The Three Hour Wait (14dp1dt)

I am sad I posted such a negative post yesterday. Now I am not feeling negative, I am not feeling positive, I am just ANXIOUS and on PINS AND NEEDLES!  I just want to know, either way, so I can go on with my life. They took my blood at 8:30 (Pacific time) this morning and I should get a call by Noon-1pm. I will post immediately when I find out!

I had a HUGE distraction the last two days. TW’s sister e-mailed him basically telling us that her daughter (almost 18, stripper type dangly belly-ring, tattoo “whore stamp”, tons of make-up, HUGE boobs that she shows off every minute of every day, smokes pot, gets drunk, hangs out with gangsters) is MOVING IN WITH US for two years. WTF? She didn’t ask us, she just TOLD us. Oh – and she didn’t tell ME, she only told TW. I went so ballistic, I am surprised that China didn’t think there was another earthquake! TW is so non-confrontational, he didn’t know what to do. I was so scared he was going to cave. SIL even had the gall to tell him that if he didn’t agree to it, HE was ruining their relationship forever. She tried to convince us that the daughter “is a good girl”, evidenced by the fact that she always comes home by her 1am curfew. I am sorry but a 1am curfew would not work with our lifestyle! And do I want to share my brand new house the minute we move in? I THINK NOT. There are so many things wrong with this scenario that I don’t even know where to start, or how to end.

Supposedly (SIL is a big liar) they are in financial trouble and they want TW’s niece to move in with us to go to junior college by our house. So that they don’t have to support her. WTF!!! If this was truly the case, and they had half a brain, they would have called a family meeting to plead their case. And we would have had time to think about it, and they would have understood whether we said “yes” or “no”. But this is not how it played out. They just did it via e-mail. The e-mail basically had a move-in date, the date of her JC orientation, and the first day of class. We were totally blind sided. Then SIL had the nerve to say, “OH! I thought this was already all worked out!” when TW said it was the first he heard of it. In any event, TW stood his ground. And SIL tried to manipulate him and guilt him and play every trick in the book. TW called his dad, and luckily his dad was totally on my side and told TW that he should not do it. And he didn’t cave (most likely because I told him I would hire a divorce lawyer if the little b**** moved in with us!). If she is so great, why doesn’t SIL want her around anymore? Anyway, I really didn’t need this stress during my 2WW. But it sure did take my mind off the impending beta! And if you ask me, ruining the relationship between us and SIL is an added bonus.

12dp1dt

Okay guys, thanks for thinking positive thoughts for me. I noticed something weird — the veins on my chest are here are night, but gone in the morning. The soreness fluctuates too. When I first get up in the morning, they are super sore. But once I get up and move around, they are less sore. My tummy feels unsettled but it could just be nerves. I feel nauseous and hungry at the same time. One difference from the last two cycles — ZERO spotting. IVF#1 and #2, I started to spot days before my beta, despite my progesterone. This time I have no spotting at all. I keep thinking I feel something, like a little gush of fluid, and I run to the bathroom for a panty check to see if I am spotting. And there is nothing there, or just clear, watery CM. I am a little crampy but I have heard many, many people say that they are crampy before their BFPs. Okay, I have to admit that my hopes are up (I hate to admit it!!!) again.

Okay, on to my distractions. Last night, TW and I were invited to a friend’s house for dinner. They are actually my parents’ friends, in their mid-70s. They like to invite us when my parents are in France, sort of like surrogate parents. Ironically their daughter-in-law is also going through IVF (two failed cycles)…but it is really hush-hush (their son is a local celebrity). My mom and her friend were gabbing and somehow it came out, but I am not supposed to know (and I was a little annoyed that my mom was blabbing about me too). Anyway, I was in the kitchen with the wife last night and told her that if their DIL wanted to talk to someone in real life who is in the EXACT same sitch, that I am here. I am not sure that the DIL will take me up on it, she is SUPER closed lipped about the whole thing.

Anyway, here is the annoying story about dinner. We were invited at 6pm. Actually, they gave us a choice: 6pm or 6:30pm. I chose 6pm because TW likes to eat on the early side, plus he knows that when we are invited to someone’s house for dinner, there is always about an hour before we actually eat. So we get there at six and then S (the hostess) tell us that she invited another guest, but he isn’t coming until 7pm. She proceeded to tell us some stories about the guest and his wife — the wife is WEIRD. She said that three or four times they invited the couple over, and the wife ended up saying she was too tired and she stayed in the car, in the driveway, while everyone ate dinner. WTF? So S was relieved that the wife wasn’t coming.

