My beta (or as I refer to it, the "B" word) was set for June 23. I'd already cheated with a home test and seen that light pink line come up at least twice before test day. I know, I thought I'd be stronger. Whatever. Haven't we talked about judging? I thought so. Anyway...
I marched myself and my giant progesterone lumps into the office and offered my arm so that the nurse could confirm what EPT had already told me. She took a couple vials of blood and sent me to work. Around 2:00pm, my favorite nurse called to say my beta was 57! Yaaay! Diagnosis confirmed. I was pregnant. Preggo. Baking a bean. Had a bun in the oven. Ok. I'm done.
She told me to continue my shots (booooo) and come back for a second test Wednesday so we could see how my B word was doubling. The doc expects that it will double every 48-72 hours. We talked a bit about symptoms (cramps, bloating, boob tenderness - ouch, pretty much everything you get with Aunt Flo) and said I was good to go.
I called the hubs with my news and he sounded sufficiently excited that I became satisfied with myself entirely. Fast forward to Wednesday and we do it all over again. Well, not ALL. She left out the part about giving me a good beta number. Beta #2 was a whopping 68.5. Uh. You say what, now?! You must mean one hundred and sixty eight, yeah? No. It turns out that after 48 hrs, my beta had only risen 11 points. Now, those who know my over-achieving, self motivated ass know that 11 points does not an achievement make.
I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm frightened. I'm annoyed. I'm concerned. Hell, I'm downright skeerd! As a former nurse, I know that there are sooooo many factors affecting my B word: doubling time naturally varies from person to person, beta #1 was only 10 days post transfer - not 14 (RE's schedule, not mine), 2 beans could have started but only one continued, blah blah, blah. The truth is that no matter what the reason, I'll always worry that I could have done something better. What if I'd stayed with the yucky pomegranate juice? What if I'd eaten more pineapple? Acupuncture? I don't know.
What I DO know is that worrying this much about my bean(s) at only 2-3 weeks pregnant means I have a looooooong pregnancy ahead of me. I'm praying constantly that my bean(s) are like me and just do things on their own schedule. Fingers crossed that tomorrow's B word (beta #3) will show an increase still and that my bean(s) grow, big, big. It's crazy that I love them so much already. I pray they stay around to meet me.