Beta 3: 22dpo/17dp5dt

Third beta was 2992, with a doubling time of 56 hours. I'm told that it's normal for the doubling time to slow a bit. Nevertheless, I am nervous as a bag of cats. I don't like that the slope of the line is changing so much -- but it's still within normal range.

Keep going, Awesome Embryo. Just hang in there.

Ultrasound scheduled for next Wednesday. Holy shit.

Beta day

At 9dp5dt (14 dpo): 161!

For those not on the crazy train, my miscarriage betas were 74 and 89. The chemical pregnancy was an 8, and Small Boy was 115.

My next beta won't be until Monday (wtf??? RE Y U HATE ME) All y'all keep your fingers crossed for an appropriately rising level. But... so far, so good.

Until then, happy turkey day to them as eats turkey!

5dp5dt

Taken 5 minutes after dippin'. Got a bit darker after it dried. Faint, but by no means the most negative test I've ever seen.

I'm quietly, hesitantly pleased. I mean, I've had pee sticks that looked like this turn into miscarriages, twice. But I've also had pee sticks that looked like this turn into an absolutely hilarious 3 year old.

I am unreservedly pleased with one aspect of my foresight. When I asked the Magic 8-ball, I didn't just ask "will I get pregnant" -- I asked "will I see a positive pregnancy test this cycle?" Now that it's been unequivocally proven wrong, I can disregard the entire prophecy. Otherwise I know that right now I'd be convinced that the "no" was foretelling an impending miscarriage. Other TTC crazy superstitious atheist agnostic pagan Jews, take note!

So now it's just hanging on until my beta on Wednesday, and (hopefully) the repeat on Friday. Here we go!

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.

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

24w3d

Hallo, internets!

I suppose it's kind of boring the way I start off all of my posts with "forgive me, internet, for I have sinned. It has been {insert staggering length of time} since my last post."

So I won't do that this time. Except that I kind of just did.

The news in a nutshell:

Things are good. They're really, really good. Can't ask for much more. My blood pressure has been low; a second-trimester dip is normal, and I got it. It will undoubtedly start to creep up again soon, when I enter my third trimester (kinnehorah-knock-wood-god-willin-and-the-crick-don't-rise).

We are having a wee boy. A boy! The 18 week scan was a story unto itself, which I'll type up soon. Suffice it to say that there are indeed minuscule boy parts attached to the minuscule boy. After reeling and having a few minutes of whaaa? what do I know about boys? we have plunged into an enthusiastic study of baby-boy-hood. And I figure anything else we need to learn we can google.

I am continuing to be enormous. We thought that maybe I'd plateau and end up a more normal size. Nope. My combination of wicked shortwaistedness + unimpressive abdominal muscles = spherical me. Of course I'm just as delighted as most people who have spent two years willing themselves into precisely this state would be. I am starting to feel a bit... unwieldy. My darling darted away from me in the supermarket the other day to go and grab the peanut butter (my peanut butter, that I craved). As I saw her slim, graceful frame slipping 'round the corner into the next aisle, I felt an impotent rage. I lumbered, huffing, behind her. "Don't just run off like that," I snapped irritably. With her usual vast good humor, she assessed my rolling, panting figure, petted me and gently said "okay, I won't."

Hey I got a new layout. In case there are any of you who actually aren't reading this through an RSS feed... I dunno, I'm a bit conflicted. I absolutely love the look of it, but is it less readable? Please feel free to weigh in, I won't be offended.

This day in history. One year ago today, I had just gotten the results of my second beta for my first, ill-fated pregnancy. They weren't great but weren't awful; 74 at 14dpo, with a doubling time an unimpressive 67 hours. I was heading into the really painful part of the OHSS.

OHSS symptoms: completely miserable. Can't walk, eat, or breathe properly. My stomach looks like I'm six months pregnant. In fact, when I got my blood drawn today (for the second time today, third time this week) the technician thought I was six months pregnant.

One year later, here I am, actually six months pregnant. The word "grateful" does not suffice. I am not just full of gratitude, I am saturated with gratitude. I have been pregnant for 157 days (okay, technically, for five of those days the lab down the street was pregnant). Every single freaking one of those days I have felt again the pure shock of gratitude at my own outrageous luck. Even more so, now that we're (just) past 24 weeks, and each day that passes represents a tiny incremental increase in our guy's chances of survival.

I would never say that the two years, three IVFs, miscarriage, untold number of dollars (I refuse to calculate it) and loss of so many other things from my life were "worth it". But I do wonder if, had this pregnancy not been prefaced by all of the above, I would feel my gratitude so very keenly and continuously.

