Beta #4 Results

Well, today's beta about quadrupled what it was on Friday. Today's was 5653! It's either one really sticky bean in there, or there's more than one. Up until I got my results today I was convinced that there was only one. Now I'm not so sure. My nurse called and told me that we were done with the bloodwork, I could go ahead and schedule my first OB ultrasound with them for later this week. I said, "Wait, what were the numbers today!?!?" I was expecting 3800, 4100, NOT 5600!!!

I made friends with a girl in our clinic who had a fresh cycle, and was having her day 6 transfer the same day we were. We befriended each other on facebook. Her beta was 1200-something on Friday and was 5000-something today. She had her first ultrasound today and it showed two sacs, but one of them was smaller than the other and may not make it. Please pray for her and her little embryos, as they are both there and she'd like to have them both! Her next ultrasound isn't for 10 days.

My ultrasound is scheduled for Thursday morning at 10:45am. Please pray that how ever many little ones are in there are in the correct place for them to continue to grow for a long 9 months. Please pray that if there are twins, we can get over the shock and begin to make plans for them (and us), and our childcare situation. Please pray they will be healthy and have heartbeats at the ultrasound that will follow this one so we can tell Jack the good news.

Beta #3 Results

My beta today is 1437!!!!!!! It should have been at least 1300 today. This is wonderful news!!! My next beta will be on Monday morning and if it's above 2000 (which it should be!), my nurse said my first ultrasound will probably be late next week. I'm so excited!!!

I have to really watch myself when I pray with Jack before bed every night. I make time to pray seperately to thank God for giving us another chance to be parents again. To pray that he protect the baby or babies growing inside of me, and that he continue to breathe life into them. I would normally do this with Jack, and what I used to say before we got great betas was "please help us continue to grow our family in the way that you see fit." I didn't specifically ask for babies in front of Jack, and I realized that while He may not see fit for us to carry another child, He may have wanted us to go in the direction of adoption. I am so grateful for what God has given to us throughout our lives.

I still find it hard to believe I'm pregnant again. I've been battling a cold these last few days (Thanks Jack!) and yesterday was the worst with body aches. I haven't had any fevers (I haven't felt hot, but haven't taken my temps either). I'm trying to ignore the cold and enjoy not being nauseated, or throwing up for however long it lasts.

Beta #2 Results

I was truly worried this morning about my beta results today and what they would end up being. It may all be psychological (as my good friend K pointed out), but I really have had to use the restroom more lately (which is odd because I don't remember this being an issue until later in pregnancy with Jack). And I really have had more heartburn, but that may be because of stress too, it seems to flare up more when I'm stressed. But those two things had pretty much disappeared over the last day, so this morning I felt panicked.

I had my lab work done at about 8:10 this morning, and my nurse called me at 12:30 with my results. My second HCG level is 653!!! That's great, it doubled in 40 hours, and at this point, I really can't ask for more than that. My doc gave me the option of waiting to come back for my third beta on Monday morning, or I could come in on Friday for it. Of course, I chose Friday. I'm hoping come Monday I'll be over 2000 with my level and we can schedule our first ultrasound to see how many babies are now living in my uterus.

Archie said this morning (with no probing from me), that he really hopes it's twins. I think he's lost it!!! I really hope it's a healthy baby or two, one would be great, but two would be wonderful as well. I think he just has no idea how hard two babies 24/7 can be on top of an already busy little boy. That said, he would really only have to deal with two babies 24 hours a day twice a week, LOL, at least for the first couple of months. Jack is a great helper and is truly wonderful (mostly) with his best friend's little sister who is 18 months old. He gets upset with her sometimes when she wants to play with toys he wants, or when she won't share her toys, but he is never rough with her, he lets her check out things he's got, he'll get her toys he doesn't mind her playing with, and I can just see he'll be a spectacular big brother. I think he'll be more help than anything especially if we have two babies. Shoot, I'm in tears. I have longed for the day where I would see Jack be a big brother, see how he interacts with his little sibling, see how much he loves them, and I know he wants a brother or sister (although I also realize that while he has seen some of what it would like to have a little sister-we play with them almost daily-that when they don't leave how he feels may be a totally different story). God has answered more than one prayer by giving us a chance at having another child in our family.

More to come with beta results on Friday.

Beta #1 Results

Drum roll please............Today's beta (10dp6dt) is 284!!! It's a great number. I'm thinking it's only one little one in there (which is perfectly fine). At 12dp3dt with Jack (so 15 days after ovulation), it was 161, so it is higher, but not that much higher.

This clinic handles things a little differently than when my doc was by himself at the last one. At the last one, we had two betas to make sure the numbers were doubling, and then we scheduled an ultrasound for about a week and a half later to check and make sure the sac was in the uterus. About a week to 10 days later we had another ultrasound to detect a heartbeat. This clinic does betas every 2-3 days until we get close to 2000, at which point we have an ultrasound to make sure the sac is in the right place, and another week to 10 days later we have the ultrasound to do the heartbeat check. If my numbers double correctly, I expect to get the go-ahead to schedule my ultrasound sometime next week.

