And Now We Wait

After weeks of being almost completely asymptomatic, I started spotting yesterday afternoon. Just that quickly, my chances of losing this pregnancy ballooned from 5% (that's the probability of having two miscarriages in a row) to 50%, the probability of miscarrying after having spotting or bleeding.

Marcus and I had to haul ass to find someplace to get my blood drawn before they all wrapped up for the weekend, but of course we won't find out what my hCG levels are until Monday. I'm also getting a second draw on Monday before work to see if my levels are rising properly, and I've been prescribed Prometrium (a progesterone supplement) in the meantime.

We should find out before the New Year whether or not this pregnancy is already over. I don't have a good feeling about this, friends. Not at all. I could feel more optimistic if I'd been having any sort of symptoms in the past two weeks, but I haven't. No fatigue, no increased appetite, no morning sickness, no pulling feelings low in my abdomen, no bloody noses, NONE of the stuff I experienced last time except for sore nipples (and they're not even all that sore).

August 23rd

I was woken up this morning by a very whiny, very needy cat. Rocky was meowing and pawing beneath the door, a habit that drives us up the wall but we haven't corrected much lately as long as he waits until at least 7:30 (which is when I'm SUPPOSED to get up) to start. I turned off my alarm, determined to sleep in, when I remembered that I'm supposed to take a pregnancy test this morning. Today I am 12dpo, and even though the test had come up negative on Wednesday, there was a chance that it was a false negative. I wasn't all that excited, but it was enough to get me out of bed.

I peed on a FRER and then waited for the line(s) to show up. It took less than a minute for a solid pink line to appear on the right side of the window. A single line. Negative. Yet again.

I can't say that I was disappointed, really. At this point I'm just tired. I sat with my head in my hands and wondered, What is wrong with me? Is our timing completely off? Am I not ovulating? Are we fertilizing successfully, but just failing to implant? I thought about the corpus luteum cyst I had on my right ovary during my last pregnancy, and my failure to get a follow-up exam for it after the miscarriage (I couldn't stand the thought of yet ANOTHER ultrasound in another depressing pregnancy-centric room), and I wondered if it was still there and mucking things up. I thought about calling Dr. D and making an appointment for January, after our next inevitably failed cycle, and winced at the thought of the tests and medications that lie ahead.

And then I looked back at the test, and there was a second line. It was faint - so faint that I couldn't be sure that my eyes weren't playing tricks. I woke Marcus up to make sure - and he could see it too. It darkened slowly and by the time ten minutes had passed, I could see the second line at arms' length even without my glasses on. It was absolutely, undeniably, amazingly POSITIVE.

I have a lot on my mind right now and not enough time to get into it all, friends. But you can expect a lot more entries from me, especially now that I have more to write about.

I'm trying not to get too excited. Anything can happen. It's still really, really early, and my chances of a loss are very high. But at least we made it this far. At least I know it's still possible.

My due date is August 23, 2009. May this one stick around long enough to meet us then.

The Battle Begins

Today I am 10dpo. This time every month, I start to get antsy. This is the point at which a FRER (First Response Early Response) could possibly show a positive. Between today and 13dpo lies the Gulf of False Negatives, a torturous place in which the sticks come up white but hope is still hurtfully alive. As I do every month, I try to hold out for as long as I can. The first month we were ttc I think I tested on 7dpo or something crazy like that. The last month, I somehow managed to make myself wait until 11dpo. Here's a nifty chart to illustrate my relationship with early testing:



Right now I'm trying to focus on Friday. That would be 12dpo and my chances of a false negative are much lower. If I make it that long, I can be proud of myself.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm...

There's no sign of my period, yet the sticks are still coming up negative. Ridiculous!

The poll closes tonight, so get your votes in! I am honestly shocked that no one thus far has selected oviparous reproduction. Who doesn't like eggs???

TTC: Cycle 1

Well, my period started, as expected. I'm disappointed, although not horribly so. The odds of conceiving in the first cycle are only 25%, so it was unlikely anyway. But there's a part of me that can't help but be just a tiny bit bitter about it; after all, the odds of miscarrying my last pregnancy were "only" 20-25%, and I managed to score a bulls eye with that one rather effectively.

Ah, but since self-pity isn't going to help me conceive any sooner, I may as well let it go now. Or at least try.

It would have been a nice birthday present, though.

Verdict: Failure.
Future Prospects: Hopeful.

I Can Spell, Dammit (or is it damnit?)

This is the conversation that followed after my husband read my last entry:

Him (horrified): "Why did you tag it testicular torsion?" Pause. Looks annoyed. "And why did you misspell testicular?"

Me: "It's a pun. About testing. And how it's spectacular."

Him (less horrified): "Well, okay then."

Speaking of testing, I didn't even bother this morning. My basal body temp has tanked and Little Miss Menstruation is almost certainly on her way.

Post Scriptum: Let it be known that I do not actually think that testing is spectacular. It's expensive and, more often than not anti-climactic (for me, at least; my lifetime score is something like 200 negative pregnancy tests to my 1 lonely positive).

I Have A Confession

I am a compulsive tester. This has nothing to do with the recent conception efforts. I've been this way for as long as I've been sexually active. As a teen, I'd freak out and take a pregnancy test about every other month.

I got even worse in college. I always tested immediately after every slightly late period. And by slightly, I don't mean that I tested on Sunday if my period had been due on Saturday. I mean that if I'd been expecting my period to arrive between 8 and 9am on Tuesday, and it still wasn't there by 2pm, then I tested at 4pm. (It's not quite as loopy as it sounds, though. When I was on the pill, my period became so regular that I could almost always predict its arrival down to the very hour.)

When I dated I had a policy of taking a pregnancy test after the end of every old relationship, and at the beginning of every new relationship, and I stuck faithfully to that policy until I finally got married. I don't think it was such a bad policy, actually.

The day I found out that I was pregnant, I hadn't actually had any symptoms or anything else to clue me in. I did not actually suspect that I was pregnant. I just tested the morning after my missed period because I was a habitual tester. I was shocked - utterly blown away - to see the plus sign in the window; that had simply never happened before.

So, yeah. Testing is kind of my thing. And for the past few days, I have been testing up a storm. Today I am 12 dpo and am still getting negatives. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but it's hard when I have no symptoms and a little stack of stark white negative test results to drive the point home.

Ah, well. It's only my first month, and technically it's not over until the bleeding begins. I just can't help but feel that it's over, though.