Still growing, week 7

So far this pregnancy is holding on.  I am in the middle of the danger zone which for me has been between week 7 and 9.  The first five all seemed to end around then and usually right at the start of week 8.  Week 8 for me officially starts in three days (October 26).   So that may explain why everyday feels like the longest day ever.  Each day with no bleeding or cramping is a small step forward.

Here is a bit of an update since the last post. So far it is all good news.

HCGs are all progressing nicely with the last count at 103, 047.   My Dr. said these numbers were great and so I am no longer doing these weekly tests, which is more great news.  So just like the chart, things are looking up.

Just out of curiosity and because my health plan has this fun chart feature I compared my hcg results this time with my previous pregnancies over the past few years.  It turns out that it’s the first time I’ve had scores over multiple weeks continuously rising.  It’s also the second highest hcg beta I’ve ever measured.  I set that record back in February 2008 with number one.  I guess that first pregnancy really set my system off as I started out with a whopping 155902.  It declined steadily after that which taught us very quickly about the significance of rising betas.

The even bigger news is that our first ultrasound went, shockingly, completely fine.  In fact, according to my Dr. everything looks perfect.   I went into the exam bracing for bad news.  Betas are one thing, I thought, but these ultrasounds tend to be where the it all goes south.  Since the scan was with my IVF Dr. who claims victory when you get pregnant, I was suspicious that he might be overly optimistic.  For whatever reason I bought his confidence as a positive sign and teared up as he talked about how perfect and normal it looked from the size being exactly right to the heart beat being both measurable and at a good rate (124BPM).  We’ve had some heart beats appear in past scans but there was always something tentative about them, either too slow (90-100), or not quite right, wait and see, etc.  So it was a milestone to have a perfect heartbeat on day one and I am so grateful.  This really is the farthest we’ve ever gotten and I find myself feeling more hopeful each day that maybe this time it really is going to be different.

For those of you who love TMI or have a degree in radiology or just a special gift for reading these fuzzy images here is the ultrasound pic.  It looks different than our previous scans that always seemed to be missing something.

Next step is to sit and wait.  Now that we’ve “graduated” from the specialist our next scan is with an actual OB.  These appointments in the past have NEVER gone well, so getting through that will be a major milestone.  It feels bizarre to have a scan and then wait a full two weeks for another.  I don’t think I’ve ever gone longer than a week, usually getting a scan every 2-3 days before making the official call to move to a D & C.  My Dr. assures me I don’t need another scan so I don’t have much choice.  Since I have to wait until then I’ve chosen to see that as an advantage.  No bad news is good news, right?   This time really could be different.

Riding the wave

I had my second hcg test yesterday morning.  When I hadn’t heard from them by 4 PM I began to worry that maybe there was something like maybe it was lower, or hadn’t quite doubled.  But they reported good news,  my hcg actually did more than double it jumped from 505 to 1232.

I feel like a surfer who just caught a wave.  How long til the crash?  Or maybe this time will I ride it to the end?  Noone knows.  The one thing I do know is that this rush of good things happening is often very short so I am trying to just live for the moment, grateful for this gift for as long as it lasts.

Since we did chromosomal testing we actually already know the gender. It’s bizarre to know this so early, but we know that if this is the one it’s going to be a little girl.  We ended up with 3 male and 3 female embryos so we could have gone either way, but since we were implanting only one we had to make a choice.  Go little girl, you can do it!

And speaking of family building we have some new additions.  We’ve adopted kittens!  This summer we were kitten foster parent volunteers  and were able to foster ten kittens, a group of 3, then 4, and now 3 again.  From this last batch we are adopting two (or three if we can’t part with the third).  It’s been a wonderful distraction and a lot of fun.  This last group was only 3 weeks old when we picked them up and each was under 1 lb.! 

 

 

 

Here is what they look like today at 9 weeks old.

 

For now these are my babies.  :  )