Friendships and Betas

Monday was really hard for me. I am in the early stages of trying to rebuild a friendship that got caught in the awkward emotion-filled mess of: They got pregnant, we lost a baby; they had a baby, we lost another baby. Neither of us was able to be there for the other during some of the biggest moments of our lives. How do you repair that? Their baby is their life; they are now a unit. I totally get it. At the same time, their baby (like all babies) is a reminder of our pain and our losses.

On Monday morning I also got a call from my RE. My Luteal HCG progesterone blood results were back. And they were good. Really good. Scary good. I could hear it in the nurse practitioner’s voice. With numbers that good, she was pretty sure that not only was the Luteal HCG working, but that I am likely pregnant. I hung up the phone and sobbed in terror. Then I told myself it still might not be true.

Those of you who haven’t experienced recurrent losses, or my dear friends who have tirelessly been striving to get pregnant without avail, are probably thinking: What the hell? What is wrong with you? Can’t you even get excited at the possibility of that desired outcome?  The thing is it’s terrifying. Just because I might be pregnant again, does not mean I will have a baby. Based on our previous experiences, for us, pregnancy = joy, excitement, mindfucking fear, loss, heartache, and pain.

I had been instructed to wait until Wednesday to test, since the HCG from the injections would still be lingering in my system and could cause a false positive. I didn’t even know if I was pregnant, and yet I was already willing myself not to get attached, and preparing to say goodbye.  I was praying that I would miscarry early.

When Monday evening came, I had discovered our final set of friends had announced their pregnancy. That’s it. There aren’t anymore. We have watched pretty much every single set of friends get pregnant and go on to have healthy babies in the time we’ve been trying. We are now alone on the island. I wasn’t surprised. I had prepared myself in anticipation of this day. Of course we are happy for them. They are an amazing couple and I had been praying they’d conceive easily. I can genuinely say I do not want to see other couples suffer in the ways we have. I want my friends to have seamless conceptions and naively blissful pregnancies. But since we are human, we are also jealous of the fact they all get to have what we don’t.

As I stared at their Facebook announcement, for a split second I let a tiny thought escape my mind. Maybe this possible pregnancy of ours will happen, maybe we will have kids together. I abruptly popped that little thought bubble. No! It doesn’t work that way for us. We don’t get to have kids at the same time as our friends. I know better, it never works out that way. And then another thought occurred, a terrifying thought: What will come of this friendship? Are we going to lose yet another friendship because they will be pregnant and have a baby during a time when we could possibly be struggling to cope with continual miscarriages?

I couldn’t help but cry in fear of not only losing this potential pregnancy, but what would come of this friendship? They currently live out of state, but they will be moving back to our state this fall. We have been looking forward to having them closer.  On Monday night I lay awake in concern. Would this friendship be like so many and wither under the strain of our losses and their gain? Would I feel the need to avoid them because of the pain it causes me to see others so easily achieve what we can’t? Will we drift apart, because they will get to move on with life and be parents, while we might be caught in the webs of still trying to conceive? I don’t know.

I had already been struggling with: How do we rebuild a friendship after it has been torn down by the hardships between fertile friends vs. infertile friends? How one prevents this breakdown from occurring at all, is beyond me.

The lapse in time that occurred between Monday and Wednesday morning was gradual. I felt I was moving in slow motion. My husband was on a work trip in Chicago, and while he called to see if I needed consoling once our friends had broke their news, he didn’t ask about my progesterone blood results. And I couldn’t bring myself to divulge. (Honestly, the fact he didn’t ask was fine. Blood tests are so frequent in this journey. And I could tell he was tired and had a lot of work to do.)

On Tuesday night I set out my home pregnancy test (hpt) in preparation for Wednesday morning. If the test was positive I would need to go in straight away to see my RE.  I tossed and turned much of the night. When my alarm went off I headed to the bathroom. The test was positive. I am pregnant for the 3^rd time. I immediately let my husband know via text, because honestly you don’t make a big deal of it when the previous two failed.  He was of course surprised considering we weren’t confident in this cycle, due to the whole IUI timing fiasco.

Once at the RE, they drew my blood and promised to call in the late afternoon with the results. We would be looking at two things. One: betas. The beta is a sequence of two blood draws measuring HCG, which should roughly double over a two day period in early pregnancy. I will say my beta with our last loss doubled just fine. So, it isn’t necessarily an indicator of a successful pregnancy, but it can reveal a failing pregnancy early on. Two: my pesky nemesis, progesterone.

The nurse practitioner called around 4:30 p.m. She said, “Yep, you are pregnant.” Really? They always say that. Yes, I know, I had a positive hpt. Still, I guess it feels good to hear those words. My progesterone had already dropped significantly, so I would need to begin progesterone injections again. My first beta came back at 2,358. With my previous pregnancy the first beta was 174. Like I said, the number itself doesn’t mean a whole lot and there is a wide range of what is considered ‘good’, but knowing this number was higher, somehow made me feel a little better.

After I heard that first beta I started to relax and ordered myself to stop thinking about miscarriage (easier said than done).  The number was good. Today I am pregnant. All I can do is take it one day at a time.  I keep telling myself: even if #3 ends in loss, we will still, somehow, be yet another step closer to that someday end goal.

On Friday I went in for my second beta. The nurse practitioner took way too long to call me with the results that evening. By 6 p.m. I still hadn’t received a call. I was concerned it was a bad sign, and I was also worried I would have to go the entire weekend without knowing. She finally called and apologized for the delay. Beta #2: 5,349. Awesome. I couldn’t help but allow a small flutter of excitement to escape. With my previous pregnancy my second beta was 517 (with a three day gap between, rather than two days). My progesterone had dropped a little more, but I had already had my first injection, and it was still within range.

There are a handful of reasons miscarriages occur. Sometimes, like with my first loss, we don’t know why.  Here are the major causes:

1. chromosomal (our second loss, and not preventable)
2. anatomy (the structure of the uterus, I should be OK there)
3. infection (I will be on an antibiotic for 8-10 weeks as a preventable measure)
4. blood/clotting issue (I am on baby aspirin as a preventable measure)
5.  hormonal (I am on twice weekly progesterone injections)
6.  immune issues (it’s a complicated cause, we aren’t concerned with that at this time)

My RE has me on a combination of pills and injections in an effort to prevent what we can. I have particularly struggled with being put on Erythromycin (the antibiotic). I understand my doctor feels the benefit outweighs any possible risk. However, I detest the idea of being on any medication, and especially while pregnant. After much stewing and debating with the nurse practitioner and RE, I gave in. I told myself I have to trust my RE 100%. The goal is to keep this pregnancy, and we are going to do everything we can to bring home a healthy baby.

The Stay Pregnant Protocol (SPP)

I would like to thank each one of you for your support, thoughts, and prayers. Knowing we have so many incredible wishes and prayers spinning around in the universe is the best reassurance we can get at this point! Once again, our journey dangles somewhere between the sweetest thing and potential loss. This is nowhere near over. We ask that each of you continue to send out those happy thoughts and prayers!