Laughing, Laughing, Laughing

So they say that one of the things you should do after embryo transfer is laugh!  A lot.  Watch lots of funny movies.

So I've created a collection, two watch over the next 48 hours.

I started with Despicable Me.  Of course with the Valium and Acupuncture I had during the transfer, I fell asleep.  But when I did watch it I did LAUGH.  So I think next, since its late is Finding Nemo.

Then tomorrow

SpaceBalls - My mom wants to watch that one with me
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Eddie Izzard
Dave
(All of the above I borrowed from my friends Bryce and Patrick)  Thanks!

Then I have Sixteen Candles, Doc Hollywood, Aladin, Mary Poppins (more happy then funny) Shrek

And a few others.

I'm feeling good today.  My Doctor rearranged his schedule to make sure he was at my transfer.  I was all good with having his partner, but when I got there he said "I wouldn't miss your transfer!"  So that started my experience off perfectly.  Then one of my wonderful acupuncturist meet me at the office and set me up for before the procedure to relax me and get my uterus ready to except the embryos.  3 "Great" embryos.  Then I asked her if she would come in with me to the transfer.  My mom's back was really bad so she couldn't come and my sister had a big interview.  My dad would have come but last time they wouldn't let him stay in the room (of course I found out today that that is crazy and of course he can stay with me)  So if there's a next time and I hope hope hope there isn't, if he wants he can join me.  Its pretty cool.  When my mom came last summer, she got to look in the microscope and see the embryos before they put them in me.  She loved it.  Too bad none of those little guys grabbed on.  

Here's hoping with the scar tissue gone!!!!!  That this is it!

I'll keep you updated after I finish laughing my way through the next two days!

here we go again!

So...next FET is sometime around December 4th.  I haven't tried since July.   Had my surgery to remove scar tissue in September and went through a mock transfer with an endometrial biopsy last week, and the news was great!  Everything looks good and so now I get to dig into the 9 waiting embryos.

At the same time, sort of, I preparing for Foster to Adopt.  I've taken the training classes and had my LiveScan (fingerprinting) done on me and my dad.  Since I still plan on moving in with my sister she needs that as well.  All four of us (mom included) are going to take CPR and First Aid classes and then I can start the Home Study.  3 Visits for that and then I'm on the list!  Of course I'm hoping for a BFP before that but am planning on completing the Home Study since it will be keep me certified for 3 years after completion.  That way I can be put on the list for a little brother or sister in 2 years.

I'm having lots of good dreams and visions lately, and they had disappeared for awhile.  I can see myself with my child.  I'm even seeing myself pregnant which hasn't happened in a while.  I'm glad to be moving forward both biologically and adopting.  I KNOW that I will be a mom in the next year and half.  HOW?  who knows, but its so close I can smell it!

The "WHY" Pep Talk

I think I need a pep talk.  I think I need to give myself a pep talk.  I was so hoping that my Dr. would find scar tissue, but when he did, I wasn't expecting to be so so angry about it.  Don't get me wrong, at this point I needed him to find the scar tissue, because now at least I have some hope again for my remaining 8 embies, but...  Why didn't we look sooner, why didn't anyone take me seriously when I said my period was so so so light.  WHY, WHY, WHY!!!!!

I know, I know, things are happening the way they are meant to.  Really!!????  I was meant to go through this for almost two years (and counting).  I was meant to have two miscarriages?  I was meant to feel such utter disappointment that it hurts sometimes to breath!

Not turning into much of a pep talk is it.  Okay, lets try again.

I HAVE 9 WONDERFUL AMAZING BEAUTIFUL HEALTHY EMBRYOS!!!
I HAVE A PERFECTLY HEALTHY AND CLEAR AND JUST WAITING FOR THAT BABY, UTERUS!!!
I HAVE AN AMAZING FAMILY THAT SUPPORTS ME THROUGH ALL MY CRAZY!!!!
(hormones and all)
I AM FERTILE AND WILL BE A MOM COME HELL OR HIGH WATER!!!!!

oh, and I start my foster to adopt classes in 3 DAYS!!!!!

Ok, that helped a little.  I'm sure I'll need to give myself another peep talk soon.

till then....

Not a good couple of days

Tuesday

I know I try to be all brave and prepared for the possibility of being done with my attempts to get pregnant, but I was not prepared for today's phone call. Out of the 9 that fertilized, none are growing at the proper pace. They are going to wait one more day to see if any of them move past morula phase. But I at least got the embryologist to tell me that only 4 seem likely to possibly get there. I just really believed that with 9 I'd have at least 5, and now I'm hoping for all 4, but I know there's a chance I might not even get 4. And this is after being told I make beautiful embryos. I just don't get it. 

I'm trying to keep my hopes up for tomorrow. I know I have 7 frosties from the last cycle but we did things this time to help the eggs, since the 1st 5 we transferred didn't catch at all, and I had really high hopes that my kid was in this batch. I just hope I get good news tomorrow and that more than the 4 or at least all 4 start moving!!! 


