23 September, 2019

Beta HCG FET #1

(Originally written on Tuesday August 20, 2019)
The date for my schedule beta HCG blood test was Monday August 19, 2019. My nerves were in check until Sunday night. We had a couple of friends over for dinner and as soon as they left, I was fretting like crazy.
Monday morning, we left our home to arrive at a local medical center at 8:00. They gave me sign in information so I could look up the results online. We thought this would be best to be able to look up the results as soon as possible.
As they were putting the bandage on, I inquired how long the results would take to arrive. I was told that the HCG would take a matter of an hour or two, but the progesterone and estrogen levels needed to be sent to a lab ninety minutes away. They would be processed by the end of the day. Not a problem.
When we arrived home, we ran into technical difficulties. We tried to access my online account for the health care system that did the blood draw. We wanted to find out as quickly as possible! After an hour of looking up information and calling unhelpful account representatives, we gave up. A lady told us we had done too many things wrong and she would send my information to technical support to solve.
I could not get my mind off the blood draw. With my daughter's transfer, I took several pregnancy tests, so while I was nervous the day of the draw, I would have been shocked if the results had been negative. With this blood draw, I was going off the faith of my husband who was confident that I would receive a positive result.
We called my clinic once or twice to ask if the results had been received, but nothing had been sent.
I finally turned to him and told him I needed to get out of the house. I gave him two dramatic road trip options (one to a zoo 3.5 hours away and the other to an eclectic grocery store 2.5 hours away). After a false start (the husband was too drowsy and we saw a four car accident happen right in front of us so we returned home for a nap), we headed out at around 1:00. We arrived at Jungle Jim's Grocery store just in time to shop for a couple of hours.
We had fun cruising around the store. There were so many fun things to look at and we were overwhelmed by the number of options. I called the clinic one last time. They still did not have the fax and their front office was closing soon.
"What time does the last person leave that would be able to call me if the results came in?"
I was told 9:00 in my time zone.
We had a very disappointing dinner and hit the road to come back home. As the minutes ticked by, I stopped looking after 9:00 hit. I was giving myself a pep talk and came to grips with the fact that I would not know until the following day.
"Do you want me to stop at a CVS?"
The nine most beautiful words of the day spoken by my husband.
When we were less than an hour from home, he stopped to purchase a pregnancy test at a CVS.
I waited until we got home and put our very sleepy toddler to bed. (I don't think she woke up the entire time I got her out of her car seat, carried her inside, and placed her in her bed.)
Then I took the test.
I started crying as I waited. The emotional buildup was over. I would finally know, one way or the other. The sense of relief was very intense.
My wait was very short. After only about thirty seconds, a very positive result appeared.
My husband came in and saw me crying. I am a big crier. You never know the cause of my crying.
The rest of the night before going to bed, he reminded me approximately 30 times that I was pregnant.

The next morning, there was a flurry of phone calls between us and the clinic that did my blood draw. Once my fertility clinic opened, I started calling and emailing them.
My amazing coordinator finally called.
"Do you have a minute?"
My heart dropped. Even with a positive pregnancy test, you still want a strong number. If the number is under 5, you are not pregnant. If it is between 5 and 25, it's a chemical pregnancy. If the number is between 25 and 100, you are pregnant, but we would be very cautious. If the number was above 100, I would be good to go.
An at-home pregnancy test can pick up very low levels. I was worried what her question meant.
"Well, you're pregnant! The number was 444. Congratulations!"
My heart started beating again.
We chatted about the blood draw I need to do again next week to make sure the pregnancy is still progressing the way it should and the ultrasound I should have done in just a few weeks.