Today's experience: insensitive phlebotomist and "products of conception"

I had to get my beta checked today to make sure that it is dropping the way it should. It trips me out to think that I am still rockin' a positive beta. Technically I am still pregnant. I should be taking lots of HPTs! They'd all be positive, as I've always dreamed. It's just not fair. Beta was 274 so it is definitely dropping.

Today I experienced an insensitive staff person talking about things she shouldn't be talking about. It's interesting how sensitive these people must be.... and how well trained they have to be in order to be good at what they do.

There is a very well calculated reason why pregnant women and children are not allowed at RE offices. We infertiles are very sensitive to seeing any sign of pregnancy and children. Particularly in our "safe" zone: the RE office. Doctors don't even advertise signs of their own kids in these offices if they know what's good for them.

Anyway, I digress...The girl drawing my blood today was a new one. She was talking to the other phlebotomists while drawing my blood, as if I wasn't there which is the first no-no of patient care...

She asked her co-workers if they had seen some show on TV last night.

She said "so and so is pregnant! Can you believe that?... blah blah blah... and she had a couple miscarriages I think..." blah blah blah. The other girls were just kind of quiet and not really talking too much. I was getting more and more emotional -- first with the conversation of somebody being pregnant can be enough on a bad day. When the conversation turned to miscarriages it was just too much for me. I started welling up with tears and my heart was pounding. I was livid because you DO NOT talk about this kind of thing in a IF clinic.

So I said very harshly : "You need to think about what you are talking about around patients."

She really quickly looked up at me and apologized and was silent for the remainder. The other girls turned around, and looked totally embarrassed. It's like they had forgotten I was there or something!!!

I was furious, I was almost crying. That's just not OK to talk about. Too much sensitivity around the subject. I almost said "You want to talk about miscarriages? I'm having one right now. What should we talk about?"

Part deux: product of conception

I ended up asking my nurse about bringing in the blob I gave birth to yesterday. I want to do whatever testing can be done on it to ascertain some answers. As i mentioned yesterday, i stored it in a tupperware container. They said for me to bring it in today rather than waiting until tomorrow. It needs to get into the right solution ASAP or something technical like that. ( i wasn't sure if it should have been refrigerated or something... how does this stuff work!?)

Anyway, the nurse said they will do a karyotyping if they can, and a pathology report to identify if there is indeed a "product of conception" in the blob. PRODUCT OF CONCEPTION? Does that mean fetus? Does that mean ... placenta? What does that mean exactly? It's such a protective term to keep us from having to say yucky words and have yucky thoughts. I found it absolutely fascinating that that's the lingo they use.

I don't resent it necessarily. Mostly I just found it interesting.

So I had to go home and pick up the blob and take it to the clinic. It was a strange experience handing over this tupperware container of the blob for somebody to analyze. What a strange job that must be! It crossed my mind after I left the clinic that I should have asked for the tupperware container back. I would have loved to see the look on their faces! It makes me giggle to think about. I don't think I could have said it with a straight face though.

the ultimate in self-loathing...

Well ladies and gents, wonderful intended D gives me a wee bit of grief from time to time for not being a dedicated blogger. So since he's otherwise indisposed traveling overseas, here I am to share my tale of woe.

The absolute worst offense to a woman who has to give up on her attempt at a pregnancy is the pain that comes with a miscarriage. It is excruciating. It is beyond words. It is an offense to the psyche that transcends all emotional pain because it is a concurrent pain in the abdomen.

I have had 2 miscarriages in my life now. I don't know if I should be proud of that. One seemed like a fluke. It was so long ago. Here I am able to officially claim two now. My pain today was so bad, despite more Advil than was probably safe, that I felt that I was going to pass out. That kind of pain that gives one nausea. I have rarely experienced it but today was a day to remember. And here I was crying on the phone to intended D as he is boarding a plane and will be out of reach for who knows how long until he makes it to his destination. What a loser I am for worrying him like this.

The grossest part is some of what came out is now in a tupperware container. Should I take it to the doctor tomorrow? I'm not sure what the point of that would be. It's not like we need to test is whether we have chromosomal issues. This is a donor. We have one more embryo left. And I don't see us using this donor again because what's the point? (what's the point of anything, really...) Does anything need to be tested? I plan to keep it in the tupperware for a while longer. Maybe I'll do surgery on it myself and look for the critter that might be somewhere in there the size of a pin head. Congratulations to me!

