31 Weeks Down...9 Weeks To Go

Well I am offically at 31 weeks now and really just still in shock that I have made it this far. Yesterday we had our OB appt and everything is looking great! Nicolas is weighing in at 3lb 13oz. He gained 1lb 3oz in 3 weeks, I was shocked at what a fattie he is I guess with my Cf I wasnt expecting him to grow so well. He grew 1lb 4 oz from weeks 24-28 (4 weeks) and 1lb 3 oz from weeks 28-31 (3 weeks) so he is gaining some good weight. They said everything looks normal and good he is in the 48th percentile tile and that is normal. So our next appt is in 3 weeks and that will be 34 weeks, they told us that after 34 weeks if I go into labor they will not try to stop it and let it progress naturally. HOLY CRUD thats 3 weeks!!!

Today I had a CF visit and I just got off 3 weeks of IV's. My last PFT FEV1 was at 83% and I went on Iv's so that I can get as pumped up as I can for the delivery. Today my FEV1 was 96% so I was super excited and shocked that it jumped so much. So I guess it was CF playing a factor and the pregnacy is treating me good.

Just 9 more weeks to go AHHHHHHHHHH................... Is it Feb 9th yet?

Here are some pictures of Nicolas from yesterday :) And then a picture from me on thanksgiving at 29 weeks, and tonight at 31 weeks :)

Love to you all!

Alisha, Nick and Nicolas

Third Trimester :)

Holy Cow look where we are at...... Third Trimester

As of tuesday we entered week 28 and also our thrid trimester. It is starting to become more real everyday. I am starting to have more pregnancy side effects. One big one is the swelling in my feet and legs. My ankles will get as big as softballs. The swelling will go down some but only when I lay on the couch with my feet above my head for hours. So pretty much if I am not working then I am on the couch with my feet up for the rest of the hours of the day. I have a feeling that is how I will be spending the next 12 weeks. My blood pressure is not high so they are not worried about the swelling at this point but needless to say I am wearing my slippers at work because by th end of 2 hours of working I cant fit into my shoes :) My stomach issues have gotten better so I am very thankfull for that, the morning sickness is still around. I am deff starting to feel like a stuffed turkey.

We had an ob appt on monday and nicolas is looking great! He is weighing in now at 2 pounds 10 oz ( of course there is like a 6oz possible up or down ). So in 4 weeks he gained abou 14 oz which is awesome! As for me I gained a whopping 8 pounds! So I am up to about 12 pounds for the pregnancy :) Needless to say I think the whole 8 pounds is in my belly and the water in my legs and feet :)

I know I have been a bad bad blogger but I will post a picture of my growing belly soon and I will see if I can scan one of the latest pictures of nicolas :)

Make sure to also read the the post below I am not sure if the update for it got sent out.

Love to all,
Alisha, Nick and Nicolas

27 Weeks

27 Weeks Today!!!!!

I cant say that I ever thought I would be pregnant but when it happened I never could of imagined making it this far. It all is becoming a reality now and a bit overwhelming at times. This is real and I am going to be a mom, it a feeling I can not explain. The past couple of weeks have been hard in many ways. Pregnancy has given me some new issues and some old ones like morning sickness have stuck around still and even come back with a little vengeance. My feet have begun the swelling process. I can not wear a lot of shoes and have to wear socks with no elastic and every night I fall asleep on the couch with my feet propped up on a pillow. So when I wake up and can actually see my ankles it makes me smile :)

I have noticed that I am starting to become tired again, seeing as I am in the last week of my 2nd trimester that is to be expected. I will go to the OB next monday for our next appt and I cant wait to see how much nicolas has grown.

Nicolas did dress up for halloween this year :) Just take a look.............

