Heard a heartbeat

I bought a doppler on amazon. I thought maybe since my fundus (top of the uterus) has been above my pubic bone since about the day of my BFP (ok, not quite, but like 6 weeks) maybe I’d be able to hear it before 10 weeks. Usually you can’t hear it earlier than that because your uterus is under your pubic bone until then. I’ve tried it once a week or so.

I kept pointing it really low and down (below my pubic bone) like I did with O (found it around 10.5 weeks with him), but I hadn’t heard it yet.

Today I tried that again and then though, huh, maybe I need to try higher. Aimed it straight back about 2 inches above my pubic bone and thump thump, thump thump!

I’ve heard mine a lot (easy to differentiate since it’s the same as your pulse), and this was definitely A baby. Much faster. Just not sure WHICH baby 🙂

Not sure how much good this doppler will do me or if I’ll just know there’s one HB in there but not know whether I’m hearing the same one over and over or 2 separate ones or what.

It was awesome 🙂

Headed to a giant Moms of multiples consignment sale tomorrow to try to score some deals. I’m nervous to buy anything this early, but the next sale is around when I’m due. If something goes wrong, I’m going to have oodles of baby stuff to unload anyway, so I figures why not?

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Trying not to let myself go there…

Before our IVF cycle, I thought a lot about what it would be like to have twins, which room I’d use for a new baby, whether we’d be able to fit 3 carseats in our car, etc etc etc.

I’m trying not to go there this time. The more hope I feel, the more confident I get, the harder I crash. I’m just going through the motions, shooting myself up with medicine and hoping for the best.

Any time I think about whether I like a name, I stop myself.

Any time I wonder about who I lent a maternity top to, I nip it in the bud. It’s bad enough that I have all these maternity clothes hanging in my closet that I bought before TTC#2 because I was so sure that I knew my body better this time and it would happen more quickly. [Note to self. Move those to another closet BEFORE the FET so I don’t have to do it afterward if it doesn’t work.]

What makes me the saddest is knowing that I’ll have a hard time enjoying a pregnancy this time. I LOVED being pregnant before. I thought it was so amazing. This time I’ll just be waiting for the next shoe to drop. For something to go wrong. To have a third miscarriage. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to let myself get excited if everything goes perfectly.

I guess at some point I’ll have to buy some baby stuff if it does work because everything I have now is expired, recalled, etc etc etc. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Maybe at 36 weeks I’ll feel safe buying stuff!

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Compound hetero

When I got back the MTHFR results, I asked the nurse if this could be the reason we’re not getting/staying pregnant. She said probably not.

Poking around a bit, I wonder if I don’t need to ask more questions.

She told me if I had two copies of the same gene (homo) it would be worse and they’d put me on blood thinners. A journal article I just read said being compound hetero (1 copy of each gene–what I am) is as bad as being homo, and everything else puts it “almost as bad.” (There’s a joke in there somewhere. Something about being twice as straight, maybe? I have a friend who is “twice as gay,” according to Barbara Streisand. Maybe he’d know.)

I’m supposed to go in for a fasting insulin tolerance test on Monday, and I think I’ll see if they can test my fasting homocystine levels while I’m there (and already fasting). Elevated levels could indicate a need for blood thinners while pregnant, beyond the baby aspirin I’m already on.

I also have a family history of severe heart problems on my Mom’s side, and this could have indications for my cardiac health. Raised homocystine levels greatly increase your chance of heart attack or stroke.

I figure it doesn’t hurt to have too much information.

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Mother F—er!

Those of you in the know on infertility matters will know what this means because it’s a common nickname. For the rest of you, here’s an explanation. MTHFR (thus its nickname) is a genetic mutation that causes problems with the absorption of folic acid. Folic acid is the reason they have you take pre-natal vitamins (PNV) because it’s really crucial to prenatal development. The typical PNV has 800-1000 mg of Folic Acid. Folic acid deficiencies can cause birth defects like spina bifida.

There’s more information on MTHFR here.

MTHFR can lead to high levels of homocysteine, which can cause a host of problems like heart disease, blood clotting issues, strokes, depression, anxiety, etc…

Fortunately, there are varieties of the mutation and mine does not seem to be a severe mutation. I have one copy of the C6772 mutation and one of the A1298C mutation. If I had 2 copies of either of those, it would be worse. I would have to take blood thinners, etc. They do NOT think this is IT. This is not THE reason I’ve had IF problems. It can be part of the picture, though.

