Fertile yet Infertile ?

Relieved, happy, disappointed, sad

All of the feelings above bolted through me in the brief time we were in the ultrasound room this morning.  We had an unfamiliar doctor - when I saw him getting out of his car in the parking lot, my heart sank.  I don't even know him, and I hate getting bad news from unfamiliar faces, I thought.

Relieved and happy first.  I saw the sac right away and knew it was bigger than last week.  I also saw the flickering heart on the mini-screen my RE practice has that faces the patient so you can see while lying down on the table.  The bean was measuring perfectly with respect to my dates - 6w6d exactly.

Disappointed and sad - the second sac still looked the same.  I could barely identify anything in there (Dr. unfamiliar said the fetal pole is very small) and there's definitely no heart activity.  I cried a bit on the way home.  We both cried more when we got there.  While the concept of twins terrified me, it was also thrilling.  We have always wanted at least two children - and I thought this could be a stroke of luck for us.  After 5 years of pain, we'd get our two in one shot.  But of course, its not to be.

Don't get me wrong, we're over the moon about having one, and that things seem to be going smoothly in there.  I want to bring this little one home so badly it hurts.  But it also hurts to know that there was another life in there, at least for a little while - but we won't get to meet him/her.  Its just a very conflicted feeling.

And of course there's my ever-present post-traumatic-stress-type thinking or whatever you may call it, where my eyes see the flickering heart, my brain knows that perfect date measurements are great, and the odds are that this pregnancy will continue - but my heart just refuses to let the concept in any more than a distant hope.  I pray I find a way beyond this sometime soon - I truly do.  I wish somebody could tell me how.  As if I could learn it by reading a book or watching an instructional video or something.

Jumbled

I was thinking this morning how boring this blog has become.  Fear.  test.  relief.  Repeat.

I was also thinking how feelings and emotions are swimming around my head, around my whole body lately in one big jumble.  Like those word puzzles where you have to find your words horizontally, vertically, or diagonally in a big grid of letters.  What are my words?  Fear.  Sadness.  Terror.  Hope.  Boredom.  Flashback.

I zoom from one feeling to another.  I don't stop long enough at any one place to get used to it.  You'll note I didn't include happiness.  I am happy to have made it this far, no doubt.  Thrilled.  But it still doesn't feel real to me.  We drove home from the u/s last Monday.  T was thrilled.  On cloud nine, in fact.  Me - I stared out the window at the passing cars.  Willing myself to believe what I just saw on a computer screen.  Things are ok - good even, for now.

But that theoretical "other shoe"?  I am waiting for it to drop.  I want tomorrow to be a good day.  I hope to be able to start believing in this afterwards.  But the fear is stopping me.  I'm not living in the present right now.  I'm living in the past (where there were no happy endings to my pregnancies) or in the future - where my mind just can't wrap itself around the concept that things just could end up going well.

I've felt isolated most of the weekend.  I took Friday off because we were supposed to do an annual road trip to Baltimore with some friends.  Since many of the activities once there would have included staying up late and drinking copious amounts of wine or beer, and I can do neither, we decided to pass.  But I imagined T and I spending time together, being alone and just enjoying each other.  What I got instead was a husband so focused on the fact that he will be too busy next spring to re-do our deck, that he realized he had to do it NOW.  Cue lots of tv watching and minor chores for me.  And lots of time alone to think.  If only I could just turn my brain off for a few hours - hang it up for a time.

Tomorrow morning is just looming large on my horizon.  Will update when there's something to report.  Here's hoping that something is good.

Thank you!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by over the weekend to share some positive thoughts.

The spotting, thankfully had all but stopped by Thursday afternoon.  In comparison to other episodes I've had, it was truly nothing - but still scared the heck out of me!  Luckily we were out of town Sat-Sun at my mother's house to celebrate my brother's birthday.  We needed a diversion.

This morning, we were nervous heading up to the clinic.  The ride seemed to take forever, and even though we were there 20 minutes before they opened the doors, I was fourth in line!  Fourth!

Luckily though, I was the first u/s of the day.  Dr. Young made a big point of telling us first that at 5w6d, all we expect to see is a sac, its too early for a heartbeat, etc.  In goes the wand and she quickly says "There is your uterus . . ." and I saw a good sized sac right away.  She confirmed "there's a sac," then did a bit more prodding and poking . . . "and there's another one!"  T jumped up from the table to see the screen.  He was so excited!  Turns out we were able to see a heartbeat in one sac ("Bonus!" proclaimed Dr. Young) but not the other.  She noted again for us how early it is, but we have "possible twins", and we'll know more when we look next Monday at my next u/s to see if #2 has a hearbeat as well.

Holy. Cow.

I feel greedy as hell, but all I can think about how badly I want them - BOTH of them to be ok - and come out in about nine months to meet me and their daddy!

Arrghhh!

So - I had some brown/pinkish spotting yesterday which is continuing today.

It is incredibly light - unlike any other spotting I've had before, but I am freaking out a bit nonetheless.

