Trust Me When I Say It’s Over October 3, 2004
I know a lot of people say, “Just wait until beta” or “You won’t know anything for sure until beta.” That may be true in a lot of cases, but trust me when I say it’s over. It’s so beyond over.
Yesterday afternoon I made another pregnancy test run and got some more FREDs. I took one yesterday afternoon and another this morning. Not a hint or a shadow of a second line on either of them. I mean they were the snow white tests that I’m used to seeing. I definitely can spot a one lined pregnancy test. And if that wasn’t enough, the almost ignorable, barely there spotting of yesterday has turned into dark spotting requiring definite attention. Yeah, I’d say it’s over.
I will go tomorrow morning for my beta if only to make it official. The other purpose of that trip will be to see if I can find out how long I’ll have to wait before jumping into a FET (that’s frozen embryo transfer for you people who stumble upon my blog by googling things like “ballet slippers fets”). Yeah, I don’t know what that means either.
Yesterday was extremely hard, both for me and my husband. I’m grateful that we got to spend the day together, though. It’s so hard to be “normal” when you find out that all of that pain, mentally, physically, financially, was all for nothing. I mean IVF was the hardest thing that I’ve ever done in my life. Each step was harder than the previous. God, it breaks my heart that it didn’t work, but I know that once the little pieces of my heart are picked up off the floor and super glued back into place that I will be a stronger woman for all of this. Oh, but how I wish this had worked.
Yesterday afternoon my husband and I went shopping to try to take our minds off things. We were both too depressed to buy much, though. Although my husband did manage to pick up a pair of $85 Ralph Lauren pants for $10. Bargain shopping is definitely a good thing when you know you’re going to have to shell out another few thousand to have another shot at the whole baby thing.
Life sucks and life isn’t fair and all of that. Really. Yesterday, I was fumbling around one of the IVF message boards that I read, and I went to check in on the under 30 message board that I post on. What did I find? One of my “cycle buddies” had just gotten back from her first ultrasound. Mind you, this particular group of women is made up of all first time IVFers. Anyway, her ultrasound showed twins. Two beautiful beating hearts. All I could think of was, “Shouldn’t that have been me?” I mean, don’t I deserve that as much as anyone else?
I always knew that having this IVF fail was a distinct possibility. I mean, come on, I’ve read enough blogs and message boards to know that this IVF stuff is a bitch. But I really thought we had a great chance at this. I have no fertility problems (that we know of) and my husband has good sperm (as long as they’re surgically removed from his body and used with ICSI). I responded pretty well, and we made great embryos. So much for having “perfect” grade 5 expanded blasts to transfer. Oh, and speaking of transfer, I really think that had something to do with this failure. I mean, couldn’t that have had a serious effect on either the embryos and/or my uterus? I’m sure we’ll never really know why this didn’t work, but we’ll always know how much it sucked.
Oh, and you want to know what else sucks? Having to bear the dreaded PIO injections when you know that your IVF has failed. The only thing that got me through those night after night was the thought of my future baby. Oh, it’s so hard to get stuck when I can no longer think such beautiful thoughts.
So, tomorrow I will wait for the call with the words that I never wanted to hear uttered to me. We will then try to figure out plan B. We know what it is (FET) but don’t know the particulars about when and what protocol, etc.
I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for their comments. I cried when I read each and every one of them. I never wanted to be the girl that got the “I’m sorry” comments instead of the “Congratulations” comments, but you know what, I think the “I’m sorry” ones mean a lot more. If I was in the place to receive congratulations right now, I don’t think I would need those comments nearly as much as I needed to read your comments yesterday. Knowing that those comments came from women who have survived this and so much more meant the world to me. Ok, I better stop writing now, because I really need to take a break from the whole crying thing, if only for a couple of minutes. I love you girls. You’re the best.
The Beginning of the End October 2, 2004
After yesterday’s line/no line fiasco, I decided to pick up a different brand of pregnancy tests from the store. I bought the Clearblue Easy digital ones. They seemed to be the answer to my line dilemma. They just show the words “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant.” Perfect. No line reading necessary.
