Exile from Babyville

Milestones Revisited

This morning I'm leaving the big city and driving to my parents to decorate their house for Halloween. After I squeeze my dog into her costume, I plan on helping my parents hand out candy to trick or treaters. I've always loved Halloween (I know some people hate it, but I just can't help myself) and every year I go crazy carving pumpkins, hanging ghosts from the trees that I made out of old rags, and putting up all the other decorations I've accumulated over the years. Because it falls on a Sunday this year I've had plenty of time to get ready, and I carved so many pumpkins yesterday that my hands and neck are stiff and sore.

All of this Halloween activity is also my attempt to keep myself busy so that I won't have time ruminate on what this date also means to me. One year ago today, I was in my OB's office getting the news that I'd had a miscarriage. I went to the women's hospital that afternoon and had a d&c. In between my doctor's appointment and the d&c, M and I went home to get a few things to take with me to the hospital. I made him help me carve a pumpkin so that I could not think about what was going to be happening in a few short hours.

One year later, I'm still trying to keep myself occupied so that I don't have to think about what happened on Halloween last year. After it happened, everyone told me that the sadness and pain would lessen and that I would put it all behind me. But the truth is that I'm still waiting for that to happen, because it still feels as fresh now as it did then. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened, and what I lost on that day. There still isn't a day that goes by that I don't grieve my loss and think about how different my life would be today if I'd never had a miscarriage, and I hate that it all slipped away from me while I was powerless to stop it.

In many ways I blame my miscarriage for starting me down this path of IUIs, fertility meds, and IVF. Sometimes I feel like it took away my chance to be normal, because let's face it, if it hadn't happened I would be just like all of our friends who are happily and obliviously raising their families right now. Instead of having a normal life like everyone else I'm having to put more effort into achieving pregnancy than any of our friends have put effort into doing anything in their lives. I'm still grieving this loss of normalcy as intensely as I've grieved the loss of my pregnancy but I don't know if I can get back to being normal ever again. This past year has changed me so profoundly that I simply don't know if it's even possible.

In spite of all of the emotions I'm feeling today I really do want to get it together and at least pretend that everything is fine. Part of me believes that it's better to observe this horrible milestone in a positive way instead of being weepy and non-productive all day. At the very least it feels like a step in the right direction.

I Can Hardly Wait

When I got my IVF protocol and schedule a few weeks ago, I was surprised to see that the clinic had lowered my gonal-f dose for this new cycle. During our meeting with Dr. Hot Shot, he had told us that he wouldn't be making any changes to my protocol because I responded so well. So of course I quickly became convinced that the clinic had screwed up and that this cycle was doomed once again to failure. After I managed to calm down I finally decided to call the IVF nurse and discuss this issue with her in a calm and rational manner. I didn't get around to calling until yesterday, mainly because I was so paranoid about calling from my office.

When I called the clinic, I was told that the nurse was with a patient and told to leave her a voice mail message. I dutifully left me detailed message with my name, chart number and issue, and then and I walked around with my cellphone glued to my side all day long waiting for her to call me back (right, like I actually thought she would return my call). When the end of the day had come and I had not received my call back I was a little bit more than mildly irritated, but not quite to the point of annoyed and pissy. I called again this morning, and spoke to a very friendly nurse who confirmed that the computer showed the difference in dosages from last cycle and the one that I'm supposed to start tomorrow. I was surprised once again when the nurse agreed with me that it seemed a little odd that my dosage got changed, and she was just as eager to me to find out what the deal was. She put me on hold while she tried to track down the head nurse in charge, and after about 5 minutes of holding she promised to make her call me back right away.

Thanfully the IVF nurse called me back within twenty minutes or so, because I was getting ready to chuck my phone across the room in frustration from waiting. She explained that I had responded so well last time that Dr. Hot Shot was concerned I was actually over-responding to the meds, and that he had lowered my gonal-f dose on the theory that it would be easier to control my progress. I was a little skeptical at this explanation and grilled her about my concerns that I wouldn't respond so well with this new tweaking of my protocol, but the nurse swore that less meds would not equal less eggs or poorer quality. While the nurse seemed pretty convinced that I would be still ready for retrieval by November 8th, I'm still not completely convinced.

