Category Archives: Pregnancy #2

The Waiting Game.

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It seems like this infertility journey is primarily one of waiting.  We wait to ovulate. We wait to test. We wait to stimulate. We wait to suppress. We wait for phone calls. We wait for lab orders. We wait for lab results.   And we wait for a baby. I’ve been waiting 502 days, 75.5 weeks. 17 months, and 12 cycles to have a baby.  Put like that, it isn’t so bad, but it feels interminable. Today, I’m just waiting for the bleeding to begin.

My hCG level on Monday was 120, down from 410 on Friday.  In case there was any doubt, this pregnancy is not viable.  My doctor calls herself an interventionist, but in this situation she recommends I wait for the bleeding to start on its own, given that my body has already started the process.

The problem with that? No blood, no spotting, and a cervix shut tight.  There is absolutely no movement towards a natural miscarriage. Any signs of forward momentum ceased well over 24 hours ago, with the worst of it on Sunday.  By “the worst of it” I am referring to a scant show of blood on a pantyliner. It has been 36 hours since my last injection of progesterone.  Surely things have to begin soon, right?

To that end, I’ve done some googling.  Burdock root, dandelion root, parsley, ginger, sage, and rosemary can all help to hasten along the process when steeped as a tea. However, that sounds awful.  My bet is that it would not taste as bad as my cleanse smoothie, but would be about as bad as the many iterations of Chinese herbs I’ve consumed.  It is hot here in the desert.  Perhaps I should ice it and chug it after my workout.

Additionally, angelica, chamomile, cinnamon, clary sage, basil, ginger, jasmine, juniper, myrrh, peppermint, rose, rosemary, fennel and marjoram essential oils are also known emmenagogues.  That doesn’t sound as bad.  I may even smell nice.

Alternatively, I could wait until I have an appointment with my new RE tomorrow.  I’m hoping he will confirm the diagnosis and prescribe some misoprostol so I can stop waiting and move forward. I hate, loathe, detest, abhor, despise waiting.

May ICLW & Miscarriage #2

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New readers to my blog have stumbled upon Return to Go at a sad time. I recently found out I was pregnant.  Thirteen days ago at 13 DPO, my test turned positive, if ever so faintly.  Positive again at 14 DPO, and a little darker.   In honor of the pregnancy, I called my RE and scheduled a beta for that day at 15 DPO.  The beta was very low at 33, and my heart broke a little bit.  Despite the late implantation and the low betas, my numbers continued to rise to 66, 140, and 410 at 17 DPO, 20 DPO, and 24 DPO.  This was a doubling time of 48, 66, and 62 hours, respectively.  Just this past Saturday, or 25 DPO, I started to spot.

Today brings us to Monday.  Twenty-seven days past ovulation and at five weeks five days, my pregnancy test this morning was ridiculously light.  Markedly lighter than any test that I have taken in days, if not weeks.  I don’t need an ultrasound or a blood test to reveal that this pregnancy isn’t viable. My body has sent me some clear messages.  This, in and of itself, is a relief.  My first loss was a missed miscarriage at 8 weeks 6 days, and I was shocked at my body’s betrayal.  How could it not have told me things weren’t going well?  Things are much clearer this time.

Some may say that the cheap internet tests are not reliable.  Some may say that 1 out of 3 women spot in pregnancy.  It isn’t that uncommon.  Some may say that it isn’t over until it is over.  But my instincts tell me differently.  I would love to be wrong.  I would love to be wildly, pessimistically, wrong.  My partner and I can laugh about how wrong I was all the way to 40 weeks.  We can tell this child about how we doubted it’s perseverance and strength.  We can enroll them in martial arts and boxing classes because they were such a fighter en utero.  I would love to be wrong, but I don’t think I am.

I’m waiting until 8 am PST to call my doctor.  I should know by the end of the day.

A Recusal.

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I found out I was pregnant at 10 DPO on January 25.  I had dismissed the cycle, convinced that it wouldn’t work.  My lining was only at six mm, and my RE suspected “weak ovulation.”  The only reason I took a pregnancy test that morning was because I was meeting a friend for dinner in San Diego.  I wanted to have a glass of wine guilt-free.

