Bébé Maybe

Two days ago I had my cerclage surgery. I'm so so happy it's over with!!! It wasn't easy to walk through those doors. I had to go to the same hospital where I found out that Christian died and gave birth to him. It's been a little over 5 months since those awful days, but every detail is extremely fresh in my memory. For months I had daily flashbacks and nightmares about every tiny detail of that experience. It got much better since starting the IVF process again, which gave me some hope and something else to focus on.  IVF working, being pregnant again, and getting our puppy have all my mental state as well. But I do still relive those moments. Maybe weekly instead of multiple times a day/ for hours while I'm trying to sleep... but it's still not easy. That said, I was pretty nervous about having to go back. Even worse, my procedure was in the Labor and Delivery area.  I understand that's where these doctors work, but it seems pretty cruel to make anyone ge...

I'm lucky to have had ultrasounds at least every 2 weeks, but those 2 weeks definitely feel forever long! The day of the ultrasound I feel immense relief, and then pretty carefree for a few days. Then the doubt starts to creep in and and I start to feel gradually more and more stressed until my next appointment. I'm guessing that's pretty common for anyone who's had an "I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat" ultrasound. Thankfully, today is a day of immense relief. I had my 12 week ultrasound today and it went really well. It's fun now to actually be able to see things more clearly and to see the baby wiggle around. It was also nice that it was a more detailed ultrasound and not just a heartbeat check. This one was a "first trimester screening" where they can take a preliminary look at the body/organs and measure the nuchal translucency (meaning the amount of fluid in the back of the neck- extra fluid can indicate a genetic disorder). They shou...

 6/21/21 This was the day I looked forward to from September (our egg retrieval) to February (our loss). The official first day of summer and the longest day of the year sounded like the perfect time of year to have a baby. Instead he was born during the coldest week of the year on a subzero, dark, depressing day. I'm kind of glad the due date has passed now, because I was dreading it. I miss him. He should be home with us right now. We should be learning how to be parents instead of sitting here hoping we get to be parents someday.  For years I watched other people get pregnant and have kids seemingly easily while we were trying. I even know a few people who met their spouse, got married, and had multiple kids in the time frame that we've been trying to have one. I was able to mostly come to terms with that, but I'm still struggling with the people who I was finally "in line" to be a mom before... until mine died and theirs didn't. I've heard it all- I kn...

Today was a good day! I had my first ultrasound. Thankfully David was able to take off work and come with me, because I was nervous. I'm 7 weeks today, and I remembered from last time what to expect at this gestation: basically, it's a blob. But, it's a blob with a flicker of a heartbeat inside it, which is so cool to see! The doctor measured the baby and their heart rate and everything looked perfect.  The appointment was short and straightforward and felt almost anticlimactic after weeks of wondering and worrying how it would go.  Since everything was right on track we "graduated" from the fertility clinic, which means I can go to my normal OB in town instead of driving to Illinois every week! Seeing the heartbeat is a huge step- the odds of miscarriage go way down if you reach that point, so I feel very relieved. I feel like I'm over the first few hurdles, which is comforting even though there are many more to go. Hurdle 1: The embryo implanting and HCG con...

We had more good news today! I had my third pregnancy blood test and the HCG numbers are looking great. 9 days after transfer ---> 101 14 days after transfer ---> 1038 21 days after transfer ---> over 10,000! I don't even know the exact number because the machine only measures up to 10,000. But this progression is as good as we could hope for.  For reference, last time looked like... 9 days after transfer ---> 51 12 days after transfer ---> 99 19 days after transfer ---> 1785 Those numbers were on the extreme low end of normal and TERRIFIED me. I'm so relieved that the numbers look much better this time, because after all I've gone through this year my capacity to handle stress is not very high. Basically, higher and more rapidly rising numbers make a healthy pregnancy/baby more likely. It doesn't mean that lower numbers can't also indicate a healthy pregnancy (there was nothing wrong with the baby last time), but when your numbers look good a misc...

I've been pretty distracted in a good way this week after the good news (HCG increasing) on Monday. On Sunday I had convinced myself after home tests looking sort of lighter that it was a miscarriage. I was pretty shocked for the test on Monday to not only be positive but to be a higher level than I even dreamed of. I think that Tuesday of this week was honestly the first day that I didn't cry since my water broke and Christian died. It had been 65 days straight of crying. Not that I was sobbing all day every day (although that did happen), but there were some tears about missing my baby every single day. I still miss him just as much, but it's good to be distracted. And to have hope again. Fun fact: I'm 5 weeks pregnant, and 5 weeks away from my original due date. That's actually a pretty depressing fact, even though I'm happy to be pregnant at all. It really sucks starting over when you already had to wait 4 years to get pregnant in the first place. Please now...

I decided to do a thing I hadn't done before-  called "testing out the trigger." As part of my IVF medication protocol, I did a one-time shot of HCG (also called a trigger shot) a week before our embryo transfer. HCG is the pregnancy hormone. I'm sure there's a more technical explanation of what that means but I don't care enough to figure that out. When you take a pregnancy test (blood or urine), your level of HCG is what is being measured.  If things are going well, it should keep gradually increasing until the second trimester. I guess injecting HCG before an embryo transfer helps your chances of success- maybe it's commanding your body to get ready to be pregnant? Not quite sure lol. So even though you are not pregnant, you would have a positive pregnancy test if you take one after an HCG shot. If you want to be sure to not get a false positive (meaning from the shot and not from a successful embryo transfer), you need to start testing before the trans...