Well, a lot has happened since I last posted. No big surprise I guess when you take a 6 month blogging break.
The biggest news is I'm pregnant (I know - again) but this time I am seriously pregnant. Well, for me it feels seriously pregnant to make it to 17 weeks. That is nearly half way!
I will back post some updates about my second full round of IVF. I did an antagonist cycle, which was quite different to the long form synarel round I did first time around, so in the interest of continuing my commitment to providing factual information about the IVF process I will write up what was involved in the antagonist cycle.
The main reason my blog writing stalled was everything going on at work. For some time I had been trying to sign up to a redundancy package. The pressure of working for the same organisation through our ongoing IVF and six pregnancy losses just weighed on me and the temptation of a tasty pay-out and break was very strong.
Knowing a lot of my colleagues knew about my blog, I felt I couldn't write about my struggle with my work and my desire to leave our much loved organisation. After months of internal organisation discussions, and waiting, on 31 January 2013 I finally walked out the door of my permanent government job. I left behind much strived for job security and a great package (and an awesome maternity leave policy) with the loose plan of a three month break, before getting back into the job hunt, or setting myself up as a consultant.
The other reason I slowed down on the blog was that I simply felt a lot better. After years of stress, sadness and busyness, I made peace with our fertility / infertility stuff. I think the blog has played a big role in my ability to process the stress of fertility treatment. I also did a few sessions with a psychologist that helped a lot after our last pregnancy loss. I suddenly found myself more at ease with my pain, my sadness, my struggles and the tension slowly slipped away. I have a draft blog on these sessions that I will finish and post.
On 6 February 2013, just days after I finished work, we did another embryo transfer and were not surprised to have yet another positive pregnancy blood test on 18 February 2013. My three month break turned into my first trimester. Three months where mostly things seemed to progress well, but mentally to some degree I was still expecting to lose the baby.
Now I'm well and truly into my second trimester, I haven't worked at all through the pregnancy and I feel totally awesome. I would like to do some work to bring in some cash before the baby is due, but neither my husband nor I think it is worth me going nuts about finding work or working full-time and potentially putting unnecessary pressure on me or the pregnancy. We are so lucky the payout I received was substantial enough for me not to need to work for a long time yet, but I am well aware that any extra cash I earn now will mean the longer I can not work once we actually have a baby, or a new kitchen...
Baby's due date is 25 October 2013, which happens to be our fifth wedding anniversary.
Our next major obstetrics milestone is the 19/20 week morphology scan scheduled for 5 June 2013.
I can't believe my baby making mission blog will actually now get to cover my experience of pregnancy and not just pregnancy loss. All of these weeks not working I've had to blog and it has taken some time for me to feel positive enough to decide to get cracking with it again.
Showing posts with label pregnant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pregnant. Show all posts
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Scanning
Well, I've been on holidays at the beach for the past 12 days. We holiday in a small beach side town each year. It is an incredibly beautiful part of the world. I had decided to take the risk and book in our first viability scan for the day we were leaving for holidays. I thought this showed great faith in that the pregnancy would be okay. If it wasn't okay, I planned to head to the beach anyway and drink myself into oblivion.
The scan was with our fertility specialist - the first viability scan. I've actually never managed to have a viability scan with him due to bad holiday timing over the past year. As it turned out, this time he was going on holidays for the same days as us, so we managed to squeeze the scan in.
I was a little disappointed with the scan. He showed us one baby, with a heart beat, right at the top of the uterus. He was pretty happy about it. He said "I'm not hearing any oohhhs and aaahhhhs". So he tried to hear the heartbeat. I tried explaining, it wasn't that we weren't pleased, it's just that we've seen a lot of tiny babies, that don't even look like babies, with heartbeats. He printed a picture for us.
I have grown to hate ultrasound images. I hate everybody's ultrasound images, not just my own. If a see a friend post their ultrasound image to facebook, I have to delete/hide the post. To me they just look freaky. So Matt took the picture. He thought his family might like to see it, I said "really, why would they want to see that?"
Due to my specialist usually being on holidays, our first scans have generally been with ultrasound clinics. These scans give you sooooooo much information. You get the crown to rump length, the heartbeat rate, the size of the gestational sack, the gestational age. So when the fertility specialist showed us a blob with a heartbeat and said it looked about the right size, I was underwhelmed.
As we were both about to head off on holidays the fertility specialist gave us a referal to get a diagnostic scan done, just in case anything went a miss during the week of holidays.