I was so certain that I had things right, that I had forgotten to even take a look at the test.  I casually glanced over at the test while brushing my teeth just in time to see the line appear.  Much to my complete and utter shock, it was positive.  I instantly started crying and shaking.  I didn’t know what to do, where to turn.  I was so very, very excited.

Big Guy was in Palm Springs, so I called him and told him I was pregnant – while sobbing.  I was so taken aback, so flabbergasted, that I did not have the ability to come up with a beautiful way to tell my husband.  I was overcome with joy.

The only other people that I told were from the online message board that I have been participating in for almost a year.  At that point, I had been participating in a infertility-specific forum for several months. It was to these ladies that I first turned to on that beautiful, sunny morning. Little did I know that I was going to lead the way for a round of BFPs.  As we all know, no small feat in a group of infertile women. We were all ecstatic for one another.

At my six week ultrasound we saw a strong heartbeat and the baby measuring nearly to date.  But I saw something that no one else noticed.  I thought the yolk sac looked abnormally large.  Too large, in fact.  I came home and quickly started googling, which will quickly provide the instant death of hope in an infertile woman’s pregnancy.

Given the round of BFPs combined with my deadly googling, I just knew that I was going to be the one that didn’t make it.  I knew I was going to be the miscarriage.  I was anxious and pensive.  I was consumed with searching for miscarriage and loss statistics.  I couldn’t help but compare my pregnancy to other pregnancies as a way to judge the viability of my baby.

It all quickly became too much.  I had to recuse myself from the group.  I had to step away from the my laptop.  I had to believe that things would work out.  As many of you know, things didn’t work out.  I was devastated.  Everything I suspected to be true, actually occurred. I became the statistic.

The wonderful women in the forum supported me in my decision to leave and also welcomed me back with open arms.  I pop in there from time to time to say hello to friends and support them in their journey, and they often come here to read along, as well.  We are connected by our journeys, by our stories.  I wish for their BFPs as much as my own.

As most of us are aware, I’ve found myself pregnant within a round of positives within this community. I’m not telling this story as a precursor to my recusal from this blog or from participating in this blogging community.  I’m telling this story to let everyone out there know that if you have chosen, or will choose, to step away from my journey to protect your heart, I get it.  Please do.  Take care of yourself.  However, I do not have plans to stop following your journey.  Much like the women I have met on my message board, I am invested in your success – whatever that looks like for you. In my ideal world, we all get to bring home our baby.

For those of you that want to continue with me, my next beta is tomorrow.  My pregnancy tests have been identical all week, which hasn’t instilled much hope into my heart.  However, the test this morning was SUPER dark.  Perhaps my babe experienced a growth spurt.  Perhaps I should step away from the tests.  (It is so hard when they are only 20 cents!)

Grow, baby, grow.

My Cheeks Hurt.

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This is a blog post in two parts wherein I discuss both sets of cheeks. Top and bottom.

Part One:

I was walking through Home Depot the other day looking for packing supplies while simultaneously talking to my sister.  We were laughing at a ridiculous story of her student training days and her friend’s first ever male catheterization.  The penis was so small and the individual so large that she had to rummage around in the, ahem, hair to search for it while also pushing aside part of the stomach.  It is a good story made even better when one knows the two individuals involved.  Both are sweet, mild-mannered, and passive types.  Not the types to go rummaging around for a penis.

We laughed and the laughter lasted for about one minute.  I noticed that my cheeks started to hurt at the end of the minute.  What a nice feeling, right? When you smile and laugh until your cheeks hurt.  But it actually made me sad because I’m obviously out of practice.  One minute of laughing and my cheeks hurt? How long has it been since I’ve laughed like that? Or even smiled that much? I don’t know. It has been a while.

From October 2009 on, life has been really hard.  Finishing the dissertation, teaching, battling addictions, battling unemployment for both Big Guy and myself, rejection after rejection, an unwanted move across the country, infertility, the miscarriage, it has all been really hard.  Somewhere along the way I clearly stopped smiling and laughing, and I didn’t even notice. This was not the idyllic honeymoon phase that I thought we were entitled to experience. Hell, we didn’t even get to go on a honeymoon.

In all the change and tragedy, I lost my joy and happiness, but retained my sense of self.  Big Guy and I are stronger individually and as a couple, and we are more in love than ever.   He is my favorite person in the whole world.

