Second Time Around

I'm just going to skip over the last two years and let you know I had a pretty easy pregnancy after the pleurisy from OHSS went away, and went on to have a very healthy baby boy who is wonderful. He's 15 months old now, and truly, truly is wonderful. We managed to breastfeed for a year, weaning to start the process of trying to make a little brother or sister. My period never came back, thanks PCOS, so off to the RE we went again. Six frosties remained from the retrieval that gave us the mini Meier.

I mostly want to get all this down so I can remember the details of our cycles. TTC again is such a mind fuck. It's slightly easier the second time around, but really, all the same emotions and fears and insecurities are still there. And just as strong. Anyone that says "Well, but at least you have the mini!" doesn't know how that almost makes it worse. We know how amazing this little person is, and how much love and light he brings into our life. We KNOW what we're missing now and what the hole in our lives looks like. It doesn't make us any less grateful and amazed and thankful for him, but damn, I want another. For us, for him. Sigh.

Here's what our calendar looked like this time around.

FET #3 Calendar

I also added in supplements up the wazoo this round to maximize my body's receptiveness.

Morning:   Synthroid
                  Estrace up the vag
Afternoon: Metformin 500mg
                  Vitamin D 1000 iu
                  Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc
                  Folic acid 400mg
                  Estrace up the hatch
Evening:   Metformin 500mg
                  Fish Oil
                  Prenatal Vitamin
                  Aspirin 81mg
                  Estrace up the hatch
                  Progesterone in Oil
                  2x weekly Estradiol Valerate injections

We transferred two hatching embryos on Thursday the 24th as planned, and did the pre- and post-transfer acupuncture. Very relaxing. Very positive. Felt wonderfully positive sharp cramping that night and the next day. These were day 6 embryos, so it netted me a first beta at 7dp6dt, though honestly I have this whole time considered them as if they were day 5 embies. Why give them an extra day of gestational credit when it took them an extra day to hit where they should have been at d5? So from here on out we'll pretend it was a 5dt.

Two hatching 2AA embies, one hatching more than the other

I also wore fancy phoenix socks. Embryos rising from the cryofreeze, no?

Quick updates (6w6d)

We still have a heartbeat!! Our ultrasound yesterday went perfectly.

- The mini-Meier measured 6w4d (7.4mm, or the size of a pea), rather than the 6w5d it should have been, but totally within acceptable margins right now. No worries whatsoever.

- We didn't measure the heart rate or anything, so I am blissfully unaware on that front. We did see it's flickering though which is AMAZING. I'm hoping it's more clear on the video this time.

- Dr S gave us a 5% or less chance of miscarriage at this point, based on structure, size, and presence of a HB. 1 in 20 is still huge, but I am breathing a little more easily now.

- Our next ultrasound is scheduled for two weeks from today, Aug 3rd at 8w6d. It'll be graduation day! Very bittersweet, though I'm not getting worked up about it yet because fourteen days is a LOT of days to get through.

- I made our OB appointment. HFS. Three weeks from today (bonus is it'll only be one week after the graduation u/s). It'll be the day before we leave for a week of vacation, so we'll be able to leave with a (small) sense of security. If we make it that far, that is. FX.

- Good luck socks, as always!

My Goddess of Heartbeats

Sorry for the delay in updating!

Hey, also! I had an awesome opportunity to write a guest post yesterday for Bloggers For Hope! It was started by a group of women going through different infertility issues, and gives a great varied perspective on treatments and alternative options such as adoption and living child-free. I highly suggest checking them out.

I got to write a post on my favorite topic- the unglamorous side of IVF treatments :)


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(pardon my next post- it'll be the review for my freebie bodywash)

Grateful (5w6d)

...birds chirping...

Oh hey! Were you guys waiting, for like, an update or something?

Ooops!

We have a heartbeat. One, beautiful, teensy tiny, fluttering heartbeat.

When we got to the RE, they did the standard weight (ugh) and blood pressure, which was amazingly 120/80, truly miraculous considering I'd been having heart palpitations since the night before. We went back to the room, donned our fancy socks (and by our I mean my), photographed said fancy socks, and got to business.

Even the moo-cow looks ascared.

I started sobbing the minute Mr Wanderful came into play, and couldn't bring myself to look at the screen. As soon as the RE said "I win! One beautiful sac!" I turned, and, well, shocker, sobbed even harder as I saw the dark gestational sac with the yolk sac in the middle. We zoomed a little more, and saw a little flicker. Which sent me into sobs again, so I held my breath and watched a little spot just above the yolk sac flash. No measurements were taken of anything, as this is MUCH earlier than my clinic usually scans anything, so I don't have numbers.

5w6d

You can kindof see the yolk sac on this scan, though the top and bottom parallel lines are most prevalent with the rest of the circle a lighter grey. The fetal pole is damn near impossible to see, but in the video below if you look right there at the beginning of the video, you can see it flickering. I think the flicker closer to the bottom of the gestational sac is my uterine wall contracting. We should be able to see a wee bit more on Thursday, when we go in for a 6w5d scan. (we kept the original appointment just in case we couldn't see the hb today)

It would appear that we're growing a little human. For the first time ever, I'm truly, truly, positively, growing a Mini Meier.