If you read Intended D's last post, you'll see that he expresses himself in more optimistic hues than I do. Although the beauty in his post didn't go unnoticed even in my current state of mind. Parenting is an act that is more than giving birth or having a genetic tie. What he saw on the train was priceless and I'm so glad it meant something to him. I have married an amazing man whom I would not trade for all the chocolate in the world!

Mothers and fathers...

With infertility a person has to really evaluate what it means to be a mother or a father. Is it having a genetic connection to offspring? Is it parenting? Is it the constant worrying that comes with these little people that you are responsible for? I suppose it's all of those things but the first one I listed--genetic connection--is way down the list usually. Not just for infertile people but for most people I think. It's like the old saying "any asshole can be a father but it takes a real man to be a dad" or a parent or whatever. You get the idea.

Anyhoo, I'm riding the Metro today and I see a lady in her mid-forties, white, grayish hair...with two little girls about 8 or 9 years old. The girls are black--as in african american--with corn-rows. As they get off they both took their mother's hand and walked away (at least I assume she was their mother) and I thought that there's the true definition of a mother...that's what it is all about. Being a parent.

Whatever. The point is quite obvious, but being pregnant and giving birth does not make you a mother. Maybe a "by definition" mother but certainly not a parent. Parenthood is something that you work for and earn. Luckily, for IM and I--as if we had a choice in the matter, we want to be parents and someday we will be parents. I wonder who the lucky kids will be! :)

Reconnecting?

One of the worst things about dealing with infertility is lost or paused or strained relationships. There have been friends in our past that have started families or even infertile friends that have been successful and moved on. Losing those friendships..due to their success...brings on a lot of guilt (at least for me). I wonder why I am not strong enough to maintain certain friendships but it can be very hard. Obviously, friendships can be strained when one side starts a family and the other doesn't. These "trivial" differences can be simply not wanting/caring about preschool or dance recitals or blah blah blah. It's hard to relate to those things when you are not dealing with them and so, for that reason, relationships can--sort of--naturally move on.

Mostly, what I am speaking can be exemplified by a few friends we have. One just had a baby and another is currently pregnant. (we've "lost" many friends like this) It's just very hard to maintain strong, or rather close, friendships with people who are achieving what we so desperately want. I'm not excusing us. We could be stronger. But...we're not. And, also, it's not as if these people are less of friends. The friendships, especially the ones that make us feel the worst, are such that we will always maintain deep friendships...family-like friendships..at least I hope these friendships will remain (hopefully the bridges are still there and not completely burned). But, maintaining day-to-day contact is very trying. Of course, the other side of the equation is they can often not understand our position. I don't blame them.

The interesting thing is that while IM was officially pregnant for that happy, fun, and exciting week we started having conversations regarding reconnecting with lost and neglected friendships. Hoping that this was our chance to get back in touch and hope that all was not lost. Then...then the beta hcg started to grow slowly, eventually stopped, and now is decreasing indicating a miscarriage. So, we're not having a baby after all. All of that talk of reconnecting neglected friendships vanished in a flash. I actually feel like cutting myself off even further...even from family. My brother's family, has been exempt from my feelings in this regard, for a long time but my resentment over infertility is starting to creep into that relationship too. I am not being a very good Uncle...that's for sure. Or a good brother. It's as if with every failure I (or we) sink deeper and deeper and it is harder and harder to see the outside world. Old friends seem farther away and our motivation to reach out becomes less and less.

The miscarriage is still very fresh and so is the wound so...hopefully...I will start feeling better and normalizing all of this eventually.

Miracles don't exist

IM had another hcg beta today and an ultrasound. The ultrasound didn't show much (the Dr thought there might have been something in the uterus but it was only a tiny blip). Then we got our hcg beta number back and it was 647. That's a very slight drop from the last number of 649. Here's the table and plot:



Here are the numbers:
date beta days-post-ovulation
6/5/2009 - 70 - 15
6/8/2009 - 159 - 18
6/10/2009 - 246 - 20
6/12/2009 - 398 - 22
6/15/2009 - 649 - 25
6/17/2009 - 647 - 27

The embryo (or whatever you call it at this stage) has apparently stopped growing and I guess that's the end of that. No miracles for us. This was not an entirely unexpected result considering how things have been going but IM is feeling really terrible. I'm still in the analytical stage and feeling emotionally numb about.

