28 weeks

I'm embarking on the third and final trimester! I finally reached 28 weeks on the weekend!! 

There are certain stages of pregnancy that seem to just take forever. It seems likes ages since my last milestone, which was the 20 week scan. Well, I did  the Glucose challenge last week at 27 weeks, and my next Obstetrician appointment is next week...where I think I will be due for my 28/29 week ultrasound. But the most exciting thing is we're going to Max Brenner's afterwards...mmmm, rewarding chocolatey goodness.

I've still been really lucky throughout my pregnancy. I haven't had any complications that are worth complaining about. The baby has passed every milestone with flying colours. I'm steadily gaining weight. I guess the only complication I can complain about is the financial stress...but I know that will pass.

I'm starting to get a little bit more achey now, especially in the legs. Sometimes my belly feels really heavy, and I can feel a bit of ligament strain. Perhaps my most "weirdest" pain is situated right in the groin. It's this amazingly heavy pressure that feels like someone has kicked me in the crotch. I waddled into the living room and wailed, "I feel like I've been dry humping a concrete pillar!" After my husband picked himself up from the puddles of laughter, I waddled over to the couch and laid there whining a lot. Thankfully, it's not something that lasts for long. But it does come and go.

I'm also learning how to take it easy. It's a lot harder than I expected. It drives me crazy that I can't do all the things I would normally be able to do. I can't fit in half as much into my day as I used to. By the weekend, the only thing I look forward to, is a Sunday arvo nap. Yep, it's tough.

The Fertiles vs the Unfortunates

I have three stories about fertility. These stories are about three girls who all grew up together and have known each other their whole lives.

The first girl met a boy who was absolutely smitten with her and was already talking about having children with her. Even though she wasn't as keen, she had tests done because she was concerned about her health and whether she was able to have children. Her tests revealed that she would in fact have trouble conceiving, partly due to her obesity and some uterine issues. This didn't bother her at the time, as she was still in her early 20s...and she was later to go on to have two healthy babies with the man she eventually married.

The second girl married the man of her dreams in her mid 20s and had a number of health issues, one of them being endometriosis. Straight away there was concern for them conceiving. So they immediately started trying. And they successfully conceived within 4 months!

The third girl met a boy in her late teens and married in their late 20s with the plan of starting a family soon after. They were both happy and healthy, neither of them having any major health issues their whole lives. In fact, they had very boring medical histories....very uneventful!  Both came from big families...surely they were natural "breeders". Yet, they struggled to conceive for years.

I'm sure you've guessed by now that the last girl is me. I was a natural "breeder" from a big family. My cousins were breeders and started having children in their teens. It's a natural assumption that I would have no problems getting pregnant. I never had weight issues or irregular periods.

I used to be a "Fertile". Or so I thought.  Unknowingly, I was in fact an "Unfortunate". Infertility does not discriminate. It can strike anyone, including people you would least expect, like me.

I used to work with a guy who was a similar age to me. His wife was pregnant, but I had no idea at the time what they had gone through to get to that stage. When I found out they conceived through IVF, I'll admit that my immediate thought was that he was shooting blanks. Surely, that's the only cause of infertility? I mean, how narrow minded was I? Well now that I'm on the other side of the fence, I know that I'm faced with the same sort of response. Fertiles will just never understand because infertility isn't really something that is discussed. Oh, don't get me wrong, EVERYONE knows SOMEONE who has struggled to conceive (you have no idea how many people have told me these stories), but they will just never understand what any Unfortunate goes through.

Well, it sucks being an Unfortunate. It's just bloody unfair. It's a bloody struggle to achieve a pregnancy and it still affects you afterwards. Even though I have been incredibly lucky with a successful IVF cycle first go, the legacy of infertility continues to lurk there in the recesses of my mind. It holds me back (just that little bit) from investing too much of myself in the pregnancy or the birth. It took me months to accept that this was finally happening, because my mind just became trained to accept dissapointment. So I've always been a bit reserved during this pregnancy, knowing that anything could go wrong at any time. It feels like a reeeally long and tiring battle to the finish line. As I get closer to the finish line, everything becomes more real and I get a little bit more excited about future plans.

Sigh...I know getting over the finish line will be amazing and we can finally start the next chapter of our lives with our new little family. But the fight to get there will never be forgotten.

The Great Pram Debacle

The bad luck charm on 3 wheels
(not our actual pram, but same model)

OK, so a long time ago, we were given a pram...

We were still in our first year of marriage and just starting our journey of (mis)conception. We were given a pram, a stroller and a car seat from my husband's mother. They were used by her partner's daughter back in 2004(?).  I wasn't overly pleased with the kind donation because it represented all the pressure from the in-laws to get on the reproduction wagon, and I found it quite invasive. But we kept them in the back shed for years, gathering dust, mice poo and snail trails.

At the beginning of this year, I convinced my husband to get rid of the car seat as mice had found some forgotten crumbs under the seat lining and eaten the stuffing under the seat. I was also concerned that it didn't meet current Australian Safety Standards. But I had this weird thing that it was like a bad luck charm because of the all the expectations it represented. And what do you know? Two weeks after we threw it in the bin, I found out I was pregnant. A coincidence? :)

But we still held on to the pram and stroller.

I don't have a problem with the stroller. It's easy to fold. It's light and it's simple to use. But the pram is heavy (more than 12kg), incredibly bulky and doesn't lock when it's folded down. It also isn't reversible, which is something I really wanted so the baby could face me when it was very young. The tyres were also flat.

I hated this pram!

I loathed the idea of having to lug this thing around to do the shopping or go out for coffee. Or even pushing it around the shops. I gave my husband an ultimatum, that he clean the mice poo and snail trails and fix the tyres, or I would just go out and buy a pram to suit myself.

Well, to his credit, he did just that. So now I have to eat my words and we're keeping the pram.

I have, however, booked a pram and capsule combination for hire. It's a Babylove Snap n Go Capsule and Aurora pram and it costs $200 to hire for 6 months. This will give us time to work out if the free pram is actually worth keeping. It also gives us time to work out what kind of long term pram/stroller we would need, if we do end up buying one.

After all the research I did on prams, I'm happy with this option. If we bought that option at retail it would be more than $400, and we could quite possibly want to get rid of it after 6 months to find something  more suitable anyway. Capsules are just ridiculously expensive!



All images used in this post are not my own. They have been taken from a google image search. Please contact me if you want them to be removed.