Saturday Tidbits

1. I ran/walked 3.5 miles in 41 degree weather, completely outwitting the CA weather wuss that I am. Woot!

2. I spent too much money on running clothes so that I can run in wussy CA cold weather.

3. I went to an awesome open house. Just for fun. It's like crack, I tell you!

4. I went to Doctor Prom. So. Much Fun! Complete with dorky photos in front of a fake background and everything! I'd show you, but then I'd have to kill you. And that would make me sad.


Hope you're all having a fun weekend!


**I apologize for the lameness of this post. Less lameness to follow tomorrow.

NaBloPoMo

Did I mention I was participating?

'Cause I am. Which is crazy. I've never written TEN posts in a month, let alone THIRTY.

Which is clear right now because I have no idea what to say.

So instead, I will leave you with a couple of photos from the vacation Dr Boy and I went on in October. We spent time in Boston, Vermont, and Albany... Good times to be had everywhere we went!!!

Charles River

Mike's Pastry- I may have eaten there three times in five days. Maybe.

Yep, totally went on the dorky Duck tour. Fun times!

Hiking up Mt Tom in Woodstock, VT

Gorgeous Fall Color!

The happy Meier's

Mmmm... Beer tasting...

TVT

Happy Thursday! It's that time of the week again! Say thanks to Oak for providing the vomititious kid in the pic!

- One of my cats is currently chasing her tail. Through the hole in a level of her cat tree. Because if you can't SEE that it's attached, it must NOT be attached. We breed winners over here.

Whaaaat? Don't judge me!

- Had my saline sono today. I didn't take the recommended 600-800mg advil. Honestly, it wasn't awful. The catheter that they insert into the uterus is the same size as what they use for an IUI, so that wasn't bad. They use the speculum to crank 'er open to insert it, then toss it in and measure how deep your ute is, then carefully remove the speculum and replace it with 'ol wandy. Next, they hook the end of the catheter up to a plunger full of saline and toss it all in while they watch on the screen. Everything looked good, no septum, no nada. A "perfectly hospitable looking womb".  Yay my womb! I'm still pretty crampy, but then again I definitely pushed it tonight in terms of activity.

- I wore the awesome socks in the middle of this picture to the appointment today. They were given to me by the AWESOME Emily, who just so happens to be a 7 or 8 weeks into a successful IVF pregnancy... with triplets! She wore a pair of socks like the ones on the left to a transfer of hers, and I mentioned how much AWESOME I think she had on her feet. And you know what happened next? She mailed me a few pairs of AWESOME to put on MY feet! She's awesome. I'm saving the Mary Janes for the retrieval or transfer... can't decide which.

- I saw a double rainbow after my saline sono this afternoon. I didn't know what it meant.

- Went to an infertility support group meeting tonight (part of the reason I pushed it tonight) with The Womb Warrior and others. As usual, it was truly wonderful to see others going through similar circumstances and to hear their stories. The blogging and tweeting community are AMAZING, but there really is just something to face-to-face contact.

'till next time.... Vomit On!

If vs When

During the meeting with our IVF nurse on Monday, I was very aware of the fact that she used the phrase "When" each time she referred to the success of our cycle. I usually use "if".

If AF arrives in time before Thanksgiving.

If I respond well to the stims.

If we retrieve enough mature eggs.

If we fertilize any of those mature eggs.

If we get to transfer this month.

If we get a BFP.

If I manage to carry to term.

All this iffy-ness is exhausting. But I can't quite bring myself to use the when. I mean, I do use it occasionally when someone pesters me about my craptastic attitude, but I always do it with an exaggerated eye roll. (who me? snarky? no......)

Infertility is a crazy bitch. Much like me. She plays this awful game of "Get your hopes up! Cross your fingers! It's totes going to work this time!!! Believe in the Power of Positive Thinking!!!" then at the end of a cycle, changes her tune to "Well, I mean, you knew there was only a small chance of success, right? You're infertile, did you really think it'd be that easy? Nanner nanner short luteal phase! There's always next time! Next time will be the one!" IF is a delicate dance of guarding against failure while desperately hoping for success. But not hoping so much that you end up in the bathtub eating a pizza and bawling your eyes out at the end of failed cycle. Because let's be honest, we've all ended up in that bad place in some shape or form at the end of a disheartening toilet paper check and there is nothing you can do to drag yourself out of it but cry it out. And indulge in delicious cheesy carbs.

