second ultrasound! six weeks, three days

check out the baby blob today! the blob on the left is the baby, and next to it is the yolk sac. and, i know it's hard to see, but the little lighted area at the top of the baby blob is the heart! we got to see it beating (it looked like a little flicker, on and off) and we even got to hear it. that was amazing. the doctor said everything looks to be developing perfectly, and we're right on schedule size-wise or even a day ahead. she set my due date at october 14.

and now the fertility doctors are ready to release me to other doctors! i don't know if i'm ready to leave them yet. they want me to see doctors that they've worked with in the past because they are familiar with the IVF protocol, medications, etc. so they referred me to a OB/GYN that i will start seeing in march, and also to a perinatologist (a high risk pregnancy doctor). i'm not sure how long i'll need to see him or exactly why i have to... i guess the combination of being 35 and being an IVF pregnancy qualifies me as high risk. but it seems like it just means more care and attention, so i'm fine with that scenario. i have my first appointment with him next week.

it all still feels a bit surreal. i am still having stomach issues, though i've found coping mechanisms, and i'm so, so tired. but otherwise i feel mostly fine. and i really am so excited and happy... and relieved to have this big heartbeat milestone behind us. i know that means we're pretty much out of the woods in terms of "early" miscarriage -- when chromosomal or fluke cellular things end the pregnancy. of course it doesn't mean there's no risk of anything going wrong, but the odds are steadily moving in our favor. so now i just have to sit back and take in the reality that there is a baby coming. i've spent so long thinking and learning about how to get pregnant that i really know nothing about being pregnant or, much less, about having a baby! it's a whole new world. but a really wonderful one, i must say.

Six weeks

Tomorrow I'll be six weeks along and it is starting to feel real. I still don't think I'll rest easy until Thursday's ultrasound when we should see the heartbeat, but each passing day is a step in the right direction. My beta level was above 5000 on Thursday, which is much higher than the minimum level they were looking for. It's supposed to increase by 60% every two days, so since it was 534 at the first test it should have been at least 2800 or so 7 days later. Clearly things are progressing well. And the rapidly multiplying hormone counts probably also are responsible for my continuing "morning sickness." I can't tell if things are getting better on that front or if I'm just adapting to it. I'm wearing Sea Bands - those acupressure wristbands people wear for motion sickness - and they may be helping. I still feel nauseated anytime I move around or eat... or don't eatfor too long. But the in-between times seem to better, and my baseline level of nausea seems to be a bit less awful. But at this point I'm terrified for it to go away, because it's my assurance that things are still going well. That, and my other assorted symptoms: fatigue, crazy-ass mood swings, and boobs so sore I have to keep them tightly wrapped 24/7. I've read that people who have early morning sickness are less likely to miscarry, so I have to say I'm clinging to all of this. And i know I'll feel better after Thursday's ultrasound... once there's a heartbeat they say early miscarriage rates drop. It just feels like such a long road of uncertainty ahead right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm still so happy and excited! I just can't wait to feel a tiny bit more confident that our dream really is coming true.

first ultrasound!

we went for the first ultrasound this morning and everything looks great!!! AND -- there's only one baby! of course i would have been excited for twins in some ways, but in other ways... i am really relieved to not be having two babies. both in terms of pregnancy and the reality of early parenthood. but overall i was just so, so, so happy to see the beginnings of a baby in there, in the right place, looking the right way. here's what it looks like right now:



it's the round-ish black spot near the center. in case that wasn't clear, since it actually is just a ball of cells right now. the internet tells me it's about the size of a sesame seed, and is comprised of three layers: the ectoderm, the mesoderm, and the endoderm, which will eventually form the organs and tissues. crazytown.

on the top right you can see that one of my ovaries is still freaking out from the hormones. the doctor said it's ok, but it's the big reason why he still doesn't want me doing anything strenuous or having sex right now. (it has been so long since i've been allowed/able to have sex. egads.) but otherwise everything looks fine.

i go back a week from today for another ultrasound and then we're hoping to see the heartbeat. i feel like that's the last big thing before i can breathe a sigh of relief and start operating on the assumption that this pregnancy will be ok. of course i'm optimistic right now, but... i just want to see the little heart flickering in there and then i will really feel like it's real.

as if this nausea isn't enough to remind me that it's real. good grief, it does not let up. i think it's actually getting worse. but again, all for a good cause...

holy cannoli... i'm pregnant!

