Someone passed on this article about IVF and pregnancy symptoms. It helped, if only a tiny bit. Right now I’ll take anything.

I’m in this very weird limbo-land. I don’t even know if I’m pregnant or not. I mean, I am – the pee-sticks say so – but am I really? I really like to jump into things with two feet, as evidenced by the ticker and me joining due date groups already. I like it. It helps it feel real, helps me really celebrate it. But right now? Not so much. Now I don’t know if I should be celebrating at all.

If this ends in miscarriage I’ll be okay with it – I will. It will suck a lot, but I realized today, when staring at that blood, that it felt a lot like seeing blood last cycle. A lot more like it than I anticipated. I guess I haven’t really bought in yet… I haven’t committed yet. But it also drove home the point that IVF failures feel a hell of a lot more like losses than I gave them credit for. No wonder you start to go off the deep end after multiple failures. But regardless… it’s survivable to me.

What I’m taking from this right now is that I got pregnant with my own eggs!!! If nothing else, if this pregnancy crashes and burns and we have to do it all over again, at least I know that I can still get pregnant… that Devin was not a fluke. I was really starting to wonder, you know. If I ended up with three clear negative cycles in a row I was starting to wonder what the fuck else was wrong and whether or not it was time to start considering other options. This pregnancy feels like hope, like reassurance. I CAN get pregnant, we just have to keep trying.

A second line is still a beautiful sight to behold.

I feel wicked bloated, crampy, upset stomach… and the bleeding has stopped. To be honest I’m a little afraid to move for fear of dislodging more blood, as stupid and illogical as that may be. At this point I have absolutely no clue if the cramps mean miscarriage or pregancy. That’s a funny trick of nature. (Ha ha, I’m really laughing.)

I removed all my tickers. I had a really, really good cry (about something else, funny enough). So now I think I’m pretty drained and just am going to hunker down for a few days until my betas.

This whole thing has felt so touch-and-go from the start. I don’t know what I expected the second time around, but I know I didn’t expect this crap.

And we have blood. Small, large? I don’t know. More than a spot, less than a gush. Enough to soak my panty liner. I wasn’t too surprized. It actually didn’t seem weird at first, and then I realized I’m supposed to be pregnant right now, not bleeding. Then I stared and wondered what the fuck to do.

I’ve been worried from the start. Those damn tests. I know people keep saying they mean nothing, but still. It just didn’t feel right. (I did take another one tonight – darker than the last one. Just to reassure me that, at this moment in time, I am still pregnant.) And then my sinus thing cleared up yesterday. I wondered, but again, who knows what that really means, right? I feel a heaviness in my abdomen tonight.

I know there is still a chance that things are fine and will continue normally. But I’ve seen enough to realize how common miscarriages are and that I am likely heading towards one. I’m mentally preparing myself for that inevitability, and for FET#2.

In a way I’m a little relieved – if I’m going to lose it, let me lose it now, early, before we get too far in. I can handle this, and at least I know I can get pregnant again.

I feel a little disconnected. I’m not freaking out calling the doctor. I know there’s nothing they can do or say, but just wait and see. That’s all anyone can do at this point. Wait and see what the morning comes.

Another night not knowing what tomorrow will bring.

I have to say, right now I’m not all that concerned. What I realized is that even if pregancy tests were getting darker like I wanted, that’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t miscarry. And even if the line stays light, I could still have a perfectly normal pregnancy. Yeah, it would help me feel better for the moment. But I’m searching for a guarantee, and there just isn’t one. The sooner I can let that go, the better.

But beyond that, my body is doing a damn good job of convincing me I am pregnant. I feel a little light-headed when I stand up after being sitting or laying down for a while. My abs feel tight, as if I’ve been working them (and, trust me, I haven’t). I have a light headache tonight, and did last night too. My boobs feel a little sore. And the big one? I don’t want chocolate.

