Monday, April 27, 2009

Spring has Sprung

My office moved to a new building this winter. So, for the last nearly five months the view from my window has essentially been a dirt pit. Today there is grass and boxwood and holly. The landscapers came this morning. In the space of four hours they completely transformed the front of the building. It's the same little patch of earth, but now it's different.

That has me thinking of my life this spring. So many things are the same, but now different. I am struggling with a couple of different aspects of life and pregnancy and feel rather like an island to myself right now. I'm neither a part of the infertility world, nor the fertile world. I didn't expect this at all. I guess I expected to feel more like part of both worlds than neither. So, I'm the same infertile me, with some pregnancy induced landscaping (this is both metaphorical, and a reference to the need for more frequent waxing over the past few weeks).

The other area of struggle at present is the ever soul draining mother-in-law. I'm telling you, this woman doesn't know how to be happy and is incapable of thinking of anyone but herself. That sounds harsh, I know. But trust me when I say to you that it's so true. It's a huge big deal that G has been confronting his mother on a number of issues lately. The point of contention seems to be me (surprise!). I'm not good enough, my family and I have some sort of conspiracy against her, I've been badmouthing her family and apparently I've been getting her blood pressure up and last but not least, G and I are both bi-polar. I suspect that she's jealous of the baby. Frankly, I'd be quite glad if she dropped out of our lives; however, this is killing G. He feels torn between wanting his mother to be a part of his and his child's lives and protecting his family (i.e. me and baby) from a vicious predator (i.e. MIL). He just wants some normalcy and peace. I can't blame him. I want some normalcy and peace, too. I'm tired of nasty voicemail messages and G feeling like he has to keep stuff a secret or I will get stressed and will lose the baby. The worst part is that is what G thinks. He thinks she's trying to cause stress so that I will lose the baby. He's probably right. Naturally, I'm not letting myself get stressed over this and I'm doing everything I can to keep his stress low, too, but it's kind of hard when I have no control over the outside force that's causing the stress. I'm just so sick of the drama.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Still Infertile

I don't know why, but I thought that if I ever were to get pregnant I'd develop a fertiles mind. Not that I'd lose the perspective of the journey, or enjoy the success any less. More that I thought that pregnancies and babies that were not result of so much struggle and hard work would have less of a negative impact on me. I thought I'd be more capable of being happy for the non-infertiles.

Why I thought this would happen magically and all on its own is beyond me. I have no idea. Obviously, that isn't the way it works. Infertility is part of who I am now. I'm not sure that I like that. When I hear of my cousins having babies, I don't think "Yay! Another baby in the family." I think "Why her? Why does she get to have as many as she wants and I'm struggling for one?" Even here in the throws of all day sickness nausea, when other infertiles are asking the same question in reference to me (and I don't know... I wish we all had success, I wish we were all pregnant and I hope this is your last cycle and you get pregnant, really I do). When I see movies with miscarriage & infertility, it still affects me more than others. It still affects my husband more than it should (he got too upset to watch Marley & Me because of the miscarriage in the beginning).

So, I guess I'm feeling a little surprised today that while I'm almost there (not counting myself as arrived until baby is snuggly in arms) in terms of success, I still seem to be in the infertility trenches.

Friday, April 17, 2009

The Best Day Ever with Arminta F. Thompkins

Yeah, my name really does not contain an "F. Thompkins" but I'm a big fan of Paul F. Thompkins, and it fit with my title (if you don't know who Paul F. Thompkins is, please do a youtube search for "Best Week Ever with Paul F. Thompkins" I'll wait... funny, right?)

So, yes, I am having the best day in the history of days. It started with getting to skip a weekly work meeting to go to the RE's for my second ultrasound. Yay! On the way to said u/s appt, I got pulled over (for the second time in my whole life). Oh, noes! Not today... Today the cop gave me a break and didn't give me a ticket and I still made it to my appt on time.

Then, G was running late and he wasn't there when I got there, but... the doctor was running later and G got there in time to get to go back with me! And it's a good thing he did because...

We got to HEAR the heartbeat. Not just see, but hear it, too. It was the single best sound I've ever heard. Nice strong 116 beats per minute. I totally bawled in front of the doctor and dildo cam operator. Poor G is still u/s reading impaired, but since I was a mess listening to the heart the nursing assistant (aka vampire) was nice enough to explain to him what we were looking at and why I was bawling. He did see the heart flickering, but her thought the whole gestational sac was the heart. The doctor said "perfect" twice during the ultrasound. I'm unaccustomed to hearing "perfect" in reference to me and specifically in reference to me and reproduction, so that made me cry more.

Best of all he printed pics for sharing. Now, I am quite creative with my interpretation of fuzzy bean pictures, so I see a head, tail and arm; however, I understand your mileage may vary.


Wednesday, April 15, 2009

That darn pug

As if I've not got enough going on with the every other day bloodwork and the weekly ultrasounds and the worrying about the whole deal, I now also have to worry about building a fortress strong enough to contain Emma every morning.

It seems she has taken to figuring out how to break down whatever I put in front of the kitchen door to keep her and Waldo contained during the day. At this point we're up to a rolling kitchen island, a baby gate, two dining room chairs and a box. Yesterday she managed to roll the island out of the way, break down the gate and crawl under a chair.

How much trouble is one pug worth...

Sunday, April 12, 2009

You may have noticed

That I am a pessimist. Yes, I am a glass half empty kind of girl. Then when the glass turns out to be 5/8 full, yay!

Currently, we're sitting a little better than 5/8 full, it's probably closer to 3/4 full. Enough with the fractions! What was I rambling about...

