About What You Said...

I love blogs, but one thing they don't seem to accommodate so well is a back-and-forth kind of conversation. There are a lot of times I want to respond to comments, but I figure if I do so in the comments section, most of the time you won't see them. Or if I respond via a comment on your blog, you may have to find your comment on my blog to figure out what the heck I'm talking about.

So, if you have any suggestions on a better way to do this, by all means, please share. In the meantime, since this is the best idea I have, this post is going to be a random collection of responses to recent comments...

* * * * * Enjoying this pregnancy - Based on a few comments some of you have made, clearly I'm not doing a good job of making it obvious how much I'm enjoying this pregnancy. I am, I promise. Truly, really, honestly.

There's an underlying concern about whether it will end well, and I'm realistic enough to know that concern isn't going to go away. Sometimes the concern overshadows the joy, and I realize that's when I tend to post, so you're reading that part of it more than the rest. But the joy is definitely there, and in the day-to-day, it's usually much more prominent than the concern/worry/fear that something may go wrong. I'm even starting to relax a tiny little bit if you can believe that.

* * * * * My weight and the brownies - I didn't mean to imply that I was going to try to gain 6.5 pounds in 3.5 weeks, only that that's where I should be if I was exactly spot-on with the peri's recommendation. But I know being a few pounds off from that is okay, and ultimately as long as Kiddo is growing appropriately, it's alright to be on the low side of weight gain. The brownies weren't an attempt to try to gain all of that weight, I promise!

Speaking of the brownies, I definitely enjoyed them. It's very rare that I encounter a form of chocolate that I don't enjoy. :-)

* * * * * Increased blood pressure / pre-eclampsia - Thank you for the reminders that a sudden increase in weight gain is something to pay attention to. I'm definitely concerned about blood pressure / pre-e issues, so I'm monitoring my bp at home a couple times a day. I took the monitor in to the peri's office a couple weeks ago to see how accurate it was compared to their readings, and it was very close.

I'm also keeping an eye out for swelling, but so far I've only seen a little bit of it at the end of the workday, and once I come home and put my feet up, it's usually gone by bedtime. When I'm not pregnant, it's not too unusual for me to gain a few pounds over a couple days depending on what I've been eating, so I took the wait-and-see approach to this week's weight gain since I wasn't noticing any swelling, and I'm back down about a pound and a half.

* * * * * Gender - A couple of you mentioned that you thought it was a boy for various reasons. I hope you're right!

Someone (I think IRL, though I can't remember for sure) told me they knew of a couple who found out by giving a baker an envelope with the gender in it and instructions to tint the cake pink or blue on the inside so that they would find out when they cut into it. Given my fondness for baking, that sounded like a pretty neat idea, so I think that's what R and I might do. Although still not unless we make it to 30 weeks. For some reason, that's the milestone that's sticking with us as the point at which we might be comfortable finding out.

* * * * * On a related note, attachment - We're definitely already very much attached to the baby, even without feeling the kicks/movement yet. We have been since seeing the heartbeat for the very first time. I know there's no point in pretending otherwise.

But somehow in our minds, we've made distinctions between 1) the baby we see on screen each week, and 2) the idea of actually taking a living, breathing, baby home from the hospital, and 3) that living, breathing baby progressing to the point of us being able to do things like dress her up in a tutu for ballet class or R taking him to fly model airplanes with R's best friend and his son.

We know without a doubt that it would hurt like hell if something were to go horribly wrong. I guess what we're trying to do is limit the loss to that point. If we don't think about taking a baby home from the hospital and all those other fantasies that follow that stage, maybe we wouldn't feel those losses as much.

* * * * * Planning - This one kind of goes along with the last one. As much as we're trying hard not to assume too much and plan for any of it right now, I did (albiet very cautiously) discuss picking a pediatrician and pre-registering at the hospital when the nurse practitioner brought it up during our appointment on Thursday. She was very proud that I was willing to engage in any sort of conversation about it at all. :-)

* * * * * Maternity clothes - Since I still have all of my clothes from my pre-thyroidectomy days, so far I haven't needed to shop for anything other than larger underwear and bra extensions. But I was in Ta.rget the other day to buy a gift for someone, and I decided to be brave and wander through the maternity section.

I don't think I'll be doing much shopping there, though. First of all, it was a tiny section - all of about two rows of racks. Secondly, half of the stuff in those racks was XS! (And the racks were full, so I don't think it was just that they were all out of the rest of the sizes and this was all they had left.)

I get it that if you're petite to begin with, you're still going to need sizes that are on the smaller side even in maternitywear. But most of this stuff looked like clothing that would be tight on a thin 10-year-old, much less an expectant mom. I had to wonder, just where exactly are all of these super-skinny 30-weeks-along pregnant women that the store's buyers are obviously buying for?

Thank you to those of you who have suggested mail-order shopping to start with. I hadn't even thought of salespeople descending on me in the store. That's definitely something I want to avoid.

* * * * * This post is getting ridiculously long, so I'll wrap it up. Next up: The details of our one-hour scan this coming Friday (18 weeks), unless I think of something brilliant to post before then.

More Happy Progesterone News

It seems my body has gotten on board with its progesterone-producing responsibilities.

During the previous test, it was 29 on one suppository a day. Monday's test showed a level of 39 after having been on one suppository every other day. So now I'm off the suppositories and will have another recheck next week to make sure the level is still okay.

Also, about that weight gain thing - apparently all I needed to do was blog about it, because somehow I am now up 4 pounds in 5 days. I'm not quite sure how. I know I baked that pan of brownies, but there is still about 1/4 of the pan left, and R and my mom have eaten their fair share...

An Unexpected Challenge

Since I've struggled with keeping my weight in a reasonable, healthy range for pretty much all of my life, I worried that I'd gain 40 or 50 or even more pounds if I ever made it to the end of a full-term pregnancy. I can honestly admit that back before we even started TTC, while we were still just in the thinking-about-it stage, it was more of a vanity concern than anything else.

Now, I could care less about the vanity aspect of it, but I know that additional weight increases the risk of a lot of complications that I'm already at risk for. There are some risk factors I can't do anything about (age, IVF, PCOS), but I'd like to at least minimize the ones that are under my control.

So imagine my surprise that here I am at 16 weeks, and I'm only up 3.5 pounds.

This, despite 6 weeks of bedrest and minimial exercise since then. (Although I am trying to get into a regular, albiet very low-exertion, routine.)

I don't need to gain a lot of weight during this pregnancy. The materials the peri gave me match what I've read online, which is that someone in a healthy BMI range (19-24) should gain 25-35 pounds for a singleton, a BMI of 25-29 should gain 15-25, and a BMI of 30 or above should be around 15 pounds. Since I was at a BMI of about 29 at the start of this pregnancy, I figure I should aim for an amount closer to the 15-pound end of that range.

I think the peri is thinking something slightly higher, because I asked her in general about my weight gain a few weeks ago, and she said to aim for about 10 pounds by 20 weeks. Which means I've got about 3.5 weeks to gain 6.5 pounds.

Normally that wouldn't be a problem for me. But I guess my body is burning a lot more calories than I realized in this process, and apparently I'm not eating enough for that. Although I certainly am eating!

It's not like I'm dieting or skipping meals or anything at all like that. In fact, I baked a pan of brownies yesterday. (Accidentally used 1 1/4 cups of water instead of just 1/4 cup, but it turns out that if you turn the oven temperature down to 250 instead of 350 and bake them for an hour instead of 30 minutes, they turn out just fine.)

I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining about this at all. I just don't want it to have a negative impact on the baby, although Kiddo seems to be growing fine at this point as far as all the ultrasounds show. At 18 weeks, we'll have the big scan where all the bones and organs get measured, so hopefully at that point we'll find out the percentile range the baby is in for size.

With regard to the progesterone, I was supposed to get it re-checked on Thursday, but the order wasn't faxed over until Friday, so I just continued with the every-other-day suppository routine. I'll go get it checked tomorrow.

As you've probably guessed, Friday's ultrasound went fine. This time, we could see the ribs. It still amazes me how we see something new during almost every scan.

Gender! It's...

...still a mystery to us.

The answer is somewhere in our house, an ultrasound photo with a note on it, slipped inside a folded piece of the perinatologist's letterhead, stuffed in an envelope. I say "somewhere" because I told R to hide it, lest I become tempted to peek.

During our weekly ultrasound yesterday (15w0d), Kiddo still wasn't cooperating on revealing the gender. Then suddenly the ultrasound tech told us to look away if we didn't want to know. She said she's 99% sure, because she was able to see both from the bottom and the side.

At first, that made me think boy, because what would you see from the side if it was a girl? But then it occurred to me that not seeing anything from the side would also be a confirmation if she was thinking it was a girl. So who knows? Well, I guess the ultrasound tech does. But not us.

I'm not sure yet when we're going to open it. Probably not unless we make it to 30 weeks. Maybe not unless we're on the way to the hospital for delivery.

Or maybe we'll just let it be a surprise and then open it after the suprise has already been revealed.

If we were "normal", if we hadn't been through the hell of the last 9 1/2 years, we would have found out yesterday. But R wants to stay as detatched as possible. We're afraid to start forming fantasies in our heads, and that's easier to do if we know "girl" or "boy", so for now we'll just hold off on finding out.

And hope that when the time does come to open the envelope, R will remember where he hid it...

P.S. I know I still need to post about progesterone. I underestimated the time it would take me to do schoolwork last weekend, which spilled over into last week. The short of it: three weeks ago, while on 1 suppository a day and 1/2 cc of PIO every other day, my level was at 19.7. And on Thursday, being on just 1 suppository a day and no PIO in more than two weeks, it was up to 29.something, so I'm feeling a bit better about it and hoping it's a sign that my placenta is kicking in. I'm now on 1 suppository every other day, with another recheck this coming Thursday.

Second Trimester!

Those are two words I wasn't sure I'd ever be writing in regard to myself. Yet, here we are.

I know some people count 12 weeks as the 2nd trimester, and others count 13. The peri counts it at 14, and for some reason I felt compelled to follow that - maybe because I wanted to be able to say it without any doubt about whether we really had reached the milestone.

To celebrate, R and I went out to dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant.

