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    Maybe a(nother) baby

    Sep 4, 10:30am

    S and I want another baby. I never thought I’d get to say that out loud, yet here we are.

    I feel guilty for saying so. Guilty because we already have one amazing kid: something other families want so badly. We were that family once. To families dealing with secondary infertility, I remember thinking “You already have a child. Be thankful, and at peace if it doesn’t happen again.” And now I’m in those shoes. I am thankful. I will be at peace (I think) if it doesn’t work out, but at the same time, I feel guilty. Guilty for perhaps wanting too much… being greedy.

    Yet here we are. I called our clinic this morning. I wanted an intro to the process we would have to undergo, so a nurse will call me back. I’m anxious. My mind is racing. I’m trembling. Trembling because this is now becoming more real. Trembling because maybe, just maybe, it would work. Trembling because it might not. I didn’t expect to feel this way. We’ve been talking about this for awhile. I’ve been thinking about it since the day G was born. Yet, I never expected to feel. To feel… this.

    We have 3 embryos left. Hopefully one of those will be our baby. If not, we’re prepared to do another fresh round of IVF. If that doesn’t work, we’ll use any frosties that might come out of that cycle. If we go through all of those and still don’t manage to get pregnant, we’ll stop there. I’m at peace with that decision.

    So now we wait for the first call.

    Sep 4, 4:00pm

    The call came. It was short, but it was enough.

    We talked about the process. When we’re ready, I’ll go in for a baseline ultrasound on CD1. A week later I’ll go in for a second. I’ll be told when to trigger, and then the transfer will be 5 days later. At minimum I’ll need a trigger injection, the progesterone and antibiotics during the cycle. That is if my body cooperates and I get a period. If it doesn’t, I’ll need to be medicated. I was pretty regular prior to G, and I see no reason why I wouldn’t be now.

    We discussed the process of thawing. S and I are both pretty determined to only implant ONE at a time. I needed to know if thawing one embryo at a time, meant that if it didn’t survive the process we’d have to wait a whole cycle to thaw the next. We don’t. I also wanted to know if we’d have to thaw multiple at a time. This will depend on how they’re frozen. There are 2 in one straw, and the last in another. I remember hearing the embryologist tell me that 2 made it to freeze quality quickly, and the last did as well, but a day later. That would explain the separation. Right now I’m thankful for it. Depending on which is the strongest candidate they’ll thaw that straw. I don’t know the success rates of re-freezing if it comes to that. I guess that’s something to ask next.

    The nurse asked about my periods. I was almost embarrassed to tell her I didn’t know because I had an IUD. I wonder how many of their patients come in with that one? “We can’t get pregnant on our own, but didn’t want to risk it, so yeah…” I asked when I should schedule an appointment with the OB to have it removed. She didn’t know, so she’s having this be a topic of discussion in our follow-up call w/ Dr. B.

    She asked about G (he’s in my file as the clinic needs to follow up on live births). She asked if I was still nursing. As I told her that we’re in the process of weaning, she informed me that we’d cycle a month after I was done weaning. This certainly puts an interesting twist to the nursing plan, and possibly in our time line. I don’t know if it’s a medication in the milk precaution, or them being worried about supply. I doubt it’s the latter.

    I find it mildly interesting that it was almost 2 years ago that we had our first RE appointment. It was almost exactly 2 years ago that I called to schedule that appointment. It wasn’t intentional for it to work out this way, just our timing I guess.

    So here we are. The first step of many. I now wait for the next call.

    Sep 9, 11:00am

    Well, and here we are. We got a call today from the clinic to wrap up the previous discussion. S, the nurse who did our injection training was on the other line. I always liked her! She was so excited for us when we “graduated” from the office that she gave me a hug. She remembered us too which is remarkably sweet. She opened the call asking about G. I promised her that when we go in next time I’d bring her pictures.

