Hi all, ⚠️📃long post warning! ⚠️😆 Skip to bottom for TLDR
haven't been around the forums for ages, I left last year after my third chemical and found it all too traumatic. I was having extremely faint positives every month and then negatives immediately, it happened 6 or 7 times, the last one on New Year's Day was the last straw for me and we stopped trying.
To complicate matters I have a cancer that's manageable, but I'd been put on a less effective treatment that was pregnancy safe to try and conceive, but was told it's probably a now or never type situation because of my age and I might soon have to go back on my old cancer meds, which meant game over for trying to conceive. We tried to freeze my eggs to preserve fertility before I restarted treatment, but that had an incredibly disappointing yield and they were honest it was very unlikely to result in a successful pregnancy in the future but miracles could happen. The NHS only funds one cycle of egg collection, so we were devastated and I honestly just thought we were done and I would have to get used to the fact this wasn't going to happen for us. The plan was to go back on my old cancer treatment this month.
I haven't been tracking my cycle or ovulation this year and suddenly realised I was pregnant last week (I always know a good few days before the tests show) but decided not to test because I assumed it was going to be the same rollercoaster all over again and I didn't want the heartache, so was just waiting for the bleeding to start. I just knew it felt different this time though, so last Friday I tested (between 9-13DPO, I'm not sure) and I got a faint positive. The Dr immediately did bloods and my HCG was 17.9, which is the first time HCG was still registering at all by the time I got bloods done! (Every other time the HCG rose JUST enough to see the faintest line on a FRER, but HCG had already dropped in blood but he time I got to Dr, so it was failing at implantation) On Monday I had sharp pains and bleeding and thought it was game over, my partner held me sobbing in the bathroom for an hour, we were devastated and thought we'd had another loss. The bleeding stopped, and the next day bloods showed my HCG was 210, but it still didn't provide answers because they didn't know if it was still climbing or if it had got even higher before falling to 210, and I was still spotting and had stringy brown discharge, so they weren't ruling out a loss and referred me to EPU. To be honest, they seemed to have decided at EPU that I'd had another loss already! The nurse said the urine test strip wasn't as dark as she liked and started talking about referring me to the recurrent loss clinic! I told her I wanted to continue on the assumption that my current pregnancy was still healthy and that I'd had a LOT of water that morning and that's why the strip was faint, and she looked at me with a kind but pitying expression like I was being delusional. Anyway, a scan didn't see anything, but bloods confirmed my HCG had nearly tripled since the Tuesday and was now near 600 and progesterone still high!! It was just too early for them to see anything yet on the scan, but blood work is heavily suggesting I didn't miscarry on Monday! Seems too late for it to have been an implantation bleed though, as I must've implanted before Friday for my HCG to have been rising, so might've been cervical irritation or something. I still don't know what this means for us, we're obviously hoping and praying for the best, and hoping the cancer stays at bay long enough for a healthy pregnancy and without endangering me, what a rollercoaster. To anyone that has actually read all this, well done and thank you! 😆 It's 4am and I can't sleep, so I need to just write this all down so it's out of my head for now. I also just want to try and give some hope to anyone that feels hopeless month after month. I know this is no guarantee of a successful pregnancy, but this is the furthest we've got and it already feels like a miracle, so we're holding on to hope here and appreciate any good vibes you send our way 🙏🏻♥️
TLDR...
After a year of chemicals that didn't stick past 10DPO we gave up TTC. Out of the blue I am now pregnant at around 17-21 DPO with very positive tests and rising HCG. A bleed we thought was bad news seems to be harmless. Don't lose hope to all of you who think it won't happen if you haven't had BFP's yet. Also, at 600 HCG my test strips weren't yet 'dye stealers' despite the nurse saying it should be as dark as control line if all was progressing. Turns out it was progressing absolutely fine. Sending everyone love and baby dust
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