So…I cheated

Omg! I can barely contain my excitement at this point. I am supposed to have my blood test to tell me if I’m pregnant or not on Monday…but the nurse told me I could take a home pregnancy test as early as Thursday…now, I know, I know…I went back and forth a lot. Thinking about if it was too early to get a result or what if I don’t get the result I want? Am I going to be depressed? I vacillated for a few days, I even ordered my pregnancy tests online to give me more time to pull the trigger. I knew if I had them at the house, I would needlessly try because it’s all I’m doing, thinking about it. Googling things and signs, and looking for an answer. An answer that can’t be given until the right time. I was shocked when the tests came a few days before they were supposed to, dammit, now I have to stare at them until the right day, like a cruel joke. Well, I put them in the closet and waited…like I have been doing this entire process.

Thursday rolls around, and after the entire day, I told myself, I just need to take a test, if I see a faint line, I can relax until Monday. Myself, husband and the boys went for a walk and that was good to get my mind off of things, at least I wasn’t in bed feeling every single little feeling and googling the meaning behind it. After we got back, my husband had to go to his AA meeting…as he always does on Thursdays. I locked my bedroom door after the kids were in bed and I peed in a red solo cup. Then I dunked the home pregnancy test into the cup and waited. I didn’t want to mess the test up, because one time I peed so much on the stick it flooded it out and broke it…lol. So, I put the cap back on and waited. And waited…until…what is that? Two lines are forming…no way! Omg! It was clear as day a positive pregnancy test. I began punching the air in excitement and thinking about how I can’t believe it, this moment is real. Thursday was only 7 days past 5 day transfer, which means it really is still so early.

Part of me wonders if it’s so clear at day 7, could that mean there are two in there? Probably not, but a girl can dream right? Hahaha. So, I called my mom right away to tell her, and then I texted my husband and said call me asap. I figured he would have called the minute he got a chance, but no…not so much…I also called the nurse after hours…to be sure. I told her I took a test and it was clearly positive, and I asked her if there’s such a thing as a false positive? She told me there is, but it is very unlikely. That the home pregnancy tests look for trace amounts of the hormone found in pregnancy and that if it’s picking it up already that’s a great sign. She congratulated me and began telling me what to expect as far as how the appointments would be set up. She told me to wait until Monday’s blood test for confirmation and that after that, I will need to come back to the office every other day for blood work. That they are looking for a certain number and when that number gets to 1500 then the blood work can stop. She told me two and a half weeks from Monday I will get an ultrasound to see the heartbeat as well, that will be six weeks along at that point. That’s November 9th for me. I’m hoping and praying little girl has a heartbeat. I began to get super excited about everything and even more excited when I knew I didn’t need to wait six weeks from Monday, whew! That would have been so difficult. All this waiting, and waiting…it’s so hard.

When my husband finally called, he asked if I took the test, and I lied and told him no, I told him I was waiting for him. He commented that that was sweet and we changed the subject. When he got home, he came upstairs to the bedroom and said “soooo?!?!?!” and I said “Sooooo what?!?!” and he said, “didn’t you take the test?” and I couldn’t hide my smile and he said “you did! Well?” I said, “go look in the bathroom and see”, and he walked in there, and I hear…”there’s two lines! You’re pregnant!” and he came to the doorway with the biggest smile on is face. He gave me a big hug and had this ginormous smile of excitement.

These are the signs I’ve felt the last week, which could be related to the hormones or the actual pregnancy…

1.) Cramping…it started the day after the transfer, sometimes it was strong and sometimes mild…but felt like period cramps.

2.) Watery clear discharge…which had no odor or consistency, it just felt like water coming out of my body. And lots of it…like my underwear was noticeably damp from it.

3.) Back pain…lots of lower back pain that hurt when I breathed. I’ve always had chronic back pain, always, since I can remember, but this was different.

4.) My breasts got fuller and my nipples got darker…like, dark pink, which they never have been when I’m not pregnant.

5.) Fatigue…like, you could fall asleep standing up fatigue. I’ve been going to bed hours earlier than normal the last week…and I actually fell asleep in the middle of typing this blog…which I just don’t do…lol.

6.) Hot flashes…like I feel like I’m on the surface of the sun hot flashes. Where my skin is cold to touch, but I feel like I’m radiating solar flares. Where only sitting or laying two feet in front of a fan soothes the feeling.

7.) Nausea…like when I get up in the morning and can’t even think about eating anything, and then dry heave the entire way to work unless I roll my car window down like a dog in heat and let the fresh air calm me down. Yeah, it was like that with every single one of my pregnancies to date. This began about 4-5 days post transfer.

If I think of more things I felt I will add them in…I’m sure there were more things I was googling…lol

I’m thinking about taking another home pregnancy test today, I mean, I have three from the set and I want to be sure it’s still the same. I realize this is crazy…lol.

Am I a sadist?

