Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Rollercoasters

I wish this process did not have the nasty habit of taking you up to the stratosphere one minute and smashing you down to the ground the next- its been a super eventful 2 days, in other words.

Day 10 was when I got my BFP the last time. So I start testing, and past 10 in the morning, I start getting the faintest of tantalizing smudges on my test. I'm excited, but am waiting for a clear line to be sure. I wake up early this morning, expect the 'concentrated' first morning urine to give me a clear test- and nada. I freak out, but pee again 5 minutes later, and test this- super faint but distinct line! Holy schmoley I'm pregnant! Then comes the afternoon where I have my consult with my perinatologist. I request a urine test, because as you know, we all have a sick love affair with peeing into cups.  The nurse comes in after my consult is done and tells me indignantly (like I'm a crazy person who likes to invent fake pregnancies) that the urine test was negative (!!!) I leave in a daze, go to work, shut it all out for a few hours. I break down on the way home though- I'm so utterly sick of crying while driving; I've done it far too many times this year.


I get back home- take another of my cheap internet sticks- get a faint, but clear line again. By this time, I'm utterly sick of ambiguous results, so I run to the drugstore and spent 40 bucks on TWO brands of pregnancy tests (Clearblue digital and First Response)- see results!! I AM knocked up, as of now. I guess OTC tests are more sensitive than the machines the department of reproductive medicine at UCSD has-but I'm so mad at them for putting me through this nonetheless.


I'm frankly nervous about the beta increases, mostly because I've been spoilt from the last time- my first baby just LIT up the tests, and the early doubling increases were clear enough to catch even with the cheap sticks, even in a timeframe of 12 hours (!!) He was above the 95th percentile of the betabase results for any given day that we tested blood betas;Based on the earliest results (especially the increases) this little one is not like that, but I guess a detectable beta by day 10 is nothing to scoff at. I'll be honest- scary thoughts like chemical- or worse, ectopic are going through my head. I need to get the blood tests done- and the blood draws begin. More about what my perinatologist said in another post.

This should have been an utterly happy day for me- and I am kind of there now, but I'm pretty darned shaken.

11 comments:

  1. one day at a time. 10dpo still sounds early to me, but i'm still a relative newby. maybe you just need some more time to build up your hcg. its not necessarily encouraging, but don't count yourself out just yet.

    sending prayers and pregnant thoughts your way. hang in there

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  2. Congratulations!! Your are pregnant!!! Please send some baby dust to all of us..

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  3. Sorry to hear you had to go through so much drama to finally determine you are a BFP, but CONGRATULATIONS! That's wonderful news. I hope as the days pass, it brings a greater sense of security and joy for you to enjoy your pregnancy.

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  4. For now, concentrate on your BFP...Congratulations!!! Like Jendo, I'm sorry there's been so much drama...can't wait to hear how it all plays out!

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  5. WooHoo! I'm so happy for you! When do you go for beta blood test?

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  6. Congrats on your BFP! Don't worry about the concentration levels! Focus on the positive right now. :)

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  7. Congratulations - very exciting news. Enjoy this time and try not to worry.

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  8. Congratulations! If you remember, my first test at 12dpIUI with the FRER was a very light line, and at 13dpIUI it was even lighter - so I was very surprised with a beta of 358! You really can't go by how dark the line is at all.

    And to back this up - someone posted this on the SMC-pregnancy board in just the past few days:


    >>>One thing you could do to track your beta increases on your own -is to buy multiple cheapie pink lined HPT and watch the lines get darker. That's a crude and inexpensive way for you to verify that your betas are increasing in 48 periods. I would try to make sure that those cheapie HPT are all from the same lot -with the same expiration dates, preferably in the same multipack box.<<

    I would actually caution people to not do this. I used to run and interpret labs for a women's health practice, including urine and blood pregnancy - you really can't use a HPT in the manner described above. Simply put, a urine pregnancy test is qualitative - the answer is either yes or no: Yes, there's sufficient HCG to cause a line to be visible; or no there isn't sufficient HCG to cause a line. The strength of the line is immaterial. It's a completely different test than a quantitative one, which measures the actual level (that's what the quantitative blood test does). With repeated testing, the lines *can* get darker with HPTs - but they can just as easily never change or get lighter over time - that's just a function of the particular brand and has nothing to do with levels of HCG. So don't make yourself crazy doing this - HPTs can't tell you anything about the increase in HCG over time.

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  9. Congratulations!! You ARE pregnant! I'd be around the bend with worry with the positive...then negative...then positive result. But just remember, you were day 10 -very early.
    As the pp said, try to stay focused on the positive. Easier said than done, but for every worry thought - try to have 3 positive thoughts :)

    Congrats again and I look forward to following your pregnancy!

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  10. Wow!!!! Congrats -- what great news!

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