We packed the ultrasound referal in our gear and headed off on holidays hoping we wouldn't need it, but that wasn't to be the case. The very next day I had a pretty heavy bleed, dark red with little clots in it. I lost it. I was crying and crying. I just hate it. One day everything is 'fine' the next day, it seems like we are about to have another miscarriage.
The worst part is, there is nothing to do about it. You just have to go to sleep, get up the next day and somehow try to enjoy your holiday at the beach. The bleed was on a Saturday so we couldn't even go for the scan until Monday at the earliest.
So we soldier on. Force yourself to get outside and enjoy the beautiful place you are in. Try not to think about it all the time. Try not to let your bad mood spoil it for everyone else who is there.
On Monday we get the diagnostic scan. The baby is still there, but we are told it is only measuring 5 weeks and 6 days and the heartbeat is 96 beats per minute. Basically, the baby is more than a week smaller than it should be. The sonographer also told us that the heartbeat would preferably be over than 100. In closing, he said the pregnancy was viable at this time, but given the result no doubt another ultrasound will be needed in another week or two.
So the baby is small, with a slow heartbeat. The same sonographer gave us similar news last year with our heterotopic pregnancy, and that baby miscarried soon after. We don't leave with smiles on our faces. My husband says on the way to the car "We know how this played out last time, but I guess we just need to give the little trooper a chance."
We had a little more spotting over the next day, but for a week now I've had nothing. I've had not bleeding. I've also had no morning sickness or other symptoms that wouldn't be caused by the progesterone pessaries I have to use morning and night.
Our first appointment with the ob/gyn I chose for this pregnancy is coming up, so I haven't bothered following up with our fertility specialist about getting another scan. I have some hope - hey, maybe it will be fine - I really hope that it is. I also have some doubts.
The scan was with our fertility specialist - the first viability scan. I've actually never managed to have a viability scan with him due to bad holiday timing over the past year. As it turned out, this time he was going on holidays for the same days as us, so we managed to squeeze the scan in.
I was a little disappointed with the scan. He showed us one baby, with a heart beat, right at the top of the uterus. He was pretty happy about it. He said "I'm not hearing any oohhhs and aaahhhhs". So he tried to hear the heartbeat. I tried explaining, it wasn't that we weren't pleased, it's just that we've seen a lot of tiny babies, that don't even look like babies, with heartbeats. He printed a picture for us.
I have grown to hate ultrasound images. I hate everybody's ultrasound images, not just my own. If a see a friend post their ultrasound image to facebook, I have to delete/hide the post. To me they just look freaky. So Matt took the picture. He thought his family might like to see it, I said "really, why would they want to see that?"
Due to my specialist usually being on holidays, our first scans have generally been with ultrasound clinics. These scans give you sooooooo much information. You get the crown to rump length, the heartbeat rate, the size of the gestational sack, the gestational age. So when the fertility specialist showed us a blob with a heartbeat and said it looked about the right size, I was underwhelmed.
As we were both about to head off on holidays the fertility specialist gave us a referal to get a diagnostic scan done, just in case anything went a miss during the week of holidays.
We packed the ultrasound referal in our gear and headed off on holidays hoping we wouldn't need it, but that wasn't to be the case. The very next day I had a pretty heavy bleed, dark red with little clots in it. I lost it. I was crying and crying. I just hate it. One day everything is 'fine' the next day, it seems like we are about to have another miscarriage.
The worst part is, there is nothing to do about it. You just have to go to sleep, get up the next day and somehow try to enjoy your holiday at the beach. The bleed was on a Saturday so we couldn't even go for the scan until Monday at the earliest.
So we soldier on. Force yourself to get outside and enjoy the beautiful place you are in. Try not to think about it all the time. Try not to let your bad mood spoil it for everyone else who is there.
On Monday we get the diagnostic scan. The baby is still there, but we are told it is only measuring 5 weeks and 6 days and the heartbeat is 96 beats per minute. Basically, the baby is more than a week smaller than it should be. The sonographer also told us that the heartbeat would preferably be over than 100. In closing, he said the pregnancy was viable at this time, but given the result no doubt another ultrasound will be needed in another week or two.
So the baby is small, with a slow heartbeat. The same sonographer gave us similar news last year with our heterotopic pregnancy, and that baby miscarried soon after. We don't leave with smiles on our faces. My husband says on the way to the car "We know how this played out last time, but I guess we just need to give the little trooper a chance."
We had a little more spotting over the next day, but for a week now I've had nothing. I've had not bleeding. I've also had no morning sickness or other symptoms that wouldn't be caused by the progesterone pessaries I have to use morning and night.
