Thanks

Although I read and comment on most of your blogs (I strive for all...) I don't usually take the time to sort of "respond" to your comments on my own blog.

I know you all know this from personal experience anyway, but I wanted to tell you all that your support means a lot. Thank you all so much for your comments and your encouragement.

The miscarriage/infertility world seems really lonely sometimes. Most of the people in my real life don't get it. That's not to say that they're not sympathetic, but they haven't been there. It's really nice to be able to bounce ideas off of a group of people who have been there, and do get it.

That's all.

Not sure how to feel

I'm not ready to let myself believe that it's really true yet. I've got another HCG draw coming up, plus Nurse nbu says they will want to do an ultrasound next week. (Personally, I think it's far too early for an ultrasound, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't think they'll be able to see anything but a lot of fuzz.)

Here's the game plan right now. I'm on 8% Crino.ne (proges.terone gel) and one baby aspirin per day. My proges.terone level from yesterday's draw was 22.7, which I think is acceptable, though not stellar, for this point in the pregnancy. I'll take it.

Other than that, I'm just doing the same old, same old. There's so, so, so much waiting. Waiting to get pregnant. Waiting to try after a miscarriage. Waiting to ovulate. Waiting to be able to do an HPT. Waiting for your period. Waiting for the bloodwork. Waiting for the ultrasound. Jaysus... For all of us in (roughly) the same boat, it's just amazing how much waiting there really is. Hoping these first few weeks fly by and that there's still a baby growing in there by the time they're over...

544

That's my HCG from today's blood draw.

I'm not ready to call this a home run and throw away my unused HPTs yet, but I would definitely like to give a shout-out to Nurse nbu and tell her to suck it.

Hope against hope

I have the tiniest shred of hope. It's probably just me burying my head in the sand, but here's what I figured out.

Last time I thought I should ovulate on a Wednesday, I didn't get a positive OPK until Saturday.

Hypothetically speaking, if I ovulated even three days late, I might have been only on DPO 15. According to a couple of charts I looked at, the average hcg for day 15 is 59. My hcg yesterday was 58. That could explain why the HPTs came back negative for so long.

Then I looked back at my calendar to see the beginning of my pregnancy with D. According to my LMP, he should have been due on July 4th. When I went for my first doctor's appointment, they told me he wasn't due until TWO WEEKS LATER. (If they told me that now, it would have completely freaked me out, but back then it just rolled off my back because I wasn't expecting bad news, and I didn't know what was normal.) He was indeed born a day after the due date that they predicted.

I'm still going to have a hard time enjoying the long weekend, but I'm not ready to completely give up hope until I hear the numbers on Tuesday - no matter what Nurse nbu thinks "in her medical opinion"...

Not so fast

What? You were excited (just a little) about a positive pregnancy test?

Not if Nurse nice-but-useless has anything to say about it.

A snippet of our phone call with blood test results:

Nurse nbu: Soooo... you decided to get a blood test today after all.

Me: Yes, because Dr. N. told me to. Remember I was telling you how my last m/c was at 6 weeks and he wants me to start on progesterone a.s.a.p.?

Nurse nbu starts talking over the end of my sentence...

Nurse nbu: Well, it's a positive result, but the hcg number is low. It's only 58. It should be around 500. We'll retest on Tuesday to see where it goes.

Me: Okay. Well, not that this necessarily means anything, but my positive pregnancy test with my son was several days after I expected my period.

Nurse nbu: (with HUGE amounts of doubt in her voice) Well... yes, It could be possible that you got pregnant later than you think you did.

(More talk about prenatals and baby aspirin and proges.terone.)

Me: Okay, well have a nice weekend.

Nurse nbu: (with "sympathetic head tilt" voice) Yooou toooooo.

Now, I know that she doesn't want to give us tragic infertiles false hope, but REALLY now... Could she at LEAST have said "we'll hope for the best" or something like that?

Pink

The end of the proges.terone applicator, that is... after I used it this morning following my positive HPT.

Really, God? Not that I'm not grateful for the positive HPT, but could you just give me ONE FREAKING DAY without worrying that I might be miscarrying because I see pink on the end of the applicator??

Update: Got a little bit of brown mucous on the tp after that, too. I guess that's the way it works. Three minutes of excitement and 9 months of worry. At least it wasn't red. I guess that's something.

On being my own advocate

Last month, I expressed my frustration over the lack of guidance, (or lack of good judgment) of the nurse at the fertility doc's office. (You can see that post here if you're interested.) I stated that I have discovered that I need to insist (in a nice way) that I talk to the people I need to talk to and see the people I need to see.

Today was my test case.

I called Dr. N's office to ask for the results of my anticardio.lipin retest. They had Nurse nice-but-useless call me back. After going back and forth about the fact that the high risk doc ordered the blood test so I should call the high risk doc's office, oh yes, she did have the results after all.

This time the numbers she tols me sounded totally normal. Of course, when I said, "so that's normal, right?" she said, "I can't interpret the results for you." Previously, this would have been a conversation ender, with me meekly saying, okay, no problem, but this time with my "advocate" hat on, I said, "Dr. N told me that I should talk with him to review the results of the test."

Nurse nice-but-useless: He did?

Me: Yes. And by the way, I was supposed to get my period either yesterday or today and I've had no spotting, yada, yada, strange for me, yada, yada, three negative HPTs, yada, yada. Should I come in for a blood test?

Nurse nbu: (very nicely) If you haven't gotten your period by day 40, call us.

Me: Really? Well, the thing is that Dr. N wants me to start on the Progest.erone as soon as I find out I'm pregnant, and my last loss was at six weeks. (40 days would be like five and a half weeks...) So anyway, how does it work? Is it possible for him to call me?

Nurse nbu: (cheerily) Okay then, so I'll have him call you!

