In a few hours, I'll get my blood drawn for my beta test. The wait has been excruciating, especially since I started pulling positives on pee tests a week ago. But this morning, the test line on my FRER finally got darker than the control line, and even the Wondfo is a screaming dark purple-red.
I'm kind of all over the place right now. Monday I was so tired I was passing out at 9:45 and put myself to bed. Then, last night, I stayed up until 11 but accidentally forgot to take my progesterone pessary, which I remembered at 5:15 a.m. when I woke up, peed in a cup, and didn't see any pessary residue. I jammed one of those puppies up in my lady business and tried to go back to sleep but my heart and mind were both racing. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Got out of bed again and Googled "took progesterone pessary late." The general consensus of the Interwebs is that I should be fine.
Yesterday was the first day I had some major pregnancy symptoms. I've been getting things on and off - like, my boobs are intermittently sore. Some days I wake up and they're not sore at all and I think, "Okay, it's over," and then the line comes up nice and dark, and two hours later the girls are on fire all over again.
I still feel pinches/twinges in my uterus and a fullness/pressure above my pubic bone. There's been some mild queasiness, particularly in the mornings and usually involving scrambled eggs. If I stop loving scrambled eggs I might just cry. Speaking of crying: At work yesterday I got some emails that made me tear up (all happy things, but I was just so moved).
Other symptoms: yesterday I had a hot flash in my office that caused me to sweat off my makeup and made me hair frizz out around my face. And then there's Harold, which is what I've named the annoying, inflamed hemorrhoid that's taken up residence on the left side of my anus. It makes pooping feel like someone's scraping glass from my inside out and is so tender that right now even sitting is really uncomfortable. I always feel like Harold is a gift from my mom, who used to tell me that she never had hemorrhoids before she was pregnant with me.
Oh, and the hunger set in for the first time. For whatever reason, this cycle I haven't had much of an appetite. But yesterday I was in a 9:30 a.m. meeting and my stomach was audibly growling. This is after half of an avocado and most of a bowl of scrambled eggs with cheese. I drank 24 oz. of water, thinking maybe I was thirsty, but no. Still starving. I ate an apple with peanut butter. STILL STARVING.
Then I got a craving for this roasted red pepper and gouda soup at the sandwich shop by my office. Drove over to get a small bowl of it and saw they still had pumpkin bagels. On a whim, I ordered one toasted with cream cheese. Then felt guilt (but not so guilty that I didn't end up eating half, because I totally did).
In my head I thought, "If this baby is so fragile that half a bagel is going to mean its demise, it probably won't make it anyway."
It's a morbid thought, yes. But at the same time, I felt like maybe this was my way of starting to let go of this insane notion that any little thing I do can have catastrophic impact on my pregnancy. Hell, I accidentally drank a mug of abortion tea and I was fine. I ate half of a papaya salad and I was fine. I scarfed down half a pumpkin bagel AND forgot to take my progesterone pessary on a night when I didn't have a PIO injection either and guess what? BABY IS STILL IN THERE.
I don't know if I'll ever relax enough to truly enjoy this pregnancy, but at least I'm at a place where I can actually think of myself as pregnant. The first few days, I'd SAY that I was pregnant, but I didn't believe it. It seemed fake, like something I made up in my head.
But it's not fake. It's real.
I am really, truly pregnant.
Finally.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Sunday, December 7, 2014
things I did differently this cycle.
Today's FRER line is nice and dark, and I finally had the guts to take my Clearblue Digital. Even my Wondfo is clearly positive today, though still not nearly as dark as I feel it should be. Regardless, I'm guessing this is the last one of these I'll need to post unless things start getting crazy light.
Yesterday, I found this chart, which gives an estimation on the likelihood of miscarrying based on the number of days pregnant you are. I printed it out and hung it on our fridge, and now Mr. Hope and I are crossing off days together. Since yesterday, our odds of miscarrying went down from 29.2% to 28%. Or, as I like to think of it, our odds of carrying this pregnancy to term increased from 70.8% to 72%.
I've been thinking a lot about what I did differently this time around. You know, besides the obvious "adding a donor blast from a 30-year-old mother into the mix" thing.
I didn't take DHEA. When I started seeing Dr. Smiles in October 2013, he had me start taking DHEA. I'd been on it almost four months for IVF #1. I discontinued it after IVF #2 and never went back on it.
I reduced my number of supplements. For IVFs #1 & #2, I'd been taking L-Arginine, alpha lipoic acid, and selenium in addition to the stuff I'm still taking now (most notably Ubiquinol and forms of B vitamins that work well with my MTHFR mutation).
I changed my diet. I'm now a BIG fan of the EZ Diet. And honestly, it wasn't THAT hard to give up flour, baked goods, sugar, potatoes, bananas, and yogurt. (I say that now, of course, before Christmas kicks into high gear.) I can't say for certain how much this changed things, but eating this way certainly feels healthier.
