Morning sickness? More like allthetime sickness.

I'm trying very hard to refrain from complaining about how I've felt the last few days. I'm well aware that there are lots of women who have much much worse morning sickness complete with vomiting (which I've avoided so far...barely). And I'm truly grateful to actually be pregnant with what is so far a truly normal pregnancy. Still, Im a bit concerned about going back to work next week. All of the mixing lunch odors are going to be just...lovely. :p

I don't think I'll be able to keep this a secret from my coworkers for very long.

Twins?!

We just returned from the ultrasound appointment, and it's twins! Right now, baby A is a little smaller and doesn't have a hearbeat yet. However, baby B is looking great with a strong heartbeat of 120bpm! It's about 6mm in length, which is right on track, and the sac looks nice and big.

We even got to hear the heartbeat -- pretty neat for something so tiny!

The new RE was very brusque and didn't even introduce himself to us. Kind of weird, but who cares when the news is good, right?? He seemed amused at all of my questions and how I already knew exactly what we were looking at and if it was on track or not. Yes, I exhaustively studied ultrasound pictures before we went... :-P

We didn't see anything obvious that's causing my bleeding, so for now I'm supposed to take it easy and not do anything strenuous. Maybe yesterday's housecleaning frenzy was to blame??

Hopefully next week baby A will have a heartbeat too. However, I'll be okay with whatever outcome we get with it. I'll be thrilled to have 1 healthy baby. Two is just icing. =)

Bleeding :(

I had a scary night last night. I woke up around 4 am to a gush of heavy, bright red bleeding. I think I had a little low back ache as well, although that could have been due to sleeping weird.

The bleeding seems to have stopped now, but I'm still pretty freaked out about it. I called my clinic and they agreed to see me today instead of waiting til next week. Wish me luck; I think I really need some!

6 Weeks Pregnant

I'm 6 weeks, 1 day pregnant today and starting to feel it. As with all of my pregnancies that made it past 5 weeks, I'm experiencing varying degrees of nausea after I eat or drive and feeling fatigued enough to want to nap when I get home from work. While nausea is supposed to be an indicator of a healthy pregnancy, it hasn't made a difference at all for me in the past...

Emotionally, I'm doing okay so far. I hate, hate, HATE being forced to wait for weeks to learn if this pregnancy is viable or not. Every time I experience spotting (twice so far), I get really nervous. Yes, it's really common, and yes, both the progesterone and lovenox cause bleeding, but it's still really scary since I've had so many bad outcomes.

I'm off of work all next week and planning to relax a bunch and get lots of sleep. Our yard needs some maintenance as well, so assuming the rain abates long enough, I'll prune the grape vines, butterfly bush, mexican sage, and roses. Maybe I'll even get Chad motivated enough to help me (yeah right)! =)

The List

My clinic provides a nice, long list of do's and dont's while pregnant:

...I don't get relief from the painful butt injections until the second trimester :-(
- Continue daily progesterone injections until 2/2/11
- Continue biweekly delestrogen injections until 2/2/11
- Continue daily Lovenox injections
- Continue progesterone suppositories until 2/2/11
- Continue daily baby aspirin until 28 weeks (5/25/11)
- Continue prenatal vitamins until done breastfeeding

...And plenty of things I can't do:
- Don't lift anything over 10 pounds
- No douching or tampons; nothing in the vagina
- NO INTERCOURSE until cleared by OB doctor
- No pools, baths, or jacuzzis; only showers
- Do not exercise; light walking only
- Do not apply any heat to your abdomen

...Common symptoms in early pregnancy:
- Vaginal spotting or light bleeding; you should use a pantyliner
- Cramping, breast tenderness, and fatigue

I've had some cramping, really severe breast tenderness (anything that jiggles them hurts, like walking down a flight of stairs), and moderate fatigue so far. No bleeding or spotting. I'm coping with the injections the best that I can. My whole butt is sore, so sitting in a chair all day at work isn't super comfortable. Oh well.

The worst part of this list is the no intercourse and no exercise! I wish they gave an explanation for why these are forbidden in an IVF pregnancy but not a normal pregnancy. I'm doing my best to not overeat since I'm just sitting around all day. I'm thankful for the mild nausea I've had so far as it certainly helps to control appetite! =)

More waiting fun!

I spoke to the nurse today, and between the holidays and Dr. A leaving the practice, my ultrasound won't be until January 3rd. It feels like such a long ways away...

In other news, I found out today that I didn't get the job promotion I applied for. My boss is moving to another team, so myself and one other person were competing for his position. I'm actually fairly relieved about it -- I really wasn't looking forward to having to deal with all of the stress of being a team lead and managing 9 people. I like my current senior position -- I have lots of freedom and very little responsibility. I already have enough stress in my life due to infertility; hopefully the transition to the new boss will go smoothly.

I'm a bit shocked today...

My beta went up to 490 today! That's a doubling time of 39.78 hours, which is great. We're still not in the clear of course -- still need to get to the ultrasound and actually see a normal pregnancy. But at least we're still in the game, for now. What a roller coaster!

I'm trying very hard not to get too excited about this. The research is pretty sobering for live birth rates with slow rising betas. One of the women on the IVF forums I visit also had similar beta numbers as me, and her ultrasound this morning revealed that the baby wasn't developing. Of course she is devastated.

Update: I will not be getting another beta test. Dr. A. feels we should just wait until the ultrasound in the next couple of weeks. That's fine with me as I obsess far too much over beta numbers and really drive myself crazy. Sometimes I think the woman on the IVF forums who only chose to get a single beta and then wait for ultrasound had it right. In this case, ignorance really is bliss.

Sigh...

Crappy news today. My beta didn't double. It only went up 30ish iu, to 91.9. That's a doubling time of 86.7 hours. A normal, healthy doubling time is 48 - 72 hours. I'm pretty down about it since every time this has happened in the past, it's been a non-viable pregnancy. Sigh.

Confirmed Pregnant!

My first beta came in at 62.4 -- exactly what I calculated it should be if everything was going well so far. My progesterone is 41, which is also great as they like anything over 20.

Second beta will be thursday; cross your fingers it's over 124 by then!

6dp5dt: BFP!

Yesterday I took a home pregnancy test and maybe got a super faint hardly visible line. This morning I took another test, and the line was very clear! It looks like at least one of the embryos has implanted.

I'm not getting excited about it yet since I've seen a BFP 5 times before and am obviously still childless. As we all know, I have no trouble getting pregnant; my challenge is staying pregnant. However, at least now we know that there's definitely a chance for this cycle. Keep your fingers crossed for good results on Tuesday's beta test!

IVF #1, 4dp5dt

It's been 4 days since the transfer. I ended up doing the three days of bedrest due to family pressure. I was bored out of my skull after the first day; I have no idea how women make it through months of bedrest!

I'm back at work today. Luckily it's pretty light right now so it's not adding any stress. Symptom-wise, I'm bloated, a little crampy, and my butt is seriously sore from the PiO shots. Of course, all of my symptoms can be attributed to side effects from the progesterone, so they don't mean anything at this point. Yesterday I took a HPT to see if the HCG trigger shot was out of my system yet. It was a very faint positive, so it looks like there's still a little left. It should be gone in the next day or two.

I have another acupuncture appointment on Saturday. I'm thinking about taking another HPT that morning as it will be slightly possible to get an early positive then. Of course, if it's negative, I'll probably just stress myself out wondering if/when my luck will change...