BFNQNE

It's been a long week.

Tests turned to negative at home, and I chalked it up to either a chemical or just the trigger. Reached out to the nurse on Wed to see if I should stay on Estrace and was told to stop and come in for a regroup appointment before cycling again. That would have been nice to know earlier than the day my period was expected. So, regroup scheduled for today. Hit CD1 yesterday.

Talked to the doctor today and agreed on a plan. Did a baseline ultrasound, which showed an 18mm cyst on my left ovary. Ran bloodwork to see if the cyst was estrogen producing, meaning we couldn't cycle, or not, meaning we could.

The cyst isn't estrogen producing.

But my hcg is 1.1. The clinic won't let me cycle unless it's under 0.5. In other words, I did have my third chemical pregnancy, and now I've got a Big Fat Not Quite Negative Enough (BFNQNE).

On one hand, it's nice to know I wasn't going crazy with symptoms and lines. On the other hand, having to push out a month because of a miscarriage is brutal.

Sorry, little embryo, that I didn't make a better home for you.

Baby #6, Beta #2

Still pregnant. Our little embryo is clearly trying. Today's beta was 137.7. According to the Babymed calculator, given the 43.5 hour time lapse between the two, that's a doubling time of 42.15 hours.

Do I feel good about this? I feel ok, not great. Last time I went from 249 to 877 in roughly 24 hours. I'm clearly not doing as well this time, and my beta is still on the low side of normal, per beta-base (median hcg for 15 dpo is 194). If I'd never been through my last pregnancy, I'd probably be feeling much better about these numbers, but the comparison effect is hitting me hard, and I can't share my fears of aneuplodies or blighted ovums with these numbers.

Still, for today, I am pregnant. For today, I can assume that there's an embryo growing and trying in there. For today, I'm going to continue talking to it and telling it to be strong and healthy. For today, I'll continue with the progesterone and estrace and hope for the best.

I go in for my first ultrasound on 4/10. Here's hoping for darkening lines and no bleeding between now and then.

Baby #6, Beta #1

I got the phone call last night. Actually I got two - two nurses both rushed to be the first to call me, which was either genuinely sweet, or an indication of how bad my clinic's internal communications are.  (Side note: Let's just say that the people at the clinic are all absolutely sweet and compassionate, but no fewer than three people asked me if I was getting blood work done because I'd had a positive home test, despite me calling and saying "Hi, this is Me. I'm 15 days past trigger and got a positive home pregnancy test, so I'm calling to schedule blood work." Their internal communications are the pits.)

Anyhow, at 13 dpo, my hcg is 67. Pregnant. A bit less than the median hcg of 86 reported on betabase. Drastically lower than the 249 at this same dpo with the girls. Still undeniably pregnant.

So I return on Saturday to retest and we see if my hcg rises as it should. Doubling time should be approximately 48 hours, so we're hoping for a 140 or so. I'm not holding my breath, given my history and how this cycle has gone.

I am feeling so many emotions right now. None of them are good. Here's the thing: starting out TTC in October 2015, I was adamant about only wanting one child. I wasn't interested in the challenges, the costs, the physical demands, or the stress of two. I just wasn't. I am an only child, I liked that lifestyle, and I wanted that for DH and I. I truly, truly did not want two children.

Despite that, when I saw the girls' heartbeats for the first time, nothing has ever felt so right to me in my life. And when we found out both were healthy girls, I could not have been more overjoyed. I don't have words to explain how utterly perfect everything about that situation seemed. It was as if something I didn't even know I had dreamed of had come true. Despite the constant retching, I was so happy because my family felt "right" to me.

Today doesn't feel right. I have this awful feeling that if today's beta had come back strong, if I had the sense that this pregnancy was twins, I would feel so much better. Instead, I feel this sense of loss, knowing that this is, at best, a single baby. Knowing that at most there's one baby growing in me leaves me feeling like I've lost what my future was supposed to be - what the dream I didn't know I had until I had it was. I feel like I can't possibly love this one baby as much as I love the girls. And I feel so fucking guilty for feeling this way. It's unfair to that baby. It's horrific, when I interact with so many amazing ladies who would give anything to have a single baby. It's what my life would have been if my first, second, or third pregnancies had gone to term. It's what I wanted right up until that first ultrasound last August.  Why can't I be happy, that maybe we'll finally bring a child home with us, from the hospital? I don't know, but I'll hope that it resolves as time passes.

Again

Once again, I see two pink lines. Once again, they're faint. Once again, in these early days, they don't seem to be getting darker. Once again, I wonder if theses are my lines - the lines that will lead to a THB.

Things I know:
These lines are definitely lighter than the ones with Alexis and Zoe. No twins thsi time, for sure.

Wondfos are notoriously inaccurate in gauging hcg levels, but the presence of two lines indicates there is an embryo in there.

Blastocysts grown in vitro can produce hcg in concentrations > 5. Wondfos can pick up hcg at concentrations of 8 or greater (based on my past CPs, with hcg of 8 and 14, both of which produced two lines on a Wondfo).

I had horrific night sweats Tuesday night. Soaked through the bed and needed to chnage clothes twice. This typically happens to me during the follicular phase. I can't recall if it happened during early pregnancy.

My BBT has not shifted up yet, although it didn't with the girls, either.

I felt lightly sick - sore throat and stuffy nose all weekend.

We'll see what the next few days bring. I'm much more zen about things this time. I'm ready to get on to the next cycle, as I never expected this one ot work, but I'm also talking ot the little embryo daily, telling it ot hang on and grow up healthy and strong.

Here's to the mind fuck that is pregnancy after many losses.

Risk Hope?

In early pregnancy, doctors expect hcg levels to double every 24-72 hours. A 48 hour doubling time is considered good and a promising sign. There is a bit of data to show that longer doubling times, while not automatically a problem, are correlated with worse outcomes.

My initial hcg was 249.9 on 13 DPO.

My second hcg was 837 on 15 DPO.

That's a doubling time of 28 hours!

Those are really damn great numbers. (That's the first time I've been able to say that about ANY of my test results in the last 8 months.) Those are numbers that mean this isn't another chemical pregnancy. But my first pregnancy ended in a blighted ovum, which would have had much higher hcg levels than those above. And that means these numbers don't automatically mean a "take home" baby.

So, do I risk having hope? I want to be hopeful that this pregnancy is going well and will stick around. I want to be hopeful that I'll see a heartbeat in 16 days. I want to be hopeful that maybe, just  maybe I'll get a happy ending.

Don't know what the answer is, but I'm going to stick with an affirmation a woman in my loss group shared: Today I'm pregnant and I love my baby.