Hello and Ed

last friday evening, we started calling grandparents and other close family who didn’t already know, to tell them the good news.  it was weird to say it out loud, and cool to hear how incredibly happy they were.

saturday we made our first trip out to buy something pregnancy-related.  we went down to ikea to find some curtains to use as a backdrop for weekly pregnancy photos.  on the way, i started having cramps.  when we got there, i had to head straight for the bathroom to take care of the prometrium, and by the time i was done, i felt horrible.  we went back to the car and i put my seat back and stuck my feet up on the dash and rested for about 20 minutes.  we finally went inside, but i had to stop to sit down and just generally felt awful.  i felt exhausted, and had an overwhelming urge to lay down and sleep. 

on the way home, i wanted to stop and pick up the classic book A Child Is Born (with photographs of pretty much the whole development of a fetus).  i think i didn’t want to admit how terrible i was feeling, so we stuck to the plan and went to find the book, instead of going home.  we headed to Barnes & Noble, and right as we found the book, i looked at ed and said ‘i have to go to the bathroom’.  i felt like i was going to fall over.  i had awful stomach cramps, plus regular cramps, shakes, sweats, dizziness - the whole deal.  and when i got to the bathroom, i found a lot of blood.  this wasn’t just spotting - it was a significant amount.  i dealt with it and came back out and told ed - we put the book down and left, and called the on-call doctor as soon as we were out of the store.

she was somewhat reassuring, but wanted me in for an ultrasound the next morning, and told me to take it easy for the rest of the day.  we went home and i passed out on the couch.  i was fine until about 11pm, and then the real pain started.  all on the left side, very sharp, and very scary.  i was afraid to take anything for the pain, so i spent most of the night awake.  sunday morning we got up early for the appointment and noticed something odd.  the progesterone injection sites were all red and swollen and itchy.  no idea what that’s about, since it’s been weeks since those shots.  we headed over to the clinic hoping for some answers.

we didn’t get any.  the ultrasound was inconclusive.  he couldn’t see a gestational sack in either tube, but he also couldn’t see one in the uterus.  he didn’t know what was causing the bleeding.  he sent me over for a blood draw, and we came home to wait - again.

a few hours later we got the call.  my hcg had dropped drastically.  that wonderful 1200 from friday had become 580.  the doctor said that it was likely that we had had a ‘chemical pregnancy’, which is doctor-speak for a very early miscarriage, but there was a very slim chance that we’d had twins and were losing one, and the other would be fine.  we hung up, spent a few minutes accepting what we’d known already, and decided not to sit around the house.  there was a lavender festival out on the peninsula, so we decided to take the ferry over and have a nice drive and maybe take some pictures.  i’d felt fine since that morning, so we figured we were okay to go out.

about halfway out on the ferry, i started having cramps again.  by the time we got to the dock, i was pretty miserable.  we literally drove off the boat, went to the end of the return line, and turned around to go home.  by halfway back, i was in so much pain i was in tears.  again, the pain was all on the left side.  we called the doctor again, and this time, he sent us to the ER, saying that we should be prepared for the possibility of me having surgery to determine if there was a tubal pregnancy.  after six hours in the ER, they never did figure out what was causing the pain, but they were able to see something in the uterus (although they couldn’t say if it was a gestational sack or a cyst).  again, the pain had gone away on its own, and they eventually sent us home, with no new answers. 

monday morning we called in to the clinic and were told to have a blood draw wednesday.  more waiting.  when that came back, what we’d known since sunday, and what i’d suspected since early july, was confirmed - hcg was 99.  for one reason or another, this time around was not going to work out.

so, we’ve gone from a weak positive which we assumed meant a negative, to slowly being convinced through a series of strong positives that we really did have a positive, to a frightening and prolonged negative.

as for how we’re doing, we’re okay.  we knew that this was a distinct possibility, especially with our history, and this time we were more equipped to handle it.  we know we have to mourn.  we understand that we didn’t just not get pregnant - we lost a pregnancy.  it’s a very different thing from just having a negative test.  and we have hope, too, since we’ve got six frozen embryos waiting for us.  because this has happened twice now, we may do chromosomal testing on each one before the next transfer, but that will be up to the doctor.  we have a month off now to let my body heal and let the clinic review the records and decide on the best way for us to move forward.

