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.

Pictures, and Spotting

Here's the first picture from last night. It was difficult to get the line to show up in the photo. I don't know if you'll be able to see it or not, but it's definitely darker than it appears in this picture.



I did the EPT last night right before bed, and for the first time ever on an EPT, it said:



So, yea hurray. Last year, I still got a "not pregnant" on an EPT from the same box when my beta was at 45, so I'm assuming this means the hcg level was at least 50 last night.

Today was fine, but then on the way home from work I started feeling some achy pains. I wouldn't say they would qualify as crampy, but still, I think I'd prefer to feel nothing at all at this point.

When I got home, I put in another suppository, and there was a fair amount of light pink. I would like to think it's just because the suppositories (they're tablets, not the waxy kind of suppositories) are irritating my vaginal lining. However, it had been 10 hours since I'd put in the last one, so I don't think the bright pink could have been from that. And I'd be surprised if that much bleeding happened that quickly from the suppository I had just put in.

I laid down for a while after that, and the aching stopped. But then when I got up and went downstairs for dinner, it started back up again. It's still going on.

I had promised myself I wouldn't POAS again until tomorrow night, but now I think I'm going to be chugging some water and doing an "is it darker, is it not?" line comparison tonight.

I want some indication of which way this is going, but I'm not freaking out. I'm just resigned at this point - either it's going to work or it's not, and if it doesn't, it doesn't, and we move on.

Or at least, that's what I keep telling myself.

So, I Tested

During last year's FET, I tested at this point. It was a Monday night, and the first offical beta was on Thursday morning. There was no line on Monday night. Not even a hint of one. And it wasn't until Wednesday night - 12 hours before beta - that if I held that night's test literally right next to a lightbulb and squinted really, really hard, that I could barely see what had to be the faintest line ever.

Here we are again at that same point - Tuesday night, with the first beta scheduled for Friday. I was really, really tempted to test last night, but R talked me out of it.

Tonight, I decided to just rip the band-aid off. I told myself that I would stop looking at the test as "positive" or "negative" because, well, "negative" just has such a negative connotation to it, and making it so black-or-white was just adding to the stress.

So I told R I would look at it differently - the result will just be a road sign giving us an indication of our path, nothing more. Nothing super final. One line = the road sign is pointing toward adoption, two lines = the road sign is pointing toward seeing where my uterus takes us in this process.

I tested. I set it on the floor in the water closet. I opened the door to check on it twice within the first 30 seconds.

I didn't see a second line.

I decided to forget patience and just picked the thing up and stuck it on the sink counter. And then I looked again. A full minute hadn't even passed yet.

And there is a second line.

And I don't have to hold it directly next to a light bulb to see it. I don't even have to squint. It's there.

It was a FRED. I have a couple of EPTs, which have never, ever been kind to me. They always show up with "not" before "pregnant", even when I had a beta of 45.

So tonight (if my bladder is full enough) or tomorrow morning, I'm going to try an EPT and see what it says. And if the darn thing finally leaves off the word "not", I will take a picture and post it.

I took a picture of tonight's test with my cell phone, but it didn't turn out well enough. I'm going to go grab the regular digital camera; maybe that will work better. Because I think for once it's a line that might actually show up in a photo.

We're not overly excited. At all. In fact, we looked at the test, said "Okay," and then left to go grocery shopping.

But I am going to enjoy this (apparently in a very unexcited way) for every moment, regardless of how many (or how few) moments it lasts. And be a little, little bit happy that at least in one tiny part of the process, it seems I can actually count on my body to work correctly, at least for a little while - this is the 5th treatment cycle in a row where we've gotten a positive. Now if only we can get it to stick for another 8 months this time...