Turned Over

My days of waking up at 4:30 in the morning to get ready for a 6-hour round trip to The IVF Clinic are over! Well, at least for this particular pregnancy. Woo hoo!

Mama and I hit the road at about 5:45 yesterday morning with coffee for her and an orange coolatta and breakfast sandwich for me. The first-trimester nausea has hit full-force, so coffee is now out. With Pooka, the only thing that calmed my stomach was Lipton’s green tea with honey. With Wiggle-Worm it was predominantly strawberries. Teapot Tempest seems to prefer orange or other citrusy things.

We had a marvelous chat all the way down to The Clinic’s Satellite Office! This is a marked difference between her and Hubs. Much as I adore my sweet, wonderful husband; he inevitably falls asleep on long car rides, which does very little to help me stay awake. Mama, on the other hand, can not only chat and keep me company, she can read and crochet in the car too! This is me being seriously impressed. Sorry, Hubs.

We checked in with the receptionist and waited around for quite a while before realizing that I needed to put my name on their little sign-in sheet. I should have known, but pregnant-brain has also settled in. At The IVF Clinic’s main office, I always have to sign in for blood work and ultrasounds, but being in a different location, it completely slipped my mind. Once I finally did that, it took very little time for me to get in to be seen. They let Mama come with me too. Apparently she’s never been subjected to internal ultrasounds; and has never seen an embryo via ultrasound – only a fetus.

Anyway: Teapot Tempest looks about like this right now (this isn’t from the clinic; it’s an estimate I nabbed from Wikipedia of a 6-week old embryo.):

It’s a little behind dates for its size, but The IVF Doctor said that’s normal for a frozen cycle. Its heartbeat was measured at 112 beats per minute, which is normal for its size. I have to go to The Big Hospital in the next week or two, for a follow-up ultrasound. At that time, they’ll be looking for Tempest’s heartbeat to be over 120 beats per minute.

This is the actual ultrasound picture (some info removed for privacy’s sake):

I’m stuck on the hormones till January 4^th, but all things considered it’s a pretty small price to pay for a healthy baby; and I've been turned over to regular OB care. P.S. My due date is July 19, 2013.

We stopped off at Quincy Market on the way home, since Mama had never been. Wandered around; got a Fanueil Hall penny for Mama; a Solstice present for Wifey and a yummy pretzel in the food court before Mama got a hankerin' for Taco Bell. DarkForce never showed up, so we took off for home; hitting Taco Bell on the way. Mama managed to finish her blanket before we arrived at her house - she's a crocheting machine!

Hubs helped me drop off the car and we picked up dinner on the way home, since our cooking facilities appear to me malfunctioning, and the repair guy seems to be dragging his feet. Harumph. Oh well. Watched "Reaper" till bedtime and crashed around 9:00 with a CatButt on my feet.