Quick, AWESOME Update!

I'll write up the full deal later on, but for now:

1 beautiful little embryo measuring 7 weeks 2 days (I'm 7 weeks today)
1 beautiful little heart beat fluttering at 152 beats per minute

Less than 24 hours before the moment of truth

I officially have less than 24 hours before I find out if my baby is alive, real, growing, tangible beyond waves of car sickness like nausea.

I’m scared shitless.

I’ve been nervous before now, constantly nervous, but not scared shitless like I am today.

29 days ago our little bubbles got their first picture taken, I fell immediately in love with both of them, and their 4 frozen siblings.  Now, if our little bubbles are healthy, they don’t look like bubbles anymore, they look like tiny humans. 

In an effort to distract myself and entertain you all I will tell you about a crazy dream I had while I was PUPO….

The dream started out very real (my dreams do this on purpose to trick me.) 

I was me, pregnant after our baby-cation in Vegas, excited, etc.  For some reason in this dream you didn’t find out anything about your pregnancy until you actually delivered the baby/s.

I remember the 9 month pregnancy seeming very fast and then magically I was out of labor and delivery and going to meet my baby for the first time.  In my dream it was not weird to not remember labor or what the sex of my baby was. 

I walked into a waiting room and a strange man was waiting there with two baby carriers.  Apparently I’d had twins, with a dude I’d never met, also not at all strange during the dream.

When I looked at my two baby boys, they had heads shaped like the aliens from Roswell and 12 lb bodies.  They were super fat and had alien heads and I remember thinking they were so cute and that I wish I remembered birthing them.

Now we come full circle… don’t my described babies sound a lot like what a 7 week old embryo looks like?... a little creepy if you ask me.

The Chew Phone...

I re-read my latest post and I realize I sound a little ungrateful.  I want to apologize to all of you still out their fighting the battle.  I will try harder to be sensitive in the future, but I just want you to know that sometimes I forget that I’m not still in the trenches too. 

I know stressing is inevitable but I’m going back to the attitude I had while PUPO:  This may be it, my only time to be blissfully pregnant, so I’m going to enjoy it!

So, on that note, here are my current symptoms, all of which make me smile and cringe simultaneously! 

• Nausea that is very affected by smells.  For example, I’m in the field right now for work (middle-of-no-where Alaska, about a 2 hour flight from civilization) and my cell phone doesn’t work so I have to use the land line in the room I’m staying, apparently the guy who lives there chews tobacco because the phone smells so strongly I gag as soon as it  comes anywhere near my face!  I have alcohol swabbed the phone and everything but it is still too stinky to use.  I have barely talked to Blue in 4 days because I can’t bring myself to use the chew phone…
• Peeing all the time.  I’m probably peeing twice as often as normal.
• Crampy but different than AF cramps (thank GOD!) more like it feels to have a full bladder?...
• Strange cravings.  Today for a snack I had a cup of chili, I really wanted fresh onions on it so I went to the salad bar to get them and noticed potato salad, it looked so good I plopped a scoop into my chili.  It was delicious.

The Three Week Wait...

Dr. Sher only scheduled ultrasounds for 7 weeks and 10 weeks.  Logically I know this makes sense since you can’t see a heart beat until between 6 and 7 weeks anyway, so why get attached so early if it isn’t going to work?  

Problem is, I’m already attached. 

And now I sit and wait.  And wait some more.

I’ve heard nothing since the final, fabulous, beta.

I alternate between embracing this pregnancy fully: blabbing to everyone, knitting baby booties and sweaters, talking to the bubbles, etc. and being scared shitless: go.og.ling success rates after doubling betas, lack of symptom spotting (symptom spotting’s nasty 2^nd cousin), etc.

I’m not sure what to do with myself.  Going through IVF has a nice level of instant gratification, apparently I’ve gotten too used to it and I suck at waiting now.  Even the daily shots aren’t so bad because it means you’re doing something every day.  I guess I shouldn’t complain since I’m still taking the Bangladeshi hooker meds and a progesterone shot in the butt daily, but I just want to know if I’m actually pregnant or not.

Will my whole pregnancy be this way?  Will I stress between every ultrasound?  Is this just another shit sandwich that IF has served me?  I thought I beat that bitch, but now it seems if I’m lucky enough to still be pregnant that I’ll be worried the whole time and won’t enjoy it.

Survivor's Guilt

I am an infertile.  I am pregnant.  I was an infertile first and will always be an infertile.

Being a pregnant infertile (PIF) is hard because you really don’t fit in except with other PIFs. 

I can think of very few things I have in common with the average pregnant fertile (PF) except, of course, the baby growing in my uterus.  

I have a lot in common with other IFs, but I know that hearing about my pregnancy might be hard for them, I know because I’ve been there and done that.  I’ve smiled genuine smiles and then cried genuine tears.

Being an IF and hearing that another IF has come out the other side is a very confusing experience.  You’re so happy for them.  You’re so sad for you.  You feel hopeful because they’ve succeeded.  You feel like the only one who hasn’t succeeded.

Being a PIF is equally as confusing.  You’re so happy for you.  You’re so sad for your friends.  You want to jump up and down with excitement.  You want to hide until the baby is born because you’ve heard too many stories of miscarriages.  You are finally pregnant.  You no longer fit in.  You make the IFs you love sad and the PFs just don’t get you.

