The wait is over.

BFN.

Nothing more to say.

One more day (less than 24 hours!)

11dp3dt

OMG. OMG. OMG. I am on the verge of tears. I just have NO idea what the results will be, but my heart is leaning towards a BFN. Don’t people who have successful IVF cycles KNOW IT before beta? Don’t they have some sort of feeling about it? I just feel so …. NOT pregnant. Not that I know what being pregnant feels like. I am glad I haven’t POAS. Believe it or not, I am not even tempted.

Well, despite my better efforts, the evil SIL is coming here to take PT shopping today. At 3pm. She must think I am really stupid. If she truly bought a $54 jacket for PT, if she was being honest, then why the heck would she drive 3 hours down here and 3 hours back to spend another $54 dollars on a new jacket for PT. Wouldn’t she ask for the jacket back so she could try to return it herself? The truth comes out – she is a LIAR.  I am so thankful I have a 8-5 job and I can just say that I have to work, sorry, cannot participate. TW can have fun with his psychotic sister. I am going to stay late at work to avoid any contact. In the mood I am in, there is no way I can slap a smile on my face and play nice with the BEE-ATCH.

My BFF J2 called me last night. She told me that I should try the Five Senses Exercise when I need to get my mind off things. To choose five things that I will get pleasure from, one for each of the five senses: touch, sound, sight, taste, smell. Sutter Puppy fulfilled four of those things easily. I always feel better when I look at him. He was asleep when I was talking to J2 and I glanced over at him and it warmed my heart. I touched his silky soft ears and listened to him “purr” when I rubbed his belly. I smelled his puppy breath (it is starting to mutate into stinky dog breath, but there is still some puppy smell there!) and buried my face in his fur. He is as close to a baby as I have right now. The only thing I couldn’t do is the taste part! Yes, last week he French kissed me by accident – GROSS – but I opted for an ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. YUM. I am supposed to do the Five Senses each day. Today I will pick things that have nothing to do with my puppy or ice cream. It is a good distraction. Thank you J2!

One more day and a wake up….and I will know the answer.

Hope and Despair…vacillating endlessly

At the end of 9dp3dt

Gawd. I literally am hopeful for five minutes then doubtful the next. I have visions of calling my parents with good news, which get overpowered by images of burying myself under the blankets for days on end in tears. I picture myself telling my brother the good news over Christmas, he toasting me with champagne while I sip a non-alcoholic beverage. Then I envision partying (aka drowning my sorrows) with my friend M when we go up to the mountains for a few days after Christmas. I am imagining the “congratulations” phone call from the IVF clinic. Then I picture myself trying to hold myself together on Friday afternoon when they tell me my beta was undetectable. I have plans on Friday night. I feel like I should cancel them just in case I get bad news…I won’t be any shape to see anyone. Or should I leave the plans in place in case I am over the moon with joy! I have never felt so much like a someone with multiple personality disorder. Call me Sybil.

I keep checking my bo.obs – they are sore, but they look just the same…and I know that progesterone supplements make my boo.bs sore.

I have had a headache for two days. Symptom of pregnancy? Or just symptom of stress?

Today I had this weird half nauseous/half hungry feeling for hours. Like I felt really hungry, and my tummy was growling, but my mouth was salivating too much and I felt kind of sick. And I felt starving all day.

I got up to pee twice two nights in a row. Once at around midnight, the next time at around 4am. Then I had to pee when I actually got up at 6am. I am peeing about every hour during the day, and my bladder feels like it is going to burst each time! But am I drinking more water than usual? I don’t know!

I have had a few weird crampy feelings in my stomach and some twinges in my ovaries off and on. Are these in my head?

I spotted a tiny bit yesterday, but it stopped. Is this a sign of implantation? (Could that be right? at 8dp3dt?) Or is it my yeast infection or irritation from the suppositories?

What I don’t have: sensitivity to smells, being over heated, being super tired, dark nip.ples, veins in my chest.

I know that some women don’t get symptoms until 4-6 weeks. I know that these “symptoms” I do have could just be completely in my head. It is probably too early. I am over analyzing every little thing.

