913 and climbing

Yesterday was beta #3 and a good number it was. 913; up from 181 on Friday. This was the last of my betas and I'm to go for my first u/s next Monday, the 16th. Amazingly, the doctor himself will perform that first ultrasound--I had just assumed it would be my usual dildocam operator.

In joking with a friend of mine who's a patient at my same practice, we said that the nurses do all the grunt work, they're your main point of contact, but then the doc comes in for the first pg u/s and gets the 'glory.' Of course, there's more to it than that but it's still an interesting dynamic. I know the doctor is (usually) the brains behind the protocol but still...you just don't think you'd get them (at least not in a practice as large as mine) to personally perform these simple clinical tasks. Luckily, I like my doc and can't wait to see/share his reaction--I'm such a goober, as if he fathered the embryo/baby himself!

Speaking of who made the baby, my husband is a calm life raft floating on this sea of change. He was excited in a low-key sort of way when I told him the news after that first phone call from the nurse. We went to dinner that first night but no big celebration. He asks how I'm feeling each day but that is sort of it. I can't really gage his reaction outside of that. My SIL said he told her he said he has reserved excitement; kind of like me, I guess.

We're also wondering whether or not to tell family yet. This coming Friday will be the 6 week mark (4 gestational weeks--which might be the stupidest calculating I've ever seen and I don't get why the medical field does it this way). I have a good friend who didn't tell anyone until after the 12th week and the danger of loss was somewhat reduced. I'm leaning toward that approach myself. Another friend told everyone right away and when she suffered a miscarriage, those same friends and family where there to help her through the grief and mourning. So I've seen it from both sides with these two wonderful people.

Now my husband and I find ourselves on the fence. At first we thought we'd tell his mother since she knew a little bit about our infertility and she isn't a blabber but then my husband suggested we just tell them all. This weekend we're having my husband's birthday party with all of his family at my MIL's house and that would be the optimal place/time to tell them since they'll all be in one location. Not only that, but supposedly, hubby's 93-year old grandfather will be arriving that same day for a three-month stay (he lives in South America and hasn't been to visit the family here in the U.S. since the '80s) so he'll be on hand as well.

Do we tell them or not? I am excited, on the one hand, to share this news with them. I am apprehensive, on the other hand, lest we lose this pregnancy and then have to share that painful news with them. I probably shouldn't even be thinking these thoughts, quite frankly, but you can't shake that worst-case scenario expectation when dealing with IF--at least I can't since that's my traditional coping mechanism. Expect the worst so it doesn't hurt as much when it comes but then it'll allow you to be excited when you get the best since it was unexpected. It's worked for me these past years but it still doesn't mean it didn't hurt any less. It sucks how IF robs (most) patients of the ability to blindly go forward and assume the best. Instead, at least for me, it's as if you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So I guess hubby and I've got a lot of thinking to do in the coming days. As an English major, the words of the great Will Shakespeare come to me in an altered state: to share, or not to share: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them. Works, doesn't it?