16dp5/6dt - Mourning for a Friend

Today, I am mourning for a friend. In an incredibly cruel twist of fate, one of my best friends lost her seemingly healthy baby at almost 14 weeks. With 12 weeks usually regarded as the safe zone, it caught everyone completely off guard. Her previous pregnancies were healthy, all previous appointments had been fine, there was no warning or reasoning - just a fluke occurrence that no one could have prevented. 

Growing new life is such a fragile thing. An incredibly complex process where so many things can go wrong, it's amazing that any of us are here. Even when development looks smooth, one foot can slide out of place and the entire dance is lost. Her loss is a sobering reminder that anything can happen. I hope she and her family are able to get some answers, grieve and heal. 

E and I are still so early in our process that it's difficult to accept it and believe that everything is alright. I look at the birth boards and groups I should be joining for January babies and it looks like a different world - a place were people get pregnant easily, where genetic carriers and IVF/PGD don't exist, where all pregnancies yield a healthy baby.  I don't belong there. I still expect to walk into the ultrasound and see empty sacs or have someone jump out and say "just kidding!".  

The anxiety has been tough lately, throwing me off because I'm not usually an anxious person, and I know I need to work harder on living "today". Anything can happen tomorrow, we could have a healthy baby or babies, empty sacs, a miscarriage at 14 weeks - but today I AM pregnant. Two lines keep showing up every morning, even when the test is a crappy one (I'm looking at you 15dp6dt test - damn your crappy dye lot!). 

Today I am exactly 5 weeks pregnant. According to the www.ivf.ca calculator, cardiac contractions should have begun yesterday in our teeny tiny embryo(s). As long as everything is going okay in there, we should be able to see a heart beat around the 18th. I can't wait to see that tiny flicker. 

15dp5/6dt - Am I Pregnant Today?

This morning, I slept in an extra hour and 45 minutes. I took a test, because I do every morning now, and the test line had somewhat crappy dye uptake. I ate left overs for breakfast, ate a real lunch and tried to snack all day long. I still had heartburn, I don't think I can do anything else about that, but I wasn't starving and I didn't get super exhausted.

Most people would say that's an improvement, a good day because I stayed ahead of things and felt pretty good. For me, with infertility PTSD, my first instinct is to assume there's something wrong.

What if my pregnancy is a chemical?

What if there were two and I'm losing one?

What if my HCG is too high and it's a molar pregnancy? 

What if I'm not pregnant anymore?

After everything we've been through, even with no real supportive evidence, I can't help but assume that something is/will go wrong. I don't know how to relax or how to believe that I'm really pregnant and this worked. How to accept that crappy dye uptake on a STILL POSITIVE pregnancy test could mean anything other than the test is cheap. What kind of crazy person assumes that they've lost a pregnancy because they're not super exhausted that day? It couldn't possibly be the almost 2 extra hours of sleep I got, nooooo. There must be something wrong.

I don't know when this anxiety goes away. When we make it past 12 weeks? When we make it to viability? When I actually have them safely in my arms? Will it ever go away or will it follow me into motherhood, sneaking up in the middle of the night, telling me to check my child(ren)'s breathing? Infertility has been our reality for so long, it colors everything I do.

I'm trying to take things one day at a time. I wish I could look through a peep hole into my uterus to to make sure everything is okay in there. I don't think I can wait 2 more weeks for an ultrasound to see if there are actually bab(ies) in there or if this has all been some sort of cruel joke.