Our first Circus Performance - The long story short

I've put together a short version of the long (but not long enough) story of our first IVF. Mainly for me to remember but also for others in a similar situation to find information.

Oct 7 - Start stims CD2 of natural cycle. Gonal F 225IE. Stims make me tired, thirsty and "fuzzy" in the head.

Oct 11 - Fly to Sweden from England. 

Oct 12 - First u/s shows 3 follicles in right, left ovary not found. Increase Gonal-F to 300IE and add Orgalutran (stings and irritates).

Oct 16 - Second u/s shows 6 follicles in right, 2 in left (still hard to find). Ovaries slightly achy.

Oct 18 - Trigger shot of Ovitrelle. Do the baby dance.

Oct 20 - Egg retrieval with local anaesthetic and morfin. TESA with local anaesthetic. 8 mature eggs retrieved (6 from right, 2 from left). 5 successfully fertilized with ICSI. Start vaginal progesterone suppositories 3 times/day - boobies start getting sore almost instantly.

Oct 21 - 24 - Have a few glasses of red wine. Eat good, spend time with family and relax.

Oct 25 - Embryo transfer, 1 blastocyst transferred, 1 frozen. Drink lots of water and a glass of pineapple juice a day.

Oct 26 - Fly from Sweden to England. 2 additional blasts are frozen. 

Oct 27 - A pulling, tugging sensation in uterus all day off and on

Oct 28 - First nose bleed ever and start falling asleep on the couch by 8 pm

Oct 30 - Light brown spotting after walk

Oct 31 - Nov 1 - Spotting continues and gets a little heavier

Nov 1 - Get disgusted by crayfish that I normally LOVE

Nov 2 - Spotting starts to look like a light period, this is the day my period would have arrived in normal cycle (full moon)

Nov 3 - 4 - Bleeding increases and turns redder

Nov 5 - BFP!?!?! Red bleeding continues to increase

Nov 6 - 7 - Bleeding gets BRIGHT red and I pass small stringy clots. Start to get attacks of nausea and/or hunger 

Nov 8 - Find an old HPT in a drawer and take the test at night after drinking lots of water and peeing like a race horse... Get another strong positive.

Change insertion of progesterone suppositories from vaginal to anal in hopes to stop the bleeding, thinking they're irritating my cervix.

Nov 9 - Worst day of bleeding yet, like a full on period in a crimson red color. Go see doctor to take Beta HCG test. HCG comes back 490 mlU/ml.

Nov 10 - Bleeding seems to slow down, pass a few clots the size of a quarter (common during my regular period). Feel nauseous all day, have hunger attacks and boobies are very sore. No pain.

Nov 11 - Bleeding picks up again and get a lot worse. Bright red. Fill a big pad in less than an hour. Stop progesterone supps.

Nov 12 - Heavy bleeding continues, feel faint and weak, go to ER. Heart Rate 105 and Blood Pressure 150/48. Get fluids via IV. HCG test shows 1044 mlU/ml. No embryo seen in uterus with vag. u/s. Endometrial stripe 9mm. Told I'm miscarrying and offered meds to speed things up. I decline and ask for repeat HCG to confirm miscarriage.

Nov 13 - Heavy bleeding continues. Repeat HCG shows 1331 mlU/ml. BP 115/69. HR 91. Mildly anemic. OB/GYN can't find embryo in uterus and is worried about ectopic and wants to give methotrexate to terminate pregnancy. I decline and ask for options. Offered to come in two days later when HCG levels should be above 1500 mlU/ml to try to locate pregnancy. 

Nov 15 - Bleeding slows down a little. HCG shows 2168 mlU/ml and OBGYN is able to locate a gestational sac in uterus. It measures a little small (0.51cm) and is slightly irregular. Get a little hopeful in spite of all the bleeding. BP 124/73. HR 98.

Nov 16 - Wake up early morning with a feeling of not being pregnant. Boobs are less sore. Still have food aversions. Bleeding changes color to slightly darker and slows down. Pass a few clots and start having mild cramping.

Nov 17 - Turn 35. Dark bleeding, mild cramping, pass a few clots.

Nov 18 - Extreme fatigue. Bleeding slows down to heavy dark red spotting.

Nov 19 - Miscarriage confirmed with HCG of 894 mlU/ml. Mildly anemic. Opt to miscarry naturally, prescribed iron (Ferro-Sequels). My heart breaks.

Nov 20 - 28 - Spotting gets less and less. Have one or two bleeding episodes and pass a few more clots. All pregnancy symptoms slowly disappear. Do the baby dance on 28th.

Nov 29 - Bleeding stops completely. 

Nov 30 - HCG shows 12 mlU/ml.

Dec 7 - Miscarriage complete. HCG shows 1 mlU/ml. BP 116/68. HR 80. No longer anemic, stop iron supplement. Told that period can arrive in 1-3 months and will most likely be abnormal. 

Dec 15 - Light spotting starts

Dec 18 - Bloody Monster arrives. Painful cramping but otherwise she seems normal.

January 1-2 - Ovulation pain on my left side.

January 14 - Bloody Monster arrives 27 days after last bleed. Pheuw! Heavy, but normal.

Seems like my body has bounced back nicely. Now we can start planning our natural FET in February 2010.

