A-ha!

I had an a-ha moment this afternoon.  I suddenly realized that the "spotting" I've been having the past couple of days looks suspiciously like the pinky-peachy color of the Prometrium pills I've been inserting in my vagina since Saturday.  I even got out a pill to compare with the color on my pantyliner.  Is that a sad story or what?  It makes me feel like an idiot that I hadn't even considered this sooner.  I promise I'm an intelligent individual.  I promise I actually earned my Master's degree.

So obviously I can't say for sure, but maybe I haven't even been having spotting for the past couple of days after all.  Maybe it's just been leakage from the Prometrium!  I can't tell you how happy this prospect made me.  And I know that this can't ensure anything about the future of this pregnancy, but I'm feeling very positive at the moment.

I spoke with the nurse at the RE this morning to get my progesterone results from my first set of bloodwork.  It was only 8.  I already knew it would be low since she had me up my Prometrium dosage yesterday.  I'll go back tomorrow for my second set of labs.  I'm feeling hopeful that at least the progesterone will have risen significantly.  Hopefully my hcg will have gone up too.  I hope, I hope.

Normal

I went to the dr's on Saturday morning to have bloodwork done and talk briefly with the nurse (so glad the dr's office is open 1/2 days on Saturdays!)  I mentioned the spotting to the nurse and she gave me a prescription for Prometrium (progesterone suppositories).  My spotting continued much of Saturday, but has now lessened considerably since start the Prometrium.  I've only spotted twice today and it was barely noticable.  I hate that I have to worry so much about every little thing and can't ever just appreciate a simple, easy pregnancy.  I know that spotting can mean absolutely nothing, but all I've ever known is bad outcomes, so it's difficult not to jump to awful conclusions.  I feel like I hold my breath each and every time I go to the bathroom now, wondering if there will be spotting again.  It's just been brown or light pink and never more than spotting, so I just have to hold on to the fact that those are good signs for now.

I talked to my stepsister the other day who had a baby about a year ago.  She had spotting/bleeding several times throughout her pregnancy & now has a beautiful, healthy baby girl.  And she has other friends with similar stories, so for now, I'm holding on to that hope.

The nurse also said they don't start the Heparin until they see a heartbeat, so at least we get to hold off on that for now.  The idea of giving myself a shot every day is not something I am looking forward to.  Don't get me wrong-- I'll do it for the sake of the baby and am thrilled that there is something like this that we actually can do to fix this, but still, not fun.

I got a message from the dr's office this afternoon about my bloodwork.  She said my hcg from Saturday (15 dpo) was 137, so I'm definitely pregnant (duh).  She also said I should start taking the Prometrium 3 times a day instead of 2, so I can only assume that means my progesterone level was low, but I haven't heard back yet to confirm this.  I can only hope that we caught the low progesterone early enough and it's being fixed now and everything can still continue normally.  Normal.  Why couldn't I just have a normal, easy pregnancy like it seems like so many other women can and do.  Ugh.  But I don't want to focus on the negatives.  Trying my hardest to stay positive and keep my hopes up for the future of this pregnancy.  For now, it's still there and that's a good thing.  A great thing, in fact.

Positive!!

Oh my goodness.  It actually happened.  I'm pregnant!!!

Last night I was sure my period was coming when I had a tiny bit of spotting.  And my cramps seemed to be getting worse.  So I just went ahead and took an Aleve and a Benadryl, put on a pad and went to bed.  But my period never came during the night and the cramps went away.  Starting to wonder again...  When I took my temp this morning, it was still up.  Really getting curious now...  I was still sure I would get my period any time now, but decided to take a test just to confirm it one way or another.  I completely prepared myself for yet another disappointment, but decided I just needed to know.  And lo and behold, the test says "PREGNANT"!!  I climbed back in bed with Shannon to tell him the news.  Even through his sleepiness, I could tell he was thrilled.

So now a whole new adventure begins.  I've been through the beginning stages before, but it will be different now that I'm seeing an RE.  I'll call them today to see what they say, but I imagine I'll have to start on Heparin right away, which I am definitely anxious about.  And we'll start the well-known dance of the labwork.  And then we wait...

