My Heart Aches. . .

I have two wonderful beautiful precious 4 month old baby girls that I love more than life itself. Between the girlies and my husband and our pugs and kitty I thought that my heart was full (at least for the time being). Then I saw this:

Yes, that is what you think it is. It's a positive pregnancy test. I will stop now by saying that it's no longer positive, then tell you how (well I guess you all know how it happened) so maybe I will just tell you how I figured out that it happened, and how I feel about it.

SO. . .last Monday (not 3 days ago, 10 days ago) I got in the shower as usual at 5:30 AM to get ready for work. I was washing my hair and I noticed that I was kind of nauseous. Strange I thought. Am I just hungry? When was the last time I ate? Since I get up at funky times in the middle of the night to feed the girls or pump it throws my body for a loop and my body thinks that it is morning and that it is time to eat. I thought maybe that was what was going on.

Although, this was a strangely familiar sensation. . .I'd had this feeling a lot when I was pregnant with the girls. . .but I pushed that thought to the back of my mind.

Then last Tuesday we were having dinner, one of my favorite pastas from Whole Foods and chicken scallopini (LOVE!). Yeah, I didn't eat the pasta. At all. It didn't taste good to me. Weird. I love the pasta from Whole Foods. I asked Si if his tasted weird and he told me no. Hmm I thought. . .food aversions. . . but again, I just stuck that in the back of my mind.

Wednesday was a georgeous day in Nebraska and I decided to take the girls for a walk around the block. One of our neighbors is an OB nurse practitioner and just finished breast feeding her son, so I casually asked her if it would be weird for me to feel the need to POAS (pee on a stick). She said absolutely not - that many breastfeeding moms feel the need to take a pregnancy test every couple of weeks or every month just for reassurance that they aren't pregnant since they aren't cycling. Okay I thought. . .that's right. . .I haven't cycled yet. . .there's no way I could be pregnant.

Fast forward to Friday morning. Brianna got up at 4AM to eat so after she was done I decided to just stay up and go ahead and get ready for work. I still had a pregnancy test in my bathroom closet, so I decided to go ahead and take it. . .for reassurance. . .

I very quickly got the positive test shown above.
Holy crap.
That can't be right.
There's just no way.
I'm breastfeeding. TWINS.
They are only 4 months old.
I haven't cycled yet.
I have stage 4 endo.
I only have one tube (on the left).
and my left ovary is my non-dominant ovary.
It took us 6 years of trying and 2 IVF's to get pregnant with the girls.
What are the odds I could be pregnant now? Answer - <0.01%

Not good.

So I call my OB's office the second they open on Friday morning (9 AM) and I leave a message - something along the lines of - hey, it's Megan (after having the girls they know exactly who I am), and you aren't going to believe this BUT. . .I got a positive pregnancy test. What process would you like me to follow now? Previously my progesterone has been low, but I'm breastfeeding now and I think that might affect different levels of hormones and I don't know if I should be on something, but I would appreciate a call back.

8 hours later at 5 PM (after the office was closed for the day), I got a call back from the OB's new PA. She told me to take another/different brand of test over the weekend and if it was still positive to call on Monday and they would have me come in for a beta. WHAT??? REALLY??? MONDAY???

"Why wait?" I inquired. Well apparently thier office has seen an influx of false positive pregnancy tests with FRER (First Response Early Response) over the last month. Okay. Fine. I will test again.

So I did. Saturday morning. Still a line, but definitely getting lighter. By Sunday the line was gone. I called on Monday to let them know that I had gotten another positive test, but I was concerned because the line was getting lighter, and me being the freak of nature that I am in the reproductive department was concerned about an ectopic pregnancy. The last time I had an ectopic my tube tore when my beta numbers were under 50 - nearly unheard of - but that's me - if there is a tiny chance something can happen. . .it will.

So, the normal PA was back on Monday and saw the exchange going on between me and the new PA and called me immediately. She asked if I wanted to come in for a scan and a beta - UM YES! Of course I do! I'm incredibly concerned about an ectopic pregnancy, and would prefer to be checked out just to make sure I'm okay.

