could also go on this list since we go through about 2 gallons a week now.

Aversions: Chili and apparently cleaning. Our house is a wreck!

Latest symptom: Getting up to pee in the middle of the night and a very congested head

Others notes: We haven't seen any ultrasound pictures of Baby Keebs in about 2 weeks now. I'm starting to go through withdraw. And I still have 2 weeks to go! I don't know how women do it when they do have the special privileges our doctor has given us!

We went and celebrated Aunt Dana's 30th birthday this weekend. She and Aunt Erin were very excited to see the beginnings of my "bump." Aunt Meg and Namaw (as Lukey calls Grandma) were also very excited to see that I have succumbed to the comforts of maternity jeans. Thank goodness I have great sisters (thanks Meg and Steph!) who let me borrow theirs so I wouldn't have to buy my own so soon! Maybe next week we'll take our first shopping trip...we'll see.

We love you Baby Keebs! Keep growing healthy and strong!

Look at our Baby's Face!

So as they say, better late than never.

Here is the update of our most recent doctor's appointment, like I promised. Everything is going well and we got to see a lot of pictures of Baby Keebs. Since they are the fun part, I'll skip right to them.We got a really excellent profile shot. The doctor said not too many people get such a clear profile view at 12 weeks, so we're pretty excited. You can see the nose and lips, which both the doctor and nurse said were mine. I think he/she has Kory's nose. Kory thinks he/she has a nose, which made me laugh.


This is Kory's favorite view, other than the profile. He swears this is a picture of his son. I'll let you all make your own decisions. To be official, the doctor has not said what Baby Keebs is yet, but keeps telling us that we haven't seen anything to tell us one way or another.


Here's a traditional ultrasound view of the full body. Keep on growing Baby Keebs!

Baby Keebs is waving to his/her momma and daddy in this shot. See you this summer!

I promise the weekly posts of belly shots and stuff are still coming. I'll try to put the first one up tonight, but definitely before we hit the 14 week mark!

Until then, we love you very very VERY much Baby Keebs! Keep growing strong and healthy so we can meet you this summer!

Officially on a new path...at least for us

It's official. We are in the second trimester!

Each week always seems to take forever while we're in it, but when I look back I see that time really is flying by. Now that we're experiencing the joys of pregnancy that we didn't get to do the first two times, we've decided we're going to use this blog to really track our travels through this journey. Each week you'll get an update on how we're feeling, what I look like, and if we have any doctor's appointments you'll get those updates too.

We started the weekly belly pictures at 10 weeks, but since I haven't posted any yet, I'll share three tonight to get everyone caught up.

10 weeks

11 weeks
12 weeks

So I'm sure you'll notice the belly is starting to expand. I've had to purchase a Bella Band (it's like a tube top, but it goes around your waist to hold your jeans up when you have to leave them unbuttoned...like me!) and use it anytime I wear anything other than sweats.

Kory affectionately calls my expanding belly my little "pooch," but I'm sure he secretly likes it. Or at least he better!

I guess that's all for tonight. Tomorrow I'll start the weekly posts and I'll include the latest pictures of Baby Keebs that we got at our 12-week appointment. We have our first profile shot of our little guy or girl and it's very exciting! I'll post all that fun stuff tomorrow too.

So for now, we love you very much, Baby Keebs, and we can't wait to meet you! We've waited a long time for you and we are enjoying every second of our time with you. Love you!

Our Miracle’s First Pictures

We have officially made it further than we’ve ever made it before! I am a little more than 10 weeks pregnant. The double digit number came up very fast now that I think about it. It seemed to take forever during the weeks because we were nervous and excited and still didn’t really know what to expect. But now that we’re here, it seems like just yesterday I was telling Kory the good news.

This pregnancy has been unlike either of our others. I’ve been nauseas quite a bit, though I haven’t thrown up yet. Still no cravings, other than a strange need for Nerds on a semi-regular basis. For those of you worried about my blood sugar, you can relax. I am able to limit myself…for now.

Our doctor appointments have been the most exciting. We’ve been able to get a picture at all of our appointments and it is absolutely amazing to see how much our son or daughter is growing every 2 weeks! Take a look at what I mean:

6 weeks

8 weeks

10 weeks

We still have our worries, like any expecting parent would, I’m sure, but it is a little reassuring knowing we’ve made it this far. We’re very excited for what the future has in store for us, and we’ll keep sharing our stories as we go.

