week 20: babygirl is the size of a banana! Anatomy ultrasound goes off without a hitch and our girl is beautiful! Thank God! week 21: babygirl is the size of a baby bok choy? Hmmmmm google: what is a baby bok choy?  This week we drove home to Indiana/Chicago to visit family and friends and attend a wedding for a long weekend.  We broke up the 9 hour drive on the way down, but did it in a straight shot on the way back.  It was already uncomfortable for me to be in the car for that long, but so very worth it to see so many lovely friends and…

  Tony took a half day off from work to make sure that he was available for our anatomy ultrasound at 20 weeks.  I am always more relaxed and optimistic when he is by my side, so I was feeling pretty good going into our appointment.  The scan was first.  I can’t even begin to put into words what it was like to see our baby girl moving and kicking.  Her sweet little profile, button nose and beautiful little lips were clear as day, and as reassuring as her beating little heart.  Tony had a firm hold of my hand as I began to pose the series of questions that…

14 weeks.  What a milestone.   I remember thinking, “if I can just make it until 10 weeks… then 12… then 14… then 16… maybe this baby has a chance.”  My new doctor’s office was nice enough to let me come in for a Doppler heart rate check every 2 weeks, with the understanding that if I needed to come in weekly or was just feeling anxious, all I had to do was call and come in. 14 weeks: baby is the size of a “brilliant beet” or a My Little Pony.  At 14 weeks and 5 days Tony and I set up our tripod in our backyard and rigged our cell…

In the month leading up to our Irish vacation, I had never felt so much stress, sadness and excitement all at once.  My emotions were all over the place- between being completely exhausted from packing, and emotionally drained from saying goodbye to my family of coworkers, I was kind of a mess.  Add a day trip to Kansas City for a mandatory health physical for my new job, which entailed a 4 hour round trip drive to Midway from South Bend, renting a car in Kansas City and two flights, and I was spent.  Tony didn’t have it any better as he defended his dissertation and wrapped up his requirements…

One year ago I shared my deepest feelings to honor Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.  Today is my one year “blogiversary” and yet I feel like I have lived through a lifetime in this year.  Before compiling this post, I read through my “coming out” post from one year ago, and decided to repost the link at the end of this one.  I poured my heart and soul into those words and feel that I can’t recap what P.A.I.L. means to me any better than I did that day. For those of you who might not know my story, my husband and I had two miscarriages in 2016.  It put a…

Morning of surgery: I wake up.  I’ve thought of this day for months since “tentatively scheduling” surgery, while hoping that I wouldn’t need to have it if we got pregnant before May 17th.  But surgery day arrived, and still- no bump.  Was it time? Yes.  It had been nearly one year since we conceived for the second time. We were moving in 2 months, and I was ready to do SOMETHING to help our chances of having a family some day. That morning, I felt mostly at peace. Part of me was so excited that having answers was only a few hours away. Part of me was nervous about anesthesia, catheters…

I follow many bloggers who are playing the “waiting” game like we are.  Each of them has posted an honest, yet hopeful piece on infertility in tribute to National Infertility Awareness Week. Last week was crazy busy for the Cunningham household so I didn’t quite get around to posting it on time.   Personally, I resent the term “infertility.”  I’ve written many times about feeling “less than” when going through our journey to parenthood, and in my opinion the word “infertility” means just that to me.  The latin prefix “in-” means “not.” So if I throw ourselves into the category of being infertile, what does that say?  That we are NOT fertile.…