Just waiting, now.

Thank you, everyone, for your kind commiserations. It really does help.

I'm pretty okay. I talked with my RE last night, and he agreed that there was no real reason to keep taking the PIO. We'll be checking my hcg again on Friday; hopefully it will be going down on its own in a peaceable, orderly fashion. Hopefully then my progesterone will also fall; even though I'm no longer supplementing it, since I did ovulate my body is likely producing some on its own and I won't bleed until it shuts down production.

Last night, I:

1. Had a glass of wine;
2. Let myself use my laptop in my favorite position, with it balanced on my stomach otter-fashion;
3. Did not have a 1.5" needle jammed into my ass.

So the evening was not without its redeeming features. This morning, I had real coffee, with real caffeine.

I don't know. Three chemical pregnancies, one with a barely-there beta, two with decent enough but non-doubling betas. Once might be misfortune, but twice starts to look like carelessness. Chromosomal issues? Immune issues? Does it matter? Should I just keep slinging embryos in there and wait for one to stick? Obviously one did stick, three years ago.

I'm tired. I'm sad. I'm displeased that I have such a strong feeling of anger towards myself for being optimistic, for believing that dark line 4dp5dt, for typing information into a due-date calculator. Part of me says "Oh, really, you knew better than that. An old campaigner like you should know by now that two lines on a pee-stick do not necessarily equal a gurgling infant nine months later."

But... I don't want to be that person. I don't think there's anything particularly evolved about being cynical and pessimistic. Optimism is the more difficult path, and the better one. I should be proud that I managed to be so excited and happy. But I can't help looking back and wincing at myself, shouting back into time shut up shut up shut up close that browser window, girl, you're not going to need that mei tai.

Maybe it's my Jewish cultural conditioning, the idea that rejoicing about anything is like waving a red flag at the evil spirits and saying "come get me". Maybe it's an ugly streak of my psyche that snottily finds anything preferable to being a fool.

Beta #4

567, for a doubling time of.... 105 hours.

Yeah, it's over.

Thanks for stopping by, hope.

I guess, technically speaking, this will be a chemical, not a miscarriage. Hurts a lot more than the last one did, though.

I can't believe how well and truly fooled I was by that early, dark test.  Bitter!me says: I can't believe I fell for that.

Now I just have to hope it's not ectopic.

I fucking hate the next few steps, to wit:

1. The passing of the physical products of conception
2. The bills for the failed cycle come rolling in.

Fuck.

Beta #3

hcg: 255
progesterone:  65

Doubling time: 58 hours.

Not worse. Better. Still not perfect, but... better is better.

Hallo, hope. Is that you?

Heading out to get my blood drawn for beta #3

I'm strangely reluctant. I haven't peed on a stick in 48 hours. I've been floating along in limbo, fairly peacefully.

Epiphany: a fool's paradise is still a paradise.

Here I go.

Beta #2

Result: 144. Doubling time, 69 hours. (for those of you not on the crazy train, a normal/healthy doubling time is 48 hours). Coincidentally, 69 hours is the same doubling time as with the m/c i had in my first IVF.

Repeating on Wednesday. Looks like I'm chasing this unicorn, too.

14DPO Beta results

Beta: 89.7
Progesterone: 88.5

Still holding my breath. I'm surprised it was as low as that, given my test sticks.  For my miscarriage, my 14dpo beta was 74. For my successful pregnancy, it was 115. So this result is pretty much halfway between the two.

I have burned holes with my eyes looking at this chart. That chart is for 15dpo, and would give me about an 85% chance of live birth. My hope is just that this is a rising number, not a falling number. I got such a dark line so early -- maybe twins that resolved to a singleton? Or maybe twins that resolved to... yeah.

Someone just put me into cryogenic sleep until Monday afternoon, please.

Boy oh boy does blogger need a "reply" option...

...or a blogger who either can figure out how to correctly install a widget. Or a blogger who can get around to picking up stakes and moving to wordpress.

Shannon recently commented
Doesn't the hormone concentration in your pee vary a bit with your fluid intake?

Why, yes. Yes, it does. Also, the dye concentration on pee sticks varies from lot to lot and even within a box. Also, it is completely insane to try and treat a qualitative test like this as a quantitative test. These are all things that would be at the forefront of the mind of someone who wasn't completely deranged.


Juliane asked
Do you think twins? When is your ultrasound? 

My guess is that the U/S would be at 7w? That's assuming the betas come back anything worth writing home about. My beta is this Saturday, Nov 19, hopefully with a follow-up on Monday,  Nov 21. Hilariously, I'm supposed to go on a 7 hour Thanksgiving roadtrip the next day.

As for twins... maybe? I don't know? It is awfully early for a line like that. But I'm hoping that it's just one bold, brassy, strong little embryo. Twins would not be a good thing for me. I'm 38, hypertensive, I was insulin-dependent during my last pregnancy, I'm really short, there's a laundry list of other reasons why that would be a tough situation. My first two IVFs were single-embryo transfers because I was so terrified of twins. But time went on, and I got sadder and more desperate, and it was a double-embryo transfer that resulted in our '09 son. For the previous and this FET, we transferred two. So... it could be. I'll think about that later.