So keep growing healthy and strong, Baby Keebs, and fight hard to stay here with us. We are so excited to meet you! We love you very, very, VERY much!

They never said we couldn't or that we shouldn't.

They said we probably wouldn't...but WE DID!

That's right, everyone's prayers, well wishes, and positive thoughts have paid off! Baby Keebs is on the way, as many of you have seen on our recent Christmas cards. For those of you who haven't, here you go:
The day before Thanksgiving was when we found out we had a miracle "turkey" on the way. We had been preparing ourselves for another round of in vitro in January or February. I was taking the test just to be sure I wasn't pregnant before we went on a trip. To my surprise, that little line showed up very quickly and with no mistake. But just to be sure we took another one, of course with the same results.

Of course we were worried because we hadn't been planning this, or really even thinking it was a possibility. We decided we'd only tell our parents and my sister until we knew more. Let me tell you, it was a bit difficult disguising my nausea at the Thanksgiving table. Kory thought it was very amusing checking in on how sick I was each day of our trip.

Once we got back from our trip, I went in for blood work which has become pretty routine for our pregnancies. The results, however, were anything but routine. Our first round showed my hCG levels at more than 4300. That's the highest first round numbers we've ever had! Those tests really tell the most information when they are repeated two days later. A rule of thumb is that the number should increase by about 67% every other day. Our second round of bloodwork was 8600...that's better than expected! We were very excited to hear this news, but still didn't want to make any big announcements until we had an ultrasound done to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. We had that ultrasound done Monday. It showed a 6-week fetus in the uterus...exactly what we wanted to see! Now we felt a little more reassured and very excited.

I have definitely experienced more "morning sickness" this time around. I've even hovered over the "porcelain god" a time or two. It makes me smile every time, believe it or not. I prefer my sick days to my feeling good days. I worry less when I feel sick because it's not how I'm used to feeling.

So the next updates will probably be how I'm feeling mostly. We have another ultrasound scheduled for December 22 so I will post some pictures then. Until then, please keep thinking good thoughts.

I believe that God wouldn't send us this miracle just to take it back, but I'll certainly take all the prayers we can get. We are very excited to meet this little one! We love you baby Keebs.

Wow, it's been a while

So to say life got very busy would be an understatement... clearly since I haven't posted anything for more than a month!

It started with my trip to Rhode Island for my work conference. I was busy there covering two jobs, and it seems like I haven't slowed down since. Work is still busy, the house chores keep building up, we've had weekend trips, guests come to visit, and somewhere in there is sleep. Most of these events weren't really blog worthy, which is probably why I haven't posted anything in a while.

We did have some fun this last weekend though. One of Kory's roommates from college came in and we all went to the Jimmy Buffett concert Saturday. It was incredibly hot and crowded. The show was great though and he played for 3 hours!

The only other exciting news that's happened (and it's REALLY EXCITING - I saved the best for last) was the birth of Baby Addison. Congratulations Steph and Jon! She is absolutely amazing and I love the time I get to spend with her and you guys! If you need anything at all, you know where to call. :)

Now it's late and time for bed. I'll try to update sooner next time.

2+2 = 4...or maybe it equals 9

That's no hidden message, just the basic idea of my message today. Numbers don't always have to make sense.

Kory and I met with the doctor last week to go over the reasons for the IVF not working. The first reason was that my ovaries didn't react to the stimulation drugs like he expected them to. It seems mine reacted more like that of a 30-some year old. A lot of my eggs were not mature and couldn't be used. The quality of our embryos was also that of a 30-some year old. So apparently when I say I'm 25 years old, I mean only certain parts of me are 25.

The plan for our next IVF cycle is to greatly increase the dosage of the stimulation drugs. They couldn't do this on the first round because it would have made the risk of Over Hyperstimulation Syndrome too high. Now that we know how my ovaries produce, it will be safer and make more sense to use higher amounts of the drugs. We will also do all fertilization through the process ICSI, which is how our four successful fertlizations were this cycle. We didn't do all of them that way this time because we showed no need for that kind of assistance. Hopefully we'll get a lot more eggs and viable embryos, and who knows, maybe we'll even get to freeze some for the future!

Until then, because it's going to take us several months to come up with enough money for another round, we have to try to live life like normal and hope for a miracle. I'm told they happen more often than you'd think, and I've seen plenty of real-life examples. I just hope one happens to us...and soon!