Serious Xpol Business.

…or not all that serious as it turns out, don’t fret dear Internet.

I would just like to let you all know that I have emailed everybody who had signed up as of about twelve hours ago .

Okay, about twelve-ish plus or minus a bit hours in my timezone, which is GMT + some number I forget. It was morning here if that helps, at least I hope it was, because the babies and I got up and spent an invigorating half an hour working out who has superior keyboard bashing skills before I bribed them with porridge dense enough to glue them to the floor after consumption and generally got on with it.

Yes, the predictable result was exceedingly fibre filled Turdus Giganticus Multipilus, yet again.

You see the sacrifices I make on your behalf, Internet?

Anyway, could you all be good ladies and/or gents and check your inboxes and say ‘hi’ to your matchee?

If that fails, try your spam filter, and then try ME. I’ll get back to you in about 12 porridge-y hours. Give or take.

For those of you who signed up under the wire of my mouseclick, never fear, I shall do my best to find you a match and then ship your details on. Watch this space. Actually, on that note, I could do with a lovely lady or gent of ‘sans’ to pipe up and sign on.

In other matters that relate to a word that rhymes with ‘carriage’ a certain person now seems to be deleting all of their messages on a regular basis.

Is this A: Bad, B: Very Bad, or C: I’ve been sprung?

Inquiring minds, etc etc.

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The state of ‘flux

Or is it the flux of state???

I can never quite get the terminology right about Naan’s dreaded ‘flux. I’ve spent many an ungodly 3am hour explaining to her oh-so patiently the role that a lower esophageal sphincter should play in the laudable aim of keeping food where it belongs so I don’t have to sob with fatigue as I start yet another puked up feed all over again, but the cheeky minx is having none of it.

Not that it makes her happy either, mind you. Her proverbial boat is not the least floated and is in fact positively scuttled by her frequent technicolor yawns.

Yes, to use less artistic licence with my euphemism abuse in the interests of accuracy, really the dreaded vomitus is mostly white (fresh) to yellowy-white (i.e. had time to marinade) at the moment given her diet consists solely of milk and the dreaded Carrot Gland which infuses carrots liberally into all adult puke has yet to develop, but I couldn’t resist another way to say ‘spew’. ‘Talking to the Porcelin God’ would have rated a mention, but even more clearly one-month olds do not talk.

So. The reflux. The reflux turns what is honestly rather a sweet baby into a puking, head-twisting, back-arching screaming little monster at the mere sight of the bottle.

In true MII fashion, I have an explanatory diagram of what happens at Feeding Time At The Baby Zoo:

 

In case the picture has not completed the requisite thousand words, poor Naan persists in guzzling down first bit of her feed like a thirsty desert rescuee,  then I get a hurt look of betrayal as she cottons on that I’ve just tricked into eating, then comes scream, vomit, puke…..screammmmmm some more et cetera. You could set your watch by the ten seconds it takes her to go from item ‘drink’ to item ‘explode’. The poor child.

Butt, if you’ll pardon the obvious pun, there’s more. Add in an enthusiastic butt explosion from all the  misdirected valsalva-ing and what do you get? A dressing-gowned mother dripping in shock, covered in projectile puke which she is all too aware has made it’s way down her cleavage, past her stomach and is now pooling happily between her seated buttocks. A mother who also knows that when she unwraps the next Nappy Present she is likely to encounter a good old fashioned wrap-around poo. It’s one thing to be fishing bits of it out of leg creases, but another beast entirely when the entirety of the nappy area is outlined in runny yellow and you’re also fishing the stuff out of umbilicus.

Did I mention that babies don’t exactly sit still while you do this? Fun Times.

Clearly something had to be done.

We tried sneaking in some my.lanta, to which Naan responded-in-puke that my.lanta was clearly for utter sissies and would simply not cut the mustard for a baby such as herself.

So we escalated things.

As I write this missive, zan.tac is the latest word for the past week around these parts and (thank the diety of your choice) I don’t want to jinx myself but It Appears To Be Working…. mostly.

Whilst Naan’s previously skinny old-person bottom is not quite up there with her sister’s rolly-polly bits, it is slowly improving as she retains more food where it belongs with the help of some of the aforementioned applied pharmacology. Why only yesterday, I had to congratulate her on bath day at having a new roll on each thigh to scrape things out of.

Thank goodness Naan has listened with her best goo-goo eyes to my explanation of what happens to babies with persistent ‘flux. Apparently ‘fund.oplication’ sung musically is quite entertaining.

I’ve also for good measure tried threatening her with e.bay (eeeh-bayyyyhhh! eeeeeeee-darling-coo-bayyyyhhheee!!) if she keeps up malarkey, but she tells me 100% of poor eaters prefer c.raiglist.

In conclusion, I shall make it clear that despite my poor taste in humour, I will not be selling Naan on the Internet. It’s only five more months until solids start, right?

Coming up next: Bustin’ Out, or how I Think My Children Are Plotting Their Escape At Night, presumably with nefarious intentions.

Not without my a.nus!

Or a retrospective recollection of Naan’s rough ride to home…the first time.

Before I begin I am rather pleased (but very tired) to announce that both Saag AND Naan are now home. Hence the ‘very tired’, obviously.

Whilst the only time I have yet to see Saag cry is when she’d just managed to fill her nose and mouth with fresh spew (and she quickly ceased and settled for rather cute frowning in befuddled confusion, milk dripping freely from both nostrils), Naan is a little more on what shall be politely termed the ‘feisty’ side a.k.a An Utter Screamer, and to be honest given her early life has been full of sharp things aplenty I don’t blame her in the least.

She was particularly vile, although needless to say still completely lovable, last night.

I do however find it somewhat hard to deal with at a very very sleep deprived 3 am (and to my eternal shame have thought of a word that rhymes with ‘witch’ at one point) when both ends have been taken care of, she is swaddled to within an inch of her life, warm and cuddled and still she screams.

Makes me wish she came with a manual, to be honest. If it isn’t burps, farts, wee, poo or hunger I’m caught fresh out of ideas.

