BETA #2 IN!

So take a BETA guess. . . "500," you say? . . . Higher.

"700?" . . . Higher.

"1000?" . . . HIGHER.

1346!!!

Yeah, I can't believe it either! I was hoping for 500!!! Wowza! Both progesterone and estrogen are looking great, too!

So now what? . . . we wait. Another 2ww until the first Ultrasound on April 8th. We will be a little over 6 1/2 weeks. O.M.G. Is this for real???

Until then we will be on pins and needles, trying to be healthy and not gain a bunch of unnecessary weight eating crapola. So tonight, to celebrate, DH and I are going to Red Robin :) LOL. No seriously, we are! Red Robin is the only place I can order a Salmon salad and eat it without gaging. Sounds crazy, I know. They have the BEST blackened salmon salad EVA!

After dinner, DH and I are going to Barnes and Noble to buy a new "baby journal".

Ah yes, the life I've dreamed of. I am waiting until about 6 weeks to make a ticker. (I don't want to jinx it). We are also waiting until Mid-May (11-12 weeks) before we tell people.

*Sigh*

I'll have to begin my registry in secret! :) 4 weeks and 2 days pregnant. . . and counting. . .

Beta #1 DRAWN!

Beta was drawn this morning at around 8:45am.

Now we wait-- and wait. . . hopefully, I will have results around noon.

Please, please, please-- HUGE BETA!!!!

Hump day.

Well, not for DH and I.

More like half-way to BETA on Sunday.

I am very antsy and anxious to POAS! But I won't. This time I;m going to do this different. Mostly because DH and I are having a combined birthday party the night before BETA. The last thing I want to do is have bad news before the party. . .UGH. I don't know.

Of course it would be great to party knowing I had the BFP-- but I am just so nervous-- so used to disappointment. Not that I've gotten bad news at the BETA necessarily, but more the aftermath of the BFP has turned sour--each time. *Sigh*

4 days. . . dear Lord. Please give me strength to get through the week: Job, politics, home, IF and the stresses of life in general.

Yesterday, I screwed up the estrogen pills. Monday night I feel asleep without taking it. Tuesday morning, I took it ASAP. Then Tuesday night, I took one exactly 12 hours later, thinking that would help. But then I took ANOTHER one for night-time from my pill box with the other 9 pills I take each day. WHOOPS!!! I hope that is okay. I called the RE's office and they said it was fine :/

Now time for another PIO shot!!!

And for fun--

The snowbabies! Remember I said I picture them in winter hats and mittens???

Oh, life. . . .

It has been a while-- I know.

With conferences and the holidays, I've been swamped.

But there are a few updates since I've been MIA.

1. On 11.19 my BETA dropped to 13. Good news. But even better when yesterday, 11.27 it was negative. Finally. We can move on, physically, from this.

2. No deals on the house-- all our cleaning has been in vain thus far. . .

3. I've set up an apt, on Dec 10th, with my RE to meet and discuss the surgery on Dec 22nd. Yes, this looks like it is actually going to happen. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Some days I am so glad that the "tubes" will be out of the baby equation. Other days I have already begun to mourn the loss of my female reproductive parts.

But DH made a whole lot of sense the other day. . . I was going over my reasons for having the surgery and the other reasons why I am not looking forward to it. I told him even though I know both our pregnancies have been ectopic, I am feel like I am losing my 'fetility'; That with the tubes disconnected the reality is we will never get pregnant without IVF.

DH said something like, "I don't think we will ever get pregnant with them attached. You can't lose a function that you never had."

Although painful, it is true. I needed someone to say, "So what?!?! Get over it. If you want to actually have a baby, this is what you need to do."

The "natural" way has never worked for us and it most likely never will.

I couldn't bring myself to risk our other four embryos again. I need to do something different. Even if this doesn't 'solve the problem' at least there is no chance they will ever get stuck in my tubes again. If they're not in the uterus next time, I'll spend the next FET cycle rolling around in a wheel chair so those suckers don't fall out! :)

4. I'm beginning my yearly November cleanse again. This is year two. I guess that makes it a yearly event. My cousin gave me the idea last year when she was doing one. I needed to get off some weight, and it worked. I lost about 20 lbs. I kept it off until IVF meds about two months ago--and actually only gained about 10 back.

