Red

I had a nasty bout of red last night.  The spotting had been all brown since my last ultrasound, so it was kind of a surprise – though intellectually I knew the red would probably make an appearance again – and very scary.

I don’t think I mentioned in my last post that my doctor is in Italy – she’s presenting at a conference there. On one hand I am happy to have a super awesome doctor who is such a Frau Bigshot (or would it be Signora Bigshot?) in her field that she goes off to do stuff like this. On the other hand, whine.

(She actually APOLOGIZED that she couldn’t see me for three weeks because she’d be gone.)

Anyway, so it’s not like it matters, really. It’s not like she would change anything I’m doing. It’s just that if she wasn’t gone I would have had an ultrasound scheduled sooner than two weeks from now. Although if I need to she said I could call the nurse (let’s call her D) and D would figure something out with another doctor. I would rather not do that unless I’m actually miscarrying, but I guess we’ll see.

I’m trying to keep calm about this. She had us read Coming to Term when we became her patients (she is one of the doctors featured in the book) and there is a section about how stress actually can contribute to pregnancy loss.*  This, of course, made me feel like crap because the spotting really stressed me out last time and what if it was my fault?  So, trying to stay calm.  This will either work out or it won’t. Worrying isn’t going to help.

* I don’t remember the details well enough to speak intelligently about this – how bad the stress has to be, etc.  I do remember the example was the extreme fear every time a woman with RPL felt when she went to the bathroom. Hello, that’s me.  Anyway, I highly recommend the book.

Booooring

Seriously.  You’d think I’d be posting all the time, what with having nothing to do, right?  Except that, er, I have nothing to say.

Everything is boring!  Which is good.  I haven’t left the house since Monday except to briefly let the dogs out when my husband was working late.  I spend most of my time lying on the couch watching Bravo and am pretty sure I could answer any question about season 2 of The Real Housewives of New Jersey.  I take an afternoon nap every day and go to bed at 8:30.  I’m out of books to read but my mom is coming today and bringing 21 books with her (she says she figured one per day).  I also ordered The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, since those would take months to come in through the library, anyway, and if I can’t have some guilty pleasures on medical leave, when can I?

I am leaving the house today, though. My parents are taking us out to dinner – they are going to drop me off at the door and I usually sit up to eat anyway.  I am looking forward to a change of scenery even if it’s just for an hour.  And then tomorrow my friend D is coming over to watch movies with me.  So, it will be nice to have some company.

In terms of updates from my uterus, I’m still spotting.  I’m getting used to it though.  Sort of.  But not really.  It is much, much easier to not have to work through this, like I did in my last pregnancy.  So I’m thankful for that.

I felt soooo guilty when I called to tell my manager I was going to be out for three weeks.  She was very nice about it, though, and I wrapped some things up from home on Tuesday morning so as not to leave her in too much of a lurch.  I figure I would feel guilty if I went to work, too, so basically I can’t win and hopefully – if this biznass works out – this is just the beginning of me feeling guilty all the time. Right?  Shit, I hope so.

Appointment, in bullets

• Today the heartrate was 113.
• I just about crapped myself on the ultrasound table when the tech told me that.
• My doctor thinks everything looks fine.
• Though she also gave me a specimen cup for if I miscarry at home.
• She decided to pull me out of work for three weeks because of the (still continuing) spotting so I can rest and keep my feet up.
• She also doubled my dose of Prometrium.
• I love my doctor.

I’ll write more tomorrow.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the reassurance!!

Two out of Three

1) No ER Visit.  FAIL.  I started spotting red at 8pm last night and we trundled off to Swedish Covenant.

2) Not Ectopic.  The lady stared at the ultrasound screen forever before saying anything.  I was sure it was in a tube.  But no, OMG so happy, it’s in my uterus.

3) Visible Yolk Sac.  Yay!

Except!

There was a heartbeat.  But a sloooow heartbeat.  So slow they told me I would probably miscarry.  Some thoughts on this:

A) Last night I was 5w2d.  In lo my 3 years of reading infertility blogs, I have never ever heard of anyone seeing a heartbeat at 5w2d.  But you all saw my chart, right?  It really, really looks like I ovulated on CD14, which was May 27, which makes me 5w2d.  So WTF?

B) The heartrate was 63.  That certainly is low.  She couldn’t measure it (not sure why, she just said she couldn’t) so I’m assuming she guessed, but she showed it to me and to me it looked like one beat per second, so I think she was about right.  I know it should be 90 at the very least 4 days from now.  If the heart rate goes up 3 bpm every day, that would make it 75. Which is bad.

So, erm. At least it’s it not ectopic.

Update

Thanks for all your good wishes.  I don’t have much of an update.  After I posted, I didn’t have much more spotting overnight – just a little brown mixed with the peach Prometrium junk that comes out after a few hours.  (Why would they make it pink?  Why not green or some other color that could not possibly be mistaken for blood?  I can tell the difference now, and I am 95% sure that yesterday’s pink was not Prometrium peach, but still.)  I was pretty happy not to have to go to the ER.

This morning the nurse called and I told her I hadn’t had any red.  I already had an u/s scheduled for Monday afternoon, so we left it with that – and an understanding that if there’s red over the weekend to go to the ER.  No beta, which is fine with me.  I think they stop doubling in 48 hours around this point, and unless the number was very high, it would have just given me something else to obsess about.