Anyway, in the interests of brevity, I shall itemise her early days with just a touch of bitter recollection of a certain paediatrician who shall most emphatically Not Be Getting Any Further Money From Us now she is home. ‘Graduated with honours’ on the business card notwithstanding. In retrospect that should have been a warning.

• Naan’s BSL’s after birth? Less than two on dextrostix (which are a bit of a guesstimate and should be followed up with a formal lab glucose on planet Geohde and most other medical planets) for a staggering four hours after she was born. Not to complain excessively, but that’s potential brain damage territory and wasn’t even followed up with, I don’t know, something crazy like the aforementioned formal lab glucose let alone perhaps an IV infusion of brain-function providing bloody glucose. Needless to say Long Suffering and I were ready to put the damn drip in ourselves when she kept vomiting up her oral glucose solution and her sugars stayed so worryingly low. We have to live with the consequences.
• Call me crazy, but feeding such a tiny baby less than half her oral feed requirements via her funky NG tube for the first three days of the fourteen it was in because he hadn’t done the simple math (and I was too drugged out and sleep deprived to think about such an obvious mistake, for which I feel eternally guilty, although It Was Absolutely Not My Job To Do It, I’m meant to be the parent in this scenario) didn’t help either her feeding woes OR her BSL issues.
• Finally, when I mentioned the medically minor (but distressing nevertheless) matter of her badly excoriated bottom that bled and had her screaming blue bloody murder at every nappy change (Not Without My Anus!) his answer was a rather unimaginative ‘air it’. No shit, pardon the expression, I never would have though of that without your help. Honestly.
• I’m not even going to get back into the whole home for less than half a day and full septic workup that followed the most cavalier discharge known to mankind. I’ve made my feelings on THAT perfectly clear already.

Anyway, after eighteen days spent in hospital with every orifice having been comprehensively abused in some way, let alone any other bits even remotely accessible having had something sharp in it, she’s home. I’ll take the night-time screaming any day over all of that malarkey.

WIsh me luck tonight…

Coming up next….’Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together’, or the story of Diastasis Rectii (how the twain no longer meet). And later on ‘Biohazard’ or how the darndest things happen at the most inconvenient time. Usually all down my front.

Now if you’ll excuse me both babies are screaming. Where’s that wine when I really need it?

Quack.

Well, if it walks  like a duck, and it sure as hell quacks like the proverbial duck, it doesn’t take a degree in ornithology to work out that it’s probably not a dairy cow, right?

In other words, I continue to grumble my way along the hypertensive puffball highway into land that would, sooner or later (depending on one’s rigorousness in labelling), earn the moniker of the dreaded pre-e. My naughty vascular system seems to have decided that 150/90 (medicated) is the new norm, my feet have enough fluid in them to pee for my nation (when it all shifts after delivery) and now the last holdout, my kidneys, are unmistakeably leaking protein. The lazy buggers.

Since the operating definition of that which starts with ‘pre’ and ends in ‘f-king scary’ is oedema, hypertension and proteinuria, well……quack.

I’m still hoping to make it till my, as it turns out, very wisely scheduled (thank you, gods of planning) c-section, although it really does now depend on items such as how truly vigorously squirty my arteries get. Along with mere trifling matters like continued movement from The Fetii and an absence of oh-my-g-d-what-is-with-this-headache-and-incidentally-why-do-I-have-this-right-upper-quadrant-pain-all-of-a-sudden.

I think I’ll make it.

Quack.

Only three more days……

The girl who cried ‘contraction’

A.k.a the moniker I am desperately tying to avoid.

I have learned and important and fundamental lesson. One that probably generalises quite well to most things in life, although I’m currently applying it in the limited circumstances of owning a very ’active’ uterus. If it’s only moderately broken, for the love of g-d, don’t try and fix it.

…which by the way is a descriptor that sh!ts me nearly as much as owning an ‘irritable’ one. It’s not like my womb likes healthy jogs and walks in the park, ferchrissakes. It likes to contract. A lot.

The path to the night from hell was lined with good intentions, starting smoothly enough with an OB visit, the promise of a New Drug To Try and the production a prescription pad. Coupled with the seductive waving of the elusive goal of some bloody rest from all the ‘activity’, already, it was a heady mixture.

I couldn’t resist. Wouldn’t you just leap at something which, anecdotally at least, had given some poor pregnant woman their life back once-upon-a-time? Hope can be a real b!tch sometimes.

It ended badly.

Last night was spent in Pain (capitalisation intentional) complete with contractions that literally took my breath away, had me rocking on all fours, and  had me tearfully demanding that my poor long suffering spouse also stay awake and rub my back. To be fair, I think all the wailing on my part had him bolt awake (and moderately terrified) anyway.

After minor debate about the safety of walking to L+D after dark, coupled with the realisation that they’d just give me nifedipine (which I already possess), I resorted to the devil-I-already-knew-and-had-on-my-bedside-table.

By four am, still contracting, plain goddamn whiny, and tired of all the trips to pee courtesy of the pressure in my pelvis, my dear spouse had a brainwave. Paracetamol+ Codeine. Sure….. I think my snort of derisive laughter was probably a little insensitive, upon reflection.

He certainly didn’t deserve it when I vomited the tablets all over the bedspread, anyway. Even if the concept was woefully inadequate to begin with.

Things kind-of settled down about six am, and I’ve been in bed (too scared to move) ever since.

I really should call my OB, but I just saw the man *yesterday* and all I ever do is ring and cry ‘contraction’. It’s rapidly getting old.

Sigh….

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Catch-22

Otherwise known as the Hydration Paradox.

Given that pharmacology alone is not precisely reining in the errant contractile behaviour of a certain occupied generative organ (to which, as mentioned previously, I shall not refer by name), I’ve been trying out all the non-pharmacological methods out there. Methods that a healthy dose of cynicism honed sharp by years of bitter experience tells me are likely to be at least 90% old wives’s tale and 10% habitual routines to soothe the desperate when there is little real option left.

I can conlusively say that neither a warm shower OR a bath make an ape of a difference. My Not-To-Be-Mentioned is quite happy to contract in an aquatic environment.

