Progress, and yet not...

The last two months since my last post have been both totally uneventful and insanely busy. First things first: we still don't really know what our next step is. We met with one of the REs from Shady Grove. I really liked her, she had some new ideas; mostly putting me on a higher dose of some meds and adding Lovenox (a low dose blood thinner) to my protocol. But since I am allergic to Lupron there is not a whole we can do differently. She would absolutely 100% do ICSI on all our eggs, which I liked since we had the whole drama with the ICSI at our last clinic. She said she wouldn't suggest a Lap for me, which I was disappointed to hear since I feel like it would provide some answers. I would have to repeat all the testing including another HSG. Going with her for the last IVF is a definite possibility, but we are waiting until we meet with the RE from SIRM to make a decision. That appointment is two weeks away, and I am very anxious to get it over with, I am tired of not actively cycling.

In adoption news: Garry has decided he is on board with adoption if the 3rd IVF doesn't work! He did a complete about face on this. Three months ago he was 100% against adoption. Then we started talking about using my sister as a gestational carrier and he realized we would technically have to adopt the baby from her. I think that is partially what did it for him. Even if the baby was 100% genetically ours we would have to adopt it legally. He doesn't really care about being genetically linked, he was just freaked by the legal stuff and explaining it to potential children. We also went to an informational session at an agency and getting answers to all our questions, plus hearing other people had the same concerns, helped ease his mind. I must admit it is a big weight off my shoulders to know that when my body fails us for the 3rd IVF we still have options. We most likely are still 2-3 years away from getting placed with a baby, but the wait will be worth it in the end.

Unfortunately I have not been doing great on the weight front. I have gained about twenty pounds back from the original 70 I lost. I know being 50 down is still a huge accomplishment, but I am once again above a BMI of 40. I know I need to get back on track to increase my odds, but it is hard believing the weight will make a difference now. I lost 20% of my body weight last time and yet our IVFs still failed. When the doctors tell me now that even a 10% drop will help I want to laugh in their faces and then throat punch them. But I have plans to get back on track next week. There is no point in starting now because the annual cupcake competition I enter is this weekend, so I will be eating copious amounts of cupcakes.

On the work front, I got a promotion! I will finally be working a Monday-Friday job with semi-normal hours. Best of all I love the new position and it excites/challenges me everyday. It will be a while before I am on my new schedule because we have to train my replacement, but hopefully by the end of November I will be able to have a little more free time with family and friends.

Lastly, we have a new addition to the family: a new puppy! After the debacle with Penny last year we didn't think we would ever try and get another puppy as long as Wallace was around. But we got a text three weeks ago from a family member and they knew someone with a puppy they could no longer care for, could we take her? We decided to give it a shot and if all else failed we could find her a better home. It turns out her and Wallace get along great (as long as we keep food out of the equation). She is a 5 month old boxer puppy that we named Winnie. She is incredibly sweet and totally fearless. She goes after 120 pound Wallace like he is a toy poodle.

Her is a picture of the new puppy and one of the whole motley crew.



Thanks for checking in, I will update again after our consult with SIRM and when we decide what we are going to do.

It's been a while...

I honestly just haven't had much to talk about recently. We are still on hold as far as our last IVF goes. I had my WTF a few weeks ago with Dr. F, and we will definitely not be going back to cycle with him. He absolutely does not want to do a laparoscopy on me to check for endo. I don't want to attempt the last IVF without doing one (there are conflicting theories on whether or not endometriosis affects the outcome of IVF). Also he would basically not change anything for a 3rd IVf from the 2nd, and I am just not willing to redo a cycle that failed.

So we are going ahead with a consult with Shady Grove. They are quite a hike from us, but we are willing to put the mileage on our cars if it means we get the care we want. I am also going to make an appointment with SIRM in Philly at some point to see if they have anything different to say about our situation.

At this point I am honestly not sure my body will ever be able to get pregnant. I think there is more wrong with my immune system than we know, and I think it is making my body reject the embryos. We had talked about possibly using my sister's eggs before IVF #2, but now I think that is pointless. I believe my body would reject embryos made from her eggs as much as it did mine. We are talking about using my sister as a gestational carrier now. It obviously isn't my first choice on how I wanted to bring our children into the world, but it is better than nothing. And I think Garry will eventually come around to the surrogate option sooner than he would come around to adoption. If we decide to go this route we would do it with the 3rd IVF. That way our egg retrieval would still be covered under insurance and we would just have to pay for her testing and the embryo transfer out of pocket.

But right now Garry is still weirded out by the idea of our children being born to any other woman than myself. In his head who ever gives birth to the baby is the Mom. I tried to tell him that is like saying whoever releases the sperm is the Dad, but we all know that isn't always how it works. Sometimes I get very frustrated with how narrow minded he is about all things adoption and surrogate related. In the end, I don't care how our family gets made, but he does so we have to go by his time table. Hopefully we will be starting therapy soon to try and work all of this out.

