our little squiggly & welcome iclw

Today we went in for our first ultrasound - a day earlier than planned due to some pretty bad cramping I've been having. I have been really terrified the past few days, so I was really happy to get it over with. Thankfully, the news is good.

We have one beautiful squiggly measuring a day ahead (6w6d) with a heart rate of 139bpm. I am happy. I am feeling more hopeful than I have in a very long time. I was terrified that we would see an empty sac, but I was also really scared we'd see more than one baby. Twins are so special and wonderful, but after losing Aminadav and Naava, a twin pregnancy is too risky for us. With a singleton, I hope I will have a good shot of carrying close to term. Of course we have a LONG way to go before we are back to the prematurity/PTL concerns.

I will do another ultrasound next Thursday and then we will take it from there. This was my first pregnancy-related ultrasound in Canada and it was weird to me that they didn't allow Y into the room, didn't let me see the screen, and would only give me results via my doctor. It felt really paternalistic to be honest. However, they did give me a nice picture of Squiggly. It feels so strange to say that I am feeling happy and peaceful, but it's true!

For those just joining us through ICLW, welcome! For a brief recap, we recently learned that we are rather unexpectedly though wonderfully pregnant after a long-shot Clomid/Prednisone cycle while waiting to start a new IVF. We started fertility treatments in August 2010 and since then we've done 6 IUIs and 5 IVF transfers (3 fresh, 2 frozen).

We've had many failed treatment cycles and several losses - two early miscarriages and the loss of our beautiful twins, Aminadav and Naava, who were born catastrophically early last March due to PPROM/PTL.

This blog has been an infertility blog turned pregnancy after infertility blog turned infertility blog many times over. Through the past few years, I've written quite a bit about unexplained infertility, the IVF process, miscarriage, high-risk pregnancy, and baby loss. The posts that are most meaningful to me are those about Aminadav and Naava, my lost hopes and dreams for them, and my grief.

Whatever brings you to our community, I am so sorry for your struggles. This is a sucky club to be a part of, but thankfully for us it is populated by many courageous, funny, resilient, and bright women.

1st ultrasound - 2 heartbeats!

This is a pretty long overdue update. I wish my thoughts on blogging during pregnancy weren't so complicated and conflicted. The last few weeks have certainly been an adventure. For so long I was so hell-bent on just getting pregnant (a big deal), I never really thought very much about our previous loss or how it might feel to actually be pregnant again. When you're entrenched in the IVF circuit, it is just always one foot in front of the other. All you can really afford to worry about and obsess over is the next step. I think that kind of singular focus is a survival mechanism just to get through and it has served me well. It did, however, leave me pretty unprepared to deal with the anxieties of pregnancy.

The past few weeks I have spent pretty much in a panic, re-living the awful ultrasound that showed our baby had stopped developing over and over again in my head, continually trying to "prepare" myself for the other shoe to drop, if you can ever be prepared for that. My lowest point so far was last weekend, in the days leading up to our first ultrasound. My symptoms had noticeably changed late during my 5th week/beginning of the 6th week. They hadn't totally disappeared, they were just different. I had also begun to spot a little, which last time was basically the only indication I had (in retrospect) that I had lost the baby.

I totally convinced myself I was having another missed miscarriage. I even managed to convince Y I was having another missed miscarriage, and we spent a lot of time discussing how we would move forward from that (yes, my super rational, logical husband spent many hours discussing with me how we would move forward from my imaginary miscarriage).

I think the thing that really freaked me out last time was not knowing I had lost the pregnancy until the ultrasound. It made me feel even less in control and so carelessly oblivious - while I was buying my first pair of maternity jeans (will never do that again until I really, really need them), filled with a smug sense of purpose, I was totally unaware that I was walking around carrying a baby that was no longer developing. I know I can't prevent a loss from occurring, but after that I vowed to never be that happy-go-lucky oblivious girl again.

Anyhow, we walked into the fertility clinic totally somber and demoralized last Sunday morning, expecting bad news. How surprised we were to see one healthy-looking string bean with a heartbeat! "Is it just one?" I asked the u/s tech. I didn't mean it as an insult to the one fine-looking string bean, like "Is it just one?", but that seems to be how the ultrasound tech took it. I was just genuinely curious. "Don't say just one, one is great!", exclaimed the u/s tech. We both nodded our heads and agreed, one baby with a heartbeat was awesome! But then she said, "Wait....there's another sac," and then "...and another heartbeat." Wow, wow, wow.

Once I read over the ultrasound report I did find a few areas of concern - one is that both babies were measuring 4 days behind and the second being that the tech didn't observe a yolk sac for baby Bet. From my understanding, it is highly unusual perhaps even impossible to have a heartbeat without a yolk sac, since it is a developmental milestone that precedes the heartbeat. It is possible, however, to have either an enlarged or shrunken yolk sac if miscarriage is imminent. It is also totally possible that the yolk sac was just hiding and not visible from the angle the u/s tech was looking at. My RE seems optimistic, but says obviously there is nothing to do but wait now, anyway. My next scan is on Monday at 7w3d. Y can't come, so my friend B is going to come with me. I really hope both babies are alive and growing! Please G-d, keep them safe.