Our first appointment with the ob/gyn I chose for this pregnancy is coming up, so I haven't bothered following up with our fertility specialist about getting another scan. I have some hope - hey, maybe it will be fine - I really hope that it is. I also have some doubts.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
All positives
My HCG blood test was positive, with my HCG coming in at 183. My second HCG blood test came back at 382. This is all positive. They are looking for the HCG to double at this early stage, and mine did that.
There is nothing extraordinary about these numbers, that is, they didn't say 'wow that's big, maybe it will be twins'.
Two week wait is officially over, however once you know you are pregnant it is just more weeks of waiting. I am again waiting for the first ultrasound. The ultrasound will confirm if obiwan and obitwo are both still hanging on. Waiting to find out if the pregnancy is viable at this time. Then, if the first ultrasound is good news, it is just more waiting, to find out if the pregnancy will last the next week, 2 weeks and so on.
Thankfully after our last pregnancy loss we sat down with our fertility specialist to discuss what was going on (here's my blog on that). He told us that despite having lost 5 babies in early pregnancy, that we really were just unlucky, versus there being something specific causing the problem. Four of the five pregnancy losses were completely random and could happen to anyone. The fact that they all happened to us is apparently just really bad luck.
Armed with this knowledge, I've created myself a new mantra or two during this pregnancy:
I wish I didn't need the mantras, but I do. I am occasionally overwhelmed with it all and not even the mantras help. I've downloaded an anxiety information sheet and read it when I'm feeling really anxious to try and help diffuse the feelings.
There is nothing more I can do about it I guess. I just have to wait it out.
There is nothing extraordinary about these numbers, that is, they didn't say 'wow that's big, maybe it will be twins'.
Two week wait is officially over, however once you know you are pregnant it is just more weeks of waiting. I am again waiting for the first ultrasound. The ultrasound will confirm if obiwan and obitwo are both still hanging on. Waiting to find out if the pregnancy is viable at this time. Then, if the first ultrasound is good news, it is just more waiting, to find out if the pregnancy will last the next week, 2 weeks and so on.
Thankfully after our last pregnancy loss we sat down with our fertility specialist to discuss what was going on (here's my blog on that). He told us that despite having lost 5 babies in early pregnancy, that we really were just unlucky, versus there being something specific causing the problem. Four of the five pregnancy losses were completely random and could happen to anyone. The fact that they all happened to us is apparently just really bad luck.
Armed with this knowledge, I've created myself a new mantra or two during this pregnancy:
- Short mantra - there is no reason this pregnancy shouldn't work
- Long mantra - millions of other people find out they are pregnant and don't worry about losing it and there is no reason this pregnancy won't be like the ones all those other people have.
I wish I didn't need the mantras, but I do. I am occasionally overwhelmed with it all and not even the mantras help. I've downloaded an anxiety information sheet and read it when I'm feeling really anxious to try and help diffuse the feelings.
There is nothing more I can do about it I guess. I just have to wait it out.
Monday, January 2, 2012
A happy new year
As of today I'm eight weeks pregnant and I've seen in the new year with everything looking rosy on the baby-making front.
We had a pregnancy viability scan in Cairns while we were on holidays and it was everything I could have hoped for. Only 1 baby, measuring 0.49cm, which equates to 6 weeks and 1 day with a heartbeat of 113 beats per minute. I asked the sonographer to have a good look around to check that another gestational sack wasn't implanted somewhere it shouldn't be, but nothing else could be found. This is the first time I've left an ultrasound place happy. The result was conclusively excellent!
I felt mixed feelings of relief and disappointment that only one embryo took. Having two babies seems like a great long term outcome and takes the pressure off needing to try to get pregnant again any time soon. However, I know that one baby has a much better chance of progressing to healthy, trouble free pregnancy and birth. That's exactly what we need, fewer troubles.
In the last couple of weeks early pregnancy symptoms have truly kicked in. Fatigue is my worst symptom. I nearly always need a nap. I'm also experiencing a touch of morning sickness, which for me has been a lot more like all day sickness. I feel a little bit sick, not enough to vomit as yet, nearly all day. I'm trying to pin point what makes it better and what makes it worse, but haven't been able to nail it down. I've also become a champion burper.