So now I'm starting to worry about what I'll do about work if things get pushed back. I guess the worse case scenario is that I call in and tell them I need more time for my "recovery". I can't help thinking that things would be so much easier if I wasn't working, and that I'm getting way too stressed out from dealing with work and IVF crap. On the other hand, it has been pretty nice to have a paycheck again, at least that's what I keep telling myself whenever I get pangs of regret over taking this job. Tomorrow morning I go in to the clinic at 7am for my baseline ultrasound and bloodwork, and I start taking the stims tomorrow night. At least this time I know what I'm doing with all the different meds and needles and everything, for whatever it's worth.

Here We Go Again

It's kind of boring waiting to start a new cycle, there isn't much to do and I don't welcome the down time as much as I probably should. Between the time off from cycling and my job I unfortunately don't feel like I have much in the way of interesting things to write about. My job is so boring that it sometimes makes me feel a little duller and less interesting, and there aren't really even any interesting anecdotes to relate in this medium. Oh, except my boss seems to have email melt-downs on a regular basis, I guess because she maybe tries not to yell in person. So far this past week she yelled at everyone via email about not keeping the kitchen clean enough and because someone was monopolizing one of the printers by printing up private internet business.

There were a few other noteworthy things that happened this past week. The first thing is that I decided to step up and volunteer to go to Denver next Monday for firm business, but the trip ended up getting cancelled at the last minute Friday afternoon. Another is that I told my boss I would need to take off the week of November 8th for surgery related to some "female issues". She actually seemed concerned, and I only spent about 5 minutes feeling vaguely guilty for lying about my reasons for taking off the time. I also talked to a recruiter at a big local insurance company about an open position I'm really interested in this past week. She helped me get my last job (the one before this one), which was also at an insurance company. Hopefully she'll lobby them enough to get me an interview, and then the rest is up to me and my dazzling personality.

Yesterday after work I went and picked up my new meds for this next IVF cycle. Because I still had a mountain of gonal-f in the refrigerator and mountains of 22 gauge needles from last time, I had to spend about 15 minutes on the phone with the pharmacy going over what I already had and what I needed before I went to pick it up. I start the Lupron on Monday, so the hot flashes and night sweats are just around the corner. Although I suppose artificially induced menopause may be a little easier to tolerate during the cooler weather months than during the summer, which is when I did my first cycle (I'm still trying really hard to try and find a bright side to things, but I've never been very good at it and I'm sure it shows.) Stims start on the 28th, which is when I also go in for my next adventure in early morning bloodwork and ultrasound fun.

So that's it for now. Tomorrow I'm going to the big corn maze out in the burbs with MY girlfriends (none of M's friends wives will be anywhere in site, hurrah!) After that we're going pumpkin and apple picking. Maybe I'll actually having some funny stuff to discuss after that.

A Few Couple Different Things

Yet another drawback of my new job is that it severely cuts into my blogging time. Because I'm concerned that the egghead tech guy in the office might monitor my internet behavior on the job (and he seems like he may be the type just so that he could for kicks and giggles), I've instituted a complete moratorium on any infertility related internet stuff while I'm working. The job still sucks, but I'm still working hard and billing my butt off so that my employer doesn't catch on that I consider my position to be a relatively temporary one.

After I had initially convinced myself that I could suffer through for the indefinite future, I had a slight change of heart for a couple of different reasons. The first came when I found out that the "occasional out of state travel" that had been mentioned during my interview was actually pretty frequent last minute travel to all kinds of obscure locations throughout the continental U.S. Apparently, destinations like Miami, NYC, L.A., Boston, etc is not allowed for these trips because they're actually fun, interesting and enjoyable. For whatever reason, all of the travel is to only non-vacation worthy locales like Backwater, West Virginia, Bugscuffle North Dakota and all the other backwater towns one never hopes to visit for any reason in her lifetime. I found out about this situation when I was asked on Monday to go to some tiny out of the way panhandle town in Florida today. The bosses didn't seem to take it badly when I said no (because I had an appointment with Dr. Hot Shot already scheduled for today, more on that in a minute), but I can definitely see how they may start to get testy when I keep saying no.

The other development came when a friend of mine heard about how little I liked my job and hooked me up with a couple of alternative job opportunities. I quickly jumped on them and have sent out my resume. I'll have to wait and see if either of them goes anywhere, but I'm cautiously optimistic that at least one of them might actually be a job I could enjoy doing. I admit that I feel like a bit of a heel for already considering a new job after I posted that whole long diatribe about how I needed to suck it up as far as my work was concerned. The truth is that I think I could do that at this job if the whole last minute travel thing wasn't in the picture, because that's really the only deal breaker for me. I'm already rehearsing my excuse about needing to be gone for a week for my IVF, and maybe that will actually turn into a deal breaker for them. Then again if they fire me at least I can still qualify for unemployment.

