On Fear.

17dp5dt (or 5 weeks pregnant, or 5 weeks and 1 day pregnant)

Which is it? The online domaine seem to have a bit of a discrepancy there. The online pregnancy calculators like this one shows me as 5 weeks today, and the blog mommies seem to be posting as 5 weeks and a day. I will confirm with my doctor when I go back in for lab and our first OB ultrasound.

This might be silly, but I finally peed on a stick this morning. Well, two sticks. One is from First Response and the other was Clear Blue. One digital, and one old school pink lines. This is the first time I’ve peed on a stick and seen “pregnant” on both. A very small small tiny voice inside of me needed to see this, to confirm that yep, I’m still pregnant, and another part of me didn’t want to pee on a stick because of the fear of bad news.

The IVF cycles have gone so smoothly.  

It can’t be. 

Something is looming right around the corner.

The other shoe has to drop.

Oh, the fear. Fear is such an ugly beast, and a beast I only know too well. Fear has kept me stuck during multiple chapters in my life and fear has hijacked my brain for I would say, most of my life. That is, until I started practicing yoga. Until I started meditating. Until I started paying attention and staying one step ahead of my volatile mind. Until I made it a part of my life to get in the driver’s seat of my mind.

I’ve always said to my students, Manage your mind, and you change your life.

I still find myself playing the “what if” games in my head which we all know, simply sucks the life out of any situation, but now I’m able to catch myself and put it to bed already. My work has been to release the grip of control and surrender to the flow. More and more I am able to find solace in surrendering to a higher intelligence.  The illusion that we can control anything sits at the root of our suffering. What we can control is our perception. What we think. How we think. How we respond rather than react. How we use our mind. Softening the edges of our mind, and in turn softening our heart in order to excel at what we as Souls having a human experience are here to do…give and receive love.

And so I keep on with the practice…and this morning, I went and peed on a stick just to be tickled when I see the digital words of “pregnant” and those lovely pink lines. It made my heart happy. Joyful. Tickled. 🙂

Now to the symptoms. Yesterday, at 16p5dt, I felt again, slightly nauseous after eating my half avocado in the morning at 5:30am with manuka honey. Teeny weeny. I had a horrible night’s sleep. Couldn’t fall asleep, and most likely, it’s attributed to the amount of stress that’s traumatically bubbled up the last few days. Things are settling down though, thank God. My tastebuds seem to be changing. I usually carry warm water with me, sprinkled with goji berries for flavor which I love. Was drinking it all morning, and suddenly after my teaching my second class and driving to the acupuncturist, I took another swig and the entire thing tasted foul. The metallic taste in my mouth had settled in. Around 12:30, at the acupuncturist’s, I felt slightly nauseous while laying down, but that went away. As I finished my session, I needed to eat for baby and I, but everything that I would usually go pick up and eat didn’t sound good to me. So I settled on some Pho. That went down nice and easy…I was craving something with a little bit more spice and flavor and asian food was perfect.  Didn’t feel quite too hungry at dinnertime…and then woke up this morning famished. Dreams. Vivid dreams for the last few nights. I think some women commented about that online. Fatigue. Still tired, but operable. Peeing like a race horse. 3x last night. The damn progesterone shots are starting to settle in muscle lumps around my hips and those zit like pimple things around my butt cheeks aren’t going away. It’s like having acne on your butt except they itch. Other than the above, not much else. No spotting. Cramping very little. Boobies not really sore, maybe a tiny bit on the sides. Just hunger and changes to my palate, really.

Husband is healing. He’s making some great lifestyle changes and this week off is a good thing for him. My dog seems to be doing better now that I’ve changed his entire diet in the last few days to grass-fed beef, bison, wild atlantic salmon, kale, broccoli and carrots. Everything is organic, everything is fresh. Absolutely no grains or anything that would metabolize into sugar. He now eats better than we do. Better than most of the people in the world. I’m grateful. To think that our dogs have better food than human beings in other parts of the world is startling.

I’m grateful.

I’m grateful.

I’m grateful.

Holding gratitude in my heart for all.

Setting down and Settling In.

15dp5dt or in other words, 4 weeks and 5 days pregnant.

My husband is home from the hospital and healing.  I don’t remember having such a traumatic, intense time in quite a long while. Still pregnant…my last beta, beta #2, at 13dp5dt was 630, up from 232 at 11dp5dt, beta #1. My next appointment is Friday of this week for the first OB ultrasound and another lab.

So much has happened in the last few days that I’m having a hard time winding down. My baseline stress level is higher, and my worries are more frequent. I need to set time aside today to get quiet and sit for a moment.