Lying in bed all day probably stops a lot of the generalised contractile irritability set off by such provoking stimuli as standing upright, but as evidenced by my 3am wakenings, does little for the more alarming efforts. Besides, when you think about it, I’m always already lying down and so relaxed that I’m asleep when the nocturnal palaver wakes me. Bedrest-schmedrest. 

Not that this stops me spending my days carefully rationing Upright Time into the bare necessities. Just in case, you understand. 

I can’t say I’m planning to try my OB’s suggestion of a glass of wine (complete with stories about how they used to place women in preterm labour on ethanol infusions, thus making maternity wards rather hangover-exposed venues), given some nights I’d be plastered drunk (and probably still cramping away).

The one that really gets my goat, however, is the ‘Drink lots of water and stay hydrated’ line. I mean, really? I can’t think of anything that sets the Foetal Squeezing machinery in motion much faster than more than about a teaspoonful of urine in my bladder.

Now if I could only actually get hold of my OB to mention the passing minor matter of persistant BH’s despite medication, self-upping of dose, weeping sleep deprivation and an impending sense of doom…….My next appointment is in six days and I may just have to hope that things don’t deteriorate to the point of no return in the meantime.

Mixed Reviews

I must confess that I was hoping that the addition of a splash of calcium channel blockade to my diet would represent somewhat of a miracle cure for all things Disobediently Contract-y. Okay, perhaps just one thing Disobediently Contract-y, but you’ll have to read between the rather obvious lines since I fully plan never to give it the satisfaction of referring to it by name again, given the Bastard Thing remains determined to make my life miserable.

I admit the initial results were, dare I say, encouraging. Having been lulled into the happy state of barely even having a damn tightening all day long on the first day, it represented a rather rude shock to still be woken up at 3am (as an aside, why must these things always be at 3 bloody am?) with all the usual ‘ow-ow-ow hard belly, softer…no HARD, and co-incidentally why do I feel this nasty pressure in my pelvis all of a sudden??’ palaver.

I was even less amused, and went as far as to check the expiry date on the medication packet (just in case), when the same thing happened the second night.

I briefly considered garroting the pharmacist on suspicion of medication substitution with placebo when it happened the third night. Three days of no sleep rather increases the violent bloody-mindedness quotient around these parts.

Needless to say, last night, when Bastard Thing began cranking up for it’s nightly performance of next-verse-same-as-the-first (but a little bit louder and a little bit worse) early, I had enough. The fact that technically I wasn’t due for another burst of please-g-d-make-it-stop (in tablet form) for four hours notwithstanding, I liberated another tablet from it’s foil backing and sent it to the Great Big Stomach In The Sky.

and waited for something to STOP happening….

It didn’t.

So, with the only other option being a nocturnal trek to L+D where they would probably only do what I was about to (but with the addition of a latex glove temporarily in my girly bits and a machine that likes to make printout versions of uterine activity), I took another tablet, and lo, at a cumulative dose precariously close to the maximum daily dose allowed Bastard Thing was finally quelled.

I must assume temporariy.

Guess I better tell my OB.

Wish me luck tonight.

Two weeks until Tentative Viability…..

As expected.

News of my uterus’s positively gleeful exploits in the direction of contract in response to just about any stimulus (walk up some stairs- why not contract a little?, full bladder- may as well contract, roll over in bed-contract!) received the unsurprising anticipated noises of official obstetric disapproval at my appointment today.

Noises of disapproval, which I hasten to add, rapidly devolved into an underwear-minus experience involving a lubricated glove reaching for what I had for breakfast, or failing that, my cervix, after my uppity reproductive system even had a tightening (in full eyeshot of aforementioned disapproving audience) precipitated simply by getting up onto examination couch.

The good news is that my cervix is thus far holding on womanfully- long and closed, but I am now under orders to call the next time my uterus decides to seriously misbehave. Presumably for another latex adventure, followed by some heavily-hinted at use of pharmacological tocolysis.

Somehow, I think this might be considerd the point at which I transition from smugly patting myself liberally on the back for swanning through a twin pregnancy with nicely manicured nails, into positively sh!tting myself that these babies may be born before they’re, well, viable. Or barely so.

Nails shall be chewed Chez MI if/and/or until these babies reach a gestation where the thought of their birth does not cause panicked hyperventilation in their mother. Screw the manicure.

 

(spellckeck still awol- many apologies)

Twelve weeks.

…and rapidly approaching Tuesday, and The Scan.

The Scan that fills me with terror.

The Scan that is giving me nightmares.

The Scan that I can only hope like hell won’t commit another pregnancy to end in disaster.

I can’t do this again, I just can’t.

I’m a regular ray of flipping sunshine today.

For the curious, I include a picture of what 12 week 0 days looks like with what I hope to hell is normally shaped twins:

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Same, but different.

It’s an odd thing that pregnancy doesn’t instantly ‘cure’ infertility. The achievement of the Holy Grail after years of shiteness kind of takes the fun out of it.

Instead, I’m now simply a pregnant infertile, with all the 3am awakenings, rabid anxiety, and constant fear of dead baby it brings. I also can’t seem to help myself reflexively thinking ‘bitch’ when I hear about the two pregnancies of workmates (easily obtained, in one case unexpectedly- I mean you think a health care worker would know how sex generally leads to babies for most people, yes?).

Even though I’m allegedly p-word myself, I think the hurt about those announcements never goes.

One of my fertile workmates is in fact on to her second pregnancy, like me. Same, but oh so very different.