The ultrasound was pretty uneventful. The techs aren't measuring the length every time anymore, just doing a really quick check of the heart rate. It was in the 150s today, which is where it's been for the last few weeks, so nothing new there. This time, Kiddo was facing in a way that was difficult to see much, so the tech couldn't get a shot that she felt was worthy of printing.

She casually mentioned that normally at this time, with most of their patients, they might not do another ultrasound for a month. I just laughed. Then she suggested that maybe I could try to stretch it out to two weeks.

I told her I could be okay with that as long as we could hear the heartbeat with a doppler at the appointment during the weeks that didn't include an ultrasound. She said we're just at the cusp of being able to hear the heartbeat that way and that she knew I'd freak out if they had problems finding it. So ultrasounds it is, at least for a few more weeks.

Given our rather tense conversation on Saturday, I thought it might be a kind of uncomfortable appointment with the peri, but she was actually very nice. She is trying hard to do anything she can think of to ease my fears (other than monitoring my progesterone levels). She mentioned the AFP (alpha fetal protein? - I haven't looked it up yet) test, which is a blood test that checks for spinal issues in the baby. It's supposed to be done between weeks 15-18, and she said "Why don't we just go ahead and do all of your tests at the beginning of the testing windows? The sooner you have results showing everything is okay, the better you'll feel." So we'll also be doing the big 18- to 20-week scan at 18 weeks.

She also said she has another patient (further along than me) who is from the same RE and has had a very similar history to me. She said she thought it might be helpful for me to talk with someone else who is now progressing after so many losses, so she offered to ask that patient if she'd be willing to call me. I said that was fine and gave her my cell number to pass along.

I also reminded her that it was another friend of mine who is also the RE's patient who referred me to her, and she said "Yeah, but that's not the same. Her history is different than yours, so for her, the pregnancy experience wasn't the same as it is for someone with your history." I'm glad she gets that, and understands that someone with as many losses as we've had is going to be so much more nervous than even the typical high-risk patient.

About the progesterone...I'll write more on that in the next couple of days. It's late, and I'm finding myself yawning and struggling to keep my eyes open as I type this post, so it would probably be a rather incoherent update. For now, suffice it to say that I'm still taking the suppositories...

I'm Making Progess, But Not *That* Much Progress

Unrelated to the topic of this particular post, I've noticed people writing on other blogs that they're also having the same problem commenting on blogs that I am experiencing. Today I was able to post comments on two Blogger blogs, so I thought everything was resolved, but then the next ones that I tried to comment on, no such luck. So if I haven't commented on your blog lately, please know that's why.

* * * * * On to the post...

An envelope arrived in the mail the other day. It was bright pink, and addressed to me in handwriting I didn't recognize, from an address I didn't recognize. I had no clue what was inside.

It's the baby shower invitation for one of my former co-workers, who also struggled with infertility but didn't pursue any treatments and had resigned herself to living childfree. She confided her pregnancy to me this summer, right before we left town to do our transfer.

I honestly can't remember the last time I received a baby shower invite. Some of our friends are single, some are older and finished the child-bearing phase of their lives a while back. Of those who have had kids in recent years, I think a lot of them just decided it was best not to send an invitation, especially our IF friends.

Opening the envelope and seeing that pink and brown bottle wasn't nearly as difficult as it would have been if I was not also pregnant.

I still don't think I'm going to go, though.

If I do, I will cry. I don't think I will be able to hold it together. I will stand there and look at all of that baby stuff and see the cute baby cake and (heaven forbid) have to play the guess-the-flavor-of-this-baby-food game, and the whole time I will be thinking "Will I really get to have this kind of a day someday soon, or is this going to end in disaster and heartbreak, too?" Like I said, tears. And that would be bad form for a party guest.

So I will have another co-worker help me shop - I still need moral support and hand-holding to walk into a store like that - and then I will make a plan to meet up with her and give her the gift before the shower. * * * * * In other pregnancy-related news, it seems morning sickness is kicking into gear more in the second trimester than the first. For the most part, it's been more low-grade. Then again, I'm wearing the acupuncture wrist bands I had R buy last month pretty much constantly, so I don't notice it too much unless I take them off for an extended period of time.

Last week, I did have my first-ever experience with tossing my cookies during pregnancy, but I'm not sure it was morning sickness so much as it was that I had gone too long without eating. It's been years since I've gotten sick in that way, and the next day, my upper abdominal muscles were sore from all the heaving involved, which just goes to show how truly out of shape I am.

And speaking of shape, I'm beginning to notice changes in mine. I think my tilted uterus may finally be all the way in the correct position, because things seem to be pushing up a bit - I now have a natural muffin top even when I'm not wearing anything. I've only gained a 3 or 4 pounds so far, so I don't think that's what's causing it.

But whatever the reason is, I'm fine with it. Excited about it, actually, because it means maybe things are still on track.

What To Do?

First of all - Libby, please know I'm thinking of you and hoping the transfer results in a positive outcome. I've tried to post a comment on your blog about a dozen times, but it just clears the comment without posting it after I submit it. Not sure what's wrong, because I've been able to comment on other blogs. For those of you who don't know Libby, please go wish her success with her recent transfer.

* * * * * I'm still unsure with regard to what to do about the progesterone situation.

The score: 4 doctors think my level is fine and doesn't require additional support, 1 suggests additional support for a week, and 1 potentially suggests additional support until 20 weeks. You would think that having 2/3rds of them solidly on one page would put my mind at ease, but no.

The 4 who think things are fine: Both of the perinatologists in the practice I go to, my RE, my RI.

The peri who isn't the one I see was the first to respond to my call over the weekend. She doesn't think I need additional progesterone support but said it would be fine for me to take 2 suppositories a day until Friday if it would make me feel better. My peri called about 5 minutes later. It was clear she was annoyed that I was calling her about something we've already discussed and was very blunt in saying she absolutely would not order progesterone for me nor would she order any tests to monitor my levels. (To her credit, she also did her very best to try to reassure me that everything looks perfect and that she doesn't see any reason for me to worry.)

I haven't had a chance to ask the nurse why my RE is fine with my level being below 20, because it came in a voicemail.

And really surprisingly, the RI's office says anything above 10 is fine at the end of the first trimester/start of the second, even though their website says immune patients should continue progesterone support until 16 weeks. 10? Seriously??

The 1 suggesting additional support for a week: The RE who was on-call for the clinic this weekend.

The surprise of this one is that the nurse had told me on Friday that there was no point in asking him what his recommendation was, because that particular RE requires all his patients to be off all progesterone support by 12 weeks, regardless of their levels, no exceptions. But then she decided to go ahead and ask him anyway on Saturday since my RE hadn't responded yet. And the one who never recommends supplementation past 12 weeks told her to have me continue taking a suppository until this Friday, which will be 14 weeks.

The 1 potentially suggesting additional support until 20 weeks: Another RI who I had consulted with last fall but decided not to work with because the additional treatment he recommends for some tough RPL cases is a drug I won't take. One of the risks of it is an increase in the likelihood of developing leukemia, and with my dad's and grandfather's history, I'm not going there.

But he has a forum on his website where you can post questions. And while he didn't directly answer my question about what he likes the level to be at the end of the first trimester or directly comment on my particular level, he did say that for women who have had low progesterone levels and a history of losses, he keeps them on supplementation until half way through.

If I was already his patient and he was already involved in managing some aspect of this pregnancy, I'd just go with his recommendation. But I'm not actually his patient (we only did a brief consult about a year ago), and I think it could potentially create an uncomfortable relationship with the peri if I bring in another doctor who will do what I want because she won't.

If she was an average ob at a typical practice, I would shrug off that concern and find another ob if need be. But this is a fantastic practice in every other respect - they get what we've been through, they let me come in as often as I need to put my mind at ease, and I know I will get really careful and frequent monitoring. (Most likely weekly until 32 or 36 weeks, then twice a week at that point.) My friend who recommended this peri can't say enough great things about her c-section experience.

I'm supposed to get my levels re-checked again on Friday, and I see the peri that day as well. I guess we'll see how it goes.

This Is Why I Don't Trust My Body

The ultrasound went well today. Test results, not so much.

Kiddo is still measuring on track - 6.7cm (about 2.5 inches) at 13w0d. I was thinking that measuring on track is a good indication of the health of the pregnancy, but the ultrasound tech dispelled that notion today. Apparently, because the size is so small at this point, the chance of being off on the measurement is too high to be a good indicator of the pregnancy's health.

She said they don't start to use measurements for that until about halfway through. Still, we've had consistent growth, and I'm hoping that's at least a good sign.

But test results are proving to be the bane of my existence.

We got the official results of the NK scan today. Risk of Down's is 1 in 6,600, and risk of Trisomy 13/18 is 1 in 6,800, so both of those are very good. We saw the nurse practitioner today, and she went over that table of results with us.

I didn't look at the results of the 3 individual tests that make up the results until we were in the car. The NT itself was 1.3, which we already knew was normal, and it was in the 50th percentile for results. PAPP-A was 0.90 mlU/ml and was in the 60th percentile.

Then there was the free beta HCG, which was 20.88 ng/ml, in the 5th percentile.

I know beta levels drop as the second trimester approaches, and free beta is much lower than the quant beta measured at the beginning of pregnancy. The one reference I was able to find for the difference between the two said that the free beta is generally about 1/2 of 1% of the quant beta, which would put my quant somewhere around 4,000.

The 4,000 is pretty low for this point, but I've been focusing more on the free beta results. From what I have found online (I know, shame on me for Googling), free beta results that are in the 5th percentile or lower on the NT screening have 2-3 times the risk for delivery before 37 weeks and the baby being in less than the 10th percentile for growth, and about 5 times the risk of fetal loss before 24 weeks.

So, I don't see myself relaxing much before 30 weeks.

Then after that, I got this morning's progesterone results. I'd been off of everything for 2 days. It was 17.45.

It was the optimistic nurse who called, and even she seemed rather concerned. I asked her if this happens often, and she said pretty much everyone is off of everything by 12 weeks and has a level above 20 at that point. I'm a week further along, and still not there.

She is checking with RE to see what he recommends. I may not hear back until Monday, but she explained that either way, it would just be a recommendation. Since I'm at 13 weeks, they won't continue my care, so the peri would have to be the one to prescribe it if he recommends I stay on it. She also wouldn't tell me what I should do over the weekend, but she asked me what I thought I might do, and I told her I was going to immediately restart the suppositories.