I've had some severe mood swings, and when I say "severe" I mean "full on snotty hysterical sobbing." Usually accompanied by my wailing "I don't even know why I'm cryyyyyyinnnnnngggg." But even when I am full of dread and misery I am strangely aware that This is not real. My reality is happy. Soon I will be back to reality. And you know, I always am.

24DPO beta

3838.

Doubling time: 49.7 hours.

There's no progesterone because I wasn't due for another beta. I've been cramping a whole lot (no spotting though), and my OHSS suddenly got all better, and I was utterly convinced that I was miscarrying again. So I fished out one of the many beta lab slips from my last miscarriage (m/c betas don't care about progesterone). I just waltzed right in and gave it to lab and got my blood sucked. I figure what are they gonna do, put the blood back? Not tell me the results?

Anyway, the take home messages are

1. As of 8:30 Thursday morning, I am still pregnant and everything is still in normal range;
2. I have truly never been crazier than I am right now.

Really. Everyone else must be feeling really, really sane right now because I am using up all the crazy.

I'm going to go home and sob with relief and bury my head in Animal Crossing. I figure this set of results will give me 24-36 hours of relief before the crazy starts up again.

21DPO/16dp5dt beta

1406.
Progesterone: 321
.
Doubling time: 45.28 hours.

For those for whom these numbers do not immediately translate: the all-important doubling time is good at less than 48 hours. Not okay, good. The overall number is normal, just a titch off the mode. The progesterone is crazy, crazy high -- first trimester numbers are supposed to be around 15-50; by the third trimester it can reach 200. I haven't been able to find much information about what "ridiculously high progesterone" means, but the doctor doesn't seem concerned... probably it just means that I had really a lot of follicles, which have left behind them really a lot of corpus luteum-ses, each one of which probably thinks it's the only one and so is pumping out P4 as fast as it can. Bless their little yellow hearts.

Me: relieved, grateful, still scared, officially pregnanter than I've ever been.

How my family took it...

Well? They're excited? They were stunned? They're calling me every day? My mom read up on OHSS and quizzed me to make sure that I didn't have a severe case (I don't)?

I have such mixed feelings about having told them. Part of me wants to bask in the attention and approval, which I am finally receiving in buckets. The last thing I did that they really approved of was 12 years ago, when I enrolled in grad school. I dropped out a few years later, became a lesbian, it's all been downhill since then. They love me, and they try, but I can tell that they have to work really hard to be supportive of me and my choices.

I get tolerance, and I'm grateful for that. I don't get offended when they discuss, in front of me, what gift can possibly be large enough for them to give my sister and her husband for their upcoming 15th wedding anniversary (my darling and I have been together for 11 years, and no, I'm not holding my breathe waiting for a card). I reinforce them heavily every time they mention my partner's name or send her greetings or remember her birthday (which they have done two years running now -- major progress).

But yeah, I get tolerance. I don't get approval. Having it now is freaking me out a little, and maybe making me a little angry.

I didn't feel that I had much of a choice about telling them, since there was no way I could travel as huge and OHSS-y as I am. But I can't get past the thought: if I miscarry again, then not only will I be heartbroken but I'll have disappointed my parents.

In other news, keep staring at my taut abdomen. Whatcha doin in there, huh? Whatcha doin? Still alive? Gimme a sign, here.

11dp5dt/16dpo beta

224.

Progesterone: 298.

Doubling time: 49.9 hours. Not rock-star, but well within normal range (as opposed to my last 14-16dpo set, which were barely within normal range).

In other news, I'm enormous, bloated and largely immobile thanks to OHSS. Accordingly, I had to cancel plans to fly up to Boston to see my folks for Thanksgiving, which I knew would disappoint them terribly. Accordingly, I told them why.

holyshitholyshititoldthem

it felt wonderful but so, so naughty.

just. I don't know. I'm sitting here very quietly, sipping my V8 and homemade electrolyte drink, trying to make peace with the hope that keeps flaring within my heart. It seems so very dangerous, but it simply will not go away.

9dp5dt/14dpo beta

115.

Progesterone: 320.

Over the weekend I

1. peed on 1,214 sticks
2. convinced myself that the line was getting lighter, not darker
3. had weeping fits since it was clearly all over
   
4. gathered up all my peesticks and begged Her Indoors to hide them very, very well.

I think some of the leftover crazy from the miscarriage is bubbling over. I just can't help thinking of how high I was then and how fast and hard I fell. But that's the way of it, isn't it? There's no way to want something this precarious this much and not be in terrible danger.

