Ho...hum...

OK, so seriously, what's a chronically obsessed IF girl to obsess over when she's in the wait for her first u/s?!  Especially when work has become all grading and no interactions with "real" people. Time is crawling.  I cannot believe it is only Wednesday. 

Trying to think of something clever to say...  I got nothing.

Let's see what's going on:

• Still finishing grading -- briefly freaked out because I couldn't find a take home exam from one of my seniors. Turns out she forgot to turn it in.  Not a good thing for her (although she's supposed to be dropping it by any moment now...), but so glad it wasn't my fault!  My office is a sty at the moment, but I really didn't think that it had gotten buried somewhere.  
• My intro students rocked the final exam (that is given to all sections of our intro class -- one of my colleagues told me they "spanked the other sections") -- YAY!  Always makes me feel good to feel effective as a teacher!
• My body has decided that, no matter what time I go to bed, it will pop awake at 5 am.  I will then sleep fitfully for an hour or two longer having anxiety dreams -- about a m/c, about my classes, about life, etc., etc.  Fun.
• At about 1:30 in the afternoon or so, I get really hazy and can't focus...hence the blogging at the moment.  I can't decide if this is really pregnancy related or just the fact that I'm not sleeping very well at night and have cut out caffeine completely.  I just want to power through my grading so I can go home and take a nap.
• Some random cramps still -- less than before, though.  I can't decide if I'm nervous that the cramping is gone or glad that the cramping is gone.
• I can no longer wear 34D bras and am starting to overflow the DDs I used in the 2ww.  This doesn't bode well...
• Sometimes my bbs hurt more and sometimes less.  For the BTDTs out there, how long do your bbs hurt?  Does it last the whole pregnancy?
• Starting to let myself think about things in terms of "how pregnant I'll be when..."
• I miss lattes.
• So bloated.
• Still a week before our first u/s...  time is moving SOOOOOOOOOOO slowly.

***teeth chattering***

You know what's wrong?  Sitting in your office in May with a space heater turned on wearing two layers of long sleeved shirts, a heavy sweatshirt and a wool scarf wrapped around your head and neck with your teeth chattering and fingers turning blue.  Why would this happen, you ask?

It's "boiler shut-off" week!  

Every year at this time, as soon as students are finished with finals, our school shuts down the boilers on campus for two weeks for maintenance.  Unfortunately, the buildings are wired so that the hot water going through the pipes is taken into account as part of the heating/cooling systems.  When the hot water is off, the HVAC system seems to recognize that it is too cold, so it keeps blowing what it thinks is hot air out through the vents.  Except, with the boilers off there is no hot air.  So, the HVAC system keeps trying and trying and trying to make it warmer.  Instead, it gets colder and colder and colder!!

Now, if it were actually warm out, this wouldn't be a huge deal.  But, it's raining and cold and we're all turning into popsicles. 

I think I'm going to go grade at home... 

(Still haven't settled on a pen color, yet.  ☺)

Grading is fun!

Sorry I've been a bit MIA -- finals ended and I've been grading so much I've started to bleed purple ink. (I'm all about color when grading -- I tend to only grade in red if I'm feeling annoyed at my students. For finals for my intro class it's been purple this semester. I might change to green when I switch to my advanced class. Keeps me from getting bored. Sigh...I love pens.)

We did escape for the day on Friday and went to a Dutch Festival in a small town we often pass through in Iowa. It was cold and dreary out, but nice to just wander around outside for a bit. And, admittedly, eat really unhealthy dutch pastries smothered in butter and powdered sugar. Yum. (Obviously, m/s hasn't hit at this point...)

On the way back I made my first pregnancy related purchase. I got a BeBand. I'm at a weird point where my pants fit in the morning but, by the end of the day, I've gained 4 pounds of bloat and I can't keep them snapped. I probably could have gotten away without it for a little longer but we don't have a Target in town and I was at one, so I figured I'd go for it. It felt really weird. I felt like I needed to hide it in my basket. I felt like someone was going to accuse me of jumping the gun.  I felt like, by buying the thing, I was jinxing everything.  (IF sucks.)

Anyway, yesterday was a little weird. I can't seem to let go of the feelings of resentment about Mother's Day that IF has given me. I was just really down all day long. I felt like I should have been so happy, but I just wasn't.  When I tried to explain it to my DH he said "well, you really can't feel that way anymore now that you're pregnant." But, I can't just suddenly let go of these feelings. Especially when I'm still anxious about this pregnancy (I know I have no reason to be, but that's another thing it's hard to let go of -- anxiety). I feel sadness for myself that it took so long to get here. I feel sadness for my loss of naivete. I feel resentful for those who get pregnant so quickly. I feel guilty that I made it this far when others deserve it so much and haven't.  And, I feel such sadness for all of my IF friends who are struggling so much. I don't feel like making it to 5 1/2 weeks pregnant suddenly makes me forget what I've been through and what my friends are still going through. I think I just felt sad for all of us. 


