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I’ve gotten so many emails about the supplements I am taking during pregnancy and took before conception that I decided to write a post. It seems a lot of people are having trouble finding the right prenatals they are happy with. I’ll also place this post under the Preconception and Pregnancy Resources at the top of the page.

Speaking of those pages, few of you might know that these two pages (PRE-CONCEPTION RESOURCES AND PREGNANCY RESOURCES) is where I have placed links to more informative posts I was writing as I was going through preparations for TTC and pregnancy and will continue updating them. They are articles, posts and links to things I found useful while preparing to conceive and during pregnancy, as well as what I did during the pre-TTC period and pregnancy recaps, along with helpful products and books. If you’re TTC or pregnant, go check it out, you might find a few useful things there.

VITAMINS and SUPPLEMENTS

Note: I am not here to give medical advice. All the information in this post and on this blog is my personal opinion derived from many books and studies I have found. You need to use your own situation and resources to decide if what is right for you.

When we first decided to TTC and started preparing our bodies for the first month of trying to conceive, I did a little bit of research as to what vitamins we could take to make our bodies healthy and strong in preparation for pregnancy. At that point, pretty much any prenatal supplement would do the job. However, knowing that many vitamins and minerals do have a toxicity level, my goal was to find a prenatal supplement that didn’t have mega doses of certain vitamins. Some prenatals LOVE jamming 500% or more of vitamins into the pill, and not only is it unnecessary, but could be very dangerous when it comes to pregnancy.

TTC Supplement

So my initial pre-TTC prenatal supplement was from Solgar Prenatal Nutrients. It has a perfect amount of vitamins/minerals, without exceeding 100% of RDA,except for Iron (which is supposed to be higher for pregnant women anyways) and Vit. C ( which doesn’t really have a toxicity level) (view the supplement label here)

It’s important to go into pregnancy with adequate stores of iron, which sets you up not to be deficient later and you also need 200% of regular DV of folic acid which is 800mg. It’s extremely important to take folic acid supplements prior to conception as the neural tube develops in the first 30 days of pregnancy (before most women know they are pregnant) and supplementing folic acid can prevent many cases of neural tube defects.

For your man:

Get him a zinc and selenium supplement which helps sperm health and production. A standard one a day men’s pill like one below should do just fine

DHA supplement

Taking DHA or eating fatty fish (such as salmon, sardines and herring) is going to help with your baby’s brain development once you get pregnant. I started with an algae based vegetarian DHA from Solgar. I liked the idea of not having to deal with mercury and dioxins from fish based supplements. Soon I realized it wasn’t enough DHA (only 200mg) and to get it to the recommended 1g, I’d have to take 5 pills a day, which would become very costly. That’s where the Environmental Defense Fund website came in handy with their Fish Oil Supplement Guide and after checking out a bunch of DHA brands, I decided that I really liked Nordic Naturals (I had read good things about them before as well). It has a nice strawberry taste, contains 1g of DHA in it and it’s really well refined, so you don’t have to worry about mercury and dioxins.

So that’s where I was during the pre-conception stage….

Then pregnancy came and with it, came a lot of new reading and researching.

I found out that as little as 3/4 of Daily Value of vitamin E has been linked with heart defects. My OB tipped me off about that when I ran my prenatals past him but the prenatal he offered that had 50% of vitamin E was flawed in other areas. The worst part is that ingesting more than 3/4 of the recommended amount of vitamin E (from food AND supplements) BEFORE and DURING pregnancy increased the risk of heart abnormalities in babies 9 fold (according to the study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology). You just CAN’T WIN, can you? Keep in mind that some DHA supplements use vitamin E as a preservative so count that in too (it’ll list it on the label).

So I decided that the only way to truly do a good job with my prenatals is to “build my own”. Rather than take 2 massive pills, I decided to buy all separate supplements.

Most people’s diets get sufficient amounts of some vitamins and minerals. Everyone’s diet is different, therefore everyone’s needs are different. In order NOT to have to take literally up to 25 different pills a day, I set out to figure out what my diet is deficient in and only supplement those plus some. After tracking my food intake for a week or so using NutritionData, I figured out that as a {mostly} vegetarian eater, I was perfect on all vitamins except B, and all minerals except iron and zinc. I actually continued tracking my food intake and vitamins and attempting to get all of my 100% of RDA from foods, but anything I was deficient that day I could always pop a supplement for, without throwing the rest out of wack.