(so i know you can seriously barely see the flickering fetal pole on the resolution of that video but i swear on my iphone it's there. we'll get better evidence next week)

4th Time's a Charm (0dp5dt)

Throughout this cycle I kept asking myself, "How does one get excited for their fourth embryo transfer?" I may have asked you guys that too. It's the same theme I've struggled with this whole month- that overriding theme of building hope and excitement while guarding yourself against failure and grief.

I can honestly say that today? Building excitement was no problem. No problem whatsoever. We hadn't heard anything about our embryos since Tuesday, and weren't really sure what to expect. On Tuesday (day 3), we found out that all 17 were still cleaving, all were 8-11 celled, and all grade 1. Holy octomom, we had HOPE. But then again, we had a great day 3 fert report last time, so that knocked me back a little too. Hope, but not TOO much hope.

I did my pre-transfer acupuncture, took my valium, and promptly got drunk. I mean hey, I accidentally took 10mg instead of 5mg, sue me. It was awesome :)

We were quickly led back into the transfer room and brought a picture of the two embryos selected for transfer. As soon as we saw the picture, all the excitement that had been questioned for the last few weeks exploded my heart and I started crying. (shocker, me? crying?)

Meet Turtle and Penguin! (and my widow's peak)

We had a grade 1AA hugely hatching blast. In fact, the embryologist said "Hurry up and get that thing in there!" The second blast was also grade 1AA, and had just just started hatching too! Double score! We very briefly discussed whether we would transfer one or two, but decided on both based on our history of failure. And that it's probably not good to freeze something that's already started to hatch.

Transfer PDLAMBLATI* from In Due Time

I laid down and we got all prepped, saw the awesome flash of embryonic medium whooshing into my cute ute, and checked that the catheter was empty. Everything went off perfectly, a textbook transfer.

Some resting, post-transfer acupuncture, and earning karma points by calling in a small brush fire in the median in our town (on a very dry windy day), then more resting at home completed our day. I have since bribed the embie with delicious chicken quesadillas, pineapple, and a cuppy cake. I will stop at nothing to get at least one of these guys to stick around.

Funfetti FTW!

Here's hoping that finally, truly, fourth time is a charm. Beta is a week from Saturday at 9dp5dt.

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*PDLAMBLATI- Please don't look at my business, look at THESE instead!

Retrieval Complete

21 eggs.

Righty was "textbook, picture perfect."

Lefty was an underperforming difficult beeyatch. Much fewer eggs were retrieved from her than we expected, and they were much harder fought.

Ungrateful J is a wee disspapointed, since we got so many less than last time, but I'm hoping beyond hope that they're all much better quality. And don't pull an "all it takes is one" because we want three kids. (though not all at once, Emily!)

But overall, happy. Maturity and fertilization report tomorrow. Thanks for all the well wishes- they've been wonderful!!

Retrieval PDLAMBLATI*

Trigger Happy (stim day 11)

Thank frickin' god!

PDLAMBLATI* kitteh's

At our ultrasound yesterday morning, we found that the majority of our follies had grown to about 16-18mm. I had gotten pretty darned uncomfortable, and was DREADING the possibility of waiting another day to trigger. Dr S hadn't decided for certain what to do solely based on the oves, and wanted to wait to see what our e2 was doing. His theory was that things were getting pretty darned cramped, and that while the eggs inside the follicles were continuing to mature, the follies were simply running out of room to grow. The PCOS convention going on in my belly was at capacity, and little more could be done.

Click-arino

My e2 came back at 2670, just slightly lower than the day before, and we were given the green light to trigger that night. While I'm *slightly* nervous that it started to drop, it's nowhere near the plummet we experienced last time, and seems on par with his explanation of limited room for expansion. Triggering seemed the right way to go at this point, and definitely improved my mood :)

We triggered in the same restaurant bathroom that we did with IVF #1, which we were amused by. I stayed home from work today, and am so glad I did. I ended up running two quick errands, and could barely walk to/from the car. I can only imagine how awful it would have felt to sit at a desk all day.

My mom drove up today to stay with us through transfer, helping out and keeping the dogs and cats entertained and us fed while I recover from retrieval. So, so, so thankful she's here!

I'm not super nervous going into retrieval anymore. Still slightly, but not as much as I was before. I guess we're at a point where it is what it is. We have done absolutely everything we can to get to this point in as good of shape as possible, and it's just up to chance for fertilization and egg growth. And awesome embryologists. But yeah, our part? Nearly done.

In less than twelve hours, I'll be back home napping off the anesthesia...

