The Results are In.

Another Fucking BFN. IVF#2 is a bust. I knew it, I just knew it, but still HURTS SO BAD. I know I have two more shots at this, but I don’t know if I can keep this up.

Spotting Again

I have had zero spotting since last Thursday and then this morning when I went pee - light pink on the paper. Damn it! I feel very pre-AF, and the spotting is not making me feel very confident. The one incident of spotting last week didn’t bother me as much as this does, since I am now 13dp3dt — WAY too late for implantation spotting. I wish my beta was today so I could just get on with my life.

Slightly more than 24 hours to go for the b/w, will probably hear back about noon or so. AAAAAAACK!

Almost there…

One more day and a wake-up until beta. TW says that instead of “day after tomorrow”. Nothing to report. I have been having headaches and weird dreams, but probably has nothing to do with anything.

My evil SIL is coming tomorrow. She is taking her daughter to look at colleges. They are coming here to look at the local JC. That cracked me up — you go on a college visit to take a campus tour of the JC? I don’t get it. She is so weird. It worries me though - where is her daughter going to live if she goes to the JC down the street from our house? NOT our house, better not be. I brought it up with TW and he said, “Why not?” OMG I would move out myself if she moves in. She is a trashy 18 year old that hangs out with riff-raff. NO THANKS.

I was at the dog park tonight and this CRAZY-ass woman was there with her golden retriever, looked to be about 5 months old. This dog was CLEARLY a golden, no doubt about it. But the woman insisted it was not a golden. She said it was a very rare “Teddy Bear Labrador”. What the fuck? Has anyone heard of this? I am the biggest dog fan on the planet and I am pretty knowledgeable about dog breeds and I have not heard of this Teddy Bear Lab. The dog was a fucking Golden (totally untrained too). She had the puppy on the small dog side of the park and it was terrorizing all the tiny dogs. The puppy had to weigh at least 45 pounds already. And she was telling everyone that their dogs were too old to be on the small side, like it was an age thing. It is a height and weight thing, PUH-LEEZE! She was like, “Your dog is five years old, it is too old to be on this side” - this to a 4 pound mini yorkie’s owner. Meanwhile her crazy puppy was stomping on all of the dogs, and she was telling everyone that their dogs were “starting it” when the dogs would get into a scuffle. It was pretty funny actually, it turned into a big altercation. I was on the big dog side, just observing. It was highly entertaining. What a whack job. I was laughing that some breeder charged her 10 times more for a golden retriever and just told her it was a very rare Teddy Bear Lab, and that she doesn’t need to train it because they are born already trained.

Anyway, it was a good distraction from obsessing whether I have 4 babies growing or zero babies growing, or something in between.

No Symptoms

Beta is on Thursday. I have ZERO symptoms. My boobs were really sore the first 1/2 of the two week wait, but this morning they are no longer sore. I had all sorts of phantom symptoms, pains, twinges, bouts of fatigue. But all are gone now. I know. I know. I know that billions of women go about their lives having no clue that they are pregnant until they miss their period, and another million and a half go through the same thing after IVF, thinking it couldn’t possibly have worked and then they get a BFP. Why am I feeling so dismal then? I just don’t feel it. I feel nothing. Wouldn’t I feel something? I felt exactly the same way last time, and we all know how that turned out.  I am to the point that I just want to fast forward to Thursday to get the definitive BFN so that I can crack open my first bottle of wine in 2 months.

I have my door shut at work, they think I am working diligently but I can’t concentrate. I am a mess! And I have horrible irritation from the progesterone suppositories, like a bad yeast infection. Poor TW wants some lovin’ (we haven’t done anything since before ER!) but I cannot even begin to think about it. I am sure he doesn’t want to touch my gooped up bajingo anyway!

I have this weird rash on the back of my left hand. It doesn’t itch or anything, just little red bumps. I immediately thought about hoof and mouth disease, isn’t that horrible for pregnant women?

I am a wreck.

Beta is on Thursday morning at 8:30. Last time they e-mailed me the results. I can’t decide whether I want a phone call or an e-mail. What would you do?

I have a problem.

