The itchies and the bitchies

You know what today is, fine folks? Today is my last day of birth control... w00t! Very exciting stuff here. Based on my track record, I should be getting 'ol AF next Tues or Wed, and have an ultrasound and bloodwork appointment next Thurs to check out the oves and hormone levels. Show? Almost on the road.

I started lupron on Tuesday to suppress the heck out of lefty and righty. Though let's be honest, we needed to do fertility treatments because I *don't* ovulate on my own, so in my opinion it's overkill. But whatever, I was kindof missing all the lovely side effects from all the meds anyways :)

I was on the antagonist protocol for IVF, so I never used lupron for down regulation, just whopping high dose as a trigger. I remember the itchies that ensued for almost two days after the trigger QUITE well. Didn't think our litlte microdoses of 15 units out of an insulin syringe would have the same effect, but surprise! It does. Though it doesn't last as long. Just a nice little reminder for an hour or two that it indeed was there.

Oh! And I'm bitchy! (if you know me, you're all "well duh. not exactly the announcement of the century.") The lupron makes me bitchiER. I'm finding myself MUCH more annoyed by the little things these past couple of days, and I'm blaming it on the meds. Watch out- I'm on these babies for a full three weeks... good times!

In other news, we got the new esradiol valerate, mixed in ethyl oleate, a hypoallergenic (in theory) synthetic oil to replace the sesame oil stuff. Hope that plus the less frequent injections lead to less hives overall- always a good goal in my opinion!

Other than that, life has been a bit crazy. Lots of trip planning (things are set for our ski trip... yay!), lots of relaxing, and finally lots to do at work. I'm pretty much operating on "ignorance is bliss" mode right now. That way I don't have to think about the fact that there are 27 more days until our transfer, 35 more days until our beta, and 37 more days until our RE confirms success or failure.

That's a lot of days. A lot of time for something to go wrong. A lot of time to be reminded that this is our *second* embryo transfer. Every time I think about it, I'm reminded of the simple truth that IVF didn't work for us. The last resort, the big guns, failed. I knew it was possible. I knew it wasn't likely, but not likely doesn't mean not possible. I'm *still* having so much trouble getting past that simple fact, and I'm so annoyed by it that I'm ready to punch myself listening to me whine about it.

So instead of whining, I'm ignoring. All that excitement over today being the last BCP? Feigned. In fact, the thing I'm most excited about today is how AWESOME my hair smells because of shampoo I started using today.

One of these days I'll get "in the mood" for our FET. Just not today. And probably not tomorrow either.

Dear Santa... (and the plan)

First, I told you that all I wanted for Christmas was a positive pregnancy test, preferably my own.

I understand the confusion, as you may have overheard me telling my husband about these super cute galoshes, and my mom about a Le Creuset dutch oven, and my in-laws about some new running gear.

Totally get it.

But I probably should have been more clear. And maybe omitted the "preferably my own" part. Though you did come through! I mean, not for Dr Boy and I, but for Rebecca, and W&W, and Megan, and AMiracle, and Heather, and Jenn, and @mhamer33, and @_ttc_2003, and @EndoJourney, my cousin, and my new friend K.

Yeah.

Thank you for helping all of them, and the others I'm sure I'm forgetting. Each and every one of them deserves this win so, so very much. Though, I'm fairly certain that there's only three of us whom I cycled with that aren't pregnant right now. Which, to be honest, is pretty damn good stats, which is why I'm thanking you, Santa.

Do you think you might have something else in 'ya though? Or, could you contact Cupid, or St Valentine, or one of the President's we celebrate on Presidents Day?

Because we could really use a win. This time? I'm amending my request.

One positive pregnancy test, please. Definitely my own.

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Good news at the RE visit yesterday. Got the usual "Sometimes the best embryos just don't stick, and the crappy ones do" speech, which I was expecting. I know there wasn't going to be any good reason why this didn't work.

We then got down to the business of our FET. Dr S is definitely on the same page as we are- getting this show on the road ASAP. As such, we're going to start BCP as soon as my period arrives, which it keeps threatening. I have totally AF cramps, to the point t where I feel like it's a repeat of the Great Toilet Paper Watch of 2011. I'm not quite to the point of tempting fate with lacy undergarments and white pants, but if we're a no-show this weekend, AF better watch out. I won last time, if you remember.

He wants me on BCP for a min of 3 weeks, at some point starting some lovely Lupron injections to keep me suppressed. I'll come off the BCP, do some u/s's to check out my lining, take some estrogen, start me some PIO-goodness, then transfer in early February, along with the rest of the patients on the Jan/Feb calendar. Bueno. Oh, yeah, and he definitely wants to transfer two again. So we don't have to have that fight later :)

If all goes well, I'll be PUPO by Valentine's Day. Though I have a ski trip planned to Breckenridge the weekend before V-Day, so we'll be planning around that. Maybe the elevation will help???

Could I ask you guys for input again? If you've had one, what did your FET med calendar look like? What kinds of meds were you taking, when, etc. If you've written a post on it, you can direct me there. I feel like all the research I did was on the fresh part of the cycle, not the frozen parts. Thanks!

I'm happy. I still have a crazy low trigger for crying, but honestly, I did before. Not this bad, but not all that abnormal either. I may or may not have cried during Top Chef last night.

Ultimately, I'm just glad to have a plan to get through the holidays, something to focus on instead of the pain and hurt that this cycle ended up as.