I ate a LOT of avocados. I'd read about a study funded by the NIH that showed that a diet high in monounsaturated fats and lower in saturated/trans fats was 3.4 times more likely to result in a child from IVF. I love me some avocados (before the EZ Diet, Mr. Hope and I used to have avocado toast for breakfast quite frequently), so I figured it wouldn't hurt to ramp up my consumption. Nearly every day of this entire cycle, I'd eat half an avocado with breakfast. The day of transfer, I ate half of an avocado before and another half after. Again, don't know how much this helped things, but it certainly wasn't a burden to eat yummy avocados daily.
I was on a (somewhat) different protocol. This was the first cycle that I primed with estrogen (I took it for 8 days prior to starting stims). I stimmed with four vials of Menopur in the morning and four at night, same as IVF #2. But Dr. Smiles changed up my progesterone; this time I do a PIO shot every other day and a pessary every night. I think I respond better to the pessaries, which I used during my three IUIs and some natural cycles as well. I also take estradiol twice a day; I may have only taken it once a day on previous cycles but can't remember.
I skipped the acupuncture. My previous two IVFs, and for a couple of IUIs, I tried acupuncture. I didn't find it all that relaxing and it never seemed to do anything to help my lady business. I have heard of other women who did it and weren't successful, then did a cycle without and were.
I asked to trigger with Ovidrel. I've always used generic hCG for a trigger, but I am really bad about sucking all of the meds up with the long needle. So, this time I asked to switch to Ovidrel. It's a preloaded syringe and a subcutaneous injection instead of a muscular one.
I insisted on transferring blasts. My previous two IVFs were with Day 2 transfers. In hindsight, I could see that my first embryo was kind of uggo (cells weren't exactly even, and there was already fragmentation on Day 2). My second embryo was better, but still so young. I really rolled the dice on this one by insisting on growing everything out to blast. And I did so fully expecting to have nothing of ours to transfer. The gamble paid off, big-time. I mean, our one little embryo made it to blast! Even if it didn't end up implanting, you can't ask for a better chance than that.
I didn't do bed rest. This is a big one. My clinic recommends 24 hours of bed rest after transfer. I did mostly bed rest after IVF #1 (we had tickets to a show that night, ones I'd purchased seven months prior, so I did a little bit of walking in the theater) and serious bed rest for IVF #2. I never felt like bed rest was the right thing to do but Mr. Hope insisted. This time, I told him, I wasn't doing bed rest. I'd take it easy, I said, but I needed to move around to make sure the blood was getting to my uterus. He reluctantly agreed. And I did take it easy, for the most part. There were a few rounds of Celebrity where I was doing charades that got me a little schvitzy, but hey - guess getting my heart rate up a little was ultimately a good thing.
Here are some of the other things that I didn't do that I had on previous cycles:
I will probably never know what did or didn't make a difference, but I wanted to document these things here because it's the kind of stuff I loved reading on other people's blogs.
Anyway, there you have it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm actually feeling tired enough to fall back asleep!
 |
| You can see a weird break in the dye run on the 9DP5DT test, toward the bottom. But look how dark the top of the line is! P.S. It might be time to start tossing some of these, huh? |
Yesterday, I found this chart, which gives an estimation on the likelihood of miscarrying based on the number of days pregnant you are. I printed it out and hung it on our fridge, and now Mr. Hope and I are crossing off days together. Since yesterday, our odds of miscarrying went down from 29.2% to 28%. Or, as I like to think of it, our odds of carrying this pregnancy to term increased from 70.8% to 72%.
I've been thinking a lot about what I did differently this time around. You know, besides the obvious "adding a donor blast from a 30-year-old mother into the mix" thing.
I didn't take DHEA. When I started seeing Dr. Smiles in October 2013, he had me start taking DHEA. I'd been on it almost four months for IVF #1. I discontinued it after IVF #2 and never went back on it.
I reduced my number of supplements. For IVFs #1 & #2, I'd been taking L-Arginine, alpha lipoic acid, and selenium in addition to the stuff I'm still taking now (most notably Ubiquinol and forms of B vitamins that work well with my MTHFR mutation).
I changed my diet. I'm now a BIG fan of the EZ Diet. And honestly, it wasn't THAT hard to give up flour, baked goods, sugar, potatoes, bananas, and yogurt. (I say that now, of course, before Christmas kicks into high gear.) I can't say for certain how much this changed things, but eating this way certainly feels healthier.
I ate a LOT of avocados. I'd read about a study funded by the NIH that showed that a diet high in monounsaturated fats and lower in saturated/trans fats was 3.4 times more likely to result in a child from IVF. I love me some avocados (before the EZ Diet, Mr. Hope and I used to have avocado toast for breakfast quite frequently), so I figured it wouldn't hurt to ramp up my consumption. Nearly every day of this entire cycle, I'd eat half an avocado with breakfast. The day of transfer, I ate half of an avocado before and another half after. Again, don't know how much this helped things, but it certainly wasn't a burden to eat yummy avocados daily.
