Ultrasound day.


I was so nervous walking uptown to the office–there were about six times I had to sit for a sec because I thought I was going to pass out.  But after about a two minute wait in the waiting area and then a three minute one in the exam room (I was still deciding whether to take off my clearly sweaty socks or leave them on when Dr came in…so they stayed on…), it was showtime.  I had my eyes squeezed closed until he said “well, you can look at this, it looks like it should” so I opened them to see a gest. sac and the yolk sac in it.  He then pointed out a smaller gest sac above it, and said it was measuring significantly smaller with no visible yolk sac and was likely a vanishing twin, but he would check it again next week. 

 It was all so clinical and practical–no congratulations, no real talk about it being a pregnancy, just kind of speaking in terms of it being another bridge to have crossed.  I know that is what it is…which is why I am probably feeling just kind of…numb.  I want to be happy–I have no more fears about it being in the wrong place, and clearly there was something there, right where it should be…so why am I waiting for the other freaking shoe to drop?  Why is it so hard to just be hugging T and celebrating, instead of being frightened to death of celebrating and then seeing something less than ideal next Thursday?  (I was given the choice of another appt next Thurs or the following Monday.  I went with the former.  Why force almost five more days of anxiety on myself?  Better to get it over with…and then I can either celebrate or mourn for the three day holiday weekend).  I hate that I look at it like that.  I want to really really try to see things in a brighter way–I really really do.  I am here, after all.  There was a time just three weeks ago I thought I didn’t have a prayer of ever being in this spot again.  Ever ever ever.  But I am.  So maybe I will try to work on that over the next seven days.  Any advice to help the process along?

 

And.  Today is 1 yr anniversary of D&C.  Bittersweet kind of day, come to think of it.  Hoping that it all just balances out, you know?



Still feeling happy…


Yesterday my boobs felt smaller.  And less hurty.  So I was getting worried (I do hate that IF plus losses means way too much caution and worry, but so be it) and felt sad.  I embrace the nausea and headaches when they come like they’re an old sweet grandma–because then I know all is ok.  So every morning and night, you might find me checking the fullness of each boob, left, then right, then left, then right (aren’t you loving the window I just gave you into my bathroom?).  It is so hard not to read into things.  Today though, I had beta #4 drawn, and it came back at 2892.  Sigh.  A bit of weight fell off my shoulders (onto my boobs, perhaps?) as I relaxed just a tenth of a percent.  I smiled a bit more this afternoon after that call.

I know I am not out of the woods.  I know this Thursday is important, I know the following Thursday’s ultrasound will be important, and I know also that I will be nervous in between every single one of them from here to…well…however long it takes to not feel so freaked out.  I am happy, I am pregnant, I am worried, I am nervous, I am hopeful, I am the oppositeofhopeful (just looked up antonyms for hopeful–and there really isn’t a word that describes what I feel).

 

But for today, I will smile and think of myself as Pregnant.



A 6am Thank-you. (and beta #3 update)


I need to give a ridic loud shout-out to Mel for her overall swellness thus leading to the swellness of all the LFCA-ers who have come by to give me some support.  My heart gets so warm every time I read a post from someone stopping by…or when I just know there are people out there knowing my story and thinking of me…so Thank You.  To everyone who reads my story and gives me some love.   It makes me feel less alone.  Andsome good news (bang your palms on your desks all drum-like…) we’re going home today!  Power was restored around 10pm last night.  So I will wake P, drive up 50 minutes to have the unnecessary-but-necessary-for-me bloods, drive us back here to the hotel, load up the car with a week’s worth of living stuff, and drive it all back home forEVAH.  Complaining about this week of no power makes me feel like a true shit when I think about actual natural disasters, instead of localized tree-fallings, house and car smashings, and power-outings…but it also makes me grateful that I’ve never had to experience that.  Really freaking grateful.

I likely won’t have cable or internet restored (come on, it took Co.nEd a week…is Ver.izon really going to be there stringing up its own perty wires immediately?) so my beta-update may not be for a bit.  But thanks to some inspiring blogs I’ve already read this morning (um, nervous much, Miss Up-At-5-Can’t-Fall-Back-to-Sleep?) as well as some reassuring comments posted here…I’m feeling okay right now.  Oh yeah.  And I think my AA boobs are pushing A.  So that’s something.

