Small mix-up

Ok, we had a little snafu today and my u/s appointment is now going to be on Monday morning (not this afternoon). So no news there. The only good news I have is from the bloodwork today. I get to go down to 1 patch and one prometrium pill! Yay!
(it's the small things, right?) I'm also asking the Dr. for some drugs (zofran, please!) on Monday. I'm getting my butt kicked here by a little blob. A full meal should not consist of a handful of nacho chips and a sierra mist. That's the most I've eaten all day. Ugh.

New fun

Well, the phone rang this morning and it was my local Dr.'s office. I guess they *just now* got the results from Thursday's bloodwork/pee tests. (little bit slower than CCRM's pace!) Turns out I have a Urinary tract infection *and* am now anemic. Greaaaaat. So, I have two more meds to take: an antibiotic and some iron pill that had to be special ordered in at the pharmacy.

Oh, it just gets more fun, doesn't it?

Btw, somehow D always gets a sinus infection / lung / cold illness in the fall and winter. I pretty much never get whatever he does. It's pretty reliable. He's on the mend with his own antibiotics, tho he always has a lingering cough that is, well, annoying. If only they sold cough syrup by the gallon!

A long weekend

Not a whole lot to report this weekend. I think I'm still p/g. I've been beyond nauseous and D has a nasty sinus infection / head cold. We've been LOADS of fun!
Next u/s is on Friday, along with more blood work to check my estrogen and progesterone levels.

Why CCRM rocks...

I just found this press release from July. What they're talking about in the release is *EXACTLY* what we did with our June and September cycles. I had no idea it was *that* new of a procedure, but the 1st birth of a baby from this 'technique' was in June 2008.
Here is the link.

CCRM Chicas

Are you thinking of cycling at CCRM (Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine) or are in the process of doing the 1day testing, getting ready to cycle or do an FET?

I'd love to support you in your journey, commiserate, answer questions, whatever. Let me know if you'd like to be added to my blogroll (ccrm or general) *or* if you know of other brave women preparing to go to CCRM.

Thanks!

(No real 'me' news for today. At this point, no news is good news...)

A Big Scare

As to not freak everyone completely out, everything is OK.

I woke up yesterday to underwear and sheets completely soaked with blood. (really not underestimating here... REALLY)
I called my local Dr. in shock, and they squeezed me in for a u/s that afternoon. So, um, fine... nothing to do about it, really. Whatever happened, happened. I gave it a 50/50 chance of miscarriage. (never been the optimistic one here) I showered, got dressed, and waited. And *waited*. And WAITED. Finally it was time to leave. D rushed over to the office and met me there.

The u/s tech was really good. We even got the super-high-tech machine. Cool. I was impressed w/ the tech because you have to be really skilled to be able to come off as 'nice' when dealing with a crying / hormonal / preggo / infertile who's in there b/c of a bleed.

She found the embryo/fetus/baby (what exactly is it now? not sure!) right away. She also got the heart beat seconds later. By that point I had tears streaming down my neck. She turned on the sound and there it was... woosh-wooshing away. Little bugger!!!!! Everything looked fine.

I found out today that the Dr. suspects a subchorionic bleed, and said it was small (about 4mm). Needless to say, she said they'd monitor it closely and to 'take it easy' in the meantime.

So, I guess I'm pregnant, but there is not a whole lot of carefree joy and enthusiasm yet. There's way too much to be concerned about and this incident is just a reminder of how tenuous this pregnancy really is. There's just SO much on the line.

The below pictures are from yesterday's scan.


(head is on the bottom)

Today you would think nothing had ever happened... I feel fine, no spotting, no bleeding, nothing. Ok, well, I feel like death warmed over and am exhausted, but *other* than that... !

I understand

In the blogworld, people generally blog about a particular subject. This blog has been about infertility since I started down the slippery IVF road. But now... well... I'm in a bit of a transition period. Clearly no blog that touts 6w u/s pictures and BFPs can be an infertility blog anymore. If you're fighting the fight and would rather move away from 'yet another pg blog', I understand. It's ok! I've done the same thing, culling all of my blogroll when I realized everyone on there was pg except *me*.
So now I'm in those shoes. Weird.
If you decide to stay with my journey, I hope I can somehow help spread the word and awareness on IF. I've thought about getting involved publicly w/ Resolve. No one should have to go through all of this on their own. It's far too grueling. Far too tiring, and far too costly. You are not alone.

