Can you be a little pregnant?

I know I have royally sucked at keeping this blog up over the last 2 weeks. It's not that I haven't thought about it, it's not that I don't want to blog. It's just that this whole thing is such a roller coaster and it's hard to know what the right things to be saying, are and what aren't. For one, I wish I had handled this whole thing differently. If I have it to do over again, or could have done this try over, I would have not made it so widely known that we were doing the fertilty treatments. I would have saved the news for after I had this ultrasound which is coming up on Friday at the very least. Perhaps I would have waited until I was 12 weeks along to tell our news. It has been very complicated to go through what I am going through mentally, emotionally, and physically, and to still have to field questions all the time to make other people feel better about what I am going through mentally, emotionally, and physically. It truly truly truly is something you can never understand unless you have been there.

80% of miscarriages happen in the first trimester. Having a pregnancy through IVF is a very high risk pregnancy in the first few weeks. These are real facts, not things I am making up in my own mind. There are stories of countless women who thought the first pregnancy test was all they needed to know they were pregnant, and go in to find an empty yolk sac, or a gestational sac with no fetus, a placenta with no fetus, a fetus who died somewhere between the third and sixth week, etc. etc. etc. The stuff goes on and on. It would be idiotic of me to assume that I am going to maintain this pregnancy when the chance that I wont is just as high.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, please stop acting like my concerns are not valid. I am going through this and I will go through it any way I want to. If I want to be negative sometimes I will be and I don't need to hear people saying "you need to stop" "would you quit with the negativty already" when are you going to relax?" I am a REALIST. I know what could happen at that ultrasound and I will be prepared for it and I will prepare in whatever way I feel necessary. Again, no one knows what this is like unless you have been there. It is not like any other conception or pregnancy. Between Chris and I we have had 6 kids and we agree that this in no way compares. You just don't know.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

Now - on to updates.... Today I am 6 weeks and 2 days. I have my ultrasound on Friday morning. If all goes well, then I will be released to my regular ob to start prenatal care. I really hope we see that little heart furiously beating!!!

My symptoms so far have consisted of extreme fatigue, heartburn, irregular body temperature, emotional instability, extreme hunger, and as of Sunday a little nausea. I threw up once yesterday - pizza. I should have known - Italian food has always gotten to the pregnant version of me! I am gaining weight because I am always hungry and I am putting away meals that even Chris couldn't eat. I have been having headaches also. Some, if not all, of these could be caused by the Progesterone shots, but they are getting a little more severe as time goes on. I consider that a good sign, but not a tell tale sign. It is possible for the placenta to have attached and to be growing, releasing the HCG hormone in increasing amounts, while at the same time the fetus has died. That's why nothing, NOTHING, is certain. Nothing is certain until we see that heartbeat, and even then we still have 5 weeks of miscarriage risk. I will be so happy when I know.

If this pregnancy didn't sustain, I think we will wait a while to try again. I was all gung-ho about starting again immediatly, but now I'm not so sure. I think we will need some time to reprogram after all this. A failure at this point would be devastating, far more than a negative test from the beginning would have been.

The big news will come Friday. Stay tuned! As for now - where is the damn FOOD?????