It's a Triple!!!

Ok, I got my results from my second beta. First beta on Wednesday was 23, second beta on Friday was 70. So it not only doubled in 48 hours, it tripled! My progesterone is great at 30.3 so things are progressing fine so far. I hope it continues. I have another level drawn tomorrow so I'll be crossing my fingers.

Beta #1

Beta #1 is back. At 10 DPO it's 23, right where it should be. Yesterday I went for another one. I have to wait all week-end to get the results though so I'm sure it will be a long week-end. This is the important one. Hcg levels should double every 48-72 hours. So we want to see a level of at least 46. I'm feeling positive about it. I'm starting to feel a little pregnant. Around 11am everyday I can hardly keep my eyes open, when I need to eat I feel slightly nauseous, and my boobs are starting to get a little fuller and sore. Now I have to play the waiting game again until Monday.

WOW! Just WOW!

Well, the waiting is over. Today I got a BFP. Yep, a positive home pregnany test. If fact, I got 5 of them. I am pregnant. We ARE the couple that got pregnant naturally the cycle before starting IVF. Those people really do exist.

I know that with my age and my history of pregnancy loss, I have a 50% chance of miscarrying again. I will worry about that tomorrow. Today I am pregnant. Wow.

Waiting

Well, it sure seems like I'm doing a lot of waiting in my life. Last week I was waiting for ovulation, now I'm waiting for a period or waiting to POAS, plus I'm waiting to hear if I have a job or not. I'm not a patient person. I don't like waiting. I want answers NOW!

The hospital that I work at that announced they were closing may now sell to another facility instead. I would think that would mean that I would still have a job since us legal drug pushers aren't real easy to come by. I would hope that they wouldn't mess around with my benefits too much because 5 weeks of vacation along with 700 hours of sick time is a nice thing to have. Back to the topic of being sold, I (along with every other employee at that hospital) feel like I'm in limbo. I don't want to waste my time going on interviews if I don't have to. If I do go on interviews, I don't know what start date to give them (evil SSM won't pay me my severance pay if I take another job before they close and lock the doors). Wait wait wait. I guess in the mean time it wouldn't hurt to update my resume.

I ovulated on Sunday so I am now 4 DPO (days post ovulation in fertility lingo). Too early to know anything. Still holding out hope that we're the couple that gets pregnant with a healthy baby the cycle before they were to start IVF. You hear about those kinds of people, but do they really exist? It's always "my cousin's friend's, sister has a friend who's aunt's sister-in-law's best friend, was supposed to start IVF but got pregnant on her own." Anyway, we'll see how my temps look and maybe I'll start to POAS (pee on a stick) next week sometime. Which means waiting. I have to wait for AF (aunt flo) anyway, so I guess I could always pass the time by peeing on things. Kind of like my dog. Or a drunk man.

Now I'm waiting for the White Sox game to come on. Waiting sucks.

Green Light Means "GO"!

I talked to my RE's office today. The insurance company has given us the green light to proceed with IVF. I have to call the nurse on the first day of my next period. Wow. I'm happy, I'm excited, I'm scared. I'm happy we don't have to pay 15 thou out of our pocket. I'm excited because this gives us a shot. I'm scared that it may not work, I'm scared that it may work. Then there's the little problem of where the hell is my egg this month? No ovulation yet. It's over 2 days late. Yeah, sure I've had things on my mind like I'll be out of a job in a couple of months, but it's not like I won't find a job. Come on little egg, you can do it. Show yourself already.

The Healing Presence of God

"Through our exceptional health care services, we reveal the healing presence of God."