I was going to wait until Monday to call the peri, but my friend who referred me to her said to just call the peri now rather than stress all weekend, so I'm going to call her tomorrow morning. I'm going to insist on continuing the progesterone and regularly checking the levels for the duration of the pregnancy. We've approached our whole infertility experience - and this cycle in particular - with a "no regrets" attitude. I realize progesterone won't stop something bad from happening if there's something else that is a problem, but if something does go wrong and I'm not on it/don't have good levels, I know with 100% certainty that I would always have regrets about that. If she isn't willing to prescribe it, I think the RI would, so I'll go that route if need be.

From everything I've read and been told, there's no risk or adverse outcome associated with being on it in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters, Given that, it doesn' t make sense to me to not treat it and have me worry about it the whole way through. And let's face it, I would worry, big time.

No Ultrasound Today

I decided to be brave and canceled today's appointment.

So far, I haven't been too freaked out. I felt lots of round ligament pains yesterday, which always makes me feel better. I told R that Kiddo must be going through a growth spurt. I've had hardly any today, but they seem to occur a lot one day, then ease up for the next few days, so I'm not panicked about it.

Also, I'm still having the fatigue. I slept 9-10 hours both days over the weekend, and I still needed two naps on Saturday and one on Sunday. I know the fatigue is supposed to ease up around this time, but I'll be fine with it if it sticks around.

The last PIO shot was on Sunday. My backside is rejoicing. Tomorrow is the next blood test to check the levels - hopefully it will be good news. My chest seems less sore, but it's grown about an inch during the last three or four days according to the tape measure, so hopefully that's another good sign.

66 hours to go until the next ultrasound. Not that I'm counting or anything...

More on the NT Scan

Of all the things I've been freaked out about so far with this pregnancy, ironically the NT scan wasn't one of them. I think it's probably because we had already done chromosomal testing on the embryos, so we know the chances of Kiddo being normal (in that respect, anyway) are 90%.

Both of the things that the tech looks for during the scan - the nasal bone and the nuchal fold thickness - looked good. The bone was visible, which is a good sign. And the fold measured 1.3 at 12 weeks; anything below 2.18 is normal at that point based on what I could find online. Both the tech and the peri said everything is looking exactly as they would expect it to look at this point.

Blood was drawn for the other part of the screening, and we should get those results back in a couple of weeks.

The rest of the appointment went fine, too. Not surprisingly, the peri isn't concerned about my progesterone level - she never measures it in her patients, so she said to just do whatever RE recommends. The current plan is for tonight to be the last PIO injection, continue the endometrin once a day, and recheck levels again on Wednesday.

I told R that I will see how I feel tomorrow, and if I think I can make it until Friday's appointment, I will cancel the Tuesday appointment. I know at some point I have to stop going twice a week...

On an unrelated note, to answer Libby's question on my last post: we downloaded I.Q.. It's a romantic comedy from the early 1990s, starring Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins. I'm very basic when it comes to movies - I like romantic comedies, or, occasionally, a regular comedy, and it better not have a sad ending. (I don't care if the ending is predictable, I just want to be entertained for a couple of hours, and I certainly don't want to wind up depressed at the end of it...)

We hadn't seen this particular movie before, and it was cute, at least the part of it that I saw. Meg Ryan was her perky romantic-comedy self, so however you felt about her in You've Got Mail, you'd probably feel the same in this movie. I fell asleep halfway through, not because it was boring, but because the fatigue that eased up for a few weeks has returned again. But R watched the whole thing, and he said it was my kind of movie. That's about as much of an endorsement that can be expected from a guy forced to sit through a chick flick...

12 Weeks: NT Scan

More to come tomorrow, because I've promised R that I will watch a movie with him and not spend the evening on the computer, but just a quick note to say there's still a heartbeat, and the scan went well.

Kiddo was sleeping, so it took a really long time to get the correct positioning for the scan, but we certainly didn't mind all the time we got to spend watching him/her.

And my progesterone went up ever so slightly, to 21.6. Who knows, it could just be a time-of-day fluctuation and still virtually identical to Wednesday's levels. But for the moment, I'm enjoying the fact that the scan went well and not freaking out about the progesterone.

Weaning: Progesterone Dropped Like a Rock

My next post was going to be about how I am enjoying this pregnancy (a lot, honestly, I promise!) despite my worries. But then I got the call from RE's office about the latest P4/E2 results, so enjoyment is once again taking a back seat to concern.

The weaning had been going well. For some reason, I haven't ever been nervous about the E2, only the P4. They've been weaning me very slowly. I was on 3 progesterone suppositories per day and 1cc of PIO per day. We started by going to 2 suppositories a day, still doing the 1cc every day. Tested a few days later, P4 was at 35. Then went to 2 supps and 1/2 cc every day. After a few days, P4 was at 39. I was excited - I thought this meant my placenta was taking over.

Then we dropped down to 1 supp a day and 1/2 cc every day. P4 went back to 35, but the nurse assured me that it fluctuates, so I still didn't worry about it. (That was Friday.) Then we went to 1 supp a day and 1/2 cc every other day.

Today's test result showed P4 at 19.7.

The nurse said RE wants to see it above 20, but from what I'm reading online, the typical P4 level at 12 weeks (today is 11w5d) is around 33. And my P4 would be even lower than 19.7 if I wasn't on the supp and 1/2 cc.

For some reason, I've just always been nervous about my body's ability to produce an adequate amount of progesterone without supplementation, so I asked the peri about it during our first appointment. I've read a lot of information online about supplementation during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters being necessary for some women and that it's totally safe. However, it also sounds like there are a lot of OBs/peri's who don't believe in it.

I think my peri falls into the second camp - she basically said she doesn't use it after the first trimester and that if the placenta isn't producing an adequate amount, that's a sign of a bigger problem with the placenta that would likely jeopardize the pregnancy. But it seems like there are a lot of women out there who had second trimester losses, and then when they were on progesterone in subsequent pregnancies (including during the second and third trimester), they went on to have healthy babies. So obviously their placenta didn't completely fail them...

The plan is to continue with the 1 supp and 1/2 cc every other day for now, and then re-test P4 on Friday to see if it's increasing. If not, I'm going to insist on going back up to a higher dosage. I asked the nurse what happens if it stays low, and she said she'd have to talk with RE.

On the other hand, it seems my E2 is perfectly fine. I'm down to 2 patches every other day and no estrace at all, and my level was just under 1,200 today. The nurse said that level was totally normal, and it's up slightly from just under 1,100 when I first started weaning. I couldn't find much info online regarding what normal E2 levels should be at this point, but the couple of charts I did see seemed to indicate it should be closer to 2,000 at 12 weeks. So not sure what to think on that one either.

To top it all off, yesterday on and off and for most of today, I've had a resting heart rate of 100-120 bpm (tachycardia). It finally seems to be easing up this evening. I'm not sure it's pregnancy-related, though. That used to happen a lot when I was in a hyperthyroid state before my thyroidectomy, so I have assumed it was thyroid-related, especially because it didn't happen for quite a while after the surgery.

But then it started happening again last summer and really started to become annoying last fall, so I assumed my thyroid meds were too high and asked my family doc to lower my dosages. If you recall some of my posts from spring, that didn't work out well - I wound up in acute kidney failure (resolved by increasing my dosages back to what they were), and the tachycardia went away on its own.

Peri just checked my thyroid levels last week and free T3 and T4 were a little lower than mine normally are (but still within the normal range) and T4 was up to 4.45 (it had been 1.something a couple weeks before transfer), so she's increasing my Syn.throid from 125 to 138, but I haven't started the 138 yet.

It looks like we'll have lots to discuss during my appointment on Friday...

Trying to Reason With Worry

Once again, I was totally nervous about today's ultrasound. And once again, everything was fine. Kiddo is still in there, heart is still beating, body is still growing. Or at least, it looks like it to me - since these are just reassurance ultrasounds, the tech didn't measure length the last couple of times.

I had no real reason to think things wouldn't be fine. I'd had low-grade nausea for a couple days, and I still felt the round ligament pains, although not as much the last couple of days.

And still, I get really stressed beforehand each time.

R tried to reassure me. In the past, when he's said "It will be fine", I've told him not to say that for fear of jinxing it. This time, I didn't scold him, I just let it go. I guess that's progress, at least.

But I still can't let go of the tissue box. When we had the first ultrasound last month, when I climbed up onto the table, I had R hand me the tissue box that was sitting on the counter. I wanted easy access to it in case it was bad news, plus it gave me something to hold and focus on. I still make him give it to me every single time.

I tried reasoning with myself this afternoon, after the appointment. Realistically, I'm doing everything I can do to encourage this pregnancy to continue. If something's going to happen despite that, then it's going to happen. If I spend all this time worrying and everything turns out fine in the end, I will have tarnished an incredible experience with worry. And if I spend all this time worrying and it ends badly, all that worrying wouldn't reduce the grief. So I'm trying to let the worry go. Not necessarily very successfully, but I'm hoping I'll get better at it with practice.

Whatever will be, will be. Maybe I should tattoo that on my forehead.

Pictures

Here they are, pictures as promised.

The first one is the most clear one from Friday's ultrasound. The head is on the right side, and the white triangle is the nose. I think the ultrasound tech said the straight right line below that is the upper mandible, and the white area below that is the jaw. The left foot is on the far left side of the image, and the right foot is the light white blob above the short bright white line. I'm not sure what that white line is or what the bright white line running along the bottom is - maybe the spine?

This next photo is not the most attractive, so I can't quite believe I'm sharing it with you. But it is what it is. At least I don't have to show my face... :-)

And let me just say, not all of that bump is baby, not by a long shot. Even when I weigh 40 pounds less than I do now, with a BMI that is in the "Healthy" range (i.e. below 25), if I were to wear something form-fitting, I'd still have the kind of stomach that makes people look and think "Hmm, is she or isn't she?" About 90% of my body fat tends to congregate in my belly, something that no amount of sit-ups or cardio seems to be able to change.

From yesterday (11w1d):

Nose!

There's a nose! I'm almost as excited about the nose as I was the toes.

