Made me smile

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to be pregnant. But sometimes I wish the world were a little bit more like this (as long as people didn't assume that you can "just" make this choice or that it's an easy path). 

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IVF baby humor

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FET#2: 9dp5dt: preparing for the worst

So today was finally the official beta day for the Denver clinic. And we are up in the country far north of NYC. My husband Will arranged for me to get my levels drawn here locally, and we arrived up here yesterday evening after I successfully finished hosting a training seminar in my area of expertise.

I didn't realize how nervous I was to have to give a serious talk while pregnant until yesterday as I was doing it. It was with a clinical audience. And although it was only a 90-minute talk, it felt like a fairly big deal both because it was a fair jaunt away from NYC, and because it was with the same colleague I'd been with in 2010 when I spoke at a featured symposium internationally while pregnant (and while majorly cramping) and turned out to be losing pregnancy #6. So standing up there in front of an audience pregnant again yesterday, and finding myself significantly cramping again, and toward the end feeling fluid running out of me (that I was sure was blood), well, cue major internal freak out. I had to actively tell myself to try not to panic. And because that self-talk wasn't so effective, between the cramping and the fluid-feeling, I even left and ran to the bathroom before all the folks with questions coming up to us had gotten answers following the talk (and thankfully I quickly discovered that there was no blood, only my progesterone suppository and mucous). Phew! I then parked myself on a cushy chair for the next 2.5 hours, drinking water and not budging until Will could come get me and whisk me away to the country.

Since then, and into today, I have been exceedingly nervous about the beta. My anxiety was heightened by two other things:

(1) I worried - and my Denver nurse confirmed - that having my beta drawn at a different lab might mean we would get harder-to-interpret numbers. That if the numbers weren't doubling as expected, it might be because the pregnancy were failing, or it might just be the labs' differences in calculating.

and

(2) I have been faithfully POASing (although not posting many of the results), and damn ladies, but the line has not been getting darker. It has still been a weak positive, but I can't tell a whiff of difference between the stick from 7dp5dt and 9dp5dt. I've been trying to tell myself all kinds of reasons for that, from the fact that I just don't have great visual acuity, to the fact that the hcg would still be relatively low so maybe not a noticeable difference (haven't really believed that) to the possibility that I ruined myself when I tested with an hpt when my hcg was over 12,000, and so now everything else just looks like a weak positive to me (I could get myself to mildly endorse this possibility).

So I've been steeling myself for at least a non-confidence-inspiring number, and maybe a lower number than I got previously. Basically preparing myself to have to try not to be devastated.

We've had so much practice being devastated.

Anyway...we drove 40 minutes to the closest little municipality with a community hospital, got the blood drawn stat, and then went to the local Target to pick up toys and a new dog bed for Ms. Moxie (whose old dog bed is not so cushy anymore and is stinky no matter how much we wash it at this point), and then for a scrumptious gluten-free Indian buffet lunch.

I called for the results this afternoon and the lab refused to give them to me over the phone (arrgh!!!), so I then had my "doctor" call back 15 minutes later (Will, who had written the prescription). Felt mildly deceptive about this, but I guess in this case he was the doctor on record and I needed those results!!

And...
HCG = 155!!!
Progesterone = 31.16

So a doubling time of 42.19 hours, a 123.7% increase!!

Oh my gosh, what a relief!

I don't know why my hpts are so underwhelming-looking. This hcg level is one, though that I, and Will, and the Denver clinic, are very happy with. We will be up here until Monday morning, and Denver has asked us to test again at this lab so we have as much consistency as possible with the values.

So very good news over here, despite all my continued cramping, and despite my consierable trepidations! I still have a hard time believing any of this and am taking this one moment at a time.

I am still cramping up a storm and fairly fatigued, so have spent a few hours flat on my back. My amazing husband Will is working on making us a gluten-free/egg-free pizza crust with organic goat cheese, asparagus, and basil toppings for dinner (I'm having a little tomato sauce tonight, despite my supposed "sensitivity" to it. Yum!! And Moxie is snoozing happily (oblivious to all going on her family) in her new bed from Target.

Thank you all for your many comments and thoughts and support. Trying to wrap my head - and my heart - around this good news. We are so, so grateful to be just a little bit pregnant.

Mo

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For your amusement

Made me chuckle (and a little sad, too) thinking of all the time we've spent doing IVF cycling and me shot up with depot lupron, or recovering from procedures, or on pelvic rest waiting for my beta...all the while poor Will waiting patiently, his sperm starting to look like this...

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Egg donor humor

So I'm basically a seedless watermelon?

Hmmmm....

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Yup, it's more Hallmark Rejects!

We saw this cartoon in the November 23, 2009 New Yorker, and I figured that the card shopper must be an infertile. I mean, really, just take a look at her pained expression:

So Will and I decided to, um, "improve" the cartoon a bit to suit our fancy.

Here's the new "Mo and Will" version. What do you think?

Sometimes, despite my best intentions, envy creeps in when I hear another's good news. This is most often the case when it seems they just breezed into parenthood or don't have enough gratitude for their good fortune.

Can any of you out there relate?

I wish there were a way to make myself feel some other way. Other people's successes have nothing to do with my own failure.

Seeing this cartoon made me laugh with recognition at a reaction of mine I'm not very proud of.

Thank goodness for humor even in infertility!

Mo

Acupunctured

I went Thursday for my first acupuncture appointment. The practitioner seemed very nice. A good mix of soothing and professional. She asked several questions about my history of infertility, recurrent pregnancy loss, and menstrual cycles, then about my sleep and whether I'm generally hot or cold (as Will will attest, I'm usually freezing). She proceeded to prescribe hot ginger tea with cayenne in it and went to work.

The acupuncture itself was strangely stimulating and relaxing. More...um...penetrating...than I thought it would be.

A little like this...(except I have much less hair on my legs):


It felt like she was putting the needles in along the nerve pathways in my feet, ankles, calves, thighs, wrist, face, and head. She remarked that I was not reacting at all to the placement of the needles and I told her that between IVF and lymphoma treatment, she was going to have a hard time fazing me. After she placed the needles, she covered me with a thin aluminum sheet, dimmed the lights, turned on some soft chanting music, and left for about a half an hour.

I felt relaxed and alert. Not sure if it will help with our IVF cycle, but it was actually fairly pleasant. She wants me to return twice a week once I start the stims. I'm supposed to see her again on Monday.

Those of you who've done acupuncture, what was your experience like? Do you think it helped?

Mo