Virgin TheBump.com'er ready to pop his eCherry

bRadBeDad

Hey guys, thanks for having me here.  I found out about TheBump.com after my wife mentioned it.  My wife is 13 weeks pregnant tomorrow, and we're going to be first time parents.  We're both really excited but want to be prepared as much as possible for what lies ahead.  I started looking online for reading material specific to dads-to-be.  What I found was that there is plenty of material for parenting and women specifically, but the content for dads-to-be was lacking.  I found that odd because today's society isn't one where the average household has the father working, and the mother staying at home to take care of the child.  So I'm hoping you can help me along the way with the important things I need to know.

A little background on my wife and I if you care...I'm 35, she's 32.  I'm a senior level manager for a large IT company, and she's an elementary school teacher. Both of us were raised up north, and moved to North Carolina to be with family.  We met on eHarmony.com, fell in love, moved in together, and got married.  

Our relationship isn't perfect, but it's really, really good compared to the relationships I've been exposed to.  We've encountered some challenging times together that have really pushed us to the limit.  Immediately after getting married in 2011, she got pregnant, and miscarried.  Last year we began trying to have a baby.  Her menstrual cycle wasn't consistent, and it just didn't seem like it was going to happen because we'd been trying for a while at that point.  It was frustrating and everything became so mechanical.  However, she was eventually able to get pregnant a second time with a fertility medication prescribed by her OBGYN.  Unfortunately, she miscarried this pregnancy as well.  This one was especially hard because we went into the 8 week ultrasound and saw the fetus, but no heartbeat.  We were devastated.  The fetus tissue sample was tested at a lab and we were told that we had no chromosomal abnormalities...in other words, these miscarriages were simply a case of bad luck.  At this point we were referred to an area fertility clinic.  The fertility doctor immediately recognized that my wife had a fairly common condition in women which caused fertility problems.  We were given fertility medication, and had a plan to get pregnant using that.  We tried it once, it didn't work.  We tried it twice, it didn't work.  The next step was an IUI (timed masturbating into a cup, and bringing it in within an hour and letting them place the sperm inside her uterus), it didn't work.  During her IUI, we had to stretch out the ovulation cycle with medication until her eggs were fertile enough to use.  When the IUI didn't work, we had to take that month off from trying because of the timing.  Our plan was to pick back up with a second IUI after our month off.  Little did we know that doing it the old fashioned way on our month off when she felt like she was ovulating with no medication or help would make it happen  She ended up getting pregnant.  We're beyond excited and will probably be nervous during the entire pregnancy.  We keep getting asked what we want the sex of the baby to be and honestly at this point we're just hoping for a health baby to be delivered.

Thanks for reading my life story lol.

polooo27

Thanks for the intro Brad. Having troubles sucks, but you will appreciate your children much more as a result. Our 3yo was easy. My wife got pregnant right after we were married and was carried to term. Never worried for a minute about it. When we started trying for our second it was much more difficult. We tried for a year then started talking fertility. Clomid was involved and a few other tests were done before we talked to the fertility doctor. Like you though, we took a month off before starting the treatment and it happened. No medication or help involved. We were fortunate that we found out that my wife had low progesterone during those initial tests. My wife's doctor got her put on progesterone right away. Who knows what could have happened if she wasn't put on it.

Anyway, We have ID twin girls cooking right now that are due in July. Congrats to you as well, that first trimester is a beast to get through after trying so hard.

Wulfgar

My wife and I are expecting after a loss.  We tried Clomid then decided to take a month off to avoid having a December baby.  Guess what happened during our month off where we had sex only twice in the window.

For us, she was trying more than I was from roughly 2008 until we had our son in 2011.  We were trying to have a second one roughly 2 years later and that didn't happen.

pwhoskins

@bRadBeDad best of luck to you and your wife. That sounds mentally exhausting. I met my wife on eHarmony as well. It was funny because I wasn't going out of my way to meet her but finally decided to grab a quick cup of coffee with her then go catch a ballgame at a bar...Met for coffee and 7 hours later we had dinner and were finally saying goodnight. The next day I was off of work and asked her if she wanted to grab dinner. At the end of the night I kissed her at her car, turned around and instantly knew that was the woman I was going to marry. That was in 2010, now here we are, married for almost 2 years with a semi-planned 9 month old.

Im not big on giving unsolicited advice but I had a hard time with the newborn. I missed my old life and feel like I gave up a lot of my freedom...Well I did, but thats a part of being a parent. I just had to suck it up. Just something to keep in mind, at least my experience was, at about 6 or 7 months, our daughter started sitting up on her own and my life turned around. It was tough always holding her but once she was sitting on her own, I could finally enjoy a cup of coffee, or pet the dog. It was the little victories that meant so much to me. Now I just love having my daughter around and watching her grow and its amazing, you can actually watch their thought process.

As for help or advice I found a couple of books.

Be Prepared - A practical handbook for new dads by Gary Greenberg. Had a lot of tips and suggestions from pregnancy to after your LO is born.

Home Game by Michael Lewis (He is also the Author of the book The Blind Side, same as the movie) it helped a lot. It was a no fluff book about being a dad. Because the reality of it is, it kind of sucks for dads at first......BUT IT GETS BETTER. I heard that all the time and didn't believe it....then it for better. 

Anyway, were here if you ever need advice or encouragement. I say that, and this is only my 2nd day actually posting. But It seems like a good group with lots of potential.

polooo27

Wulfgar said:

My wife and I are expecting after a loss.  We tried Clomid then decided to take a month off to avoid having a December baby.  Guess what happened during our month off where we had sex only twice in the window.

For us, she was trying more than I was from roughly 2008 until we had our son in 2011.  We were trying to have a second one roughly 2 years later and that didn't happen.

Did I read that wrong or are you guys expecting in December '14?

Wulfgar

@polooo27, we are still in our 1st trimester so we are still worried.  We have made it to the 8 week mark with no issues but MW is taking it very easy this time and we are having our son not rough house with mommy.  I think there are a few on the Nest and the Bump that knows besides immediate family.  I am waiting until we get transferred to the regular OB/GYN before doing a major announcement to the rest of our family.

polooo27

That's probably the best thing she can do. When my wife finally got pregnant after trying so hard and a loss at 6 weeks I thought we would be thrilled, but we ended up staying in the worry zone for the first trimester. Hang in there and congrats.

Coltsdad

Welcome to the board.  We lost our first as well.  Her OB said her PCOS would be an issue so she was put on Clomid right away, got pregnant on the 2nd round.  Got the positive test, but when we got to the ultrasound found an egg sac, but no fetus (called a blighted ovum)... the fetus was reabsorbed into the body, but the pregnancy was still "progressing", still had morning sickness, felt all the typical first trimester issues, but no baby.  We got pregnant on the 2nd attempt after her d&c surgery to terminate the first pregnancy/non-pregnancy.