One More Sleep. . .

Several of you wonderful commentors have put time in terms of "one more sleep." I like that. Sleeping is one of my favorite pasttimes as of late (and actually, I am always up for a good nap), and it seems to be when time passes the fastest.

So, just one more sleep before we know more about the tentative future of this pregnancy. I would be lying if I said that my evil thoughts from yesterday were all gone, because they are not. And I imagine that they won't be for quite some time. If they ever do go away, I am sure that new ones will quickly replace them. However, I did have some quiet reflection time last night, asking God to give me peace. Barely fifteen minutes later, I had a pretty bad nausea moment. I haven't had once since, but I took that little episode as a sign from the Big Guy. Even if it was just a coincidence, I am more peaceful today.

My ultrasound isn't until 2:00 PM tomorrow and I am on the West Coast. Also, remember that we have to battle traffic for more than an hour north afterward. But I will do my best to post the results as soon as I can.

One more thing. No matter how this ends up, I am so grateful. Really. I will be devastated if there is bad new tomorrow, don't get me wrong. But I will still be so grateful. I am glad for the experience of being able to carry life, for no matter how short the time. I am happy that I get to have my little ones with me, even if I can't have them for the lifetime that I am praying for. I am so thankful for the support of family and friends, both in real life and here in blogland. I am on more prayer lists and support chains than I even feel that I deserve.

So thank you. No matter what.

Dark & Gloomy Thoughts

Today is a milestone for me. I have been pregnant many times. But only in two of my previous pregnancies did I ever make it this far. Today, I am six weeks pregnant. This should be enough to make me happy, to bring a smile to my face, to assure me that everything is going to be okay. Insteady, I am being assaulted with negative thoughts, convincing myself that this is going to end badly.

Where did my good attitude go?

I woke up this morning, convienced that Tuesday's scan will reveal nothing but a dark and cavernous womb of death.

I know, I know.

I have tried the logical approach to this: two healthy embryos, two great betas, a third beta that was okay if not perfect, RE's office is not worried, and I am increasingly exhausted, not a speck of spotting, in spite of my obsessive-compulsive checking. I mean, come on, there has to be something in there, right? Right?

But the little gremlin thoughts come creeping out when my positive side turns its back for a nanosecond. This is how that other chain of thoughts goes: that third beta didn't double, must be vanishing twin, not really any nausea, despite the fact that in my last pregnancy, I was already experiencing some by this time, boobs are sore at all, and who am I to actually think this could work?

There should be a law against making people wait this long for their first scan.

GSW of 2008:

Breasts tender, but only if I push at them, which makes it a question of what is making them tender?

Once again, no appetite at dinner last night, although ravenously hungry this morning

No real nausea

Crampy feeling this morning, kind of dullish and on and off

And of course, the negative thoughts, which I am not sure, but could be a symptom. . .

Just two more days to go.

You Can't Hurry the Ultrasound, You Just Have to Wait

Time is sure moving s.l.o.w.l.y.

There have been other times in our TTC adventures where it has seemed to creep by, but I think that these past days have been the hardest and the longest.

I wish that my RE's office wasn't quite so conservative. In looking around the blogs of other recently pregnant women, it seems unusual that we have to wait until after the sixth week mark. Most others seems to be getting their first u/s done at the mid-five week mark. Of course, this way, we are almost guaranteed seeing the heartbeat(s), but then again, it will be a little more ominous if we don't see the heartbeat(s). Although my IVF coordinator disagrees and says that some people are just "slower," if there are no heartbeat(s) detected next Tuesday, I will have a really hard time not thinking the worst. After all we have been through, I don't need any more ambivalence. One or two nice heartbeats at 90 - 110 bpm will be just fine, if anyone is taking my order.

The GSW [Great Symptom Watch] 2008 continues. Some things that I have noticed:

This morning, my breasts were definitely a little sore, although they aren't now.

Last night, I just wasn't hungry for dinner and only picked at a small salad. Other than that, I am usually ravenous. My husband actually is amazed by the intensity of my hunger and the speed at which I am eating lately.

I am incredibly thirsty. I am not really sure if this is a pregnancy symptom or not. Perhaps I am just dehydrated.

I am exhausted. I fell asleep last night at 7:30. I did wake up a bit from 9:30 til 10:00 because I had to move from the couch to bed. Then, I woke up at 8:00 this morning and then fell back asleep for a nap from 11:45 until 1:30. And another nap doesn't sound too shabby right now!

I guess I just have to wait . . . and wait. . . and WAIT. . . for the ultrasound.

I hope that everyone is having a great weekend!

Eww & Weird

I think my body has decided that it doesn't like being a pin cushion.