 

Update: beta was over 900.  maybe 920something, maybe 940somthing.  Was so relieved once I heard her start out with “nine…” and can’t recall the rest.  But I know that 834 would have been another 66% increase…and I clearly smashed that.  So I sit here, in my sun-warmed house with laundry cleaned, dried, and ready to be folded, P napping…and just happy for right now.  I can be happy this weekend now.  And then take next week’s bw and Thursday’s ultrasound as they come.  This even makes it okay that the DVR didn’t tape any of my shows this week…



Going tomorrow a.m. to help my sanity.


My nurse was super, over-the-top reassuring when I called her (um, 2.5 times) yesterday afternoon with my concerns.  She told me my estrogen and progesterone were really great, and that my numbers look fine, and they are not at all concerned and therefore I shouldn’t be either.  However, she did offer to put me on for another beta tomorrow…and I accepted.  Better to get the info before the weekend to know if I should really be a nervous nellie over the weekend, or if I can at least breathe easier.  I haven’t been obsessing as much as I expected to…but of course, I’ve been obsessing enough (insert smiley face here).  I can’t decide if I want to answer the call tomorrow or just let it go to voicemail when the nurse calls…I can already imagine my heartrate as I see the number on my phone.  Please oh please, let tomorrow be a good answer.  Saturday:  anniversary of twin miscarriage.  Would like to wake up on that day with some sort of positive information in my heart to help me through it…

 

And we hope to be home in an electrically-powered abode by tomorrow sometime…



Beta didn’t double, power didn’t come back on.


Not my lucky day.  Today’s beta was 502.  From 303 on Monday.  I am not pleased.  I am terrified.  The nurse sounded all sunshine and roses, telling me it is fine, they look for 60% increase, mine was 66%…blah blah.  But it seems like MOST people do indeed double.  I go back Monday for more bloodwork, then an ultrasound next Thursday afternoon.  It is only Wednesday.  Monday is very very far away.  So…

I called and left a message for the nurse asking if I can come Friday for blood instead of waiting until Monday.  We’ll see what she says.  I just don’t think I can wait that long and not lose my freaking mind.  If the news is better or the same on Friday, I can rest easy over the weekend.  If it’s not, I can be rightfully concerned.  But better than being concerned the whole way through if there is a chance I don’t need to be.

Hoping for power by Thursday night…but right now, that’s the least of my worries.

 

Now here is the part where everyone writes nice reassuring comments about their own experiences, how 48 hours isnt the be-all-end-all of doubling time, how under 72 hours is just as fine…that’s what I’m needing right now.  Please…



Maybe you shouldn’t ever read my blog again…


Seriously.  Go ahead.  Delete me from your blogroll.  Cut my story out of your life.  Throw something at me.  Call me names behind my back.  Point fingers.  And say “I told you so.”  Because I am indeed pregnant.  Today, at 12dp3dt my beta was 303. 

 

Will it make you hate me less if I tell you I will still SWEAR on something really really important that I knew last weekend it didnt work?  (T says no, I didnt know…I thought I knew…)  But the signs were the SAME they were every other cycle.  Every other failed cycle.  Cycle one, cycle three, cycle 3.5 cycle four…all the same signs.  And every time, I tried to listen to people tell me I was wrong, it wasn’t over…and I was NOT EVER WRONG.  NOT. EVER.  So if you say you’ll never believe anything I have to say again…that’s fine.  But I believed it.  I KNEW it. I always longed to be this person but I never was.  I can certainly be a drama queen, but in this instance, I swear, I was not being one.  I was being true.

 

Will it make you hate me less if I tell you we lost power in the Unnamed Hurricane that slammed the Northeast…leaving us without power or heat since Saturday…and likely through the end of this week?  Giant trees are lying in neighbor’s upstairs bedrooms.  Cars are smashed in.  Roads are practically impassible.  We gave up after 24 hours of freezingness and just checked into a hotel yesterday.  Along with a whole lot of other people.

 

 

Will it make you hate me less when I tell you I am SCARED SHITLESS right now?  Because I find I am already checking my due date.  I am already thinking…is it one, two or three little guys in there?  I am already fretting about if it is either of the latter two.  I am already thinking of names.  I am JUMPING THE GUN LIKE NOBODYS BUSINESS and I can’t stop it.  I just never thought this would happen.  I still am not sure that it has.  But it was 303.  Wow.  Ides of March…



It’s so hard.


