Grow some thicker skin

September 30, 201511 Comments

“So grow some thicker skin, speak up kindly or just ignore them. I know it is cool to say the old sticks and stones chant is passe. You have to let the hurt sink in or you don’t”

This was just one comment in response to a facebook post that went viral. Did you see it? Emily Bingham posted an ultrasound photo to catch everyone’s attention…and it worked:

It has been a topic of discussion on my facebook feed, and I ended up reading many other articles and blog posts that have been discussing it. It seems that all though many support it, there are almost an equal number of people who are ranting against it. I thought about writing my own post last night, but I was soooo enraged to read that one comment ‘grow some thicker skin’ that as I read it in bed very early this morning (suffering a bit of jet lag still) I had to get up and rant back.

So here I am ‘Bubba’. Writing about your one anonymous comment out of hundreds I have read in response to Emily Bingham’s facebook post. My skin is already thick from years of line of questioning about our childless status, in particular over the past year or so, I have been developing layers of hard, scaly, skin. I can now openly say to people I hardly know that my husband and I have been trying for a baby, and we have been terribly unlucky that mother nature has not yet given us our wish. Last week I even told a new work collegue that I had miscarried and it was STILL going on right now. Yes, my skin got thick. I just don’t care any more when people ask me if we are ever going to have kids. It’s not pretty anymore. My scaly, dry, scabby skin protects me from your line of questioning.

But I don’t want to be scaly, dry and scabby. I want soft, beautiful, glowy PREGNANCY skin. Oh and a baby – OK? So if you could just give us all a break may be I can focus on some more important issues…

Just one last thing, this is for the another commenter ‘S’. Emily’s facebook post is NOT a

“dangerous feminist attitude”

This affects men too. I can certainly say that my husband Chris gets these questions just as often as I do, and it equally hurts the men as the women. This is not an “anti-motherhood crusade”, as you say.

OK time to go to work now I have this off my chest!!!!!

(here is the link to the article with all the comments I quoted: https://gma.yahoo.com/woman-defiant-rant-fertility-shaming-strikes-nerve-134452981–abc-news-parenting.html)

Is the pain in my mind?

September 21, 201519 Comments

I have had a very specific pain around my right ovary for the past four days. The pain worsened in the evenings, I slept it off after getting to sleep with the aid of the pain killers and my sheer exhaustion. It felt like something was pushing inside, wanting to pass. The acetaminophen & codeine-3 was barely hitting this very specific pain.

Late last night I considering going to the Emergency Room. I knew that my doctor had said I shouldn’t travel to Europe if I was having pain. Well I was in pain, the drugs weren’t stopping it, but I wasn’t doubled over with the pain, I was getting waves of pain, increasing intensity and then becoming dull but it was in this one particular spot. I couldn’t ‘touch’ the pain, when I pushed down it didn’t hurt more or less. Was I being stubborn or just simply stupid for ignoring this? I read stories of women whose fallopian tubes had ruptured weeks after taking the methotrexate. Surely this was a very rare event, it can’t be happening to me? I cried a lot in my indecisiveness. Chris even cried with me because he didn’t know how to help me – it was my decision to make whether or not to go to A&E – he felt helpless. I didn’t want to go to hospital to spend a fortune for me to be sent home again – or worse – they wouldn’t be able see anything again on the ultrasound and end up opening me up. Chris asked me a very good question – was the pain in my mind? Was I making it out to be worse than it was because I didn’t want to travel to Europe? It was a harrowing question to think about. It was definitely a possibility. The mind can play cruel tricks. But I eventually decided that in the morning if I still had that specific pain we would call my clinic or go to ER. That was my line.

I woke up this morning PAIN FREE!!!! It was an amazing relief. I was exhausted and felt like I had been out on the town all night, waking up with a hangover. Oh how I wish that were the case! But I felt free. That was for about 3 hours….then the heavy bleeding and passing of clots continued along with all that type of associated pain. But this pain I could deal with compared to the specific pain I was having the past four days. Such a relief.

