6+1 - big but little changes.

At the moment, I am hyper-aware of every little thing. I wanted to write some things down, for posterity. Part of me knows that there is a chance this could all be taken away from me. This feeling does not overwhelm me but it is there, it it what it is. It won't be through anything I do, just an unknown and unknowable milieu of micro-vessels, positioning and chromosomes.

I am a little bit queasy. This has just come up over the past couple of mornings, later in the day if I delay eating a minute after I get hungry. The nausea is nothing that some simple carbohydrates cannot promptly fix.

I am starting to get less anxious about my food cravings, namely that I will gain too much weight and get diabetes. Indeed, sweet food is neither here nor there. I am all about the savoury and salty food. My drug of choice at present is fast food potato cakes, with lots of salt and vinegar. I have limited myself to no more than one PC per 24 hours, some days I have a PC free day. Though I would like to do an experiment whereby I consume PCs until the desire is extinguished. I wonder how many I will get to. I have lost interest in meat, except for that contained in Dim Sims (steamed, in my defence) and salami (cooked up in a pasta sauce of course).

I am getting the odd cramp in my belly, some dull, some sharp and unilateral. I am told that this is normal, with the uterus increasing its blood supply. I didn't have any pains last time. The boobs are doing their boob thing.

Mostly I have good energy levels, this arvo I could have done with a nap. My patients and co-workers were no doubt grateful that I was able to push through.

Horrible news of violence and war from overseas would previously have made me sad, but not emotional. Today, I saw a teacher who died shielding his students from the gunman in Florida, and burst out crying. My fella is out for the evening but I felt I needed comforting. Other news stations were barely less emotive, so the TV is off for newshour.

It has not all been about the pregnancy, though I am told by reliable internet sources that the emby is about the size of a pea, at present.

Perhaps mercifully, there has been plenty to occupy my mind. From the collective rage and blustering and supporting my trainees after the RACP exam fiasco, to finding some solutions to tricky problems at work, to thinking about my boss and my ex, who are both sick.

I have my viability scan on Friday. I have taken it as a morning off work, I don't have work in the afternoon. It'll be a day off. I'm not nervous about the ultrasound, not at the moment, what will be will be.

BFP. ODAAT.

I had been tossing up whether to blog about this.... I've been talking about the IVF etc so much in this forum it would seem remiss.

Anyway, about 5 days after my embryo transfer, I started getting cramps, like an impending period. "Oh don't worry," my internet friends would say, "it could be implantation cramps".

"Yeah, right" I thought.

I found that 10 day wait really hard. Mainly because I thought I was just having to wait till I was disappointed again, and I just wanted to be put out of my misery.

On day 7, feeling really cagey, I thought "oh what the hell, I'll just pee on a stick (POAS)".

For the first time in 2.5 years, there were 2 lines.

It took a few days for that to sink in. Finally, on day 10, I went to go and get the official blood test, at sparrow fart in the morning. I worked the morning session and tried to chillax in the afternoon, having swapped my sessions.

The IVF doc rang. My HCG was in the comfortably 4 week pregnant range, as was my progesterone. My BFP - IVF forum lingo for Big Fat Positive.

I asked her a question and she told me to stop googling. I argued with "but I google scholar....". She said to go and get an ice-cream. It was a hot day. I did what the doc said.

Since then, my mind has been a bit all over the shop. I am one minute dressing my hypothetical baby in a cute onesie. Other times I am worried to the point of tears that the pregnancy will go down the route it went last time. I am trying to live in, if not the moment, then what I have to do in the day in question, and not think too far ahead, at this stage.

I have resisted the urge to look at the stats. I know that with my age my chances of all not proceeding are higher than average, but it does not do to dwell on that. Waste of time and energy, for starters. Hence I have done a good job of distracting myself, plotting world domination, et cetera.

It seems a long time to go till the viability scan. Just under two weeks, seems ages away. I am taking it One Day At A Time (ODAAT). The time will pass, it is up to me as to how anxiety filled it is. What will be, will be. The future is not really ours to see.

At a work  meeting, my male colleague, whose wife is pregnant, got a hearty slap on the back from the male seniors/head honchos. I wonder whether the congratulations to me (if forthcoming) will be different. Along with the slight fatigue, the munchies and sore boobs, my angry feminist side seems to have popped up.