Beta Rising

At 16 days post ovulation, my beta today was 360.  Which, according to BetaBase (we all know beta base, right?), it is a little higher than the median for a singleton.  But, my betas for both my other pregnancies were also a little higher than the median, so I am trying not to think about twins.

Betas with Nugget:
1st Beta (17 days post retrieval): 632
2nd Beta (19 days post retrieval): 1139
3rd Beta (21 days post retreival): 2331

Betas with Baby Girl:
Beta #1: 866 (18 days past retrieval)
Beta #2: 1595 (20 days past retrieval)
Beta #3: 3122 (22 days past retrieval)

I've been eating bacon and eggs like they are going out of style.  My boobs hurt.  No bleeding/spotting.  My tummy is already sticking out, but that's bloating from the progesterone or perhaps the massive amount of bacon I have been eating.  I don't even want to think about what my cholesterol is like now (last time I checked it was 270).  I invested in a sports bra shirt top thingy that has plenty of room in the middle so I don't have to be self-conscious when working out that everyone is going to know that I am pregnant before I want them to know.  I know.  Crazy.  I'm WAY too confident.

Guilt. Elation. Fear.

I am having some strange emotions.  Guilt.  Elation. Fear.

Unlike the last time, I'm not angry.  Only doing IVF twice.... only seeing a negative pregnancy test once is SO different.  How quickly I feel I have lost the perspective we gained by having to fight for our Baby Girl.  I take this pregnancy for granted.  I am already running again.  In fact, I ran during the two week wait several times.  I'm even thinking about going to Crossfit again (haven't been since before retrieval).  I've already looked up due dates (August 5th, but I am guessing that the baby will come early).  I'm already assuming that everything will be OK with the baby.  I'm already fearing the sleepless nights.  I'm already looking at Pinterest to figure out how we will board three kids in two bedrooms. I started looking at our budget for the next year to figure out how much we could afford for a new car, as our 11 year old Toyota Highlander can't hold three car seats.

I couldn't even fathom any of these thoughts with Baby Girl until we reached viability.  I was scared to death that we would lose her.

My head knows that I shouldn't be moving forward like this.  And, because I can't seem to make myself exercise caution in my planning, I am scared.

Scared that I will lose this pregnancy because I took it for granted.
Scared that we were not thankful enough for the two kids without any problems that we have that the universe will equalize our luck with a third child with issues.
Scared that my precious Baby Girl will not get the attention she deserves as she has a sibling so soon.
Scared that a third child will be more than we can handle.
Scared that maybe there are twins in there and I really can't handle four kids.
Scared that I will never get my career back on track with a third child.

I know that these are petty fears and that I will rise to the challenge of whatever we must face.

But, the biggest emotion that I can't seem to shake is sadness for Baby Girl.  It is an emotion I don't understand.  She was our miracle.  Our amazing Baby Girl with the wonderful disposition who wants nothing but to laugh and be held.  Will she get the love she needs?  Will she know how very amazing she is and how blessed we feel to have her?  My husband even says that he hopes this pregnancy--if viable--is a boy so that our Baby Girl will be different, special.  My sister always said that she was the "nothing child," the "middle child" and that she never felt special.  It would break my heart if precious Baby Girl ever felt this way.

I also worry about this baby.  Will he/she feel like an accessory?  Nice to have, but not essential?  Will I feel that way?  With Baby Girl, everything was amazing.  I had maternity photos taken so that I could memorialize the last time I would ever be pregnant.  I poured over blogs to design the perfect nursery. I cried tears of joy while in labor, so happy to feel the contractions again.  Will this pregnancy still be special to me or will I view it as "old hat?"

How can I even think these things?  These are horrible thoughts.  I should only be thankful.  And, I am.  I guess I never really processed what would happen if we actually DID get pregnant.  I mean, it was hard enough at 31 or 32....why would it work 2 years later without much struggle and strife?

I am also thinking about our leftover embryos.  Do I want to donate them?  Could I do that?  Who would I donate them to?  Would I want to have an open relationship with that family or would it serve us all better for it to be anonymous?

See?  Totally getting ahead of myself.  I haven't even had my second beta.  Someone smack me.

The Post I Am Afraid to Write

I am wary of writing this post.


