The numbers - 6w

Just got the numbers back from this morning (I love that they automatically email me everything, including drug instructions and next appointment - so very convenient!).

BLOOD LEVELS:
E2 Level: 941
HCG Level: 31805
P4 Level: 19.1

The nurse said the numbers look good. I was a little concerned that the progesterone had dropped a tiny bit. But the nurse said that was fine, that it does fluctuate, and they are looking for it to be over 10. And I've seen online that first trimester should be 10-47. So I'm in the safe zone.

They told me to stop the Estrace pills, since they've now seen the heartbeat, and we scheduled my next visit for next Friday. Funny thing is, they're not testing my E2 or TSH next time, just the P4 and HCG. When my regular nurse gets back next week, I'll ask her why they aren't testing those. I would think they'd want to check the E2 since I'm stopping the Estrace pills, and I would like to see how the TSH is doing now that I'm on Synthroid. Curious. Maybe they're waiting until the last appointment?

Oh, and I have my due date! December 30th. Very cool.

Happiness

We saw the fetal pole and heartbeat!

I think we are at 6w1d, and the fetal pole measures 4.21, which the doc says was right where it should be (and I confirmed on google!)

And then the heartbeat was 109 bpm. That sounded low to me, but he said they were looking for over 90 at this stage, so he thought it was good. Online, I've seen 100 as the low range for 6w, so I guess this is OK, but I definitely want to see it rise next week!

He wants me to come back for two more weeks and meanwhile, he told me to schedule an appointment with my OB for 3 weeks from now. It will be fun to make that call!

So I'm feeling good. But still nervous, of course. I'll have a few days of happiness, then a few days of dread before my next appointment. Next Thursday I need to fly to Boston for the day, so I hope they schedule me for Wednesday instead of Friday. Although maybe Friday would be better, since I'm nervous about flying, and it would be nice to go in right after...

But I'm happy. And I'm going to enjoy it for a while and really, really try to push the worry away!

Nervousness and excitement

Grrrrr. I'm getting nervous again for my u/s tomorrow. I hate that feeling! How nice would it be to just enjoy this without so much anxiety....

But I'm trying real hard to think positive! I went to Barnes & Nobles yesterday and spent a lot of time in the pregnancy section. Honestly, I felt a little like an impostor. But I did buy a few interesting books. Aside from the "basics" (What to Expect, Girlfriend's Guide, etc. that I had already downloaded on my Kindle), I found a book called the Working Woman's Guide to Pregnancy, and another about high risk pregnancy. I'm hoping these will be very helpful and might be a little more relevant for me than the typical pregnancy books.

And then the hopeful / tempting fate side of me bought two scrapbook, keepsake type books, where you can write down your thoughts, pictures, ultrasound pics, etc. I love the idea of scrapbooking. In fact, 2 years ago, I went out and bought all kinds of scrapbooking "stuff". I don't want to even think about how much I spent, I had to have all the cool tools! And do you know how many books I've put together??? You guessed it. Zero. I do well with creating really nice photo books on Shutterfly, but traditional scrapbooking, not so much. So maybe I'll turn over a new leaf here, who knows?

Well, when I got home, you know what DH said after he looked at all the books and laughed? He said to me, "You know how when I go to Home Depot, I always peek my head into the Petco next door and look at the puppies? Well, yesterday, when I went to the Depot, I walked around Babies R Us for an over an hour." And he showed me the two books he had purchased - pregnancy from a man's perspective, and signing for babies.

Awwwww! :)

Just relax? Uggghhh!

"Just relax, you're thinking about it too much" (everyone's advice)

"I know a friend of a friend, and as soon as they started to adopt, they got pregnant" (and actually, that did happen to my stepmother)

"All you have to do is stand on your head after sex and you'll get pregnant, it worked for me" (happened to my girlfriend)

You've all heard this, and it makes you nuts, right? First of all - you can't relax when you're injecting yourself every night, going to the doc every morning, and timing sex, and taking pills. You just can't. Period.

And the adoption thing. Ok, maybe that does happen to some people, but we all know for a fact it doesn't happen to everyone that adopts. And I'm not comfortable with the odds on that. Even the IVF odds for a 40 year old seem a little better.