It's late, so I'll leave it at that for now and post more this weekend, maybe even an ultrasound pic and the first belly shot, if I get myself organized enough to scan in the first and take the second.

I should have posted sooner, so I'm sorry if I worried anyone. Our appointment was toward the end of the day, and when we got home I took a long nap and then did something I haven't done in a couple months - cooked dinner.

My Body Is...Functioning??

RE's office began weaning me off the meds last week, and we made the second change to the dosages over the weekend. I had blood drawn on Friday and again today. And even though we cut the PIO down to 1/2 a cc per day from 1 per day, my progesterone level rose a few points.

I've been worried that my placenta wouldn't kick in, but apparently, my body is functioning. Correctly.

I honestly don't know how to wrap my head around that. I've had, literally, 8 1/2 years of bad news about how my body doesn't function like it's supposed to, many of the malfunctions being fertility-related, others not. So this is new.

I think the best way to explain how I feel is to say "Hopeful, but not yet trusting." The analogy that keeps coming to mind is having a relative who has an addiction and decides to check himself into rehab. You're hopeful, because he's taking a positive step in the right direction, but that doesn't mean that the day he walks out of there, you're going to be 100% trusting that he'll stay on the wagon permanently without the wheels falling off at some point. Building trust takes time.

On the bright side, the ultrasound tech said that today I looked more calm than I have in the past. Apparently I've had a pretty wide-eyed, freaked out look up to this point. (Big surprise, I know!)

And I was feeling pretty calm, until we were on the way over there and I realized it's 10w4d, and the only other ultrasound we've had during the 10th week was the one at 10w2d when we found out that Baby #5's heart had stopped.

I had a few moments of panic where I thought maybe we should just skip the mid-week ultrasound this week - somehow 11w0d (Friday) sounded safer to me. (I didn't say logical, just safer...) But I kept those thoughts to myself and let R drive on.

This time, the tech was able to see Kiddo well enough through an abdominal ultrasound that she didn't need to follow it up with the transvag approach. Heart still beating, still in the 160's, legs and arms had grown and were waving around a lot.

Kiddo is measuring 2 days ahead of schedule. I just wish I could call my dad and tell him that. Today is the 4-month anniversary of his passing.

Venturing Out

We didn't wind up going to the movies this weekend, mostly because the two movies I was most interested in are no longer in the theaters. But I did have R take me out to run a few errands.

I think I overdid it a little bit, but everything still seems to be fine. I got out of breath walking from a parking lot to the back of a store, and then when we got to the grocery store, I had to sit at a table by the coffee kiosk, because I knew there was no way I was going to be able to make it around the store.

I'm glad we're doing the twice-a-week appointments, because I seem to hit a point of concern around mid-day on Mondays. Today, I was concerned because I hadn't been feeling any stretchy/pulling feelings, which I've had pretty much every day. But thankfully, they're back again this evening.

They've been feeling a little different the last couple of days - somewhat higher up than the groin area, and more sharp/pinchy than achey. So of course that makes me nervous, too. :-) But I've been telling myself that it's probably because my uterus is moving into a different position and it's (hopefully) starting to rise up a bit. Plus, this is a couple weeks further than it's ever stretched before, so the change to sharp/pinchy makes sense.

I'm curious what all of you think about renting a doppler? I would have expected myself to already have ordered one, but I haven't. I think I'm worried about how I would react if I couldn't find the heartbeat. R thinks it will just cause me extra worry and stress.

And one last question. I just switched over to the new Blogger interface before the last post, and even though I'm still entering two returns after the end of each paragraph, now I'm having to put in line break tags to prevent the posts from being one giant paragraph. I never had to do that with the old interface. Am I doing something wrong, or are any of you having the same issue?

Double Digits

I'm beginning to feel like a broken record, but in a good way.

There's still a heartbeat. It was down to 167 or 168 today (from 182 a week ago), but I know it usually peaks at about 9 weeks and then starts to slow back down again, so I'm trying not to worry. Both the u/s tech and the peri said it was fine.

We are finally into the double digits! Kiddo measured at 10w1d today, so 1 day ahead of schedule and almost exactly 1.5 inches in length. My retroverted uterus has also started to move into the correct position, although the tech guessed it'll probably take another couple weeks to get completely straightened out.

Today, Kiddo was on his/her stomach, the head slightly lower than the body. We could see an arm waving and the body moving a lot, but we couldn't really see the legs/feet today. No toe viewings. :- (

Since I haven't had any bleeding in 15 days, the peri said I can start to do light activity around the house. No exericsing, no heavy housework (ha! Even when I'm not pregnant, heavy housework is not likely to happen), no returning to work yet. She said we can discuss returning to the office during next Friday's appointment, depending on how the week goes. I did get permission to go to a movie, though, so I'm looking forward to an out-of-the-house adventure that does not involve lab work or an ultrasound wand...

The Tuesday ultrasound really helped with the stress factor - I was more calm going into this ultrasound than any of the prior ones. Of course, the fact that I had to go to the bathroom about 15 times yesterday (literally) and felt nauseous this morning also helped, too.

But I'm still only scheduling appointments one week at a time. I'm happy, I'm thankful, but I'm still taking this in very small increments.

Toes!

It's amazing what a difference four days can make.

I did okay through the weekend, but then yesterday I started to really freak out again about my lack of symptoms. I was in tears. (Perhaps I should count being overly emotional as a symptom?)

So after talking with a friend who encouraged me to just go in and get scanned again for the peace of mind, I finally gave in, called the peri's office and told them I need to come in twice a week for a while. They were great, as usual, so I'll be doing Tuesday ultrasounds and Friday ultrasounds and appointments.

I was so incredibly nervous this morning. I haven't been tired or nauseous or had headaches since Friday, and the need to go to the bathroom isn't quite as strong anymore either, so I was really trying to prepare for bad news. But thankfully the heartbeat was immediately visible.

Kiddo is measuring on track - four days of growth since Friday. And instead of arm and leg stubs, there are now longer arms and legs, and even feet and toes! We could see where the bones are starting to form/harden in the head and in the toes.

Technically the toes looked more like a dog or cat paw at this point, and we could only see three or four of them on each foot, but hopefully they will all be there when they're supposed to be. :-)

I couldn't believe how much more human-like Kiddo looked today even compared with just a few days ago.

On Friday, I know I blogged that I was more terrified than happy after the ultrasound. But this time, there was just huge relief and the same kind of happiness I felt after the first few ultrasounds. Hopefully this will carry me through to Friday's appointment without too much of the crazy reappearing before then.

R is laughing at me - I just keep saying "Toes! There are toes!"

In New Territory

Heart rate 182 (up from 167), Kiddo measuring 8w6d, which the peri said is fine even though today is actually 9w0d.

So, this is a new milestone - the furthest we've ever gotten with a heartbeat before is 8w1d.

With the first three ultrasounds, I felt a huge relief as soon as we saw the heartbeat, and I was so incredibly happy for a few days after. (Well, 12 hours in the case of the first ultrasound, since I started bleeding a lot again the day after that one.)

The odd thing is, I don't feel that way this time.

Of course, there was relief as soon as the tech said there was a heartbeat. (I still refuse to look at the screen until the heartbeat is announced.) But now, I just feel mostly...terrified.

I don't know what to do in this place. I don't know what to expect from here, what it's supposed to feel like, how it's supposed to go.

With all of our other pregnancies that got to the point of ultrasound, there was always just an oddly shaped gestational sac, or in the case of pregnancy number four, something that looked like a large white grain of rice, with kind of a large end (the head) on the 8w1d u/s. The ob's office just had a regular-resolution ultrasound machine.

I've been thrilled that the peri's office has such a high-resolution machine that makes it easier to see things. And it is pretty cool.

But.

But - this week there was very clearly a head. There are little leg buds and little arm buds. And a torso. He/she wiggled.

Kiddo is not just a large white grain of rice anymore. This time, the ultrasound tech typed "Baby" on the screen where Kiddo is for the pictures she printed out for us. Up until this point, it's always been "Embryo".

I've been attached to and grieved every one of the seven babies we've lost. I've felt the loss, even of the second one, which I realized on a Sunday I was pregnant, we got the faintest of faint lines on Monday morning, the beta that morning turned out to be 5, and I was bleeding by 2 p.m., so I barely even had a chance to realize I was pregnant before it was over.

But this, this would be a whole other kind of loss, a whole other kind of grieving if it were to end badly. And each week, it becomes more so.

So, like I said, terrified.

But on the bright side, the peri really understands. She said if I need to come in more than once a week for reassurance, that's totally fine. She's had some patients who came in every day for ultrasounds for a while, until they got to a point where they started to feel more comfortable. R's head shot up when she said that - I think he was trying to figure out how on earth he'd shuffle work meetings every day if I decided to go that route. :-)

I think I'm going to try to stick with once a week appointments, because if there's bad news, I'd just rather get it at the end of the week than the beginning. But if I start to stress, I may take them up on extra ultrasounds.

I need to go get progesterone/estrogen drawn for RE, and his nurse mentioned that I'll probably start weaning based on those results. I'm going to ask her to let me wean a little slower than usual, because I can only imagine how freaked out that will make me.

I'm trying to be hopeful that my body can work correctly without the extra meds. The peri asked if I'd started getting headaches this week, and I have. She said that's usually a sign of the placenta's hormone production kicking in.

So add headaches to the list of things I hope to keep having, in addition to nausea and stretchy feelings...

Chant With Me

Thou shall not get thy hopes up too high.

Thou shall not get thy hopes up too high.

Thou shall not get thy hopes up too high.

A couple days ago, it was a constant repetition of "Please, please, please let there still be a heartbeat." I swing back and forth like that. Right now I've been feeling nauseous for several hours, so I'm back to "Thou shall not...", trying to keep hope in check.

If there is a heartbeat on Friday (9w0d), it will be a new milestone for us. The furthest along we've ever been when seeing a heartbeat was 8w1d, four years ago this month.

I did well for about 3 1/2 days after the last ultrasound. I didn't have a lot of symptoms on Sunday, but after being a constant shade of green on Friday and Saturday, I was kind of okay with that. But only for a day.

So when there were still no symptoms on Monday, I started to get nervous again. Then it occurred to me that during the pregnancy four years ago, the ob thought the baby likely died within a few days after that 8w1d ultrasound. I realized that I was at 8w3d - a few days after 8w1d - and the nervousness escalated to anxiety.