Because it is not fair.


Because I know it will hurt people to read.


I can’t quite believe it myself, but today I got a positive home pregnancy test. I know this is just the beginning of the journey. I need a positive beta, and doubling betas, and ultrasounds, and a beating heart, etc. But, as of this moment, I am pregnant.

****UPDATED****
Beta=196 @ 14 Days Post Retrieval

Chicken

Well, I was going to test tomorrow.  13 days past retrieval....but...I'm chickening out.  I don't want to ruin another lazy Sunday being sad about a cycle.  So, maybe I'll test Monday?  Maybe Tuesday?  Any chance I could keep taking progesterone forever and just never have to deal with a negative?

Same old symptoms that everyone feels during two week wait post IVF.  Breathlessness. Cramps.  Lower back pain. Itchy nipples.  Blah blah blah.  I can hyper analyze these, but I know well enough that I've had the same symptoms when I've been pregnant as when I haven't.

Better news: Baby Girl is WALKING.  Full on.  Only 10 months old and she is taking up to 15 steps in a row.  She's still a little shaky, but she is SO proud of herself!  She starts clapping for herself before she even begins walking and has this HUGE grin on her face the entire time.  I'm so excited for her to be able to keep up with her brother. 

The past four days off have been wonderful.  Every morning, we pull Baby Girl in bed with us to have a bottle and then eventually her big brother comes and joins us.  She gets so excited when he joins us that she starts kicking her legs and jumping all around.  Big Brother is not so excited and really just wants to snuggle sans baby sucking on his nose or stealing his binky.

My husband and I are at war over my son's binky.  Husband thinks is WAY overdue for us to eliminate the binky.  I don't see that it is necessary to have a big fight about it and assume that he will grow out of it when he is ready.  Husband contends that it is impacting Nugget's speech...which very well may be true.  I think this might be a battle I lose.

Off to sleep.  This progesterone makes me want to sleep for 10 hours a night.  I do not know why some people love this stuff (thinking of you, Tippy!).

Red Stuff

This morning, I noticed that the discharge from my suppositories was brownish/reddish.  I have been pretty crampy the past few days.  I've never not made it to at least 15-17 days post retrieval before Aunt Flo decides to make her arrival, but seems she just can't wait this time.  It's only been 9 days post retrieval and 6 days post 3 day transfer, but apparently that's a long enough luteal phase for Aunt Flo.  Sigh.  I had stupid hope for this cycle.  And, I know that people will claim "implantation bleeding!" but I've NEVER had it before and am tired of trying to find reasons to hope.

2 Frozen Embryos

Got the cyro report today.

2 Frozen Blasts.
1 AA, 1 AB

Not bad.  I was secretly hoping that we'd have more.  But, my clinic only freezes top quality embyros and I guess the rest didn't cut the mustard.

So, combined with our one 32-year old embryo in NJ, we have 3 frozen, good/great quality embryos.

If this cycle doesn't work, we'll have to decide whether we want to do an FET or do another fresh cycle.  I'm inclined to do a fresh cycle in December, if possible, as that would completely suck our current insurance plan dry and then do a frozen in January while we wait for approval from our new insurance company.  I don't know if my clinic would be open to doing a natural FET.  A medicated FET is 2 cycles and they typically end up shutting down my ovaries for a couple of months (aka, no bleed, no ovulation) and I don't really want to take that time out.

Sigh, even as I write all this I get tired.  Maybe, if this cycle doesn't work, just do a last FET with all 3 embryos and be done with this.

Trauma

I am restless.  Ever since the transfer, I have been waking up in the middle of the night, lying in bed, unable to go back to sleep.  Inevitably, after an hour, I get out of bed and end up scouring the Internet to read "multiple ivfer" boards just to scroll through the signatures with people's stories of woe.  4 cycles.  7 cycles.  Beautiful embyros and yet never, never any success to knock some fear back in my heart.  Largely, I have been successful.  I was talking with my close, uber-fertile friend who naively asked if I had any symptoms and when I would take a pregnancy test.  Yes, I told her.  I have a ton of symptoms.  I'm hungry, cranky, exhausted, my nipple tingle, peeing constantly and these symptoms are completely meaningless because I will have them regardless of whether I am pregnant.  I will know I am pregnant if I pee on a stick two weeks post transfer and two lines pop up.

