Dreams and False Alarms

6 weeks after all!

 

In a classic House of Dreams style, we argued with the doctor about dating the pregnancy, and she, who has the fancy letters after her name, said 6 weeks, which only increased the tension. But then, the moment the image came up on the screen, there was the little heart beating away!  She made a full sweep, and found only one. Whew.  Well placed, heart beating, what more could we ask for? Not a thing. She tried to get the heart rate, but she said that it's hard at this age. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

To dream the impossible dream

This was what I found myself singing yesterday morning. Seems like the right theme song, eh?

Husband and I are both a bundle of nerves this morning.  We are prepared that we won't see a heartbeat, but of course, we need to see a gestational sac, a yolk sac and if we are extremely lucky the fetal pole. Oy.

I'll update from my phone--for good or for ill.

And let the vacillation commence***updated

So, after all of my hand wringing and logic, and then reverse logic maneuvers earlier in the week, a friend who is a Radiologist emailed to say, 7 weeks is when they really like to do them, 5 weeks will likely just freak you out, and 6 weeks is ok with her. She made her arguments a lot more cogently than that, but the upshot was, Husband finally voiced his feelings about not wanting to do the ultrasound on the 23rd, and I admitted that I was a bit scared of it, and how it would be both reassuring and not so reassuring. So I've split the difference: I nabbed an appointment for the 30 ( abt 6w3d), and kept the one for the 23rd, and left the doctor a message about whether or not to come in on the 23rd at all. Whew. I feel good enough about this, but ya know, I won't feel good about anything until it's clearly in the ute, clearly alive, and healthy. And then we'll negotiate with my inner mafia, eh?

In symptoms, small meals are becoming a must. I often eat a largish lunch because I have to work from late afternoon through evening, and that is NOT a good idea. Today I had cereal at 5:30, eggs and toast at 8:30 (seemed like too much, even though it was really small), and then just ate apple and almond butter. Oh, and I had a mid morning pastry (morning bun--nary a pep from my digestive tract, guess the baby likes butter, flour and sugar).  The nausea seems to just flash on, as soon as I'm a little hungry, and then I have trouble getting a deep breath. My allergist told me that the reflux acts like asthma, so when I get that feeling, I nibble, and it seems to help.

The peeing has begun. I never really got the peeing thing with Sparky, only at night, but now, it's happening a lot. One cup of water = 3 trips to the bathroom.

Yesterday I managed to freak myself out a bit, but I didn't consult Dr Google, no that's not entirely true, I looked up round ligament pain, which I did have with Sparky because of all the inflammation after the IVF cycle.  But, I didn't look up ectopic pregnancy. I was very strong. I had some pain in my left groin area which I think is my psoas muscle and bit of constipation. I know, lovely.  I stopped by the Pilates studio I love and got some instruction on what and how to stretch, and a few stretches later, and I'm feeling better.

Hang in if you can, it's just gonna get more angsty and graphic. Oy.

 

***The  doctor wants to see me on the 23rd! YAYAYAYAY! I want to go, now I just need good news.

It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind

That is a line from one of my favorite books as a child. And being a woman, I have decided to exercise my perogative: I'm going for the ultrasound on the 23rd. It may not answer all my questions, but it's bound to answer some of them. Watch this space for wildly vaccilating notions. Oy.

A wee change in plans

So yesterday, when the Zen was leaving me an I was obsessing over how to figure out if my 'baby' was a 'blighted ovum' via any little piece of data I posses (yeah, all I did was freak myself out), I realized that the day of my ultrasound (Nov 23rd), would only find me 5w3d pregnant, and that would probably be too early to reliably tell if there was a real baby developing in there. I think what happened was that my nurse, who primarily deals with IVF, counted two weeks from my IUI rather than 5 days from my IUI which is the earliest I could have conceived (meaning the wee embryo would have descended in the the ute), and thus my ultrasound should have been the Friday after Thanksgiving, but since they are only open for retrievals/transfers and emergencies. Oy.  Of course, the following Monday is currently booked or locked (they lock aspects of the schedule, and then unlock them later...)  So, at this point, I don't have an appointment for an ultrasound. But I will, but I don't.

My breasts are still less than completely agonizingly sore, but they are sore, and I don't get to freak out about it, or so I'm told.

I'm continuing to have the post lunch pre dinner nausea and exhaustion, which descends between 12 and 2 and lifts around 6.  I'm thinking me and Cold Case are gonna get to be real good friends.

Yesterday I finally started to have a little bit of cramping--I'm taking this as a good sign, because my tendency is to make everything an emergency. It is very mild, and short and not painful, but surprising. I am not a cramper in general, so just feeling my uterus is sort of jarring.