I bet she isn’t breaking down her pregnancy thusly:

First Trimester:

• Don’t bother with the sex thing since it won’t work anyway. Have embryo transfer after much drama. 
• Rabidly pee on wee-sticks from stupidly early, get a faint positive and spend the week before the beta worrying about a chemical pregnancy. Wee on sticks daily and compare the darkness of the lines. Obsess.
• Get doubling beta, have acceptable progesterone.
• Spend a sodding fortune on vaginal bullets as all involved have little faith in my own ability to conjure up progesterone.
• Recheck beta, find it isn’t doubling quite so prettily. Panic.
• Think about blighted ovums continuously until a six week scan reveals a viable gestation.
• Worry like crap about miscarriage and vanishing twin, complete with Medline generated stats.
• Chew nails whilst lazy husband um’s and ah’s about an OB. Get ready to beat the living snot out of him if we can’t make a mutually acceptable choice in time for a scan in the next week. Honestly, why the hell would he NOT want to find an OB attached to the tertiary level hospital with a level III NICU only five goddamn minutes walk from home with a twin pregnancy?
• Make it out of said so far theoretical appointment with at least one (and preferably two) live babies, measuring on dates and looking normally shaped.

Second trimester:

• Have first tertiary level anatomy scan and NT at 12/40. Be completely unable to look at the screen, in case the news is in any way bad. Hope like fuck the bab(ies) have grown right this time.
• Start worrying about preterm labour and cervical incompetence (which is incidentally a pretty rude way to describe a cervix).
• Have second tertiary level anatomy scan at 16/40. Ditto on the worries.
• Have third yada yada at 20/40.
• Possibly have fourth scan….

Third trimester:

• Really worry about preterm labour.
• Add new worries about gestational diabetes given PCOS and hopefully still multifoetal gestation. Also fret about pre-eclampsia given impressive family history.
• Just worry. Constantly.
• Buy baby stuff at 36 weeks gestation.

An Axillary Tale.

May I present to you An Axillary Tale, a modern day IVF fairy-tale?

Hopefully, this time, to come in three uneventfully dull acts of pregnancy, delivery and HEA* where all the main players (and most of the minor ones) escapes with not only their lives, but additionally all the bits they started with in their customary anatomical relationships to one another. That last part is important, although I must concede that if the twin thing continues**, an exception clause may have to be generated for my abdomen. There will be no exceptions granted for any organ that resides below my waistline, however.

Failing that, a short intermission between item ’delivery’ and item ’HEA’ shall be included in the programme to put humpty-dumptress back together again. Even if it does take all the damn kings men. On overtime. On a Sunday, too, if needs be.

I deeply value the current shape of my vagina and the respectful epithelial and muscle layers that exist between it and, say, my bowel. Can you blame me?

Ha hem.

I’ve got nothing new to report other than my increasingly bold ‘net pilfering and the ever-present crippling anxiety and DBTs*** for about another I-have-no-idea hours until I have my next fix scan. I don’t even have a shortlist of OB’s, although I did get a lecture about how I should develop one fast.

Mildly amusingly, the first scan was actually performed by the very-bored-nail-picking RE-of-legend who listened with not a shred of feigned enthusiasm to my medical student presentation of a slightly alternate take on how IVF should be explained to beginners. The one complete with Pope jokes, monty python references of the sancity of sperm, and animated discussion of the fact that only one partner usually has an orgasm in the course of a cycle, even if it is no mean feat after paying the bill.

It’s a small world.

But I digress. Possibly again.

I have no idea whether this p-word comes complete with all three acts including the desired HEA*. I spend my days morbidly convinced that it won’t***, naturally, and am newly surprised with the viciousness of my desire to have both** babies, please. Originally I had the in-utero equivalent of the heir-and-a-spare mentality in shoving two back up there, figuring I’d raise my odds of getting at least one THB****, but having seen The Blobs that just shan’t do.

I am acutely aware that my options remain two, one, or no THB’s**** for some time, but here’s hoping it’s the former.

Anyway, returning to the Tale.

Early p-word allegedly gives women that ‘glow’, or as I prefer to call it, ’all that crap that goes with being dead tired, having a zit farm courtesy of greasy skin and a constantly grey complexion courtesy of nausea’. That ‘glow’ is supposedly enhanced by the presence of suddenly enlarged gazonkas.

Not me, of course.

I’m carrying on as-per-usual after a few days of pukedom (doesn’t help with the DBT’s***), with a twist. My tits have decided not to grow forwards, where I could use them to best effect, no. My directionally challenged funbags have other plans. I am developing a rather attractive lump in-front of each armpit courtesy of a growing axillary tail. Even my tits cant follow the script. It’s meant to be big-boob, not, quadra-boob.

Sexy.

I’d make jokes about ending up looking like I have udders, if it didn’t seem so horrifyingly likely.

* HEA= happily ever after. A mythical event I’ve yet to believe in although there are anecdotal reports of it happening to some people who become the p-word.

** About one-in-four  to one-in-five spontaneously reduce to a singleton. It’s rather inappropriately tritely known as a ‘vanishing twin’, implying a carelessness that I believe would be atypical on the part of the mother. One-in-ten to one-in-twenty are doubly ‘vanishing’, leaving no THB**** at all. ‘Oops’ doesn’t quite cover it.

*** DBT’s= dead baby thoughts. The gradient of the individual rise of worry varies but I personally find by as little as 24 hours after my last viable scan they begin to rise, and by a week I’m morbidly sure things are over. Yes, I’m a very, very irritating patient. Oh, and by the way the risk of loss of a foetus after a viable scan at 6 weeks is 10 percent, give or take a bit either side depending on the study one reads. Roll on 9-10 weeks when it’s a rather less hyperventilation inducing two percent.

****THB= take home baby. My goal.

***** There is no ‘*****’.

There’s a bear in there…

And a poo in my loo.

You heard right. Bears not only shit in the urban woods, they also can’t flush.

I’ve moved house. It’s been chock full of pleasant discoveries, like finding out that the little prick who lived here prior to me has pissed off home (overseas) without bothering with the minor technicalities of cleaning up after himself, paying long overdue bills, or disconnecting said overdue (and blocked) services. I can’t connect anything in my name because, get this, I’m not the named account holder.

I just live here, apparently.

Oh, and as alluded to above the dirty sod didn’t bother to flush either. To my eternal horror I discovered a rather elderly turd bobbing around in the toilet, presumably minding it’s own business until the Holy Flush came by. Welcome home, my ass.

I hate moving.

Anyway, I am on-line courtesy of some community spirited neighbour who hasn’t secured their wireless. I plan to flit on to blog occasionally and that’s about it. If they notice, I’m stuffed, and the above complaint should make it quite clear that connecting anything at this residence may require divine intervention.