On top of that, I noticed vaginal discharge that was different than anything else I've experienced so far (I'll spare you the details) after all the fiber I'd been eating finally took effect.

I caved and called the peri's office.

I love that place. They are all so nice and understanding. The nurse called me back and reassured me that everything sounded perfectly normal.

Still not very many symptoms yesterday, still very nervous. Then this morning I started feeling nauseous about 15 minutes before a major phone presentation I was giving (from bed, involving about a dozen people from our largest client, with my mom huddled in her bedroom with the dogs, me praying they would stay quiet and not give away the fact that I'm at home). I figured it was just nerves about the call, though, especially since it went away after the call was over.

But then it came back again late this afternoon, and it's stuck with me. Which makes me slightly green again, but happy nonetheless.

And trying desperately to keep hope reigned in.

P.S. Thank you all for the comments and ideas on fighting the morning sickness on my last post. And a special thank you here (since I don't think you have a blog) to A for delurking. :-)

About That Lack of Symptoms...

Not so much a problem any more.

I woke up yesterday with a major case of morning sickness that lasted until falling asleep last night, and within an hour or so of getting up this morning, it was back again. There have been several times I thought I might actually throw up, but so far I haven't. I've had morning sickness with other pregnancies, but it's been more mild - never to the point of almost throwing up.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. I'll deal with it if it means all of this turns out okay.

I'm open to suggestions on what's worked to help minimize it. R is at the store shopping for ginger ale, gingersnaps, chicken noodle soup, pretzels, and an acupressure wrist band.

Right now I'm munching on saltines and 7 Up. I feel okay as long as I'm eating, but a few minutes after I stop, the nausea sets in again. And I figure eating my way through it for 16 hours straight is probably not going to be the best approach, at least not from a weight gain perspective...

There were also a lot of strechy/pulling feelings yesterday. Normally I feel them but they don't bother me per se, but yesterday it was enough that I was contemplating taking some tylenol. I think my pain threshold was just unusually low because I was already feeling not great from the nausea.

Overall, I'm thankful for the symptoms. I just keep trying to remind myself that having symptoms now does not necessarily equal the outcome we hope for down the road. It's still waaaaayy too soon to get our hopes up...

Emotionally Spent but Still Incubating

We wound up going in unexpectedly this afternoon. Heart rate is 167 (up from 130 last week), and Kiddo is measuring exactly on target - 7w6d.

I had been totally braced for bad news.

We weren't going to move up the appointment. But then this afternoon, there was bright red blood once again. I hadn't expected it - after 8 days of no bleeding or spotting, I thought we were over that. I was hoping that tomorrow I'd get permission to get up and start moving around. Instead, I am still on bed rest until further notice.

If the bleeding had been the only thing concerning me, I would have just crawled back in bed to see if it would slow down (there wasn't as much as some of the other times, and it is slowing down now) and waited until tomorrow.

But because of feeling normal, noticing that the stretching/pulling feelings had slowed down to pretty much non-existent by yesterday, and realizing at 5 a.m. today that I'd screwed up my estrace pill dosing for the last 4 days (more on that in a minute), I couldn't wait.

I called and texted R, but he wasn't responding. It comes in handy sometimes that he and his dad work in the same company, about 20 feet from each other, because I called his dad and asked him to track R down.

The only thing that kept me semi-calm was that I wasn't feeling much pain, and no cramping. Still, I was trying to prepare myself for bad news. Instead, the tech said "Everything couldn't look more perfect." She looked thoroughly to see what might be causing the bleeding, but still couldn't find anything.

One thing I was worried about was my estrogen level, but the peri doesn't think that would have been enough to cause a problem.

I woke up as usual in the middle of the night last night, but this time I realized I wasn't having the night sweats that I get every night. Then it dawned on me that I had forgotten to take the evening dose of my estrace.

And that led me to realize that I'd also been forgetting my morning dose for the last 4 days. I had filled my pill boxes for the week on Saturday, but I kept the estrace bottle on my nightstand to remind me of my evening dose, and I forgot to grab it when I was filling the boxes. Between two thyroid meds, Vitamin D, the extra folic acid pills, the aspirin, the dexamethasone, and the anti-depressant and probably a couple of others I'm forgetting, it's a pretty full, colorful box of pills, and I just didn't notice.

I am still doing four patches every other day, though, and I was only missing one dose of the pills a day, so I imagine my level dropped a little bit but hopefully not enough to really cause a problem.

RE's nurse wouldn't commit to saying "no" when I asked outright "This won't hurt the pregnancy, will it?" But the peri doesn't seem to think it would.

The next ultrasound is in 8 days (next Friday), although the peri said they will absolutely fit us in earlier if the need arises.

Can someone make it be spring already? Please? Anyone?

The Weekly Pre-Appointment Freakout Commences

I was doing so well. After last Friday's appointment, I had 4 days of being relatively calm and normal. I even started a draft post about how I am enjoying this pregnancy, really, even though it's also been stressful.

But zen only lasts so long.

I woke up in the middle of the night Monday night as usual when the dog wanted to be let out. Usually I'll lay there for a moment, trying to determine if she's really up and wanting to go out or if she's just readjusting her sleeping position and will go back to bed, and try to close my eyes and go back to sleep. But it's generally useless, because at that point my bladder has made itself known and there's no ignoring it.

Except when I woke up in the middle of Monday night, I felt like I could go back to sleep. I rolled over, closed my eyes again, then realized my bladder wasn't calling out to me and went pretty much straight into a full-blown anxiety attack.

I'm afraid my uterus is shrinking and not pressing on my bladder as much. I'm also not as bloated - I just feel more normal in general.

Also, the stretchy, pulling feelings I'd been having (I assume round ligament pains) had been occuring kind of all over, including on the sides of my pelvis. But now I'm only feeling them down low, so for some reason now I'm thinking that those feelings are really the reverse of stretching - that they're further signs of my uterus shrinking back down.

Plus, I'm getting a kind of mild burning feeling in my cervix that I get right before my period is about to start. And I had been crashing for a nap every day around 5 p.m., but last night I was fine - didn't need a nap at all.

This morning, I think my chest is shrinking back down as well. There was a tape measure involved, but I forgot to write down yesterday's measurement, so I can't be positive, but I'm about 99% sure I was bigger yesterday.

There's no bleeding. The last bright pink/red I saw was a week ago today. The only stuff I've seen this week seems to be a little bit of vaginal/cervical irritation since I restarted the aspirin/Lovenox on Saturday.

I know all of this sounds crazy. But during the other pregnancy where we saw a heart beat, we saw it at 8w1d, and around 9w1d I told R that I wasn't growing any more. My stomach wasn't getting any bigger (I popped really early that time) and my chest also stopped growing, but even more than those signs, I just had a feeling that something was wrong, and I started to physically feel normal (non-pregnant normal).

At the ultrasound the week after that, we learned that the baby had died a few days after the previous ultrasound. I had a D&C a few days later (about 2 weeks after the approximate day of death), and I never had any spotting or bleeding during those 2 weeks, so not having any bleeding now isn't reassuring me all that much. (Although obviously I'd rather have no bleeding than bleeding.)

I have work meetings for the next two days that I need to attend. I'm afraid to call and see if I can move up our next ultrasound appointment in case it's bad news, so I'm going to wait at least until tomorrow afternoon to call, but I'll probably try to make it all the way to Friday's appointment (54 hours at this point) if possible.

This calls for some heavy-duty self-soothing. Ice cream may be involved in breakfast. If I put it in a blender, I can call it a smoothie instead of a sundae, right?

Cabin Fever

Today is the 24th day of bed rest, and the scenery is starting to look a little monotonous. I can't really complain too much, though, because it's R who is getting the shortest end of the stick.

The poor guy is doing all the laundry, grocery shopping, and cooking by himself, not to mention running up and down the stairs to bring me food and take dirty dishes away.

Meanwhile, I lay here looking at the exercise room that is attached to our bedroom. Which, mind you, I never seem to be able to find the time to use under normal circumstances.

But sitting here with a treadmill, elliptical machine, stationary bike, and a large collection of weights within my peripheral vision, I wind up thinking about my fitness. Or rather, lack of it.

Which leads me to think about R's lack of fitness. And his super stressful job that just got more stressful a few weeks ago when his boss retired and he was given a lot of those responsibilities to take over (with no promotion/raise). And the fact that we're not 25 any more. And all the horror stories you hear about seemingly healthy if somewhat out of shape men in their early 40s with high levels of stress who keel over unexpectedly.

So I decided it was time for action. I wielded the primary tool available to me at the moment - my laptop.

R now has a shiny new schedule of cardio, strength training, and flexibility exercises to do. It works out to an average of about 35 minutes a day.

Did I mention he hates to exercise?

He's wondering how the heck we've landed in this alternate universe where he's climbing hills on the treadmill while I cheer him on from bed. I tell him it reduces my stress level to know that he's going to be taking better care of himself, and the lower my stress, the better for the Kiddo. No, I'm not above guilting him into it...

I'm not sure he's entirely buying it, but he's exercising. So far, anyway.

Today's Sign Said...

Continue to see where this path takes us.

The embryo measured 7w0d (today is 6w6d), and the heart rate increased from 102 last week to 130. The ultrasound tech, who was the same one as last week, said she could also see the beginning of something (I have no idea what, I was too busy trying to soak in the fact that there's still a heartbeat) that is the next thing that's supposed to develop, so that's a good sign.

She still couldn't see any sign of what might be causing the bleeding, but she said subchorionic hematomas can be difficult to spot, especially if they're small, and if I bled it out, it wouldn't be visible.

We met with the perinatologist for the first time. I liked her. She talked through each of my issues, and the entire appointment from start to finish took more than 2 hours.

She doesn't think the Lovenox and aspirin are necessarily related to the bleeding, so I need to talk with the RI's office about those. She does not appear to be a fan of IVIg, but she did say it was our choice whether to continue doing it. (We will.) I'm supposed to stay on bedrest for the forseeable future.

The medical assistant who went over the paperwork I filled out before the nurse came in mentioned that I'll have to get registered at the hospital at some point. I think she said 20 weeks. That's so far from my mind, I wasn't really paying attention.

