My arch enemy

I have an arch enemy. It’s name is yeast. I have been combating this enemy for over a month. I can’t remember what life was like before I was in the throes of battle with this formidable foe. My first formal attack seemed successful but it was just lying in wait, biding it’s time before I stopped treatment and it could advance once again, this time seemingly with more power than before. This war with yeast has completely taken over my life. I want my life back. I want to win this war.

There are many casualties in this war against thrush. The most upsetting casualty is comfort – I’m in pain all the time. Breastfeeding hurts, but it’s the random, burning, itching, shooting pain that takes over my nipple and travels back into my breast at all hours of the day – and most times without provocation – that is getting to me. I’d endure breastfeeding pain much worse than this if I could remain pain free for the rest of the day. The burning and itching are constant but if something rubs against my breasts or my nipple pulls away from my nipple pad it sends lightening bursts of agony through my entire breast and brings tears to my eyes. Many tears have been shed in this war, not just from pain but also from frustration.

Frustration over the second casualty – convenience and time. I spend SO MUCH TIME combating this persistent enemy, it’s insane. Every time I nurse I have to wipe both nipples down with vinegar rinse, then I have cover them (and most of my breast) in a clo.trimozole/hydrocortizone mixture which has to dry before I can put an antibacterial ointment on. Finally all of that should be dry before I put on nipple pads. During this time I can’t bring Isa to my chest, which makes it hard to hold or comfort her. I have to put her down after feedings and leave her somewhere for at least 5 minutes before I can pick her up. She doesn’t like this much and vocalizes her displeasure with gusto. The final feeding of the night is a huge deal as that is our Gen.tian Vio.let attack time. For this feeding Isa has to be stripped down to a simple disposable diaper (we usually use cloth) and slathered (on her face!) with a jelly or oil to keep from retaining a persistent, purple stain all over her cheeks, nose and chin. I have to be completely naked but for some sweats that I’ve surrendered to the cause and our glider and nursing pillow have to be covered in towels that are understood to be further casualties of this conflict (they are both COVERED in bright purple stains). When we’re done I have to wipe Isa’s face off (and man does she hate that) before putting her down to somehow cover my breasts without ruining the bra I’m covering them with. It’s in a huge ordeal and takes forever, which is especially frustrating when it’s midnight and I just want to go to bed.

And then there is the sanitizing. Everything that touches my boobs or Isa’s bottom has to be sanitized with vinegar or boiling. That means I can only wear a bra once before it has to be washed on hot (which is ruining my bras), with vinegar added to the rinse cycle. Nursing bras are expensive and I don’t have a lot of them, plus I have to wear a bra at night when I sleep to hold pads over my my nipples or I’ll wake up in a puddle of my own milk. Needless to say I’m doing a load of “sterile” wash every other day or so. I also have to add vinegar to the rinse cycle of Isa’s cloth diapers. I don’t have an in-unit washer and dryer so adding vinegar means timing a return trip to the laundry room so as to perfectly coincide with the beginning of the rinse cycle. It’s all very stressful and time consuming.

Another important casualty is food. Yeast thrives on sugar so I can’t eat any. I can’t eat simple carbohydrates unless they are accompanied by lots of protein and fat. On my birthday I barely had a sliver of cake. I haven’t had anything sweet – not even fruit juices – in over two weeks. The yeast is so bad I can feel it burning after I’ve indulged in something so sinful as a cracker or, god forbid, bread. I had no intention of dieting this soon after having my baby and I LOATHE these restrictions on food. It really, really bothers me.

The final casualty of this war is money. Man I have spent a lot of money combating this formidable foe. From probiotics to Gen.tian Vio.let to grapefruit seed extract to giant bottles of vinegar to extra sets of cotton nipple pads (NOT cheap) to tubes and tubes of clo.trimozole to Di.flucan prescriptions – I’ve spent well over $100 in at attempt to rid myself of this stuff.