So, we are all sitting in the living room, S and A and TW are sipping cocktails while I am having my bubbly water. It is 7:15pm and the phone rings. It is the other guest, R. He asks if he can “bring someone”. S asks him if he wants to bring his wife, and he said yes. S was annoyed because she hadn’t cooked for 6 but she of course said it would be fine. We wait, and wait. S kept saying, ‘We should just start without them…no…let’s wait a couple more minutes’. We were STARVING!!! At 8:15pm, they finally pull up, but the wife is on her cell phone and keeps motioning through the window that she will be one more minute. She finally comes into the house at 8:45pm! UGH. So by the time we left, we had been there for FOUR hours. And the food was terrible too. S made Ethiopian food — I am adventurous when it comes to food, so I was excited to try it. She made two dishes, one with chicken and one that was veggie. They were identical looking (reddish), and the texture of both was like mashed potatoes, with little chunks. I couldn’t tell the difference between the two.  It didn’t really taste like anything…except SUPER HOT and SPICY. Now I want to go to an Ethiopian restaurant to see what it really is supposed to be like!

Two more days and a wake up before beta!

11dp1dt

My boobs aren’t even the bit sore anymore. And all the veins that I saw (or may have seen) are gone. Hope is slipping away…

Last night at the grocery store, I found a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling wine. Yeah. It tasted as gross as it sounds. I dumped the whole thing down the drain after a glass. I would rather go without!

IVF#3 — New Hope?

I went in for my baseline ultrasound and consult yesterday. I have been on the BCP for two months and Lu.pron since May 30th. Thursday was my last day to have a drink, so you betcha I had a couple of pom martinis! I am pretty jacked up over work right now — busiest week of the year!

Anyway, I saw Dr. S who is really warm and friendly…much more so than Dr. P who is crusty and gruff (although he warms up after a while). I love that my ultrasounds are always done by the doctors, never a tech. He checked my lining, which was so thin it was almost non-existent. He had a hard time finding it! He said that was a good thing. Then he did an antral follicle count, 9 on each side. It is so hard for me to always hear how I am so “text book”….but WHY then won’t this happen for me?

Anyway, Dr. S had clearly been thinking about my sitch. He said that IVF#1 I was over-suppressed, and IVF#2 my E2 levels went up to quickly. So he wanted to find a middle ground. My protocol is:

a.m. and p.m. 5 units of micro-dose Lu.pron
a.m. 187.5 units of Gon.al-F
p.m. 225 units of Go.nal-F (G.onal-F dosing is in weird increments!)
p.m. 75 units of Meno.pur

Last time I was on the micro-dose Lu.pron, 225 units of Foll.stim twice a day, and 150 units of Meno.pur once a day.

I started baby aspirin yesterday too.

We are going to be “aggressive” according to Dr. S. He wants to do a 1 day transfer. He has a theory that my embryos fragment because they don’t like lounging in a petrie dish and would rather be snuggling in a nice, warm ute. He is going to transfer some of them on day 1, and some more on day 2. He doesn’t want to give them as much of a chance to break up by waiting three days.

Turns out TW definitely won’t be around for my ER this time either. I am glad he spanked the monkey and the goods are on ice. Who needs a man with IVF!

Waiting for Daisy

I have been so bad at posting lately. I just haven’t been inspired to write.

I read the book Waiting for Daisy this weekend. I don’t know what I expected. It was a quick read and very well written. And I found myself wanting to yell “Yes! I know exactly how you felt!” — the arguments with her husband, the obsession, the sacrifices, the will to do anything, anything to reach the goal. And losing sight of the ultimate goal — becoming a mother — by focusing so solely on becoming pregnant. She had several passages on her reactions to comments such as, “Everything happens for a reason” and “God doesn’t give us what we cannot handle” and “Why don’t you just adopt” — and I could have written those sections of her book myself. I thought her story was so similar to mine it was almost eerie. Then I thought how many other women out there have the same story, and THAT is just a tragedy.