So I assume most of you aren’t going to want to go to the extent of tracking your food intake and some of you might not have time for it, so I’ll try to break it down as easily as I can.

If you’re mainly a vegetable/fruit/grain eater, you’ll need the same supplementation as me. If you tend to eat fewer vegetables and more meat products, you need to check your A,C,K, folate consumption.

Here is my supplement breakdown:

{ Morning: 500mg of Calcium + 1000 mg DHA. (links are to the actual supplements I take) }

Calcium needed supplementation just in case ( I did eat enough dairy to meet my RDA, but I’d like to keep my teeth and bones when I am done making babies, so I wanted to be sure). It needs to be taken at a different time of the day than iron, since it interferes with iron absoption (which is hard to absorb as it is). In addition to that, only 500mg of calcium can be absorbed at a time, so if you want to supplement more, you need to break it down into 500mg servings over the day. Make sure your brand comes with vitamin D for better absorption as well.



DHA is almost always deficient in most people, unless you literally eat fatty fish daily, and with every child your DHA stores dimish, so it’s even more important to supplement in subsequent pregnancies. There’s been a study in nursing women that showed that taking as much as 2-4 grams of DHA increased their child’s intelligence accordingly, so the supplementation doesn’t stop with pregnancy, but continues into breastfeeding and beyond. If you’re formula feeding, it’s trickier, since not all formula companies care to add DHA, however it’s possible to find one that does have a good amount of DHA (don’t be fooled by the marketing ploy of adding a negligent amount of DHA and stating “source of DHA” on the can)

{ Evening: Vit. C+Iron+Zinc+Copper+B complex+Folic Acid (links are to the actual supplements I take) }

Vitamin C – besides it being harder to overdose on, vitamin C is just a good vitamin to supplement. In my case, the reason for supplementation was that Iron is better absorbed if taken with vitamin C. You can accomplish the same thing if you take your iron with orange juice or eat a grapefruit. The challenge is to find a pill that doesn’t give you 1000% of vitamin C. So I break mine into two and take half the amount (250mg) at one time. Most fruit/vegetable eaters don’t need supplementation unless they want better iron absorption.

Iron – this one really doesn’t need explanation. Unless you eat A LOT OF iron rich foods, you probably need supplementation at one point of the pregnancy or the other. I used Gentle Iron from Solgar from the beginning and I haven’t had much trouble with it making me sick or constipated (like some iron supplements do). Don’t take it close to a calcium rich meal or with your calcium supplement. It inhibits absorption. Iron is the reason I take all these pills in the evening, because I figured if I were to get sick from it, I’d be fast asleep by the time it hits me and I won’t notice it as much :) So the evening time just stayed.

Zinc and Copper- I don’t actually need copper supplement on daily basis, however the rule of thumb is to supplement copper if you supplement zinc and visa versa. They are in a very finicky balance in our system and supplementing one without the other can throw the whole balance off. Unless you know you eat plenty of copper, I wouldn’t supplement zinc without it. Since these two tend to come in 200% dv form, I break them in two as well.

B vitamins Complex – this pill complex includes all B vitamins in no more than 100% DV, plus 400mg of folic acid. Since I don’t eat meat, or drink too much dairy, I need supplementation. If you’re a meat eater, you might not. This one from Sundowns was the best one I found.

Folic Acid – this one is a must from day “MINUS 30″ of pregnancy. The RDA for pregnant women is 800mg. Since I get 400 mg from my B complex, I only need to supplement an additional 400mg.

So that’s where I am at right now. I guess once I start breastfeeding, I’ll have to review the breakdown of vitamins necessary for breastfeeding and adjust accordingly.

Hope this helps a few of you who ran into the same trouble with prenatals as I did, but haven’t had a chance to email me.

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As you might have already noticed I did a minor re-design of the blog. I felt I needed something bright and happy, now that we are squarely in the pregnancy territory.

Once Alexis arrives, I’m thinking about completely re-doing the layout and possibly going with two sidebars and of course lots of pictures with our little girl.

Aside from the design, there are a few other changes to make life easier for you and me.

SIDEBAR

1. Along with subscribing by email or through an RSS feed, you can now subscribe to my blog through BlogLovin’ if that’s what you use to read blogs.  See the sidebar for the links.
If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, you’re always welcome to say hi and follow.