I was on a (somewhat) different protocol. This was the first cycle that I primed with estrogen (I took it for 8 days prior to starting stims). I stimmed with four vials of Menopur in the morning and four at night, same as IVF #2. But Dr. Smiles changed up my progesterone; this time I do a PIO shot every other day and a pessary every night. I think I respond better to the pessaries, which I used during my three IUIs and some natural cycles as well. I also take estradiol twice a day; I may have only taken it once a day on previous cycles but can't remember.
I skipped the acupuncture. My previous two IVFs, and for a couple of IUIs, I tried acupuncture. I didn't find it all that relaxing and it never seemed to do anything to help my lady business. I have heard of other women who did it and weren't successful, then did a cycle without and were.
I asked to trigger with Ovidrel. I've always used generic hCG for a trigger, but I am really bad about sucking all of the meds up with the long needle. So, this time I asked to switch to Ovidrel. It's a preloaded syringe and a subcutaneous injection instead of a muscular one.
I insisted on transferring blasts. My previous two IVFs were with Day 2 transfers. In hindsight, I could see that my first embryo was kind of uggo (cells weren't exactly even, and there was already fragmentation on Day 2). My second embryo was better, but still so young. I really rolled the dice on this one by insisting on growing everything out to blast. And I did so fully expecting to have nothing of ours to transfer. The gamble paid off, big-time. I mean, our one little embryo made it to blast! Even if it didn't end up implanting, you can't ask for a better chance than that.
I didn't do bed rest. This is a big one. My clinic recommends 24 hours of bed rest after transfer. I did mostly bed rest after IVF #1 (we had tickets to a show that night, ones I'd purchased seven months prior, so I did a little bit of walking in the theater) and serious bed rest for IVF #2. I never felt like bed rest was the right thing to do but Mr. Hope insisted. This time, I told him, I wasn't doing bed rest. I'd take it easy, I said, but I needed to move around to make sure the blood was getting to my uterus. He reluctantly agreed. And I did take it easy, for the most part. There were a few rounds of Celebrity where I was doing charades that got me a little schvitzy, but hey - guess getting my heart rate up a little was ultimately a good thing.
Here are some of the other things that I didn't do that I had on previous cycles:
- Eat pineapple core
- Avoid raw foods (I've been chowing down on salads like a boss)
- Avoid cold beverages
- Yoga
- Mediation
- Fertility massage
I will probably never know what did or didn't make a difference, but I wanted to document these things here because it's the kind of stuff I loved reading on other people's blogs.
Anyway, there you have it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm actually feeling tired enough to fall back asleep!
Saturday, December 6, 2014
and the anxiety sets in...
First, obligatory pee stick update: still pregnant.
According to this handy-dandy IVF due date calculator, I am currently three weeks and six days pregnant, with an expected due date of August 16, 2015.
So this is my new morning routine. I get up around 5:45 (why? Why so early) and pee into my little plastic cup. I dip the Wondfo for shits and giggles. I dip the FRER. Love that the line comes up instantly. Count minutes until I can compare it to the previous day's test (is it getting darker? I hope it's getting darker. That looks darker, right?). When stick is sufficiently darkened (but still in the acceptable window), I launch into my daily photo shoot: all of the sticks together, today's by itself, today's with yesterday, and a few Wondfo comparison shots.
I am clearly not well.
My cold rages on and last night I coughed so hard and so long I was afraid that I would cough the embryos out. Earlier, when I ventured out of the house with Mr. Hope to accompany him to his doctor's appointment, my jeans felt a little snug and this made the pressure above my groin more prominent. There was pinching on the right side and some on the left, but by night I couldn't feel the pinching and this scared me. Every time I went to the bathroom (which was often, because every coughing fit I almost peed my pants) I expected to see blood.
I said to Mr. Hope, "I'm just afraid it's all going to end any second now."
There are a lot of women in the IF community who've experienced one or more early losses. I mean, even women who haven't battled IF have miscarriages all of the time, especially when they're my age. So there is a part of me that's almost expecting this to be our fate.
And then there's this other part of me that was like, "Oh, shit, I should probably start scouting OBs," and ended up pinning a schedule of classes at a local birthing center. I was particularly interested in one about eating/exercising in pregnancy that's happening in January. I wanted to register - there were only 9 spots left - but then thought that if I did I'd be jinxing things. I came thisclose to calling and asking about their refund policy: "I totally want to sign up for this class but I'm barely pregnant and terrified that I'll end up unpregnant any second now. Can I defer my enrollment if I miscarry?"
Jinxing is on my mind a LOT now. Like, this cold makes it difficult for me to want to cook anything. But eating out is fraught with peril. DOES THAT HAVE FLOUR IN IT? IF I EAT THE FLOUR, WILL I LOSE THIS PREGNANCY? Early on, I made a proclamation that if I was pregnant, I wouldn't eat chocolate during the first trimester. Then I said, "Hell, if I get pregnant, I'll happily give up chocolate the entire pregnancy!" So now I feel like this is a binding agreement with the universe, and that if I have any chocolate whatsoever, I'm putting this pregnancy in danger.
Like I said: NOT WELL.
