Waiting

I was able to get my beta moved up a day so I had it drawn this morning. I am currently waiting for the call…. To say I’m nervous is an understatement.

Today I am Pregnant, and I love my baby

No matter what happens, I cannot control the outcome. Today I am pregnant and I love my baby!

I am Freaking Out

Instead of being super excited about being pregnant again, I am just nervous that it is another chemical. I tested again this morning and the line is MUCH more visible than it was Sunday, but it is still light. I am so nervous. I have spent all morning browsing fertility friends pics of HPTs at 12DPO to see how my line to compares to the lines on other tests. I hate that my biggest worry, is getting past it being a chemical pregnancy. I called my REs office to see if they will move up my beta to tomorrow. Hopefully I will hear back from them soon.

I Gave In

I gave in and tested yesterday at 10DPO. I hate testing early. I had no reason to test, I have felt no “symptoms” and I knew it would be a BFN. I knew that if I saw a BFN it could be too early, it could ruin my day, I would just get all negative about this cycle, but I tested anyway. Imagine my surprise when it came back positive. I was in shock. I am in shock. I am also scared. Finally, I am mad at myself for testing early. I knew that I had to test this week because I am taking progesterone and if I’m not pregnant it could delay my cycle. I was supposed to test on Thursday.  If my test was positive then I would call my RE’s office and they would request a beta.

I am scared, but I am really hopeful. I don’t know why I can’t explain it, but I am really hopeful about this cycle. I pray that this will be the baby that God allows us to take home.  So, yesterday we were in DC and my parents were there. So although I know I shouldn’t, I am just so excited, I tell my mom. BIG MISTAKE. She replies with let’s wait and see what happens. So I ask why she just can’t be happy for me and she says something like she was excited last time and it didn’t work out. I fucking wanted to slap her. So I said, that I still think that she should be excited and if it doesn’t work out, then next time she gets excited also, and so on. I really wanted to fucking punch her.  What the fuck does she think this does to me? Who the fuck does she think I have to talk to when shit like this happens? I guess not her. As mad as she mad me, I am proud of myself for not allowing her to ruin my day.

What did she do? She did add extra anxiety to me about testing so early and about having another CP. I really hate that I dumb enough to think that my mom would be supportive and say something worthwhile to me about this. Something like “I’m happy for you guys, and we’re all going to stay positive that everything will be fine this time”, or “I know you’re worried after what’s happened, but just take it easy and have faith”. I don’t really know. Anything positive would have been nice. But for her to say that she was excited last time and it didn’t work, I just wanted to punch her. What kind of emotional roller coaster does that bitch think I’ve been on?

 

Back to DC

We went to DC yesterday for a celebration dinner honoring a family friend who was being promoted to Brigadier General in the Army. Mr. P really didn’t want to go, but he sucked it up and went. The actual promotion was today, but I had a presentation at work that I couldn’t miss. I am really sad that I didn’t get to see it because this gentleman saw me grow up, and he pinned my LT rank on me when I graduated from OBC. He has always been there to support our family and I’m really sad that I had to miss this milestone in his life.

My parents flew in from out of town for the ceremony, so we went up early and spent the day with them. We didn’t do a whole lot with them because we had limited time, but we were able to go the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History again. That place is HUGE. I only looked at one exhibit yesterday that I looked at again yesterday, and I still haven’t seen the whole thing. LC had quite an experience there. We were in the insect zoo and there was a lady leaning over looking at a bug and LC smacked her ass! I was so embarrassed! The look on her face was complete disgust until she realized it was LC who had done it, and then she calmed down.  Mortified, I tell my parents to which my dad responds “that’s my grandson”!

My Experience with Recurrent Chemical Pregnancies

 This past year has probably been one of the hardest in my life. I feel like it should have been the best year because it was my first year as a mom and I had so much joy brought to my life from LC. But sadly, even with all the joy that LC brought to me, this past year was tough. Real tough.

Part of the hardship of the past year, is that I have had 3 chemical pregnancies. So I went from never being able to get knocked up, to not being able to stay knocked up.

My first loss was in March. I wrote about it in my blog under a post titles Miscarriage. That loss was devastating. Of all the losses I have had, I took that one the hardest.  May is when I had my second loss. I was surprised that I got pregnant again so quickly, but thankful for the second chance. I felt like god was giving me back the baby he had taken. But just as with my first loss, the lines just weren’t getting darker. This loss just pissed me off. I thought my OB had said it was rare for this to happen again, if it was so rare why was it happening to me?

After the second loss I had a Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Panel done to see if there was something that they could determine was causing the losses. My RPL came back normal. We tried again. Loss number three happened in August. This loss I just expected. I know that’s sad to say, but the day I got the first positive I already started thinking about when I would lose the pregnancy. This loss happened much sooner than the first two. If I would have waited till 17DPO to test like I always told myself I would do, I would never have known about this one.