With that in mind I’ll give up the numbers:

• Beta 2529, doubling time now increased to about 53 hours and the P4 dropped even further to 39.

The nurses still seem to be somewhat optimistic, gleefully chanting the mantra ‘No bleeding = viable gestation’, but I am well aware that those terms are not in any way synonymous. No matter how much I’d like them to be.

Hmmm.

Again, the graph:

It’s a little suspect, but there’s not much I can do about it. Other than bitch and whine via a stolen Internet connection, of course.

I’ve been offered an appointment for another beta late next week, but I think I may cancel as another set of increasingly NQR numbers is not in my To Do List right now.

Roll on Wednesday the second of January. That’s when the first scan shall be, provided I get that far.

Now do excuse me while I go and clean this house, it’s filthy. There’s a funny smell and I need to figure out what’s making it. I hope to g-d it’s not another fecal surprise.

Back to the future.

I type this entry from the past, about 12 hours before dutiful WordPress shall publish (in accordance with the assigned time stamp). Why? Mostly because I can, but also partly because I don’t know when this Internet connection will formally get the chop, and am thus somewhat artificially stretching things out.

Oh, and also because I’m a terrible tease, of course.

Before I discuss the beta I have some other trivia to share as to how I plan to update from a house with no functional Internet. I think I may be able to get the odd bit of legal email access through work to communicate with the world, albeit in a somewhat limited fashion. I wouldn’t be exactly comfortable pulling this site up on a ward computer, but if push comes to technology-deficient shove I shall email in an update or two from the Stone Age to LostandFound.

Now, onto more important matters like The Beta.

I will confess that I was secretly hoping for a second beta that was about a thousand percent up on the first, and if I couldn’t have that particular wish granted I was prepared to settle for 220%. I didn’t want to haggle any lower than that, but one gets what one is given.

The Beta could be described as ‘alright’, but given I was hoping for nothing less than stellar I am left disappointed. This one’s a bit dinged up, you see.

The doubling time came in a little over two days and no amount of frowning at the number seems to have convinced it to budge. The slope is also oh-so-slightly off the axis of the plotted beta ranges (Which by the way are from a relatively small series of women, and not necessarily representative of the true spread of betas, although the gradient is reliable. I’ve checked). Small deviations seem to turn into big anxiety around these parts, so it’s a shame my beta wasn’t more like 1600.

For graphical learners, I include the following:

The reall bummer was that my P4 has dropped thirty points in two days, despite the pessaries.

The combination of not-quite-double beta and free-falling P4 prompted the nurse to, irritatingly, tell me she’d like to repeat the bloods in another two days, not that there’s anything wrong. Oh no. Of course there isn’t, Bad Liar Nurse, the third numbers are simply from the kindness of your heart. I shall respectfully beg to differ given that if there was ‘Nothing wrong’ there would be no need for more bloods. Needless to say I’ve not precisely rushed out to book my six week scan.

So, again I wait. I also hope like the blazers this tale ends well.

The tension builds, again.

I’ve been venously perforated in search of a second beta.

I still feel like a non-pregnant fraud, but I can’t put much stock in that because I did last time too (although I did have some reassurance in the mastalgia department, conspicuously absent thus far). Not that that’s precisely a happy thought, but you get the drift. I apparently gestate with such ease that I don’t even notice it’s happening until people start pointing it out to me. 

The irony is that there isn’t much I wouldn’t give to have my head in a toilet bowl right now. Puking would be wonderfully reassuring.

Its a shame that history shows I’m not so good at gestating normal babies. Perhaps it has something to do with the lack of attention my body puts to the process, but whatever the cause I hope that whichever wobbly bit is responsible concentrates jeuuuust a little harder on neural tube manufacture this time around. It’s about that time in my pregnancy that baby 2.0 is going to either be just dandy or doomed for good, and freakishly enough I don’t even know for sure that I’m actually even viably knocked up. Oh neural tube, fold and close, but not before you’re meant to please.

Anyway, enough of that talk.

Suffice it to say that I almost wish that I hadn’t asked for more information because I’m jittery with all the tension of waiting and hoping like crazy that this damn beta is normal. The first was such fun, but it in no way guarantees that the second shall not suck ass.

I have to confess that I peed on a wee stick to give a small degree of non-quantitative reassurance this morning. It didn’t reassure me one whit, being noticeably and significantly lighter. Fuck. But it does dovetail nicely with my morbid obsession about the fate of this gestation, it’s so hard to feel the least bit upbeat or secure when one is so experienced at the Bad Outcome.

So I wait.

I also move house away from my reliable Internet access today and thus in one fell swoop I raise the tension for you, too.

My apologies. I shall do my best to drive around my new suburb and steal someones goddamn wireless.

Protected: Amending the dictionary…

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Masochist.

I do hope that you’ve all been having what passes in your world for a good time this weekend, and are not in any way refreshing this page hanging on an update about the state of Schrödinger’s transfer.

Excuse me whilst I get those pesky delusions of reference and grandeur under control.

Where was I? Oh, yes. My P4 level.

Since I’ve remarked several times in the past that a picture can tell a thousand words (although not always the correct thousand), let me give you a clue as to where I stand from a ‘borrowed’ page courtesy of an online dictionary. Please pay particular attention to #3 in the pretty red box and try not to speculate about my sex life if you also read #1 or #2:

 

The conversation that prompted abuse of the screen capture key and five whole un-intensive minutes spent on figuring out how to draw a box in Paint? As follows:

Nurse NBC: ‘Hello there, this is Nurse Nice from Big Clinic, how is that cleaning going?’

She was kind enough to recall that I’d waffled on about thrilling matters such as my plans to spend my Sunday vacuuming REALLY THOROUGHLY whilst she took my blood this morning. I have to say I’m rather favourably impressed that anybody would bother to commit to memory such uninteresting minutiae.

Geohde: ‘I’m halfway through the lounge-room, thank you for remembering. You should see what a really thorough job I can do when I’ve got nothing else to distract me from the wait but defenceless Berber pile.’

