Return of the cramps

I have been wondering what is up with my strange periody feeling - especially since it has been going strong for about five days now. I feel my usual dull achy, crampy stuff going on plus strange sharp pain and stuff. It hasn't been worrying me too much, but it is surprising and weird that it seems to be gaining momentum.

Once again, I love the internet. I checked up about cramping in early pregnancy and found out that though cramping can mean bad things like miscarriage and ectopic pregnancies, it is also very common in people with endometriosis. Most endo sufferers said their symptoms got much worse for the first trimester and then chilled out after that. Though I am totally not loving how much its been hurting me to pee the last few days and the other nonsense, I must admit that I really like feeling something. Many people don't even know they are pregnant at a meager four weeks. For me some early discomfort is totally worth really feeling different.

Feeling...positive

Last night I was dreading getting bad news today. I was also dreading good news, because good news means an even bigger let down in the future.

Today I got the good news: I am officially chemically pregnant!

And I am going to take a cue from a very wise friend who had some losses and really feared getting excited about a new pregnancy only to wind up broken hearted. She figured you may wind up broken hearted whether you live it up in the mean time or not. She also figured that whatever time a little embryo or fetus is going to get, it deserves to be loved, deserved, wanted and celebrated. I just couldn't agree more, and am thankful for smart people who grapple with things before I ever have to. It makes things so easy on me.

Thanks for all your wishes and your prayers, and please keep em coming! Second blood test is in 10 days, and we can have the first ultrasound around Jan 16th to see if its one or two. I am voting for two. I figure if I am trying to be positive I may as well go all the way.

Test Day Tomorrow

I have my pregnancy test tomorrow morning and find out the results probably before 5pm. I haven't had any spotting yet, and I had figured based on the last two tries, that my spotting would have shown up on Christmas day at the earliest, and the morning of the test at the latest. It is getting weirder and weirder to not have any bad signs when I go to the bathroom. Is it just way late? Is this setting me up for worse disappointment when it comes? I am just trying to force time to pass so I can know for sure.

The Transfer

Yesterday I had my embryo transfer. Two gorgeous blastocysts. It is so crazy to think that those funny cell blobs already have all the ingredients to become people. They already know if they are boys or girls. Fascinating.

I am now just lying about, mentally ordering my uterus to be hospitable. I am finding it so much easier to be hopeful this time. I guess I know what the sad news feels like, and I know I can live through it, so why not give my all to hoping?

We also had two slightly less perfect blasts that they were planning on freezing.

These embryos are either going to attach in the next 36 hours, or not - so think sticky thoughts for me please!

Old Dog

Have you ever watched movies about animals where there seems to always be an old wise dog and then a young, yippy, hyper dog? I can only think of Homeward Bound off the top of my head, but I think this is a familiar genera and theme.

Well I am the old dog. Yes I love to think myself wise. But more its just that I have been going through this crap for so long I find myself barely tolerating the young infertility pups nipping at my ears while I am just trying to chill on the ground.

I hope I haven't lost my compassion - because I don't think I will EVER change my opinion that the first two years were the worst. But I find myself not being very helpful with my young infertile friends. I find myself mostly just listening to their barks or whines, and then offering nothing to them, because what I have to offer is my truth, my experience, which will A: be completely different than theirs, and only frustrate the situation. B: Be so depressing it won't serve to help at all.

If I were to tell my truth to the puppy it would be: You are annoying. You are over thinking. You are over-stressed. And you will have no control over your annoying, over-thinking, stressed out ways. And not one second of doing this, or not doing this will create a baby. And there are so many ways to have a baby, but for some of us there are more ways to not have a baby. For some this journey will be acute, and short, and for some it will be a marathon, and there is no predicting what course you will get. If you make it nearly to the end of the marathon - you may end up looking just like me. Old, lazy, tired, and maybe wise in the worst ways. I think this is why I just have been keeping my mouth shut lately. Nobody wants to be an old dog. I am not the poster child of happy fertility sagas.

Lessons

H got two job offers this week. Here in our hometown, so we won't even have to move. It has been completely anti-climatic. This has been my hearts desire for 6 months, occupying every worry and every hope, and now it seems that problem has been solved. I don't think I will dare celebrate or let my guard down, um well, ever? Do you ever feel like something is safe or permanent after that? Or is the point that your job isn't the thing that should give you safety, purpose and permanence? I would say we have done some painful work of finding those things in the shelter of our own house and relationship. So I am happy (so happy) for him to be employed, but really, the only thing I think I will ever take from a "career" again is the paycheck (and yes I am very, very thankful for that too).

I don't feel like listing all the lessons I have learned in the past year. It would be obnoxious and preachy, and also, I am not far enough out of the woods to declare that those lessons were great for me, and totally worth all the pain. Not even close to being that evolved yet. Just suffice it to say that the lessons are there, and I will digest them at some later date.

I wonder if a pregnancy would feel this anti-climatic too. I am really scared of miscarriage. Much more scared than of just getting my 80th negative.

I have about 5 good looking embryos still, and will transplant on Friday, then another two week wait. Back into the woods...

It was a good sign!

They got 27 eggs out of me! I didn't even know I was capable of that. We got news today that 14 have fertilized. I am so excited and we are really crossing our fingers for some actual day five blastocysts to transfer.

The happy news also takes the edge off the fact that I look like a manatee right now.

Oh I am so bloated

That's all. Just getting big a poofy. I think it is a good sign.

IVF #3 Underway

This one will only be two weeks of injections instead the whole month. They say it is more aggressive because they have cut off two weeks of Lupron prior to the stims. I guess shortening the Lupron suppression will give more oomph to the stims. We’ll see. I will be done around December 15^th and get the results by the end of the month.

I can’t believe how “no big deal” this is becoming. But I still just want it to be all over so badly.

I told a person from church what my timeline was and she was pretty sympathetic to the fact that I would be getting the news around Christmas time. This had occurred to me, but really, take your pick as to which day would be the worst, because at this point I think I have had them all. My birthday, his birthday, anniversary, anniversary of “trying”, Thanksgiving, on the day of a baby shower I was throwing, on the day of my niece’s birth, many, many days of people announcing their pregnancies… I have been getting the kick in the gut on a monthly basis for over six years now. The bright side, I guess, is that is has gotten easier to handle. I think the worst days were the ones in the first two years. And contrary to what one might think, this has not made me feel isolated or lonely, it has opened my eyes to how many people live with sad things and still do their best to have full, happy lives.