See, I can still look on the bright side sometimes.

The meeting with Dr. Hot Shot went pretty much as expected. M and I talked about our concerns, and Dr. Hot Shot shook his head in an understanding way while hardly listening to anything we had to say. He took the position that there was no real reason that the first IVF didn't work, and that it was probably just a matter of statistics. He didn't want to change my protocol at all, and I will start stims the first week of November (I get to start the Lupron in the last weeks of October.) I did manage to talk him into doing an immunity panel and clotting factor panel anyway, just for my own peace of mind. Dr. Hot Shot seemed to think that PGD wouldn't be necessary for this round of IVF, but he mentioned that he would want us to have all our embroys tested in future rounds if I don't get knocked up next month.

While M and I were waiting for our appointment M and I ran into J, the friend I've talked about in previous posts, along with her husband. M and J's husband are old friends, and they quickly caught up while J and I talked about accupuncture and how much I don't like my job. J and her husband are apparently taking a much needed break from IVF for the holidays, but they encouraged us to jump right back in and give this next cycle a try. We also made vague plans to get together for dinner soon, but I could tell that J was a little nervous because she's also assuming that I'll actually get pregnant from this next IVF.

Oh, there's one other thing that was bugging me that I was going to dedicate an entire post to never got the energy to do so. Yesterday morning's Tribune had a story on the front page about a woman (Taunacy, where do people come up with these names?) in the burbs who was pregnant with quints and whose husband volunteered to run off and fight in the Iraq war. The local media has been following this story ever since Mr. Taunacy left mom and his brood at home hoping for his safe return. Taunacy just gave birth to all five babies yesterday at only 26 weeks, while her husband ended up sustaining nearly life threatening injuries from a grenade blast the day before.

Does anyone else find this story annoying, or is it just me?

One last thing, whoever googled "Bush Twins Halloween Costumes" to end up at my bog, I'm inclined to think that you are probably one strange person. Now put that mouse down, step away from the computer, and go get a hobby that doesn't involve what I suspect is some weirdo sexual twin teen fetish.

Less Than Zero

I went to the fertility clinic once again this morning for my repeat beta. While I was there, I had the IVF nurse take a look at a disturbing welt that I had at the site of one of my PIO injections from a few days ago. Even M was worried that an infection was causing it, so I figured it was a good idea to just have it looked at. I was a little nervous about showing my ever growing and disturbingly bruised and battered derriere to a stranger (I've even been trying to spare M of the spectacle my ass has become as much as I possibly can), but after I thought about it I realized that she's likely seen it all. The nurse quickly diagnosed me with an allergic reaction to the PIO, and told me to stop taking it regardless of my beta results.

The test was negative, less than zero, according to the IVF nurse who called me this afternoon with the results. I was actually kind of relieved so that I wouldn't have to deal with the new medical drama ridiculously low and slowly increasing hcg levels would would likely introduce into my life. The nurse took a few minutes to discuss starting my next IVF cycle with me, and she explained that my protocol would probably be changed some even though I responded so well last time around. She also told me that I would probably have my retrieval and transfer during the second week of November. She thought I should be able to get a lunch-time appointment with Dr. Hot Shot the week after next to discuss my next cycle, and told me to call and schedule it on Monday.

So for the last few days now M and I have been trying to figure out some kind of explanation to give my new employer about my need to be absent for the transfer and retrieval. I'm still hoping that I will be an a similar schedule to the last time, which would mean that my transfer would fall on a weekend, but of course I can't count on that. We had thought about telling them that I had a trip planned, or that M or one of my parents was having surgery that week, or possibly even that we observe Thanksgiving a few weeks before everyone else does. After talking about it some more with my girfriends (who are mostly also attorneys) I think I'm going to tell them I need to take some time off for relatively minor outpatient surgery and mention that it's female related just to keep the questions to a minimum. Calling in sick at the last minute is also still on the table, but I know I need to decide before I get there on Monday so that I can mention it right away.