The Dark Place

It's where I go when I'm depressed. I was there a lot before I started Lexapro. I've been there every now and then since I weaned off a little over three years ago. I'm there now. I have so many errands to run today, so many things to do to get ready to travel down to LA Saturday morning. Yet I'm here on the couch, watching my 7th episode in a row of Friday Night Lights.

Of course I am. It's expected. It's one of those days where love and support hurts. Knowing you have all these people around rooting for you and supporting you. Right now, I feel like I just have more people out there who I've let down. People who helped me during this cycle that I feel like wasted their time. Thoughts and prayers that went unanswered.

Emily wrote the sweetest post. Everything that was going through my head yesterday. All the questioning. And while it felt good to read those words, it made me cry. Just like when my IVF nurse called in the afternoon to check up on me. It made me bawl. The best part was me making the mistake of asking when, realistically, we could start our FET. Because right now, all I can think about are two things. 1. Why the hell am I here. 2. When the hell can we start again.

You know what she said? First, I have to cycle out of the provera (probably this weekend). Then, I have to have a natural cycle. Say WHAT??? My natural cycles are effing 50 days long, if I'm lucky. "If you're late you can take provera." Oh gee. That cuts it down to a 45 day cycle. That sure helps. Then I have to do BCP for a month, then the cycle we end up transferring. That, best case scenario, takes about 80 days until we hit CD1 for the FET cycle. Which takes us to the second week of March. Which means we won't even find out until the last week of March. That's three months away.

That's effed up. It sent me into some pretty hysterical sobs, strait into the bathroom with the chaise lounge doing a heck of a lot of the ugly cries. I spend the last half our of work there. Or rather the second to last half hour of work. The final half hour of work I spent on the phone with my friend N talking me down. She's kindof the best. Turns out Dr Boy texted her to call me and talk me down, because he didn't have time to at work. And you know what? She was able to tell him that she already had :) I am so lucky to have the two of them.

I turn 30 on March 13th.

I need this before then. I at least need this CHANCE before then.

I have my WTF appointment tomorrow afternoon with Dr S. I hope to hell she was wrong. I want to start BCP this goddamn weekend and get the show on the road.

Could any of you that have been here (and I am so so sorry that you have), what your timeline looked like? I need to know what's "normal" in this situation. Am I trying to rush it? Because I feel ready. My head needs this to happen much much more than my body needs to heal. I'm fine physically, and will keep working on being fine physically. I just need this to happen as soon as possible, so I can crawl out of the dark place.

I know these all just sounds melodramatic. I kindof want to punch myself for it but I can't seem to stop.

Shocker! (15dpo, 10dp5dt)

Had my second beta today. Not pregnant. I was reeeeeal surprised.

Not.

A list.
- Last night's PIO shot was the absolute least painful one yet. Go figure.
- I can't wait to feel like I can sleep w/out a sports bra on.
- Estradiol tabs give me heartburn from hell, not wishfully-thought pregnancies.
- Holy hell the withdrawal bleed is going to be awful, huh?
- Dr Boy was awesome and briefed his parents not to bring up the failed test on Sunday. Even when I brought it up, they were really good. No "we'll get 'em next time" or anything else unhelpful. Win.
- I went running last night. First time since Thanksgiving. It's amazing how weak I felt. I run intervals, but could only do one third what I was back then. Lame.
- Also? With every step I took, my PIO butt bruises jiggled. OOOOOWWWWWWWWWW. Today my hips hurt.
- WTF appt is Thursday afternoon. I want to get this FET on the road AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. I feel this sense of urgency about it that I just can't even explain.

I still have a lot to sort through, mentally. I keep forgetting that Dr Boy is going through this too. I'm not strong enough right now to help him get through it, and that sucks. You know what he was doing Sunday morning when I told him? Seeing newborns. Two to three day old newborns. I can't even imagine that.

I'm also grappling with success rates. But that's for another day.

Thanks for all the support and thoughts and prayers. I'm sorry it was a waste of time.

My boobs got my back (9dp5dt)

At my job, each day I work one of two shifts: one that starts at 6am, or one that starts at 7am (it's flexible, but I vanpool and we head in about that time). Today is my seventh day of work in a row. All with 6am-ers.

Let's first get this on the table that I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON. This fact cannot be rescued by caffeine. I have been known to be saved by the occasional donut or asiago cheese bagel with onion and chive cream cheese, but generally speaking, not. a. morning. person.

Now let's get THIS on the table. I frequently turn my alarm off in my sleep. About half the time, Dr Boy realizes it and gets me up (because he is a saint in this regard and i love him dearly), but the other half? Totally late for work. It's a problem.

Last week, between making holiday english toffee, going back to work after lots of resting, and not sleeping well due to stressing about implantation, I managed to turn my alarm clock off three mornings in a row. I'm talented, huh?

Today was destined to be one of those mornings. I didn't get more than four hours of sleep Saturday night, so I had a lot of catching up to do. I still stayed up too late, opening presents and hanging out with the in-laws. I talked to my mom a little before bed. I FINALLY got to talk to Dr Boy, just the two of us, about the serious possibility, near-certainty, that we were one of those couples that have to go through an IVF BFN. There were tears, sobs, and snot. I finally fell asleep HARD shortly after 11pm.