21 Weeks

I know, I know, Im bad! Its been forever since an update it jsut seems latley that if it isnt laying on the couch Im not up to doing it. I have been very tired latley but thats ok with me. I still am having morning sickness. I am back to taking my sickness meds 2 times a day, and still getting sick on some days so I have a feeling it will stick with me until he is born. Nick is back home now and its so wonderful to have daddy home! We have picked out the paint color for little mans room, it is a beautiful blue called carribean coast. Nick installed a fan in little mans room last night so thats exciting, we are on the way to making it offically his room. We went to a pumpkin patch this morning with shauna and jared and taylor, here is a picture of us :) Here is a link to our new shutterfly site http://thebrownfamilyclarksville.shutterfly.com/

How far along: 21 weeks

Best moment this week: Laying in Bed with my hand on my stomach and feeling a kick from the outside for the first time!!

Movement: Yes, mainly all inside you cant really feel it from the outside

What I am looking forward to: Getting another week further along

Milestones: Choosing the color for his room

Week 16 - Offically 4 months pregnant :)

Hey everyone,

Yep its true, not only am I 3 weeks into my second trimester but I am offically 4 months now! So I am super happy! I have been tired alot lately and going to bed around 9 and then not sleeping well thru the night. I feel bad because I havent been able to spend alot of time with nick, it seems like once he or I get home from work, its eat and then sleep. I am working 2 days a week and every other sat and its really nice to have something out of the house to keep my mind off another day of indigestion and growing pains. Other then that things have been pretty normal around here, the puppies are getting big! They are running around and playing and barking. Needless to say they are a handful! Next week on tuesday I have my next OB appt and next wednesday I have a CF appt and then work thur, friday, and saturday so its going to be a really long and busy week. Well thats pretty much the latest from us here :)

How far along: 16 weeks

Best moment this week: Being able to talk to our little BOY and know that its our son that is growing in me.

Movement: Tiny flutters is what Im feeling but no real kicks yet

Milestones: 4 months along now

Our Little Man

Im sure most of you have heard us yelling it from the roof tops........

IT'S A BOY

Here are a couple of pictures from the ultrasound, I will try and upload the video of the ultrasound so that everyone who did not get to watch it can see it :)

ULTRASOUND INFORMATION

Hey everyone :)

Well the last week has been eventful. As most of you know last wed morning I woke up at 3:30 in the morning coughing up blood. It was about a full cup of blood which was the most I have ever coughed up. I knew that being on my blood thinner was not helping the situation so I was worried. I woke up nick and asked him to call 911. By the time they got here I had settled down and was not coughing up stright blood anymore but still a mixture. They took me by ambulance to the local hospital where they did test and then talked to my doctors and decided to send me to vandy in nashville which is where my doctors are at. They transported me by ambulance to vandy. My first time ever in an ambulace and 2 rides in one day! So I spent 2 1/2 days in the hospital so they could make sure that there was no more blood. Since then my chest has been really tight. They extended my IV's and extra week so hopefully that will get down to the infection that is down in my chest.

Well friday is ultrasound day :) As long as little bug coroperates we will find out if we are having a daughter or a son and if you can be around a computer at 11:30 central / 12:30 eastern you can find out live with us! Yep we are having the ultrasound streamed live so that everyone can sign onto the computer and watch live as the ultrasound is being done! Below is the info on where to go and how to sign on. Now I would suggest that you try to sign on before friday and make sure that you can get to the page. When you get to the page a windows media player ( your computer must have windows media player ) box will appear in the middle of the screen. Now on friday I am not sure if it will just start to play at the time 11:30 / 12:30 (depending on where you live) or if you will need to press the play button. My suggestion is at the start time if it does not seem to start playing on its own every minute or so I would press the play button.

To get to the place go to http://www.4dpeek.com/

Scroll down the page until you are under the map and see Clarksville, TN and click on that,

Up in the right corner you will see the middle option is LIVE Log-In click on that and a sign in box will pop up, then enter this in the spaces

username: family

password: child

TA DA!!! You should be at the page :)

If anyone has any problems getting there just let me know and I will get back with you :)

Well thats alot for tonight so thats all my posting, below are some updated pictures :) Me at 14 weeks and the puppies at 2 weeks :)

WE HAVE PUPPIES!!!!!