2. If you’d like to include our button on your blog, feel free to grab it from the sidebar.

3. The biggest change that is bound to make your life easier is the addition of Google Friend Connect.

You can now sign in and comment through your Google ID as well as add this blog to your account for easier access.
Please see the sidebar and connect.
To comment with your Google ID, just make sure you’re signed in ( there’s a little sign-in button at the bottom of the comment form), that way you won’t need to enter your information.

4. I also added 3 sections on the sidebar with the sites I frequently use: FOR MOMMY, FOR BABY and HOME DECOR.

4. I’ve never pointed it out before, but if you’re pregnant, TTCing (TTC= trying to conceive) or about to start TTCing, there are a few pages I put together with the research I’ve done going through the journey myself. That way you don’t have to search out the blog to find needed information.

The top bar has a page, called PRE-CONCEPTION RESOURCES. It lists ALL the steps we took in preparation for TTCing with links to appropriate posts, as well as some useful items, including THE BEST BOOK you could possibly read before trying to conceive.  Our actual TTC phase didn’t last long. Well, technically, we didn’t even have a TTC phase, since we got pregnant the first month, but I feel that a year of preparations was like spending a year TTCing.

The other useful page is called PREGNANCY RESOURCES. Since I’m only half way into this pregnancy, there is only some information there ( will be updated as I get further along). You can find a list of harmful herbs , all known teratogens ( substances that cause birth defects), water filters, pregnancy safe skin routine, maternity sleeping bras. I also listed ALL the pregnancy books I’ve read and which ones are a MUST and which ones are a PASS ( Like Bruno says “Nicht Nicht! or Ja! Ja!”)

And finally, NUTRITION. This page contains all the posts I did as a part of GET FIT GET HEALTHY challenge. This blog is not meant to be about nutrition, but I didn’t want those few things that were written about nutrition to be lost in the maze of this blog’s archives.

This blog was started as a way to record all the things we were going through to prepare to start TTCing. I spent about a year in just preparations, and I didn’t want all the information to be wasted. So the blog was started as a way to give women, who were going through the same phase, all the information I’ve gathered, save them time and headache. And while it morphed into a more personal blog about our journey, I would like to continue putting together all and any useful information I come across in the meantime.

5. Finally, please feel free to contact me via email (contact {at} prebabyblog.com) I love getting emails from you guys and will be happy to answer questions or just say hi!

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So like I said previously, I’d like to start a weekly question regarding pregnancy and parenting.

As I go into this journey, I am reading a ton of books, but what books can only tell us is the medical facts, but what i want to hear is the experience of normal people all around me, mothers who went through this.
Each week I will post a question that I have been wondering about.

This weeks question is:

How long did it take you to conceive?

Write as much or as little about this as you’d like. I would really appreciate if EVERYONE could answer even if it’s a short answer or an approximation.

I know statistically it takes a healthy couple on average 6 months to conceive, with some couples taking a year, but what I’d really like to know is your experience. We’ll be starting in May and I am setting my hopes as low as I possibly can so that my perfectionist self wouldn’t get frustrated. I know my ovulation well ( iphone charting), my husband’s sperm count is perfect , but we will be doing Shettles method to try for a girl. We know it’s not a sure fire way, but the method seems logical and we just re9ally want to do anything that will increase our chances of making a baby girl. :)

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Part I- Preparations

Part II- Health Insurance ( maternity coverage)

Part III -  Vaccination and Testing

Up until 2 months ago I still didn’t have my OB situation figured out. I needed to find a really good OB who I would do my pre-conception check up with and go all the way through delivery. I didn’t really like the idea of having to interview different OBGYNs and possibly having to pay for each office visit.

Lucky for me, my friend Anna was getting ready to give birth and she found, what turned out to be one of the best doctors I could have hoped for, Dr Thompson. Both her and two of her other friends gave birth using Dr Thompson and all three were in “love” with him. Later, my husband was given a OB referral from a client of ours and when he came home to give me his number , it’s turned out to be the same doctor. So at this point I had 4 people telling me he’s awesome. I had to check him out.

The office visit went surprisingly well. He listened a lot, gave good advice, spent a ton of time discussing our needs and wants with us. Looked through my prenatals that i had already been taking, told me my uterus looked fine ( lol) and in general was a really really nice guy.