One thing I do know. I am NOT going to POAS.

What a complete mind fuck. This is the most torture I have ever put myself through. Voluntarily. $26,000 worth of voluntary. Sometimes I think: WHAT WAS I THINKING.

What am I going to do if I get a negative beta?

What am I going to do if I get a positive one!

My new friend

8dp3dt

My new friend “C” was really nice. Her story was pretty amazing. She married a guy 15 years her senior when she was 25. When she was about 30 they started TTC, but nothing happened. Her husband has three kids from a prior marriage (they were in grade school when they got married) so they were completely surprised when the RE told them that sperm motility was the issue. They went straight to IVF. The first cycle, they got 7 eggs (just like me) and put two in. They froze two and the other three didn’t make it. She got pregnant the first time! Surprisingly her low beta numbers turned out to be twins. She carried the twins to term, but one of them died three days after he was born. So sad. I wasn’t really sure what the complication was. She said something about the baby’s penis having retained some fluid and getting an infection, but I didn’t really understand what happened….I didn’t want to ask questions, she was getting teary talking about it. But her other baby thrived and is now in 2nd grade.

After the trauma of losing a baby, her husband was completely against embryo transfers of more than one embryo. He was just too scared of having multiples. So they did FIVE more IVFs, transferring one embryo only. None of them stuck. For the last attempt, they put two embryos in, and she has her 4 year old son.

When we were having coffee at the Starbucks, this other woman walked in that I recognized, but didn’t know. She was also a mom at PT’s school. C knows her and after the other woman left, C told me that the woman also did IVF! She had triplets and one of them was lost as well, but she has her twins in 2nd grade. It made me wonder…how many other kids at PT’s school came from IF treatments? For the last 5+ years, every time I went to PTs school for whatever reason, I always looked around feeling sorry myself, looking at all the moms and thinking they all had it so easy. But obviously that was not the right attitude. The stat is something like 20% of couples have trouble conceiving. So, out of the 500 or so families at PT’s school, maybe 50-75 dealt with IF? (I dropped it from 20% to 10-15% because I guess some couples who go through IF never end up having kids…so obviously they wouldn’t be at PT’s school). But this was really eye opening. Sometimes I am so self absorbed. Even though I realize that IF hits so many people, it is hard not to just focus on ME, ME, ME.

C was really sweet, but kind of dingy. I told her that I had questionable egg quality based upon my fertilization report. She said, “What is a fertilization report?” And she asked a bunch of questions about IVF that I thought someone who had been through it seven times would already know…I realize she did it starting 7 years back and maybe things have changed somewhat, but still. I thought SHE would be more of expert, but she seemed to just look at the whole process as some sort of miracle. It seems like she went through the motions for IVF, but didn’t do any reading about it and never tried to UNDERSTAND what was going on in her body. I guess everyone is different. I couldn’t go through this process without trying to understand everything.

She also kept repeating herself that she KNOWS I am pregnant, she just knows it. I like positive attitudes, and I certainly need them, but sometimes it is annoying. She kept saying, “You have good egg quality!” but I had just told her that we weren’t sure about that. She wants me to call her on Friday so we can meet that night (the night of my beta). I am so nervous. I guess I will see how I feel. If I have a negative beta, I think I will be crawling under a rock for a while.

One thing I have been thinking about that really threw me at acupuncture on Saturday. Of all people, K has always been SUPER positive during this process. She has always said I don’t need any luck, that IVF was going to work for me, blah, blah. For some reason when K does this it isn’t annoying…maybe because I feel like she has experience dealing with IF people in her practice and she has seen the success stories with her own two eyes. But this last session, when she asked me how I felt and I told her that I didn’t think it worked, she didn’t try to talk me out of that feeling. She just said, ‘Oh, okay’ and became quiet. Then I was the one that tried to explain that maybe it did work, I don’t have symptoms but it may not mean anything, some people don’t have any symptoms this early….and K agreed with me, but she was kind of quiet about it. Then later she even slipped and said, “So next time you try IVF…” So, I have a feeling K doesn’t think it worked either.