Well one girl in our house has delivered and its not me :) Yesterday Jayden had her puppies :) We are blessed with 6 yes count them 6 puppies, three boys and three girls. Mom and puppies are doing good. Below are some pictures of the new members of our family :) But dont worry everyone we are not keeping any of the puppies, three dogs and a baby on the way is enough for us!!

Male - Born First

Name - #1 (he is our first)

Born at 2:10 p.m.




Female - Born Second

Name - Hershey (she is black as can be and dark like a hershey kiss)

Born at 2:50 p.m

Male - Born Third

Name - Neiko Jr. (he looks just like neiko) Born at 3:00 p.m

Male - Born Fourth

Name - Whinner (that's all he does)

Born at 3:31 p.m

Female - Born Fifth (the runt)

Name - Bat Girl (the only on with a black mask)

Born at 5:25 p.m

Female - Born Sixth

Name - Knee High's ( she has white up at least 3/4 of her leggs and so they cant be called socks they are to high so they are knee high's )

Born at 6:07 p.m

Mom and all the puppies

Who is Bigger...Mommy or Puppy? 11 Week Pictures

I know I am behind and as many people have reminded me (fea) :) I really need a new picture up. Well here is the latest picture taken tonight as I am 11 1/2 weeks.

The question of the day is who is bigger me or jayden :) I have to put my vote on her. She is due to have her puppies within the next week and a half so you will see the puppy updates soon!

Needless to say poor nick is dealing with 2 pregnant women in the house and jayden is at the about to pop misrale stage and I am entering the ughhh where Im actually starting to feel pregnant in the stomach area. So our house is intrestering :)

One thing checked off the list

Well we have one big thing checked off our list.....the nursery furniture (except the chair). We already have a dresser and night stand in expresso that we had bought for the adopted child. So we didnt really see the need to buy another one. So we looked at some and found one that I liked ( as nick says there all wood to me ) and he thought looked nice so we went to the baby store to look at the changing table for the set and was not that impressed. Nick mentioned that he would really like to have an all wood crib since this will be our childs bed for years to come. So we came home and looked some more and found a set that has a solid wood crib. So here it is........................

Better late then never

Its been about 2 and a half weeks since the latest update. Things around here have been very busy. We went on our family vacation with my family to FL weeks ago. It was a great time even thou I spent my time "tossing my cookies" and sleeping on the couch most of the time. We had a really good time! Getting back home and back into the routine was alot on both of us.

For about 3 and a half weeks now I have been visted by what I call all day sickness. Morning, noon and night time does not matter to my stomach. The docs put me on zofran and phenegren to help stop it but even on that I am still getting sick. So hopefully by week 13 it should settle down.

On July 6th we had our first OB appt, which was big because we graduated from the RE to the OB. Our ultrasound meausred out at 8 weeks 3 days putting our due date as feb 12, 2009. They said the ultrasound looked good and little bugs heartbeat was measured at 180 bpm. We will go back on Aug 4th for our next appt and ultrasound.

I have been browsing nursery furniture just to get some ideas and try and find something differnt then every single person I know has. I found a set that I really like at jcpenny and nick says he likes too, but you all know men, its all the same to them :) So I am deff keeping that set in mind! It's a little bit more then we were hoping for but like I have told nick all along. I really am not holding back on little bug, never in my wildest dreams did I think that the dream I had as a little girl to be a mom would come true. I am only able to do this once and I want to make it as special as it can be, so what if the furniture is like $400 more then I was expecting, we are never going to be able to do this miracle journey again in our life.

We have added a guessing poll to the right side of the page, go ahead and play our game and give us your guess of what you think little bug will be....boy or girl :)

I will update with some new 9 week pictures this week soon

Love to you all!

Week 6

How far along: 6 weeks

Best moment this week: Seeing Bug's heartbeat

Movement: I'm sure there is but nothing I can feel yet

Milestones: Morning Sickness is here! It's all day long!