OK, I'd better get back to grading.  My green pen awaits.  Ooh, or maybe I'll go with orange, now. 

Just because you're paranoid...

...doesn't mean that everyone isn't whispering behind your back about you being pregnant.

OK, so I know that over the past year and a half or so, many of the women and some of the men in my building have probably been involved in some conversation or another about when my DH and I are going to have kids.  (Many of them to my face.)  My DH and I work together, and as we've been reminded "aren't getting any younger" and many of them were at our wedding.  I've dodged many questions.  I've changed many a subject.  I've had to bend down to get people to look at my eyes instead of staring at my stomach.

I'm sure I'm just more sensitive because I've got a secret. But, I swear in the past 5 days it's gotten worse.  See, part of the problem is that the walls are really thin in between our offices.  I've had to have lots of veiled, half-whispered conversations with RE receptionists and nurses over the past 10 months: "I started today and I need to schedule something..." Monday afternoon, my office neighbor (the one who, about a year ago, told an alumna to rub her child on me hoping it would "rub off") came running into my office with a big grin and asked me how I was doing. This was about five minutes after I'd gotten off the phone with the nurse to reschedule my u/s (we changed it to 6w6d). I was practically whispering on the phone and it isn't like I haven't been scheduling u/s appointments for almost a year, but I'm certain that she knows...

And of course, the fact that I am currently a giant ball of bloatedness isn't helping! I start the day with my pants fitting and, by the end of the day, I'm hanging out over the top. It's amazing, I look three months pregnant at the end of the day! I'm going to have to start wearing looser shirts. I keep getting looks. Again, I'm sure it isn't more than it was two weeks ago, but it feels worse!

Yeesh, I really need to just relax! LOL it never goes away, does it?

Thank you Secret Supporter!! :)

To my wonderful Secret Supporter Arlyne -- THANK YOU!! ☺  I LOVE the gift!! 

If my camera were working at the moment I would have posted a picture, but I'll describe instead... baby blanket knitting book and needles and baby yarn!  How absolutely perfect!  I mean, seriously, how perfect?!  There is really nothing I love knitting more than baby blankets and the thought that I get to knit for my own baby just has me all choked up.  Thank you so much!!

I have it on good authority from your Secret Supporter (whoever she may be...) that your gift is leaving town today... I SWEAR!!  I'm so sorry it's taken... uh...her... so long to get it out. *hangs head in shame*

Beta #3 -- It's all good!! ☺

So, here are the final beta results:

Beta #1 -- 13 DPO -- 52.8
Beta #2 -- 15 DPO -- 86.2
Beta #3 -- 17 DPO -- 221 

YAY for 221!!! :)  That gives a doubling time of 36 hours (Thanks Mel for that website...)!  So, we've swung from one side of the curve to the other and I couldn't be happier!!!  

Thanks so much to all for your comments and your doubling vibes!  I swear I wasn't meaning to be obsessed about the beta level before.  I guess my "numbers" mind just couldn't not look obsessed. 

I took my temperature for one last time today.  After all these months of temping, I couldn't stop because I was just so amazed to see how it really did look triphasic and stayed high!  I'm going to stop, though.  Really, I can stop any time I want to.  I'm not addicted.  Nope.

I have an u/s scheduled for May 17th.  I think that will be 6w3d.  I'm hoping that's not too soon to see the hb.

I think I may actually be beginning to believe that I'm pregnant.  Holy cow.

Beta #2 -- we're a little bit in limbo...

It's not bad...it's just right on the borderline.

Here are the numbers:

Beta #1 -- 13 DPO -- 52.8
Beta #2 -- 15 DPO -- 86.2

(At least, I think it was 86.2, it might have been 82.6, I was driving and a little distracted.  I'm going to think positively and say it was 86.2)

So, the nurse and doctor are being cautious because the doubling time, if you consider it 48 hours different, is 75 hours which is a little slow.  But, it was actually only 42 hours different, so then the doubling time is 66 hours which is OK.

(Yes, I made a plot and derived an equation to adjust the hours.  The ones on-line would only let me do it in days not hours...  My specialty is quantitative measurement of chemical concentrations and it really bothers me when numbers aren't controlled exactly.  I would never make a measurement that way... Hello, my name is Rebecca and I'm a geek.)

So, it's not bad, it's OK, it's probably not as "only OK" as it sounds, but it's not stellar.  So, we won't really know anything until I go back, now, on Monday morning for beta #3.

Meanwhile, I'm really OK with it.  Just please send me lots and lots of doubling vibes.

(And, yes, this time I'm making sure that I actually go back in 48 hours...)

On a completely unrelated, but incredibly sad, note.  A student at my school drowned last night during an end-of-the-semester celebration.  It's absolutely heartbreaking.  He was only 19.