I haven't decided when I'm going to let myself transition from if to when. Maybe it'll happen on its own. Maybe it won't happen at all. Maybe it'll be when I carry the mini-Meier home from the hospital. Whenever it does, when will be the most wonderful feeling in the world.

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Also!!! Lest I forget to ask. I never get a flu shot. Ever. Never had one. Despite Dr Boy bringing home every pediatrics-related virus in the world, I never get the darned shot. This year, though... with that whole, if we get pregnant off this IVF cycle thing, I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and bite the bullet. What's one more injection in the grand scheme of things, right? And I was thinking of doing it before IVF gets under way. That way I won't have to get it *while* pregnant or going through treatments. Advice from all you lovely ladies? I'm going in for my saline sono tomorrow and it would be a convenient chance to do it. Muchos gracias!


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Also, to the person that googled "gre.at+dri.nker+an.d+su.ck.er+of+sp.e.r.m" to get to my blog? Eff off. What the HELL did I ever type to get pinged from THAT search?

Calendar is Set!

Well, folks, it would appear that this show is on the road.

I took my first BCP last Friday, and will take my last on the 18th. The goal is to have my suppression check and start stims the week of Thanksgiving, with retrieval the week of December 5th. Ack! I am officially overwhelmed. In a good way, but overwhelmed nonetheless.

We're doing an antagonist protocol, as I mentioned earlier, with Gonal-F and Menopur, then Cetrotide added in, then a Lupron trigger. Know what's awesome about all of that? It's all sub-q. No booty shots until the PIO starts... woohoo! We did decide to go with the PIO, ultimately. I know that studies have shown that endometrin suppositories are equally effective, but I'd rather just do the shots and leave out any of the guess work. Just our personal preference, ultimately.

I'm terrified, excited, overwhelmed, and thankful all at the same time. I'm terrified that CD1 won't come before Thanksgiving and things will be pushed back. Or worse, cancelled. I'm excited to finally be doing something with a greater than 50% chance of success. As high as 70%, even. I'm overwhelmed by the numerous consent forms and list of medications, and amount of money we're spending this month now. But I'm thankful that my clinic was able to get together a plan this quickly, and that my body has been cooperating so far.

The next step is my saline sonogram, on Thursday. One thing I want to make sure to ask is that I'm not slated to take any lupron at the end of this month's cycle as part of the suppression phase... has anyone else had a protocol that left that part out? After that, Dr Boy does an additional SA next week to double check the state of the swimmers. Our meds should arrive in about two weeks, and we have our injection training on the 14th.

Dr Boy is stressed out about all the up-in-the-air nature of this. He's worried he won't be able to cancel clinic the morning of the retrieval or the transfer, and generally stressed out about the cost. I can't blame him. I feel so much guilt that my body has let us down so much that we have to outlay this much time, money, and effort to create a child. That it's stripped us of the spontaneity of making a family. I feel so guilty, and so sad about that. Dr Boy tells me he married ME, not my ovaries, but I still can't help but feel the guilt of it all.

I'll get past it though. Especially when we get our BFP from this. Because we will. Because I can't imagine where we'll be if we don't.

Feeling Antagonistic.

Or maybe it's just the protocol talking  :)

I came prepared. With a barrage of questions. He only laughed a little :)

My IVF consult went well yesterday. Quite, well, in fact! We talked for a while about our TTC history, and the RE was fully supportive of moving on to IVF at this point. No "ehhh, you may have success with an additional IUI or two" or "geeee, you haven't really earned the big guns yet." Just a simple "From my perspective, I would recommend moving on." His main reasoning is that with the number of cysts that my ovaries present with (yesterday had 25 on righty and 20 on lefty), they aren't comfortable taking a more aggressive stim approach for an IUI. Afraid to wake the "sleeping giant" or something like that. So no WONDER we haven't had very good stimming for our two IUI's- their hands were tied, lest we populate a baseball team all in one go. Move over Octo-mom, Multiples-Meier-Mama is coming to town!

