Skip to main content

up and down the hope-a-coaster

*Trigger warning - this post mentions positive pregnancy tests*

I am seriously confused about my hope levels. They are as confusing as HCG levels.
I don't know how hopeful to be. Maybe I can even be excited?

This round of IVF has been different somehow. It is kind of sweet when friends tell you that they "have a good feeling this time". But it also sets you up for a bigger fall. Something about this round of IVF brought so many of these kind of comments which I hadn't had previously. The weirdest one was a receptionist from my work, who actually had no idea I was doing IVF, came and told me that she'd had 4 vivid and repetitive dreams about me being heavily pregnant.

My partner, he turned 40 recently, and we had a big party a week ago. We were hoping with the current IVF cycle that we'd be able to freeze everything and so we could not be in IVF headspace for the party. But those plans went awry and I had to have a fresh embryo transfer a few days before the party.

In the end, I really didn't care too much. The party was super fun, and we were on a bit of a high. Maybe it was just my being in a good mood, seeing all our friends, that got everyone saying they thought it was going to work this time, they just had a feeling.

I tried not to... but all this positivity from people... it meant my hopes started to lift. My period was even one day late. One friend said - do a pregnancy test! (she's a bad influence). I did the test. It was firmly negative.

The next day, period at this point one day late, I had a shocker of a day at work with stuff going wrong. Plus I could feel cramps and headaches characteristic of my period coming on... and yep, my period came halfway through the day somewhere. Had to keep in work headspace, have on my smiles on and concentrate on helping the people I work with.
I insisted on yoga at the end of the day, in a class... but it caught up to me, started crying in the class... but then pulled it back together.

I had given up hope about it all at this point.

Blood test the next day, Friday.
I am starting to look forward to the negative result, so I can stop it with the prednisone, clexane, progesterone.... blah blah. MY stomach is covered in bruises.

But...
 it came back positive. Very low result. HCG level of 10.  The nurse did not deliver the news as "good news" though. In fact she said "I'm really sorry" .

What the?

Urine tests over the weekend. Very faintly positive. Not much more bleeding. Maybe it's not a period?

I don't know what to feel.

Re-test of bloods on Monday. With the very faint lines on the urine tests, I assume it will have dropped over the weekend... keep hopes low... but... the HCG has gone up. it's 44 now.

But still, no one at the fertility clinic has said "You are pregnant". So I am still unsure what to feel.

My friend called me and said "YOU ARE PREGNANT".
But yet... I still do not know whether to believe this... I'm going to stay in the wait and see mindset for now.

Comments

  1. Holding my breath for you. I hope that HCG goes up up up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my... What a mind game. I'm reading this and holding my breath, then saying "$hit." Then my eyes widen at 44. My goodness dear. I took a peek at your TTC timeline and you've been through so much. I had three rounds of IVF with terrible results in the end. Hoping, hoping this goes up and you have a late implanter. I found you here from Stirrup Queens and I'm looking forward to following along with you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. oh wow. I really hope that the HCG levels will go up. Maybe the embryo implanted late. Thinking of you!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the stories that are out there

It seems to me that the happy-ending story that is so often "out there" about infertility is this: "Here is a couple who struggled and struggled to have kids, and then, finally, they had a baby. The end"... I think something about this story feels like a lack of honouring of the losses felt along the way for infertile couples. I know life goes on, and I know it does no one any good at all to get stuck in grief or pain. But surely there is some kind of transition for people to adjust from infertility to parenthood? Maybe there is a certain loss that is always felt? Transitioning to parenthood seems like it would be a hard process following infertility battles, and different somehow from a "normal fertility" transition to parenthood which I am sure would be hard enough (and I think is spoken about a lot). Something about the "...and then they had a baby" part of the story seems a bit dismissive about the infertility dramas, or gives a message of-...

belonging or be longing somewhere

I heard a great radio segment the other day on the importance of belonging.  Belonging is a pretty core and pretty basic human need I would say, and we certainly don't feel great, in fact we probably do things like turn to drugs and alcohol or other addictions or avoidant behaviours, when we don't have a strong sense of belonging somewhere in the world. These notions of belonging got me thinking about the infertility/trying to conceive journey. I guess getting online and reading and writing a blog has been all about gaining a better sense of belonging in this process. But even in this lovely online world there is a sad kind of aspect to it that... some people move on to the world of having kids and it doesn't feel like I "Belong" with them in the same sense. Some move on to have no kids, but as I am still trying to have kids, in a sense, don't "belong" there either. I can perhaps feel that I belong wholeheartedly with other people in my position, bu...

a few thoughts on where am I at

I'm getting over it. We have recently had the results of our 7th IVF round... which are... negative. sigh. I'm not surprised of course. It's starting to feel a bit ridiculous. Plan is to meet with a third doctor, who we have been waiting to see for months, to see what light he would shed. The thing I'm frustrated about is that IVF... it's not treating the problem at all, as far as I can see. I'm not a doctor but it seems to me that there's something up with the fact that our embryos are not hardy. IVF is just trying to maximise numbers, not helping to fix whatever is causing the problem with the embryos. But the thing is that the medical professionals don't actually know what the problem is for us... so IVF is all they've got to offer. I'm feeling a bit silly to continue with it, because who knows how long it could go on for, and who knows if for us, with whatever our problem is, whether it even could work. Well a few questions for the new do...