Results

Date	Time	Pregnancy	HCG Levels	Progesterone Levels	Doubling Time
11/22/20010	11 am	3w 4d (11dpo)	38 mIU	20.69	-
11/24/20010	10 am	3w 6d (13dpo)	129 mIU	-	26.65 hours
11/26/20010	10 am	4w 1d (15dpo)	209 mIU	-	68.95 hours
11/29/20010	9 am	4w 4d (18dpo)	482 mIU	17.53	58.90 hours

I'm a little hopeful but still nervous. Unfortunately I have to wait for Tricare to update before I can get into the ob/gyn.

Already worried

Date	Pregnancy	HCG Levels	Progesterone Levels	Doubling Time
11/22/20010	3w 4d (11dpo)	38 mIU	20.69	-
11/24/20010	3w 6d (13dpo)	129 mIU	-	26.65 hours
11/26/20010	4w 1d (15dpo)	209 mIU	-	68.95 hours

I know under 72 hours of a doubling time is normal in some circumstances, but I don't know how to keep hopeful. I was thinking it'd be a ton better then that!! I guess it was a let down. I was expecting to hear a great number, was going to go switch to tricare standard, and see my ob/gyn Dr. Q for pregnancy then. Instead I wonder if I should stick to tricare prime, deal with the navy ob/gyn and tolerate the horrible things I heard the last two times I miscarried. Honestly? I might just switch to standard to talk to Dr. Q about it all. In fact after discussing pros and cons with my mother, when my son goes to preschool today I'm heading to tricare and changing it. No matter what I wanted to go standard eventually. If I miscarry at least she'll handle it nicer and try harder for me, which is more then I could ask from the Navy doctors and nurses. I'm trying to keep my head up. I decided to go in for my blood work today instead of tomorrow, sure the nurse practitioner who wrote me the lab sheet might be annoyed, but it's not her body. Hopefully tomorrow brings better news.

Always an infertile

I think no matter what when we've experienced miscarriages and/or infertility we're always an infertile no matter what happens in life. Whether we found out we're barely pregnant or have had a child after infertility. We're always an infertile it seems.

I know it's hard for me to look at someone else and see their beautiful round belly, knowing they're very much pregnant and not be overcome with jealousy. It's hard to get past that. I guess it would be easier for us if they told us "We had to use IVF" or "we tried for 5 years", but when we glance at someone we don't know and see their belly all we see is the green eyed monster.

When it comes to people in our infertility circle I think it's easier to be truly happy for them. I'm not saying we aren't jealous of those who announce pregnancies - but at least we're happy to see a graduate.

I fear if I post here about my pregnancy updates I'll lose friends or that I'll upset others. I know it's bound to happen. I would love to post about pregnancy on my other blog, but I don't feel comfortable doing that. When I was pregnant last time I posted on the other blog - and as you know it turned out horrible. I don't feel comfortable talking about pregnancy when I fear that something will happen again. I have recurrent pregnancy loss and I feel more comfortable talking about this here.

I hope I don't lose any of my TTC friends. I know it sucks that others are struggling and getting BFN's, trust me I'm feeling pain for you and really want it to happen for you. Whether it's naturally, IUI, IVF, FET, or adoption.. I truly want to see your happiness and I pray you find it soon. I know it's hard to think about the future as anything but BFN's and miscarriages, but hope you can keep a positive mind that your future will be different. *hugs*

Blood work update!

Date	Pregnancy	HCG Levels	Progesterone Levels	Doubling Time
11/22/20010	3 wks 4 days (11dpo)	38 mIU	20.69	-
11/24/20010	3 wks 6 days (13dpo)	129 mIU	-	26.65 hours

I was so excited to hear those results. My beta has never been this good off the bat, so I'm a little more hopeful this time around. I admit I'll always be nervous, but this is going the way I was hoping! Got my beta drawn today and get another one on Tuesday. Hoping for more good news!

Results are in for 11 dpo

Date	Pregnancy	HCG Levels	Progesterone Levels
11/22/20010	3 wks 4 days (11dpo)	38 mIU	20.69

Eventually I'll update it more, once I get results (today's results will be on Friday, the rest will be the day after the draw is taken). I got another beta drawn done today, then another one Friday, and one Tuesday (with a progesterone draw that day as well). I'm rather surprised my progesterone went from 7.48 on 7 dpo to 20.69 on 11 dpo. I'm still taking progesterone no matter what. There's no way I'll stop it until 13 weeks, like the ob/gyn told me to.