Also, I'm like three days pregnant (by pee stick time) and already I've screwed up twice. Mr. Hope served me a mug of Mint Melange tea that had lemon grass in it. I thought he'd given me peppermint and didn't realize until I got to the end that it wasn't that. I knew I wasn't supposed to have the Mint Melange but couldn't remember why. Turns out lemon grass can be used to induce abortions. HE UNWITTINGLY GAVE ME ABORTION TEA. Worse, I drank it.
Now I'm afraid to drink any tea, though I've read on multiple reputable sites that peppermint tea is likely safe. Rooibos is supposed to be great for pregnancy, but I haven't been able to find any in the store. I think I'm going to order some on Amazon just to put my mind at ease. In the meantime, I'm drinking hot lemon water with a little honey mixed in. That makes me nervous, too, because I've been considering honey as sugar. Am I breaking my healthy eating pact by ingesting honey? Or do I get a pass because it's supposed to be great for coughs?
Speaking of: I'd read that I could take Mucinex for a cold. But it turns out, Mucinex is guaifenesin, which is a Cat C for pregnancy (basically, probably not good, though some sites say it's fine after the first trimester). I think I took it like four times before finding this out. What I can take is Delsym (dextromethorphan), which is alcohol-free. So I bought that yesterday when I was picking up extra Wondfos and a two pack of the Clear Blue Digitals that read the number of weeks pregnant on them (I only have a FRER digi and it doesn't read weeks). Haven't taken a digi yet, though I probably will tomorrow.
I still have FIVE days until my beta test. I thought about calling yesterday to see if they'd give it to me earlier, since Sunday will be the equivalent of 14 DPO and a normal time to get a beta. Even Monday would've been an improvement. But I decided against it. If I'm meant to stay pregnant, that's going to happen no matter when I get my beta.
There are so many thoughts swirling around in my brain right now. The only thing keeping me sane is knowing that my brand of crazy is universal for women who've gotten pregnant after struggling with infertility for years.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
What I really need right now is SLEEP. I haven't been getting more than 5-6 hours a night, and I'm typically a 7-8 hours a night kind of girl. I'm exhausted but I don't stay asleep, and the minute I wake up in the morning I'm all pee sticks and iPhone.
This will get a little bit easier at some point, won't it? I keep thinking that I can just hang on until the end of the first trimester (assuming we're lucky enough to make it that far) that maybe - maybe - I could relax just a little. Like it will be that moment in Say Anything, when a London-bound Lloyd Dobbler tells Diane Court that most accidents happen during the first few minutes of a flight, and if she can just wait for the fasten seat belt sign to ding off, they'll be in the all-clear.
My "ding" can't come soon enough.
 |
| That's a beautiful line, right? |
According to this handy-dandy IVF due date calculator, I am currently three weeks and six days pregnant, with an expected due date of August 16, 2015.
So this is my new morning routine. I get up around 5:45 (why? Why so early) and pee into my little plastic cup. I dip the Wondfo for shits and giggles. I dip the FRER. Love that the line comes up instantly. Count minutes until I can compare it to the previous day's test (is it getting darker? I hope it's getting darker. That looks darker, right?). When stick is sufficiently darkened (but still in the acceptable window), I launch into my daily photo shoot: all of the sticks together, today's by itself, today's with yesterday, and a few Wondfo comparison shots.
 |
| That yellowing from the 6DP5DT test is rather unsightly, isn't it? |
I am clearly not well.
My cold rages on and last night I coughed so hard and so long I was afraid that I would cough the embryos out. Earlier, when I ventured out of the house with Mr. Hope to accompany him to his doctor's appointment, my jeans felt a little snug and this made the pressure above my groin more prominent. There was pinching on the right side and some on the left, but by night I couldn't feel the pinching and this scared me. Every time I went to the bathroom (which was often, because every coughing fit I almost peed my pants) I expected to see blood.
I said to Mr. Hope, "I'm just afraid it's all going to end any second now."
There are a lot of women in the IF community who've experienced one or more early losses. I mean, even women who haven't battled IF have miscarriages all of the time, especially when they're my age. So there is a part of me that's almost expecting this to be our fate.
And then there's this other part of me that was like, "Oh, shit, I should probably start scouting OBs," and ended up pinning a schedule of classes at a local birthing center. I was particularly interested in one about eating/exercising in pregnancy that's happening in January. I wanted to register - there were only 9 spots left - but then thought that if I did I'd be jinxing things. I came thisclose to calling and asking about their refund policy: "I totally want to sign up for this class but I'm barely pregnant and terrified that I'll end up unpregnant any second now. Can I defer my enrollment if I miscarry?"
Jinxing is on my mind a LOT now. Like, this cold makes it difficult for me to want to cook anything. But eating out is fraught with peril. DOES THAT HAVE FLOUR IN IT? IF I EAT THE FLOUR, WILL I LOSE THIS PREGNANCY? Early on, I made a proclamation that if I was pregnant, I wouldn't eat chocolate during the first trimester. Then I said, "Hell, if I get pregnant, I'll happily give up chocolate the entire pregnancy!" So now I feel like this is a binding agreement with the universe, and that if I have any chocolate whatsoever, I'm putting this pregnancy in danger.
