Holter Monitor

Well, life has been kind of stressful with this latest development. I told the IVF clinic that my cardiologist prescribed the Holter monitor as requested, that he thinks there is a chance that he can get all the testing done in time, and that he thinks I should stay on the hormones as prescribed while he investigates the issue. They responded to just do as he says and keep them posted. There was no real comment about cancelling the implantation, and I didn’t push that point. I just want the opportunity to try to get it all done. I hope that everything comes out clear so we can just move forward as planned.

Yesterday, I got set up with the monitor. It is quite a mess of wires and such, that all transmits data to an old school blackberry phone that was clipped to my belt. I was a little horrified when I google-imaged it ahead of time to see what I was in for, and debated on just working from home, and laying around on the couch to just pass the test so we can move on. But, what if there really is a problem? I owe it to myself and to our potential little girl to find out, so I just wore some baggy clothes that day to cover up all the wires and just did my usual schedule at the office as I normally would. My heart felt ok. I felt a little agitated this morning from stress, and hope that didn’t throw anything off on my test. We will see. 

Here's a diagram of what it looks like. I had a part that hung around my neck in addition to all this stuff too. All of the wires hooked into that part, and then the neck part transmitted to the blackberry that was clipped onto my belt (if that makes sense).

Rather than having to go back to the hospital to turn it back in when I hit the 24-hour mark of wearing this thing, they give you a UPS bag to dump it all in, and you ship it to Illinois where they grab the data that was collected so it can be turned over to your cardiologist. I did some research to find a UPS drop box with the earliest pick up time. It turns out the UPS store downtown by my office is the best one. The UPS label they gave me was for UPS ground, so I spent the big bucks to upgrade it to overnight shipping. Doing that allows me to get the results faster. I begged and pleaded to get an appointment next week with the cardiologist for the follow-up (he is booked solid for a couple of weeks, so he is really doing me a favor by squeezing me in.) My appointment with him will be the day before I am due to go back to the IVF clinic to get everything set up officially for the implantation. We are cutting this close. Sheesh.

If everything comes back clear from the test, I can go to my IVF appointment the next day and we are off to the races with implantation. If it comes back that I have an arrhythmia, I will probably need to cancel the IVF appointment and I have no idea where we go from there. It is so frustrating. We have gone to all this trouble to create this girl. Now what? Will I not be able to carry her? What do we do then? I can’t imagine hiring a surrogate. Or not doing it at all. I am trying really hard not to think about that. I had no problems being pregnant with the boys, so why is this coming up now?! Trying to have some faith and patience. I wish this was less stressful. It is out of my hands at this point. I have done all that I can do. Prayers, prayers, prayers.