And then she got pregnant – the “natural” way, with her husbands sperm, and her egg, by having sex. I think there may have been clomid involved, but still. She had a miscarriage. It was a molar pregnancy, which is attributed to sperm problems. They tried IVF and her response was even worse than mine, and they were given horrible chances for ever conceiving naturally. But she did, twice more. She miscarried both times and they tried a donor egg, an egg from a close friend that she met on-line after writing her book “School Girls”. The IVF with the donor egg didn’t work. There was some indication that the clinic mishandled the procedure but it is unclear whether it would have worked anyway. They were thinking about their next steps, when she discovered she was pregnant – again the “old fashioned way”. This pregnancy was normal. The book ends after she finds out her CVS results were normal (her other miscarriages were due to chromosomal abnormalities). The epilogue skips to two weeks after her baby, Daisy, was born.

I was feeling very close to Peggy while I read her book, and having met her probably only helped that feeling. But then, when she started getting pregnant on her own, I felt that connection snap. I felt like, ‘OH – we really aren’t the same after all’. And each time she got pregnant, I felt worse for myself. I was hoping that this book would give me some hope that my story will have a happy ending too. I know that my story has NOTHING to do with her story, and my own hope shouldn’t hinge on someone else’s memoir. But it did, and it does. We were not in the same boat. I am on my own journey, one where pregnancy has not ever been part of a chapter. I have NEVER been pregnant and each month that goes by without a positive pregnancy test, hope gets a hairline fracture that only grows with time. I don’t know how many women are out there with a story like mine but I am beginning to think I am the ONLY ONE.

It is funny. I used to root for my friends IRL and on-line when they were trying. And I would cheer for every one of them when they got pregnant. But now when I hear that women with prior miscarriages are TTC, I shrug my shoulders. Because everyone I know and have read about that have had a miscarriage end up having a baby eventually. And the stat is something like 90% of all couples where the woman is over 38 will get pregnant within two years. But most people that age don’t wait two years, they rush to the RE within 6 months or a year. I just don’t feel like my IF and their IF are the same – at all. Because I have no idea whether my eggs and my husband’s sperm can do it. I have zero evidence that it can happen. And each day that goes by, hope slips away a little bit more. And I am beginning to believe that all this money I have spent, am spending, will spend would be better spent on the house, or (gasp) on the future adoption that we may or may not go through with.

If I never get pregnant, I really don’t think it was “God’s Will” or “Not meant to be” or my fault because I couldn’t de-stress, or I smoked when I was in college, or I drink too much wine before I ovulate, or that it is evidence that I really don’t want it that bad. It is just bad luck. We all don’t get everything we want, do we? To me, it is beginning to feel like the lottery. I won the bad luck lottery.

Magic

I think acupuncture is magical. I went yesterday and told K that I didn’t think I ovulated yet. She reminded me that I was sick a few weeks back and that it was possible my ovulation was delayed…of course I cannot confirm this because I stopped temping before IVF#1. In any event, she took my pulses and said she didn’t think I ovulated yet (I don’t know what she listens for…). She said she was going to do a treatment to kick start it.

I was pretty bummed out. TW was out of town from CD12-14. I usually ovulate on CD11 or CD12 and we did everything we could (if you know what I mean) from CD6-CD11. I thought I had all my bases covered. But then I didn’t ovulate! I know that the chances are something like .0001% for us to conceive naturally (based upon TW’s sperm counts, my old eggs and the fact that we have been TTC for 5 year with no success), but miracles seem to occur every day, right? So I have such a hard time throwing in the towel, assuming it will never happen. As I type this I can’t help but laugh because it is so NOT gloom and doom. I mean if chances are 1 out of 10,000 — there is ONE person who will have success right? Why not me??

Anyway, I was very disappointed thinking that all the sperm (however little there is) was wasted over the last week because I didn’t even release an egg yet.

Back to acupuncture — she put needles in some new spots and did something called moxa. She heated up this stick and put it on the acupuncture points – not touching – but hovering so I could feel the heat. She asked me to tell her when it got too hot and then she would move to another point. It was SO relaxing. She has given me these herbs which I take daily that supposedly have cooling effects. Every time I see her she asks me if I am colder than usual, but I haven’t really noticed any change…I am always cold in the winter! This treatment is supposed to help warm me up and increase circulation.

