I'm hyper-sensitive to anything happening in all my lady parts. My 2 girls are nice and sore-- I whack them if I go several hours with no twinging. I've had some pretty sharp pains and sensations that feel uterine in origin at 3-4DPO which made me ecstatic. Apparently, women who get this can turn out to be pregnant. Whoopdedoo.
The chorus of the John Mellencamp song "Hurts so good" has been featuring prominently at in my nutty head these past few days. I've been having some moments of mildly painful sensations that make me grin like a goofball through the winces. If I feel nothing through long stretches of time, I'm convinced nothing has worked. If I feel any pain or any sensation out of the ordinary, it buys me several hours of reassurance.
As a scientist, I scoff at this. 'Symptoms' mean jack-squat, especially when you are hypersensitive, over-imaginative and have several signs of high luteal-phase progesterone even in cycles when there is no chance that you may have conceived. But it does have value in that it keeps me sane because it buys me those stretches of complete normalcy till we come to testing time. So please, the powers that be, make it so hurt so good.
I know that if I don't get a positive HPT by day 10-11 then its game over. I can handle that- you've got your requisite time of crying and adjusting to the new reality that you have to do this again, and then, if you are me, then you return to an even keel fairly quickly and you go on to the next portion of the plan. Hopefully. But in the meantime universe, please keep the twinges coming.
Here is another thing I've been grappling with for a while--- my original plan was to return to India when I am around 5 months along, after the detailed anatomy scans are completed and deliver there. My mom, who has worked with neonates for a good part of her career, and she dropped a bombshell on me a few weeks ago- she strongly wants me to finish my pregnancy here and then return. She feels this because New York (especially the university I am with) has, apparently one the best premie units in the country. India, she feels, based on her experience, is adequate with the level of expertise of the very top doctors (that I will have access to) but fails badly with the quality of nursing care. This is something that pisses me off so much. Trained qualified nurses hightail it out of India the first chance they can get, because they don't get paid well, nursing as a profession is undervalued severely.
I've asked my mother to do more research to get a better idea of how things are there, because staying here, while practically possible, is not something I want to do. As you can clearly see, despite my trying to control it, pregnancy makes me neurotic. Being around people constantly, with that loving bedrock of family, goes a long way is dispelling my neuroses and keeping my mind off things.Sigh. Effin decisions.
The chorus of the John Mellencamp song "Hurts so good" has been featuring prominently at in my nutty head these past few days. I've been having some moments of mildly painful sensations that make me grin like a goofball through the winces. If I feel nothing through long stretches of time, I'm convinced nothing has worked. If I feel any pain or any sensation out of the ordinary, it buys me several hours of reassurance.
As a scientist, I scoff at this. 'Symptoms' mean jack-squat, especially when you are hypersensitive, over-imaginative and have several signs of high luteal-phase progesterone even in cycles when there is no chance that you may have conceived. But it does have value in that it keeps me sane because it buys me those stretches of complete normalcy till we come to testing time. So please, the powers that be, make it so hurt so good.
I know that if I don't get a positive HPT by day 10-11 then its game over. I can handle that- you've got your requisite time of crying and adjusting to the new reality that you have to do this again, and then, if you are me, then you return to an even keel fairly quickly and you go on to the next portion of the plan. Hopefully. But in the meantime universe, please keep the twinges coming.
Here is another thing I've been grappling with for a while--- my original plan was to return to India when I am around 5 months along, after the detailed anatomy scans are completed and deliver there. My mom, who has worked with neonates for a good part of her career, and she dropped a bombshell on me a few weeks ago- she strongly wants me to finish my pregnancy here and then return. She feels this because New York (especially the university I am with) has, apparently one the best premie units in the country. India, she feels, based on her experience, is adequate with the level of expertise of the very top doctors (that I will have access to) but fails badly with the quality of nursing care. This is something that pisses me off so much. Trained qualified nurses hightail it out of India the first chance they can get, because they don't get paid well, nursing as a profession is undervalued severely.
I've asked my mother to do more research to get a better idea of how things are there, because staying here, while practically possible, is not something I want to do. As you can clearly see, despite my trying to control it, pregnancy makes me neurotic. Being around people constantly, with that loving bedrock of family, goes a long way is dispelling my neuroses and keeping my mind off things.Sigh. Effin decisions.
I was trying to explain to my mom yesterday how stupid symptoms are, and how so many of them could mean you are pregnant, or that AF is at your airport. But yeah, I say bring em on. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment on my blog. I've been following you for awhile, but of course I just suck at comments. Crossing my fingers for you this month!
Symptoms can drive you CRAZY!
ReplyDeleteI wish I had some words of wisdom for you about what to do towards the end of your pregnancy. I think you'll figure out the best thing when the time comes. But again, yet another thing to drive you crazy right now.
Just wanted to say that you should not say game over if you have a negative HPT days 10-11. I had negative HPTs on days 14 *and* 16. My beta on day 14 was 15. The result: my beautiful daughter who will be 2 1/2 years old at the end of the month. It is not over until it's over.
ReplyDeleteOh that hypersensitivity to symptoms is a mindf*ck! Keeping my fingers crossed for you!
ReplyDeleteTashia, I fully agree in general. What HCG levels are and how they rise are differ from person to person. There have been many, many healthy children born from pregnancies that had very low initial betas.
ReplyDeleteOn implantation itself, there was an interesting study in New England
Journal of Medicine- it showed that the later that
implantation happened, the higher the risk for a pregnancy loss. That
does not mean that all late implanting pregnancies will miscarry, its
just that your risk is higher.
But in my case, a negative HPT on day 11 would be telling. Both my pregnancies have been early implanters-- between day 7-9 I'd say. Both my pregnancies gave positive betas not only on the same day, but literally at the same time of the same day, which was by afternoon of 10 DPO. A negative at the end of day 11 means either a BFN or a much later implanter/low HCG producer, which given my earlier scenarios, presents a situation with bad odds.
I'm of course no medical/biological expert, but I do believe that every pregnancy is different, as well as every woman being different in how they experience pregnancy. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence of pregnancies being very different with the same mother. I would therefore also believe that when you implant (successfully) could also change from pregnancy to pregnancy, and just because you had two experiences that were similar to each other, doesn't mean a third would necessarily be just like the first two, especially given all that you've changed in between those two and now.
ReplyDeleteI also recognize that I'm an outlier. I read one study that indicated that no subjects in their study who had implantation past day 11 ended up with a live baby; I really didn't think I had much of a chance with an implantation occurring around day 12 (based on cramps I experienced that day, but thought for certain at the time were menstrual, not implantation-related).
But my point is that there is a difference between "bad odds" and "no chance at all". :) I hope this ends up with a good outcome, but of course it's too soon to tell at this point.