The good news, if there is any, at this stage is that the Dr does NOT think it was(is) an ectopic pregnancy since IM has not had any pain in one side or the other and nothing could be seen on the ultrasound. So IM stops taking meds today and the pregnancy will hopefully resolve itself over the next 4-5 days. ...which is not a pleasant experience to say the least but it is certainly better than having to induce it happening by taking methotrexate--that drug has a few nasty side effects one of which is you're not supposed to drink alcohol just at the time you need it most.

...I've got nothing left to write at this point....

It looks like its over...

We got the hcg beta number back. 649. That's well below what we had hoped. As you can see from the new plot that point is well below the 66% threshold point. In fact, the two-day growth rate over the three days (from 398 to 649) was 47%. That's the slowest yet. So, that coupled with the fact that there was nothing on the ultrasound pretty much sums it all up and it's pretty much all over now.


Here are the numbers:
date beta days-post-ovulation
6/5/2009 - 70 - 15
6/8/2009 - 159 - 18
6/10/2009 - 246 - 20
6/12/2009 - 398 - 22
6/15/2009 - 649 - 25

Now the question is: what's going on? Is (was) the pregnancy ectopic? What's up? The ultrasound didn't show anything at all...including no irregularities. So what they do next--assuming the beta continues to drop, grow this slowly, or stay the same--is IM will get a shot of methotrexate which is (to quote wiki) "commonly used (generally in combination with misoprostol) to terminate early pregnancies (i.e. as an abortifacient). It is also used to treat ectopic pregnancies. In the case of early missed miscarriage (particularly a blighted ovum), in which fetal demise has occurred but the body has not expelled the fetus, methotrexate may be used to help the body begin the miscarriage process." Lovely. I don't know what happens after that, i.e., does the embryo expel itself from the uterus. If not, a D&C will probably have to be done. The other crappy thing is IM goes back Wednesday for blood work and possibly a methotrexate injection, then again on Sunday for blood work and maybe ultrasound, then again on Wednesday for blood work and ultrasound, etc.

To make this just terrible, I go out of town on Thursday through Sunday and then I leave again on Tuesday and don't return until the following Monday. So I will be gone throughout almost all of this. That's such a painful thought. IM should not have to do this alone but I can't get out of these trips I don't think.

I suppose also that my Mom will also want to know how things are going. That conversation will not be fun at all. She likes to pray for things...and to be fair there really isn't much else she can do...but so far, along this infertility journey of ours, prayer has absolutely done NOTHING. But, neither has anything else. If I could just sink into a puddle of mush right here on my office floor I would.

When, if ever, is it going to be our time? When? We've had enough pain, enough disappointment. Enough of it all. Enough experience. Enough growth. Enough. We've learned all that we're going to learn. We've learned about our relationship. We've learned about ourselves and how we see parenting and genetics and the whole nine-yards. Enough. We've learned enough. Considering we've already learned how to have a miscarriage I'm not quite sure why we're being forced to learn this one again! I guess this time we're learning how to have an abortion--in a way at least. This is just a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation! It's our turn. When will it be our turn? I'm just so tired of being disappointed. I'm right back to where I was a few months ago: I can't imagine actually being successful in this. I just can't imagine it.

Memories

Today IM had a blood draw (we should get back the beta hcg number later today) and an ultrasound. According to my math the beta is most certainly below 1000 and you're not expected to see anything on an ultrasound if the beta is below 1000. Of course, considering that we are 5.5 weeks along (or so) it would be better if the number was higher and thus it would be nice to see a nice old gestational sac right smack in the uterus doing it's thing. Well, needless to say, the ultrasound showed nothing. Once again we have not experienced a miracle. A miraculous occurance where suddenly the embryo starts growing like a champ and we end up being in that 15% of normal pregnancies with initially low beta numbers. The ultrasound didn't show anything else abnormal either...for whatever that's worth. So, we'll see what the number is today and go from there. Most likely we'll have another ultrasound on Wednesday where the beta will be either well above 1000 or we're screwed...in which case answers will be a little easier to come by.