Nurse NBC: Polite laugh. ‘Well yada-yada small talk, small talk. I’ve got your P4 levels back. How are you doing?’

Geohde: Bracing self, because usually an inquiry as to whether talking down from a ledge is looking helpful BEFORE even getting the number is usually a Bad Thing. ‘Okay, but I’m kind of anxious to know my P4 level.’

Nurse NBC: ‘Well it’s a five point one, so you’ve ovulated and you can have your transfer on Tuesday.’

Gehode: Invoking the third definition of ‘masochist’ above. ‘Um. That number is sure cutting it fine in the ovulation stakes. Feeling a little uncomfortable here at the thought of crossing myself and cheerfully throwing two embryos to the mercy of my recalcitrant womb on such borderline numbers given I bled like stink with a P4 of twenty three last time. Could you indulge a crazy worrier with another P4 before taking the ‘bryos out of the deep freeze?’

Nurse NBC: ‘Well now that you mention that thought, Other Nurse and I had been discussing whether we should do exactly that before your transfer. Would you like another blood at Sparrow’s Fart tomorrow?’

Geohde: ‘Yes please. Call me overcautious but given my history I would feel much better knowing that the numbers are going up before I get my genitals out in public again for the embryologist to peek at over my RE’s shoulder. Besides, if they’re not, then I’ve saved a pointless TWW and can bring all the misery and tears forward to now, which really suits my schedule better anyway.’

Nurse NBC: ‘See you at Sparrow’s Fart O’clock tomorrow.’ 

And here I stand, masochistically. I should have just taken the transfer and run like hell.

The calm P4 the storm.

I’ve gone and made a total nuisance of myself yet again with the staff at my clinic, but damnit, you would too if thousands of $$ worth of embryos and IVF drugs were squandered in a fit of uterine pique. At least that’s what I keep telling myself to justify my reversion to tantrums worthy of a two-year old.

In retrospect I could have been a little less blunt when I called the clinic, rather than giving the poor receptionist the limited options of:

• A: Putting me though directly to the nurses, or
• B: Taking my name and number and calling me back a.s.a.p.,

after only five minutes of hold music on my cell phone. The poor woman valiantly tried for the more conventional option:

• C: Why don’t I leave a voicemail on the nurses’ answering machine?

but I’ve been fooled by that before and wasn’t having any of it this time. I waspishly inquired as to how often the nurses actually check their machine, and was then put directly through with alacrity. 

Nevermind, I’m sure they deal with rabidly anxious women all the time, right?

Yes, I’m still spotting, and although I won’t break out the paint swatches yet again to give a visual approximation, suffice it to say that it’s lessening. Okay, down to ‘Indian Peach’ kind of lessening, if you really want to know. Just far, far too late for it to do any good.

A teary phone call to my RE pointing out how, well, demoralising I was finding it to still be seeing blood every time I insert my ridiculously high dose of pessaries prompted action.

Thank goodness.

After a dash into town to get my circulatory system within range of a needle, I’ve been freshly antecubital fossa venously perforated as of an hour ago.

I’m now at home, bottle opener and wine at the ready, just waiting for the phone call to tell me how fabulously shite my P4 actually is. I may ask for a copy of the report to frame, just to prove how surprisingly non-absorbent my vagin.a can be. Shoot, you could make raincoats fit for a tropical downpour out of the material my ladyparts come factory-standard with, it would seem.

Tomorrow I go back for a heavily-heavily-rescheduled beta so I can stop this depressing business with the ruinously expensive pessaries. Apparently, sometimes, some women just don’t absorb the pessaries.

That would me, yours truly (with the leaky vagin.a).

Sigh.

Breaking out my crystal ball, I predict that it’s looking awfully like ovulation induction for future thaw cycles. That does seem kind of oxy-moronic on the surface, but has the advantage of (hopefully) the presence of a corpus luteum and more adequate progesterone production. Hopefully. This is far from a certainty, given my past performances with OI, but I’m not prepared to do another artificial cycle. Screw that etc etc.

I’d rather resort to trying s.e.x again to make a baby, since it’s probably got more chance of working than current efforts.

The previous sentence does not contain much in the way of positive comment, upon reflection.

Sitting by the phone.

I’m currently sitting by my phone, willing it to ring whilst anxiously counting down the last ten minutes before I know that the first disgruntled nurse of the day will check the clinic voicemail messages, sigh resignedly, mutter ‘Her!’, and quite possibly by now speed-dial my number.

It’s a minor feat to have so many nursing staff conditioned to make unpleasant faces at the mere mention of my name, but, well I can’t help it if things keep going pear shaped.

I’m just talented like that.

In answer to requests to share my minute-by-minute south of the border situation, let me clarify:

• It was what I’d call heavy spotting, not full on bleeding. Being a frequent menstruator, I am somewhat of a connoisseur about these things, so I think that my take is reliable. Lots of brown-pink gook. I’ll bring  the paint swatches back out to show you what I mean:
• 
• Mostly Ridinghood, with a dash of Indian Peach thrown in for good measure:
• 
• No cramps have eventuated, so it’s not a full on uterine-puke of endometrium, just some of it spontaneously choosing not-life and undergoing necrosis, dropping out my vagina. Possibly taking embryo(s), if they’re still alive, right on out with it. Ergo, by the time I see blood, it’s too late to attempt to stabilise things with more progesterone.
• I think there’s less this morning, although it’s a complete greasy mess up there, courtesy of the pessaries. I’ll certainly never get any stretch marks in my never-you-mind at this rate. Small mercies.

Screw it. Would you mind awfully if I return to just staring at the phone? I’m finding it hard to concentrate.

You’re kidding me, Universe?

Sigh.

My losing-karma battle continues unabated, apparently the score is not yet settled after all.

You’d think a dead baby, one bombed IVF and the more recent attack of selfish-carspace-stealer and rampant shits would have been enough, but apparently no.

• I’m bleeding.
• I’m bleeding at 5 days post transfer.
• I’m bleeding at 5 days post transfer in an artificially medicated cycle.
• I’m bleeding at 5 days post transfer in an artificially medicated cycle in which they specifically state that I should no way no HOW bleed.

