I've never been so emotionally drained as I have been the last five days. Considering my child died three months ago, that's saying a lot...
Monday morning , as requested, I traveled at the butt crack of dawn for blood work to Dr. Oz's office. I was really irritated to begin with, plus completely exhausted from getting up so early. At any rate, they called me into the lab and I got the short stick and drew the old lady tech who freaks when she sees my veins. Great. Well, it must have been my lucky day because she asked if she could just look around in my arm (I'm normally a hand draw) and wouldn't you know it? She got it!!! I was so impressed since I can't even remember the last time someone was able to find a vein in my arm. Literally... I can't remember!!
Following my bloodwork I traveled on to work to anxiously stalk my patient portal. Ha, work? No.... I'm getting paid to obsessively hit a refresh button on a website. Finally, around 2pm my lab results were posted. Hoping and praying for a less than 5 so that I could reschedule my hysteroscopy for this Friday, I clicked the link to the results.
19.0
Wait.... what? That doubled. I checked betabase.com.... yes, it doubled 47.9 hours time. They look for pregnancy betas to double at least in a 48 hours time. Hmmm, that's weird.
I waited around another almost two hours and no call from Dr. Oz's office so finally I called them. I talked to a nurse who explained that I needed to come back in two days for a repeat, plus they'd draw progesterone and TSH. Still not convinced, I asked her how likely was this a retained tissue issue vs. a new pregnancy? I'm not buying the pregnancy theory I explained. She told me they couldn't be sure until they drew another beta to see what the hcg level was doing. OK....
An hour later I realized I had a missed call and voicemail from Dr. Oz's office. Weird, since I already talked to them. I took a break from work and listened to the message. "Hi Kathleen, its so and so from Dr. Oz' s office. Not sure if someone has called you back but your hcg went up to 19 so it looks like we have a spontaneous pregnancy on our hands here!! Call us back to schedule your next beta for Wednesday". Click.
I'm sorry, spontaneous what?
I'm not even kidding you, I told my coworker I thought I was going to pass out. I had to sit down. I mean, WHAT?!? Of course I didn't call back because obviously I already spoke to a nurse and scheduled my repeat beta.
Ok, I'm not going to lie.... now I'm thinking, omg, am I the idiot here? The entire DR. office thinks I'm pregnant and I'm the only one that doesn't agree!!! Jim and I decided to go off the basis that I was pregnant and until proved otherwise pretend as if I were. Really? Is this possible?
No...but maybe? Commence two day freak out.
Tuesday rolls around and so does a massive stroke like migraine. Guess who has two thumbs and can't take migraine meds because there is a one in a million possibility that she's finding out the next day she's pregnant? This girl!! Sat and suffered through the migraine at work all day. Pure torture, let me tell you!! I kept staring at my bottle of Maxalt in my purse, contemplating taking one, but feeling guilty for even considering it until I knew what was going on for sure.
To top it all off, a trip to the bathroom reveals blood in my underwear. Great, ok well that solves it. I'm getting a period and that's the end of that. No pregnancy, game over. I initially was upset by this but the more I thought about it I was a little relieved. If there was tissue remaining in there then perhaps this shed will remove it and I can avoid the hysteroscopy.
By later that night the bleeding stopped. Matter of fact it was only a little bit of spotting to begin with. Great, back on the "Ok...so maybe I really am pregnant" kick. No cramping or anything anyways it was just a little spotting. All night I tossed and turned and couldn't get a sound sleep in. Finally my alarm went off at the buttcrack of dawn again and found myself on my way back to Dr. Oz's for my next beta.
While the tech was looking for a vein on me, he was making some small talk about my betas. Since he remembered me coming in on Monday and loudly expressing that I wasn't pregnant and that I was hoping the level was below 5 or zero, he was asking what my beta came back at on Monday. So I told him it was a 19 which more than doubled. He had a little smirk on his face, to which I replied "I bet you don't get a lot of ladies in this chair with doubling betas who still insist they're not pregnant, huh?" He said no, they usually jump for joy. Hmmm....not me , I told him.
As usual, I obsessively stalked the portal waiting for an update. Today they drew my p4 as well so that should help clue them in if its a pregnancy or not as well. Finally, around 2pm the results are posted.
16.0 and my p4 is .45
Not pregnant. Duh.
A few minutes later though, the nurse calls me to go over my results. She says "Well, your hcg went down to 16 from a 19 so I'm very sorry but this is a sign that your pregnancy isn't viable." I just about lost my shit. What pregnancy? I said, "I'm sorry but I'm a bit confused by all this. I had a loss in December and I'm pretty sure this is related to it and not a pregnancy. This would be the miracle of all miracles if it were a pregnancy." The nurse then asks me a few questions, including about my loss of Jack.... ok, someone needs to put a note in my chart because me having to repeat over and over that my baby died three months ago? Its getting really old.
So she says it could be cells left from the pregnancy that would do this to hcg but since my betas were followed to zero then its not likely. Uh... no , no one followed my betas. Apparently she wasn't aware of this and pretty quickly tried to get off the phone. I scheduled ANOTHER flipping beta for Tuesday and they want to make sure they go down to zero.
Screw this, I thought to myself, I'm emailing Dr. Oz about this. I drafted him an email, a little spastic given my state of mind, but asking him a lot of questions about my next steps. I asked if he thought methotrexate would be an option for me if my betas don't go down to zero. Also, if they do eventually go to zero can the hysteroscopy be skipped? I get a response back, stating that my hcg levels will be monitored closely to be sure the levels aren't viable (AGAIN with the viable!!!) and if they suddenly rise then he'd suggest a D&C as opposed to methotrexate as that would delay future pregnancy 3-6 months.
Seriously??
So basically, between Friday and Monday my hcg doubled what makes anyone think its going down to zero if it hasn't in three months?
I'm irritated beyond belief. I came home from work crying tonight and told Jim I needed a drink. So we went out for Mexican food and I had a big jumbo margarita. I think the guy knew I needed the extra alcohol because it was super strong. Seriously, Jack's been gone three months and I've been drinking most of that three months but my tolerance is still shot to shit, its pretty comical!
We also decided to get the hell out of dodge and go to Vegas in a few weeks. Jim and I both are sick of this crap and need to just do something fun and wild....Vegas should do the trick!!!
So basically.... still in the same spot I was in last week this time. Nowhere.
