Well goddamit.

Lots of bright red blood. I don't like this.

Beta #3: still truckin' along

952, for a doubling time of 44.23.  No complaints.

Ultrasound a week from Monday..

from 19dpo-22dpo:

from 16dpo-22dpo:

 

gulp.

19dpo: a surprise comeback?

Recap: After coming out of the gate strong with good pee-sticks, she managed to muff the first fence, scraping over beta #1 with a score of less than 100. Her form has improved considerably between the first and second fence. Beta #2 came back at a very respectable 308, for a doubling time of 44 hours.  She's clearly rattled by the first fence, but let's not write her off just yet. This one may yet have a chance.

Okay, I'll... stop talking about myself in the third person as if I were a horse now. I'm a little punchy and adrenaline-y. My heart was pounding as I clicked open that email.

So! Here I am. Her Indoors is going away on a trip and then I'm going away on a trip so I get to learn how to give myself IM injections. Thank goodness my bum's mostly numb by now.

I'm grateful. What I wanted was either

1) A clearly good results, like this, or
2) A clearly bad results.

And, of course, I rather preferred #1.

I dreaded getting a 180, a 200, something like that -- not quite low enough to pull the plug immediately, but far too low to be healthy. So I'm damn grateful.

Next beta on Thursday.

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.

The day before beta

Jest passin' the time. Every now and then I pee on a piece of cardboard, squint, and alternately decide

a) it's wayyy darker omg must start googling strollers now! now! how are we going to afford daycare? should I try for a VBAC?
b) it's wayyy lighter and I wonder if I'll get all the way to misoprostol, now my preferred abortifacient, or if it'll poop out on its own.

Neither of these reactions is either warranted or helpful.

I'm just not very good at sitting and waiting.

I'm going to be in a meeting for most of tomorrow. I've asked the nurse to email me the beta results. Probably my favorite thing about this practice is that they don't mind emailing results.  I have some serious PTSD from the hold music at my last REs. I'd be waiting and waiting and listening to the loop and my heart pound and pretty soon my blood pressure started to shoot up as soon as the music started. Plus I'm always afraid I'll hear something wrong or write it down wrong or something. With email there is only the barest pause between seeing that I have the email and seeing the results. 

So. Tomorrow.

6dp5dt (11dpo)

Annnnnnd we have a line!

Faint, but there. And while such a faint line is bad news at 14dpo, it's okay at 11dpo.  Just have to see where this one goes, if this little thing has what it needs to continue its journey.

Trying to stay quiet. Keep breathing, keep living, and if I do a bit of hoping, that's okay. One of the things I think I've learned on this journey is that almost nothing can dislodge a good pregnancy and absolutely nothing can save a bad one.  The coin is still flipping in the air as to which this one is -- but it hasn't landed yet, which means we're in with a chance.