Various Items

Item: After finding the not-so-bad 60%, I then found this which puts it at 25%. Humph.

Item: As far as my personal statistics go:

Pregnancy #1, 16dpo beta = 120. Outcome: miscarriage.
Pregnancy #2, 16dpo beta = 224. Outcome: Small Boy.
Pregnancy (?) #3, 15dpo beta = 8.  Outcome: chemical.
Pregnancy #4, 16dpo beta = 144. Outcome: miscarriage.
Pregnancy #5, 16do beta = ~320 (calculated). Outcome: post-hb miscarriage, twins.
Pregnancy #6, 16do beta = 98. Outcome ?

Jeez, when I put it like that it doesn't look so great, does it.

Item: when I google "accepting secondary infertility" I'm deeply ticked to find out that almost all the hits are to articles/ posts written by women who struggled with secondary infertility... before going on to have their second or third child. Gosh, thanks, guys. That really helps.
  
Item: I once heard someone say "when someone dies, a library burns down."  I guess when someone isn't born a library isn't even built. I feel like I'm staring at a field, a space where a library will never be built, will never fill with memories and experiences. It will always just be... quiet. 

I don't feel like it's a horrible loss to the world. The world has plenty of people. I wonder how much of a loss it will be to Small Boy. He's occasionally expressed an idle desire for a sibling but nothing serious, and I don't think there's any reason that an only child can't have a perfectly delightful life. It's just me, mostly, maybe. I wanted to get to know another child. Small Boy has been such a revelation for me. I wanted to know what other revelations there were, to feel my heart stretch once again.  I guess I wanted to know how much richer life could get. A greedy wish, but mine.

16dpo beta

98. Not a complete disaster, but not great. Average is about 200 at this point. Assuming perfect doubling (ha! ha!) best-case scenario is a 15dpo of 75ish, which translates into about a 60% chance of live birth, 40% miscarriage/chemical according to my favorite oracle. It's not chasing unicorns, but it's certainly chasing... something that runs away, but is sometimes a catchable. A chicken? Fine, a chicken. Chasing chickens does have a certain "going in circles over the same ground" quality that seems appropriate.

I am so sick of this bullshit, I can't even tell you.

So now I'm passing the time until Monday. I was really hoping not to use the tag "beta hell" for this cycle.

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.

That was mercifully quick.

Today's beta = negative. I didn't ask, but I assume that means <5. Kinder, in a way, since I've no decisions to make. I'm stopping meds tonight.

I've asked about doing an endometrial biopsy this cycle. I don't know if that fits the doctor's definition of a "rest cycle" or not, but I hope it does -- at least it would keep me amused. And there's some evidence that endometrial biopsies increase implantation on the cycle that immediately follows. It's all pretty voodoo, but most of this process is.

The view from Beta Hell

Second-guessing my decision to stay on meds. No matter what number I get tomorrow, it's not going to change the fact that the 15dpo number was 8.

Okay, let's think this through:

Option #1: chemical. The overwhelming chance is that this is chemical. If it's chemical, I'm simply prolonging the process. On the other hand, I'm not doing any harm to anything except my sense of serenity.

Option #2: miscarriage. The next largest chance is miscarriage; i.e., that it limps along for a few more weeks -- I get a number like 24 on Monday, and hey! it more than doubled! yay! Except that it's still only at 24. Then it doesn't quite double, goes up to, I dunno, 41. Okay, okay, almost a decent doubling time, and the doubling time's a range, right? Then the next beta is great. Let's say a 39 hour doubling time, woo hoo! This continues, a grab bag of mediocre and great results, until finally the doctor says "enough with the betas, come back for an ultrasound in a few weeks." I do and: there's no heartbeat. Or there is a heartbeat, and I get released to an OB. At 10 weeks I go in and... there's no heartbeat. Even if I'm lucky and it all passes naturally, it a) hurts and b) takes me months to get my period back so we can start again. This is the worst-case scenario, except for equally hideous

Option #3: ectopic. In this universe, everything proceeds exactly as with Option #2, except that at 6 weeks there's nothing in my uterus. I get a big fat shot of methotrexate, and wait for everything to work its way out (I'm not even running the mental simulation of if the shot doesn't work. Just no.) It a) hurts and b) takes me months to get my period back so we can start again.

Option #4: live birth. This is the unicorn I would be chasing by keeping going with my meds if tomorrow's beta has any sort of decent rise. This is the unicorn that all of us who google "beta hell success stories" chase.

#3 is out of my hands, right; even if I stop the meds, an ectopic would still keep going even without progesterone and estrogen. I just have to keep my fingers crossed for that one. Stopping meds promptly would cut short the tedious and unpleasant #1, and bypass the excrutiating #2. On the other hand, it would be eliminating the slim possibility of #4.

I just don't know. I'm not a gambler, I've never bought a lottery ticket in my life. Chemical + miscarriage = 90%. I could logic myself into saying that since it's so likely that I'm in the 90%, I should stop my meds. But... the truth is, I wouldn't be doing it out of certainty that I'm in the 90% of chemical + m/c; I'd be doing it out of fear that I'm in the 10% of miscarriage.

Prudence? Fear? The smart decision, or the pussy one?

Writing it all out makes me feel better, but I'm still not sure what I'm going to do if, tomorrow, the number has gone up in any sort of meaningful way.