What would you do diffrently?

Production not Reproduction, who happens to be one of my favorite open adoption bloggers ended her last post with this "I wonder how many of us would make different choices were we able to start over knowing what we know now."

I have really tried to make myself available for anyone who is about to undergo IF treatment. I have wrote down my name number and email address for anyone who wants to know more about my clinic, Femara, testing or anything I might have a fleck of knowledge about. Because if I had to do it over again, I would have made better choices. I don't regret my clinic choice, or treatment path at all. But I regret the way I handled things before I left K.aiser in search of a good RE. Yes K.aiser screwed me over and hung me out to dry when it came to my HSG and blood work at times but I could have handled it better, and it is my fault for letting them drag me through all of that before leaving for RSC. If I hadn't been so concerned about cost of treatment and testing I could have had far less stress. That is my main regret.

The second it more complicated. I have spoken here a little about my anxiety and depression, but I haven't been 100% honest. Mostly that is because some of you know me IRL, or from nest GTG, and there is a BIG stigma around mental illness. The truth is I should have been medicated in January and February maybe even all of last year. I should have been seeing someone about the depression and I didn't. I knew I needed it and I didn't say a word. THAT is both scary and very hard to admit.

I have major concerns about the coming months. Mostly what will January and February bring? Post-partum depression is almost guarantied for me, and yet if my family and friends missed all the warning signs last time, what makes me think they won't miss it again?

Those are what I would do over if forced to re-do those months, seek treatment earlier both from and RE and a therapist. Of course I don't want to re-do those months. I am happy having ended up here. I love this baby, love being pg, and love having a due date of January 1st. I wouldn't give it up, not for the world. But I do hope that writing this out will help me remember to ask for help sooner in the future. I don't want to go back to the dark side of depression, this baby deserves better than that.

A wise person learns from the mistakes of others, a smart person learns from their own mistakes, and the stupid don't learn at all.

I hope that by being open I help others to be wise, and help myself to be smart.

10 Weeks!

Double Digits!! I am finally in the double digits, ya baby! Everyone keeps commenting how fast the weeks are flying by, um not for me. For me they seem to drag on and on. I am so happy to finally only have two weeks till I have my NT Scan and then another week until the second trimester!!

This week I noticed I have been more depressed. I have battled depression all my life. About 2 years ago DH and I were getting married. I talked to my Dr and we decided that after the wedding (July) I would go off my depression med. Our theory being to see if I still needed them BEFORE I got pg. I went off and was fine, for a while, until maybe January or February of this year. Look back to that time and you will see one depressed blogger. But I dragged myself out of it. This week and last I have felt pretty down in the dumps and last night I finally figured out why. Do you know what the next holiday is? If you said Father’s Day you would be correct. Okay so it isn’t a ‘real’ holiday but in our country it gets more air time than Cesar Chavez day does.

So where was I? Oh yes Father’s day. This may be my most hated day of the year. My father is still alive but we don’t talk much, um okay we haven’t spoken in 5 years almost now. It was and still is my choice to not have contact with him. We actually live in the same town, with the same zip code and use the same store to get all our food from. I can tell a few of you might be confused, if we live so close then why don’t we speak? Because he is an asshole, and that is me being nice about the situation. I could call him an abusive passive aggressive jerk whose needs to make others feel as small as possible in order to live with himself but I won’t, oops maybe I just did.

So he and I don’t talk and I don’t want to talk but a piece of me would love a real father. Yep, I know it is sick to be 26 years old and still need a father figure but I didn’t get it growing up and so I have always been envious of people who do have a good father. God did in many ways give me other people to make up for him, my mom, my two wonderful grandmothers, a youth minister who I looked up to as a dad in High School. But I am selfish, I want more. I want my linage not to come from such a heartless, mean cruel person.

But at least now that I realize I am depressed because of Father’s Day I can deal with it and move on. After all knowing you have a problem is half the battle, right?

Happier Things:

BABY THIS WEEK: Baby is the size of a small plum or kumquat! About 1.25-1.75 inches and now is big enough to be weighed (about 5 grams)! This week signals the end of the "embryonic stage" and the start of the "fetal period." And with it comes rapid growth spurts. The good news is that the critical stage of development is over, and there is very little risk of developing congenital malformations from this point on.

I am also happy to announce that while I do still have the gift of morning sickness in the afternoons I am beginning to handle it without to much complaint. Go me! I have two great tricks water and lifesavers, it seems as long as I keep swallowing I don't gag. I have heard m/s starts getting 'better' around this time in pg. OH nope not for me. I actually have more intense queasiness and gagging than a week ago. But keep my glass full of water and I will be fine.