To say I am absolutely petrified about tomorrow's beta blood draw is an understatement.

The pee sticks look okay - but then, they did last time too. It's hard to hope, epecially since they started out so faint this time too. I do have some darkening sticks from the last few days, though. The thing is, my morning sticks are always fainter than the afternoons. It seems to go against every bit of pee stick literature that you can find on the internet... but there it is.

I haven't used any pregnancy tests today. I figure that whatever will be, will be. In 24+ hours, we'll have an answer.

I should know better than to get my hopes up, but I can't help it.. they're up. And I know they could all come crashing down by tomorrow's beta results, but I am just trying so keep the faith.

I want this more than I can put into words. To get a chance at carrying another baby, to hope that this one might turn out different. Fifth time lucky, perhaps? Could this be our rainbow, rainbow, rainbow baby?

So yesterday morning, I deemed this cycle a bust. I ripped apart the pregnancy tests, deleted every image from my phone, threw a huge tantrum and rage-cleaned my bathroom. It was a meltdown, and it wasn't pretty. I ended that fit of destruction by lying on G's bed and sobbing my heart out - thankfully, she was at daycare, so I could safely let it all out.

After picking her up later that afternoon, I decided to do ONE more pregnancy test. I wasn't going to, and I was kicking myself as I was doing it, but I did it. And you know, there was a more visible line this time. It's still fairly light for 6dp5dt - or 11dpo - but it was a TONNE better than the morning's ghost.

Maybe that was a sign that this pregnancy isn't all over?

I promised hubby I wouldn't pee on any FRER sticks today, because he thinks I'll drive myself batty overanalysing a line, or panicking if there isn't enough progression. (Yeah, he's right.)

I didn't promise to not use a digital though. Loopholes, you know.

Well, all my optimism has failed me... and I was doing so well. It looks like this FET is also going to be another early loss.

Yesterday (5dp5dt - or 10dpo) was early to start peeing, but I've had squinters in the past - and surprise! We had a squinter this time too! It's hard to see, but it's there - when hubby can see it, you know you're not imagining things.

This morning's however, is even fainter than yesterday - which doesn't bode well for this one. One squinter on its own? Well, okay.. every pregnancy has to start somewhere. Two squinters, with no progression? Yeah, we know where this is headed.

I've decided I'm done with stick peeing. I can't handle the disappointment of another early miscarriage every single time I use a pregnancy test. All these losses have just sucked the joy straight out of this process, and it leaves me with dread instead.

Beta is next Tuesday, the 9th. My gut is telling me that little Olaf will have either a) fizzled out by then, or b) be barely hanging in there. So long as this loss doesn't drag out like the last one did, I guess that's that.

I'm really frustrated, you guys. This brings us over 2 years of TTC #2, 3 full IVF stim cycles, 8 transfers, months of endless waiting around - and still no closer to a baby. What do we have to do to get pregnant with a sticky baby? Are we doomed to sit and watch everyone else move ahead without us? Why does this keep happening?

I'm angry at my clinic. I want them to try new things, to throw some steroids at me, to do some more testing, to try and figure out what is going wrong - obviously my body is trying its hardest to get pregnant, but something has to give. Are the remaining 6 frosties we have even worth using? I can't do 6 more cycles, 6+ more months of endless miscarriages or negatives. We want to do whatever it takes to have another baby, but I'm just feeling so broken.

Anyway... if I'm quiet for the next week, you'll know why. No false hopes anymore, just resigned to wait for the week and get the official result from the bloodwork when we get there. This just sucks. :(

My beta levels were 9 on November 10th.
My beta levels were 22 on November 17th.
My beta levels were 25 on November 24th.
My beta levels are currently 17 on December 1st.

Still here. Still no answers. Still nobody making action plans for a d&c or using drugs, because the levels are too low to warrant them... so I have DEMANDED we start Provera and induce another bleed.

There's no time for a December cycle now. In fact, we'll be lucky to get in for a January cycle, since I'd need a baseline cycle after the clinic opens after the break - so in reality, we won't be looking at a transfer until February.

Waiting... my arch nemesis. 

Let me refresh your memory of the miscarriage from hell.

My beta levels were 9 on November 10th.
My beta levels were 22 on November 17th.
My beta levels were 25 on November 24th.

Still. Fucking. Pregnant.

Referral is coming for a scan to see whether/where there is retained products of conception (what a lovely term) and whether or not I'll need to do a D&C again, or if I will just be stuck in this endless monotony of waiting around.

I now officially hate everyone and everything and most especially my body, who is utterly useless.

A shitty end to a shitty year. :(

It's one thing to be impatiently waiting for your hcg levels to get back to baseline, so you can keep going. It's another thing to have them go UP again, and freak you right out.

My beta levels were 9 on November 10th.

The bleeding was tailing off at this point, so we decided to wait a full week to let the miscarriage finish, and re-test again.

My beta levels were 22 on November 17th.

WHAT?

I automatically went into panic mode, assuming the worst - this can't be a good thing? The bleeding has been completely gone for almost the full week. I have no cramps, signs, symptoms. Why would it go up?