So here I am waiting for my flight to Europe. After connecting flight #1 I have discovered that flying whilst still miscarrying is not the greatest idea I’ve ever had. I could feel I was about to pass something, then of course there was turbulence and the seat belt sign came on. The flight attendant barked at a little old lady to sit back down! So I sat there in my seat hoping I would not leak everywhere (sorry – I know this is probably way too much information!!!). 20 minutes later I couldn’t sit still anymore, so I got up despite the turbulence and dashed to the toilet. I sat on the toilet thinking how ridiculous this whole situation was and sobbed. I am so glad I didn’t wear mascara today, in fact, mascara has not been part of my make-up regime for several weeks now. I thought about all the things I would shout at the flight attendant if she gave me grief about getting up from my seat! Fortunately she was too busy to bark at me.

I just have a 9hr flight to London, followed by 2hr flight to Stockholm to survive this mess! Wish me luck!!!

The art of clothes shopping when coping with infertility

September 18, 201515 Comments

I hate shopping. I love having new things! But I hate the actual act of shopping. This stems from two problems I face, and more recently, as a direct result from dealing with infertility, a third problem has appeared.

I hate crowds – I hate sharing a shop with another person as the bimble in front of me or push past me. I have my personal space….keep out of it!!!! I get quite antsy when I am unable to walk away freely and it ruins the whole shopping experience for me
I have terrible fashion sense and an awkward sized body – small boobs, small waist, tall, big hips and fat ass! I’m not quite pear shaped, but the majority of clothes do not fit my lower half of body unless they are stretchy or super baggy. Therefore buying some of the simplest things can take me more than one shopping trip.
More recently, I have noticed how much I hate walking past baby clothes stores, pregnant women and women pushing buggies without looking where they are going. they are everywhere. Really I had never noticed just how many baby clothes stores there were, until now.

So why don’t I just internet shop? I remind you of problem 2. I have never bought clothes form the internet – that is until now. I discovered a service call Stitch Fix*. Several months ago, I noticed my friend wearing a beautiful skirt, after complimenting her on it she told me it was from stitch fix. So I looked into it some more…basically this is a service where clothes and accessories are selected by a stylist just for you and delivered direct to you. No shops!! No wasting time sifting through lots of pictures on the internet!!! No worries.

So how do they know what to send you? Well you answer a questionnaire that includes your likes and dislikes….you are shown some photos of styles and you rate them, you provide them with all your different sizes (boobs, waist, hips, height etc), you also give them your price points, i.e. how much you would spend on a jacket, jeans, top, trousers, earrings etc. They use data science modeling techniques to figure out what type of clothes would work best for you. You also have a chance to write what you are looking for in your shipment of 5 items – may be a special occasion, or a holiday is coming up….or just in general the type of thing you want A stylist reads any of your requests and selects 5 items based on all this. And it is a surprise what you get! Your box arrives beautifully wrapped.

I love receiving surprises in a box!

You also receive a personal note from your stylist describing why they chose the items they have sent you, then they include little cards to show you how to accessorize each item they have sent you. It is very neat.

Each card shows you how to style your item, and the stylist writes you a personal message 🙂

My very first box I kept all 5 items – a handbag, a maxi dress (I have had so many random strangers compliment me on this one), a pair of jeans (that actually fit me!! How risky was that putting in a pair of jeans in the first box?!), and two blouses that worked for both casual and work. I was very impressed. I probably wouldn’t have picked half of these off of the shelf in the shop, but when I tried them on I really loved them! Chris also helped me decide what to keep/not keep -so he can give his input without having to suffer being dragged around the shops!

(Another thing I generally dislike is shopping with other people, including Chris, because I feel pressured not to spend too long browsing or not try things on – I feel guilty – except with my mum and my friend E, I don’t feel so guilty with them :-p)

You have several days to try the clothes on and if you don’t like them you send them back in the prepaid packaging. If you buy all 5 items you get a 25% discount. You can choose how often you receive a package and can schedule one any time you fancy it – may be if you are feeling down!

Today my second package arrived (I chose to have a parcel once every 3 months)….I am very pleased with the stylists choices – again! Unfortunately, one of the tops was damaged so I will have to send that back. But I like what they chose for me and will be keeping them!

I will not lie, I am a bargain hunter…and this service is not the cheapest. Basically I calculated they add onto the price of the items a premium I probably wouldn’t pay for in a store if I picked it up from the rack. But when we added up the cost of fuel and the saving of hassle, I figured it was worth that ‘premium’. Another of my friends who tried Stitch Fix after I told her about the success of my first package. She kept one item – some jewellery. But the rest she sent back as it either didn’t fit her or was just not to her taste. She says she won’t be ordering any more from them. So they don’t always get it right!!! My friend who referred me to Stitch Fix originally has never received a package where she kept all 5 items, but she is happy to just receive a few good things every so often.

