155 Beats Per Minute

Seeing that flicker of the heartbeat made everything else in the room disappear.  Except for Nick’s hand I was squeezing, there was only that little flicker of light on the screen 🙂

Heartbeat of 155 bpm and 1.23cm in length.

My doctor checked everything else out and said that my ovaries were returning to their normal size and said to finish my Prometrium and that should be that!  I’ll be just over the 8 week mark when the progesterone is done.  I think I’m okay with that.   We’re happy to get to this milestone!

Also, he has this dated for 7 weeks and 3 days…I guess I was just counting 2 days ahead!

Seven weeks, one day and 3 pieces of fried chicken…

On the drive home from work I suddenly get a huge craving for macaroni and cheese.  This starts because I’m beginning to get ravenous (only a few hours after lunch) and because I smell fried food.  I start discussing my perfect meal for the evening; it evolves over the course of the commute.  The culmination of this drawn out dream-land of food while I’m salivating like Pavlov’s dog goes like this…

Deb: “I know what my perfect meal would be!”

Nick: {sighs heavily with a grin} “Okay, what?”

Deb: “Macaroni and cheese with bacon, and some breadcrumbs.  The cheese is extra crispy and brown and caramelized….And a few herbs on top.  Along with a piece of fried chicken with gravy.  And some pickles on the side!”

Nick: “After hearing that, how can you keep thinking that you’re not pregnant?!”

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My anxiety and worry has gone down quite a bit in the past few days, however that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been researching every possible thing out there.  I don’t know why I’m preparing myself for the worst possible outcome when I should just be happy and enjoy every single day until I’m told there is something wrong, or I have a symptom/sign of something going wrong.  Really, if something were to go wrong there is nothing I can do to stop it.  There’s only 5 more days left until our first ultrasound.  It’s good thing that we have a busy weekend to keep my mind distracted!

PS. Oh, and for dinner we had KFC.  Of which I devoured, and then said that I bet I would be hungry by bedtime 😉

The Twelve Days of Google

I have 12 very longs days to get through before our first ultrasound.  Twelve days!!!  I’ll be 7 weeks and 5 days at that point.  12 long days filled with work, doubt, joy, doubt, fear, joy, and more fear.  I’m fearful of a blighted ovum because I haven’t felt many symptoms yet.  No morning sickness, and in fact my bloat has gone down a bit (I’m actually wearing a belt today).  But perhaps that’s just the leftovers of the IVF procedures calming down….

I’ve had no cramps or bleeding to confirm any horrible, horrible thigns, so really it’s probably just all in my crazy head.  However, I still have 12 days of google searches and research to both comfort and scare the crap out of me at the same time.

5 Weeks

I feel that I have so many things to say.  So I’ll split this post into an everyday update and then into a deeper post.

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So yes, it’s true.  I am pregnant.  It’s very weird to say.  It’s even weirder because I don’t feel many symptoms which makes me anxious.  I don’t feel super fatigued or nauseous, but I do have a much more sensitive sense of smell (restaurants GOOD, gas stations BAD)!  I was really feeling like we would get a negative test result the first beta, but after it came back positive it became clear to me why things tasted a little different and stronger, and why I was craving chinese food 3 days after transfer.  Also I was really wondering why my eyes were so dry and vision very slightly blurry (apparently pregnancy can make you a little more near-sighted – great 😛 ).

I’m still anxious because we have to wait until the 29th for our scan.  I’ve been google-ling when I should feel other symptoms and the interwebs say anywhere from 6-8 weeks, although some people feel them right away.  I’m not saying that I can’t wait to feel sick all the time, but It would be nice to feel something other than gas and bloating.  My decision to nix the belt from today’s outfit was a fantastic choice 😉

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I am not a religious person, but I have to say that I feel truly blessed.  I feel that there is a difference between religion and believing in something that is controlling things that you yourself cannot control.  I did not grow up in a household where we went to church or prayed before meals or talked about God, however that does not mean that I have not felt the comfort of faith or that “someone up there” is making things happen or watching over me.