_______________________________________
Insert time lapse
_______________________________________

Dr. N. calls.

He starts to go over things we've already talked about and I kind of interrupt him to say that I really was calling about the test results. He confirms that they are totally normal. High risk doc had said that the levels can fluctuate, so (in my opinion) there's no way of knowing if the high numbers are right, or the normal ones. Anyway... He starts talking about the Clo.mid for next cycle. I interrupt him again and tell him that it might not be necessary. I tell him I'm planning on taking another HPT on Friday. He says to go in to the lab Friday morning to get blood drawn if I still haven't gotten my period. He'll put a rush on it.

Here's the kicker.

If the blood test is positive, he wants me to start taking the Progest.erone immediately. Nurse nbu was content to have me wait until I was teetering on the brink of when I had my last loss, and Dr. N. wants me to take Progest.erone a.s.a.p.

Last time I was content to think that I just need to be more assertive, and so I was. This time I'm thinking, how many other people out there are getting the wrong advice from her?

Why is this nurse allowed to give out ANY medical advice????

Quite honestly, I'm not that thrilled with Dr. N at this point either. If I get pregnant, I'm looking forward to the day when I get passed back to the "normal" OB from the specialist.

If you could recommend...

I love all of my bloggy friends's blogs and enjoy keeping up with their stories. I'm looking to expand my horizons a little bit though, so I'd love to find a few new awesome blogs to follow. Can anyone recommend one or two that you just can't live without? I'm looking for people who are in the same or similar boat as me, and preferably ones with not too many followers so I won't just be "one more person" following their blog!

Feel free to leave your suggestions anonymously if you're afraid of offending your own readers by not choosing THEIR blog as your go-to blog. :)

By the way, I started taking baby aspirin two days ago... just in case. AF is still a no-show. Still no spotting either. I didn't take an HPT this morning because I didn't want to waste another one. I'm thinking about calling the doctor tomorrow to get a blood test though, because I want to start taking progesterone a.s.a.p. if there really is a little bun in the oven.

Not Pregnant, Not Pregnant, Not Pregnant?

I'm sorry for my long absence... The truth is, I just don't have much to say.

I've taken three HPTs over the last three days: all big fat, in your face, digital "not pregnant" results.

However.

I haven't started spotting yet. That's unusual for me. I usually start spotting several days (like four or five) before my period is due because of my progesterone issues. My period is due tomorrow (or today, if we're going by a normal 28 day cycle, but I'm often 29 days.)

So it totally sucks to still be waiting, but I guess it could be worse. I could be spotting.

The thing is, I didn't get a positive test until several days after my period was due when I got pregnant with my son. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Word Verification

I'm totally psycho when it comes to word verifications on other people's blogs. When gallerygirl was newly pregnant, I got "ovelit" (as in, "the oven is lit" ala "there's a bun in the oven") as a word verification on her blog, and it had me convinced that either she or I was pregnant. (It turned out she was, and still is!) There have been many other times when the word verifications have seemed meaningful in some way - like they were predicting the future or something. (Yes, I already know I'm crazy, thankyouverymuch.)

So I'm in my two week wait. I keep waiting for those stupid word verifications to start taking on some meaning, but, nothing... Same old crap. Nonsense words. (Shocking, isn't it?)

In spite of all this, I'm optimistic. I'm hoping that if we don't get preggo this cycle, the clo.mid will help next time. (I'm all about having things to look forward to.) Meanwhile, I'm very, very eager to be pregnant. So here's what I've done over the past few days*:

1. Eaten tunafish (only chunk light, so less mercury)
2. Eaten deli meat (Listeriosis! Ack!)
3. Had wine (Fetal alcohol syndrome! Gasp!)
4. Licked the beater after making cookie dough (Raw egg... eek!)
5. Cleaned out the cat's litterbox (Toxoplasmosis! Oh no!)
6. Cleaned the shower (Oh, the fumes!)
7. Stood within 10 feet of the microwave while it was on (Radiation! Deformity!)

After a weekend like that of potential hazards to a developing blastocyst, it's a virtual lock that I'm going to be pregnant when I pee on a stick, right?

*I'm not trying to make light of being careful about what you put in your body when you're pregnant. I followed ALL of these rules every time I was pregnant. However, I'm just trying to say that it's Murphy's Law that things happen when you don't expect them to.

Coupon queen

After a few weeks of earnestly trying to grab every sale out there and studying the circulars on Sunday morning like it's my JOB, I can report that I'm happy with my progress so far.

I've been using coupons forever. I've been checking unit prices to get the best deal for a very long time too, but I've finally grabbed onto that last piece, which is to make special trips to specific stores if there are really good sales. Now that D is so mobile, it's much easier.

I just got a kick-a$$ deal on mousse a few weeks ago. On top of a very low price, you got $5 back in extrabucks if you bought three. I had 3 $1 coupons (one for each can of mousse) so I ended up netting the three cans of mousse for about $0.25. And this is the brand of mousse we usually use! I did the same sort of thing a few weeks ago with shaving cream. Then today at the grocery store I bought some Simple.Green cleaning solution. The price was $3.19 and I had a $3 coupon. Woohoo!

I'm definitely getting great deals on some things, but I'm coming to the conclusion that some of the deals are regional. (They don't really do triple coupons here in the northeast.) I'm not sure that I will ever be able to get my cereal for free around here. (Cheap, yes. Free? No.) Maybe I'm wrong, but either way, I'm pretty happy with my results in the first few weeks of drug store deals.

The sick thing is that I get SO excited about this sh*t. I call my husband at work and say, "you're never going to believe this deal that I just got!" Ladies, this is what happens when you take a "type A" and give her a goal... Now I'm off to make a price spreadsheet to compare my bluk BJ's prices with drug store sale prices.