Standing on your head? Well, I'm no physicist, but I'm not sure I see how that's going to help the sperm get through a blocked tube. Or fertilize an egg that was never ovulated. Or improve the quality of old eggs. But maybe I just need to look harder...

As I started down this infertility path, and read blogs and talked to people, I realized I was going to encounter these types of comments and how annoyed it was going to make me feel. I became pretty good at blowing it off, not wanting to get into a big deal about it, and not particularly wanting to get into my personal biological details.

But one friend (let's call her "E") recently said the "just relax, stand on your head" double whammy just one too many times and I let her have it. Nicely. I explained to E that while I'm sure she didn't mean it, saying "just relax" was the absolute worst thing you can say to someone with fertility issues. That it's impossible to relax, and now that becomes yet one more thing you're not doing right, etc., etc. E was appropriately apologetic, although maybe a bit offended. And I certainly don't think she "got it".

Fast forward to last month, in between my IVF cycles. In the past, I had hoped and hoped that I would get pregnant "in the nick of time" to save me from doing IVF. I used OPKs, I'd make sure we had sex every other night during the peak period, I'd test starting at day 27... And believe me, it was no fun. My DH knew it was "that time" giving him performance anxiety, and if it didn't work, I'd be so upset, but hide it from him knowing it wasn't his fault at all. But he'd still know I was upset, which made him feel bad, which would cause the next time not to work, which would make him feel worse. Oh, it was a regular riot. Anyone who says that "trying" is fun is LYING, I'm still hoping our sex life recovers when all is said and done!

But back to last month. I almost felt relief that we were going pretty much right into a new cycle, instead of several months of that hell called "trying" in between. I didn't count the days until ovulation. I didn't schedule sex. And honestly, I don't think we had sex more than once a week for most of the month. I drank some wine again. I just had enough of trying, I was tired and bummed from the last IVF/BFN, I had very little hope of IVF even working for us, so I gave us the month off.

And it happened. I relaxed and it happened.
I'm definitely not telling E!!

But seriously, how can that be???? Have "they" been right all along? We just need to relax?? But then I remember... One Saturday morning, my friend from England was spending the weekend with us. We had a nice dinner Friday night, glass or two of wine, lots of catching up. We were heading to Atlantic City the next day for a little blackjack, and then playing golf on Sunday. It was shaping up to be a fun weekend. Sat morning, DH and I made love and lingered in bed for a bit after. It was really nice. I remember thinking that it had been a while since we enjoyed it like that.

And then I started thinking, wait a minute, let me count the days... it had been 12 days since AF. I usually ovulate on day 14-15, so I made a mental note to be sure to do it again on Monday, which was day 14, figuring that would also cover me for day 15. So I did. I didn't tell DH it was "time", so there was no pressure (on him) and we went to "completion". And that was it - no more planned sex that month.

So I guess on the one hand, you could say it was the "relaxed", unplanned Sat morning fun that did the trick. But on the other hand, it could have been the planned, Monday BD that worked for us. I'll never know for sure, but I can't accept that the "just relax" people might be right, so I'm putting my Atlantic City money on the scheduled, planned Monday sex. That's definitely the one that did it for us - it was much closer to ovulation and it makes more sense (even though the nurse thinks I may have ovulated early based on my hormone numbers...).

Being a control freak pays off, relaxing doesn't. Yup, that's my story and I'm sticking with it!

The next milestone

My faithful follower asked me "what's next" after my last post.

And of course, that's the funny thing. For "normal" women, what's next is to go to a few doc appointments, and start planning the nursery. For me, however, there are are many, many little steps before I even go to see my regular doc.

1) Take all the pills. I need to remember to take the Synthroid when I first wake up, along with an estrogen pill. Then I have to wait til lunch to take the prenatal vitamin (supposedly, the iron in the prenatal can lessen the effectiveness of the synthroid). Then take another estrogen at night. This step - piece of cake. I can remember to do this.

2) Ultrasound on Thursday. This is the big one. I'll be 6w, and they want to see the fetal pole and the heartbeat. I've been having the most bizarre, horrible dreams every night that nothing has developed and they'll tell me it's over. Last night, I dreamt that instead of a fetal pole, there was an old, junky, beat up car in my uterus that was emitting toxic fumes, and a bunch of deformed people got out of the car (into my uterus, I guess?? it got a little fuzzy after that). I can only imagine the interpretation of this dream. Clearly I'm nervous!