I asked the nurse when most people decide to tell their young children about the pregnancy. I'm definitely not ready to tell Jack now, but I imagine once I see a heartbeat, I'll feel more comfortable with it. She said every family is different, they recommend waiting until there is a heartbeat, and some families will tell the kids then, others will wait until they are out of the first trimester. If I am sick like I was with Jack, I will likely tell him why so that he isn't worried about me. He's very sensitive which makes it hard for me to judge when to tell him, but he dealt with the lack of pregnancy pretty well last time when we had to tell him that the babies didn't stick around and went to heaven. He gets upset when people are sick, and he wants to know why. He knows that when he was in my tummy, I was very sick. So I imagine he'll ask. Heck, he asked me right after my transfer, "Mommy, you got babies in that big fat tummy?" Yes, he actually said that, but it's my own fault because he's asked before and I just tell him, "No, Mommy just has a big fat tummy." So I wasn't offended when he said that, I actually busted out laughing. When he asked this last time after the transfer I told him I didn't know. I didn't want to say "No" and have that be true, but I didn't want to say "Yes" only for this not to work and have to explain it to him again.

We'll see what happens. I've prayed to thank God for giving us this blessing so far, prayed that He continue to breathe life into however many babies are in there, and prayed that He would help us know when the right time is to tell Jack. All we can do now is sit back and wait to see how this continues to develop.

Negative

That would be my result after putting back two beautiful looking blasts on day 6. It doesn't make me feel great about the ones we have frozen. My doc hasn't called me yet, but my nurse said he will later. She said we can start again after I get my period if we want to and have the funds available for our frozen transfer. I can't even get myself together enough to call the insurance company to see what we have left. All the meds are stopped and I should have AF in about 2-4 days supposedly. This is just freaking beautiful, but I realize that it wasn't meant to be for whatever reason. It's just not much of a consolation at this point. Oh well, Jack gets us to himself for a little longer. That's not a bad deal, at least we have that sweet, funny boy to love on.

7dp6dt

I want to test so bad!!! My mother almost got me to do it today before work, but I just don't think I am ready to handle a negative and have to wait 2 more days for results. I called my nurse this morning and begged to do my test tomorrow morning instead of Friday, simply because my doctor's office is right across the street from my work, and I work tonight. It means I have to get Jack up early in the morning on Friday (earlier than I normally have to for school anyway) and drag him into the doctor's office for a 2 second blood draw. My nurse told me I really needed to wait, if I wanted to come in on Monday instead of Friday that was fine, but they've had numbers be low doing it a day before, and then they have to wait 4 days to retest and in the meantime the person is all stressed out and worrying. I don't want that either. So it's killing me, but I will wait.

Friday is going to be a long day. When we did our beta for cycle #1, I had worked the night before, and my mom was having surgery that day. So I was busy trying to keep my eyelids open while waiting for news from the surgeon and I had my sister and husband to entertain me while we waited. That was long enough. But I don't work Thursday night, so I *may* (I say it like that because who really thinks I'll get much sleep before this test?!?!) be well rested on Friday morning, and after my blood draw, Jack will go to school, Archie will probably go to the gym, and I will be sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. Waiting for the phone to ring...I have got to find some trouble to get myself into that day! Maybe if I can't sleep Thursday night, I can sleep on Friday?!?!? I know, I'm slowly slipping into delirium...only two more days of putting up with this from me!!! Then it will be a whole other box of worms we open up!

6dp6dt

So it is 6 days since our transfer. I keep getting asked how I feel, a totally normal question, especially since our beta is only a few days away now. For the most part I feel fine. I'm really irritable. I don't know how much of this is mentally induced because I'm getting more nervous as we get closer to the test date, or if it has to do with the progesterone/estrace combo. I'm having hot flashes which interfere with my sleep so I feel like I'm tired all the time even when I've been off of work for a few days. The estrace is supposed to help with this (at least in menopausal women), but I'm not so sure it has. The crampiness I was having has for the most part subsided, however, every now and then I'll have some. I'm not complaining, I'll take all of this if it means we're pregnant. I'm just answering the most common question at the moment :)

Paranoid and d2p6dt

I realize I tend to be a bit paranoid about this blog especially given that fact that so many people at work had issues with it before, and so I am just trying to keep it more private. I think my cousin's comment on my last post is right. My traffic feed is just making me more paranoid. Although it may be for good reason since my girlfriend said she just checked in and shows up as one area, and that area had checked in 6 hours before her and it wasn't her, maybe it's a coincidence and someone I don't even know who checked in. I'm taking my traffic feed off for my own sanity, stress levels, etc so that hopefully I can get through this already stressful time successfully.

That said, if you are a coworker and you are checking out my blog and I did NOT give it to you personally, please keep it to YOURSELF and resist the urge to gossip about it, me, or this journey of mine with other coworkers. Don't just lurk! Comment and let me know who you are so I have a clue who knows about this! Thanks :)

I've been asked how I'm feeling. Really no different than usual to be honest. I had some sharp cramping the night of the transfer and since then mild cramping off and on. Day 9 of IVF#1 was when I started having sharp cramps and then started spotting until day 13, our beta was on day 15. That was with a day 3 transfer, and embryos that weren't nearly as far along as these two that we put back this time. I am now d2p6dt (or day 2 post 6 day transfer; or 2 days after a day 6 transfer) and so if this cycle mimicks our first, tomorrow would be the same time I started spotting. I've been a bit paranoid because the cramping was earlier this time and frequent trips to the bathroom to check toilet paper haven't revealed any spotting...yet. I'm not sure what that means for this cycle, but I can't obsess over it either. What will be will be. We can only hope and pray that God blesses us with another child (or two!). It's still early, my beta isn't until late next week, and alot can happen between now and then (although any implanting should take place by Sunday). I can't really say I have any symptoms that can't be attributed to having a cold or being on estrace and progesterone.