So I now get to avoid the ‘crowded’* shops and all those baby stores, but still get the feeling of having new things! Plus, I get to wear more fashionable clothes that actually fit and suit me!!!

Happy Friday everyone….so excited it is finally the weekend!!

Even Sushi loves Stitch Fix! Perfectly sized for a cat. In fact on their website they have a section dedicated to cats & dogs in stitch fix boxes!

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*I am not being paid or receiving any reward to write this blog – this is just my personal thoughts on a service I have found useful after realising that shopping can be quite depressing for me at times. BUT if you are interested in it, then there is a referral system, let me know – but this is not why I am writing this blog post, there are other similar services out there which do a similar job!!

**Crowded for me is more than one other person in the store!!!

Methotrexate Side Effects

September 14, 2015September 14, 201510 Comments

I am just over 72hrs past my first methotrexate injection. I have definitely noticed the side effects, but so far they have not been as bad as I thought.

Over the first 24hrs I felt nauseous and had a very dry mouth despite drinking lots – apparently this is very normal. My bleeding also stopped – not what I was expecting. Since those first 24 hrs, the nausea has continued 😦 I have spotted on and off (no more need for a pad, just a thin panty liner). I have been super tired, but have been sleeping deeply – a silver lining I guess. Last night I had weird pin-point pupils, Chris noticed them and so I looked in the mirror and absolutely freaked out. With a quick google, it looks like it could be the painkillers that did that, so I am not keen on taking those anymore! Pain has been bearable with pain killers – acetaminophen extra strong (NSAIDs like Ibuprofren are not good with the methotrexate), but the pain has been different to when I first started miscarrying where it felt like the worst period cramps, the pain I am experiencing now is short sharp bursts around my ovaries, but not constant. Each time I get a short sharp burst of pain I hold my breathe (not literally) as I hope there is nothing crazy going on down there with a burst tube.

Apparently with methotrexate, the deed starts to kick in after 72 hrs, so I am hoping that tomorrow morning my hCG levels have begun to drop.

Emotionally, I have only broken down in tears three times – an average of once per day I believe is not bad going. The things that upset the most is thinking about how for particular very short moments I actually believed this was a viable pregnancy and talked about the ‘may be’ and ‘what ifs’. It makes me sick to my stomach just thinking like that. Having said all that, I don’t think those thoughts are going to go away anytime soon. So we have been focusing on our road trip out West, it helps a lot to re-focus the mind. I think I am ready to go back to work tomorrow – I hope so, I’ve got a meeting in Stockholm to prepare for! (that is if my doctor lets me fly :-s )

PS. I have got to the point that I am not sure what category to post this under – ectopic pregnancy, suspected ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, part of IVF vol I???? I just hate not knowing if this was actually ectopic or not, they had no visible proof of where the pregnancy was and it frustrates the hell out of me – I think I will put it under feelings for now and figure it out later. I wonder what the doctors call this?

The saddest thing

September 9, 201515 Comments

The saddest thing about today is that we feel a relief with our miscarriage. It’s a bit of an oxymoron really. I am sure it is going to hit me soon, but for now I am feeling a huge weight of my shoulder, I feel 5 times lighter.

I had my blood drawn this morning by a super nice nurse, and I returned to my clinic this afternoon for the results and ultrasound. It didn’t start off great. My doctor said my hCG had risen again to 2600 from 1300 4 days ago. Yikes. I told her about my bleeding the past two days and how at 2AM I was up passing clots the size of golf balls and had been bleeding for the rest of today.

The two doctors spent an age checking every inch of my tubes, ovaries and uterus. The ‘junior’ doctor kept pointing to something and saying that she thought it was ectopic, they even switched on the colour flow on the ultrasound to see my blood pumping around, looking for the signs of the tell-tale ‘ectopic donut’ where blood flows around the pregnancy. But my doctor said no, that was definitely not ectopic, and she has seen lots of ectopics in her career (she this out loud!!). Especially now my hCG levels are much higher they really would expect to see something by now. I am very appreciative of the amount of time they took to look, particularly in comparison to the on-call doctor and other senior doctor at the weekend who spent 1/8 of the time hunting. My doctor said with an ectopic pregnancy I wouldn’t get bleeding with such large clots so she thinks it is very unlikely I am ectopic. I am SO GLAD I listened to my gut instinct and said NO to taking the methotrexate.