I'm sooooo down right now. I just don't care about anything right now. I have lots of work to do and an upcoming work trip to Italy (Tuscany even) which one would think I would be looking forward to. Right now, I'd rather not go. This has got me thinking about memories and the whole "it's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved" mantras. The weird thing to me is that present experiences severely shape your memories of the past. IM and I spent this last weekend (the one before this one) in NYC with family having just moved past a bunch of positive hpt's and a positive beta hcg blood test. We were kicking around the idea of calling IM pregnant, getting used it a bit, we told our parents the good news (all while remaining cautiously optimistic...we've been burned before). What's weird is I can't recall that good feeling anymore. It's gone. The only feeling I can remember is how I feel right now. You know, that feeling that comes along with "who are we kidding, good things don't happen to us". It has truly been a terrible year. It is hardly believable to be honest...all the things that have or have not happened this year. I was starting to think that odds alone would garantee a pregnancy out of this donor-egg IVF cycle we are doing. How could it not? How is it possible to have continual bad luck and no success. I don't want to complain too badly. Things suck all around to all people and it's not like everything has been terrible---baring one important exception. However, we have just had no success. Everything we've tried to do or wanted to happen or hoped would happen hasn't.

I don't know...I'm off track. Mostly I just was contemplating how interesting it is to be unable to recall the happiness that I was feeling only a week ago.

Weird Dream

Last night I had a weird dream. I was on a resort like island (think Bahamas) with people I know but I can't say who. The island was filled with other youngish people vacationing. Now, everybody had either a lizard or a snake and these little reptiles served a purpose for what I can't remember. Anyhoo, as it progressed, I'm driving my car back from somewhere and I had been keeping my lizard in my pocket. I was worried that he was going to die so I decided to hold him in my hand and he kept biting me. Not painfully but still. Then I was also carrying a snake in my other hand (for somebody else...it was somebody else's snake and I was returning it or something) and it had wrapped around my hand and was biting me too. Eventually, the snake became too much and I stopped the car at a little creek and thought "screw this, I'm throwing this snake back in the water...it's just not worth the pain". Now I'm back in the car on my way and my lizard jumped out of my hand and started running around the roof of my car and I thought "oh well, no big deal, I'll get him later." Then it was morning.

So? Wtf was that all about?

New numbers

IM had her hcg beta tested again on Friday and we were expecting the worst. It came back...well...sort of in the middle. 398. So, we're calling the little critter, the 5-day blast that's hopefully still there trying his best to grow "398". We're trying not to get too attached so...well...isn't it obvious why?

So, here's are numbers now:
date beta days-post-ovulation?
6/5/2009 - 70 - 15
6/8/2009 - 159 - 18
6/10/2009 - 246 - 20
6/12/2009 - 398 - 22

In case you're keeping score that is a growth rate of about 62%. That's slightly lower than the "magical" 66% that you commonly hear and read. But....it's higher than our last growth (from 159 to 246) which was 55%. Our first growth rate (between 70 and 159) was 73%. I'm not sure what to make of it all. I made a plot where I added our new point above. So, our little "398" is still hanging in there...but only barely. We have another beta test on Monday and we will hopefully see a number of over 700 or 750--something above 800 would be great.

If you're interested in a couple of hcg calculators out on the internet here's a couple here and here and here.

Ok...gotta go. We have some friends coming over for an Arrested Devolopment marathon!

(sigh)

I just argued with IM about our cycle. What did we argue about? Well...we argued about whether this cycle was doomed. I took the position that we'll have to wait and see but it doesn't look good. She took the position of doom until I finally admitted that yes, the cycle was certainly going to fail and would be a miscarriage. The numbers bear this out. Fuck this! This is what infertility does to you. It reduces you to arguing about whether the cycle is going to fail after all...after all of this positive feeling and happiness.

Oh yeah, and I still have to give IM her shots. Two tonight! Delestrogen and PIO! What fun.


.....I am just fucking miserable right now.

Numbers: or "Never tell me the odds!"

