Go

Had an early dinner with K last night.  He was stuck at work for an extra long day due to scheduling snafus so I went up to his workplace to take him to a long "lunch" near dinner time.  And the whole time, I was saying "I have no proof, but I'm 99% sure I'm pregnant."

Why did I think this?  Because of all the activity going on in my abdomen.  Because I'm actually getting HUNGRY instead of just kinda wanting a snack.  Cuz I'm dreaming like crazy every night instead of the one dream per week that's average for me.

On the way home, I was in a really good mood.  At a red light I was totally rocking out to something on the radio.  And 20 minutes later as I took my freeway exit near home, I started crying imagining looking at my first ultrasound and whether or not it will have 1 or 2 Maybies in it.  That's some major mood swing action so I knew that when I made it home, I had to pee on a stick.

Being only 4dp5dt, I expected to see nothing of course.

Now, I realize that the second lines are very faint, especially since they don't want to show up on camera, but they're there.  I had peed on a few earlier, including the morning of transfer to ensure that this is NOT the trigger shot leftovers.  Nope, that has completely cleared from my system so the only possible source of any HCG right now is my little Maybies.  And I really am thinking that it might be twins again.  It showed up on day 4 for crying out loud!  And every cramp and pull that I'm having is either the lower left or the upper right, the same locations as those 2 really strong, potentially implantation twinges.  But never in the upper left or lower right.

I really thought that I would get upset at seeing my BFP, but I didn't.  Guys, I'm having emotions almost as if I'm completely naive of what could happen.  K is not and he really kind of pissed me off last night by not getting all excited with me.  I am afraid that this pregnancy will last no more than a day or two before fading away, so I guess I'm trying to enjoy it for the few moments that I have it.

Here's my freakout list -

• I peed again this morning and while the faint, faint line is still there, it's even fainter.  Is it going away????  Is it a chemical pregnancy and I'm going to be back in the IF/MC club next week??
• A line showed up on day 4, just how many are in there kicking out HCG anyway????  I had an embryo split last time to create 2 babies and we transferred 2 perfect embryos this time.  Am I going to have to some horrible decisions to make when we can finally count how many may have split and stuck?
• Am I jinxing things by saying this out loud and actually being happy about it?

Okey dokey.  So.  At the moment, for at least this moment, I'm knocked up!

The starter pistol has sounded, I'm officially running towards the finish line.  But wow are there a lot of hurdles between here and there.  The first hurdle - still being pregnant when I do my beta test on Thursday, Nov 3rd. In other words, determining that this pregnancy is real and not a chemical pregnancy.

I'm fully expecting to lose a few followers this week.  I tend to stop reading IF blogs that become pregnancy blogs so if that's how you feel, I totally understand.  I hope you'll come back and join me again when you're on your own track towards graduation.  And if you see me back on the ICLW list on the Stirrup Queens website in the future, it will mean that this is no longer a pregnancy blog and has returned to being an IF/MC blog and it's safe to read me again.  I don't intend to participate while pregnant, that just seems rude.

4dp5dt stupid stuff

Currently 4dp5dt so I obviously have nothing really to report.

There's activity in my abdomen so I'm fairly certain I'm gonna have good news in a few days.  Can't really describe it.  It's not quite cramps and it's not very consistent in what it feels like.  This morning when I woke up, it was kind of a general ache in the whole lower, center area.  I'm getting little bands of tightness across the full abdomen.  And little, uhm, burning spots for lack of a better description.  The evening of transfer and the next morning I felt 2 very specific hard twinges so, ya know, here's hoping.

But yeah, just kind of vague general activity from time to time.  I have no idea if this is still just recovery from egg retrieval and all the stims or if this is new activity.

And of course all of the blogs and forums describe symptoms this early as feeling like the onset of AF.  Well I have no clue if that's what I'm experiencing because being a PCOS person, I don't really have AF without medications so I don't ever have any indication that it's coming, so I sincerely don't know what the onset of AF feels like.

As I comment on various IF blogs, I'm starting to think I should record the Captcha words as potential baby names.  My favorite so far is PooPom.  Leave me your Captcha baby names in the comments!

Conversations with the Hubby

After another annoying trip to the bathroom to deal with Endometrin ickies, I had the following conversation with K.

Me:  Interesting IVF fun fact #83.  The size and shape of the endometrin splooge that lands in your underwear will never match the size and shape of the pad you have put in your underwear to catch said splooge.

K:  Thank you for that.  I'm ignoring you now.

And he actually followed that with something I haven't seen since high school -

Final Embryo Count

Got the final update today on what we got from this round.  And the total is 5, just like last time.  I've got 2 of them floating around in me now, 3 went on ice, and we still have 1 frostie from our first attempt.  So I have this attempt, and 2 more in the bank.

I was really hoping to get three attempts in the bank.  I know that these numbers are actually really, really good, and the quality of the embryos is really, really high, but like everyone else in the world, I wanted more.  I just can't help but be scared that it's not enough.  What if none of them ever take, or what of some of them become pregnancies that don't make it to term?  Will I feel like I did enough to be able to walk away from IVF without regrets?  I just don't know.

But we're not focusing on that right now.  We're focusing on my swimming Maybies!

Aren't they cute?

And because I'm like every other IVF patient in the world, I'm imagining all sorts of twinges and pangs that can be interpreted as something but are likely nothing.  Had some sharp pangs on my lower left yesterday and right now I'm experiencing some pangs on my upper right.  I'm 1dp5dt.  That's waaaaaayyyy too early for implant, right?  They still need another day of swimming, right?

I wish these pangs could reasonably be interpreted as implantation.  Cuz if they could, that would mean that both are implanting on complete opposite corners of the uterus which would be fabulous.  But I'm not deluded enough to think that it's real.  Psychosomatic I'm sure (she says fishing for someone to tell her otherwise).

K is being totally supportive.  He's doing all the laundry and the dishes so that I don't have to lift or bend.  And when I can start doing pottery again (the position I sit in while doing kind of crunches the core so it will be a few days), he's going to put a bag of clay up on the table for me every morning so I can just cut off what I need without having to lift it.  And he's going to help me unload the kiln tomorrow or Friday when it's ready to be unloaded.  I was smart, I loaded the kiln the day before transfer except for the top level so that I wouldn't have to do it after the transfer.

Ok, now that I've completed the second half of IVF, I'll need to write another IVF Random Tips posts.  Please ask me your questions or submit your tips so I can get them included!