Now if you made it through all of that I have a little reward for you. I started work on my newest (and biggest) tattoo yesterday. It is going to be beautiful, only about a 1/3 of it is done so far, but here is a pic for you all to admire:


It is a cover up of my first tattoo. If you look closely you can see the outline of the old tattoo under the shamrock. She will put a couple more coats of color over it, and eventually you'll never be able to tell there was once a little black heart there. In the new heart we are going to put my family crest, and it will be metallic colors with shading to make it look antique. I can't wait to finish it, but it will take about two more sittings.

That is it for now. Nest up will probably be the report for our consult with Shady Grove. Wish us luck!

Adoption Info Session...

I was so excited to go to this information session with a local adoption agency, and honestly I was a little disappointed. It is an adoption agency that specializes in foster-to-adopt. This is the kind of adoption we are leaning towards, mostly because we don't have thousands upon thousands of dollars sitting around to use for domestic infant adoption. I am OK with the knowledge that we may never parent a newborn baby. It is something I am sad about, but not something I dwell on too much. I just want to be a Mom and how I get there or what age our child comes to us at is not all that important to me.

I knew going into this meeting that the parameters we have set up in our minds were going to make for a pretty long wait, and I was right. We would be looking to foster children between infant and 5 years old. We have several reasons for that age range, the biggest being that we are not sure we could handle adjusting a child to a new family and a new school at the same time. We would want at least a year to bond with the child before we had to deal with the whole school thing. We would also be open to sibling groups of 2 children under the age of 5. We are open to children with mild autism, ADD/ADHD, and some drug dependencies from the birth mother. Now, the one that will make our wait really long can be a controversial topic. Right now we are only open to Caucasian children. Again there are lots of reason for this. The two biggest ones are: 1) there is zero diversity in either of our families. Zero. And on both sides there are some prejudices in our extended family members. It is not something either of us are proud of, but it is reality and we can't change the way our cousins/grandparents think. Neither of us would want to bring a child into a family where it would be possible for them to hear negative comments directed towards them or their race, no matter how small that chance could be. 2) Raising children of a different race involves a whole set of skills we aren't sure we have right now. Maybe some day, but for our first child, when we have no experience with the foster care system, we think the best way to go is the way we are most familiar with.

When we talked about this with the woman we met with she was very negative. It was almost like she was guilting us for knowing what we can and can not handle. I am sorry, but we know we can not handle a teenager right now. Especially a teenager that has been through half the things a typical foster-child has been through. Honestly sometimes the idea of a 5 year old that has been taken away from it's family scares the crap out of me. I understand that foster care professionals are probably pretty jaded towards people like us. We come in wanting to adopt a young, white, basically healthy child when they have so many children looking for homes that are the exact opposite. It must be incredibly frustrating.

But the way this woman talked to us was upsetting. She kept referring to domestic infant adoption as "buying a baby." As in "if you want a baby you will have to go buy one." I haven't even really started the adoption journey and I know that is horrible language to use. Also she kept cussing. She wasn't dropping f-bombs or anything, but she did toss around a couple other choice words like it was nothing. Don't get me wrong, I can cuss like a sailor too, but there is a time and place for language like that. And a first meeting with a potential client is not one of them.

With all that said, I am not discouraged, and I actually think Garry walked away from the meeting feeling a little bit better about the adoption option. He still isn't there yet, but he is considering it more now. I told him that the ball is in his court, by the start of our next cycle I want him to be able to definitively say "yes I am OK with adoption" or "no, I am not OK with it, if this doesn't work we will live child free." I can't go into our last IVF not knowing where we go after that. I will drive myself crazy.

Next up is our cycle wrap up meeting with Dr. F on Monday the 11th. We will most likely not be cycling with him again, but there are still lots of things I want to discuss with him, and I do still value his opinion, even if I no longer think he can help us.

Not this time...

Tomorrow morning I will make the 45 minute trek out to my RE's office for a 5 minute appointment to get my blood drawn for a completely pointless test. I am not pregnant. I know this. 3 First Response Tests have confirmed this. But I can't officially close the books on IVF #2 until that little vial of blood gets filled and analyzed.

This hurts. A lot. More than I thought it would. I tried to talk myself into not being optimistic this cycle. I knew the odds were just as good for failure as they were for success. But still my hopes were raised, and once again I have to deal with the crash.

One of the down sides of having everyone in my life know about our struggles is that I have to tell everyone when another cycle doesn't work. Having to make the same email, text, phone call over and over just drives it home even more. And I have to listen as they tell me it will be OK, maybe it is too early, the next one will work, etc. I know everyone means well, but they don't know my reality. My reality is that I have one more shot at becoming pregnant, and then we are done. If we use my sister's eggs for our next cycle then I have already lost my chance of having a child that is half me, half Garry. Sure I will still be in the genetic mix, but losing that chance of the perfect mix of myself and the man I love in one perfect little wiggly package is a loss that two years ago I couldn't even imagine.

