the drama

I was so excited to share all of my good news that I forgot to include the drama!

With doing IVF I have a gagillion things I have to remember... mainly drugs.  I have to take each drug for a certain amount of time.  Follistim, Menopur, Estrogen shots, then patches and pills, doxycycline, methylprednisolone, endometrin, progesterone lozenges... you get the point.

After the transfer I only have to worry about taking a few of those.  The progesterone lozenges are the worst.  They're these grape flavored squares that have to be placed under the tongue to dissolve.  Yucky tasting and uncomfortable.  So I finished the whole bottle of like 50 of these things on a Monday and for some reason thought I was done taking them.  A few days later {Thursday} I started spotting brown and pink and started cramping.  Yikes.  Jared and I decided I should probably take it easy, so I laid down on the couch pretty much all morning while Wyatt played around me in the living room

Several hours later I jumped up to help him with something and I immediately felt weak, nauseous, dizzy, had intense hot flashes to where I pretty much stripped off all of my clothing, it sounded like the ocean was in my ears and I felt like I might faint at any minute. 

My first thought was, oh my gosh, is this was morning sickness feels like?!  I had to sit down so that I didn't fall over and after a few minutes I decided I might be dehydrated because, oops!  I hadn't drank ANY water at all that day.  I made it to the kitchen and got 2 sips of water down before I felt like I was going to pass out again.  I started to sit down on the floor when my whole body started shaking and bam.  A few seconds later I woke up laying on the floor.  I think I laid there for about 5 minutes before I felt ok-sh attemping to stand up again.  I drank more water, grabbed my phone to call Jared and made it to the couch.  Luckily he was working close and was able to come straight home. {I later learned that what I experienced is called Hypovolemia}

  Jared decided to put me on his own type of strict bedrest and pretty much forbid me to do anything but what was absolutely necessary for Wyatt.  After about 45 minutes of laying down and sipping water I felt MUCH better, but the spotting went on for several days.   Monday came and I went in for my second blood test.  My progesterone dropped to 6.  What?  That can't be right.  But the nurse that gave me the results didn't act like there was any reason to worry.  It continued to bother me so I called back the next day to inquire about it.  The nurse said the results were pretty low but that I'd be in the next day for an u/s and they'd see what was going on then.  But I pressed it until we were finally on the same page.  Turns out I should have refilled the prescription for the lozenges and should never have stopped taking them.  She called it in and I immediately went to pick them up.  I'm on an increased dose to try and more quickly raise my progesterone lever and after just 1 day of being back on the lozenges I felt almost 100% better.  After a few days, the cramping and spotting completely went away.

While I was upset about the misunderstanding with the meds... I'm really glad that everything was figured out and that we're back on track. And I hope I don't ever experience Hypovolemia ever. again.  That was awful.

Wyatts fundraiser

 During the month of April I decided to run a fundraiser for Wyatt.

I named it 'Help Wyatt Beat the Heat' and sold jam in an effort to raise money to purchase a cooling vest for him.  

I figured out that I needed to sell somewhere between 60 and 80 jars of jam to raise the money that was needed.   ...before the fundraiser had even officially opened, we had pre-sold almost 70 jars of jam.  WOW!  Friends shared with friends and there were several individuals that either didn't like jam, or weren't local but still wanted to help so they made direct donations.

The love and support that has been shown towards my son has absolutely blown me away.

At the end of the month we are close to breaking 150 jars of jam sold.  That's a lot of jam!

I was about to order Wyatt's vest when I learned that my sister-in-laws cousin-in-law worked at a medical supply company and wanted to see if she could get the vest at a wholesale price for us.  After a few days my sister-in-law told me that she was unable to get a lower price on the vest than what it would have cost me, so she just bought it herself and it was on it's way to Wyatt.  WHAT?!  She wouldn't let me send her the money for it.  I was told 

"It is my pleasure, I just really felt that I needed to do this for him."

It's a rare time that I find myself without words.  But that was one of those times.

Thank you SO much to all of my family, friends, new friends, and friends of friends that helped support Wyatt with this fundraiser.  With your help we were able to raise almost $1000!!!.  I've got some pretty good jam, but I know this was all for Wyatt.  He's a special little guy and I'm so lucky that I get to be his mom!
And since we didn't have to spend the money on a vest, every penny that we raised has been put into a savings account to help us get to the FIRST {Foundation for Ichthyosis and Related Skin Types} Family Conference in 2016 where we will be able to learn more about Wyatt's skin condition, and Wyatt will be able to meet and play with other children affected with ichthyosis.

Between airfare, conference admission, hotel, rental car, food, I'm figuring we'll need around $3500.  Because of the generosity that has been shown to our family, we are almost $1000 closer to making that trip happen.  Thank you so much!!!

I had Wyatt try his vest on to see how it fit and he was NOT impressed haha.  He was much more enamored with the bubble wrap, but he'll learn to love it I'm sure :)

The transfer and pregnancy test results

So the embryo transfer was on April 2nd!   

Wyatt went over to his Auntie's house for a couple of days.  This was so I could just lay on the couch so that little embryo could burrow in.  It's important to not do anything or stress out about anything at all during that first little while.