In an attempt to put off doing the pile of laundry that has mysteriously piled up to a dizzying height over the last few days, I also called around today to get information on some accupuncturists who are pretty close to my part of town. Some of them sounded pretty promising, and a few of them sounded too kooky for me. All of them were surprisingly expensive, and very few of them had weekend hours. I decided to put the final decision for a few days until after I get a better idea of what my work life is going to be like. I'm still a little worried about trying it (especially since I was hoping to enjoy my short reprieve from needle poking until the end of my supression), but after I talked to my friend J yesterday I feel a lot less worried than I had before. I hadn't spoken to J since we ran into each other at the clinic last month, because I didn't have the nerve to call her while my cycle was going so well. But I knew that J would be able to give me lots of information about acupuncture since she's really into it. J was pretty surprised that my blasts didn't take, and she had some good insights into what I could do to try and increase the success of my next cycle (including an immunology panel and pgd). After talking to her I felt even better about giving it a shot, so I decided to go for it. I'm really going to try to keep an open mind about the whole accupuncture thing, although the last time a masseuse tried to balance my shakras I almost fell of the table I was laughing so hard.

Acupuncturists don't do shakras, right?

3.46 = A Whole Lot Of Nothing

This morning I went in for my scheduled beta, even though I already knew what the results would be. After my appointment I went to the farmer's market I've started going to regularly since I became unemployed at the beginning of the summer. The market did exactly what I hoped it would, it gave me something to do so that I wouldn't think about Monday's hpt results and the likely outcome of my beta. I got some good veggies, my favorite bread from my favorite bakery, and finally headed home so that I could wait around for the call from the IVF nurse.

The nurse called sooner than I expected, maybe they call those with bad results first. The nurse was very kind, told me she wished she had better news, and informed me that my beta came back at 3.46. She called it an equivocal result, although we both knew that it really was the same thing as a negative. I was told to schedule another beta for Friday just to make sure, and that I would also need to come in and meet with Dr. Hot Shot to discuss what went wrong.

The closest thing to good news the nurse had for me was that I could go straight into the November IVF cycle, and that I wouldn't have to take a month off before starting back up with bcps. I explained that I was starting a new job next week, and she told me that they would try to schedule things as conveniently as possible. After I got off the the phone I called M and told him the news. Ever the optimist, he tried to think of a way that this could still mean I was pregnant. But after I explained how beta results worked and what level I should be at, he realized that it really was over. We discussed what the nurse told me, and we agreed that we would figure out a way to make a November cycle work.

While I've been feeling sad and weepy the last few days, the old numbness has now returned. I don't know if it's simply because I'm tired of being sad and angry, or if it's because I need more time for it all to sink in. I am actually kind of relieved now that I took the hpt on Monday, because I think it made me better prepared for the call I just got this afternoon. I had already researched ways to try and increase my success next time, and I'm even considering taking up acupuncture and changing my diet. At this point I'm willing to do just about anything to not have to do this again after November. Then again, I already know how out my control the outcome really is.

OK, I'm Definitely A Pessimist Now

The last couple of days I've been having a hard time sleeping at night. I wake up at least three or four times a night, and always wake up for good at least an hour before my alarm clock is set to go off. I realize that my insomnia is because I'm stressed about the outcome of this IVF and about how things will work out at my new job. This morning, I woke up once again about an hour and a half before my alarm, and after lying there fixating on whether or not I should test for about 30 minutes I finally made my decision. I went into the bathroom, pulled the box of hpts out of the back of the cabinet and decided to go for it.

It was negative.

I kept going back to look at the test every few minutes to assure myself that the results hadn't changed, and I finally gave up after 10 minutes or so. I tried crawling back into bed, but after lying there I finally gave up and left M sleeping peacefully to go into the living room and watch some mindless tv for a while.

When M finally woke up I told him about the test results. While he tried to hold on to his optimism, M quickly realized that the test probably should have been positive by now (9 days post 5 day transfer). We discussed what we would do if this cycle didn't work, and my immediate reaction was that we should jump right back in and try again. M floored me with his response; that we should just stop trying at all so that we could "go back to being a normal couple". I was so shocked and upset that it took everything I had to not completely lose it. I felt so betrayed that M was starting to agree with the assvice of his clueless and uber-fertile friends that maybe we were just trying to hard, and that we should just let it happen on its own. Because it's so NOT true, and these people have no idea what they're talking about because they didn't even have to try to get pregnant in the first place.

After we talked some more I realized that M was still holding on to the hope that we could just be a normal couple who pops out kids like everyone else. Of course I also wish it could be that easy, but I think the simple fact that we still don't have a baby (or at least a pregnancy that has survived past 8 weeks) at this point is clear and irrefutable evidence that our reproductive stuff is broken. I explained to M that I can't just give up on my dream of having a baby, and that I don't wan't to make it take any longer than it has to. The bottom line is that I can't just go back to how we used to be before we were trying, because I wanted to have a baby just as desperately then as I do now. And I defintely can't pretend that I'm fine with being childless while all of our friends are happily raising their broods.

