Happy National Infertility Awareness Week...I'm pregnant!

Whaaaaat?!?!
After my last few posts have been all suicide and black roses things sure turned around!
I went to work Monday night and had some labs drawn while I was there to make sure the clomid is working, my thyroid is okay, and all my hormones are in check. I threw in a blood pregnancy test while I was at it. Figure if I had a needle in my arm, what the heck? Well my HCG level (HCG is made by your baby after it implants and is what make your pregnancy test positive) was 1. Wtf. One? Really. Typically anything less than 5 is considered not pregnant. I was pissed, why couldn't my level just be zero? I felt like I was being tortured. One gave me a smidge of hope, but just enough to tell myself I was being set up for disappointment.
Tuesday Josh came home for work and when we went to bed that night I felt "icky" I had heartburn, shakiness, and nausea. Blah. And once again I was hacked off because why does my body have to give me hope that I am having pregnancy symptoms? I woke up at 3:30 to pee and thought what the heck, I'll take a test.  I knew it would be negative since just Monday night my HCG level was a patheic 1. And home pregnancy tests (HPTs) require a level of 25 to show a positive. So fat chance, but it is my piss I'll do what I want with it.....

Welllllll, lookie there! A big fat positive (BFP)!! At 10 days passed ovulation (DPO) Holy mother of Abraham Lincoln! Very faint but a positive is a positive, you can't be kinda pregnant. I immediatley took several more and they all said the same thing: little embyro is Courtney's uterus! HHBH exsists :)

The first thing I did was wait 3 agonizing hours for WalMart to open (hey, I'm a true Arkansasan)  and I bought a carseat. Jumping the gun much?? But I wanted to tell my baby daddy we are preggers in a memorable way, and I have had a bit to think about it. So I put a carseat in the back of his truck with a sign that said "Reserved for Baby Hollowell" I woke him up and asked him to go eat breakfast with me, we go to get in the truck and he tells me he needs to check the oil. JUST GET IN THE MOTHERLOVIN TRUCK OK? He finally does and surrrpriiiiisse!!! His reaction? A few manly tears and "I'm so happy for you!" Sweet, but hello you are pregnant too here buddy. Oh yeah and he also told me not to kiss him with toungue because he only swished with mouthwash and didn't full out brush his teeth....exactly how I pictured this beautiful moment....kinda.

There was a little gift in the bag....a baby pair of converse. Awwwwww.

Thumbs up from Mr. Swimmy Sperm!

We had tickets, great tickets, to a Cardinals game that night, so we made it a blissful day in St. Louis. And bought a little something for HHBH as a keepsake of the happiest day we have shared so far.

So since we have got the news how do I feel? A little nervous. I'm ready to add some weeks to this pregnancy and gain some confidence. Our HHBH was an Easter Egg so by my last period I am 3 weeks and 6 days. Due New Years Day 2013. But God loves us and will take care of everything. I'm trying not to worry until I am given something to worry about, which I hope is never. We haven't told our families yet which is so hard to keep to ourselves but I want to wait it out and conjure up a cute, creative, and memorable plan to tell all the people who love us most (the same pesky people that kept asking "When are you going to have a baby?")  But in the days since I have known I'm growing a human my second pink line has gotten more definate, which makes me feel a little better. Nothing to do now but pray and wait. God is so good!

I have also started a little project I have been looking forward to doing. Weekly (or kinda weekly) baby bump progress pictures. Here is the first of approximately 40.

Pray for us y'all!

Peace. Love. Hunka Hunka Baby Hollowell.









It's my party. I'll cry if I want to.

Well good news, since my last post I have been able to cry again. (Strange to consider that good news I know) There are still times I really want to and can't, but on the whole I'm happy with my current production of tears. I guess there is nothing like a good round of fertility drugs to make you extra hormonal and emotionally vulnerable.


I hate the way not being able to get pregnant makes me feel. I want to "quit trying" so I am not thinking about it anymore. And oh so many people advise that this is when it is easiest to get pregnant. But honestly, it is impossible to "quit trying" when you really want a family, now matter what my efforts are to get pregnant I will still be hoping for 2 pink lines.
I'm tired of feeling sad, disappointed, jealous, insecure, vulnerable and a rainbow of other ugly emotions. And then I hate myself for feeling the way I do, wish I could be more easy going about it, and pray for the millionth time in my life to have a thicker skin, and my heart breaks all the while because I feel like a "bad person" for my unwanted emotions. And topping it off, I am worried that the way I feel isn't normal. That I should be stronger about it, that it happens to other people all the time, that I can do this, God loves me and has my life's plan in His hands, I should be thankful for all the things I have. So hard.

