Yes, my beautiful bundle of joy has arrived. Packaged in a 7 pounds, 8 ounce, package. I’m too tired from every two hour feedings to process that I am now a parent again! No time to think, only time to do!!

My little bundle is taking a nap and I’m going to test the bounds of how fast I can type, in order to fill in the gaps of the past 9 weeks:

After hearing the statistics regarding “maternal advanced aged” placenta’s falling short on the job past the 40 week mark, I was going to take no chances and agreed to the advantages of being induced at 39 weeks. I set the date for October 28th, because it was a Friday and would be convenient for grand parents to visit. Though, I truly believed he’d show up before the scheduled date. He didn’t, I was induced.

October 27th I went to work, as usual, came home… and packed for the hospital. I went to bed early, but sleep eluded me. I couldn’t believe my journey was finally coming to the finale, that the finish line had arrived.

To recap the crazy journey that lead up to this date: I’m a sorta cougar. I met and fell in love with a man who is a decade younger than I. On our first date we discussed the fact that he wanted kids in his future and I had my tubes tied. After celebrating a year together, we decided to pursue starting a family together. We met with a doctor to discuss our options… IVF was touted as the best option, but a tubal reversal was also brought up. Tubal reversal was the cheapest option (though, by no means cheap!!) and though the statistics said that having a tubal at my age didn’t put the cards in our favor, we decided to roll the dice and go for it. I had the surgery and month after month we tested negative for a pregnancy. We heard about a study that offered “free” IVF (though it really was to cost around $4000, which compared to the normal $20,000 of IVF makes it feel sorta free) and decided to try for it. After having to go through several testing procedures, we were accepted into the program. I made arrangements with my work to take off the necessary time off and we were at the start line, just waiting for my cycle to start, when I ended up with a positive pregnancy test.

Every bit of the 9 months I was pregnant I didn’t take for granted the fragility of it all. Every day I worried that we wouldn’t make it to the finish line. And even once that wonderful day arrived, I was still nervous and feeling anxious.

It had been 19 years since the last time I was in the maternity ward. The last visit, I woke up in labor, my water broke at home and once I arrived at the hospital it was only about 3 hour before my daughter arrived. This go around I knew it wouldn’t be so fast. I arrived on schedule at 8 a.m. By 9:30 they gave me the little pill that was supposed to get things started. My doctor arrived at some point in the morning to let me know what to expect for the day. I was told that I was probably going to start feeling things in a few hours and could hopefully expect the arrival of my son sometime that night.

My daughter, Scott, his mom and his dad were my visitors for the day. I forbid food to be eaten in the room, because I wasn’t allowed to eat any solids (in case of C-secion). I spent my time walking in circles around the halls of the maternity ward and peeing (he was resting on my bladder until the very end).

Sometime around 6pm-ish my doctor walks into my room and after I smiled and said, “Hi”, he replied, “Tis isn’t what I wanted to see… “

I guess I didn’t seem like I was in pain. But I was, I just hide it well. In fact, the nurses didn’t believe that I was really in pain either. They said that even though my external monitors showed my levels being really high, the contractions were probably measuring less severe. They said they’d put an internal monitor to more accurately monitor my contraction levels. Once the internal monitor was put into place, they found that my contraction levels were actually measuring more intense than the external.

Ha-ha! Boo-YA!

After that… all hell broke loose! My contractions intensified and next thing I knew, they were scrambling saying that they didn’t know if the doctor would make it on time. He did. Though, in all the excitement, the room hadn’t been prepared.

All the while, I am busying myself with pushing. Pushing. Pushing.

While pushing. Pushing. Pushing. I felt EVERYTHING. The song “Ring of Fire” (Jonny Cash) played in my brain. And the thought “I’m NEVER doing this AGAIN” occurred to me more than once.

I pushed and pushed and pushed. Believing the doctor when he said, “you’re almost there… “ And he wasn’t lying, because I was almost there.

At 7:25p, on October 28th…. our son, Dublin, arrived. He weighed in at 7 lbs, 8oz, and was 20 inches long.