After we talked some more M finally got on board with trying IVF again. We're going to demand that Dr. Hot Shot test me for immunity issues and monitor my hormone levels after the transfer to make sure we know what's going on. I even got M to agree that we should get a second opinion if IVF #2 doesn't work either. I guess all there is to do at this point is see what my beta results are on Wednesday. But needless to say I'm not feeling very optimistic. Numb with a touch of anger, yes, but not very optimistic.

I'm An Optimist, No Wait, I'm A Pessimist

I've been completely out of the loop for days now because M took the computer with him on a business trip. M and the computer left on Wednesday, and I've been going through computer withdrawal since then. It was probably just as well that I didn't have access to the internet these last few days because I'm sure I would have spent most of my time looking up obscure references to pregnancy symptoms after IVF transfer and on implantion failure because these are the things with which I've become obsessed. I've kept myself busy with shopping, cleaning, and running back and forth to my MIL's for my PIO shots (she's a nurse, and she volunteered to do the injections for M while he's been gone.) While I was doing pretty good at holding on to my optimism up until a few days ago, Thursday saw the return of the old mean and nasty voice of pessimism. I hate this pessimistic voice, but I find it impossible to tune it out (my only escape has been while watching Buffy reruns, which is one of the best forms of escapism I can think of) especially when it's so loud and insistent. Until today I was completely convinced that this IVF has been a failure, but today I've started feeling a little more hopeful that maybe my beta will be positive next Wedesday.

M finally came back from his trip today, and maybe that's part of the reason I'm feeling a little better about things. Because he wasn't around to help prop me up while he was gone, it was easier for me to become so negative that I convinced myself that I wasn't pregnant. Because I have been pregnant before, and I know what kind of symptoms I had when I was just a few weeks along. While I was crampy for a few days after the transfer, they have since done a disappearing act. My boobs are still sore, but they've been that way since before my retrieval. I just don't feel the way I did when I was pregnant last year, and that really worries me. I know that so may women claim that they never get early pregnancy symptoms and that it doesn't mean I'm not pregnant absent these symptoms, but I feel like I should have them now because I did before. I had convinced myself to test on Monday morning, but I'm starting to have second thoughts about it because I just don't know if I can handle how crushed I'll feel if it's negative. On the other hand, at least testing would help prepare me for the results of my beta on Wednesday.

Oh, and I did decide to accept the job offer. The hiring partner was fine with me starting the first Monday of October, so that will buy me some time to deal with my beta results (whatever they may be.) I'm still trying to figure out how I'll manage the new job and future IVF cycles if they become necessary. I don't know if I would go straight into another cycle or if I would have to take off a cycle before starting supression. At least that would buy me some time to get into the new job, but at the same time I'm afraid of losing my momentum if I take too much time away. Meanwhile I'm becoming nervous about starting the new job with so many new people and new work that with which I'm not really very familiar. One thing I can say with certainty is that it's definitely going to be interesting to see how this all plays out over the next several months.

Still Waiting, And Maybe Even Hoping A Little

While I'm still fixating on this odd semi-pregnant state in which I currently find myself, there have been a few minutes where I've temporarily forgotten that it's been two days since my 5 day transfer. I think that part of the reason things felt so weird this time around (aside from the obvious) was because the flurry of activity around the time of my sort-of-ovulation were so completely different from past months. This month instead of feeding sticks into my fertility monitor and running between the andrology lab and my doctor's office (with a few desperate attempts to cover the bases the old fashioned way) I had to do things that had previously been completely foreign to me. Getting used to the injections alone was hugely weird for me, and I'm still wrapping my brain around how my potential child was conceived in the first place. Oddly enough, the old way had really become a way of life for me, in part because we did it so repetitively for months. I'm definitely a creature of habit, so throwing out the old way of doing things for this new way has been really disconcerting for me.

The last two months I've been feeling kind of like I'm in some weird movie about me and my life that was definitely written by someone else (someone with a very strange sense of humor). This whole experience continues to seem so surreal to me, and I hope that the only way to make this seem more real to me isn't by going through a few more rounds of IVF. Maybe a successful pregnancy will make this seem more real, at the very least because I will have a tangible result that will also make it seem worthwhile. I don't really know what the answer is, but of course I would happily go without the answer if I get a baby out of the deal.

