Shall I rewind a bit?
I think the last time I posted, I was saying how amazingly pleased and blown away I was with my egg numbers and fert rate. Well, the following day, Day 2 for my embies, I got a call to say that one of the two that I was told had shown "signs of fertilisation" the day before had actually started dividing, so I actually had ten little embies!! Incredible. As it happens, that little one didn't do anything else after Day 2, but whatever. Ten was still fantastic to hear.
I got daily updates on my embabies, because I like to be as informed as I possibly can be. They kept doing fairly well, and in the end I ended up with two beautiful blasties for transfer, two early Day 5 blasties in the freezer, and a third "borderline" Day 6 blasty frozen too.
Two transferred, three frozen. Five blasties from fifteen eggs. I was just so amazingly stoked that I could get anything approaching that kind of result.
But yes, as I've insinuated, it got even better.
Alan was away at site on transfer day, unfortunately, so I was flying solo (but he's only been able to attend two out of six of my transfers so far, so not a big deal really). The night before, I took the advice of various people, and went for a big 8km run to get my blood flowing, then indulged in a glass of wine after dinner. I arrived at the clinic the next day, after not hearing anything that morning and desperately hoping that I would get a couple of blasties for transfer. I went in to speak to the embryologist, where she informed me that they'd already frozen two early blasties, and were watching a couple more embryos for the next day. She then handed me a pic of my two beautiful embies for transfer, who from that moment were named Vernon and Petunia.
Petunia is on the top, and Vernon is the fat one down the bottom.
Transfer went very smoothly as always, and was over pretty quickly. I went to acupuncture, then went home and spent as much of the next three days as possible sitting on the couch with my feet up. The next morning I got a call to say I had one more blasty frozen; that it was borderline, but worth keeping. My Day 5 frosties are called Bernard and Manny, and my Day 6 frosty is Roy. :)
At 3dp5dt (8dpo), I decided to do my first HPT to see what was happening with the trigger hcg. Surprisingly, it came up negative... based on previous experience I was expecting at least a ghost line still. Good to know though.
Later that morning, when I was out having breakfast with Alan, I felt a few seconds of really strong, intense cramping; enough to make me stop what I was doing and say "ow". I've had mild cramping during the TWW before, but nothing like that. I did wonder at the time whether it meant anything...
The next morning, 4dp5dt, I started testing "properly", knowing that the trigger was gone and any result I saw was the real deal. As the test first started developing, I could SWEAR that I saw a faint ghost line there, but as time went by it seemed to fade away again. In true me-fashion, I scrutinised the test for the rest of the day, but really couldn't make anything out, and ended up tossing it in the bin.
At 3:30am on 5dp5dt, I got a squinter. So so so faint, but it was actually there, unlike the previous day's maybe-line. Trying not to get excited, I decided to hold my pee for six hours, and try again with SMU at 9:30. Hands shaking, I watched as the pee spread across the test, and I waited for something to appear. I stood there leaning on the vanity, staring as hard as I could. After a few minutes... there it was. A pink line. Very faint, but dark enough to be seen in a photograph.
Immediately I started telling myself that it was just another chemical, that there was no way this had worked. I tested again at 8pm that night, and the line was no darker, so I was convinced it wasn't going to last. Same again at 6dp5dt, the line hadn't changed that much at all.
Thus began my turbulent relationship with the dreaded pee sticks over the next few days. At 7dp5dt, I felt a little better when I saw this:
But at 8dp5dt, I was really concerned that the line was no darker than the day before, plus my lack of "boob symptoms" had me worried that my progesterone was too low. So I went to my GP for another unrelated issue, but while I was there asked her for bloodwork to check my levels. I got a call late that afternoon, with a beta of 77 for hcg, which is a pretty good number for that day, and a p4 of 41, which is low for an IVF cycle, but not too low. So I was definitely pregnant, but the stress didn't stop. Every day I was analysing the sticks, every day I was thinking about my official clinic beta on Monday, and imagining that my levels hadn't doubled quickly enough for a viable pregnancy.
Finally the dreaded day rolled around. I drove to my usual pathology collection centre after dropping Alan at work, and there was a sign on the door saying that it had closed down on 21st June. I was quite put out, and a little sad, as I liked the phlebotomist who worked there a lot, and was excited to tell her the news that I wasn't coming in for yet another pointless BT this time. There was an address for the next closest centre, so I took myself there, hoping that maybe it was a good omen; that I had a brand new collection centre that would produce good news rather than bad.
