Not feeling it today

I’m 4dp5dFEt and just not feeling PG.

I’m trying to imagine how I’d deal with a BFN this time. I really think this is the end of the road for us. We have 5 great blasts left on ice but I just can’t see spending more money to put them back when clearly nothing is working. It’s like every penny I spend on IF is a penny I should be putting in my son’s college fund or something.

I really should go on BCP to manage my endo and avoid pain and a 3rd lap, so it’s not like I can just see what happens after this.

I just yesterday told someone to try to avoid getting upset until there was something to be upset about. Why can’t I take my own advice?

I can’t believe I have more than another week of this limbo. I just want to wake up when it’s over.

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Today felt SO different

Last year when I went in to my ET, I felt so CONFIDENT. So sure that it had to work because we were, after all, putting back a really awesome looking blast, and everything had just worked so well.

When the IVF failed, I was shocked and in utter disbelief. How could you go through all of this and not have it work? What the hell else did my body NEED to make it work?

So today just felt different. I know there’s a good 90% chance that this is our last shot. I know that I’ve done EVERYthing I can do to make it work (surgery, fat infusions, lost 20 lbs, you name it.) I know that it’s not in my control, which is why I think it feels so different. Last year I felt like we were MAKING it happen. This year I don’t feel like that’s possible anymore. I never like feeling out of control of my destiny. I’m a big planner.

Last year I was excited and happy the day of my FET. I took pictures. I joked with people. I was relaxed and confident.

This year there are no pictures. Fewer jokes.

This year I was terrified and nervous. I was up half the night. I felt like I could puke all morning (and drinking 40 oz of water in 10 minutes did not help that feeling). I cried on and off all morning. Dr. S shook my hand after the transfer, looked me in the eye and said “get pregnant.” I wanted to say thank you and so many other things, but I couldn’t speak. I think he could see that my eyes were welling up in tears and just held my hand for a minute while making eye contact, so I think he got what I was thinking, but that I couldn’t say it. He repeated the routine with my husband, who at least had the manners to say thank you.

So it’s out of my control now. I’m nervous, scared that this is the end of the road, and afraid that it won’t work. I’m excited, hoping and happy that we did it too, but I just can’t go back to confident and secure. Too much has happened. I don’t even think that a positive pregnancy test is going to get rid of nervous and scared. I’m 1 for 3 on pregnancies sticking anyway, so it’s going to take a lot to make me feel a little more relaxed.

So, on to the embies. The defrosted beautifully, according to the embryologist. There was no “frostbite,” and the one that is already hatching a bit (you can see the little protruding part on the big one–that’s good) was expanding nicely just in the hour between when he took this picture and when he looked at them again before transfer. He thinks they both looked great and that the remaining 5 that are still frozen still look good too. So all of that is really really good news. Dr. S said the transfer itself went perfect.

I don’t know why the quality of this picture is so much worse than the one last year. We joked that they took a picture and then thought, “hey, let’s use Photoshop to apply the denim filter. That will look cool!”

Oh, and I didn’t pee on anybody, so that’s always good 🙂 I HATE peeing after the ET. I feel like I’m flushing them right out.

So now we just wait! I’ll be staying as horizontal as possible and stress free as possible until mid-Monday. I’ll probably post to keep myself busy. Beta HCG bloodwork to test pregnancy hormone levels will determine the outcome in early July.

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Eggs in our last basket

This is it! The last shot! Two of these are going back (we’ll have new defrosted pictures after today.)

I feel like I’m going to puke… hopefully not on the doc. I am glad that Dr S is on duty this morning. He is generally pretty comforting.

I was up half the night, probably partially from nerves ad partially from medrol.

So we go in this morning, I give them some more blood, down 40 oz of water in 10 minutes, get acupuncture, get the 2 blasts transferred back (very fast process, but hard when they push an external u/s against your bursting bladder. Remember how I full on peed myself a few days ago? Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. It’s a serious concern.) Lay there for at least 15 minutes after the transfer, last time I only made it 10. this time I’m determined to make it 15-20. Then I get more acupuncture.

After that we come home and I try to stay as horizontal as possible until Monday morning.

Now I will go try not to throw up.. or wet myself….or anyone else… or sneeze or anything after they put my embies back in.

Stress free. Happy uterus. Peanut butter glue like lining that will trap embies and make them implant.

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I should know better…

than to curse myself by saying how well the PIO shots went last time.

