Waiting.

How I despise the waiting game.  It's getting really, really old.  In no way do I feel connected to this pregnancy.  I have a hard time saying it's a pregnancy.  I can't fathom it ending up with a baby.  I've learned, I suppose, after months of negative tests, high hopes, failure, bleeding and endless needles and medications, to contain any real hope and have learned to live comfortably, if not happily, in the 'unpregnant but wanting' sad group of women.

I've been quite anxious about this..... pregnancy.  It's hard to even admit that.  It seems that perhaps my miscarriage and the months of trying has played a harder hand on my heart that I have been willing to admit.  Because this fear, this unsettled-ness is real.  I'm pulling all my tricks out of my sleeve - distracting myself, pampering with long baths, good books, lots of sleep and socializing.  I'm eating healthy, watching favoite shows, and getting a somewhat reasonable amount of work done.  I'm thinking positively all I can.  I could move mountains with this positve polly-anna brain.  But it lasts about ten minutes before those mountains come rushing back, towering tall over me and blocking out the sun, and reason.

Almost all the women who I shared the January/February IVF cycle with have had early ultrasounds, and a vast majority are happily expecting, stating heart rates, posting cute little blob ultrasound photos, starting to get over the sheer shock of the positive test and really sink into the fact that they are healthily pregnant.  The other few women have pretty much accepted the losses, are licking thier wounds, but moving already onto the next cycle.  What I'm trying to say is they have answers.  They know what's going on.

But I am in limbo.  My numbers, while low, are rising well and are 'acceptable' and seem 'promising'.  I got a last beta this morning and of course, can't get the results until tomorrow morning.  I am highly suspect that the nurse at the medical clinic didn't think they were good so she wouldn't tell me, but I am also highly prone to paranoia at this point, and it's not unusual for the results to not be in until the next day, so I'm really waiting to see about that one.  (see, waiting again...) 

My courage fed by a few comments about how it was unthinkable that I am being made to wait two and a half weeks (notice the wait word again), and my own growing anxiety about a blighted ovum, or a poorly developing embryo, I called my clinic and pretty much begged for an early ultrasound.  They relented and ordered our local lab to fit me in.  I went into the lab at 2:45.  There are two techs that I've seen throughout the last 7 months of tests and ultrasounds.  One is in her early 40's, she's kind, she lets me see the screen, and she tells me just enough to confirm what I already know.  The other is in her mid twenties, and seems to be there to put in her time so she can move onto a bigger and better thing.

Of course, I got the younger one.  She started off by asking why I was there at 5 weeks, 6 days for a 7 week viability scan.  I said there was nothing wrong, but I wanted a little piece of mind, that this was for my mental, if not physical health.  She said, "you'll leave here with more questions than answers", and said that there is 'never' anything to see on such an early scan.  She said I would not see a heartbeat, nor much of anything. 

I asked if we were doing a transvaginal ultrasound.  I know that they are the standard, and the only way to get any detail at this early stage. 

"Transabdominal ultrasound cannot reliably diagnose pregnancies that are < 6 weeks' gestation. Transvaginal ultrasound, by contrast, can detect pregnancies earlier, at approximately 4 ½ to 5 weeks' gestation. Prompt diagnosis made possible by TVU can, therefore, result in earlier treatment."

She said she didn't see any reason to do one, and she was not going to 'disturb' anything by doing a vaginal ultrasound.  I thought to myself... 'disturb?'  What's she going to do, come at me at a run, using stabbing motions, with no lube on the thing?  I felt ridiculous and foolish for being there.  I was being chastised by a young woman who might have training on an ultrasound machine, but whom I figure I could pretty much take on any field regarding business, sex, relationships, intelligence, motherhood, and yeah, even pregnancy. 

She did an abdominal ultrasound.  Which, was pretty much a clear sign that she was humoring me, but not well enough for it to be done in a nice way.  She was obviously humoring me.  She was insultingly quick.  The moment she put the ultrasound thingy to my stomach, the little black blog jumped onto the screen.  That's the gestational sac.  It looked ominously dark and empty, but I also know enough to know that she can't see worth a fuck with an abdominal ultrasound, so I wasn't really concerned.  To be honest, I think she was surprised to see it.  She took three quick still shots, measured them, and said I could clean off the gunk and I was good to go.  Then she left. 

I think, from what I saw on the screen, before she noticed me looking, and turned it off, that the sac measured about 12 mm x 3.5 mm.  I think that's about normal for where I am.  There was nothing else to see, I wasn't surprised or even disapointed.  I do think that seeing that sac did make things a bit more real for me.  I think.. that if I'd had a nice, compassionate person to do the ultrasound, one who gave a crap about her patient, that I might have seen a little yolk sac.  But I didn't.  And I know when my battle is lost.  I know that young brat is the closest I'll get to some answers, and knowing that I did all I could do, I feel a sense of acceptance in what will be, already is.

Tommorrow I see my new family doctor.  I've heard good things.  I'm hopeful that my beta will be somewhat decent.  I'm hoping he says my ultrasound was somewhat normal.  I'm waiting for anything. 

Waiting.