Lately, I can't shake this sense of loss.  Loss of my career.  Loss of the woman I used to be.  The emotionally mature response is to say that I am a newer, better, stronger self.  And, sure, I am.  But, I feel so lost in my career now.  I went from being one of the "high performers" to this drab wall-flower with promotion potential decimated.  It's not something that I couldn't make up for in a couple of years with a lot of hours and maneuvering and hard work.  But, it just feels so....artificial.  I just can't pretend it is something I care about any more.  I also miss my physical aspirations.  I guffaw to think I seriously thought I had a chance of running a 2:50 marathon.  I wanted to run 90 miles a week. 

It seems like my heart just can't hold of anything anymore.  I have no aspirations of any sort now.  Or at least I don't know where to point my ambition.  And, I love my kids, but being a mom is one aspect of my personality.  The only aspect of my life that I have focused my perseverance and hard work on the past few years.  I got lucky in that I can look at my two children and feel that I am accomplished something.  But, I am exhausted from it.  I don't know how to revive the rest of my life and the thought of continuing to live like this, with all other ambition muted seems....empty, scary, isolating?  I can't find the right adjective.

Sigh.  I should go back to sleep.  The combination of waking up in the middle of the night plus drugs is making me a human zombie. 

Who is this girl?

Today we went in for transfer expecting it to be like all the other transfers.  One or two to pick from.  All the others dead.

But, today...they were all still growing.  I didn't memorize the number/cell/grade of each of them, but they were all still in the running and some of them looked very good.  Usually, my clinic would have insisted that we wait until Day 5, but we refused.  Day 3 is all that has worked for us, so we're sticking with it.  We picked the two best embryos, a 7-cell and a compacting 8-cell with 0 fragmentation, both grade 1 (highest grade). 

We will find out out Monday whether they were able to freeze any embryos.

We are trying so very hard to not be hopeful.  To not fall victim to the allure of beautiful embryos and a nearly perfect cycle.  To not look up due dates.  To not think about how crazy it would be to manage three children.  To not wonder if maybe we would have a second boy or girl.  To not think about how different our perspective would be about life should it work out to be so EASY to have another child. 

They cycle that hurt the most was the cycle that we did up in New Jersey with the beautiful hatching blastocysts and the embryologist who told us she couldn't imagine that this cycle wouldn't work.  We hoped.  We were stress-free and elated the entire two week wait.  After the negative, I didn't get out of bed for days.  I had horrible fights with my husband.  I can't let myself fly too high because the fall is too steep and too horrible.  Instead, I will choose this middling place.  I am content with my two children.  It would be interesting, a nice to have, but I will not die or sob in bed or miss any more of my life if this cycle doesn't work.

And so the wait begins.

All 9 Still Growing!

At 48 hours post retrieval, embryos should be 2-4 celled.  Yeah, yeah.  We all know that.

As of 9 o'clock this morning, all 9 embryos are still growing.

I have:
2 3-cells
3 4-cells
2 5-cells
1 6-cell
1 7-cell

So, at least 5 normal embryos.

Transfer is scheduled for 10:30 tomorrow morning.  Think good thoughts!

Why is this happening?  WHO knows!  This is the EXACT same protocol that I did in April 2011 with Baby Girl, which yielded 6 eggs, 4 mature, 2 fertilized.

This ART stuff is freaking insane.

We'll see if there are any take home babies in there.

Mwah!

Best Fertilization Report of ANY Cycle I have Ever Done

15 eggs
10 mature
9 fertilized

AH-Mazing!

We'll see about the progress report tomorrow.  Hoping that we have at least 2 to transfer on Thursday.

I'm trying so hard not to let my excitement get the best of me.  I know what a roller coaster ride this is.  Some great cycles NEVER translate into pregnancies.  Some pregnancies never translate into take home babies.

Are you kidding me?

Retrieval today.

I about screamed when the nurse told me that they got FIFTEEN eggs. I have never gotten a double digit number of eggs! We shall see how many are actually mature. I am hoping that this higher number of eggs will translate into mature eggs and hopefully better fertilization rates than last cycle.

We shall see. Definitely more pain this time.