    Speaking of that, I loosely have an appointment in November. I say loosely because I’m waiting on my next period. Since the IUD (and perhaps BF in small part) I don’t really have periods. I spot once and that’s about it. So now we’re waiting for the next time that will happen. I seem to be getting the AF sprinkle every 2 months or so, and since it happened last week, I figure in about two months time (or November) I’ll be on the look-out. We’ll then schedule an appointment between cycle day 6 and cycle day 11. I’ll then get another saline hysterosonogram. I’m not thrilled over this prospect, but they need to ensure that I haven’t had any uterine scarring.

    In terms of the IUD, the REs office will remove it at the same time as the hysterosonogram. Although we did agree that if by the end of November I don’t get a period on my own, I’ll contact my OB and have her remove it. Then wait for AF to visit.

    I will need to fully wean G. As lactation keeps Prolactin levels high, Prolactin can suppress ovulation. To have a “natural” FET the RE needs to be able to predict ovulation in order to time the transfer. So, I’ll keep nursing mornings and evenings until the IUD is removed. After that all the milk in the freezer will replace me until it’s done. Thus far I have about a month’s worth of milk and the stash is growing daily.

    If I am able to ovulate on my own, we’ll proceed with a “natural” FET. Natural for Stanford’s intents and purposes means that they won’t medicate me to grow follicles. I will be medicated to induce ovulation, via the trigger shot, and then to progesterone. If I can’t ovulate, they will most likely put me either on an oral or injectible med for the first part as well. So in effect, it could be as much as the IVF cycle, without the retrieval process.

    So that’s it. I’m feeling pretty calm about things at this point. Perhaps because there’s a plan. Perhaps because November feels so far away. Only time will tell.

    Oct 2, Am I crazy?!?!

    Well, calm only lasted so long. The more planning that went into this process the more “real” our next child was becoming to me, and honestly it scared me. I started thinking about being pregnant while G was figuring out how to walk; what we would have to do to his room; how I would be away from him during my stay in the hospital giving birth. Would it all be fair to him? Then I started thinking about the logistics of two kids: the cost of daycare, managing two schedules, disrupting the normalcy we have just come to expect… and it all scared me. I’ve come to like our routine. It’s taken us a year to get here, and turning all of our lives upside down to accommodate a fourth person sounded exhausting. Also we have a 3 bedroom home. While perfect for 2 kids, where would our family stay when they come visit? I like having the extra room for them to stay in, and while room-sharing for kids is a fine option, I don’t see how it will work with an infant who wakes up every 2 hours and a toddler.

    Then there was the “irrational” fear: that of love. Please don’t laugh at me, when I say this, but I was genuinely concerned about not being able to “generate” enough love to share between my two children.
    I have never loved anyone the way I do G!
    I love my parents and I love my sister. I love my husband. Each of these loves if different: familial love vs. romantic love. I’ve never had to expand my familial love (except for when my sister was born, but I was too young to acknowledge love at that time), and my romantic love has always transferred. I’ve never been IN love with more than 1 person, at a time, romantically before. All I’m getting at is that I’ve never had to “share” love, or had to “make more room” for love. So if I had another child, how would that work? I love G SO much, that I couldn’t possibly imagine growing my heart to make room for more of how I feel about him. It was so inconceivable to me, that the only way it would make sense was if I grew to love G less, so that I would have room in my heart for his brother or sister. And this made me sad: it was so unfair to G, and so selfish of me. Like I said — it was irrational.

    But now I’m feeling good. I had a really good talk with one of my friends and she helped me put some things into perspective. I’ve come to realize that much like never being fully ready for your first child, you can’t really be fully ready for your second. We’ve done well with G so far, and we figured things out. We’ll figure things out and make it work with a second little one as well. None of the things I was concerned about were related to age separation between G and his sibling, so they were obstacles we would face whether G was 2 at the time the baby would arrive, or 15!

    So back to full steam ahead. Let’s just hope the fear monster doesn’t creep up again.

    Oct 21, Well She came early!!!

    My period (or “my relatives” as S likes to call them) came early. Since I had the IUD inserted, and probably on account of still nursing, I seem to get my period about every 2-2.5 months. When I talked to the RE’s office I used this as calculation as to when to plan to get this whole show on the road. The plan was November. Well, it’s end of October, and with her early arrival it kind of throws my careful planning out-of-whack. The UID removal is tied to nursing, and supply, and I’m not ready to fully stop-stop yet. Especially with being in the middle of flu season, I’d like to keep going as long as I can with our morning/evening nursing routine.