So Brianna and I make the trek over to CB to have the PA scan me and do a beta. They did the beta first, then I waited FOREVER for the scan. And what did they see on said scan? Well, two different PA's were doing the scanning and there were two possible sacs in two different areas. The first contender measured in at 5 weeks 0 days and the second contender measured in at 5 weeks 2 days. Now I am in shock and they are starting to get excited. . . I start to get excited too (I apparently had forgotten that my HPT's were no longer positive). They immediately write me scripts for Neevo, Folbee, and Prometrium. Wait a second. NOW they write me scripts??? Oh that's right! I wasn't taking a the prenatal that I needed because my OB REFUSED TO GIVE IT TO ME. . .AFTER he told me that this exact scenario was totally possible and "happens all the time". Uh huh.

Well. . . .my beta came back negative at less than 1(yes I expected a low or even negative number since the tests were getting lighter and were actually negative by the time I was seen) so now the OB's office is telling me that my pregnancy tests gave me false positives, and that the "sac(s)" previously seen on ultrasound were actually blood pockets.

Excuse me? From what? I had TWO D&C's after the girls because there was still crap in my uterus and I wouldn't stop bleeding. My OB did the last D&C ultrasound guided to make sure he got everything out of my uterus. And he has pictures to show that there was NOTHING left over. NO blood, NO sacs, NO anything. Now I am being told that my pregnancy tests were obviously wrong, and the ultrasound findings were blood? Really? I smell something fishy. Maybe someone trying to cover his a$$ since I specifically requested the prenatal I needed to sustain a pregnancy and he REFUSED to give it to me? UGH! I don't know. I'm irritated and I just find it hard to beleive that multiple preganancy tests from multiple lots were somehow "contaminiated" and are handing out false positives. The first test I took was well over a year old from when I was first pregnant with the girls. The test from Saturday was from a different lot that I just bought from Target on Friday afternoon. Yeah, not the same test, and a false positive is beyond not likely.

At this point I'm not bleeding. . .not yet anyway. Which makes sense, since supposedly I was never pregnant. I can tell you - this was my FOURTH pregnancy. I know what it feels like to be pregnant. I also know what it feels like and what it looks like on pregnancy tests when you miscarry.

Sigh. . . cue miscarriage #3. . .

In theory, because I am breastfeeding, my progesterone level should be high enough to keep me from actually miscarrying on my own. Awesome. And since the OB's office is saying now that I was never actually pregnant, they aren't going to do a D&C or anything to clean out my utuerus. UGH.

I thought twice about posting this to my blog because so many freinds and family read this blog and I didn't really want to go public about getting a positive HPT. BUT, when I googled breastfeeding and pregnancy tests and false positive tests there wasn't jack out there for me to read and to compare my story to. Apparently this just doesn't happen. So I felt that I should share my story so others would have something to compare their situation to, should it ever happen again. And if it does, and if you are one of those readers - drop me a line and let me know - I'd love to hear your story.

Now on to how I feel about this whole ordeal. First I was terrified when I saw that BFP on Friday morning. What would Si think? Could we handle it? Emotionally? Finanacially? I mean, how on earth would we be able to properly care for 1 year old mobile twin girlies and a newborn and give everyone the attention they need??? Would our nanny still be able to watch everyone? Would I have enough time leftover to take off work for maternity leave (again)? What if the baby wasn't okay - I mean - I was off of my necessary prenatal for nearly a month?

Then I got excited when I saw Si's eyes light up Friday morning when he exclaimed "maybe it's a boy!". I thought, maybe! How cool would that be!

That turned to a little bit of sadness and relief (I'm being honest here) when the HPT's got lighter. I mean, I didn't want to have to explain to everyone (and you KNOW someone would say something) about how we magically got pregnant on our own when the girls were 4 months old after having to do fertility treatments to get the girls here to start with. I can hear it now - "see, if you would have just relaxed. . ." or "see, you weren't patient enough. . ." you would have gotten pregnant on your own. Grrr...I can feel my blood boiling and no one has even said that yet!

Now, over the last couple of days I have become very sad about the loss of our baby. . .at night when the girlies are asleep and I lay in bed I think about the baby still inside of me that didn't get a chance to develop into their full potential. And I wonder - which way was harder - was it harder for me to m/c when we were desperately trying to get pregnant? During that time finally seeing those two pink lines was such a relief - the excitement was absolutely overwhelming - and such a scare at the same time as I was so terrified that I would lose the pregnancy.

Or is it harder now, now that I know what potential that baby really has? I've been holding my girlies just a little closer the last couple of days. . .that's what these baby (ies) could have become. . .so sad that they didn't get that chance. . .