Yesterday, my husband gave me my PIO shot as normal. Well, it was normal, until about two seconds after he pulled the needle out and then he said, "Eww." For the record, Eww is not what a girl wants to hear when her husband is looking at her exposed bum.

Then, my husband started dabbing furiously at the injection site, saying, "This is weird."

Again, not what a lady wants to hear when her husband is looking at her bum.

I turned to scowl at him and he was still wiping the sore spot. He looked at me and said, "The medication is oozing back out."

Eww. That is weird.

It wasn't just a drop of medication, either, it was a lot. As soon as the clinic opened in the morning, I called the IVF coordinator and left a message. I wasn't sure if this was normal or if I would get enough of the progesterone in my system. I wondered if I should give myself a bigger dose, or perhaps supplement with suppositories. She called back at the end of the day and said that it was completely normal and that there was no need for extra medication.

I relayed the information to my husband, so we were prepared for this morning's injection. Except for there's really no way to fully prepare yourself for the syrupy PIO to come spilling back out at you - while the needle is still in your skin.

Double eww. Double weird.

In The Great Symptom Watch of 2008, I still don't feel much in the way of pregnant. I haven't been pregnant for over a year and that wasn't exactly the successful pregnancy that I should compare against. I remember my first moment of pregnant nausea came right about the six week mark, and even then, it was manageable and fleeting. I had moment kind of like that yesterday, where I started sweating and feeling just a tad rocky, but it was over and done with in moments. Other than that, I wouldn't say that I am having much in the way of morning sickness.

Strangely enough, despite all of the progesterone that we keep jamming in to my posterior, my breasts don't hurt. They aren't even that sensitive.

I am tired. Dead tired. Fall asleep on the couch at 7:30 every night tired. Yawn throughout the day and dream of taking a nap in my car tired. I think tired is good.

I have also been having some pretty vivid dreams. Two nights ago, I dreamt that something was wrong with my uterine lining, but when they did the ultrasound, the embryos were fine. So, they took the embryos out, scraped out my lining, replaced it with some sort of synthetic lining and then wanted me to put the embryos back in. Weird.

Last night was a dream of the rated R variety. And my husband was not in the co-starring role. For some reason, I always find those dreams the most disturbing. Here I am, having the man's child(ren), and I can't even be bothered to dream about him in a racy dream.

So, I guess it's a mixed bag of symptoms. Luckily, the pressure/cramping seems to have died down (although another friend of mine said that she had the exact same feelings in her first trimester) and I haven't had a drop of spotting.

Tuesday cannot come fast enough.

Unfair

I survived the first day back. Yesterday, my positive attitude faltered a bit in the afternoon. I was having these weird. . . well, I can't call them pains, but they weren't really cramps, either. It felt as if I had pressure on my uterus. It didn't hurt, but it was definitely noticeable. I started checking for spotting like it was my job. Luckily, I never had any.

I also am still a bit queasy, although nothing like the morning sickness that haunted me during my pregnancy with Gummy Bear. I am okay with that, though. I certainly learned the lesson that pukey mom does not equal healthy baby. And I am not going to get too cocky, because it is really too early for the morning sickness to kick in with full force.

I did have a bit of a distraction yesterday, something that made me actually forget about this whole business for a bit - shocking, I know. I got a phone call from a friend of a friend, letting me know that the mutual friend (M) was in the hospital. M is a healthy, active 24 years old. She had sinus surgery right before Christmas, but was recovering well when I talked to her last week.

Last Friday, she got this horrible pain in her leg. She thought it was a bad muscle cramp, possibly from laying around too much the past two weeks. The pain got worse, however and started moving up into her thigh, so she went to the doctor. It turned out that she had a deep vein thrombosis (blood clot) in in her leg. She was admitted to the hospital and started on blood thinners, but the clot moved into her lungs anyway, a serious condition called pulmonary embolism.

Although this a somewhat common after effect of serious surgery in the elderly, it is more rare in less serious surgeries, and extremely uncommon in young adults. They did some testing to find out the underlying cause and it turns out that M has a blood disorder. I visited her in the hospital yesterday and she was pretty down. One of the things that the doctor who diagnosed her told her was that she might not be able to have children.

She was quite drugged up yesterday, so I was not able to understand exactly what blood disorder she has. I know there are so many, but I thought most of them would be treatable with blood thinners in the case of pregnancy. I just thought it was really heartless of the doctor to throw that in on top of everything. . . especially when there is so much they can do to assist with pregnancy now.

All I know is that she is pretty down right now. She isn't married yet, but has been in a serious relationship for several years. She has talked about having children in the past and she would be a good mother. If what the doctor said is true and she can't have children, it is really unfair.