Like I said: NOT WELL.
Also, I'm like three days pregnant (by pee stick time) and already I've screwed up twice. Mr. Hope served me a mug of Mint Melange tea that had lemon grass in it. I thought he'd given me peppermint and didn't realize until I got to the end that it wasn't that. I knew I wasn't supposed to have the Mint Melange but couldn't remember why. Turns out lemon grass can be used to induce abortions. HE UNWITTINGLY GAVE ME ABORTION TEA. Worse, I drank it.
Now I'm afraid to drink any tea, though I've read on multiple reputable sites that peppermint tea is likely safe. Rooibos is supposed to be great for pregnancy, but I haven't been able to find any in the store. I think I'm going to order some on Amazon just to put my mind at ease. In the meantime, I'm drinking hot lemon water with a little honey mixed in. That makes me nervous, too, because I've been considering honey as sugar. Am I breaking my healthy eating pact by ingesting honey? Or do I get a pass because it's supposed to be great for coughs?
Speaking of: I'd read that I could take Mucinex for a cold. But it turns out, Mucinex is guaifenesin, which is a Cat C for pregnancy (basically, probably not good, though some sites say it's fine after the first trimester). I think I took it like four times before finding this out. What I can take is Delsym (dextromethorphan), which is alcohol-free. So I bought that yesterday when I was picking up extra Wondfos and a two pack of the Clear Blue Digitals that read the number of weeks pregnant on them (I only have a FRER digi and it doesn't read weeks). Haven't taken a digi yet, though I probably will tomorrow.
I still have FIVE days until my beta test. I thought about calling yesterday to see if they'd give it to me earlier, since Sunday will be the equivalent of 14 DPO and a normal time to get a beta. Even Monday would've been an improvement. But I decided against it. If I'm meant to stay pregnant, that's going to happen no matter when I get my beta.
There are so many thoughts swirling around in my brain right now. The only thing keeping me sane is knowing that my brand of crazy is universal for women who've gotten pregnant after struggling with infertility for years.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
What I really need right now is SLEEP. I haven't been getting more than 5-6 hours a night, and I'm typically a 7-8 hours a night kind of girl. I'm exhausted but I don't stay asleep, and the minute I wake up in the morning I'm all pee sticks and iPhone.
This will get a little bit easier at some point, won't it? I keep thinking that I can just hang on until the end of the first trimester (assuming we're lucky enough to make it that far) that maybe - maybe - I could relax just a little. Like it will be that moment in Say Anything, when a London-bound Lloyd Dobbler tells Diane Court that most accidents happen during the first few minutes of a flight, and if she can just wait for the fasten seat belt sign to ding off, they'll be in the all-clear.
My "ding" can't come soon enough.
Friday, December 5, 2014
wtf, wondfo?
I had this plan that I was only going to use my FRERs every other day. I had two in reserve and a digital in the linen closet. If I took the digi on beta day (Wednesday), I'd have just enough.
Only, my Wondfo this morning was so pale, it looked negative. I started to feel panicky. Why wasn't it getting any darker? Sure, the Wondfos had been light all along; three days past trigger, when I should have still had a minimum of 6,000 mIUs of hCG still in me, they were still pretty light.
But what if?
What if I was literally pregnant for a single day?
I dipped the FRER.
The second line started to come up immediately. Within two minutes, it was darker than yesterday's. Better yet, it continued to darken.
I'm still pregnant. Here, see for yourself.
I'M STILL PREGNANT!
The fact that it got so much darker today makes me feel like this is actually happening. Yesterday I was in a little bit of a daze. I walked around the house, carrying the test with me from room to room. (That's normal, right?) I'd keep looking at it from different angles, holding it up to the light, hoping (praying, wishing) that this baby (babies?) would stick around for the whole nine months.
Yesterday, I texted pictures of the tests to four people: my two best friends in the whole world and two of my closest sisters in infertility. My two infertiles saw the line immediately. The BFF was like, "Very faint but I see it too!" (I'm apparently training her to have an infertile's eye.)
And then there was Gumbo. She didn't text back right away, and then I got busy with work and wasn't even thinking about it. Around 10:30 I got this text:
I was like, "It's positive!" I sent her a zoomed in picture. She texted back:
Then, a few exchanges later:
So she did. To be fair, she showed me the picture on her phone and you really can't see anything. Not even a whisper.
Now the hard part is going to be NOT shouting this off the rooftops. There are so many people who've been there for me and cheering me on. Can I tell them? Should I? It's still SO early. But Glam Coworker, who's still out on maternity leave, told me the day after she got a positive pregnancy test. There are a few family members and close friends who knew I was cycling. Should I tell them?
And then I think: the more people I tell now, the more people I'd have to tell if something goes wrong.
I don't like thinking about something going wrong.
But I did have this talk with Mr. Hope, who was under some delusion that the beta test was the last hurdle to clear. I was like, "Um, that's like the third lowest run on a very long ladder." He was all, "Say what now?"