See, normally I go for younger male OBGYNs.  Male because I feel a lot more comfortable being naked around a man than a woman, and especially when it comes to touching and looking up my hoo-ha. It just seems to me that  it’s more natural. I’d rather a doctor enjoy doing what he’s doing than think it’s gross ( which, as a female,  is what I’d think if i had to look up other girls’ vaginas all day long). And young because I feel young doctors are more updated on cutting edge medicine, statistics and education, which is what I’d like. I’d pick change and progress  over tradition any day.

Dr T. was my first older OBGYN ( in his 50s-60s) and I don’t think I minded it.

I asked him about his C-section stats and how he felt about episiotomies. I also knew a lot from my friends who delivered with him, like the fact that he’d come to deliver your baby even if he’s not on duty which is a HUGE bonus ( my friend went into labor at 3 am and he came to deliver it even though it was not his shift).

Next, I checked out the hospital that’s conveniently located across from his office. The Birth Place seemed really nice with a lot of security, the rooms were big and exactly what you’d expect. I was satisfied.

I also discussed water births with my doctor and he didn’t think it was such a good idea ( even though the hospital offers it), because of the risk of infection ( which i tend to agree). I definitely want to give birth in a hospital. The idea of a midwife freaks me out, because I am very much a scientific person who’s all for advancing our knowledge and procedures. I would not want to do a at-home birth – too much can go wrong. However, I also do not want any unnecessary intervention, like inductions and vacuums and such. No pitocin for me even if I’m past due or progressing slowly ( unless the baby is in real danger). I realize I might think differently once the time comes, but for now those are my decisions. I do want an epidural- I do not see the reason to endure the pain if you don’t have to, considering that the risks are minimal.

So that’s my plan for now. I’m very happy with how and where it’s all going. I’ll continue reading  books and real life experiences on blogs and modifying my ideas and desires accordingly. I also cannot wait to watch the “Business of being born” documentary. I started watching it a few weeks ago, but decided that it would serve me better if i watch it when I am actually pregnant.

At this point, I’m through all of my 5 pre-conception books and have memorized everything that i need to do and stay away from before conception. When our health insurance goes through and we actually start trying I’ll start on my 5-7 pregnancy books ( ok, to be completely honest- i already started on two- i couldn’t hold back :))

Otherwise, things have calmed down for me, especially with the new realization that we’re both perfectly healthy and should be very fertile and that sort of just gave me a really nice peace of mind ( i almost typed “piece of mind” lol).

My Hubby seems to be very excited about a prospect of having a baby soon as well. We spent the  first few hours of our Saturday morning reading the first 20 pages of day by day pregnancy ( 2 weeks before conception + 1 week after), discussing genetics, googling dominant and recessive features ( it seems our baby has a 50/50 of inheriting either his blue eyes or my green eyes). 

{ It was fascinating to read about eye genes. Apparently there are 2 genes only: Bey2 (brown/blue) and Gey(green/blue). I knew that blue was recessive and brown -dominant, but I always wondered where green and grey colors stood.  It turns out grey is simply a variation of blue color that is lacking melanin. And green color has it’s own gene that it shares with blue, just like brown shares with a different blue gene. So in Bey2, brown is dominant over blue, in Gey- green is dominant over blue, and Gey green is also dominant over Bey2 blue (did I lose you yet?). So my green eyed self has to have Gey gene ( he-he she says “gey gene”!) and my blue eyed husband has to have  blue/blue gene ( either gey or bey2). So if i pass my green along, it’ll override my Hubby’s blue, thus giving our baby green eyes, however if I do have the blue/green gene ( which I’m pretty sure I do, because my dad is green eyed and my mom is blue eyed), then I might pass my blue part of the gene down and our baby will have blue eyes. Honestly, i don’t care- i think green is exotic and beautiful and blue is traditionally beautiful, so either way it’ll be beautiful! So there! }

Please tell me someone got something useful out of that boring paragraph about eye color gene :)

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Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

