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I'll start with positives:

I'm still SUPER bloated and my pants hardly button.  I felt SUPER sick all day today.  I am SUPER tired.  My "upper" body is SUPER tender. :)

I needed french fries BAD tonight so Aiden and I went to the store.  I ended up coming home with fries, tator tots, chicken strips,  Cheez-its, and Gatorade (None of which I ever eat or drink).. then ate half the bag of fries and half the bag of tots and 2 chicken strips.

I love every last detail about what is happening to my body right now.  Truly.  It's beautiful and it's a miracle.  This baby is growing like a champ, I can feel it.



Here are some frustrations from the past week:

I got my results on Monday from last weeks blood test.  My HCG is still looking really good, but my progesterone went from 35 to 23 (they want the levels to be around 19/20).  My nurse told me they knew I would be nervous about that even though they did warn me these numbers could drop drastically (umm, yes!) and so they put me on 50 mg of progeserone supplement once a day.  She said they would re-check the levels at my ultrasound appt which is next Friday.  I hung up nervous that my numbers were already dropping, but glad that they put me on a supplement.

After thinking about all of this for about 5 minutes after I got off the phone (and some pep-talks from my awesome friends)  I decided I was not okay with it.  I wanted to have those levels checked weekly and I wanted more than 50 mg.  I have been doing my research and nobody that I've read about has been put on anything lower than 100-200 mg (and sometimes this much twice daily).  And these next couple weeks (when they won't be checking my levels) is the time frame when everything went so horribly wrong the last couple times.  So.  I called back and pretty much had to fight tooth and nail to get them to agree to this.  I did end up getting my way ( they scheduled weekly progesterone tests up until week 12 and bumped up my dose to 100 mg ) but I'm still so confused as to why it is such a big deal.  The test is simply them taking my blood.  I don't even see a doctor.  It's my money and my time.  The supplements won't do me or the baby ANY harm.. even if my levels weren't dropping.  Why don't they do this for every woman?  Test their progesterone hormone, at least once in the early weeks?  I know there are some doctors that do, but its very few and far between. I know it's not the "end-all be-all" but its something that we CAN TRY to control, when everything else is so OUT of our control.   I'm assuming its a money thing...

I don't want to nit-pick at everything my doctors decide, but I definitely know what I want and I am pretty in-tune with my body.  I've grown accustomed to the whole "be an advocate for yourself" thing. So they better start listening to me! :)

In a week we will have a picture of the baby.  I can't wait to see him/her.  Keep the prayers flowing!