IM had her 3rd hcg beta test today and....(drumroll!!!!!)...246. Hmmm. Lame. Here's where we are:
date beta days-post-ovulation?
6/5/2009 - 70 - 15
6/8/2009 - 159 - 18
6/10/2009 - 246 - 20

Ok, days-post-ovulation is a bit tricky b/c IM didn't actually ovulate. But, we transferred a 5 day blastocyst on the 26th of May which works out to making today 15 days post 5 day transfer, which I believe, the IVFers around the internet call 15dp5dt. They love acronyms! Now essentially you add these numbers to get 20 days-post-ovulation. At least I think that's how it works :) Anyway, where was I?

Evidently, it is best for a viable pregnancy if the beta doubles every 2 days, or doubles every 48 hours, or sometimes you read doubles every 48 to 72 hours. Another number you read/hear is 66%, in that you want the beta to grow by 66% every 48 hours. Considering 48/72 = 66% that must be where the number comes from. What it really means is that if your beta is on the slow end of the spectrum and doubling every 72 hours it will be growing by 66% every 48 hours. Make sense? Well, if you crunch our numbers a bit you see that between our test on the 8th and the one today (the 10th) the beta grew by 57%. Of course, like everything in IVF there is some controversy about how solid a number 66% is and whether a person should start feeling discouraged yet (why do I feel discouraged then?). In that vain, you read numbers like 50% and 60%. Well, fine, whatever. It still doesn't change the price of oil in Egypt...as they say. (Do they even say that?) Being the nerd that I am I made a plot.


So here where are back again, 360 degrees in a full circle. A betting man would be betting against us....again. I want to cry, scream, and just sink away into nothing and disappear. And to think....I was feeling really confident this morning until we got our results. It's just amazing how emotionally labile I am these days. (Labile...that's IM's favorite word.) I'm high and low and all over the place. I'm feeling soooo discouraged right now and this morning I was feeling confident that if I wasn't quite a father yet I would be one soon. How's that for pathetic? Why will this not happen for us? We've compromised so many of our dreams so far that it is just nearly unacceptable for this not to work. I would say I'm ready to give up...but I'm not. I don't know what I am. Plus, this cycle we are in right now and the fact that IM is in fact pregnant right now...as I write...well...let me just say it's still a possibility that this will work and we will finally get our dream. Our next number is very crucial in my mind. The beta needs to hang on to the lower end of these growth curves or I think we're fucked and all I can contemplate right now is: what then?

...I'm trying really hard to channel Han Solo right now when he admonishes C3PO to "never tell me the odds!"

Expectations...

I've always been a big believer in the idea that much unhappiness can be traced to having expectations that are not warranted or unrealistic. Unrealistic expectations are obviously dangerous but even unwarranted or ignorant ones are equally dangerous. For example.....

...quick recap....IM took some home-pregnancy-tests and all were positive....then on Friday she had a blood test and a positive beta with a number of 70....the nurse says "well, we usually like to see over 100" but then she realizes that our original beta was supposed to be yesterday, i.e., 3 days after the one IM took...so the nurse renormalizes and says it's actually looking good....so on Sunday night IM takes another h.p.t. and gets a positive (that was a pretty obvious result considering she had a positive beta two days earlier but she likes to see a positive h.p.t result!)...so that brings us to yesterday....

Yesterday was supposed to be the original blood test and they like to see a number above 100. Well, IM's number yesterday was 159! Good news! Things are growing and everything is moving in a positive direction. However, two weirdish things happened:
(1) we got playing the expectation game this weekend. We were feeling really positive and happy about our situation. We told both of our parents the news (we know...it's early...but why not share happy news) and were allowing ourselves to feel good. Then we start talking about the nuts and bolts of betas. How the beta is supposed to double every 2 days (it turns out there is quite a window of acceptable range for the doubling though) and we start making "bets" on what the beta will be. IM figures it'll be 250. I figure it'll be around 200 b/c the beta grows exponentially and blah blah blah who cares :) So, right before our eyes...unbeknowest to us...and against my usual philosophy we set up an unwarranted expectation--an ignorant one. So, even before we had the beta results I found myself feeling really down yesterday. I was stressed out and dreading the result. There was all this pressure that the beta be high...at least around 250 or hopefully better...I wanted the number to be even higher than we thought and then that quietly and stealthfully became what I expected the beta to be. But, there's the rub. What did we base this expectation on? Almost nothing.
(2) Meanwhile the nurse tells IM the result and then tries to temper any excitement by saying that it's right on a "border" of growing too slow...something about 66% and 154. Huh? This could very well have been IM's first beta and it would've been over 100! The nurse also lets out that the Doc wrote something like "beta increasing as expected". That sounds like a good thing, right?