Trying to just hold out until Friday, but having another BFN after all this is going to be really hard to bear.

I know I should wait…

7dp3dt

I am wasting posts with my annoying drivel. I should probably wait a few days so that I have something interesting to say! But I am bored and distracted. So I am going to use this blog to waste a few minutes.

I had acupuncture yesterday and she told me to buy some acidophilis for my yeast infection. I ran out and bought some and started taking it, but it hasn’t helped yet. It is weird to think I am ingesting billions of bacteria on purpose! But it is supposed to replace the bacteria that the doxycycline killed last week. I hope it gets the yeast problem under control. Believe me, progesterone suppositories + yeast infection = wanting to jump out the window.

My acupuncturist always takes my pulses and yesterday she said that my pulses were “hungry” and asked if I had eaten anything yet. I hadn’t. I always wonder when she takes my pulses — do pregnant women have pregnant pulses? Would she be able to tell if I am pregnant before I get my beta? I guess it is moot b/c my next appointment is on Saturday morning and my beta is on Friday. GAWD. The 2WW is so slow. I am only half way there. It seems that my ET was SO long ago but it was at 11:30am last Sunday!

So far symptoms can be completely attributed to progesterone supplements: really sore boobs, bloated, gassy, cranky, hungry all the time, constipated, peeing every three seconds. WOW. I am such a joy to live with right now!

My plan to ask for the receipt from my SIL for PT’s jacket backfired on me. She went into this huge tale (LIE) about how she bought it at this one department store, and that she even thought that the sleeves looked a little short, but that the sales girl said the kids are wearing thermal shirts underneath jackets with short sleeves now, it is all the rage. This department store she mentioned always puts a sticker on the tag so that if the receipt is lost, you can still return it. This jacket had NO TAGS anywhere. Don’t you leave tags on gifts when you give them? I just cut the small part with the price off. My SIL lies so much, she begins to believe her own lies. It is quite amazing. Anyway, the next thing she said was that PT would be getting a gift certificate for that store in the mail. Which was fine! I thought “I WON!”. Then the next message was that my SIL wanted to drive down here today and take PT shopping. OMG. Seeing SIL twice in one weekend is enough to make me gag and I don’t even have morning sickness (yet). I think she is feeling tres guilty that we called her on her bullshit finally. Anyway, I e-mailed her back that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the WORST day to drive during the whole year, and that we had plans anyway (LIE). She was mad, but I don’t care. She thinks the world revolves around her and no one ever has plans to do anything, we just wait around for her to announce that she is coming and expects everyone to bow.

Today I am meeting a girl for the first time. A mutual friend met her in Hawaii last year when their families were in adjacent townhouses for 10 days. This new friend lives only 2 blocks from me, and her kids go to PT’s school! I am sure I am going to recognize her when I see her…this should be interesting. And the topper: She was IF for years and both her kids are from IVF! I can’t wait to meet her. She sounds super sweet. She promised to keep my IF/IVF a secret b/c the last thing TW wants is for the news to spread through the school gossip mill. She actually promised over her kids’ dead bodies, which I think I can completely trust. 😛 She left me a long message on my cell phone when we were trying to coordinate a meeting, and mentioned that her oldest son was a fighter…her first beta was so low (13) that everyone at the IVF clinic was already giving her condolences and telling her that it was not a viable pregnancy. But they kept doing betas and the the number got bigger and bigger…and she had a perfectly healthy baby. Miracles happen every day.

I hope one can happen for me too.

Not that much to report…

6dp3dt

The 2WW has slowed to a halt. I called the clinic yesterday because I got a STACK of what looked like bills for ICSI, assisted hatching, anesthesia…when the guy answered I thought it was the answering service because usually a woman answers. I asked whom I was speaking with, and it was Dr. S! He was very sweet and told me that the “bills” were just FYI. Then he made a little small talk with me. I told him that the 2WW was kicking my but. I can’t believe that my transfer was less than one week ago, it feels like a million years ago.

