5 weeks and working out how to wait

This week has been a big one.

Last Thursday morning, painlessly in his sleep, with his four much loved step sons and his wife at his side, my Pa went to be with Jesus.  It has been a big emotional week.  I love him so much, I'm so sad to say goodbye, I'm glad he is out of pain.  And its such a strange time to loose a relative that I love.  I'm sad that I didn't get to share with Pa the good news of the BFP.  But I feel like he knows now.  And he is with Thumper.

But what an emotional week it has been.

The waiting is so hard.  My symptoms are simple.  Large tender bre$ts and bloating and little twinges.  I haven't had any nausea.  Though I know its silly I just want some nausea.  Some kind of proof.  Because we are still 10 days away from our heart-beat scan.  Of course, I know that the best proof that I am still pregnant is that my period hasn't come.  But...its all so unreal and unexpected I find it hard to believe that wonderful phone call on Monday really happened.

Earl is funny.  Sometimes he is funny and excited, calling out "Is that Lady and my baby, coming through the door".  Sometimes he worries about the lack of nausea.  At a fancy restaurant where we had tea he explained when asking about the menu "My wife might be pregnant", rather than "my wife is pregnant".  And he says what we both feel at times, that this news, that life at the moment seems to good to be true, that something must go wrong.  That is how we are at the moment.  Walking on egg shells.  We have always had our IF "happy endings" ruined.  What about this one?  I find myself constantly talking about the baby, constantly assuring him that it is right to be excited, because maybe if I can convince him I can convince myself.

And I still don't know when and if we will tell anyone.  Earl is so excited about telling my parents we are pregnant, and it being good news that lasts, that this means waiting a long time to tell.  The only thing that might bring it forward is that Earl's parents are going to be overseas at the start of next month, until after the 12 week mark.  So I might be able to convince him to tell our parents around then, so that at least we can tell his folks in person before they go.

The sad/funny thing is, is that I can't imagine Mum and Dad not asking me directly this week how things are going, except that with Pa's death there has been much too much to talk about and to deal with, that I think it might just have slipped their minds!

And so how to I wait?  I have big afternoon naps.  I work, I walk, I clean.  I wait.

Oh, and I am 5 weeks.
LG

Sinking in

I guess it's fair to say that the news has sunken in. And with it has come the fear.


Monday was my happy day. It just so happened that Earl and I needed to go shopping for present for our friends new baby, so I walked around the shop gleefully like a typical fertile  myrtle going gaga over all the little socks. I was so blissfully happy. I knew in my head that pregnancy doesn't equal baby but the BFP was such an amazing gift that I just basked in it for a day.

Now the happiness is muted and sprinkled with fear.

Not that anything has happened to suggest I'm not pregnant. I'm just realistic and scarred.

And that's okay. It's okay to be happy and it's okay to be afraid. I don't think fear will loose me this baby and I don't think happiness will make a miscarriage any harder.

I was talking to my boss about next year. I didn't say anything of course, but was weird to know how to think.  With thumper I was already thinking contingency plans. This time I will just talk and plan as if next year is going as we all thought it would.  And any changes can be figured out if I reach that magical 2nd trimester.

I have a two week wait until my scan.  The clinic sent me there "positive pregnancy" booklet. I gloated and grinned as I opened it but it wasn't great reading. Everything that could've go wrong was listed in that book along with the words "even a high beta can still have this result". :(

So anyway, here I am.  Pregnant.  Scared.  Happy.  Flooded with memories of loosing thumper.  I don't know what will happen, and have no control.

But I'm still very very thankful.
Lg
Ps thanks for all your congrats and well wishes, since I can't share in real life it is great to share with you all.

BFP

I'm pregnant.

I can hardly believe it.  I could tell the moment I answered the phone, Karen the nurses sounded so happy.  She said the nurses in my team fought over who got to tell me the news.

My result is 305.  This, she said, is a good number.  It's probably not high enough for both embryos to have made it, but it is a very, very good number for one.

Earl is happy but reserved, I think after everything that happened with Thumper, he was always going to be that way.  He will wait until the heart-beat ultra-sound (in two weeks time) before getting really excited.  And he doesn't want to tell anyone before 12 weeks.  I don't know how that will work, with my parents knowing the date of the transfer and paying for our medical expenses.  But we will figure it out.

The nurse herself was very excited, I told her about our previous miscarriage but it didn't seem to dampen her enthusiasm.  And I think I want to take her leave.  I want to enjoy this time.  But I'm also cautious.  My attitude will be this: Every day with this baby is a gift, I will enjoy that gift.  Yes, if it ends it will be a horrible, horrible thing.  But I don't regret Thumper despite the pain and I will never regret this time either- whatever happens.

And I am just so grateful to God for this gift, and for answering a prayer that I thought would never be.