So the conclusion? It takes a few days for hCG levels to drop after a miscarriage begins therefore I will return on Monday next week for another blood test to check they are dropping and this is in fact a miscarriage. I have got a sick note for the rest of the week off work, so now for a bit of chilling out and eating lots of chocolate (seriously I have eaten a lot of chocolate already today).

I’m not completely in the clear just yet, we need to see my hCG levels drop and I need to pass whatever it is that has been growing in me causing my hCG levels to rise (prob. the placenta). The ‘junior’ doctor is on call this weekend, she said ‘don’t call me!!!’ she really meant “I hope you don’t need to call me!!!”…bless, she is lovely in her very quiet way.

My doctor reckons 6-8 weeks before I get a normal period returning, then we wait a natural cycle, start the Birth Control Pills and then can start a new round of IVF again or do a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) – whatever we want 🙂 This will put us at Christmas time :-s

Miscarriage is a terrible, sad, painful and hurtful experience. At 2AM last night when the big clots were passing I felt lonely and slightly terrified, I tried to sleep through the waves of pain but it was impossible, I finally fell asleep again at 5.30AM. I don’t know how long the physical pain will last, but I know that the psychological pain will last a whole lot longer.

For anyone who is reading this and currently experiencing a miscarriage right now, my heart truly breaks with you too – may be you have found this web page already, but I thought it was very useful: Coping with Miscarriage http://carikay11.hubpages.com/hub/miscarriagerecovery . Knowing that miscarriage is so common (1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage) makes this even harder, because I think about how many of my friends and family have silently been affected. I am so sorry you had to go through this – because this truly sucks X

Creeping thoughts

September 1, 20158 Comments

I have had some spotting everyday since Friday – just the teeniest amount here and there. Every time I go to the toilet I feel sick to my stomach as I wipe and check the tissue with apprehension. I hold my pee just so I delay having to see the blood. I can feel my stomach starting to bloat, with a feeling of emptiness.

My app tells me I am 5 weeks and 5 days pregnant today and huckleberry is the size of a chocolate chip. But is huckleberry in there? Perhaps huckleberry is no longer there, may be he never developed after implantation, or may be he is hanging on for us to see him once again on the ultrasound tomorrow…

Time is dragging and the fog creeps thick around us, we try to keep busy, but it’s impossible to hide our deepest thoughts. I know that tomorrow is going to be a good day, whatever happens we will have some of the answers to many of our questions.

This post may sound depressive, but I promise you I am not – just sad and anxious, and I think it is OK to be feeling like this right now, it would probably be a bit weird if I didn’t.

Trying not to cry at work is HARD

August 28, 2015August 28, 201526 Comments

On Tuesday, after my second beta test, I went home from work early so that I could receive the good or bad news in private. But my results had not ‘come back in time’, so not knowing when I would receive my results, I went into work on Wednesday. I was busy running around the office preparing for a one day workshop I was leading the next day when I received the phone call. You may know already that the news was ‘not good’. Receiving news like this whilst at work is difficult. My eyes were welling up when I dashed to the toilet quickly, passing one of my senior bosses and trying not to look him in the eye. I called Chris and had a good old cry – lucky there are not many women at my work to gate crash my pity parade. Chris said he would come to my work for a hug and he would be there in about 30 minutes. So I collected myself, and headed back to my desk. A colleague of mine who had promised to provide me some input to my project report for about 3 weeks decided to tell me he was not able to do it and he was going on leave the next day. Let’s just say, this was the wrong time to be telling me this. My attitude initially to him going on leave was….”and…..?????”. I had waited some time for his input and my report was already late. I said “No worries…..” in a very sarcastic and mean tone. Then my friend walked past us happy and bubbly….realised she had just interrupted something and asked if she should go, to which I nodded. Anyway, I was clearly in a grump.

After 40 minutes of being really pissy one minute, and on the verge of tears the next, Chris arrived at my work. We had a big hug and cry together in my work car park (parking lot). Chris stayed for a coffee, and we decided we would work from home for the rest of the day. I went back to my desk to finish off my preparations for the next day when my colleague (who I had been grumpy to) asked if everything was OK? So I told him about my phone call. I held back the tears as I said it, but said it was OK, I was going home for the afternoon, which he agreed I should do. I felt a little bit bad for my pissyness, but I know he understood that it wasn’t personal against him.