"You have shamed me by removing my fur"

(Hannah got a haircut yesterday. We switched over to her summer 'do just in time, as the forecast for the weekend is going to rise into the low 100's this weekend)

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

Yes I would like cheese with that (stim day 10)

I really hate complaining (who am i kidding i love complaining and i'm good at it), but hot damn I'm uncomfortable. It really started setting in yesterday, and combined with a wanding this morning, I'm positively done. I'm mentally done stimming, done waiting, done hoping it all goes well. Done taking 12 doses* of meds each day, done being sore and sedentary and out of energy. Done not being able to poo, not being able to pee without taking breaks for my oves to re-adjust, done done done.

Whiny Mc Whinerson

But whatever. Based on the u/s and b/w, we should be triggering tomorrow. I can make it until Saturday. Somehow.

Follies, follies galore!

My oves are large and in charge, with tons of good sized follies on each. They're generally 14-16mm right now, and giving me an e2 of 2682. We like these numbers. We like them a lot. We're going to squeeze in another visit with Mr Wanderful tomorrow, and hopefully will trigger tomorrow night. I'm not wholly convinced the trigger is going to happen, but Dr S seems to think that a) they're going to grow like weeds overnight, and b) there isn't a whole lot of ovarian real estate for them to get much over 18-19mm anyways since there are so damn many. I get that. And I can get behind that plan :)

Clickity Click Click

They tested my progesterone today too, to make sure nothing was popping off on its own. It came back at 0.9, which was a good indicator that the ganirelix was doing its job at keeping everyone in place. Funny enough, the ganirelix also gave me a large itchy red welt this am, so I think I shall fire it after tomorrow. Hopefully.

PDLAMBLATI**- more oldies but goodies!
(come on, a girl can only find so many fun socks!)

Wish us luck tomorrow... I can only take this for so much longer!!!



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* am: synthroid, C0Q10, follistim, ganirelix
   eve: menopur
   pm: prenatal, extra folic acid, fish oil, melatonin, metformin, baby aspirin, C0Q10

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

Back on track (stim day 9)

I'm almost afraid to say it for fear of jinxing it, but we're finally at a place where we feel comfortable with our progress! After Saturday's e2 came back so low for the number of follies we had growing, my mind definitely went to the dark place of "all the follies are empty my eggs are crap why even bother and whythehell are we starting ganirelix already." It was not a fun place to be.

Instead of dwelling, we did lots of fun things this weekend. Like this:

Nom Nom 6-Year Anniversary Dinner

And this:

See Wicked. It's amazing.

Unfortunately, distraction technique number 1 backfired, and kept Dr Boy in the bathroom for about 50% of distraction technique number 2. Oooops. So I mostly sat in our awesome seats solo while he was in and out of the back of the theater. Yeah, feeling really guilty about that. Not that I *forced* him to eat the medium rare steak... but still....

Sunday was more relaxed, and involved a lot of this:

Why read when  you can love me?

I may or may not have read that entire book in one day. I plead the fifth.

Distraction technique number 4 was dinner with friends. And froyo. Which, incidentally, makes everything better.

Oldy but goody PDLAMBLATI

Our appt went well Monday morning, so huge sigh of relief. We still have tons of follies growing, generally between 11-13mm. My lining is a plump 10mm, ready and waiting. My e2 came back at 1137, which is finally in the range of what makes sense to me. The Fear is finally gone, and I have hope that this may actually turn out alright.

Click Click

We're guessing at a Saturday retrieval now, though Sunday is a contender still as well. Based on everything, we're still holding our 150u follistim and 2 vial menopur dose since it seems to be doing the job perfectly. We have pretty much EXACTLY the right amount of medication left for a Sat retrieval, so I'm hoping for that. Also? The oves are getting cranky. They yelled at me all day for letting them get poked at with Senor Wanderful, and then screamed later when well, yeah. That. Guess we're done for a while :) I've also noticed the crankies creeping in- I've had a very, very short fuse since the weekend, and I'm blaming it on the meds. I actually even annoy myself with it.

So. Yeah. Hope. Funny thing, eh?

Getting Better-ish (Stim day 6)

Indeed, Menopur. Indeed.

That's one of the caps you, well, flip off the menopur bottles before mixing the powder and saline. My mature hormone-addled brain could NOT. STOP. LAUGHING. when I saw his written on it. I blame it on the, well, menopur :)

We had our stim day 6 visit today, and had way better results at the ultrasound. We're moving along, with nice clusters of follies on both ovaries. Each measured around 9-10mm, with around 17 on righty and 15+ on lefty. Dr S is kind and didn't poke around too much to get to my annoyingly high and painful to wand left ovary, especially this early when a general idea is good enough.

I forgot socks this morning... ooops!
We had a case of the dreaded "bare-feet-in-stirrups." Ick.

The e2 results that came back later in the afternoon were still a bit disappointing, though. We're only up to 311 today. Which, as you recall, is still 1/3 of what it was two stim days EARLIER in the cycle last time. I'm getting worried that we're growing lots of empty follies, that my true PCOSey nature is coming out. I am not super thrilled by this, but I guess we'll just keep chugging along and count on it all turning out ok.