And I’d be okay with all of this if I knew I could win this war, but honestly I feel less and less hopeful every day. I’ve read so many threads online where people voice there experiences of having thrush for months on end, even after going hard core and taking Di.flucan. Di.flucan is supposed to take care of yeast but I’m over 10 days into my prescriptions and it’s hardly made a dent in my pain. Gen.tian Vio.let is also supposed to take it out but again, after my SECOND week of the stuff, the yeast is not even just lingering, but fully present. If a simultaneous attack of Di.flucan and Gen.tian Vio.let can’t make a dent in this thrust, how can I hope it will ever go away.

The lactation consultant I’ve been seeing promises me we can get rid of it. She says that our bodies are made to balance themselves out again. But I’m giving my body all sorts of back-up and it seems totally unable to control this invader. I feel hopeless, desperate and so, so frustrated.

Last night I sobbed for the fifth night in a row, about how much it hurts and how desperate I feel. There is no end in sight and I don’t know how much of this I can take. If stopping nursing guaranteed I could end this, I probably would, that is how bad it is. It’s miserable, painful, stressful, upsetting – just plain awful. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I feel so sidelined by this – to have motherhood defined by a condition I didn’t even know existed?! AHHH!

I guess I can only take things one day at a time, one minute at a time, and hope for the best. That is really all I can do.

BUENAS NOTICIAS – My sister watched Isa yesterday so Mi.Vida and I could see Inception on the IMAX. SO AMAZING!!!! I highly recommend it.

Submerged

I just visited an online thesaurus to find a synonym for “overwhelmed” because I think I’ve used it more than once as a title on this blog. I have to say, there were many appropriate synonyms but “Submerged” really pulled me. That is exactly how I feel right now, submerged.

I am embarking on another seriously busy week. This is the third week in a row where my schedule is so crammed full of stuff to do that I hardly feel like I can breathe. It’s only Tuesday and I’m already staving off sleep while driving to and from work.

Besides crazy amounts of tutoring this week, I also have therapy and am trying to go to yoga. Today I have my 32 week OBGYN appointment (which I have to leave work early for) and then I run home to interview three possible doulas in three hours. By the time that is all done I’ll have no energy for the grad school paper I need to write and the school papers I need to grade.

I’m excited to interview doulas though. I somehow allowed myself to wait too long to look into this and literally all but three of the doulas on the sfdoulagroup website are already booked. I so hope that one of these women is the right fit in terms of personality, experience and what she charges. If not, I have no idea what our next step will be.

On top of all this I have the final paper for my current grad school class due this Sunday. I have not even started yet. I’m not really letting it stress me out but it looms there in the back of my mind. I should get the research done this week so that I know I have everything I need to write it this weekend. It’s due at 8pm on Sunday evening.

On top of all that I have a significant amount of papers to grade. I know it won’t take too long if I just sit down and do it, but it’s always the first thing I push aside. I’m sure progress reports are just around the corning and I don’t want to get caught with only three or four days to grade and input everything.

Finally I have a huge stack of Thank You cards to write for my baby shower. It was a very nice party, the friend who put it on went above and beyond. About six people from college came up from LA and we all went over early to swim and hang out. Then we showered and got ready in time to welcome the rest of the guests. The food was amazing and everyone had plenty of wine and beer to drink. I did open presents but people could watch and participate when they wanted to, or not at all. We received so many wonderful presents and were overwhelmed by the generosity of our family and friends. Now I have many, many, many thank you notes to write. I actually ordered personalized thank you cards and I can’t wait to see them (though actually writing, addressing and sending them is another story!)

I have to say, with all these things submerging me, I have gotten some good news this week. First of all, having the opportunity to meet all the doulas quickly helps me to make a choice quickly and move on to step two, whatever that may be.

I also found out that my financial aid does work even when I’m only taking one class this coming semester. That means not only is my next class covered but the extra money will pay for my final class. That is very helpful to us financially and might mean I can get my new computer sooner rather than later.

