Top 8 Early Signs of Pregnancy, and Why I Have Every Single Symptom Each Month

With the help of the American Pregnancy Association, I have compiled a list of my favorite symptomes of early pregnancy.

1. Missed Period- this is when day 30 rolls around and despite the cramping you have not yet been visited by Aunt Flow. I most definately have this one in the bag. I haven't menstruated on my own for 4 years now. Definately pregnant.

2. Swollen/ Tender Breasts- this symptom can be observed as early as 1-2 weeks after conception. Nevermind that my boobs get sore before every period as well. This month they are bigger; I'm sure of it! That one bra that used to be too big is now cradling these puppies comfortably. I must be pregnant.

3. Fatigue/Tiredness- another early sign of pregnancy is feeling tired, which can be felt as early as one week after conception. Check! I'm practicly sleepwalking through my 12-hour school-days. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my new cycling class. Yup I'm pregnant!

4. Nausea (Morning Sickness)- the most infamous sign of pregnancy is morning sickness. Why does this happen? According to WebMD, it is because the hormones of pregnancy cause your stomach to empty slowly. And yup, you guessed it, I also get a little nauseous every morning. (And that couldn't possibly be a side effect of the Metformin I'm on, right???) Better pull out the stretchy pants cuz I'm prego!

5. Backaches- specifically, the lower back, which, I have found, can be remedied with a warm compress. I'm sure this has nothing to do with hauling my half-dozen textbooks around campus all day. I told you already, I'm pregnant.

6. Food Cravings or Food Aversions- seriously, keep those nasty-smelling hard-boiled eggs away from me. And please bring on the chocolate, I need some extra calories for the baby growing inside of me.

7. Frequent Urination- okay, this one isn't supposed to occur until around 6-8 weeks after conception, but let me tell you, I pee every other hour on the hour. Gosh, that microorganism of a baby must be pushing on my bladder already! What am I going to do with him/her?!

8. Headaches- I feel one coming on right now as a matter of fact. Whoa these pregnancy hormones really do take you for a ride!

I would like to note that I am not a doctor, nor do I have a degree in any kind of medical discipline and therefore hardly know what I'm talking about. Also, as a side note (which you can choose to ignore as I do every month), most, if not all, of these symptoms can also be indicative of an impending menstrual cycle. But what the HEY! It was fun pretending to be pregnant for those two magical weeks between ovulation and the crimson title wave. Here's to hoping for next month, because next month is a new cycle!

Yours Truly,
Sister K

Positive Thoughts

 You know those days when you think you've heard it all and then someone surprises you with some new absurd thought on how you should be happy that you're alive and fairly healthy....blah blah blah. Its about this time that I start to prepare for a mini vaca in Wonderland while they stand on their soapbox and tell me how it should be. Well I'm going to let you in on a few of my interpretations of the all-to-common "Positive Thoughts".

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Well, by now I could probably take on Minute Maid in lemonade sales with all the lemons I've turned into anything edible.

"Just relax and it will happen."
Do you know how long I've been relaxing for....yeah longer than it took you to remember that I probably don't care because you aren't apart of the Highly Dysfunctional Uterus Club!

"You're still so young!"
Lets revisit this topic when I'm 30 flirty and thriving with no kids and 10 cats.

"You don't want kids, they are too expensive."
Yes, I have realized this fact by now. These kids already have a running tab at my gynecologists office would you like me to start one for you too?! 

"One of these days it will be your turn."
 GGGIIIIRRRRLLLL PPPLLLEEAASSEE....its been my turn since Kim Kardashian was still dating Reggie Bush and Harry Potter was living underneath the stairs!

