This post brought to you by the letter F

You know what's hard?  Calming the F down when your doctor's office is F-ing with you!! 

So I was having a late lunch with my friend T on Friday, happily chatting away when my phone rings at about 3:30.  A different midwife from the one I spoke with on Wednesday is on the line and tells me she was looking at my beta.  She says, "It's not terrible, but it's more indicative of someone who is at 5 weeks.  You should be somewhere in the hundreds of thousands now.  I'd feel better if I saw them double, and I'm a little concerned that you're still spotting."  And sent me for another blood draw.

AHEM!!!!!!!  Excuse me, but 1. Why am I getting conflicting info from 2 midwives?  2. Why, when I asked the first midwife if the numbers should be doubling did she tell me no, and this one is telling me they should be?  and 3. WHY THE F is she calling me on FRIDAY at 3:30, before a 3 day weekend, telling me to get another draw when I specifically asked the other midwife two days before if I should do another draw and she told me no???  Oh yeah, and 4. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS at 6.5 weeks???  REALLY???  Doesn't that seem a tad unreasonably high???

Okay so it gets worse.  I BOOKED IT over to the hospital immediately, freaking out of course, hoping the lab could get my results to the doc on time for me to get the numbers before they closed at 5:00.  My mom met me there, spoke to the lab folks, and got them to agree to have the results ready in 45 minutes, 20 minutes before the Dr's office closed.  Right after the draw I called and spoke to the same midwife and asked if someone would be there until 5:00 to call me because the lab said they'd have the results ready before then.  She sort of hemmed and hawed but eventually said she would call me if the results came in on time.

I'll give you two guesses as to what happened next.  Yeah.  NO CALL by 5:00.  My phone was dying and after doing a little "get my mind off it" shopping with my mom, I got home right at 5, plugged in my phone and called the doc's office.  Naturally, they'd already switched the phones over to the operator, and when she called the back office line to see if anyone was still there, there was no answer.  Grrr...  Hubs wanted to call and yell at the on-call doctor, but luckily my mom has friends in high places.  She got a doctor friend of hers to get the results for me.  (Apparently the system was down until around 6:30 which is probably why my Dr's office never called, but DAMN!  They knew I was freaking out!  They couldn't at least call and say the system was down?)

So the numbers didn't double, the second result was 24,176 (the first was 3 days before and was 13,754).  According to this website and everywhere else I've looked online, this is still within normal range, and at this point the numbers usually double within 96 hours, not necessarily 2-3 days.  Who the F knows?  Knock on wood the spotting seems to have stopped as of yesterday.  But I'm still having a hard time thinking positive.  Ugh why does this have to suck so much???

I've been telling myself whether this works out or not, it's all good.  It's fine.  We weren't trying for this, we were happy before this happened and we'll be happy again.  And god dammit I'm going to Hawaii if no baby comes out of this, and I really want to go to Hawaii.  I already figured out what islands we'll go to (the big island to see waterfalls and volcanoes, then Oahu for Pearl Harbor and general relaxing) and to be honest I kind of have my hopes up for a second honeymoon.  Of course I am hoping for the other result more, but either way I figure I win.  (Remind me I said that if this whole pregnancy goes south, okay?  Actually on second thought, for your own safety you might not want to remind me.)

Back to the waiting game.  But I'm going to demand to talk to an actual DOCTOR on Tuesday, not one of these asshat midwives.

Breathing

Okay, some more updates.  After talking to my very cautious mom, I decided not to go in for the ultrasound today.  I know ultrasounds are generally considered very safe, but they do put out a lot of heat, plus pressure on the cervix, and I would rather just limit my exposure (and especially the little bean's exposure).  And given my past experience where the spotting picked up after the u/s, though I know logically it was due to impending m/c and not the actual fault of the u/s, I'm paranoid.  So instead I spoke to the midwife and asked for hcg testing.  I got my number this morning - 13,754 at 6 weeks 2 days.  She was very happy with that number, said it was nice and high and that unless I really wanted to she didn't see a need to test again tomorrow.  We'll see.  I had a small amount of very light pink gunk yesterday evening (first time in 48 hours), but if anything it seems to be getting lighter and more infrequent, rather than picking up daily like last time.  My mom and the hubs both think I just need to calm the F down and stop worrying so much.  I'm trying.

I'm definitely feeling a little nauseous these past few days.  I gag for no reason and then hubs laughs at me.  He's sensitive like that.  Actually it is pretty funny, we'll just be chatting and then BMLPH!  Even when I was stressed out every day working at the 7th Circle of Hell I didn't gag in the middle of a conversation, so I am thinking this is a good sign and not just nerves.  Eating helps too, and I think that's a good thing.

That's it for now.  I'm going to go work on Operation: Calm the F Down.

Waiting

I hate waiting.

The spotting continues... Or does it?  Yesterday morning I had very little, then definitely had some in the afternoon, then none last night and so far none this morning.  I am an enigma wrapped in a riddle. 

So I called the doctor's office and the midwife seemed a little puzzled herself.  She said it's good I'm not spotting now, but thought it best if I get an ultrasound to make sure things look okay.  I'm going in Wednesday morning for said ultrasound and I will report back with the news.  I'll be 6 weeks 3 days at that point.

Again, I'm not particularly thrilled with the similarities to last time that I'm experiencing.  I'm really trying to keep an even keel but let's face it, it's pretty much impossible when odds are 50/50 that things are okay.  I can't even tell how I'm feeling physically because I have a knot in my stomach most of the time.  I might be nauseous, but who knows if it's from hormones or stress?  Hubs says my boobs still look huge, so I guess that is good.  They don't seem to be shrinking LOL. 

Ugh.  Just gotta keep it together for another couple of days.  Hopefully the ultrasound will tell me something good.  Or at least something useful.