5w6d - Alive!

Yes, I'm alive and well. The migraine actually went away later on the day of my last post. Sorry for being away from my blog for so long. To be honest, I am pretty anxious and trying not to be whiny about it.

I think my anxiety would be there in any case after so many months of IF, but it has definitely been made worse by my low-ish beta-HCG on 16DPO and my lack of any definable pregnancy symptoms. I read enough pregnancy boards to see that many other people have sore breasts and morning sickness by this point (even a week or more before this point), but I feel basically nothing. I felt like maybe my breasts were sore on two or three occasions, but it wasn't much and seemed to go away after a couple of hours. My appetite is fine -- too good, if anything. I do sometimes feel a little crampy in my uterus, and I suppose that could be normal. Or an ectopic. Or a miscarriage. The only good thing is that my OHSS symptoms have been gone since Thursday, I think.

Only 21 more hours until the ultrasound. Argh...

Over the past few days, I've heard several references to the "stay.cation" -- the new trend in which people spend their vacations at home! (presumably due to the poor economy, poor buying power of the dollar abroad, and high gas prices.) Well, then, I guess that S and I have been riding the wave of a new trend over the past week, in light of our cancelled France vacation.

We had gorgeous weather last weekend, but I was still pretty miserable with OHSS and related swelling at that point. We did go to the local aquarium one day, which was nice since I hadn't been there in ~15 years or so. An old med school friend of mine was in town for a conference (she's a gastroenterologist and was attending DDW, or Digestive Diseases Week -- the annual international GI conference). We had dinner and dessert with her one night.

Afterwards the weather turned cool and cloudy. We actually had pouring rain on Friday, which is pretty unusual for this time of year. This squashed our plans to go the Huntington Garden in Pasadena. Instead, S and I started a few of our indoor home improvement projects; namely, getting rid of some of our blinds and hideous valences and picking out new curtains. This involved multiple trips to JCPenney, Lowe's, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc. We still have more to do, but we made a lot of progress.

Saturday I went shopping for a while and picked out one of those shirts that I refer to as "pregnant-woman shirts." In other words, tight through the bust and then loose and wider at the bottom. It is cute, but when I wear it I already look about 4 months pregnant. I figure that if I am, I'll keep it and wear it during the transition period from regular clothes to maternity (July-September, maybe??). If I'm not, I'm definitely going to return it. It's a summer shirt, and I won't wear it otherwise. I felt scared even buying it, but I decided that I was being silly about that.

Finally, yesterday, the weather cleared and S and I went to the local mountains -- Cuya.maca Rancho State Park. We climbed Stonew.all Peak (4.5 miles round trip). This is an area that was burned in the October 2003 wildfires and it is amazing to see how many of the trees are scorched ghosts, but how many others (particularly the oaks) have new vigorous branches springing from the burnt bases. It was a beautiful day and the trail was bordered with mountain lilac and lupine.

Yesterday evening we had friends over for a cookout, and today we are going to my parents' house for the same.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!