Based on all of that, we're going to still hold the dose of 150u Follistim in the am, and 2 vials of Menopur in the pm. We were also incredibly lucky enough to have the lovely hyper-stimmed EndoJourney give us some of her leftover follistim and menopur, as another retrieval will NOT be in the cards for her after a case of extremely severe OHSS. I had a couple of other incredible women offer as well, and am continually amazed by the support and generosity of this community. Dr Boy and I are truly so, so lucky to be a part of it. I know we all say it, but we truly couldn't get through it all without all of you.

Oh, and we're starting the Galirelix tomorrow, too. Dr S said he's actually seen someone prematurely ovulate with follies as low as 12mm, so yeah. Do NOT want that to be us.

It looks like retrieval will be pushed back to Saturday or Sunday, but we'll see how it goes next week. Whatever we have to do.

Next check is on Monday. Good. Times.

PDLAMBLATI from Thursday's appt...
When Pigs Fly!

The redux begins... ish...

PDLAMBLATI* from my SIL- red hot ovaries!

Dr Boy and I went in this morning for our baseline ultrasound for Round Two this morning. I have been all over the map as far as emotions go this week and last, as the weight of this next cycle has really begun to settle in. I keep writing posts in my head, but honestly, I'm tired of being whiny, depressed, and just don't want to post things that I know will make other people hurt. It's been pretty hard to manage the jealousy, and Why Not Me? feelings lately. Really hard. I'm having a big case of Fertile-Infertile Jealousy, and I feel like a complete bitch-face for even thinking it. I mean, the goal is to get pregnant, right? So what if "all it took" was one round? Who cares if you retrieved one egg? It should work. Period. There is no such thing as "infertile enough," or deserving an embryo into sticking. I don't think people should have to go through a set amount of heartbreak before they are successful, so why am I unable to keep my brain from thinking such awful things?

We were just unlucky.

Three times.

So now that you all think I'm a spiteful c-word, our appointment went well this morning. Antral follicles were numerous, at least 20 on each side. (thank you pcos) I still haven't hit CD1, but am expecting to do so tomorrow. Dr S thinks it'll be a pretty lame period, as my BCP suppressed lining is only a whopping 4mm right now. No complaints here.

The only change was to delay starting stims until Monday. I'm not entirely sure why, but I believe the thought is that we're going to hit retrieval a bit faster than last time, and they want to stick as close to the June 15th estimate as possible. We decided to go with the "all in" approach discussed at the WTF appointment. Basically, we are trying to avoid at all costs the eleventh hour estrogen drop off that we experienced with IVF 1. While we were given every assurance that it wasn't the cause of our failures, we'd still like to NOT have it happen again. To do so, we're going to refrain from dropping off quite so much on the stim meds as we progress, allowing my e2 to get high, and keep our fingers crossed that OHSS stays away. If I do develop a moderate or severe case, we'll do a freeze all. Clearly THIS is not preferable either, but we'll take it as it goes and hope beyond hope we squeak out ok.

Anal-retentive chart, to be updated through the cycle

We'll see what happens. I'm finding it hard to find hope this time. We had SO MANY things go right last cycle, so many things that pointed to near-certain success along the way, and even 8 frozen embies! After transferring 6 (between the fresh and frozen cycles) and discarding 4 that failed to thaw, it's hard to muster up hope.

But we'll get there. Because it HAS to work sometime, right? Maybe the fourth transfer's the charm. Maybe.


*PDLAMBLATI: Please don't look at my biznass look at these instead.

All A'board... again

Oh, and happy ICLW! I'm only two days late on that one... oops. Seriously, hi to all of you stopping by through ICLW. In a nutshell, I have PCOS, and ovaries who value quantity over quality. After failing the clo clo challenge, we moved strait to injectables, and had a hard time getting my oves to respond with much of anything there. After two BFN's, we did our first IVF cycle in Nov/Dec. That ended in a BFN, and our FET in Feb ended up in a crappy chemical. You've caught us right at the precipice of our second FET... and had our transfer today!

Dr Boy and I had a pretty fabulous weekend, though it was ridiculously hot and humid here, completely uncharacteristic of the area. Our alma mater had a huge parade/open house/festival type thing and we saw a ton of old friends from undergrad, then on Sunday we took an impromptu trip to Napa. Much needed R&R to relax pre-transfer!

Today didn't really go as well as either of us would have liked. It started off well- finished up some laundry, changed the sheets, cut my pineapple, threw dinner in the crockpot, and headed to pre-transfer acupuncture. I left super relaxed and went to the clinic. Just before we got there, Dr Boy got a call from our RE. The thaw was not going well. 

Our plan was to thaw each embryo individually until we ended up with two high quality ones to transfer. We had three day 6 embies left, 1 day seven frozen alone, and 2 day sevens frozen together. After going through the three day 6's and the 1 day 7, we had one that survived at 80%, two at 60%, and one at 50%. We were going for two 80's. The RE wanted permission to thaw the last two we had, which we agreed to. As that was going on, one of the 60%ers fragmented more and we were down to an 80, a 60, and two 50s. We had, in one transfer, blasted through all six of our remaining embryos from December's IVF. We've got nothing left. If this doesn't work, it's back to the drawing board (and bank account, and ER).