I’m ready for things to turn around.  I’m praying that this pregnancy will be the panacea that we need.  That I so desperately need.  But, I am ready for a change. Even if things do not happen the way we would like, it feels like this move has been a positive step forward.  I think I need to start smiling.

Part Two (On the lighter side, in relation to smiling):

My butt cheeks hurt!  I’m not having the same experience with the progesterone injections as I did with my first pregnancy.  The injections were so easy and painless that I scoffed at ever going back to the suppositories.  Who needs or wants a suppository when you can just inject it into your ass, I thought.

This time around? The injections are resulting in knots and bruises.  I’ve been bleeding a lot from the itty-bitty puncture wounds.  One day it appeared as if I was hemorrhaging from a tiny puncture in my left butt cheek.  The blood went everywhere.  Injection disaster.  I immediately panicked thinking that I hit a blood vessel and injected progesterone directly into my blood stream. I quickly concluded that I would experience some sort of fatal demise as a result.  Big Guy, ever the biologist, informed me that I probably hit some of the bruising resulting in excessive bleeding.  Sure enough, the next morning the bruising, knots and swelling on the left side were dramatically improved.

I’ve been trying to “lance” my right cheek ever since.  Perhaps leaches would ease the knots, swelling, and bruising. But, wait, would they suck out the progesterone?

Why the difference? Big Guy thinks that because I have been working out so much my cheek muscles are more defined and fibrous, resulting in knots.  I laughed. It is true.  I have been running, lifting weights and attending pilates and yoga classes, but I am not spending my days doing lunges and squats, and I do not look like Jillian Michaels.

I personally have come to the conclusion that the timing is what is contributing to the sore butt cheeks.  During my first pregnancy I was doing 1 cc at night in alternating cheeks.  That meant that each cheek had a 48 hour reprieve before going under the needle again.  Now, I am doing 1 cc every morning and night, which allows for only a 24 hour reprieve.  My cheeks are not smiling.

With that said, I don’t care.  It is simply an amusing and distracting situation.

Grow, baby, grow.

AWOL.

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Ladies, my apologies.  I’ve been AWOL.  It is not because bad things have happened, it is not because I am now a “mommy” (gag), it is because we moved over the weekend.  I am now officially a resident of Palm Springs.  Fun. For real, fun.  Big Guy and I were both really excited about the move.  I get to see my partner every morning and night, instead of on Sundays and sometimes Saturdays.  The desert is amazing in its beauty.

It is also 105 degrees.  The desert is not messing around.

We signed a three month lease on a furnished rental.  We hired movers* to take the majority of our belongings to a storage unit, and we moved our clothes, pantry, and hobby items to the desert.  What we did not bring with us was our internet.  The rental has a router but we are unable to figure out how to use the thing.  It defies all logic.  It rejects two PCs and an iPhone. It is worthless. And this is the reason I have been AWOL.

Our landlord is out of town taking caring of an aging parent, so we won’t have resolution on the internet business for a while.  Until then, I won’t be as active.  I did get a brand new smartphone, but I do not have the constitution to  post blog updates on it.  I did find a fabulous coffee shop, but my bank account can’t afford the daily coffee/breakfast date, even though I wish it could.

As for this pregnancy business, well things are moving along.  My beta on Monday came back at 140.  That’s a doubling time of 66 hours.  Not great, not ideal, but still within the acceptable range.  I’m still optimistic because that is all I have.   My next beta is on Friday.  I’m hoping for a number between 325 and 560.  That would put us in the range of normal.  Of course, anything greater than that would be amazing.  Anything less would probably indicate a bad outcome, especially given my existing low numbers and the late implantation business.

Thank you all for your positive thoughts, prayers, support, kind and encouraging words, and, most of all, hope.  You all are amazing.  You are my village. All I can do now is pray. I’ve already offered to pay for the child’s college education.  What else could the babe possibly want?

*Let me tell you, hiring movers is amazing.  These guys moved our entire house into storage in three hours.  We didn’t have to lift a thing.  At one point Francisco hefted the top of our large wooden dining table onto his shoulder, and then onto the top of his head.  He then calmly walked it out to the truck. They protected our furniture and made great suggestions for fitting things into the unit.  They had a gigantic truck and did the entire thing in one trip.  After tip, it cost us $350.  It may be the best $350 we’ve ever spent.