Hooray for progesterone!

Progesterone is up!  Woohoo! Yesterday's blood draw (10w2d) result: 26.1.  I can go down to one shot twice a week!

So, that's good news.

I also decided to try to find ways to reduce the morning sickness.  I had been trying to just offer it up and take it as a good sign that the pregnancy's going well . . . and then figured, nah. OK, not really, but morning sickness is not the best when I feel more and more nauseated as the day goes on, putting off the time I have to cook dinner without throwing up (because even if I can't eat it, everyone else has to!), so then dinner is late, and the kids are in bed late, and I want to collapse into bed the minute they do . . . so, yeah. I thought, "maybe there's a better way to handle this." And, of course, the brilliant Jen at Conversion Diary found it. I had gone off of the diet I mentioned (which I believe I found on her blog in the first place). It made me feel really good, but I just couldn't keep it up with it in the craziness of the summer. But, sure enough, it works for morning sickness, too!  I feel sooo much better!  I have more energy and practically no nausea. Things are good.

And I've thrown in the towel on a bunch of things. We're still not in the new house. We still haven't put our old house on the market. Just too much going on. We're working our tails off, but between both of us working full time, Mr. X commuting an hour to an hour and a half each way, etc., etc., and the million little projects we have to finish on this house, the million big projects we have to finish on the new house, not to mention packing up all of our junk . . . it just isn't done yet. So, we went to one of those meal-prep places and ordered twelve dinners. And we just had a cleaning service come to the old house, and they're coming to the new house tomorrow. Not that we're going to do this all the time, but there is no way we can keep up with work and all the regular tasks and fix up both houses. Something's got to give.

But I haven't outsourced laundry yet, so I'm off to put in some more!

We have a heartbeat!

Hooray! After my disappointing progesterone results, I managed to move up my appointment to Friday afternoon. My doctor's office doesn't have an ultrasound, and I knew that 9 weeks was about the earliest we'd be able to hear the heartbeat with the Doppler. Friday was 8w6d, and after a few minutes, he found it!  About 170-180 beats per minute. What a fabulous sound!

At the last minute, Mr. X was able to make it to the appointment, too. Not only did he get to hear the heartbeat, but he also was able to wrangle the kids in the waiting room for the delightful p.e.lvic exam time (I was really nervous about handling that without him!). So, everything's looking good, thanks be to God!

Progesterone Woes

I'm trying not to freak out about this, but my progesterone levels aren't going up yet.  This is what I've got so far:

4w2d: 17.1
6w2d: 18.2
8w2d: 19.0

I'm feeling good, have plenty of pregnancy symptoms--working on keeping the morning sickness (just nausea, no vomiting, but worse nausea than when I was pregnant with Sarah) at bay. My hCG levels have been good, and comparable to that pregnancy as well.  I haven't had an ultrasound, but I have an appointment next Monday (9w2d) where the doctor will try to hear the heartbeat with the doppler (we were able to hear Sarah's heartbeat with the doppler at 8w3d).

Boo!  Any advice?

Hmmm

Thanks for the kind comments! I had my second blood draw yesterday.  I was hoping for a good doubling time for the hCG. When I had the miscarriage, I had a doubling time of 67 hours, and with Sarah, I had a doubling time of 48 hours.  I was just hoping for something close to 48 hours this time.

So, I called the doctor's office this morning because my online account wasn't working, and, you know, since I just happened to have him on the phone, asked the guy who answered the phone if they had my test results yet.  He said the doctor hadn't looked at them yet, but he could give me the number: 1732. 1732 at P+19! That's a 25-hour doubling rate!

Then I freaked myself out googling the results to see what that could mean.  Apparently, it could mean anything or nothing. But, just for the heck of it, I'll probably go google some more . . .

Take that, Secondary Infertility!

It looks like, God willing, we'll have another baby around here next May!

I was feeling really discouraged, and I made an appointment with my doctor last week to talk over the protocol we're using, start another hormone series, look into another ultrasound series and laproscopy, and the whole ball of wax. It so happened that I was at P+13 the day I went in. It had been 18 months since we started trying again (first cycle after Sarah was born--thank you night weaning), 13 months since I weaned Sarah completely and started taking l.e.trozole again, and 9 months since I had the HSG to open my tubes again. So, he sent in the orders for the blood draws, to start on Monday.

And instead, I went in on Monday for a blood draw for hCG and progesterone and my first progesterone shots!

So, this baby's due date is May 18th. Sarah, however, waited until 13 days after her due date, so I'm not counting on anything happening then.

The technical details: My P+17 hCG was 453 and progesterone was 17.1 (boo!). With Sarah, my draw was on P+16, and hCG was 582 and progesterone was 13.8. My hCG draw at P+18 for our first baby was 624. So, it's in the ballpark, but I wish it were at least as high as last time, because I'm goofy like that. For now, it looks like I don't need the prometrium in addition to the 200mg progesterone shots. The assistant at the office did say I was in Zone 1, but it looks like Zone 1 on the chart is way below 10. Hmm.