I got my first one this morning and it hurt like a mofo, plus I’ve had a knot in my butt all day that feels like I got punched with some iron knuckles.

I take it all back. I have no system. Nothing works. PIO sucks.

Will that reverse the curse?

I treated myself to the next book in the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series for some light reading while I sit and get another intralipid infusion on Monday (the delayed ET means I have to do it again.)

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Just realized

Tomorrow starts a week of two shots a day (my I touch corrected that to two shits a day, ha!)

I go in for a linig check tomorrow morning. If everything looks all thick and Oreo like (they look for a triple layer pattern, like an Oreo), I’ll get a “trigger” shot.

This is usually used to force, or trigger, a mature follicle to ovulate. In my case, since my ovaries are medically suppresed, I think it’s to fool my body into thinking it’s ovulating.

The next day start the dreaded IM PIO shots in the butt with the enormous horse needle (I’m not even joking. it turns out horses get progesterone shots too. I’ll have to find out why.)

Despite my trepidation (I literally developed some needle phobia during my IVF), the PIO wasn’t as bad as I had feared last year.

I have three guesses about why.

#1, I used progesterone in cottonseed oil, which is slightly more viscous than the usual sesame or olive oil and therefore slightly less likely to cause painful lumps caused by build up of oil. this time I’m using PI ethyl oleate, which us supposed to be even less irritating

Sidenote (aka suedeboot, thanks apple):
if you do a google search comparing pros and cons of PI various oils and ethyl oleate, you’ll run across some weird shit. Bodybuilding sites, mostly, with people mixin their own ‘roids. EW. I’ll talk schleim all day, but bodybuilders creep me out.

#2, I only did them for two weeks because I wasn’t pregnant, and they didn’t have time to do real damage.

#3 we had a system. I asked the ivf nurse to draw circles on my butt to indicate the area where we should aim. My nursing assistant/ husband then started a rotation. He’d switch cheeks every day, and within the circle he rotated around the clock. so first the center, then 12 o’clock, 3, 6, 9, 1, etc. that way we weren’t hitting close to the same spot for about 10 days.

I’ll ask for more circles tomorrow, so if you see me, you can picture my naked butt with a sharpie clock drawn on it.

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First street drug

Well, it was a Rx drug, but I took it on the street.

Well, the car was on the street anyway 🙂

One of the stranger situations I’ve found myself in while doing fertility drugs is having to get shots in weird places. Weird places on my body, yes (3 inch needle in your ass is no fun.) When you take a shot every day at 7pm, there isn’t much flexibility with your schedule.

For the IVF cycle, it didn’t matter much because I was too sore to go anywhere. Now I feel fine.

So on our way to find out details about the 3-4 year old soccer league, we went out for Chinese food. We had 30 minutes to spare in between, so we stopped at my favorite used book store.

Afterward, we sat in the car, whipped out the needle, and did it right there in a car.

At least for this child, it wouldn’t be lying to say it was (partially) conceived in the back seat.

Except we were in the front.

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Trying not to let myself go there…

Before our IVF cycle, I thought a lot about what it would be like to have twins, which room I’d use for a new baby, whether we’d be able to fit 3 carseats in our car, etc etc etc.

I’m trying not to go there this time. The more hope I feel, the more confident I get, the harder I crash. I’m just going through the motions, shooting myself up with medicine and hoping for the best.

Any time I think about whether I like a name, I stop myself.

Any time I wonder about who I lent a maternity top to, I nip it in the bud. It’s bad enough that I have all these maternity clothes hanging in my closet that I bought before TTC#2 because I was so sure that I knew my body better this time and it would happen more quickly. [Note to self. Move those to another closet BEFORE the FET so I don’t have to do it afterward if it doesn’t work.]

What makes me the saddest is knowing that I’ll have a hard time enjoying a pregnancy this time. I LOVED being pregnant before. I thought it was so amazing. This time I’ll just be waiting for the next shoe to drop. For something to go wrong. To have a third miscarriage. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to let myself get excited if everything goes perfectly.

I guess at some point I’ll have to buy some baby stuff if it does work because everything I have now is expired, recalled, etc etc etc. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Maybe at 36 weeks I’ll feel safe buying stuff!

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May 6th is coming….

That would have been my due date if my IVF had worked.

Makes me want to vomit just thinking about it.

I probably wouldn’t remember, except that 5 friends and a co-worker are all due between now and then. 2 babies here already (one at 1:55 this morning. I just saw her at work yesterday with no signs of labor! She has babies FAST!)