Another really odd thing is that I'm warm. Duh, but still, for a person who is usually cold, to throw off her bathrobe and bemoan the fact that the heat is on in the morning when she comes into the kitchen, is weird. Also, iced mint tea in the am. Yum. Again, I love HOT tea, but this must be part of the symptoms.

I feel sort of icky in the morning, but not anything like the afternoon. 

So I'm just going to try to chug along, and not get to freaked out. Yeah, that'll be easy.

Sevenfiftysix/sevenfiftysix/sevenfiftysix/sevenfiftysixsevenfiftysix/sevenfiftysix...

This is what I repeat to myself when I start to get anxious about the viability of this pregnancy.  It isn't any sort of guarantee, but it is what I have to hold onto at the moment.

As far as symptoms go, Dr Google assures me that until 6 weeks, I can't expect to have too many.  I am beyond bloated, it's really quite, uh, impressive. And from the TMI stand point, my tail pipe emissions have prompted my husband to note that this is going to be a long 9 months.  It doesn't really seem to matter what I eat, the result is the same--body is doing it's best to extract every last molecule of nutrients from my food.  And it is, in its own way reassuring.

I am eagerly awaiting the onslaught of breast tenderness, but keep reminding myself that when I was pregnant with Sparky I was extremely bloated, all over, from being on the verge of hyper stimulation from the IVF cycle, and that at about 7 weeks, my breasts REALLY started to hurt, and get veiny and the transformation of the nips was astounding (pinkish brown to purple). They have been getting progressively more tender and a sleep bra has been included, so there is some way I can reassure myself.

I'm also intermittently nauseas. If I eat a piece of toast first in the morning, I'm fine, but if I don't, not so fine. The worst is afternoon--it seems like whatever I've eaten earlier backs up, and just sits there.  Also, do not offer me anything with cinnamon. I love cinnamon, but it can make me nauseated in a nanosecond.  My husband likes chai tea, and to me, it just smells horrible. Aside from that, the bionic sniffer isn't too strong.  But certain things taste more bitter to me than usual, and that is oddly reassuring.  I'm also having heartburn on and off, so that seems positive. I'm also getting a wee bit of insomnia. I'm not anxious, or hungry or anything, but I'm awake at odd hours of the night and cant get back to sleep.

One thing that hasn't happened, so far, that happened by day 5 of my pregnancy with Sparky, was brown spotting. I haven't had a speck of spotting, brown or otherwise, and I'm hoping that trend continues.  I do have the afternoon endo.metiran gush, which gives me a few hours of stress. But I keep reminding myself that if it were blood, and it were that thin and gushy, I'd know immediately. The brown stuff is more like sludge, and doesn't' give you any warning.

One other unfortunate thing is that I'd let my weight sort of pile up. I was planning to go back to a lower carb way of life during the ramp up part of the DE cycle, and increase my Pilates workouts (from about 0 to at least 2) so that I'd be in a better place with my body if I got a positive out of the DE cycle. Best laid plans etc. So I'm starting this pregnancy in my fat pants.  And let me tell you, with all the bloating, there has been some rubber-band button action already. Ugh.  I bought a pair of pretty stretch cords earlier in the week, so hopefully I can make them last through at least week 8 (which is the week we found out that Sparky had died, so that's gonna be a bit of a nail biter for us). And I do have maternity jeans, but they require a longer shirt.  I'm clearly not going on a diet, but oy. I'm not a big fan of the Bella band--it just feels awkward and lumpy.

I can't believe that tomorrow is the 1 week anniversary of getting my first ever positive HPT, and that lovely high HCG number.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say my worry level is about a 4. For me, this is practically Zen detachment.  I find myself excited, and hopeful more often than I imagined I could ever be.  What a difference a year and a half, and heck of a lot of grieving has made.

A funny thing happened on the way to the DE cycle...

Yup, I'm pregnant.

I didn't even have a category for 'Pregnant' until just now...wow. Sorry the picture isn't too good, but I haven't figured out how to get pictures off the camera yet. So this is from my phone.

I was all prepped to start the DE cycle PDQ, and on Monday morning I decided I'd just pee on the one stick I had in the house so I'd know if I needed to bring my progesterone supplement with me to my blood draw.  I dipped the it in, set it on the back of the toilet, and looked at it expecting to see the usual stark white expanse leading up to the test line. You could have knocked me over with a feather when that first line pinked up.  It was 5:30 in the morning, and I was flummoxed. I kept trying to decide if I should wake husband and finally I decided not to, a decision he strenuously objected to once I told him at 7!  I kept thinking "I used to have a plan for how I'd do this, right? What was it?" I just walked around sort of numbly, clutching the pee stick, and staring at it.

