Proving once again...

...that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, my appointment went from 5 weeks with a midwife to 6 days with the new head OB of the unit!

At the end of the saga yesterday, they said they would have a midwife call me back as they are the only ones who can override the standard for 11 week appts.

When the midwife rang me (today) she had obviously already spoken to Dr P*** and had (shock horror) read my file! Can you believe it? She said Dr P*** want me on a mega dose of folic acid due to my "history", and that she would try and get me an earlier appointment.

The follow up phone call confirmed an appointment next Tuesday with Dr A****** - "the new head of the unit".

Cue my jaw hitting the floor.

Aaaaand I do wonder whether there is a fluorescent label on my (very thick) file now saying "Danger! Danger! Treat with extreme caution!" I have requested my file before and photocopied sections after my 3lb baby was stillborn days after the Drs telling me he was a "good size and fine" and refused the scan I was requesting...

Wouldn't be surprised.....

Fighting the system

What can i say today?
I am still here, and I think still pregnant.
I wouldn't know though, as I havent seen hide nor hair of a Dr in weeks. Meh. At this point I figure that if something is going to go wrong, at this stage there is nothing I can do about it. I wouldn't mind seeing a Dr though as I am in pain pretty much constantly at this point - I can't tell whether its my uterus or my stomach (I think it switches between both) but it's cramping like heck all day long, and it hurts.

But I've been putting off calling the hospital for my first OB appt, not sure why.

{EDIT} ok now I know why. Decided while writing about it that I may as well just do it. *sigh* enter my first of many fights with the public system. Just spent half an hour being transferred from one section to another to another, getting hung up on TWICE, calling multiple people, all to eventually be told "OK we have an appointment for you on July 28th"

*blink*

WTF? No, I will not wait 5 weeks for an appointment.

At that point she got shitty with me. So I said fine. Book the appointment. Now put me through to D***, your supervisor.
HA!
Then she was nice, wasn't she?
Team Leader comes on the line again "why do you think you need to see Dr P*** for your first appointment instead of the midwives? (which is standard here for the 1st appt)"
Me "I don't, all I'm saying is I am not waiting 5 weeks for an appointment. I have complicated pregnancies, multiple miscarriages and a full term stillbirth (which was not detected by anyone there...hence why the head of OB was my personal Dr last time, and hence why I want him again!)"

Eventually the end of the story is that she will have one of the miwives ring me and see if they can override it.

No wonder people pay thousands to go private.

Hurdles

Well I had my ultrasound this morning, and I'd love to say I am giddy with excitement, but I'm just not.

I was terrified from the moment I woke up this morning. Luckily Lou managed to take an hour off to come with me and we went first thing in the morning.

First thing off the bat was the "wow you have a gigantic cyst on your right ovary" which told me that I probably did not release both of the two perfect follicles that I thought I did. Then she found one gestational sac, with yolk sac and heartbeat.

Yay, right?

I'm really not sure why I wasn't excited by this.

I don't know what she was doing differently, it's the same machine I've had lots of scans on, but everything was really grainy and unclear. I've seen my share of early ultrasounds and what I saw looked nothing like a baby at 6+ weeks.

The largest she could get it to measure was 5w5d and that was on about her 15th attempt.

So I left, not really knowing what to think. Lou was buoyant, thrilled at a heartbeat. She couldn't understand why I wasn't.

I left, completely detached from even the idea of this pregnancy, and that's pretty much where I am now. I guess now I just wait and see what happens. If it all ends next week as it normally does, I will not be surprised.

counting chickens

Brrr it is so cold here right now. I'm under a blanket in front of the heater and I'm still cold!!

Things seem to still be ticking along well *touch wood* no bleeding so I'm ahead of last time at least. Things still feel like they are different this time - Lou agrees, and so does my soul sister...but we all know that could mean everything or it could mean nothing.

Just recovering now from the long weekend we had (thanks Queenie) with a busy day on Sunday and a renovating day on Monday. I'm starting to feel so overwhelmed with how much needs to be done to this house before we put it on the market! Of course this ends up with me doing absolutely nothing because I dont know which of the 10,000 things to do first!

I was packing up all of Manny's little baby things into crates to store, and was thinking "Oh I really hope we have a house with a nursery by the time I need any of this again" then I realised...that might be only 6 months from now :-o! I am certainly not counting my chickens, but every now and then it hits me that this might actually be it....

I still have the hpt next to my bed. I still pull it out and stare at it at least twice a day with a stupid grin on my face.

That's wierd, right?

Chicken Image from digitalproductionme.com

something feels different

and I'm not sure why. I don't know whether it's because the last miscarriage was a while ago now, because we're not dealing with the increased risk of miscarriage that comes with IVF anyway, because we know I have succesfully conceived and carried two genetically healthy babies before or what it is, but we both feel like this one is different.

I really hope our feelings are on the money because I know we will both be even more heartbroken (if that's possible) if this ends badly. Lou has literally, and I mean literally had her fingers crossed since I flew out two weeks ago. It makes her look very awkward. But she refuses to uncross them. I never realised just how superstitious she is!

