I.V.Effed: No Sex, No Lies, and No Videotape

And still pregnant.  After last Friday’s panic-induced-ultrasound, it was a quick visit today, with just a step on the scale (um, hi six pounds since starting stims), a short chat with the dr, and then a challenging (yet successful) hearing of the hb via dopper.  Apparently I have some majorly strong veins thumping down there, and my racing pulse was drowning out the baby…but it eventually measured at 165, and I was sort-of able to make out the sound myself.

According to the doctor, my chance for miscarriage now is the same as the rest of the gen pub–less than 3%.  Still too high to let me rest easy, but that’s life. Buh-bye, progest shots as well.  We had a ceremonial trashing of the gross blood-dotted heating pad late this afternoon.  Nuchal scan is scheduled for 13 days from now (who’s counting?) on May 10th.  I’ll be 12w1d.  After that appointment–I will feel a lot better if all is well (ok. Noticing a pattern of my saying this with each appointment…).  But really, if I make it through the NT staying pregnant…then it is only another week and half until the end of the first tri…and then…well…I may think of this as my actual little baby.

If that time comes to be, I’ll have to take some surveys about who gives an Eff about my story once I am clearly pregnant…and what to do about the blog.  I mean, I clearly have still been effed by IVF…but not in the present, just the past, I guess.  So do I keep it up then?  Luckily, I have a few more weeks of being in the unsafe zone to keep humoring you all with my quirks, worries, and general overal insanity.

A general blogging question: Any other bloggers out there get some ridiculous amounts of spam comments that SEEM like real comments?  They are completely about the posts, etc…but there have been TONS and all from weird addresses like Tom23@ something or Joe42@ something…yep, all men…and when you click on the website they allegedly connect to, it’s not a developed site.  Any help out there, bloggers?  Where they are coming from and how can I catch it in my spam-catcher?  It’s annoying because I get all excited that so many many people care about my tale, only to be duped…I mean, how many men are really reading this and empathizing?

5 Comments | In: April | | #

Apparently, a week and a half is all my body can sustain its peace and positivity for.  Right now, with the 10-week mark looming ahead on Sunday, I am a wreck.  My nausea has almost completely subsided, I don’t have any cramping, and (I know I know I KNOW) I bought a cheapish fetal doppler and can’t find the heartbeat down there. (I can, however, hear my own, hear my dinner from last night, and probably four nights ago as well…you see, I am on the smaller side, thus figuring I should be hearing the heartbeat by now–two people on the ama.zon reviews heard it by now….whine, whine whine…)

I anticipate the worst right now while also secretly hoping that by expecting the worst I will be redeemed and given good news… Come Tuesday, I have visions of walking into the dr’s office, saying, “I expect you to be giving me bad news.”  I also have had horrible horrible visions of going into the bathroom and things just gushing down.  I do not like this feeling–I need to find myself an OB to move into my spare room to give me peace of mind for the next four days.  Four days!  Sounds like nothing…sounds like everything.  T said, “So nothing has happened to make you think you lost the baby, save less symptoms, you just think that” (he does sort of understand, by the way, it just doesn’t come across that way in print).  I said “correct.”  The unspoken between us, of course, is that nothing happened the last time.  No cramps, no blood, nothing (just a loss of symptoms).  And then they were gone. 

How will I make it until then?  We planned to look at cars this weekend…I planned to get some things from Targ.et for storage solutions (nesting?  or just irreverent spending?) but really, I just want to crawl into my bed, take some of the anesthesia they give you before the ER, and pass out until Tuesday, 1pm (appointment is at 2.  But I’d probably be a bit groggy right away…)

UPDATE:  Crazy C gave in to Calm C, and called the office this afternoon.  Of course, I called four minutes after P went down for his nap.  They told me they could see me in 45 minutes, but had nothing else today or tomorrow.  After some advice from the trusted M and J…decided to get the answers I needed and risk a cranky 2.5 year old (incidentally, today is his Half Birthday–ice cream cake and small gifts to come tonight…) and woke him, popped him in the car, and drove up to the office.  I waited for I don’t know, FIVE MINUTES?? in the busy waiting room, and then went on back.  Dr C couldn’t find the hb on the doppler after trying for about five seconds, then went to get the portable external ultrasound machine, and eureka!  Bean is still alive!  Heart was beating, little arms were waving around…I didn’t push my luck and ask for heartrate or measurements…after all, I am back there on Tuesday.  I did, however, hug my doctor.  A first for me–someone who has been to all kinds of medical professionals.

Completely worth the piece of mind.  And I really didn’t even feel that ridiculous–what a great doctor to make me feel like the sanest person alive.  Now P is napping for a mini-nap (I think…).  I promised that if all was ok with this, I would not go back to Tar.get and ask where the Eff were the three other items on my receipt that weren’t in any of my bags…Yep, a $12 bargain with the powers that be. 