I think I have a horrible yeast infection. This makes sense because I usually get one after antibiotics, but I haven’t taken any in so long it slipped my mind. I am so bummed I didn’t ask Dr. S about it when I had him on the phone. But yesterday morning when I called I just thought I had some irritation from the bajingo bullets (progesterone suppositories) so I didn’t mention it. But by last night I was in pure agony. And this morning too. We are supposed to go to the local college football game today, and TW wants to ride bikes. I don’t think I can handle 8 miles of bike riding (each way) the way my coochie feels right now. Plus, putting more bullets up there during my infection SUCKS. But I don’t know what to do. Obviously I don’t want to stop the progesterone, but this is just hell. I have acupuncture today, maybe she can help?? (Don’t ask me how).

In addition, my progesterone is giving me all these phantom preggo symptoms…really sore boobs, bloaty, gassy, tired, cranky. What a mind fuck.

And to make things even more fun, I did a walk-through at the construction site, and they have framed a wall in the middle of my “open kitchen” that is going to mess everything up! They better not tell me it is “structural” or I am going to have a heart attack!

Highlights from Thanksgiving:

• I didn’t get food poisoning, for the first time ever (I think my SIL is trying to kill me)
• We were stuck is so much traffic on the way there that we went through a fast-food drive-through!!! I ate a chicken sandwich, onion rings and a lemonade! OMG. I am a complete garbage disposal.
• I discovered that Izzy’s pomegranate and blackberry soda can curve my appetite to self-medicate with alcohol, even during the most annoying of all holiday events: TG at the SIL’s.
• SIL asked us to bring TWO cases of Corona beer. There were 7 people there. One was a minor, I wasn’t drinking, TW was driving so he wasn’t drinking, my FIL doesn’t drink beer. Hmmm. Seems suspiciously like they just wanted us to stock their fridge with beer for the next few weeks.
• SIL gave us a gift to bring back for PT (her birthday was on 10/5!). It was a relatively cute Roxy jacket, but guess what – no tags anywhere on it. It was clearly from my niece’s closet. I e-mailed the SIL this morning asking for a gift receipt because (I claimed) the sleeves were too small. Hmmmph! So there! I am so tired of her treating us like we are the Salvation Army!

Ugh. When will 11/30 get here!!!

Giving Thanks…

4dp3dt

Yesterday I went out to breakfast with my husband. We spent the WHOLE day together, we haven’t done that in a very long time. And it was really nice. At breakfast, I ordered home-made corned beef hash and eggs. When I got my order, I noticed that there was one little green pea on the side of the plate. There were no peas in my order! So it must have hitchhiked from another plate. But I took it as a sign! I showed it to TW and said, “I have a pea in the pod!”. I put it inside an empty sugar packet and folded it up gently in there. Then I put it inside another empty sugar packet and put it in my pocket. That is how crazy I am. I brought it home and placed it in a safe place. I don’t want anything to happen to my pea.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

It is Thanksgiving. I have been pondering for a long time now. I do have so many things to be thankful for. And I have to go there. I have to go to that place, the possible future without children. I have to think about it because it is a reality I may have to deal with….some day. And for me to go there, I need to focus on what I am thankful for. I have a good life. I have a better than good life.

++Both my parents are alive and kicking, and they love me very much even though they live far, far away.

++My brother also lives far from me, but we are very close and we talk once a week (he calls it his parole call)

++I met the man of my dreams (and sometimes my nightmares!) later in life, but I knew that he was the one. And we have built a pretty damn good life together. Even though we have our “moments” we are good together. And I know it is going to last forever.

++My step-daughter came into my life at such a young age that she doesn’t remember a life without me. I know she loves me very much, and I love her too.

++My puppy “Sutter” brings more joy to me than I can explain. Even when I am in pain, I can smile when he is in the room with me.

++I have a job that I LOVE. With people I like to be with 8+ hours a day. With the flexibility to do these ART cycles. And the potential flexibility to work from home when I have babies.

++I am thankful that we have the financial means to attempt ART, cycle after cycle. Without insurance coverage. We would have had to give up long ago otherwise.

