3 Posts in One

There have been about 5 potential posts I could've written since I last posted. Some happy, some not so much. Let's see if I can break down the past week.
Wednesday, go for 2nd Beta, have a confirmation appointment with regular practioner to confirm pregnancy so I can be referred to an OB-Gyn. So I had to give a urine sample to confirm that I am pregnant. It came back positive (which of course it should, but you know in your mind, any opportunity to worry is given).
Thursday, I get the results of the beta, 5100. This is a great number and shows things are going really well. I have a week until the first ultra sound (this coming Wednesday) but things look fabulous.
Friday, I teach half a day, go to the bathroom at lunch and find some spotting. Not a ton, but enough to really freak me out. BUT, being a teacher, it's really hard to leave work in the middle of the day. By the time I ran around and got lessons ready for a sub, I would've probably been on my feet more than if I just stayed for the last two hours of school (my 5th and 6th period are seniors that are fabulous and don't really have to be managed). So I freak out in my head for TWO HOURS and think of every possible scenario. Between classes I found some info online and it was either bleak or bleaker. So I freak out even more. And then I realize that my cramps feel more like regular old AF cramps than the cramps I've been having since I got pregnant. I tear up about 5 times, but I just sit in my chair at the front of the class counting the minutes.
So then, just to add to this calamity that has become my day, 15 minutes left in class, my princpal walks in for a surprise observation. Now, in spite of my crazy state, all the kids were working, so I knew I didn't need to worry about anything, but just the idea that the day could possibly get worse drove me nuts.
So he leaves, the bell rings, and I bolt. I dodge past other teachers, avoiding their cheery good bye comments, and commence crying as soon as I get in the car (I should remember that uncontrollable/unexplainable weapiness is an actual pregnancy symptom), and at this point I've worked myself into a frenzy. I get home and I had filled a whole panty liner with blood. It had gone from brown to dark red.
So I'm a wreck, my dh is coaching a football game an hour away and he took the bus with the players, so I don't call him because there is nothing he can do and it will drive him nuts. So I call the Dr.'s office and get the after hours number. The nurse calls back and calms me down and just tells me that if the blood isn't bright red that I should just be on bed rest for the weekend and then come in on Tuesday (closed for Labor Day). And If I feel like things get worse, than I should go to the ER so they can do an ultra sound.
So I talk to my mom, I lie down and the bleeding seems to diminish, but there was a small clot.
*Sigh*
So when DH get's home, he talks me down a little bit and we decide we'll just pray and take things as they come. I'm okay for now, and we'll see how I feel in the morning.
I wake up with the worst headache ever (you know, the one that comes when you cry like a little kid and don't drink enough water to make up for it? Yeah, that headache). I am still spotting brown in the morning, so we decide to go to the ER. Because at least this way we'll know and waiting until Tuesday seems like such a bad idea.
SO, my very first trip to the ER! I must say, that our hospital was just recently redone, and Ole', it's fabulous! They have gone paperless and the whole system of testing and colors is great. Once my blood tests were finished they were available at any computer station in the hospital.

Okay, so you're all waiting for what happened, I know:
Pelvic Exam showed birth canal is closed (is that the cervix?)
Beta: 9007
Ultrasound showed yolk sac at 5w4d. From my last period it was 5w6d. No fetal pole, but not necessarily should have a fetal pole yet. BUT, Dh claims that since the Ultrasound was sooo zoomed in looking for the heartbeat that he was able to see the capilaries moving around the yolk sac.

So we left thinking that we got good news, but this is a big week in fetal development. We're gonna choose to be positive. It was just blood being pushed out because things are changing.
I don't even know.
So here's to taking it easy and being a little too careful. I can't wait to meet this little guy! (oh yeah, and from the picture of the yolk sac on the screen, I totally think it's a boy!)

Week 5

Whenever I read someone else's blog and they become pregnant, I feel like the weeks just FLY by. All of the sudden I'm reading and they go from pregnant to 8 weeks pregnant, to 12, to 20, to baby.
So why is this taking forever for me! (ha). Any how, Today is a technical 5 weeks. I have a blood draw Wednesday afternoon, and then a meeting with my general practioner to be referred to an OB-GYN.
It feels like waiting a week for a second Beta is nuts. It's fine, it's just me that's nuts. I'm getting better about realizing that their's really nothing I can do but take care of myself and if this baby is going to grow, it's going to grow. So I'm trying not to think about it.
I even bought my first pregnancy book yesterday.
It's so exciting to think about all of these things. That in 35 weeks - Lord Willing - my husband and I will have a baby in our arms. And if that's not God's plan, there's really nothing I can do to change it, so I just need to be happy for each moment I have being pregnant.

