Waiting for a phone call....

A little bit of spotting this morning so we're checking HCG levels again. The lab said Dr S's office should have the results in about an hour. I've been home an hour now so hopefully they'll call soon with a BIG number to reassure me.

UPDATE: BIG number!!! 14,000! Tripled in the last 3 days! Its been about 15 hours and no more spotting. Hopefully it was just some superficial skin irritation and not actually spotting. My ultrasound appointment is in 62 hours. I pray we see around a 6 week fetus with a strong heartbeat. Or hey, with the way my levels have been increasing, maybe 2 fetuses with strong heartbeats!

P's in New Orleans this weekend and my plan is to be very sedentary. I rented some movies and I have plenty of reading materials.

Is it too early to claim pregnancy brain?

Yesterday was Speckles birthday and she always gets ice cream for her birthday. No, she doesn't get a party, just ice cream. I stopped at Food Giant and bought a pint of vanilla to split among the four of us. I specifically remember thinking during the 3 minute drive home that I hoped I remember to put the ice cream in the freezer when I got home. Forty-five minutes later, I look in the dining room to see the ice cream sitting on the table. Luckily, neither of the pups, nor P and I are picky about ice cream. It sufficiently refroze for consumption.

Meanwhile, still no morning sickness. I've been really hungry though--I'm goint to try not obsess about points or calories and just make good food choices. I've been tired, but not as bad as it was with the last pregnancy--my thyroid levels were low then. This time I started out in the upper range of normal so Dr. H thought I'd be good with the same dosage. We'll check it again next month to make sure.

More later,

Frustrations

I've been reading pregnancy journals at a site where anyone can sign up for a little journal where they can record their thoughts and feelings during their pregnancies. I found the site last summer and enjoyed reading the journals of people with due dates close to mine--it was really exciting when I started seeing a lot of due dates AFTER mine. I started reading them again a few days ago and find myself getting so frustrated.

One girl's latest entry is focused on things like getting a Verizon bill in the mail when she didn't pay last month's and her (husband's? boyfriend's?) job is only for the summer, she's going to school, she doesn't know which bills to pay, and doesn't know how they're going to prepare for the baby.

Obviously these people are ready to be parents.

Its so frustrating that they'll probably have the stress-free pregnancy (health-wise anyway) and never consider that fact that something might go wrong.

Then another girl who says claims that "the worst thing about pregnancy has started…morning sickness!" Uh, no. Morning sickness isn't the worse thing about pregnancy. Morning sickness is a reassurance from your body that everything is proceeding like it should. I PRAY for morning sickness. The worse thing about a pregnancy is when you see blood and then find out that your HCG levels are dropping or that your little one no longer has a heartbeat.

I need to get over this feeling of entitlement that comes from us being able to afford to have a baby and knowing that we'll appreciate things so much more than other people since we've lost four.

Go beta go!

My levels are still rising nicely. Up from 135 on the 20th to 4300 today. I don't think there will ever be a time that I won't be nervous, but I feel better than I did last week. Very few people know at this point. I can't handle having another loss where people know but no one says anything--it feels too much like people don't care. I'd rather people just didn't know. My levels should be high enough to have a chance at seeing something on the ultrasound next week but the timing will be in the gray area where I shouldn't worry if they can't see anything.

Still praying....

Our little coqui....

My hcg levels tripled in 48 hours. This is good. I can be hopeful. I was excited to find out my levels rose from 43 to 135 in 48 hours. But I still can't really be excited about being pregnant. I may have a hard time being excited until I see an ultrasound after 8 weeks. With my longest pregnancy, the ultrasound at 11 weeks showed the baby stopped growing at 8 weeks. Speaking of ultrasounds, Dr H went ahead and scheduled one for June 1. We may not be able to see much because I won't even be 6 weeks yet, but I hope he'll order another one the next week if we can't see a heartbeat yet.

I saw Dr. S today for an ear thing and mentioned that I'm obsessively peeing on sticks to see how fast they turn positive. I know there's no scientific basis for doing that, but it makes me feel better.

Saying lots of prayers, please join me.

It's sad....

That we can't get more excited about a positive pregnancy test anymore. This morning, when I held it up to the light and squinted and looked at it JUST right a few hours after I took it, I thought there might be a line. This evening I took another one and it was clearly positive in the set time frame. I have an appointment to see the specialist tomorrow anyway. We'll see what he says about things.

Hopeful, but not really excited.

We'd hoped that vacation would be fruitful. Maybe we'll get our little Puerto Rican baby. Since Flo showed up a week before vacation, she didn't get to go with us and I was ovulating by the time we got back home so a pregnancy at this point would be an extra souvenir.