Beta #2

350!

Yay. That's good, almost exactly double, slightly less but good enough. I'm excited and scared. I'm off to the Airport in an hour. I really hope this embryo stays put, but I don't really have time to think about it right now. Time for vacation!

Beta #1, 14dp3dt

178. Yay!

At first I was a little disappointed, because it's a little low relative to the Betabase numbers. But my doctor says it's a really great number. I'm going to hang on to that and allow myself to be cautiously excited.

Beta #2 in two days.

The Wait

I went in for my Beta this morning. I'm now sitting on pins and needles waiting for the results which usually show up around noon. Plus I have a ton of work to do before I go on vacation to America on Wednesday. It would really help if I could concentrate a bit.

12dp3dt

So, I tested again this morning. The line is getting darker, though it's still lighter than the control line, it's not as dark as I would have liked after last month's experience. Plus, the tests that I have take f o r e v e r to fully develop, giving me just enough time to have a heart attack that the line is getting lighter or not developing as fast. A couple of minutes after I took the test, I brought the two tests down to show E and he immediately said, that's totally darker, it's like twice as dark (not knowing that hcg is supposed to double every 48 hours). Good answer E, he objectively verified that my hcg is indeed doubling. That's it for the home testing. Beta on Sunday, I really hope this one sticks. I'm feeling better about this one than last time, but the fear and doubt is definitely still there.

10dp3dt

I took a test this morning and it was positive! I don't believe it, I was sure this hadn't worked. It's light, but not squint in the light light, just lighter than the control. This is the same day I tested last cycle and while I saw a line last time it was much much lighter. I'm taking this as a good sign and hoping that this one will stick. In any case it seems to be doing better than my last chemical pregnancy. I'm excited, shocked, and scared. In any case I'm pregnant for now and I'm going to be happy with that.

Scared

Today is 8dp3dt. I feel a little cramping but otherwise nothing. I'm really scared that this didn't work. Last month something (well, actually my expanding ovaries from late onset OHSS) told me to take the hpt, but I'm really not feeling anything now besides a little cramping and really nothing to write home about. I'm not nearly as tired as last time before I tested, I'll attribute that to the endometrin vs. PIO, there's no way my progesterone levels are as high as they were last cycle. My plan is to test on 10dp3dt and it's creeping up on me and I'm not feeling any more pregnant.

Adrift, 7dp3dt

I really don't know what to think now. I finally felt some cramps a couple of days ago at 5dp3dt, nothing major but at least something, no spotting. Last time I really didn't feel anything until 8dp3dt, plus I had spotting which pretty much continued very lightly until the end, but we all saw how that ended up. Maybe the embryo is implanting earlier? Maybe I'm just going crazy? Can you get cramps just from all the medication? My body has nothing to go on now besides the supplements it has no internal clock that my luteal phase is half way through, so I have no reason to have any cramps besides those embryos, right? I'm just trying to hold on to something.

Part of me feels like this has to work, the other part of me feels like I used up my good statistics for getting pregnant on a chemical pregnancy. But a chemical isn't really getting pregnant so it doesn't count, right? Nothing to do besides wait. I guess I'll test around the same time as last time. I think this is the first time ever that I actually want to see some spotting.

The Perfect Storm

Well, one thing is for sure, FETs make for very boring writing material. I've been taking my estrogen pills diligently for the past two weeks. Then I had one monitoring appointment last tuesday where my lining was 8.4 mm, but apparently that was enough for my RE to schedule the transfer for yesterday. So, I started taking progesterone (suppositories, thank god, I still have phantom pains in my injection sites) on Thursday and yesterday I showed up at the hospital for the transfer. I seriously feel like I'm on an IVF vacation, all the embryos with none of the work. We transferred two 8 cell (grade 1-2 I think) embryos. The doctors and nurses kept saying how nice they looked. These two were my best embryos from the whole batch, for my fresh transfer they actually used a lower quality embryo since my doctor didn't want to waste the best embryos on a less than ideal cycle (lupron trigger instead of hcg). So, I'm hopeful. I really want this to work. Now to wait.

In the meantime I am just now recovering from a really nasty triple illness. It all started the same morning as my monitoring, I woke up with a UTI. Awful, awful. So I went to a doctor (not mine) who works at the same office as my monitoring (one of the benefits of socialized medicine) and managed to get a prescription for antibiotics that morning. Meanwhile I'm starting to feel overall much worse. I chalked it up to the infection but soon it was obvious that I had some sort of virus as well and couldn't get out of bed for the next three days or eat because I was so nauseous. I couldn't take ibuprofen because it irritated my bladder, plus the anti-biotics were dehydrating and irritated my bladder, plus I then got a yeast infection from the anti-biotics. To say I was uncomfortable was an understatement. Bacteria, virus, and fungus, I got them all. I was worried about all the medications with the transfer, but my doctor said the anti-fungul suppositories were fine to use with the progesterone, and he said to stop my anti-biotics at transfer anyway (earlier then the GP had prescribed) and that I should be fine. I'm drinking a ton of water to make there is nothing hanging around my urinary tract now that I'm off anti-biotics. I recovered just in time.

So, now I have two embryos on board. From the beginning I've been clear that I didn't want twins if I could avoid it and in my mind IVF gave me that control. Apparently that's out the window now, I just want to get pregnant already. Not getting pregnant is definitely worse that having twins in the grand scheme of things. Seeing the embryos on the flat tv screen on the wall made it very concrete that this is a real possibility, there are two more living entities inside of me now. I just have to hope for the best. Beta in two weeks (seriously? 14dp3dt? I don't even have any hcg in my system!).