The last piece of good news is that the woman who threw me the baby shower (who lives in an insanely nice house on an acre of manicured land with a pool and hot tub) will be out of town (dogs, kids and all) and offered us her place for Memorial Day weekend. I was just wishing that Mi.Vida and I could get away one last time before the baby came but realizing that a lack of funds would make that impossible. Now to know we can do this, it’s just amazing! I’m so excited about it. Mi.Vida does have some stuff going on that weekend up in the city but we should be able to make it work. Yay for a faux weekend away!

With that I really go and start researching for my grad school paper. It’s hard to motivate but if I don’t I’ll be sorry.

To all the ICLW commenters out there, I’m so sorry I haven’t been on many of your blogs. This week has been so crazy and if I had known I never would have signed up for this month’s ICLW. I feel quite guilty about it. I’ll just have to make up for it next month.

BUENAS NOTICIAS – My hips are in considerably less pain this week. I don’t know if it’s the tummy support I’ve been wearing or the stretching I’ve been doing or what, but they feel so, so, so, so much better. If this keeps up I might just make it to 40 weeks without going crazy.

Hearing the Heartbeat

Today I had my first appointment without the sonogram. Evidently Frijolita is big enough that they can use the doppler very easily, and that is what they did. It was my first time hearing the heartbeat and it was wonderful. Unfortunately Mi.Vida couldn’t be there but I did call him and he got to hear over phone. The heartbeat was 150, which is totally normal (anything between 120 and 160 is okay) and it was nice to finally know that it was fine. I have to say, after all these weeks of waiting, hearing Frijolita’s heart wasn’t the least bit anti-climactic. It was definitely love at first sound!

As for the rest of my appointment, I brought up three major concerns:

1. The Doula program at Kaiser SF. Turns out it’s not much of a program at all, which doesn’t upset me that much, as I assumed it wouldn’t be what I needed anyway. I’ve decided I want to hire a doula to accompany me during the birth, as I’m going to try to have a natural birth. I’d love one who’s worked at Kaiser before and knows what they allow and don’t allow. My OB was kind enough to look into the doula program and talk to other people at the hospital and got me a website to start searching for my own doula, which I appreciated. Now I have to see if I can even begin to afford all of this. I really hope I can, as it’s very important to me. I know that birthing your baby can be an amazing experience and it’s one I’ve wanted for a long time. I so wish I could give birth at a birthing center with tubs and all of that, but alas, my insurance is with Kaiser and so I have to work around that. At the same time, I hope there are options for me there and I want to explore all of them.

2. My weight gain. Well I stepped on the scale today and it’s official, I gained another 9 pounds this month. I’m not as worried about it as I was before, but I’m glad I’m seeing a nutritionist and trying to get more exercise. My ob recommends I keep a food journal for a week to get a better idea of what I’m eating. I think that is a good idea, though I’m kind of loathe actually doing it. After so many years of eating issues I don’t like to go back to this way of doing things. I haven’t thought one iota about what I’ve put in my mouth for the last four years and haven’t gained a pound. Of course now I am gaining lots of pounds, and thought I know it’s healthy for me and the baby, I want to make sure it’s for the right reasons. I’m hoping that I’m gaining the bulk of my weight in the second trimester and that it will taper off some in the coming months. If not, I’ll have to step up all my efforts on the weight maintenance front.

3. Second look at the baby’s sex. I don’t remember if I mentioned it on here, but when I asked my ob to take a second look at the baby she said she would, happily, at 35 weeks. I was not very excited about that and told her so. Anyway, today she told me that she said that because she is not really trained in the discrete science of determining the gender of a baby from an ultrasound, especially when the baby is still so small. She also said she would try again next time and then continue to try, but that she really didn’t know if she’d be able to give me any more of a definitive answer than I already got (“diagnosing girls is harder than diagnosing boys”). So that is both understandable and disappointing. I feel like once again we’ve come up against a problem that few others I know of has had. Of course it’s not really a problem, and I’m not trying to make it one, but I would love to know “for sure” what we’re having.