I told him that the bottom run was making it to retrieval. Making it to transfer was the next. (In previous versions of this lesson, I've also included egg fertilizing and egg growing day to day as rungs, too, but I was trying to simplify here.) After beta, I informed him, was second beta and likely third beta. After third beta it was ultrasound, and then heartbeat ultrasound, and so on and so forth.
His poor face. He looked like a puppy I'd kicked.
"I have to tell you," he said later, "I'm a little scared."
"That's pretty normal," I assured him.
Even so, I need to be careful. I don't want to let anxiety rob me of this happiness. I'm pregnant. I AM WITH CHILD. And, to be perfectly honest, I've been getting pinching cramps in two entirely different places - low on the right, higher up on the left. There is a possibility that we're looking at twins here.
One step at a time, Agony. One step at a time.
Only, my Wondfo this morning was so pale, it looked negative. I started to feel panicky. Why wasn't it getting any darker? Sure, the Wondfos had been light all along; three days past trigger, when I should have still had a minimum of 6,000 mIUs of hCG still in me, they were still pretty light.
But what if?
What if I was literally pregnant for a single day?
I dipped the FRER.
The second line started to come up immediately. Within two minutes, it was darker than yesterday's. Better yet, it continued to darken.
I'm still pregnant. Here, see for yourself.
 |
| Do you see that Wondfo? Do you blame me for getting panicky? Wondfo, I think it's time I quit you. |
I'M STILL PREGNANT!
The fact that it got so much darker today makes me feel like this is actually happening. Yesterday I was in a little bit of a daze. I walked around the house, carrying the test with me from room to room. (That's normal, right?) I'd keep looking at it from different angles, holding it up to the light, hoping (praying, wishing) that this baby (babies?) would stick around for the whole nine months.
Yesterday, I texted pictures of the tests to four people: my two best friends in the whole world and two of my closest sisters in infertility. My two infertiles saw the line immediately. The BFF was like, "Very faint but I see it too!" (I'm apparently training her to have an infertile's eye.)
And then there was Gumbo. She didn't text back right away, and then I got busy with work and wasn't even thinking about it. Around 10:30 I got this text:
I'm so sorry, I'm actually confused and angry. I thought this time for sure. Could it be too early?
I was like, "It's positive!" I sent her a zoomed in picture. She texted back:
What?!!!! It doesn't show up in pic! Are you home?!!! I've been so sad!!!
Then, a few exchanges later:
I still can't see it I'm jumping out of my skin I'm coming over
So she did. To be fair, she showed me the picture on her phone and you really can't see anything. Not even a whisper.
Now the hard part is going to be NOT shouting this off the rooftops. There are so many people who've been there for me and cheering me on. Can I tell them? Should I? It's still SO early. But Glam Coworker, who's still out on maternity leave, told me the day after she got a positive pregnancy test. There are a few family members and close friends who knew I was cycling. Should I tell them?
And then I think: the more people I tell now, the more people I'd have to tell if something goes wrong.
I don't like thinking about something going wrong.
But I did have this talk with Mr. Hope, who was under some delusion that the beta test was the last hurdle to clear. I was like, "Um, that's like the third lowest run on a very long ladder." He was all, "Say what now?"
I told him that the bottom run was making it to retrieval. Making it to transfer was the next. (In previous versions of this lesson, I've also included egg fertilizing and egg growing day to day as rungs, too, but I was trying to simplify here.) After beta, I informed him, was second beta and likely third beta. After third beta it was ultrasound, and then heartbeat ultrasound, and so on and so forth.
His poor face. He looked like a puppy I'd kicked.
"I have to tell you," he said later, "I'm a little scared."
"That's pretty normal," I assured him.
Even so, I need to be careful. I don't want to let anxiety rob me of this happiness. I'm pregnant. I AM WITH CHILD. And, to be perfectly honest, I've been getting pinching cramps in two entirely different places - low on the right, higher up on the left. There is a possibility that we're looking at twins here.
One step at a time, Agony. One step at a time.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
the evils of early testing.
While I wouldn't call myself a true POAS-holic, I have dropped a small fortune on pregnancy tests in the years I've been trying to conceive. So I already had a pouch full of Wondfos at the ready before I even started this cycle, and as soon as I knew when retrieval was, I bought a three-pack of FRERs from Amazon.
I told myself I'd try to wait until 5DP5DT to test. That would be the morning of my mid-2WW hormone level check and the equivalent of 10 DPO. But of course I didn't make it until then.
Of course I didn't.
I used my first Wondfo 3DP5DT. A ghost of a line came up within the first three minutes. I thought maybe I was seeing something that wasn't there. It got darker as it dried, but definitely had the purple-red color typical of a Wondfo. I lined it up with the first two I took when I was testing out my trigger, as well as the one I took when I decided the trigger was out of my system. It was lighter than three days post-trigger, but darker than five days post-trigger.
 |
| It's really hard to see from this photograph, but there is a faint line on that bottom one. The top two were taken three days after the trigger, the third five days after trigger, and the fourth 3DP5DT. |
Mr. Hope and I looked at the sticks together. I photographed them. You could still see that the one on the bottom had color. Was I pregnant? COULD IT BE TWINS?