It seems that there is hardly a day that goes by that I don't hear the question I am always dreading "So when are you going to have a baby?" Is it just some weird bad karma that people ask you this ALL the time?  Josh sent me some flowers to work last week. No reason, I love you flowers. (my Mr. Perfect)

Aren't they pretty!?

People see my flowers and ask what they are for, my "just because" answer got a million "He must want a baby!" responses. I put a picture of my flowers on facebook, and someone comments that they are ready for us to make a baby. Yeah, yeah. Me too.

Josh and I went to St Louis this week and he got a new tattoo. It was a seven hour session, so we were there a while. A recurring question that day by different people was "Do you two have any kids?" And when you say no, conversation goes awkwardly silent. (Insert cricket chirp here) While I'm thinking as hard as I can about what facial expression I am wearing, trying not to look like you just punched me in the stomach. 

I considered letting the world know that we haven't been able to get pregnant on command, put my blog on facebook for everyone to read, send out a mass text to our families. All just to avoid the dreaded question that becomes more and more painful, but I decided not to because it won't make it any different. Strangers will ask. You can't sugar coat the world.  And people don't ask out of spite, they don't know how much it stings, they can't see me grimace on the inside.

This is Giuliana Rancic. I like her.

This girl wins the prize for rough luck, and strength. Here is a little bit of her story:





This morning on the Today show, Giuliana Rancic, 37, made a big announcement. Only it wasn't the happy pregnancy news we've all been waiting for as she and her husband, Bill Rancic, have struggled with infertility for years. Rather she revealed that she has breast cancer, which was discovered because of her IVF treatments.

She said she was originally planning to wait until she was 40 to have her first mammogram, but her IVF doctor insisted she get one as she was undergoing her third round of IVF. Though she went "kicking and screaming," she went, never believing that she -- at 36 (she's since had a birthday) with no family history of breast cancer -- could have it. Unfortunately, she learned shortly thereafter that she does.

Whether you are religious or not, it has to make you question if things happen for a reason. She believes that they do. She told Ann Curry she always knew there was a reason she wasn't getting pregnant, and that this discovery now explains it. Since it was detected so early, her prognosis is good. She will have surgery this week, then undergo six weeks of radiation treatments. After that, she plans to go right back to her attempts to get pregnant again:

I'm not going to give up. I still want this baby ... because this baby has saved my life. I truly feel God was looking out after me … If I had gotten pregnant later down the line, I could have been a lot sicker.

It's hard to see it when you're stuck in the middle of something as desperate as infertility, but believing there is a bigger reason can certainly be comforting. Whether it's God, Mother Nature, the universe, or whatever you choose to believe is responsible for those reasons, having faith in something can certainly help when the world seems to make no sense. That faith, which the Rancics have shown continuously throughout their infertility struggles, will serve them well as they beat cancer as well. And just as they have done with infertility, they're sharing their cancer battle with the world, providing comfort and inspiration in the process. Giuliana, who was visibly shaking during the interview, told Ann that while it was difficult, she was sharing her story to help other women remember to take care of themselves. "Don't feel sorry for me, just call your doctor tomorrow and make an appointment," she said.  


Wow. Isn't she amazing? I could never imagine putting such a positive spin on a cancer diagnosis. She is my strong role model! What I feel is just a drop in the bucket compared to what she has dealt with so gracefully.

Anyway. Let's get to the freaking positive point of this blog post already. I had a positive ovulation test! My first ever. It is very exciting but scary at the same time. Scared to get disappointed in a few weeks. But until then I have hope and faith, so I am trying my darndest to focus on the good that could happen.  So now just to do the baby dance repeatedly and wait. 
I am going to have labs drawn on day 21 of this cycle to see if all my hormones are in check and make sure the Clomid is having the desired effect on good ole Lavern and Shirley. If not, my doctors says he will increase the strength of the Clomid I take every month. I hope I hope this takes a turn for the better or I get tougher. I'm a work in progress, and that about sums it up.
Peace, Love, & Strength