Beta Day Thoughts

Our morning started out with a trip to our local clinic. This is the clinic where it all started for us 6 years ago and in comparison, let's just say that it is not the place that CCRM is. However, they have continued to agree to help us which has made cycling in the US doable.

The plebotamist doesn't have the best beside manner and can be extremely gruff and she kind of freaked me out a little yesterday morning. In Canada, they make you wait at least 2 weeks post transfer to do a pregnancy test. Many times, I would get my period first before getting the beta done. In response to her question about how many days it was post transfer, I told her eight days had passed since my day 5 transfer and she started to complain that this was way too early to test and that the test results wouldn't be conclusive. Ack - are you serious?! Then I told her that I had already been testing postive on multiple HPT for a few days and she told me that "it doesn't matter what the HPT say because you need a blood test to determine the beta conclusively and it's too early to test". OMG. I did start to wonder whether the number would be really low, like in the 20's, but then I decided to put my faith in CCRM and NOT that clinic and trust that if we were testing this early, it was okay. I think that a lot of times people you run into doing all this IVF stuff just don't realize what the impact of their words are on people.

I then proceeded to go to work and then clock watch until I got the call at noon. I have call display at work and when the phone rang, I knew immediately it was CCRM calling since the area code was 303 . I was nervous, my heart was beating rapidly and I was almost afraid to answer the phone. What if the number was really low? I was so relieved when my nurse told me that the number was good (140) and that this was really really good because we tested a day earlier than normal. They were only looking for it to be >50 so we passed that first hurdle.

I was surprised to hear that CCRM only looks for a 66% increase over a 48 hour period. I know everyone else talks about wanting to see it double and all my research has said that it should double but again, if CCRM thinks that a 66% increase is good, that's what we're going with. I needed a number to know what we were aiming for on Monday's test and it rounds to about 310:

• Friday's beta of 140 x 1.66 = 232.4 <---what Sunday's beta should be at least


• since we're testing on Monday, we have to take half of the 66% increase between Sunday and what would have been Tuesday's beta


• 232.4 x 66% x 50% = 76.69 expected rise in beta from Sunday to Monday


• So, Sunday's expected beta should be at least 232.4 + the expected rise in the beta to Monday of 76.69 = 309.09

My husband came over to my office for lunch (he works right across the road) so we sat outside in the warm sunshine and I told him the details from my call. We're keeping ourselves cautiously optimistic until Monday's beta and will celebrate when we get the news that it has increased at least 66% or higher.

We've been talking to the baby/babies every day, telling them to snuggle in and find a good place to hang out for the next 9 months. I find myself talking to them when I can and I don't know if it's more to reassure myself that I'm actually pregnant or to help me to believe that we are no longer the three of us (DH, Daisy our dog and I) but the four or maybe the five of us now. Fingers, toes and everything else crossed until Monday.

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Jill M. - this part of the post is for you girl.

My hypnotherapy sessions were $150 each. I did two in total. The first one was on the phone entirely and we talked for an hour during which she collected a lot of background information, IF history, status of my relationship with my DH, childhood memories and really, anything that concerned me and my thoughts on the whole IF journey we've been on.

She then took that info away and made a personalized self-hypnosis recording for me that I have downloaded into my iPod and have listened to over and over again since then.

My second session with her was the week before transfer and I actually met her at her office in Westminster in Denver (about a 1/2 hour drive from CCRM). This time she did a hypnosis session live with me (vs. sending me a recording) and we spoke a lot about anything that was bothering me or that I was particularly concerned about at that time. This time she took about 2.5 hours with me and it was still only $150.

Lynsi was great and I would highly recommend her. I found her to be very insightful and she was able to draw connections for me that no one else has been able to do before. Those really were revelations for me, real epiphanies and if you ask me, so worth the $300 I spent with her.

The other thing that I like is that I never felt pressured to see her x number of times...you did as many sessions as you needed to in order to deal with what it is that you were feeling. She recommends 2-6 sessions but at no point did I ever feel pressured to do more than I felt that I needed.

Would I recommend her? Definitely - yes. You can at least try her out and if you don't connect with her, than you don't have to continue but at least you will get a personalized hypnosis to download out of the first session that you can keep.

Good luck and let me know if you do get in touch with her. She'll probably remember me since she is also Canadian :).