Miracles Do Come True

I AM PREGNANT

Yep, you read it right our IUI #3 worked we are pregnant!!!! As of day we are around 6 weeks and 3 days so 2 months pregnant. We had our 2nd offical ultrasound today to confirm that everything was going good before we told the public. Today the ultrasound looked great they saw the fetal pole, the yolk sac and we even saw the heartbeat, I swear it was the most amazing sight I have ever seen. The heartbeat measured at 113 which the ultrasound lady said was a good rate and our little bug measures at 3.2mm :) Other then being very tired I am starting to have some nausea during the whole day starting 2 days ago. Being able to wear the Seaband bracelets for nausea has helped alot!! Hopefully little bug will let mommys tummy keep her food down! :)

Lots of Updates

Well lots have gone on latley that we need to catch up everyone on.

Tuesday we had our IUI. Everything went good with it. Nick's sample came back ok, his motility is on the low side of normal. We had a differnt girl do the IUI and I had an extreme amount of cramping and even some sharp pain during the IUI and some strong cramping all day tue and wed. I told nick I think she put the catherder futher up this time then before. I think she hit a fallopian tube :) So now we are on the 2ww. With 3 eggs hopefully one was able to be "our miracle". Today my cramping slowed down but Im feeing bloated. I am still having hot flashes due to the meds and Cathy ( my boss and great friend ) keeps laughing at me when I have to grab a stack of paper and fan myself down :)

Yesterday I also had my CF appt. My FEV1 was at 90% WHOOO HOOOO. That is what it was last time and I am so excited. It started out at 85% and I was able to get it up to 90% with the tech teaching me a little bit different of a way to blow during the test. So that was great, espically with the whole TTC thing going on. I need the best numbers I can get.

Well thats about it with us right now. Tomm morning I go to the accupunture doc for the first time. CF girls and girls dealing with infertility both swaer by it. It is suposed to help open up blood vessels and allow more blood to flow to your areas. So for the CF it is supposed to help open up the airways and for the infetility it is supposed to increase blood flow to the uterus which helps implantation. So I will let you all know how that goes!!

Love to you all!!
Alisha and Nick

Just Call Me....

JUST CALL ME THE EASTER BUNNY BECAUSE I HAVE THE EGGS :)

I went for my ultrasound this morning and the clomid did its job. I have not 1, not 2 but 3 YES 3 large eggs. On the right side I have a 23 and 21 mm egg and on the left side I have a 20mm egg. They want you to have over 18mm to be considered a good egg that will release. SO with 3 that gives us a bigger target to hit, also means a chance for multiples. So I received my trigger shot at 9:45 this morning and will go in tomm at 2:30 for my IUI. I am having alot of cramping tonight, wondering if I am ovulating. You have to remember that we are doing this 2 days latter then last time so I am more closer to when I would naturally oulate. So who knows but heres to hoping :)

I Would Die For That

GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE AND PAUSE THE MUSIC BEFORE YOU START THIS VIDEO

Our New Deck

Hey everyone,

We wanted to send everyone some pictures of our new deck and our new patio furniture. As most of you know our house was built in 1996, which means the deck was built in 1996 too. Needless to say that it was a big mess. I have always wanted a huge deck that we could enjoy in the summer. That is one of the best things to me is being able to sit outside on a sunny day. So here is what we have now................. (remember the old deck was 12x10 the new one is 16x35)

IUI #3 WITH MEDS :) Clomid this round

Well after 2 natural IUI's I wasnt having much faith with the natural way. So I called the doctor and asked if I could be put on fertlity meds for my next cycle and he said yes. The clomid is supposed to block the progesteron in your brain and tell your body to produce more eggs. So hopefully this will produce more eggs or just better quaility eggs. They warned me about the side effects of clomid and thankfully they havent shown up to much yet.