Oh, just think if some people could hear my thoughts! Well, I guess you can on this blog....but we won't mention that to them they might get the wrong impression of me =] Its the twisted humor of being my own form of birth control that keeps me going during these famous convos. Whether or not these happy thoughts work for me are no big matter...what keeps me going is my supportive family and all of the women around the world that can read this blog and know that they are not alone in their struggle to get prego. Like always ladies, remember that you're not the only one who cries until she laughs about her highly dysfunctional uterus =]

Sincerely,
Sister H

A Little Extra Clomid Never Hurt Anyone . . . I Think

All right, so we did the second round of clomid at 50mg with zero success. Fast-forward 25 days later and we are starting round three of clomid at 100mg. If you're new at the clomid thing, here's how it typically works. The first day of your period is considered Day 1 of your cycle. If you have PCOS like me, sometime between Day 1 and 5 you have to go into the doctor's to check your ovaries for cysts. If there are any cysts then the clomid is a no-go and the whole round is ruined. But if you are cyst-free then you get clomid!! YAY!! Clomid is a hormone drug that bulks up the follicles in your ovaries so they are ready to be released when you ovulate because frankly, you can't ovulate without an egg. . .

Clomid is to infertiles as marijuana is to teenagers: it's the gateway drug. Typically, doctors start off at 50mg because they don't want to "over-stimulate" the ovaries. Gradually the dose is increased to 100mg and if that still isn't working, 150mg. This month I hit the jackpot of clomid! As I was dividing out my pills for the week I noticed the pharmacist gave me 2 extra clomid pills. At first I thought I had counted wrong. Then I realized that fate has finally stepped in! I thought I was meant to have these two extra pills, like a sign that I NEED these two pills to have a baby (twins possibly??). Why else would this have happened?!?

On the other hand . . . when I checked the doctor's orders it said to take 2 pills twice a day for 5 days. I could just take an extra days worth, but the nurses are monitoring my ovaries this month (so they behave) and what if they can tell that I took more clomid than was prescribed?

But what if taking the extra pills could improve my chances of multiple births? I can handle quintuplets!

And there is my dilemma. I know taking the extra clomid won't work. But I wish there was a magic pill that I could take that just makes me pregnant immediately. In the mean time, I have two clomid pills tucked away in my sock drawer.

Yours Truly,
Sister K

Stalemate

Well ladies, I have recently decided that my va-ja-ja doctor is my new best friend and my bank account's worst enemy... My most recent visit to the doctor confirmed their standings  when I realized I can't get anywhere without my awesome doctor but my limited budget won't allow me to visit as often as I need. I like to hope that most women with highly dysfunctional uteruses aren't in a similar spot but I realize that this hope is probably irrational. Let me start with a little background on my super exciting situation...my husband and I are both full time students and working part time with no insurance which allows little wiggle room for any luxuries like specialized dysfunctional uterus doctors. What room I am given for these exciting visits will only grant me 3-4 months of blood test, meds and doctor visits. In those months we'll spend around $700-$800 dollars just to get poked none stop by pretty much anything you can think of and receiving little to no positive results so far (thanks uterus you're super)! So my motivation to continue to work for the ultimate gift of a child is limited by the small amount of resources we can scrape up and my tolerance for my favorite frienemy, my uterus. Thanks to my specialized doctor I have now started a running tab that my future children will pay back =] This situation is what leads me to my current stalemate...I can't have kids without my doctor which I cant pay for very often which means that I have slim to no chance of catching the prego disease. Yay to being poor and infertile! I guess I'm still young, right?! On the upside I know one of my sistas out there can definitely afford to have at least four different va-ja-ja doctors, woot woot for her! Khloe Kardashian recently taped some footage of her visiting a fertility doctor that proceed to tell her she doesn't ovulate. WELCOME TO THE CLUB KHLOE K!!! It seems like our coming-out-of-the-uterus club is getting bigger! As a side not my husband was watching this show with me and leaned over to tell me "At least you're not the only one who can't ovulate!!" so I responded "Yeah BUT SHE CAN AFFORD TO BUY HERSELF FERTILITY!!!" =] Gotta love him! Well, ladies don't be afraid to leave a comment about your exciting situations and always remember you're not the only one who laughs until she  cries about her highly dysfunctional uterus! 

