54dpo 10w1d - Worrying

It's very easy for me to generally forget that I'm pregnant. I don't have any major symptoms other than tiredness. My breasts seem to have settled a bit after growing some and being sensitive. I still get very fleeting moments of feeling 'off' but nothing as much as nausea or throwing up.

Yesterday I convinced myself that maybe I wasn't pregnant anymore or had miscarried (or had a 'missed miscarriage since I haven't had any cramps or bleeding at all). So I peed on a stick which reassuringly came up straight away pregnant. But then I wondered if it was lighter than the last time I did the test. I think this is somewhat brought on my by wanting to schedule my NIPT this Friday. I can't quite find the one I want without a scan, so I get a scan thrown in (or rather, I pay for it). So I started to wonder and worry about what the scan might show.

This all ended up meaning that in general I felt grumpy yesterday. I may have been snappy with the boyfriend, which also continues to bother me because we've still not talked about the baby situation. I'm still annoyed that I need to bring it up and that he doesn't talk to me. I will, at some point, but maybe not when I'm feeling grumpy about it.

Actually, maybe I just feel irritable in general. It's hard to think of things that are making me happy right now. Work is stressful. People annoy me. Not all people, but a lot of them. I'm sure that the stress at work is not helping, and the stress of worrying and trying not to worry is not helping. I keep expecting the bad news to hit, and that's just not a useful mindset.

The only moderately positive thing on the pregnancy front is that I reduced my progesterone/Cyclogest to one a day and I only have one more day before it's gone. I was a bit worried about reducing to one a day, especially when so many women online seem to report staying on until week 12 and here I was reducing at week 9 to stop at week 10. But so far, no difference in my body or discharge or anything, so I assume it's all fine? Yay to fewer fingers in bums!

29dpo 6w4d - Mantras

I peed on a stick this morning to see if I was still pregnant.  The pregnancy line came up faster than the control line, like, the second the urine touched the mark.  It was strong and dark quickly.  So yep, still pregnant, and strongest reaction yet.

My last post clearly had some unfortunate foreshadowing as the first woman in my pregnancy group on the forum has gone out.  This was of course upsetting to hear.  She had worries, because everyone has worries, but nothing that appeared to be anything obvious.  Retrospectively you could say 'this, that, and the other', but the reality is, it's easy to look back and see obvious, I don't think it was.  So, shocking, and sad.

It's hard not to hear that and have the surge of panic about your own situation.  I'm mindful that I have not done PGS testing on the embryos.  It was something I looked in to and was not available. My clinic was not in favor, although it's clearly more and more common in the States.  While there can obviously still be loads of issues with PGS tested embryos, it does seem to reduce the chance of miscarriage by about 9-10% according to one clinic's statistics.  It seems for the age of my embryo egg (38, not my current age of 41) the miscarriage rate for me at this point is around 20%+ or 1 in 5. Again, sobering thoughts.

But again, NOTHING I can do at this point.  If it's going to happen, it's going to happen.  My mantra is simply to repeat this thought.  It is the waiting that is stressful and what will be will be.  Take each day is it comes.  Accept each day and each moment for what it is.  Be confident in the knowledge that I will be able to manage each moment, no matter what happens, but that worrying about possible futures, of which I have no control over, is not productive for me, or for the growing fetus.  Repeat.

It could also be that I continue with a pregnancy and find out their are other issues that will require difficult choices.  Yesterday I was looking at where I could get a NIPT done locally as a useful Facebook advertisement popped up.  Usually I ignore those, but finally a relevant one indicated there's a private clinic in Grantchester which will do it for cheaper than a London clinic.  If I manage to make it to 10 weeks, and it's not available through the NHS, I'm definitely doing a private NIPT.

I am also mindful that there is a potential discrepancy between my dpo and week calculation of up to 3 days. This is because my cycles are slightly longer, typically.  So when I use various online calculators, they suggest based on dpo that I'm 6w1d not 6w4d.  This is of course important as every benchmark is measured in what week you are at- if only you get to this week your risks reduce, blah blah blah.  I of course want to be at the further ahead date, but should realistically be considering myself the further behind date.

Mantra.  Repeat.

23dpo 5w5d - Finally a letter

So I finally got my letter from obstetrics telling me my first scan is scheduled for the 29th.  That will be 35dpo or 7w3d.  Still almost two weeks away.  At least it's scheduled.  I've also scheduled an appointment with my GP for Monday morning because apparently they arrange all your midwife appointments or some such.  I have no idea.  Healthcare is very different here than in the States and seeing as how I haven't been pregnant in either place, I really have no idea what the general schedule is.  I was talking to a woman in my office who is going on maternity leave today and she said there's a 7 week, 12 week, and 20 week scan, and then the scans are done.  It's also not clear to me yet if the UK has rolled out NIPT testing for all women- they did a big study on it and decided they would roll it out, but it's in process.  So I don't know if I'll get it as standard or if it will be something else I need to seek out independently.

