What A Week (And Weekend!)

Ladies and Gentlemen: What a week! Lots of changes, lots of work and a bit of good news to boot!

Friday was my last monitoring ultrasound and blood work for The IVF Clinic. Nugget looks to be growing nicely, and its heartbeat was 165 – a good, strong heart rate and well within the normal range. Poor Mum was pretty nervous waiting for the results of the ultrasound. Usually my appointments are in the morning, so she doesn’t have to wait long to hear news one way or the other. Friday’s appointment was at 12:45, so there was nothing to tell her till 1:00ish. But again: All was well

The second downside to taking a later appointment for monitoring is that even with ordering the results “STAT,” The IVF Clinic sometimes doesn’t get all of the results that day. This was the case on Friday. The blood work ordered was for Estradiol (estrogen) levels, progesterone levels and beta hCG (pregnancy hormone) levels. As of the end of the work day, only the ultrasound and progesterone results had come in. It’s the full workup that determines how well the pregnancy is going, so it’s entirely possible that, had The Big Hospital sent in all of the results by the end of the day, I might not have had to continue stabbing myself in the butt through the weekend. Oh well. It’s old hat now.

Thursday my office threw a huge bash for my boss’ boss who retired. Her last day was Friday. So our team took her out to lunch at the Chinese restaurant across the street from the office, then threw her a party in the big conference room at the office. People came from all over the state to wish her well, eat cake and snacks and drink punch. Hopefully the Big Boss left feeling appreciated. Frankly, I’m not sure how well the team will function without her, but the lady who’s rumored to be replacing her is brilliant and capable and if she’s hired, will fill Big Boss’ shoes easily.

This weekend I went down to my grandparents’ house to visit and take care of whatever chores they needed done around the house. I won’t go into the list of chores I did, but let’s just say I had to excuse myself and go to bed around 8:30 Saturday night.

I did get an hour nap in yesterday between arriving home after the two-hour drive from Gram’s, taking out the recycling that has been piling up in our store room, and having to take Pooka’s friend Vriska home, which is about a two-hour round trip in and of itself.

Pooka and I popped off at the grocery store to get some cranberry juice and seltzer for me (since I can’t drink de booze), apple juice for her and soda for our guests. Hubs ordered pizza and BAMF, The Ginge and Hubs’ coworker came over for the evening. They went home around 9:30 and Hubs and I brought back the rental car I had used for the trip to and from Gram’s, then dropped his coworker off at home.

One of the signs that I’m pregnant is that my dreams become weird, for me. Now, my dreams are always extremely bizarre. I dream about zombies and superheroes and magic and many other things you’d only see in sci-fi/fantasy. When I’m pregnant, my dreams become exceptionally mundane, and might have some occasional juxtaposition here and there. For example: Last night I dreamed that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were in town, and insistent on staying at my place. The problem was, my house was very messy, and I don’t like having company – except for very close friends – when my house isn’t pristine. I think there was something about a bet where they insisted that I hide my old teddy bear and if they could find it, they got to stay. Except that they didn’t know I had an attic, and so I offered to put them up in the bed and breakfast on the main street in town, which is a stone’s throw from my house.

Like I said: Weird.

Nugget Has A Heart!

Ladies and gents: Nugget is here to stay! Despite the fiasco of last weekend, it is growing beautifully and has a good, strong heartbeat. We confirmed that heartbeat at a rate of 130 this morning.

The ultrasound tech was kind enough to save a little clip of the heart beating for me and set it to loop when she left, so that I could take a video (below) to send to Mum and Dad via text message, since they couldn’t be here. Mum had asked me to tell her “as soon as humanly possible” what Nugget’s heart rate was. So I took the video and sent it to her with this text: “Heart rate is 130 and Nugget is growing perfectly! Believe me now? LOL <3” She responded tearfully but happily.

I am convinced, at this point, that every pregnancy comes with one big scare or significant inconvenience. With Pooka, I was hospitalized overnight and given intravenous antibiotics for a kidney infection. WiggleWorm’s umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice but she was fine. And with Tempest, I wound up with kidney stones. So the way I figure it is that last weekend’s scare was our big drama with Nugget, and the rest will be smooth sailing.

For those of you who are curious as to what a 7-week old embryo looks like: this is it. The bean-shaped blob is Nugget, and the little pulsing blob inside Nugget is its heart.

UPDATE 2/11/14: I have one more monitoring appointment scheduled for next week, and then I'll be released into the care of the obstetricians at The Big Hospital.

Mis-Adventures in Surrogacy

This past weekend was a complete and utter debacle. I’m still reeling from it, honestly. Just… Ugh.

Friday after work, Hubs and I went up to the general Queen City area to shop for a suit for him. He’s never had one, and we feel it will make a difference when interviewing for teaching jobs… Or any jobs, really. We found a very nice black one that shows off his assets and hide his very few liabilities. The staff at Men’s Wearhouse were very good to us, and helped us keep the whole package within budget, so that was nice. Plus, they’re tailoring it to fit him properly. We’re told it will be ready at 3:30pm on Saturday. After the suit, we popped over to a local Mexicali restaurant for dinner, which Hubs critiqued (much to my amusement) throughout the meal. Apparently it did not compare favorably to his current place of work, even though he did admit that the food wasn’t bad, “for the price versus the quantity.” Then we snuck over to BestBuy and picked up a CD and a movie for which Pooka had been begging since December.