We feel incredibly grateful that we have had this opportunity and that we took a leap of faith in science to help us conceive.  We never had any doubt that science would be able to help us, but we know that a lot of it is taking a best guess on the medication dosages and on having the perfect conditions when transfered – so up to chance, right?.  I never expected it to work the first time.  I have been reading the blogs of some other ladies who have not had so much luck or have been going through this process for much longer than I have and I really feel for them.  The IVF process is not easy on the mind or body.

I truly hope that everyone going through IVF or ART has a fantastic support system around them.  Speaking about infertility is a sensitive topic and some couples hide the truth from their family and friends because they know that they won’t understand (or think that they won’t).  We were quite surprised to realize that there are many people we know who have had infertility problems.  Being honest about your health is important; if we decided not to then Nick would have never found his prolactinoma and the cause of our infertility.

Whoa

Well, after the 2nd blood test showed more than double hcg, it’s confirmed. Deb’s pregnant. We’ve been cautiously optimistic about the whole process up to this point, never letting ourselves get our hopes up. But we did it.

After 7 years of trying there’s a part of you that expects that it’ll never happen, so to now be at the stage where we’re actually pregnant is a little surreal. I’m actually going to be a father.

One of the weirder parts of this whole experience was being in the room when they transferred the embryos into Deb. There’s nothing quite like watching someone impregnate your wife for you… and a woman at that! 😛

So if all goes well we should be welcoming a baby into our lives around mid March 2014. Unless we have twins, which will probably be born a little earlier.

I look super sexy in scrubs, don’t I?

First beta results are in!

I spent the entire day as a bundle of nerves. Waiting for a phone call. Waiting for the day to be over. Waiting for my brain to just shut the hell up.  At around 3:30 I check my phone and I see that the clinic has called and had left a message.  So then my nerves go into overdrive.  By 5pm I was ready to go, but I was also willing to prolong a negative phone call….!  I decide to go buy some sunglasses after work and Nick said we needed more cat litter and I drive the long drive home.  I get home and the landscaper is there to get info for a quote on making our front and back yard look presentable.  They finish getting the information and we finally go inside and sit on the couch together with the kleenex ready.  I dial up the voice mail and the message says this:

“Hi Deborah, this is the nurse from the clinic and we have your results of your pregnancy test.  Can you please call us back?  We are open from….”

What!!!!??  Well I guess they don’t exactly want to leave either horrible or joyous messages for people on their voice mail. Fair enough.

So what did we do?  We ran to the office to look up the results online!

And…and…AND…

181

(From all of the research I did online, the minimum for the inkling of a pregnancy is 10 or higher.)

We hugged and hugged and cried like we have never done before.  Such huge smiles and tears covered our faces.  We are getting closer!  Whether or not the interwebs wants to call it a pregnancy, we will reserve our full on happy dance for after a few more tests!  But yes, we are incredibly overjoyed with these results!!!!

I will be calling the clinic first thing in the morning as they need to arrange another prescription of Promethium and to tell me the news “in-person”!  My second beta is on Friday.  I hope that my number doubles!

The wait is almost over…

It’s been a very long 8 days, and to even wait 1 more day for the test is so nerve-racking!  We were okay for the first few days but then we really started to get anxious.  We were supposed to have a few events with friends over the long-weekend but we didn’t go because a) they would be pestering me with questions and b) they were activities that I should avoid (sports).

Last night I had a hard time getting to sleep since my brain just fired up and would not go to sleep!  I was mostly thinking about getting negative news 😦  I have the ability to look up my results online, but Nick told me not to.  He also said that if they call to let it go to voice mail so we can listen to it together.  This way we will be able to either be happy together or comfort each other.

I’ve done way too much reading and over-thinking about bhcg tests and levels, etc and it has made me a little crazy!  My big concern is that my testing is being done too soon – only 9 days post 5 day transfer. AND since my blastocycsts were slow-growing and only graded at 2 for size I’m concerned that any testing being done will need more time. However I did email the nurses and they said that the beta test date is 14 days after the retrieval so the date is correct.  So I guess I will wait and see.

I haven’t felt anything really in the way of signs or symptoms that would not be contributed to the progesterone I’m taking.   More or less I feel normal.

Aaagggh!  This waiting and hoping for good news is really driving me crazy.  I’m really scared that we will have to start all over from the beginning….. 😦