SSDD

Our beta fell nice and quickly after the loss, so we were blissfully able to start over and move on to the next cycle soothingly fast. I work best when I have a plan. Moving forward towards the objective is the most effective way to keep me from going crazy. I need a plan, movement, momentum to build.

FET #4... who's excited?

So plan we did. Three weeks of birth control, then back on the estrogen bandwagon. Everything went super well with this cycle, same 9.5mm lining as before, yada yada. I did my pre- and post- transfer acupuncture, got my pineapple all ready, and we went to transfer.

Fabulous transfer socks

Meet the MaybeBabies!

Two lovely looking day 6 blasts survived the thaw, though they were still differentiating at the time of transfer, and not actually hatching yet. Wore lots of comfy socks to keep my feet warm, and resigned myself to a month of avoiding cold foods/beverages to avoid drawing energy away from the womb. Thanks traditional chinese medicine for stealing my ice cream coping mechanism. I had an awful afternoon that day though... some sort of brief food poisoning or something and puked three times. Yay me! The rest of the weekend I laid low and relaxed, turning gloomier by the day as I hadn't felt any of the telltale cramping I did the last two times I got pregnant.

I POASed on Monday, and sadly, nothing was there. I was 4dpt, and had positives both with the mini and with the notbabies at that point. Poop. I was a hormonal wreck and ended up sobbing in front of the new serger sewing machine that I couldn't get to work properly. So that was fun. I felt completely out of control of my emotions. I peed again on Tuesday... and it was positive. The squintiest of squinters, but positive. Same issue as last time though- it showed on a FRER but not the cheapie.

Look at what my pee did!

My heart dropped a little the next day when the line didn't get much darker. By Thursday, it had darkened a bit, but I just didn't have a good feeling. Apparently with good reason. My beta was 29. I had my second beta today, and it's 61. ****

So here's where we are. Same shit, different day. I don't really know what to feel, honestly. Whether I'm 14dpo today, or 15dpo, the number is still quite low when looking at betabase. And beta values typically shoot up more than just double at the beginning. The mini's went from 80 to 202 at that dpo. The notbabies went from 41 to 58. Better trend this time, but not really better numbers.

I don't really know what to think. I don't want to be the ungrateful asshole that is complaining about her doubling betas, but the past is haunting me here. I really just can't believe that we're here again. This is just crazy. Again. What the flying fark. I can't work up anything in the way of excitement over this pregnancy, just ambivalence and a hey pass the wine... oh wait nevermind.

We'll see what we see with Monday's beta I guess. Ultrasound tentatively Monday the 19th, at 6w2d.


****Like last time, these embies were frozen on day 6 when they hit blast. As such, the clinic considers me a 6dt, and the first beta at 7dp6dt (13dpo) and second beta at 9dp6dt (15dpo). HOWEVER, I call bunk on this one and only am giving them 5dt credit. They took longer to hit blast, so why give them an extra day of developmental credit? Nope. Plus it's slighty less bleak to think of my beta values at 12dpo and 14dpo instead.

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?

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!

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>

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.

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.

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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!!!

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!