oy.

Yesterday some symptoms picked up, and last night I actually puked my guts out.

This was coupled with the fact that I also started getting some barely-there light brown spotting intermittently around the same time.

So the score is: 1 good thing, 1 not-so-good thing. I keep thinking about the blood next to one of the sacs, and as it grows, is it just going to keep pushing bits of it out? The RE seemed to think it was entirely possible.

Trying to keep myself from losing it for the next ~17 hours until my 6w2d u/s.

Feeling apprehensive

I know I've not really had a great deal of crazy symptoms to begin with, but I am starting to get nervous/paranoid about it now. I'm 5w6d today, and not really anything more. I was tired this week, but today I feel less so. I've only had very mild and very occasional bouts of queasiness, but nothing substantial outside of last Sunday. I know my P4 levels are borderline, although apparently acceptable, so that may have something to do with it. No cramping, no bleeding or spotting. But my most terrifying fear is that of the "missed miscarriage" - what I had with my first IVF - the one that started out with the beta of 9. That's right - 9 - @ 10DP5DT. That one rose well for awhile, then slowed and nothing ever grew, other than a very small sac with nothing in it. So that is my ultimate fear, that we go back in for u/s #2 and nothing is progressing. I wish I could feel better about it, but I at this point, I'm just scared, and it's starting to turn into depression.

Is it better to know or to live in a state of obliviousness. Is that even a word?

A v. nice turn of events @ 5w2d

Wow. I am sort of stunned. Had my u/s this morning, with Mr. World Famous RE scanning me himself. He prefaced with the following: "It's really early, so I don't expect to see much." Ok, so expectations are managed. No fetal poles and heartbeats yet. But, guess what? We saw TWO sacs! They were right next to one another, he said that could have been causing the bleeding. He also saw what was possibly some blood in another area, so it could have been that too.

My beta jumped to 6,000+ (didn't get the exact number), so the doubling time is less than 37 hours. RE said the twin thing was "subject to change" but we are looking at a potentially happy outcome. And he was not at all concerned about my progesterone levels.

Feeling symptoms of on/off nausea and tiredness with dizzy spells. Oh, and my face is breaking out like CRAZY - I have at least 2 new zits every day. Gross, I know.

We'll go back in a week for another u/s to see if we can detect 1-2 fetal heartbeats.

I am trying not to get TOO excited. But I am a little excited :) Ok, more than that. It sort of feels like a dream. Don't get me wrong, I know the risks and I realize there is a LONG way to go from here. But, it's a step closer.

Thanks again everyone for all of your support. This network of IF blogs has changed everything for me. I love reading your own stories and getting your advice. So thank you.

Happy Daylight Savings!

I hope everyone is enjoying their extra hour of sleeping/relaxing/etc. I literally think gaining that extra hour makes this one of the best days of the year. Coupled with the fact that it came as a complete surprise to me the night before by randomly reading about it. Oh yeah!! We get an extra HOUR!

Prefacing the rest of this with a TMI warning, which will probably be the case for most of my posts.

I don't know what to think about the UTI sitch now. My peeing is totally back to normal, and the only weird thing is this light whitish/yellow-y mucus discharge, but who know what that could be from? It's not in any significant amount.

This morning I woke up at 5 am having to pee like crazy, so I took those 2 UTI tests, and got the same result on one and 2 negatives on the other. So I think I am probably fine. On Tuesday I'll tell my RE about the WBC being slightly positive and see what he thinks.

The other thing is, the second I woke up, I felt REALLY sick, so nauseous it felt like I had food poisoning, only no fever or chills, just the nausea. Since DH and I had the same dinner (only he had lots more of it!) and he had no reaction whatsoever, I'm guess it couldn't have been from the food . It passed in about 45 minutes with minor actual vomiting. So I am hoping this is a good thing?!

My P4 levels are crappy, despite the 1.5 cc I take daily, Friday's test came back at 20.5. Shouldn't the levels be JUMPING by now? This is the reason why my bb's are not sore. My RE's assistant never got back to me. I'm sort of annoyed, like, hey this is important, and an area where we actually have control! Just put me on suppositories too. I mean, I would literally do anything.

When will I be slightly less stressed out about this?

A new twist

Thanks for your supportive comments on my beta! I have alot of hope/anxiety for Tuesday's u/s. My beta should be over 2500 by then, so we should see the gestational sac and the yolk sac. If not, that's when my next worry stage begins. Evidently in order to see a fetal pole, beta needs to be 5,000+, which unless my doubling time goes into hyper-overdrive, is not very likely to happen.

