My scientific study

Thanks for all of your input yesterday- this is all so new to me so I welcome all of your experience.  A few hours after posting, I consulted Dr. Google.  I don't have a master degree in Google University like some of you, but as soon as I entered in "night cramps pregnancy" the first result that came up was perfect- a message board of people discussing massive abdominal cramps at night during early pregnancy- YES.

I would like to stay away from taking Tylenol during this pregnancy, so if I can find out the cause of the cramps, maybe I can do something during the day to make sure they don't happen at night.  From your responses, it sounds like some cramping is normal during early pregnancy- but this night cramping is BAD.

So on the message board, one person said that her doctor said that she wasn't drinking enough water.  I thought to myself, okay, I will perform a HIGHLY scientific study tonight. (ha ha) Instead of not drinking water past 8:30 so that I don't have to pee too many times at night, I'll make sure that I continue drinking water up until bedtime and when I do get up to pee, I'll drink some water at the same time (well, not exactly at the same time, but you know what I mean).

I went to bed at 10pm, exhausted.  I was up to pee only two hours later, my body completely confused.  

At 1am I woke up with the massive cramps.  I tried to get into a comfortable position to no avail.  I decided to head to the bathroom to see if I could do anything about it (the message thread also talked about new pregnancy hormones affecting the digestive system- with a slower digestion the cramps could be the need to poop).  I'm usually a once a day type of gal if I'm lucky and so far it's been pretty consistent.  I started to do my business when I realized, oh sh*t, I also need to throw up.

I have never experienced this before in my life, but I did watch my ex-boyfriend have an episode similar to mine after he got way too wasted at a party in college.  Lovely.

I probably should add that CP and I went out for a celebration dinner last night.  We decided to go to an Afghani restaurant.  The food was delicious- a lamb stew over sauteed spinach and rice with carrots and raisins.  However, it was not a pleasure having to throw that up at the same time as I was pooping.

After about 25 minutes, I no longer had the urge to have anything come out from either end and my cramps were not as bad. I brushed my teeth, rinsed my mouth out with mouthwash, and headed back to bed. I ended up having to pee two more times before 7am.

Project drink more water before bed? FAIL.

I'm not sure if the throwing up was due to bad food from the restaurant, but I'm certainly not going to eat my leftovers!!  I think that I will make CP eat them since he called me Pukey face this morning.

I do think that I will make an effort to add more fiber to my diet as most of my cramping went away after my bathroom trip.  And if I NEVER have an episode like last night again I will be a happy, happy lady.

Beta doubled

More good news- my beta results are in and they doubled in the past two days!

Beta #1 at 15dpo- 223

Beta #2 at 17dpo- 494

Woo hoo!

My clinic usually does a third beta but I didn't want to miss any work if I didn't need to so they aren't making me come in for another test.  Along with early beta tests, my clinic also does very early ultrasounds.  The nurse said that they should be able to see something after 5 weeks, 5 days, so my first OB ultrasound will be on Monday, April 8th.  I'm hoping CP can make it- but you never know with his work/travel schedule.

So far, so good.

I'm trying to decide if I have some pregnancy symptoms.  The night before my beta (14dpo) I woke up at 2am and had awful, awful cramps.  I figured that because of the progesterone and that I have a 50% chance of my endo being back since it has been more than a year since my surgery, that my body hated me from all of the IVF drugs and that I was about to get a massive period.  As you know, that is amazingly not the case.  But I woke up again last night at 3am with awful cramps again.  Is this normal?  

The past few days I haven't had much of an appetite which is VERY unusual.  But this morning I have been RAVENOUS.  I can't wait for lunch!

I'm usually always thirsty and drink a ton of water, but the past few days I feel like I am peeing all the time!  Again, pregnancy symptom?  Or is it all in my head?

Still in shock

THANK YOU ALL FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART.  

Your excited comments for someone that you only know over the interwebs blew me away.  I honestly couldn't have gotten through the past few years without you- and if I'm lucky I still have the rest of 2013 to go with this pregnancy so I hope you stick with me!!

Lest you think that the crazy thoughts go away once you hear that you are pregnant, only an hour after I got the beta results my cell phone started ringing and before I picked it up to look at the number, a thought flashed through my brain that it must be the clinic calling me to tell me that they switched my beta results with someone one else and that I wasn't pregnant.  Thankfully it was only our HVAC guy. (Yes I am insane)

Juuuuust to make sure I decided to go home to have a pee stick party after work!  I ended up testing three times- when I got home, right before going to bed, and then this morning.

Not sure why I can't seem to turn this but the bottom line is the control line, the top line is the yes, you are truly pregnant line.

Don't worry- I won't be posting any more pee sticks on the blog for this pregnancy.  I finally have proof and that's all I care about.  :-)

So, next step is tomorrow's beta test.  Here's hoping that my hCG levels double!!

Holy poop

Just got news from the clinic....I'm no longer PUPO (Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise)- 

I'M PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right.....after almost three years I can finally say that I'M PREGNANT!!!!!

Holy poop. Holy poop.  Holy poop.