The alarm very rudely woke me up this morning as I was dreaming about something or other. I know I dreamt but can't for the life of me remember what about. I was sleeping on my back, and started to roll over to turn it off and

BAM!!! HOLY HELL BOOBS FEEL LIKE HOT POKERS ARE STABBING THEM!!! In reality it was only my sheets and mattress, but wow. That sure as hell woke me up. No late for work for me!

So thank you boobs, for having my back, and keeping me from accidentally turning my alarm clock off.

Also, for giving me just the slightest bit of hope that this cycle *may* have actually been successful. Of course, it's more likely that the pain is from the PIO shots we take in the evenings, but still. A girl can dream.

Other "maybe" type symptoms include crazy fiery heartburn from hell no matter what I eat, and crampy ute. Of course, that could be AF trying to bust her way through the PIO/Estradiol, but whatever. I have also had a crazy amount of CM in the last few days. Crazy amount. Grody. Grody. Grody.

I don't know. I'm sure I'm just still trying to cling to the false hope stage. (coincidentally the reason i didn't poas this am) Either way, we'll know when the phlebotomist sings tomorrow.

My embies are lazy (8dp5dt) (edited)

Which would make sense, since they're half me. I was kindof hoping they'd get the half-my-husband in that department though.

They're still failing to give me any appreciable sign that they're still in there. Two more days of pee sticks, two more big fatty white spaces where a second line should be. I added the First Response Early Results into the mix yesterday, and they're just as pasty white. Maybe if I sent them to the tanning salon they'd respond better?

I had my blood draw this morning. Good times with a mid-forearm vein. Should get the results in a few hours. I'm hoping beyond hope that there's something still in there, just slowly stretching and getting into the hcg-producing swing of things. Slowly. Agonizingly slowly.

Yesterday and Friday were the days of grief. I was finally confronted with the very real possibility that this wouldn't work. That I'd fall into the 30-40% chance of failure, rather than the 60-70% chance of success that Dr S gave me. When he walked out of the room after the transfer, he said that he had no doubt in his mind that they'd be calling me with good news this week. I'm pretty sure the good news wasn't that we'd be sending more $$ their way in a month or two.

Today is more of a numb day. I'm slowly transitioning into the worst phase of my end-of-cycle processing- false hope. You know, the justification part? Well, it was probably just a bad batch of tests. It's still too early to really know. They could just be super-late implanters. Tests have been wrong before! The false hope makes you feel like a complete dupe when the truth comes out, but at least it's kept me from sobbing in front of computer models this morning.

Yes, we have 8 embies on ice waiting in the wings. Yes, they're probably pretty good quality. Yes, I'm still 29. Yes, we still have time. Blah, blah, blah.

Those aren't the things you want to hear when you're facing a BFN after something you thought would get you your take home baby. A great way to celebrate the holidays is with a BFP! Not a bottle of spiced wine. I just feel like I've let everyone down so far, with my mom coming up to take care of me through the retrieval/transfer, and the second beta being drawn on her birthday. And poor Dr Boy, who's rushed home each night to make sure that I had dinner and my PIO injection, and that our diabetic cat was taken care of so I could slack it up on the couch.

The best part is that the in-laws are heading over this afternoon when we get off work to celebrate Christmas with us, since we'll be heading down to So Cal to spend it with my family. You know how my blog title is Meier Madness? It originally stemmed from what I call the trips they take to visit us. While I love them to death, and they truly are wonderful loving people, high doses of the Meier's can be a lot to handle. A lot. And while they know that we'll be finding out some time this week whether we were successful or not, I just don't want to let them into this inner circle quite yet. If today is a false negative, I don't want to drag them down, or have them try to lift me back up. I'm not in the mood. I want to sulk, or celebrate, in peace with Dr Boy. But we won't get to do that. And EVEN better, they're spending the night, so we won't have our time alone until we both get home from work tomorrow. Fab.

I hope I'm just overreacting. I'm good at that. I hope that at least one of these guys chose to stick around. I really just want my Hanukkah miracle.

Please?
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Today's beta came back at less than 5. Guess I'm hoping for a miracle on Tuesday.

Freeze Report and Why Early Testing is the Devil (6dp5dt)

So last I left you to take a gander at my right column dealio to decipher what we ended up freezing from this cycle. To recap, we still had 17 embies growing on the day of transfer. We transferred two, leaving 15 to continue growing and makin' da behbehs for us.

Our clinic will only freeze (or at least in our case) once an embie hits blasts. They'll give them until day 7 to do so, then call it quits. I called on Monday afternoon (day 7), and found out that 5 embies had hit blast by Sunday and were frozen, and another three caught up on Monday and were added to our lot.

We have 8 snowy embies! Snowbies! If you look at it as 8 out of the 36 that were retrieved, it's kind of depressing knowing that we lost about 75% of what was gathered. On the other hand, we TRANSFERRED TWO AND HAVE EIGHT FROZEN.

That maketh me happy. So do these slippers. Though not in the same way.

Gratuitous PDLAMBLATI. Noone's lookin' at my business,
but they sure are warm and cozy and cute.

Onto the devil sticks. I was emboldened by the success of Rebecca at Pink Lipgloss and Prenatals, whose trigger never tested out. She's had some great beta's and has her first u/s next week :) Awesome!