I’m trying to go through my days like nothing is really different, and also to keep hope alive just a little bit.  But I don’t know if that is better or if it’s worse…telling myself there’s a .5% chance I’m wrong…when I KNOW in my heart I’m not wrong at all.  Yesterday I was able to talk so matter of factly about the failure to both my mom and a friend–I didn’t well up even once.  Yet this morning, as I thought about having to wake up P tomorrow and Friday for luteal bloodwork, and then again next Monday–it made me cry.  Going through the motions, pretending like this isn’t over–it’s a lot to handle.  I feel so isolated in my emotions right now, not letting anyone see what’s happening.  T and I still haven’t talked about it all, and I foolishly asked him this morning before he left if he could bring it up when he felt comfortable doing so–and we could discuss where we go from here.  Of course, he told me that he assumed since I was so definitive in my “this is it” comments this past weekend, that there was no room for discussion.  And then next thing I know, he’s running out the door, and I’m crying at the dining room table, sorting adoption papers.  I want to yell at him, of COURSE there is room for discussion.  I don’t want this to be over.  But I want him to be happy.  And I want us to be happy.  My mom pointed out that he and I had a very short time in our marriage/relationship to just BE–to be happy, to be carefree, to just enjoy everything.  We moved from one fairly large and encompassing health issue to infertility, and as a couple, have weathered more shit than most couples our age–hell, most couples.  I forget what my husband is like when he’s truly happy.  I forget what I’m like when I’m truly happy.  The year I was pregnant and the first year of P’s life were the happiest I can remember in recent (fiveish?) years.  I just want to help us find our footing again.  And I don’t know how to do that.  I know he only wants the same for me and for us as well, but I don’t know how we get there together right now.

 

I just can’t believe this didn’t work.  I’m 32.  I respond perfectly well to fertility drugs.  My lining always looks great.  I even had two make it to freeze this past cycle.  I sit around and do close to nothing for two days following the transfer.  But I can’t get pregnant.  I can’t get what other people can get through conventional means, through iui, through one (or two! or three! or four!) IVFs.  If we meet with Dr. D again, what would he say?  That my eggs are bad, to try to donor eggs? That I should try again?  That he has another idea that might work?  For god’s sake, I just want to be WRONG one time.  One time, I want to be proven WRONG for thinking the cycle was over, or doubting a new protocol.  I’ve already changed the dream of having had all my children already by this point in my life.  I’ve already changed the dream of having three or four children.  And now I have to change this one?  I don’t give a shit if I sound wimpy or whiny right now.  I feel so hurt and let down by the path my life has taken (do I need to give a sidenote– that I love my husband, I love my son, we have a lovely home, security, overall health…?).

 

I just want a hug from my mom right now.  I want to be sixteen years old, lying on my bed crying, my head in her lap as she strokes my hair and softly tells me it will all be okay.  Back when the problems of teenage angst seemed so insurmountable.  If only I could have seen into the future.  If only I could have seen where my life would lead.   Would I have cried more or less back then?

 

You know what else is hard?  When you realize that everyone else is going on with their lives right now as if our world didn’t just come crashing down.  They’re laying in their beds still, or getting dressed for work, or kissing their children, rubbing their pregnant bellies, hugging their husband.  They’re singing along to a song on the radio in their cars, or making breakfast or updating their facebook status (right now, facebook is not my friend.  just saying).  Perhaps the few who know are even hugging each other in gratitude that their life isn’t our life.  It is so hard to comprehend the normalcy of others’ lives, when my own feels upside-down right now.  And while I comprehend that this is not the worst thing to ever happen to a human being, right now, I only seem to selfishly care about myself.

 

Oh.  And next week marks the one year anniversary since we lost our twin pregnancy last year.  another year.  gone.  This is why I need to get off this hurt wagon of self pity and self-loathing.  I need to stop measuring my life in terms of failed cycles, failed pregnancies, an empty womb.  I need to find a way to move on.  But I just think I need to grieve for a while still.



I’m calling it.


And, it’s end-game for us. 

 

Right on time, my pre-period cramping has arrived, exactly a week before scheduled arrival.  Just like every month.  Clockwork.  Taking no time out for the possibility of any of my three perfect embryos implanting.

 

This was likely the last one for a long, long while–if ever again.  I need to focus on my husband, and making a happy marriage, and my son…instead of spending all the time, money and energy on the HOPE of something.  Infertility has caused a lot of things to happen that shouldn’t have…and now I need to make those things right.  If it’s for a year, or many years, or a lifetime…time will tell, I guess.  I am just so so sorry for my dear husband and sweet son, whom I could not give another family member to.  They don’t deserve  this.  I will regret this god awful flaw of mine for a long while.

