Saturday, February 9, 2008

5dp5dt



Yeah, that's right folks, it says "Pregnant".

After saying "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god" one hundred and fifteen times, I finally let it sink in.

As part of my morning routine, I sipped my coffee and peed on a stick. I set the stick next to my bed on my night stand and called my mom to help her with some online banking stuff. A couple minutes into the conversation, I glance over at the stick and instead of seeing snow white, I see a small glimmer of a second line.

"Uh, mom. Can you hold on a second?"

I took the stick and went into the bathroom turning on all the lights. Sure enough, a very, very faint second line.

No way, I thought. Somehow, I was able to pee again (by the grace of god, don't ask me how) and this time I used one of those expensive digital tests. I had peed on one of the digital tests 3 days ago to see if my HCG trigger shot was out of my system, and it flashed a big "Not Pregnant" across the screen.

Well, this time? I counted the hour glass blinking, 20 times and a fat "Pregnant" appeared on the screen.

No effin way, I thought!

Running down to show M, he was surprised and yet still cautious and we did our omgs and hugged each other. I still can't believe it yet, just no way.

Since I'm only 5dp5dt, I'm gonna contain my excitement for now. If I wake up tomorrow, and I have another line, I'm not gonna contain my excitement.

Ultimately, my beta test on Thursday will tell me if the pregnancy is viable, so Thursday will be the celebration day if it pans out.

But for now, I'll bask in the glow of newness and keep my fingers crossed.

*screeeeammmm!*

Friday, February 8, 2008

4dp5dt

Not much to report 'round these parts so I'll make it quick.

I caved and took an HPT yesterday and today, both negative. Which, of course is expected, but I am of a weak will and those little pee sticks called my name. "Come to us, pee on us" they said. I obliged. Cause that's the kinda girl I am.

Today I peed on one and jumped into the shower. I knew when I stepped out and looked at it that it would be snow white. When my expectations were met and indeed it was snow white without any hope of a line, I said 'damn' silently to myself and dropped it into the trash. I pushed it deep into the trash, as though somehow it would jinx future tests or something. I also didn't want to see it staring back at me the next time I threw something away.

I asked for this, so I can't get too upset too early. It's about 3 days too early to really get solid results, but I balance not knowing and knowing, and knowing always wins. I suppose if I were a veteran at this if it would be different. I read something really funny (or not so funny really) on an IVF Veteran forum (those who have gone through IVF 4+ times) and a woman said:

"You know you're an IVF veteran when you get your negative beta results while at the liquor store."

Made me chuckle anyway. I'm not holding my belly any longer, and I'm feeling a little more cautious about the whole she-bang. I know a lot of women are of the approach "I'm just gonna say I'm pregnant til proven wrong", well now I'm in the mindset of "I don't know if this is going to work, so I need to prepare for it not to" mindset. I suppose the first days were the honeymoon phase where it's just neat to think that you have a creature in your belly. And the newness of all of that. But now? Now, I'm ready to carry on in life and go back to work, and find some distractions to get my mind of this little guy or girl.

Someone from school pinged me on IM today and said he had a dream about me, that I came to class with a "big ole belly". I love it when people have dreams like that. I believe deeply in the supernatural and flowing energy between people and these things only give me more hope. Even if it's not this cycle, it will be one cycle.

I've got to think of this as a process. This is not a yes or no moment for us. Each cycle is approximately $12,000 and we are blessed to have insurance pay for this first cycle, it will be out of pocket if we do a second cycle, but I'm blessed we will be able to do that as well. Can you tell I'm preparing myself for a failure? I'm protecting my heart, you know.

On the symptoms front, the past two days I have experienced some lethargy. Yawning at the strangest moments, feeling like I need little cat naps here and there, feeling a little spacy. Yesterday I felt some strong cramping and stabbing pains in my uterus, but today not so much. Maybe he implanted yesterday? If so, the HCG hormone would start producing in a couple days.

If I don't get a positive line by Monday, well, then, I think we should hold off on the cause for celebration. I think I'll wait until I get home from work because if it's negative, I'll be a sad girl throughout the day, and my work requires me to be "on" for at least 5-8 hours. I have several meetings already booked for Monday and have been off for two weeks now. I'll definitely wait until I get home.