But anywho, I thought, well, I had some pretty good uterine cramping at 1, 2, and 3 dp5dt (days past a day 5 transfer). No implantation spotting, but that doesn't always happen. I had two GREAT looking embies transferred. Since about Tuesday (hmmmm, the first day I went back to work with a 6am start time) I've been reaching my awake limit at about noon. Right around there, I hit a point where my eyeballs burn and it literally hurts to keep them open. So much so that putting cold spoons on them sounds absolutely divine. Also, no matter what I eat, I get heartburn. Not awful, but definitely makes me think twice about snacking on anything other than cool water.

That's it though. Exhaustion, which can be explained away by lots of activity after lots of inactivity, and heartburn that can be explained away by unhealthy snacking. (though dude, even my dinner salad made me burny)

So I tested yesterday at 5dp5dt. Nothing. I had an incredibly vivid dream just before I woke up, where I just knew I was pregnant. Absolute, one hundred percent certainty. I felt so FULL. Full of everything that I can imagine it would feel like to finally have this happen for us. So Right. Perfect. I woke up still holding onto that feeling, and couldn't keep myself away from the devil sticks.

And I tested again today at 6dp5dt. Nothing. I again dreamt, this time of a co-worker announcing that his wife, whom I met on Tuesday, was pregnant. And due tomorrow. Holy hell, that one sent me into the breakroom in tears. In the dream, of course.

And tomorrow, I will test again. Because really, I've already broken the seal on this round and once you start, you just can't damn well stop before the beta, right? (sunday) But I'm breaking out the Big Guns. I have six First Response Early Results, the Rolls Royce of pee sticks according to Mo.

Please hold me. I'm finally on the doubt side of the roller coaster, and it feels like shit.

I'm alive! And PUPO! (2dp5dt)

Get Well flowers, from the in-laws.... really pretty!

Ummm.... so I kindof dropped off the face of the IVF blogging scene, huh? I was soooo soooo tired mid-week and had my mom in town taking care of me- bad combination for keeping up with the updates! Then we had the transfer, and seriously, blogging while horizontal is effing annoying. So I didn't do it. I'll try and recap the last few days for ya'll.

Wednesday Dec 7: Called for an updated fert. report, and was told our embies were still growing strong! At 2 days past retrieval, we had 1 6-cell, 5 5-cell, 10 4-cell, and 1 3-cell embryos. A-effing-mazing. The discomfort from retrieval was getting a lot better at this point, completely attributed to the drill-sergeant I have for a mother with regards to my protein and fluid intake. Dr Boy helped too :)

EAT MORE PROTEIN! AND DRINK  YOUR WATER! Or else...

I was still relying pretty heavily on my heating pad though- I swear that thing is an egg retrieval LIFE SAVER. Oh, and the colace. Even if you think you won't have a regularity problem? Take it. I did twice a day after the Annoyed Army Wife mentioned how pleasant post-retrieval moments can be. Never had a single problem :) Also? Lupron triggers don't light up an HPT. I checked :)

Thursday Dec 8: Called for an updated fert report, and to double-check we weren't doing a day three transfer. Found out Dr S was bragging about my embryo quality at the staff meeting that day... woohoo! Brag-worthy embies!!! We had a bunch of 8, 9, and 10-celled embies at that point (morulas?). Scheduled for a Saturday morning transfer. I felt a ton better that day, good enough to go out to lunch, on a walk, and rode in the car for a bit to pick a friend up from the airport.

Bedrest sure is hard, ya'll.

Friday Dec 9: Went to work for a 1/2 day. Definitely overdid it, activity-wise, but am glad I did in hindsight. I'm bedrest BORED! Called for my daily updated fert report, and found out that we had lost one or two embies, but most were still going strong. Crazy! Amazing, but crazy. Finally confident that we avoided the dreaded OHSS, as my weight only fluctuated by a couple of pounds through the week. As of today, I'm only up 6 lbs from my pre-IVF weight. I attribute this to the rapid increase in my sugar intake. And the 36 eggs retrieved.

Friday is the day that I pretty much went crazy, though. We were finally at (side note: my dog just ate a spider. i am thankful and grossed out all at the same time) a point where we had to make the one-or-two decision. I could write pages on this, but it really boiled down to two things. One, I didn't think I could handle a BFN if we only transferred one, knowing that we didn't do "everything" possible to make this succeed. Two, Dr Boy and my Mommasita were worried about the repercussions of a twin pregnancy. Not the aftermath- we know we could handle two at once financially and time-wise. It's more the medical perspective, and the increased risk to both me and the babies. I know people do it all the time. I know that. The twitters helped a lot- I got a lot of unique perspectives from people who had been there and done that. Ultimately though, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was pushing to transfer two for selfish reasons. I finally came to the conclusion that in the long run, I couldn't live with the fact that if something happened to the babies, it would have been because I was too selfish to just transfer one.

We decided that if we had multiple good quality embies at the blast stage on Saturday morning, we would transfer one. Our clinic freezes embies once they hit blast, which meant that if godforbid it didn't work out this time around, we knew we'd definitely have good options for an FET. They give them until day 7 to reach that point before they consider them non-viable. If we didn't, we'd go with two. This decision was INCREDIBLY hard-fought and stressful. I was pretty damn irritable and bitchy all night, but after a lot of tears and sobs and tissue, both Dr Boy and I were comfortable with our decision to go with one.

Sushi nomnomnomnom....

