And it begins...

Well, actually, it began a few weeks ago, but I didn't have the courage to write it down until now. And I won't have the courage to give anyone the link to this until after the 23rd, if all goes well. :)

If you're now reading this, you know I'm pregnant. :) Wow that still seems strange to type. But after 5 long, hard years, it's finally happened, and I'll be 6 weeks tomorrow. Last time I was pg, I didn't even make it to week 5, and ended up with a miscarriage. That keeps my fear high, so I'm very cautious. But after all we've been through to get here, I'd be crazy if I wasn't.

So here's what happened. We decided around the beginning of the year to do our FET in June. Tony was out of class for 5 weeks, thanks to our tax refund and what we'd saved we had the funds, and it just felt right. I started my birth control pills in March. In June I did all my hormones (lupron, baby aspirin, estrogen patches, pills, progesterone troches, progesterone suppositories which have been switched to a shot in the butt every night, all of which I'm still on, except the lupron). My dad was very sick and in the hospital for about 3 weeks of this. It's amazing that my body did so well, actually. On June 22nd, I had my FET transfer. We were scared to death that the 2 embies we had frozen wouldn't make it through the thaw, but they did, and the RE even told me they look good, my lining looked good, and she thought we had a good chance. Had a weekend of pseudo bed rest (more bed rest than not), and went on with life. Had my first blood draw on July 2nd, and my hcg was 151. Nurse told me it was perfect. That night, I spotted blood. Called the emergency line, and my RE said it wasn't good. I switched from the suppositories to the PIO (progesterone in oil) shot that night. I had to wait until the 5th for my 2nd draw, due to the holiday, and was nervous. That's where everything went wrong last time. This draw was 366. It wasn't quite as high as they were looking for (it's to double ever 48 hours per them, 48-72 per other docs, so with other docs they may have stopped there). So I was to go back 4 days later for another draw. It should have been over 1000 by then. But on July 9th, it was only 597. My RE called, and told me he wasn't very optimistic. So to go back on the 11th for another draw. Tony and I figured it was another miscarriage. All signs pointed to it. Well, my RE called on the 11th and told me it actually doubled, up to 1188. He said he had guarded optimism, and I was to go in for an ultrasound. They feared (as did I) that it was an ectopic pregnancy, that the embie was in one of my tubes instead of my uterus. After some confusion (the one nurse there I'm not fond of kinda messed things up, but oh well), I ended up back there on Friday the 13th. The RE looked, and thank God, embie was right there, in my uterus. :) We got to see the sac, and once I figure out the scanner at work, that picture, along with the pic of embie before he/she was in me, will be up here. She said she felt 100% better and we made her day! We went and got me a different progesterone shot (hopefully not to give me as much pain and welts), and came back to work and school. Now we wait until the 23rd to go in and pray that we see the heartbeat.

I'm feeling much better after seeing the sac, but we're not telling yet. I really need to see the heartbeat, to know that we at least got that far, before spilling the beans. So hopefully, hopefully we will see that. We have much more reason to be optimistic now, but after all we've been through, I'll be a little guarded the entire time. No way we could go through all of that and not be. Hopefully, soon, embie will become Baby Z and we can announce it to the world. Well, those that care, at least. :)

Sheri