went in for my beta yesterday and sure enough... it was positive. even though i had a good feeling that was the case, it was still sort of surreal when the nurse told me the news. the waiting yesterday was torture. i never thought six hours could go by so slowly. but now... it's a whole new world of thoughts. i can finally let myself imagine more than just getting pregnant... now i can think about BEING pregnant and (fingers & toes crossed!) being a parent!

the other big shocker is that they want to do the first ultrasound next thursday. i don't even have to go back for another beta in between. maybe it's because my number was relatively high (534). either way, i'm super excited for the ultrasound and just wishing and hoping that things continue to go smoothly. i do feel confident about this pregnancy... it's not like i'm sitting around waiting all gloom and doom for something to go wrong. but i also know that i'm only four weeks pregnant, and that there's a lot of time still before i will feel totally confident that it was be successful.

i am glad, though, that since i've been on this assisted fertility path that i have a lot of support in these early weeks. i know a lot of ladies who have felt lost waiting for their first appointment and wondering what's going on. but not me... i will continue seeing the doc regularly and stay on all of the medication that should help to protect the pregnancy. that's a reassuring feeling. i like still being able to DO something rather than just going about my business. even if that "doing" is injecting myself with progesterone oil and sticking suppositories up my yahoo!

i'm still feeling the same, but at least now i know for sure i can call it "morning sickness" (though that "morning" part is a joke... it's all the time!) and treat it accordingly. i've gotten a lot of advice already and will continue to research that topic. so much more to say but no time now... just so excited!!!

13 days post-transfer, 1 day until beta test...

i guess it could be considered a good thing that i am busier with work right now than i've been in months... you'd think it would make the time go by quicker as i wait until i have my beta blood test tomorrow. but somehow it is just making me completely exhausted and overwhelmed, and i STILL feel like time is crawling by slower than molasses in january. and while i'm totally exhausted by the time i drag myself home from school each day, i'm somehow not exhausted enough to be sleeping well. no, that would be too much to ask. i'm so tired, i go to bed early, but i wake up a zillion times during the night. i'm so restless. today i woke up at 3:30 and tried for a little more than an hour to go back to sleep, but all i was doing was obsessing over all of the things that i need to get done today. so i got up at 4:45 to start what will be a hellishly long day. tomorrow cannot come soon enough.

i've been taking the pee-stick tests every day and the line is slowly getting darker. i wish it was darker than it is, but i know any improvement is good. other than still feeling dizzy and nauseated most of the time, my other post-transfer symptoms have mostly gone away. i get hit by a wave of sharp cramps every so often, and my nipples are constantly bright red and erect, but otherwise i don't feel hormonal at all. of course i have started driving myself insane... worrying that every single test i've done has been a fluke (i think i've done six at this point) and that i'm going to go in tomorrow and get a negative result on the blood test and kick myself for imagining anything different. i just can't think of anything as a sure thing yet. the hubby asked if we could tell our parents once we get the beta results tomorrow and i had to think carefully about if i was even ready to do that. we decided we will tell them, but that we will warn them that it's still going to be awhile before we're confident in saying that this pregnancy will stick around.

anyway, too much work to do... going to try to distract myself from all of this for another 30 hours or so. and then we'll know... something.

11 days post transfer

i won't mince words. there are really only two things to report.

1) symptoms: mostly still the same. nausea has increased. dizziness has become more of a constant light-headedness. but still feeling pretty much how i did on friday, despite doing practically nothing all weekend.

2) my early detector pregnancy test strips came in the mail.


i've been taking them since saturday afternoon, and...


it's a faint positive line, but it's a line. it's gotten slightly darker since saturday, which is a good sign that the pregnancy hormone is building in my body rather than staying stagnant or disappearing (which could mean maybe something has already gone wrong). so it seems -- speaking SO cautiously -- that i am most likely, at this moment, pregnant. not that this means it's a done deal. at this point in most natural pregnancies, women don't even know they're pregnant, and a lot of people miscarry at this stage without even knowing it. thursday, when they do the beta blood test at the doctor we will have a sense of how strong the pregnancy hormone (HcG) is, but even then it's a wait-and-see. not that i'm being pessimistic! i am very, very happy. this is the best we could hope for at this point. so i'm trying my best to ignore the crappy way that i feel and tell myself it's all for a good cause... the best cause EVER. yes, i will deal with feeling like this for nine months if that's what it takes!!!

for now, i will continue taking a test each morning and hopefully see the line get darker and darker, and thursday we'll have something more definitive to work with. eeeeeeee!