So, I realize when I say this, it sounds a little odd. Maybe it’s the OCD in me, and the preparedness I’ve undergone to get to this point in the process, but for some reason, I find myself obsessed with my shots every day. I plan for them, prepare them, look forward to getting them done and checking another one off the list. For some, they may dread them, and think they are horrible, but for me, at this point, it is keeping me on track to my end goal, this baby girl.

I fear them so much, but deep down, I know they aren’t bad at all. I mean, the shots in my stomach sting sometimes, depending on what pain receptors are poked, and the insane bruising all over my tummy looks worse than it feels.

So far, I’m 9 shots into the PIO (progesterone in oil) and while one hurt a little more than the rest (and the blood geyser shows proof to that), I never feel them going in and barely feel anything at all. Every day, I wait, thinking this is going to be the day, the day I’m going to feel the poke or the oil or something…and nothing. Thank God.

I have my nerdy chart and I have a ticker going with the amount of times I’ve been poked up to this point in the process, I’m up to 78 pokes. Not so bad…I guess…considering I planned on getting upwards of 350 pokes…or so my research found. But, strangely, I look forward to them, they keep me grounded and remind me this is real. Remind me what I’m doing and the past year leading up to this point, seems like it prepared me for the mental torture of the needles.

What the past year did not prepare me for, was the emotional roller coaster of fear I’ve been on and can’t seem to get off of. I think this amusement park ride is destined to stay active until my baby girl is safe in my arms. I’ve feared everything from the actual needles, to the medicine, to the procedures, and then all the way to what if’s?, what if I don’t get a girl, what if it doesn’t work, yadda yadda yadda…it’ll drive you nuts, and nuts it has driven me!

Since my embryo transfer, I feel a twinge, I google it. What does that mean, am I pregnant? I google odds, and blogs and stories…I had a cramp, is that good? I know, I know, stay off the internet…I cannot do that. I just can’t. I can’t even try. The nurse even said in the lecture, after the transfer, you’re going to become very acutely aware of your body…do not call me and ask if the twinge you just felt means your pregnant…hahahahaha, because it’s so damn true. You are sitting/laying here thinking ONLY about this microscopic embryo curled up gently in your uterus…and hoping and praying it stays in the exact same spot until it’s 40 weeks old and read to meet you. Your brain is running a million miles a minute and all you keep coming back to is the worry and fear it won’t work.

Well, since I’m no stranger to signs, I feel like I will share a few I had the past few days…signs, that to me, tell me, just relax woman, it’ll work, stop stressing.

Sign #1: I had gone onto Instagram the night before last and started following a bunch of ‘baby’ related clothing pages, like Gap, Pottery Barn Kids, etc. In doing so, I got a flood of random people who wanted to ‘follow’ me. I do not let random people follow me unless I know you. I have pictures of my babies tushies and I won’t let strangers see that. So, I went one by one and looked at their pages…deleting each request as I went. Then I came to one that stopped me in my tracks…under ‘about me’ were the words “IVF Success (insert baby emoji)” I looked at it closer…why would that be in her about me, why is that even there, how did this person find me and why? Needless to say it’s been my mantra the last 24 hours and I began following her because, well, I like her pictures…lol…and no, I didn’t allow her to follow me.

Sign #2: I had just gotten my new Parents magazine and I love reading them cover to cover. Guilty pleasure I suppose. So I figured, while I’m laying here…I guess I’ll start reading it. I open it up to the first page I can read and the headline is “Savannah’s Stories”. Well, that is baby girls name…I think to myself…thank you for the midday reminder to chill out. But the day wained on and my fears crept into my mind again…google google google…what does this mean, what does that mean…and I decide it’s time to go to bed. But before bed, my husband needed to take a shower…so I decided to go onto Pinterest.

Sign #3: On Pinterest…so y’all might not see this as a sign…because it may seem prompted…but I asked the universe, and I got a response…to me…It’s more of a sign than the other two. So…back to the sign…on Pinterest, I typed into the search bar ‘name savannah’ to see if anything pretty popped up, and really just to see her name spelled out. There were all the to be expected posts of Savannah, Georgia, and travel guides…lots of little plaques with her name and flowers…and I said to the universe, show me a sign, let something stand out, help me relax. And as I scrolled further, I saw it…Her name…and my name (which is really quite rare) right below it…on a post that read, ‘cutest combos of baby names’. I shook my head in disbelief. For one, I never see my name ANYWHERE, growing up, my parents always had to have things made with my name, and to see it clear as day paired with her name, was the sign I needed right before bed. Now, you may think I was able to fall right asleep, nope, insomnia rears it’s ugly head during this process which so many thoughts floating around up there.

So, I woke, a new day…trying not to google much today…besides I googled everything I could. I will be buying home pregnancy tests to cheat though, because I can’t take the suspense. I know if I get a negative, I will be disappointed though…so there’s that delicate balance. But seriously…a two week wait is torture when the process has been so long…