Right, the glass is fuller than previously anticipated. We had the first ultrasound on Friday. We (I'm using "we" a little loosely here, the doctor did most of the work) found a gestational sac firmly in uterus (so not ectopic). It was a little small based on LMP date, but it was spot on considering that I did ovulate until CD 19. We also found a "primitive little yolk sac." I'm imagining a cave baby inventing the wheel and discovering fire. So, while there is still concern over the numbers, it is less of a concern. This means we get another ultrasound next Friday. The vampire that works in the RE's office also took some more blood, because why not, my arm is there and I already look like a heroin addict (due to arm bruising, not gauntness & general lack of hygiene).

One interesting finding was a spot that couldn't be positively identified. The doctor said it might be fluid or it might have been a twin that was blighted. So, if that's the case, it could explain the numbers going wonky.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

My Life = Upside Down

So yesterday I went back for a "routine, just to check, we don't expect anything to be wrong, we just like sticking you" third beta. The nurse jokes with me about finally being able to remove the infertility code from my chart. All is happy and well. My family sends me joking e-mails about baby names. Things were great.

Until...

3:45pm

That's when the doctor's office called. The same nurse who joked about taking the infertility code off of my chart called to tell me my test results. Great, I love hearing the numbers, because they're always (all twice that I've heard them) so great. My hcg is 1106 and progesterone is 46.1. OK, the progesterone has taken a nosedive from 80, but anything over 20 is good, I think. Then the nurse says what I really, really didn't want to hear her say. "You're numbers aren't doubling the way they should."

What?!?!?!?!?!?

Apparently, the numbers need to double every other day, and mine are doubling just under every three days. So, I ask what should the numbers be today. Between 1200 and 2400 based on the last two betas. So I'm 100 lower than the lower end of "OK." FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

Of course, I didn't really expect my pregnancy to be smooth sailing. I didn't really believe Dr. Wonderful was going to solve the problems that caused my body to kill four other innocent babies. But, I hoped. I really, really hoped.

So, what does this mean? It could be nothing. I could have been dehydrated (apparently has the opposite effect on blood tests as on urine tests). Or... it could be ectopic. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

Dr. Wonderful has decided that he does want me to have an ultrasound early (tomorrow, @ 6wks), to see if they can find a sac. I assume there will also be more drawing of blood, because why not? My vein will be within easy poking distance, and they do love to poke. Unfortunately Dr. Wonderful is MIA tomorrow, so I have to see Dr. Groll (not a fake name, I figure as he's in the book business he probably doesn't mind having his name plastered about the internet, and I like his name). I'm OK with seeing Dr. Groll, I trust him and I've seen him before, but I was really hoping to see MY doctor. At least I got to talk to my doctor.

So, now we're back in wait and see mode. I think God must hate me. Or at least really like to fuck with me. I know we're not talking Job level testing, but Minta's not Job. I'm not strong enough for this shit.

Friday, April 3, 2009

The Pug is on the Lose

Well, folks, we've moved and apparently gotten knocked up and all of this hasn't phased Emma puggins one little bit. Oh, except it's easier to escape the kitchen and cause chaos during the day at the new house.

I'm one of those mean dog owners that keeps the dogs confined to one area of the house while I'm away at work, because, well, it keeps the mess down. Besides, the way I figure it, they sleep all day anyway. Why do they need the whole house to do that? Also, this little temporary imprisonment gives the cat some reprieve from Emma chasing her everytime she needs to pee.

Emma on the other hand thinks she does need the whole house. More accurately, she thinks she needs to be able to chase the cat through the whole house. It just kills her that the cat gets the living room and bathroom while she's confined to the kitchen.

At the old house I would slide the microwave cart in front of the baby gate, and voila insta-prison. We have a different set up at this house, though and since I no longer leave through the back door, and have to cross over the baby gate to leave the house, I can't roll anything in front of it. So, for the past 4 days Emma has hopped the gate and Waldo has in his Emma-less boredom tore the trash can all to hell. Today I had a brilliant plan to put an end to this non-sense. I would put a chair in front of the gate to stop Emma hopping it, then I'd also put the trash can in the dining room where the dogs couldn't reach it. It was a good plan. Except, I underestimated Emma's desire to be free. She hopped the gate, chair and all. Then, because Waldo was unable to do the deed she got onto the chair and got everything out of the trash. Bitch!

So, we're back at square one. I'm thinking we give up on this silly notion of confining the poochies. G wants to put them in the garage. (It's attached and heated and we don't park in it)

What do you think dear internets, garage or freedom? or maybe you know of a better plan?

Thursday, April 2, 2009

This thing just might be real

Well, I got the call today on my second beta. Numbers are doubling right on schedule. I'm really pregnant. After five years. It's amazing. I am officially amazed.


This journey all started at about 3am on Saturday. I woke up and needed to pee. This is a normal happening at 3am in my house. However, it was our last night in the old house, so I decided to go ahead and test. I'd test a day early, it would come back negative and that would be OK, because it would mean we were leaving infertility at the old house. It couldn't follow us, if I tested right then. This is what I call 3am brain fog. Of course none of that makes sense, but it's what I was thinking. So, I peed on the stick and sat there for a minute getting ready to head back to bed. Then I looked back at the test (3-5 minutes later, I'm slow in the middle of the night), and there staring back at me were two lines. One was quite pale, but there was no mistaking that it was there. I just stood there, in shock. How could this be? So, I got back in bed and told G, he got up to look at it. He was not excited enough to stay up, but he did get up to look at it. He said "I am so happy right now." Which is big happiness from G (he's a pathological worrier).


We moved all day Saturday and I didn't open my mouth all day, but I wanted to! Then I took another test at 3am on Sunday (told ya, that's my normal time) and it was positive, too!!!


I told my Mom on Sunday. All she could say was "I'm scared to believe it, I'm scared to believe it." But now that the beta's have come back so nicely (121 and 298 respectively) we are all starting to believe it.