He’s wonderful and beautiful… and healthy. I feel like I have won the lottery. I’ve never been so tired in my entire life… but I’m also over the moon in love with him.

Life is a crazy journey. Who woulda thought I would try to have a baby at 40. Who woulda thought I would succeed!! YAY ME!

Every time I have a Braxton hick, that has even the tiniest bit of pain associated with it, I’m giddy with excitement and anticipation. It doesn’t even feel like I’m starting a new chapter in life… it feels more like I’m starting a new book; a sequel. Fortunately for me, I am a book lover…

I feel like I’m in a state of limbo. I feel that I’ve read myself out. I can no longer read ahead in the “What to Expect While You’re Expecting” book, because I’m near the end stretch. I HAVE read it all, so much so that I can practically recite what I should be feeling during this week, as well as the next 5 weeks, or tell you that, “YES, peeing every 10 minutes is normal behavior at this stage of the game.” So instead of reading, now I just mainly stare at a calendar. I’m so ready to get to the finish line and exhale. …

I never worried while pregnant with Sonora. Probably it was because I was 21 and had that feeling of invincibility, not so in touch with the fragility of life. It never even occurred to me that I had anything to worry about. This time around …. GAH! I’ve been holding my breath the whole time. I would get to some milestone, like 12 weeks, only to hear of someone else sadly having a miscarriage. Then I would get to 20 weeks and again, hear of another of tragic loss. I would go online and read statistics of survival rates of micro-preemies, just to give myself some sort of comfort that my baby WAS viable if the worst case scenario would have happened. Someone should have seriously taken my internet access away!! I have been pretty masochistic in my surfing behavior.

Epiphany! The internet hadn’t been a household item when I was pregnant with Sonora, otherwise… I probably would have been holding my breath back then too!!



While the internet has been feeding into my worry-wart-ways, it has also been a blessing. Back when I was pregnant with Sonora, if I wanted to shop for baby items, I had to *gasp* go to the store! The only super highway I was traveling on, was the one leading south to a bigger city. And that highway was anything but super, seeing how it only had two lanes…



Yup, things have changed a lot in the past 19 years. When I gave my daughter her first bath, I pulled out the “What to Expect the First Year” book and propped it open by the sink. This go around, it will be my laptop with a Youtube video sitting just out of splashing distance from the sink.

I’m now 34 weeks and the big day is racing towards me. I’m both excited and terrified, a mix of :“I can’t believe we did it!!” with the terrified part of me asking, “what have we done?!?!?” Meanwhile, in the last month we’ve completed a birthing class, had a wonderful baby shower and have started trying to figure out where all the baby stuff is going to go in our very tiny house.

It all still seems so surreal. I can’t believe the tubal reversal worked. Even with my little guy squirming about like he’s religiously practicing Taekwondo, I am still in shock that I’m actually pregnant. And even more shocked that we’re approaching the finish line of the pregnancy.

I’m still stuck in this “I’ve been struck dumb and speechless” mode, thus the lack of blog entries. I don’t know if it’s still that feeling of “don’t move and scare it all away” that’s going on with me, or I’m just scared. Either way, the words are like pulling teeth.

So it’s with a stunted peck-peck-peck at the keyboard that I am attempting to write and it’s just not working. So I will just conclude with this thought that keeps circling round and round in my brain:

Things are about to change in my life and the next 18+ years will never be the same….

I have 11 or 12 more weeks left, depending on who you believe. My level-2 ultrasound dated the pregnancy as being a week farther along, but my doctor’s sticking with his original due date and is convinced that I “just have big babies”. That’s not something a pregnant woman wants to hear… that I’m destined to have a big baby! AWK! I want to have a nice 8 pound baby boy… and a FAST delivery! Oh, and as long as I’m putting in an order, it’d be nice to walk out of the hospital in pre-pregnancy sized jeans! Hahahah….

Did I mention I’m having a boy?? Yup, it’s a boy!!


To be continued (I promise)…..

Meanwhile, my energy returned somewhere near the end of week 8. I had a very brief period where I flirted with nausea, but it really never turned into anything. At this 10 week mark, the most obvious “symptom” I have is extreme mood swings. Everything irritates me or makes me want to cry. For example:

HIM: Are you irritable today?