At this point, thoughts of transferring more than two were floating around, risks were being evaluated, tears were flowing, and my adrenaline pretty much killed any buzz I would have gotten from the valium. We hung out for another hour waiting for the last two to thaw, then headed back to the transfer room. 

PDLAMBLATI- Complements of Her Royal Fabulousness

and Cristy's Fertility Sock Exchange!

Finally, we got the good news that one of those last two thawed at 80% (and the other at 65%) so were able to transfer that and the other (which had started hatching while we waited, apparently- sweet!). After transfer, the embryologist checked the catheter to make sure all babies were on board, and low and behold, we had a holdout! 

"I've still got one here!" So, in goes the catheter again, another swoosh and flash shows up on the u/s monitor, and we finally got the all clear that the ute party had started. 

Post-transfer acupuncture helped me calm down, but it was not quite the zen-like magical moment I had hoped for. AND my car** hit 66,666 miles as we drove home. I take this to mean I am carrying Dr Boy's devil spawn. Of course. 

Spawn 1 and Spawn 2 (lefty is the sticky, day 7 embie

and righty is the more easy going hatching day 6-er)

(dark spots are the parts which didn't survive thaw, called fragmentation)

So now we wait... and rest... and bribe these embies with cookies and pineapple and other delights while we pray that someone decides to stick around for the long haul this time. We are super lucky at least... our clinic does the first beta at 13dpo, which for us will be 7dp6dt. Only a one. week. wait.

Beta in 7 days...

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**The car we bought four years ago when we decided to start trying. It was brand new. And had 1,000 miles on it. Yeah. That car. Piece of advice, guys? Don't buy the car until you're effing pregnant and damn near bursting your waters. </end public service announcement/bitter infertile rant>

Thick like...

...butter?

...sliced bread?

...a good roux?

...uhhh... a fantastic uterine environment that makes you want to snuggle in for 9 months?

Yeah, I don't know. But forgive the lapse in good metaphors, because I'm busy being happy that my uterine lining came looked fantastic at our ultrasound this morning. We're exactly one week out from FET numero dos, and already things are going so much better than last time! In February, my lining never climbed higher than 7.9mm, and actually thinned out a little before transfer. This time, we're already at 9.3mm! Yowzers!

We joked that my ute was thanking us for giving her such a nice saline bath last week... a girl like's to feel clean and pretty, you know? She likes her spa days! My trilaminar pattern really did look textbook perfect. Way better than it did last time, and better than with our fresh cycle in Dec.

I had a bad dream that at the u/s, the were hundreds of mature follies apparent on my oves, and that the RE was mad that I didn't agree to using lupron this cycle. Oooops. In reality, everything's still nice and quiet, and the decision hasn't come back to bite us in the ass (or sub-cutaneously, as you will).

Dr S even went as far as to say that we looked good enough to skip our final check on Friday, but I doubt we'll forgo that. I may not be the biggest fan of wandy mc vajercam, but I would just not feel right if this doesn't work, and wonder if there was something that we could have caught. No sir-ee-bob, we're going for one last date.


Dare I say it? I may actually have a hint of optimism this time around... for now...

Slightly boring PDLAMBLATI, but better than nothing!

Off the pill

Or the birth control pills, anyways. Our last day was on Friday, so we're not just waiting for AF to arrive some time tomorrow or Wednesday, if my track record holds. I certainly won't complain when things do start rolling, because according to our u/s a week ago, my lining (after one week of BC, mind you) was already at a 6.5mm. Fairly certain we just didn't completely empty out once the chemical ended. Now *that's* a great mental image, huh?

Here's the calendar I promised last week... lupron-less and lovely.

I heart color coordinating!*
(click to zoom)

I may be done with the pill, and avoiding lupron like the plague, but I'm still on plenty of other fancies, of course. We're doing a course of doxycycline to prep for the saline sono I'll (hopefully**) get at the end of the week. That shiz makes me SOOOO naseous. If I don't get a substantial amount in me fore breakfast, the morning one makes me want to vom. So far, a single nutragrain bar is not enough, nor is a single nutragrain bar plus a cup of yogurt. Two donuts, however, are perfect. Damnit.

A recent IRL friend with IVF success let me know the course of vitamins and such that a clinic she had a consult with recommended. This was the formula that worked (after multiple failed fresh cycles and FETs) for her this time around (as well as the meds I normally take) so I thought what the heck! Can't hurt!

AM- Synthroid
         Doxycycline (after the 1-hr wait to eat, and eating)

NOON- Metformin
               Fish Oil

PM- Doxycycline
        Metformin
        Prenatal with > 4000 IU Vitamin A
        Baby Aspirin
        800mg Folic Acid
        Fish Oil
        Melatonin


If *that* isn't fun, then I don't know what is! At least I get to scratch the two doxy's off the list after tomorrow, and regain my naseau free mornings.