When I arrived here at my parents we went shopping and I bought a bunch of Canadian chocolate – and proceeded to eat it all. This is typical for me. But I realized that over the past week I have gone from eating every chocolate in sight to not eating any of it. I bought a Coffee Crisp and an Aero, and both had one bite taken out of them and then were left sitting on the counter for days. Today I saw the Aero sitting there so I grabbed some just out of habit. I took a bite and… umm… yeah…. it kind of tasted like… mud. Or something. Just blah. Definitely not something delicious and craving-worthy.

And the thing is, I hardly touched chocolate at all during my entire pregnancy with Devin. It’s not that it made me sick… it just tasted like crap. I hardly expected that very strange symptom to return for round two, but here we are. Guess that is one thing that is going to stay the same.

This is the exciting part, for me – finding out how this pregnancy will unfold similar to and different from my first one. I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long year. As some of the initial fear quietens in the continued presence of undeniable symptoms, I feel more and more happy.

I’m pregnant, and it feels fucking wonderful.

Today in a store I wandered into the baby section and didn’t tear up. It was a strange, double-sided feeling as I reached out to touch a soft baby sleeper… hopeful, and yet with so many images of the past sitting right in front of me.

::

Not testing anymore was definitely a good decision for me. It still concerns me, and I still want to “check,” as if it could somehow assuage my fears, but it was nice to wake up this morning and just be pregnant for the day.

I’m also noticing that without something external to rely on I am listening more to my body. Even though my symptoms – and I’m still not sure if I can call all of them symptoms, they could be coincidences – aren’t very strong, I still “feel” pregnant. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s a definite familiarity about it. It actually feels a little strange to be feeling belly twinges and look down and not see a belly, to be starting from the beginning again.

I can definitely see why having some time between a loss and a new pregnancy can be a good thing. I have now spent over a year being not-pregnant, and it took well over 6 months to get used to it. And I think that double-image, being pregnant again without having the big belly where I left off, would have been quite hard without that time to adjust to starting over. I’m also quite happy to have dropped weight and be in the shape I am now when we start this journey again. Not that I wouldn’t have appreciated being pregnant sooner than this… had it happened I would have been thrilled and dealt with the weirdness. But I can see the positives in the wait. I’m here now, and that’s all that matters.

I am feeling so glad that Den is here. I didn’t sleep much more than a couple hours a night for several days before he arrived. Were it not for the pregnancy thing I would have been fine, but it’s just too much stress to deal with alone. There is something so comforting feeling him beside me in bed at night. I’ve had two solid nights of sleep now.

Den is doing much better than I expected, to be honest. Being pregnant again is going to be very stressful for both of us, obviously, but he’s always had a hard time being the observer… it must be doubly hard to place your hopes in something you can’t even feel. I wouldn’t blame him at all if he closed himself off until we knew more… guarded himself. But surprizingly he’s been very encouraging to me, very calming. Oh we’re both scared, but it’s just easier to go through when you have someone’s hand to hold.

::

Late, but here is a pic I took on Monday, 4w1d. It’s a crappy pic and I don’t much like it, but, you know, first belly pic and all.

Interestingly enough I looked back through my first pregnancy’s belly pictures and this one most resembles… 5 weeks. Wow. I thought I had more belly flub left over than that… but apparently I had a bit of belly to start with last time too.

Lest anyone thinks I’m ready to go off the deep end today, I did chill out quite a bit.

Here is today’s test (Answer). I am 11dp5dt, or 16dpo.

At least it came up straight away and is thicker and more obvious than the FRERs.

Den and I had a long talk last night and this morning, and really it comes down to the acceptance that nothing is guaranteed, but I currently AM pregnant, and that puts us in a much better place than we were a week ago. At least we know I can still get pregnant with my eggs, that Devin was not a complete fluke, and we have another embryo is storage. That, by itself, is huge!

So we’re just going to have to keep in check our plans for the future until we know more, just take it day by day and be thankful we have what we do. This is a gift, and no matter how light or dark the lines are, it still says pregnant.