 

Some dreams aren’t meant to be realized, I guess.  I can only hope (when this is behind me…you know, after a week more of emotionally-insulting shots of oil in my ass) that I am able to find new dreams, and pursue those with the same heart and determination I pursued this one.

 

 I ask you all for your prayers that I can fix what needs fixing in my life, and move past this hole in my heart.  I love you so much, my darling babies I will never ever know.  Your momma loves you so so much.



3 on 3/3…


So.  We already know I was told the other day that it might be a day 3 or a day 5 (and I never did receive any clarification about this on days 1 or 2).  This morning, around 11, I received a call from the nurse to tell me the embryologist thought my embryos looked beautiful and wanted to grow them to day 5.  I asked if this was per my Dr (recall: part of his change in protocol was to transfer on day 3, because our day fives have been less than successful).  She said that this info was coming directly from the embryologist, and not from my doctor (who, apparently, had not chimed in on the issue as of yet).  The nurse said that I could always  call my doctor, and if he said I should indeed be transferring today, then he should call the lab and get me on the schedule (I did feel like an eejit for even asking this, based on the tone of her response…).

 

Fast forward an hour–I’m crying on the phone with T, wondering why my dr didn’t call to talk about any of this in person, feeling very uninformed and unhappy.  Why the change in protocol?  Why the change of something he was so certain he wanted to do?  And why not INFORM me of it?  T, of course, is telling me to relax, have faith in the program and the doctors, they all communicate, they all know what they’re doing…blahblahblah.  I was losing it– the thought of doing ANOTHER day five transfer of two nice looking embryos was making me really really…frustrated.  (Sidebar: I had placed a call to Dr’s service soon after talking to the nurse and was waiting to hear back.  Had also cancelled my father-in-laws trip up here, since we wouldn’t need him to watch P until Friday now).

 

An hour after the first call to the doctor, I called again, re-explained my story, and as I was giving my info, there here was, calling through on the call waiting.  And guess friggin what (doesn’t take a genius if you read the title of the post)–he said yes, I want you to transfer today.  After a verrrry quick apology about the miscommunication, he told me he would rather I transfer today (to quote: I prefer it 60/40), and I should get in to the lab shortly.  Yes.  I should be transferring.  Today.  Shortly.

 

Mmmmmmmmmmmkay.  While I wanted to bask in my I Told You So moment with T, I was also freaking a bit since a)I don’t live very close to the clinic, b)no one was around to watch P as we cancelled my FILs trip (and he lives three hours away) c)I wasnt packed for the hotel I’m now typing from and d)how was I going to get to the clinic that I don’t live very close to in time?????!!!  I did manage to get things together, T jumped in his car from midtown and was home in 45 minutes, I made an express train into the city, and though  I arrived later than my scheduled 3pm (again with the threes!), the waiting room was a repeat of Sunday, running behind, with all the same faces–my Retrieval Buds.  (And I made a friend!  I’ve been doing this forever and have never made an IF friend on the spot.  I always sit and look down.  But we exchanged info and everything…you know, so we can have playdates in a year.  She was also the name-band I was wearing for a few hours the other day, so perhaps that eased the IF-Waiting-Room-Tension.  What’s WITH all the silence?  We’re all there, naked under our gowns with those grippy socks, reading and staring around.  We should be talking!  Discussing our business!  Reaching out!  Instead…well, I usually just judge people while also making up their background stories…)

 

CAN YOU IMAGINE IF I WAS NOT AN ANAL NUTJOB AND DID NOT CALL TO CHECK WITH THE DOCTOR ABOUT THE TRANSFER?  NO ONE was picking up this error anywhere?   No one was like, Oh…Cfirstname Lastname…we almost effed her with the wrong bracelet, we’d better make sure we have all the right info when we call for her transfer…But nooooooooooo.

 

So.  I pat myself on my back for my analness.  I love my worrywart self so so much right now.  And I am happy to report, I have three 8-celled embryos floating around my uterus.  The others were all at 6 or 7 cells and they’ll grow them until Friday and freeze anything freeze-worthy.

 

Honestly, people.  I’m praying this is my cycle–The Cycle of Folly (Get it? Folly? Follie? heh heh heh…) is The One.

 

Get cozy my sweet little embryos.  Please make me so happy and hang around until Thanksgiving…I want so much to have something extra extra extra special to be thankful for this 2010…..