I am becoming enlightened in this process. I love speaking to other women who are going through the same thing, I love even more to help them, inform them, encourage them, challenge their way of thinking. I love women, period. Such wonderful creatures we are....

My boobs aren't sore, the nausea has tapered down a bit (except last night's spaghetti grew fangs and dared me to eat it), I didn't take the dare and instead nibbled on bread. I'm down to 111 pounds from 117 but I think 6 of those pounds were my eggs. That's a joke.

I "met" this woman Paty online who is going through an IVF cycle, she also has a blog and on that blog is this amazing song that I listen to probably 5 times a day. It really touches me and is often just what I need to release my tears and frustration of the day. It's called "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush and I'll list the lyrics below. It just makes sense. (Thanks, Paty!)

This Woman's Work

Pray God you can cope.
I stand outside this woman's work,
This woman's world.
Ooh, it's hard on the man,
Now his part is over.
Now starts the craft of the father.

I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.
I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking

Of all the things I should've said,
That I never said.
All the things we should've done,
That we never did.
All the things I should've given,
But I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go,
Make it go away.

Give me these moments back.
Give them back to me.
Give me that little kiss.
Give me your hand.

I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.
I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking

Of all the things we should've said,
That were never said.
All the things we should've done,
That we never did.
All the things that you needed from me.
All the things that you wanted for me.
All the things that I should've given,
But I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go away.
Just make it go away now.



So much for quick. :-) That's it for tonight.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

3dp5dt

Today I woke up feeling strangely normal. I don't know why but this makes me pessimistic. Yesterday, I felt several uterine cramps, was generally uncomfortable but felt 'pregnant'. Today, not so much. :-(

I've been researching the hell out of HCG levels in one's first beta test (beta test is the blood test at the docs) and I found an incredible site that gathers data from other women in the same position.

85% of normal pregnancies will have the HCG level double every 72 hours. The unfortunate thing is depending on which site you go to, you will get different information as far as what your HCG levels "should be".

"Ovulation" is considered the same day as egg retrieval, thus I would be "15 days past ovulation" when I take my beta test on Thursday.

Here are a couple of charts for singleton pregnancies: (click for a bigger picture)

HCG levels 2

HCG Levels

Basically, it looks like I should be aiming for an HCG level of 100-300. This comes with the caveat that this is the standard, not the exception. There have been women who have had low beta numbers and went on to carry successful pregnancies, however oftentimes low beta numbers mean the pregnancy is about to fail.

Today is a non-emotional day. I feel bad for being a Negative Nancy, but I suppose not all days can be sugar-coated. I think I'm starting to protect myself and prepare for a failure.

I'm looking forward to the distraction of taking my final exam today for school. I'm looking forward to thinking of something other than the little creature in my belly.

And damn if I'm not looking forward to some Mexican food tonight!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

2dp5dt

Two days past a five day transfer. 2dp5dt - this is the type of lingo IVFers use when describing what stage of the 2ww they are in. 2ww - stands for "two week wait" which really isn't two weeks from the transfer, but rather two weeks from the egg retrieval.

The day coming home from the transfer was surreal. Where I never have before, I was now conscious of anything I was ingesting from pain medication like aleve to food. (Apparently, Tylenol is the only safe thing to take, pregnancy included.)

That day I also stopped the PIO injections and moved on to a progesterone vaginal suppository 3 times a day. Yeah, you heard me three times a day. Apparently, i will continue those suppositories until my 10th week of pregnancy and stop them if our little embryo doesn't "stick".

The problem with supplementing progesterone is it gives you all the same symptoms that you would have if you were pregnant. For example, I have been nauseous as hell since I came home from the transfer. Food smells differently to me, food tastes differently right now, and I have big aversions to food like Krispy Kreme donuts. My wonderful husband brought home KK donuts the day of transfer and I took one bite and had to hold in my vomit.

Ugh. Then last night we went to our favorite pizza place and the ceaser salad tasted way too potent and my slice of pizza seemed to stare at with me a death glare and take me on a roller coaster fifty times. needless to say, I passed the slice to M. (except when we walked out of the pizza place I wanted Mexican food! I wanted chips and cheese, mmmmmm!)