And the fear kicks in high gear. My inability to get a dark line on any test just has me wondering why. I did last time – they got progressively darker. I really expected on Monday to get a darker line (or no line – that was my fear) and then I would feel better and I could celebrate. So to just keep getting light lines is driving me crazy. FRER is in the garbage, because 4 tests and they’re all barely visible. Clearblue +/- was an obvious line, but still light. And today I used an Answer brand that Den brought from home – the same brand I used for testing with Devin’s pregnancy. It’s definitely a more solid line than the FRER and came up right away. But it’s still light. Like as light as when I first tested with Devin. And I know you shouldn’t compare tests, especially 1 1/2 years apart, but how can you not? I want to see a dark line so I can stop worrying!

Ugh. Yes, it starts.

I have a lot more posts to make about this all, including how I told Den, since he is not here yet. But for right now I figured I’d answer a bunch of the questions I’ve been getting!

Are you getting a beta?
Since I’m out of the country I obviously cannot pop over to the clinic to get my blood drawn. I put in a call to the nurses today to let them know the good news, and they told me congratulations and just to come over for a beta when I get back next tuesday. Which will be a little weird, because obviously the numbers aren’t going to be comparable to anything from my last pregnancy, being a week later and all. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal to not have a beta drawn right away, but suddenly the idea of having a blood test confirm pregancy sounds like a really idea. Nothing to be done about it now, though.

When are you due?
December 12! Saturday is “officially” the day that my pregnancy weeks will start, going by that due date, but I’m putting up all my tickers a day off so that Sunday is the “new week day”. Just for me. Sunday is my day off, it’s my day of celebration.

How many embryos did you put back again?
We transferred just one embryo at a time, so this is almost certainly a singleton. If it’s twins it would have to be identicals, and I don’t even want to go there!

Why do you think this cycle worked?
Well first of all I do think a lot of it is dumb blind luck. We had a great embryo last time, and a great embryo this time… 50-50, right? Yes, I’m on vacation and not working… and, while I do think vacations a GREAT thing for my mental well being, I don’t really think that played a part in this. What I DO think was significant is the fact that this was a FET. My body really took a beating last stims cycle – that was far more physically stressful. The cycle I got pregnant with Devin I had no overstimming, no bloating, no side-effects from the stims… just like a FET (even though that was a stims cycle). I’m wondering if that is significant.

And also, as sweet as it is to have found out on Devin’s due date, I do not believe that was significant either. Last time we could have found out for his birthday, or the one before that for Christmas. I’m not really sure why my cycles have aligned themselves with major dates, but it’s a relief to not have another one crash and burn.

How are you feeling, physically?
Well first of all I did not expect any “symptoms”. With Devin I had nothing until way after I knew I was pregnant. This time? Whoa baby. Let me list so far:
* Day of total exhaustion (but so far it was just that day… I’m running on adrenaline, however)
* Allergies in overdrive. Feels like a great big head cold. Started days ago.
* Very gassy, yuck.
* Lots of twinges and pulling sensations in my abdomen.
* Some unhappy nerves in my hips, same ones as when I was in late pregnancy last time.
* Feeling kind of faint and dizzy when I stand up.
I think that’s all so far. No queasiness or food cravings/aversions yet! (Yet.) It makes sense that they’re all related to pregnancy, but it did seem logical that my body was out of whack, because of the travel. My newfound allergies have never been in BC before, and I do get tired when I travel. But boy do I “feel” pregnant for only being 4 weeks. It’s a little shocking to me.

How are you feeling, emotionally??
It’s weird, you know… because I really wasn’t expecting such a roller coaster this weekend. I figured I’d test on Sunday and either spend a couple days crying, or be pregnant and thinking up clever ways to surprize my husband. Instead I’ve been freaking out over stupid ass tests that have me doubting my own sanity. So for a day I was happy and hopeful, but in a state of disbelief… afraid to really put my heart on the line yet. That’s why seeing a light line today really hurt me… I needed some kind of solid confirmation and I didn’t get it with the FRERs. Which is why I totally started sobbing when I saw the digital. It was okay for me to really believe it then.

