Ho Bloody Hum

It’s been a very long and difficult week.

Wednesday

PUPO. Migraine begins five hours after transfer.

Thursday

The migraine lasted 19 hours, and I vomited at 1.30am. The nausea woke me up, and that sour sensation on either side of my jaw made me flee to the bathroom. Up came my lunch, maybe it was food poisoning. I vomited again at 9.30am, and then it was over. The crushing headache waned and I returned to real life. Well, real life with an embryo inside me.

I noticed my acupuncturist didn’t have the same smile she had when she felt my pulses when I was pregnant with V. Her intuition, and mine, weren’t as confident as they were with V.

Friday

Technically, V was a twin. Both embryos implanted, which might explain why my uterus fluttered rapidly the morning after transfer. I knew then, at 1dp6dt, I was pregnant.

The cramping is here, and so are the tickle-scratches on the inside of my uterus. But… Doubt. I don’t feel pregnant. I keep having to remind myself I’m PUPO.

Saturday

I don’t have the same confidence as I did with my two previous pregnancies. More upheaval this week (more about which when it’s over) has meant I haven’t been able to eat or sleep properly, my stress has been so high. DH and I have been worrying and waiting, reading and researching, and coming up with a plan of attack. My response, unusually, has been to freeze. I’m emotionally drained.

Sunday

I woke up from a dream where DH was holding a pregnancy test as I peed on it. It was negative. I explained to him he was holding it wrong. Give it to me! I said, exasperated. I snatched the test from him and peed on it again. Two pink lines.

In the morning, I said that such a dream was a typical way my body relays information to me.

“I mean, at some cellular level my body knows whether I’m pregnant or not,” I explained. DH agreed. “I just don’t know consciously whether I am or not. But two pink lines in a dream suggests I am. I just don’t know understand what the first part of my dream means. Anxiety, because of the migraine?” I couldn’t bring myself to say I don’t feel pregnant.

We hugged the two-year-old scrambling over us in bed, grateful that we at least have her.

The Thing That Will Be Written About Another Time begins. Fearful, I take a pregnancy test. BFN. But it’s 4dp6dt, so I take it with a pinch of salt.

Monday

Mid-stress. Fighting. Driving 100 miles to and fro. Worrying. Other testing.

“Do you think you’re pregnant?” he asked.

I told him I don’t know. My usually reliable intuition has failed me. It’s clouded by a shitty week and acute high negative stress. I am frozen. I don’t know whether my symptoms of cramping are psychosomatic from wishful thinking, or if it’s implantation. There is a fog covering what I know to be real and what is not.

Tuesday

I wake up in the night and my heart begins pounding. The adrenaline keeps me awake for a while. My bladder is full and I wonder if I should pee and flush, pee in a cup to do a pregnancy test in the morning, or hold it for another few hours.

I hold it. Somehow I fall asleep again.

The dawn’s creeping blue light awakens me. My heart pounds and I remember. I am fully awake. I look at my phone. It’s 6.30am. If I got up now, there are a number of things I could do before V awakens. My bladder reminds me today is my personally designated official POAS day. But I don’t want to get out of bed. Because then I’ll know. It’s easier to shut my eyes and try to sleep a little more.

It doesn’t work.

I get up and test. The plastic covering the pregnancy test’s window is slightly rippled. As I watch the damp move right, for the briefest of moments the ripple looks like a second line. The control line swiftly darkens. I squint. There’s only one line.

I wait the full three minutes.

One stark line.

It’s 6dp6dt, or the equivalent to 12dpo. With both my previous pregnancies, I got a swift positive on the equivalent of today. (Bean was 12dpo; V was 6dp6dt.)

With a luteal phase of 13 days, it’s the equivalent of testing the day before my period. A BFN today strongly suggests this cycle didn’t work.

We’ll see what Friday’s beta brings. But I’m pretty sure to get a beta of 100 by Friday I’d need to be at 25 today—which would be enough to trigger the faintest of positives on a home pregnancy test.

My fabulous MIL is holding on to hope. I’m dutifully continuing with the medication protocol, and I won’t have booze or coffee, but I sneaked a cup of tea this morning. (This week has been made harder for lack of caffeine.) And screw the no lifting of more than 20 lbs. I’m not not picking up my daughter any longer. She needs me to carry her, and I need to hold her and feel the weight of her head on my shoulder.

 

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