I have been staring at the clock all day. These are the things I mentally rehearsed hearing:
Your results are back -- the beta was 8 and you can stop your medication.
The beta was 18
The beta was 26
The beta was 54

We're supposed to call for results between 3 and 4. At 2:59 I picked up the phone and the moments I was on hold I could have measured by the heartbeat pounding in my ears.

115 is a solidly normal beta. Not high, not low. Last time at 14dpo my beta was 74, on the low side, although not wildly so. 115 is a happy number. 115 is a healthy number. 115 is just fine.

In other news, no surprise, I have developed a mild case of OHSS. At least, I thought it was mild; when I went in to have my blood taken this morning, Inappropriate Lab Admin Asst took one look at me and said "You blowin' up again?" Me: "Looks like." Anyway, besides the OHSS, I feel pretty good. Not a lot in the way of symptoms except cramps, which don't concern me -- I figure it's just the embryo bedding down. No spotting at all.

Thanks so much for all of the good wishes and crossed fingers on my previous post. Really can't say how much it means to me that you are all out there rooting for us. I could never have anticipated the extent to which this has become a group project.

Next adventure: Wednesday's repeat beta. Since you all did such a splendid job with the finger-crossing for this beta, your next assignment is think doubley thoughts.

5dp5dt

I'm grateful. I'm hopeful. I'm cautious, but... so far so good, right? Yeah. Ever since the brief time I was pregnant I've been missing this, longing to feel this again -- the humming, the sense of busyness within my body, strange and wonderful, explosive with possibility.

Right here right now I am so glad to be here again. Keep your fingers crossed for me, y'all.

5wk6d

I'm glad to say that I am much much better -- I have been steadily improving since last Thursday, and this morning I was able to zip up a pair of pants that I own! Exciting stuff, although baggy tops will be my fashion choice for the forseeable future. The water-loss seems to have plateaued at a weight that is only about 5 pounds over my usual weight, but it seems to be a very puffy 5 lbs.

I went back to work on Monday, which was strange and frightening after a week of staring at Internet TV. People have been kind and seem to have realistic expectations of how long it will take me to catch up on the backed up stuff, so that's all good. I have been informed that the rumor mill here has determined that I have a bad back, a fairly natural conclusion given my stooped, awkward gait right before I left.

I love how odd my body feels. Small changes, mostly, but enough to remind me that something is Different. I'm peeing three times a night. My breasts are sore (although not nearly as painful as they were on birth control pills) and heavy. Instead of staying up until 12 or 1 fooling around on the interwebs, I am eagerly turning out the light at 10:30. I burp a lot. My head hurts in the afternoon. It's all pretty awesome, and I am not being sarcastic.

Ultrasound this Friday. I feel naughty and furtive every time I do something that presupposes that this pregnancy is viable, like google hospitals or calculate daycare (urp). It seems arrogant and designed to attract the attention of the bad spirits. But all the same, right now, this minute, I am pregnant and I am delighted and I am going to enjoy every strange second of it.

I've even made the incredibly uncharacteristic choice not to have yet another beta before the ultrasound. I could have another, but I'm not. This week I am letting things unfold. I bet I'll be a lunatic by Friday.

*burp*

Important Items of Business

Item #1: a praise-song for my sweetheart

My completely self-involved blog has paid insufficient attention to how really really great my beloved is, and it's time for me to remedy that.

For the past week-and-change, my darling has nursed me and catered to my cranky immobile self literally night and day (and when I say "literally", I mean literally). I'm tottering around the house now, but at the worst of it all I could do was ease my way to the bathroom and back -- and yet I was supposed to eat every single hour during the day and drink constantly. How did this happen? My darling running up and down the stairs dozens of times a day, bringing me iced Ensure and V8 and SmartWater, carting down armfuls of dirty glasses, making me endless scrambled eggs (mmm albumin!). I think I've put about a thousand miles on that girl since this started.

Oh, right, and if I don't eat every 2-3 hours throughout the night I wake up with hideous piercing stomach pains. So what does she do? She somehow magically (without setting an alarm) wakes up many times during the night to feed me and shove a straw between my sleepy lips. I barely remember it, but in the morning I remember that I didn't have stomach pains last night.

Other greatnesses of her:

1. She has a special gift for stuffing pillows around me in a way that suddenly magically makes me comfy when I would have sworn to you that there was NO WAY I could be comfy;
2. She has been entirely gracious about my incredible bipolar mood this past week, calmly handing me V8s as I skyrocket between elation and despair;
3. Since I've had to sleep sitting up I wanted a neck pillow -- you know, one of those airplane-style U-shaped ones -- and when we didn't know where to buy one, she went downstairs, whipped out her sewing machine and made me one. Yeah, she's crafty too.