Thursday….I kept myself super busy at my workshop all day, I hardly stopped to think about anything else other than work. It was great!

Today, Friday, I had my third beta blood test. It didn’t start out great as my appointment was already eating into some ‘compulsory training’ time at work…and of course, the clinic had a waiting room FULL of patients. I was greeted by a nice enough nurse who I had never met before. I thought I had met them all!!!! In fact, it was very bizarre, I noticed that the receptionist was someone I had never met before, and all the other nurses I saw wondering around were all new. I wondered briefly if they had done ‘swap staff with another clinic’ day. V. weird. Anyway, the nurse who took my blood was pretty distracted by another nurse who was ‘in training’ (who at my last beta test, I blamed for my late result 🙂 ). They were gossiping, I did not appreciate a lack of attention when I was already upset with having to be there. Grrrr.

After I made into work this morning 40 minutes late, I sat in on about 1.5hrs of pointless training (I am actually already trained, and didn’t know they were going to be covering this same material). You can tell it was going to be a good day for me….not. The office was very quiet today, everyone was out on travel or on leave, which was probably a good thing, but I felt lonely. So I took myself off to a quiet empty meeting room and typed up notes from Thursday’s workshop to keep me busy…but it was slow going, my mind kept wondering to my results.

At 2pm my phone rang, I was surprised because the results weren’t due back til 3pm. It was the doctor who had done my egg retrieval and transfer calling with the bad news. He said my hCG levels were 395 (actually it turns out he was wrong, they were actually 345). My first response was wow it went up again, OK – I wasn’t expecting that! But he brought me back down to earth and said he did not believe this would be a normal pregnancy, he would expect an absolute minimum level of 800 by now, and I should stop taking my medications to prevent prolonging the pain (Emotional pain he meant), he did say that I could choose to stay on the meds if I wanted to be 110% sure, but he recommended to stop them. He also told me to arrange a follow up appointment with my doctor as soon as possible. And that was it. I actually did not cry, I was just confused. Sad, but confused. I stayed in my meeting room and focused on my task at hand, surprisingly I got a lot done in the next two hours.

It is so hard to not cry in front of work colleagues, but at the same time, being there has been a good thing when I needed to divert my mind’s wondering to sad things.

As I left work I received a phone call from my doctor, she started talking to me as if I did not know my results. However, she was far more informative about my results and what she wanted to do next. She told me that she agreed with the other doctor I should stop taking the medication, there is a very very small chance (about 1%) that this might be a viable pregnancy, but coming off the meds will not harm the developing foetus if in fact it is developing. By stopping the medication my body will be allowed to do what it probably would ordinarily have done and let me bleed. She wants to see me on Tuesday afternoon for an ultrasound and another beta test to be sure I do not have an ectopic pregnancy, although very unlikely, she wants to check. It is normal if I don’t start bleeding for another 4-5 days, but in the mean time if I get any sharp sudden pains or difficulty breathing to call her immediately. She also started talking about what we have in the freezer – we have just one blastocyst that was frozen on Day 5 stored away. They won’t do a transfer with just one frozen, so we would have to do another round of IVF. Can’t even think about that right now.

As soon as I got home I took off the estrogen patches from my stomach. It feels good to not have anything stuck there, and we don’t need to think about doing an injection either. I’m trying to think of the positives here!

How to get the most out of your doctor

August 23, 2015August 23, 201512 Comments

It took me about 24hrs after it was confirmed that I am pregnant to realise I do not know how to be pregnant. This might seem very weird considering we have been talking about this moment for more than two years now. Once we started trying to conceive I just of buried my head in the sand. I didn’t want to jinx our chances by buying a book about it, and I started to avoid all pregnancy related websites and apps after 6 months of failing to succeed in our quest to make a baby. I know the basics, like smoking is a big no-no, drugs are dangerous, avoid raw meat and reduce caffeine, but really, that is the limits of my knowledge. So yesterday we went to the book store and bought two books on pregnancy. One was the standard text book “Great expectations: Your all in one resource for pregnancy”, and the second was “Expecting Better”, beautifully demonstrated in this picture by Sushi:

Sushi, my book keeper

This second book interested me because I have always wondered whether Japanese women stop eating sushi, or French women stop eating brie when they are pregnant. Really? I don’t think so. I hope that this book will enlighten me to what the conventional wisdom really means. But when I started reading the first chapter I didn’t need to go much further with it to be completely satisfied with my purchase. Why? Well the author, Emily Oster, is not so different from me, she was not happy with what her doctor was telling her. I realised that my experience with my fertility clinic’s doctors and the feeling I had that there was a poor lack of communication. All of this was because I was not asking the right questions. I didn’t know I needed to ask them. And this is silly because all along I had the key questions in the back of my mind…I use them everyday at work!!!