Because of my super cysty ovaries, he also recommended we go with the Antagonist protocol, which involves stimming with both Menopur and Gonal F or Follistim, and a Lupron trigger. He thinks that I'll have a great response to the stims given my "loaded gun ovaries", and wants to try and avoid OHSS by using the lupron trigger instead of an HCG trigger. I'll get more details when I talk to the coordinator. Oh, and he did say that it's our choice whether to use PIO or Endometrin during the TWW, and that the research suggests that they're equally effective... but he just feels more comfortable with PIO.

So with all that, the decision was pretty much made. We've stressed over this long enough. The fact that we got to this point sucks, but I have to put the doubt over what could have been behind me and get to my happy place. My happy "I'm going to have a needle shoved through my vaginal wall to retrieve mah behbehs after my ovaries have been inflated to the size of softballs" place. Ummm... that's a happy place, right? Right? <crickets>

He didn't see anything that he thought would indicate a need for more testing in terms of preemptively diagnosing an implantation failure. The only supplements he recommended were OTC prenatals. Dr Boy does need to go in for a repeat SA, mainly so they can do a much more in depth look at morphology. Our clinic requires that sperm hit a certain threshold for morphology in order to try to fertilize naturally, otherwise, they require ICSI. Either way, that's not a problem. He had fine morphology before. (side note- any supplements or other things he can do to improve morphology? 'Cause it'd be nice not to have to spend that $1500. Just in case.) I need to have a saline sonogram to check out the condition of the cute ute. That's pretty much it though!

We then had a date with wandy to check out the cyst. And to see if I can skip my period this round and go strait to BCP! I have about 7.2mm worth of lining built up, but NO dominant follicles. And it's CD19, so really? We can put this one in the books as annovulatory. Even better though, no cyst either! That sucker went away all on its own.

Because of the lack of a dominant follicle and the fact that the cyst shrunk down to nothing, he cleared me to start the BCP right away, without waiting for a new CD1. Which works WONDERS towards the whole getting on the calendar for a December cycle goal.

Long story short- we're good to go. I'm waiting to hear from the clinic's IVF schedule coordinator, but I will most likely be starting BCP this week to get ready for a Dec cycle! AHHHH!!!! Which means that by New Year's, I'll either have a BFP, or a really friggin' good reason to drink :)

Anxiety.

Ya'll, I am terrified right now.

I have an IVF consult meeting in 90 minutes. I made that appointment two weeks ago, when I went in for my WFT appt for the failed IUI #2. I figured I'd at least make the appointment, so that Dr Boy and I could discuss the matter while we were on vacation the following ten days.

We went on vacation. We had a BLAST. (side note: i heart boston. and maple syrup. and db's grandma.) We bam-chicka-bammed. And it was FUN. All of it, not just the pervy stuff, you pervs!

Dr K found a 22mm cyst on my right ovary during the WTF. That was the one that measured either 14 or 15mm the day we triggered, not the 18.5mm on the left that we thought would be the mature baby-maker. I kept thinking, "Awwww, it's mommy's first cyst!" Dr K said to go about our business and let the cyst shrink on its own. I felt some pain for the next few days in that region, but it's mostly gone away, as hopefully the cyst has. He even said to OPK CD12-20 just in case I had that miraculous rebound that sometimes happens.

No miracles here, but that's not the point.

The point is, I have my IVF consult in 90 minutes, and I'm terrified.

I know with all my heart now that it's what we need to do next. We need this. Both of us. To know that we're trying everything we possibly can. To get on with being normal again. To become parents.

Right now though, sitting here on my first day back to work after vacation, I'm flipping my shit. What if the cyst didn't go away? What if it doesn't shrink with BCP? Can we get an IVF cycle in with a retrieval before Christmas? Why does Christmas matter I'm jewish! Why will stims work this time when they've been so sheisty before? Will they judge us for making this decision after only two IUI's and three clomid cycles?

And the biggest one of them all: Will this get us our take-home baby?

Wish me luck. I've never felt this full of anxiety. And I think I'm going to vomit from it.