My first thought is retained products of conception, because the numbers are too low at 22 to be an ectopic. I asked the clinic for their thoughts and they basically said I should wait it out a week and see what happens.

Of course, that doesn't sit well with me... and I will probably spend the next six days with my stomach in knots. I'm scared, you guys. And I'm so, so frustrated. We were supposed to be baseline by now, we were supposed to be moving ahead with one last IVF cycle before the Christmas clinic closures. Instead, we're stuck here, with potentially very bad news, and an extremely slim chance of being able to try again next month.

Why does this keep happening? One thing after the other... it's just ridiculous.

My beta levels were down to 53 on November 2nd.
They dropped to 19 on November 6th.
They're still 9 today on November 10th.

More bloods in a week. I am a human pincushion right now, and not even for a fun reason.

Bloody fucking hell, the universe must really hate us. It just needs to get < 5 for me to start a new cycle, but no, apparently I can't even miscarry a pregnancy properly!

So here we are... still stuck in this limbo. Fun times! Somebody pour me a wine.

Levels have started dropping, so it's time to stop all meds & wait for the inevitable.

Just when I was starting to hope. Another one gone, just like that. How did we get here?

I am just so utterly sad.

Today is 17dp4dt - or 21dpo - or 5 weeks pregnant.

Obviously my numbers don't match up to ANY of those figures, but here we are. Limbo!

I've managed to wrangle my blood test forward a day, so it's tomorrow now instead of Tuesday. We'll hopefully know with a little more clarity, and it's no good dragging things out any longer than we need to.

I feel pregnant. Queasy, off foods, hot flashes, headaches, exhausted. I'm still on all the meds - oestrogen & progesterone - so yes, it's very likely that it's more to do with them than it is my super low hcg hormones.

I'm still peeing on sticks, because it feels like the one thing I can control at this point... and they are tearing my heart out, because they're telling a story that is likely going to be shattered by tomorrow's blood test results.

These results were from Friday and Saturday, and they appear to be darkening. What a tease, right?

I just keep thinking that if I was anyone else, if I didn't know anything about IVF or blood tests or progesterone levels or doubling betas, I'd be SO excited to see a line like that.. I wish I was blissfully ignorant and able to just accept that 'today I am pregnant'. I'm trying to - but it's sort of ruined by 'today I am pregnant, but tomorrow's blood results will say that it's ending/ended'. Even my nurse at the fertility clinic called this a 'grey area' -- and it's just the worst.

Ah, well. Not much else I can do but wait and continue praying for a miracle, even if the odds are slim.

It's not looking good.

This morning I had bloods drawn for my 18dpo doubling hcg test. To improve upon my number from Tuesday, we were aiming for an hcg increase up to 100.

I had my 16dpo beta today. Ideally, they'd like the number to be at 100 for this point in time.

The quick version: FET #7 seems to have resulted in a chemical pregnancy.
The long version: FET #7 has been a cruel, cruel experience & has left me feeling defeated.

After the transfer of our little morula/early blastocyst, things got busy. We went to a concert the following night, which was amazing but loud; I jokingly commented that the little embryo had probably already vibrated right on out of there!

The next day, Georgia and I hopped into the car with my folks for an impromptu beach getaway. Hubby couldn't take time off due to a new job role starting, so it was just us. A good five hour drive up the coast later, we settled in to our holiday accommodation and spent the next little while relaxing.

I packed a single pregnancy test into my luggage. I thought that would help me from obsessing during the TWW. While I have it in my head that all frozen transfers are going to fail, I was surprisingly hopeful about this embryo. It's the nicest one we have had in a while, the lab scientists were happy, and I was happy too.

I started having symptoms from around 6dp4dt. Incredibly tired, aching back, sore boobs and a WHOPPER pimple that devoured my chin. The last time I had a breakout like that was last October, when I was pregnant. My skin always goes nuts before anything else!

I caved that night and peed. It was negative. Blindingly negative. I was kicking myself for testing too early, and went to the local grocery store to top up on pee sticks. The next morning was 7dp4dt, so I peed again. Once again, blindingly negative.

I've always had a line, albeit a squinty line, by 11dpo, in all of my previous pregnancies. It's basically my cut off, so I figured that was that. I chucked the pee sticks in the bin in a rage and considered this to be yet another failure.

8dp4dt was not a great day. I was snippy and crotchety and absolutely starving. Oh, and mad at the universe. We took Georgia to the beach and kept ourselves busy the entire day. I didn't pee on any sticks that day.

Since it was 9dp4dt, or 13dpo, I figured I would stop my pessaries and throw in the towel. I'm on a fairly hefty dose of progesterone for transfers now because of my previous losses - so it can take a while for a bleed to occur after stopping the pessaries. If there's one thing I hate doing, it's needlessly waiting around. I'd rather just move on, and get going again.

I peed on the stick, and went to shower. After I was done, I looked back at the stick and prepared to throw out the negative result.