In other news, we found a program that does IVF/FETs abroad for significantly cheaper than in the US.

We’re kicking around the idea of doing a 2nd FET if the 1st doesn’t work, but doing it in Panama, of all places. It’s $1000 as opposed to $5000-6000 here.

We’d been talking about taking a vacation if it didn’t work anyway, just to get our mind off things. This isn’t exactly what we had in mind, but something we’re thinking about.

It’s a lot of pressure on your LAST cycle to know that it’s the end. It would be nice to know that we could possibly have one other option, even if we decide not to do it.

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So fun taking a depressant

Ugh. So for the last year and a half or so I’ve been pretty depressed. I don’t know if it was just the fertility drugs (which can have that side-effect), or the fact of the infertility itself. Either way, it has not been fun.

When I stopped taking the fertility drugs (I was, at the least, on progesterone for 1/2 the month every month for the last year and a half), I started feeling significantly better. I’ve been on an “estrogen suppressant” (Lupron Depot) since March, but I’ve felt great on it. Happier and more in control of my body than I have in a long time.

My RE just put me on add-back estrogen in preparation for the FET. I’ve been taking it since last Friday.

I totally feel like crap again. I don’t want to do anything. I’m exhausted. I’m on the verge of tears half the day. I feel overwhelmed by the smallest things and like I can’t cope with anything.

Whether this is the upcoming FET and the end of our TTC journey looming or the drugs themselves, again, I don’t know.

I’ve also gained back 3 of the 19 pounds I lost while off the drugs and haven’t really changed anything I’m doing. Where it was melting off before, it’s creeping back now.

I’ll be on these drugs until the end of June, at least.

I wish I could just wave a magic wand and make it be June now. Or better yet, crawl in a hole and sleep until then.

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One last time…

I went in for my post-op appointment on Friday and also found out some information about my upcoming FET cycle.

In bad news, my endo had moved from stage 1-2 to stage 3. Blech. He said there wasn’t a ton of endometriosis on my left ovary, but there was a lot of scarring and adhesions that had left it adhered to my pelvic side wall again. It was also wrapped all around the uterine ligaments. Given that I don’t really need it anymore in terms of getting pregnant, we discussed beforehand whether it might make more sense to remove it as 90% of my pain is on the left side.

He said he was surprised that I had gotten PG on my own at all because both of the tubes had telescoped in on each other (I didn’t understand this description, but he just means they have collapsed like a closing telescope.) There was a little endo on the right ovary and tube that he removed.

He also removed a small uterine fibroid. Not because he thought it was a problem, just because it was bothering him to look at it (his words.)

He said he was up at 2am the night before thinking about me (um, weird!) and decided to put me on some add-back estrogen because he’s afraid being on the lupron depot could be cutting off too much blood supply to my uterus. When he did the hysteroscopy (camera in the ute) during the surgery, he said the lining looked very very thin. It should because of the Lupron Depot, but he didn’t want to go overboard.

So on Tuesday I’ll get my last Lupron Depot shot. That will be CD1 I’ve started taking add-back estrogen (2mg) 1x a day. CD 19-28, I’ll start up on prometrium (progesterone) again to bring on a period.

When I get my period, I’ll continue with the estrace, take prometrium CD 19-28 and start daily lupron day 21 (daily shots meant to suppress ovulation.)

I’ll probably do an endometrial biopsy between days 22-26 of that cycle. It should give him an idea of what my lining is doing after the lupron and will have the added benefit of “irritating” my ute so that it will produce a thicker lining the next month.

Somewhere around June, I’ll start a patch protocol for the FET, which, as I understand it, means using estrogen patches (Vivelle) of increasing dosages to build up my lining. Then I’ll start some antibiotics (protect against infection) and prednisone (a steroid to fight inflammation and help with implantation.)

My husband will also take antibiotics do he doesn’t give me anything gross. 🙂 About time he had to take a pill!

I may do intralipids at some point. I’m not entirely sure how they work, but they’re supposed to be helpful with women who have immune issues that prevent implantation/cause miscarriage.

My RE is VERY conservative and is still hemming and hawing about this. I have volunteered to be his guinea pig as it is experimental, and I have nothing to lose at this point. The only risk is that I could have an allergic reaction to them, and that’s a pretty small risk.

The actual embryo transfer will be in mid to late June sometime. The last shot!

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