We went out for sushi that night as my "last supper." It was amazingly delicious. Even Dr Boy ate some! I consider this a big win. We all went to bed pretty darn late, completely exhausted after all the emotional discussions that went on throughout the day.

Of course though, the more you plan, the more things get shaken up.

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I'll finish this off tomorrow... I'm exhausted and have to head back to work tomorrow!!! It's the office holiday party though, so at least it'll be a fun day :) Missed you guys!

Oh Chai! (CD15) (& fert report)

I'm feeling a bit better than yesterday. I felt considerably worse as the day wore on yesterday, which I suppose is normal as your body starts to realize that it's lady bits have been assaulted by a needle and vacuum probe. I slept horribly. I am definitely a stomach sleeper- something I attempted at 3am but was incredibly unsuccessful at. Or rather, it was highly successful as long as I didn't need to breathe, which lasted for all of 15 seconds. Sleep Fail. 

Doing better today. I don't feel like I need to hold my stomach to my body as I walk anymore. I swear, I felt like if I didn't physically push my stomach towards my body, it would fall off. It's like I had absolutely no control over my abdominal cavity. Which is also probably why I'm super sore in my ribcage just under my boobs, as I think I'm using those muscles to sit and stand more than I clearly ever did in the past. Oh, and Medrol? It gives me a case of the nausea. Real bad.

Enough bitching though.

Fertilization report is in!!! 

Of the 36 eggs retrieved, 22 were mature.

Of the 22 mature eggs, 18 fertilized.

18 fertilized eggs. I know this is an absolutely effing fabulous number of embies to start off with. <insert ungrateful remarks here> It's just a little hard when you see that it's literally 50% of where we started yesterday. <end ungratefulness> But I'm not going to look a gift embie in the mouth, I'm going to focus on the 18. Not the 36. The wonderful, positively great, worked extremely hard for 18.

Also? 18 is a very lucky number in the Jewish faith. It represents life. The symbol for it, Chai (pronounced "hi" with the weird throaty ch sound) it pictured above. It's a popular charm to wear and have around, even the phrase "L 'Chaim!" means "to life"! It's GOT to be a sign, right? Right?

So for now, I will proclaim L'chaim! as I take my PIO. And keep hoping that some of these 18 embies end up as a part of our lives in a concrete way, not just little guys trying to grow in a dish. 

Retrieval complete (CD14)

All done! The ultrasound this morning showed plenty of eggs for retrieval, and it just looked like the smaller immature follicles left the party.

On my way home now. Pretty groggy, but generally ok.

Retrieval count?

36.

Wowzers. I'll find out tomorrow how many were mature and fertilized.

Retrieval PDLAMBLATI

My Oves Like the Dramaz. (CD12)

I knew I should have been worried that things were running too smoothly.

PDLAMBLATI for the day. Hot DAMN I love these socks from Emily. 
Also? I swear I don't have cankles even though it looks like it.

I forgive them for not being super lucky today.

Rewind to yesterday. Had my am appt with wandy and the blood draw. Things looked fine on the ultrasound. Righty was continuing to dominate the party, and lefty a few mm behind. Not bad though. On the right, we had around 25 large follies, the largest being 18.6, 18.5, 18.0, and 18.0. Lefty had around 20 large ones, with sizes around 18.2, 17.3, 16.7, and 16.4. Based on that, Dr S gave me a 90% chance of triggering last night, but wanted to hold off the final decision to take a look at the bloodwork. He *wanted* to wait another day, to give lefty a chance to catch up, but didn't think righty would wait. My bloodwork came back with an e2 of 4228, and a progesterone of 0.5. Based on that, we decided to wait one more day. We took no pm stim shot, and were to hold off on the morning follistim until Dr S could take a look at the oves.


Fast forward to today. We go in for the u/s this morning, and it would appear that righty has totally stopped growing- in fact, the largest seemed like they even lost a little ground. Sizes were 19.3, 19.2, 18.7, and 17.3. Lefty follicles did grow a bit, sized 20.0, 19.6, 18.9, and 18.3. We got the green light to go for the lupron trigger tonight and set a retrieval time of 7:30am Monday morning. We decided that everything was big enough, so no am dose of stims. 


Then my bloodwork came back. My e2, in 24 hours, had plummeted to 1866, and my progesterone dropped to 0.5. Not. Good. At. All. No, no, no. The nurse called around 3pm and told me to take a 150 unit dose of Follistim ASAP-RIGHT-NOW-PLEASE. Basically, what we think happened is that the follies on righty got tired of being the over-achieving growers, and pooped out. We probably lost some of them by going so low on stims over the last 36 hours, instead of coasting like was the goal. Lefty's continued to grow, but weren't contributing as much e2 to the party. The rescue dose of follistim this afternoon was taken to try and prevent us from losing any more follies between now and Monday morning. 

Click to enlarge. The madness that has been my stimming.

Fuckity fuck.


Dr S said he's fully confident that we'll still have plenty to retrieve, but we're probably looking at more like 10-20 instead of the 20-30+ that we were looking at before. Though there's still a fair-to-good chance that we'll continue to have follies bail the party. Effers. I liken this to a party running out of beer- some people leave, some people wait for the host to run to the gas station to pick up a few more cases. I'm hoping enough people stuck around for the reinforcements. This won't affect egg quality at all, just the amount retrieved.


