Scheduled

The OB ultrasound with my clinic is scheduled for August 12, the day after we return from vacation, and also my mom's birthday. I'm hoping this is another good omen, just like the Cheerio was.

It's official!

Ok, even I am convinced that I'm pregnant now. My beta this morning was 848 and according to this handy calculator, my doubling time is 2.21 which is textbook perfect. I can hardly stand the excitement! The next hurdle is the OB ultrasound which they want me to go in the week of Aug 3, but we're going to be on vacation so I imagine I'll go in the week after. I know there's a long road ahead before I can cross "healthy pregnancy" off my parent-to-be check list, but today I'm just happy to be right where I am.

My heart is so full, I wish I could buy a round of BFPs for everybody who's been hanging out at the IF bar with with me.

Processing

Thank you all for the kind words yesterday, I really appreciate it. I spoke with the nurse and she said that the plan is to look for doubled beta by Thursday and then she will schedule my OB ultrasound at ~6.5 weeks, and assuming all looks good, they will discharge me to my regular doctor. Who I actually have an appointment scheduled with next week for a pap in anticipation of starting IVF in August. I might as well keep the appointment, who knows what could happen, plus it took me forever to get the appointment. Since I only started seeing her a year and half ago, I don't know her really well, so I'd like to chat her up a bit and make sure she's someone I want to continue with should this turn into a full-fledged pregnancy. I'd always assumed I would go with a midwife practice, but I'm not even sure if they take women at my age.

As for pregnancy symptoms, I really have none. Still a little crampy in a PMS kind of way and I feel slightly dehydrated but I've never seen that listed as a symptom. I feel totally normal, it's surreal to think that there might be a collection of cells burrowing into my uterus as I type this. (You can thank my husband for the imagery, he's full of medically correct but unromantic terms for this process).

In retrospect, I have been unusually tired the past few days, but we've also been really busy. We spent the weekend with friends who have an almost 3 year old which was really fun but exhausting. Last night friends from out of town stopped by for a BBQ with their two girls who are 6 and 4. Holy, holy, they had energy with a capital 'E'. They immediately started stalking the cats, going so far as to crawl under my bed to find the big one who is terrified of children. He quickly exited to the basement, but the little one had no such luck and was purred at and petted to within an inch of his sanity. Fortunately he's really good with kids (even at his advanced age and with his medical issues) and he did score a piece of chicken that one of the girls dropped on the floor. When they left at 10 pm I headed straight to bed, I was completely worn out and didn't even clean up the kitchen until this morning.

The glass was half full

Unbelievable.

After all the negativity and planning for the worst, my beta came back at 332. They will repeat on Thursday and then will determine whether or not I am truly pregnant. I almost skipped the beta today because I was feeling so crampy and expecting my period any minute. Huh. Dumbfounded would be the correct term to describe my current state.

I'm holding out for the repeat on Thursday before getting too excited but, wow, just wow.

If I wasn't feeling bad enough already...

Christ on a cracker, my clinic will simply not give me a break! Mere moments ago I received a phone call from the pharmacy about the prescription that was just faxed over for my next round of IUI meds. The IUI cycle that will never happen because if we do end up with a BFN on Monday we are switching to IVF and our RE knows this. We have, in fact, scheduled a consulation on the 24th to discuss this very thing. I told the pharmacy to put the order on hold while I called the clinic.

Fortunately, considering it is the first sunny Friday afternoon since May, a nurse was actually still at the clinic and picked up my call. She looked into my file and was appropriately surprised when she saw that I hadn't even had my beta yet. After a little more investigation, she explained that someone had verified that I had insurance coverage for another IUI cycle which automatically triggers a medication order. Once I explained that we were switching to IVF, she quickly said she would cancel the prescription order and put a note in my file. She even apologized, which was nice since she isn't the IUI nurse that I usually deal with and so was in no way culpable for the error.

I am a little irritated, not that I was inconvenienced in any real way, but that I am so clearly a number and not a face at my clinic. There is no personalized attention being paid to our particular situation, no one is trying to address our particular flavor of infertility, we are just chugging along the ART assembly line with everyone else.

And the doubt creeps in

Yeah, so I know I'm supposed to be gently incubating during this time between IUI and beta, but the reality is that the closer I get to Monday the more I Google to try to figure out the odds of getting a positive based on our particular circumstances. Not that it's even possible to figure out my exact chances, but I've been looking at studies of sperm quality and IUI pregnancy rate, stimulated ovulation IUI at my age and pregnancy rates etc. And the numbers, they are not good whichever way I look at them. First there's our male factor issue which was deemed "minor" by my husband's urologist, "suitable for IUI" by my RE and "pretty frickin hopeless" (my definition) by the literature. Most studies talk about requiring at least 10 million motile sperm after processing for pregnancy to occur, our sample was only 2.5 million. Other studies mention needing pre-processing motility to be >50%, ours was 26%. Rate of progression needs to be at least 3, our sample was rated a 2. Pregnancy rates overall for IUI were only about 7% per cycle for couples in circumstances similar to ours. No need to start thinking about painting the baby's room, that part seems clear.

I know they are just numbers, and a 7% chance is not insignificant enough for me to indulge in a pitcher of margaritas with a clear conscience, but chances, they are slim. I guess all I can do is wait for Monday and try to prevent myself from wasting $10 on an HPT.

1ww down, 1 to go

Seven days until my beta and, frankly, I don't feel a thing. No inklings, no hunches, no dreams about babies. Not even any anxiety about whether or not I am pregnant, not tempted to POS. Nada. We managed to have a relaxing weekend away in Vermont. A little hiking, a visit to the Trapp Family Lodge for dinner (their restaurant is excellent), a little sunshine and a whole lot o' rain. So, here we are back to normal life, back to waiting. I did go ahead and schedule that follow-up appointment with my RE in a "hope for the best, plan for the worst moment." Fun times.