ME: Are you going to ask me that every day?!?

HIM: Well….are… you…??

ME: WELL, I am now!!

My clothes are beginning to scream at me. From an expanding bosom, to a waist that is pushing the limits of my jeans…. I am seeing CHANGES. My closet is now full of clothes that no longer look appropriate on me, unless I’m trying to pull off the stripper-tight look. I have dabbled in maternity clothes shopping, but I’m still too scared to commit. What if this pregnancy doesn’t take?? I can’t stand the thought of being stuck with a bunch of maternity clothes. So instead of full out shopping, I have bought a few items on the cheap off the internet, at a consignment shop and from ROSS.

Physically I feel great at the moment, which is really freaking me out…. which doesn’t help my irritability! I am counting down the minutes until next Thursday and hoping hoping HOPING that we hear a thump-thump-thump-thump thump. Until then, WATCH OUT…. don’t look at me wrong…. because I’m in a mood.

So here I am 8 weeks, 5 days, pregnant. I am still living in disbelief and a bit of terror. One of my first thoughts was, “What. Have. I. Done.” It’s almost like I got so transfixed with the trying aspect of getting pregnant, that I really didn’t see beyond that. I mean I DID… but I didn’t. It was the dream that seemed a bit unattainable. Seriously think about it, I can’t even mend a garden hose and yet a doctor was able to sew up my fallopian tubes, after having had them lie around twiddling their thumbs for over 10 years, and on top of that, to have them…. WORK!?!?! And at my age. With my numbers. Disbelief.
Soooo…. Here I am, pregnant. Wow.

I didn’t NOT write about being pregnant because I was trying to follow some first trimester announcement protocol, no… it is simply because I’ve still not exhaled. I’m still holding my breath, though with this blog I hope to exhale a little bit.

We were literally waiting to start the IVF cycle when I found out I was pregnant. I don’t even know what possessed me to take a pregnancy test, perhaps it has just become such a habit and it built itself into my cycle routine. Whatever the reason, there I was taking a pregnancy test in the middle of the afternoon. I was ready to toss it with disgust at another single line staring back at me, when I realized that I was being greeted by two lines. TWO LINES!!??!! I was shocked. Sonora, who was heading out that weekend for Florida, had JUST said to me, “I bet you end up pregnant and don’t need IVF…” That girl was eerily correct!! That night Scott, Sonora and I go out for a “goodbye” dinner for Sonora and afterwards stop and buy another pregnancy test, this time a digital one. I say that I’m going to take it in the morning, but of course I don’t wait and take it immediately when we get home. The next day there are four tests all lined up in a row…. All saying the same thing: Pregnant.

3.5 weeks and Scott and I are at the doctor’s office. The doctor is shocked that I even took a test. He even asked me why I took a test so soon and I just sort of shrugged and laughed, which was much better than having to admit that I buy them in bulk and take them like they had become my new hobby.

Since 3.5 weeks was too soon to see anything on an ultrasound, the doctor sent me for blood work. My HCG levels came back and yup… pregnant! Feb 22nd they were 323 and on the 25th they jumped to 1453! (They’re supposed to double every couple of days.)

5 weeks in I developed a HUGE cold. Obviously I didn’t take anything for it, just spent the weekend in bed blowing my nose and feeling miserable. 5 and a half weeks in I am feeling better, but decided to stay home from work and get a little bit more rest. I was walking to the kitchen when I realize that something wasn’t right. I was bleeding. I called my doctors office and they told me they could get me in later that afternoon. I just knew that I’d lost the baby. I sat down on my sofa and cried….

Later that day in my doctor’s office, the doctor dimmed the lights and performed an ultrasound. And we got to see that the baby was located in the right spot and after magnifying the image, the doctor said that he could see what looked like heart activity. He said this made him “Cautiously optimistic” and things were probably fine and the baby was ok.

I spotted for a week and a half. Each day that I spotted I was miserable. Scott was patient with me as I had several emotional ups and downs. We didn’t want to lose the baby… though I knew that if we did, it was probably some genetic issue and it “would be for the best.”