This is random, but I think I have a Urinary Tract Infection. After the bleeding incident, a couple of people suggested it as a possibility. So this morning, when I realized that I wasn't urinating like a racehorse as per usual, but rather a pathetic two second trickle, and there was an ever-so-slight uncomfortableness, my husband and I decided to do some research. This, coupled with the fact that I was finding I now occasionally have a small amount of light-brownish tinged mucus on the TP after going to the loo. It's always SOMETHING, isn't it?

Some searching showed us that, all signs point to UTI!

We ended up making a dash off to Rite-Aid, where I loudly asked the pharmacist if she had any urinary tract infection tests, which sent my husband running up a different aisle in humiliation, pretending he didn't know me. Turns out no, they did not have any tests! So off we went to CVS where we found a nice variety, and bought a couple. My husband chuckling at how nonchalantly I treat the process. Embarrassing purchases? Please. That's the least of my probs.

Having tried to "cure" my potential UTI on my own, I had been drinking a ton of water all day so my peeing could normalize, which it did - going in the other direction of having to pee so badly every five minutes I wanted to cry. So when I got home, I had more than enough saved to do one of the tests.

What do you know - the "nitrate" test came back negative, while the "white blood cell" presence test came back looking slightly positive. So now I guess I have to call my RE and tell them I may have a UTI. I guess they can give me antibiotics and it's supposed to be safe in pregnancy.

I don't know if the possible UTI has anything to do with the bleeding, but it is interesting that it came about at the same time, is all I am saying.

Still Rising!

Albeit, not as quickly as before. Today's beta is 992 (sooo close to 1000!). So, since I got that third beta at 2 pm rather than 9 am, I had to find a calculator that lets you do the doubling rate using hours rather than just days.

In case anyone ever needs this, it's very useful. But it doesn't work in Firefox, just IE.
http://www.betabase.info/doublingCalc.php

Anyway because I am completely OCD, I put together a beta doubling chart and this is what I found:

Date		Beta		Doubling Rate (hrs)
10/28/07		190
10/30/07		376		48.7
10/31/07*		580		46.38
11/2/07		992		55.53

*beta from mid-afternoon!

Overall doubling rate from Beta 1 - 4: 50.3 hours

So I don't know what to think because it sped up a bit, then slowed down. I think I am still in an ok range though. At least that is what I am holding on to for now. The nurse told me to come back on Tuesday for another beta and an u/s. I asked her what she thought, and she said, "you had a bleeding incident this week, right? Well, it really could go either way." Yikes. Well at least they are not trying to sugar coat anything for me.

Trying to look on the positive side:
The beta did not stay the same.
The beta did not fall!
The beta is slowing but not tremendously.
I am not even spotting anymore! All clear. No more cramps either.

The nurse said if I start bleeding again to call immediately. I am guessing that given this and my previous pregnancy history, if I make it "out of the woods" by getting to the heartbeat stage (which I do not expect on Tuesday! I will only be 5w2d) - I will most certainly need a high-risk OB. Probably not a bad idea to be honest. I'm just assuming that there is still something in there, and it's still making HCG. So that's got to mean something, right? Ok, my attempts at optimism are making me feel a little bit better.

I've been on bed rest for the most part since Wednesday afternoon, working from home. Now that the work week is officially over, I have a mission: catch up on everyone's blogs. That's a fun thing to do!

Updating this to say: I am getting shooting pains through my right breast and nipple. Ow.

In Limbo...

So I have to share my drama with everyone...

Yesterday we had quite a scare and I'm not sure where we stand now. In the middle of the afternoon I felt dizzy and crampy, so I went to the bathroom and realized I was bleeding. Not just a spot, but it was coming out when I urinated. I called the clinic nurses and after ripping off my halloween costume, rushed over for a beta. They said it could be nothing, but it was too early to scan me so we can only do the b/w for now. I guess I bled about a few hours (only when going to the loo) before I got home and got to bedrest, when it slowed down alot and by evening there was just a small brownish spot when I wiped. The cramping stopped overnight. This is still all I am seeing, a small dark brown spot when I wipe after the loo. I never filled a pad.

The beta was 580 with about 29 hours between the tests. The previous one had been 376 so it is still rising normally. I mean I still bled a bit after the test so I don't know what that means. Nothing clotty or clumpy ever came out so I am hoping that's a good sign? Not really sure how to feel, just really scared and staying on bedrest today. They said to rest today and come in Friday AM for another beta, so I guess that will really be the one that tells us if this is going to progress or end at this point. I cried alot yesterday, but now I just don't know how to feel. In my other 2 losses, one was a missed miscarriage and one was a chemical. I just never had the unexpected bleeding before, so this is different and scary.

So that is my crappy Halloween story. I hope everyone had better ones.