I peed on a stick this morning and the line came  up quickly and dark.  So, hCG still rising!  In fact it came up so quickly that I'm not sure I'll get any stronger readings off them.  I think I have 3 more of the eBay strips left.  I also have 4 First Response tests left which seem wasteful.  Maybe I'll try and pass them off to someone?  Of course everything could go horribly wrong and I may need to start this all over again, so maybe just hold on to them until I'm out of some of the danger zones.

Of course being this early pregnant everything is a worry.  I continue to have small twinges on my left side where my ovary is.  I am of course obsessed with wondering if this could be signalling an ectopic pregnancy.  I don't seem to have any other symptoms, but I don't like occasional twinges in the ovary region.  Of course the scan will help verify what is going on- but that's not for two weeks. So until then I'm just trying to not make a mountain out of molehill and be obsessive about it.  I got a twinge in the other side as well, which of course then made me think it could be an ectopic pregnancy in my Fallopian tube stump that's left from the surgery.  See?  Crazy.

In other news I've had my first offer of baby hand me downs, which is awesome!  There are some things I'm willing to spend money on if I can't find what I want for a reduced price.  But most stuff I'm super happy to take hand me downs for.  Babies go through things so quickly and they are barely used.  It makes total sense!

Not much else going on.  Still haven't heard a word from the friend who dumped on me.  I got a day by day pregnancy book which is kind of fun to read over breakfast.  Still not really having symptoms that I can notice, which is probably just as well.  Still doing my Cycologest/progesterone twice a day at 8am/pm like clockwork.  I set an alarm for the evening one- very helpful.  Still trying to be good about doing yoga or walking daily (as well as cycling to work).  And life goes on!

19dpo 5w1d - First sign of pregnancy brain?

I managed to lock myself out of my house this morning.  My morning leaving routine goes like this: pack my bag, get all my cycling kit on, make sure my work card is in my pocket, make sure my keys are in my hand, exit door, shut door, unlock bike, go.

Well, this morning I managed to get out the door and shut it before realizing that my keys were not in my hand or in my coat pocket.  They were not in my bag, or inside my purse inside my bag.  I can only assume the are still inside the house.  So there I was, unable to unlock my bicycle with all of my gear set to go.  So I took off my helmet and sunglasses and ankle straps, managed to get everything into my pannier.  Converted the pannier to a shoulder bag and then walked to work.  It's about a 25-30 minute walk to work.  So I guess I got in my walking exercise for the day.  I will also need to walk home.  On top of which I got up and did a 20 minute exercise routine that another lady on the SMC forums recommended.  So exercise for today all sorted.

So far I've been good at my daily exercise plan.  I hope I can keep it up.  I have a very good reason to now, so I do find that's motivating.  But there's a long way to go.  The videos and doing things at home definitely help.

In other news, still zero physical feelings of being pregnant.  So this morning I peed on a stick and it was darker than it was 2 days ago (I didn't do it yesterday).  So hCG still rising, just not feeling anything yet.  I'm sure it will come.  It's just hard to believe I'm actually pregnant when I don't feel any different!

The rest of my cyclogest/progesterone suppositories should be delivered today.  I still have a few days left, so I'm not in danger of running out yet.  I think they were meant to have sent me a text yesterday to confirm the delivery and I didn't get any text.  Anyway we'll see.  If they don't arrive I'll obviously be calling.  I think in the worst case scenario I could probably cycle to the clinic and get some because I bet they have some in stock.  Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

16dpo 4w5d - Official testing day

Today is the official day to do my test.  I actually forgot this morning and only did my cheap eBay test.  However, I didn't sleep well so was up very early and had to pee again later, so I did the clinic test on the second pee of the morning. I took a picture of the results.  The top cheap eBay strip is from yesterday, you can just make out a squinter.  The second thin strip is today's cheap eBay strip.  Definitely getting darker, so hCG must be rising.  The bottom thicker strip is the clinic strip- strong positive.  I will head off for my second blood beta hCG test shortly.  So far though, I'm feeling positive about what I can see.

In other news, I'm sure that my breasts are 'fuller' or at least firmer today.  They don't necessarily look different but they definitely feel different.  They feel as though I've lost 20 years!  Ha!  At any rate, this is the first physical sign that I think I have that there is anything different in my body.

Spotting has pretty much stopped.

This morning I did a prenatal yoga video from YouTube.  I feel that I need to up my exercise game during a pregnancy.  I'm not the most physically active and I think this is important both for my health, the health of the pregnancy, and the health of the fetus.  So I found some good full session prenatal yoga workouts that I've put into a playlist. My goal will be to try to do this every other day, although daily would be better.  I may try to alternate with going for walks around the park that is just outside my house.  Convenient and perfect for low impact exercise.