Still in so much shock and shaking.  There are still a ton of hurdles, but today I am on cloud nine.  :-)

As far as my beta test went, any hCG level over 25 is considered pregnant.  My clinic likes to see anything over 100....as always I like to be an overachiever so my beta was 233.  I'm back into the clinic on Thursday to make sure that my hCG level is doubling.  I have a long road ahead, but for today, I can breathe a BIG sigh of relief- I now have proof that CP's sperm and my eggs can have a fertilization party and implant in my uterus!!

No wine and sushi for me tonight!!  (happy dance)

Back to logical thinking

Sorry for my freak-out of a post on Thursday, but that's what was going on in my head.  Friday wasn't much better.  After work I took Buster on a long walk and when I got back all I wanted to do was clean.  If you have been reading me for a while, the urge to CLEAN ALL THE THINGS is my number one sign of an impending period.  I never got that feeling during my three months on Lupron prior to my fibroid/endo surgery so it has to have something to do with my reproductive hormones.

So of course the fact that I wanted to CLEAN EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE had me convinced that the embryo is gone.  CP went to a work happy hour (which turned into a late and drunken night for him- I decided not to go because I couldn't drink anyway) while I cleaned, watched tv, and then finished the book "The Fault in Our Stars."  I ugly-cried through the last quarter of the book so my eyes were nice and puffy the next morning.

Then on Saturday it was like I was normal again.  My logical brain took hold and is back in control.  If the embryo did implant then I shouldn't be feeling anything right now anyways....so I went about my day as if everything was normal.  It actually made for a nice and relaxing Saturday and Sunday.  Today?  Today I'm still in the relaxed mode.  There is nothing I can do or say at this point.  The beta test tomorrow is going to either show that I'm pregnant or that I am not pregnant.  

But logical, sane me HATES the fact that I was freaking out on Thursday and Friday.  I hate that the period in between transfer and a pregnancy test turns me into a basket case at times.  I guess I should be thankful that I was only freaking out for two days as opposed the entire 10 days....

I'm bummed that CP left for CA yesterday afternoon on a last-minute work trip.  He is scheduled to come back tomorrow, but it all depends on if the emergency situation has been fixed or not.  Even if he is able to come back tomorrow, he gets in really late.  I'll either be passed out in bed, drunk off a bottle of wine and full of sushi, or unable to believe that the IVF really worked.  We'll see....

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?

Spring 2013 planting

I made good use of my bed rest/free time on Sunday.

First, after reading about a documentary called "The Staircase" in Entertainment Weekly, I decided to try to watch all of the episodes OnDemand.  Unfortunately, they only had the last two parts of the documentary, but I found the earlier parts on the Sundance Channel's website and YouTube.  The documentary is pretty good and with each episode you go back and forth on whether the husband is guilty or not.  (I'm currently on episode #5.)  I don't usually watch the Sundance Channel, but they have been hyping up another miniseries called 'Top of the Lake" with Elizabeth Moss (from Mad Men).  I've been hearing good things about that series as well so I DVR'ed it last night.

My other major task on Sunday was to plan out our front, side, and back flower gardens.  If you remember, this past fall we hired a landscaper to come out to the property and rip out all of the nasty, overgrown bushes and ground cover (Before and After pictures).  Well, now everything is bare so we have to spend some money on making everything look pretty!

I spent a considerable amount of time figuring out when everything would bloom and trying to space that out throughout the spring and summer and also looking at height/spacing/a variety of shapes/ etc.  I planted tulips and daffodils last fall and they are just starting to peep out of the ground.  My goal on Sunday was to find no-care or low-maintenance perennials so that I could plant them and forget about them!

Here what I have ordered for this year:

Front of the House Garden 
(will not have full sun because of a large tree)

Black Eyed Susans.  Had these in CT and loved them.

Cherry Brandy Black Eyed Susan.  I've never seen this before and I needed some red.

Pink Sensation Aconitum.
I had never heard of Aconitums, but they were recommended by my mom's Perennial book for no-fuss and no problems with insects.

Napellus Aconitum

Darwin's Blue Veronica

Twilite Prairieblues Bapista.
Another plant I have never heard of but gets high marks from the Perennial book.

Solar Flare Prairieblues Bapista

Behind the House and Garage 

(little/no sun) 

Blue Mouse Ears Hosta.
I bought this partly because the name is adorable.  :-)

Blue Mammoth Hosta.
As the name suggests, these get pretty big.

Tokudama Flavo-Circinalis Hosta

Side of driveway (mostly sun)

For this area, I went with all daylilies that bloom at different times of the summer.

Frans Hals Daylily

Black-Eyed Stella Daylily

Pardalinum Tiger Lily

Red Tiger Daylily

Pink Tiger Daylily

Strutter's Ball Daylily

Yellow Tiger Daylily

Did I mention how much I like flowers?  :-)

Any suggestions on some of your favorite no-fuss perennials? 

CP and I are also working on planning out our garden beds this year. I can't wait for fresh veggies once again!



*Pictures from Hollandbulbfarms.com and Rootsrhizomes.com (where I bought the plants).  This is not an advertisement for these companies nor have I been given free plants (boy that would have been nice!).*