Success!

[I waited to post this until I felt ready to share the news. There is such an important difference between "a little bit pregnant" - "pregnant" - and "having a baby". Things can go wrong at any stage, but as much as I want to share my process with everyone, I realized it was hard to share the news here when I was only two weeks pregnant. Especially as I have had previous miscarriages... I want to make it past the 6 week mark before posting.]

Wednesday May 12:

So, the nervous nurse called me on Tues May 4 to tell me I should get a pregnancy test the next day. Much as I would have liked to have known my status that quickly, the actual test was supposed to be on May 11.

Coincidentally, for you astrology fans, May 11 was when Mercury went direct (meaning it was no longer retrograde - Mercury retrograde is supposed to be associated with communication problems, hard drive crashes, car breakdowns and things just generally not flowing and working the way they are supposed to.)

 So having a pregnancy test on May 11 seemed kind of auspicious. Like maybe I would have good news.

Which... I did! The pregnancy test was positive. Woo hoo! I'm a little bit pregnant!

So what does that mean?

As on the recent episode of Brothers & Sisters where the gay male couple is restrainedly thrilled to get good news from the surrogate mom, I'm halfway pregnant. I will get a second pregnancy test tomorrow, May 13, at which point my hCG levels will hopefully have doubled.

If they have, then it is less likely that I will have the kind of miscarriage that I had previously. During my first pregnancy, my hCG levels increased and then rapidly decreased, indicating an underlying problem - a chemical pregnancy, a blighted ovum, or an ectopic pregnancy. I'll be monitored this time so we will know what's happening in any case.

In a normal pregnancy, the cells that will form the placenta release hCG.  By 11-12 days after conception (when sperm meets egg) there is enough to detect in a pregnancy blood test. Then it should double every 48-72 hours so a second test on day 14 is a good indicator that I'm really pregnant.

Even then, a lot of women will wait to announce their pregnancy until after the first trimester when the risk of miscarriage is lower. So you could still be considered "a little bit pregnant" for the first few months.

I'm at least going to wait until the second test comes back positive before I post this... maybe longer. I'll see how I feel. I'm excited to have a positive blood test - but it's a restrained excitement, and my sweetie feels the same. We will take it one day at a time and see when it feels REAL. Still, I was expecting and preparing to have 6 unsuccessful IUIs -- funny how things always happen when you let go of hoping they will happen. When I called the sperm bank to report the pregnancy they said that 4 tries is better than their average. Good news!

Thursday May 13:

I had my first blood test on May 11 and my second today, May 13, and my hCG levels more than doubled (from 75 to 194), so I am officially "a little bit pregnant"! Now we take it one day at a time, but I'm very pleased. After 4 IUI attempts, this is the first successful conception! Ultrasound on the 27th, but I can have a another blood test before then if I want to see how things are progressing.

My partner had a dream this morning about me, her youngest sister, and herself... she dreamed that all three of us were trying to get pregnant from the same sperm donor and that all three of us got pregnant! Later this morning her twin sister (not the youngest sister she dreamt about) called because SHE dreamt that my sweetie was pregnant. I guess this is part of that twin telepathy I have heard about...

Meanwhile I may be attending a birth soon, as a friend/doula - I have a friend who is 38 weeks pregnant and her birth plan changed unexpectedly. I don't even have my Doula bag packed yet, but I am on call if she needs me! Very exciting :-)

Tuesday May 25:

Counting down - just two more days to the "6 Week Ultrasound." This is what people call the 6th week of pregnancy even though it's really 4 weeks since conception. The 40 weeks of pregnancy get counted from your last period as most women don't know the exact date of conception, so when you are "late" (past your due date) you are often really not late (e.g. 39 weeks from conception is considered 41 weeks pregnant).

There's supposed to be a heartbeat already. Right now the fetus is tiny -- crazy that it can already have a heartbeat. I can't wait to see what shows upon the ultrasound -- we will be looking for what's called "the fetal pole".

I do feel pregnant. In addition to being hungrier and sleepier than usual, I have frequent small cramps and twinges and my breasts seem to be much heavier and denser than usual. Other people report having an increased sense of smell (sometimes combined with finding normally pleasant smells repulsive - I haven't found that to be the case.) Lots of women start having morning sickness by this point, but I am feeling fine so far. But I definitely FEEL pregnant...

So I am cautiously optimistic. I'm excited, but because of the previous miscarriages, I have been scared a lot of the time, expecting my period to start any second. I don't want to be feeling this way, but my fertility acupuncturist assures me that all of her newly pregnant patients feel this way. I thought I would be more excited and happy but right now it's kind of scary. She tells me that I will feel better after the end of the first trimester when the biggest miscarriage risk has passed. I sure hope so!

Meanwhile I have continued to prepare for becoming a Doula. I went to a doctor/doula discussion last week (very cool) and took a prenatal resuscitation class last week - awesome! I learned some things that are outside the scope of what I am allowed to practice, but it will help if I am a Doula (or a patient!) in a hospital setting, where I will understand what the doctors and nurses are doing to the baby and can hopefully reassure an anxious mother (or assist, when it's appropriate and within my scope of practice.)

I also have my Doula bag packed and ready to go -- I didn't end up being a Doula for my pregnant friend but I did get to share some birthing ideas with her, so that was good practice. She had the baby last week in the hospital, but with her midwife present. Due to some complications, she had to have a C-section. She was disappointed, as she, like many of my friends, really wanted to have a natural, vaginal birth, but was not able to.

I was thinking about it, and no matter how much you learn or how much you prepare, in the end you have to surrender to the process and just roll with what happens. There's definitely a grieving process that mothers go through when they don't "succeed" in having the birth process they hope for... But maybe it's a little easier if you keep in mind there's often nothing you can do to make it go exactly the way you want, and as amazing as an orgasmic birth experience can be, pregnant women shouldn't have to feel the extra pressure of trying to have the "perfect birth". It's one thing to be open to the experience and it's another thing to try for it and be disappointed.

There is so much you can do to set the stage but once labor starts there is so much that is out of your control -- you may be hoping for a water birth and end up with a C-section -- or you may be planning on an epidural and it goes so fast you end up pushing without it and suddenly, there's your baby. It really seems like the best thing to do then is just relax as much as possible, let go of your fears as well as your hopes and expectations, and accept that you may not have the exact birth PROCESS you want, but by making conscious birthing choices, chances are very good you will have the birth OUTCOME that you want -- healthy mother, healthy baby.

Anyway, it's been great to be getting so much helpful information on birth as I move forward in my own pregnancy. I feel very lucky and supported in my new Doula community. When I began this journey, this is not how I thought it would go, but I am surrendering to my own process now, and it looks like I am indeed on the path to becoming a parent.

Thursday May 27

What a cute little fetal pole!

Wow. So, as you saw at this beginning of this post, we had the ultrasound this morning. We saw the egg sac (which becomes the amniotic sac or bag of waters), the yolk sac (which becomes the placenta) and the fetal pole (the beginning of the baby!) And we did see the tiny flicker of the heartbeat. Wow.

My miscarriage risk is much less now (down to 20% from 40%) and each couple of weeks that goes by decreases it even more. At 12 weeks it's 5 % risk, so many people wait until then to announce, but I am ready to share now, whatever the outcome will be. I feel positive about it 'though!

Happy full moon, everyone :-)