Hello again, EPU

At the start of the week I began spotting brown stuff. I very firmly told myself that this happened during every single pregnancy I had whatever the outcome, so it was just something that happened to me, and I wasn't going to freak out. No sirrreee. No freaking out here.

Until the next day when I started bleeding and phoned the Eearly Pregnany Unit in such a panic I could barely speak. I calmed down enough to explain my history and what was wrong, and got told to come in for a scan the next day.

My husband immediately rescheduled his work to come in with me.

I then had to go to a meeting at the Boy's new school. When I say "had", I could have cancelled it and spent the time fretting. But I'd have had to have explained to the Boy why we weren't going, reschedule with the school, and go out and drop the Boy at his childminder anyway or cancel him. And whatever I was going to do was going to involve speaking to people, so it just seemed easier to stick with plan A.

So I pulled myself together and ended up having to make small talk with one of the other parents who I don't know, which I suppose at least forced me not to sit around the house being mad.

When I got home the bleeding had stopped. But I'd had sporadic bleeding with both ectopics.

The morning of the scan, after my husband got up, the Boy brought one of his teddies and lay next to me to have a chat. It's part ot our morning routine.

I got up, went into the shower, and came out to discover that when my husband was getting the Boy dressed, he'd discovered a big angry looking rash all over his body.

We couldn't send him into school in case whatever it was turned out to be infectious, so my husband got a doctor's appointment. I had thought we could drive me and him and the Boy could sit in the car, except the only appointment he could get was exactly the same time as my scan. Fuck.

There was no time to organise anyone else tto come with me, so for the second time in 24 hours, I put on my big girl pants and went to the scan myself. Although to be honest I was shit scared of something awful going wrong and then being in such a state I couldn't drive back.

I managed to hold it together for the check in and in the scan room.

The sonographer did an external scan and told me she could see something in my uterus - which made me relax a little bit.

I was delighted, after we switched to an internal scan, when she said she could see a tiny embryo in the right place with a heartbeat. I'll take that, thankyou.

There seems to be some blood in my uterus that might make an appearance, but if I do bleed any more I need to go and get checked again rather than assume it's ok  (like I am going to be assuming things are ok after four losses rather than, say, calling up the EPU in such a state I can barely squeak out my name).

So I'm well aware that I've got six weeks more before I can relax a bit. But on the plus side, it is less than two weeks until my scan at the clinic, then we'll probably pay for a ten week scan. This is about as far ahead as I'm willing to think at the moment.

But my husband's birthday turned out ok in the end - although we never did find out what the Boy's rash was.

On the four week wait

Apologies for the delay in updating.

The clinic was good, I had a score of 350.

I'm now on the wait between the blood test and the first scan.

I'm finding the experience of the missed miscarriage the last time is making this one quite nerve wracking, to put it mildly.

Last time, I made a conscious decision not to be neurotic and try and enjoy the pregnancy. I made myself go out and try on maternity clothes not long after getting the result, and made some plans for holidays. I told myself it was ludicrous to worry about tempting fate by doing these things.

I did get all paranoid at around 6 weeks and got an extra blood test, which was fine and I felt silly for being so worried

I then was sick for the next 8 weeks or so, sore boobs, all the rest of it. No reason to suspect anything was wrong.

The nausea tailed off a fortnight or so towards my 12 week scan and I thought that was normal. The spotting I'd had for a few weeks stopped too.

I did feel very upset in the run up to the scan, but that could have been either subconsciously knowing or just that I don't like medical appointments.

Either way, it was still horrible finding out I'd had a missed miscarriage a fortnight before the scan.

At the moment, I worry that I'm not feeling sick or tired enough. I also generally get spotting in early pregnancy, which hasn't showed up either (I know, I know, it is weird to worry about not spotting, particularly how much angst it's given me before).

It's three weeks until my first eight week scan at the clinic, and every day feels like an eternity.

If I can just get to the eight week scan then I'm going to book a couple of reassurance scans. But at the moment I know there's nothing I can do but wait.

Madwoman in the attic

I kind of thought I was through having drama on 2ww but, I was wrong.

I tested on Wednesday,  and Thursday last week. All negative.

I had a big argument with my husband about whether we should do another round, slept in the spare room and considered going away for a couple of days.

Another BFN on Friday. I was 8dp5dt so, when the test was negative, I decided I was done. Apart from anything else, I felt really period-y and ill, and was having bad cramps. And I'd never had a pregnancy, whether it turned out ok or not, that hadn't shown up by that point.

I stopped meds halfway through the day, drank wine and cried. I made up with my husband and, we agreed if it was something I really had to do, we'd have another go in January.

Then I started being sick in the early evening, and was up half the night with diarrhea and vomiting.

Saturday morning, I had one last test. I thought I might as well use it and... very faint positive. Which my husband saw.

So I started taking all my meds again.

The stomach bug lasted 24 hours, and my husband got it too.


Frustratingly, I seem to be able to spot lines on the two tests we've done today when my husband can't. He didn't see this morning's one at all. I've waved tonight's one in his face as I'm typing this and he can see it this time, but couldn't a few minutes ago.

I don't have any symptoms, but I don't know how much that has to do with the stomach bug. If it's fucked things up, or my half day of abandoning the cycle has, or whether I would have just have ejected much of the meds from my body fairly quickly anyway.

I don't know if I'm having an actual pregnancy, a chemical one, or if this is going to be the start of getting 48 hour blood tests, or what. Or if I am hallucinating pink lines on pee sticks, or if my husband needs his eyes tested.

Blood test tomorrow.

The two week wait, again

I'm towards the end of another FET - transfer was yesterday. I've done lots of these now, but they always mess with your head.

Sympton spotted: Feeling sick.
Rational explanation: I'm on four different kinds of drugs, all of which list "nausea" as a side effect.

Sympton spotted: Mild cramps.
Rational explanation: The nice gynaecologist was up in my cervix with a catheter. This probably accounts for feeling a bit weird after.

Sympton spotting: Feeling bloated
Rational explanation: Meds and farts.

I don't always cling to rationality. Last time I tested after two days, in a fit of mad optimism, because I was sure I was throwing up so much I had to be pregnant, despite the fact that nobody gets sick from something as tiny as a 2dp5dt embryo. It was a BFN, of course.


Mind you, I find the way the last cycle turned out has a direct effect on how stressful the next 2ww is. It's like that sayign about generals always fighting the last war - after I've had a loss I'm always convined it's going to be a positive that I am going to be stressed about, although apart from between the Boy and the pregnancy that ended with a missed miscarriage, I've never had two positives in a row.

After a BFN, I generally feel a bit more relaxed about the whole thing, although more inclined to look forward to my first glass of wine than worry about having a negative.

Anyway, if this is a BFN, there are no more frosties and I'm not sure what we'll do next. I feel like, not exactly that I'm too old for all this now, but I've spent a lot of time in my 20s and 30s having treatment. I don't know if I'm ready to quit though.