    So I decided to not do anything this cycle. I’m still going to wait for a cycle in November. If it comes then I’ll schedule the HSG and have my IUD removed by Stanford as planned (plan A). If not, then I’ll contact Dr. M and have her remove it early Dec, then wait out the next cycle (plan B). Today’s AF visit wasn’t the end of the world, but it makes Plan A just a lot less likely, so it’s looking like we’re looking more at Plan B.

    Nov 16, Plan A it is

    I was wrong. Although I got a period earlier than anticipated in October, I also got another just this past Saturday. A 25 day cycle is pretty unusual for me, but hey — someone out there has something in mind for me. I called Stanford and scheduled the sonohysterogram. It’s on Thursday. This Thursday! They’ll also remove the IUD too.

    S is staying home with me to go with me to the appointment. I love that he wants to be there and was already planning on it. Just a good reminder that we’re doing this together.

    We’ve also been joking around the IUD removal. As S put it, how many receptionists get the call at an infertility clinic where a patient asks for an IUD to be removed? We’re just waiting for someone to come up to us and say: “Excuse me, Ma’am, but I think we know why you haven’t been able to get pregnant!” Sigh… yeah…

    Anyway. Thursday.

    Nov 19, 11:00am

    Well, I am now IUD free and one sonohysterogram complete.

    Aside from the fact that my RE ran an hour late for the appointment, it went well. She took out the IUD first, but warned that the problem with combining both procedures on the same day could make the SHG see things that aren’t really there. For example, stirring up the uterine lining from the IUD passing through might leave artifacts behind, making it appear like I had a polyp. Honestly, I kind of wish they had brought this up before, because I had no quarrels going to my OB to remove the IUD, then waiting for the SHG. But as we were already there, we just went on ahead anyway.

    The IUD removal was pretty easy. I was expecting it to be as uncomfortable as getting it put in. Honestly, while waiting I was looking around for the numbing injection they had given me at insertion. I didn’t see it anywhere, so I was 1) panicking a tad; 2) bracing for a world of discomfort going med-free. Thankfully, neither was warranted.

    The SHG also went smoothly. The balloon inflation was not fun, but hey, it’s over. Stanford is a teaching hospital, so during the procedure Dr. B was there with an intern (and also a nurse). She was explaining each step of the way. Normally, I’m all for this, because I find the process incredibly interesting, but to be honest, this was one procedure I didn’t need to hear the blow by blow on. When you know something is going to hurt, you just want it over with. Not anticipate it with every sentence. However, I’m all for educating the up-and-coming docs, so it’s something I’m willing to deal with.

    Unfortunately, there was an artifact Dr. B wasn’t able to clear on the ultrasound. She doesn’t think it’s a polyp and suspects it was something the IUD stirred up. She suggested to just let it be, and we’ll keep an eye on it. If we see it again come monitoring for the transfer, we’ll make some decisions at that time.

    Now… speaking of transfer, while everything looks good and we’re ready to go, our travel schedules might conflict with the general timing. We’re not interested in doing the transfer in December, so we’ll need to wait for my January cycle. If all got according to schedule, that cycle should start around Jan 9. However, if I go early, we might need to wait it out ’till Feb to start. I’ll need monitoring starting a few days after my period, and as S and I will be in Australia in early Jan, it might not work out. We’ll see.

    The FET will be a natural cycle. I will only be taking Progesterone. While going in for regular ultrasounds (to monitor my lining and follicle formation), I will also be doing daily ovulation predictor tests starting around cycle day 11. When I ovulate I call it in. If I don’t, they’ll trigger me with Ovidrel. The transfer will happen a few days after that.

    I did ask them about my lining. Given that my lining the first time around was far from optimal, I asked what we could do. Taking Etrace is an option, but we’ll see how things are forming on their own. I’m really going to give pomegranate juice my all this time around. The anti-oxidents in pomegranates assists with uterine lining build-up. I’m also even considering acupuncture. If my lining sucks though, we’ll can the cycle and try again.