Also fortunately, the solution is simple. I just need more folic acid. Instead of 800mg, I’ll take a Rx dose of 4,200 mg, I suppose for the rest of my life.

Anyway, it’s comforting to have one more part of the puzzle.

My analytical mind wonders if the reason I got PG last month was that I was eating so much swiss chard out of the garden (which is one of the biggest sources of folic acid you can eat). Though it probably isn’t founded, it’s just something else to wonder about. It’s also comforting to have something else to DO. Something else to FIX.

In the end…

Being unexplained sucks. Mother Fucker.

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The 2nd shortest pregnancy of all time

There’s this term “chemical pregnancy” that you see around the fertility boards. My midwife and RE have just said miscarriage. It’s a really early miscarriage and technically defined as a pregnancy that never gets far enough to see on an ultrasound (around 5.5 weeks, probably). This is my second. I made it about a week longer than the first.

The first was our second month trying the first time. I was sad, but not really pregnant long enough to feel too attached. I got a BFP at 10 and 11 DPO and then started getting negatives, so I went in to get my blood drawn and to find out if I needed a Rhogam shot for spotting. Found out the levels were dropping, got the Rhogam shot (for women who are O-), and it was all over quickly and with no intervention. At the time I was even relieved because it meant we could get pregnant. It was my 2nd month TTC, so I was sure it would happen again quickly. Sure enough, I got pregnant with Owen 3 months later.

This time it was somewhere around our 20th (ish) cycle of trying. Except we weren’t really trying. No medical intervention these days=not trying. The pregnancy test that said “pregnant” elated me. I really thought after the failed IVF I might never see it again. We’ve only got so many options left, after all. I was re arranging bedrooms in my mind upstairs to make room for a nursery. Even stopped by diaperswappers.com to see what newborn cloth diapers run these days to supplement my stash. I can’t even explain the excitement of it FINALLY happening.

That excitement lasted a day until I got the bloodwork back. When I got the results, I knew it was over, despite them wanting to come in for a 2nd test. The levels were just too low for as many DPO as I was. All of the progesterone they pumped into me over the course of a few days didn’t really matter because I started bleeding despite it. Then it all came CRASHING.BACK.DOWN. I had terrible nightmares and relived them every time I thought about it, every time I went to the bathroom.

The thing I don’t like about the term “chemical pregnancy” is that it in no way signifies a loss. This is my second and I can 100% say it feel like a major loss.

Now I don’t know what to think about our chances. Several friends I’ve told about it say, “see you CAN still get pregnant. It will happen again.” Part of me buys that. I even have a tiny bit of hope for these couple months of ignoring IF while we wait to start the Lupron for our FET (probably will start Lupron around January or February for a FET between April and July, depending on how long my body takes to go back to normal after the Lupron.) That part of me wonders if it would be worth refilling my progesterone prescription to support any miracle pregnancy that happens (which I wish I had been doing last month. I feel like it never had a shot.)

The biggest part of me is afraid to even hope. Because as I’ve explained before, hoping too much just makes me crash harder. That same skeptical part also thinks if it took 20 months to happen once, I don’t have 20 months of trying left in me for it to happen again. There a couple of reasons for this.

#1 is emotional. I can’t ride the roller coaster of emotions anymore. I have been an emotional wreck for the last year or so. It’s not fair to myself or my family, especially Owen.

#2 I don’t have 20 months. My endometriosis WILL come back. The surgery I had last February just removed what was already there (mostly grown in the 2 years since Owen, the surgeon thought, though I have no idea why he thinks that.) The RE said we basically have a year before it’s problematic fertility wise again. The pain and IBS-like symptoms haven’t been nearly as bad as pre-surgery when I’m not medicated, but it hasn’t been fun either. Just better compared to what it was before.

So today I went in to the RE because they wanted to make sure my beta levels were back down to zero. I’m not sure exactly why they do that. I suppose to make sure you’re not retaining any tissue. My only thought was that I didn’t want to go back to that place of torture for a long long time.

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