I’m 4 weeks, 4 days pregnant today. It’s still so early, I’m afraid to even talk about it. We have our first ultrasound scheduled for 6 weeks, 3 days on May 15th. It’s only 2 weeks from now, but might as well be 2 years. It seems so far way right now! And even if all is good with our little jelly bean on that day, I still won’t rest easy. I know it can still go wrong even if we see a heartbeat. I have so much hope for this new pregnancy, but my history has taught me to be very cautious. So right now I’m just trying to enjoy the moment and take this day by day. It helps that I feel like complete crap. I’m relishing in it. I’ll take feeling like crap if it means all is good with our little one 🙂 Symptoms So Far: # 1 – Exhaustion! This is my 6th pregnancy and I don’t remember feeling this tired with any of the others. Not even with Holdon, and I carried him to almost 28 weeks. I’ve had to drag my butt out of bed every day this week, and have found myself…Continue reading 4 Weeks, 4 Days
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Liebster Award Nomination For All Of You!
Last week was such an amazing week. I found out I’m pregnant and I got nominated by spiritbabycomehome for another Liebster Award! This is my second nomination. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to accept more than one, but I’m breaking the rules because I am so touched and honored by this acknowledgment and I wanted to thank spiritbabycomehome properly. I am in awe of this special lady who has had to endure so much, especially in the past year with several losses, and failed fertility treatments, and she is now embarking on an amazing adventure into the world of donor eggs. This was not an easy decision for her and she has shown such incredible strength and perseverance. She is a true inspiration. Thank you amazing lady! How the Liebster Award works: The Liebster Award brings a community of bloggers together and allows us to acknowledge each other and learn more about each other. The Rules: Link back to the blogger who gave you the award. Absolutely! (See above). Answer the questions designated by the blogger who nominated you. Check (see below). List 11 random facts about yourself. This is new, I didn’t do this last time. Eek! (see…Continue reading Liebster Award Nomination For All Of You!
Beta # 2 is Good!
I just walked back in the door from getting my blood work and running a few errands afterward, and the lab already posted my result! Here it is: Thursday – 1:14 pm: 62 Saturday – 10:08 am: 228 That’s way more than double! Thank you God! I’m so relieved! Of course having good rising betas doesn’t mean we’re safe yet. After all, pregnancy #4 had good rising betas and it still resulted in a miscarriage, BUT this is good news, and today, I’m happy 🙂 The past week has been such a roller coaster of emotions. Last Friday, April 18th, was the would-have-been-due-date for pregnancy # 2 and my first miscarriage. I spent the day in quiet reflection and tried to look to the future not the past, and hoped for this cycle. Then 3 days later on April 22nd, I realized that if we got pregnant this cycle (I didn’t know at the time that we had gotten pregnant), that it would be almost a mirror image of pregnancy #4 in terms of dates, because on that day last year, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. If it hadn’t resulted in a miscarriage at 7 weeks, my…Continue reading Beta # 2 is Good!
Update: Beta #2 Tomorrow and Progesterone Check is Good!
I want to take a moment to thank all you wonderful ladies in this IF/RPL community for all your love and prayers yesterday and today. I feel so blessed to have found all of you, and it makes me feel so happy that so many are praying for our little one. We can use all the prayers we can get! I have so much I want to write about, but this past week has been crazy busy and I’m ridiculously exhausted. I can barely keep my eyes open to write this update and it’s only 6:30 PM here! I will be writing much more tomorrow after I get some rest, including a separate post to properly thank SpiritBabyComeHome for her nomination for the Liebster Award. I am truly honored to receive this acknowledgement from her and I look forward to answering her questions. So for now, here’s a little update: My doctor got back to me earlier today and she wants me to go in for my second beta tomorrow. So yay! I won’t have to wait until Monday! She also checked my progesterone levels with yesterday’s blood draw and it’s 29.44Â ng/ml which I’m told is really good so I…Continue reading Update: Beta #2 Tomorrow and Progesterone Check is Good!