3) More ultrasounds and bloodwork. I think the clinic wants to keep me there until 8 weeks, doing weekly u/s and bloodwork. They want to test my TSH again to see if a dosage change is needed before turning me over to my OB

4) Convince OB to classify me as "high risk". I hope this won't be hard. I want the most careful monitoring by a high risk OB in concert with my regular OB. I don't fit the "standard" definition of high risk. I'm over 40, but I have no other indicator (such as carrying multiples, prior mc's or medical conditions) that would classify me as high risk. But I feel that since I've paid 25k out of pocket for treatments that insurance should have covered but didn't, now they owe me. They owe me the most careful and attentive medical care possible. They didn't help me get pregnant, so they should help me stay pregnant with more frequent monitoring, more testing, etc. So I will beg my OB for it.

5) STOP EATING JUNK FOOD! I'm trying, I really am. I have no problem avoiding fried food, deli meats, soft cheeses, etc. I'm even over my wine (and I REALLY liked my wine!). But I'm a sugar addict. And I would compensate by running 3 miles and lifting weights every morning. Now, I need to just stop stuffing my face with sugar. I'm getting better, but an apple after dinner DOES NOT replace a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough very well. Sigghh..

Control freak? Is that a bad thing???

Yes. I am a control freak, no doubt. But is that a bad thing?

Being a "control freak" at work meant that I was organized, on top of everything, and became really successful. And being successful at work has allowed me to be financially secure, have a nice house, a vacation home, a healthy retirement account, and mostly - the ability to pay for fertility treatments without going into debt.

Being a "control freak" in my personal life means that all the bills are paid automatically through Quicken, the house is organized, service people come when scheduled, I convinced my dry cleaner to pickup and deliver to my house, and I even have my groceries delivered. I've found ways to make as many of the mundane chores easier, so I can have more time for the fun stuff.

Which made the fact that I couldn't control my fertility, even more frustrating! (Maybe there's a lesson there, somewhere?)

But of course, I still approached the fertility issue with the same "enthusiasm" as I approach the other areas of my life. It was overwhelming at first, but I researched, talked to people, asked a ton of questions, and learned as much as I could about it. And I couldn't understand how some of my friends and acquaintances could go through this and NOT learn about everything and just float through the treatments obliviously. Different strokes, I guess!!

And to justify my "enthusiasm", there were a few things that have happened throughout my journey that make me thankful I approach things the way I do.

1) During my second IVF, the nurse forgot to order the antibiotics for my husband. When I reviewed the order, luckily I compared it to my first IVF, and although many of the stims were different, I happened to notice it was missing. So I let her know, she saw she had forgotten, and we were able to get it in plenty of time.

2) During my first IVF, I blindly picked up all the drugs my nurse had ordered at the start of the cycle. As it turned out, I needed more than what was initially ordered, and luckily was able to beg for donated drugs. During my second IVF, the nurse mistakenly ordered twice the amount of stims needed. The correct dose would have been about $500 a day, and the drugs are not returnable once you buy them, so catching that mistake saved me about $3-4k.

3) Even just this past Friday, when I was told I needed to go on Synthroid, the nurse said she would call it into my pharmacy. Luckily I called the pharmacy an hour before they closed, and they didn't have the order. I had to call the emergency night nurse and get her to call it in for me so I could start it that night.

Hmmmm... maybe the problem is my nurse who seems to have difficulty getting the drugs right!! But that's OK, because she patiently responds to all my detailed emails and questions, and that keeps me calm.

And luckily the control freak in me has her back when it comes to the drugs!

So much for good numbers!

Just got the thyroid numbers (TSH) back. Mine are elevated. They wanted to see under 2.5, and mine is 4.3. I have to pick up Synthyroid, and start taking that everyday.

Ok....

But of course I started googling it, and there are major issues that can occur with an elevated TSH - late miscarriage, low IQ, vision problems, developmental problems. Ugghhh!

My nurse did say that it's very common to find this in early pregnancy and that by taking the meds to reduce the TSH, I have nothing to worry about. In fact, she said the meds will lower the TSH, and that they've seen lower incidence of miscarriage with lower TSH. So maybe there's a silver lining?

I will try to listen to my nurse and freak out here, but I don't like this!