As soon as she said it, I had a total reaction and kind of caught her off guard. I told her not to jinx things and that if I get to 30 weeks - if!! - then maybe we can discuss that kind of stuff. Apparently I would have to do it before then (again, if we make it that far, still not wanting to jinx it by thinking so far ahead) because they need me to be registered there in case something happens and I have to go in early. But seriously, did we need to talk about that now, when I'm still one day shy of 7 weeks??

And due dates. Okay, seriously people, they keep insisting on talking about this. Last week the ultrasound tech told us. (I refuse to say what it is, so just look at July 13 as 2w5d and count forward from there if you really want to know.) Today when the doctor finished examining me, she said it, but she posed it as a question for me to confirm.

I think my face blanched.

I explained that we made the mistake of calculating the due date on the very first pregnancy, and it just became a painful day, so we don't like to know anymore. I suppose it's no surprise, then, that later on in the conversation she asked if I have a therapist...

And then we got to the checkout desk and had to make appointments. Plural. The peri had told us to go ahead and book weekly appointments for the next month or so.

I couldn't do it. It just seems too audacious to assume I'm going to need that many appointments.

R finally talked me into making two appointments and suggested that starting next week, each week we'll just make one more appointment, so we'll always have two booked, we'll just be able to book them one at a time from this point on. He doesn't try to fight the crazy anymore - he knows it's just better to work with it. :-)

It seemed like a semi-decent compromise, so I took a deep breath, tried to relax, and told the lady working at the desk that we wanted to make appointments for the next two Fridays.

Her response (with a cheery smile): "Sure, no problem. What's your due date?"

Does anyone know how to selectively erase something (a date) from one's brain?

I Don't Have a Good Feeling About This

Everything has been very uneventful. No spotting since Sunday, nausea that started Sunday night and lasted (in a mild state) through Tuesday morning, which I was thrilled about.

I'd started to let myself relax a bit again. Even went crazy and discussed whether we would find out the gender if we got to that point, had a discussion with a friend who is due with twins next week about vaginal birth vs. c-section as if I will face that choice someday soon.

And then, there it is again. I was feeling a little bit of cramping, but nothing major. I just figured it was a good sign that things are happening in there. I didn't even take a deep breath before peeking at the tp - I just assumed it would be pink-free.

It was not.

I put in a suppository at 5 p.m. There was not a speck of blood on the tp or the inserter. At 8:45, there was pink bleeding. So of course I had to check, and it looks like bright red is on the way again.

The ultrasound is at 2:30 p.m. PT tomorrow. We'll see what happens through the night and in the morning.

This time, I can't think of any good explanation for it. The first time, I chalked it up to low progesterone. The second time, I chalked it up to being out and about for bloodwork and the Rhogham injection. The third time, I chalked it up to restarting the Lovenox.

But this time, my progesterone level is great, I haven't been out and about since Saturday, and I haven't restarted the Lovenox. And there wasn't any sign of an SCH during the ultrasound. And the nausea eased up yesterday and did not return at all today. I realize it can come and go, but right now I'd much rather be having it than not.

So I don't have any good explanation. Just a nervous, uneasy feeling.

Hanging In There

I think the Kiddo is still in place. My sanity is still relatively intact.

Apparently, I'm becoming more used to living with uncertainty and unpredictability. Either that, or R is secretly spiking my food with valium. (Just kidding, although I wouldn't necessarily mind that at this point.)

Once I got home and back into bed yesterday, the bleeding slowed. I was hoping it would completely stop overnight. Unfortunately there was still a little bit of red at that point, but it was darkish red rather than bright red, and by late morning today I think I'm pretty much back to the brown spotting point.

The next ultrasound is in about 98 hours - not that I'm counting or anything - so we'll see what that shows if something doesn't go very obviously wrong before then.

I'm on Lovenox 40 ml twice a day and a low-dose aspirin once a day for hetero Factor V Leiden and hetero MTHFR. I haven't taken any more of my doses since the bleeding started again yesterday.

I left a message for the reproductive immunologist who prescribed it, letting them know I had started bleeding again, was stopping the meds again and telling them to call me if I needed to do anything else. I haven't heard back yet, so I'm assuming there's nothing else for me to do from their perspective and they'll call me tomorrow. If I don't hear from them by late morning, I'll call them again. Based on Silver's comment on my last post (thank you, Silver!), I want to ask them about whether they think it might be best to hold off for now and restart if I make it to the second trimester.

In the meantime, I'm trying to resist the urge to ask R to bake me chocolate chip cookies. Do you think my life revolves way too much around food?? :-)

Here We Go, Yet Again

Have I mentioned that I am not a fan of 6w1d?

Pregnancy #1 ended that day. In pregnancy #3, we lost the first twin on that day. For pregnancy #4, I woke up that day and all my symptoms were gone. That one turned out to be okay, because we got to see the heartbeat for the first time that day.

I was hoping since we saw the heartbeat yesterday and since I hadn't had even any spotting since Wednesday, that maybe we could get through today uneventfully.

No such luck.

R and I had just sat down at a restaurant for lunch, and I decided to go to the bathroom. Since things have been okay the last few days, I totally wasn't expecting the bright red bleeding.

And yet, there it was. On the pad, in the toilet, when I wiped. It didn't soak a pad within an hour, but it's definitely a lot more than I've seen so far.

We had just ordered, so we asked the server to pack up our food, and we headed home. I'm back in bed.

I hate this. I'm trying to be calm. Part of what's helping is that I'm not feeling aching or cramping, just bleeding. And there was no clotting - this bleeding (like last week and earlier this week) is still different at this point from the bleeding I've had in any other pregnancy.

The ultrasound tech couldn't see any sign of a subchorionic hematoma yesterday, but then again she also didn't look for it very long at all. The other thing is, I restarted twice-a-day Lovenox last night per the immunologist's orders since it had been 3 days since any bright red bleeding, so maybe that triggered it. But if I need the Lovenox, what effect will there be from not being on it?

If this is not going to end well, I'd rather it end now than later...

We Celebrated Reason #...

1!

There's one "perfectly shaped" (as the ultrasound tech described it) gestational sac, and about half a second after she got the wand in place, we heard one of the best phrases ever: "There's a flicker!"

She started by doing an abdominal ultrasound. She pointed out the sac at that point, but she said my uterus was retroverted, so it was hard to see anything very well. From that angle, the sac looked like a weird, non-round shape to me.

And since we've heard "abnormally shaped gestational sac, this doesn't look viable" at the first ultrasound for several of the past pregnancies, the weird shape made me nervous. She switched pretty quickly to the transvaginal approach, and I couldn't bring myself to look - I just stared at the ceiling until she mentioned the flicker, at which point I popped up like a jack-in-the-box. (There was a screen mounted on the wall in front of me.)

The embryo measured 6w0d, which is exactly what today is. She said they want the heartbeat to be at least 100 bpm at this point, and it was 102 bpm. I would have rather it be a little higher, but I know it speeds up each week for the next several weeks, so we'll just wait and see what Thursday's appointment brings.

We're relieved to be over this hurdle. And I'm grateful that we get to experience seeing a flicker again. But at the same time, we're still being very, very cautious. One day at a time, though each day seems to feel like a week right now...

Anyway, thank you for encouraging me to get the ultrasound early and cheering us on. It's a great way to start a weekend.

I Took Your Advice

I called this morning and scheduled the early ultrasound. 4:30 p.m. tomorrow (Friday). I was so relieved when she named a time that was at the end of the day.

I was stressed about it all day, but I'm starting to relax a little. Of course, there's a very high probability that will change again by mid-day tomorrow. :-) I will post at some point tomorrow night, but we're 3 hours behind the East Coast, so don't worry if you don't see something from me before bedtime...

There hasn't been any bright red in a little more than 2 days, and no spotting of any sort for more than 24 hours. This afternoon, I started to feel some stretching feelings, so hopefully that is a good sign. That's part of what's making me feel a little more hopeful. Still terrified, but a little more hopeful.

I'm trying to approach this by saying we're going to go celebrate afterward. Either we'll be celebrating that it went well, or we'll be celebrating that we're starting the adoption search, or (if things are still inconclusive) we'll simply celebrate that R was actually able to get me out of the car, into the office, and onto that table for the appointment.

There's a Whi.te Cho.colate Grill down the street from the peri's office. Gotta love a place that starts by listing dessert at the top of the menu.

Do you think they'd look at me askance if I order one of each?

More Ups, More Downs, and Trying to Surrender

I know I can be melodramatic sometimes. Apparently, posting at 4 a.m. after looking at toilet paper covered in a color I don't want to see exacerbates that tendancy.

This pregnancy is continuing to be a total rollercoaster. I'm trying really hard to just surrender to it and accept that other than bedrest, injections, pills, suppositories, and patches, there's nothing more I can do - it's out of my control.

Of course, there are some times it's easier to accept that than others.

I honestly did not expect the bright red bleeding to stop. However, I decided I wouldn't stop any meds until told to do so. There was still bright red when I was going to put in this morning's suppository. I figured since my levels are low, putting in two couldn't hurt anything, so I did.

And the bleeding slowed way down and turned brown. And I stuck in another (basically, my whole day's dosage by 11 a.m.) since I wouldn't be able to get the PIO for another few hours.

And then even the brown almost completely stopped. And then R picked up the PIO and helped me with the first injection.

And then a couple hours later there was bright red again, although less than there was at 4 a.m. And now I'm back to brown.

Clearly I have no idea what the heck is going on. And, obviously, neither does my body.

I spoke to the RI's office this morning and explained that since I'm on suppositories, RE says anything above 5 is fine. They were very emphatic that they didn't agree with that, that I should have been put on PIO a week ago, and that they think the progesterone level may cost us an otherwise possibly viable pregnancy.

However, I'm not sure what to think. I know the three suppositories a day is the standard protocol RE uses, and clearly he has a lot of patients (including several of you, I realize) who are very successful with that.

I also know that all the PIO in the world won't save a pregnancy that is going to end for reasons other than low progesterone - I've lost pregnancies completely while still on full dosages of PIO and E2 injections.

RE's nurse still says she doesn't think this is out of the ordinary, and she isn't "overly concerned." Nevertheless, she still sent over orders to have progesterone and estrogen retested on Friday. I need to ask to have another beta added to that. She also sent over the ultrasound order (at my request), but I'm not sure I'm going to do it. I know it's too early to see a heartbeat, and I think I want to see what direction the HCG is going first.

