You did it!

You sustained me through the crazies, and I cannot thank you all enough. Seriously, without you all providing me both comfort that my symptoms can wax and wane as well as validation that it was ok to be this crazy with anxiety, I might have just curled up into a ball and not gone to the RE out of fear.

But here's the news: I am still pregnant.

The thing is HUGE -- 17.4mm from top to bottom -- that is more than 3x bigger than last time! It's measuring at 8w1d and I am (officially) 7w6d, so it's right on target. And it has arms and legs, and a head with a brain forming inside, and we could SEE it. And we saw its heart beating away really really fast and, best thing ever, we saw it MOVE. No shit it moved and we all saw it. And I pretty much nearly started to cry, which kind of freaked my husband out.

We also got to HEAR the heartbeat. It was really really really fast, and sounded more swooshy than like a grown-up person heartbeat, but there was a regular percussive quality to the swooshiness. The downside? The u/s machines at my RE are not clever enough to be able to measure how fast it is beating, so we had to take her word for it that everything looks really really good.

And so now? Now I have an OB appointment scheduled for next Thursday. Because I really want to know how fast the little thing's heart is beating and I don't want to wait too long.

Ohmygod it MOVED. That was amazing.

Data

Here's how I know I am crazy: because every morning I am convinced that this pregnancy is over (or isn't) based on the number of hairs that fall out when I am washing my hair.

In the TMI category, I usually lose a decent amount of hair every morning when I wash and condition. But since pregnant? Pretty much no hair is falling out. So to me, counting the hairs that fall out is a reasonably accurate way to determine whether the pregnancy is still healthy. And so every day I start my day with this and so by about 30 minutes after I wake up I'm totally convinced one way or the other.

So today? 16 hairs fell out. That's more than double the average of 7 from last week. And that is b.a.d.

Now I know that's ridiculous. I know this, but yet I can't keep from counting every morning and comparing it to the days when I knew that the pregnancy was still moving along ok (that would be 2 weeks ago, prior to the u/s).

I have created a whole mystical, quasi-scientific set of reasons that I am not pregnant, and hair loss is one of them.

Other reasons I am convinced that I am not pregnant? Nausea, which was really very bad last week, has been better. About 50% better, so the "oh my god I'm going to vomit right this minute" bad of last week is more of a low grade queasiness and periodic gagging. I ate two normal meals over the weekend, which I had not been able to do for the previous 4 days. So what does that mean to me? That means that my HCG levels are falling, which means doom.

And my last piece of scientific (I like how I throw that around, as if any of this is really "data-based" and not just the ravings of a woman who has lost all touch with reality) evidence is that my TSH test from yesterday was still in normal range -- 1.85 vs. the 1.2 prior to the pregnancy. Now some might consider that good news -- the syn.throid is keeping things under control. But since the Dr had essentially said "pretty much everyone needs to adjust their medication during pregnancy" the fact that I don't have to means to me that there is nothing special going on that is requiring that my thyroid work hard at all.

Oh, and my cramping seems worse. Still no spotting, and still nothing that even feels like I am getting my period, but just more pinging/ stretching/ weirdness from down there.

(On the positive side, boobs have become sore and remained sore. But that is probably just due to all of the progesterone I am taking. So that doesn't count.)

The u/s is tomorrow afternoon (7w6d). I'm never going to make it. Seriously I have completely lost my mind.

Keeping the crazies at bay

In my last post, you will note that I promised not to freak out until a week has passed.

You will all be happy to note I have not yet freaked out and I have presently silenced the drumbeat of failure and destruction that I usually listen to in my head.

I have also managed to spend an entire 4 days with my mom and not tell her anything. Even though I kind of wanted to about 100 times. But we made a joint decision collectively not to tell, and so even though the Boy kept saying things like "are you still dry heaving" to me with my mom there, we didn't tell. (And yeah, it's just that romantic around our house.)