So here are some updates:
Symptoms:
Achy boobs, like really achy.
Veiny boobs. Some dark blue hues.
Still have AF type cramps, but becoming a little less frequent. Now I really only feel my uterus when I'm sitting or lying down.
Tired, but then again, it was the first week back at work with kids, so there were some competing things for my energy there.
I get pretty nautious only when I don't eat a meal (not that I skip meals, but waiting for lunch at work, or eating breakfast late)

People we've told:
My mom (who has already started buying gobs of clothes)
My small group that I've been meeting with for the past 9 YEARS! They knew we were doing IVF so I had no choice!
All the people at the doctors office that I've been scheduling appointments with.

I really am looking forward to our Ultra sound NEXT Wednesday (9th). I feel like seeing a heartbeat is just monumental. maybe I'll feel more like sharing with others after that.
Praying for a good Beta this Wednesday!

The first 3 days...

This is hard! I know how to be infertile. It's full of worry. And I'm finding the same is true of being pregnant (I can't believe I'm even writing that word down...this is unreal). I just keep worrying. Oops, I picked up something heavy, maybe I shook the baby loose. Oops, my boobs don't hurt as much as they did 5 minutes ago, maybe this is over.
I really meant what I said at the end of the last post, I'll worry later, but that little gremlin worry monster just keeps jumping back in my brain. I know that God has breathed life into this embryo and it's up to Him how long we get to keep it, but ... well... okay, there is no good excuse for worrying. It just happens.
I just keep reminding myself of all the happy stories of know of people IRL who once they see a positive pregnancy test it never crosses their mind that something could be wrong. I'm going to strive to be like that.
This is really exciting though, I've got to say. Being pregnant that is. So far, I'm a fan.

Oh, yeah, I also just got my beta results. 250.
I think that's good, the NP said they want to see anything over 100.

So woo hoo for now, I'm gonna go do some research on OBGYN's!
I hope you're all having a great week so far, and thank you for all of your kind words, this is quite a journey, isn't it?!

Short Story

So today I was thinking about testing. I was at a Hill.songs worship conference in Anaheim with friends from church all day, but I knew that today was 10dp3dt on our frozen cycle. I knew that last time with our fresh cycle I had a hard time figuring out how we wanted to find out if we were pregnant.
Should we wait for the beta?
Should we test before the beta?
Should we test after the beta blood draw but before the phone call with results?

So this month we decided to just poas early. So that was today. But all I had at home was the awful clear blue ea.sy test that says 'pregnant' or 'not pregnant'. Last time it had been so painful so I knew I needed to go to tar.get to pick up some cheap tests based on lines and having something to analyze.

But then, all day at the conference, I'm thinking, no, don't test. Yes, do test! No, don't test. I had all sorts of opportunities to observe every twinge in my uterus and every ache of my breasts while seated and I decided to test.
But I can't tell anyone there what I'm thinking about because what if it's negative and then there are more people you have to call and tell the bad news to.

So I stopped at Target on the way home, and only got pregnancy tests.
As soon as I got in the car to drive home I started crying.
Like weeping. Massive amounts of tears (I still have a headache from all the crying actually).

I prayed all the way home thinking that only God can breath life into these embryo's. That I have no control over this situation. And that I was scared. I was so scared because my hopes were high. I've never had so many symptoms. But I've never been on estrace and progresterone at the same time either, and I know there are a lot of symptoms that come with those hormones.

So I cried for about 8 minutes from target to my house.
I go inside and ask my husband what he thinks. Should we test? Should we wait?
We test.
Typically I have just tested on my own in the bathroom, but today I decided to go the cup method of catchin urine so dh actually was the one who administered the pg test. And really, I just was a wreck. Thinking things like it's been 3 years of pee sticks. I've never seen a positive. If a fresh cycle didn't work, why would a frozen work? So there were a lot of thoughts. High hopes and big fears.

We let the test sit on the counter and I just cried in his lap for the required 2 minutes.

He goes to look.

He is silent.

I can't take it anymore.

I jump up to see what he's seeing.

Turns out, he saw a positive pregnancy test.

That's right. Yours truly is knocked up.

Glory to God, Amen, Praise Jesus, Um, Heck yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll worry later. Today, I rejoice that for at least today, I'm pregnant.

The Large Speculum

Hurts.

