9 Weeks Graduated!

Well there's Little H. I got to visit with him/her yesterday at my CCRM graduation appointment. Those folks there are really fab and I especially love Ruby, the new lab technician. Emily has been a sweet ultrasound tech, doing nearly every one of my appointments, and Dr. M herself gave me a lot of confidence in the two appointments we had with her. My new nurse, Lana, as darling as she is, was really only the harbinger of my exciting change of status - I've hardly seen her at all since she was assigned to me only for our pregnancy cycle. But, when all is said and done, I don't want to see any of them ever again!! If you've had to work with a fertility clinic, you know what I mean. If you've been diagnosed as "unexplained infertile," you get it. I'll spend the next 18-24 months praying that the next time I want to be pregnant, I'll be able to do it the good ol' fashioned way. I mean, who knows?! Stranger things have certainly happened.

So I was very unceremoniously graduated from the clinic yesterday, praise god. The u/s tech and my nurse were extremely pleased with how the little bugger was measuring and moving. My, oh, my, this little one has places to be! We got a look at him at approximately 2:30 in the afternoon and he looked like he was getting set to sprint across some imaginary finish line! Hands were waving, feets were shuffling, it was really incredible. And I could see her little heart muscle pump-pump-pumping. Emily was especially enamored with her feet flying around. The head is laying near my right side and the feet extend sideways to my left. Seems like an odd position but what do I know...

At 9w4d I am feeling remarkably unpregnant. Virtually no nausea and my exhaustion could easily be chalked up to the crazy move we did about 10 days ago and my daily 5:20am alarm setting. Not feeling crazy emotional either, peeing seems to be a rather normal schedule. Some days I feel nervous about the lack of typical symptoms, but Nurse Erin said to roll with it and love every minute. So that is what I shall do :) I do have pretty tender boobs though. And a funny moment today: one of my colleagues is in her 2nd trimester and I was in a meeting with her this morning that wrapped up close to 12. She was commenting that we really needed to finish soon cause she just had to eat and I agreed saying, "Yeah I'm ravenous. I don't know why I'm so hungry!" Her response to me? Amusingly: "Hey, maybe you're pregnant." Haha. yeah, maybe I am ;)

Thus far, I think I've been subconsciously very guarded about this little one. While I've been very outwardly excited with anyone who knows, deeper in my heart I keep feeling concern and I think I've been staying a bit disconnected. In a way that's an easy default setting for me because of how difficult the last year+ has been. And I'm sure most first-tri mommies go through that when there aren't many (or any) physical signs of what's happening. But now, after such a strong showing at her 9 week appointment, I think I'm ready to really go all-in, emotionally. I also took a hospital tour over the weekend and that helped push me forward a bit. Our chances of having a healthy, full-term birth are no better or worse than anyone else's - I need to just believe in this, 100%, no questions asked. So I'm going for it.

Emily printed several extra copies of our best u/s images and I promptly cut them out and placed them in the engraved silver frames that are currently on a flight to my dad in NY and my grandmother in FL. The news is seriously on its way and we plan to tell the family friends we're spending Christmas with. 

Surprise! 

Baby H

Arriving July 2015

No Beta Dramas Here

My dear nurse Lana took her sweet time calling with my blood test results today. I mean, I still love the girl and I know she has a serious job, of which phone calls are only a small part, and always done in the late afternoon. But daaaaaaamn I thought I'd hear back before 4pm! I was totally zen til maybe 2pm when I started falling asleep at my desk and feeling anxious to just call it a day.

I waited and waited for hours and hours. I checked my phone and email over and over again in case there was any message that came in during the 3 seconds that I wasn't paying attention. When Lana finally called, when I had completely given up on hearing today, I was in the car blasting music and completely missed the call. Doh! But, being the fab nurse she is, she left me a perfect message full of detail!

hCG Level: 2673 mIU/ml (CCRM wants to see it over 50) 

Progesterone Level: 73.8 nmol/L (should be between 32.6 and 140)

Bottom line? At 19dpiui, I'm pretty gosh darn pregs and Dr. M sees no reason to do a follow up beta test. Woo! I'm supposed to call back tomorrow to schedule my first ultrasound. squeeeeeee!

I thought I'd done a good job of staying chill all day while I waited around, but as I listened to her message and began tearing up (let's be straight, I was on the verge of hyperventilating), I finally realized how much anxiety I'd been holding. Would the number indicate a chemical pregnancy? What about ectopic? Would it just be low enough to cause general concern about the viability? When I listened to her recount the numbers in the message, my jaw literally dropped. It was so much higher than I expected! 