E2 Up the Wazoo!

On the past 3 antagonist cycles (IVF#6 in September 2012, IVF#5 in April 2011, IVF#4 in February 2011), my E2 peaked at 700-900 and I've typically had 4-6 follicles and only 4-5 mature eggs.  This cycle I have 5-8 follicles and my E2 on CD 12 is 1051.  I really think that I'll get 4-5 mature eggs this cycle.  My E2 peaked at 1400-1500 on the 2 long lupron and 1 microdose lupron flare cycles that I did previously (IVF#1 in Feb 2008, IVF#2 in Aug 2010, IVF#3 in Nov 2010) . 

I'm trying not to get too optimistic about this cycle as I had high E2 on IVF#2 & 3 that never amounted to good quality embryos.

My spirits seem to be pretty good.  I think I've come to accept having only two children and may even prefer it.  One day at a time.  It only took 8 IVF cycles to get this way.....

IVF#7

I've started this post several times.  Never seem to find the right intro.  And, so, I will just begin.

I am on CD 4 of my latest cycle.  I have one follicle that seems a little bigger than the others, which has me worried that we are falling victim to the one potential downfall of the estrogen priming antagonist protocol: a dominant follicle.  But, I have been through this enough to not get freaked out until absolutely necessary.  My E2 levels have been better this cycle (CD3=64; CD5=104), but still not great.  In my head, I'm just thinking that this is game over and that we are going through the motions so that we can tell ourselves later on that we did all we could and have no regrets about it.  I am sad to think that we won't have any more kids, but also feel like I am so lucky to have the two that we do have and so excited to be able to experience all the cool toddler growth stages with Baby Girl again.  I have these fleeting moments with Nugget where I am so in love with him, so engrossed in our fun little interactions, and I am thankful that I can really concentrate on each of my children and really get to explore with them.

Every night I read books with Nugget.  He usually negotiates me up from 3 to 4 or 4 to 5 and I am *such* a sucker.  You wanna read?  SURE!  He's still obsessed with dinosaurs and trucks and I know more about "diggers" and "buckets" and "cranes" (do you know the three main parts of a crane?  I do!) than I ever thought possible.  Then, we go through his alphabet cards.  Of course, the only letters he can remember are "N" for "Nugget" and "P" for "PooPoo."  After the alphabet cards, we have a couple of rounds of "Mommy Pizza" where he lays on top of me and pretends to eat me (weird, I know).  Then, we snuggle.  Then, I kiss him and he compulsively puts my kisses in his pocket.  Then, I whisper: "You are my special boy" and he whispers back "You are my special Mommy."  And, that's my absolute favorite time of day with him.  The rest of the day is a series of negotiations and dramatic fights over how awful a mommy I am to make him wear clothes, go to the bathroom, eat at the table, go to school, etc.  Also thrown in are a couple of excruciating boring games of "rescue Mommy and Grandma and Baby Girl and Nana and Gramps from the fire."  A few rounds of "swim away from the shark" in the basement.  And, some cute brother and sister play in which Baby Girl wraps her hands around her big brother's face and tries to suck on his nose.

In other news, I have been injured all freaking month and totally unable to exercise...which SUCKS.  I went back into running/exercise a little too hard core after taking off for IVF#6 in September.  For a couple of days, I couldn't even walk up and down stairs, so I am thankful at least to be able to move around comfortably in every day life.  I hate to think of how out of shape I am and how much weight I am going to gain with the wonderful combination of no exercise, IVF, and all the upcoming food holidays.  I know I'll dig myself out of it...but sometimes I daydream about just stopping IVF so that I can have control of my body again and can start progressing toward some fitness goals.  In the end, though, I know that said fitness goals are empty and won't give me the satisfaction I think they will.

My sister seems to be doing OK.  The outpatient program she is in is pretty intense.  I do worry, though, that I have NO IDEA what is really going on in her head.  We seemed to have moved out of crisis zone, though, and my parents have really been wonderful in helping her out and not saying judgemental things.

My husband's company is still being sued, but we don't know if it will actually come to fruition.  It does seem to be on more solid ground, though....which opens up the possibility of me quiting my job and really "burning the ships" to ensure that I figure out this career stuff.

Hope you all are well!!