The other kick in the ass (and I promise I'll get to the less negative things in a moment) is from day of transfer until this morning (3 days) I've woken up in the middle of the night with the WORST headache. The kind of headache that makes you crawl to the shower and sit under the hot water for a half an hour. I don't know if I have a crick in my neck, if it's the meds or what, but M promised he'd work on my neck and shoulders tonight to see if I can prevent another one tonight.

Ok, negative shit over. Now it's time to talk about my emotions.

I know it's silly to get my hopes up right now, I know there is a 50% chance our little guy will pass on - but I can't help feeling such a bond with this little creature. I touch my belly and I swear I feel this closeness, even if it is psychological, I feel a closeness and a comfort I cannot describe.

Yesterday I was doing the dishes and staring to the ocean (we live close to the water) and the wind was blowing just right, the birds were flying in the sky, I had Deep Forest's 'Sweet Lullaby' playing on my I-pod - I held my belly, closed my eyes and slowly swayed to the music. I was so happy. So thrilled to be here, so filled with hope.

I'm imagining our son our daughter going with us to the pizza place, or taking him to the zoo, I'm imagining family dinners at the table and breastfeeding my wonderful baby. I'm imagining the amazing grace and pain of childbirth and the miracle that all of this could end up as.

All of this is so overwhelming, that just writing it makes me shed tears. I want this so badly, probably more than anything else in my entire life, and the fact that it is completely out of my control is nervewracking. We only have hope, hope, hope.

From what I can glean, M is a little freaked out. While I'm holding my belly and talking to my 7 day old embryo, M doesn't want to do the same. He is afraid of getting attached to it, and then losing it. I know he is just as excited and happy as I am, but he doesn't want to 'humanize' the embryo yet because he's scared it will go away. I am too, and perhaps I will regret forming a bond so quickly, but I can't help it. It IS a human, it IS our baby, it IS a piece of us. And even if it does pass on, it was still with us for a brief period of time.

I've peed on enough pregnancy tests to now know the HCG hormone is out of my system so any detection of HCG from this point on will be coming from the baby, and not a previous injection. (For you IVFers out there, it left my system on Day 9.)

There is a big debate with IVF women, to pee or not to pee on a stick before your official doctor's pregnancy test. But come on. I'm a type A woman, there is no way I couldn't pee on a stick. That sounds like torture frankly, and plus I think it's important that M and I already know the results before we take the blood test.

And my official pregnancy test date? Valentine’s Day. That's right folks. You heard me right. Valentine's Day. So it's either going to be a very happy one, or a very sad one. We already made reservations for a nice steakhouse no matter the results, and I've taken the day off of work so I wouldn't have to deal with work people after finding out the results, good or bad.

So, on 2-14, I have an appointment at 8:30am and they said they would call me within 4 hours to tell me the results. When an embryo implants itself into a woman's womb, it begins emitting a hormone called HCG. Grocery store pregnancy tests also test for the same thing in a woman's urine, HCG but the amount of HCG usually has to exceed 25 or so for those tests to catch it. The blood test at the doctor's will determine exactly what my HCG levels are. The kicker here is, the embryo could have stuck, produced HCG and then died. The blood test will tell me if my HCG levels are "right on track" or not. If they are, I come in a few days later for another blood test and the levels should be doubling by then. If the levels have doubled appropriately, then I don't go back to the doctor until 7 weeks of pregnancy for my first ultrasound to see the heart beating.

If we make it that far, then that will be the last engagement with the fertility clinic and then it's off to find a midwife for the rest of the pregnancy. But I won't get too ahead of myself, even writing that feels far fetched and unrealistic. Like I don't want to jinx it or something.

As far as a HPT (HPT - home pregnancy test) - I think I can safely test about 7dp5dt. I've seen some women get positives as early as 5dp5dt but I think to be on the safe side, I should wait until at least Monday before testing. I don't know if I will be able to hold out this long, so we will see.

Otherwise I've been eating pineapple as instructed by my acupuncturist (it contains an enzyme bromelain that supposedly assists in implantation) and have generally been off my feet and avoiding stress as much as possible. I go back to work next Monday (working from home the next 3 days) and I'm sorta looking forward to that, to have human engagement again. I'm not looking forward to the questions of "Well, did it work?" and such, but I've decided my answer will be "Just don't know yet".

