A Little Update

As of today I am 8weeks 3 days pregnant. It is still hard to believe this is happening. But just when I start to think that it was all a dream, the constant nausea hits and I believe again. I must say I have never been so happy to feel so miserable. I know lots of people like to know what symptoms women feel, so here are mine:

- I am nauseous most of the day, but haven't thrown up yet. I came close once but only gagged.
- I have serious food aversions. Anything meat related is completely revolting, same with spicy food. Mostly I can only eat carbs. I am hoping this turns around soon because I know I am not getting the nutrition I need. Cracker have become my best friend.
- I am exhausted 24/7. It doesn't matter if I slept ten hours the night before, I still feel like I need a nap my 11am.
- I am super gassy. Thankfully Garry has no problem with girls farting.
- I have sore nipples, but it isn't so bad that I notice it all the time, only if something hits them by accident.
- I have a horrible metallic taste in my mouth all the time. It changes the way foods I used to love taste. I chew gum all the time and brush my teeth about four times a day.

That is about it. I haven't felt any real cramping, and thankfully I haven't had any spotting.

My first appointment with my new OB is this Thursday. I am excited and a little nervous. I know I most likely will not get another ultrasound until I am about 12-13 weeks along. It is going to drive me nuts not knowing what is going on in there.

That brings me to my first ultrasound. It revealed that we have one little jelly bean taking residence in my belly! I am incredibly excited! We got to see the little heartbeat and everything. It was the best thing ever, I couldn't stop crying. Garry was chill as usual during the ultrasound, but I know he is excited. He seems to have already convinced himself that the baby is going to be a girl. Weirdo.

I love that he just has complete faith that the whole pregnancy is going to go fine and there will be no problems. I wish I could be like that. I am constantly in fear that this all will end at any moment.

Here is a picture of the little jelly bean:

A post three years in the making

I am very proud to say that I am PREGNANT! I can't believe that this whole IVF thing finally worked. I have known since last Wednesday when I tested at home (yes I lost the bet to Garry). I have had three blood HCG tests done and everything is looking good as far as numbers go.
Beta #1 = 102
Beta #2 = 285
Beta #3 = 1801

Technically today I am 5 weeks pregnant. I go for the first ultrasound in about two weeks.

The last week I have been a great big mix of emotions. One minute I am happy beyond belief, the next I am terrified that I will lose the pregnancy. I don't think I will really be at ease with this until I can feel little baby kicks or I am holding our baby in my arms.

So far I haven't had much in the way of symptoms. I am tired a lot, have to get up once in the middle of the night to pee, and I am really hungry all the time, but that is it. My boobs feel fine and no nausea yet (knock on wood).

Garry is totally calm about all this. He doesn't seem to be at all worried about possible complications. I think he is excited, but he isn't showing it a whole lot yet. Maybe it will be more real for him when we find out how many are hiding in my ute.

So far the only people that know are close family and friends, so if you are friends with me on Facebook keep your lips zipped. I don't plan on announcing the pregnancy until the second trimester. Ok, I am going to go look at more baby stuff on Pinterest now.

Better than I could have imagined

That is how this whole cycle has been. I never would have imagined I would be as confident as I am right now.

Tuesday afternoon we transferred two beautiful blasts. And those were the words used by Dr. P, beautiful! The best part is we had two blasts that also made it to freeze. We have never had frozen embryos before, and I am excited to think there may be a chance after this cycle for more hope.



I barely slept Monday night, I kept waking up every hour thinking I was going to miss the call with what time we were supposed to be at the office. Finally around 6am I decided to screw it and get up for the day.

After 4 hours of staring at my phone the nurse called at 10am (literally as I was picking up to call them) and told us to be there by 2:30 for transfer. She didn't have the info on our embryos at the point so I had to wait 4.5 more hours to see how they were doing.

The nurse told me to drink 16 ounces of water when we got close to the office. Once we got to the office they checked us in and I got dressed in the ever glamorous hospital gown. We were taken back to the procedure room around 2:45 and they checked my bladder on ultrasound to make sure it was full enough. Unfortunately it wasn't so I had to sit in the transfer room pounding cups of water for about 45 minutes.