8 days post-transfer

i knew the two-week wait would feel like an eternity in its passing, but that didn't mean i was wishing for additional obstacles to entertain me in the interim. today is day 8. theoretically, implantation should have happened a few days ago, and now we're in the infuriating interval of "maybe i'm pregnant but my body doesn't even know it yet." starting on wednesday, i had a headache, almost constantly. i would take medicine, it would go away for awhile, then come back. then yesterday the headache was joined by nausea. i'm not getting sick, i can still eat, but my stomach just feels mostly gross a lot of the time. this isn't all that much different than how i've felt when taking the progesterone after the IUIs, and now i'm on a much higher dose of progesterone so i figured that's what was causing it. i've also still had cramps, different ones than i had right after the transfer. these ones feel more like period cramps. but i can deal with headache and an icky stomach and cramps. the big worry that i have is that i have been so incredibly dizzy. so dizzy. like, seeing the floor moving in front of me kind of dizzy. not good.

ok -- pause here for an additional, possibly related, piece of information. i went in for bloodwork on monday and again yesterday, just for them to check my hormone levels and make sure everything was as it should be. monday all was well. but yesterday they called to tell me my estradiol level was "lower than expected." estradiol is a type of estrogen, and the estrogen-progesterone balance has to be exactly right in order for a potential pregnancy to be successful. they check it during IVF because with all the messing around with your hormones they do sometimes things don't adjust as they're supposed to so they have to supplement. so i had to start taking an estradiol pill, once a day, from now until they tell me otherwise.

so, back to the feeling like crap. yesterday i left school early because i thought either a) i was coming down with the stomach virus going around school, or b) the out-of-whack hormones were making me feel awful. i came home, slept for a bit, and spent the rest of the night on the couch. and then i felt almost totally fine. i had taken my first dose of the estradiol, so i thought maybe that helped. or maybe i did have some short-lived bug that passed. whatever, i felt okay.

until this morning. i felt ok when i woke up, but by the time i was halfway through my multiple-train, hour-long commute to school the dizziness was back. the headache soon followed, and the nausea came back a bit later. as soon as i got to school i called the doctor's office to let them know what was going on. the doctor said it didn't sound like my symptoms would be caused by any of the medication or hormonal levels. they told me to take it easy today and if the symptoms didn't subside i should call the doctor on-call this weekend. i was only at work a half hour before people started persuading me to go home, so i did what i absolutely needed to and then left, and have been back on the couch all afternoon. the dizziness once again subsided with sitting still, though my head and stomach are still wonky. so i really don't think i'm "sick." of course i could have just picked up a virus, i do spend my days surrounded by germy children, but why would it come and go like that? that's not how viruses work. if i was sick, i'd be sick regardless of whether i'm walking around at work or sitting on my butt watching tv, right? but my stomach hasn't gotten any worse, it actually felt better and then felt the same amount of bad again, but definitely not like i'm sick.

i'm not sure what to make of all this. i know i don't feel well, and i can't help but think that it has something to do with the IVF, either positive or negative. i realize it's too early by most people's accounts to be feeling any pregnancy symptoms, but knowing that implantation already happened if it was going to makes me wonder. and it would be easy for me to blame it on the meds if the doctor thought that was a typical reaction, but now i feel like this is some weird circumstance and maybe it means that this cycle is doomed. i just don't know what to think. but it's hard NOT to think about it when i feel totally crappy any time i stand up. so... i wait. i keep giving myself my two injections a day and taking 7 pills and suppositories morning, noon, and night. i try to ignore the bruises on my belly and legs and the nasty hard spots and soreness in my thighs from the progesterone shots. if i am still feeling dizzy tomorrow i'll call the doctor on-call and see what he/she says, i guess. maybe i'll have to go in on monday for more bloodwork. i also have to decide if i'm going to take a home pregnancy test before my official blood test (called a beta) next thursday. i ordered some super-sensitive early-detector ones recommended by folks on the fertility forums online... but i just don't know if that would help me pass the time or just depress me more if it's negative.

so that's where i'm at. big stuff, huh? man, my life is boring. i really feel like this has become my full-time job now... considering i haven't been at school for a full day since two weeks ago. i worked two partial days last week and either came in late or left early every day this week as well. today i did both. of course i'm working from home when i can, but i am pretty much consumed by this process now. i can't even think of anything else going on in my life to report. that's all fine and good if this turns out well, but if i'm not pregnant i am going to be even more infuriated by the impact this whole thing has had on my life, to no avail. still trying to be optimistic. it's just getting harder, day by day.