Love to Lathany and Olive, too.

Tonight I'm going to try and figure out some kind of bloggy-reply-thingie fer sure.

P.S. Four hours after this morning's somewhat-disappointing pee stick, I tried again, with much more satisfactory results, the same as last night I think or mayyyybe a touch darker. Yes. Crazy is me.

5dp5dt

Line lighter this morning? I know, I need to just put the pee sticks away and stand back. Breathe until the beta on Saturday.

But oh, the familiar familiar crazy. It's like my brain was just waiting to pop into the groove of the crazy-track.

Just gotta stay loose. HAHAHA. Just got to keep breathing. That I can do.

4dp5dt: photographic evidence

It's... not really that faint, is it.

Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my.

4dp5dt

My camera battery's dead, and I'm the last person in North America without a camera on her cell phone. So until I get home tonight and can charge my camera, you're just going to have to imagine:

A pregnancy test, with a faint but definite line.

I'm... just sitting here very very quietly.

3dp5dt: WTF, OHSS?

So, I seem to have made it onto the very short list of people (possibly consisting of only me) who manage to develop OHSS while doing a FET.

Of course, it's reasonably common to develop it while doing an injection IUI cycle, and that's essentially what I did, minus the IUI. So logically it makes perfect sense. It's just absurd. Who the hell develops OHSS during a FET cycle? Me, that's who.

I'd be elated if it were a few day in the future and I could count it as late-onset OHSS, which almost always is a harbinger of pregnancy. But it is, sadly, too early for anything but early-onset, which is a harbinger of... larger pants sizes.

S'okay. It's mild, so far, nothing but a belly gone up one clear size in jeans since Friday.  I lost a bunch of weight in the past year, so I don't even look too odd, just kind of back to normal rotundity. It's just... OHSS? Really?  Really?

5 DPO: Transfer day

They thawed the two vitrified embryos. Both of them survived.

I'm gobsmacked, and grateful. I dunno if they found the right button on the microwave or what, but I'm happy.

They both made it through in good nick, too, 4A. No, I don't know what happened to the second letter, and I wasn't in the mood to ask, so I didn't. I'm a bit of a skeptic on blastocyst grading now, anyway -- I miscarried a 4AA, and my little 2BB is running around in his wee sneakers right now.

So far, so good, I can't ask for anything more. I'm in with a chance, as good a chance as anyone's. Now -- I wait.

4DPO: a.k.a. the day before transfer

I've swallowed the doxycycline, the methylprednisolone.  The progesterone in oil (well, thankfully, in ethyl oleate) has been sunk deep into my gluteals each evening by my lovely partner. Transfer is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. tomorrow.

Nothing to do now but wait, wait for my uterine lining to be synchronized, wait for the embryologist to (please) coax those little frozen things into life.

Tonight we will drink a toast of pomegranate juice, and wish the Tiny Frozen Americans a safe journey from the dark frozen underworld into our world of light and sound.

Stims Day 10: The Rollercoaster Continues

So yesterday, I was sad. I went to see my spiritual adviser acupuncturist, with whom I thankfully had an appointment that afternoon. She hmmmmmed and felt my pulses and needled me here and there and let me drip tears on her table. I love her.

She then advised me to do some visualization, eat red meat, wear some red, and soak my feet in hot water. I wandered down to a local hippie-dippy shop and bought some red candles and a red scarf. Then I went home and had a spicy dinner, soaked my feet, chugged 2 oz of wheatgrass juice, and went to bed.

This morning, my lining was 9.1-9.5, with a triple stripe pattern.

Who the hell saw that coming? Overnight! I don't know whether to credit the acupuncture, the wheatgrass, the visualization, or, you know, possibly the Follistim. I don't care. My lining is where it needs to be and I am delighted. One more hurdle, cleared.

The next hurdle: defrosting. I'm pretty nervous about that. Maybe I should eat pomegranate. I totally need someone to lead my embryos out of the frozen underworld.

E2: 964
LH: 31

CD 11, stims day 9

Not so great an appointment. My lining has somehow magically shrunk to 7.5. Where did it go? A few follicles around 14.

I don't understand why I'm getting the craptastic linings lately. I hate this. I hate the rollercoaster. I hate the endless appointments, waiting and waiting and waiting in the doctor's office (40 minutes this morning, an hour and a half on Monday) and then waiting and waiting at the lab, I hate waiting for the phone call to see what my lab results are, I hate slipping into work after unexplained disappearances and hoping that no one noticed, blood draw after blood draw, I hate this, I hate this.

sigh.

It's okay. I know I'm actually lucky, super lucky that this is a torture I can freely choose, and have chosen. I just wish it sucked less.

E2: 648
LH: 7.7 (elevated)