She's done all the housework, done all the grocery shopping, looked after the dogs (and the three of them need a lot of looking after), cheered me, soothed me, nursed me, fed me, administered all my shots with skill and grace, and generally been a hero of the most heroic sort.

A lot of women with OHSS do end up in the hospital, and I firmly believe that her care has kept me at home, kept the OHSS from getting worse, and kept me from being a total emotional wreck.

This one's for you, sweetie. Couldn't do any of this without you, wouldn't even be trying.

Item #2: Today's 96-hour beta came back at 1,111. Besides being a cool number, that is a doubling time of 42.5 hours. HELL YEAH THAT'S MORE LIKE IT. Something in me is relaxing a little, maybe even starting to believe.

Item #3: Today is 5wks 1 day. I have an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday, 6wks 2days. Can I just say: holy crap.

18dpo/13dp5dt: the happiest misery ever

This morning's beta: 232, for a doubling time of 50.5 hours. GREAT FANTASTIC CLOSE ENOUGH I'LL TAKE IT!

My hematocrit (how thick and sludgy my blood is) is also greatly improved from Wednesday. This surprises me, because since Wednesday I have just continued to inflate -- I had to borrow clothes from a bodacious friend (thank you dear) because not a thing I own will go over my body, not even my loose t-shirts. And even the jeans I borrowed wouldn't fasten, I had to do the ol' "hair elastic round the button" trick in order to be decent enough to leave the house. I have the perfect pregnancy half-basketball stomach. But despite my startlingly distended abdomen, the OHSS is actually going well. OHSS really only gets scary when your blood gets too sludgy or you stop peeing -- my blood's improving and I am still peeing like a champ (pause for me to accept adulation for this achievement. Thank you, thank you very much.). I'm swilling SmartWater, V8 and Ensure and sloshing gently from the sofa to the bathroom and back again and yeah, that's pretty much my entire range right now.

Part of the cause of my unwieldiness might be my amazing impressive progesterone level -- 352 (normal range for first trimester: 10-47). Holy crap, no wonder I've had heartburn. Anyway, the P4 level could be contributing to poofing me up . RE has dropped my nightly progesterone shot to half of its previous volume. This is good news because a) it might help my various symptoms, and b) it'll hurt less.

Still can't move or eat or sleep too much, but I'm feeling very chipper indeed. I'm hard to convince, but that 50.5-hr doubling time is making me think you know what, I might just be pregnant.

6dp5dt: HOLY CRAP

HOLY CRAP.
I don't seem able to say much else.

I've been randomly yelling "HOLY CRAP" ever since around 8pm last night.

See, I was feeling low. L-O-W. That morning's pee-stick had been stark white, and I was so very sick of staring at thin urine-soaked pieces of cardboard, willing them to say other than what they clearly said.

Just for fun (...) I decided to torture myself by doing one more before going to sleep. And HOLY CRAP. Within 6 minutes, a line, a respectable line, a line that I did not need a full-spectrum light to see.

Quavering, I yelled for my sweetheart. She dashed in, convinced that I was bleeding. I shoved the stick at her, and made her tell me about 10 times that I wasn't hallucinating.

Then I peed on three more (I buy them in bulk lots of 50, okay? shush.) As you can see, results were similar.

It just seemed so unreal. Eventually, after some hysterical typing with BFF, I went to sleep. I often wake up in the middle of the night, and when I wake up, I start thinking and thinking, usually dark thoughts, and I can't get back to sleep. Usually when this happens I pop on my headphones and listen to something soporific from librivox.org (I'm currently working on The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew). It lulls me right to sleep; I haven't had any bad insomnia since discovering this strategy.

Anyway, last night I woke up in the middle of the night, and I didn't put my headphones on. I just lay there, full of thoughts, light thoughts, joyful thoughts, hopeful thoughts.

This morning's first pee (supposedly the most concentrated) came out a good deal fainter than last night. I waited an hour and then tried again and it was a bit darker than last night. Dunno what that's about.

I know I'd be a fool to really celebrate this early. Chemical pregnancies are extremely common, especially with IVF. So, so early. Much too early.

But I've got something to celebrate. I've never seen a second line before, excluding the trigger shot. There's a chance here. There's a real chance. If it doesn't work out I'm going to cuss and try to move on gracefully. But right now, just for this minute, this second, I am pregnant.

And I am grateful beyond belief.