Welcome ICLW readers!

I haven't done ICLW in a very long time but decided to sign up this month on a whim. 

For those that are new to this space, I am Non Sequitur Chica (NSC for short). The rest of the crew is made up of my husband, CP, my 15 month old daughter, Izzy, and our Bernese Mountain Dog, Buster. After three years of TTC- which included surgery for fibroids/endo, 3 IUIs, and then IVF- our daughter was born. My husband and I are a bit older so we decided to try for #2 sooner rather than later so we did a frozen transfer of the one frozen embryo on February 12th and I found out that I was pregnant on Sunday!

My beta yesterday came back at 55 which made me a bit nervous, but I decided to take another pregnancy test this morning to see if the line was getting darker.

Sunday test

Tues test

It's hard to tell if the line is much darker in the second test, but I took the pictures in two different bathrooms so the lighting might be off?

The two tests together

Clearly in this picture the Tuesday test is darker but this picture was taken more than 10 minutes after I took the test so I don't know if the line is valid or not.

I was hoping that taking this test would make me feel a little better, but there is nothing that I can do so I am going to try not to worry about it. With my HCG at 55 we are just hoping for at least 110 tomorrow morning...and that is not a lot so the line would likely not look too different. I just keep remembering the dark lines from when I was pregnant with Izzy (when my HCG was over 200 on my first beta) and can't expect that with this smaller beta number.

Today, I am pregnant. Tomorrow, I hope for good news.

ICLW July

Welcome ICLWers.  I haven't participated in a while because once I got pregnant after my first IVF cycle I wasn't sure if I should participate.  Whenever ICLW came around, I wouldn't click on the links to the women that were pregnant that I wasn't already reading.  I could handle reading someone's blog if I was with them through treatment, but I didn't want to start reading someone after they were pregnant.  Weird, yes, but it is what it is.

So whether you are pregnant or still in the trenches and came over from ICLW, thanks for clicking over!  For my infertility history, check out my timeline on the right hand side of the page.

If you don't want to hear about pregnancy stuff, then today's post may not be the right one for you.  But I do try to talk about anything and everything on this blog- not just infertility and pregnancy.

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Yesterday was my 20 week ultrasound.  I had a Level II ultrasound because my due date is only 6 days before my 35th birthday.  We didn't get any great pictures of the baby, but thankfully everything is progressing normally and looks good.  My silly fears on having an incompetent cervix were unfounded (woo hoo!).  Also, I am in awe of ultrasound technicians and their ability to figure out what is actually on the screen.  Our tech was pointing out features on the baby and I was like, "huh?"  Things like the head, spine, hands, legs, heart, etc. were easy enough to find but that job definitely takes some skill.

We asked the high risk doctor to tell us when he was checking out the gender just in case we thought we saw something (or didn't see anything!).  I turned my head towards CP and kept my eyes open, watching him to make sure he didn't look at the screen.  He peeked quickly but assured me that it was just to check to make sure I wasn't peeking!!  Of course as soon as the doctor told us we could open our eyes we were both DYING to know the sex!  But it continues to be a mystery....

Yesterday was also the last chance to get an amniocentesis.  We received good news from the 12 week ultrasound and the bloodwork that dropped our chances of having a Down Syndrome baby from 1 and 312 (the risk for my age group) to 1 and 2293. Based on everything my risk has dropped to 1 in 5000 or so.  There is no way that I would risk doing a procedure that could result in a miscarriage in 1 out of 300 pregnancies when our risk for Down Syndrome is so low.  Not to mention even if the results from the amniocentesis came back positive, I'm not sure we would do anything anyway.

My only bad news was that at least one of my fibroids has grown. At the last ultrasound it was only 2cm....yesterday it had grown to 5cm.  They couldn't find the second fibroid.  The high risk doctor didn't say anything about the fibroid (the ultrasound tech pointed it out)so maybe it is not a big deal? I would like to talk to my doctor to find out if it is going to create a problem with the pregnancy.  She mentioned that fibroids can either shrink, stay the same size, or grow larger with pregnancy and I guess my fibroid picked one of the options that I didn't want because it often causes pain. Booooo.

My uterus seemed to be a little bruised or sensitive the rest of the day yesterday.....I guess it wasn't a fan of someone pushing down on it for an hour.  Otherwise I am happy and anxiously awaiting my next ultrasound!

Happy ICLW week!

Welcome to everyone that is here from ICLW this week.

My name is Non Sequitur Chica and I'm currently in the middle of the two week wait from IVF #1.  Last Saturday we had a 5 day transfer of a perfect embryo.  At the beginning of the week I was hopeful that I would be able to stick to topics OTHER than infertility/IVF/etc. but man is my brain making it hard.

I haven't felt any different than usual so my brain yesterday (and continuing into today) has me convinced that the transfer didn't work.  I know that this is crazy talk because at this point I wouldn't be feeling anything, but my crazy brain thinks that if the embryo did implant that something, anything would feel different.  Where was a sharp, stabbing pain that other women have felt when their embryo most likely implanted?

So instead of trying to stay positive, I'm thinking of what I'm going to do Tuesday night after I get the bad beta results from my clinic.  What bottle of wine I'm going to polish off by myself (thank goodness I work from home the next day).  What meal I will have that I wouldn't have been able to eat if I had gotten pregnant (at this point sushi is winning).  What kind of email I am going to write to the few people we have told about the transfer telling them that it didn't work and that I don't want to talk about it.

Then after Tuesday night and until we are able to get back on the horse again for a frozen transfer of the one frozen embryo we have, how I'm going to buckle down and really get to exercising again.  How I will once again be able to help CP paint and finish our bedroom so that we can move all of the furniture and begin sleeping in there again.  How I will be able to drink at the upcoming Widespread Panic show.  How I won't have to make up an excuse as to why I'm not drinking with friends next week.

*sigh*

This week is dragging on.  Can it just be Tuesday already?

Feb ICLW

Welcome everyone from ICLW!  If you are looking for some background on me, please go here.  My infertility timeline is on the right side of my blog.

Just yesterday I started my Lupron shots for IVF #1!  I had quite the freakout which turned out to be so silly.  My logical brain knows that I'm a smart girl and a lot of other women have been able to give themselves shots....if doctors thought that it was too dangerous then they would have women come into the clinic every night and have the nurses give the shots.  It turned out that I barely felt the needle and it wasn't a big deal at all.

I find that I often psych myself out when I get anxious and build things up too much.  I was worried when I started taking scuba diving classes in preparation for our honeymoon because I don't like to open my eyes underwater...despite the fact that I had gone scuba diving twice before.  I was worried that I wouldn't be able to run a half marathon, but sure enough, I finished it right at my goal time.  I doubt myself and my abilities too often and then feel silly for doing so.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but at least I know that I can handle the Lupron shots!  We'll see if I have another freakout when I add in the Gonal f and Menopur.  :-)