Half way there!

We have reached the mid-point in pregnancy: 20 weeks! I cannot believe in 20 weeks our little boy will be here! Today we had our doctor appointment and got to see our little guy again. The sonographer measures different body parts and looks at different organs, everything was great. They even look at his upper lip to check for a cleft lip - everything looked good. His weight is 12 oz and his height is 10 inches from heal to head. He was very active and performing a little bit for the sonographer. She was enjoying it almost as much as we were, we got 11 pictures because he was doing so many different poses! Some of the things he was doing: sucking his thumb, kicking, somersaulting, and moving from one side of the uterus to the other. The funniest thing was when he flexed his bicep to show off his guns - typical boy!

Gender Cake Party Pictures

Oh Boy!!!

We are having a little boy!!! Our gender cake party was so fun. It was great to be able to have our family there to share in all the excitement. We all wore "baby boy" or "baby girl" stickers to show what we thought it was. Team Boy: Bryan, Me, Tara (sister in law), Tom (Bryan's dad). Team Girl: Ben (my brother), Jill (my mom), Janet (Bryan's mom). Before I picked up the cake from the bakery I called ahead to make sure there were no notes taped the box or anything that would give away if the baby was a girl or boy. When I got there they gave me the cake in a box and a separate little styrofoam box. I asked what was in the little box and they said it is a gift tag to put on the cake and I should put it on just before we cut the cake. Of course I couldn't not look at it and when I got to the car I took a peek and it was pink and said congratulations! For so long I have thought this baby was a boy and every visualization I have had involves blue and little boy stuff. Pink seems so foreign to me right now. A lot of thoughts raced through my mind on that drive home from the bakery. Bras, periods, dating, complicated emotions, promiscuous clothing, etc. Being the over-anylzer that I am, I then started thinking the bakery did that on purpose to throw me off and it was a boy afterall. For whatever reason they did that, they played a good joke on me! Maybe one day we will have the chance to experience all those things I feared on my way home, but for now - we are super excited about this little boy!!!

Anticipation

Baby Fletcher's gender is known by two people now - the sonographer and the lady at Delicious Cakes! It was so hard not to peek or ask for a clue. I was even listening to her type when she did the sonogram and trying to count 3 clicks for "boy" or 4 clicks for "girl", she was onto me so she backspaced and retyped to throw me off! Friday night is the big reveal - we cannot wait!

16 weeks

Baby Fletcher is about the size of an avocado! CRL is 4.6 inches. Exciting things this week: feeling the baby move, the baby can hear my voice, and taste buds are forming.

12 weeks

Baby Fletcher is about the size of a plum. CRL is 5.8 cm. Heartbeat is 167 bpm. From left to right you see the forehead, the nose and the upper lip. Here the baby's mouth is wide open - you can see the top lip clearly and faintly see the bottom lip. We are already in love with this little profile!

Girl or Boy???

We had our 12 week sonogram today and got to sneak a peek at Baby Fletcher. This sonogram was really cool because you could see the baby's lips opening and closing while is it breathing in amnotic fluid. It appears to have Bryan's full lips! It might look like Bryan, but it was posed exactly as I was at that moment. I had my arms up with my hands behind my head and so did the baby! The sonographer kept telling me what a cute baby we have and how photogenic our baby is - of course she probably says this to everyone - but I cannot disagree! Everything is completely formed now, just really small.

The sonographer had a good idea of what the gender was, but because we are planning on doing a "gender cake" she said she wanted to be sure so we have to wait until next month. A gender cake is when you have the sonographer write down the sex of the baby on a card and put it in an envelope so you cannot see it. You give that envelope to a bakery and tell them if it says girl make the inside of the cake pink and boy blue. Then you cut it open and find out the gender with all your family there. Most of you already know that I have "just known" from the beginning that Baby Fletcher is a boy. Bryan thinks it's a boy as well, but our moms and my brother all think it's a girl. The debate is going to be over soon!

Movin' and a Shakin'

Today I had another sonogram and got to meet my new OB. Loved my new doctor and very relieved to have that taken care of. The appointment started with my sonogram with the nurse and guess what?! The baby was kicking and waving it's arms! It was incredible, I can't even describe the feeling. I mean I know there is a baby in there, but to watch it moving on the screen while it is actually moving inside me - unreal. You can even see it's profile!

We are 9 weeks 2 days. The feet are on the left and the head is on the right, the baby is on it's back in this picture. CRL is now 1 inch and heartbeat is 178 bpm.

Look at me grow!

This sonogram is at 7 weeks 3 days. The baby is growing faster right now than it ever will in it's life. The baby is on the left and the little cirlce next to it is the yolk sak. We got to see the heart pumping away - 159 bpm! CRL 12.5 mm

First Sonogram

Our little poppyseed at 5 weeks 5 days. The heartbeat was already there - 95 bpm! CRL (crown to rump length) is only 2mm!

Baby's First Picture

Our baby actually had it's first picture taken just 5 days after conception!

Retrival and Transfer

Sounds romantic huh? Nothing much was romantic about it, but pretty interesting and cool if you are a science/medical junkie like me. Retrival (August 9) was when my eggs were harvested and put in a petri dish with Bryan's little guys and mother nature takes it from there. Five days later was the transfer (August 14) when our embryo was put back into my uterus and then you wait. And wait. And wait. Then on my lunch break at staff development I decided to take yet another pregnancy test (all had been negative up until then and I was convinced it hadn't worked) and I got a faint line! I called Bryan to see if he could take lunch early and eat with me, he had no idea until I picked him up from work and pulled over to have him drive and told him. We sat at lunch smiling at eachother in shock.

The Drugs

Who gets excited when a large cooler gets delievered full of needles, syringes and drugs?

New Baby, New House, New Blog

Things have been pretty exciting lately at the Fletcher apartment. We are going to have a baby! And we bought a house! Two major life events all in one month. With so much going on I have decided to start a blog to keep all our friends and family in the know.

How did we get here? Well, it has been a journey. I was diagnosed with endometrisosis during college in 1999 and had my first surgery. I had two more surgeries during college in 2001. Since then I had been symptom free. Bryan and I got married in Novemeber 2008 and knew getting pregnant could be a challenge so we started trying immediately. When nothing had happened by March 2009, my doctor decided we should do another surgery to take a look. Sure enough the endometriosis had grown back and was stage III. When May rolled around and nothing had happened we decided it was time to see a fertility specialist. Good news: I was ovulating and all my hormone levels were normal and Bryan had healthy little guys! Bad news: endometriosis interferes with the fallopian tubes picking up the egg from the ovary and getting it down the tube to be fertilized - the only treatment to overcome this obstacle, IVF. And so it began. IVF is quite the process, daily shots, every other day doctor visits with ultrasounds and bloodwork, lots of side effects and of course quite a price tag. All worth it!!!