There's also a chance, he said, that everyone could bail before retrieval. Eff balls. We're going to do a quick u/s Monday morning before I get set up for surgery to double check that all my follies haven't deflated. If there aren't many left, we may cancel the retrieval and start over next month. It terrified me to even type that. Dr S said that there are lots of clinics who wouldn't even bother with a retrieval if this were to happen- though he still absolutely will. Because I had so damn many mature follies yesterday, he thinks a retrieval will still be more than worth it even with losing a bunch. Still though. Fuck.


So we're triggered. And  please, please, think patient thoughts for my follies- give them the patience to hold out until more beer arrives. Please. Because I don't want to plan another party. Not any time soon. Nope. I don't.

Goodbye, NaBloPoMo (CD9)

Today is my final *required* daily post for NaBloPoMo. Am I glad I did it? I think so. This has been one absolutely crazy month, and I know I wouldn't have been able to remember nearly as much as I would have wanted to without Big Brother making sure I did. 

Will I continue to post every day? Ah hells no. More than I did before, for sure, but definitely not every day. I mean, there were a few days in there that I posted absolute crap just to post, and that's not fair to all of you. I'm not in the time-wasting business, just remembering. And talking about myself. And getting ya'lls advice. A lot.

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PDLAMBLATI*... Thanks, W&W!

Enough about that. You're probably wondering how my u/s went this morning, huh?

Good! First off, LOVE the nurse that drew my blood this morning. I have awfully difficult veins, and she got me on the first stick, completely blind. Love it. 

Second off, my e2 has started to level off, which is fantastic. It rose to 3673 today, up from 2864 two days ago. Dr S wanted it to stay at or below 4K today, so good times! I'm all up for decreasing my chances for OHSS, and have been really good the last two days about getting my required 100g protein. I even drank 100 ounces of water today. Holy hell. Must be making a difference. Maybe.

My lining was still at 8.1mm. Boo. Not bad, just not better.

As far as follies go, 'ol righty continues to be the breadwinner in the family, though lefty is still making a significant contribution. Righty has 16 large follicles, the largest of which are 14.1mm, 14.1mm, 14mm, and 13.9mm. Lefty has a respectable 12 large ones, 14.0mm, 13.1mm, 13.1mm, and 12.9mm. Basically, everything has grown between 2-4mm since Monday, about 1-2mm per day. 

Follicles? These are my readers.
Readers? These are my follicles.
Make nice.

We've done some creating dosing decisions for the next couple of days. I held at 75 units follistim this am and 1 vial menopur in the pm. Thursday, we're lowering to 50 units follistim, and skipping the pm menopur (yayzies!). Friday, I'm bringing the am follistim to the appt and Dr S will decide where to go. Looks like we'll either be triggering Friday or Saturday, for a Sunday or Monday retrieval. Crazy, considering the Monday retrieval is what they quoted in my calendar. Who would have guessed that it would actually have gone according to plan???

I'm off to go get some sleep... and maybe another glass of water :) Night!

*PDLAMBLATI- Please don't look at my business look at these instead.

Caviar Taste. (CD8)

This has absolutely nothing to do with my post.
Though I think she's saying "I'm glad you don't eat Le Beef"

So a couple of weeks ago, Emily commented on one of my pre-IVF posts "Have you told your ov's your plan yet? They are going to be SO PISSED when they find out what you are gunna make them do!"

Holy hell that girl was right. The cramping started Sunday night. The bloat started in earnest yesterday. I'm up 3.8 pounds. I can feel some swelling in my hands and face, kindof like when you eat a meal that has way too much salt or MSG in it. To combat all of that I'm supposed to try and eat around 100 grams of protein per day, and drown myself in water and electrolytes.

My oves have realized that I'm finally making them get up off their lazy asses and WORK DAMNIT. Their response? "Fine. You want follies? We'll GIVE you follies." I got my results from the e2 bloodwork yesterday.

2864. Wowzers. Help me, Rhonda. Come on, Eileen.

My oves have caviar taste, what can I say. When all we were spending was random $5 copays for IUIs, they laughed. "Really? That's like giving a girl a garage sale purse instead of heading to Coach. We're not putting out for that." Now that we've written the big check for IVF? They're giving up the goods. They wanted to make sure we BOUGHT the damn cow instead of getting the milk for free.

More news tomorrow when we have our u/s. I'm to hold my dose tonight at 1 unit menopur, take my ganirelix in the morning before the appt, but bring the follistim so they can decide how much to give me.

Dare I say it... I actually have hope.

Where I learn I can grow follicles (CD7)

Today's PDLAMBLATI (thanks, Waiting and Wishing!)

 And lots of them, at that.

There aren't many times a PCOS-er is thankful for the hundreds of piece of ess cysts she's got on her oves. During the stim phase of IVF? That's one of them.

Turns out I've got about 14 "good sized" follicles growing on 'ol righty. My RE categorizes "good sized" as 8 or above. The biggest four were 12.3mm, 11.6mm, 11.4mm, and 10.9mm. Lefty is slacking, but only to the tune of 10 "good sized" follies, the biggest of which were 11.6mm, 11.1mm, 10.8mm, and ~9mm. I'm happy. Very, very happy.

Recap: around 7 follies over 10mm on the morning of stim day 6. At least 15 more above 8mm. Score!!! Waiting to hear back about what godawful heights my e2 has climbed to. The plan is to hold our doses at 75 follistim and 1 vial menopur, and start adding in the Ganirelix as soon as I get home this afternoon (moving it to the am tomorrow).

