Back to our Regularly Scheduled Program

I will keep you from the suspense - I tested. It was negative. I am talking stark white, not a hint of a prayer negative.  I tested last night at 9 days past transfer and then again this morning for good measure at 10 days past so I think it would take an absolute miracle for beta to be positive on Monday.

With each day that passed, I could feel myself become more and more hopeful. I just knew this one had worked. Yes, I was crampy which was a a bad sign for me in general but I am thirsty like a mad woman. This symptom was definitely present when I was successful last time so surely it meant I was pregnant.  Ahhh - that's the body I remember. The one who tricks me at every turn and who fails to do what is just plain natural.  I should have known.   

This sucks!  I had a cry with E, a glass of wine and a bath. It helped a little.  I cried a little for this cycle, a little for our uncertain future but mostly because that negative test opened the floodgates of feelings past.  How the heartache just came rushing all back in.  I had to keep looking at the baby monitor to remind myself that I am a mommy already.  I am so lucky to have a beautiful son who is so happy, he sleeps, he eats and he is the light of my world.  We are so blessed, but this still hurts too. 

After the initial sadness, E and I talked about the future.  The fact of the matter is - we started this early because we knew this outcome was a possibility.  We purposely did not want to start trying for another when our son was 2 only to figure out that none of our frozens worked.  I also pointed out to E that we were in no way, shape or form prepared to be a family of 5 so that necessarily had to mean that some of those embryos wouldn't work (or we'd have to make the tough decision to donate remaining frozens).  We have always talked about giving each of these frozens a fighting chance. But why did the first one have to be a negative?

I took my PIO shot last night just in case, but will likely skip one or 2 nights leading up to Monday's beta just because my butt hurts.  So we will take a break for the holidays and likely do another transfer in January I hope. 

I am trying to look at the bright side here and have made a quick list so I keep things in perspective:

- I get to enjoy some holiday cocktails. Woohoo! Last year I was very pregnant so this year - bring on the champagne and egg nog people. 

- My body gets a little more time to heal from the c-section.  I haven't discussed anything with my OB yet, but there's a possibility (at least in theory) of trying a VBAC.  The more time that passes in between pregnancies, the better your candidacy becomes for a VBAC.

- More time to focus on our son this Christmas season. We won't be preoccupied with betas, ultrasounds, or NT scans. We can just focus on making our first Christmas as a family of three the best Christmas we've had yet.

- More time to replenish my leave for work. It was severely depleted when I took 3 months off for maternity leave at the beginning of this year, so a few more months to build it up is a good thing.

- I am going to loose those last 8 lbs before I get pregnant again. Yeah, yeah I know the holidays are the worst time to try to diet, but it's got to get done. I know I can loose these, I just have to be very strict with working out and my food intake.  I will try to go back to gluten free/dairy free which really worked before. Plus, I think it will be a good thing to prepare my body for another pregnancy.

- More spacing in between kids. Let's face it - having 2 little ones only 18 months apart would be a challenge - one we were certainly up for, but a challenge indeed.  Now if next cycle works, of course they'll be close but perhaps 2 years apart in school instead of just 1.    

- The possibility of a family of 4 instead of a family of 5.  While 4 would be insane, 5 would be outrageous and E gets visibly upset when I talked about that possibility.  Ideally, we'd like 2 - maybe 3, but if push came to shove 4 would be OK with me I think. 

And because I'm a crazy infertile mommy I had to do some math just to keep my hopes up for this season and next cycle.  With the likelihood of each FET having a 50% success rate and us having had 4 frozen embryos (now we're down to 3), the math looks something like this:

With 4 - the probability of at least 1 embryo working is 94% and the probability that none will work is the inverse at 6%.

With 3 remaining, we still have very good odds - the probability of at least 1 embryo working is 87% and the probability that non will work is about 13%. 

So we may have to endure some more negatives, but there's hope there....somewhere.