I guess that is all I have to report for now. I’m very excited to spend the evening at home with Mi.Vida, eating dinner and watching some TV. I hope all my blogging friends are having an equally restful Thursday night.

BUENAS NOTICIAS – Mi.Vida just tried out our new juicer. We went through a huge thing of carrots and oranges and it made a super yummy, super nutricious, juice! YAY! Just one more way to get through our CSA farm box veggies and fruits!

12 weeks and a revelation

I’m not officially 12 weeks, but tomorrow I will be. I had my 12 week check up today and all looked good. Mi.Vida got to see Frijolito for the first time since he was just a vaguely baby shaped presence on the screen. Today Mi.Vida got to see our little bean moving around and “waving”. He also got to see fingers and feet and what looked like his face (in the profile). It’s really hard to fathom how far Frijolito has come in 6 short weeks.

So at 12 weeks my pregnancy is healthy. There are no more milestones to make me feel better, no more “when I get to __ weeks I can relax.” I know every day from here on out that things are going well is another day closer to things ultimately being okay, but honestly, I can’t experience this pregnancy that way. Now that I’m at 12 weeks I need to find ways to feel confident and at ease no matter how far along I am. I’ll have a 1-2% chance of losing this baby at 15 weeks and at 37 weeks. I just need to suck it up and accept the uncertainty.

I’m so glad to finally be at this place, not because it automatically makes me feel better, but because I feel like now I can hold myself accountable for my thoughts. In the first trimester I kept rationalizing my fear with the high statistics of lost pregnancies and the fact that many women feel trepidation in the first three months. Now that I’m on the other side of that, or at least at the famed “12 week” mark, I can’t hide behind any of that anymore. I need to take full responsibility for my anxiety and its effects on me. And I feel ready to do that.

My therapist and I have been talking for a long time about the possibility of me going on medication. I talked to my obgyn about it today too. She said that 16 weeks would be a good time to start taking something new, like Zo.loft, which has the most studies backing up it’s claim to put the fetus at minimal risk. After doing a little research myself it does seem like the risk is very, very low and if going on Zoloft will make me healthier and happier it is definitely worth it. My plan was to wait until after the winter vacation (which will be from both work AND grad school, so a real vacation indeed) and reassess the situation then, which coincides perfectly with the 16 week suggestion of my OB. I feel strangely peaceful knowing that anxiety medication is a real possibility for me, in my own mind. Before I felt like I would only consider it in the most dire of situations, but the more I look at my anxiety the more I see the irrationality of it. It doesn’t keep me from being productive at work, but my worry is so completely out of my control, no amount of rational thought or acceptance of uncertainty seems to alleviate the anxiety. So now, as I move past the 12 week mark, I will be very carefully monitoring my anxiety and if it seems unacceptable to me, I will be requesting Zo.loft sometime in my 2nd trimester.

Wow, I guess this blog really has become a journey of TTC and now pregnancy in the midst of anxiety. I was hoping that finally becoming pregnant would take out the anxiety aspect but I guess it’s here to stay. I shouldn’t really be surprised, and yet I am. I will continue searching for ways to alleviate my anxiety but I’m also surrendering myself to the fact that it might just be out of my control.

Getting back to the real world… I didn’t go to work today and thank goodness. My fourth (or maybe this is a fifth cold) has become full fledged laryngitis. My voice was bad the last three days but today it’s horrible. Mi.Vida says I sound like that one woman from One Tree Hill, a show I’ve turned on every once in a while only to be so put off by the brown haired woman’s horrible voice that I have to immediately change the channel. For him to say I sound like that is really upsetting, but I can also recognize that it’s true.

I have a lot more to write but I shall save some for posts this weekend. I hope you’re all having a good week after Thanksgiving. I can’t believe how quickly winter break and the holidays will be here. I think I might just make it to 16 weeks without going totally insane.

BUENAS NOTICIAS – I got lunch at my favorite soup and sandwich place today with an old friend that I don’t see nearly enough. It was really fun.

