IVF 2: When is the waiting ever going to end?!

I am scared.

We aren’t even at official test day yet – that’s tomorrow. And yet I know I’m pregnant because 5 (count ’em!) home pregnancy tests tell me I am.

I’ve been testing every day since Monday (7dp5dt – 7 days past 5 day transfer) and tomorrow is the “official” test day where in the UK we get told to do a home pregnancy test, at 12dp5dt. We don’t have betas. I haven’t decided yet whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m sure I would just panic even more and I don’t actually know what the numbers are, but I feel like I’m on a ticker trying to make it to the next hurdle and every time I jump one, there’s another bloody one coming up.

Here’s the progression…

Today’s was possibly a bit lighter because I needed the bathroom at about 04:00 but then decided it was too early to test. And then my horrible neighbours decided to wake me up by playing music through my bedroom ceiling at 05:40 so I ended up getting up and trying to do a test, but probably didn’t have enough in my bladder to do it properly. Anyway. The lines seem to be getting a bit clearer.

11dp5dt is today. I’m not sure what the lighter line on the right means though. Aaaagh. It probably doesn’t do me any good to scrutinise it.

Anyway, tomorrow’s official test from the clinic is a Clearblue (the blue cross type ones that we used during the last pregnancy) so I guess that will be a change. I have some left over so I have enough to do two, for comparative purposes!

The one thing that’s keeping me from going absolutely crazy is the fact that the pregnancy tests were a lot lighter on official test day last time. That said, they were Clearblue and not First Response like the ones I’m using now. (For some silly superstitious / not wanting bad associations reason, I decided to go with the pink tests this time.) The first test I did with Clearblue last time was a squinter at 12dp5dt even with FMU (first morning urine, nice!) and so I feel like these have been a bit clearer – and the first test I did at 7dp5dt wasn’t even with FMU either.

The thing that’s driving me slightly mad is this idea that we can still lose the baby very easily. It might be a chemical pregnancy which means that it doesn’t fully implant and develop. That’s the most pressing risk right now and there’s nothing I can do about it. If we were anywhere other than the UK we would have betas (blood tests) to see if our HCG is rising. We don’t do that here, and we just wait to see what shows up at the scan. So in theory you could have a chemical and never even know about it, but obviously I do because of IVF and darned infertility.

After that the next pressing risk is getting to see a normal development at 6-7 week scan. We actually got that far last time, and saw a heartbeat, which supposedly means that you only have a 5% chance of miscarriage after that. Guess what? I was in that 5%! The heartbeat disappeared from subsequent scans and anyway it wasn’t the size it should have been at 6w5d, but the clinic has this way of trying to make you feel better about things so didn’t fully tell us to expect the worst. That was awful, because it meant we initially thought things were okay (they just said “Come back next week as it isn’t very clear” rather than “It doesn’t look like the baby is developing as it should be at this point”). It was so traumatic, and then I had a miscarriage but it didn’t happen until 9 weeks even though the baby stopped growing at around 6. I feel like I’m completely terrified that will happen again.

My next thing is that I am off to Dr S’s clinic tomorrow morning (nice early weekend wake up) for an intralipids infusion, which is part of the immune protocol I’m on. I had one before transfer and I’m also meant to have one if we have a positive pregnancy test. I was initially booked in for next Wednesday but they called back and asked if I could go in tomorrow morning (Saturday: Official test day! 12dp5dt) as it’s apparently better to do it ASAP at 4 weeks. I’m on it! Not taking any chances. I also need to get more drugs for the immune protocol as they only gave me enough to take to this point, as I suppose if you get a negative test you can stop taking them. I have to say I’m not enjoying the heparin at all as the injections are super large and they hurt, but I’ve been good about doing them. And I seem to have gotten over the insomnia from the prednisolone, so that’s good.

Today I’ve done a mini baby shower in the office. This isn’t for the b**** (who is also pregnant and is literally a walking blimp on loudspeaker). I am still hoping that something bad happens to her (like she is struck down by severe laryngitis meaning she can never talk again) but there’s another girl in the office who’s really nice and who is due to leave for mat leave next week. I know that lots of people in our position have this big aversion to baby showers and I do too in some circumstances, but she’s American and away from home and nobody did anything for her so I felt bad for her. Apparently her mum (mom!) is having a baby shower for her via Skype this weekend, and is going to open all the presents there and then bring them over! So we get on really well and I decided to make her a cake and got her a few presents. She knows it will be a girl so you can see it is a bit garish!

It’s meant to be pink ombré inside – am hoping it works out okay! The cake went a bit mad because since we are moving (possibly… one day…) we had to sell the industrial oven that T bought for me, which I loved but wouldn’t fit in the new tiny shoebox flat. So I had to try and make the various layers (I did 5, of staggered pinkness) in the crappy oven that our landlady bought – it is literally the cheapest oven you can get and it either burns stuff or doesn’t cook it, and it makes me really mad. So I had to throw out a few layers and do them again. Exasperating but Dog was quite pleased with the offcuts. Here’s hoping it cuts nicely!

So… One more day until Official Test Day. Intralipids and sister tomorrow. We are going to go for a nice walk with Dog along the Thames in the afternoon (if it’s not raining) and will go to a nice pub for dinner, so hopefully it will be a good catch up. My brother has been trying to catch up and messaging me but I’ve sort of been avoiding him (and his fertility: 2 kids) for now. As I don’t want to have to explain about the no drinking. I will definitely try and catch up with them once I know either way, but I don’t feel emotionally up to it right now.

Just need to try and get to the scan. That’s the next thing.

I know I am probably sounding nuts over this. But I’m so scared. I know what there is to lose. I know how far we got last time and how painful the loss was. I’m in awe of anyone pregnant who can just be happy about it and “have faith” and start buying baby things and believe it’s going to happen. I follow a few bloggers who do this and I am happy for them that they can do that, but I am so not there. I’m taking each day as it comes and trying to deal with it, but I still don’t believe it.

Please let us make it to the scan.