Bleeding is ‘irregular’, to quote the rather wry turn of phrase on my cycle paperwork.

You see, the dose of progesterone I am currently taking should be enough to halt the menses of an elephant.

Apparently my uterus didn’t get the memo. Either that or I was right about the gastro being a Bad Thing for medication absorption.

Being the anxious person that I am, I’ve left about three voicemails with my clinic nurses. Unfortunately they’re not currently actually available to do something helpful (like listen to my anguished squeals) because it’s after hours.

Did I mention that part? Oh. Well, with my usual sense of impeccable timing:

• I’m bleeding at 5 days post transfer in an artificially medicated cycle  in which they specifically state that I should no way no HOW bleed after office hours.

Bet you’re jealous.

Ergo, before I can speak to an actual human being I’m likely to bleed for too long to retrieve the situation, although it probably isn’t truly retrievable in any sense other than the ‘Oh, how odd, I guess we better do your cycles another way next time’.

It’s a real shame I’m unceremoniously evicting two perfectly good grade one embryos as I type, my last grade one embryos, really it is.  Although I overuse this phrase, I am compelled to say that ‘it figures’.

I’ll also say fuck, piss, and shite, if that’s okay with you all.

They meant it.

Let me divulge the rather attractive list of side effects that my luteal-propping progesterone has the power to inflict. Fresh from the ‘mouth’ of the information leaflet:

Very common

• Cramps, abdominal pain, perineal pain
• Headache
• Breast pain
• Constipation
• Feelings of severe sadness and unworthiness, feeling emotional, sleepiness.

Common

• Bloating.
• Dizziness.
• Vaginal discharge.
• Diarrhoea, vomiting.
• Painful sex.

I immediately dismissed many of these items as either not especially connected with the known pharmacology of progesterone at the dose provided, or just plain weird. Who the hell gets diarrhoea AND constipation?

In an interesting aside, the most common reported side effects of PLACEBO are headache, dizziness, nausea, and constipation or diarrhoea. Let’s hear it for placebo effect and placebo SIDE-effect.

But the mood item, despite my scoffing? Surprisingly accurate. Just ask my long suffering spouse. In fact, it should be entered more accurately as ’raving madwoman’.

Let me explain.

I’ll start with the dreams. The nightmares I’ve been having are intense enough to make me get out of bed three hours early. I just can’t stand the ritual mental self-flagellation all night. I’m exhausted and yet I cannot rest.

More superficially, yesterday I couldn’t for the life of me find a single, solitary, way to be happy with my appearance before leaving the house. I didn’t leave because I couldn’t bear people to see me. For absolutely no objective reason. Realistically, other than some ovarian-enlargement-and-progesterone-bowel-dilatation induced gut bloating, nothing has changed in the way I look.  I will never be a supermodel, but I’m not completely offensive to the visual system.

This sudden degree of histrionic over-reaction is most odd on my part. My hair usually looks like I’ve gone through a hedge backwards, so why this would cause me such intense psychological distress now, I cannot fathom.

It gets better.

I, totally randomly, cried in the car on the way to work this morning. If you asked me why, well, to my eternal confusion I have absolutely no idea.

Even the very reasonable point that we have plenty of embryos for FET’s before another full cycle gives me no mental relief. I have had visions of all 11 embryos biting uterine dust over the next six months and my RE cheerfully telling me that I would have be better flushing them down the loo since it would so clearly be a better gestator than I.

Yet oddly, I’m not truly all that worried about this cycle. It either works, or it doesn’t. Simple.

In summary, I am a totally insufferable, self-absorbed, pathetic mess and I know it.

Um.

Hands up who thinks that fevers commencing six hours post transfer might not be a good thing?

Yeah, me too.

To think that I spat and polished that transfer catheter so carefully just to make sure it was really clean. I even picked off the lumpy bits which is getting real fancy in the cleanliness department for an item being inserted into a sterile area, surely?

Sigh. I don’t think that even grade 1 embryos do well in bacterial soup.

Acknowledging that I am (again, almost certainly) probably being daft, I say the following: You can all laugh at me tomorrow when my nose gets snotty and the far more benign cause for feeling febrile and shitty becomes apparent. At least I hope it does.

Signed,

(A brief note of panic from) 

A woman visualising raging endometritis, pregnancy failure and permanent uterine damage.

PS. As I post this missive the first inklings of my cilliated-smooth trachea being exchanged for inferior quality sandpaper while I was paying attention to other matters has begun.

Tradesmen, you have to watch ‘em, I tell you, or you just end up ripped off.

In case you were wondering.

This rather scintillating image is a reasonably accurate representation of what I shall be up to tomorrow.

Obviously in using the term ‘accurate’ I mean apart from the small detail that the woman depicted above appears to have had one leg amputated at the hip and been bloodlessly sliced in two mid-pelvis.

 My only real fear is that  my hoo-ha is going to be rather crowded from all the equipment shoved up there.

Well that and the minor business of whether I’ll have any viable eggs, let’s be honest here. 

I’m not going to even sweat the small stuff, i.e. a theatre full of assorted doctors, nurses, medical students, kitchen staff and curious passers-by all in my business end, intently staring up at what I didn’t have for breakfast (damn you, ‘fast from midnight’).

The only thing lacking in the above diagram is my nemesis, the VNOD*, displayed to full effect. I think they prefer not to freak patients out with truly accurate explanatory diagrams.

Never fear, I have adapted a helpful cartoon:

Yes, you will need to use your imaginations to convert the butt-bearing gentleman to a beaver-flashing woman, but I think the dimensions of the needle are more or less accurate.

The view that I prefer to concentrate on is to the immediate right. I can only hope that my ovaries have as many hopeful looking little black circles. Actual eggs would be even better.

Did I mention that already? Oh.

In concluding my IVF focussed self-distracting abuse of Google-Image search, if the surgeon says this, I’m leaving.

I’ll take my chances with my husband’s long-suffering-erection-on-demand penis, wonky sperm be damned.

