Thank you all for your support. I honestly don't know what I'd do without this medium to vent in. I came home early from work, have been completely messed up the entire day, and hope that one day, I can look back at this and laugh at how alarmist I was. Really.
A lot of you commented on maybe how being different from my earlier pregnancies might be a good thing. I'd want to see it that way, but the issue is, its kind of hard to imagine where lower progesterone levels might signify a better outcome. I know a lot in my physiology has changed after taking vitamin D (you change the levels of something that regulates over 3000 genes(to date) in your body, that is bound to happen), but its super confusing as well--- I've never tested progesterone since I got vitamin D replete, but a number of progesterone- related changes occured after I became replete- My luteal phages got significantly longer, my breast tenderness was very significantly increased overall, all of which you would assume was linked to higher progesterone blood levels. Instead, the very first progesterone blood test I do (this one) shows the opposite of what one would assume, levels of this hormone are lower (!!). Oh, how I hate thee, biology.
About the beta- its not like my beta levels in the first 2 failed pregnacies were abnormally high, they were higher than around 80-90 % of all reported singleton pregnancies reported in betabase. And this fits with what other women who used my donor told me- thier early betas were very high too(and both of them went on to have perfect pregnancies)- I assumed its a donor related thing, maybe his gene set comes with an extremely strong promoter for the beta-HCG gene. I read somewhere that differences in gene promoter strength can account for the vast variation you see among different people. Either way, what I'm trying to say is, the high HCG's were not indicative of any issue, whatever the issue was in my 2 pregnancies, it was something that manifested much later (for example, pregnancy # 2, which had practically the same betas as pregnancy # 1, ended because of a genetic abnormaility). Both progressed perfectly till around the 7 week mark, and pregnancy # 2 looked textbook perfect till the 8.5 week mark.
So right now, I cannot help but look at my lowish, just above average beta and think that its an indication of something being wrong. The doubling should tell us something,I'm going in for a blood test tomorrow around 1-2 - which should be around 46-47 hours.
I can deal with things going wrong in any single instance. But, when it comes down to it, a) the question of what the hell is wrong with me and b) can it ever be fixed is what really messes up my equilibrium. But after reading around a 1000 stories of infertility and rainbows, intellectually, I know this: we may be in for a horribly long road, but somewhere, down the line, at some point, things actually go right. You just need bucket loads of patience, and about a truckload worth of Kleenex.
A lot of you commented on maybe how being different from my earlier pregnancies might be a good thing. I'd want to see it that way, but the issue is, its kind of hard to imagine where lower progesterone levels might signify a better outcome. I know a lot in my physiology has changed after taking vitamin D (you change the levels of something that regulates over 3000 genes(to date) in your body, that is bound to happen), but its super confusing as well--- I've never tested progesterone since I got vitamin D replete, but a number of progesterone- related changes occured after I became replete- My luteal phages got significantly longer, my breast tenderness was very significantly increased overall, all of which you would assume was linked to higher progesterone blood levels. Instead, the very first progesterone blood test I do (this one) shows the opposite of what one would assume, levels of this hormone are lower (!!). Oh, how I hate thee, biology.
About the beta- its not like my beta levels in the first 2 failed pregnacies were abnormally high, they were higher than around 80-90 % of all reported singleton pregnancies reported in betabase. And this fits with what other women who used my donor told me- thier early betas were very high too(and both of them went on to have perfect pregnancies)- I assumed its a donor related thing, maybe his gene set comes with an extremely strong promoter for the beta-HCG gene. I read somewhere that differences in gene promoter strength can account for the vast variation you see among different people. Either way, what I'm trying to say is, the high HCG's were not indicative of any issue, whatever the issue was in my 2 pregnancies, it was something that manifested much later (for example, pregnancy # 2, which had practically the same betas as pregnancy # 1, ended because of a genetic abnormaility). Both progressed perfectly till around the 7 week mark, and pregnancy # 2 looked textbook perfect till the 8.5 week mark.
So right now, I cannot help but look at my lowish, just above average beta and think that its an indication of something being wrong. The doubling should tell us something,I'm going in for a blood test tomorrow around 1-2 - which should be around 46-47 hours.
I can deal with things going wrong in any single instance. But, when it comes down to it, a) the question of what the hell is wrong with me and b) can it ever be fixed is what really messes up my equilibrium. But after reading around a 1000 stories of infertility and rainbows, intellectually, I know this: we may be in for a horribly long road, but somewhere, down the line, at some point, things actually go right. You just need bucket loads of patience, and about a truckload worth of Kleenex.
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