    Arg, I feel like there are so many “if X happens/doesn’t happen, we’ll wait for the next cycle”. I’m impatient — this is a known fact, but also the uncertainty and inability to control this all is also maddening.

    So here is where we wait some more. See you back in January!

    Dec. 18, So, am I pregnant or not?

    I am frustrated. It’s as simply as I can put it.

    My period is late by a week. I’m tired. I have no appetite. Brushing my teeth makes me gag. All of these things I’ve felt before… when I was pregnant with G. Honestly, the chances of this are so, so slim. While, yes, I have engaged in acts that could (in normal people) produce a child, the timing was not during a period of my cycle where fertilization could have possibly occurred. Also, my hopes for us being pregnant on our own are pretty low.

    Yet, here I am, a week past-due, questioning everything about my body. And I’m questioning it because for the second pregnancy test in a row (a few days apart mind you), I’ve seen a big fat minus sign.

    After the IUD was removed my flow increased for a few days, and I continued spotting for what felt like weeks. I read up online and this didn’t appear to be an unusual occurrence. Yet, I still expected AF to arrive around the 12th of this month, with ovulation towards the end of November. Perhaps the spotting somehow kept messing with my hormones and pushed everything back? If that is true, then it’s quite possible I ovulated right around the time S and I were making like bunnies. If that is true, then my AF isn’t late, yet, but there’s still a chance I could be pregnant.

    I finally gave up and I called my OB and asked her to send in an order for a blood draw. As always, the people at the office rock. I did get asked though if pregnancy would be… how did she put it??? Desirable? While unexpected, heck yeah, it’s desirable!!! I got my blood sucked after work. I won’t get the results until Monday. By then I hope to either have AF or a congratulatory call. If it’s negative? Well, then I just don’t know what to do.

    Oh and for the record? Seeing a big fat negative on a pee stick? Yeah, still stings!

    Dec. 19, Nope, not pregnant

    AF came this morning. Thanks for mocking me Mother Nature.

    Jan. 15, Here we go

    S and I had an appointment for my baseline ultrasound this morning. We are officially doing this. My cycle started yesterday, so here we go.

    We both needed to be present to sign some paperwork today. We legally needed to sign off that it was OK by both of us to do this procedure. I guess some partners have been surprised in the past by their significant other going on ahead with an FET without their knowledge. The second form was to permit the clinic to do assisted hatching on the embryo.

    We also had to make a choice how many & which embryo to transfer. As we really do not wish to risk a multiples pregnancy, we want to transfer one. We agreed that we would thaw out the single embie in one of the straws first and try with that one. I was a little concerned about this, since it was frozen a day later than the other two since it was lagging a bit behind. However, it turns out that it’s a better grade (6day blast, AA) than the other two embies (5day blasts, both BA). So as it turns out we’re starting off with our best bet. If it doesn’t survive the thaw, they will thaw out the other two and ask us what we want to do. We could try re-freezing, but there are no statistics on re-freezing rates, or for that matter re-thawing and doing and FET that way. This brings up a whole question on why they freeze multiple embryos together for me, but that’s a whole separate matter. Ultimately S and I are going into this thinking that this may be our only shot at an FET procedure, after which we’ll end up doing another fresh IVF cycle if that’s what we decide to do.

    I had two primary questions for Dr. B today. 1) Lining. 2) Shortening leuteal phase.

    My lining was 2.3 today. Nothing I can/should worry about at this stage, but when we were trying for G it was on the low side, and I didn’t want to have a repeat performance of me crying in my car on the way to work because my lining didn’t look favorable. She said that following pregnancy she’s seen patient’s lining “do the right thing”, and while my lining wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t horrible either… and well… gave us G. So we agreed to watch it, un-medicated for this cycle. If it didn’t look good, we’ll wait out the next cycle and medicate.

    The other thing I’ve noticed over my last 3 cycles is that my periods seem to come sooner than in the past. My cycles are now every 24-26 days, whereas before they were pretty much 28 on the dot. I don’t think my ovulation has changed (although since I haven’t been charting I have no way to prove this), which means my LH period is down 2-4 days.  However, Progesterone is what they would give me anyway, and it’s already part of the protocol, so no additional changes needed.