Except it wasn't negative.

It wasn't dark, but it wasn't a squinter. It was a faint but visible second line. I then proceeded to have a panic attack on the bathroom floor, wearing nothing but my towel. It says pregnant. But it's faint. Is it TOO faint for 13dpo? It has to be too late now. It's probably a chemical. What if it's actually worked? What do I do now?

I'm sure most people would get a positive result on a pee stick and take for granted that all is fine, and not spend hours examining the strength of the line. Anyone who has lost a pregnancy will understand my terror, I think. This positive was throwing me for a loop.

My IVF friends have a saying: prepare for the worst but hope for the best. I was doing this, yes, but I'll admit, I was hoping for a miracle. We all hear stories of people who had a really late positive, or a really faint pregnancy test, or a really late implanter. Maybe this time, I could be one of those folks?

Unfortunately, I was not.

This morning's was fainter. This afternoon's was even fainter. Like, really faint, almost squint-worthy. Well, shit.

I've been pregnant 3 times in two years. I've lost all 3 of those pregnancies at various times. 3 from 3. Not great odds.

I have a beta blood draw in two days time. Judging by the pee sticks, there won't be much, if anything, to see by then.

I'm so angry. I'd prefer this to have been a flat out negative - not this chemical pregnancy limbo again. Why does this keep happening? Our testing show we have no genetic issues, my recurrent pregnancy loss blood work all came back normal, but man.... I don't even know anymore. The bad luck run continues.

So I'm apparently pregnant. But I won't be for long.

This sucks.

Still no period.

I've given up all hope of it arriving before our cut off date.. so I'm resigned to the fact that we won't be getting a transfer in for a few months now. It breaks my heart more than I can put into words - not only because I was so hopeful that this year would be different, be better, but because it means that our odds of being pregnant by our first angel baby's due date.. well, they're virtually nil.

The reminder that our baby's birthday would have been coming up so soon is starting to hit home for me. I'm sure the actual day will come and go and be just another 1/365 - but I'm preparing myself to have some tough emotional days over the next few months. I miss that little baby so much. It seems insane to miss something that was only with you for 11 weeks, but there you go. I feel like I've done a good job of rationalising the loss and moving forward, but it's still with me. And it still hurts.

I guess the difference between the first loss and the second is that I didn't really get to bond with that second pregnancy. It was over not long after it began, even though the actual miscarriage dragged out until just before six weeks. But our little boy, that was different. We'd had the chance to 'meet' him, we'd heard his heart beating, we'd watched that strong, pulsing flicker several times, we'd seen him wiggle on a screen.

The NSW government has brought in a special certificate, known as a recognition of early pregnancy loss {for babies who pass away at less than 20 weeks gestation} for parents who have lost their little ones. It's not an official birth/death certificate, but it's something that bears their name, should you choose to name them, and acknowledges the loss. I've applied for one for Noah, but I don't know that I should apply for the second baby. Other than our GP who ordered the beta testing, nobody really got to know that baby/hope of a baby, except for us. I feel like that pregnancy is remembered better in my heart.

I just feel so much older than I did this time last year - older than the calendar year that has gone past.

I was always resigned to the fact that our journey to parenthood would be a rocky one, but I had faith in the process and that we'd get there eventually. And we did.. eventually. I wouldn't change Georgia for all the $$ in the world, she was worth every cent, every heartache. It just feels that with every setback, or negative outcome, that faith is chipped away a little more.

Well... I guess it's time to come clean.

That limbo I was talking about? It wasn't waiting to cycle limbo. It was early pregnancy limbo.

We started preparing for our final FET a few weeks ago, and kept it quiet from everyone. After the sadness and disappointment of the miscarriage last cycle, after bringing everyone down.. we decided to just do it on our own. We mostly expected it to fail anyway, because of our luck lately - but to our surprise, it didn't fail.

We got a positive, and were completely over the moon. Maybe this would be our rainbow baby?

Except, the sticks kept getting fainter, then darker again, and I started getting panicky. I had bloods taken at 14dpo, and my beta was 60. Not great, not great at all - especially when I knew EXACTLY what date my transfer was. My repeat was done yesterday, and my beta was 86. Progesterone dropped from 178 to 106 too.

My GP/FS are telling me to prepare for a miscarriage. I have to have one more blood test tomorrow, and if the numbers are still bad, we stop all medications, and wait to miscarry naturally. I'm resigned to this loss, it can't possibly be going in the right direction for a healthy pregnancy - but now I'm more terrified of NOT losing the baby properly.

I don't want two d&c's in a row. I want a natural loss, I want to stop the progesterone and have everything taken care of. I want my body to do something the right way for a change. This is two losses, two failed pregnancies, and both times my body has refused to admit that something isn't right. Does anyone have any advice on what happens after you stop the pessaries cold turkey?

So, secret is out. Once again, we were pregnant, and now we're looking at another pregnancy ending. There isn't a rainbow baby here. We have no more frozen embryos.

This sucks. My heart has shattered all over again, and it was barely glued back together from the first loss.