In my job I help leaders make decisions every day…I do this by presenting the evidence, the facts – for and against a decision – I do some analysis on the data that supports the decision, I try to be unbiased and objective in my analysis, and then I present a recommendation to the leader on the best course of action. The leader doesn’t always go with my recommendation, but I have presented them with the facts and figures to make their own mind up. Sometimes I feel a bit hurt, but then I remember, I am not the one taking the risk. So when it comes to our healthcare and doctors, WE are the decision makers. We need to be presented with the arguments for and against, and be told what the supporting evidence is. WE are unique in many different ways and the decisions we make will be unique, blanket guidelines are not always appropriate for everyone.

I think a good example of this is when we were told we should do ‘ICSI’ because of our unexplained infertility. We didn’t ask the questions: What are the pros of ICSI? What are the cons of ICSI? What are the improved success rates with people like us? (i.e. what’s the supporting evidence/data?) We were not armed to make a decision, we just went with what the doctor said, and in the back of my mind I felt like I had not been given a chance to make a decision. I did actually do a lot of this research myself, but it would have been better if my doctor would have told me – after all I am not the medical professional, I just have the fortunate ability to interpret statistics from studies and experiments. So although I was finally happy with the decision to do ICSI after my research, something inside me was niggling about our doctor’s communication.

Another example is when it came to our embryo transfer. We were told that it is the standard practice at the clinic to transfer 2 embryos on day 3, unless there were over 6 fertilised embryos then maybe we would be a candidate for waiting to Day 5 to transfer 2 blastocysts. We did not ask the questions: what are the pros of us waiting to Day 5? What are the cons of us waiting to Day 5? What are our personal chance of success with 4 fertilised embryos compared to if we had had 6? (i.e. what’s the supporting evidence/data?). Again, I did a lot of this research myself.

I could go on with other opportunities throughout our infertility treatment where I could have asked these three simple questions that would have revealed the knowledge I needed to feel like I was in control of making a decision. We rely on doctors to make the decisions for us…and most of the time I am happy with that fact, but there were times that I felt like we should hold that responsibility for a decision. When it comes to my pregnancy I want to be able to ask these questions to my doctors and nurses so I can take the responsibility for making some of the big decisions such as prenatal testing or birthing plans.

Emily Oster suggests reading the book “Our medical mind: How to decide what is right for you” by Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband. I think I might try it, and I’ll let you know how it goes. Has anyone read this one?

In the meantime my friends, next time you are in a consult with your doctor, remember these three simple questions to help you make the best decision, for you, and get the most out of your doctor….

What are the pros (for me)?
What are the cons (for me)?
What is the evidence/what are the chances (for me in particular)?

What is cautiously optimistic?

August 20, 2015August 20, 201549 Comments

What do people mean when they say they are cautiously optimistic? According to the Macmillan dictionary it is defined as:

Hopeful about something, but recognising the problems involved.

I think to describes nicely how I have felt about trying to conceive since we decided to make the leap towards becoming parents.

I also like this image – they say a picture paints a thousand words. Sometimes it has felt like there is a storm out there and our umbrella is going to be whipped away, but most of the time it is just like this picture.

Cautious optimism represented by an image

But for me – this picture paints accurately what cautious optimism looks like for me right now…

Two pink lines

Yes, my dear friends, this is my blue sky approaching! I took a pregnancy test the night before my beta blood test. I was very spontaneous about it. Chris came home from work, he sat down and said “So…injection or test first?”. He threw me off guard because I had been so good at not thinking about using a home pregnancy test, it was just a surprise he said it so nonchalantly. I laughed nervously and exclaimed…”No! Don’t be silly you have to wait!”. And to that, I decided spontaneously to dash upstairs and pee on the one first response home pregnancy test I had left in a drawer. It took seconds for that second pink line to appear, it appeared before I even had a chance to put it down on the work surface. Well that was not what I was expecting! So I left it next to the sharps box for Chris to see when he would start preparing my injection for the evening. I dashed back downstairs (it had only been 2 minutes) Chris had no clue what I had just done. And so we started the ritual of the progesterone injection. We went upstairs with everything needed and I lay down on the bed as if preparing myself for the injection….when Chris shouted out from the bathroom – “hey there is a pregnancy test here??” in a very confused manner. After a second or two of blank face, he almost cried, hugged and kissed me. We talked about how it was not guaranteed and we will find out the next day if this was for real or not. So we decided not to tell my poor mum who was downstairs at the time – oblivious to what was going on!!!