I promised myself when I got here I would enjoy every minute.  I promised I wouldn’t let survivor’s guilt bring me down.  Sometimes I feel like I’m succeeding, sometimes I feel like I’m failing. 

Have I told you that I have the best doctor ever?

My second beta today was 160, which gives me a doubling time of 31 hours!



Doubling darkness pee-sticks from 6dp5dt, 8dp5dt and 10dp5dt

Remember, way back when, I talked about how Dr. Sher believed that I had activated natural killer cells?  Since we didn’t have time to do the full blood work before I needed an intralipids infusion, we just went ahead with the infusion and drew the blood while I was in Vegas. 

I got my results back today and I do have activated natural killer cells.  Read up on Dr. Sher's blog for the full description but what I understand this to mean is that I have an autoimmune response to implantation where my body would fight the embryo trying to implant and thus even if I did transfer a perfect embryo my body would not allow it to implant.

Can I reiterate how smart my doctor is and how glad I am that he let me go through with the intralipid treatment!  If I hadn’t this little bubble wouldn’t be growing in me now!!

For any of you girls out there with endo, I really encourage you to look into activated NK cells, talk to your doctor.  According to Dr. Sher 30% or more of women with endo have this problem, and if you have a family history of thyroid conditions the risk is even higher.

For now I am just relishing in the fact that I listened to my gut, I went to the best doctor I could find and it was the right decision! 

I just realized I never filled you guys in on the V-supps either (well besides complaining about how awful they were).  My last, cancelled cycle of IVF after 5 days of stims my uterine lining was only 6mm thick.  Dr. Sher will not transfer an embryo unless the uterine lining is at least 9 mm thick.  This time, after 7 days of stims and vi.ag.ra suppositories, my uterine lining was 11 mm!  Just for reference, even with the v-supps, it didn’t even reach triple stripe, which means it’s a damn good think I took those awful v-supps or we might not have been able to transfer my two beautiful little bubbles!

Knitting Doesn't Knock You Up...

I didn’t realize until recently that I had totally given up on the idea of ever getting pregnant (I know that sounds crazy since I just finished an IVF cycle…)  Even though I was shooting myself up daily and flying all the way to Vegas to attempt the impossible I didn’t have a lot of hope.  Even the little hope I had never manifested in an imagined image of myself with a pregnant belly.

I wish I could better explain this phenomenon but I can’t put words to it because it doesn’t make sense to me, I was desperately trying to get pregnant yet I didn’t believe it would ever happen.

So I decided the best way to deal with this was to enjoy being pregnant while I was PUPO (the 8 day wait).  I thought of myself as pregnant, I shopped for baby clothes.  I even learned to knit and made a pair of baby booties.  I enjoyed every minute of my pregnant week, just incase I never had another one.

Isn't it cute!  The second booty has alot less mistakes but the first one is cuter because of its mistakes!

The flight home from my baby-cation was the end to my “pregnant week”.  I knew when I got home I would pee on a stick and my dreams would be shattered.  I boarded the plane with my knitting though, determined to let my week of bliss last one more flight.

I sat down and started to knit and the lady next door to me politely asked who would be receiving these precious booties?  Unlike my response for the past week, “I’m pregnant!”, I forced myself back to reality and told her that my husband and I were hoping to have a baby soon.  She smiled and recognized the conversation stopper. 

Unfortunately the old man next to her didn’t.  He leaned around her and yelled in his old man volume, “Well girl, I think you need to have a talk with your momma because knitting booties doesn’t make babies!”  He then laughed hysterically at his joke.

Now that I’m actually pregnant I think of it and laugh, but what if my dreams had been crushed?  How would I feel every time I saw those booties?  I’d probably picture myself clawing out the old man’s eyes. 

I will never forget how hard it was to get to this place, but I am determined to enjoy it while I’m here, how ever long it lasts.

PREGNANT!

For the first time ever I peed on a digital test and it said Pregnant!

I loathe digital tests.  It’s so much easier to see one line than it is to see the words not pregnant, it’s like they’re laughing in your face.  I was so scared of seeing those words that I took 5 non-digital tests over 3 days before I finally broke down and peed on one!

I learned an important lesson about the trigger shot too, no matter how fancy of a calculator you have you’ll wish you tested it out.  Especially if you are a pee-stick hoarder like me.  I hate to pee on them since they never have a second line but I love to buy them and I’m superstitious about when I buy them.  I took off for Vegas with 11 sticks sitting at home…

I woke up Sunday morning, my first day back from my “baby-cation” and peed on a stick.  I decided I would use a FRER (since I had 6 of them…).  There was a definite second line but then I looked up my trigger calculator and I could have still had 27 ius of trigger left floating around! 

So then I freaked out about it.

Since then I have peed on one FRER and one Answer test each day, the FRER in the morning and the Answer in the PM, and today, beta day I got the balls up to pee on the digi.  My beta this morning was 62, which according to betabase is right on track for a singleton pregnancy.  I have to admit I’m a little bummed that it wasn’t blazing twinkie numbers but since we have 4 snow babies waiting I refuse to freak out.

For your viewing pleasure, here is my gallery of pee sticks.

For now we are cautiously excited!  We aren’t telling any family until we have our 2^nd beta numbers back so I’ll be obsessing and stalking any numbers anyone has out there about 13 DPO betas!  Also sorry to all of you for being an absent commenter lately, I have a lot of blogs to catch up on now that I’m back home!