Still can't really believe it.  Having occasional fleeting thoughts of 'Holy fuck what have I done??!!??'.  On some level it's all still sort of terrifying.  But maybe in a good way?  Hard to explain.  But I'll definitely have time to delve into my feelings over the next nine months (fingers crossed).

IVF 1 - Day 32 9dp6dt 4w4d

After tomorrow which is the 'official' testing day, I'm going to change the heading to reflect days past ovulation (currently 15dpo) and pregnancy weeks for simplicity's sake.  It's good to know both, I think, and I can't keep calling this IVF 1!

Tested positive again this morning.  The good thing about my cheap eBay strips is that they are showing continual progression.  Today was clearer than  yesterday.  I think I will continue to take them to give myself some confidence that my hCG levels are rising since I can't get the blood tests to otherwise show it.  It's actually a fairly useful way to measure an increase, although obviously I can't tell by how much.

Still having a bit of brown spotting.  Not much, mostly watery and only on the toilet paper wipe.  I'm also having a bit of 'tightness' on my right side where my ovary is.  I am of course now worried that it could mean an ectopic pregnancy.  On the other hand, without a period to 'reset' the ovary post stimulation, it may still just be recovering from being enlarged.  I'm not sure.  This is something an ultrasound would potentially be able to tell me.  But I don't see how I can get one unless something starts to go really wrong.

I called my clinic today which is a day early to report the positives.  I also called because it said in the take home information sheet that if you have a positive test and spotting you should call immediately. I'm still not overly concerned with the amount of spotting I'm seeing- it's not increasing and is now always brown.  But I thought I'd call them anyway.  They arranged an order for more progesterone/Cyclogest.  They were going to send 3 boxes of 15 and I asked for 4.  I don't think the extra progesterone hurts, and it seems more standard to go to week 9 or 10 from others so I asked for an extra box which should get me to week 9.  It wasn't particularly expensive.  I'll need to update the budget.  I guess I'll keep updating the budget until a baby is hopefully born.  I'm also still waiting for the bill for the assisted hatching and blastocyst freezing.

It's really weird because basically my clinic now releases me to the NHS for care.  I feel like this is very quick and that other clinics in other countries continue with the patient until the first scan and then release them.  This means that other than the progesterone, I've got nothing else to do but wait for a letter containing information about my first scan which should be around week 7-8.  I guess there isn't anything else that I can be doing, because what will be will be, it just seems a rather sudden drop off a cliff. I've been so used to constant appointments and 'hand holding' that now I just feel a bit adrift.

I'm sure this will change though.

I'm also still in the 'I can't believe it' stage.  This is helped by the fact that I'm not feeling anything physically.  First trimester symptoms start to occur when the hCG really surges (and then tapers off) so I'm clearly not there yet.  It's so surreal.

IVF 1 - Day 31 8dp6dt 4w3d

This morning, my cheap Ebay test strip had a faint squinter line visible on it.  The First Response test was again positive.  Looks like hCG levels must be rising, and so far I'm positive.  At 4 weeks 3 days it's still very early.  It's 14 days past ovulation.  There's a lot that can go wrong in the next few weeks.

I can't believe it yet.  I don't feel anything at all to indicate there is something growing inside of me. Last night and this morning I had a bit of spotting and last night I felt crampy.  I don't know if that was from the excitement, the spotting, or actual cramps.  But this morning still positive tests, and no cramping, so okay.

I went for the private blood test I paid for this morning and it took her two tries to get it out of me.  I have no idea when I'll get the results or what the results will actually be.  Having already paid for this test and taken it, it could very well be a 'yes you are pregnant' or 'no you are not pregnant' sort of test with no actual beta hCG numbers provided.  I am beyond frustrated with my inability to get beta hCG blood tests here the way everyone else seems to have as standard as part of fertility treatments.  If I was in London, this would be very easy as I see a lot of the fertility clinics offer it.  I've already written to my clinic here in Cambridge suggesting they make it an optional add-on (or just make it standard).  I never heard anything back from my GP who I contacted and offered to pay for it myself.

However, a positive test is a positive test.  So right at this moment, I am pregnant, although we have a long way to go before there is a baby.

Holy shit.

I've told most people who know that I'm trying about the early result.  I'm not a superstitious kind of person.  In fact I'm against most of the 'secrecy' and 'careful' aspects of early pregnancy.  First of all, if I get upset because I miscarry, I want to be able to talk to people who know me and care about me. Secondly, we need to stop freaking women out that they can control miscarriage and it's their fault if they exercise wrong or bend over funny or whatever it is.  The uterus is incredibly good at guarding it's contents.  Think about how hard it is to get rid of a baby that you don't want!  And yet we freak out women that if they sneeze funny, they could damage or lose the fetus.  So I'm going to tell people what's going on with me and continue to go to yoga and ride my bike to work, and what have you. And I will talk to people about things if they go wrong.  And I'm sure I'll put stuff here as well.

IVF 1 - Day 30 7dp6dt OMG OMG OMG