The next morning, my mum and I went to the clinic for my beta blood test. The nurse asked me if I had taken a test yet…I looked at her and smiled…and the nurse said ‘yey!!!’. I was busted – mum had overheard the nurse ask….so I had to tell her what had happened the night before!

And so I waited for the phone call from my doctor. When I saw the number pop up on my phone I took a big breathe. It was actually not my doctor but one of the other doctors who had been doing my ultrasounds. I answered and she said “So….do you feel pregnant?” (What a weird way to start a phone call!!!) I said “maaaaaaybe…..” nervously wondering if this was a cruel joke! And she said “Yes! Yes you are pregnant!!! Your numbers are great…..you need to keep taking the progesterone and estrogen…we probably want to see you again next week for another test….blah blah blah” (-is all I heard after that!) So that was that.

We are pregnant!

Can I put my umbrella away yet? Of course not. Some people may read this and think I am ungrateful or maybe even conceited, but they probably are people who do not understand what infertility can do to the mind. I’m not sure at what point in this process I will take ‘Congratulations’ with a smile. Please understand that I appreciate your kind thoughts and sentiment, I know you are really excited for us….just don’t worry if I don’t respond with an excited smile. Getting a positive pregnancy result after IVF is an awesome step in the right direction, I feel so lucky that we have got this far, but I can’t get excited about having a baby just yet.

I am cautiously optimistic about this exciting step…I’m just hoping it isn’t a false summit.

On being PUPO at P-1 Day (Prove Day)

August 19, 201524 Comments

I officially have the status of being Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise (PUPO). I can ‘enjoy’ this status for about 24hrs longer because tomorrow morning I have my first ever beta pregnancy blood test. What is a beta pregnancy blood test? This is a blood test that will reveal ‘quantitatively’ the amount of hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadatropin) in my blood (hCG is the hormone that is produced when a woman is pregnant).

The last 24 hours have been interesting. Yesterday I thought my period was about to happen. I discovered a bit of dark brown spotting….I freaked out. Then I thought perhaps implantation bleeding? But surely this is way too late for implantation bleeding and unlikely to be possible??! (Remember I have an upside down uterus so perhaps the blood from the implantation has taken a while to ‘gravitationallly’ find its way out! Perhaps it is not impossible?!?!) But then I had horrible aches that felt like a period for several hours afterwards. I felt that it was all over. I went to bed last night pretty much expecting to wake up to my period flowing. I even got upset when Chris told me I should go to bed with a pad and knickers on. I shall not surrender!!!! But no!!! Cruel Aunt Flow teases me!!! Nothing has shown itself since.

Last night I had a weird dream. I basically took three different home pregnancy tests. The first was positive, because I couldn’t believe my eyes, I took a different brand…and it came back positive. So Chris made me take this crazy test. The results were really hard to interpret. The lines looked like inter-twinned ladders and required knowledge of matrix calculus to understand it, and so we argued over whether it was positive or negative. It was positive.

Today, I have been aching like my period is about to arrive, however, I have been experiencing those sharp pains again like in many of my other previous 2 week waits.

The problem with being PUPO is that the progesterone injections and estrogen patches I am being ‘topped up with’ each day to help make a cosy and attractive womb to Huckleberry and Huckleberina are probably causing all of these symptoms. So I am not going to think too much about it all….I remain as I mentioned in my previous post – indifferent.

Lots of people have been sending their love and support over the last few days, and for this we are truly appreciative for the kind thoughts.

So….all that is left to do now is…Prove! I’m excited, nervous and scared all in one breath…or maybe it’s just the drugs!!! Who knows?!?!

Ohhhh just one last thing I will levae you with to make you smile….here is the spectacular bio-luminescent plankton we observed on Sunday. Chris did a great job of the pics! I hope we didn’t use up all our luck this epic weekend of fun!