Weaning, nervously, continued

I never heard back from my Denver nurse this weekend, which is unusual.

So I followed the "fill in" nurse's advice. I cut the meds to nothing (akkkk!) and went in yesterday for blood work.

My regular Denver nurse left me a message last night. She's been out with the flu, apparently.

Estrogen is still rising nicely at 1,343.

Progesterone seems to be holding steady at 21.76.

So I should be thrilled, right?

Problem is, I am nervous because I am very crampy. Crampy in a way I haven't been since the very first days of pregnancy. I feel uterine cramping and what feels like cervical pain. It's not all the time, but started yesterday and went on overnight, even when I was trying to sleep. I woke up with it.

So I am scared.

I'm telling myself that the blood work looks good. That all should be fine. And then a creeping worry sets in that because progesterone is a pulsatile hormone, that the 21.75 is maybe when it is at its peak, and the rest of the time it is much lower, hence the cramping. On the other hand, I'm trying to tell myself that the baby is growing rapidly now and I may be feeling uncomfortable from my uterus expanding, nothing to do with the progesterone at all.

I put in one endometrin suppository last night, as insurance, but it didn't stop the cramping.

I tried the doppler this morning and found a heartbeat right away in the 130s. Hoping that's the baby and that that's fast enough. I measured mine too and it was 80-something (a little anxious, Mo?).

I will try to stay super-hydrated today to make sure that's not contributing.

Tomorrow I see my OB for a little reassurance check. I'll let her know about all this. Maybe she'll even do a cervix check (we haven't ever done one).

I'm also hoping to sneak in some more blood work at the end of the week. Just to see that the progesterone level still looks solid.

I'll keep you posted.

Mo

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Blood work results as weaning continues

I had my blood drawn Friday to check estrogen and progesterone levels and for the life of me couldn't get the results! It took paging the on call folks at my local clinic twice - once yesterday, once today - to finally get the numbers.

So...

estrogen looks great at 1,043

progesterone looks...eh...

at 22.

Despite this, I was advised to cut all the progesterone supplementation by a different nurse than I usually deal with in Denver. She said my body "should" be able to produce it by itself by 12 weeks.

I'm not so inclined to do this, since the level is supposed to stay above 20, and it's barely 20 with the every other day PIO supplementation.

I'm hoping I can get in touch with my regular nurse tomorrow and get her thoughts.

God forbid I do something to jeopardize this pregnancy. Maybe my body "should" be able to provide the progesterone but I don't know that that means that it will.

You know?

Or maybe I'm being overly cautious... what do you think?

Mo

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Weaning...ever so slowly

I am continuing to gradually wean off of my medications.

I got my blood drawn again yesterday and my hormone levels are continuing to rise.

I've dropped to two estrogen patches for the past week or so and my estrogen levels are up -1,116 as of yesterday.

Progesterone has been dropped to 1/2 cc daily for the past several days, with no suppositories, and is a stable 35.44.

photo credit:  Goodbye City Life

I've now been asked to drop to one estrogen patch and to do the 1/2 cc PIO every other day (gulp).

I'll get the levels tested again on Thursday or Friday.

I asked at my local clinic when people tend to go off of their meds and they said at 8 weeks (!), so I guess Denver is taking their sweet time with me.

That's just fine. I want to be sure my body can handle these hormone things all on its own. This pregnancy was way too hard-fought to be careless with in any way.

I'm curious though, when did you wean off your medications if you had a successful FET?

Mo

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