A tiny speck of hope

We went in to have my hcg levels tested again today. They were at 2100. Not quite double from Friday but Dr. Swedish was still pretty sure we'd be able to locate where the acrobat was today based on those levels. So with trembling legs expecting the worst I got up in the stirrup throne and said hello to Mr. Wand. Two seconds later Dr. Swedish turned the screen towards us and here's what we saw:

Somehow, miraculously there was our acrobat. Right where it's supposed to be. A little small. Not perfectly round. But hanging on. In the right spot. Amazing.

I cried. D cried. And the doctor cried. 

I'm still bleeding, but it is a little less. Still no pain. Next appointment is on Thursday to see if the hcg is still climbing and if the acrobat is growing. We're just taking one day at the time. And today has been a very good day. 

Thank You Mr. Circus Director!

Friday the 13th

This should be a long post but I don't know if I have the strength to write. I'll try to stick to the bare minimum so I can at least keep you all updated. I can't thank you enough for all your support through this nightmare.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the ER at the Military Hospital and got hooked up to an IV as soon as they noticed my heart rate was over a hundred. Got examined inside and out and they ran more tests than I could keep track of. Apparently my blood pressure was also very high (I'm normally on the low end of normal BP). They saw lots of blood, it was actually gushing out at them as they were examining me... scary. They couldn't find the acrobat anywhere. Not in uterus, cervix, tubes or ovaries. My HCG came back at 1000. They also called the NHS clinic I'd been to on Monday to get the result from that bloodtest... and suddenly the results had magically appeared (it wasn't there a few hours earlier when I called!! OK, I won't get in to that whole mess today). Monday's HCG was 415!? The ER doctor scratched his head and didn't know what to make of it so he paged the OBGYN on call. She came down. Repeated all the probing and poking. Looked over all the test results and told me that I had probably just had a miscarriage when I arrived at the clinic and that she was going to give me some meds to stop the bleeding and make my uterus contract. I said "No Thank You" and asked to come back in the morning to recheck the HCG levels and get that miscarriage confirmed before I took any meds. She said alright and told me the bleeding should be slowing down and my HCG levels should stop or drop.

This morning I went back to the Military Hospital. Waited for an hour and a half to get the result (needless to say I'm never going back to the NHS clinic I went Monday even if the drive down to base is 45 min). Went up to the OBGYN and met Dr. Swedish (crazy, an american who spoke swedish fluently after living a couple of miles from the swedish town I grew up for 2 years). He went over the notes from yesterdays visit to the ER with me, looked at todays HCG result and scratched his head. Todays HCG was 1300. He got me up on the table, brought out the wand and gave me another good scan. He was greeted by a blood bath. He saw nothing. Except... maybe... a tiny speck on the uterine wall. He then gave me the verdict. "It's a mystery. It's possibly an ectopic pregnancy, but we just can't be sure until your HCG levels are at 1500." I guess that's the magic number when they're able to see the embryo on an ultrasound. He said "we can either do a D&C and see if the tissue we remove contain an embryo and/or we can give you methotrexate to help your body terminate the pregnancy no matter where in your body it is". I was confused. So if they'd do a D&C to remove tissue from my uterus and they found the embryo there... wouldn't that in fact mean they would kill the embryo to rule out an ectopic? So again I said "No Thank You, what other options do I have?". He told me that if another blood test showed my kidneys functioning ok and that I'm not too anemic he'd consider waiting until Sunday when my HCG levels would surely be over 1500 if the pregnancy continued to develop, he could then make sure the acrobat wasn't hiding somewhere in my uterus and comfortably give me methotrexate to terminate an ectopic pregnancy. And if my levels would still be under 1500 that would mean it's not a normal pregnancy and a D&C would just help nature along. I went and had the blood work done and was cleared to wait until Sunday. Before we left I asked if there was any chance of bringing home a healthy baby from a pregnancy that starts out like this. He said: "probably less than a 1% chance". 

So that's where we stand. In a great vast landscape of gray. 

Time to go to the ER

This is the eighth day of bleeding. I'm now soaking a pad an hour and there's no end in sight. Feeling exhausted and devastated. Still no HCG test results. I think it's time to go to the ER. 

Always look on the bright side of life.

Today has been a day filled with whirlwind emotions. How are you supposed to feel when you find out that you're not having your period but are in fact pregnant after years of trying, but that you might be having a miscarriage at this very moment? 

After getting the unexpected plus this morning I called Nurse Inga who was happy to hear about the pregnancy but concerned about the bleeding. She asked a bunch of questions and I answered by giving her dates, PMS-colors, pad sizes and pain status. She told me there was nothing I could do right now other than hang tight and see what happens. It could be a miscarriage but it could just as well be nothing to worry about. If I'm still bleeding next week she asked me to go to my GP and ask to have an HCG blood test and call with the result. If the bleeding stops I should schedule an ultrasound for Nov 26th. She then asked me if I had gotten the paperwork about the frosties. - Frosty, I said, we only had one, and no we haven't gotten it. -Actually, she said, the two slow ones caught up and you ended up with three nice blastocysts for the freezer. 

So, I can be happy about the fact that I'm pregnant and that I have three beautiful snow babies in the freezer or I can be devastated that I might be having a miscarriage. Or I can be both. It's like skipping around next to a ravine. Like singing a happy tune in room full of tigers. Like being barefoot and pregnant on a kitchen floor full of glass shards.