23dp5/6dt - Still Climbing

Today's labs showed that my HCG has risen to an impressive 39,071! Go, baby, go! Even more exciting is that tomorrow is the big day - our first ultrasound, our first real opportunity to take a peak and see what's going on in there. Although it's probably too early to see a heartbeat, I feel like actually seeing a pregnancy where it's supposed to be will help quell some of the anxiety I'm still wrestling with. I know it won't really go away, but I'd like to be able to breathe a little easier knowing things are progressing as they should be.

According to Betabase.info, if we've only got one little embie in there, they are still gunning for over achiever of the year award. We're still way ahead of average and my doubling time is only just slowing to 77 hours. If there's just the one, they mean business. I expect this kiddo to come out ready for college or at least ready for some serious nursing sessions.

If there are two, my anxiety is probably going to explode. I can only hope that both are strong enough to hang on, grow well, and not become a statistic. Our end goal is a healthy, living child and if we can get two out this experience, great. I just need them to stay off each others cords and do their best to grow and thrive.

Guess we (might) find out tomorrow! Of course there's always the possibility that it's too early, twins do have a knack for popping up in later scans, but we'll just have to wait and see. I'm hoping I can keep my coughing/hacking/snotting under control long enough to get some good photos.

22dp5/6dt - High Dose Hook Effect

Since my friend was kind enough to send me an entire box of pregnancy tests, I've been taking one every morning with FMU. I like seeing the two dark lines pop up as a sort of reassurance that everything is still okay in there since we haven't had an ultrasound yet.

The lines have always been nice, dark and reassuring until this morning. I actually slept in a bit later today and tested with a solid 8 hour hold. To my horror, the test line was lighter than the control line, lighter than the test the day before, OMGWTFAHHWHATWASGOINGON? I told myself the test was crappy, and it was, even the test line was lighter than normal, and resolved to test again after a 4 hour hold. Oh my god, holding your bladder and pregnancy do not go well together. I made it exactly 4 hours, rushed to the bathroom, and although the test was a little darker, it wasn't as dark as it should be. That's when it hit me right in the face, the high dose hook effect. Duh. I've experience it myself with ELISAs in the lab but I didn't think to apply it to a pregnancy test. Duh duh duh.

The high-dose hook effect is a well-known phenomenon in laboratory medicine, Dr. Gronowski says. It occurs when increasing concentrations of analyte lead to saturation of both the capture antibody and detection antibody, preventing formation of a complete antibody-antigen-antibody sandwich and leading to possibly false-negative results. She co-authored a study focusing on what she calls a “variant hook effect” that affects qualitative urine hCG tests. “The problem is an excess of one form of hCG. Part of the problem is that hCG comes in many different isoforms, and after five weeks of pregnancy, you get much more of one variant form called the β core fragment than you get of the hCG intact molecule. We demonstrated that if you add increasing concentrations of β core fragment to a urine sample that contains intact hCG, there is a dose-dependent inhibition of signal. This is similar to the standard hook effect, except that in many cases the devices don’t recognize β core fragment alone. In other words, the β core fragment only binds one of the two antibodies used in the assay, but it still has the same net effect and causes a false-negative result.”  (Check out the full article here)

And now it makes sense. At a day short of 6 weeks, I bet my β core fragment levels are much higher than my intact HCG. Obviously, I had to test this out by peeing on more sticks. 

And look at that! The solution diluted 50/50 with water has the darkest test line by far. Clearly, it looks like my stick peeing days have come to an end. There's no way I'm diluting cups of pee at 5 in the morning to get a satisfactorily dark line. I think I'm going to have to rely on blood tests and ultrasounds to reassure me from now on, as tough as that's going to be. The next blood test is tomorrow morning but my ultrasound won't be until Friday and after that, who knows. I hope my OB/GYN is open to frequent appointments to soothe my nerves :/

13dp5/6dt - Woah Beta!

This mornings beta looked just fabulous! I was hoping for at least 800 with an optimistic 1200 but my HCG is officially 1642! Go little over achiever, go! My hormone levels looked good too, estrogen is 247 and progesterone is 24, and that's with just Endometrin, no progesterone in oil. Not bad for a natural transfer with no PIO!