I'm hoping to lose 20 lbs again this time. Going for the magical 150lbs that I've been eyeing for so long.

When I was younger I was always around 140-150 at 5'5". Then, after sports and high school ended, I got up to the mid 160's. I reached 150 by exercising 2x per day and restricting my eating to less than 500 calories a day. Not exactly healthy. And obviously, I gained it all back.

Now 10 years after high school graduation, I need to lose some of this. Not be be vain, but for health reasons-- mine and the kiddos I'm hoping to soon be hosting for nine months.

So tomorrow it begins. Another round of the vegan cleanse. I'm going to be on it until the day of my surgery, December 22nd.

I'll post updates as I go along.

I want to make it to an Ultrasound.

That's our goal.

A 6-week ultrasound photo.

Baby steps, right? One step at a time.

So far our last BETA was kinda on the low side, but if the next BETA doubles (or more) we could well be on our way to another BETA test on the weekend.

THEN, if we have high enough numbers that keep growing-- it's a short (but endless feeling) wait until the ultrasound at 61/2 weeks.

We just want to see the little one on the ultrasound screen--hear a heartbeat. . . Frankly, I don't think that's too much to ask, right? Not for me or any of the other girls.

The fight is ON PEOPLE!!! Grow embies!!! NUZZLE IN!!!!

BETA in.

40.4 . . .

Not that great, but something.

I'm having a hard time being excited. Last time we were temporarily preggo it was 45. My fear is that this could be another ectopic by the way it is growing. But then again, who knows!

DH and I just cannot get excited yet. While we are happy it is not zero, we can't celebrate until we know for sure.

Thursday will be BETA #2. We will go in early in the morning, and then get results by noon-ish. DH and I will be home for teachers convention and will be able to get the call much earlier.

I wish I had some more joyful news but with our history, it is still too up in the air.

What I do need is a whole truckload of doubling dust!!! That beta needs to be 90+ next time!!!

Beta #1, tomorrow morning.

BETA #1 is tomorrow morning at 7am.

DH and I will call for the results when he comes home tomorrow afternoon around 3:30pm.

I have no idea what to expect. I have had horrible sharp pain in my lower abdomen all day today. I actually called the doctors office and told the nurse since I had no idea what was going on. It hurt on both sides and was relentless as one point. But nurse seemed not to be too concerned, but she understood I was in pain and wrote me another Rx for vicodin.

She also mentioned how women have called in with this problem before, and that many times it can be a sign they are pregnant. She explained the ovaries can be aggravated by the hormones and HcG. This does not mean I am pregnant, but it is still a possibility.

I am completely clueless. We just want to know for sure.

Either way, we will have at least one more beta to confirm the results.

Thank you all for the love and support during this process. We hope and pray for a miracle tomorrow. Results will be posted in the evening.

ANOTHER beta in the AM.

I have yet another BETA in the morning.

However,

I am also having my wisdom teeth pulled about an hour later.

Yep. I know.

As if my life wasn't hospitalized enough. I now will have a pain in my mouth as well.

I most likely won't be able to post my BETA update for a couple of days--but who knows--maybe I'll be back and in tip-top shape before I know it! GOOD GOD WISH ME LUCK!

UPDATE:

My BETA from this morning, you know--before the TB test and wisdom teeth yank, is ---dah dah dah nah!!!!!

NEGATIVE!

My result was 0.7 !

This great news. "Friday the Thirteenth" actually turned out okay for me. (Wisdom teeth doing well, too.) I now can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

When I (tried to) talked to the nurse on the phone today, she said how I might be able to have my CD3 test this weekend and begin birth control pills after that! Which would mean I could begin injections for IVF mid-September! CRAZY!

If that is not the plan, the other option would be to wait for AF to rear her ugly head and then do CD3 testing followed by BCP and IVF injects. Not sure what the timeline for that would be? The earliest we could start injects with that plan would be 2nd week in October?

Either way would be fine with me. I just need to wait and see what my RE says--AND I still need to meet with the "new RE".

I am just so excited the ectopic is over. I'll miss my first "Little Buddy", but this is the path we needed to take--I'm ready to move to the next step.