The news makes me feel a little more confident about telling my family over Thanksgiving. Even though it's traditionally "too soon," I can't imagine not sharing this news face to face and, sadly, I have no idea when I'll get to see them all again. We still will wait to tell J's family until they visit us at the end of December. At that point, we'll be closer to the second trimester. Not sure when I'll actually get to have the ultrasound since I'll only be in town until next Monday. That will mark 5 weeks and I'm sure that will be too early. Waiting over a week until I'm back in Denver is going to build up some crazy anticipation!

The month of November is carrying an unreal amount of gratitude for me this year. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Universe! <3

Eternal Waiting Game

Ah, here we are: the Two Week Wait. The old familiar. Thankfully I'm coming to the end. Well, "thankfully" in that bittersweet way. According to my highly regular cycle, I'll expect CD1 to be on Saturday, smack in the middle of my family visiting. Let's just believe that this aligning of the period stars is a positive - I'll have plenty of distractions during a time that I'm craving love, attention, affection. We've also put together a pretty active itinerary so it will be nice to not feel concerns about heart rate and getting out of breath.

Constantly charting for over a year can play serious mind games with you. Meaning? I've come to learn, much to my surprise, that I have a very regular 28 or 29 day cycle. This has caused two issues for me. 

• #1 - Imagine the gut wrenching shock of finding out I'm not actually preggers after my uber-regular cycle went an extra 5 days <dammit> Anyone who has thought she was pregnant for 5 days knows what happens in your brain in that short time.

• #2 - Despite the regularity of my period and ovulation days every month, nothing else seems to come into a pattern. The pre-period cramps I keep getting always show up on different day patterns prior to CD1 and always feel different. Naturally, that keeps me thinking each and every month that "this one is different, I know it!" <motherhecker> My boobs get super sore in different patterns and then I get some weird things, like dizziness, that will happen some months but not others. Man it's a total mindfuck.

Leading me to my chart focus of the moment: I had this wicked BBT drop on 10DPO which usually signals CD1 is right around the corner. Although that happened about a week early :/ When it swung back up the next day I got overexcited that it had been an implantation dip, woooooo! And then the next morning? Dropped again. Rahr. Sadnesses. But of course, this morning, this little body of mine was hot again! This game will likely continue for the next 3 days, keeping my heart in my throat. Puke.

Just trying to stay distracted, busy, centered. Enjoying yoga and bought myself a cute new mat as a special treat. It'll be great to have family here. They'll be our first visitors from the east coast since we moved out in April!

9dpiui

Morning of the 9th day after our IUI. Things have been weird. Like... in my body, not life in general ;)

Life in General
I started volunteering at a cool non-profit this week. It was awesome to find an opportunity that actually aligns with my industry of event planning. Since they are a non-profit they put on several fundraisers each year so I am helping out with parts of an upcoming event. Right now there is a lot out of my comfort zone because we're cold-calling business asking for donations. That is relatively awkward for me and I haven't had a ton of success the last 3 days, but it will get better and I'm spending the days with a friend I met in the running group. We commiserate a lot about getting shot down repeatedly! Lotta laughs.

J has us doing another crazy fourteener hike tomorrow. I'm a little nervous about it because of A) the heart rate issue, B) the fact that he invited a friend to join, C) this is a double peak and we have to get up so incredibly early, like 3am (?!) or D) my new hiking boots haven't yet arrived and I'd need to wear light little sneakers. So if you're assuming it is all four, you would be correct. Oy!

Yesterday I got a couple interesting leads on the job front so I'll spend some time with that today.

Feelings
There is still a lot of hope in me - and J! - that this is our cycle. He asks me every day "When will we know?" He's never been this in-tune! It's a nice change even if it does feel like the line of questioning you get from a 4 year old rather than a sophisticated 32 year old financial analyst :-D
Mom calls frequently and asks in this veiled manner, "Anything new?" or "Sooooo, what's new?" This happens several times in one phone call so I have to give her credit where it's due for not flat-out asking me for updates everyday. I told her about the Clomid and then our plans to do the IUI, but wanted to save a few of the specific details of the whole situation to keep between just J and me. After all, if we were still doing it the of-fashioned way, I wouldn't be reporting that!!
I'm also feeling a small amount of anxiety. The root of it is this: I'm fully aware that this cycle may not be ours and we'd start the clock over again next weekend, but I'm anxious about how I would take it if that truly is the outcome in 7 or 8 days. What I want to avoid is shrouding myself in so much hope and positivity that if I do end up with a period in a week, my soul isn't crushed. I know we've got a couple more tries with Clomid/IUI planned and that protocol seems to fit us very well and it's so reasonably priced. The uncovered portion comes out to under $400 for us I think. So I'd like to think that I can keep my head above water next week if I get news I'm unhappy with. There is still time for us on this clock!