I cannot stop reading blogs about loss. I saw a link to the headquarters of loss blogs and I have spent hours reading them. And it is like watching a movie where you know the ending is shocking or horrible….my heart is racing and I read entry after entry until the tragedy happens. Then I cry. And then I go on to the next one. Watching the story unfold, the pregnant woman and her husband, blissfully unaware what is in store…then crash.

What is wrong with me. These people that have endured these losses are in my heart. And their babies are in my heart. And it is SO unfair.

And I don’t know why I can’t stop reading.

But it makes me feel better. About my own situation. And don’t get me wrong. I am not getting ANY enjoyment out of this. But every story I read, I think — see — you don’t want this to happen to YOU, do you? If I never get pregnant, then it can never happen to me. Because if it happened to me, I think I would die. Literally. If this IVF doesn’t work, and the next one, and the next one…then I am safe. I am childless, but I haven’t suffered like that. Yes, I am suffering now, but not like that. I guess it just makes me feel that it can always be worse.

Is that the way to live?

There is a line in a song by Train called “Drops of Jupiter” that says, “Told a story about a man who is too afraid to fly so he never did land”.

Is it better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all?

I cannot answer these questions.

Beta on March 20.

Random distractions

These late term losses are really getting to me. Natalie, Flotsam, Our Own Creation, and others….my friend also lost all three of her triplets a week before Christmas and she was well into her 2nd trimester. Why do these things happen? It is so fucking depressing. Everyone always says - you made it past the first trimester - you can relax now! But then something like this happens. Watch me worry when I have never even been pregnant, but I cannot help myself. I worry so much that if (when) I DO get pregnant, that I will be a big, giant ball of stress. The whole time. After trying so long, putting so much time, energy, blood, sweat and tears (not to mention all the cash) into this, to lose it all is such a horrifying thought. I don’t even know if I could survive it. If a few BFNs have crushed me so, how would I be able to get through something this tragic? These women are awe inspiring, so strong. I am so sad. My heart is breaking for them.

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That on top of my phantom “symptoms”. Sore boobs (check), upset tummy (mostly the poops, but check), running hotter than usual (check), weird pains/twinges in my abdomen (check). Yay, don’t you just love progesterone supplements!?!?

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I have to change the topic. Last night I was surfing cable and came across a show called “The 100 most shocking moments” or something like that. Something lame, but I stopped to take a peek. By the time I started watching, they were already at the top 3. Number 3 and number 2 - I barely remember. But number 1 was hilarious! It was a clip from the Newlywed Game - remember that one? Bob Eubanks asked the question of one of the wives, “What is the most unusual place you have ever felt like making whoopie”. And the woman said, “My asshole?” OMG, I almost choked on my piece of cherry pie!!! The poor husband’s answer was, “In the back seat of the car”. LOL.

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When we had to change all our clocks, PT was a day late and wanted to change the time on her watch. She asked me what time it was, and I said, “Let’s call POP-CORN”! I hadn’t called that in a long time, and PT was like, “What the heck”? So I told her to call and she dialed on speaker phone. And guess what — there was a recording that said the service was discontinued in September 2007! It is the end of an era. I can’t believe you can’t call POP-CORN anymore. Then I had to explain that we used to be able to call POP-CORN and get the exact time. I guess now that everyone has cell phones with times that are set by satellite, POP-CORN is obsolete. I feel so old.

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I made the best dinner the other night - it is very Atkins friendly, which I thought about after the fact (doesn’t matter because I am not doing Atkins, but I thought that people that are on Atkins would enjoy it too!) I took portabello mushrooms and removed the stems carefully and peeled the brown skin off. Then I put them face up, and spread pesto on them. Then put a layer of baby spinach, put some mozzarella cheese, chopped tomato, chopped green onion, and some cooked tiger shrimp that I cut into thirds. I put them in a high oven until they were all bubbly and browned a little bit. It was like a pizza, but instead of crust, it was mushroom on the bottom. You could do it with any ingredients you like. YUM! I served it with a salad - and the whole thing took about 15 minutes.

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I was at the grocery store the other day, and I saw a Cosmo magazine (I think it was Cosmo, maybe it was something else…) and one of the titles of the articles on the cover said, “Your Vee-Jay-Jay: New Facts about your girlie parts”. Or something like that. WHAT? Who writes these things!