This is the mission statement of SSM heathcare, the evil organization that owns the hospital I work at. Apparently the healing presence of God is only present if you have insurance since SSM has decided to close the hospital that I work at because the community is full of uninsured and medicaid patients and they are losing money. They may be losing money at that hospital (horrible management has something to do with it too but that's a post for a later date) but the organization has something like 1.3 billion (yes, that's BILLION) dollars sitting in an account somewhere because their other hospitals are making money. They are using that money to build and expand in insured areas and turning their backs on the poor. I'm no bleeding heart liberal, and I do have issues with people who use medicaid as a way of life rather than a temporary solution (another post for a later date), and I am somewhat biased because I want to keep my job, but how the hell can you turn your backs on people who need heath care and still have the audacity to use God's name in your mission statement? Do you really think God would turn his back on people because they have jobs with no insurance benefits or no job at all? Or because they are on medicaid? Some of those medicaid patients are on medicaid for legitimate reasons like disability which is why they need health care (we have many patients with end stage renal disease). What about all the elderly patients in that community, where are they going to go? Oh, that's right, that's medicare which doesn't pay much either so why would SSM want to take care of them? SSM even has the gall to put this statement on their website, "SSM Health Care exists to care for the people of its communities regardless of their ability to pay." Healing presence of God my ass.

The Results

I may be an old lady, but when it comes to my ovaries, I'm obviously a little younger (thank you God!).

CD3 bloodwork gives me an FSH of 6.21 (RE likes to see it below 10). My estradiol 35.7 (should be below 80). My RE said he would be pleased with an antral follicle count of 8, mine was 20!! So, my ovaries have plenty of recruits, I just need to find a good egg. Hopefully out of 20 follicles they'd be able to find one good egg. Just one. One out of twenty. 5%. That's all I need.

I'm very hopeful that this could work.

A Little History

I guess we'll start with a little history about me. I've never been one of those women who felt like they absolutely without any doubt MUST have a child. To be honest, kids used to annoy me (well, teenagers still annoy me, but don't they annoy everyone?). Now that I think about it, I was never one of those women that felt like I had to be married or planned my wedding "since I was a little girl" either. Those women always annoyed me too. Those women usually end up divorced anyway because they are in such a rush to have a wedding and get married that they settle for the wrong person. I was truly lucky enough to find the right person, or should I say lucky enough that he found me. I am married to my best friend, the one person that I want to have every experience with. I sometimes get angry at the fact that I didn't meet him until later in life but then I realize that I am lucky to have met him at all.

I met my husband when I was 37 years old. We got married the following year (I was 38, he was 40). Having a child together seemed like the perfect thing to do. Although I have many fears and doubts about what kind of a parent I'll make, I have no doubt that he'll be a wonderful father. We started TTC (trying to conceive in fertility talk) about 2 months after our wedding. I knew time was not on our side, so I bought a box of OPK's (ovulation predictor kits in fertility speak) so we could time things just right. Stupidly I expected a positive pregnancy test within months! Flash forward about 10 months and I finally got my BFP (big fat positive in, you guessed it, fertility lingo). I was scared, excited and amazed! That excitement lasted maybe 2 weeks before I was diagnosed as having a "blighted ovum". A blighted ovum is essentially a fertilized egg that implants but the embryo fails to grow so you are left with just an empty gestational sac growing in your uterus. I miscarried later that week.

We started TTCA (trying to conceive again) after a couple of months and got lucky after about 7 months and got another BFP about 5 days before my 40th birthday. I lost that one the day after my birthday. It was a "chemical pregnancy" which basically is a very early loss. I somehow managed to get pregnant the following month. I lost that one at 8 1/2 weeks. That was a hard one. We even saw the baby on ultrasound (although it didn't look like a baby yet) and even saw it's tiny little heart flickering away. which is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Two weeks later when we went in for another routine ultrasound, our little angel's heart had stopped beating and I had a D& C 2 days later.

Here we are, 6 months later, no pregnancy. I'll be 41 in 2 months. Time is no longer ticking away, it's flying. My diagnosis is "recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) due to "advanced maternal age". We are working with an RE (reproductive endocronologist) and currently waiting for insurance approval so we can get started on IVF (best case scenario) or ovulation induction. We should know within a week. Plus I should ovulate within a week too. Two big things we're waiting on that could change our lives forever. It's gonna be a long week. Tick tock, tick tock.