Sincerely,

Sister H 

Prego Test with a Side of Infertility

As a woman with dysfunctional lady parts I've probaby taken more prego test than the Duggan mom. Seriously, why haven't I invested in First Response yet?! I'm expecting a thank you letter from their corporate office. I think I single-handedly doubled their annual revenue. Perhaps they will send me a 'Coping With Infertility' book as a reward.

I take a pee test everytime I visit the doctor. When you were a kid the doctors gave you stickers for behaving. As you get old (24) and infertile you get prego pee tests. Sometimes I just want to scream, "Let me spare you the 3 minutes it takes you to sniff my pee and get the results back, I can tell you now that I'm NOT pregnant!" But they make you take the test anyways, and I get all excited like maybe the 10 tests I took at home were all false negative and I really am pregnant! Maybe the HCG didn't spike until just this moment and I just barely caught it ... if only. At least the prego pee tests are complimentary. Like the peanuts they give you on airplanes.

Yours Turly,
Sister K

It's the Ovulation Game!

A normal fertile woman has a hormone cycle like this:



Any variation of these hormones can sabotage your chances of conceiving. So the past few days I've been waiting for my LH hormone to spike. This would indicate ovulation and consequently, baby making time!! Each morning I wobble to the toilet, take a seat and aim into that oh-so-tiny cup. Then I wait 3 minutes for a line to appear. For those of you who haven't had the privilege of monitoring your hormones in this fashion, it is just slightly more confusing than taking an at-home-pregnancy pee test. But this time the "test" line that appears doesn't really count unless it's as dark or darker than the control line. And if comparing lines wasn't confusing enough you have a 7 minute window to read a positive test but a negative test isn't read until after 20 minutes?? I'm not sure how this makes sense so I just keep checking the test every 2 minutes in case it gets darker.

After 11 days I never did see that elusive "dark/darker" line. The doc had me come back in for more blood tests to check my progestrone to make sure I hadn't ovulated and missed it. I don't see how I would have ever missed that . . . I didn't ovulate (sad face). I think my hubby is gettting anxious for us to get pregnant because he suggested not only upping the clomid dose but also monitoring my ovaries throughout the month and an HCG trigger shot to force an ovulation. I'm starting to feel like an experimental bunny rabbit.

Even though I didn't ovulate I have to wait til day 35 and have a negative prego test before they force Aunt Flow to stop by, ten days later on day 45.

I wish there was a fertility clinic where you start in the first room with a treatment for a few minutes, and if it doesn't work you go to the next room to try the next treatment, and just like that you keep going room to room doing different things until you're finally pregnant, and the whole thing takes less than a day.  Not five years.

Yours Truly,
Sister K

It's a race!

The all too familiar phrase to those who also belong to the Highly Dysfunctional Uterus club. It always seems like its a race to get prego before your youngest cousin's blushing bride has time to pull her pants down on their wedding night or before your best friend decides that taking birth control everyday is too much for one person to remember. Welcome to my summer vacation ladies! I am now approaching the starting line of my new race towards birthing the first grandchild on my husband's side of the family. Yep, you've read that right my brother-in-law is getting married and yes her uterus does not fight against her every month. Even though she may not know that we are now racing, she is clearly a threat to my womanly stance as first married first to have children throne. I can't help but to roll around the thought that while they begin to baby dance daily, I should be plotting my way into robbing a fertility clinic and taking a lifetimes worth of meds so that I have a smidgen of a chance of winning the gold! What do you think my chances are? Probably not that good but here's to hoping, wishing, and praying that I can show that stage-stealer up and get prego FAST! I have T-14 days to mentally put on my helmet and swallow as many hormones I can before my race officially starts! Wish me luck! As always remember you're not the only one who cries until she laughs about her highly dysfunctional uterus =] 

Sincerely,

Sister H