2 Comments | In: April | | #

Today was the first OB ultrasound and appointment.  They were very accomodating when I explained that I really didn’t want to wait until the 10 week mark when I had called initially (throw out the phrases “missed miscarriage of twins” “almost three weeks not knowing”, and an OBs office must feel obliged to accomodate.)  Anyway.  I went in to the room by myself today (P and T stayed out in the waiting room at the request of the tech, but also, I think, it was what T was planning on doing anyway.  He was nervous as heck too, and probably didn’t want to be back in that room, reliving those memories…and P provides a nice distraction).

I started to say a Hail Mary as I waited for the tech to find what she wanted to see before she turned on the overhead ginormous screen…and I don’t believe I got in more than two or three lines til she hit the remote, and there was the bean.  She did not want any questions, so I just watched and stared until I was certain I saw the quick flitting of the heartbeat.  She measured some things, checked out other parts in there, and then called T and P in to show them via an outside scan the growing bean up on the screen.  Relief.  Relief relief relief.

After a brief hour wait, I met with the doctor (not my actual OB–he was booked) and she was wonderful.  She understood my fears, listened to me, and said to make an appointment to come back in 2 weeks.  Thanks Be to G, no making me wait the ridiculous length of time of 3 or 4 weeks to see my bean again.  I do feel so much more relaxed right now…though of course, that feeling in of itself is making me feel un-relaxed…

The stats:  All parts of bean are accounted for.  Measures 8w3d, and has a heartbeat of 175.  Can’t ask for more than Everything Looking Right (ok, I can ask for everything remaining right….continuing right…)  The doctor again reminded me that the percentage of miscarriages in the first tri is 15%…and that the odds of miscarriage drop to 5% after seeing a strong heartbeat.  (I asked my math whiz husband what that translates into…he said 1 in 20.  Shit, that seems really freaking high, I said.  Then he said, I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 20.  What is it?  I replied, 7.  He said, Nope.  14.  I then asked if 7 being a multiple of 14 meant anything.  He gave me the stink eye.)

So I head back two weeks from today.  Am I still nervous?  You bet.  Am I afraid of being too confident and comfortable?  Check.  Although, here are some interesting tidbits…my due date is the same day as a huge football game here at Yankee Stadium this fall–my Alma Mater v. Army.  Hmm.  Prob won’t be tailgating at that one (IhopeIhopeIhopeIhope).  Also, best pal from college…due the week before me with her second (don’t worry, M–no one else who knows you reads this!).  How fun to raise a baby born so close to each other…

So please.  Please God, let this be the one for us.  Let this be our child, not just our hope or our dream.  It is amazing that after all of the limbos we IFers find ourself in–before the cycle, while cycling, retrieval, grow-time, transfer, 2WW, beta one, beta two, beta three, ultrasound one, ultrasound 2, ultrasound 3–we never really seem to leave limbo behind.

5 Comments | In: April | | #

And measuring exactly that, with a visible heartbeat of 140bpm.  I can’t complain about that.  The other small sac seems to have been reabsorbed already…and while I definitely still harbor sadness over that, I was happy to see what I saw.  I will call around to find an OB later…only a few more blood draws until I am officially “graduated” it seems.  Holy.effing.scary.  Last babies died actually while I was still under the care of my previous RE last year–after the final ultrasound, though before the final progesterone check.  But we didn’t find out until 2 and a half weeks after that, at first OB appt.  So I asked Dr IVF if it would be insane of me to expect to get my next ultrasound with an OB ASAP…and he said with my history, not insane at all.  I love that he supported me in my insanity.

I felt eerily calm on my way to the city late this morning.  P was home with a babysitter which makes the trip so much easier–no lunch, no pullups, no wipes, no dvd players, no dvds, no snacks, no books, no jacket, no sippy cups-that-wont-spill-on-the-dvd-player…no one to shhhhuush on the train when he gets excited…no 30 lbs to haul around when he gets tired, no panic that someone wants my adorable blond haired, blue-eyed monster…and no one to yell at us from the backseat on the way back (train in, lift with T back home).  Yet, of course, I missed him.

While on the train, I heard a mom call out at one point, “P….!”  as a boy walked past my seat.  I looked up, and swear to pete that I saw my future.  Mom could be me in ten years…and though her son was probably around 14 or so…I just thought, that could be me, me and my P, that could be our future, and I could be happy with that.  I made up the story of him being her only child, and they were going into the city to spend the day together during spring recess–I made their story into my story.  And I can make my happiness with that.  Me and my boy.  I thought, so whatever happens, today, I can handle it.  I can get through it.  I’m a big, tough girl (that makes me sound like an 18 wheeler.  I’m more like an adult, strong girl, I guess).  I think that was a sign for me (of course, I also welled up when the police officer directing traffic on the corner of 56th and 2nd helped move the cars so an ambulance could get through the intersection.  Huh?  Tear-inducing?  Right.  Nonsensical.  But I’m naturally a weepy sentimental person.  Hormones just make me ragin’).

So now I just wait.  And try to be hopeful.  We keep asking the little bean to please stick around.  I hope he decides to listen.  Although I know, whatever happens, I can handle it.

2 Comments | In: April | | #