  

See you on the flip side.

Gotta have faith…

As the rather eccentric public-convenience-and-shrubbed-garden-alfresco-sex loving George Michael famously sang.

If I just be good and don’t over-think everything, keep taking my FSH and hang on until Monday, all will be well, right?

Yeah, I thought so too. Screw that.

My crop might not be super-bumper, but let’s face facts. I currently have more eggs in my ovaries than I would normally make in a year. It’s making me decidedly nervous.

I’d like them to stay there until retrieval, please.

Having passed through the other standard fears of an IVF cycle, I am on to the next-stage (?retrieval) obsessive emotion.

Standard fears, you ask? I would be delighted to elaborate (with examples):

1. Baseline angst. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, is it okay if I spot on the pill?

2. Groundless worry. Eeeekkkkk, I don’t think down-regulation will happen to me. How can this drug which feels like it does nothing really actually work. My ovaries must have resistant superpowers. Oh my GOD the downreg scan is going to suck. Over before it’s begun. Woe is me.

3. Shame. I just bled like a haemophiliac all over durex’s lubricated best on a vaginal ultrasound probe, and I was down-regulated to boot.

4. Fear. Oh shite, shite, shite. The FSH won’t work. I’ll have no eggs. It’s menopause for me, baby. Retrieval? Retrieval, are you on drugs?

5. Amazed embarrassment. Eggs? Holy crap! You mean this shit works?

5. Panic. That piss-weak GNRH analogue couldn’t possibly stop my Super-Ovaries-Laden-With-Potential-Babies from gently releasing their payload into my peritoneal cavity before retrieval.

6. Acceptance. Yes, Virginia, you shall have needles perforating your vagina in search of ovary. Soon.

7. Fear, redux. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Will I even make an embryo? Two sounds too good to possibly happen. What do you mean I have to decide how many to shove back in-utero?

8. Panic, redux. How the hell do they even stay in there? Maybe if I can squeeze my thighs just so my future child(ren) won’t fall out of my cervix and bite the dust in my underwear before the Big Blood Beta?

9. If any of the above concerns actually happen. Alcohol.

I’m at number 5 presently. Do you recognise the previous four? To my shame, I do.

What did I do about it? I present the evidence:

 

Yes folks, I peed on an OPK.

Yes, it was negative.

Just like starting ooooohhhhver (and over and over)

First of all, welcome to my shiny new WordPress digs.

Pretty, no? 

I only hope that I can keep the carpet this pristine, the walls unfingermarked, the lawn mown and my business a little more private here.

If the above sentence sounds more than a little psychotically paranoid, please let me explain before you fasten the straight jacket.

This blog used to be on Blogger (dear, sweet Blogger, this is probably some sort of WordPress sin to utter, but I will miss you), however I got too many hits from an IP address that was too close to home. Who, despite more than one request, would not take either:

Option A) Not coming back, leaving me with some sort of illusory sense that a blog accessible by any body with a computer is private and anonymous.

Or:

Option B) Posting a comment to my plea to declare their benign ‘What-a-funny-coincidence, but I have no connection to you’ status.

I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but my suspicions were raised. Having such a person trawling through my back posts made me feel like I’d accidentally caught the train naked to work. Very exposed, and with a nasty cold shiver. Emperor’s new clothes, my ass.

I have spent the last four nights feverishly moving this blog, lock (thank you password protect option!), stock and barrel.

Please excuse the odd unfinished corners, the furniture is due any day now.

In the meantime, feel free to sit on the floor. Just don’t spill anything.

Paranoia, paranoia, 1, 2, 3

Whispering from a dark corner, complete with sunglasses and a big coat…..

Maybe I need to lay off the jesus juice, but I’d swear that I’ve had a few interesting hits from computers rather too close to ‘home’. Computers that my IP lookup tool seem to think are possibly connected to my, gulp, clinic.

I hope I’m simply imagining it. I don’t want my ‘cover’ blown.

I like the freedom that true anonymity brings in the field of over-analysing the mundane. Of being able to say what my small little mind REALLY thinks about things, even if I’m wrong. How I REALLY feel about people, etc etc.

I don’t want to censor my mad rambings for fear of offending anyone I know. Or, even worse, have them think that I’m completely daft for often getting the wrong end of the stick about my treatment. Or, worst of all, leave them shaking their head in amazement at the overblown, histrionic fool that I am (in the ‘privacy’ of the Internet).

In the interests of my sanity, can I just plead that if you think you know me outside of this blog to not read?

I’d be beyond mortified to think that any one of the myriad of very nice, competent people involved in my fertility treatment had inside knowledge of just what a worrier I am. Or what I really think about things.

Thank you. This post will self destruct in thirty seconds…..

*Actually, you could all do me a huge favour and put my paranoid mind to rest by posting a comment. That way I guess I’ll know that my Mystery Reader is not sinister and the IP thing is a funny coincidence.

Procrastination

Sigh…..

I should be madly studying, learning about whatever it is I’m meant to know so that I can function as a not-too-frequently-stupid-looking doctor next year.

But I can’t be bothered, despite the fact that I’m just about wetting myself over whether I’ll even pass given I’ve missed so much lately.

If I DO pass, and end up a doctor next year (as they keep threatening me with) I suggest that, should you have a health related conundrum, you *don’t* ask me, I’m just about as much in the dark about that sort of stuff as anyone else is right now.

Having a baby was so much more of a fun plan…..

On: flowing like a river

I have emerged, only moderately battered, from several thirteen-sodding-hour days at school.

What do they think they’re doing to a ??pregnant?? lady?

I mean, I’m either punching people unwary enough to get between me and the bathroom in the 2 second opportunities I get to go, OR I’m so starving hungry that all I can think about is food.

None of this is conducive to this future doctor crap. Near future doctor crap. Maybe they see it as training for professional working conditions.

At least I’ll be able to confidently recommend clean bathrooms and the best value-for-$$ choices in the cafe to my patients.

As for the blood-clotty thing… I had my blood drawn yesterday and am thinking as many runny-flowing-smooth-stream thoughts as I possibly can about my vascular system.