So, on to my next task. Holding it long enough to test. I have to pee constantly thanks to the progesterone, so this was semi agony. I got up to pee at 1am and was then determined not to get up again for several hours. So hard. Anyway, I made it to 7:30 by sheer will power.
I went into the bathroom and assembled the nifty high tech pregnancy test. I was shaking so badly that I could barely keep it in the stream. I set the test on the counter and continued to pee for what seemed like forever. When I was done I peeked over and saw “Not Pregnant.” Not was I was looking for. I wasn’t completely devastated until I got to the toilet paper part of the event. Sure enough, I had started spotting. Fuck.
Then I heard from the bedroom, “So, what did it say?” I told my husband the news that neither of us wanted to hear.
I then went back to the test. Even though it’s a digital test, it still works like a traditional test with the lines. You just don’t see it until you pull the test apart. Well, of course I had to pull the test strip part out of the digital part just to see for myself. What did I see? Oh, yes. I very, very faint second line just like the tests yesterday. I mean it was beyond faint, but it was there.
The only explanation I can fathom from all of this is that I’m experiencing a chemical pregnancy. This would explain the fact that I have just enough HCG in my system to cast a shadow of a second line, but not enough for the damn test to utter that magical “p” word to me. I don’t know if this is what’s happening, but it’s the best that I can come up with.
I mean, seriously, if I were the illusive “p” word, I would have tested positive by now. I’m 11 days past a 5 day transfer. The average beta at this point is around 300. Home pregnancy tests start measuring at 25-50 depending on the test. Yeah, this isn’t looking good.
So, I will test again tomorrow morning and have my beta done Monday morning. To be quite honest, though, all hope is gone in my mind. I know people say that spotting does happen in early pregnancy, but everyone that I’ve heard of spotting right before beta has received a negative come beta day.
I’ve said all along that I wanted to know the results before beta day. I didn’t want some nurse calling me with the dreaded news while I was all alone at home one day. I wanted my husband to be able to wrap his arms around me and comfort me, and that’s exactly what he did today. But let me tell you, it is way too fucking hard to go from thinking pregnancy and baby thoughts one day to this the next day. WAY TOO FUCKING HARD.
I Finally Caved October 1, 2004
And I’m kicking myself for it. I knew I would, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I woke up this morning at 4:30 and decided that it was as good as time as any to test. I peed on the damn stick and waited. I honestly can say that I have no clue of what the results are.
I looked at the window of the test very closely. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, and it was driving me crazy. I saw the control line nice and dark, no problem there, but next to it was a shadow of a line. It wasn’t completely blank, but it wasn’t a definite line either. It was like a shadow of where the line should be. What the fuck? I had no clue what this meant. So, I did what any rational IVF patient would do, I took the damn test apart. I held that strip up to the light and up to a white piece of paper. It was so weird. I just couldn’t tell. Was it an evaporation line? Was it a very, very, very faint line? Was it just where the pee went over the chemical on the strip? Far be it from me to know. I’ve never seen a second line before. I don’t know what the hell they’re supposed to look like.
Of course I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got a whopping 4 hours last night. I showed my husband the dismantled test, and he agreed that it wasn’t blank but it wasn’t like there was a real line either. I decided I needed to retest. I would do a few things differently this time. I would use a HPT that came free in a different box of ovulation predictor kits, so I knew it was from a different batch. I would hold it as long as possible before testing. This is a lot harder than it sounds thanks to the progesterone. I would also do the pee in the cup, dip the stick in the pee method.
So, I made it to 9:15 and took another test. Same damn results. Not a line, not blank. Ugh. So, I will make a Target run later today and buy some more tests. I’m not buying FREDs though, because I’m totally pissed at them. I will retest once again tomorrow morning and hopefully get a more definite result.
Yeah, this is why they tell you not to pee on a stick after an IVF. I’m exactly where I was yesterday, not having a clue about whether this worked or not. Why did I think that finding out whether or not this IVF worked would be a cut and dry thing? Nothing else about this whole process was easy, why should this be?
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