Graduation day (10w3d)

Yesterday was graduation day for us.  We had a very calming US, which showed a 155 hb and CRM of 3.5cm which is almost an inch and a half.  We saw our RE and she kicked us out.  She was super nice and gave us hugs and everything, but I am so nervous to leave.  I feel so cared for, so protected with them.  She tried to get me into a female practitioner but the only person with time in the next 2 weeks was a man.  I am not too concerned, since it sounds like a big practice and everybody crosses around to each other, and if I don't love this guy I can make my next appointment with a woman.

 

The bleeding seems to have stopped this weekend.  I haven't had any bleeding for almost 3 whole days, which is a new record for us.  I really hope that was the end of it.  I am going to continue doppling myself until the next appointment just to keep myself from going absolutely crazy.

10w0d (today)

Thank you for all your kind words. H has been roping to the couch
for the last few days. He hasn't let me lift anything or do anything
around the house. It is really nice and I finished 2 novels this
weekend, but I feel pretty useless.

On a good note, it seems like we found the heartbeat again via
doppler. We hadn't been able to find it for several days. I hope
that is only a good sign.

Answered my question

I (foolishly) asked a rhetorical question in my last post. I asked
how do you know if bleeding is unusual if it happens for 29 days?
The answer is when it gets darker and red again. Then you know
something (else) is wrong.

9w4d

I am loving the home doppler idea. I haven't always been able to
find a heartbeat or can be 100% certain that what I am listening to
is actually a heartbeat, but today I put the wand on my belly and
immediately heard thump thump thump.

It was very nice and it made me feel better. It is nice to start the
day with a search and I feel so much calmer if I can find the
heartbeat. I am still spotting but seriously if it has been almost 4
weeks now, can you really call it 'unusual'? I am hoping that I will
just be one of those women who spot, but continue to have a
relatively normal pregnancy. I know that is a lot to ask but that is
what I want.

Today I might have experienced my first bout of nausea, or I was just
offended by H's cooking. Tough to call, but I couldn't eat anything
he put on the table and had to have a bowl of cereal instead.

And on the 12th day of bleeding...

my sweetheart gave to me... an ultrasound and a heartbeat.

Now it is actually the fourteenth day of bleeding, but when I started
this post it was the 12th.

I am still bleeding, just a little, but the ultrasound was fine and
the heartbeat/size was on target. We were very relieved about the
whole situation, but I think we were really expecting to be told bad
news that we weren't really responsive to anyone who gave us good news.

Now that it is sinking in, I am starting to get more happy, but I am
still trying to keep things reined in. I don't want the crash of
disappointment to be too enormous to handle.

We even heard a heartbeat on the home doppler this morning at 8w4d,
which apparently is pretty early. The doppler read the beat as less
than at the ultrasound, but it read my heartbeat as 200bpm, so I am
not sure the counting part is all that accurate. It was pretty clear
that it was the heartbeat we were hearing, so I hope it wasn't my
intenstines doing something funny. That would be disappointing.

I am tired most of the time. I basically go to work, come home, eat,
go to sleep. Do not pass go, do not collect 200$. I think partly it
is the pregnancy, but also it is a new job that I am working hard to
impress everyone at, so I think I am a bit overwhelmed and come home
to crash.

And, tomorrow is off to see the MIL. For the whole weekend. I can't
even type the statement without dreading every second. Fun Fun Fun.

Titles suck

I don't know what to call anything.  I don't want to do something cute and campy, because that is not me at all.  I don't just want a date stamp, though I guess that is helpful.

I just don't know.

Anyway, another tough weekend.  I just started work again after an extended period 'between employment'.  I didn't work too hard to find a job at first because I wanted to be able to 'relax' and just focus on treatment.  Well, that didn't work out as well as I would have hoped, so now I have found a new job that is a contract position.  It is with a company I was really hoping to get into and I am also hoping that it will eventually become permanent.

After work on Friday (3rd day!) I am on the phone with my aunt, just chatting away when I feel something wet 'down there'.  I figure there is some random something going on, so I hit the bathroom to find RED RED RED in my underwear.  I immediately get off the phone, call H and go directly to bed.  It was bright red and quick.  Not heavy, but each time I wiped there was a real amount in the paper.  Like a few mLs each time.  I basically stayed in bed freaking out all that night and spoke to the fellow on call.

He was super nice but clear that if this is a miscarriage there is absolutely nothing anyone can do for me.  I got up the next morning to find more blood, clumpy and dark.  I was supposed to spend the day with my mother but I cancelled, I just couldn't deal with it.

Sunday I still had spotting, but much less.  I finally just decided to go to the ER to try to get a US since our place does not do any scans unless they are scheduled.  All unscheduled scans must be done in the ER.

Turns out we still have a heart beat, 136(ish), and the fetus is ~7mm, which measures around a day or 2 behind.  We were a day behind at the last scan and are now either 1 or 2 days behind.  I am not sure exactly if this means we are falling farther behind or if the measurement has that much error built in.

Today is 7w2d, next scan is on 8w2d and I am on the couch for the next week, except for work.

New update

I went away right after my second beta.  We went to LA for a business trip for H.  I got to spend the week in a sunny city with fun shopping and even a celebrity sighting or two!  It was really nice, and I got to see my cousin and her next baby.  Yep, I decided to go on a trip to see the latest addition to our extended family.  I might be a little bit masochistic.

After the previous depressing betas, I had to find another clinic in the LA area to take my blood.  It was a frustrating afternoon, but it got done.  The results were improved from the Saturday reading.  The HCG was 899, which was just about double.  My clinic has a minimum of 1.66 every 48 hours, rather than strictly doubling, so I met their minimum, but not by much. 

I had to go back again, to a new clinic since my nurse HATED the clinic I went to on Monday.  She found them so hard to deal with that she wouldn't let me go back. 

My cousin found me a place near her apartment, which was nice, since I could have lunch with her and my aunt directly after.  The time difference made getting results difficult, but the following day I found out I was at 2730.  Which, after 72 hours is completely acceptable by any standard. 

I had my ultrasound yesterday at 6w0d and we were right on for size and had a 106 heartbeat.  The article I read stated that if there was inadequate doubling during the first 5 weeks, even with a heartbeat, there is no successful pregnancy after first trimester.  I am trying to be happy about hitting this milestone, though I know I have been here before. 

H is happy though and hoping for the best.  I am hoping for the best, but I don't know how much faith I can put into it.  I have this fear that if I actually believe in this pregnancy and think it is going to work, that is when the rug will be pulled out from beneath me. 

Still, we saw Sean Penn and Mike Tyson at dinner (not together) so that was a cool end to the week.

Then we returned home to week-long house guests who brought their 11-month old.  Did I mention the masochism??