Another Two Week Wait

Written June 13, 2013.

Those familiar with the world of trying to conceive--and particularly those familiar with trials that infertility brings--are all too familiar with the 2WW (the acronym we use in online communities). The brief biology lesson (because I needed one when we first started trying in July 2011!) is this: the "typical" woman has a 28 day cycle where she ovulates on or around day 14 and will know by day 28 (or sometimes even earlier) if she's pregnant. For the first 14 days of a cycle, she tracks her temperature and calculates her fertile window--or, in my case, she goes to monitoring appointments and gets nightly injections. Once ovulation has been confirmed--or, in the case of a medicated cycle, the Ovidrel trigger shot has been given and the IUI has been completed--she enters the dreaded Two Week Wait: a period of quiet anxiety and endless questioning. Every twinge, every temperature dip, every food craving is analyzed to see if it might indicate pregnancy. In the case of my doctor's office, in the 2WW, I was also required to "act pregnant," meaning no alcohol, no sushi, no hot tubs, no caffeine, and the list goes on. But, if those two little lines show up two weeks later, it's all been worth it.

Yesterday, we completed our third and final beta blood draw. Our numbers were good--they doubled once again within the 48 hour window that they're supposed to, and my doctor declared that I no longer needed to have my arm poked at 6:45AM. Instead, I was allowed to schedule our first ultrasound for sometime in our sixth week of pregnancy; given Jeff and my schedules, it will be on Tuesday, June 25, when I'm 6 weeks, 5 days pregnant. But that's nearly two weeks away, so here I am again, exactly where I was in November/December 2012.

This early in pregnancy, there's not much to tell me that things are going well--or, really, that anything is going on at all. I'm exhausted--but Jeff would tell you that I'm always prone to a 9:30PM bedtime. I'm ravenously hungry--but I would tell you that I'll never turn down food. So this turns into another two week wait, a time of quiet and reflection as we anxiously await our first chance to see our little one.

Waiting is hard.