Off I went to my blood draw, playing it all cool, and casually inquiring whether they were planning to check my progesterone level as well, they usually don't, but what the heck, right? 

I had two work engagements that morning, and of course no sense of when they'd call, but I warned the people I was with that I was expecting a very important call.

When Dr Calm finally called at 1 pm, I was sure I was going to die from waiting.

1st Beta: 302 and progesterone at 27.

HOLY SHIT! That is some seriously high HCG!  My beta with Sparky was 101, which is average, so also good, but 302 was lovely to hear.

I told a very few people between Monday and today. For me, the second beta is always the most nerve wracking because you need to see that climb, and if you don't see it, oy. So I drove myself to the clinic, managed to not hit any other cars, or drive too slowly (which I do when I'm tired or upset), and cried on and off. But I also had moments of feeling like it was going to be ok, and that was a good feeling.

The waiting game started at 11--the earliest I'd ever gotten a call, but 2, I was nearly apoplectic.  Finally, my nurse called to say:

2nd Beta: 756, and progesterone at 24 (she assures me it is a normal fluctuation, I'm going to try to just believe her...)

So as you can imagine we are pretty, good lord, is there a word to describe this feeling? Excited? Scared? Awed? Overjoyed?

All of them.

Of course, we are realistic, we know numbers don't guarantee that there is an actual viable baby growing in there, but we've never gotten this far on our own. By that I mean, minimal IUI, and progesterone support. I'm feeling sort of, uh, normal? Or like I can imagine that sometimes you put sperm and egg together and something good happens. 

Our next hurdle is the 6 week ultrasound on Monday Nov 23rd at 11am. Wish us a real baby with a beating heart, pretty please.

Wow.

I would love to post a picture of my hcg chart, but my silly computer won't do it without getting all huffy.

Are you ready? Yes I'm ready.

I'm sorry that I've turned into one of those bloggers who broods around with blog posts rattling around in her head, instead of setting them free to rattle around on the internet.  Brooding does seem to capture what I am doing with my thoughts, and my feelings, I mean brooding in the more "sitting on one's eggs" rather than in the sense of being sad and grumpy.

Have you been following Mo and Will's report on their 1 day work up in Colorado?  I've been peeking at it through my fingers. For a moment when Mo first described her work up I felt an upwelling of my own wish to have a one day at the temple of last chances and miracle babies.  I thought, only for a moment, maybe I too have a constricted blood flow that hasn't been seen. And then, I stopped. I just stopped myself from walking down that road, and reminded myself that more data would only make me feel crazier, and that I was done with being crazy.  For me, the data is in.  I don't get pregnant, maybe if we'd known about the translocation earlier we could have moved to donor sperm and we'd already be dandling our little baby on our knee. Or not. Maybe there is something that goes on with my eggs that is beyond age.  Whatever it is, it's not knowable at this time. The "why" of this situation is not going to be answered.

Not having an answer, oddly enough, has really helped me to feel that I'm ready to move on to DE. If it can't be known, it can't be known, and I will only lose more precious years of my life to answering, what has become, a not too important question.

Am I sad that I won't see my family and my husband's family expressed in our child? Of course, but it's sadness, a relatively easy burden to carry compared to the rage, terror, helplessness and sense of annihilation that I carried with me for most of the time I've been trying to conceive a child.

And you know what? I'm excited! Really excited, about this next step. It's not a guarantee, but it's a damn sight better than what I've been working with for many years now.

Although this baby will start out it's life in a lab, this child will be conceived out of our love and passion , and it's going to be wonderful.

So bring on the beta on Monday, and set me free from the endometrian, I'm ready.

Long time no see

I'm pretty sure if I looked in my archives, I'd find that I've got quite a few posts that say some variation on "long time no see".  Sorry about the silence. Since I didn't post my negative last week, some people were still writing to wish me luck. Sorry for the confusion!  I was actually very busy, then it was my birthday on Thursday, and I was exhausted from all the busyness earlier in the week. Also, I was just in a bad place before then and I didn't even want to hear myself talk, ya know? 

So! Well! Where to start?

I don't have breast cancer, so that's good. 

I went for my paranoid mammogram on Monday, got a call on Tuesday from my OB saying they wanted to do a diagnostic mammogram and an ultrasound because of a suspicious mass in my left breast, so I promptly mobilized, and used my PPO insurance to get myself an appointment the next day at a one of the best hospitals around, and had my answer ( a simple cyst), just under 24 hours from when my doctor first called.  I did a remarkably good job of holding it together--every once in a while I would stray into "well it's so early, it will be a good prognosis, but that means no pregnancy, and who will let a woman who has had breast cancer adopt etc etc.", but I managed to not go there. Thank god I got seen so quickly!