While waiting for my stupid bladder to fill up we got to have a great conversation with the embryologists. They were two of the nicest ladies ever. Christina and Erica came out and asked if we had thought about how many we were going to transfer, I responded "depends on how many we have left." Christina informed us we had four, three were grade 1 and one was grade 2! Then she left for a couple minutes and came back with her cell phone where she had taken pictures of the embryos. They were very excited about something one of our embryos was doing.
Here they are:



It isn't a great picture because it was taken off the screen of the microscope, but I will try and explain what they are so excited about. On the embryo on the left you can see a clump of cells kinda in the middle and to the right, that is the group of cells that will (hopefully) eventually turn into a baby, the cells kinda of lining the outside of the embryo will turn into the placenta. On the embryo to the right if you look in the bottom left and top right sections you can see there are two of those clumps of cells that could possibly turn into babies. This isn't a guarantee that the embryo will split into identical twins, but apparently the theory is that seeing that increases the chances of identical twins by 19%. The embryologists said the last lady they saw this with did end up getting pregnant with identical twins. The crazy part is that if they had looked a half hour earlier or later they might not have seen the two groups of cells. That is just how fast development of the embryos happens.

In the end we transferred the two embryos in the picture. The transfer was awesome. We could see the ultrasound screen the whole time. Dr. Peters pointed out where my uterus was, the catheter as they put it in, and the the little white spot the popped up why the transferred the embryos. We even got print outs with pictures of the embryos being transferred in. I really need scan them in and post them. IF these puppies stick they are going to have one heck of a baby book.

So now we wait. The first blood test will be the 3rd, and if that comes back positive the second will be on the 6th. As a side note, my birthday is the 8th, so this will either be the best birthday ever, or it will kinda suck.

Cycle Update

This cycle has gone better than I ever could have imagined. I am so, so happy I decided to go with SIRM and Dr. Peters. I haven't posted anything since the baseline so let me catch you up:

- I did 8 days of stims. Last week was a little rough because I had to drive to Jersey and back three times. But it was totally worth it. I am impressed that the Doctor does all the ultrasounds to check on follicles himself. He was great about explaining everything to Garry and tell us how big each one was. The two follie checks I had at SIRM were the best I have ever had.

- At the egg retrieval on Thursday they got 11 eggs! (as a reminder I got 4 eggs on IVF #1 and 10 on IVF #2.

- Of the 11 eggs 8 were mature, that is amazing for me! IVF #1 only 1 of the four were mature, and IVF #2 only have four mature eggs. I guess we found the right mix of drugs to get the best results out of my crappy ovaries.

Today is day 3 and I just got the call from Dr. Peters with our update. We have four 7 cell embryos growing today! SIRM has a grading scale from 1 to 3 with 1 being the best and 3 being the worst. Three of our embryos are grade 1 (yay!) and one is a grade 2!

We talked about doing the CGH genetic testing, and since we only have four embryos we decided to skip it. Dr. Peters explained that with three or four embryos it is not worth the cost because more than likely at least one or two of those will arrest by day 5.

So the plan from here is the embryos will continue growing until day 5 If all four embryos make it to Day 5 than we will transfer the best two and wait to see if the other two make it to freeze. If we have three left on day 5 then Dr. Peters, Garry and I will have a serious discussion about whether or not to transfer all three. The idea of triplets scares the ever living crap out of me. I think we could handle twins, and I am sure we would figure out how to handle triplets, but the idea of being out numbered by babies is really scary. I know the odds of all three implanting in me are slim, but there is still a chance.

I feel great about this cycle. Even if it doesn't work and we don't get pregnant I know that we tried everything, got great care from SIRM, and there was nothing else we could do. But I gotta admit, I am feeling very hopeful today.

Baseline Appointment

I had my baseline today, and it actually went better than expected. My E2 level was a little higher than I would have liked, but not too bad considering my diagnosis. It is supposed to be between 25-75, the higher the number typically the harder you are to stim. I came in at 63.

My ultrasound was pretty painful. If you have been following my story you know that the techs can have a hard time finding my ovaries, especially my left. No different this time. The right was fairly easy, and it had 5 antral follicles (or resting follicles), which is really good for me. The left one was being a little bitch though. Hiding right behind a loop of bowel. The tech was poking and prodding and pushing at my stomach all at the same time. And I had really bad cramps at the time. But she eventually got a peek and thought she saw 5 antral follicles there too. Ten Antral Follicles! That is more than I have ever had! The good luck bracelet my friend gave me yesterday must be working!

So I got the go ahead from my nurse to start stims. I jumped right in tonight with 675iu Gonal F. I go back Thursday morning for the first follicle check, and then next Monday I will start driving down to New Jersey for my appointments. I am exhausted just thinking about the next few weeks.