So, yesterday, we're both at work and IM calls me with the results and she's really negative sounding which totally affected my reaction. Then we both spend a hour or so messing about on the web looking at beta calculators and other mishmash. Ultimately, it seems there is quite a huge range of beta numbers that constitute normal growth...so we're doing fine! This whole thing just makes me furious b/c now I'm trying to build back up to a positive mood regarding this whole thing. It's just amazing how fragile your mood and emotions are when you are undergoing IVF treatment like this.

All in all, the beta is increasing and has, in fact, more than doubled in 3 days from the first beta. This is normal growth indicating that everything is going as it should! IM is pregnant! It finally happened!

Stay tuned for the next beta.... :)

Cautiously optimistic

Here's some visual evidence. Perhaps not the boldest of lines but a line nonetheless--this pic is (I think) the second of three tests in as many days which were all positive and the newer one being slightly "darker" than the last. Plus, IM had a blood test at the clinic today and...sure enough...it's positive and her number (70?...what are the units?) is about right. We're expecting it to increase with some regularity over the next few days and IM will have another blood draw on Monday...then again...then again....then again....for a while to establish that everything is a-ok. Meanwhile she gets to get injections from me for quite a while longer too!

The feelings are quite strange. We're both totally distracted and scared, happy, terrified, relieved.... Name the emotion and I'm pretty sure I'm feeling it a little bit.

Another interesting thing is how different this one feels compared to our last one about 4 years ago. I remember feeling kind of scared about the prospect of being a Daddy. I knew that I could and would do it but I was nervous about the prospect. Now I'm not nervous at all. I'm absolutely ready for it. We've been waiting and waiting and waiting to be parents for a long time now...so we're pretty much ready. I know people like to say "no one is every fully ready". Hogwash, we're ready! I think that I had decided in my mind that eventually...somehow...someway....we would be parents. It was just a matter of time and effort (and money) to get there (or here I guess). And I think I've pretty much considered us both a Mommy and Daddy in waiting. I'm so excited for everything that lies ahead.

"Cautiously optimistic", however, is our mantra and we chant it often. We're as early on in a pregnancy as it's possible to be--most would only call this a chemical pregnancy at this point. But a chemical pregnancy turns into a regular one almost all of the time. So we are optimistic and right now...at this moment...we're going to have a baby!

testing...testing...

I don't know if Intended D is going to post anything today or if I am beating him to the punch. Last night after my pity party about being told by the nurse that I might not be able to go to Italy, I decided to buy some HPTs. I decided that if I test this morning and it's negative, I am going no matter what because duh... I'm not pregnant. So why would I rob myself of not being pregnant and also not getting to go on vacation. What a load of bullshit to not get to go...

Today is 8dp5dt. First thing this morning I tested. It started with just the standard single line which I was expecting so it was just confirmation of the deprivation that is my life...Then slowly this second line started to appear out of nowhere... really slowly and really faint but definitely visible. (I want to put in exclamation points here but it's just too soon. I'm scared to.) Upon seeing this second line start to appear, I was basically numb. My heartbeat didn't even accelerate as far as I could tell.
Here's what strange although probably not uncommon: I would almost say seeing that faint second line (that started turning slightly darker but was not solid yet...) caused ambivalence to surface more than anything else. Fear of being taken for a ride, of having a false positive, fear of having a happy moment taken away by a bad test or a decreasing beta. Or another miscarriage. Better to not have a happy moment at all? I didn't know what to feel.
Intended D was still half sleeping, aware I was testing and probably wishing I wasn't...
I was trying to think of how to tell him this unexpected, completely random, unbelievable and still unconfirmed outcome of the test. Back when we thought I was still fertile and we thought we were ordinary, when we started ttc, I had thought about how I would give him the news. Women get to be one step ahead of the man in this arena and I wanted to make it something special the way I'm sure most other women do... To annound our pregnancy to Intended D, I had prepared to surprise him with a copy of She's Having a Baby (a favorite movie of ours) and a baby rattle or spoon with a bow tied around it. (oh how cliche...) But infertility has robbed us of any spontaneity we could have ever hoped for. Even in our current situation I had daydreams that I've gotten good at suppressing.... I had imagined seeing a double line, calling out his name, to see him come running, I'd run to him and meet him halfway holding the sacred HPT between us, tears and laughter and he picks me up and whirls me around. Elation, excitment....
....nope.... I couldn't do it. I couldn't get excited about it and I couldn't get him excited about it.
One of the many natural emotions most adults who have children get to experience that we have been robbed of is the naivety of a positive pregnancy test. I know too much.

