Moving forward

I had a very stressful few days dealing with the issue with my friend but thankfully we got together and resolved all of that and I feel much better! I had slept really badly for a few nights and felt constantly anxious and so I just had to do another test to make sure that I hadn't scared the little one away from this stressful world ;) The fertility clinic have told me that I can stop my remaining meds from 8 weeks (which is now). I've been taking Progynova and doing the Gestone shots ever since the embryo transfer and so it's odd to be shaking off that security blanket. The nurse said that I could wind it down gradually if I want to and so I'm tailing it off over this week. We met with the midwife for the first time today :) It felt like a real milestone and I really feel like we are now moving away from the uncertainties of IVF and early pregnancy and into pregnancy proper! The midwife was very lovely and I'm glad to hear that I will see the same midwife for most of my visits. She just asked us a few questions about general health and booked me in for my 12 week scan. I might need some more blood tests, although she's going to check if I've already had them all as part of the IVF preparations. They will test my urine at the 12 week scan too. She talked us through the inital screening for Down's syndrome and my hub and I discussed it. We've decided that we don't want to have the screening as it wouldn't make any difference to us in terms of continuing with the pregnancy and we don't want any unnecessary worry and uncertainty that might result from it. If problems are discovered when the baby is born then we will deal with them then. We can't prepare ourselves for every possible eventuality. The midwife left me with lots of paperwork to fill in about our own and family medical history, and lots of leaflets to read. It's nice to find that I'm now finding myself re-reading the same information in different places and so I feel pretty well informed for this stage of the pregnancy :)

Bitter sweet

We went for the 8 week scan on Thursday. We were both so nervous while we were waiting to go in although I was quietly confident that everything was going to be OK. My other half was a mess though. They kept us waiting for 30 minutes and he was getting more and more uptight. Thankfully once we got in there, the scanner (internal) was in place very quickly and almost instantly our little peanut popped up on the screen and the nurse pointed out the heartbeat straight away. Such a great moment! Hubby was pretty emotional, struggling to hold it together. He asked me afterwards why I hadn't got as emotional and I think it was just that I had felt relatively calm beforehand about it being a positive outcome so I just felt great happiness :) The nurse gave us 4 different scan images to take home. Here are two of them: What I initially thought was the head is actually the yolk sac which will become the placenta. The embryo itself is the little blob at the bottom of the second image. We could actually see a little arm bud on one of the pictures :) The nurse explained that the dates get slightly messed up with it being IVF and so she has calculated that I was actually 7 weeks and 3 days on the day of the scan. So I'm not quite as far along as I thought. Which means a slightly longer wait until the next scan now - darn it! I was so happy and relived to see that there was an embryo and that it was alive that I didn't even think to ask any questions about whether everything looked OK or not! Presumably they would have told us but I'm kicking my self for not checking with her. I immediately got online looking at other 7 week scans to compare and then started getting concerned that my yolk sac seems really big... And then I started googling that and found all kinds of stuff that I really didn't want to be reading! Must avoid internet articles and forums!!! The bitter in the sweet is that I fell out with a very good friend on Friday. There has been an ongoing issue with her sister and I decided to confront the elephant in the room which has led to my friend feeling veryhurt. She won't explain why and says that she can't talk to me at the moment. It's all very upsetting and has left me feeling very anxious and nervous. I hate unresolved conflict and want to sit down and talk to her as soon as possible, but it's out of my hands at the moment. You imagine yourself getting pregnant and that everything will be right with the world, but of course life carries on as before, with it's ups and downs.

Panic

On Friday morning I had some more light bleeding :( I called my GP surgery and spoke to one of the doctors. She said exactly the same thing that my consultant had said previously. Basically that there is no need to panic but she gave me instructions as to who to call if things get worse. We went out for dinner with some friends on Friday night. It's the first time that we've seen them since we told them about the pregnancy and they were so excited for us but we were frozen with fear! On Saturday morning I still had some bleeding and some pretty bad cramping. Hubby was at work and I made the mistake of getting on the internet looking for reassurance. I read one too many comments from people describing my symptoms and explaining that it's exactly what they experienced before their miscarriage. I burst into tears and felt really panicky. When my husband phoned from work to say hi and heard the state of me he came straight home, bless him. We went out for lunch to try and distract ourselves but it didn't really help. We came home and watched a couple of DVDs. I fell asleep pretty quickly - probably emotional exhaustion. As the evening went on I started feeling less crampy and the bleeding slowed. I've just had spotting since and am feeling much better about things again. That's twice now that things have got better rather than worse. Maybe this is just the routine for me. And we're now only three days from our 8 week scan! Thanks God. I'm generally feeling very anxious about everything. The pregnancy, being a parent, issues with a friend that have been ongoing for months but that seem to be effecting me even more than usual. I guess it's hormonal. I really feel that I need to find a way to manage my stress levels better at the moment. I saw another firend tonight and told her about the pregnancy. She was really happy for us. It's odd though, some people seem very hesitant to truly congratulate us at this state. A few people have said things like "Well, even if it doesn't work out this time, at least you know that it's possible!". The last thing that I want to think about is the possibility of having to climb this mountain again, thanks!!