++My Father-in-Law is a wonderful man. He has given us the home we live in now, in a neighborhood that would have been completely out of reach for us. And he has allowed us to remodel it into my dream house (which will be done some day, I hope!)

++I have so many friends that love me very much. I also make new friends everywhere I go. People like me, everyone likes me (Sorry, this sounded very “Stuart Smalley“!)

++I have many talents. I can paint, I can cook like a gourmet, I can do math, I can write, I can sing.

++I know it is cliche, but I have my health (no mention of 38 year old eggs)

++This is vain, but I like the way I look. I could stand to lose a few pounds, but everything else is pretty good. Finally. It took me YEARS to get here, to finally be comfortable with my physical appearance and not compare myself to everyone else! And I am blessed with dark, dark hair that hasn’t had a single gray hair yet! 🙂

++I have the ability to laugh, hard, until tears fill my eyes. I do this almost every day.

++I see beauty everywhere I look.

If I am not blessed with children, I have so much to be thankful for. I know I will be okay.

I am hanging in there – by a thread

2dp3dt

Yesterday I got into a confrontation with someone in a parking lot in front of a store. I was sitting in my car, checking my voicemail, and I feel someone crash their door into the side of my car. I look to my right and this chick was getting out of her car. I am usually pretty mild mannered (with everyone but my husband!) but something came over me. The anger, the fear, the emotions of the last few days bubbled up and I had to let them out. I marched out of the car and walked right up to her. I said, “Excuse me, you just hit my car with your door”. And she looked at me wide-eyed and said, “I did not!”. And this made me go into outer orbit. I mean, if she had said, “Yes, I am so sorry, I lost hold of the door” or something to that effect, I would have let it go. But she lied. To my face. And I couldn’t take it. I yelled, “Are you FUCKING kidding me? You are looking me in the eye and lying to me? You opened your door and slammed it into my car. And I was sitting in my car when you did it. And there is a ding in my door. And you are going to tell me you didn’t do this?” And she STILL wouldn’t admit that she did it. So I kept yelling at her. Then I opened her door slowly and showed her that her door was in exactly the right position to ding my door. And she finally admitted that she did it. And I said thank you, and I left.

IF is crazy making.

Today was a little rough too, definitely not as positive as yesterday (yes, believe it or not, despite the outburst described above, it was still a pretty good day). But hell, I wasn’t always happy before I knew I was IF, why would I always be happy after such a rough IVF cycle? So, I am giving myself a break. I don’t have to be positive every single minute of every single day. I used to be the girl that everyone would say, ‘You should smile more’ even when I was just walking around, minding my own business. It is just me. It wasn’t like I would scowl at people, but I just have a neutral face. I have seen people that walk around smiling all the time, and sorry, they look like freaks.

I went and chose a front entry door with sidelights and a transom, and that was kind of fun. But then I got home and because of all the construction and the stupid long term care facility that is walking distance from my house, there was NO parking. I couldn’t park at all. I had to drive all the way down the block and park in front of someone else’s house. OMG. I lost it again. I came so close to keying the car that was parked in front of my house, but I controlled the urge. Instead I wrote a nasty note in thick sharpy marker. It said, “1) Please do not block our mailbox, the mail carrier cannot deliver the mail and he has complained about this. 2) THANK YOU for parking here. I had to park half way down the block and this is MY HOUSE”. I stuck it under their windshield wipers. Hmmm. I think I am going nuts. But it made me feel better anyway.

The clinic called today. J, the nurse who was in the room for the embryo transfer called me while I was taking a nap (a much needed nap…obviously I am quite cranky!). I wasn’t going to answer and then I saw it was the clinic. She had this very empathetic, sympathetic, sorrowful, calm, quiet voice as she said, “The biologist has been watching the four remaining embryos. I am sorry, but they did not progress”. Which I guess is a nice way of saying that they all croaked. I cheerfully responded, “Oh, well yeah, thank you very much for calling. Happy Thanksgiving!”. Then I hung up and had a good cry. It made me so sad. That these little embryos, these potential little babies, died in a dish in a lab. It is so depressing that even when sperm meets egg, nothing comes out of it. And somehow it made me less hopeful for my three. I mean, I realize that the dish isn’t the optimal environment for embryo growth. But when she said the other four didn’t progress, I pictured the three inside me dying too. I know I am not supposed to think that way, but how can I help it.