Hello Old Friends

I haven't posted in a very long time, mostly because I have been incredibly busy. I got a promotion at work, I was helping my sister plan and execute her wedding, we got a new puppy, and that is just to name a few things. I will catch you up on all that in a little bit.

In just a couple minutes I will be heading out the door for my baseline ultrasound and bloodwork, so here I am again. There is a pile of meds on our Booze Bar, I have my bases covered at work for the hand full of days I will need off for the cycle, and I have a healthy level of optimism, hope, and nerves brewing inside of me.

There are so many things we are doing differently with this cycle... going on blood thinners (which really sting by the way) for the immune problems that we discovered in all my bloodwork, I am going to be on a lot more hormones this time around, and we will be doing genetic testing on the embryos as well. I really hope that all of these things will bring us our success, but I am not counting on it. I have come to terms with the fact that I may not ever be pregnant. I am ok with it, because I know that Garry and I will be parents, it may take a few years for adoption to come through for us, but I am confident that at some point we will be parents. That knowledge has taken the pressure off of me, which is a nice feeling.

That brings me to a decision I recently made. At the end of this cycle our journey to have a baby will be over. Either it will end with me finally getting pregnant, or it will end with the road to adoption beginning. Either way I have decided that this blog will be ending with my infertility journey. I went back and read through the whole blog the other day. I cried a lot. There are so many things in here that I want to put behind me at the end of all of this. I might start fresh with a new blog about whatever the next journey is, we'll see. For now I am concentrating on making it through this last IVF with my sanity intact. Ok, off to meet with my old friend the dildo cam!

The plan is set...

We had our consultation with Dr. Peters at SIRM today and it went really well. I loved him, and Garry said what he says about all Doctors "He's a quack, they just tell you what you want to hear." Thanks hun, that helps a ton. But he agreed that Dr. P had the plan that we felt most comfortable and excited about, so we are going to make the three hour journey (one way) to their office to do our last IVF. I thought it was kinda funny how Dr. P explained things to Garry. He used lots of car analogies and even drew pictures on a dry erase board. Hilarious. Garry was half asleep most the time any way since our appointment time was when he is normally waking up.

But none of that is probably what you are all interested in. You want the details, the new plan. Here are the highlights:

- Dr. P does suspect that I have a Diminished Ovarian Reserve, but he doesn't want to officially label me DOR until we run some more tests.

- I got a script for Day 3 testing, I haven't gotten FSH tested in about two years. At least not that I know of, it is possible Dr. F tested it when ever I came in for my baseline appointments and just never told me the results, or put them in the severely anemic copy of my file. AF should be showing anytime this week so I will get that taken care of ASAP.

- We have an appointment in a month to go to the main office for all of the immune testing, something like 29 tests in total. We will also do the mock transfer, SA, and all the businessy stuff that day in the office. I am very curious to see what all this testing brings back. Dr. F ran 4 tests that were kinda immune related, but nothing coming even close to what Dr. P is planning to do.

- Depending on how the blood work all comes back we will likely do either Lovenox, Intralipids or both with the next cycle. This is going to sound weird, but I hope something comes back wacky so we can do at least the Intralipids. I want to be doing something radically different for the first two failed IVFs.

- He wants to up my stim doses to their max level which was 725 (or 750, I forget which one) at SIRM. Last time I was on a total of 525 Gonal F and 75 Menopur. He might mess with the ratio of Gonal F and Menopur a little also.

- He wants to stim me for 9-10 days as opposed to the 7-8 days I have done on the first two cycles. He hopes this will help me get more mature eggs, even if it means sacrificing a couple because they get over baked.

- We will do ICSI.

- We will do CGH (a genetic test that will tell us if the embryos are able to turn into a successful pregnancy) on all the embryos we produce, and do a 5dt of the normal blasts we get (he said he was ok with transferring two, but hesitant about 3 (if I even get that many)).

I also forgot to ask him a bunch of questions, so I am going to see if I can find an email address that I can send the rest of the questions to. Most importantly for me was about DHEA, I want to know whether or not he recommends it, I have been taking it twice a day for the past three months.

Right now we are hoping we will be able to cycle in December or January. I decided I want to start the New Year knowing what 2012 will bring us. Either we will spend the year planning for a baby being born, or spending it getting ready to start the adoption process. I can honestly say I am excited about both journeys. I would be overjoyed to be pregnant, but I will also be super excited about starting the official adoption process. Either path will lead us to the family we are meant to have.

