Now for the reason I'm here. After a year long break from actively trying to conceive, we made the decision to go back to treatments. Our IUI resulted in a positive HPT at 9dpo, which blew my mind. Then came the fear. The first beta at 12dpo was 50, at 14dpo was 174 (though this was done at a different lab, and I was told the results may not be as accurate if I used different labs), and 527 at 18dpo. I freaked. That's a 57.5 hour doubling time between the last two betas. Still "normal", but not great. Especially considering our last loss began that way with a slower doubling time. Lots of tears were shed, and the wait for our first ultrasound at 5w5d was torture. I kept taking tests expecting them to get lighter, but they didn't. So then I questioned whether they were dark enough. If you're infertile or have ever been through a miscarriage, you know the drill. When ultrasound day came, we saw a gestational sac and yolk sac, and I couldn't believe it. They do not look for a fetal pole or heartbeat this early or take measurements, so that gave me something else to freak out over for the next week. Would we see everything was ok next time? What if a fetal pole never showed up? I was freaking out.
This week, we went in for another ultrasound at 6w6d. I kept my eyes closed and my head turned away from the screen. Our first baby had stopped growing at 6w4d, so I was terrified that I'd see the same small dot as last week with no growth. It was a different doctor doing my ultrasound this time, and when she asked, "Were there two last time?" it took me a few seconds to figure out what she was talking about. I said, "Two what? Babies? No, just the one." I figured she thought we'd had two and one had vanished or something. Then she said, "Well, there are two today!" Cue the tears and me losing my mind. I turned my head to the screen in time for her to move from one baby to the other, and then I began just shooting off questions between freak outs of "Oh my God!" I asked whether they both had heartbeats, and she said they did. I asked how many pm, and she said they don't have the equipment to calculate that (WHAT? This is a fertility clinic that's part of one of the best known hospitals in the country!) but that she'd estimate they were both around 140bpm. I asked if they were measuring ok, and she said about 6w6d. More crying and freaking out and asking if she was sure. She walked out and Matt and I just looked at each other in disbelief. Baby B totally sneaked up on us! And we are so happy! We never hoped for twins. We know twin pregnancies come with extra risks and that it's going to be expensive and difficult. But you know what? We have nothing to compare it to. We expect it to be hard, and it will be. And now we could have two babies instead of one, and we always wanted more than one. So, while we are nervous, we are so excited and we want so badly for both these babies to keep growing and being strong.
When doing treatments to get pregnant, you tend to lose the surprise factor, and while it really doesn't matter at that point, and you just want the treatment to work, I always felt a little robbed knowing that the element of surprise was really kind of an impossibility. You know how many follicles you have, you know what day each step happened. It's just not a great story to remember most of the time. But this....it's more than I could have ever hoped for. It's the best surprise ever.
