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.

18dp5/6dt - Up, Up and Away!

Yes! I successfully had my labs run at Kaiser this morning and it didn't cost me $300! I'm so glad we were able to get them ordered in time, although it turns out they accidentally got put in as routine instead of STAT. The lab was able to get the HCG back today since they run that on location, but my estrogen and progesterone had to be sent out to their main lab about 30 min away. Considering that they don't do pick up until 12:30 and tomorrow is a Sunday, I think it's unlikely that we'll have those numbers before Monday. I'm not super concerned about it since those hormones are pretty much set by the 4mg Estradiol and 200mg Endometrin I'm taking each day.


 So, at 18dpt or 23dpo my HCG is an impressive 13,024! Going back to betabase.info:

For a singleton pregnancy, we're still on the chart but getting even higher. Only 5.3% of singleton pregnancies reported have an HCG about equal or higher to mine at 23dpo. 

For a twin pregnancy, we're in the high average. 34.6% of twin pregnancies have an HCG about equal or higher. We're actually at the high end of the average group too, another 700 points and and we'd be in the 9.8% of reported twin pregnancies with betas over 13,723 today. That's really only the difference between a morning and afternoon beta.

My doubling time is also still really fast. Usually things have started to slow down just a little bit by 5 weeks but my body clearly didn't get the memo.

At 40 hours, only 14% of reported single pregnancies have a doubling time equal or faster while 52% of reported twin pregnancies have an equal or faster rate.

I know it's entirely pointless to speculate about 1 or 2 at this point, but our ultrasound isn't for another 9 or 10 days and that's a long time to be left wondering. We put in one embryo with the hope that we'd get one baby, the idea that there could potentially be two in there has got us all thrown off. E has always teased me that the only way we'd have three children would be if we had one set of twins. I had thought that option was lost to us, at least without another round of IVF  and assuming we could have any at all, and the idea that the universe might be orchestrating some twins for us after all is wonderful.

14dp5/6dt - Tricky Baby?

The more I look at my beta numbers, the more I wonder if we don't have a little tricky baby in there. My beta started off high but this last one has gone way up and now I'm giving serious thought to the possibility that there could be two in there - identical twins.

We transferred a Blastocyst so if we had twins, they would have split after day 6

In general, HCG numbers in PGD pregnancies tend to be on the lower side. It's most likely due to the biopsy of the embryo since they're removing cells that would otherwise be producing HCG in early pregnancy. When you remove those cells, the embryo takes a bit longer to bounce back and regrow enough cells to produce high numbers of HCG. It could also be the result of late implantation too, for the same reason really, the embryo needs to bounce back a little before it can successfully implant. Clearly, this hasn't been the case for me. Even my doubling time seems to be ahead of schedule, normal is 48-72 hours and thus far mine has been 35.34 hours.

Betabase.info Doubling calculator

With a beta number of 1642 at 13dp5dt or 18dpo, this puts us in the above, above average category for a singleton pregnancy. With 192 ladies sharing the same range, it's not unheard of but it is significantly higher than average. Only 229/2751 singleton pregnancies had numbers as high as mine or higher, that's only 8.3%.  Again, not impossible, but certainly not common.

If there's only one in there, they sure are an over achiever!

Although the percentage is small, it's believed that biopsying an embryo slightly increases the odds that it will split into monozygotic or identical twins. The theory is that by manipulating the embryo via cell removal and piercing the shell, you're making it more likely for the zygote to split clean in half and develop into two separate babies - either Mono/Di or Mono/Mono twins. Mono/Di twins have their own amniotic sacs but share the same placenta, while Mono/Mono twins share the same amniotic sac and placenta. You can also have Di/Di identical twins when the embryo splits early on, at the morula stage. Those babies actually have their own placentas since they split before they implanted. Mono/Mono twins carry a great number of risks, it's a lot to ask one amniotic sac to hold two babies plus the increased likelihood twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), cord problems and circulatory problems. Luckily, Mono/Mono twins usually only account for 3% of identical twins. Mono/Di twins are also at risk for TTTS but having their own amniotic sacs offers some protection. Mono/Di babies are often misdiagnosed as Mono/Mono early in the pregnancy because the dividing membrane can be tough to see until later on.

My beta seems a lot more at home in this chart

Looking at the twins beta chart, my numbers are a much better fit within the normal averages. 410/1442  twin mamas had numbers as high as or higher than mine which is 28%, a number that makes a lot more sense than 8%. If we'd transferred two embryos there'd be no doubt in my mind that there's two in there, but with identicals still being such a small percentage, I think it could go either way. Honestly, we'd be happy either way, with an over achieving singleton or a tricky baby that got bored and decided to split. I just want a nice, healthy, normal and boring pregnancy.

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!