I'm feeling very excited but super nervous about this one.  With all the interventions I'm doing now, will it really change the outcome?  Will we really actually get a baby this time?  All I've known is loss and sadness at the end of a pregnancy-- will we get to experience joy this time instead?

For now, I'm going to do my best to just appreciate this little miracle.  To love it and talk to it and take care of it the best I can in the moment without worrying about what the future holds.  Because no matter the outcome, this is my baby and I'm thrilled to have it here in our lives now.

grrr

And now, not even an hour after my last post where I let my hope creep out, here comes my period.  You'd think I would have learned by now...

Hope

I've gone against my better judgement and let myself slip into hope, let it rise up above my patience.  I'm 14 DPO and starting to wonder if this could actually be our month.  My temp was still plenty high this morning, so that could be a good sign.  That's really what's led me to actually let myself start to dream.  All through the 2 week wait, I try to busy myself with other things and try not stress and wonder at each little symptom.  I've been through so many months of over-analyzing every twinge and feeling I might have only to be completely disappointed when my period shows up right on schedule.  I've learned that pregnancy symptoms and PMS symptoms are virtually identical, so there's really no use in trying to guess one way or another until your period is actually due.

Which brings us to today.  So now I'm letting myself hope.  Letting myself obsess a bit and dream about what could be.  I've had some cramps the past few nights and that is a symptom I remember having in my past pregnancies.  I'm feeling achy, tired and getting a little more out of breath than usual.  Could all be good signs...  If my temp is still up in the morning, I'll take a test.  Then I'll be 15 DPO and it will definitely be clear one way or another.  I would love for this to be our month.  Against all odds, our first month officially back trying again after the blighted ovum.  Don't we deserve a break after all we've been through??  I'm certainly doing all the right things now.  I take my thyroid medication religiously every morning.  And now a baby aspirin and prenatal vitamin each night.  I've been off and on antibiotics for the past couple of weeks-- I wonder if that could have any effect, good or bad.

I mentioned to Shannon this evening that my period was due today, but hadn't come yet.  I saw in his eyes that he started to hope and dream too.  He started counting months and I made him stop-- that's too far in advance for me when we haven't even had a positive test yet.

Either way, only time will tell.  But for now, I'll hold on to hope.

Root canal

I went to have a root canal redone this afternoon.  I originally had this root canal over 3 years ago and it has never felt right.  I complained to the dentist who did it the first time that it never stopped hurting and he dismissed my complaints.  He just gave me antibiotics & pain pills and sent me on my way, saying there was nothing wrong.  I went to another dentist and complained about it and he was reluctant to open it back up again because he couldn't really see anything on the x-ray.  He said if it continued to hurt, he'd send me to a specialist.  Very encouraging...  Then I got a new dentist that I like and trust about a year ago and he agreed to redo it, but I had to wait a year for my new dental insurance to be able to cover it.  So now I finally had it redone today and wow.  Wow.  My dentist had never seen anything like it.  It was so infected and oozing (disgusting, I know) that he couldn't even finish it today.  He even found some paper shoved in there and said in so many words that I should sue the original dentist.  It was never done right in the first place and I was completely right to keep insisted that something was wrong with it, which is satisfying but also frustrating.

So I've had this infected thing inside me for years now and never had a clue how bad it was.  It got me to thinking:  could this have had an effect on me trying to get pregnant?  It's been there since before we even started trying.  Maybe this infection has only made all the problems I've had even worse.  This was my mom's thought too when she heard about it all.  I guess we'll never know for sure, but this couldn't have helped.  What more could there be now??

So now I'll start a 2nd round of antibiotics to try to clear this up and go back in about a week to finish the root canal.  The first round of antibiotics gave me the worst yeast infection which I spread to Shannon even though we were being careful.  Good times...  I asked for something other than Amoxicillin this time, so we'll see.

I really think I deserve a break after all this, right?  Right?