# 2 Offically a bust

Well today I started my cycle. For those of you counting with me I was 2 days late. Not really sure why since I am always on time. It could be the stress of losing a friend. Im not sure what it was but this time was much harder then last. Most of the day I was not in control of my emotions, I couldnt stop crying and didnt know why. Emotions ran very very high this past 2 weeks. All I have to say is that I have the best husband in the world, with all these emotions needless to say I have not been the nicest to him. I dont relize it when the emotions come out but afterwards I do. This journey has taken a hugh emotional toll on me and nick and I am so very blessed to have the most amazing man as my husband and always here with me! Thank you nick....I LOVE YOU!!

Love,
Alisha

BFN = Big Fat Negitive

Yeppers thats what I saw this morning on the home pregnancy test.....a BFN ( which is one line not 2.... I'm starting to think that these things really dont have 2 lines ). Of course today is only DPO 11. There is always a chance that the HCG hasnt built up enough but I really doubt it. So im chalking this one up to a no for round 2. Im not really sure whats up next. The doctor orignally said that he wanted to go 3 months and then talk if it didnt work but not trying to sound vain each attempt we do we have to pay for out of pocket so I dont think the natural way is working to great I would like to look into a better option. Who knows???? Not me :) All I know is that the 2ww (2 week wait = the time from when you have the IUI until your cycle starts again, meaning that those 2 weeks are the time that you could become pregnant and you have to wait to know for sure) is the most emotional straining thing that I have ever done in my life. It makes CF look like a walk in the park on a summer day. I honeslty dont know how my cousin Mandy had such amazing strength to do this. She is a true insperation to me.

Alisha

Child To Place

On friday I got a call from a local DCS worker, I was getting my haircut so I didnt hear the call. She left me a message saying that she wanted to talk to us about the placement of a 12 year old girl. Now Im sitting here thinking you have to be kidding me all this time and now? I called her back but had to leave a message since it was later friday afternoon. Today she called me back and talked to me. They were looking for a foster home for this girl. So needless to say it wasnt what we had been looking for. Nick and I are keeping all the options open at this point. We are not sure what God has planned for us. Right now we are on DPO ( day past ovulation ) ( even thou in my case it means days past IUI) so we are on DPO 10. I took a home pregnancy test on sunday night and it came back negitive meaning that all the HCG hormone that they gave me in the trigger shot is out of my system. So if we do get a positive in the next couple of days then it should be the real thing. My cycle is due to start over on friday May 1st, so we will just wait and see. Not much else that we really can do. I could go get a blood test from the hospital but at this point I feel it didnt really work so I dont really see the point in wasting my time to go do all that even thou part of me feels that it might tell me, but it might not. You shouldnt start testing until DPO 12 which would be wed for me. I dont think that they had the timing right again this time I mean there is only a 6-12 hour window to get it right then its up to nature too so it seems like it has to be perfect.

FYI #1 - How CF is Passed from Parent to Child

Another Cf girl who is going thru IUI and fertility treatments just like nick and I posted this and I thought it was great and so I wanted to pass it along to everyone - Thanks Kristin!!!!