Reality check

When does this become real? Because it's definitely *not* real feeling right now. Our friends are talking about baby showers, kids' toys, The Registry, and I am still not 100% convinced there is going to be a baby* at the end of this. It seems strange that there's a Resolve meeting this Wednesday eve., and I'm NOT going. You see, I've been a big fan of our Resolve group for the past two years. Now all of a sudden, voila, I'm 'ResolveD".

What's up with that? How did that happen? No monthly b!tch fests about stupid doctors, frustrating fertiles and that ever deepening pit of despair/desire for the simple joy of having a baby/child to call your own. Well, hmmm.... Maybe I should just go hang out in the parking lot at BabiesRUs. Geez, just the thought of that place scares me to no end. Bottles, gear, pacis... all so very overwhelming and foreign.

So, I'm conflicted. Even D said we should have just gone to Colorado in the first place. Can you imagine that? Firstly, there's no way anyone would go for a 20k cycle half way across the country just 'because'. He would have laughed at the very thought, saying I was overreacting. LOL. Drastic measures are only taken in drastic times, and it took us that long to get there. So fine, we went to Colorado after much ado. And it worked. (SHOCKING) Now what???

Can I just hold my breath for the next 34 weeks or so? Where's the fast forward button? Easy button anyone?

*baby, in this scenario refers to a biological child. The back-up plan to adopt is still in place. Also the sibling plan is still to adopt from Russia. So technically, there IS a child at the end of this regardless, we're currently cooking the bio baby plan.

Introducing

Mommy and Daddy would like to introduce, for the Very First Time...



The circle on the right is the yolk sac, where the cross hatches are is the baby. If you click on the picture, it'll pop up much bigger to show some more detail if you are so inclined.

Yes, Houston, we have a blob! We only saw one bean in there today. Amazing. Tho I guess another could pop up perhaps? The Dr. really looked around, so I think we do actually have ONE BEAN. We saw the heartbeat fluttering away, but she didn't measure it. (fine by me)

We are absolutely thrilled that it worked. Thank you God. Thank you CCRM. Thank you Dr Surrey!

Quickie post

B/w this morning was OK... progesterone was ok at 7.8 ( Ithink) meds stay the same. Estradiol is up to 900 something, and I get to cut back to 3 patches! I was just telling D last night how thankful I am that I don't have to do PIO shots. Man those suck.

More b/w again on thursday, then the BIG ultrasound on Friday AM. I'll post ASAP. Hopefully with pictures!

Ok, time to find something to eat before I puke. (I feel like I have the flu, food poisoning, or something else equally unsavory)

one small step

I had a small victory this morning. I was able to eat a bowl of granola and yogurt w/ fresh fruit. Stupid, I know, but as I said, small steps.

Once we have the u/s next week I'll post a couple of posts I've been working on. Resolve used to have a section in their newsletter called "Resolved". It was meant for the preggos, but there was enough dissent that they dropped it. Really, no infertile wants to open their support group newsletter and get smacked in the face with a fat belly shot or something.

Though I do think they were onto something. I feel like I'm in this in-between nether land... I guess I'm not infertile anymore, but I am not so sure about this whole pregnancy thing.

Well, that was unexpected.

This week I've been busy doing set-up supervision for a big fundraising event that takes place this weekend. While yes, it's a nice distraction, I've been having some serious conflicts w/ my time. Like I need to sleep for 12 hours due to sheer exhaustion, which is just not possible this week! I might take the morning/day off if I wake up feeling like crap again.

It never dawned on me that there could be some conflicts between the FET cycle 2 weeks ago and the fundraiser this weekend. I might as well have a bad case of food poisoning or a bad flu, because that's about how I feel. Highly unexpected, indeed.