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Based on all the pretty stuff I’ve been posting here, some of you may mistakenly assume this is a photography blog.  Fooled ya! I might have been distracting all of you with yummy recipes, and pretty Christmas pictures, but in the meantime more important things were going on, like planning a baby.
I think my last pre-conception post ended with me getting all my vaccines and tests done and over with it, but what I intentionally forgot to mention is that we were going through a much more important test that I honestly was freaking out about -
SEMEN ANALYSIS :)
What’s there to freak out about?- you’ll ask.
Well, we were going under the assumption that both of us are perfectly fertile ( doesn’t everyone?), so after the initial pre-conception check ups, the plan was to start trying and if there’s a problem after 6 months, we’d deal with it then. Being the planner that I am, I wasn’t exactly at peace with that idea. For one, what’s the point of planning this whole thing out and then leave out what matters: whether we can make babies?
Nothing told me that I’d have any problems: I’m 26, I’m healthy as a gazelle ( didn’t want to use an ox reference), been on birth control for 8 years non-stop and the first month I went off of it  in November( aside from me freaking out from my PMS symptoms), my period came on schedule, so did the next, as well as all my ovulations. My husband, on the other hand, had some “concerns”. Nothing major, but coupled with his age (41y.o.), it sort of made me curious. However, we decided that we’ll wait until we’re ready to start TTCing and see. There was nothing that would tell us we should do otherwise. Until i started reading some articles and  baby or infertility blogs ( Internet is a bitch when it comes to medical stuff). To be honest, some things scared me. I read about tons of couples having trouble conceiving, I read about men having azoospermia ( no sperm), or men having bad morphology ( sperm crooked :) lol), I read about women having to go through IVF and how difficult it was. Granted, most of the blogs I read had something to do with female infertility rather than male, but the seed was planted. After discussing the “chances” of DH having “sperm” problems, we decided that it’d be best if he did semen analysis, so that both of us knew that there aren’t any issues or if there are, deal with it. Like, if he had low sperm count ( which is pretty common among men), he’d go on Clomid, etc.

The next morning, we took off to the hospital to do the analysis. We were informed that he had to BRING the sample within 30 minutes of “producing” it.  The hospital is 40 minutes away from our house. Ummmm…do see a problem here? Well, we’re both very progressive and sexually open people ( me more than him- Russian upbringing), so we don’t blink an eye and go back to the car. I won’t  elaborate on the details, but a few minutes later we were walking back proudly holding the see-through sample bottle full of “the good stuff”.
“The good stuff” got promptly handed over to the technician ( man, what a job!) and we went home skipping (with the  satisfaction of a good deed done).
The results were expected that afternoon and as we have worked ourselves up quite a bit on this matter, we were waiting with anticipation. When the fax/call didn’t come in by 4pm, we called the doctor. Results weren’t in, they were going to call the lab. No call back that day. Oh-oh. Next morning. Calling straight to the lab. Lab can’t find him in the system.
O.M.G. They. lost. his. sperm.   
Major LOL
Finally a few phone transfers later, the sperm is found, the results are ready. Calling the doctor’s office - voicemail. Get a callback at 4 pm: Yes, results are in, No we can’t give them to you.
Say whaaat?
Apparently nurses aren’t allowed to open the results until the doctor does.
Sounds like bullshit.
But what are we going to do? It’s not like it’s HIS results, His sperm, and Our money that paid for the test…
Even more concerned now, because my “paranoid the-world-is-out-to-get-ya” husband thinks she saw the results and won’t give them to us, because they’re bad and she needs the doctor to handle/explain it. We’re promised the results first thing in the morning. Day 3(today): I wake up from a nightmare where we found out that Hubby can’t have kids. Feeling really bad all day. This time I call the office. Three times. Leave three messages: 2 on nurses voicemail, 1 with the receptionist. 1:50pm: WE GET A FAX!

We open it aaaaaand…

Ok, before i go into the results, one thing you should know ( unless you do already) is  what’s considered average/normal as far as sperm count goes is 20 million per ml with the total amount being at least 40 million. That’s what it takes to conceive a child naturally ( of course men can conceive even with a lower sperm count, but usually it’s a loooot harder).

So we open the fax ( e-fax)  on my iPhone and the number is…drum roll

74 MILLION/ML!

WHAT? 

With the total being 280 million sperm! Holy mother of testicles! My HUSBAND has 280 million sperm. EACH TIME.

All the other numbers, like morphology and motility ( forward movement) look good too.

We were sooo relieved. Not only is my husband fertile, but he’s one hunk of a man from the sperm production standpoint. His semen is a bit acidic, but that favors girls, so I don’t mind :)

So the moral of the story , because there’s always gotta be one ( there’s actually two) is this:
1. If you have any reason to doubt your  or his fertility ( testosterone, varicocele, endometriosis, fibrosis, irregular period) and are planning on starting a family, go get checked out right away. It’s just a few tests, but the peace of mind is priceless. And if there is something wrong, you won’t waste precious months trying, but rather get started on the treatment.
2.  Don’t be so quick to diagnose yourself even if the symptoms are a perfect match, do the tests and relaaaax.

