Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Are we pregnant yet?

Step One- POAS (pee on a stick):
As we have learned from prior experience, I am not patient in the least!  I started the process of POAS three days after transfer (all the hormones you take in IVF make you feel pregnant even if you aren't, so those feelings are unreliable).  On day 4, we saw this:

And my fear of twins skyrocketed!  That is an early BFP (big fat positive).  I continued to test, of course, and this is what we saw:


Step Two- BETA (a quantitave count of the hcg level in your blood to determine pregnancy):
And, just for comparison's sake, these are the BETAS from my last two pregnancies-
Twins:                                                 Singleton:
270@9dp5dt                                        101@11dp3dt
550@11dp5dt                                      373@14dp5dt

BETA #1- 324@9dp5dt (And yes, this is a higher number than my first set of twins.  I am already convinced at this point that I am carrying twins again- despite the low odds the doctors gave us).
BETA #2- 624@11dp5dt (even higher)

Now, in both my other surrogacy experiences, the IVF doctor would schedule an ultrasound to see what all is going on inside the belly.  Hence, the commonly used phrase "in the 2ww (two week wait)" to describe waiting to see if any and how many babies are growing.  However, this IVF doctor decided that instead of scheduling an ultasound, we would continue with more BETAS.
BETA #3- 8099@19dp5dt
BETA #4- 20600@25dp5dt

At this point, I am totally flabbergasted that I have not had an ultrasound, and I am ready to strangle the doctor for making us wait so long! 
In fact, I am already showing:


Finally, finally, after over a month of waiting, the IVF doctor decides we will have an ultrasound.  I already know it is twins, and convince myself I will survive another twin pregnancy, and hope I am wrong.  We have the ultrasoud and see:

Yep, twins it is!  The twins' mother literally jumps up and down smiling and laughing for a few minutes.  Dad is calmer, but has a huge smile across his face.  (I would love nothing more than to insert the beautiful, glowing faced of the parents-to-be here, but I will have to check on that.) 
We have started another adventure, and we are off and running...