The light lines and what-if’s have of course brought up some worries about miscarriage. I know there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it, and it’s pretty obvious to me that I am pregnant right now, but I’ve seen enough pregnancies end to be worried. But, regardless, I promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t let my fear drown out my joy. The fact of the matter is that I am pregnant NOW. And for heaven’s sake it’s about time to celebrate something! So if some of you babylost/infertile girls out there are looking at her thinking, “Holy shit, she has a ticker already? Is she nuts?” the answer is: yes. But… man, part of what I loved about being pregnant was experiencing it all! And I refuse to deny myself that.

I think it can pretty much go without saying that anything I say from now on about the future will have an unspoken disclaimer of, “If everything works out…”

How is Den doing?
Well to be honest I’m not quite sure. I know he’s a lot more unsure and scared than I am… because I have the body with all the symptoms, and he doesn’t. He was nervous enough last time, and now it will only be worse. He’s really really really excited… but really scared this is going to be taken away, too. I can’t wait for him to get here so we can just be hopeful together.

When does Den arrive?
Well, right now we’re not sure. He was supposed to get here at 5pm today, but there were a bunch of flight delays and he had to get put on different flights. We’re hoping he gets here sometime tonight.

Did you tell your parents yet?
I did! I waited until I had the digital to show them. I knew showing them a very light second line would not really have any impact, since they don’t understand the whole “a line is a line” thing… and neither one of them has great eyesight anymore, so I didn’t think they’d be able to see it! But this morning when I got the digital I walked out and handed it to my mom and she said, “What does this mean?” She knew, but wanted to make sure. I nodded and she started crying and jumped up and hugged me. Dad also asked, “What does this mean?” and then just said, “Oh! Really?? Already?? Well, good!!” My dad, ever the emotional one, ha! I love them both and I am just so thrilled to be able to share this with them!

Who else knows?
Ummmm… the entire internet, I think!! But you know me, I don’t keep secrets very well at all. ;) And goodness gracious, I love all of my friends… it’s so freaking joyful to read all the celebrations that are going on right now!

As for family, all I’ve told are my parents and brother. My mom asked me today if we were going to tell everyone at easter dinner next week and I told her I didn’t think so. Den and I need to talk about what we want to do, obviously, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to hold off announcing to family until we have seen some ultrasounds and a heartbeat. Not that I wouldn’t tell them about a miscarriage, if that happens, but… I think we both feel a little fragile right now.

I felt pretty good last night. Still not ready to really say I was pregnant, but pretty confident… my body certainly feels it. I got up at 4am to take another test (early on purpose that time – so that I could tell Den the happy news before he left for the airport). And the line was freaking barely visible. I said WTF. And then I started panicking. That is not how I pictured my morning going.

4am no stores are open here. Nothing. I had to wait several hours for any drug stores or Walmart. I fell aleep and had a bad dream about buying tests and being chased by people. (Yeah, that was great.)

I borrowed mom’s car to drive to the store, ended up buying both a Clearblue Digital and a Clearblue +/- test. I avoid the +/- tests like the plague, but I needed to see some kind of line on a different brand, and we’re short on options here.

I took three tests at once… my last FRER and the two Clearblues. Fucking FRER was lighter than before (I am not a fan of the brand, let me tell you). The blue dye test had an obvious, but not very dark, line.

And then I waited. And waited. The little image blinked on the digital. There I knelt, crouched over my little pee sticks like a mother hen, wondering what the HELL I was going to do if that digital said not pregnant.

It stopped blinking.

I cried.

I think I’m pregnant.

I couldn’t sleep at all. I tried to force myself to sleep. At 3am I gave in.

And I said W.T.F.?? It was negative. But then… maybe something? I tilted it every which way, feeling like I was really trying too hard. I went back to bed and vowed to take another one after I actually slept. (I kept checking it every half an hour to make sure the shadow-line hadn’t disappeared. I kept it stashed under my pillow.)

10am, another one. Same thing.

So I spent the day in a kind of limbo. Is it a shadow? Is it a line? Am I going batshit crazy?

Is it, maybe….??

REQUEST: If you know me on Facebook, please don’t say anything there, we’re not telling family yet.