Honestly, right now, the idea of cycling ever again is enough to bring tears to my eyes. Even with my sister's eggs. I am not sure I can handle having the hope that I can never quite suppress ripped away again. If I had to make the decision right now, I would want to start the adoption process without ever doing a third IVF. I know that adoption provides a set of problems, heartaches, and frustrations all it's own, but at least there wouldn't be the stress to my body. I wouldn't be injecting myself with drugs that give me headaches, acne, mood swings, and bruises dotting my stomach, legs and butt. I would be able to make phone calls, fill out paper work, actively work towards this goal of parenthood while still feeling like myself, not a Zombified version of me. But I can't make that decision on my own. My other half has to be part of it. And I know he wants to do our last IVF. He wants to explore every option to have a child that is at least partially biologically ours before we seriously start the adoption journey. If we start the adoption journey. He still isn't 100% sold on the idea.

But even with the extreme heartbreak I am feeling today, I know there is still work to be done. Getting that work done is what is keeping me going right now. I have to settle up my accounts with my current RE because we will most likely not be cycling with him again, as much as I like the guy. And we will be getting a sizable refund from him. I am making appointments with a larger clinic to get our options for a final IVF cycle. I have gained about 10-15 pounds back over the past 4 months, I need to get back to work on losing that weight, and I want to get under 250 before we cycle again. That is about 40 pounds and six months away.

I also made an appointment with a local adoption agency to get some information. Thankfully Garry is OK with going in for a simple information gathering session. If we go the adoption route our house will need a lot of work done to it before we start a home study, so I will slowly be checking things off that list as well.

Garry and I will also be going to counseling starting in a few weeks. We need to talk through both of our feelings about adoption. I won't lie, I am hoping I can sway him to my way of thinking, that adoption can be just as beautiful as giving birth. I am hoping therapy will help him to see that any child could be our child, not just one genetically linked to us. I also need to talk through my depression over the knowledge that I may never care for a newborn. If we do adoption we will go the foster-to-adopt route because of finances (we don't have $30k+ to spend on domestic infant or international adoption). That means that we will more than likely parent a child starting between the ages of 1 and 5. I am basically OK with this, but I will admit I am sad that I may never get to experience the cuddly newborn stage when they aren't running away from us.

No matter what route we eventually choose, no big decisions will be made for the next4-6 months. I need a break, physically and emotionally. We will re-evaluate in November and see what we want to do then. We probably won't do our 3rd and final IVF till January. In the meantime I will get healthy again, and Garry and I will continue to focus on being happy with only us, just in case we end up living child-free.

Half Way There

Only five more days till I go in for the blood pregnancy test. I have been shockingly calm this whole time. I think it is partly because I have my expectations appropriately tempered. I was so sure I would be pregnant with the first one that I got kinda wacky towards the end. But this time I know there is a good chance this didn't work, and I am handling that pretty well.

I have literally zero symptoms. I'm not even getting many side effects from the Progesterone injections. I am just tired, which I expected. My plan is to test tomorrow morning, just to get it out of my system. I will be 6 days post 5 day transfer, so it will still be a little early to get an accurate result, but I need to do it at least once before we go on mini-vaca so it doesn't haunt me all week. Then I will test the morning of my beta so I can be prepared either way.

Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise

The transfer went great yesterday. We put two blasts back. My clinic grades blasts on a scale from A-D; A is the worst quality and D is the best. My RE said 'D' and 'C' graded embryos have the same pregnancy rates. We had one Grade C and one Grade A. He also said it is possible for the grade A to turn into a better quality blast in a few hours, so not to count it out of the equation. I go back for the pregnancy test on July 1st, but I will most likely start testing a few days before then. Here are my little embies which I am refering to as Thing 1 and Thing 2:
Thing 1: Grade C Blast


Thing 2: Grade A Blast


Our other two embryos stopped growing at 4 and 6 cells so we don't have anything to freeze, but we are ok with that since we have the two best at home with me.

In other news: I can't wait until Monday when I get to finally clue Garry in on our mini-vaca to Atlantic City. We so need this time alone together away from worrying about work and cycling and family. I can't wait, and he will be so excited when he finds out where we are going.

Four!

As of Sunday evening we have four embryos growing! I am shocked and so excited that we have so many going. It makes me feel a little better about the embryologist's decision, but I still think I should have been included in the decision making process, and I am going to have a talk with the RE tomorrow before the transfer.

So last night we had our original two embryos going strong at 8 cells and very little fragmentation, and two others that fertilized late and were at 5 and 4 cells. I can't wait to go in bright and early tomorrow and see how my little clumps of cells are doing. Hopefully at least two will be at the blastocyst stage for transfer. Then I will be on bed rest for tomorrow and just taking it easy on Wednesday.

Wish me luck, and commence all sticky vibes please!