What you don't know hopefully won't kill you.

So, my first betas were interesting but as anyone who has been in my shoes knows are not terribly helpful in the long-term.  I learned that at 15 or 16 days past ovulation, I had an hcg level of 371.  That's actually pretty decent.  Dr. K said she was hoping to see a level between 50 and 100.  My progesterone was a solid 40 (albeit with supplementation), also good.

I had repeat labs performed yesterday morning.  For the uninitiated, it's important for that number to double in 48 hours.

Now some people quibble and say that it should rise 60% in 48 hours, or it could double in as many as 72 hours and still be a viable pregnancy.  But I am of the "don't kid yourself school" of betas.  In my experience, when my hcg level rises well, I have a pregnancy that is progressing.  When it doesn't, I miscarry.  None of this "up to 72 hour doubling" business for me.  In fact, my blood pressure rises just a little when I read women on the boards setting themselves up for heartache.  Yes, you could beat the odds, you could be a member of the small percentage of women carrying healthy pregnancies despite poorly rising hcg levels.  More likely though, your pregnancy is going to have a poor outcome.

I know that last sentence might sound cold, sound cruel.  But 5 consecutive pregnancies has taught me the value of cold, hard pragmatism.

I have been stuck in meetings all day, but kept my phone at my side at every second of the day, waiting for this most important call.  And no one called.  And when I finally got out of meetings at 4:15pm, I called my REs office.  And they were closed. Of course they were.

And so here I sit, with no fucking clue whether this pregnancy is doomed before it even gets off the ground.  Typical.

I am going to try to comfort myself with the fact that this point in time my last pregnancy, I hadn't even had blood labs done.  In fact, I was sitting on a beach enjoying my summer vacation.  There's nothing I can do to change the outcome of any of this.  All I can do is take my vitamins and continue to convince myself of a happy future regardless of the outcome of this particular ride on the pregnancy crazy train.

At least I see my therapist tomorrow.

Betas

So it's starting.  Getting HCG/progesterone labs today, Wednesday and Friday.  In addition to this being a logistical nightmare because my job kicks my ass, I am starting to feel ill.  I wish I could say with certainty I feel ill because of the surging HCG in my blood, but it's more the usual anxiety and dread of doing this all the fuck over again.  Again.

Technically I am only barely 4 weeks along, maybe 3 + 5?

Ugh.

Riding the crazy train

I'm somewhere around 12 dpo.  My spotting and cramping has ceased and I am getting some pretty notable lines on home pregnancy tests.

Technically speaking, my period is due this weekend.

Assuming it doesn't come, I am planning on calling Dr. K on Monday.  Betas.  Ugh.

On other fronts, check out this look Princess is giving me.  It's like she knows I am about to become mildly insane in the coming days.

Glass half full

So, I am spotting.  And a little crampy.  Long-time readers will recall I discussed a similar circumstance way back here in the summer of 2014.

You can't go through life constantly knocked up, without delivering a live baby, without preparing for this possibility that your next pregnancy will end.  If I am having a chemical pregnancy there's no question that it will be a huge bummer.  It will be my 5th (possibly 6th) consecutive loss.

But all is not hopeless if this is a chemical pregnancy.  For one thing, it means that my body may actually be working better than it has in years.  Sure, an early loss stings.  A loss at 8 weeks sucks.  A loss at 12 weeks that your body for some reason hasn't recognized is pain.  A loss in the second trimester is a level of hell that could have been written by Dante.

A chemical pregnancy also means that technically speaking, I am still fertile.  Our parts work.  Something got fertilized.  Maybe I don't need to rush to Boston for a hysteroscopy, which I assure you is nothing like a pleasant day of medical tourism.  Flying in to Logan, rushing to the hospital, having a scope rammed through your cervix and perhaps the joy of -- eeek -- microscissors cutting away scar tissue, and then rushing your crampy-assed self back to Logan is so far removed from a nice jaunt at Faneuil Hall. 

And finally, a chemical pregnancy could also mean that I could be more fertile next cycle.  Maybe I get another chance.

MTHFR mind meets paranoia

You know when you're at the 7-11 in the morning and you're totally craving one of those breakfast sandwiches on a croissant with egg and cheese, but the bread is fortified with folic acid and you are homozygous with the MTHFR C677T mutation, and folic acid according to some sources is like poison to your body, and you totally wonder whether eating foods fortified with folic acid during your last pregnancy led your baby to develop a painful and frightening birth defect, despite the fact that she was genetically normal, so you walk out of the 7-11 empty handed because your home pregnancy test got a little darker?

And then you get in your car and say what the fuck am I doing, statistically speaking, the odds are high I will totally miscarry.

What "been there done that" looks like.

You know when you wake up in the morning and you feel a little funky and you pee on a stick and you get a faintly positive line?  And then you show your husband and he says, "What am I looking at? Oh, yeah, I think I see that.  Yeah.  Okay."  And he pecks you on the cheek and heads off to work and you stare at the stick one more time before going upstairs wake up your daughter to get her dressed for school because you have been here before.  So. Many. Times.

(Disclosure - it is quite possible that I had a chemical pregnancy last month with a similar faintly positive pregnancy test)

I've been very worried that my Asherman's Syndrome has decided to rear its head again, in fact, I was close to scheduling an appointment with Dr. Isaacson in Boston to get my sad little cervix checked out again.  Now I guess I wait.

Sometimes I think my uterus should be like, donated to science.   Because she'll seriously fertilize anything.

Kittah therapy

So the other day Niblet came up to me in the kitchen with a serious look on her face and said, "Mom, do you love Princess more than me?"  And of course I scooped her up and gave her the biggest tightest squeeze and told her she was my favorite girl in the whole wide world.  And while I was hugging her I bent down to surreptitiously stroke the cat which was nuzzling against my leg.

Because, you guys, this cat is fucking awesome.

I've never had a pet and this is a whole new world for me, taking care of a being that isn't an actual human.  Babies I can do, I know the drill.  Cats are diving into the unknown.  Husband is cracking up because I have this pictogram on my phone of cat tail positions and how they can tell you what your cat is feeling and I'm all "Look her tail is vibrating upright!" (happy) or "uh oh, her tail is wagging...." (bad).  In some ways it's taking me back to when Niblet was a colicky newborn.  Is that a pained cry or a burp me cry or a run the vacuum next to me cry?

And of course some of my maternal urges are sated right now because well, not to brag, but this kitty seems to have pegged me as her favorite. Clearly she can tell that I run the house.

And yes, I will now be one of those women who posts pictures of their cats everywhere they go.