The clinic rang at 11:30 with my result. "How are you going?" the FN asked me. "It depends what number you have there in front of you!" I replied.
539. 5.. 3.. 9.
I was blown away. Here I was desperately hoping it'd be over 200 or preferably around 300, and it was over 500! I used an online beta hcg calculator to work out that it was a doubling time of 33 hours from my test four days earlier. They like it to double in 48 hours, so I was a long way ahead.
But of course, me being me, I still stressed for the next two days, waiting for my follow-up beta. Lines still not behaving every day, some were lighter, some were darker... I know now that it means nothing, so if I ever fall pregnant again I won't be so reliant upon my HPT line progression looking like all those perfect examples I've seen so many times on forums and google images!
For my final beta, I had my follow-up with FS at 2:45 that afternoon, but I was sure they'd call with my result before then. So I waited. And waited. And waited.... I started getting even more nervous. Was it such bad news that they didn't want to call me? Were they leaving the blow to be dealt by FS in person that afternoon?? 2:15 rolled around, and I still hadn't heard anything, even though the clinic are meant to have results by 1pm at the latest. So I headed off to our appt, meeting Alan in the waiting room, and we sat together nervously. He'd asked the receptionist to check to see if our results were in yet, and after I arrived she came out and said, "Not yet". But she looked very serious, so I was wondering if that meant anything.
We got called in, and FS said to Alan, "So, the bride's up the duff!"
"Am I?" I asked semi-incredulously.
"Isn't that what I saw the other day? Five hundred and something?" he asked.
"Yeah, but I haven't got my number for today yet!"
He got on the phone (speakerphone!) with the pathology results hotline, and sweet-talked her into giving us the number then and there.
1290!!!! I sagged in relief, and FS said, "See, nothing to worry about!"
I worked out later that it was a 38 hour doubling time from the last test, so still going well.
The rest of the appointment was fairly brief, and was spent talking about early pregnancy stuff. That in itself was quite surreal! He confirmed my EDD was 7th March 2014, but I already knew that. I was able to inform him that I'd already booked in with an obstetrician that day (awfully prematurely, but I didn't want to miss out on someone with a great reputation). FS was in high spirits.. he was obviously very happy that we'd finally got a positive result, and was joking around and being silly. He apologised to Alan for it taking so long, lol.
We were going to book in our 7 week scan, but I told Glenn I would be away in Perth for ten days, so it would have to be after that, at 7w3d at the earliest. So he offered us an additional early scan the day before we went away, at 5w5d.
That morning of my final beta, I did my last HPT. The line was beautifully dark, which hadn't reassured me much that morning, but that evening I realised what a fabulous sight it was. Here's all my pee-sticks, FMU on the left and SMU on the right.
The following week was torture. I had no more blood tests to make sure everything was still going okay, and I had absolutely NO early pregnancy symptoms either. And it didn't matter how many times I read that it was normal to not feel any different until 6 weeks or more, I still freaked out. I joined a couple of due-in-groups online for March, and so many women were already complaining about throwing up or feeling nauseous or things tasting/smelling bad, etc. etc.... I couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with me!
Yesterday was FINALLY scan day. FS had told us three times at our previous appt that we may not see a foetal heartbeat, and he mentioned it yet again, just before I started stripping off my lower half for another date with dildo-cam.
Straight away we saw the gestational sac. Only one.. it looks like we're not having twins, which is mostly a relief! Inside the sac I could see the yolk sac immediately, which was a good sign. FS probed around to see if he could make out a foetal pole... and then we saw it. A tiny, white, pulsating little flash. A heartbeat!! It was extremely slow, possibly even slower than my own, but FS said it looked like it had only just kicked off, so if that was the case, that would explain it. I didn't get emotional like I thought I would, I just kind of said, "wow!" in a hushed voice, and found it very interesting! The scan was over quite quickly, but he printed out some images for us. Here's a picture of our blob Vertunion (combination of Vernon and Petunia). The arrow is pointing to the foetal pole with it's little heartbeat.
I am booked in for another scan the day after I get back from Perth, which will be 7w3d. I am hoping with every fibre of my being that that day we will see Vertunion's little heart beating much faster, and the foetus measuring up perfectly. But until then, I have another very anxious wait ahead... good thing I have this little trip to distract me somewhat!
Come on, little one, keep growing well, and get that heart beating strong and fast.....
Well done! Great news!
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