PS – A note about Buenas Noticias. I’ve been asking Mi.Vida for Buenas Noticias every day now and it’s really nice. Sometimes he has to think hard about it, but when I remind him that is about the little things you’d take for granted he always smiles and figures something out. The other day I was so thankful for the super hot showers I take in the morning. I never want to take those for granted! That is what Buenas Noticias is all about.

Attempting to deboard the worry train (with little success)

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been struggling a lot lately with anxiety about my pregnancy (shocking huh!?) and reading about more late term miscarriages at 18+ weeks on other people’s blogs has me again seriously questioning whether I need to take a break from the blogging world.

It’s Saturday night at 7:15. I’ve spent much of today working on a grad school paper that was due last Sunday. I’m actually getting through it more quickly than I expected and although it’s not very good, it will get the job done. I’m taking  a much needed break now to write this post. I have to admit, I also might do a little book shopping on Amazon.

This Wednesday I went to another ultrasound appointment. I just went to one a week ago, an “emergency” appointment that I requested when I mysteriously lost all my pregnancy symptoms. I kept this Wednesday’s appointment because it was with my actual OBGYN and I’ve been so eager to talk to her and ask her some questions. I also had an appointment after my ultrasound with someone from the mental health department of the pregnancy unit.

Anyway, all day Wednesday I was a wreck, worried I’d get bad news. I don’t know how I can get myself so worked up every time I go in for an ultrasound! By the time I got home from both appointments I was exhausted; I didn’t get off the couch for five hours (and Squeaks can attest to that).

Anyway, my appointments went well. It was kind of intense reviewing my entire mental health history with the woman who I ended up seeing first because my OBGYN was running late. We talked about my past episodes with depressions, when I was in therapy, when I was taking medication (and what I took), my past issues with food and weight, and finally my crushing anxiety about losing this pregnancy. She was very kind, compassionate and sympathetic, but never in a demeaning way. She concluded that I did not need to meet with her again (because I already see a therapist weekly) but urged me to make an appointment with my psychiatrist towards the end of the pregnancy to discuss putting me on antidepressants before I deliver so they will already be in my system to ward off possible postpartum depression (for which I’m at a higher risk). I told her I’d definitely do that.

At my OBGYN’s I got my first pants-on-tummy-ultrasound. I guess no more dildo cam! I felt like I had graduated when she pulled the regular ultrasound out. Frijolito looked considerably bigger than just a week ago, with fingers and toes clearly visible. He/she was also moving around quite a bit, so much so, in fact, that the picture is not very good at all. After the ultrasound I got all of my questions answered (mostly because I had emailed them to her ahead of time, at my therapists recommendation). I have to say, I am sad that being a part of Kaiser, I have very little control over my birthing experience. I’m trying not to think too much about that, as I have many months before I need to face those issues.

At the end of the appointment my doctor suggested I cancel my existing December 3rd appointment and push it back, at which point I broke down crying and basically begged her to let my keep it. I told her that I still have so much anxiety about losing this pregnancy and coming in every two weeks to get it checked out goes a long way in easing my mind. She was very kind and said that was fine. By December 3rd I’ll be two days away from the famed 12 weeks so I hope that everything looks okay then. Since this appointment I scheduled my NTU, which is part of the genetics screening I will be doing. That appointment had to be made in the middle of December so I will have another ultrasound 2 weeks after the next one. I hope by then I’m feeling confident and I start getting annoyed at coming in all the time. These appointments are at very annoying times and because they are in the city, and I work on the peninsula, I have to take the entire day off, no matter when they are. I guess it’s a good thing I won’t be taking any maternity leave because I’ll have very few sick days left by the time even my first trimester is over.