i think that on some level we expected this.  i never did get comfortable with the test results, and i knew that there had been a pregnancy, and i knew it wasn’t there any more, or not in any viable sense.  i wanted to believe it, but the best i could do was to go through the motions.  i figured i was just wearing thick armor, not letting myself get excited because i might get let down, but now i’m pretty sure that i was right to trust my instinct. 

on the other hand, i’ve always had a gut feeling that the second time would be the one.  we’ve even been told that for some people, for some reason, the frozen cycles have better success rates.  i won’t have to go through another retrieval, and the meds are much easier when you’re not having to stimulate egg growth.  i’ll still have injections, but nowhere near as many.  we’re really hopeful about moving forward.

in the mean time, wednesday evening we went out for pepperoni pizza and beer, and i’m glad to have a break from the prometrium.  we have a lot of other things to focus on, and we’re stopping to make time to deal with this as it hits us.  i wish i’d had better news to deliver this week, but i guess that will just have to wait a little while.

here is a quick round-up of the things that i’m not supposed to do while pregnant, according to the world at large, just off the top of my head.

• lift anything more than a couple of pounds
• garden
• handle raw meat
• take a hot bath
• have sex
• abstain from sex
• clean the cat box
• handle reptiles
• get bit by a tick
• use a VDT
• use a microwave
• think bad thoughts
• be around pesticides, paint, cleaning products
• run
• jump
• get herpes
• get upset
• be around smoke (cigarette, camp fire, anything)
• have chickens.  josh.

and how about what i can’t eat, beyond the obvious caffeine/alcohol/illicit drugs:

• tap water
• soft cheese
• rare or medium rare meat
• paté
• unwashed vegetables
• sushi
• green tea
• some kinds of fish
• anything smoked
• salami, pepperoni, similar preserved meats
• hotdogs (this gem is from one online list of don’ts: “Hot dogs have been implicated in several studies.” with no further explanation whatsoever.)
• deli meat
• nuts
• anything with chemical preservatives
• anything sold in certain plastics, which includes cans lined with those plastics
• anything unpasteurized
• any dairy that isn’t organic
• anything organic
• anything grown with chemical fertilizers
• anything not sanitized
• anything chemically treated
• anything not cooked beyond recognition
• anything with medicinal herbs (huh?  no garlic?)

what i love most is that one of the top things listed everywhere is to avoid stress.  yeah, okay.  i’ll get right on that, while i enjoy my sterilized organic breadcrusts.

it’s incredible the number of choices we have to make every day about what to eat, what to use in our house, who can do what chore - we’re making the best choices we can, while also trying to stay sane!  if all the things above are true, this species would have died out long ago.

the latest hole in my arm got us a count of 1233.9.  i guess it’s real!  this puts us above the levels we’d have with an ectopic pregnancy, and below the levels we’d have with twins.  this is good.  i’d love to have twins, but the risks are so much lower with one.  hey, right now i’m not picky!

also found out today that if we’re lucky and the doctor can get a good angle, we should be able to see the heart beating during the ultrasound on friday.  how’s that for a wake-up call? 

one other thing - i was having trouble figuring out how far along i am and what the due date would be because with IVF it’s all wacky and requires calculus.  okay, it doesn’t, but it may as well.  at this point, i’m five weeks and a couple of days.  the due date - ready for this? - is March 18th, my birthday!  crazy, huh?

oh, what a ride.

i’ve learned a couple things over the last few days:

1. spotting is normal.
2. cramping is normal.
3. spotting and cramping are normal.
4. good nurses are reassuring (katie rules).
5. spotting is normal.
6. like it or not, i’m very invested in this.
7. carbonated drinks make spotting and cramping worse.
8. a little bit of blood has the power to make me lay in bed at 4am terrified out of my mind.
9. spotting is normal.

ed and i are starting to believe this is real - but not at the same rate.  and we’re fluctuating.  i was finally getting comfortable with it, and ed was clearly not, and then a few hours later i was certain something was wrong and ed was okay.  after four years of let-downs, it’s really tough to believe those test results.  the overwhelming impulse is to think something must be wrong.  we’ll both feel a lot better after the test tomorrow, and then the ultrasound next friday will give us the reassurance that the pregnancy is in the right place, rather than up in a tube or something.