I guess the good news is, I can still enjoy a simple pleasure here and there. I had a snack of a pippin apple (they are so hard to find these days!) sliced thinly, with some extra sharp cheddar cheese. I savored every bite. I am alive. I am here. I am breathing. I am feeling. I am me. And I will go to bed each night, and I will wake up each morning. Every day. Every day.

10 days until beta.

THANK YOU

1dp3dt

Thank you everyone for your kind words of hope. I got many comments here and via e-mail. I am trying to stay as positive as possible. And today, I don’t feel so horrible. I have even had a few good laughs. And TW and I actually had a long conversation — naming the embryos!!! We decided upon three airplanes (TW is a pilot): Beech, Cessna and Piper. Right now they are flying low, and they are looking for a good place to land. I was so happy he participated and seemed actually excited to name them. 🙂

It isn’t the end of the line. The fact is, I have three embryos in my uterus, settling in for (hopefully) a long (9 months) nap. I think about them all the time. And thank you everyone for thinking about them too. Maybe if everyone collectively thinks about them, they will feel it and want to thrive.

I will write more later. I feel so much love right now, for my future babies and for all of you.

Hope has left the building

Transfer Day

Well….news is not too good. I was SO hopeful, I even wore my Gap “Two Weeks” shirt to the transfer. TW was with me and I was feeling great. The doctor (my favorite doctor) called us in and grabbed the fertilization report. I showed him my shirt before he started talking and he loved it.

Although all 7 eggs fertilized, I guess I got my congrats and my hopes up a little prematurely.

NONE of the embryos matured properly. NONE of them had 8 cells. ALL of them were fragmented, which I am not even sure what that means. FOUR of them were so poor that they aren’t even going to freeze them, they were fragmented so badly they couldn’t even tell how many cells were there. The other three were 5, 6, and 7 cells, but fragmented as well. As the doctor was speaking, my heart was beating so loudly all I could barely hear him. I was so close to tears I am surprised I didn’t cry in front of him. I did hear the term “Poor Egg Quality”, however.

He recommended that we put all three of the “good” (I use the term “good” very loosely) embryos in: the 5, 6, and 7 celled ones. I asked him point blank if he had seen a healthy pregnancy come out of embryos like mine and he said absolutely YES. He told me that the minute he was done telling me about my embryos that he wanted me to purge the information from my brain and think only positive thoughts. Yeah. Right. Luckily TW is so dumb naive optimistic, he is able to do this. The doctor gave us a 15-20% chance of a healthy pregnancy, and less than a 5% chance of triplets. When we first started this process, I was given a 35% chance of a healthy pregnancy, and a 45-50% chance with pristine embryos.

The doctor left to tell the embryologist that we were ready, and I burst into tears. When the doctor came back in I tried to compose myself, but he knew. He said, “What did I tell you? You need to think positive. It is amazing what the mind can do. In two and a half days you have to envision these embryos implanting. You have to picture yourself pregnant. You have to do it”. The transfer was actually pretty painful. No valium or painkillers this time. I don’t know if it was painful partly because I was in such emotional pain.

On the way home, I was crying the whole way. TW was trying to comfort me but he started getting impatient, because he kept saying I HAVE TO THINK POSITIVE. I just don’t know how! I don’t know how. TW on the other hand was talking about how I will have to quit my job because I am having triplets. He asked me which room of the new house would be the nursery, where the babies will sleep when they are tiny. What color I want to paint the nursery. Whether they will be boys or girls.

I want this SO badly. I had such high hopes yesterday. I know it is important to think positive, but no one installed the “Happy Thoughts” switch when I was born. I guess they forgot.

The fact is, I have three embies in my uterus right now. Please little ones, please, please stick. Beta is scheduled for 11/30 at 9am.