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Okay, off to agility class with the doggy! Have a good night everyone.

Back in a dark hole

I am so boring and predictable. Today I feel like shit again. Another girl on one of my IVF boards just got a BFP. That is something like SIX in the last couple of months. I feel like THE ONLY PERSON ON THE PLANET that is not pregnant. Logical huh? And I hate how I can’t be happy for other people, I just get bitter and depressed and sad for myself. How did I ever become so selfish.

What happened to being PUPO (Pregnant until Proven Otherwise)? These embryos haven’t even been in for two days yet.

I just can’t see it happening for me.

Feeling a bit better.

I got all my negativity out yesterday, I think. When I think about the two cycles, I actually ended up ahead a little bit this time, right? Last time I had 3 embryos, one 7 celled, one 6 celled, and one 5 celled. This time I had FOUR embryos, two 6-7 cells, one 5-6 cells, and one 4-5 cells. I know that things are not ideal, but pregnancy can occur with fragmented embryos with only 4 cells. SO, maybe it can happen for me. And maybe if we have to do it again, it will get a little better that time too.
I won’t say I am optimistic, or even cautiously optimistic. But I am not Gloom and Doom. I am taking it one day at a time.

Thanks for holding hope for me, sometimes it is hard to do it myself.

Here we go again…

10 eggs retrieved
5 fertilized eggs
4 Embryos: two 6-7 cells, one 5-6 cells, one 4-5 cells
All fragmented

Conversation about poor egg quality, fragmentation, blah, blah, blah.

Sound familiar? Flash back to IVF#1.

Crying during transfer, doctor telling me to think positive.

Put all four embryos in, what do we have to lose?

Crying for two hours afterwards.

I thought this cycle was so different!

It is what it is. Beta is on March 20.

FUCK.

Down in the dumps

Nothing went as well as I had hoped! I thought with 13 follicles I would get at least 13 eggs, but they only got 10. I know it is better than 7, what they got last time, but everything seemed to go so much better with stimulation I thought I would have some sort of miracle egg retrieval.

ER was MUCH more painful than last time, perhaps because they had to get to almost double the number of follicles. I cramped for hours and took some tylenol PM and slept for a few hours when I got home. My friend M was so wonderful. She took me to the pharmacy to get trashy mags and medicine, then took me home and we lounged around and read for a while. Then I fell asleep so she took my dog for a walk and brought won ton soup for me, and it was waiting when I woke up. She was going to spend the night but I sent her home at 8pm since her daughter was at home, and I felt bad that she wasn’t spending time with her (shared custody stuff).

I feel SO bloated like I have a ginormous fart that is stuck and just won’t come out! I have so much pressure all over my abdomen and (TMI) my butt hole. When I sit down it hurts, and I can’t suck my belly in at all, I feel 5 months preggo. I hope this isn’t the start of OHSS! I have been drinking lots of fluid but last night I literally got up SEVEN times to pee, almost every hour. Every step I take hurts. I didn’t have anything like this last time (but last time I was an under responder). It doesn’t help that this morning I checked my e-mail and there was so much to do, and one guy dropped the ball. So I ended up working from home from about 8am until just now (3:30pm). So much for taking the day off. I am going to take the rest of the week off, screw work, it is so much more important for me to try to de-stress and relax and rest.

I got my fert report this morning — only 5 embryos. WTF. Last time we had 7 embryos and 7 eggs. SO I thought we would have at least that many embryos this time! They decided to do partial ICSI, and of the 7 that that ICSI’d, only three fertilized (apparently one of the eggs wasn’t mature). And of the 3 that they didn’t ICSI, 2 fertilized. So, I have 5. I hope to God that they are better and stronger than last time. But only time will tell.

I called the doctor and he didn’t seem concerned, he said that this cycle is totally different and he expects the embryos to respond differently too. Let’s hope he is right. I have my ET appointment at 11am on Thursday, but they are going to watch carefully to see if they want to do a day 2 transfer instead.

OMG I want this to work so badly! I don’t know if I can go through this again.