Mostly, though, I'm just chicken, afraid to face that ultrasound screen.

I can't believe I'm only 5w4d today (Tuesday) and that we're still 9 days away from the first scheduled ultrasound. (Well, technically we should be 6 days away at this point since I could do it as early as next Monday if I wanted.) It feels like we've been dealing with this up-and-down pattern for a month already. At the same time, it feels like Aug. 11 is still an eternity away.

Assuming there are no bad-news betas between now and then.

More Bleeding

I don' t think this is going to work.

I think this is the beginning of the end.

I think I' m going to be sick. And not because of morning sickness.

There was a perfect lining, two perfect blasts.

Why won't my body work right?

How do I learn to live with not knowing the answer to that question?

A Mixed Bag of Results

Here's how I feel right about now:



I got today's results in a voice mail:

Progesterone: 5.8 (down from 11 on Tuesday and 7.5 on Friday)
Hcg: 3,672 (up from 2,091 on Friday, a doubling time of about 88 hours)

The reproductive immunologist's take: It's bad that the beta didn't double, it's bad that the progesterone is low, get an ultrasound now to see if it's ectopic or a missed miscarriage. (I don't think he realizes that the clinic's threshold for progesterone is 5 since they're suppositories, so maybe he'll feel differently when I have a chance to talk with the office tomorrow.)

The on-call nurse at RE's take: The progesterone is still technically in the normal range, they have to supplement sometimes, put in an extra suppository tonight and pick up PIO tomorrow morning. The HCG is rising, and at some point it's hard to tell whether it's a good indicator or not. E-mail my regular nurse tomorrow morning to see if I should get an early ultrasound. She said she isn't "overly concerned", but then again I also didn't go into my history of 6 prior 1st trimester losses with her, either. If I had shared all of that, she might have sung a very different tune.

Beta Base comparison: The Beta Base site has been down at least through Friday. (It was up when I had the test last Tuesday, so not sure what happened.) However, through the magic of Google, I found a thread someone had posted on a forum with average singleton numbers for 24dpo, which is what I am today. The most common range was 3,667-5,506, so we're right there at the bottom of the most common range. The thread was posted in 2008 so the numbers might have changed a bit since then, but that's all I've got to work with at this point.

The bleeding/spotting: Had pretty much stopped, but today I went out for labwork, came home, went back upstairs, took a shower, came down to go out for the RhoGham injection, and now there is bright red again. Not a lot, and I think it's already tapering off a little since I have my feet up again, but it's still very stressful any time I see it. Per RI's instructions, I'll be stopping the Lovenox and aspirin until it stops.

My take: The beta is still hopeful, particularly if I did lose a twin on Friday night. I think something in there is still growing since then, or the numbers wouldn't have gone up that much. The progesterone dropping from 11 to 5.8 in 6 days is more concerning to me at this point.

I'm honestly not sure what to make of the bleeding. It's most like pregnancy #1 - I spotted for the first time (bright red) on a Thursday at 4w6d, it continued on and off. Went for an ultrasound at 6w0d, and there was a lot of blood when I went to the bathroom right before the ultrasound started. At that point, it didn't stop. I lost the pregnancy the next day, and continued to bleed what looked like a full period for the next 4 or 5 days.

In the other ones, there wasn't this spotting in advance, and once the bleeding started, it just kept getting stronger until it was over.

So I guess we'll go in for an ultrasound and see if there's a sack. Other than the one pregnancy where we saw a heartbeat, in the other three that got to the point of an ultrasound, it was an abnormally shaped sac each time, and they couldn't necessarily see a definitive yolk sac or fetal pole.

I'm so tired. Of course, part of that is that I barely slept last night because I was stressing about today's tests, and I took Benadryl this afternoon for the IVIg. (The nurse had to try 3 different locations before she could get one this time. I almost passed out after the second one and had to put my head between my knees for a while before we could try again.)

Mostly, I'm just tired of the uncertainty of this process. I did tell R that if this doesn't work, I might want to try one more time in the far distant future (hopefully after a successful adoption), using the IV antibiotics again, since that's what's gotten us the farthest. (We didn't do it this time because we wanted to see what the IVIg would do, and because of the expense involved, and because apparently the IV antibiotics can cause an NK flare in some people, so we didn't want to conflict with the IVIg.)

But if this rollercoaster ends by going off the tracks, I think I'm ready to walk away from it for now. This has reached the point where it has become too hard. I'd like to think I've had a fair amount of fortitude for the past 9 years, but I have officially reached my limit.

Beta #5 Coming Up

I'm trying to stay hopeful, but for no reason in particular, I haven't been feeling very optimistic today.

Actually, that's not true. I think the reasons I'm feeling discouraged are because I've spent entirely too much time with Dr. Google today. Pretty much everything I found when I searched for "pink* gray* tissue miscarriage" pointed to being fetal tissue, so I'm pretty sure we lost at least one. And my cervix feels a lot wider and softer whenever I put the suppositories in, which also does not seem to be a good sign.

Also, the achiness is still coming and going, I don't have any morning sickness, and I'm not feeling any of the other stretchy, weird, one-side-or-the-other kinds of feelings I was feeling up until a few days ago, which I assume were implantation and/or my uterus stretching.

On top of all that, I also saw plenty of stories where women saw heartbeats at 8, 9, 10 weeks or made it to 15 or 20 or 25 or 35 weeks and still went on to lose their baby/babies for one reason or another. And that's already happened to us once. So that just underscored the reality that even if everything looks good during the first ultrasound, every day of this is still a new, uncertain day.

On the bright side, I'm only spotting now, and it's mostly brown or very light pink.

I had called and left a message with the reproductive immunologist's office yesterday to see if I should stop the aspirin/Lovenox. A nurse called me back today and said to stay on those since the spotting is brown at this point, but stop them if it turns red again.

She also said they want another beta, even though RE's office said they'd rather not. So I have another stat order for an HCG and progesterone tomorrow. We'll see what happens.

And Sue, weren't you the one who told me to back away from the HPTs? :-) But to answer your question, I stopped on the way home from Friday's beta and bought another box of 2. The one I took when I got home looked very similar to the one before that - the test line was much darker and wider than the control line.

I have one more left, but I figure my levels would have to be down somewhere near 300 before I'd be able to tell the difference, and even if my levels are dropping, they probably haven't dropped that fast. So I'll try to hold off on the last one, at least for now.

I have to go get a RhoGham shot tomorrow morning. My best bet is to go to the ob/gyn I've seen in the past, but I had decided to switch to a different doctor this time around - a perinatologist one of my friends recommended. My first appointment isn't scheduled until 8/11, but I think I'm going to call them in the morning to explain the situation and see if they'll help me out. I'd just really rather not go back to the other doctor's office if I can avoid it.

And even though I'd really prefer to do the ultrasound as close to the end of next week as possible so that we have the weekend to cope if it's not good news, I think I'm going to see if I can get it moved up to 8/8, assuming that it appears we still have a reason to go to the appointment at that point.

Have I Mentioned I'm Not a Big Fan of Rollercoasters?

And yet, here we are.

I've never been one to define strapping myself into a cart, racing around a metal (or, scarier yet, wooden) track, and praying we don't derail as "fun". But at least that's over in the span of about 4 minutes.

Clearly, this "what the heck is happening inside my uterus??" rollercoaster is promising to be a much longer ride.

As bedtime approached last night, the achiness and kind-of-but-not-really-cramping feelings started to get quite a bit stronger, and the bleeding increased a little, although it still wasn't anywhere near full flow. The last time I went to the bathroom before bed (warning: TMI ahead), there was still the bright pink/red bleeding, but also a small, almost teardrop-shaped, smooth, grayish/pinkish blob of some sort.

It was only about half an inch long, and I didn't poke at it. I don't think it was a clot, because those are usually dark red/purple and sponge-like, and this was neither of those things. Maybe it was a gestational sac? Although it didn't look transluscent, which is how I've seen gestational sacs described. Maybe it was part of the placenta?

Whatever it was, as soon as it passed, the achiness really started to ease up, and by morning it was completely gone. The bleeding seems to be slowing as well, and now it's a light pink/brown combination rather than bright pink/red. It hasn't quite slowed to the point that I would call it spotting, but I'm hoping it will get there soon.

In the meantime, I'm still laying here in bed, and poor R is running up and down the stairs bringing me food, doing laundry, etc.

All we can do is wait. And see what the next bend in the track brings.

Beta #4

Well. 2,091 - a doubling time of 44 hours. P4 and E2 in normal range, though I really would have preferred the P4 to be higher than 7.5.

So we wait. And I lay in bed. Or is it lie? I could never keep the rules around that one straight. The nurse said she'd rather i stay in bed than get up to get another beta, so another one isn' t on the schedule at this point. If the bleeding changes significantly, then a repeat beta may be ordered.

Today's beta means I'm still nursing a thread of hope. The continuing bleeding means it is a very frayed thread. Let's hope this is just an initial, isolated bump in the road and isn't indicative of what the next 8 months are going to be like...

Bleeding

There's bleeding.

Not full flow, but certainly more than spotting. Bright pink at first with no tissue, now bright pink mixed with brown and a little bit of tissue.

I had blood drawn this morning for P4 and E2, and it started a couple hours after that. I called the clinic and spoke with a nurse, so she called the lab to see if they could add an HCG. I'm assuming they could, since she hasn't called me back to tell me to go in and get drawn again.

I'm now officially on full bed rest, only supposed to get up if I have to go to the bathroom. And when you're constantly thinking about going to the bathroom, and what you're going to see when you do, it feels like you have to go every 20 minutes or so. (No, I'm not actually getting up that often.)

I know what everyone says about SCH, and the nurse said it's a possibility, but I'm not hanging my hat on that. My symptoms were less on Thursday (nausea, having to go to the bathroom frequently), and today they're non-existent except for the thinking-about-having-to-pee situation.

I just want to know, one way or another. I suppose if the beta is significantly below 664, we'll know. But the nurse also warned that the number might not tell us a lot - if it's higher than 664, we won't necessarily know if it's on its way up or down. She also mentioned the possibility of both of them starting to take and one not continuing on. So I may have to get blood drawn for a 5th time on Sunday.