At least until this FET words, damnit. And then I will relish in the vomit-inducing awesomeness of pregnancy.

PDLAMBLATI from last Monday's appt.
Aside: why do ankle socks give me cankles? Discuss.

*Anyone want me to prettify their calendar? It's like crack to me.

**I may not be able to get the darned saline sono as previously requested. My RE "doesn't like to do them during the same cycle as the transfer", so we may avoid this time around. I'm pissed because he KNEW that I wanted it, and waited until it was too late (lining too thick even w bcp) to do one pre-transfer cycle. I don't think it was done intentionally, just more of a forgetful afterthought that frustrates me. He said he'll take a good look at the ute this week when I'm wanded to see if he thinks it's necessary. To which I still say that if you could SEE if it was necessary on a wanding, saline sono's wouldn't be done in the first place! Arg.

What you missed...

...while I was off in crazy land.

- At our appointment on the 6th (I was dumb and wore tights- who wears tights to the RE? oy vey.), we checked my lining as I had been on the estrace and 2x weekly estrogen shots for about 10 days or so. It was only around 7.2-7.9 mm, which my RE considered only "adequate". To resolve this issue, we switched taking our estrace tabs orally to taking them as SUPPOSITORIES. I've been shoving these little gems up in lady-land for two weeks now. Lovely. It looks like I had relations with a smurf.

PDLAMBLATI-esque (had to put my bare feet on the stirrups. Eww.)

Up the lady bits. Three times each day. It's actually a lovely teal-blue color.

- About two days later, my ankles decided to take a vacation. Holy hell the swelling was bad! They did the whole poke-a-finger-and-the-depression-stays-there thing. I guess that's what I have to look forward to if this thing actually works, and I manage to stay pregnant well into the swollen phase.

So. Gross.

- I ran a 5K with Dr Boy. Considering it had been an entire 5 weeks since I had stepped foot near my running shoes (or off the couch for that matter), and I was in the throes of the lupron depression, I can put that event in the win column. It's a miracle I even made it out of the house that day. I ran shorter intervals than I did back in Nov, but my overall time was only less than 2 minutes slower- not bad. I did, however, want to die the next week, and my legs threatened to give out on my going down the stairs at work, but whatever. I did it.

I think I need to stop swinging my knees out when I run.

- I went on a ski trip with Dr Boy and some friends from grad school. This was the famed trip that was the reason for postponing the transfer from Feb 6 to Feb 15th. So. Glad. It was so much of what we needed before transfer. I haven't seen most of these people in a good 18 months or so, and catching up was fantastic. I got in two amazing days of skiing at Breckenridge, and Dr Boy did a third at Vail. And we went snow tubing. And had a generally merry time. I love skiing (though it's a miracle I didn't break myself), and am so glad we did this pre-transfer- the trip would NOT have been the same otherwise.

Heading up the tubing hill

These are some MAD ski skillz, I tell you.

- On the aforementioned ski trip, my IF bracelet fell off. SAD FACE. I was planning on taking it off when we got our BFP. Instead, it got caught in my watch and ripped off. It was pretty ratty, so not too much of a surprise. I had put it on back in August, I think, when I went to an infertility faux-baby shower at a local IF group. It was my first time meeting other IF-ers in real life, and was amazing. I hope the bracelet falling off is a karmic sign...

I was irrationally upset when this happened.

Otherwise, life has been boring. Or rather, I was too depressed to make life anything other than boring. Feel caught up?

All A'board

Everything went beautifully!

After waking up on the late side, Dr Boy made me a nice peanut butter chocolate protein shake and we headed off to pre-transfer acupuncture. Very relaxing... Almost better than the Xanex I took after!

We then went to our clinic which ushered us pretty quickly back into the transfer room. I got to show off my embryo socks... Nothing says "Stick, babies stick!" quite like silver sparkly polka dots, right?

Clearly not my ankle's most flattering view

Our RE came in and gave us the great news- they thawed two AA embryos... and both survived perfectly! No fragmentation, and they even saw continued growth and cellular differentiation between the morning thaw and mid-day transfer. They're alive... Score!! The transfer went seamlessly, with less pain inserting the catheter through the cervix than last time around. I love our clinic. Dr S was so warm today and answered any and all questions I had, and my nurse gave me a little good luck gift! She came in at the end, teared up, and asked if we wouldn't mind if she prayed for us- so so sweet of her and incredibly thoughtful. I really do love our clinic. We relaxed in the room for a half an hour or so, then headed back for post-transfer acupuncture. I totally fell asleep during that one, but am glad we did it.

So I'm officially in the TWW.

0 dp 6 dt.

God I hope this works. I want all of the heartbreak of these last 8 weeks to be worth something. I have gone through so much, emotionally, let so many balls drop, damaged friendships, and I have to hope that it won't be for nothing. Or irreparable, for that matter. Other than relaxing and getting at least one of these darned embryos to stick, I have a couple of important people to make amends with, because above all else?

None of this matters if I don't have people to share it with.

