Hello 41

I turned 41 earlier this week. Everything appears to be going well with the pregnancy so far, so I'm on track to give birth at the ripe old age of 41. The passing birthday reminded me again to be grateful that I was able to get pregnant at 40 -- I know the odds were against me at that age and I'm glad I was able to end up on the other side of them.

Birthdays for the last few years have had special significance for me as far as TTC/pregnancy goes. When I turned 38, I had my minor meltdown where I realized if I wanted to have children I had better get started before it was too late. In retrospect, it would have been smarter to have that meltdown earlier, particularly since I knew I might want two children. I'm lucky it still worked out for me. My 39th birthday was T's due date, although he arrived much earlier than expected. For the past two years, the difference in time between T's birthday and mine always seems so long. Sometimes I have trouble getting my brain wrapped around the idea that I could have been pregnant for that much longer than I was -- 6 1/2 weeks in addition. Hopefully, I will be this go around. On my 40th birthday, I had my first appointment with the RE that helped me with TTC #2. I know it is a bit perverse to schedule an appointment with a fertility specialist on your 40th birthday, but that is just how it worked out, since I was trying to get in to see her after I had a preconception appointment with my peri and before I had to leave on vacation. Unlike the few years prior, nothing momentous happened or was supposed to happen on my 41st birthday. I'm 16 weeks pregnant, so let's just call that my birthday present to myself.

I've been doing a bit better in the last 2 weeks as I have moved into the 2nd trimester. The nausea is not as bad, although not completely gone, and I'm no longer completely exhausted at all times. One thing that has gotten worse, though, is the constipation, which has really been a mess for me the last two weeks. I take collace, drink prune juice, eat dried prunes, and take Metamucil and I still have trouble. Y says it makes her want to run to the bathroom just watching me eat all that stuff. I feel like the baby is really bearing down on the colon, so that makes it hard for me. I know it will get better it a few weeks because everything will shift up a bit. I've been feeling some slight pelvic pressure as well because the baby is low at this stage in pregnancy, but it is not nearly as bad as when I was pregnant with T where, at the this stage in pregnancy, anytime I would stand up I would feel like the baby was going to fall out.

I have an appointment on Monday at the high risk practice for an anatomy scan and to have amnio performed. I know we will find out the sex of the baby from the amnio, but I'm sure that takes a while and I'm not sure if they will be able to determine the sex from the ultrasound at this stage. This is all uncharted territory for me. Since I had CVS when pregnant with T, I found out the sex of the baby at 13 weeks. It feels strange to me not to know yet, although I know it is the norm not to find out until 20 weeks or even later.