~Tiffany
The two-week-wait, or 2ww, as we obsessively on pregnancy blogs/forums know it, is a special kind of torture. It’s filled with a wide range of emotions from hope to despair and everything in between with a whole lot of anxiety mixed in. When you’ve already gone through one 2ww, the second one feels…different. It feels less optimistic and more cautious, while simultaneously, less scientific, and more hopeful, because science has already failed you.
Our first cycle went exactly as planned. The medications worked perfectly, the biology responded as it should have, the fertility process should have been a slam dunk, but for whatever reason, it just didn’t take. So, for this next cycle, nothing was changed, dosages weren’t adjusted, timing wasn’t altered, essentially the same sequence of events took place in exactly the same sequence of time.
There were differences this time though, if not in the process, in the way we were approaching it. In the way we were thinking about the different permutations of futures that could arise. How many more tries would it take? Would this time take? If it takes, how many do you think we will have? What will it be like to have one? Two? Three?! With each question we asked ourselves for the second if not hundredth time, I realized that my mindset was less starry-eyed and more ready to accept whatever future was in store, whichever of these futures that may be.
So, we kept saying things like, “I really hope this one takes, but if it doesn’t, we just try again…” After which I’d think silently to myself, “but I really hope this one works.” You see, I’m sure if you’ve read any of our other blogs by this point, you know how much we want to be parents. You know how hard we’ve worked to get to the point where we will work even harder to raise good humans. So, even the slightest hope feels like the heaviest weight.
I held Aly’s hand in the doctor’s office, praying my strongest prayer that one of our little swimmers would make it. I stroked her hair in wonderment at this amazing thing we were doing with the heaviest hope I have ever felt.
It’s funny, you know, during the last cycle, Aly and I both had a really good feeling about it. We know now that it was our faith that elevated us. It was something that we really needed at the time, especially it having been our first try. This cycle, however, Aly said to me, “I don’t have a good feeling about this one.” To which I responded, “Maybe that’s a good thing.”
The two-week wait commenced and we waited and waited, but this time, we didn’t drive ourselves nuts on google like the first time. We didn’t read every forum about early pregnancy signs and we didn’t watch endless videos about women who had tested positively after symptoms like the ones that Aly had been having. We “symptom spotted” less and put less stock in things that felt suspiciously like pregnancy signs. All of this we did/didn’t do to maintain our sanity and keep our stress levels down. That is…until Aly’s breasts were continuously tender, and she was smelling the dog from across the house and day 10 was turning to day 11, then day 11 was turning to day 12 and those symptoms weren’t abating and they hadn’t been there the last cycle… When these things happened, our resolve broke and the pregnancy tests that we had stored in our medicine cabinet and sworn not to use, came out.
Have you ever wanted something so much, that when you finally got it, you didn’t believe it was real? That was our life from December 20-23rd, and we have the three positive pregnancy tests to prove it. The faint second line taunted us for three days until, on Monday, our doctor called us, once the lab work came back and told us that our HCG levels were excellent. For those of you who are interested, it was at 187 on day 14. We were in a state of cautious optimism for 3 days and now acceptance has kicked in because Aly is super freaking pregnant with an HCG level that high so soon.
So, now we’re venturing into a new kind of unknown. An unknown filled with nightly readings of, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” and registries “must have” lists, and revisiting Aly’s many, many, many Pinterest boards to figure out what the heck we do now that we have a baby (or multiple babies) growing in her tummy. This unknown feels so thrilling and terrifying and amazing. It feels like a blessing I’ve never encountered before. One thing I do know is that as we shared the news with friends and family it was very clear that Baby(ies) Albrecht would know love from so many places and we are so grateful for that.
We recently visited BuyBuyBaby again, this time as expectant mothers, and just to be able to write that fills me with such joy, that I haven’t the words to express it. We looked around and pointed things out we already had on our registry (yes, we already have started building a registry. If you don’t know we’re planners by now, you’ll never know it). We tested and re-tested gliders and ended up compromising yet again, even though my pick was very clearly the more comfortable option. J
As you know, I read. A lot. The “Best of” lists…I’m all over them, doing comparisons on what strollers and car seats should be on the top of our lists, and which bottles/bottle sterilizers/formula/baby monitors are the highest recommended. This pregnancy has my normal tendency to research going on hyper drive.
Strollers have never been as daunting as they are when you’re considering filling them with more than one child at a time. The things you need to consider when buying a stroller for 2+: safety, weight, compatibility with infant car seats, frame durability, wheels, suspension, is it compatible with two infant car seats in the very likely event of twins, do the rumble seats fit comfortably back to back when the babies grow out of infant car seats, how many adapters/what kind of adapters do we need depending which car seat we choose/stroller we choose, what about weight limits for the seats, how easy is it to fold, and a whole host of other things that I’m not thinking of off the top of my head as I write this.
In any case, while I’m obsessing over lists, Aly is busy making little humans, we have our first ultrasound on Wednesday. It’s the 6 week ultrasound to determine if the pregnancy is viable and how many little ones we have growing in Aly’s tummy. Aly’s pregnancy symptoms are pretty strong, and that coupled with the insanely high HCG at 14 days is giving us warm and fuzzies about the viability, but also anxiety about how many we will have at once. No matter what the number, we’re ecstatic. As the number grows, so does the anxiety, but we’re freaking grateful for all of it that we’re just eagerly anticipating seeing our little apple seed/s on the big screen on Wednesday.
As always, we’re so grateful for the good vibes and the love you all have sent our way since we started sharing our journey with you into growing the Albrecht Household.
The Albrecht Household 