Meet our take 2 embies... Hundreds of differentiated
AA cells, just waiting to be our kids... They're so much
bigger than last time! So many more cells!!!

Ready or not...

...here they come! We've gotten past all the hurdles of medications, lining, and hormone levels, and have gotten the green light for our FET tomorrow. At 11:30am PST, we will be transferring two blasts that were frozen on day 6, provided they make the thaw. Our clinic's plan is to thaw one at a time (the six best frosties were frozen in singles) until we end up with two that look picture perfect. I've never heard of anyone transferring day 6 embies, but they hit blast and that seems to be the important part.

Today's PDLAMBLATI- From Lauren

 
I think I'm finally excited. At least, I'm able to see an outcome that doesn't involve the certainty of failure. It's taken me up until this very last weekend to get here, and I plan on riding the "it might actually work" wave for as long as I can... or at least Wednesday the 22nd when my first beta is drawn. Since it's a D6 transfer, I'll be at 7dp6dt, or 13dpo, which should certainly be soon enough.

The problem with this is that I thought we were still counting these embies as D5's, which would mean a first beta on Thurs the 23rd. I already took that day off to deal with whatever news befalls us, so I can stave off a massive sobfest in the bathroom at my office. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about that now, other than try and avoid the phone call from the clinic until I leave that afternoon. There's still the POAS question, and I have no idea what I'm going to do on that front yet either.

A few things have majorly helped me get to this point, a point where success is a path that seems a possibility again. Because I'm so fond of lists...

1. Seeing a therapist- Finally got an appt, last Friday. Love her, hate that my insurance doesn't facilitate weekly or bi-weekly meetings. I'll have to do that separately, and plan on working on a plan for that soon. I definitely needs to keep going.
2. Fertility acupuncture- With how passive an FET is, I needed to feel like I was doing *more* to help out with the outcome of this attempt. If nothing else, I have a great new source of relaxation!
3. Going to CO- Dr Boy and a bunch of my grad school friends went skiing this weekend in Breckenridge. It was *exactly* the trip I needed. Great friends, the kind that remind you that even if it's been a year and a half since you've seen each other, you're just as loved and missed. I did NOT get enough time with them, but it was still a fab weekend. And I didn't break myself skiing which is a plus. Though I did look like an overstuffed sausage in my ski jacked circa 1999, and about 40 pounds ago. Oy vey.
4. An email from my bestie, saying that even though I've been an isolationist douche bucket (my words not hers), she still loves me and will be there when the lupron wears off. She's kindof the best friend a girl could have :) I hope she doesn't read this before I drop off her Valentine's gift tonight...
5. The twitters and the bloggies- Ya'll stick by me even when I'm a isolationist douche bucket, too. And I can't thank you enough.

The only thing left to deal with is the fallout of my 6 weeks of monster depression. Which is mainly my isolationist douchebucket status. I need to start actually leaving the house again. For something other than work. And repair the friendships I've left to languish during the last month. One of the pieces of homework the therapist gave me was to reach out to at least one friend each day. Email, phone, text, anything that's getting me out into the world of human interaction again.

I shall start that by picking up cupcakes on my way home...

I also vow to be better here- I mean it. Ya'll are awesome. And I hope you know that.

X Marks the Uterus!

PDLMBLATI*, from the lovely Emily** Arrrr, matey! X marks the Uterus!

We had an appointment this morning to get my baseline ultrasound and bloodwork, just to make sure there wasn't any rogue dominant follicle trying to claw its way through the lupron. That would have made me PISSED because this lupron stuff is a bitch that I never want to have to deal with again.

Luckily for all involved parties, I'm suppressed. No follies, ovaries nice and high and difficult to wand properly. Score. Not sure what my e2 came back at yet, but I can't imagine very high. They had to poke both arms though, so I'm already on my way to junkie status again.

We're clear to start our estrace tabs tomorrow, and the lovely estradiol valerate IM injections every Friday and Tuesday for the forseable future. Yay me. And yay Dr Boy, who gets to start shooting me in the arse again. We're still on track for a Feb 15th transfer, in 20 days if you're counting (like me).


Another word on the lupron though. I hates it. Much. It gives me hot flashes, it keeps me from sleeping soundly, it exacerbates my depression, and today, it gave me a migraine that wouldn't go away even with excedrin. Not cool, lupron, not cool. If we're (un)lucky enough to have to go through another FET (let's pretend it's for baby #2 so I don't curl up into the fetal position), I am going to urge REAL hard for a different protocol that does NOT involve this winner of a drug. I just don't like what it's doing to me. At. All. I think Dr Boy will be fully on board with this plan as well. So will Hannah. And the cats. And anyone else I've interacted with in the last 10 days or so.


As for the therapist, I'm still waiting to get an appointment. But it will happen, and soon. Promise. Thank you all for the lovely, wonderful comments. It helps to know I'm not alone, not the only person that's going through this. In fact, the formerly-annoyed-army-wife wrote a very similar post just today. Had a nice LONG talk with Dr Boy this morning, and I think we're both feeling a little better about everything. I hope. At least, it was made more clear that it's truly not you, it's me. Because it's NOT him. It IS me.

