Fertility Now!

Begin to Hope

I hate this time, the too-long gap between one test and another--the time when my only reassurance comes from the aching in my chest or the vague, low-level nausea that accompanies me through each day.  I have lost all trust in these markers, all distance between what is true and what I merely want to be true. 

I find myself thinking, does this feel more like my pregnancy with A, or more like my pregnancy last year?  I wake up in the morning, feeling fine, and the worrying starts--until I make it to the bathroom, when the nausea sets in again.

Do I feel better or worse this week?  Shouldn't the exhaustion be worsening? 

My appointment is for next Friday, late in my work day.  I have learned my lesson about when to schedule such appointments, the memory of last year's shaken return to work after the very bad ultrasound still woefully easy to recall.    

On the one hand, I am reassured--unlike last year, I have not had any truly bad or questionable results so far.  The difference in my doctor's office protocols--between this year and last--is notable:  3 blood draws this time, to last time's 5; a wait for the first ultrasound until 6 1/2 weeks, rather than one at 5 weeks.  My progesterone, when they tested it at about 14 dpo, was a relatively strong 25 (higher than it's been in any of my pregnancies from last year, I think, even though I've been on progesterone suppositories for each one).  

Of course, on the other, I am pretty conditioned to believe that pregnancy automatically equals a crappy ending.  The dark thoughts too easily wend their way in:  maybe the reason that you haven't had any bad beta numbers is just luck, based on when they were drawn.  So what if your ultrasound isn't scheduled til 6 1/2 weeks?  You can just as easily find out that there's no hope for it at 6 weeks as you could at 5.  So what if there's no bleeding?  There wasn't any last year, either. 

  Any chance, you think, of sleeping my way til next Friday?

Thinking...

It's probably not a good thing to learn, when you are very cautiously newly pregnant and nervous about a million different things, that your son took the baby doll toys in his classroom and, together with a friend, pretended to roast them.  Like marshmallows. 

!

By my count, my beta today should have been at least 500.

It was 561!

Doubling time = 45 hours. 

Next up:  scheduling an ultrasound for December 10 or 11, when I am about 6 1/2 weeks, to look for a heartbeat.  

Holy crap. 

Waiting, wishing

We're back from our trip, enjoying a final day of  lounging pants, purring cats, and The Big Red Couch.  The visit was fine, overall, though of course my proximity to MIL gave me pause throughout the weekend.  We talked MIL out of several of her more outrageous plans, but we still got to go to the beach and make sand castles, to NASA to see space stuff, and to a nice display of Christmas lights. 

Throughout the past few days, the HPT test lines have been getting gratifyingly darker, and I am really hopeful that tomorrow brings good news.  In addition to having a wretched head cold all week (awesome while traveling, let me tell you), I've been nauseated nearly constantly, sore-boobed, and exhausted.  While not exactly fun, that too has been reassuring.  Thankfully, the cold was a good excuse for my lack of drinking and exhaustion; of course, I had to affect an oddly hearty "I don't need no stinking NyQuil for my cold" attitude when offered cold medicine, when really, all I wanted to do was grab the bottle and squirrel it upstairs with me.  

Last year, I was sort of forced to tell several friends and family members what was going on when I was going through the crazy betas and conflicting ultrasounds.  I hated the fact that the disappointing news I got, I had to share with them.  So I am being extremely close-lipped right now, even to people with whom I normally would want to share. 

Tomorrow I will be five weeks.  Given last Monday's number, I think the beta should be at least 500 to have any hope of going any further.  I will go first thing in the morning to the lab, then will find out at some point in the day....fingers are very, very crossed.  I really appreciate all your good wishes!

Hmmm....

Good news, at least I hope:

Yesterday, at 14 dpo-ish, it was 44.  Doubling time 1.4 days. 

Repeat next Monday.

Til then:  gnashing teeth, freaking out, crossing fingers, avoiding MIL.

As always, thanks for the good wishes.  Please keep them coming! 

Waiting

I went into the lab this morning around 9:00.  They drew my blood for progesterone and HCG, stat.

It is now 4:37; the doctor's office just called me back to let me know that they did not have my results yet.

Crap.

I am assuming that because the past few days' HPTs have been darker, this means that the HCG has been increasing, at least somewhat...which means that it's not all over, but I don't know how not all over it is.  Since it's not yet over, as best I can tell, I'm trying to figure out how/if I can fit in an early Wednesday morning blood draw before we fly off to the in-laws....this is so freaking stressful right now. 

You're not paranoid...if...