I sent the photo to the BFF for a second opinion. She saw "something." We talked about how tomorrow would be the true test. Would it get darker?
It did not.
It got lighter, so I broke open a FRER. I saw another ghost line that could've been an indent. I ripped the cartridge apart to get a better look. Another "something," but nothing I felt convinced was a true BFP.
The Wondfo I took yesterday, 5DP5DT, was so light it was practically snow. Disheartened, I went in for my hormone level check.
The visit was good. For one thing, Fave NP was there and she's typically not in on Wednesdays. She brought me to an exam room even though the blood draw pod was clear because she wanted me to catch her up on the cycle. So, I did, and she was genuinely excited for me about having a blast of our own to transfer.
Then I confessed to her that I've been peeing on sticks (because at this point, I feel like Fave NP and I are practically friends). I told her about the super-faint positive 3DP5DT, and how it got lighter and lighter. I told her I didn't think it was the trigger because I'd tested it out a few days prior. She did the math and said, "We've seen the trigger shot last ten, eleven days. I think it's more likely that you picked up that."
I told her I wasn't hopeful.
Mr. Hope and I were both home sick from work - I am SO sick, you guys, like CRAZY sick - so I spent the day Googling things like "BFN 5DP5DT then BFP." Literally, the better part of an entire day. I Googled every minor symptom I had, including "pressure in groin area pregnant" and "stabbing pain in left side of uterus for a minute implantation."
Fave NP had asked me if I'd keep testing. I told her, "I'm going to try to hold out until my beta."
I lasted until around 6:30 p.m. last night.
My urine so pale, I don't know why I bothered dipping the Wondfo. I brushed my teeth while I waited, since it's got a two-minute timer on it. I thought I saw something pale and shadowy, but nothing darker than what I'd been seeing for days.
I tucked it into a pouch with unopened Wondfos and walked away.
So here's the thing: even though I kept reading stories of women who'd say, "Oh, I got BFNs until 7DP5DT" or "I didn't get my first faint BFP until 13 DPO," you also read a lot of stories by women who say they got their BFPs 8 DPO or 4DP5DT. In my super-secret Facebook support group, there had been a ton of BFPs lately, and all of them were on 4DP5DT or 5DP5DT.
Clearly, I was out. I just had to accept it and move on.
I've been having trouble sleeping. Probably because of the cold, but maybe because of the excitement/anxiety of being in the 2WW. Last night I went to bed a little after 11 and woke up around 1:45. I had to pee so bad, but was like, "If I pee now, when I get up tomorrow I'll only have a four-hour hold." And then I thought, "Screw it. If I get another BFN tomorrow, I can always chalk it up to the four-hour hold."
Sure enough, I woke up just before 6 a.m. I peed in my little plastic cup. I dipped the Wondfo and waited.
Another ghost line. Color, but so pale only fellow infertiles, with their eyes trained to detect such things, would immediately see it.
But oh! What's this? An extra FRER left over from my last cycle tucked into the pouch of Wondfos. I look at the expiration date, see December 2015, and register it as December 2014.
I tear it open and dip it in.
Within a minute, I start to see something pale and shadowy. Another indent? It's too early to be an evap.
I keep watching.
It gets darker. And then darker still. And finally, it's so visible I can actually photograph the fucker. It's no squinter - even non-infertiles would see that line.
 |
| This also photographs paler than it is in person. I don't know why my iPhone camera hates me. |
I take picture after picture. I text one to the BFF. Then I feel guilty for "telling" her before Mr. Hope.
I wake him up.
"We're pregnant," I say. "The line is pink and it's visible and it hasn't even been ten minutes. As of today, we are PREGNANT."
He follows me into the bathroom to get a better look. "Yep," he says. "I see it."
We hug, and he's burning up. I make him go take his temp but it's normal. We go into the kitchen so I can give him some cold meds.
I give him crap for not seeming more excited. He says, "I'm sick, my head is swimmy, and you just woke me up."
Just an ordinary day, folks.
Except, it's not.
TODAY, I AM MOFO PREGNANT.
I've never had a true BFP. This is literally my first.
So now we wait to see if the line gets darker between now and next Wednesday, which is when my beta is. Because of course I just can't be blanket happy, over-the-moon. Of course I'm going to be peeing on things every morning between now and then.
Even if next Wednesday's beta is good, I'm going to be sweating it out until I get the second beta (it would be that Friday, I'm guessing). And then I'll be sweating until the first ultrasound, and then until I see a heartbeat, etc., etc.
Because of all the things that infertility takes from you, I've heard from so many fellow infertiles who've gone on to find success that losing out on pregnancy joy is one of the worst.
But today - at this moment in time - I'm not going to think about that.
I'm going to stare at my first-ever BFP and smile like an idiot.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
oh! there was ONE symptom.
I was wiping down the cook top on the stove and the glass cleaner spray smelled so intense I took a step backward. And this is WITH a stuffy nose from my cold.