Here's a magnified view of the embryo before it was transferred.  It's already starting to hatch!

After the transfer Jared picked up some PF Changs for me to gorge on and he went off to work.

At first I was like, OMG SILENCE!!  This is amazing!  la la la la la I can do whatever I want.. as long as I don't get up.  That lasted for about an hour before I was like holycrapiamsofreakingboredoutofmymind and howdidisurvivelikethiswheniwasonbedrestfortenweeks?!

Being a mom has changed me.

When Wyatt came home I was all excited to see him and he didn't want anything to do with me.  I think he was made at me or something.  Sorry kid.  He warmed up the next day though.

 So now I just had to wait 2 weeks for a pregnancy test.  Two whole weeks.  These two weeks always seem like the longest two weeks of my life.

During this time, Wyatt got a fungal infection in his diaper.  Oh the joys of Ichthyosis.  So he had a lot of naked time {which I was totally cool with because baby butts are the cutest}

 He had naked time in the pool

 Naked time playing running around the yard

 Naked time helping daddy plant an avocado tree

The kid loved being naked

Naked time plus Clotrimazole really seemed to really help the infection clear up.  Yay!

Here's a couple of bath time pictures since those ones are always the best

I love his personality!

So 5 days after the transfer I was super anxious and cheated.  I took a pregnancy test.  Then I took another on Wednesday morning.  Then another on Friday.  Finally I went and got one of those yes/no pregnancy tests so that all of the guesswork was taken out and

I'm so flipping excited to be a mom again!!!  We do know the gender, but want to make sure the little bean decides to stick around before we share.  We'll reveal the gender around the end of May.

As of now, I am 5 weeks and 5 days pregnant.  We got our first peak at what was going on in me on Wednesday

It's still too early to see a heartbeat {It's not strong enough to pick up on an u/s yet} but the dr. was able to see a yolk sac and cardiovascular tissue.  Hooray!!!

The next appt is set for a week and a half from now. :)

My family is so blessed!

Fun at the park

My child loves the park

 

and he loves his dad

He loves the swings

But most of all he loves the slide. Or the 'wee' as he calls it :)

Sunday, he went down the slide ALL BY HIMSELF for the first time.

Part of me is sad because it just reminds me that he's growing up and it's one more thing that he doesn't need my help with... but at the same time I am SO PROUD of how big my little guy is getting and just how far he's come.
Wyatt, you amaze me.

Big boy bed

In a couple of weeks, I'll {hopefully} be pregnant.

As soon as I'm pregnant, I'll be on a modified bedrest.

Modified bedrest means no picking up anything heavier than 5 lbs.

Wyatt is over 5 lbs.

This got me thinking.  How in the heck am I supposed to get this kid down for a nap every day?!  Daddy can get him up in the morning and put him down for bed at night... but I'm the only one here with him at nap time during the week.  I kept getting the feeling that I really needed to get him in a toddler bed.  But almost everyone I know with kids Wyatt's age are still in cribs right now.  Keep them caged as long as you can right?  This last Thursday I finally decided to just do it.  So I told Jared to get out the conversion kit out so I could get it changed over.

After Wyatts nap I pulled his crib out from the wall and took off the crib parts.  And OH. MY. GOSH.  There was skin everywhere.  I do a pretty good job of vacuuming his bed out every other day, but his skin got through the crooks and crannies of the crib down to the parts you can't get to unless you take it apart.  I mean, it was bad.  It made me feel like I need to take his whole bed apart one a month just to get it thoroughly cleaned out... but that's not realistic.  There's way too many things on my to do list to spend 3 hours doing that. :/

Anyway, Wyatt stayed in the room with me the whole time, running laps around his bed, trying to jack the screwdriver from me, and climbing up on whatever he could.  When everything was finished and I pushed the bed up on the wall, Wyatt tried to climb up onto it... but he's too short, haha.  I helped him find his stool and with a little help from me, he was able to get up on his bed.  He sat there for a minute with a big smile on his face, and then climbed down.  Then he climbed back up, and down, and up, and down.  Threw his blankets off, then put them back on and laid on all of them.  He was definitely excited to be able to get in bed all by himself.

Friday night was Wyatt's first night in his big boy bed.

I sat in bed with him and we read a nighttime story, something I've never been able to do before.  And then I rocked him while he drank his night bottle.  I put him down and he was so tired he barely made it over to his bed.  He laid down on his tummy, I tucked him in, then closed the door.

I haven't had the baby monitor on in forever, but with him being in a 'new' bed, I wanted to listen to make sure he didn't get out of bed and start playing with toys.  Within 20 minutes, that baby boy was sound asleep.  I checked on him several times throughout the night, and had to move him back up the bed twice, but my big boy didn't get out of his bed even once.

3 nights and 3 naps later, he's still sleeping like a champ.

He doesn't even get out of bed until I go in his room to get him!

I wonder if he even realizes he's able to get out all by himself...

I'm not going to question it though! I'm going to enjoy this while it lasts, because I'm positive it's not going to last like this forever :)