we saw a concert at the zoo last night (Aimee Mann) where kids under some age (10?) get in free, so there were a billion little kids all over.  that was sort of fun to watch.  lots of dads with infants in slings.  there was pretty much cuteness everywhere.  lots of little beautiful parent-child moments.  we sat right behind a family with a little girl who was 18 months old, and we watched as she figured out how to work a folding chair.  she had the most incredible face - she went from smile to smirk and back.  you could see the wheels turning, and you could tell when she was figuring out how to cause trouble.  she was actually sort of teasing her dad.  right next to them was another family with a boy about five or six years old.  at one point, his dad was sitting on the ground, and he was sitting on his dad’s lap and they were sharing an ice cream sandwich bar.  once it was gone, they took turns licking the wrapper.   all together now: awwwww!

to counteract the cute, the group sitting across the way from us had absolutely the ugliest frankenstein baby i have ever seen.  his/her head was damn near square, the baby was obviously twice the normal size, and it was constantly furious.  not crying, just seriously pissed, and glaring intensely at everything and everyone.  and one of the parent-child pairs that kept walking around the path in front of us included the meanest looking toddler i’ve ever seen; this kid couldn’t have been more than 18 months, but he just looked like he was going to kick some ass.  he was really… bulky.  i don’t know how else to describe it.  for one thing, he was bald.  and his head was sort of too small, so he was proportioned like a little person, not like a toddler.  and he walked like one of those gigantic professional wrestlers, sort of in a perpetual forward fall which made him look like he was stomping, and he had this ‘GTF out of my way’ look on his face the whole time, almost like he was just daring someone to start up with him.  it was pretty funny, actually.  i kept waiting for some geeky 7-year-old to run away from him crying. 

i know, i’m horrible.  sorry.  but oh my god you should have seen them.

we got dinner at the show, and about halfway through my hotdog i stopped mid-bite.  i knew if i took one more bite, bad things were going to happen.  i handed it over to ed and spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out what to eat.  nothing sounded good.  when we got home, i managed some ovaltine, but that was about it.  my routine’s all messed up.  that morning, i would have normally gone downstairs from my office for a breakfast sandwich from the deli, but the idea of ham (ew, those crunchy edges and oh my god what if there’s fat) and eggs (gag) just sounded awful.  it’s been all about dairy the last few days.  tea with milk, decaf mocha, cheese, instant breakfast.  right now all i want is cottage cheese and i don’t have any.  then last night when i got ready for bed, i joyfully told ed, “hey guess what! my boobs hurt!”  i doubt he’s as excited about that as i am.

other than those little things, i have no symptoms.  kinda weird. 

oh, and all the people in my family who have birthday cards sitting on my counter - i handle mail net-60.  it didn’t get lost.  i just suck.  i’m sorry.  i will make every effort to send them this weekend.

CNN is not the be-all-end-all of everything, but they tend to at least get their facts more or less straight.  they seem to get some good experts, do some good reporting, and their science spots are generally not totally messed up and unreadable.

and then there’s this ridiculous piece of crap story.

where do i even start?

if you froze eggs and transferred them, NOTHING would happen - the birth weight from a transferred frozen egg would be ZERO.  he keeps using the terms ‘eggs’ and ‘embryos’ interchangeably.  i don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about.  and then the stupid woman says something about women who ‘try to use multiple IVF’?   what does that even mean?  and then herr doktor says the cost and inconvenience is lower - no it’s not, because you had to get those eggs from somewhere.  he talks about it as if you could choose to just use frozen embryos without going through the retrieval.  where are they going to come from?  a donor?  that costs more than a retrieval by far.

his whole argument that there’s no difference between using fresh and frozen is that the average birth weights for the two are only 7 ounces apart.  well, i mean, shit, that’s all i care about!  forget genetic abnormalities, birth defects, whatever else - just so long as the weight is right!!

so. 1, it’s news about something not being news.  2, apparently all that matters is birth weight.  3, he says this has been being done for about 30 years, but they can’t get any more relevant data than birth weight?  4, the whole discussion of cost is misleading.  and 5, he clearly has no understanding of the subject matter.  so basically, it’s a misleading story full of shitty irrelevant data about something that’s not news told by people who clearly have no idea what they are talking about. 

lucky for CNN, there is no Comments link on that page.

for the record, the general belief is that there is very little difference, but any good specialist will tell you that there may be some increased risk of a number of unpleasant things, and that they don’t really know.