Nightmares

I slept so poorly last night. Between getting up to pee and these terrible nightmares, I woke up tired again. I was having dreams about low heart rates and the IVF not working, and being out of options. I think that my brain is interpreting the bit of anxiety I have in the back of my head. Last time my baby stopped growing at 5w6d. Today I am 5w4d and am approaching that time when I suddenly knew something was wrong but wouldn't know what it was until my ultrasound. This 2ww is almost worse than the first 2ww. I so desperately want to see if we're having one or two babies and I want to hear heartbeats. I want to be reassured that everything is OK. I was trying to keep this pregnancy to myself, but everyone at work is so invested that they wanted updates, so basically everyone knows. I hope their positive thoughts and prayers carry me through this. I think I let the cat out of the bag because I feel so positively that this is it. Maybe that's why these dreams are so disturbing. Also, I have done some things that I wasn't going to do, like look at baby names, and nursery bedding...things that you do when you're pregnant, and things that I have done before. I don't have a past positive experience to drawn on, so everything I've ever done is linked with something negative. I hope and pray it's different this time.

Second Beta

I'll try to keep this short and sweet. I clarified the first beta drawn 12dp5dt, and it was 265. Second beta 15dp5dt.....1,636!!! Ultrasound will be May 7th. I'm a little more relaxed now. By the end of the day I feel pretty achy and it's gone by the morning when I wake up. I'm trying to sit as much as I can at work and drink more water. I wouldn't say I get cramps per say, but I get achy on and off like before AF. This started a few days before my beta and has gotten stronger. It's pretty much the only symptom I have, besides wanting to eat salty and spicy foods, and feeling really hot all the time. I have no sore breasts and no nausea. I had implantation bleeding as well. I really thought this cycle was a bust since I didn't feel anything in the slightest for the majority of the 2ww. Here I am, in a different wait...a two and a half week wait for our ultrasound. I hope it goes by quickly.

Joy Sucking IF

Infertility sucks the joy out what should be the happiest of moments. Like yesterday...when the Brain texted me and told me to call her. I knew she had news, and wasn't sure I wanted to hear it while I was at work. In fact, we had decided I wouldn't find out the results of my beta until I got home from work at midnight. She assured me (by text) that I indeed wanted to hear this news. She let me know the beta was 267 or 250 or something like that. She's so much like a boy, never pays attention to things like that or thinks to write down the beta number. In any case our nurse was very pleased with the beta number and wants me to come back in Monday. The Brain was super happy, and so was I...for a minute. Then I told her we've been here before. We have had strong betas that turned out to be a chemical pregnancy. We've had low betas that turned into a D&C. I hope more than anything this is it. All we can do is wait and see. Now it's the wait between betas, the wait to see the heart beat, then the 12ww and then the wait until the due date. Will I get to experience the happiness a pregnant woman feel? Or will I always feel compelled to hold back in case it doesn't work out?

Day Before Beta

I have not POAS. I cheated in the past because HPT were all over my work. Now that I'm in another department that doesn't have any HPT, I haven't cheated. They always came back negative before anyhow. But, at this point, this many days after transfer, if it's negative...it's negative. I know in my heart this is not the cycle. I have felt nothing. My breasts aren't swollen or tender at all. I was feeling bloated and gassy a few days ago for a couple of days and actually thought it could be some mild OHSS. But the bloat and gas is pretty much gone now. I had some brown blood in the crinone that I've cleated out for the last three days. It's the ONLY thing that makes me think I might have a chance. It could be implantation bleeding. The little bit of transient nausea is gone. Today I had a dream that my beta was 999 and two days later it was 1000...another chemical pregnancy. All week I had dreams that I had positive betas and positive HPTs. But, these are only dreams. I wish I could feel more excitement, more positive emotion...but I just don't have it in me. After three years of this, I've developed some sort of coping mechanism. If I don't get my hopes up, maybe it won't hurt quite as much. Maybe I'll have better news in my next posting...maybe not...we'll see.