    So yep. Next ultrasound is on January 25th. I need to start peeing on a ovulation predictor kit stick every day starting next week. When I get close to ovulation, I trigger, and 7 days later we put an embie in my belly… and hope it sticks.

    So here we go!

    Jan. 23, Meds, more meds

    Meds arrived this morning. Box is a lot smaller than last time. Now I have a trigger shot chilling in my fridge and a few boxes of Endometrium waiting on me.

    Jan. 25th, Oh lining, where art thou?

    I had my first monitoring appointment this morning. I have one follicle on Rightie measuring at 14.5mm and about 4 or so under 10mm. Leftie also has a couple under 10mm.

    Lining’s, however, not looking great. SURPRISE!!! It’s CD12 and my lining is at 5.7mm. While low, Dr. B does feel that it has a bit more of a chance to grow and she’s seen lining respond. What is concerning her though is the lack of the triple striping.

    So I have another apt on Wed. If it’s not looking good, we cancel and try again later.

    I really didn’t do anything to help this along. I could have taken POM pills, and changed my diet, but I didn’t. Partly because I just wanted to see what my body would do naturally. Mostly because I forgot to. I guess I will be chowing down on some spinach salad and POM pills tonight and tomorrow. I don’t know what difference it will make in time for Wed, but I guess we’ll gee. Funny, I was thinking my lining was OK and I wanted to make it great, not that I wanted to go from marginal to passable.

    I suppose the irony to this, is that I’ve been feeling really pessimistic about this cycle. I don’t know why. Almost as if from day 1 of AF I just knew this wasn’t our time. With G I was just SO SURE that I would work. This time was just the complete opposite. I don’t know if it’s premonition, or just self-preservation. In a way the idea of this cycle being canceled makes me feel OK. It’s almost as I’m given another chance to start over, and feel optimistic. Or that I’m given a chance to fight for this. I will do the POM pills. I’ll even have a spinach salad with lunch today…

    Jan. 27, Well what do you know?

    Well what do you know? My body decided to kick it into gear. My lining today measured at 8.4mm — a very respectable 8.4mm. Best chances are between 8 and 13mm, so I’m fully in the range of normal (albeit on the low end). More importantly, I have a triple stripe, which Dr. B says contributes to higher pregnancy success rates.

    This means that our FET cycle is on. I’m feeling optimistic and hopeful. In a way I feel like Mon was a good kick in the rear to get excited about everything.

    My trigger shot will be tonight at 9pm. The transfer next Wed at 10:40am, and my pregnancy test on Feb 12th. I’d love a BFP for a birthday gift 🙂

    Onto more waiting.

    Feb. 3, I’m housing an embryo

    We had the FET today.

    It went well. Actually, I take that back — it could’ve been more perfect! I’m feeling optimistic and happy, which is a nice start contrast from this morning’s nervous, stressed and pessimistic beginning.

    I was really nervous that when we arrived we would find out that none of the embryos survived thaw. Or that the single embie didn’t and they had to move on to the second straw. That this would be our only chance to do this before having to do a full round of IVF again. Or stop trying.

    BUT… We got GREAT news!

    Our singleton embie survived the thaw. The clinic considers thaw successful if more than 50% of the cells survived. In this little guy 90% of the cells survived, so quality looks really good. Better still, no hatching was required. It had started hatching on it’s own.

    The procedure went smoothly overall. Yes, it’s still a bit strange to have someone muck around in my private bits, but I didn’t feel any pain or discomfort… other than the having to pee really, really bad part. For this procedure you need to arrive with a full bladder. I drink water quite frequently, thank you very much, so this is not a problem for me. What is a problem is being told that the procedure would be at 10:40 and needing to have a full bladder for that, and then have the doctor be delayed 20 minutes. Grrr! I was starting to do the pee pee dance in the waiting room. Luckily they told me I could go a little bit, and I did. I felt better, until the nurse put the ultrasound on my stomach and I swore I was going to bust out. I got excused to go to the bathroom a second time, and interestingly enough by the time the doc came in my bladder had gotten full again. I’ll tell you — peeing never feels as good as when you can go after not being allowed to awhile.