*************************************

We picked a donor.  We were looking at 5 donors, all vaguely resembling me, all proven, but 3 were from my clinic, which saved us about 5K, so the choice was clear in some ways. The donor is the same age as one of my nieces, taller than me, but the same coloring, and well, I guess she seems nice. At some point I had very high ideals about who and what and where and how she should be (also known as trying to replicate myself in another person...), and then I just got to a place where I realized that she needed to be a good person, and she needed to be willing to meet the child when they were 18.  I was quite worried that I would have to compromise on that, if I ever wanted to get this party started, but she is willing to be contacted.

We do one more IUI, sometime in the next 5 days (today is cycle day 8), with endo.metrian for the luteal phase, and then if the beta is negative, then we commence with the DE cycle. Luckily, our cycles are already somewhat synchronized (she'll get hers the same week I do in Nov), so we might even have a transfer before Dec 31!

I am still ambivalent about doing the IUI--still scared that even if I do get pregnant, and even if I don't miscarry, that my age puts me at so much risk for Downs and other genetic issues that it will be harder to feel excited than I would like. At this point I'd like a DE cycle for the price of an IUI. Shall I dream on?

******************

On Wed my mom called me to let me know that one of her dear friends had died in her sleep. For those of your just joining in the story now, my mom and her contemporaries are in their 80's, and so these losses may be piling up. 

Her name was Joan. She was at the hospital when I was born, and there for every significant milestone in my life until I was in my mid 20's when she and her husband moved about 4 hours away.  She was my buddy. She was a terrible cook, but ambitious--she introduced me to crème fraîche and many other delights. She was a snappy dresser, and always let me rummage around in her closet. I was allowed to try on her clothes, and model them--often combining things in new and different ways, which she always gave me credit for when she wore the outfit. In sixth grade I was going through a very awkward phase and took the worst school picture of my entire life (I am rather photogenic,and enjoy having my picture taken--drivers license pictures included).  She worked for a photographer, and that year had portraits taken of me, which she paid for. My Senior pictures, my wedding pictures, all of them paid for by her. 

She made me beautiful SARAH pillows when I was about 10, velvet, satin, corduroy.  I finally gave them to another little girl named Sarah, but right at this moment, I wish I had them back. She also took some of the most lovely baby pictures of me, did quite a lot of photography, and batik. She had a practical elegance that I can see so clearly in my own fashion choices--any type of herringbone, or nubby wool trouser strikes me as a Joan outfit. She was, I think, an artist stuck in a 50's housewifes life, and although she broke out and did do art in middle age, I wonder what her life would have been like had she known from the beginning that that was who she was.   But what I want to hold onto is that she didn't let it stop her, she did those things. Maybe I can too--maybe I can start holding my own art in a little higher esteem.

She was an early proponent of seat belts--I never wore one unless I was with her. She worked in the library, and I thought for a long time that being a library assistant was a glamorous job. Not because it looked glamorous, not because she always seemed so important--But because she had an air about her and she could find my favorite children's book, or let me know when it would come back. Very important to a girl obsessed with Mushy Eggs (out of print, but on it's way to me).

She would often start out a sentence with "Well Sar.." and then go on to tell me about something she was thinking about, something she'd seen or respond seriously to my thoughts or feelings.  She had lovely looping handwriting--somewhat like my own if I concentrate.  I recently unearthed a postcard she sent, which she made out of a picture she took of me, wishing me luck in my 'new adventure' (changing high schools), and teasing me about a teacher I'd clashed with who'd resigned.

The picture below is of the two of us, me probably wearing her kerchief--I recall being fascinated by them as a small child, and always asking for one.  She was probably asking for my opinion, and taking it seriously.

I love you Joan--thank you for ever little piece of you I carry inside of myself.  You live on in my heart, in my wardrobe, and in that special place where I know that I was loved, and adored and enjoyed from the moment you knew I was on the way. Rest in Peace, rest in peace.

 

 

 

Mid season replacement

Dr Calm's nurse called and said my progesterone is a little low, so they want me to start Endo.metrian and continue through next Wednesday. Husband and I both reacted oddly--essentially "really? Isn't it a bit late for that?". But they assure us that it's not too late.

Darling that she is, my nurse dug up two samples that will get us through the next 6 days.

I feel mixed about this. I want to increase our chances, but I didn't want to 'think' about this cycle, and now, every 12 hours there will be a little reminder in a foil pouch.

Oy.