Ok, on to the good news. I *finally* have an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday, the 17th. There's another blood draw on Tuesday the 14th (btw, Polly, the P4 is OK at 10 because I'm doing the supps., so the P4 goes to the uterus first, then is diluted by the time it gets to the bloodstream)

I think that's it for now. Time to go to sleep. Zzzzzzzzz.

Holy Guacamole

We have officially entered uncharted territory here. Blood work came back just fine. Progesterone is good at 10 and Estradiol good at 948. They want another check next week before talking about weaning me off the meds. In the mean time everything stays as is.

What? You want a HCG number too? Oh, that was 3800 !!!!!!!!!!! After doing a little research, that's very high for a singleton, and on par for a twin or triplet pregnancy. Now things are getting interesting!

I have a lab slip for a u/s next week, the local Dr here just has to squeeze me in to the schedule. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I can't wait to see what's going on in there.

Coming soon

More blood work tomorrow morning, I'll post the results late afternoon. I also just made my first OB appointment!!!!! With the *infamous* Dr Parker, no less. It's not until 10/20, but fear not fellow internets, there WILL be an ultrasound next week. I just don't have the details on that yet. I'll get that info tomorrow w/ the bloodwork results.

The time in between...

Not a whole lot to update here.
My fat pants still don't fit, and I have to wait until Tuesday for the last blood work check. That's to check progesterone, estrogen and the infamous HCG. When I get that call, they say when I can schedule an ultrasound.
This is also the calm before the storm. I volunteer for my high school and the BIG fundraiser for the year is next weekend. I'm chair of 'facilities', that means set-up, teardown and some logistics. So of course I can't lift a finger, right? Pretty much I have to be there and 'supervise' for like 8 hours a day for the 6 days. Fun.

Just another day

Well, no tests today. Nothing major to report. We're both over the moon about this latest turn of events. I'm strangely optimistic. We transferred PERFECT embryos. My betas are good, even great. I have symptoms. My other 2 pregnancies were nothing like this. This is totally different in almost every way.

I think it might be OK to be happy... but we really should wait until the ultrasound. That should probably be sometime the week of the 14th.

Optimism... who knew?

Beta is in!

Beta #2 is 274 !!! (Beta #1 was 91)

That'd be a doubling time of 30.18 hours. Any doubling time under 48 hours is GOOD.

I kind of thought it would go up, but I didn't think it'd triple! According to the beta base that's in range for both a singleton and twin pregnancy. So that's still up in the air.

Beta details

Ok, here's the deal on the betas. "Beta" as used here is short for "Beta HCG quantitative blood test". HCG stands for Human Chorionic Gonadatropin, and is the pregnancy hormone created by an embryo when it implants in your uterus. This hormone is what is being tested for in the peesticks you've seen below. The blood test is more accurate because it can tell you the exact number of HCG (in whatever units they use, I have no idea on that!) you have in your system. For a 14dpo (days past ovulation) beta, they want the number to be above 50. Mine was 91. The number is then supposed to basically double every 48 hours thereafter. Once it gets above 1000 or so, an ultrasound is scheduled for a week later.

So, after I got the blood drawn yesterday, they ran the test then called CCRM with the results. CCRM then called me. My nurse (Jen) called with the good news around 2:15pm, I imagine it was her lunch break. I've *never* gotten a call from them that early in the day. Before I could even say "hello?" Jen says "CONGRATULATIONS!!!! You're pregnant!!!!!" Obviously very excited. It was cute. I kind of laughed (since I saw the peesticks that morning, it wasn't a complete shocker), and asked if that was the best part of her job. She said it was the absolute BEST part and she loved making these calls. Cute. Once we both calmed down a bit, she went over some more details (aren't there always details?) of how things will proceed...

I have to go for a repeat beta (see above) on Thursday AM and again on next Tuesday (10/7/08) for HCG, estrogen and progesterone checks. It's all (hopefully) just one blood draw.

Later yesterday evening Dr. Surrey called to congratulate us and answer any questions we had. Since I'm still in Shock and Awe, I didn't have any questions. D's out of town on business, so that was that. Of course now I can think of questions. Of course!
I thought it was very nice of Dr. S to call. I think they've been a 100% class act throughout everything. I would still recommend them to anyone and everyone regardless of this outcome.