And, since that isn't enough fun, I also have to arrange for a RhoGham shot within the next 72 hours.

Calmer...(For Now, Anyway)

You guys are awesome! I've been checking in on the comments all day, and they really do help make me feel better. I couldn't ask for better virtual hand-holders than all of you. :-)

The last time I saw any sort of spotting was that 4 a.m. trip to the restroom. There was a tiny little bit of staining around noon, but that looked like what I've been seeing for the past week, so I chalked it up to cervical/vaginal irritation.

I still haven't been quite as bloated today, and I haven't had some of the uterine sensations I've been having, but I keep trying to remind myself that I won't have every single symptom to the same degree every single day.

And, I think the morning sickness kicked in this morning. I felt a little bit of nausea yesterday morning, but I wasn't sure if it was the real thing or just nerves over beta #3. This morning, even though there was the spotting, I knew it wasn't nerves.

It was great - it lasted most of the day. Never have I been so thrilled to feel not well... :-) So I'm hoping for more of the same tomorrow morning.

I also keep trying to remind myself that in most of the other pregnancies where the end began with bleeding, the bleeding didn't stop once it started. There was only one other one (my first pregnancy) where I spotted on and off for about 5 days before it was clear that it wasn't just normal pregnancy spotting. So if the intermittent spotting continues, hopefully I'll become a little less uptight about it at some point.

On the other hand, I spoke last night with an IRL friend who has struggled with infertilty for longer than average and is now going to be delivering twins in a couple weeks. I'm changed things up this time and scheduled the appointment with her ob, who is a peri. (Apparently I'm hoping some of her luck rubs off...)

My friend told me that when it came time to get in the car and go to the first ultrasound, she told her husband she just couldn't do it - she was too afraid and anxious. He was able to coax her into the car, and then she said she stood there in the parking lot and couldn't bring herself to walk into the building. She eventually went inside, and then when she got on the u/s table, she cried and cried and cried - too hard for them to do the scan until she was able to calm down.

I said, "Oh, good, they've seen that before. So they won't be surprised if I do the exact same thing!"

The u/s is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 11 - two weeks from tomorrow.

I made the appointment, I still have the appointment, but that is as far as I have allowed myself to come. The receptionist told me she would e-mail me a new patient packet that I need to fill out and that I also need to arrange to have records from RE and former OB sent over. I haven't received the e-mail, and I haven't called her to tell her that or called RE/former OB to get records sent over.

I'll get to the first part of next week and then see if I'm ready to take those steps. Just scheduling the appointment felt like a risk - I'm not yet up to anything more than that.

I could make it easier by going to the local RE who handles my monitoring. I'm already an established patient there, and I wouldn't have to get any records transferred. But somehow, I just don't want to.

When we walked out of the clinic after the transfer, I told myself that whichever way this goes, I am no longer an infertility patient for the foreseeable future. I won't totally rule out me doing another transfer at some point down the road, but not as our next step. So I guess I just don't want to hop back into the stirrups as an infertility patient with someone who was actually my very first RE in this whole process and has known me throughout the journey.

Apparently, I'd rather spread around to strangers the fun of dealing with the completely hysterical mess that tends to be me on ultrasound day...

Uh-Oh

Typing from Nook at 4 a.m., so this will be short.

Had dinner, fell asleep for a couple hours, came upstairs to go to bed. Felt a couple sharp pains right before bed. Didn't like them but decided not to worry.

Didn' t have to get up to go to the bathroom for 4.5 hours. Told myself not to worry (should have been only 3 hours) even though I had a lot to drink last night.

Got up to let the dogs out, went to the bathroom.

There is spotting again. But this time, it doesn't look like the staining type of spotting I've been seeing, it looks like the bad kind. And now there's a pain on the left side of my ute area that I don't like.

I got cocky yesterday and scheduled the first u/s after getting the beta results. Ha!

Now I'm worried.

Which Path Will It Be? (aka Beta #3)

664. A doubling time of 38.06 hours.

Huge sigh of relief.

So for now, we are still on this path and will see where it takes us.

I will post more later, but wanted to put up the result and say thank you again to all of you for your support. I will continue to need virtual hand-holding, I'm sure. :-)

Slowly Losing My Sanity

So, since it appears the HPT line has gotten as dark as it's going to get, do you think it's an unreasonable approach to start timing how quickly it gets dark as a measure of whether the beta is still rising or not?

I'm only half kidding.

I just did yet another HPT. (I believe this is #9.) Now I'm checking to make sure the line doesn't start to get more faint.

Once again, thank you for all of your supportive comments. You're what's keeping me still a semblance of sane right now.

Here's how the last 24 hours have gone:

I did some more research yesterday (surprise, I know!) and found a lot of places that said 48-72 hours is a normal doubling rate. I read, and re-read, and re-read all of your comments.

I start to feel better.

I get an email from my regular nurse this morning: "Congratulations!! So far, I think it looks fine..."

I feel better still.

I can't leave well enough alone.

I e-mail her back: "So you don't think it's a problem that it didn't double?" She responds: "Yes, if it had doubled it would be a better sign..." She went on to say it was still a "normal increase" and that the first beta was "very good".

I fixate on "if it had doubled, it would be a better sign".

Hope fades.

The day progresses. I don't have any spotting.

Hope starts to rise again.

Then I start to worry that perhaps the lack of spotting is a bad sign. (Only in my completely screwed up brain, I know...)

Hope fades.

I realize that I am having to go to the bathroom more than usual today. This is usually a good sign for me.

I start to feel more encouraged.

Reading an article online, I come across a reference to a book called 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food. It's written to help emotional eaters. I'm doing pretty well at not doing a lot of emotional eating, I lie to myself (as I'm eating a bowl of cookies n cream frozen yogurt). I check out the book on Amazon to see what kinds of reviews it gets.

Some achey, not quite crampy, feelings begin. I start to get the physical feelings I get when I'm about to start my period. I remind myself that I had those same feelings at the beginning of the last week, too.

I hope that this is a good sign. I worry that it's not.

I decide to check to see if there is any bleeding and do another HPT. (The last one I have in the house.)

There is no bleeding, no spotting.

The line comes up on the HPT faster than it ever has - a lot faster than the control line. (This is when the stopwatch test idea enters my mind.)

I look at the line. Ok, it's dark, but it's not quite as dark as the last one I did. I can't remember exactly when I did the last one. Maybe Saturday morning.

I think maybe not enough time has passed. After all, it's only been about 20 seconds.

I write this post.

I go back to check on the test. It turns out, the line can get even darker. But the control line on this one is a lot fainter than the control line on the last one. This one and the last one are out of the same box, shouldn't the control line be similar between the two?

Still, I can't help it - hope rises a little bit that maybe this darkest yet line means that everything is still on track.

Beta #3 (and a repeat progesterone, at my insistence, even though the last one was fine) will be tomorrow morning. (Silver - the first two draws were at 8:30 a.m. This one is scheduled for 8:15. But I appreciated the idea you had... :-) ) I will ask them not to call until the end of the day, because I have meetings all day.

I need to buy the 50 Ways book - I have to figure out a way to keep my sanity in check.

I hope R hasn't eaten the last of the fro yo.

Beta #2

Once again, there are tears. Lots and lots of tears. And they're not happy tears.

It's not horrible, but it's not great either. It only rose to 277, so it didn't double.

The nurse who called is one I've never spoken with before. She said it only rose by 53%, they were concerned, and I'd have to get a repeat beta on Tuesday. When I pointed out that 149 doubled equals 298, so 277 couldn't bethat far off, she argued with me at first but then finally relented and went to ask someone else.

It's actually a rise of 86%, a doubling time of 53.66 hours. And when I look in the Beta Base calculator, the average for a singleton at 16dpo is 206 overall, 202 for the 33-37 age range.

So why am I so darn upset? I don't know, but I am. R has put a tissue box on one side of me, and an adorable, fluffy cat on the other. Normally she's a grump, but she rises to the occasion when I have moments like this.

I have a 14-page paper due in 9 hours. I've barely started. I can write fast, but even so, I don't think it's going to happen...at least, not by the deadline.

Beta #1...

...is finally here.

149.

So, much, much better than the 11 we had last year. It's higher than average for a singleton on the Betabase chart (102 is average overall, 99 for my age range), but below average for twins (206, 209 for my age range). So who knows? But for now, at least one has started to take, so I'm going to just enjoy that.

I mentioned the bleeding to both the RI's nurse and the nurse who called with my beta, and both seemed to think it's the suppositories that are causing the bleeding. I've stayed in bed as much as possible today, and there hasn't been much bleeding, so I'm still calm.

The conversation with my boss went well; she was very understanding, so I'm just going to work from home next week.

Hopefully Sunday's number will double. For now I'm trying to decide if I should test again tonight or make myself wait all the way until tomorrow morning. :-) This morning's test looked pretty much the same as last night's, but then again there was only about 9 hours between the two.

I figure that at some point, the line just can't get any darker. But I may wind up with a countertop covered in tests while I check out that theory...

More Testing, More Spotting

Thank you for all of the encouragement and support. I didn't post again last night because I wound up waiting until this morning to retest. The line was significantly darker.

Hope rose.

Then before I left work this evening, I went to the bathroom. And there was a fair amount of reddish orange blood covering some of the surface of the pantyliner, and more when I wiped. (Sorry, I know, TMI.) And I'd been achy again.

I had an acupuncture appointment right after that, and as soon as I laid down, the achiness eased up.

I stopped on the way home and bought 4 more tests. Tonight's test is darker than this morning's, just barely lighter than the control line. (I haven't taken photos yet, but I will.)

I will be testing again tomorrow morning. :-) Beta draw is at 8:30 PT.

On the advice of an IRL IF friend, I'm going to get into bed and stay there as much as possible for the foreseeable future. I wasn't going to say anything to my boss (we're not in the same state, so we don't see each other, just communicate via e-mail and phone), but I think tomorrow I'm going to tell her what's going on and tell her I'm going to work from home indefinitely. (My phone number on caller ID and dogs barking in the background give away my location, so I can't just pretend I'm in the office and not tell her...) She doesn't know anything about our IF/adoption history. Let's hope that goes well.