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Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

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Continuation of my maternity insurance debacle

Well, what do you know? Health insurance people called.
The moron agent, who was incredibly unfamiliar with coverages, also forgot to mention that I needed to enclose a check for the first month with the application. It might normally make sense, but since I was switching from one Blue Cross policy to another, while being on Automatic Withdrawals for my monthly premiums, I didn’t think they really needed it and he neglected to bring it up.

So two weeks after I submitted an app, thinking everything is easy-peasy, I get it back in the mail with a sticky note saying that I need to enclose a check. I call the agent, he aplogetically informs me that sicne it’s been two weeks (duh! who’s fault was it?), we need to complete re-do the whole application, as in take all the info over the phone again, mail the app again, have it signed by me and mailed back AGAIN!
I mean seriously?

So if his estimation of underwriting times is correct, we won’t be insured on the maternity side until February 1st. There has to be 30 days of active coverage before conception, which means we can’t start trying for a baby until March 1st except that my ovulation is more towards the end of the month and even if we conceive that first month, my due date will be in Decemeber.
And That’s really shitty!

Thank you Mr Health Insurance Man! You just pushed our baby plans 3-4 more months.

And I was getting all excited…. Boo!

{ On another note, I just got ambushed by “hubby attack huggies” (p.s. nothing to do with diapers) }

And while you’re here, please click this button – K, thnx!

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Traditionally, one of the first steps of  planning a baby is going off Birth Control. Granted, with me, it takes a bit of a different course with all the pre-conception care and preparedness.
However, last month was my time to unleash the power of natural hormones. Oh boy, did I NOT know what I was getting myself into!

In order for you to understand what I am about to describe and not to schluff me off as one of those hypochondriac-y hysterical pregnancy prone chicks, you need to know this:

I have been on THE PILL my whole adult life. I started when I was 18 and have NEVER been off of it up until now, 8 years later. In addition to that, when I was working as a model in NYC, I had consulted with my doctor and he agreed that it’d be just fine if I were to take the active pills non-stop without making a break for the white placebo pills, thus skipping my period altogether.

I went on living my life without a period for two years, happy as a clam not to experience any side effects of having one. By the end of the 2nd year I was starting to wonder what having a period felt like – I’d completely forgotten. I could not  fathom why girls, who are already on the pill, would even bother putting themselves through the wringer that we call “mothernature’sgiftoallwomen”.
At that point I was completely unfamiliar with the PMS and period symptoms that most women experience monthly.

So when time came to go off my pill, I  cheerfully tossed my used pack in the trash and ignored the annoying daily calls from Target to remind me that my auto-refill prescription is ready.
Condoms became our friend # 1 and I went on to live what I thought was going to be a normal life.

The craziness started with light spotting on day 4-5 after I should have ovulated. I didn’t think much about it until I realized that day, that I had VERY SENSITIVE boobs… Like,the  not normal “can’t wear a shirt without a bra”, “do not touch me” sensitive boobs. I thought back and remembered that we had sex about the time that ovulation should have occurred. My thoughts started racing:”OMG! No way! We used a condom! I don’t have maternity coverage yet! I CAN’T BE PREGNANT YET”! I realized that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if i were to be pregnant, but i would have preferred to have maternity coverage and have my wisdom teeth out, etc etc…

My husband, of course, calmed me down saying that I am silly and there was no way i am pregnant. Ok, so I calmed down. For now. We all know how unreliable condoms can be, but he’s right, I can’t be pregnant.

A few days went by, I kept complaining about how strange it was that my boobs were SOOO Sensitive!!!  And then the emotions started acting up. I think I cried a few times in one day…and more than a few days that week.
“Oh Gosh! - i thought, Here’s the pregnancy emotions! Am i really pregnant? I have never felt that way!” At some point I remember crying in my husband’s arms, complaining about something, and then both of us laughing about how stupid what I am crying about was, which would send me deeper into my weeping hysterical non-sense fit.
“I must be pregnant!”- i thought. I don’t cry, I’m not a cry baby. My friends who know me well are well aware that I don’t cry.