I was there for almost an hour an a half. And guess what, last night, I started feeling side pains, and this morning — EWCM! I know this could be coincidental, but….I will take it. And guess what else? PT went to a friend’s house after lunch so I was able to attack TW for a “nooner”. Just in case.

Oh – K also told me that I should not exercise so hard. Hmmmm? When I am motivated, I do like to exercise hard — I like to sweat and get my heart rate up and really tire myself out. That is how I lose weight. But K says when TTC it is more stress on the body than we should endure — we need to conserve our energy to conceive. When we get into a really heart pumping, sweating state of being, our bodies go into self preservation mode like we are trying to save ourselves from a predator. So the last thing our bodies will allow us to do in this situation is to have a baby! I guess this makes sense. She said I should work out for 15-20 minutes and I should not be drenched in sweat. Okay! I really don’t LOVE to exercise that much, so she won’t have to tell me more than once that I should take it down a notch. She said okay to light weight lifting, biking and swimming.

If we didn’t catch an egg this cycle, I will call my IVF clinic on Day 1 for the bloodwork and start IVF#2.

P.S. I tried my hand at bidding on eBay for the first time. I decided I wanted another coat (yes, like the one I have THREE of) and I found it on eBay because I couldn’t find it at any store around me. So I bid on the coat. I was winning the bid all weekend so I kind of forgot about it. I just checked and someone outbid me by $1, one minute before the bidding closed. How frustrating! I guess I need to keep an eye open when I do this. I think my career as an eBay girl has already ended.

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!

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.

Debriefing Halloween & Other Stuff

Ack, PT is watching a horrible movie. I was watching with her but just couldn’t take it anymore. “She’s the Man”. Don’t see it. Luckily the computer is 5 feet away from the TV in this tiny house we are living in, so I can work on this without completely abandoning PT.

Two nights ago I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital at 2am. I woke up with a horrible side pain on my lower left side, like on my ovary. I didn’t think it was the Lu.pron since it is a suppressor, but I wasn’t sure. I tried to Dr. Google it at 3am and although all the side effects listed on various sites said, “Pain” there was very little information on what kind of pain. Doesn’t the word “pain” seem a little vague??? What kind of pain? Anyway, I ended up calling the nurse on call at 5am and she told me to take some advil and try to go back to sleep. She said if the pain was still there at 7:30am when they open, that I should come in for an ultrasound. Well, the pain did go away after the advil and hasn’t been back since. Maybe it was something to do with my period, but it felt really weird, almost like really strong O pain. Who knows. I am worried that there is something wrong going on with my girlie parts. I guess I will find out on Friday (tomorrow).

I picked up 5 bags of candy on the way to work yesterday (Halloween), to get into the spirit. We had a huge bowl of candy on the front desk, and I was really good up until about 10 minutes to 5, when I scarfed down 3 mini reese’s PBCs and 3 mini Hershey’s bars (did you know they make them with cashews now??).

Anyway, C came to work dressed up as a bee. The costume was adorable. She wore black clothes and had an antenna headband and wings and a little stinger pinned to her butt. At the end of the day she offered me the costume b/c she knew I was going Trick or Treating with PT and her friend. I was on the fence about actually going Trick or Treating or staying home and handing out candy. I ended up choosing going out because I hate the going back and forth to the door thing…with the doggie freaking out each time there is a knock on the door, etc.

I got home from work and TW was carving pumpkins with PT and her friend M. I have to say, my heart swells with love and pride when I watch TW interacting with PT and her friends. He really, truly, is the best father. He is funny and caring and attentive….our baby is going to be SO lucky. Anyway, they were just finishing up carving when I walked in the door, and then the girls got ready. I put on the bee costume, PT was dressed as a fairy, and M was Spider Woman. We left right as it got dark and walked the streets for about an hour and a half. Apparently going out with the kids is the dad’s job! Every group of kids was accompanied by the dads, and none of them were dressed up. At one point I was waiting for the girls at the base of a driveway and there was a group of 3 dads waiting for their kids (they were all drinking beers!), and none of them had costumes on. I smiled and looked at them and said, “Guess I didn’t get the memo!” and they just looked at me cross-eyed. Sometimes I hate my neighborhood, everyone is so clique-y and snooty!