I go back for another hCG draw tomorrow, and then we'll check hCG once a week and progesterone every two weeks. And my next appointment won't be until 9 weeks, when we should be able to hear the heartbeat on the Doppler. No 6-week ultrasound!

I was listening to the kids play in the the back yard yesterday. They're going to be so excited. This baby will have four people cheering for every milestone.

I'm not sure when I want to tell people. I'm not taking anything for granted, and I do want to celebrate whatever time we have with this little one. I'm praying for this baby to stick around, but above all for the grace to accept God's will.

Some news (no, not that news)

So . . . we bought a house!  I guess that's one way to go through all of our stuff--pack it up and move it across town.

Mr. X and I have been talking for almost a year about moving. We've driven around neighborhoods, pored over online listings, hemmed and hawed, and finally, last Monday, we sat down together and decided where we'd like to move--oh, you know, maybe sometime before the end of the year. We'd get the house ready to sell, take our time, be ready to jump at a great deal. Just for the heck of it, I got online and put in our new search parameters. There was a foreclosure in a really nice neighborhood, priced way below the nearby houses, and it had just come on the market.

We jumped in the car and drove by. Nice. It has the location we want, it's the smallest, worst house in a great area--it's the smart choice. So, we called up our realtor and scheduled a showing for the next day. It's government-owned, and the bid deadline was midnight on the 4th (weird). We spent ages pricing the work that's needed, prayed about it, and set our price. We got our bid in that evening, and ours was the 15th bid.

And we won! So, now we're waiting for the inspection to see if it's really going to be worth it.

So, instead of sorting everything we own, I'm about to start boxing it all up to send to storage. The new house has an unfinished basement, so once we close (presuming all goes well and we do close), we'll just move the essentials into the house, put the boxes in the basement, and I'll sort through them one at a time as I decide what deserves to make it into the living space.

It's interesting, too--last summer, after talking about it ad nauseam, we finally decided which car we wanted to buy. It was midnight on a Friday. We got on Craigsl.is.t and there it was, posted half an hour before at an amazing price. It was ours by noon. Feels like Someone's looking out for us.

In other news, I'm getting ready to start another round of Le.tr.ozole (took 2 months off to give my body a break). I'm also reading about spiritual warfare and cur.ses related to infertility. Scary stuff.

The kids are fantastic. They're starting preschool at the Catholic school near my office next month. We are so excited about it! Sarah named her teddy bears yesterday. She's had a long history of very literal, descriptive naming (for example, Pink Bear and Big Baby). Yesterday, she announced that her favorite bear is a baby girl named Norway, and two larger bears are boys named Rocketship and Kiki. Interesting. Nick and I are working on reading this summer, and he's doing so well! He's still fascinated with horses and loves playing priest. We got a video of him after our parish had a Corpus Christi procession this year. Without any prompting or discussion from us, he pulled his hands inside his "vestments" (he insists on wearing one of Mr. X's black t-shirts with a white t-shirt on top) so that he wouldn't put his hands on the monstrance (a role he assigned to a straw hat). In a few weeks they'll turn 4 and 3. Unbelievable!

So close I can taste it . . .

. . . and it doesn't taste like chicken!

It's almost summer.  Just few more days, and I'm free!

Well, except for teaching summer school (just one online class that I've already prepped). And writing grant applications. And finishing a journal issue and some manuscripts. That's what I call "having the summer off." With all that free time (and with a little help), I'm planning to completely overhaul the house. I know that was my plan LAST summer, but this time I've enlisted reinforcements, made a schedule, and there's no stopping me.

And it's really almost here! The kids are out of preschool. It was downright hot at 10:30 mass this Sunday. And I can't wait.

We've been in survival mode around here. Mr. X's crazy commute, my nutty schedule (why, oh why, did I think it was a good idea to do a major redesign of every class I taught this year? And why did the assistant to my new administrative gig have to quit--never to be replaced--right before Christmas?), and assorted dramas conspired against us. We've made it through, but to illustrate for you where we are right now, our dinner menu for the last six weeks has consisted of: roast chicken, rice, and frozen vegetables (75% of the time, peas). Every night. OK, we do manage to vary it maybe two nights per week (ooh, HAMBURGERS with rice and peas!). We roast two chickens early in the week, freeze most of the meat, and then eat it (MAYBE with a quick sauce I make using the elaborate method of stirring a ton of cumin into plain yogurt--with a little garlic powder and garam masala for show--if I can manage that arduous 30-second task) every single night. Today, Nick was exhausted due to a lack of nap and begged to go to bed in the middle of dinner. I suspect he really just couldn't face another dinner of chicken, rice, and peas. Tonight I vowed to Mr. X that we will not be eating plain roast chicken for at least the next three months.

Tomorrow, I'm stopping at the store to buy taco makings so that, at the very least, we can have roast chicken tacos. I'm going to clear out our nightstands (can't let the reinforcements see EVERYTHING) so that I feel like I'm making a start. Just a few more days. I can do this!