Thanks for the continued good thoughts.  You know you are blessed with good friends when they join you in your neurotic beta-base searching. 

HPTs slightly darker today, but still not looking great--I'm just really hoping that if it has to end, it ends soon, and doesn't put me through the weeks-long roller coaster I went through last year, at exactly this time.  Is it too much to ask Santa for "anything other than a D&C ten days before Christmas"? 

Also, I remembered this post today.

Guess whose house I'm going to on Wednesday?

I'm just saying...

Repeat

Thanks for all the good thoughts.

Unfortunately,  at 11 dpo, it was 10.

Retest on Monday, but I'm thinking that if I want that glass of wine tonight, there's probably no real reason not to drink it. 

Hail Mary

Last weekend, I did my 3-Day Walk.  I raised over $3000, and walked all of the route, except 1 mile when I had to ice my knee.  It was a tremendous experience--invigorating, inspiring, convivial.  All of the 1700 walkers and 300+ crew people were kind and funny and helpful, and it was a really great experience.  

I am supposed to start injections in the next week or two, but after our visit to the RE last month, Steve and  I figured out that I probably would ovulate shortly before the walk.  We decided to give it one last shot on our own, and I've been taking progesterone and aspirin since I ovulated early last week. 

This morning, 10 dpo:  a faint line on the HPT.  I've got a lab requisition slip to get a beta, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to use it.  I've started on the heparin shots again, and find myself a queasy, nervous, anxious mess. 

Any good thoughts you can spare--prayers, chicken bone shaking, what have you--are greatly appreciated. 

Gonadatrippin

I know, the title is awful.  Forgive me.

We went to the RE's office today, for the first time since my post-D & C visit late last year.  My 3-day walk is just over two weeks away (!), and I wanted to figure out our plan enough in advance so that I could start treatment as soon as possible after the walk.  

A few minutes after arriving at the office, the nurse called us back.  Instead of going left, in the direction of his office, she took us to the right, to one of the ultrasound rooms.  I asked, hesitantly, if she was sure I was the right Jennifer (no one else jumped up when I did, but it's happened before).  She held up my crazy thick chart, and read off my name correctly, then started painstakingly typing my name into the ultrasound machine.

I stopped her, and said, "What are we doing?" 

"An ultrasound!  For your IUI!" 

Before she got any further, we realized that there had been a scheduling snafu, and we were sent out to wait for the doctor, pants still buttoned and ultrasound wand still firmly in its holster.  

We finally got to talk to the doctor about our current situation--it has been a year, to the day, since I last conceived--and our fears about doing IVF, and succeeding, only to miscarry.  He agreed that IUIs with injectible meds made some sense, although I always get the sense when talking to him that patients choosing to do anything short of IVF really stymies him.  He's not a salesman by any means, but as a technician, he has a bit of a hard time understanding why anyone would choose anything but the best, most effective method of conception.  There is a sense, when discussing IUIs, that we really are just delaying the inevitable.

He doesn't have any problem with me using my donated Menop*r, and we discussed injections, scheduling, the ultrasounds, and of course, the risk of multiples with such a cycle.  That part, quite frankly, scares me tremendously, and makes me wonder if we're doing something really, really stupid.    It would be hard, I think, to be more educated about the pitfalls and perils of using these drugs in this fashion, and yet, here I go, stumbling as blindly hopefully into it as a girl so new to treatment that she confuses Clomid with chlamydia.

I was scared to read that 25-35% of IUIs with injectibles result in multiple births, until I realized that my clinic has a whopping rate of 40% of live births resulting in multiples from IVF for women in my age group. Of course, I don't have a good sense of how many high-order multiples result from each, but at least the risks appear to be similar for either. 

I'm on day 6 of this cycle, so it looks like hopefully we will get to do the first IUI next month; of course, we'll be traveling over Thanksgiving, what may be the beginning of my cycle, so it unfortunately may have to wait another month.  

Amidst all the clinical discussions and ultrasound avoidance today at the doctor's office, there was a very hard moment.  I was glad, so glad, when I realized that I had gotten away without knowing the sex of the baby we lost last year.  But today, as my doctor scanned quickly through the paperwork, looking for the lab report, I felt my heart race a little, knowing that I couldn't find a way to stop him before he read it, a quiet mumble of letters and numbers that unfortunately, meant way too much to me.

It was a boy. 

This afternoon when I went to pick Andrew up from the sitter's, she told me that he'd said earlier, "we don't have any babies at our house."

No, my love, we don't.  Let's hope that changes soon.