But it'll get better.


*PDLMBLATI- Please Don't Look at My Business Look at These Instead
**Emily, giving us IFers hope at A Peek Into Our Journey

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.

Part 2- Transfer Day (3dp5dt)

So Dr Boy is funny. He's all, That's so mean of you to just stop the story where you did! I know how it turns out and even *I* want to know how it ends!

So I apologize for making you wait. And I feel bad because some of the comments of gotten so far are going to be all "ohhhh, yeah.... ummmm.... I mean, what you decided is fine too! Swearzies!" Or you'll be judgy mcjudgersons but that's ok too.

And, we're back.

Saturday, Dec 10: After a short but restful sleep, we head in for the transfer. Still pretty emotionally exhausted from all the one-or-two talk from the day and night before, but still comfortable to transfer one embie, given the right circumstances.

Transfer PDLAMBLATI.
I call them my embry-ho-ho-ho socks :)

We (my mommasita, Dr Boy, and I) waited nervously in the waiting room, and were called back a few minutes later. I had woken up with cramps that day, worse than I had actually had on Friday, so I was kindof terrified they wouldn't let us go through with the transfer. I was overreacting of course, but still. After I'm ready on the table, Dr S comes in and gives us our day 5 embryology report.

Which threw me into a breakdown of epic proportions and a tailspin of indecision.

Of our perfect embies, the ones that were growing in mass quantities at the proper speed, had failed us. Only 1 of the 17 (!!) still growing on that day had reached blast. On effing day 5.

Sheeeeeeet.

That was not part of the plan!!! We had not accounted for that possibility in our calculations!!! We had decided to transfer one, knowing that we'd likely have a bunch of other blasts to freeze for backup.

And we didn't have the reinforcements we were planning on. The reinforcements that would qualify us for the elective single embryo transfer program (ESET- 2 free frozen cycles if this godforbid failed). The reinforcements that would make us feel secure in only transferring one.

Here are some reasons I shouldn't have started sobbing and staring back and forth at my mom and Dr Boy. And flipping out not knowing what to do.
- Our blast? It was picture perfect. And given the highest grade our clinic gives out. So it was a pretty awesome blast.
- We still had 16 others growing, a bunch of which weren't far behind. By the embryologist's guess, only off by 6-12 hrs.
- If others hit blast *that day*, we *might* be able to retroactively qualify for the ESET program.

Of course, none of that was truly sinking in. All that was going through my damn head was that we only had one damn blast to transfer and now what the hell do we do.

Dr S really asked the question that put it into perspective. In a week, when we're going in for the beta, what question would we be saying to ourselves. Awww eff-balls, we could be having twins! Or, Awww, eff-balls, what if this doesn't work.

Dr Boy decided it for us- we go with two. The fear of failure at that point in time far outweighed the fear of a multiple pregnancy. With all the things that can go wrong between morula and blast, it's no sure bet that the rest would get there. It's no sure thing that even a picture perfect embie will stick. And we were never really driven by the financial incentive of ESET to begin with.

It was completely NOT the decision that I expected to walk out of the office having made, but I'm so glad we did. So glad. I still feel a bit selfish, but what's done is done, and I know that given the circumstances, we did what we needed to do to feel confident that this cycle was handled properly, both by us and our Dr.

Meet our little embies, a *perfect* blast, and a compacting blast, whatever that means.

We love them already. More than you can imagine.
(NO! I'm NOT crying right now. I don't know what you're talking about.)

I spent the rest of the day horizontal, relaxing and watching tv, and eventually saying goodbye to mommasita who had to head back to LA LA land. It was so, so amazing to have her here for the week. I would *not* have recovered as quickly without her. And I also would have driven Dr Boy batshit crazy. 

Sunday, Dec 11: Uhhhh.... boring day. Still horizontal on the couch. More movies. And resting. And... what is that? Period crampiness? Wha wha? I hear that's a good thing, but seriously, it felt like I was about to get my period. I'm still having them, but Sunday and Monday were the strongest, for sure. 

The other entertaining part about Sunday! I had just told the IVF nurse the day before about how the PIO shots were totally not that bad, and I'm so lucky to have a Dr at home injecting me, and blah blah blah PIO is totally not the devil. Then BAM. I can't feel my ass. For serious. I guess the needle (inevitably) went through a minor superficial nerve, and as Dr Boy was rubbing the site after the shot, I realized I couldn't feel it. Awesomesauce. It's mostly just on the surface, I can still feel the deep tissue and all, but no surface feeling. At all. I changed my mind about the PIO that night.

------------------------------------------------

This is long enough so I'll tell you about the final Day 7 embryology report, and how many (if any) we had to freeze. Or you could just look on my sidebar to the right. And tell me that I'm a big baby over-reacting nincompoop. Or you could wait until I type it all up tomorrow when I'm not exhausted.

Thanks for sticking with me! Only 4 1/2 days until my beta!!!

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