MicroblogMondays: Distracting Myself During the Two Week Wait

Today is 5 days past 5 day transfer.  Unfortunately, beta blood test is not until 12 days past 5 day transfer, which is December 7th, 2015.  How am I doing?  I think so far I am doing pretty well.  At times I imagine it all working out, beta being over 100, second beta doubling beautifully, and a strong heartbeat at 6 1/2 week gestation.  At other times, I doubt the quality of Kevin, our embryo, and think for sure that it might not have implanted and might have been absorbed by my body.  I know that it’s quite normal to move between being hopeful and having doubts.  Despite feeling doomed at times, I talk to Kevin many times a day.  I tell Kevin how much I love it, and how much I hope we will meet face-to-face in nine months.  I tell Kevin to stay put, grow, and hang on tight.  I wake up in the morning talking to Kevin.  At night I close my eyes with my hands on my belly, telling Kevin good night.  Bob is the same way.  Since these last few days were a holiday, we spent a lot more time together than usual.  Throughout the day, he would call me over and say, “Let me say Hi to Kevin”.  He would put his hand on my belly and say to Kevin, “How are you doing?  Stay there and be strong.”  At night, he tells Kevin good night.  We joked that the sermon yesterday was the first one that Kevin attended.  It probably sounds very silly because maybe we are actually talking to nothing.  Kevin may or may not still be there.  We still hold on to the hope that Kevin is still there hanging out and snuggling in a cozy spot that would be its home for the next nine months.  There is hope before the beta.

For those who have been following me for a while, you know that I don’t use home pregnancy test.  I would rather be ignorant and think that I am pregnant until proven otherwise on beta day.  In that sense, I am a wimp.  I cannot bear the possibility of a stark white pee stick.  I just can’t.  At times, it feels very surreal that a transfer actually took place a few days ago and I have an embryo inside me that was made with my husband’s sperm and a donor’s egg.  It sometimes feels like I can almost just carry on with my life as if nothing had happened a few days ago, and be ignorant about it until beta day.  At other times, I just want to be able to close my eyes, fall asleep, and wake up on the day I give birth to my child.

Physically I have been feeling nothing.  No pregnancy symptoms.  No side effects from the progesterone in oil.  It really just feels like any normal day.  I know I am not supposed to be feeling anything.  At least many of my friends told me that they also felt nothing during their two week wait.  After my previous transfer last March, I was feeling symptoms and that resulted in nothing.  No baby.  No pregnancy.  So symptoms may really be overrated.  Emotionally, I feel very differently from my last transfer.  The last transfer was my last chance using my own eggs before moving onto donor eggs.  It felt like a huge weight on my shoulders because the hope was that we would never have to make a decision about using donor eggs.  This time, I know that if this round doesn’t work, we still have Lucy the frozen embryo.  If I don’t get pregnant with Lucy, we will look for another donor and do a fresh cycle.  As long as we still have the funds, there is still hope that we’ll become parents one day.  In a sense, the pressure is off, although it would still be a huge blow if this round doesn’t work.

Parents Via Egg Donation has a wonderful article about how to survive the two week wait.  Since I don’t POAS, distraction is the key.  The article has so many great suggestions.  I have done quite a few things to distract myself.  It started with visiting with Jate and my wonderful friend Jane the day after thanksgiving.  The last time we met Jate was right after we lost our first donor.  She was just two months old.  This time she is already over four months old and is so much more interactive.  This little baby girl has the most entertaining facial expressions during her nap and while awake.  When she woke up from her nap, she looked at me and gave me the biggest smile, the kind that would melt hearts.  Bob helped feed her the rest of her milk while Jane had her lunch, and he held her the rest of the time.  Here are a few snap shots of her.

Jane asked if I minded maternity stuff because some people are afraid of jinxing things.  I absolutely am not afraid of it, so I received a bunch of books and a fetal doppler!  I gave Jane a huge hug, thanking her for the vote of confidence that some day I will carry a baby so I can be obsessive and check the baby’s heart beat all the time.

Another way to distract myself is to cook.  Tonight I made two dinners in preparation for lunch and dinner for the next couple of days.  I tried two new recipes and loved them both.  I particular like the turkey and butternut squash soup.

Bob and I took a nice walk around the neighborhood yesterday afternoon.  It was crisp and Sunny.  I am thankful that I have a job to go to so most of the time I don’t have to think about the beta.

Seven more days to go.  I will take a good look at all the suggestions for distractions.  Maybe curling up with a good book in my bed.  What do you think?