Second Ultrasound

SIL’s beta yesterday ended up being a little over 1,000, so she is apparently pregnant. Her first u/s is scheduled for the last day of this month. She told me her last AF was on 1/13 (our transfer day, ironically), so I think she’s about four weeks along. I’m finding the silver lining by reminding myself that at least she won’t be feeling jealous or resentful toward me for the next seven months, because she has her own good news. This turn of events makes me even more thankful that our FET has been successful, because I’m not sure I could have lived through SIL’s pregnancy if our cycle had failed. I am feeling incredibly grateful today.

Yesterday after that stunning news, I started feeling very anxious about what was going on inside my uterus. I called my local monitoring office, and they were able to move up my appointment by a day, so my DH and I went in there yesterday at 1:00. We were at 7w3d yesterday. Both hearts were beating away at 161 and 149 bpm, and they both measured right on target (one at 7w3d and the other at 7w2d). I posted pictures here, if you want to look. Once I saw the heartbeats, I was able to relax a little bit. Later I asked my CCRM nurse if a heart rate of 149 is slow for 7 weeks 3 days, and she said they just look for anything between 100-200 bpm. She said I could have drank juice beforehand, and the heart rates could have flip-flopped. The much more important indicator is how closely they measure as compared to the weeks of pregnancy, and all was perfect there. Whew. I joked to my DH that the embryo with the slower heart rate is probably going to be just like him, laid-back and relaxed, and the embryo with the faster heart rate is going to be just like neurotic, anxious old me. : ) My mom is convinced that the difference in heart rates means one is a boy and one is a girl.

They also saw no evidence of the weird cyst-like mass that was seen at our first ultrasound. The RE said it could have been a fold in the gestational sac, or a portion of the lining that was positioned strangely. Whatever it was, it wasn’t seen yesterday, and it wasn’t an identical twin. Relief!

My hormone levels are also fabulous, even after weaning off Endometrin and Estrace starting last Wednesday. Yesterday, my estradiol level was 1498 (just needed to be >300), and my progesterone level was 41 (just needed to be >20 since I’m injecting PIO). These high numbers mean my body is taking over the responsibility of providing a hormone supply to our embryos. Now I can start weaning more medicine–My nurse instructed me to inject 1 cc of PIO every other day now (instead of every day), and I can reduce from four Vivelle patches to three patches every other day. I’ll have my hormone levels rechecked on Friday, and my next ultrasound is next Tuesday at 8w3d. This will be my final u/s with the local RE before moving on to the perinatologist group on March 1st. And I’m probably only about two weeks from graduating from CCRM–Crazy!!!