That day I had to do my pre-conception bloodwork and urine test and they discovered some protein in my urine which can be a sign of pregnancy ( strangely enough no pregnancy test was performed), which further proved my fears/hypothesis.

To make a long story short, I waited for my next doctor’s appointment and asked them to do a pregnancy test which came back negative ( of course!) and life went back to normal leaving me wondering why on earth I was experiencing pregnancy symptoms without being pregnant. My husband’s guess was “hysterical pregnancy”, a made-up pregnancy where a woman is so anxious to get pregnant that she thinks she’s feeling the symptoms. I hated this “diagnosis”, because one – I am not anxious to get pregnant, i’m not ready yet on any of the fronts, not until all things are in place; and two- I really felt those things.  I mean, I was crying like a baby over something stupid like forgetting to brush my teeth, then laughing that i was crying over that, then crying because it was …all…. just….sooooo…saaaaaaaaad :) ahahahaha!

When my period finally came, once again proving (Thank God!) that I am not pregnant, a light bulb went off in my head:

I WAS FEELING NORMAL PMS SYMPTOMS!!!!!

The normal hormonal fluctuation and imbalance most women experience monthly and are very used to.

This was absolutely hilarious to me. I hadn’t had a period in so long that I completely forgot what it feels like: the mood swings mid cycle, the sore boobs, breaking out, crying, cramps, bleeding. It was so foreign to me that it never once occurred that what I was feeling could be normal. Most girls were very used to feeling this way and therefore didn’t pay much attention to it. For me, on the other hand, it was all new!

It was very satisfying to tell my husband that I really DID feel those things ( I’m suspecting he thought i was one of those crazy people), that i didn’t invent the symptoms.
We laughed, we cried, it was better than “Cats”, but at least now I know that if I am not supposed to get pregnant, I probably won’t, and it’s just my period :)

As far as protein in my pee, that was something completely different and is another story that you will hopefully hear soon.

Now, make me feel more like a normal (read: not crazy) person and tell me your own pregnancy scare stories in the comments! ( it’s a good time to introduce yourself if you’d like, too)

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Why the picture of my two adorable black kitties, Travis and Casper?

My test for toxoplasmosis antibodies came back. And despite the fact that I grew up with a ton of cats and currently have 4 adorable kitties, I am still NOT immune!

What’s a girl gotta do to get some toxo immunity?

Toxoplasmosis gets transferred from infected meat/animals to humans through their feces or raw/undercooked meat. My cats are indoors but they occasionally run outside.
So now, to my great pleasure, my cat litter duties were transferred to my lovely husband who is not thrilled by the 12 months lying ahead but will do what it takes! Kudos to supportive hubbies!

According to some sources, there’s a very small risk of infecting your baby if you contract the infection within a few months before becoming pregnant. If you know that you’ve been infected recently, some experts suggest waiting for six months before trying to conceive. Congenital toxoplasmosis can affect your baby’s brain, causing problems such as mental or motor developmental delays, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy. It can affect other organs too, most commonly the eyes, leading to visual impairment and sometimes blindness.

So as always I’d like to NOT take a risk. Especially considering that darned weakened immune system of a pregnant woman. I tell ya, nature always finds a way to get things done, but damned if it finds the most convenient or best way. So to all us preggos or preggos to be, as if morning sickness, sore boobs, cramps, mood swings, growing belly ( and subsequently growing ass), bad skin are not enough, we’re gifted with a immune system of a 90 year old HIV infected grandma for good 9 months. Thank you, thank you very much Mother Nature!

Oh and did I mention having to squeeze a watermelon out of your hoohaa?
Wonderful!

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Part I
Part II

Vaccinations

Being up to date on certain vaccinations is an important step in pre-conception care. Most of us have had all the vaccines necessary administered back when we were kids, but there are a few that might need a refresher.
One of the reasons why it was important for me to get it all out of the way before I get pregnant is because certain vaccines contain live viruses and can be potentially harmful to a pregnant weakened immune system. But specifically because of that weakened immune system it is important to make sure you are up to date and won’t catch some nasty chicken pox and step on a rusty nail ( Yikes! I still remember my childhood’s best friend going for a swim in a muddy lake and stepping right through a long rusty nail. The nail went all the way through her foot and stuck out from the top. Ew!).

