An update

I officially made it to 12 weeks yesterday but this has been much harder than I ever expected.

I have told multiple people when they ask how I am doing that everything has been great and that I am super happy to be nauseated - which don't get me wrong is still kind of true.  At some point though I just started to feel so bad that I officially pronounced that the old infertile me would be disappointed in the new pregnant me for not being able to suck it up.  I also had a difficult time posting because no matter what, I am kind of bragging to be pregnant - and it just felt like if I bragged that fate would get me.

So I didn't post and I didn't brag -but fate through me a fast ball that hit me upside the head anyway.

On Thursday I went in for my nuchal and saw this cute little thing that looks just like my husband.  Big head and a thick neck.  Problem is that thick little neck and some very low papp-a blood test results combined to give this little fetus a calculated 1 in 11 chance of down's syndrome.  Now, I am 34 years old and no spring chicken, but I was expecting a little more like 1/200 so to get hit with such a high number has been potentially devastating.

I say potentially devastating because this could all work out perfectly well, but its the mind screw that is going to be the problem.  When you get bad news like this, even though likely this will turn out to be nothing, its just too much to fathom.  You stop thinking about the next several months of the pregnancy and start to think about the rest of your life and how one little chromosome can change everything.

One could say I know a little to much - which is true.  My mind is on a high-speed rail train going through the years instead of focusing on just the next step.  But the truth is we are going to have to wait a signficiant amount of time to really figure this out - which is a lot of time to spend freaking out about it.

We were offered a cvs next week vs an amnio at about 15 weeks.  The whole idea behind first trimester screening is to give a couple an earlier answer so they don't have to wait so long to find out, but with the published rates of a 1/100 loss after cvs, I just can't take that chance.  If we lost the pregnancy I would NEVER forgive myself.  So we are waiting for about 15-16 wk for the amnio where the loss rate at my institution is more like 1/400.  Problem is that combine the waiting time for the amnio with the waiting time for the results we are looking at 5-6 weeks before we know anything more.

The other not-so-great thing is that I now have a 6 cm solid mass on one of my ovaries.  Gone are the huge cystic egg sacs that they were and here is this thing that actually freaked out my perinatologist more than my downs risk.  The funny thing is that the ovary with the mass is good old stumpy that really was but a small little half-an ovary after my surgery.  I guess I can't call him stumpy anymore.  Maybe lumpy - especially since he is adhered to my abdominal wall and getting pushed out by my uterus.  I already look about 18 weeks and am having trouble not looking very pregnant - but its really all ovary.


So please forgive the lack of positivity in this post.  I am feeling pretty beat up - both physically and emotionally.  Every time I think about the possibility that that perfect little embryo we implanted could have had a little extra chromosome in each of its 8 cells I physically can't even breathe.  Its like I have to remind myself to just take a breath because if I don't the gravity of it all will just crush my chest.

Through it all though I just keep telling myself the following two things:

1)  I still have a 91% chance of having a totally normal kid in there.  When you look at where I have come from between the 10% chance of conception per cycle to the thirty-something percent chance of a single embryo transfer IVF cycle taking to the 50% chance of miscarriage in the first few weeks -->  I'm still doing way better than before and this is the first time the odds are really in my favor.

2)  breathe