Thanks for all your prayers during this cycle.  I know this news will be happy/hard for many of you, and my heart goes out to you.  You are in my prayers as well.  And if those who are prayers, please keep us and our little one in our prayers.

Still hasn't sunken in yet.
Love LG

Half a hope

I know that there is no gareentee that I am pregnant until and unless I get a positive pregnancy test tomorrow.

I know there is always a chance that the synthetic hormones in my system are the reason that my period hasn't come, despite it being "due" on Friday.

But I also know that there is only one other time (on this medication) that I got this far along without bleeding.  And that was when I was pregnant.

So I am a little excited.  But trying to hold it in.

The funny thing is this week started so badly.  My Pa in hospital, and the one week wait was just begining.  Earl and I prayed to God, we prayed that he would give us good things to get us through this week of pain and waiting and suffering.  And it has been an amazing week in so many non-IF ways.  And despite a million stressful moment fearing the worst, my period hasn't come.

I don't know how I would have got through this weekend if my period had come.  We went to a wedding yesterday, and I was driving the car for the bride and groom.  How could I have coped, doing that, with Earl not around, if I had found out I wasn't pregnant?  Today we had church and we were both very involved.  But still no period.  If I get my period tomorrow, or if I'm not pregnant I will still be very grateful that these last two days were able to be wonderful when they could have been so bad.  It was a really great gift.

But I'm still praying for the greater gift.
Please, Please Father.  BFP?
LG

No news is not necessarily good news

Here is the great dilemma and drama of the 1 week wait for me.

Because I have this absolutely annoying history of getting early bleeding when I am not pregnant in an IVF cycle (sometimes fresh, sometimes frozen), I spend the one week wait panicking every time I go to the bathroom.  Because I just don't know when AF will arrive.  And every time AF hasn't arrived I am relieved and a little excited, because no AF means I might be pregnant, right?

This is the problem.  When you have a whole week of this stress-to-relief cycle it affects you.  Because every No-AF time feels like a little victory.  And all those little victories add up in my head as evidence to the fact that I might be pregnant.

But no AF at this stage doesn't mean I'm pregnant.  Do you know what it means?  It means that either I am pregnant, or that the medication that they have put me on is working so that I don't bleed.  It is not a positive.  It is a neutral.

But how do you keep that in your head?  I find it really hard.  I know that my period wouldn't be due until tomorrow anyway, even if I didn't have shots last Saturday to keep my levels up.  Yet I'm feeling excited because I'm not bleeding yet, because this could be the one, because as much as I tell myself that all I really know is that AF hasn't arrived, it feels much more powerful and exciting than that.

It's just the drama of this time I guess.

In terms of symptoms it's kinda funny because any symptoms I've had I've had since before the transfer!  Because my clinic is putting me on synthetic shots of pregnancy hormone to keep my lining strong- I've actually been bloated and a tiny bit nausea all week :)  And it is hard to know if what I am experiencing is still there because I'm pregnant or just because the hormones haven't worn off yet.  And the lady at the clinic warned me that there is no guarantee that the hormones will have totally run out before the beta- hence the possibility that I might have symptoms and no AF until Monday, when the Beta lets me know once and for all.

And of course, there is also the ridiculous problem that I am actually a total hypochondriac and have been known to vomit when I think I'm pregnant when actually I'm not.

So i guess the moral of this rambly post is that there is no way I can know if I am pregnant except by taking the beta.  Which is four days away.
Scary.
LG

The Emotional exhaustion of the 2ww

All I want to do is sleep and sleep and sleep.

There is a tiny little part of me that hopes that my tiredness this week has to do with maybe a little embryo or two nestling inside of me.  But there is a much more simple explanation.  It took me a long time to realise just how much emotions effect you physically.  And it's a big week, and the affect on me is not just emotional but is felt all through my body.

My Pa is in hospital with cancer, and we have been told to "make the most of the time we have left".  It is smack bang in the middle of the one week wait, and all the emotional ups and downs that are associated with that.  And its been a little bit of a tough week for Earl and work as well. 

All this just means I am a very erratically functioning Lady Grey.  I function okay when people are around, but when I am on my own and I have work to do, I just don't seem to be able to do it.  And I'm constantly thinking ahead to "What if I find out I'm not pregnant on Xday?".  What would that mean for work, what would that mean for the wedding we are going to on Saturday, what would that mean for Sunday School, what would that mean...and the list goes on.  And I know that the most sensible thing in the world is to get as much work as I can now, because I just don't know what is going to happen tomorrow.  But I'm tired..


But maybe I just need to cut myself a break.  This week is a hard week.  I just need to accept that and slack off :)
LG

1 week (if I'm lucky) wait

Oh I hate this bit. We have officially hit the one week wait. This time next week I will know. Though with my record, the odds of making it to the beta without a bleed are reasonably thin if I'm not pregnant.

Oh I want to be pregnant!

LG