At eight weeks the baby is still really small. Apparently it would now be around 1.4 - 2.0 cm and would still have remnants of a tail. Gross. If all continues to go well, the tail should be gone soon enough. :)
We had a pregnancy viability scan in Cairns while we were on holidays and it was everything I could have hoped for. Only 1 baby, measuring 0.49cm, which equates to 6 weeks and 1 day with a heartbeat of 113 beats per minute. I asked the sonographer to have a good look around to check that another gestational sack wasn't implanted somewhere it shouldn't be, but nothing else could be found. This is the first time I've left an ultrasound place happy. The result was conclusively excellent!
I felt mixed feelings of relief and disappointment that only one embryo took. Having two babies seems like a great long term outcome and takes the pressure off needing to try to get pregnant again any time soon. However, I know that one baby has a much better chance of progressing to healthy, trouble free pregnancy and birth. That's exactly what we need, fewer troubles.
In the last couple of weeks early pregnancy symptoms have truly kicked in. Fatigue is my worst symptom. I nearly always need a nap. I'm also experiencing a touch of morning sickness, which for me has been a lot more like all day sickness. I feel a little bit sick, not enough to vomit as yet, nearly all day. I'm trying to pin point what makes it better and what makes it worse, but haven't been able to nail it down. I've also become a champion burper.
At eight weeks the baby is still really small. Apparently it would now be around 1.4 - 2.0 cm and would still have remnants of a tail. Gross. If all continues to go well, the tail should be gone soon enough. :)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Slow news days
For the first time in pregnancy I have experienced slow news days. Literally nothing is happening.
Last Thursday I did my follow up blood test and my HCG levels had more than doubled to 420 - which is great and exactly what should be happening in those early weeks. In my three previous pregnancies I had spotting/bleeding to different degrees by this time. But this time, I have nothing.
This week Matt even asked when my next test will be. I had to tell him I don't need to have any tests because nothing is going wrong. We were both kind of laughing about it. How strange it was that I wasn't running in to do blood tests every other day and then waiting for the result. I told Matt that I actually don't feel like I'm pregnant because my experience of pregnancy has always been so stressful and worrying. Without the worry, it feels just like normal.
We do have a viability ultrasound referral. Unfortunately due to the Christmas holidays I can't go into the specialist's office for the viability scan. The good thing about going to an ultrasound place is they have better equipment so we should be able to see the baby (or babies - slightly freaking out about that now it seems it could be a real possibility). The bad thing is if something is wrong I then need to track down a doctor to interpret the scan.
I know exactly what I want to see during the ultrasound. A great big strong heart beat. A baby (or babies - still freaking out) that measures within a day or two of the size it should be. I want to see a conclusive result so we know the baby (or babies...) is well and doing what it should do.
Occasionally I catch myself and I know I am really excited. It feels like this time it is for real. Then I have days, like today, where I wake up and think "maybe it's blighted ovum, I've never had that happen and that would be just our luck." There is no reason to believe this is blighted ovum, I just can't believe that finally this could be it.
Today I am 5 weeks and 3 days pregnant and everything is looking good, although it is still super early days.
The old adage no news is good news rings true.
Last Thursday I did my follow up blood test and my HCG levels had more than doubled to 420 - which is great and exactly what should be happening in those early weeks. In my three previous pregnancies I had spotting/bleeding to different degrees by this time. But this time, I have nothing.
This week Matt even asked when my next test will be. I had to tell him I don't need to have any tests because nothing is going wrong. We were both kind of laughing about it. How strange it was that I wasn't running in to do blood tests every other day and then waiting for the result. I told Matt that I actually don't feel like I'm pregnant because my experience of pregnancy has always been so stressful and worrying. Without the worry, it feels just like normal.
We do have a viability ultrasound referral. Unfortunately due to the Christmas holidays I can't go into the specialist's office for the viability scan. The good thing about going to an ultrasound place is they have better equipment so we should be able to see the baby (or babies - slightly freaking out about that now it seems it could be a real possibility). The bad thing is if something is wrong I then need to track down a doctor to interpret the scan.
I know exactly what I want to see during the ultrasound. A great big strong heart beat. A baby (or babies - still freaking out) that measures within a day or two of the size it should be. I want to see a conclusive result so we know the baby (or babies...) is well and doing what it should do.
Occasionally I catch myself and I know I am really excited. It feels like this time it is for real. Then I have days, like today, where I wake up and think "maybe it's blighted ovum, I've never had that happen and that would be just our luck." There is no reason to believe this is blighted ovum, I just can't believe that finally this could be it.
Today I am 5 weeks and 3 days pregnant and everything is looking good, although it is still super early days.
The old adage no news is good news rings true.
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