Well April 17th we found out the news.
Am I pregnant, or do we have another fertility cycle ahead of us?
The two week wait. It’s brutal. It feels like the longest wait of your life when you are trying to conceive. I remember when we were trying to get pregnant the first time… every month for 1.5 years I dreaded the two week wait.
The disappointment of negative tests got to me. It was so hard.
Fast forward to today, and the two week wait is hard, but not quite as hard. I don’t have as much mental energy to just think about things, now that I have a toddler running around.
That being said, that same toddler brings up the “new baby” all the time. So I also can’t escape it!
In addition to that, my emotions are just all over the place after having lost our second child to trisomy 13. I don’t even know that I really want to be pregnant.
When you are doing fertility treatments, it is also totally different two week wait. It is no fun to do fertility treatments.
The injections, the constant appointments, and all the time and effort… you just want to see it pay off… and quite literally pay off because it is also expensive. No one wants to do multiple rounds of fertility treatments- whatever the kind.
With my particular protocol, there is HCG (the pregnancy hormone) in my system. HCG is used as a “trigger shot” (ovidrel) to release the mature follicle for intrauterine insemination.
So, if you take a pregnancy test too soon, it will show traces of the HCG in your system and give you a false positive.
As a result, the fertility clinics recommend not doing any home pregnancy tests.
Well, that’s not my style. I like data, and I love to test! I test pretty quickly after the IUI, knowing that the trigger shot is still in my system.
I then test until the positive line fades away. Then, if I get another positive line, I know for sure it’s a real positive and not the ovidrel in my system.
This time I did just that. 8 days post IUI, my trigger shot had successfully left my system and I was getting negative tests. Right around this time, however, I started getting pregnancy symptoms…
My sense of smell was off the charts, and I was nauseous. These were two telltale signs for me in my last two pregnancies. I started to think I might be pregnant!
The symptoms, however, only lasted for two days. Then they were completely gone. At that point, I realized it might have just been the presence of HCG causing me to have those symptoms.
Then there was my period. It wasn’t coming.
For the last 8 months, I have started early spotting. Too much information, I know, but it’s relevant! No spotting this month. Good sign.
However…. they also had my on progesterone capsules. Progesterone capsules can delay your period.
I kept testing, and kept getting negatives. With Caroline and April, I was able to see positive home tests pretty early. I also started getting period like cramps. I definitely felt like I was not pregnant.
April 17th rolled around… this was the day my beta test was scheduled (pregnancy blood test). I woke up to my period starting. No need to test.
Baby V #3 has his/her own plans and did not want to be conceived in March as the rest of his/her siblings LOL!
I’m not surprised that it didn’t work, and towards the end of my two week wait, I knew that I wasn’t pregnant, so I didn’t have the huge feeling of disappointment the day that I officially found out.
This last month was just crazy stressful with selling our house, buying a new one, moving into an apartment, etc. I’m not sure my stressed out body was ready to slow down and do it’s magic in the month of March!
With fertility cycles, they start up immediately.
On day 3 of my cycle (tomorrow), I go back in for blood work and an ultrasound to look at my antral follicles.
I start clomid tomorrow if all looks good, and then we jump right back in for another round. Keep your fingers crossed for us that we don’t have to do too many more of these cycles!