Yes, it is hard to be an IFer and go out for Halloween. But at the same time, I like seeing all the cute kids dressed up and having so much fun. PT and M got about 11 pounds of candy each – I kid you not. And I think I ate about 5 pounds myself. I feel like such a lard-ass. I don’t think the lup.ron is helping in that regard either. I feel so bloated all the time!

TW left on a trip this morning and won’t be back until late tomorrow night. He is going to miss my base-line ultrasound tomorrow. I hope things go well…I don’t really know what they are looking for, but my instructions say if the u/s looks good, I will start Folli.stim tomorrow. I will also start baby aspirin, and TW will start his doxy.cycline (I packed two pills for him to bring with him). I have to write the BIG check tomorrow too, for 4 cycles of IVF. We want to lock in the price for a 38 year old with an FSH level below 10….I am 38 and a half now, and if the first cycle doesn’t work and I am 39 when we try the 2nd, the prices get jacked up.

Went to acupuncture today. She is so positive, I just love her. She is very hopeful for us. She keeps saying she KNOWS that IVF will work for us. She doesn’t know if it will work the very first time, but she “knows” it will work. God, I hope she is right.

Oh — two nights ago we got Chinese food and my fortune said, “No obstacles will stand in the way of your success this month”. Seeing as it was just two days before the end of October, I am going to assume that it applies to November. I kissed the fortune (yes, literally kissed it!) and put it in my wallet for good luck. I guess I am back to my superstitious self!

To Blurt or not to Blurt

I am in a weird state of being. I have been keeping IF a secret for so long that I now find myself wanting to blurt it out to random people. I haven’t done it, but I have a hard time keeping it to myself. I caught a ride home with a professor the other day, and wanted to blurt it out to him. There is this girl I see at the dog park, and I have to bite my tongue because I feel the urge to tell her…I barely know her. I just find that it is on the tip of my tongue all the time, like I don’t have the control to keep it in.

Today I did end up telling someone that I don’t know all that well. She is the founder of the puppy rescue organization that I volunteer with. She sent me a bunch of e-mails asking me to follow-up on this and that, and I wrote her back and then picked up the phone to call her. At first I was just going to tell her about moving and my remodel project and working full time, and let her know that I need a couple of weeks to get my stuff in order before I could focus on puppies again. I did say all that, and then I ended up saying, “And….I am going to be doing In vitro next month”. She said, “YOU ARE?” and I thought she was going to launch into a lecture about how I am young, how I should relax, blah, blah, blah. But you know what she said? She said SHE DID IT. She did it 17 years ago. You know, I think this is why I wanted to tell her. I had a feeling that she was an IFer like me. She doesn’t have kids ….I don’t know why but I just knew.

She and I had a great talk. She told me that she and her husband tried from the time she was 33 until she was 38 – the final attempt was one IVF cycle. They tried everything known to the medical world. It did not end up happily. She got her period after IVF and literally wanted to crawl into a hole and die. She said she was so obsessed with babies for 5 years that she was paralyzed. She couldn’t handle seeing babies or pregnant ladies, she would see someone pregnant that she thought was a loser and would automatically feel self loathing – that all these horrible people could get pregnant without trying and that she was cursed… she was bitter when her friends got pregnant (all of this sounds familiar!!) and she could not imagine living her life without a child of her own.

But then something happened. She let it all go. She accepted the fact that it was not in the grand plan for her. That she was here for another purpose. She said it took some time, she focused her energies on other things at first, to keep her mind off of the pain. But with time, her focus took a real purpose, it was no longer just to pass the time or keep herself occupied. And she started this rescue organization and has made a difference in the lives of hundreds of puppies and the families who adopt them. And she focused her time on her nieces and nephews, she has helped to raise some of her family’s devilish teenagers when they needed to leave home to regroup, she has traveled the world. She has done all sorts of things that she feels she would not have been able to do if she had had her baby. By the time she was 40 she no longer yearned. Her life was fulfilling and happy. And now, at 55 years old, she actually thanks God that he didn’t put it in her plan. She is sure she would have been a great mother if things had gone that way, but she feels that her life was meant to be this way. And she feels truly, honestly blessed.

It was so great to hear that it is possible. That if things don’t work out, I won’t always feel this sense of longing, of emptiness, of something huge missing from my life. She told me if I ever want to talk, she will be here. And even though I don’t know her all that well, I felt so close to her.

So, maybe my blurting had a purpose after all.