Here We Go Again
The last 2 days have been really eventful amazing and I have been dying to tell all of you! I was just waiting for confirmation. I have no idea if it was the Evening Primrose Oil, or maybe it was just our month, I don’t know, but I took a pregnancy test yesterday and it was positive! I was adamant I wasn’t going to test before my period was due, but I changed my mind last night because I started feeling really awful 2 days ago. I feel like someone zapped all my energy and all I want to do is sleep. I’ve also been feeling really light headed and have had those familiar twinges and cramps even though my period isn’t due until Sunday. So after arguing with myself for several hours yesterday, I decided to bite the bullet and POS, and it was positive! The second line came up right away, and it wasn’t even a squinter! See the top test in the image above. Then because of what happened 2 months ago with my chemical pregnancy, I wanted to make sure so I took another one this morning and it’s way darker! See the bottom test in…Continue reading Here We Go Again
Reflecting on a Strange Week
This has been an interesting week. Not really bad, but not great either. First of all, I wrote last Sunday that I thought my body was having a good laugh at my expense, and I think it decided to keep on laughing because I posted a picture from Pinterest that said, “The bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep” by E. Joseph Lossman, and then I tossed and turned all that night, and the next 2 nights too! I was exhausted and falling asleep on the couch right after dinner, but as soon as I would go to bed, nothing! I was finally able to get a good 5 hours in a row on Wednesday and Thursday night and about 7 hours total last night, but it still wasn’t great. I kept having the weirdest dreams that kept waking me up. A lot of the dreams have been about our son and babies. I think Holdon’s upcoming not-birthday next Sunday is weighing heavily on my mind. I’ve been working on a video/slideshow for him and I think it’s bringing all of it back. I don’t regret working on it though, because it’s something I’ve wanted to do for…Continue reading Reflecting on a Strange Week
Hard Decisions
I’m having a really hard time articulating my thoughts right now so I hope this all makes sense. Since my last post, we’ve had to reevaluate our choices again because we got the fee summary from our clinic for our upcoming plan, and we’re not sure we can or should proceed. If we somehow miraculously end up needing to do only one low stim cycle, it will still end up costing us another $16,000. If we end up having to do 3 or more low stim cycles (far more likely), we’re looking at spending another $25,000 or more. Here’s the fee summary we received from our clinic: MIN STIMULATION EMBRYO CRYO CYCLE, GLOBAL PACKAGE FEE $ 6,442.50 MIN STIMULATION EMBRYO CRYO CYCLE, GLOBAL PACKAGE FEE-15% ADJUSTMENT $ 5,872.38 MIN STIMULATION EMBRYO CRYO CYCLE, GLOBAL PACKAGE FEE-30% ADJUSTMENT $ 4,902.25 FROZEN EMBRYO TRANSFER, GLOBAL PACKAGE FEE-15% ADJUSTMENT $ 3,493.50 REPROGENETICS 24-CHROMOSOME PANEL (EMBRYOS 1-12) $ 5,125.00 ADDITIONAL $225 PER EMBRYO OVER 12, IF APPLICABLE TOTAL AMOUNT DUE $ 25,835.63 The above fee breakdown is for 3 Min Stimulation cycles. It will end up costing even more if we still don’t have enough embryos for testing after 3 cycles. I have to…Continue reading Hard Decisions
CD 2 – Moving Forward and Refusing to Give Up
First of all, I want to thank everyone in the RPL blogosphere for all your support and prayers over the past couple weeks. Thank you also to my family and friends. All your love and support has been my lifeline through this entire process. I apologize for not updating all of you sooner. I have to admit, I was feeling pretty lost. I really thought our one good embryo would take, so it was a complete shock when it didn’t. Even with our 2 negative betas (and 3 negative HPTs), I kept thinking it must have been a mistake and somehow I was still pregnant, but my period arriving with a vengeance yesterday put those diffusional thoughts to rest. It’s done. I accept that now, but I refuse to accept that this journey is done for us. I just can’t be. We met with Dr. J on Wednesday to discuss what happened and talked about our options. They weren’t great, but there still are some options, so thank God for that! He had no explanation for why our embryo didn’t take. She was only a moderate grade embryo which could have been an explanation, except that we did PGD, so…Continue reading CD 2 – Moving Forward and Refusing to Give Up
TWW Days 4 and 5 and the Day Before the Big Day
Tomorrow is transfer day! Woohoo! I’m so excited and anxious, I can barely contain it. In just a couple of hours, I’ll go to sleep (please let me sleep), and when I wake up, I’ll finally be going in for my transfer! We have one normal embryo. Our one shot at this, our little embie girl. To say there’s a lot riding on this is an understatement, but I have so much optimism that this is going to work. Please, please let me be right. I honestly don’t know how I’ll be if it doesn’t, but I can’t think about that right now. Right now, I only have room in my thoughts for her. For that single rose blooming on that vine. She is our little bloom and I just feel in my heart that this is going to work. And at least I know I have done everything I could to make it work. The rest is out of our hands. The plan for tomorrow I’ll empty my bladder before I leave the house. Then I have acupuncture at my fertility clinic at 9:30. Then once acupuncture is done, I’ll start drinking water to get a full bladder, and…Continue reading TWW Days 4 and 5 and the Day Before the Big Day
My Last Miscarriage
Today is the due date for pregnancy #4 and miscarriage #3. It was the last miscarriage I had, and I pray it truly is the last. Two weeks ago, when I talked about miscarriage #2, I dreaded today and thinking about miscarriage #3, but now that it’s here, I’m strangely okay. I think I have to credit it to my last minute change of attitude towards my birthday. Yesterday I turned 37. For months I have been dreading it. It’s not because of getting older. That has never really bothered me and I’ve always felt pretty young at heart (though the toll all these losses has taken out on my body and emotions has made me feel ancient at times), but when you’re trying to build a family, every year that goes by and every year you age, counts. Almost exactly this time last year, I had the go ahead to start trying again after my hysteroscopy and 8-month long drawn out process from miscarriage #2, and now it’s been another year, and another loss. The fact that I had another miscarriage in that time and the due date is the day after my birthday, had me in quite a…Continue reading My Last Miscarriage