At the suggestion of a few people who said they'd like to hear more about CF, I've decided to do a series of "FYI Posts.". I'm glad to have this opportunity to spread CF awareness! I will try not to get too technical with these posts, but, as I am an engineer, that might be a challenge ;)So, here is my first one.Cystic Fibrosis is a recessive, genetic disease. The key word here is "recessive." Recessive means that a child must inherit two copies of the CF gene in order to have CF. A child who carries only one copy of the CF gene will not have CF. And, because a child receives one gene from each parent, if one parent is not a carrier of the CF gene, it is impossible for the child to have CF. CF is just like just like blue eyes - remember that lesson in high school science? Well, if you don't, here's a recap: Every parent carries two copies of a gene for eye color. Blue is a recessive gene and brown is a dominant gene. If a child is born with one brown-eye gene and one blue-eye gene, the child will have brown eyes. A child must have two copies of a blue-eye gene in order to have blue eyes.As I mentioned before, a child gets one gene from each parent. For two parents who are carriers of the CF gene, (e.g. my parents), here are the possible outcomes for a child.So, as you can see, when two parents are carriers of the CF gene, there is a 1 in 4 (25%) chance their child will have CF.Now, let's look at the case in which one parent has CF and the other parent is not a carrier. This almost certain is the case for Greg and I. The reason I say "almost certain" is because genetic testing, (which Greg has undergone), does not account for all of the CF genes (I will explain this more in the next FYI). There is still a 0.4% chance that Greg is a carrier. However, for the moment, we will look at that 99.6% chance. Here is a chart for a CFer having a child with a non-carrier.As you can see, it is impossible for a CFer and a non-carrier to have a baby with CF.Now to look at the 0.4% chance that Greg is a carrier. If that were the case, our chart would look like this:If one parent has CF and the other is a carrier, they have a 50% chance of having a child with CF.What all this means is Greg and I have a 0.4% x 50% = 0.2% chance of having a child with CF. In comparison, the average Caucasian couple has a 0.04% chance of having a child with CF, (so I was wrong in my comment response the other day).So yes, Greg and I have a higher chance of having a child with CF compared to an average couple. However, 0.2% is a very small chance. To put it in even more perspective, 0.2% is the same chance a woman my age, (32.5), has of having a child with Downs Syndrome. It is a chance that we, and my doctors, feel very comfortable with.

Round 2

Well we are onto round 2 of the IUI's. No luck with the first one so we will see where this one ends up at. Last friday was when the IUI was done, so now about 9 more days until we will know anything. I feel alot less stressed about this time Im not sure why, I think that I have a feeling now that there is nothing I can do to control what happens. I either get pregnant or I dont, of course I am hoping for the latter. We are really hoping that this doesnt take a year worth of trying but who knows. We think that everything is ok with both of us so we have no reason right now to hope that it wouldnt happen soon. The doctor said 3 tries then we will look into something more so maybe they will look into a medicated IUI with fetility meds. They say they can control that some more and give you more targets ( follicles ) to go after. But all in all it comes down to the timming. I really dont know how this is done, there is only a 6 hour window and it seems near impossible to hit it. Whats the point of doing everything if you dont have your IUI timed right in that window. I tell you its alot that goes into this.

Hoping For Sticky Thoughts

Hey everyone,

Well since the last post much has changed. As most of you know the doctors gave me the go ahead to carry our child myself. So we went and talked to all the doctors and decided to do IUI. An IUI is different from IVF. In an IUI they take the sperm and with a cathder insert the sperm into the uterine cavity. We chose this due to the fact that with CF you produce excessive mucus and conceving naturally is very hard. Our fertility doctor says that he sees no fertility issues or problems that would cause us trouble other then the CF and thinks that we should have a good outcome with the IUI's. Now just as with natural conception there is only a 20% chance each cycle to become pregnant.

So on the 10th of march we met with the fertility doctor and he told us to start checking my ovualtion and when we see a postitve call in and we will do an IUI the next day. By tue I had not seen a positive so I called in and they had me come down on wed and have an ultrasound to make sure that I was producing a follical, in english an egg. The ultrasound turned out good we had a good egg and they gave me an HCG trigger shot to make ovulation occur. Thur morning nick and I went down and had the IUI done. So now we are in the 2 week wait. In two weeks either I will start my cycle over again and we are not prego and we will try again next month or the hopeful thought that i will miss my cycle and the outcome will be that we are prego.

Well thats where we are at right now. Today is 3 days post IUI. 3 down and 11 to go. Im telling you these 2 weeks are insnane to wonder and hope all at once.

Side note, when you are given an HCG shot you will test positive for pregnant with a home pregnancy test. Since the hormone they give you in the shot is the hormone that is produced when pregnancy occurs. They tell you that you should test positive for at least 10 days after the type of shot that I recieved. Just to test it I took a home pregnancy test on thursday afternoon after the IUI and it tested positive so that shows that the shot was showing up on the test. That will give me a good basis on what to go on and hope that we get a negitive soon so that we can begin to test for the real thing in about 8 days :)