As I've gotten further sucked into this IVF cycle it's become harder for me to walk this tight-rope between optimism and realism that seems to surround the whole infertility experience. I really want to believe that it will work because I want it so badly. At the same time I know all too well that this may not happen, and I so hate the disappointment that each month has brought that I find it more and more painful to keep holding on to hope. Hope can be empowering and deceptive at the same time, especially when the circumstances seem so impossible. I feel like a have to temper any optimism I have with a healthy dose of realism, but of course this realism often morphs into a pessimistic voice in my head shouting that this can't possibly work out the way in which I want it. When you struggle with infertility you learn that disappointment is usually waiting for you just around the corner, and at this point I've conditioned myself to keep my expectations low so that I'm no longer so upset by the inevitable failure each month.

All of these thoughts have been wandering through my mind today as I've wavered between boundless optimism and pessimism. At least this time the pessimism is not as brutal as it usually is, instead of beating me down like the class bully it seems content to quietly remind me that this IVF may not be the one that gets me pregnant (and that it may never work.) In light of past encounters with my inner pessimist this certainly seems like a positive development. Whether pessimism will continue to lay off the bully routine remains to be seen, but I can't see hope and optimism holding out for too long if this turns into a failed cycle leading into still more failed IVF cycles. So for now I'm going to try to keep this calmer kinder version of pessimism to stick around, and let it continue its stint as a somewhat creepy back-up singer to hope and optimism. At least this way I can keep them all within earshot, and hopefully I will see it coming if pessimism decides to resort to its old tricks.

So I Guess This Makes Me Kind Of Pregnant

The embryo transfer this morning went a lot better that I expected, especially since I'm still kind of sore from my retrieval 5 days ago. Yesterday I felt especially bloated and crappy, but by this morning I was feeling a lot better. M and I didn't have to wait very long at the clinic to get called back, and the nurse parked us in the "husband room" (where male partners go to do their part) for some unknown reason. I was surprised at how nice and comfortable it was because the room at the lab where M went before was pretty creepy, but I was still a little nervous about touching things like the table by the spinning sample door or the countertop. The nurse gave M a pair of scrubs to wear into the procedure room for the transfer, and he looked so goofy with booties and a surgical hat on that we both ended up giggling like idiots. Oh, and we also noticed that the surgical mask-thing looks like a maxi-pad with strings if you don't pull it open more. That's defintiely an image I won't soon forget, despite my best attempts to do exactly that.

Before the transfer the embryologist came in to talk with M and I about our embryos and status of each of them. She explained that we had 2 really good looking blasts that they wanted to transfer today and 4 more that were suitable for freezing. She also explained that we had 4 more embryos they were still waiting on to decide if they were suitable for freezing, but that they would be able to tell by tomorrow. We confirmed that we wanted to freeze as many of them as we could, and we're supposed to hear about what happened with these last four embryos on Tuesday when I'm supposed to call the lab for an update. Before she could scamper out of the husband room and away from our 20 million questions, M made the embryologist go over all of the stats for transferring 2 as opposed to 3 because he was kind of pessimistic that 2 would be enough. Thanfully she talked him out of transferring 3, and reassured him that we could reconsider this issue if this cycle is a bust.

The transfer was pretty quick and painless, and now I'm sitting on the couch trying to rest up. Dr. Hot Shot admitted after the transfer that bed rest for two days or taking it easy the two weeks after the transfer isn't really all that necessary, but he still recommends it for all his patients anyway. Who am I to argue with that?

Since I've been home I've quickly learned that I was correct when I predicted the other day that I would trade in my worries about the embryos for other worries after the transfer was done. The last few days seem so surreal to me. It's weird to know that there are blasts floating around in my uterus but not knowing if they will settle in and stick around for the next 9 months. The more I think about this potential pregnancy, the more scared and freaked out I get about what it's outcome will be. Mostly I'm terrified of having another miscarriage, and I worry about whether I would be able to deal with that again. The more I think about it, the more panicky I get. I hate that I've lost the ability to just enjoy a pregnancy without constantly feeling fear in the pit of my stomach. I also hate that I've lost the ability to be optimistic and assume that this will just work for me like it's supposed to. Finally, I worry that I won't feel connected to this potential pregnancy because I'm trying so hard to protect myself from getting hurt again.

How do women get through this after the transfer time until their betas? I can tell that I'm going to have a hard time staying patient and waiting for the test results. My beta isn't until the 29th, which seems like it's months away instead of only 11 days. I'm hoping I can find plenty of things to do to keep me busy, but I know that I'll be obsessing about it no matter what I do. Working up the motivation to tackle some of the tasks that have been waiting to get accomplished around this place might be kind of hard, but I'll try my best if it can make the next 11 days go by a little faster.