I'm a hopeaholic

Well, I was clearly a disaster last week.  Weepy more often than not, and trust me, I'm not usually a cryer.  I think I vomited up most of my feelings in my Failure post, so I don't need to repeat myself.  I find hopeless, weepy Megs boring.  I know it's normal and absolutely okay to feel those feelings, and honestly, probably important that I let myself feel them.  But I get bored with feeling hopeless.  So on Friday, I called up Dr. Google and looked around to see if there were any women who had breast tenderness at the start of one pregnancy, but not the other.  There were plenty.  And also plenty of women who had no pregnancy symptoms until 6 weeks.  So a little hope creeped in.

Fueling this hope was the fact that my temperature did not drop at 11dpiui.  I am an avid charter, which for those not in the know means that when I wake up every morning, I take my temperature.  This is called your basal body temperature - your temperature at complete rest.  It can tell a woman where she is in her cycle (lower temps = pre-ovulation; higher temps = post-ovulation).  In most of my cycles, my temperature drops around 11 days after ovulation, continues to drop on days 12 and 13, and I either get my period 13 or 14 days after ovulation.  But on Friday, at 11dpiui, my temperature was 98.2.  I told Jeeves it was probably just because my progesterone was higher this cycle, it was going to take a little longer for my temperature to drop (because progesterone is what increases our temperature following ovulation).  Still, I felt that tiny bit of hope.  I tried to stuff it down, but I felt it.

On Saturday, at 12dpiui, my temperature still did not drop - 98.4.  Now it was hard to keep hope out, and worse, Jeeves was starting to get hopeful.  He's always more hopeful than me.  We spent most of the day outside, and when we came back, I was exhausted and took a two hour nap.  I had gotten plenty of sleep, so there was no reason for me to be so tired.  "Maybe something's cooking down there?" Jeeves wondered.  "It's probably just PMS," I retorted.  Still, we bought some pregnancy tests.  I made him promise not to let me take one unless my temp was still high on Sunday.  I had a good reason for this.  On Monday, if I didn't get my period, I was supposed to go for a beta test.  It costs me $25 as a co-pay every time I step foot in my RE's office, and that has added up over the last year.  I am there a lot.  I realize we're so lucky to live in a state with mandated infertility coverage, I am so lucky that the IUIs are covered.  I'm not complaining about the $25, but the idea of spending $25 to be told I'm not pregnant and my period is just a little late.... well, insult to injury in my opinion.  

Sunday morning (13dpiui), I woke up, and my temperature was 98.4 again.  I would definitely need to take that test.  I got up, peed on ye olde stick, popped the cap back on the test, put it on the toilet tank, washed my hands, glanced back at the test..... and there were definitely two lines.  I waited the requisite 3 minutes and this is what I saw:

I felt pleased... but I also thought, "hmm, that line isn't super dark... I wonder if it's good enough."  But that joy I felt back in May?  Not there.  I woke Jeeves up, and handed him the test, "I can't see," he squinted at it.  "I wouldn't give you a stick I had just peed on unless it was positive."  He yelled "Yay!!!" and his face broke into a big smile.  That's when I actually felt happy.

The line got darker yesterday morning:

I went uptown for my beta blood draw.  Beta #1 (14dpiui) came in at 173.  A very respectable number.  But meaningless until we get the second draw, which is tomorrow.

It is nearly impossible not to feel hopeful for this pregnancy, and not to feel insanely lucky.  I read so many blogs kept by other infertiles, and I know we are so fortunate that IUI seems to work for us.  At the same time, any excitement we feel is dampened by what happened in the spring.  I am trying very hard to be zen about whatever is going to happen.  I am trying not to be neurotic.  I don't really have any symptoms, other than sleepiness.  I try to reassure myself that I am only 4 weeks and 1 day pregnant and the majority of women don't have symptoms that early.  I am hopeful that the next two to three weeks until we go for an ultrasound where we will (please please please) have a heartbeat will pass quickly and with as little mental torture as possible.

So, today I am cautiously optimistic, but tomorrow I will possibly crawl out of my skin with anxiety as I await the beta results.  I don't necessarily think being a hopeaholic is such a bad thing.  What is the point of doing all these things we do to try and get pregnant if we don't have some hope that it will work?  That we will get our baby someday?  But I'm trying to temper it too, because I know all too well that a couple of positive home pregnancy tests, and a few good beta numbers don't mean shite.  Kate told me she tried to think of early pregnancy like this - every single day you make it, your odds of miscarriage drop.  So that is how I am choosing to look at it today.

If you know me in real life, I would ask that you keep this information to yourself.  We'll tell the rest of the people in our life a little further down the road, if things work out.  And to my fellow infertiles, your support means the world to me.  My only regret is that I waited so long to start blogging about this and commenting on others' blogs.  This is a super lonely process and you all make me feel understood and less alone.  That is priceless.