I'm kind of confident this time. I guess because my 11 dpo was 38 and last time on 12 dpo it was 24. I know the doubling time matters most, but it was nice to see a high number earlier. Hopefully I see a great doubling time. If this week's blood work goes smoothly I'll be switching my insurance so I can get Dr. Q.

Oh the joys of snow!!

I love snow. At least taking pictures of snow, and sometimes freezing my butt of playing in snow. I took some photos yesterday.. not sure any turned out great, but I did have a blast taking them. I also took some photos today of my son and husband playing in the snow and I'll add a few of them here. It was fun - I tried to take action shots of them throwing snow at each other and at me. I still have to go through them, but even if they don't rate an A+ on photography, they're still awesome.

This post isn't all about the joys of snow... that was just sarcasm!! Yesterday I went in for my beta and progesterone draw. Now it was snowing yesterday, but wasn't extreme when I was out and about around noon. However today was horrible. The snow had ended, but the aftermath of it was there. Here in Washington no one knows how to drive in the snow. It wasn't even that much! Today we saw at least 10-15 cars abandoned on the side of the roads. And found out most medical buildings were closed.. that included my doctor's office and the place I got my blood drawn from. So I didn't get to find out my results!!

So first thing tomorrow I'm going out to get my blood drawn for beta #2 and asking the lab for my results. Fingers crossed. I'm not as concerned with the results from the first beta, more concerned with this next one and any future ones. It doesn't matter where you start in HCG as long as it doubles - so I'm nervous. Hopefully this week goes by without any more issues.

At least the ob/gyn did prescribe me prometrium, which is great! She gave me 3 months and I'm so thankful she did. My next plan is to go on Tricare Standard. Possibly next week if I feel the betas are going smoothly. If they are great numbers and doubling how they need to, I will switch insurances so I can get Dr. Q as my own ob/gyn. If they don't double right.. well, I'm not sure. I hate how the Navy hospital treated my miscarriages. Hopefully the betas are great.

Now on to some photos:

Conflicting emotions...

I always kidded with Dr. Q she was my good luck - the first time I talked to her about what I should do next with TTC I found out I was pregnant 7 days later. So I kidded her this time when I saw her she may have gotten me pregnant this cycle (since we talked about going on femera next).

Well, you can imagine my shock when I saw:









Yes, I'm a pee addict. The first one I took was the cheap wondfo, which I wanted some definitive results. Hence, the other tests. I'm shocked, but nervous as can be. My progesterone was *7.48* on 7 dpo, three days ago. I know I need progesterone and the only one who can prescribe it is my primary doctor right now, which is not normally what they deal with. I'm not sure they'd even want to prescribe it to me. My insurance only allows me to go to the Navy doctors (unless I go standard) and the Navy doctors refuse to do progesterone draws and progesterone supplements. They don't believe low progesterone cause miscarriages. Either way I'm sacrificing some money soon to go to standard. I refuse to see the ob/gyns at the Navy hospital. I'm scared of a miscarriage, but the ob/gyns and nurses were horrible there.

So either I beg my primary doctor for supplements, or quickly go standard and call Dr. Q for supplements. I'm not sure. I'm happy, but scared. I just don't feel pregnant this round... I'm not experiencing anything like I normally do. Kind of nerve-wracking. Hard to feel excited when you're so nervous!!

My temps are like a roller-coaster, baby...

Haven't heard back from Dr. Q yet about Femera, but I'm not in a rush yet. I'm 6 dpo so I still have a week to spare until I need to know what the protocol is this cycle (whether or not I'll be taking Femera or needing a cycle or two off of it).

Tomorrow is progesterone day. I'm not too thrilled since my temperatures have been doing a roller-coaster ride of their own, so it makes me wonder what exactly my hormone levels are doing! I guess I'll find out more answers in a few days.

I've made a few Team #hope products on Zazzle. A lot of TTCers on twitter cheer each other on, so this is a shirt with them in mind.

Team #hope by Alittlebitoffun
Use Zazzle's t shirt designer

However, does any one know a place to donate some of my profits to? Is there any legit charities out there for infertility or losses that people know about? I don't know if I'm looking for a needle in the haystack here.

I really don't have faith in this cycle... I'm trying to lose my POAS-addicted mind and not test until at least 11 dpo. I would wait until I was 14 dpo but I don't want to be down about it since that would be Thanksgiving. I do have at least a legitimate reason to want to test early (so I could get put on progesterone) but it's such a waste seeing BFN's all the time. I hope this 2ww goes by quickly and smooth!