It feels different physically too. Every other pregnancy for me has started with very, very early nausea (before even testing). None this time round, all I am is extremely hungry and extremely tired. Who knows what this means, if anything!

All I know is that we are praying with everything in us that this is it.

{EDIT}

Just got my first beta back - 330 :)

Was hoping for super off the charts high but its higher than the miscarriages were so fingers are still crossed! I'm guessing about two weeks till first scan.

Hurdle #1 - BFP (10dpo extremely faint - 12dpo strong line)
Hurdle #2 - Beta (16dpo - Beta HCG 330)
Hurdle #3 - Ultrasound (6 weeks)
Hurdle #4 - Usual miscarriage point (7 weeks)
Hurdle #5 - Nuchal screening to check if baby has trisomies (12 weeks)
Hurdle #6 - Anomaly scan - check for trisomy markers (18 weeks)
Hurdle #7 - Make it to 36 weeks without losing my mind/the baby.

thanks...but..

Thanks for the congratulations lovelies. We are choosing to believe that it is possible that this will end with a baby, but we also have so many more hurdles to pass first.



For most people,




=








For us, a + does not = baby.



For us,








=











and











A whole lot of waiting and hurdles to overcome repeated ad nauseum.

Hurdle #1 - BFP (achieved. Yay!)
Hurdle #2 - Beta (Friday)
Hurdle #3 - Ultrasound (6 weeks)
Hurdle #4 - Usual miscarriage point (7 weeks)
Hurdle #5 - Nuchal screening to check if baby has trisomies (12 weeks)
Hurdle #6 - Anomaly scan - check for trisomy markers (18 weeks)
Hurdle #7 - Make it to 36 weeks without losing my mind/the baby.

So, if you know me irl - secret squirrel, k?




We will likely announce it after hurdle #5 if we make it that far. I don't feel the need to hide it as far as I did with Manny (26 weeks!) but we certainly aren't counting our chickens yet.

Question of the Day

How long do you suppose is normal to spend staring at two small pink lines?

So far I've spent about three hours.

saving my life in small ways

Today was not a good day.

It started much like any other. Then I received phone call after phone call from my office.
Cue hours of frantic online work to resolve problems (on my day off mind you). Of course my internet connection chose that time to crap out and die on me. AND of course I dropped my laptop off at a repairer just yesterday so I had to use the desktop - meaning no moving around to try and get better connection (I use mobile internet).

Like always I tried not to let it bother me...ran off to get Rocket from school and figured I would go to the mall to the shopfront of my ISP and check whether my contract expired yet (I assumed it had) and I was going to change to another provider, get myself back online, STAT.

But of course I am NOT out of contract (6 months to go!?!), but have I tried to call "customer care"? Of course not you fool, if I dont have coverage through your shitty *cough*vodafone*cough* network, how are customer "care" going to help?

But being the obedient little thing I am, I call them. Promptly get through to a, lets say, non-Australian call centre (you all know where this is going). I could barely understand every second word, but caught the gist of it as "you called the wrong part of the centre I will transfer you". I said "ok please transfer me" but the person just kept. on. saying. "I need to transfer you"
me "yes, do it"
him "I need to transfer you because you need tech support"
me "so transfer me already"
him "because you have come through to account service I need transfer you"
me "FFS dude TRANSFER ME ALREADY"
him "okay please hold"


I am not a patient person.


I was irritated enough by this point.

Then I had another person I couldn't understand, who got increasingly pissy at me when I would say "I do not understand you. Please slow down and speak clearly" eventually she did slow down, I still couldn't understand her.

Eventually I get it. Apparently the modem they sent me was the wrong one for my area. Do I still have my old one? Oh you mean the one you told me to dispose of? Um no actually!

After twenty infuriating and pointless minutes, I hung up. Frustrated as all get out.

Had to go to the grocery store. Oh joy that should improve my mood *sarcasm*. Wait, I know, I'll call into the pharmacy and pick up another box of HPTs (seeing as I wasted my last one on this morning's 9dpi obvious BFN result...)

Sold out.

Say what?

Oh of course because I live in an area where girls "fall" at the drop of a hat I suppose they go through them like nobody's business. Am thinking pretty nasty thoughts at this point. Why even bother, it's going to be negative anyway. Doom doom gloom etc.

So I stomp into the grocery store. Glance at the magazine rack. First cover I see? Ben Cousins is having a baby. Second cover? Miracle Quins (born to a lesbian couple after IUI) headline?"It's a piece of cake!" The straw that broke the camels back. I'm pretty sure if I were in a cartoon steam would be pouring out my ears and my head would possibly have spun off its axis.

You know what happened then?


A song came on the radio and was blasted through the store. I couldn't believe it. What was it?






Eye of the Motherfucking Tiger, yo.



I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. Bad mood over. Thank God for you, Becky Sherrick Harks. Blogging saves my life in small ways every day, I swear it.




Painting by Lucie Bilodeau