I walked around the corner to him still in bed and announced "Well, rather than saying it's negative, I'd say the results are inconclusive..."
judging from his response, his immediate upright posture and request to see the test, this was probably the best thing to prepare him that I could have said. Intended D is a scientist and I know how he thinks. His response was the best ever... He concurred that he, too, saw a faint line, and processed the implications of it. He said that this second line is definitely some thing different, because typically there is an abnormally white area next to the single colored line, just to rub in how so very negative the test result is.

We spent the morning in shock and disbelief, and for me, a pinch of denial. We took pictures of the positive because I don't know when I'll ever see that again and I want to savor it forever. The only other times I've ever seen a second line was my ill-fated pregnancy (with subsequent miscarriage) 4 years ago, and ovulation tests which I LOVED taking back during our IUI phase because I got to finally pass a test with a second line and see what success feels like!!! How pathetic is that? So I have two more sticks, which I will use over the next couple days, and if things are going well I'm sure I'll give some HPT company a boost in their share value by buying more HPTs so I can see more double lines... just to try purge years of dissapointing BFNs.

I am afraid of reacting just yet. I know it's still way too soon. But this is something. I'll definitely say that much. This is something.

absolutely no control whatever... sigh

I am so furious and frustrated and ... ugh.  I can't think of enough proper adjectives.  I feel so helpless.  Intended D has the opportunity to travel to Europe this summer, two different stints just a couple weeks apart for work.  So we decided -- hey, let's have the wife (me) come along since I haven't had a vacation in a long time.  Would be fun right?  Expensive, and hard to fit into our schedules right now but it's hard to pass it up when his expenses are already paid. Time to live spontaneously.  I've been trying to break out of the mold and this is a good time to go.  IF by some one in a million shot I'm pregnant, wouldn't this be a nice way to have a vacation before life changes forever?  And if it's negative, well obviously this gives me something to look forward to on the horizon to get me through this...

Well travel needs to be booked ASAP because Intended D is supposed to leave incredibly soon. We finally looked seriously at tickets, hotels, etc.  And he said "should we ask the doctor if it's OK for you to travel ...just in case?"... to which I replied "Why would we have to ask... pregnant women travel all the time... but OK I'll send the nurse an email."

Well the nurse replied telling me that she forwarded my email to our RE and to not make any travel plans until we've heard from the doctor... she's guessing it's going to be a problem.  WTF???

So let's assess the situation.  I have been powerless to becoming pregnant for, oh, like 6 years now.  So we all agree that I've already got a pretty low level of control to start with.  And here I am trying to plan a vacation so if this cycle fails (which has a 70% likelihood) then I can have at least something to look forward to.  WELL, the small chance in hell that I am going to be determined to be pregnant next week is going to hold me back from being able to plan a trip to Italy, because timing is becoming an issue and we need to book our tickets ASAP so we don't get raped with the costs of the travel.  If we wait until the results of the cycle next week, we'll have to likely pay a lot more if I go along.  This is a trip we can't really afford as it is, so obviously if the costs increase a lot, it's prohibitive.  I feel like I have no options and I am tired of it.  Today i was just thinking that once we've exhausted our donor embryos (we have one frozen left...) if we don't act on any subsequent treatment, nothing would happen.  We would most likely never have a child.  We have to actively actively actively seek out help or this is it.  This is our life.  

I am feeling so confined right now, so powerless, so fucked.