Dreams and False Alarms

We Saw The Heartbeat!

The doctor found the heartbeat easily, and our little Sparky is measuring 3millimeters, right on target.

Due date is Feb 9.

Tears, hugs and lots of giggles.

Off to make dinner and escape the heat.

The daily dread

Each morning I wake up and wonder "will this be the day?"  Of course there isn't a positive connotation in that for me, it is filled with dread. Will this be the day I go to the bathroom and find bright red blood in my underwear?  Will this be the day that my breasts deflate and I know that it's over.

I really really don't want to be this person, I want to just take it as it comes, but it I feel so bound, hand and foot to this dread.

In the morning when I wake up I start prodding my breasts and assessing myself for morning sickness. My breasts and belly are always less swollen in the am, and I have a bit of a panic, and then calm myself down.  Today it occurred to me that my breasts always hurt as the day progresses, and that I should shut up and calm down.

One of the wacky ideas I entertain is peeing on HPT (home pregnancy tests), but then I think, no that won't tell you if it's failing, because they are sensitive to a much lower degree of HCG than you'd have even if it was failing.  So basically I just torture myself.

I do have my ultrasound scheduled for Monday at 2:15. So, hour gold hour of lead.

Holding pattern

The rise and fall of my mood is tied to the soreness of my breasts. I feel like the dollar.  I was not as sad and weepy on Saturday because the boobs were tender, and I was sleepy by 6pm.  Even though I know it is just as likely caused by the PIO and the estr.ace, it is still reassuring.

 

Today I had a little bar-b-cue to attend, so I spent the morning cooking doing cooking prep, which kept me nice and distracted, as did the bbq itself.

 

By this time tomorrow, we'll know if we've cleared the first hurdle.

 

More tomorrow.

If you cry again, does it still qualify as a good cry?

I woke up at 5:30, mentally rehearsing the approach I'd  take to choose an egg donor. I got though listing my nationalities in my head, and then I started to cry. It was a pretty long and sad cry, but quiet enough to not wake up my husband. Then I got up, went down stairs and made tea, and cried again. Then I managed to numb myself a bit, and didn't cry again until a friend called around 8am.  I realize I am way out in front of myself. I realize that it usually takes at least 2 cycles (or 2.5) to get pregnant with IVF, and I can even bear those odds, in this cycle. It is the looming fear that nothing will work, not even donor eggs. That there will be something unexplained about why I can't get pregnant, with my own eggs, or donor eggs, and the experience of being pregnant, and giving birth and breastfeeding will be closed to me.

Ok, cry number 4 before 10 am.

 

I feel such despair about that, and about not 'making' a baby with my husband. I don't think of myself as the kind of person who necessarily wants to pass my genes on, but my fantasies have been about what our children would look like, what we would recognize of ourselves in them, and what would surprise us.  And with donor eggs, I get to see him, but not us.  Ya know?  Ok, add one more cry to that number.

 

Oh, and they give the MMPI to egg donors at our clinic, so they'd probably be saner than I am. 

 

My husband doesn't want me to think about this, but it is there, all the time, at the least scratching at my consciousness, and right now it has knocked down the door.  I'm the kind of person who does her work in front of the actual event, whether or not it actually comes to pass, so this isn't too unusual for me, but damn I'm miserable.

 

I can't decide how to cope...be active? Lay on the couch?  At the least, I really need to do the laundry. Down to my back of the drawer underwear, and the small bras.

Like trying to hold smoke in a bottle with a piece of lace

I just feel sad.  Is it Embryo Transfer blues?  I love the way I feel after the trigger shot, in short it is what I imagine it would feel like to be pregnant.  As it wears off, the breasts are tender,but not as tender, the digestion is odd, but not as refluxy, no need to pee twice a night, and the sleepiness wears off too. 

 

There is a huge part of me that just solidly believes this can't work.  I know that is ridiculous, and should be disproven by the fact that it works for lots of people, some of whom I know in real life. But there is this horrible sinking fear that it won't work for me. That the most I can do is make a 6 day blastocyst in a laboratory, and then once it's inside of me it is just going to die.  I'm not sure where this darkness comes from today, but it is making a really painful lump in my throat. 

 

I can usually read my blogs and feel... reassured? Connected?  Happy for them? But today I just feel like the only one at the party wearing jeans and everyone else has on a ball gown.  Just left out, and unsure if I'll ever be invited. 

 

During the last of my mindfuck cycles last year I had the image of trying to hold smoke in a jar with a piece of lace.  You have the jar, you have the smoke, but not the thing which can really seal it in. 

 

I know I am just having feelings, and that I don't know anything, but the heartbreak peeks over the edge, and it doesn't listen to reason or time.

 

In good news, my 12lb cat climbed on my chest early this morning and gave my breasts a deep probing--very painful.

Update, in retrospect

I was going to update before my transfer, but I had a persistent and pesky computer virus, that my husband was attacking in the hours before we left and I didn't get to it.

Here is the scoop:
We did a day 6 transfer of one 'almost hatching' blastocyst, one early blastocyst and one morula.  I was very diligent about filling my bladder, and almost had an accident in the waiting room. They let me let off pressure 3 times. Oy.

At this point I'm just not sure what to expect, or how to survail my body for clues. All of the extra hormones are making my breasts sore, and my digestion a bit slow.

1st beta Monday June 2nd.
 
Keep your fingers crossed...

Good news always sleeps till noon

Lets hope its a long damn sleep. The phone rang earlier and I was petrified that it was the clinic calling to say they'd all died, and there was no need to come in.  Alas, it was just a friend.  But then about 10 minutes into typing this post, the clinic called.  I just about fumble fuck.ed the phone trying to answer it. I blurted out to the doctor "It can't be good that you're calling." and he quickly assured me that that wasn't the case.  He called to say they were recommending a 6 day transfer. We have 4 on the road to being blastocycsts, 3 morulas and one early blastocyst. He gave us the option of doing the transfer today, or tomorrow. We haggled and wrangled with one another. And in our frantic googling, I managed to get a computer virus! Thank goodness my husband is in the know and cleaned it all up. Oy.)  The danger is that none make it to blastocyst, or only 1 or two do, or god only knows what.  In the end we decided to go with their recommendations, with me frantically calculating the heartbreak quotient of each options.

I've just been wandering around the house, unable to eat, or make any decisions about the littlest things. I decided to watch What N.ot to We.ar and my stupid cheap ass DVR hadn't recorded the new one! Argh.
 
About an hour ago a friend called and offered to do anything we needed, and just the offer brought me to tears.  This whole thing is so painful, even when nothing bad is actually happening.  I'm going to just make it through today, and hope that we got something to transfer in the morning.