Symptoms the past few days have been very very slight nausea in the morning…feels like queasy stomach that passes through quickly. The light cramping is ongoing and consistent, and the heart palpitations have been consistent, but tapered off a bit today. However, my cramping has increased today at 15dp5dt. Left side sharp pains, a few right side sharp pains. One in my right waist area. All of them enough to stop me dead in my tracks and say ow ow ow.

Tired.

But the fatigue might be from running on adrenaline since Friday morning.

Time for a nap.

On Pregnancy and Cancer.

It seems quite surreal…and this is what so many mamma’s to be say when the labs come back positive or when that stick confirms your pregnancy. For me, it’s still surreal, but I’m trying to get used to it by saying out loud, “I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.”

I’m pregnant.

I’m pregnant.

It reminds me of all the major landmarks in my life so far…the joy I found in saying “My fiancé”, “my husband”, “I’m married.” Now those words…those labels just seem so normal.

And here’s a new label…”I’m pregnant”.

It’s still so early to speak about this wholeheartedly, and the ones in my life that need to know, already know. They deserve to know because they’ve been with me through this process. I’m not ashamed of going down the IVF route, in fact, grateful, but the truth is, according to the preggers calendars, I’m only 4 weeks and 2 days, and anything can happen from now until the end of the first trimester. So, I’m cautiously happy. Our little boy decided to stick around.

Yesterday was in truth a full, heavy day that was lightened momentarily by the joyful call from my doctor. I woke up telling the Universe, I surrender, I surrender…and whenever I say that, I feel a deep sense of inner peace. I really do. We have been awaiting news from the vet internist about the results of our doggie’s biopsy and because we haven’t spoken to him yet and he left a message the day before that was more alarming than not. We’ve been on pins and needles. My husband and I both manage stress in much of the same way…don’t talk about it too much, keep much of our worrisome inner dialogue in, and then outwardly just hope for the best. Too many words just aren’t necessary in moments like this.

I met my husband for a midday walk, which we never do. It set the tone for the seriousness of the situation. He had just gotten off the phone with the vet and it doesn’t sound good. Our puppy went from being mostly irritable bowl syndrome diagnosed to 90% lymphoma cancer. His cells are too inflamed for the biopsy results to be conclusive, so while it is an assumption, a strong one at that, we have to order one more test to confirm their suspicions. The test requires his inflamed cells to sit in a solution for something like 10 days and that solution will determine what the markers are for cancer. Now we wait.

So we got that news first…and we strolled together, hand in hand to digest. Kind of talked about it, kind of not, kind of enjoyed being together midday, and kind of quietly caught in our own separate thoughts too. My heart is so heavy, and I’m so worried, but I’m trying to so hard to not be consumed by it for the sake of our new pregnancy. He already ate, but I needed to eat (especially if I was preggers), so he came to grab a quick bite with me.

Our doc hasn’t called with the lab results yet and I was just in such a negative state of mind, doom and gloom, that I wasn’t expecting to receive good news, however much my heart wanted it. I was bracing myself for 2 negative results and planned on heading home to cry and forget it all.

We decided before we parted ways that we weren’t going to chase the doc down for the results and I’ll just wait for her to call me. Hubs went back to the office and I went to pick up new prescriptions for our poor sick doggie before heading home.

Swimming in all of my thoughts and as I was turning on the windy road to get home, my doc called. I quickly answered and she sounded so joyful…in a moment I was uplifted and floating. Good news is what I needed after the first not so good one.

Long story short, couldn’t wait to get home, told the husband, and we both shed some tears of joy. I think it was less tears of excitement – I mean, I’m sure it was, but it was more relief…I don’t think either one of us could have handled any more negative news yesterday.

So…surreal…and here we are. I’m pregnant, but most of my attention is on researching cancer diets and how to heal our puppy naturally.

Thanks for reading…but before I leave, I’ll leave you with some symptoms that were eye brow raising.

11dp5dt – day of beta #1:  Boobs never got sore. Maybe slightly enlarged…but I’m not sure the nipples changed at all. The big things I noticed were the cramps. Never intense, just kind of there, all throughout the day. The heart palpitations or the “fluttering” began yesterday which really caught my attention. This continued ALL day and I still have it now. Apparently this is because my blood volume is increasing in my body to accommodate this pregnancy and my heart is struggling to catch up. Bloating was another…I felt bloated. And really that’s about it. I felt a bit of the hot/cold thing in the morning, but not much else.

Once we got the yes, you are preggers confirmation, I started to pay more attention to the symptoms. Yes, the pulling/tugging in my uterus. Yes, the fatigue. Took a nap at 5pm and husband had to wake me up at 6:30pm so I would be able to fall asleep later. I could have kept on sleepin’.

So today, I keep surrendering. My heart is heavy, I am pregnant, and I’ve got a sick puppy to nurse back to health.

I surrender in good faith that I can embrace the changes that is already happening all around me with ease and grace.

Much love…