I was also excited to hear that Dr. P is not as strict with the weight restrictions. Their weight limit for IVF is 350, which I am now well below. But that doesn't mean I am going to slack off on trying to lose more weight. I still want to lose as much is safe before the final attempt. I know being a more healthy weight can only help, so why not do everything I can to give this cycle the best chance possible.

So here we go again. This week we are officially trying again. Oy Vey.

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!

So so confused...

I hope this makes sense to everyone, because I am so confused right now I am not sure I can even put everything going through my head into writing.

First the good news: I have two embryos that are growing strong. The embryologist checked them twice today and the last time she checked they were both at 2 cells which is great for Day 1. She is also still watching two eggs for signs of fertilization. Apparently they were immature at the retrieval yesterday and they may have matured overnight and fertilized, but I won't know if they turned into embryos until she calls back Sunday night with an update. The transfer will be Tuesday, 5 days post retrieval.

Now the confusing part. I was under the impression we were doing ICSI again this cycle, that is what Dr. F and I talked about at my WTF, and he never mentioned the possibility that we wouldn't do ICSI (for those who have forgotten ICSI is when they take a single sperm and inject it directly into a single egg). Apparently the embryologist did not ICSI my eggs. Not one. She simply placed the eggs in a dish with the sperm sample and let them fertilize naturally. I don't totally understand why she did this.

Here is what she told me (paraphrasing): Last time she ICSIed one egg and it did not fertilize. Two of the immature eggs (which can not be ICSIed) were left to mature and fertilize normally, one of those fertilized abnormally and one normally. The one that fertilized normally was the one we transferred. So since the fert rate was better when she let the eggs fertilize normally on IVF #1, she decided that should be the route we take this time.

The thing I am having trouble with is this: You can't know off of one egg not fertilizing with ICSI that all of my eggs won't fertilize with ICSI. That could have been a bad egg. I could understand if she had ICSIed half and left half to fertilize normally. But she decided to just let all the eggs try to fertilize on their own. Now we have two embryos growing, and two eggs that we don't know if they fertilized or not. I can't help but feel like if she had done ICSI we might have more embryos now. I even asked her if she could have tried doing rescue ICSI on them (ICSIing the eggs that did not fertilize by the next day). She said she considered it, but ended up not doing the rescue ICSI because if she had done it on an egg that had already been fertilized by a sperm, and wasn't showing signs of fertilization yet, then that embryo would have been essentially destroyed (two sperm can't fertilize a single egg and turn into a healthy embryo).

The thing I am having the hardest time with (and the thing that is making me want to cry every time I think about it) is this: we will never know. It is possible if she had ICSIed every egg we would have ten embryos right now. It is possible we would have zero. If she did half and half we might have a couple more, or we could have the same results. We'll just never know, and if this cycle doesn't work I will also think that had she done it differently it would have turned out differently. That thought is going to keep me awake for the next two weeks.

Now I am honestly not sure I can trust my RE's embryologist. At the very least I feel like the possibility of not doing ICSI should have been brought up at some point before the retrieval so we could all make the decision together. Now I feel like this whole process is even more out of my hands than it already was. I feel like they went behind my back. I just want to cry.

Quick Update...

I am currently resting up at my Mom and Dad's house, and being very well taken care thank you very much. The retrieval went great, they got 10 eggs! I could not be happier! I never thought we would get that many. When I let my mind wander a little and be optimistic I would think about getting 7 eggs, never ten. I am ecstatic, and truth be known, so so hopeful. I have all the excitement that was missing for this whole cycle rushing back today. This could actually work... Wow saying that is very scary.

So now I just wait (and try not to bite my nails down to the quick) for the call tomorrow from the embryologist telling me how many embryos we have. I am trying to keep my expectations realistic despite today's amazing out come. I will be over joyed with two great quality embryos to transfer. More than that will just be icing on the cake.

Follicle Check #2

I was pleasantly surprised at my second follie check. The u/s tech measured 12 total follicles, some of them will be too small to matter, but i will take it after I thought we would only have 5 after the first u/s. I have 7 on the right ovary all between 12mm and 17mm, and 5 on the left ovary between 10mm and 15mm. I really wish the lady that does the checks would tell me the measurements of each follicle, but she doesn't and when I ask she always makes an excuse. Oh well.

