Diary of a Potentially Pregnant Woman

***This post was previously written on January 18, 2015.***

Tomorrow is the end of the elusive two-week-wait post-embryo transfer. Except I haven't had to wait two weeks. I basically jumped in the express lane towards the end of this process and now I'm fah-reeking OUT because tomorrow we find out IF...IF this whole deal actually worked. 

I had the frozen embryo transfer done on the afternoon of Friday, January 9, 2015. We got to pick the date and since I'm insanely obsessed with odd numbers (that's a whole other post in itself), I thought that particular date was the perfect match. Also, it means I didn't have to take off work for the mandatory bed rest that the transfer requires. For two and a half days, I barely walked to the bathroom and when I did, I perfected the role like I was Betty White walking the red carpet at the Golden Globes. 

How funny, I kept thinking, how many women out there never know the true date of their conception, yet continue leading their extremely dangerous lives all the while the inner workings of their tag-team tubes/ovaries/uteruses design and begin the process of making a baby. How many women were jumping up and down during an aerobics class, unintentionally shaking up the egg/sperm concoction they made with their mates the night before? How many women were shooting tequila at a mexican restaurant with friends? How many women were watching Channing Tatum perform his Oscar-award-winning dance to Genuine and then rush off to their bedrooms with husbands and boyfriends to have sex and cause their uterus' to contract, therefore giving said egg/sperm concoctions a very difficult time to STICK to the walls? 

How funny that most of the normal women in the world were doing all of these normal things and I was laid up like I had the Titanic necklace somewhere on my body. You know you wouldn't be able to move with that thing on you. They make babies every five minutes and continue doing these things like it's nothing. Ugh. I couldn't even get a sip of Pepsi for fear of over-caffeinating the embryo.

I digress. So tomorrow is the big day. It will be Day 34 in my cycle (the first day of my last period was December 17th). My last pregnancy (October 2013), I took a blood test on Day 27 and pregnancy was confirmed. I started bleeding on Day 37. I'm hopeful to find out the result as it should be clear as day by tomorrow. 

How pitiful that we won't even be able to get excited if I get a positive beta tomorrow?? (Beta means number or level of the pregnancy hormone HCG in your blood once an embryo has implanted itself into the lining of the uterus). The majority of women I know (or read about) have IVF done because they've never been able to get pregnant. I've done it four times, just can't stay that way. I never really got nervous about the egg-retrieval and preparing my body because clearly I've been able to do that part on my own four times. Plus this time, the little buggers are actually hand-delivered into the exact place they need to be. I just basically signed for it and Dr. Edelstein is a fancy-dressing Fed-Ex guy.

The blood tests following a first positive beta is just the absolute worst. It's all about the numbers and I'm a wordy kind of girl. 48 hours after the first positive test, I have to do it again and pray that the numbers have doubled. If they haven't or are slow rising, it means high potential for the pregnancy not to last. And I've been down that road. Got the t-shirt. 

I'll be excited when I see what I need to see nestled into my uterus on an ultrasound screen with a heart-beat; after all, we've never made it quite that far before. It's been a highly-stressful last 10 days. On Day 7, post transfer, I woke up with period-like cramps that lasted alllll day and allll night. It was devastating. It was quite the mental melt-down and I pretty much have been retired to my couch since that day. The cramps subsided the next morning, but after a scare like that, your brain can't settle down. I'm trying to contain myself tonight so I can focus on this upcoming week. It should be a DOOZY. I'll leave you with "A Diary of a Potentially Pregnant...via IVF...Woman's Guide to Surviving the (Didn't Even Make it to Two Weeks) Wait". 

1. Don't buy any books with the remainder of your Christmas Amazon gift card balance. Your brain can't settle enough to READ. Unless it's the same three sentences over and over over until you just say "F*@& it" and throw the Kindle to the love seat where it bounces into the floor and stays there for the next 4 days until you spontaneously decide to vacuum. <--- See #5

2. Don't read online community forums about what you will experience over the TTW (two week wait). It's worse than WebMd because it's pretty much women jacked up on junk food and estrogen and progesterone and they are IIINNNSSAAANNNEEE. Let me put it to you this way: Bitches. Be. Trippin'. Here's all you need to know if you ever go through this: if you cramp, there's nothing anybody can do. You might be pregnant. You might get your period. Deal with it and move on. Also, the progesterone shot EFFFINNNN SUUUCKKKKKS. There's no way to sugar-coat it so don't let some rando try to tell you tips to ease the pain. It hurts. It doesn't go away. End of story. 

3. DO binge watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix for an approximate total of 35 hours in a 48-hour time period. Can Lorelai Gilmore and Mindy Lahiri PLEASE, for the love of GOD, find each other and do a spin-off? Nevermind. My brain would explode.

4. DON'T watch Channing Tatum's Oscar-award-winning performance to "Genuine" on the Oxygen channel. Number one: it's not in HD. Number Two: you can't have sex afterwards because *in my whiny, mocking doctor voice* "sex is forbidden until the end of time times infinity because we don't want anything to contract the uterus" Yada yada yada. 

5. I realize that Lay's return of Tangy Carolina BBQ Potato Chips would be a bigger miracle than what I'm about to say, but it is entirely possible that you may, just for about 30 minutes, might want to clean your house. (It's brief, but it happened. It was magically horrid.) 

6. There are not enough People Magazine Celebrity Crosswords in the entire world. There. Just. Aren't. Let me rephrase. There are not enough People Magazine Celebrity Crosswords that I can actually complete in the entire world. (I've done like 87 over the last four days, yet none of them are done). 

7. Annnnd number seven. Stop reading what other people suggest you do while waiting for literal life-changing news. It's not worth going crazy over, like I am right now. I'm preaching to the choir, and every person that tells you "it's all okay" or "stop thinking about it" can royally suck it. Time is either going to go slow or go fast and the most important thing you can do while you wait is decide how you are going to handle the news, good or bad, when you get it. 

So what will the outcome be? Did it work? How many babies will it be? I guess you've been waiting over three years to find this out, just like me. 

One more day won't hurt us...