    The good thing is that this wait is only going to be one week. Well, Ok, a little more than 1 week. Next Friday. Spares me some insanity.

    Here’s hoping that this little guy will be G’s little brother or sister:

    Feb. 6, That’s not bubbles, buddy!

    G was playing in our bathroom today, and as I was holding him in my arms he pointed at my laid out “equipment” for my Progesterone meds. He then proceeded to shout out “Bubble! Bubble! Bubble”, while I was looking bewildered. Then it hit me! As my Endometrin is takes as a suppository (too much info for ya?), the applicator does kind of look like a bubble wand.

    Yeah, kid — really NOT a bubble maker!

    In other news, I’ve been feeling a bit queezy lately, and yesterday super tired to boot. I’ve been testy and really short tempered. I’d like to think pregnancy hormones, but I think all of the above are just side-effects of the progesterone meds. Damn side effects! While it IS possible that I could be pregnant already (hey, implantation happens between day 9-11 and I’m on day 11), I thought it would be unusual to feel things this early. I’m still optimistic for next Friday, but I’m also trying to be honest in thinking this is just the meds.

    Feb. 12, Didn’t take. BFN!

    In a way I knew it and I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s hard to describe what I’m feeling: I’m not angry, I’m not sad, yet I’m upset.

    I don’t think this is my fault. Not right now anyway. Maybe tomorrow I’ll blame myself. For not thinking positively enough. For not drinking the POM juice, or eating the pineapple. Perhaps of not wanting it enough.

    These past few days I’ve been having dreams about this cycle. In them all, I was not pregnant. It doesn’t make the news just now any better.

    The part that is cruel though, is that for the past week I’ve felt pregnant. I’ve been nauseous, and tired, gagging when I brush my teeth and super sensitive to smell. Moody to boot. I knew that it was probably the progesterone side effects, but I was hoping that maybe… just maybe… It should seriously be unacceptable for infertility medication to mimic pregnancy symptoms as it’s side-effects.

    I know S telling me was really difficult on him. At least I had the pleasure of dealing with my reactions in the privacy of my own home. We have some talking to do tonight to figure out what’s next.

    Feb. 13, Empty

    I feel empty. Numb. With unexpected moments of tears of loss.

    I know what we went through is no-where close to what parents that suffer through a miscarriage feel, but sometimes, when I’m emotional I feel as if we had. I truly felt pregnant for the past week. I had gotten so comfortable thinking that my discomfort was my body carrying a baby, and it was taken away from me.

    I still ask myself why this didn’t work. The embryo was great quality, it was 7 days along, my lining was in good range. Why didn’t it work?

    We will try again. I’m not sure if I’m ready for it to be on the next cycle, but we’ll see. I asked S if we can play it by ear. On CD1 if I feel “ready” and optimistic we will try. If not, we’ll wait until a CD1 when I do feel ready. I will call the clinic again on CD1 to see what the protocol is for us now, but if this is not the cycle for us, I’ll let them know too. I’m worried that if I am feeling ready, I also have to go to Dallas next week, and that might get in the way of any blood-work/scans on CD3. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now — I just gotta sit tight and wait it out.

    Feb. 24th, Peak?

    This is only the fourth day my fertility monitor has asked me to pee on a stick. It’s Cd11. And it’s a peak. Two days of lows, yesterday a high, and today? Peak. Say what? Normally I ovulate on CD14, so now I’m early.

    Good thing I had my appointment w/ Dr. B today. She confirmed that, indeed, I had an LH surge. My left ovary has the lead follicle at 18mm with 5 more less than 10mm. My right ovary has 8 follicles measuring less than 10mm. No cysts. She referred to my lining as “good” with a “nice tripple line”, measuring at 7.4mm. While under the preferred 8mm thickness for transfer, I still have some time to grow, but it’s the tripple line she’s most interested in.