I will never tire of peeing on these sticks #newhobby

The next check in is Saturday when they'll do another set of labs. The only bummer is that we've now officially completed our FET cycle so everything is charged by appointment again. Today's labs ran me $450 for HCG, progesterone and estrogen from today, and the Estrogen and Progesterone they added on to my last beta and forgot to charge me for. Going forward, that makes a regular appointment with labs and an ultrasound about $610 EACH time. Ouch. Still though, it's a really good problem to have. I'm going to see if I can have my labs run at Kaiser instead of the clinic since they'll cover 100% of them as part of my prenatal care.

As far as our ultrasound, it looks like we're going to have to wait a bit longer to take a peak at our embie baby. I had originally been told by a tech that we'd have one ultrasound at 5 weeks to confirm an intrauterine pregnancy and another between 6-7 weeks to measure the fetal pole, check out the yolk sac and maybe even see a heartbeat. Today the nurse said I'd have just the labs at the end of this week and then an ultrasound at around 6 weeks so it looks like we're skipping the 5 week one. I know it saves us a little money but it's a whooooole week longer I have to wait to lay eyes on this bub. It's crazy how we've been waiting so long for this and now 2 weeks seems like a lifetime away!

I Can Wear Pants Again!

Yes! I woke up this morning and the water retention in my abdomen has gone down enough that I can wear pants with buttons again! At the height of the water retention it was really firm like I had swallowed a balloon and was about to explode. It's now much more squishy, like my regular belly chub, and it seems to be going down in sections. My lower abdomen is now squishier than my upper abdomen which looks a little weird but when it comes with pants with buttons I'll take it. I don't have a problem with wearing yoga pants every day but it's nice to have other options.

It's been a full week since the retrieval and I'm feeling pretty good. I don't need any painkillers, have no immediate appointments scheduled so I'm basically just siting around waiting for my period to show up. She always shows up when I don't want to see her but when I need her so I can get a move on with next cycle, she's nowhere to be found. It's still early, my luteal phase is on the short side at 11-12 days and it's only been 8 if you count retrieval day as ovulation. Le sigh, another exercise in patience.

One symptom that is sticking around and took me forever to figure out is the metallic taste in my mouth. I just had my teeth cleaned, I have no cavities or fillings, I'm brushing like 3 times a day, flossing and using mouth wash and it still tastes like I've been sucking on coins. This one didn't show up until a couple days ago and it's been driving me nuts ever since. It finally clicked for me that a metallic taste is a pregnancy symptom, which means its the HCG trigger. Damn that thing, still screwing with me over a week later.

In the meantime, I decided to celebrate my pants fitting by making them tight again with an absolutely delicious apple crumble with french vanilla ice cream. Oh man.  I used this base recipe because it's easy and delicious and then made a couple tweaks.

Their pretty photo

My version involved the following changes:

Ingredients: 

• 10 cups all-purpose apples, peeled, cored and sliced - about 8 apples for me. I only had Galas and a couple Fujis but would prefer Granny Smiths.
• 1 cup white sugar - I didn't use sour apples so I cut this down to 2/3
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon - doubled this to 2 teaspoons
• 1/2 cup water - halved this to 1/4
• Add 1 tsp Vanilla
• Add 1 tsp Nutmeg 

• 1 cup quick-cooking oats - doubled to 2, Bob's steel cut oats
• 1 cup all-purpose flour - doubled
• 1 cup packed brown sugar - doubled
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder - doubled
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda - doubled
• 1/2 cup butter, melted - doubled
• Add 1 tsp Cinnamon 

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degree C).
2.	Place the sliced apples in a 9x13 inch pan. Mix the white sugar, 1 tablespoon flour and ground cinnamon together, and sprinkle over apples. Pour water evenly over all. - I tossed the apples in the sugar mixture to evenly coat them
3.	Combine the oats, 1 cup flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and melted butter together. Crumble evenly over the apple mixture.
4.	Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 45 minutes. - Mine needed about 50-55 min

Yumbly Crumbly. Notice the caramely filling

The topping comes out extra crunchy and delicious while the apples are soft and cinnamony. You can throw it together pretty easily with things you already have in the house and it is absolutely delicious topped with vanilla ice cream. The only issue is I'm going to need to hit the gym asap if I keep cooking and eating like this and I'm not supposed to go for another week. Oy.