Body/Symptoms
For days 5-8 I was feeling some intense kind of cramping only on the right side of my lower abdomen/uterus. Every once in a while the feeling would jump to the left or be more centralized, but it was very focused on the right. Eventually, after 2 full days of it (5 and 6 dpiui) and then having it intensify the morning of the 3rd day (7dpiui), I was a little scared of an ectopic and called Elizabeth at CCRM. She said some ibuprofen is ok but if the discomfort comes through the ibuprofen, or if I have a fever, bleeding, or something else, call back immediately. So for the rest of 7dpiui, it was a discomfort I could handle (but pretty intense later at night) and I did some yoga and stretching before bed. When I woke up 8dpiui, I was almost worried that the feeling had subsided! It poked its head back in a little in the evening, but that's been it. So... who knows?! It could just be my right ovary normalizing itself after having to deal with being super stimulated by Clomid or being psyched out by the HCG trigger shot I took.
Breasts are a little on the heavy/tender side of things, but that's been somewhat standard in my cycle this past year so I'm not too excited about it. Also a good bit of watery/creamy CM, but you could easily chalk that up to me staying super hydrated.
My BBT hit a higher point than average this morning, 98.6, but I woke up just feeling so hot, it could just be an environmental influence. I've hit 98.6 a few times throughout the last year so it isn't completely unheard of during my tww. My chart is a little unusual looking though in that it appears as a steady climb up since ovulation. Once again, I'm trying to not read into it because it could just as easily start stair-stepping it's way down at any point and also my body had been introduced to a lot of chemicals it's never dealt with before which could easily influence BBT readings.


On the forums I've been visiting, there are a few ladies who got a positive HPT on their 10th day past IUI. I don't know if I'm totally crazy to try that tomorrow, but I'm tempted! Just unsure if there is a chance that the HCG trigger shot is still even a little in my system. Getting a false positive would in fact be a soul crusher.... I'll think a little more about it. Maybe wait till Sunday, 11dpiui.

5dpiui

We had a super busy weekend which is always a good thing when you are in the TWW part of your cycle. On Friday I had a million little errands to do including a mega grocery shopping trip to my favorite Whole Foods (I made a delish tofu stir fry that I was pretty proud of!). Saturday was a bit of a sleep-in day and then packing and food prep. J went to pick up a friend at the airport and we had some spicy egg salad sandwiches (sriracha! yes!) with arugula side salads and homemade key lime pie.

By 1pm we were in the car headed towards Leadville, CO. Based on the heinous traffic, we decided to stop at Breckenridge first to check in to our hotel. A second friend met us there and we strolled around town and had a snack on the sunshiny deck of Modis. Afterwards, J's ultra-runner friends went back to Leadville for the night and J and I celebrated his birthday (32! woo!) with Crepes a la Cart and then the best plate of nachos I've ever had!

Alarms were set for 3:15am Sunday morning. We rolled out of Breck by 4am and arrived in Leadville just after 5am for J's "Silver Rush 50" race. It was a pretty cool start and I was feeling oddly emotional. Was it pride for J? Was it the gorgeous rendition of the National Anthem? Was it just inspiration rubbing off from these 400+ insane athletes who train so hard and believe so deeply in their physical and mental abilities? But it could have been sleep deprivation or a weird hormone spike. Who knows... I've had a couple of weird medications thrown my way this month and I'm sure they are still affecting me.

So I had a long day of chasing J around the mountains, trying to catch him at various points. I spent a lot of time at a sweet little coffee shop and a lot of time in the car. I also spent a lot of time browsing - and subsequently killing my cell phone battery - through the forums on Fertile Thoughts. Very helpful to read notes from and correspond with other ladies where I am. There's a whole section for those of us going through IUI in July and I found one girl in particular who had her transfer on the same day.

5dpiui Summary
Five days later, where I am with things? I had a dip in my BBT this morning, a surprising 97.9, even though I didn't feel chilly at all when I woke up. Haven't noticed much in the CM department, but over the last several days it's either been really wet or creamy. There's been a little <ahem> breast or nipple sensitivity, but I attribute that to the spike in progesterone that should happen after ovulation. I've been feeling something in between cramps and little twinges in my lower abdomen for the last few days. I'm continuing the following:
          Baby Aspirin (81mg)
          Prenatal Multi Vitamin (2)
          Immunotect capsule (2)
          Maca capsule (gelatinized)
And I've stopped taking the DIM supplement. For whatever reason, that seems to stand out in my research as something that should be discontinued after pregnancy so I'm being cautious. I'm reluctant to give up the Maca because I credit that hormone balancer with keeping my endometrial lining nice and thick.

Concerns
Was worried about the spotting I saw on 2dpiui but feel confident now that it was just residual blood from the transfer. With the cramping I'm feeling, I have a worry about ectopic fertilization. The feelings have pretty consistently been on my right side and that's where all of my eggs matured. I've read a few anecdotal accounts of ectopic pregnancies being more common in IUI patients than natural conceptions. But none of those are from particularly reputable sources so I have no idea.