Well, I'll be damned.

That little survivor (as we affectionately call Viver) is still there!

Not only still there, but has caught up to where I am - even 1 day ahead (and yes, I do know a day or two doesn't matter but I'm no less proud because of that) - with a strong heart beat flickering away.

We're thrilled. We've stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop and are enjoying this...finally. I still don't have many symptoms, and that's still going to continue to piss me off, and I'm sure we'll be a wreck before the next ultrasound in a couple weeks...but for the first time in 21 months and two pregnancies, we actually feel like we might have a baby.

We graduated from our clinic, which is bittersweet since we like our clinic so much, but it will be nice to get back to my OB that I adore as well.

Dr. R also told us that the nipples formed yesterday.

To which I started laughing uncontrollably.

She said nipple. Heh.

We have a blinking tube.

I'm a little late on this, been pretty busy lately and I wanted to scan our u/s pic (even though the angle she got makes the sack look like a hot dog and you can't see anything except the cross hairs), but I'm starting to think I'm never going to get to that...

I was a complete and utter wreck before the ultrasound. A good 24-48 hours before you couldn't even talk to me. Even though I was anxious and worried with my last pregnancy, I always got a good feeling before the ultrasound that made me think it would be ok. And those two ultrasounds were good. With this one, I didn't have a good feeling. My instinct was definitely going the other way. Because, once again, I don't have symptoms and frankly, it pisses me off.

It was just too much to fathom. We didn't want to see that image, the one of a missed m/c, on a screen again. We didn't want to be ushered out the backdoor after our ultrasound. We didn't to hear the "I'm having trouble finding a heartbeat" conversation again, and I honestly started wondering if I could handle another loss.

Thankfully our clinic runs pretty much right on time so we didn't have to wait long once we got there. Dr. R came in and said she'd been waiting for us...seems she was curious about our upcoming ultrasound. Why? "I've been skeptical about your pregnancy. I mean, your betas were good and everything, but....well, lets see what's going on."

Huh? I'm pretty sure when she asked how we were doing I yelled "Nervous!!" A specialist telling us she was skeptical was hardly calming our nerves.

But at this point, I was defeated and just wanted to know either way. I was so past the anxiety and worry I wasn't sure I would even cry.

At our NT scan with my last pregnancy, the tech decided to take measurements and check my ovaries before doing anything with the pregnancy measurements. Now, I know she saw that sack and the size of the baby and knew we had lost the pregnancy the minute that ultrasound started. But she had to get those other measurements and you can't really say, "Oh, hey, looks like you miscarried but hang on while I get these other measurements."

So when Dr. R started the ultrasound, she said, "There's a sack...but let's check your ovaries first" and I immediately thought, here we go again.

Once she was done with the ovaries, she was frowning at the screen and not saying much. That's not a good sign. Then she said something about finding it and turned the screen towards Chris and I.

An empty sac. Um, thanks, lady - didn't need another visual!

She moved the wand a bit and said, "See it? It's blinking, right there."

OH! There is something there. It was rather ghost-like and disappearing a lot, but at the right spot, there was something there.

I looked at the blinking and said, "So that's the heartbeat?"

Dr. R says, "No, there isn't a heart this early. That's the fetal pole. It's a blinking tube."

Now, really, everyone else in the industry calls it a heartbeat. Even if it's not technically a heart at 6 1/2 weeks, it will be one soon and that blinking tube will hopefully turn into a beating heart. Would it kill her to let us call it a heartbeat? Do we have to be that clinical?

The day of the ultrasound I was 6 weeks, 4 days but just measuring 6 weeks even, which everyone, including computer brain Dr. R, says is on track. I'll of course worry about this.

We go back after the 8 week mark to check and see if our blinking tube turned into a beating heart. That's the big step for us. While our miscarriage wasn't discovered until 12 weeks, the baby stopped developing about 8 weeks.

So again we wait. I still don't have many symptoms and don't have morning sickness (as far as I know...does gagging when I brush my tongue count?) so as long as I feel ok...I'll continue to be neurotic. Just a warning to those who know me in real life.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy.

Pregnancy after infertility and previous miscarriage sure is a nail biter.

I'm going crazy with doubt and fear. Each morning I wake up and decide if I am pregnant or not. This is how I determine that:
Poke at boobs. Sore? Things are ok. Not sore? Panic.
Did I get up to pee in the middle of the night? Yes? It might be ok. No? Clearly, I've miscarried and don't know it.

With my first pregnancy, I didn't have many symptoms and since I didn't miscarry until 12 weeks I really did have a healthy pregnancy (yes, heartbeat and all) for longer than I had an unhealthy pregnancy. I got sore boobs later in the pregnancy and only for about a week. Here's the thing: my boobs are never sore. I don't get sore boobs pre-period, actually nothing affects my boobs. Sometimes I wonder why I have them. At any rate, I really shouldn't put the future of any pregnancy in my boobs. They're a wild card at best. But I do. I put a lot of emphasis on how they feel during pregnancy. I poke at them so much I wonder if any sensitivity might be from me, well, poking at them. I also poke at them absent-mindedly...which means I've found myself doing it in public. Today I wished I had weighed my enlarged boobs because now I think they are smaller - I really need a reference point. But I didn't, so now I'll just wonder...are they smaller? I can't tell. Clearly I need a boob intervention.