Okay so today was the transfer. Showed up at 1 and they were behind, so we didn't even get back to the room until close to two. I think this time my lady business was much more aggitated before hand because I've had a rediculous amount of suppositories going on in there for the past two weeks. Or maybe it was because he used... THE LARGE SPECULUM!
Okay, let's just talk about it. This is TMI, so read at your own risk. I was a virgin when I got married. And previous to being 27, whenever I was up for a pap smear I would remind my primary care physician of this. She would use the peeds speculum (which makes me sad that there even IS a pediatric speculum, but that's another post for another day I guess).
So then I get married and we all know how 'el amor' works. But the Large Speculum? I haven't had any children! Things aren't THAT stretched out down there. What happened to medium? (I'm tempted to make a joke about how HUGE my dh is, but again, this post is already TMI. I warned you though.)
Okay, so in case you forgot, and excuse my ramblings, but the reason for the speculum is because today was our FET! And I must say, it hurt like a mo fo. Or perhaps a more ladylike thing to say is that it hurt more than I remember from our fresh cycle a few months ago. I really think most of my pain was from that stupid speculum. Have I ranted enough about it? Good, let's get to the interesting stuff.
They defrosted 3 embryos.
Before freezing there was a 5 cell, and 2 8 cells.
After defrost they turned into a 4 cell, a 5 cell and a 7 cell. The doc said that anything that comes out with at least half of the original cells is considered viable. So we went with all 3.
I'm not even going to talk about triplets yet. I'm going to concentrate on getting knocked up in general. Let's get that going.
So besides the pain that I didn't tell the doctor about (because really, I know I'm in pain, and as I lay there on the table I kept thinking that going through labor will be a lot worse so I just got over it), he said everything looked good. I laid down for 20 minutes in the recovery room and then we walked out.
So now I'm on bedrest for 3-5 days. I'm not going to be as strict as I was last time, mostly for my own sanity, but I am taking the first couple days pretty easy. DH and I are going to a wedding on Saturday and I plan on just sitting down the whole time. It should be pretty easy I think to avoid much activity.
So we're hoping and praying over here, and looking forward to good news in two weeks.
Let's get Knocked up in '09!

The Real Deal

So the issue was my estrogen level.
On monday it was 1112.
Friday it was 392.
So even though 392 is okay, it was a huge drop. I have a few speculations about why it was so low, but I had another blood draw today and was told that everything looks 'okay', so we're moving forward. She didn't leave the numbers on my voicemail, so I can't think about it too much, but the short story is, we're on.
But here's the thing, even for my fresh cycle I didn't have so much stuff going on in my lady business*. I just put five pills in there! 4 small estrace tablets and one large progesterone supplement. Crazy. Lots goin' on.
And Dh just gave me my first injection of the cycle. Back to the regement! Transfer on Wednesday!


*The term 'Lady Business' seems to have been coined by Jen at 'maybe if you just relax', but I think it's super appropriate for describing the general vaginal area, and it's pretty funny, so if you chuckle when you read it, give her the credit, not me.

Lots of Things

First, I saw Julie and Julia last night. Now, I am particularly hard to please, but I had a great time with this movie. It was opening night and the crowd was almost all women and men over 50. I saw with some friends and of course DH. Lots of big laughs (again, it could be because it was opening night, but I thought it was great!)

There was a scene though. A scene where I could've lost it. And it's a scene where even now I'm welling up just thinking about it. I loved that scene. I hated that scene. It was very short and it was a response to Julia Child's sister announcing she was pregnant. I'm curious about what you ladies think, but it was such a real, honest moment. I'm not giving anything away, but Nora Ephron (writer/director) handled it perfectly (at least that's how my DH and I usually handle such news).
I give the movie an "A". I don't rush out to see all of Meryl Streep's movies, but boy, she just was hilarious.

Second, I had another monitoring appointment yesterday. My lining is the same as Monday (8mm). Isn't that weird? It was two different ultrasound tech's, so I'm thinking maybe the Monday gal measured a bit high and that's why there's no change. I was told to expect not to come back until the transfer on Wednesday, but my call yesterday afternoon from the RE's office said that the doc would like another peek at my blood and Uterus tomorrow (Sunday). This blows for two reasons: One, is there something wrong? Two, DH and I were going to go to Catalina on Sunday and Monday, but now we can't because the appointment is right in the middle of the trip and we're going with other people so we're not able to dictate when we leave.
Yuck.

I'll try to post again after I hear about how tomorrow looks. Am I going to be ready for transfer earlier? Did they find something shady they need to look at?
Boy, give a girl and opportunity to worry and she'll take it! I'm going to just enjoy my last few days of being able to move heavy things and go on roller coasters without worrying that I just broke my embryo.
Here's to knocked up in '09! bring it!