Update

So.. I am currently 32 weeks pregnant, with 7 weeks, 5 days left until my due date. Not that I am counting or anything.

I had my 32 weeks check up on Tuesday and it went well. I passed the Gestational Diabetes test, in fact my numbers were quite good (I had failed the Glucose screening). My fundal measurement was 32 inches, right on target. I have gained 16 lbs, a little on the light side but my OB is not concerned as I have 7.5 weeks left to go and he thinks I will make it to 24 lbs. My waist has gone from 30 inches to 42 inches! The baby's heart rate was really good (b/w 140-150) and he was moving around a lot. My blood pressure was 120 over 69, so all in all we both seem healthy. And the baby gets to have sugar again, yay! Or maybe I am more excited because Mommy gets to have sugar again, YAY!

There have been a few hiccups in this pregnancy but for the most part I have had it really good. I have really tried to enjoy the last couple of months, feeling much reassured since constant movement started. I have decided to do a list of what I have learned about pregnancy after infertility.

I have learned, in no particular order, that:

1. When you've struggled to get pregnant and gone through procedures such as IUI, IVF, FET, you lose confidence in your body's ability to do what it is supposed to do reproductively. This causes some women to internalize their inability to have a child.

2. When you get pregnant and miscarry, the emotional fallout is devastating. There is no way to prepare yourself for it, despite the fact that you knew it was a possibility. And anyone who has not been through it cannot understand, no matter how much they want to. People just do not get how much that early stage embryo meant to you or how many of your dreams were pinned to it.

3. If you are lucky enough to get pregnant again, people will not understand why you are so afraid and paranoid. They will say annoying things like "you need to get over it" or "it's not going to happen again". They make promises they can't keep.

4. Despite the fact that you are an educated and fairly intelligent woman, you will not go dancing or have sex for many months after learning you are pregnant because that is what you did two days before learning you were going to miscarry last time. Sex seems fairly easy to give up when it did nothing to help you get pregnant in the first place.

5. Successfully passing the first trimester does nothing to relieve your anxiety because you have seen too many of your internet friends have late miscarriages or suffer the complete destruction of a still-born birth.

6. Despite all of this anxiety, you can honestly enjoy your pregnancy. I have. I love watching my belly grow and now I love watching it jump around when baby is being particularly active. I love the special bond that I feel with him because we are connected. I love it when people I know want to put their hands on my belly and feel him move, it makes me feel others will love him almost as much as I do.

7. When you feel your baby move inside you for the first time, it is the most amazing feeling you have ever had. In fact, with only 7 weeks to go, feeling my little boy move inside me still brings a sense of awe and a smile every single time!

8. Despite the fact that you gain more confidence every month, it still shocks you to learn that other pregnant people actually buy things for their baby, sometimes as soon as they find out they are pregnant. I so far have a grand total of 6 sleepers, 2 actual outfits, 3 onesies and a stroller and a car seat my brother gave us as a gift.

9. Regardless of what the doctor says about sex being safe during pregnancy, it is not without consequences. Some women get vascular, irritated cervix's in response to the high estrogen levels and bleed every time they have sex.

10. I am one of those women.

11. When you go into the hospital as a result of this bleeding and they ask if you are having contractions and you say no, do not be surprised to learn you are wrong when they hook you up to the monitors. Apparently, you can have braxton hicks contractions without ever knowing it.

12. It is ok to laugh at the doctor when he says the bleeding means nothing, is not harmful to the baby and you can keep having sex.

13. The advantage is that for some reason you have very sexually explicit dreams while pregnant. You do not need to have sex in order to orgasm! These sleepgasms do not cause bleeding!

14. One discomfort of pregnancy is how very sore your hips can get while sleeping on your side. There are nights when I sleep only 3-4 hours and then have to get up, it hurts so much. My doctor says that it is a result of hormones which cause the joints to losen allowing for an easier childbirth. I am all for easier child birth.

15. Despite the fact that you have always, all of your life like to sleep in, you will sometimes find yourself getting up at 5:45 am wanting to dust and clean the kitchen (because you cannot put up with this mess one minute longer). You will then be happy to make omelette's and smoothies for yourself and your husband, despite the fact that you do not usually like breakfast foods and can normally barely tolerate eating at all before 9:00 am.

16. You will have to pay more for private pre-natal classes because you just could not imagine registering for them at 12 weeks when your doctor told you too. And when you called at 28 weeks the lady laughed at you and told you they were full to the end of July!

17. At some point you began to lose your ability to walk properly (it seems to have happened suddenly in the last few days) and begin to waddle. Given that you have only gained 16 lbs, you do not understand why this is necessary.

18. Although you are able and inclined to get up earlier in the mornings, making it past 3:00 pm without a nap seems like an impossibility. For that reason you buy this t-shirt and everyone laughs when you wear it. I bought the t-shirt not the night gown.

19. You spend ridiculous amounts of money on capturing the precious moments of this pregnancy because it may very well be your only one. Like having 3d ultrasounds done. Click here if you want to see pictures of my little boy. The best pictures are in rows 4-8 so you don't have to go through the whole thing. I am also having professional pictures taken of Rick, I and the "belly".

20. You become so incredibly bonded to this baby that the idea that things can still go wrong nearly breaks your heart and you simply have to put it out of your mind and assume that everything is going to be ok.

21. In doing so, you begin to regain confidence in your body and some of the pain of infertility is pushed to the recesses of your mind. Not all of it, and it is not forgotten, you can still commiserate with your friends and, in fact, often their stories causes you tears you hurt for them so badly. But, you know you are lucky, you know that all of your dreams are about to come true, and somehow, miraculously that makes what you have gone through so much easier to take. And although you wouldn't wish infertility on anyone, you have also decided that given the outcome, you are glad you took this journey because although it brought incredible pain, it also allowed you to make incredible friends. And you know in your heart, that had you not struggled the way you did, you would not be the person you are today and this pregnancy although still miraculous, would not make you feel the way you feel right now..... so incredibly blessed and lucky and happy and awed!

So there, that about sums up my experience so far. I have been anxious and stressed. I have had several bleeding scares (the most recent of which has been totally caused by having sex). I am enjoying every minute of it regardless of these things and I know that if we managed to deliver my baby boy alive, he could survive at this point! And for all of you who would like to see a belly picture, taken at 32 weeks, scroll down, otherwise you should stop here.... I promise, it is only pretty to me!

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Without covering the belly with clothes.

Covering the belly with clothes:

And yes actually, that is going to be the baby's room. And no it is not painted yet. But it has been scrubbed of all nicotine (we bought the house from smokers who had smoked inside for 35 years) and primed with a special primer that seals and blocks nicotine stains and smells, and that is a good start, no?