After this loss we had a Karotyping test done on both Mr. P and I and both of those have also come back normal.

Chemical pregnancies to me put you in a weird spot. Some people don’t acknowledge them as losses, some people will tell you that at least you know you can get pregnant, and some people say nothing at all. To me though, the loss is very real. You find out you’re pregnant, you develop all these hopes and dreams about the family you are about to become and then in an instant it is gone. It is gone only for people to not even acknowledge what you are going through as a loss. It hurts.

One of the hardest things for me has been that there is no clear reason as of yet why I am having these chemical pregnancies. When Dr. S called to say that our karyotyping test came back normal he gave me his theory, but it is just that a theory because there is no proof. Dr. S believes that I have an ovulatory dysfunction. At the beginning of this cycle my AFC on one ovary was 13, and it was 18 on the other. Those numbers are slightly higher than the norm – which I believe he said was about 10 on each side. He also said that my AMH came back at about 3.6. This is slightly higher than most women my age. I asked him if I had PCOS and he said he didn’t believe so. Since I’m not overweight (currently), my cycles are regular, I ovulate regularly, I’m not harry, and my counts aren’t THAT high, he said it was pretty safe to say that I don’t have PCOS.

He theorizes that I am not releasing a very good egg each month. The way he explained it was all the follicles from the AFC are fighting for hormones and nutrients to become “the egg” that is released. Because I have so many, “the egg” isn’t getting all the hormones and nutrients that it needs. Dr. S did not explain this to me this way, I’m paraphrasing and probably doing a poor job at it.

Dr. S believes that if we can create a better ovulation, then I can be successful. I just hope that is true. This cycle we did the Clomid, Follistim, HCG Trigger, and now Progesterone. I hope that it works.

The problem with Chemical pregnancies is that they are supposedly so common, but all you can wonder is if you will ever have another healthy baby. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of research on them, and its hard to find people who have had multiple chemical pregnancies. You start to wonder – at least I do, what is wrong with you. You want to become pregnant again, but you are so scared that you will have another loss. I’m just praying that this cycle works and that we get our second child.

Labor Day Weekend

Last weekend I left LC for the first time and went to have a much needed, long overdue, girls weekend. One of my best friends from college has a sister who lives up in DC so we met up there for the weekend. It was so nice to be able to hang out and relax, laugh, and just have a good time. Looking back we didn’t do a whole lot, but we seemed to be busy the entire time.

I got there Friday night and we that night we just went to dinner at a Greek restaurant. Saturday I got up and ran 4 miles (yay for me), and then we took a Segway tour around to see the monuments, the capital, and a few other sites. We used Smithsonian Tours by Segway and I thought our tour guide did a great job. We got there late, so he had to rush through our safety brief, but we picked it up pretty quick. There was a women there with her husband who was having the worst time and I just knew she was going to crash. Well, she didn’t, but I did. There was one part of the tour we had to go around a tight (in my opinion) corner and I didn’t make it. I went one way, the Segway went another. It was bad, but I survived.

After the tour we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and then to the Holocaust Museum.  That was enough for me. After the four mile run, standing on a Segway for 3 hours, walking around two museums, and walking to and from the metro, my legs were DONE! Sunday we went to brunch at a nice place that had bottomless mimosas. HEAVEN!! We did a little shopping, and then just relaxed. Sunday night we headed to the National Harbor and then Monday I left. The whole weekend was amazing, but definitely went by to fast!

Mr. P and LC went home to my ILs for the weekend.  I don’t know what all they did, but I’m sure that LC had a blast playing with his cousins. I honestly can’t stand being around my SIL and her kids because I feel like LC and her youngest don’t play well together. They are both at the age where they really aren’t into sharing. Well, if her son takes a toy from mine it’s all good, but if LC takes a toy from her kid, she tries to make him give it back. The last time were all together was at the beach this weekend. I let a lot of shit slide that weekend in order to keep the peace, but I won’t next time.

I had called my MIL to give her LCs restrictions last Thursday, but I’m sure he ate something he wasn’t supposed to. He came back with diarrhea and a diaper rash. In fact his diaper rash was so bad that on Wednesday I took him to the doctor. It had gotten so bad that an infection had developed.  I sometimes don’t understand how that woman can have such a cavalier attitude when it comes to the safety of a child. Whenever I change LCs diaper I use A&D ointment. EVERY DIAPER CHANGE. At daycare, they use it at every diaper change. So, I don’t understand why she would feel (because I’m sure she was the one changing diapers) that my request for her to use it could or should be ignored. He’s not her child.

Anyway, after a day at home with mommy yesterday, some Rx cream, and a quick rinse off in the tub after every poopy diaper, he is doing better and back at daycare today. I felt so bad for him because every time we changed him he was in so much pain. I think even the water burned because he would just stand there and whine as I rinsed off his bum-bum and he was afraid to sit in the water. I am so glad he is doing better.