Dates and Stuff

Not much new to report. A week from today we’ll know if I’ve got a sac or two inside, and that will be a major milestone. I won’t feel great until I see a heartbeat though, and from what I understand that won’t be until 7 weeks. My favorite site to play with these days is the IVF due date calculator so I can be reminded of where I’m at-- I’m so bad at counting days. Today is 5 weeks 3 days.

Have I mentioned how eerie my dates are as far as lining up with other events in my and H’s life? We found out we were going to trigger on his 30th birthday, which was earlier than anticipated. The retrieval day was when we had our first date, 12 years ago. Transfer was the day H’s grandmother passed away. We have always planned to name our first daughter after her, and now that she passed away on that day, if it’s a girl it will be even more meaningful. We found out about our positive beta the weekend of our anniversary of becoming an official couple. (Yes, we still keep track of it, though we don’t do much other than go out to dinner that day.) Now here’s the best part of all--according to the IVF due date calculator, my due date is my mom’s 60th birthday in May, which is a few days before our wedding anniversary. It will be her first grandchild. Or grandchildren. H and I can’t help but refer to both embryos until we know for sure.

My mom is just tickled. Beyond tickled. When I call her and she hears it’s me, the absolute happiness in her voice is downright scary. I have never evoked this reaction from my mom before, and I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve never been the favorite child. My sister has always been the clear winner in that category. Now, my sister says my mom practically hangs up on her if she’s on the phone with her and I beep in. I said—how odd, mom was never that fond of me. Oh, but she’s fond of her potential grandchildren, my sister replied. My mom has expressed how great it would be if I had twins on her birthday, since she herself is a twin.

So you see the pressure I’m under here to deliver, no pun intended. Even though I’ve been wanting to make these first few weeks very low key and cautiously optimistic, it’s been hard not to be excited and speculate about good things to come. My mind has compensated by giving me a few bad dreams this week about empty sacs and complications. These dreams terrify me. My symptoms haven’t really increased, so I wish something new would happen so I could feel a little more sure that this is real, even if it is morning sickness. The other night I had cramps again and freaked out, but my chest was throbbing at the same time so I guess it was just growing pains. I haven’t had any cravings and aside from noticing a slightly stronger smell of a few things like coffee, I don’t think my super spider smell has kicked in yet. I sit across from the office lunchroom, so I think I would know right away. My location will be very unfortunate when the morning sickness does kick in.