The BETA's continue. . . .

I had another BETA drawn Saturday. Today (Sunday) they called with the results. I am now down to 24. I should need at least one more BETA this Friday. Hopefully I am at ZERO, but that is wishful thinking. The numbers have dropped relatively fast, even though my beginning beta wasn’t that high.

I am now just getting antsy about starting IVF. I want to get going NOW but DH and I are in deep debate about with path to take and/or what to do once we have (fingers crossed) become pregnant. At least I picked a good one—DH and I agree on many things and, thankfully, this has been a pretty tame conversation.

I just wonder if I’ll be starting Birth Control Pills (BCP) in September, if my beta continues to drop. My guess is that I will be having the CD 3 (cycle day 3) tests no later than mid-September.

This is all assuming we stay with my current RE, which I am still not sure if that’s what I want to do. When I meet with the new guy on the 24th, we will all have a much better idea about what is going on and where we want to be.

Drop BETA, DROP!

Ectopic beta #1

Beta results from the ER last Saturday were 371.
I was hoping to at least drop a few points by today despite the fact that they said it may actually rise before it begins to drop.

Today I called my RE's office. Yesterdays beta was 375. It actually went up a few points.

Dammit.

The woman said not to worry until we see Saturdays results. Hoefully, by then it should go down. If not, then we may need to do another round of methotrexate or surgery that would be similar to a laproscopy, removing the pregancy from my tube or perhaps even part of the left tube itself.

Fun.

I go in for the beta Saturday at 8am. I hope to hear by 11 that morning.

Post e/p Beta #1

The first Beta after the ectopic pregnancy is scheduled for tomorrow.

The hope is my beta will eventually drop to zero (or less) from the methotrexate. Days 4 (tomorrow), 7 and the same for weeks following until it drops. Hopefully they will not have to give me another set of shots or do some other scary sounding thing. But that only needs to be if the numbers don't drop. So as much as I never thought it would be something I would wish for, I hope my numbers are at zero, very soon.

I have had no bleeding yet, but there is still abdominal cramping. I was prescribed some vicodin which helps a lot. But don't take two! I was trippin' out last night! Ha! A bit too much.

My DH and I are feeling like we cope better each day and are ready to get moving on. I am diving head first into all things IVF. Right now I am trying to decide if I want to change RE's or stay where I am for the time being. I cannot get in to see my current RE until August 19th, so it will be a long wait. God, I hope something good develops between now and then,

Beta #2.

Beta #2 159.1.

WE ARE IN SHOCK.

We are also SO HAPPY!!!

We are waiting to tell everyone just in case the unthinkable happens, which it wont. WE are thinking somewhere between 8-12 weeks we'll drop the bomb. Maybe then, 10 weeks is a good round number.

It seems strange to me, but I only have one more apt. with my RE. An u/s is scheduled for August 5th. That day, we should be able to hear baby's heart beating for the first time. Stayed tuned people. I promise I will loose it then! :)

Happy days. . . . . but I tell ya, these AF-like cramps are KILLING ME!!!

Last night we also went to Sephora and bought all new face lotions, wash, etc. All of mine had retin-A, or salasylic acid, or glycolic acid, or anthrax. . . you know the usual. I got all Boscia products since they do not use preservatives, colors, perfumes, etc. I actually used to use them a long time ago, but moved to my beloved Murad when skin issues got really bad. Here's to hoping it clears up some zits--the natural way!!!

BETA#1 IN!!!

43.5! She said I'm prego!!! For now anyways. We are cautiously optimistic.

However, the nurse said anything over 25 is good. BFP!!!

DH and I are in shock. We are sitting here, just staring at each other.

DH is so cute, too. When I asked him, "What we were going to do now?" He said. "We're going to Barnes and Noble because I have no idea what happens next!" (He needs books to read :)

In general the hCG levels will double every 72 hours. The level will reach its peak in the first 8 - 11 weeks of pregnancy and then will decline and level off for the remainder of the pregnancy.-AmericanPregnancy.org

On Sunday, we go in for beat #2. We hope to double our numbers. Monday, we get the results. That will mean either another beta or setting up the appointment for our 7-week u/s.

Oh my. oh my. OH MY!!!