7.5 weeks in and we have another doctor’s appointment. This time there is no doubt about seeing a heart beat! The baby is the appropriate size and has a heartbeat. The doctor tells us that after seeing a heartbeat, the risk of miscarriage goes down…. However, because of my age- there is still a higher risk for me. But, again, he’s optimistic.

Today I’m 8 weeks and 5 days. I’m still scared, daily. We’ve already announced it to friends and family, already posted a picture of the ultrasound on Facebook…. And have already received the cautionary warnings that we’re announcing it too soon. But here’s the deal: We’re celebrating the life that is inside me RIGHT NOW. Because as of the last doctors visit, this baby was alive. What if things don’t work out?? Well, then they don’t work out. But we’ll know that we did get to enjoy the little time I had being pregnant with this baby. Not for everybody, but this is how we roll. And that makes me happy. Because it’s too easy to rest in that familiar space of fear, at least for me.

I know my risk for miscarriage is higher than the average under 35 year old. And I don’t think I’m above complications. But when do you say when?? I can list off several examples of women who have sadly experienced miscarriages from 5 week to 8 months. And I find it easy to dwell on these, with pure terror… but, at some point I need to give my neurotic self a break and say, “whatever will be will be…. “ And instead of being on some morbid death watch…. I’m going to try and be optimistic that it IS going to work out. And instead I want to focus my terror on things to come, like childbirth (OUCH!) and terrible two’s (AWK!) and having a teen in my 50’s (AHHHHHHH!!!!).

7.5 Weeks

This has left me feeling anxious, crabby and impatient. I’m like the old Mervyns commercial, where the woman is standing outside the door chanting, “Open. Open. Open…”

Since I refuse to think about things like the statistical averages of IVF at my age actually succeeding… I think about other things, like: if the only one who can access my test results is the fertility clinic research coordinator, who happens to be out of town at the moment, then the Estridiol test results I saw last week can’t be my most recent…. Which means that the number I saw must be a typo from a previous test…. Which means that I worried over nothing. Maybe. I hope.

Curious and curiouser.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting. Hoping. Waiting….

To be continued….

Everything is moving forward as if we’re in the program. Since mother nature stops for no one, we need to get through all the protocol so we’re ready to go if we’re accepted. That meant my having a phone consultation educating me about the IVF experience and what I can expect if I am to soon become quite closely acquainted with a needle that likes tummy fat. I also had another phone consultation informing me of more blood tests that are required to be completed and in their office no later than two weeks before my Aunt Flows arrival, as well as one blood test and a visit to a porn-o-matic for HIM. He gets off so easily in all this testing stuff!! (pun not intended… ok, fine. Pun intended.)

During both phone consults I asked about my recent blood test results and if they had come in yet and if I’d be able to view them online (at the patient portal the fertility clinic has set up). She said that I would hear from them before they ever made it to the online portal. I asked her if that meant that I could stop compulsively checking my portal every few minutes, she laughed and said I could stop checking, I’d hear from them first. I didn’t stop checking, because I’m neurotic like that. Interestingly enough, lab results ended up being posted, despite my ever hearing from the clinic. Unfortunately, they were incomplete and didn’t have all the results, only some I didn’t understand and my Estradiol levels. And the Estradiol levels were what had me concerned the last go around…. and even more unfortunate: they had gone up some more! Now I’m sitting here biting my nails wondering what this means to my FSH levels…. because if the FSH levels come back too high, we will be declined from the program.

Yes, yes… gibberish gibberish gibberish. So, translation: high levels are bad, low levels are good….. and I’m higher than Charlie Sheen on an average Friday night.

I feel like this fertility time bomb that might just blow at any moment. So I hold my breath and tip toe around, willing my levels to remain steady….. “Steady girls, steady… almost there, alllll mossssst THERE!”

Though, the truth is, at any moment during the IVF treatment we could get kicked out. There are so many check points that we have to pass, and it won’t be until that final needle hits my belly that I can fully exhale. It’s very intense, like a several month long thriller movie.

Meanwhile, my mood is great and I’m optimistic. I find myself perusing the twin strollers on Amazon and maternity clothes.