All joking aside, I’m beginning to realize that I have a serious problem with anxiety and it only seems to be getting worse. I thought by 10 weeks I’d be feeling better. I have a book on miscarriage (Avoiding Miscarriage) that cites a “very large study” that concluded that women who saw the heartbeat at 10 weeks had a 1% chance of losing the pregnancy. Even armed with that statistic I’m still sometimes paralyzed with fear that something will go wrong and it will completely destroy me, my relationship and my life. I’ve been operating under the assumption that this anxiety would lessen after the first trimester but as I get closer it only seems to get worse. For the first time I’m feeling frustrated at my own anxiety and also fearful that it will adversely affect my pregnancy. I know I need to find ways to introduce calming thoughts into my repertoire of constant worry, but I don’t know how. There are surprisingly few books dedicated to anxiety during pregnancy, and most deal with issues that arise much later during the third trimester. I’m sure I’ll appreciate those books in three or four months but right now I need something very different.

So I continue to struggle with sometimes crushing fear and doubt. I’m working closely with my therapist on this, but I’m finding it increasingly upsetting. I really hope that I don’t have to take some kind of medication to control this anxiety in the near future, but I will be open to that if it’s suggested to me by professionals. In the meantime I’m going to try other methods and hope they work. If anyone can suggest any resources to help me with this, I’d very much appreciate it.

I hope you’re all doing well. Thanks for hanging in there with me through this winding road. I hope I don’t sound ungrateful for what I have, because that could not be farther from the case. I am just struggling to accept uncertainty with grace instead of rage against it with unrelenting worry.

BUENAS NOTICIAS – I watched Changeling the other day and really, really enjoyed. I’m still thinking about that movie. Also, I only have work for two days next week! You can’t beat that!

Kind of screwed (and confused)

Right now I’m in holed up in the office because the heat is on. It hasn’t been on in ages and it smells horrific, but man, is it toasty. When the door falls open or I call out to the cat who’s running around on the other side, I can’t believe how frigid it is in the hallway. I don’t know how I’m ever going to leave this room, let alone the house to get a burrito for dinner.

It’s 8pm already. I skipped my Zen Center class today because as my post title declares, I am kind of screwed. At least this is true as it applies to grad school work. Repeating my mistakes of the past few weeks I failed to read my grad school assignment until Sunday morning, about 12 hours before it was due. Of course I was required to read 15 articles on my subject of choice (academic language) and synthesize them into 5-7 pages of succinct commentary. I immediate wrote my teacher asking for an extension (which he readily gives, hence my lackadaisical attitude towards a decent start time) and then commenced a thorough cursing of this specific assignment and then grad school in general. I swear, I cannot enter the head space to do this stuff right now and it’s almost physically painful to attempt it. I did work hard Sunday, only stopping to grade papers and make dinner with Mi.Vida (who was very sick indeed) but I only reviewed 10 of the articles before bedtime.

So that is why I’m screwed. Even if I work all week I’ll probably not get this done until next weekend, when I should be working on the next three assignments that are due that Sunday. My goodness, how else to say it. I am screwed.

I’m also screwed because it feels like I’m coming down with Mi.Vida’s cold. I have the inkling of a sore throat and, at the moment, my right sinus cavity could be likened to a block of cement. I’m hoping that miraculously I wake up tomorrow feeling great but I doubt that very much. If I get a cold of Mi.Vida’s caliber I am really screwed because I can’t take the time away from work or grad school right now.

One good thing is that I’m not going to work tomorrow for an OBGYN appointment. Finally I get to see my obgyn and get answers from her on these important topics! I also cherish any opportunity to be reassured that my pregnancy is progressing normally. I hope I can hide my cold from the receptionist so she won’t turn me away tomorrow. Who knows when I’ll get another appointment with my super booked obgyn if that is the case.

On the needing-to-be-reassured front I’ve been seriously evaluating whether or not my blog addiction is helpful or hurtful to me at this point. I love following people’s blogs and commenting on them; I’ve “met” some of the most intelligent, interesting, strong willed, insightful people I’ve ever “known” on these blogs and I constantly eye my google reader tab to see if a number is nestled in parenthesis next to the title. On most of these blogs I find an opportunity to share in a story or experience that I understand and sympathize with. The other side of the coin is that on a handful of blogs I hear stories, either the author’s first hand accounts, or the accounts of friends or fellow blog writers, of miscarriages after 9 or 10 or 16 weeks. I hear about so many people who have suffered such heartbreaking losses well after the time when their pregnancy has been deemed “safe”. These stories scare me and their prevalence in the blogging community make me feel like a miscarriage at this point is a very real and likely possibility. Mi.Vida tries to remind me that this is not necessarily the case, saying that these stories are from a “non-random sampling of voices” and that is true to a point. But the reality is, a lot of the stories I hear about are from friends of bloggers who are not a part of the IF community and just had the rotten luck of losing a pregnancy well after hearing a heartbeat.