My ultrasound is Monday, and I am trying to hang in there until then.  I know the spotting can be nothing, but unfortunately that has never been my experience before so I find it hard to believe.

Just when I had myself convinced that everything was going just fine . . .

Duh, Sherry

So today was beta #3, 15dp5dt.  And I don't have a number.  Because I didn't ask.  Hence, the "DUH."

Dr. Young said everything looked "good" with my blood work, and they are keeping all my dosages the same for the week.  I get Thursday off from the early morning routine, and then Monday I should bring my husband, because we're doing our first ultrasound.  Yikes!

So I repeated it all back to her, and said "but the numbers still look good?"  (Note I can't say HCG or any of that language out loud because I work in a cubicle and the walls have ears!) And she said, "Yes."  And we said our good byes.

Then I started kicking myself for not asking for the number.  Did she not tell me for a reason?  Did it not double appropriately?

Then I talked myself down.  If things didn't look good, she wouldn't be letting me go a week without checking on me, right?  She probably just didn't want to bog me down with a number, right?  If she says everything looks good, then it must look good.  I need to trust her, and find a way NOT to find bad news in good news.  But I am just SO damn good at doing that.

Why didn't I just ask what the number was?  OY!

Magnificent

"Magnificent" is the word Dr. Young used to refer to my latest beta, taken this morning, at 11dp5dt.

707 was the number.  We are more than doubling every two days by my calculations.

Wow.  Just - wow.

I go back Monday for the next test - Estrogen, Progesterone, and HcG.

I'm kind of speechless about how pleasant and drama-free this has been so far.  Here's hoping things stay magnificent and boring for the next - oh 35 weeks?

 

Confirmed!

No more pee sticks needed - my beta came back today (8dp5dt) at 160!

The damn betabase web site seems to be down today - of all days!

Keeping my Del*estrogen dose the same, and INCREASING (ugh) the Prog*esterone to 1.5cc.

Dr. Young was absolutely thrilled with the number - said its "great" and told me to come back Thursday for more blood-letting.  She also offered some heartfelt congratulations, knowing the long road we've been on to get here.

I think my husband almost passed out at the office when I gave him the news.  As for me - I just have a big smile on my face.  I'm going to try and enjoy this a bit before letting the anxiety and "what ifs" back in.  My last positive pregnancy test was in September 2005, so this feels pretty good for right now.  I'm really wanting to ride that feeling out for a while.

Darker

About 3:45 this morning, I couldn't hold it anymore, and got up to use my 2nd HPT.  It seems my nighttime bathroom trips have increased lately - like 2-3 times a night, despite my sleeping like a rock state.

I wouldn't call the line "dark," but its more definitive than yesterday's.  Its still light, but I would call the line thicker if that makes any sense.  I am using Clear B*lue*E*asy Early Results in case anyone wants to know.

In any case, we feel relieved and hopeful, but yet cautious.  The unfortunate reality of being a RPL "survivor" is the knowledge that this joy could be taken from us any minute.  Of course I know everything about this time is different, including the fact that these embryos are made from good, 21 year old egg-stock, but even that is not completely reassuring right now.

I think the only thing that will reassure me is getting some distance actually "in" to a pregnancy, one where hopefully, things are blissfully as "normal" as can be.  Such a thing still seems to me to be a daydream, something that only happens in others' lives - not mine.

To use a phrase coined by one of the pioneer IF bloggers - NBHHY.  Bonus if you already know what it stands for!

Shaky

First of all, I want to thank all of you ladies who stopped by to offer support, make me smile, or tell me stories of your symtpoms and non-symptoms.  I really felt good, like I was surrounded by friends with warmth, telling me everything was going to be ok.  I calmed down a bit by Thursday or so, and got back to trying to be positive.

Over the last day or two, I've felt on and off a little crampy - like my period could becoming any minute.  I bought a couple HPTs the other day and have been having an internal debate as to whether to use them or not.  I was starting to turn the corner on hope street, and I didn't want a negative test to derail me.  T and I went back and forth a bit about whether to do it or not.

Flash forward to today.  Lazy day, I'm sitting on my butt doing not much of anything, and T is outside mowing the lawn.  I've felt more crampy this morning.  I went upstairs to the bathroom and discover I'm spotting.  I decide I can't take it anymore.  Spotting could be a good thing, right?  I whip out a stick and lo and behold - a very faint positive.  I ran outside to have T double check my read of the thing, and he concurred - through tears.  We shared a very stinky, sweaty hug (that would be him, not me) and my hands haven't stopped shaking since.

I will use the other one tomorrow, hopefully it will be darker then since it will be morning, and one day later.  I still think its early, being only 6dp5dt.

Please, no congratulations yet - this feels too fragile to me.  But I'll take all good thoughts and hopes and everything else you can dish out!

And truly, I feel like I can't thank you all enough for sitting with me through these tough days - what a joy it is to be surrounded by such awesome women.