Then again, I guess that's the lesson that I should have learned by now. Infertility IS unfair. It hurts so many good people in so many different ways. It shapes part of who you are, or maybe more than just a part. I know that I am certainly a much different person now than I was before all of this started.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho! It's Back To Work I Go!

I should have known that it was too good to last. I was fortunate enough to be able to use a combination of sick days, vacation days, and company paid holidays to get two and a half weeks off of work. This was a benefit that most people don't have and I am grateful for the time off.

But it is really hard to come back to work.

I am in sales and it is a stressful job. I was promoted to a new position last February, but really started in the field in June after a long training period. I love my job itself. I adore the company that I work for, I am proud of the products that I represent, and I love interacting with our customers. Like any job, however, it has it's downsides.

One of which is that my boss comes to work with me about once a quarter. Now, I actually like my boss, and the worksessions aren't that bad once she gets in the car with me and we get going. But the days before are murderous. I am obsessive about getting two "perfect" days set up and really knock myself ou getting ready for her arrival. Because I am still so new to the position, I am also still in the "proving myself" phase. Since she does work with me so infrequently, I feel extra pressure to perform well, as that will be the impression that she has of me for the next couple of months before she works with me again. She is working with me next week.

The other stressful thing is traveling. Now, I am pretty lucky and don't have to do too much of it. However, we have a couple of big meetings coming up. These meetings are rather strange for anyone who has never been to a salesy-type meeting. We have to practice using our selling skills and materials in "role plays," which means you have to stand up in front of your entire region and pretend to sell to a pretend customer - with your peers, boss, and regional manager looking on.

And then there is one other issue . . . and this is my fault. There is a lot of paperwork. I used to be good with keeping up with it. But there is a LOT more paperwork with this new position and I have been spending a lot of time getting to know my new customers. And, if I am completely honest, I have also been focused on getting and staying pregnant, which has taken some of the time that I used to devote to keeping up with the mountains of paperwork. So, I feel as if I am constantly playing catch up with the administrative side of my job. Just thinking about all that I have to do is making my pulse raise. I can practically feel my blood pressure rising. . .

On top of that, a bit of the queasies are setting in. I am mid-week five, so that makes sense. It's completely manageable so far, but it's still there, like a lump in my throat.

But I had a nice break. Time to get back to work!

Happy New Year 2008!

Ah, 2008. Behold the new year as it sparkles and shines. I have a lot of hope for this year. We've had a rough couple of years on this road to parenthood. In so many other ways, we have been incredibly blessed, but this one area of our life tends to be all-consuming.

2006 had been probably the worst year of my life, starting with my grandmother passing away on January 1, 2006. A few weeks later we were thrilled when we found out that we were unexpectedly pregnant . . . and then devastated when we lost our baby shortly thereafter. We then suffered four more losses in 2006, culminating with the death of Gummy Bear in December 2006.

I was a wreck for the weeks following my D&C. I honestly don't know how I got through it. Well, actually, I have a pretty good idea. My husband was my rock. Not one to publicly display his emotions, especially grief, he searched online, found a support group and took me to it. He even told our story when my voice got lost in my tears. He bought me a beautiful silver heart necklace with a tear cut from it to wear in memory of our lost angels. He went to three bookstores to find a book on miscarriage and grief. He hugged me when I cried and pulled me up so many times when the sadness literally brought me to my knees And on New Year's Eve, he came up with the most beautiful idea of all. He suggested that we write letters to our babies, put them in a balloon, and release them at a beautiful park overlooking the water.

One of the hardest aspects of miscarriage for me has always been the lack of closure. There is no memorial service, no obituary, no social rite of passage to say good-bye Not only are you robbed of your baby, your hopes and dreams, you are robbed of the right to a ceremonial farewell. This was our memorial service for our angels. We each wrote letters and then put them in a red balloon with white hearts on it. We walked to the edge of this beautiful park and with tears in our eyes, released the balloon together. It bobbed along, moving upwards until it was a speck. And then, it vanished. My husband said it was as if heaven had opened up the door and snatched it inside for the babies. It was absolutely beautiful. My husband then said that we should make this a New Year's tradition and write a letter to our angels every year, letting go of the sadness of the previous year and opening our hearts to the hope of the coming one.

My husband had to work until after dark yesterday, so we are going to continue our tradition today. For me, this has so much symbolism. My grief didn't end that day, but it was a turning point for me. I was able to look toward the future again and start dreaming of the day when we would bring our living children with us to release a balloon, sharing our hopes and dreams as a family. That day isn't quite here, but I have a feeling that it so close.