The Monkey Mind

A couple of my yoga teachers have referred to calming the monkey mind throughout my years of practice and, let me tell you, there is no monkey mind like that you have the week after you find out you'll be having THREE babies. On any given moment, my mind runs from what kind of car we need, to will the little room that was to be the nursery actually fit three cribs, to will I be able to work enough days to keep my insurance next year, to will we be able to afford life after babies no matter how much we work, to how on earth do I breastfeed three babies or even keep up with their laundry! This is certainly the bounciest mind I've had in all my life and all I have to say is thank goodness that triplets also bring on an exhaustion that I could never fully explain to anyone, because if they didn't make me tired I would never sleep!  I truly have a new understanding of the monkey mind and am certainly going to need a lot of yoga to keep it calm over the next few months!

Big news gets bigger!

My intention was to spend the last few weeks doing a short daily chronical of our lives with a pregnancy or adoption, but half way through my post that I was adding to and saving each day the post I was working on just disappeared....grrrrr. So here is an abridged  version of how the last 3 weeks have turned our world upside down!

Friday, May 6th: Two pink lines and, after a doctor's visit and some high hormone levels, a warning that there may just be more than one in there!

On Sunday, May 8th we celebrated mother's day by sharing our big news with the grandparents and other family members, let's just say our little ones will be quite loved!

Saturday, May 15th: 5weeks pregnant and already contemplating how not to share this belly with the world quite yet...something is definitely up, people don't have to work to hide their pregnancies at 5 weeks!

Monday, May  23rd: We find out exactly what is up. TRIPLETS, yes you read that right, these are the photos of our sweet triplets. First up all three, each dark shadow is a separate gestational sac (this means none of them are identical) and I can guarantee none of them will have names that start with the same letter or rhyme either! Why would a mother do that to herself?!

Baby number 1, our tiny friend in the middle. This one is measuring markedly smaller and they are watching to make sure s/he doesn't get overrun by her/his bigger siblings: 

Baby number 2, hiding in the corner. This one was hiding out it took awhile to find the heartbeat guess s/he's already trying to escape his/her brothers/sisters:

 Baby number 3,This one was big and bold and easy to find:

Most importantly, though, they all have little beating heartbeats! So here we go, our family is going to grow in a hurry as long as we can get them all here safely. We'll take whatever thoughts, prayers, intentions, good vibes, ohms you might be sending out to keep babies and mama safe for the next 8ish months. This is going to be quite a ride! 

Fair Warning

So I'm signing off for a couple of weeks. There are people in my life that I want to make sure hear about the results in person and not by stumbling across it on the internet. My plan is to spend the next two weeks keeping my words to a couple of sentences a day either about the early stages of pregnancy and how that is going or the early stages of adoption and how that's going, but I'm going to just save them and wait until a couple weeks have passed. Basically, if it's positive I'm planning to wait until after the first u/s but if it's negative I don't want to give it away so I'm going to have a quiet blog for a couple of weeks either way. So, sorry everyone in blog land, you will have to wait for my results.  See you in a couple of weeks with more exciting news of our growing family, one way or the other.

I cheated...

No, I know you were all getting excited thinking I cheated and took a test early, but nope still don't know if we're knocked up. I cheated on my own rule: No purchasing for the little one until the little one is on the way. Well, I had already cheated on this rule a little bit before since I couldn't help but buy the book On the Day You Were Born when author, Debra Frasier, was doing a visit at our school. Of course little Kokes deserved a signed copy so we have that already, but this weekend I was at an estate sale and the first thing sitting on the table when I walked in was a 1940s metal doll house with the complete set of furniture just like my mom had and I followed the rule and I walked away and then all day I spent the day kicking myself thinking that it was just too special to pass up. When I got home from work Saturday night, I couldn't help but do a little internet searching and found that not only was it special it was valuable---this house that was selling for $90 at the estate sale sells for $200-300 on eBay. So I went back Sunday morning and the house wasn't sitting inside the door. I was certain I'd missed it, but just as I turned around to leave, I saw it peeking out from under the edge of another table and asked if it was sold and they said no they had just sold the table it had been sitting on so it didn't have a home. Well, it does now! (and it was 30% off day so I got an even better deal) It'll be a while before our future little Kokes is able to play with it, but I can't wait!

Looking forward!