So about a week ago I got my Tdap vaccine ( tetanus plus some) and my flu vaccine just in case. I have not had a flu or a cold in such a long time due to living in sunny Florida. The only few times I got sick were when “Northerners” (damn you!) brought the sickness with them while visiting us. When I am pregnant and my immune system can’t keep up with the onset of all kind of bacteria, the last thing my body needs is having no immunity to flu virus. Especially considering that having flu a certain time during pregnancy is known to cause miscarriages and horrible birth defect. Thank you, sir, not gonna happen!

My doctor advised me that I need to research which vaccine I got when i was a kid and also when I immigrated to US over 8 years ago. After spending 3 hours on the internet trying to figure out what they vaccinated for back then, I decided that the only thing missing was Hep A and Chicken pox ( which i could have been vaccinated against as a kid). So on my last visit  to my OB, we did a titer test to see if i had antibodies for all Hepatitis and chicken pox. Still waiting for the results.

STD Testing:Ok, this is a sort of awkward subject, but here we go. In my 8 years of being an adult, I have never been tested against STDs. And that was not because I didn’t ask. Oh no, I insisted. Me, the eternal perfectionist and health control freak. I asked and begged but the answer was always the same: “You’re not in the high risk category!” or “This would be unnecessary testing!”. Screw that! Unnecessary testing my ass! Why can’t one be proactive about one’s health? If there was more “unnecessary testing” maybe we would all be healthier and less money would be spent on health care.
But I digress… So finally I insisted that I get tested against every STD in the book. I mean if i had never been tested, how do i know that there isn’t smth sitting there waiting for me to get pregnant and then  BAM! “Hello some weird unknown disease that is going to make my pregnant life hell and make me eat evil antibiotics or worse- ruin my baby!”
Ok i know I’m exagerating, but it’s true- some STDs can cause miscarriages and other cause inflammation which is harmful to babies as well, and then there’re those antibiotics :)

So the results should be back next week! he-he

What? Come on! I had a wild time too!

Update: all the results came back negative :)

Part IV- Choosing Doctor and Hospital

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Read Preconception part I here

November  was a month away when I realized that there was no way I could be ready to start trying. So we decided to postpone it 3 more months to allow adequate time for 3 months of “off the pill” cycle and finish up the more mundane planning tasks.

Maternity Coverage:I HATE health insurance companies. I think they’re are some of the most rotten companies on the planet, bent on doing nothing but finding way to deny claims and cover nothing. I had been with Humana a while back and it was miserable. A year ago I switched BCBS and have been relatively happy with the coverage. However, it came time to add materity coverage. The deal with maternity coverage is that you have to start it 30 days before conception or nothing will be covered. When I called BCBS, I found out that my particular policy only had 1 option for maternity, and a very sucky one, if you ask me ($2500 deductible and then 50% co-insurance- SAY WHAT?). I might as well go and pay it all out of pocket.
Then I was educated about a new plan that just came out under Obama Care ( YAY for Obama!). And by educated, I meant , I was told one exists but the salespeople answering the photo were too dumb to explain it to me and to know what’s covered. The excuse was “It’s a new plan!” – I don’t care- I’m not going to sign up for something you can’t even tell me details about.

Finally after 5 phone calls ( seriously), i was told that the plan, in fact has a co-pay of $35 for the first prenatal visit and then every other visit is free, until I get admitted for delivery and at that point it’s $150/day at the hospital. That’s seriously kick ass! It costs an additional $217 a month, but in my book it’s well worth it.

So all paperwork was filled out and mailed out, however based on the incometency of everyone I encountered at the sale call center of BCBS, I don’t expect it to be “fast-tracked”. So there I sit and wait for 6-8 weeks of promised time to have my policy underwritten and issued. Bummer!

As it’s looking now, the policy will be issued some time in January, hopefully right in time for February conception, in case we do indeed get pregnant the first month ( which of course I don’t think will happen)

That being said about health insurance, I had also tried taking care of dental insurance ( switched plans) and I am waiting again… for the policy to be issued so that i could go get my wisdom teeth extracted before the end of the year and also my pre-conception cleaning done.
You might ask why i need to worry about my wisdom teeth… Well, two of them are partially impacted, which means they’re breading ground for bacteria. The last thing I want to happen when I get pregnant is have one of my wisdom teeth get infected and need antibiotics or worse, extraction.

My goal  is to have a completely clean, calm healthy body going into conception: no inflammations, no antibiotics, no toxins.  That is why I am making sure that any possible complication is forseen and taken care of.

Which brings me to:

Vaccinations and Testing