Path

Yesterday, in preparation for a grief camp I'm helping to coordinate, our planning committee went to walk a labyrinth.  If you've never done this, I highly recommend it.  It's supposed to be a spiritual, meditative experience, but I had a hard time getting out of my head.  Even while I was walking I was thinking about writing about the experience.  (Hmm... I think that is very telling of my personality-- more likely to want to write about/observe an experience than to be able to fully feel it in the moment...)  Nonetheless, it was such an amazing thing to do and such a great metaphor for life/grief.  With all its twists and turns along the way, it tends to make you feel disoriented and lost from time to time.  But then if you just focus on the path, it's very centering and calming.  The interactions with others around me were also interesting.  Sometimes you pass someone going the opposite direction; sometimes you happen to be walking along side a friend for a bit before one of you turns off on your own.  Everyone goes at their own pace, creating a uinque experience for each individual.  If that's not a complete parallel to this journey I'm on, I don't know what is...

I got my results today from my most recent thyroid labwork.  My level has continued to go down as we'd hoped, so we got the definite green light to start trying again.  It's at a pretty good level and the RE didn't seem concerned, but from what all I've read, it would be better for it to be even lower to achieve/maintain a healthy pregnancy.  I'm trying not to obsess over that.  Shannon said something the other day about not knowing if he'd want to continue if we had another loss.  I think I could handle a little more, but not much.  So no pressure or anything...  And now I just wait to ovulate, which is already late this month.  Relaxing and just letting things happen is so much easier said than done.  I know what I need to do.  Take a cue from the labyrinth and just focus on the path and enjoy the journey along the way.  Now if I could just convince my over-thinking mind...

Weakened

My husband changed jobs this week.  I think it will end up being a very positive thing for us, but we're in a definite state of transition now.  For the past 8 years, he's been in sales and worked every weekend.  Now he's decided to be a painter and will have every Friday, Saturday & Sunday off.  This is a huge shift to our routine.  Last weekend was our first weekend off together in I don't know how long.  It was a lot of fun-- it felt like a vacation or like when we were first together almost 10 years ago.  This weekend, not so much.  Not sure what it is, but we seem to be rubbing each other the wrong way.  Not really fighting, just kinda not getting along.  Not so fun.  But he's gone out tonight and I get the whole house to myself, which is something I really actually enjoy.  I think that's one of the biggest things I'm worrying about missing with this new work schedule: my alone time.  I really need my "me time" to re-energize and refresh myself.  Classic introvert.

So I've been thinking about myself lately and how I tend to isolate myself from others.  I can rationalize it by saying I just choose certain people to open up to and share myself with, but I know that's not completely honest.  I would like to have more friends.  Not just acquaintances, but true friends I can really trust.  But it's been my experience those are hard to come by.  Many of my friendships, especially my female friendships, have left me hurt and disappointed through the years.

Take for example my old friend who I'm going to her bridal shower tomorrow.  I've known her since we were five and although I wouldn't have said we were especially close, I did consider her a good friend.  Last year she asked me to be in her wedding, then changed her mind.  She first asked me to stop trying to get pregnant before her wedding.  Really??  Hello??  I'd already had two pregnancy losses by that point and that was not an option.  Then she e-mails (yes, e-mails) me to say maybe I shouldn't be in her wedding.  Her reasons were something like what if I were pregnant and had to be on bedrest and couldn't be in the wedding or what if my dress didn't fit anymore.  Then she left it up to me to decide.  I mean, I've known she's pretty selfish & insensitive, but this was too much even for her.  So, needless to say, I am no longer in the wedding and we have only briefly communicated by e-mail since.  As I'm writing this, I'm wondering why I'm even going to this shower tomorrow.  I know if someone came to me with this story, I'd tell them no way did they have to go.  But I'm trying to be the bigger person in all this...  The real kicker in all this is she had the insensitivity to send me an e-mail this week asking if I'm pregnant.  Can you believe that?!?  I wrote back "no" and that was it.  One thing I've dreaded is going to the wedding and still not being pregnant.  I worry someone will ask at the shower or the wedding why I'm not a bridesmaid anymore and I'll just fall apart.  Oh, why do I do this to myself??