The "getting up in the middle of the night to pee must mean things are progressing well" is another ludicrous thought that I just can't shake. It's ludicrous for a couple reasons. One, the urge to do this started the day I started the progesterone in oil shots. Hello, my embryos were an hour a way, they weren't even in my uterus. Obviously, this isn't a symptom I can put much faith into either way. But I do....

My tummy doesn't feel great and actually a little nauseous at times but I tend to attribute that to my ever increasing nerves. That also doesn't make any sense.

It's impossible to make any sense of any of it. It's funny, when fertiles find out they're pregnant, they're ecstatic. Some of them do cutesy things to tell their husband or significant other that they're expecting. It can range from a Bun in the Oven t-shirt and a big grin, or commonly a little onesie advertising their husband's favorite sports team...it's sometimes a big production. Infertiles think they will scream, cry and make a big deal out of it, but typically, we don't.

Typically, we react much differently. We kind of look at the test (or listen to the nurse tell us our betas are positive) and think "Hmmm. Well, ok. That's cool." But we're scared to get our hopes up. Throw a previous miscarriage in there and you've got a whole ball of "Oh, alright, thanks for letting us know." Back to your regularly scheduled programming. Then the family and friends you've told are excited and you keep saying, "Oh, it's early." They don't understand that to me, this pregnancy will be successful once my child starts kindergarten and not a second earlier.

I know I'm normal. Those that have experienced pregnancy loss and a new pregnancy within 6 months of the loss know what I'm talking about. We all know it's not rational, we all know it's really not healthy, but we also all know it's normal. It just may drive me crazy, though. Or crazier, I should say.

The verdict is in....

And....I'm pregnant! Okay, so I've known for a while. I caved and tested last week since I just suddenly had a feeling something was up, and to my surprise, my test 8dp3dt was clearly positive. Chris and I didn't fully believe it until we got confirmation from the clinic on Monday, Christmas Eve. Betas have been good, doubling nicely and all that good stuff:
9dp3dt/12dpo - 105
12dp3dt/15dpo - 380
Soooo....we're excited and also cautiously optimistic because we have been here before. Our first ultrasound is in a couple weeks.
Thanks, Santa!

Tick, tock.

Is it odd that this wait isn't really bothering me? It's the worst part for most IVF'ers - although, I'm going out on a limb and saying most IVF'ers don't have intramuscular stims and PIO and the suppositories...so perhaps my take on this is a touch skewed.

See, since my body has been such a colossal failure in terms of even responding to treatment, that part of any cycle is the worst for me. Waiting to see if I respond. The doctors are always so positive, because the fact is the vast majority of women will respond the drugs. My ovaries have an attitude problem, much like their bodily host I suppose, and have a tendency to rebel against any and all drugs. Even this time, I was on high dosages of different injections...the drugs my RE kept calling "the gooooood drugs", and my ovaries still managed to flip everyone off and run the other way.

Getting to the oh so dreaded "two week wait" is a huge accomplishment for me. In an entire year of treatment, I've really only had two, including this one. I always knew before hand that the cycle was fucked. Really, I could wait like this forever, if it wasn't for my self-imposed clean living that I guarantee will go out the window the very moment a negative beta is hurled at me.

But for now, I guess I'm content in this land of not knowing. Because not knowing means not knowing if it failed just as much as not knowing if I'm pregnant. And frankly, I'm ok with not knowing either right now.

I'm ready to be done.

I'm ready.

I'm ready to either go back to my pre-IVF life, or start my new pregnancy life. I'm ready for one or the other. I just want this waiting to be over. The not knowing and waiting is simply not healthy for an impatient OCD'er like myself.

I'm currently 7dp3dt. I feel pretty much nothing so I'm not optimistic. I have my weekly acupuncture on Friday, which should be interesting.. She knows too much and no doubt by then she'll have an inkling of which way this is going to go. Last weekend, she teased me by saying how pleased she was with all the activity in my uterus. Well, duh. When isn't it a party my in uterus? But she knows things. She knew my dud ovary was a dud with me not saying a word. She knew righty seemed to be doing her job. All this was confirmed via ultrasound and blood work, but she knew first. So on Friday should be interesting. She knows the progesterone I'm on will mask things but still...the woman knows things. I'm not sure she'll say anything at this point, though. Which will drive me nuts and probably affect her Christmas tip.

I'm a sucker.

I did it.

I ate two entire pineapples over the course of 4 days. Including the core. The icky, hard, sour and bitter core.

Why? Because there is an Old Wive's tale that the core of the pineapple contains some enzyme, I think it's called Bromelain, that aids in implantation. Since if an IVF fails it's because the embryo(s) didn't implant (they had quite a head start), I felt helping implantation was important. Also, I've noticed quite a few successful IVF'ers note they ate pineapple. So I went for it.

I've never, in the nearly two years we've been trying, fallen prey to the Old Wive's tales. I always figured if a crack whore can have 20 kids, that the things like sitting with your hips elevated after sex isn't necessarily going to help matters...and could very well be detrimental...bladder infection, anyone? Not to mention, I'm smart enough to figure out that standing on your head after sex will not increase your chance of pregnancy any more than jumping up and down after sex will decrease your chances.

But I ate the pineapple anyway. I like pineapple (er, I used to like pineapple). But I can't help but feel a little duped. I can't help but think there is some guy at Del Monte, sitting in his office, laughing his ass off as he tells the story that he made up this enzyme and posted it on the Internet saying it helped implantation and now all these crazy infertiles are eating tons of pineapple...they're making so much money off the desperate infertiles...ha ha ha!!!