I did my last injection of Gonal F this morning, and just in the nick of time because it was the last does in the pen and I have no more refills left. Altogether this cycle I took 4200 iu Gonal F, wowza! I do my 20,000iu trigger shot tonight at 10pm, and the retrieval will be Thursday morning at 9:30am. I am finally starting to get excited, all of a sudden I have some actual hope. I am trying to temper it will a healthy dose of reality, but for right now I want to feel optimistic and happy that things seem to be going a little better than the last cycle.

Baking Therapy

I love baking. This is no secret. But the times I love baking most are when I am feeling lowest. Today was one of those days. I feel like my body has betrayed me, despite doing everything right. Despite doing all the injections religiously, my body still decides not to do what I want it to. And I hate it for betraying me.

But on the days when nothing seems like it will ever be ok, I bake. I find it comforting that I can put butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and chocolate into a bowl and have it come out of the oven twenty minutes later as a perfect pan of brownies. I love that without fail you can always find someone willing to devour those brownies. I love seeing that something I am good at brings the people in my life a little bit of sweetness and happiness. It makes me feel better about my crappy reproductive system. I may never be able to make a baby, but damn it I can make Cookie Dough Brownies, and Cake Batter Blondies.

I hate my ovaries...

I am about half way through stimming for IVF #2. I know I haven't been writing much about the cycle this time around. I think that is because I am just so 'blah' about the whole thing. I have no excitement, and very little hope, which translates to me not having much to say about the whole thing. But I will try and eek out a half decent post here.

I thought that the massive increase in my Gonal F dosage would equal way more follicles this time around. Not so much. I have been on 525 iu Gonal F (300 in the morning, 225 in the evening) and 75 iu Menopur a day for five days now. When I went in for my first follicle check this morning I had 5 measurable follicles growing; 4 on the right and 1 little 10mm follicle on the left. Let's do a little time warp back to the first follicle check from IVF #1:

"My right ovary has 6 follies between 10-13mm and few that were too small to count yet. The left was being a little bitchy and wouldn't come out from behind my bowels. The ultrasound lady said she thinks she saw four on there, but she could only measure two. So I am counting that as 8 definite with 2 maybes."

That's right, despite doubling the dose of Gonal F I have less follicles in contention this time then IVF#1. To say I am disappointed is a gross understatement.

I hate to admit it but on the drive home for the appointment I actually started thinking about what we could do differently for our next (and last) IVF. I am just going through the motions at this point. I am trying very hard to stay some what optimistic and upbeat, but in truth I am just over it. I know logically that there is still time for the smaller follicles to catch up, and that it is possible that all five of those follicles could have fabulous eggs and make 5 rock star embryos, but I'm not counting on it.

The plan for the weekend is the same as the past week. 300iu Gonal F in the morning, 225iu Gonal F and 75iu Menopur in the evening. I will add in Cetrotide tomorrow evening to prevent the eggs from ovulating on their own. I go back on Monday for another ultrasound. My nurse seems to think I will be triggering that night, but I am not so sure. We shall see...

It's a little bit funny...

While I was doing my second injection of the day yesterday it occurred to me how funny the position I find myself in right now really is. And not only because at the time I was wedged in a tiny bathroom stall with all my meds lined up on the toilet paper dispenser. It is funny because five years ago I was terrified to even take a pill.

I lived a mostly chemical free life up until I got diagnosed with Crohn's. Not out of a sense of morality or "my body is a temple" or anything like that. Purely out of fear. I have never done recreational drugs because I have always been afraid of getting caught, or doing something dumb while stoned. I can count the number of times I have truly gotten drunk (not just tipsy off a few classes of wine) on one hand, mostly because I hate throwing up and equate drinking too much with puking. I have hated taking pills since I was a kid, my mom would have to mix them in with my applesauce when I was sick. Even as adult I would avoid pills unless it was absolutely necessary. Garry used to laugh at me when we first started living together because it was a ten minute process for me to take a medium sized pill. First I had to stare it down for five minutes, then it would take four minutes for me to swallow it without gagging.

Then I got diagnosed with Crohn's and had to drink a bunch of nasty radioactive drinks for different tests. Now swallowing a pill doesn't seem so bad. When I think about my reluctance to swallow pills all those years ago it makes me laugh now. I can do a subQ injection in two minutes flat from mixing to throwing away the needle. I have a feeling if I needed to do an IM injection I would be able to, but I haven't yet.

I realize it is trivial, but that change seems so incredible to me. In five years I have gone from being scared of all medications, medically necessary or recreational, to taking five pills and two injections a day. And I am happy to do it.