Immediately after I told the nurse that the spotting had pretty much stopped, I went to the bathroom and there was another Prometrium-brown-gunk cocktail.

And then this afternoon, when my husband called (I called in sick today so I could stay off me feet) I told him things were good and then I went to the bathroom and there was more brown.  Not really gunk this time – it was less brown CM and more brown blood.  That scares me a bit – I would rather have the devil I know.  At least that devil worked out okay for 12 weeks last time.

Anyway, this post seems rather tiresome.  I feel pretty tiresome right now.  I just HATE this part.  I can take a miscarriage, although I desperately do not want to have one.  (And actually, I’m not sure I can deal with an ectopic.  Please don’t be ectopic!)  It’s the constant wondering and analyzing and googling that is making me into this person that I do not enjoy being.  I would give just about anything to be put into a coma for as long as this first trimester should last and be woken up when it’s over, whatever the outcome.  Because since January 2009 I have spent almost six months in various first trimesters.  It seems like a marathon that is never going to end.

On that cherry note, I hope you all have a lovely weekend.  Think no-ER-weekend and visible-yolk-sac and not-ectopic thoughts for me.  :)

And, we’ve got pink

@$%@$#%@#$%

Right now I feel so stupid for thinking this would ever work out.  I talked to the nurse and I’m supposed to go to the ER if it turns red or there is stabbing pain.  Otherwise probably another beta tomorrow.

Bachelorette

This past weekend was the bachelorette party for the wedding that I’m in next month.  I considered trying to keep my situation a secret from everyone, but I decided to tell the bride and one of the other bridesmaids. Aside from the fact that I’m terrible at lying and they probably would have figured it out anyway, they know my history, so it’s not like they started squealing or knitting me baby hats or anything.

Anyway, the fake drinking (for the benefit of the other 10 girls) was much easier than I thought it would be. We got those big red plastic party cups, so I put some La Croix in there with a lime and let people think what they wanted.

The real fun was Saturday night.  The bride, A, decided that she wanted to go to a “townie bar” that night.  (We were in rural Wisconsin.)  Everyone else had been drinking all day, but I said that I was “okay to drive.”   Some highlights of the evening:

• Doing my progesterone suppository biznass in a PortaPotty
• Getting up on the stage at a carnival with the bride (stone cold sober) and dancing with her to “Like a Virgin”
• Doing multiple runs of six drunk girls at a time from location to location
• Convincing one friend that it would be a bad idea for me to turn the car around so she could make out with a hot 21-year-old fireman
• Sitting in a bar in 2am unable to have a conversation with any of my shitfaced friends and SO TIRED and wondering if I could go sleep in the car until the bride was ready to leave

Aside from that last one, it was a pretty fun weekend.  The gunk was nice enough to take the weekend off, which definitely helped (though it was a responsible little asshole and showed up for work yesterday).  I would really like to fire the gunk, but I think it’s just going to get worse.  It started up in earnest around 5w2d last time.  So, I’m sort of crapping my pants in anticipation for that.  We’ll see.

Beta #2

3424.  So relieved.*

Progesterone was 32.5.  Should I be worried that it went down from 35.1 a week ago?  Or is it fine as long as it’s above 20?

* For the moment.

Of course

So, the spotting is back.  I knew I was jinxing myself* by saying it had stopped.   (I should have given myself a bitch, please!)  I woke up to a brown spot in the undies and have had a little more gunk this morning.**  Oh well.  Hopefully it will stop soon.

For the bachelorette party this weekend, I decided to just come clean to the bride and another bridesmaid who’s pregnant but not “out” yet. They both know my history so I feel comfortable with that.  The other bridesmaid is almost out of her first trimester but had some spotting last night so decided to not share the news just yet.  I’m sure we will both spend the weekend quietly shitting ourselves while slamming mocktails.  Good times!

Oh, for those that asked – my next beta is on Tuesday.  I’m not sure why she does them a week apart instead of two days apart?

Have a great weekend everybody!

* I get very superstitious about pregnancy, even though I know I’m being ridiculous.  I think it gives me a little feeling of control, or something.

** Sorry I keep talking about my gunk.

Ultrasound appointment

My miscarriage doctor’s office just called and apparently she is eager to see me for an ultrasound in a week and half.  (Bitch, please!  Why you gotta be so overconfident and assume I’m not going to miscarry by then?)

I think she’s doing it so early (5w4d, hypothetically) because she’s going on vacation for three weeks and won’t be back until I would (hypothetically) be almost 9 weeks.  But it was really weird.  I feel like I’m so used to calling doctors and begging them to see me while they sigh and roll their eyes, not having them call me up and demand that I come to see them.

I am so happy I went to see her back in December.  An OB probably would not have done the biopsy that found the chronic endometritis and the LPD.  (My OBitch rolled her eyes when I suggested doing bloodwork for a clotting disorder. After three miscarriages! After I stopped baby aspirin AND THEN miscarried! OMFG)  And stuff like this makes me feel like she’s actually on top of my care.  It’s a good feeling.

Okay, I’m going to go try not to worry and obsess about my hypothetical ultrasound now.