Join me as I revisit on my last IVF results, dug up from the FertileThoughts message board, and provide commentary:
11/14/07:
I had a beta yesterday of 59, so I'm being cautiosly optimistic. Progesterone was over 200 ("off the charts") but I still have to keep up the shots. Seems odd but I'm blindly following their advice since so far they've steered me right.
My prayers to all of you, whether your news is good, bad, or iffy. I'm not a super-churchy person but I think we all need a lot of prayers and love through all of this. I've been trying for years so I know the heartache well, and now I am learning the worry that goes along with a little success also.
11/16/07
My 2nd beta was 87, a 48-hour increase of only 47% from my first of 59. I go for beta #3 on Saturday but at this point I feel hopeless. From what I've read, a slow rising beta from IVF is most likely a blighted ovum and docs can draw this out for weeks, getting more betas, seeing a slow rise, until they finally take you off P2 and you get AF. Damn!
11/19/07
I am experiencing "beta hell." Last Tues, my doc called to congratulate me that I was prego, then Thurs the nurse said it looked like a miscarriage, then Sat. the nurse said the doc thinks it's ectopic, and now today they are saying it's looking good (even though the #s are clearly low). I think they are trying to give me an ulcer, not a baby! Until I have my ultrasound in 2 weeks, I am going to try withholding any extreme joy or sadness, but I can't withhold worry. If the u/s looks promising, cool, if not, I'm prepared emotionally (ya right). My #s were:
14dpo 59 - (anything over 50 is considered in-the-clear-pregnant for the first beta)
16dpo 86.8 - Increase of 47% - Doubling Time of 82.71 Hours (they want to see a doubling, or at the very least, an increase of 66% -- one theory in these situations is that you had multiples and one passed)
18dpo 130 - Increase of 50% - Doubling Time of 80.52 Hours (maybe I had 4 take originally and 3 passed??)
20dpo 309 - Increase of 138% - Doubling Time of 38.43 Hours (looks great all of a sudden)
4/13/08: Commentary
The above post was my last on that board. I was waiting to get out of infertility-purgatory. There was one more beta after that:
27dpo - 4041 - Doubling Time of 45.49 Hours (continuing to look good)
U/S #1 showed an empty sac. Doc said to do it again in a week to make sure. I spent a lot of time on http://www.misdiagnosedmiscarriage.com/ obsessing over whether mine could be a lucky-for-me mistake of an U/S tech. U/S #2 showed a bigger but still empty sac. Meanwhile I had terrible 24-7 morning sickness, which I'm going to go out on a limb and say is even more annoying when you know you're suffering for nothing. After U/S #3, I went ahead with the D&C and immediately felt normal again, on-the-verge-of-puking-wise, thank goodness, although it took a while for my tummy to lose its little bulge, which was probably OHSS. I didn't post on that board again. Many of the other women in the Oct 07 IVF group had success and were talking pregnancies, and the rest had become MIA. There wasn't much else to say.
So that was my last time. I'm still unhealed and bitter and numb. Writing this, I can't muster up the negative emotions that I'm supposed to have. I basically feel nothing, because I won't let myself feel anything. It's kind of like time is standing still. I'm almost in denial that all of that effort and hope and money and time and strength led to nothing. I want to reach back into the past and change the ending of the story instead of mustering up the courage to go through this all again. It's easier to distract myself with other life activities -- work, personal projects -- than it is to face the truth that the past is unchangable and if I want to move forward I need to summon the strength.
I'm now reading Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" (I read books from both sides!). He talks about how, before he ran for the US Senate, he ran for Congress in 2000 and was unsuccessful. He says, "I began to harbor doubts about the path I had chosen; I began feeling the way an actor or athlete must feel when, after years of commitment to a particular dream, after years of waiting tables between auditions or scratching out hits in the minor leagues, he realizes that he's gone just about as far as talent or fortune will take him. The dream will not happen, and now he faces the choice of accepting this fact like a grown-up and moving on to more sensible pursuit, or refusing the truth and ending up bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic."
This hit me especially because I have recently become witness to a pro baseball player who also happens to be a tenant of mine, who, after being on injured reserve for over a year, has been officially released by his team and has decided to go back to college. He very maturely made this decision in a 2-month time span. The fact that he is over 10 years younger than me doesn't stop me from seeing him as a role model for action in the face of tragedy.
So where I'm going is, I don't want to end up in the second category of folks that Obama describes, who are "bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic." I'm not yet at the point of accepting defeat and I'm still considering myself in the fight, but I'm also very aware that the dream may not happen, and if it comes to that, I hope I can "move on to more sensible pursuits." And, hey, it wasn't the end for the politician, and it may not be the end for me.