I have, however, developed a new set of symptoms:
- hunger. Hunger like I never knew existed. All the time.
- gagging, carsick feeling. Pretty much all the time as well. It's the worst right after I eat, which is weird, since I thought that eating was supposed to help. But no. I pretty much dry heave after every meal. Yum!
- extra sensitive sense of smell. This is becoming a problem, because it's been REALLY hot in New York and it's definitely pretty stinky around here. And that tends to trigger my gag reflex. So going to work on the subway -- it causes me a good deal of fear and results in my hand being permanently over my mouth and nose. People look at me funny, but I'm pretty sure they prefer that to me puking on their shoes.
- boobs are starting to get sore. Not too bad, but a little bit sore. I hope they get bigger, actually, because, well, I've been holding off on buying new bras since I kept hoping I'd be pregnant, and my old ones are kinda stretched out. (I know, it's pathetic that I've been waiting about a year to buy new bras. I just kept thinking "I'm not going to fit into them soon." and so I waited. Fucking IF even screwed up my lingerie purchases.)

I'd like to try to solve the gagging, dry heaving thing by acquiring some of those pregnancy pops, but even though they are sold at a maternity store right around the corner from my office, I'm fairly convinced that going in there will end this pregnancy immediately. I know it's not rational, but I'm afraid to do anything that even appears to the universe to be taking this for granted. So instead I will gag. (Note - I got anxious just now typing "pregnancy pops" so I don't think I can safely buy them on line either.)

But otherwise? Otherwise I'm still unbelievably grateful for where we are now. It is very theoretical and in no way real, and I'm going to keep it that way until much further down the road because I'm pretty scared about things going awry. But for the time being, I'm still carrying around this sense of wonder and amazement.

And in further news...

The spotting stopped Sunday. Phew. There were only two bright pink spots and then a bunch of brown, so hopefully it was just an errant progesterone suppository.

I still am light on the symptoms, but here they are:
- acne like a 14 year old (charming)
- compliments on how healthy my hair looks (even from the women who was waxing my eyebrows -- she told me they looked very healthy and luxuriant. It was pretty amusing as she was taking the hair out.) And no hair falling out at all when I brush/ shower.
- crampy pulling feeling from the uterine area.
- constipation. This is not so awesome. I have tried prunes, but since those just caused a prodigious amount of gas when I ate them on vaca (sorry -- TMI) and I am back at work today, I thought I'd hold off. So I am drinking water and eating fruit trying to get things moving.
- gagging/ queasy feelings a couple of times a day
- awful taste in my mouth all the time
- constantly starving, until I feel queasy, and then starving again
- tired. Really tired.
- the thirst. Oh the thirst. All I do is drink and pee.

OK -- that was a longer list than I had expected, but I still think that this whole thing ended already and that tomorrow afternoon I will be shown an empty uterus and told to try again next time. And I can't tell whether I'm making myself nauseated from nerves and over-googling, or whether it is real. Either way, I've given it a 65% chance of being there -- slightly better than even odds, but I'm managing my expectations downwards.

Thank you all for making me feel better about the spotting and cramping, btw. It really helped. Of course it didn't stop me from obsessively googling about this stuff and realizing how many things can go wrong. But it helped me from being a complete wingnut.

26 more hours to find out what's up. This is hard. Still exciting, but hard.

Uh oh.

Tonight is our lastest night of vacation before we head back into the oppressive heat on the East Coast. It's been good -- really nice -- to be away and even better to be able to relax a wee bit and try to enjoy being happy and grateful for actually getting pregnant for the first time ever.

We still have some trouble buying into the idea that it is not all some elaborate ruse, but considering two labs in two cities in two countries gave us positive confirmation, we are forced to confront the fact that it may not be a hoax.

I'm still feeling pretty much nothing. No sore boobs, no change in how they look at all (I ask every time I get undressed, and still nothing). However the cramping is real and I have to be honest it scares me to death even though I know that many women experience it. But if any of you want to tell me that it's ok, I'm all ears.

Here's the specifics -- sometimes it feels like sharper pains in the front middle area (essentially where my uterus is), more on the right than the left, but its definitely all around. Some low back achiness like when I get my period, which is a newer phenomenon.

Teensy eensy bit of spotting two days ago, which is hard to discern given the amount of progesterone I am shoving up into my nether regions. Just a few minutes ago, some darker pink spotting. And so I am starting to get scared that I am losing this.

I was able to get an u/s appointment for Wednesday 7 June with my RE -- I know it's early to see much (5w6d), but I'd like to know something more than I do already.

Mostly, I'd like to fast forward a whole lot of weeks to be just adorably, roundly pregnant. Because this? This is scary. So any confirmation that I am ok would be awesome.