6dp5dt

Yesterday was a fairly rough day emotionally. Still no cramping, twinges or anything. I've had some nausea on and off (but even when I'm not POPU I get sick to my stomach), I feel a burning sensation in my breasts on and off. I keep having dreams that I am pregnant and have great betas or ultrasounds. One dream they showed two babies on the ultrasound, another I had a beta of 680, yesterday I had a dream about a beta of 360. But I've also had a dream that I had a BFN. I have also had no dark spotting that could be implantation bleeding. In my last two BFPs, I've had that dark, old blood. So, since I was home alone with nothing to do except over think everything, that's exactly what I did.

I started thinking about what our next step would be if this doesn't work. I didn't come to a conclusion other than I'm sick of doing the same thing over and over again. If something doesn't work, why the heck would you do it again and again expecting different results? Well, this time we did the same thing (long lupron) and we ended up with a great response and fewer embryos. Are we going backwards?

So then I look backwards. And that was the wrong thing to do because it only resulted in a bunch of tears. One year ago yesterday was the day I had my D&C. It was the last time my little baby boy was with me. When I told the Brain that it was the one year anniversary, she simply said she didn't know that, and then moved on. Why is it so easy for her to move on and forget?

3dp5dt

So far, I feel nothing. No twinges, no cramps, no burning, no sore breasts...nothing. This is very different from absolutely every other cycle I have ever done, including IUI. I have always felt something. I keep remembering something a friend said sometime last year. She told me that cramping is my body's way of rejecting the embryo. So, if I'm not cramping, that my body is accepting the embryo. She has no experience with IF or pregnancy, but it's still reassuring advice. I've never had a viable pregnancy, and I've never felt nothing...so maybe this is a good thing. I sure hope so.

The Transfer

This was my fourth transfer, and I have long since given up expecting my transfer to be filled with magical moments. Hopefully this will be my last transfer ever, so I won't have to wish that the next time won't have tears, or frustrations. Here's what happened.

I arrive at 9:00 am for a 9:30 am transfer, and instructed on my calendar. I begin drinking water to fill my bladder in a waiting room so full that I'm leaning up against a corner. I watch as people come and go, and I'm still waiting and drinking. Finally a single seat opens up and the Brain and I share it. Around 10:30 my bladder is so full that I'm bouncing and getting annoyed. She goes up to the window and lets them know I've been holding my bladder for an hour. They tell me to wait a little longer and pee if I really need to. That is when I start crying. I'm not really sure why I was crying...maybe just the pure frustration and the fact that it actually starting to hurt my bladder is s full. So, I get up (and toss my water bottle) and go to the restroom. Now, how are you supposed to just let a little urine out and then hold it again? And how was I supposed to just calm down, stop crying and compose myself so that they don't know I've been crying? Yep, I failed at both. They called me back finally and the Brain fills my bottle of water up again so I can start drinking again. We let them know I had to pee. THEN and only THEN do they tell me they are behind because they had to evacuate the building for a fire earlier. Wow! I totally could understand this...so maybe they should have told me this when I arrived and had me wait until instructed to start drinking.

They then apologize to me for not returning my e-mails about my eggs and I'm reassured that they would have called me if anything were wrong. The embryologist comes in and tells me that we have two excellent quality blasts to transfer, one that is actually starting to hatch. He's pleased with this and starts to leave. I stop him and ask about the other eggs. There were 23 fertilized ones on Thursday, and he was only telling me about two of them. I asked if any were frozen on day three. He tells me that none have been frozen, that at least five arrested and that five more were developing slowly. So, out of all these eggs we were transferring the only two quality ones. There may be nothing left to freeze. Part of doing another fresh cycle was to have another batch of better quality blasts.

I'm trying to remember it only takes one good egg, and hopefully that egg is nuzzling in right now. I'm tying to think about how people say that one door doesn't close without another door opening. I'm trying to remain positive. Before the transfer Dr Q said they he believes the only reason I won't become a mother is if I give up. Thanks Dr Q, but what if I run out of money? Oops, there I go being negative again.

Time to relax, watch mindless movies, connect the dots in my activity book and sleep.
Pinky

Early Easter Egg Hunt

My RE went on an early easter egg hunt today. He found 32 eggs, put them in his basket and gave them to the embyrologist. Hopefully there are enough good eggies in that batch because we had to trigger a little earlier than hoped. But, with that many eggs, and an estrogen level of over 7,300 it was time for the easter bunny to visit.