"Just" one

Something I've been struggling with lately is people's reactions when I tell them I heard the baby's heartbeat. Those that have no idea we did ivf are very excited. I told my students on Tuesday night for example. We had done an introductory activity the first week of class where I asked each student to tell two truths and one lie about themselves and then as a class we tried to pick which of the 3 statements wasn't true. I hadn't participated the first week, but on Tuesday night I had given them 2 truths and 1 lie (the lie was "I love seafood"), and one of my truths was "I am expecting another baby." They were so happy for me, and it was such a breath of fresh air not to also hear people say things like they are disappointed it's not twins or triplets. I understand their disappointment as I was hoping for twins myself, but I know what a miracle it is for me to be expecting ONE baby at the age of 37 after our first cycle of ttc for #2 considering it took 5 1/2 years to conceive Nadia. For example, one lady in choir when she asked how many babies said she needed to know how excited to be. I feel badly that people are less excited because I am "only" expecting one baby. Most of the time we do expect women to carry only one baby at a time, but when people know you transferred back three, the expectations are different. I am sure in time I'll stop getting these comments, but for right now I have to say they make me a little sad. Of course I know all these hormone changes are making me more emotional than usual which is probably why this is bugging me more than it should. The bottom line is that God knows what is best for our family. Two children might be His best for us. I am quite certain that if this pgcy results in a baby in our arms that we'll never do ivf again. So if I do ever have a third child, it will have to be a surprise "au natural" pgcy - which hasn't happened in the last 7 years, and I'll be at least 38 before I get "AF" back again so I really doubt it will happen, but nothing is impossible with God. My guess is that our family will be complete with Nadia and the jellybean. Considering 2 years ago I was losing all hope of ever being a mom, having two kids is a wonderful miracle!

The last few days I've been busy grading papers (Can you believe I gave the midterm exam last night! Summer sessions go by soooo quickly!), writing exams for the independent study courses I am supervising the second summer session, and of course playing with Nadia as well as doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. The good news is that although I've still had plenty of moments of feeling like I am about to throw up, my energy level has come up some which has been a big blessing. We got a bit of cabin fever on Wednesday when it rained ALL day. Nadia and I usually spend part of the day on the back porch, in the yard, on the swingset, and/or taking a walk with the stroller. Thankfully yesterday was a pretty day. Speaking of the back porch, our robin family still spends a lot of time on or near the porch, and even though the three baby birds are getting much closer in size to momma bird (amazing how fast they grow!) - I still see her feeding them worms from time to time. Even when babies leave the nest, mommas still feed their children from time to time. :-)

I hear the word mama about 50 million times a day now. She definitely knows it's my name. This morning I was singing a song that had daddy in the lyrics and she started saying dada. One time she said the word "yes" - pronounced 100% accurately, but I haven't heard it enough to count it as one of her words. She says "dudu" when playing with her rubber duckies in the bathtub (definitely different than dada). Sometimes she calls Paul "daddy" but usually "dada." My name is the only one that she says while crying. I think she says mama when crying more than the usual waaaawaaaa more often these days, LOL!

I'll end with one other "just one" story. Dr. A told me on Tuesday that he had seen another patient that morning for her first pgcy u/s and was shocked to see she is carrying identical twins. The reason he was shocked is they only retrieved ONE egg and thankfully it did fertilize so they transferred one embryo. He couldn't believe that an ivf egg retrieval of just one egg has resulted in two babies. Amazing! It truly does only take one even though most REs would cancel an ivf cycle if they thought they could retrieve less than 4 eggs.