While I had breakfast with one of my best gals this morning, I was excited to share my plans for mother's day weekend-regardless of the results. You see there's this room. It is the maybe baby's room. A year and a half ago when we fist started seeking pregnancy, I got really excited about our future new addition and started to reorganize this room and move my sewing and craft stuff up to a different room and get this room ready to be a bedroom. I was about half way through the project when I got the phone call telling me that I was pregnant and I knew that this wasn't a good call-those were my blood test results from the day before, the day before I wasn't bleeding, the day I got the call I was. This was the call telling me that what I thought was my period was a miscarriage. May I add that I was standing in front of a room full of 3rd graders when I got this call. Needless to say, it was a bad day. I came home and I tried to tackle the project that I'd begun and I couldn't.  The room I had been so excited about the week before made me sad. I told myself that we'd gotten pregnant so quickly, it would happen again and, when it did, I'd finish the room. Well it didn't happen and then the room wasn't just a reminder of that first miscarriage, it was a reminder that we were getting closer and closer to that year mark that signifies that this just isn't going to be easy for us so the room became a place to toss stuff that didn't have a home and now it's a giant storage space for stuff that just needs to be sorted through and probably mostly tossed.

I'm well aware that this room and it's disaster that was left behind drives my husband insane, but the idea of tackling it up until now has just seemed  like a sad process. This month is different, because regardless of the results, we know what's next. We are either going to have a baby because I'm pregnant or we are going to start the adoption process. Either way, we have a child to prepare for which brings the excitement back to getting the maybe baby's room in line. So next weekend I get to prepare to welcome a new little baby or get ready for a home study that will bring a child to us in a different way. Next weekend will be a celebration regardless of the results, it's time to start the next chapter, not to mention, Marty will be very happy that that room isn't full of crap anymore!

Anything for the "maybe baby"

This is the new mantra at our house as I've had quite a day of discomfort from the meds. We tried a different protocol than the last two rounds for the 2nd half of the cycle since I reacted pretty badly both times. Apparently my body is just determined to swell up no matter what we do. So as I down my electrolytes, protein and salty foods (yes, this is the bizarre diet that combats the swelling) I keep telling myself we've come this far we'll do anything for the maybe baby. Now if that maybe baby could just turn into a really happening baby, it would be a lot easier to endure the discomfort...Only one more week until we know!

Going public

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week and I've been trying to figure out how to support the cause and take some sort of action, because infertility is, quite frankly a serious pain in the ass (figuratively in all the time and monetary aspects and literally considering the giant butt bruises that I have from the shots).   What I realized is that a few weeks ago at my fertility yoga class, we were ranting about how all these celebrities that are obviously having fertility treatments to start off their families at the age of 40 and raking in the twins don't ever speak up. As much as I wish they didn't need to, there is a little power in being a celebrity that means that they can get people to listen. The problem is that for them $15,000 treatments are a drop in the bucket, so it doesn't seem like an issue that needs to be spoken for, it's just something you do when you want to have a family and your eggs are melting away before your eyes. The part I realized when I was thinking about what I could do is why should it be them that speak up when I don't even tell some of the people that I'm closest to.

So I've decided I'm going public with our struggle, well at least a little public, I'm going to share the link to this blog with the majority of my e-mail list and encourage them and you to pass it on. Those of your who are friends or followers feel free to share my story because: 

• Inferility affects 7.3 million people in the U.S. (1 in 8 couples or 12% of the women of childbearing age) (2002 National Survey of Family Growth)
• Only 15 States have passed laws to require insurance companies to cover at least some level of fertility treatments, Minnesota is not one of them. 
• Offering a comprehensive infertility treatment benefit with appropriate utilization controls may actually reduce costs and improve outcomes by eliminating the inappropriate use of costly covered procedures and allowing specialists to use the most effective, efficient treatment for a specific type of infertility. (Infertility As A Covered Benefit, William M. Mercer, 1997

The only thing that I ask if you pass this on is that you don't link straight to it on Facebook, please share via e-mail. So that's what I mean by going 'a little' public, I'll see when we feel ready to share with the facebook world, but for now I'm going to take action by spreading my story in a slightly less in your face manner. For  further facts about infertility go  to http://www.resolve.org/about/fast-facts-about-fertility.html and for my last side note, you will notice that until today I have also spoken of "fertility challenges" rather than "infertility" and this will be the one and only post that you see me use the "i" word in simply because that's what the special week is called.