Estimated trigger? Friday or Saturday, which means estimated retrieval? Sunday or Monday.

HFS.

Also, I made a completely anal-retentive spreadsheet to keep things straight. Enjoy!

It could have been worse- I refrained from color-coding.

Just swell. (CD6)

Apparently having your e2 go up by eighteen-fold in four days causes quite the ruckus in one's mid-section. My tummy has been progressively more tender through the day, and I swear, if you were bored enough, you could watch it grow like bamboo. I swear.

Needless to say, this is the first of what I'm sure will be many uncomfortable days ahead. All for a damned good cause, but uncomfortable nonetheless. I am so antsy to get a peek at what's going on in there, which I will in about ten hours. I'm also grateful that my body is responding. I was so doubtful after the piss-poor response we were getting with the IUI stims. Apparently Follistim just does this body good. I made sure to get some protein in with dinner, and had my first bottle of Gatorade. Weight gain as of this morning was 1.6 lbs, though I'm not sure how much of that is ove bloat and how much is sugar bloat

Also? I know I said it yesterday, but I'm so glad I went on a run yesterday. I'm feeling the way I thought I would today, which means no more running for a while. Glad I still did while I could.

10 more hours...

Holy Estradiol, Batman! (CD5)

Soooo.... I got my e2 results back. To recap:

11/22 Tuesday: e2 of 55, suppressed ovaries with 25+ follicles on each
11/23 Wednesday: 150 units Follistim am, 2 vials Menopur pm
11/24 Thursday: 150 units Follistim am, 2 vials Menopur pm
11/25 Friday: 150 units Follistim am, 2 vials Menopur pm
11/26 Saturday:  150 units Follistim am

The e2 today? 892. Holy effing ess. Holy. Effing. Ess.

It's funny, as soon as they called, I was all "Wow... I sure feel a lot of pressure near the oves." I'm terrified that I'm stimming too fast and I'm going to get all immature eggs. Terrified. Or, I'm going to end up hyperstimmed.

Needless to say, Dr S decided to cut my doses in half. We started tonight, and cut the pm Menopur down to 1 vial. Tomorrow morning with be 75 units of Follistim. I go in Monday morning for another blood draw and my first U/S.

Also, I went on what I think will be my last run until I feel safe while pregnant tonight. My dad, brother, and Dr Boy all went through the greenbelt in town, and it felt awesome. I'm really glad I got that in before things get going *too* much, and I'm glad my family got to enjoy that part of the town we live in too.

But the rest of it?

HFS.

Short and Sweet (CD4)

I've been hanging out with family since Wednesday which has been AWESOME. I am starting to get spread a bit thin though. My parents, grandma, brother, uncle, uncle's gf and her two kids, and my parents two dogs all came up to visit, some at our house, and some at the hotel. I am so thankful they're all here, but the reason they came up here? I have work. 6am to 2pm. Every. Day. So I'm kindof flippin' tired now. Really. Really. Tired.

Oh? Also? Today was our fourth day of shots. We were out at dinner at 6:30, when it was time, we headed back to the bathroom and did the deed there. How's THAT for a quickie! The menopur burns more than it used to, though we were given 27 gauge needles this time instead of the 31 gauge needles we used during our IUIs. They are DEFINITELY worse, and I highly recommend requesting the 31's. For serious. Also, the follistim is leaving little bruises. Very, very annoying.

Last, we went to see Hugo tonight, in 3-D. The first act was a bit slow, but once it got going, the movie was truly beautiful. Highly recommend, but not for kids. Too slow. But beautiful. That's not the point of mentioning that though. They had previews for some other movies coming out... one of which was the re-released Titanic in 3-D. It brought me right back to senior year of high school, when I saw the movie in the theaters THREE TIMES. And bawled my flippin' eyes out. THREE TIMES. Glutton for punishment, this one is :)  So back to the preview. Just watching it? Bawled my eyes out. Damn stims. I was quite the source of entertainment for my family today!

TVT, Turkey Style (CD3)

It's Thought Vomit Thanksgiving, ya'll! I am way too tired from cleaning and baking and organizing and setting up for my visiting family (four staying with us, four in a hotel) to put together more than bullet points today. Though, let's be honest, when do I ever?

- After three injections, I have entered the irrational crying stage of IVF. I cried this morning at how happy I was that everyone was in town. I cried when I got a picture of my dad and brother, who just finished running their first joint 10K. I cried when I started THINKING about how annoyed I am at not being able to watch HIMYM for a while. To be honest though? This irrational crying thing? Makes me feel more like me. So I'm good with it.

- The final weigh-in is complete for my sugar-fast challenge. On Halloween, the first day I abstained, I came in at a shocking 193 lbs. Thank you, two rounds of IUI/injectables, and lots of Mike's Pastry in Boston. And finding consolation in a bottle (ha! *a* bottle) of good wine. And a bag (or two or three) of Trader Joe's white cheddar puffed corn (fake pirate booty). To recap, I'm 5' 8 1/2". Last year at this time, I was 178. Super duper. So.... what does running a 5K and laying off the white stuff for 25 days get you? FIVE POUNDS. Yup, I weighed in at 187.8 this morning. It helps that some of the AF bloat went down too. It's def not where I want to be, but it's a good starting point.