I know I’m someone who feels a lot of anxiety about these things, more so than the “normal” person, especially after my ectopic this summer. I know I’m hardwired to worry about things that are outside of my control. I’ve done a lot to try to write “software” over this hardwiring, but there is only so much I can do. I just wonder if reading IF blogs, and subjecting myself to the possibility of hearing about devastating pregnancy loss stories is the smartest thing for me at this point. At the same time, I so cherish each and every blog that I read, I can’t imagine not following these people’s stories. For this reason I’m confused, or better said conflicted about what to do.

I’d love to hear someone’s take on this, another blog reader out there who understands how important staying connected with the community can be but also sees the value in self-protection. If you have any thoughts, I’d really appreciate it.

I’ve been good tonight. I reviewed 5 more articles and have all the quotes and main ideas in a word document prepared to cite, with pages numbers and APA references at the ready. I have typed and sent off my sub plans for tomorrow. I’m not supposed to do the mountain of dishes in the kitchen because Mi.Vida promised he would. I could leave the warm refuge of this office and go get a burrito but there would be a lot shivering and cursing the arrival of winter if I were to do that. Of course there is almost nothing edible in this house so I can’t make something here. What a conundrum. I wonder what I shall decide.

BUENAS NOTICIAS – I can sleep in tomorrow, at least until 8am tomorrow. Anything after 6am is better than 6am.

Assurance Sooner

Yesterday, for the first time during this pregnancy, I felt good. I felt really good. That beta number was so different from my last pregnancy’s beta number that I was sure it meant something different for this time around. I know I can still lose this pregnancy, but as long as it’s not to an ectopic, I think I’ll be okay.

And I’ll know for sure whether or not it’s ectopic sooner that I thought. Dr. Google has informed me that the gestational sac should be visible with a beta hCG number of 6,500. My numbers should be that high soon and by some miracle, my OB-BYN heeded my pleas and made me an appointment (with her!) for a quick ultrasound tomorrow. So tomorrow, around 2:50pm I should know for sure if I’m having another ectopic. That is one week and one day quicker that I thought I’d know. Now I’m even more excited that I pushed for the beta. This experience is definitely teaching me nothing about being patient and just waiting things out.

So if today’s beta number is double Monday’s number, we should be able to see the gestational sac tomorrow. In case things don’t look good, I have therapy a few hours later and I can easily cancel my trip to LA this weekend to recover physically and emotionally. I feel pretty good about things at this point.

I’m pretty sure I’ll still have my prenatal visit at 6 weeks, and Dr. Google says that they should be able to see a heartbeat by then. I’m going to confirm with my OBGYN about that because I really don’t want to go in unless they are sure they will be able to see a heartbeat. My guess is with numbers this high, they will at 6 weeks, but if there is any doubt, I may push it back.

I guess after I find out that it’s not ectopic I have to let myself calm down and enjoy the ride. No more daily emails to my OB and no information requests from Dr. Google. I need to just get a book I trust and stick with that, because internet searches can reveal scary stuff, and I don’t want to surround myself with any unnecessary anxiety.

Thank you all for your kind words of support and encouragement this past week. I can’t tell you what they mean to me. I promise you’ll all be the first to know when I receive any information.

BUENAS NOTICIAS – Yesterday we had a big storm in Northern California. I casually mentioned in the staff room that I needed new tires and low and behold, today there are two tire coupons in my box. I love my staff. Oh and did I mention I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow! Whoo hoo!