Saturday Hubs went to work in the morning and I slept in late. Pooka decided to go with a friend (Curly-Q) to the Queen City to celebrate another friend’s birthday, so I sat around the house and marathon-watched “Merlin” on Netflix. I had agreed to pick her up at 8:00pm at the birthday girl’s house, so once Hubs got home from work I got dressed and headed out. I wound up waiting for a while, as teenagers will make their parents do, and of course two other girls needed rides home in other areas, so I dropped them off before heading home with Pooka and Curly-Q.

On the way home, I felt several significant gushes. Deciding not to panic, I pulled off the nearest exit and stopped at a gas station. Once in the bathroom, my fears were confirmed: The gushing was blood. And lots of it. I’m not a crier, as a rule, but I lost it. I burst into tears. Some poor woman waiting her turn outside the bathroom went and found Pooka elsewhere in the store. Pooka told her that I was pregnant, and probably just sick. After a few minutes, the woman went and found my daughter again and reported that she heard me crying. She had asked if I was alright through the door, but I had ignored her. Pooka and Curly-Q abandoned their intent to use the loo themselves and followed me quietly to the car, where I explained the situation. They’re good girls, and were sympathetic and as supportive as they could be, not knowing what to do in a situation like this one. I dropped Curly-Q off at her house and Pooka and I went home, where I burst into tears afresh as I made for the loo again. There was just so much blood!

I called The IVF Clinic, and was told to see if The Big Hospital could see me Sunday for blood work and an ultrasound. This was around 11:00pm. After several phone calls between myself, The Clinic and The Big Hospital, I had an appointment for blood work and ultrasound at 8:15 Sunday morning.

Sunday morning rolled around, and I made my way up to The Big Hospital. While waiting to be called in between other people’s IVF procedures, I emailed Mum and told her I was so very sorry; that I had wanted to get it right for her on the first go – and explained what had happened.

I shouldn’t have.

For lo and behold, the ultrasound showed Nugget, bigger than it was on Thursday, and looking perfectly normal. My estrogen and progesterone levels were fine, and my beta hCG levels were 16,499 – right on track. My bleeding had almost completely stopped and everything looked fine. If I had just kept my stupid fingers from sending that email, poor Mum wouldn’t have had to go through the emotional roller coaster on which I sent her this weekend.

Dr. Head-Honcho made a point to come in and see me again, as he was working Sunday, and reassured me that bleeding during the first trimester, especially with IVF procedures, is very common, and not always an indication of miscarriage. I was told to take it easy for the rest of the day and the following day – avoiding stress and trying to stay off my feet as much as possible.

So that was the weekend. Thank goodness for tenacious little embryos!

Yesterday was just as big a mess as the weekend. I called the mail-order Pharmacy that The Clinic chooses to distribute medications, to order more progesterone in oil. I’d have called on Sunday, but they’re not open on Sundays – unlike the other Pharmacy I used with the First IVF Clinic. Anyway, there’s a snow storm down there, so they wouldn’t guarantee next-day delivery. Now, I was REALLY low on progesterone. I’m not a doctor, and the boxes weren’t labeled as to how many days’ worth of medication was in each vial, so I wasn’t sure when to order more.

Needless to say, there was panicking done. I called The Big Hospital and asked if their Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility (Dr. Head-Honcho’s division) could prescribe me one or two CCs of the stuff. No dice. I called my regular doctor to see if they could prescribe it. No dice. I called my local pharmacy to find out if they carried progesterone in oil, just in case I could find someone who was able to call in a prescription. No dice. I called The IVF Clinic again and they had no doctors on duty and are closed until Friday because of the snow. I could not believe it. Snow doesn’t close everything down in Vermont – not unless you get six feet of it in under five hours. So it was incomprehensible to me that The Clinic would be closed! I even emailed Dr. Head-Honcho personally to ask if he could help me. He responded fairly quickly, and had reached out to someone else on his team to try to make it happen for me.

Exasperated, desperate and tearful, I left a message with The Clinic’s answering service for the NURSE on call to ring me back. I was terrified that I wouldn’t have enough progesterone for that night’s dose, and would therefore surely miscarry.

Well, it turns out that nurses at The Clinic can call in prescriptions. The nurse who called me back had just phoned in another prescription for another surrogate at The Big Hospital’s pharmacy, and still had the number in front of her. She rang me back again shortly thereafter and said my progesterone would be ready in an hour – all I had to do was call them and give them my insurance information.

I emailed Dr. Head-Honcho back to thank him and let him know everything was sorted out; then I called my besty – Mama, who was happy to drive me up to The Queen City to pick up my scrip, and we chatted almost nonstop during the 40-minute drive.

But wait! There’s more!

Once at The Big Hospital’s pharmacy, I was informed that the only two vials they had in stock had walked out the door with the other surrogate, not half an hour previously. The staff called the in-patient pharmacy and double-checked all of their shelves to try to find even a partial vial of progesterone, but there was none to be found. The pharmacist was able to order four vials of it for today, and said it would be available at 9:00 am.

So Hubs, despite not having gotten much sleep, drove up to The Big Hospital early this morning to pick up my progesterone. Interestingly, FedEx just emailed a “delivery exception” to me. They had of course tried to deliver my meds (which require a signature) while Hubs was indisposed, so I called the main FedEx number to ask for help. They’ll be back at my house in five minutes with the package.

As I look back on the last few days, and all the drama and inconvenience I “suffered” though, I have to say that I was very lucky to have had so many contacts that were so willing to go out of their way to help me. Sure, there’s a lot of crap in this world; but there are also people out there who are willing to go to the mat for complete strangers. For that, I am exceptionally grateful.