- I went on another baking binge Tuesday night, to make my family think I'm all Suzy Homemaker. I baked chocolate zucchini muffins, pumpkin spice muffins*, GF pumpkin bread, and pumpkin cookies w/cinnamon icing. The most impressive part of that was actually cooking all the damn deliciously battered items without tasting A SINGLE MORSEL OF BATTER. Or finished product. Until yesterday.

- Apparently, there are a few of you out there that like me! I've been bestowed the Liebster Award! Apparently, Liebster means "dearest" in German. This one has been floating around the blogosphere this week, going to folks with less than 200 followers. I received it from three other awesome ladies whose blogs I *love* to see pop up on my unread reader list. Rebeccah from Pink Lipgloss and Prenatals, Oak from Acorn Chronicles, and Kelly from Team Baby are all rockstars themselves, and I VERY much appreciate knowing that they enjoy my thought vomit! They've all been great support so far in this IVF journey, as have the rest of you!

Here are the rules to pass this baby on: 

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.

2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4. Hope that the people you’ve sent the award to forward it to their five favorite bloggers and keep it going!

 

Here are 5 bloggers I would like to pass the award on to:

1. Lauren, from Not Just An Army Wife (she barely squeaks in at 195 followers!)

2. Lauren, from The Army Doctor's Wife and P(c)OS Ovaries

3. Megan, from This Space for Rent

4. The lovely Waiting and Wishing

5. Emily, from A Peek into our Journey

 

These ladies are all truly wonderful, and deserve a good look! They'll crack you up and make you cry, all at the same time. Or maybe that's just me.... 

Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving!!! And to those of you *not* celebrating Thanksgiving, Happy Thursday!

*One box spiced cake mix, one can of pumpkin, 1/2 cup water. Bake according to the directions on the box, add a minute or two of baking time. Thanks, Lauren, for the recipe!!! She also suggests you add a decadent cream cheese frosting... hold me...

Take THAT, ute! (CD2)

The taunting worked :) I arrived home yesterday after work and errands... and voila! Just barely, too, as the props used in the taunting were unscathed. One point JM, Zero points Ute.

See kids? Scare tactics work. And school yard bullying.


We did our first injection this morning, and our second this evening. The schedule for now is for 150 units Follistim in the mornings, and 2 vials of Menopur in the evenings. Dr Boy has been awesome and woke up at 5:30am today so he could inject me before I left for work. He rocks the IVF-spouse job. The follistim bruised. Not a fan. It didn't burn or hurt, just left a surprising bruise. The menopur hurt like a mother effer this time! Which shocked me, because I didn't find it that bad last time. I think we shot it too close to the follistim bruise. We'll fix that one tomorrow, for sure.

The plan is to do bloodwork on Saturday and evaluate things. (Did I mention my e2 from Tuesday came back at 55? Nice and suppressed. Though not as low as it could have been. Oh well.) I'll have my next ultrasound on Monday, which will be the 6th day of stims. Good times!

Also, I ended the sugar fast today, since I started stims. My breaker of choice? A pumpkin spice cookie with cinnamon frosting. It. Was. Amazing. I made it a very proud 25 days.... woohoo! It'll definitely make me think twice about the sugar I put into my body from here on out. At least for, say, the next five minutes or so.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm suppressed.

Had a bit of both the good and the bad this morning. Part of the good was Dr Boy being there for the visit :) With how hectic his schedule is, it's awesome that he's making the effort to go to as much as possible, even if it means getting up a whole hour earlier.

The good- I'm properly suppressed. Lots of follies on each ovary (he said 25+), all nice and small and anxiously awaiting the hard stuff. My lining was measuring about 3.5mm or maybe a wee bit thicker, so Dr S said to expect AF to arrive later today or tomorrow. I have yet to experience a single abdominal cramp, so we'll see about that. (side note: I am taunting AF HARD CORE today. I wore light khaki pants, and fancy undies. And a hot pink sweater. I am practically saying "nah nah nah nah nah, you can't catch me!" in hopes that she's as petty as I am and will show up. I use taunting whenever possible. Even with my own body.) We had a funsies back-of-the-hand blood draw, and we're going to see what my E2 is to decide whether to start stimming tomorrow or Thursday. Ack. Big, big, ack. I should hear from them in the next half hour or so.

The bad- Dr Boy had another analysis of his contribution a little bit ago. They run a more detailed SA for IVF at my clinic than they do for IUIs, with much more strict criteria for morphology and such. Dr S said that only about 25% of samples actually pass the threshold (15% morphology something-or-other) and get recommended to regular old fertilization post-retrieval. Unfortunately, Dr Boy's sample was only at 8%. So, we have a couple of choices. Go ahead and do ICSI, or retest on the day of the retrieval and decide.

We're not sure what to do. Or rather, I'm not sure what to do. I'd rather fertilize naturally, but Dr Boy just wants to take the sure bet. Obviously if the test comes back sub-par on retrieval day, we'll just ICSI and be done with it, because certainly rather get lots of fertilized eggs than not. I think we're going to table that one for now and decide later. That's a plan I can get on board with.

So... yeah! There we are. One of our last injection-free days for the next four months or so, hopefully!

Oh, and here's your daily dose of my "please-don't-look-at-my-biznass-look-at-these-instead" socks. Otherwise known as PDLAMBLATI socks. Also, I shaved my sasquatch legs today. Not for Dr Boy. For the RE.

Today's PDLAMBLATI brought to you by my SIL. I think.