    I had to trigger as soon as we got home from the appointment, which was scary because my meds hadn’t arrived yet. Good thing I gave Aetna hell yesterday. When we got home, my Aetna package was waiting for me at the front-door. We injected my stomach and called it a day. Transfer is next Tuesday.

    Mar. 3rd. FET #2

    We had our transfer today. It was a very quick visit, to be honest, surprisingly so. They ran on time, for a change, which was great, and as soon as I was undressed the embryologist came in to give us a report of what had happened with our thaw.

    She said that of the two thawed embies one looked really good. 100% survival rate and starting to re-expand. S and I both said “Wow!” The second, on the other hand only survived at 50%, which is the cut-off rate for it to be transferred. As she knew we only wanted to transfer one, and refreeze, she asked us what we wanted to do. I said, that I didn’t want to re-freeze. My reasoning was that at a 50% survival rate, freezing and thawing again would damage it further likely making it unusable. She agreed. While she went to get us a picture, S I had a quick chat and decided we would like to donate the embryo for scientific research. She organized for us to meet with the research co-ordinator after our transfer, and we sent off our 50% embie to be used for stem-cell research. Personally, if nothing else happens on this cycle, I’ll be happy that we did this. 4 years ago I listened to a radio program that really impressed on me the importance of use of stem-lines in research, and how difficult obtaining those stem-cell lines were. I wanted, then, to donate for this cause. Well, today I got my chance. I knew that I (personally) was never going to find a cure for cancer, or other illnesses that shorten the lives of good people. But this was my contribution and I’m proud of it. I feel good.

    The transfer itself went smoothly. No hiccups. No notable comments.

    We just wait until our next pregnancy test on the 11th. Only 9 days away.

    Mar. 3rd, Can I pee out my baby?

    Yes, yes, I realize just how ridiculous this sounds, but every time I go to the bathroom I get paranoid that I’m gonna drop the kid off at the pool :-/

    Mar. 8th, 21st of Nov

    Today I am pregnant. This may change tomorrow, but today I am pregnant.

    While it hasn’t yet been a full week since my transfer, and my beta test isn’t scheduled until Thu, my body has been feeling strange. Cramps. But general lack of symptoms strange. My cycle with G I felt nothing (other than cramps). My last, failed cycle I felt nauseous, and moody, and tired. All the symptoms of pregnancy, and yet it was negative. Now, I’m back to feeling nothing but menstrual cramps, which meant either great news, or Aunt Flo was fixing for a visit. Gotta love this, right?

    I might not have had a 2 week wait like most people, but let me tell you, the shortened time is no less maddening.

    S and I had a talk about how we wanted to find out this time. We’ve been “good” patients and waited until beta to get the news. No pee sticks. S has had to give me positive news, and negative news, so at this stage, it was up to him to decide. We agreed to pee on a stick the day of the test. However, this made me have questions: 1) would the trigger be out by that point; 2) would 9dp6dt (that’s 9 days post 6 day transfer for all you people lucky enough not to know what it means) be enough time for a home pregnancy test to pick up the results. To answer these questions, I turned to the collective knowledge that is my SAIF (success after infertility) online forum. I learned that 1) yes, the trigger on average clears within 10 days; and 2) yes, provided I don’t use a digital test, I should be able to tell. I even got linked to a previous forum post on how early people saw results. Some had as early as 7 days post ovulation.

    Then came the fun part. I had to pee and since I had a pregnancy test on hand I decided “What the hell, let’s just give it a try!” so I did. While I waited for the hour glass to clear, I kept telling myself “It will be negative. It’s too soon for anything else. But even if it’s negative, it doesn’t mean it really is until the blood test confirms it”.
    But it wasn’t negative.
    It said “Pregnant”. I double checked. The “Not” was clearly gone.

    I ran to the office where S was on a call for work and threw the test at the desk.
    I was shaking.
    He looked at it, muted his phone, stood up and hugged me. All while I yelled “It could be wrong! It could be wrong! It could still be the trigger! It could be wrong!”

