As I write this I am laying in bed. I'm waiting patiently for my husband to get home to go to sleep. Patiently means - he'll be here in about 2 hours. I've just finished my stretch of working and lets just say I had a critically ill patient and if I wanted a challenge I got it and had it for 4 nights. This patient tested my knowledge and my "gut" instincts. Thank goodness those are still "on". So now I'm exhausted... I've provided patient education to not only the wife, but the mother (who has some signs of Alzheimer's and so I did that 2 nights in a row... answered the same questions, and she responded in the same manner- it was kind of comical.) After the second episode the wife told me about the mother's condition.
Anyways... for two days I have not had internet. My provider was having issues and so I couldn't update. I have a headache right now so this may be brief, but really it's me talkiing so that's unlikely.
Sunday found me peeing on a hpt. I figured since we are in the process of putting a ban on them in our household I better pee on the last of the few lonely soldiers that are still here. It was an equate and it was a negative (okay a line that you'd have to really know how to read hpt's would see namely me), the internet cheapie I had peed on was faintly positive. I decided in my mind that my beta would be less than 10.
Monday was the designated day for beta which found me driving an hour after working all night, during that hour I called and scheduled an u/s. A girl can dream right? I decided to hold off on the beta and fudge the truth a bit and say that the equate was negative. U/S showed thin lining (duh) and no cysts... however no one was real clear if Dr. Y would let me cycle or not. After waiting a while I was told that I needed to still get the repeat beta. By now I've been up for approx 16 hours. Of course the lab was backed up at big hospital, so that took another hour. I got home, went to bed, had the results faxed and the beta was 9. (I had to laugh at this number because I had said it was less than 10 and had put the number in my mind at a 5-9). So yes, I can interpret urine pregnancy tests and come up with my own beta numbers and apparently I'm pretty accurate.
Monday afternoon I received a call from the RE's office. Dr. Y wanted me to wait a cycle. I of course wanted a reason and rationale... and asked for one. Primarily because if I wasn't such an honest person we'd already be cycling... They were calling my beta of 25 a pregnancy and that this was a miscarriage. Since I've cycled with a beta of 5, and a beta of 7 I figured why not with a beta of 9. SO devil's advocate that I am since he wasn't asking for a repeat beta I asked the nice nurse to ask him for his reasoning behind waiting.
Most woman who have a miscarriage are told to wait either 1 to 3 cycles... There is no actual evidence to support these things it's just what doctors tell you to do. I've read the reasoning to give you "emotional" time to heal. I healed back on Tuesday and Wednesday and briefly hallucinated on Thursday that things might work out, but knew in my heart that it wasn't meant to be. Emotionally I was as good as I was going to be - determined. When you look at my track record it reads like a soap opera... while I like soap opera's... I don't want my life to be one.
Anyways... so Tuesday comes and the RE's office calls again. Dr. Y still is asking us to take a cycle off, and truly try not to get pregnant this cycle (Had to laugh this coming from the RE's office). Dr. Y said there was no evidenced based medicine to suggest that it was the thing to do, but in his years of working as an RE he's done this and has had good results (it's okay I laughed at that and thought it's a long fall off that high horse). So we'll try not to get pregnant. We're not making any promises - the month I had the endometrial biopsy we used condoms, and I ended up with a beta of 7. The nurse also mentioned that maybe the prometrium isn't doing the trick since I spotted from 11 dpo to 15 dpo, then stopped for 2 days and started menses and maybe that might be part of the problem. We'll discuss with Dr. Y once we start cycling again and who knows what rabbit he's going to want to throw out of his hat at me.
On a very sad note the coworker who was doing IVF - she got her beta results yesterday... at work... it wasn't good news. I feel awful for her. I'm truly not sure what hurts worse and can only imagine the pain she feels at hearing negative. I'm thankful for every positive I've had - even if they haven't stayed long for me to enjoy them. I can't imagine the feeling of month after month of negatives. She and I talked a bit and she said "It's nice to talk to someone who may not be in the same boat as I am in, but at least is in the same ocean." I thought ya know what... that's exactly what it is. It's similar, yet different, but still has some of the same heartache. They have some frozen's that they're planning on using. I hope one of them turns into a pregnancy that ends in a baby.
I hope that for each and every one of you that is trying... and even myself (just not this cycle of course) so start praying that this is a short cycle so to speak.
4 comments:
Awww... Sami,
I'm so sorry for this roller coaster of emotions you have been enduring in past week.
I am 1 of those people that never tests + , month after month and I think testing + & then losing it would be worse.
On another note, a girl I work with had a m/c at 8 weeks and her doc told her to take a cycle off too. Needless to say, af never showed for her after her d&c & she now has a 21 month old baby girl.
Good luck!
You really should start selling your services. I think your ability to determine beta levels based on darkness of hpt lines is quite amazing. My insurance charges about $100 for a beta draw. You could really make some coin! ;) j/k
That's so awful about your coworker and the negative. I can only imagine how much the grief intensifies when you have that much invested in a cycle. It's not much of a comparison, but I can remember how much more difficult my medicated cycles were. My thoughts go out to them.
Personally, I say there's no harm in trying this cycle. If you guys are comfortable with it. That 1-3 month waiting period is bunk, especially with a natural m/c. You know this already, but they say it mainly for emotional reasons and to date the pg. But if you're charting, that's not an issue.
C is headed out of town this weekend, so I'll try to catch up w/ you then. (hugs)
Dear Sami, I'm truly impressed with your beta divination skills too.
I'm so sorry you've been told to take off this month. It seems utterly silly to impose this waiting time, since many women who miscarry at that stage (the non-charters, non-testers, non-IVFers, I mean) would not know that they'd been pregnant in the first place. I thought the waiting was for post-D&C recovery, or for pregnancies go on longer and cause massive hormonal changes.
I have even read that the three cycles after a miscarriage are particularly fertile. I wonder what your doctor is basing his assessment on?
I'm so sorry that your doctor recommended that you sit out this cycle; I know that's not what you were hoping to hear, and I can imagine how frustrating the delay is. Sometimes it feels like our lives are ALL ABOUT waiting, doesn't it?
You're in my prayers. Hang in there.
Post a Comment