*deep breath*

M has been so good to me throughout this entire cycle, it's been such a blessing to have him by my side through all of this. So today is another day, and I just may perhaps dance again when I do the dishes in a couple hours.

Because although it may be in vain, maybe one day I can tell our son or daughter how I held them by putting my hand on my belly, looking to the water and just hoped. Hoped. Hoped. Hope. Hoping. Hope.

Monday, February 4, 2008

CD 19 - ET Over!

Wow.

We're here. It's over.

Our little baby blast made it's way to momma's home at 1:38pm today. It was a perfect blast, Grade AA, and they were able to freeze another one. They said there is one more growing that might also make it to freezing which would be awesome, totally awesome.

I did the acupuncture treatment prior to the transfer and that was relaxing. I kept having to pee throughout the entire experience which again, was excruciating but I dealt with it ok.

After the acunpuncture, M came into the room with me and dressed in dark blue scrubs. He looked so handsome and doctor like! I put on my own booties and headcovering and Dr. O came peeked his head into the room and said "It's good, it all looks good!" He said he'd be right back but because we hadn't heard about our embryos since Day 3, he wanted to let us know as soon as possible.

A couple minutes later Dr. O and Dr. W came in and showed us the most beautiful picture of our double A blastocyst. I started crying, it was beautiful. In it's cell gooey goodness, it was there - a piece of M, a piece of me, our child was there in front of me - "Your first baby picture!" said the docs.

He explained that we definitely made the right decision to go to a day 5 and congratulated us on the decision. "You made a really good call, folks. Great job."

Ahhhh, how rewarding. All the obsessive research pays off. After signing papers that said we did indeed want to transfer the little one over, they took me to the operating room.

M video taped the whole thing! I don't know if they realized he was recording it all, but he did, and I will post it when we get it up and running. Again, I was in incredible pain with my overly full bladder. It was all I could to refrain from peeing all over myself so instead I tried to focus on one screw in the ceiling.

The embryologist came out and said she was going to turn on the camera so we could see our little embie on the big screen. There he/she was! In all it's glory, there was our little baby sitting there looking at us with a big smile. (Ok, so it wasn't really smiling but I can think so!)

In goes the catheter, and in went our little embryo. The embryologist takes the catheter back to the lab to make sure that it did indeed transfer and wasn't still in the tube, and it was definitely gone from the petri dish.

And then that was it! The nurse brought me a bed pan and I peed for what seemed like 10 minutes. They wheeled me into the recovery room where I had another acupuncture appointment (and again they had to bring me a bedpan in the middle of all this, I'm telling you I was peeing constantly.)

After the acupuncture appointment, they all said goodbye and sent us on our way! We ate a small lunch and now I'm propped up in bed.

I really, really hope this works. It was a very long journey getting here, but ultimately it's brought my husband and I even closer than we already were. I don't know what I would do without him.

And at last, a picture of our little guy or girl. Isn't he cuttttte?

CD 19 - Here we go! Transfer Day

30 minutes until we leave. Oh my god!

I'm so excited. What a plethora of emotions today.

I went and bought new comfy pants, comfy shirt, comfy socks and a comfy pull over sweater just so I could be SUPER comfy today.

The only Suck I have to look forward to is what I've been doing since 7am this morning and that's drinking tons of water. Because you have to have a full FULL FULL bladder for transfer, you have to continue to drink water.

Well last time I did this (for my mock transfer) I thought I was going to die. I was in an extreme amount of pain and discomfort, could barely focus on anything, and wanted NOTHING more than to pee.

Not all fertility clinics have this requriement, but having a full bladder during transfer makes it easier for the docs to see where the uterus is, and where to drop our little guy into place.

I can safely say driving home by myself having to pee more than I've ever had to pee, was one of the worst experiences of my life. I was sick, sweating, cramping, I couldn't even pull over to go a fast food restaurant, I drove like 70-80 to get home and then left the car door open and ran to the house as fast I could.

I can also safely say that is the first time that peeing in my pants in the car was not a bad idea. I keep drinking water, then taking short little tinkle breaks of about five seconds. Enough not to have the horrible pressure, but still know it's filling up.

Alright, time to dress in my new comfy clothes.

We're leaving two people, and coming back three! Ok, two and .005. :D