    So here I am. Today I am pregnant.
    I called the clinic and asked them if I can come in for my blood test early. I refer to this as the “real test”. Yes, I was reminded that for 5/6 people the pee-stick is a real test, but until the blood-sucking lady (or guy) sings, it won’t be confirmed for me. I’ll go in for the beta tomorrow, since even if I were to do the test today I won’t get the results until then tomorrow anyway. But you better believe I’ll be peeing on another stick again in the morning.

    This morning already feels like just a blur. Like this didn’t happen.

    All, I know is that on Nov 21st I want to welcome our child to our family, and I hope… I pray… that we will have the chance to.

    Mar. 9th, Still pregnant

    Or at least that’s what the second pee stick said this morning. Now just waiting on the lab results to get called in.

    I also have my annual review today, so between waiting on the results and that meeting, my stomach is doing flips.

    Come on, phone call!

    Mar. 9th, It IS true

    I am in fact pregnant. My results today are:
    b-HCG: 66.5
    P4: 27.7

    I will be going back for a second draw on Thu. In a way it’s kind of good. By the end of this week I’ll have both beta tests completed, rather than waiting over a week-end.

    I’m excited, but it feels so surreal.

    Mar. 10th, Aaaaan-nd of course the neurosis is back too. Joy!

    As it turns out, being pregnant a second time is not any more relaxing than the first time. You see, I woke up this morning in panic that my beta wouldn’t double tomorrow. Mind you, this is less than 24 hours of getting news that should keep me on cloud 9 awhile.

    I’m trying my best to keep my mind off bad thoughts, but I can just see it now:

    – until tomorrow, panic that beta won’t double

    – b/w tomorrow and the 6th week u/s, panic that it’s ectopic, or otherwise won’t make it to 6w

    – b/w the 6th week u/s and the 8th week u/s, panic there won’t be a heart-beat

    – b/w 8th week u/s & first OB visit, worry about m/s

    – b/w first visit & NT scan, worry that there’s something genetically wrong

    – continue worrying until big u/s that something is wrong

    This “should” be fun. Why am I not having a good time?

    Mar. 11th, Beta #2

    I can’t believe how soon I got called with my blood results today. By 11:30 the clinic called to let me know that my b-hCG levels were 228. They almost quadrupled in 48 hours. Things are going well thus far. My first u/s is scheduled on 3/31. Can’t wait to meet our kid for the first time.

    I’m 3w4d today.

    Mar. 15th, Nausea is comforting

    I don’t feel 100%, and it’s great!!! Right now it’s the only reassurance I have. It’s going to be a hard two weeks to come, but I have nausea, fatigue and pregnancy brain (of yeah, it’s hit already) to keep me company.

    12 responses to “Maybe a(nother) baby”

    1. Christa says:

      YAY! You already know how happy I am for you!!

      Here’s to more nausea!

    2. Adrienne says:

      =) What an adventure! Congratulations!

    3. Amy says:

      A congratulations! That is wonderful news!

    4. Emeraldwednesday says:

      Woot! Congrats!

    5. A great big congrats A! I am so excited for you and S!

    6. Rebecca says:

      Congratulations! I didn’t even know you were trying, I guess we should talk more =)

      I wish I could give you a big hug!

      I’m amazed you were ready so soon. With James I wasn’t ready to entertain the idea of another until he was 2, and it took me a few months to convince John…

    7. Christina says:

      Congratulations!! I’ve been a lurker since you were pregnant with G and just wanted to pop out and say congrats!! It’s great that you’ve been keeping track of things behind the scenes and to post it all together, it’s amazing to read! Best of luck at your first u/s!

    8. Patty says:

      YAY!
      That was quite the story to read, I can’t imagine how you have gone through it all this time! I will keep you in my thoughts and hope that you stay pregnant!

    9. alison! says:

      SAY WHAT?

      j/k. I’m so stoked for you guys. 😀

    10. Tina Plautz says:

      Ah, we are so happy for you guys!! I just had the chance to read through all this and i laughed, cried and then smiled 🙂
      Congratulations you two!!! Welcome to our world!!!

    11. Becky says:

      I’m sooooo very happy for you!!!!! Congratulations!

    12. Stephanie C. says:

      OMG Congratulations!! I’m so happy for you and your family!

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