Possibly a guinea pig

I have no hopes for this cycle, let's just start it off with that. My temperatures were higher then normal before ovulation, are above cover-line now with a dip today oncover-line! What is going on? It sucks not knowing what my body is doing, that's for sure.

That being said.. I talked to Dr. Q, my ob/gyn, after this Clomid fiasco that led me to have more anxiety and panic. We talked about not going back on clomid, even if it was a lower dose. There was no way we were going to try that route again! So Femera has been our topic of discussion. She's only prescribed Clomid to her patients TTC so she is spending this week studying/researching Femera more. I didn't know if I need a cycle off between Clomid and Femera since I heard clomid stays in the system for a while (and I didn't want to cause issues). So that's one of the things she needs to find out.

I also talked to her about pregnancy and what she would do. See, right now I'm on Tricare Prime. I hate it. Only because every time I've been pregnant and have gone to the military hospital for ob/gyn care they've treated me like an idiot and were rude to me. The miscarriage in September 2009 they told me I would be getting a 6 week ultrasound to make sure every thing was fine the next time I was pregnant due to have two miscarriages at that point. The pregnancy/miscarriage in May 2010 I had to FIGHT to get a 6 week ultrasound. They flat out said I wouldn't be getting one until the 10-12 week appointment. I had went to human resources to tell them everything said to me and she went up there and fought for me. If it wasn't for her, I'd have not gotten any ultrasounds as early as I did. The nurses are always rude. When I asked for my 7 week HCG they told me it was 3,000 and I started bawling. I knew what it meant... and of course the nurse is like, "Yep should be around 15000" and then she had the nerve to tell me "Well at least then you can go in for more fertility testing." WTF?! So they have never been on my good side. When I started spotting they did an ultrasound and said the baby had a heart beat and that that was fine. Well I asked about seeing about growth and how fast the heart rate was. They told me it didn't matter, all that mattered was the baby had a heart beat and that's it! And when I started bleeding and went to their ER the ob/gyn there told me I wouldn't see the baby pass. Lying sack of crap. They also told me they don't believe in progesterone level testing and don't believe it's important.

Any way, enough flashbacks to the past. I talked to Dr. Q and we discussed if I was her patient. She agrees with how low my progesterone is (around a 9 on fertility medicines) that it wouldn't hurt to be on progesterone. And she believes it could cause miscarriages having low progesterone. She said she would do ultrasounds weekly if that's what it took for me to be comforted. And HCG beta draws as well. She sounds like she'd take a step further to make sure everything is fine with the pregnancy, which is good. I might consider going to Tricare Standard the next time I find out I'm pregnant, even if I'm at a risk for a miscarriage. We'll see what happens.

If I'm not pregnant this round.. well, we'll see what's next. Hopefully Dr. Q will call me this week to tell me if we should go this route.. or what's next. I've got my fingers crossed.

I think we're done...

Well, this has been a whirlwind of two weeks for me. I started getting way too emotional the beginning of this cycle and it seemed to just escalate with clomid in the mix. I know it's not all the fertility medicines fault, but my emotions hit me all at once. I was told after 3 days of clomid to stop it because I was feeling anxiety, panic attacks and depression pretty hard. I hate to say it, but if my hormones started getting this out of whack with clomid I'd hate to see what would happen with IUI or IVF. I've seen people's hormones get completely screwed up with their protocol and it worries me how I'd react. Husband and I haven't discussed it, but I think we may be calling it all off. Not TTC naturally, but calling off fertility medicines in general. I don't know what is next when you cannot handle the medicine's side effects.

I'm starting therapy, which will be good for me in general. There's more issues I'm having then just infertility and miscarriages (I'm kind of going through a mid-life crisis a tad earlier on my part) so it'll be nice to get help. Although I'm not sure if my counselor is someone I'll stick with. I'll give her a chance and see how it goes since I've only had one session with her which was just a get to know each other thing. I just don't know if she'll be able to offer me the support and help I need.

Otherwise not much to report. My BBT is screwed up - has been higher then normal temperatures. Sadly between my emotions, my mother asking if I was pregnant, and my higher then normal pre-o temps I decided to test. Well, duh, BFN. What did I expect? LOL. I wish I could figure it all out. I guess it's good I have an appointment to talk to my ob/gyn (I think I concerned the nurse which is why she scheduled an appointment) on the 12th but I honestly don't know what to expect the conversation will be like.

I want to say I'm sorry to all the bloggers I usually follow. I do keep up reading everyone's updates, I've just been more of a lurker and haven't commented on anyone's blog lately. Sorry! Promise I do care, even though I don't comment.