Gaining confidence

So, on the evening of Tuesday 12th I did another test and before I could even get my pants up the test (in the words of my husband) "lit up like a f**king Christmas tree!". Absolutely no need to be concerned! It's given me extra confidence about how this pregnancy is going. My boobs are getting a little bit more swollen and sore. I still don't have any nausea. I've had a minute amount of spotting each day. Spots on my chin. My mood is a little bit snippy! My other half and I have avoided sex. Firstly because of the embryo transfer and not wanting to interfere with implantation, then due to the bleeding and being nervous about disrupting things. It's odd though, going so long. I don't want us to get out of the habit or lose our closeness as a result. One more week til the 8 week scan! I had a GP appointment on Friday 8th which was a waste of time as he said he couldn't do anything except advise me to take folic acid! He just needed to refer me to the midwifery team. I haven't heard anything from them yet. Hope I do soon!

Fear part 2

I woke this morning full of anxiety, wondering if today was going to bring more bleeding and worry. I've had very light spotting all day and only some very mild cramping on and off. I keep telling myself that this is probably just normal for me and that I have to get used to it otherwise I could be in distress for my whole pregnancy! I've started being concerned about how I feel generally. I don't seem to need to pee as much as I have done these last couple of weeks and I seem to have a bit more energy. Does this mean I'm no longer pregnant? I'm tempted to do another test but I'm alone tonight and can't face a potential bad outcome on my own. I know it's ridiculous, I know that everything is no doubt fine. I have nothing significant to base this on. It's irrational. But I guess I'm still in a state of disbelief that I've got pregnant at all and it's hard to imagine that this happy situation will run and run in the way that we hope. I should be thinking more positively!

Fear

A few days ago I had some really light spotting. It was so light that if I wasn't watching my body's every move like a hawk then I may not have even noticed it. I was slightly concerned but after reading about spotting and bleeding in early pregnancy I relaxed. I went away for the night with some friends on Friday. A couple of these friends know about the pregnancy but most of them don't. It was so weird not talking about it. Another friend, who does know, fed our cats while we were both away and left a lovely bunch of flowers for me as a congratulations gift and also as my first Mother's Day gift! He is so sweet. A big softie who is very emotional about the fact that I'm pregnant. This morning, I woke up to some more significant bleeding than I had earlier in the week. I just wanted to curl up under a blanket and feel sorry for myself. It's Mothers Day and I couldn't face the idea of something bad happening today of all days. It caused so much anxiety. It was more pinkish/brown than red and didn't get worse over the course of the next few hours as my period would have done. But it was enough to worry me. I called the on-call nurse at the hospital, who actually turned out to be my consultant. He was fairly reassuring and told me to take it easy and that as long as the bleeding doesn't get heavier than my period that it should be ok. He didn't feel that a scan would help at this point. The bleeding seemed to slow over the next couple of hours and so I went ahead and took mum for lunch as planned. The bleeding is now very light and brown like at the end of my period. I'm now lying on the sofa and don't intend to move... After all the problems we've dealt with up to this point, why can't everything be plain sailing? I really hope this bleeding situation doesn't continue. I know it's normal for some women but my nerves can't stand it.

Predictions

Remember this post? The psychic was right about my age and if you consider that I've had three embryo transfers, she could be right about the three 'pregnancies'! Will she be right about the sex?? We definitely want to know in advance if we can. We'll see.

Niave

I had to leave work early yesterday as I had a really sudden onset of diarrhea. I started feeling really hot and getting sweaty then had to dash to the loo. I felt much better afterwards but as I work in a hospital they made me leave (due to fear of spreading sickness bugs). I felt a bit wiped out for the rest of the day and felt really cold. I'm fine today. The same thing happened back in January and I've no idea what caused it both times. A little worrying. I'll mention it at my doctors appointment on Friday. This is the appointment that I've made at my GP surgery to inform them of the pregnancy and get the antenatel care process going. It'll be good to move things along! My sister-in-law gave birth to her second baby girl yesterday :) She says that she's only slept 2.5 hours since Sunday and I said that I hope that she's got good at napping. She responded, Nap? What's a nap? Lol! Wow, I really thought that she would get a chance for a short cat nap with so much family around her at the moment. I guess I've even more niave about all this stuff than I thought!!

Acceptance

I've realised that I haven't really talked about the impact that I think the book mentioned in this post has had. The exercises that I learnt in the book truly made me feel more positive about my chances of success and left me wanting to reject any negative thoughts or information. Who knows whether this has helped us to be successful this time but it definitely made me feel better! One of the things suggested was to go out and buy something for the baby to show your belief that they are on the way. We bought this little hat, ready for next winter. I've had a very relaxing, lazy weekend at home. Bought some new books to read!: There is a lot of negativity in them unfortunately. Lots of information about all the things that can go wrong! I'm skipping over those bits. But one thing that I read did stick in my mind. I started getting worried about this being a chemical pregnancy. I knew that it was unlikely as I have had some early symptoms (tiredness, needing to pee more) and I haven't got my period, but I still felt the need to do another test this evening to make sure. I don't like the fact that my boobs don't really feel any different yet! That's supposed to be one of the first signs but nothing! All is well though :) I have a GP appointment booked for Friday morning and an 8 week scan booked for 21st March so hopefully the next steps will all start to get a bit clearer soon. Still trying to take it all in....! I have some social stuff going on this week and next. Some people that I'll see already know about our positive test results. The others will be told that we're still waiting for the outcome of our last IVF cycle - which isn't ENTIRELY untrue. They may think it's odd that we've been waiting so long, and they may guess the truth and that's fine. But that'll be my story and I'm sticking to it for now :) I can't believe that I'm actually finally starting on the "pregnancy" part of this story.