It made me remember that last night, at the grocery store, I could smell the bananas from like 20 feet away. They smelled completely overripe, like black bananas, but didn't look like that. I could smell the citrus when I was shopping for lemons (which I didn't buy, by the way, because the store was selling them at four for three dollars - major rip).
Now, I started the estradiol yesterday so that COULD be why I have a heightened sense of smell, but I didn't really have that when I was taking the same stuff for priming. So, this might actually be a legit symptom.
I'll be interested to see what my hormone levels are on Wednesday.
symptom spotting.
I'm 2dp5dt (two days past five-day transfer) and so far, nothing.
No real symptoms whatsoever.
I know that it's early and that not every women gets symptoms regardless. But still. I've got nothing. And I've been on the progesterone now for a week now, so shouldn't I be feeling something? When I'm not in a cycle, and have ovulated naturally, I get heartburn and gas and tenderness in my boobs.
Okay, so my temp is elevated (as it should be), and I've had a couple of hot flashes. And yesterday I pooped five times and then again this morning; I never thought this was a possible sign of pregnancy by if you Google it quite a large number of people have reported it. (Me, I thought it was because I was taking Miralax preemptively, as progesterone tends to constipate the hell out of me even when I'm not on supplements.)
Let's see...I was a bit queasy yesterday, in the AM and the PM, but I also started the estradiol and that can sometimes make me feel nauseated. Oh, and I'm definitely getting a cold, but I felt like I was fending one off during a lot of my stims so I can't see how that's tied to having a bean or two on board.
Basically, there's a rational explanation for everything, and not a single "symptom" that feels like an actually symptom.
Theoretically I could start POAS Tuesday (the equivalent of 9 DPO), but I'm fairly certain that it would be negative even if I was pregnant. I'd told myself I'd hold out until Wednesday AM, the day of my first hormone-level check (10 DPO). But I could totally see myself caving out of curiosity. Isn't this what cheapie Internet test strips were invented for?
Even though I have this cold, I am so looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Anything to keep me busy and make the time go faster, right? Less time to obsess.
I read on another blog that someone said she had infertility bipolar during the 2WW - that she vacillated between certain her IVF worked and convinced that she'd never be pregnant. I'm guessing this is fairly common among us infertiles. It's definitely where I am, just two days in.
Here's a confession: I'm terrified my cycle won't have worked in part because every time I'm in one, someone close to me gets pregnant a few weeks before I do and I don't. First attempted IVF that was converted to IUI: Gumbo. First true IVF: Glam Coworker.
Kindred got her BFP a couple of weeks ago, and I honestly couldn't be happier. But some crazy part of me wonders if this is going to be the Pregnancy Touch all over again, where my friend is successful and I am not. Maybe I really SHOULD start charging to rub people's bellies.
Or maybe I should just chill the eff out.
No real symptoms whatsoever.
I know that it's early and that not every women gets symptoms regardless. But still. I've got nothing. And I've been on the progesterone now for a week now, so shouldn't I be feeling something? When I'm not in a cycle, and have ovulated naturally, I get heartburn and gas and tenderness in my boobs.
Okay, so my temp is elevated (as it should be), and I've had a couple of hot flashes. And yesterday I pooped five times and then again this morning; I never thought this was a possible sign of pregnancy by if you Google it quite a large number of people have reported it. (Me, I thought it was because I was taking Miralax preemptively, as progesterone tends to constipate the hell out of me even when I'm not on supplements.)
Let's see...I was a bit queasy yesterday, in the AM and the PM, but I also started the estradiol and that can sometimes make me feel nauseated. Oh, and I'm definitely getting a cold, but I felt like I was fending one off during a lot of my stims so I can't see how that's tied to having a bean or two on board.
Basically, there's a rational explanation for everything, and not a single "symptom" that feels like an actually symptom.
Theoretically I could start POAS Tuesday (the equivalent of 9 DPO), but I'm fairly certain that it would be negative even if I was pregnant. I'd told myself I'd hold out until Wednesday AM, the day of my first hormone-level check (10 DPO). But I could totally see myself caving out of curiosity. Isn't this what cheapie Internet test strips were invented for?
Even though I have this cold, I am so looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Anything to keep me busy and make the time go faster, right? Less time to obsess.
I read on another blog that someone said she had infertility bipolar during the 2WW - that she vacillated between certain her IVF worked and convinced that she'd never be pregnant. I'm guessing this is fairly common among us infertiles. It's definitely where I am, just two days in.
Here's a confession: I'm terrified my cycle won't have worked in part because every time I'm in one, someone close to me gets pregnant a few weeks before I do and I don't. First attempted IVF that was converted to IUI: Gumbo. First true IVF: Glam Coworker.
Kindred got her BFP a couple of weeks ago, and I honestly couldn't be happier. But some crazy part of me wonders if this is going to be the Pregnancy Touch all over again, where my friend is successful and I am not. Maybe I really SHOULD start charging to rub people's bellies.
Or maybe I should just chill the eff out.
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