Wednesday

So the news sucks. I emailed my RE last night and asked him to check the fertility report today so that we could talk if the worst happened. When I didn't hear anything by 2 I knew it was bad. I called the embryologist because I needed to know. She told me nothing grew. To put it mildly I'm devasted. I know I have 7 left from the last cycle but I was really counting on these new ones, with the Growth Hormone and co-culture I had such high hopes. So about an hour later my RE called. Turns out 1 made it. But its graded CC. My RE agreed with me to freeze it and add it to the others. It will be one of the last ones we try since I have much better graded ones already. This was my last retrieval though. 

Next week (I hope) I'll be going in for a hysteroscopy to see what's happening in my uterus, to see if there's scar tissue or something else stopping implanting since last summer. I'm truly hoping we find something, so that my hopes can rise again with the remaining 8 frosties waiting for me. 

I'm also going to check with the fos-adopt center I plan on using if necessary to see when the next session of classes start, as I had planned on waiting until January to start that, as I thought I would have at least 5 FET cycles ahead of me, but now really only have 2 or 3. 


This really is the first time my body and ovaries failed me in this whole process. I've always had remarkable response to everything so I was completely unprepared for this.

A bit of a Rant!

Great news... 16 retrieved, 11 mature and 9 Fertilized!!!! 

Not so great news. 1st the embryologist told me she was scheduling me for a day 5, then I had to tell her no no I'm an all-freeze. Then she asked me why and I told her to check out my uterus. Ok, here's the not so great part of the call, and you all might think I'm weird, but after all these IUIs and the 1st IVF and 1st FET, I'm tired of hearing it. She said that I make beautiful embryos, that she even looked at my report from my 1st IVF and couldn't understand why I wasn't pregnant yet. So here's my issue...since I started down this road of single-motherhood (in other words all medically supervised) and its been 19 months, I've been told this will be easy. "you're so fertile", "your numbers are amazing" "your ovaries have no clue that you are forty" So I was cocky for the first 1/2 a year, especially when I got pregnant with the 1st and 2nd IUIs once I moved to my RE. But its been exactly a year yesterday(lovely timing right) since my D&C for my last pregnancy/miscarriage. And I haven't been pregnant since. 

So I'm tired of hearing how great my ovaries are, how amazing my embryos look, how fertile I am. 

Just get me pregnant already!!!! 

Ok done with my rant. 

I'm truly happy that I potentially have 9 new embryos to freeze. That gives me (maybe) 16 to work with doing FETs, before I move on. And I truly believe that somewhere in these beautiful embryos is my child!

Summer 2014

So I've done the math and this is what I know.  By July 2014 I will either be a mom, be pregnant or be on the list waiting for a call from the Westside Children's Center about a child needing a home.  So that means I could be a mom by next July!!!  I want to say I will but not knowing how I'm going to get there is kinda of an obstacle.

So how do I know this.  Well I just started my last cycle of IVF.  Meaning this is the last cycle of stims I will be doing and the last time I will be retrieving eggs for transfer.  Oh and the last time I had to pick up the canister of my Sperm Donor.  If my ovaries respond as well this time as they did the last time then the most frozen embryos I will have moving forward is 19 (7 leftover from my last cycle and 12 new ones from this one).  If I were to transfer 3 at a time then the most transfers I can do is 4 ( 3/3 and the final one I would transfer all 4).  Therefore by the Spring if I'm not pregnant that I'm officially moving onto foster to adopt!!!!  I had a meeting last week with the head of foster to adopt at Westside Children's Center and it went great.  The guy was extremely helpful and supportive.  I've decided that I will start taking the training class in January regardless of where I am in my FET process.  I just keep moving this train forward.

I do still believe that this will work.  That I will get pregnant!!!!  But I wanted to learn about the process whether its for baby #1 or baby #2 or even both.  It helps me get through the bad months thinking about what I can do instead of the bad.  Not sure if that makes sense, but it does make sense to me.

So night 2 of stims in the books, blood test tomorrow and then we will see.

Here I go again...and again...and again

Yup, I'm back and still not pregnant.  But I feel good, well almost good.  My Dr. and I have a new protocol in the works for this IVF (which will be my last).  I will still have FETs to do, as I have 7 frozen embryos at the moment and will hopefully add to that number with the current cycle.  Our goal with this cycle is to improve the quality of my eggs even if this means lowering the amount of eggs we retrieve.  So a slower cycle of meds and adding Growth Hormone as well.  I feel like even though my body and ovaries have acting younger then their years, both in response to hormones and recovery times, the truth is I'm 40, yup 40, almost 41, so maybe we need to do a few things that get done for that older crowd I'm a part of.
So Growth Hormone, and yes same thing A-Rod is getting, oh wait nothing's happening to him yet. Anyway, the idea behind the GH is to help the cells in my eggs do what they are supposed to do throughout the retrieval and growth process.  Also we are going to do co-culture, what that means is that normally the egg is removed from the follicle it grows in and placed in a petrie dish with sperm.  In the case of co-culture, the egg is kept with the cells that surround it while in the follicle throughout the fertilization process.  Also adding in assisted Hatching (AH).  After my first IVF, my embryologist called to tell my how well my embryos looked and mentioned because I was over 40 they would do AH, but then she called me back 5 minutes later to say, oops, no AH.  Why?  Because they only do AH, when there are 10 or less embryos and of course I had 12.  Well shit, I'm still over 40, but that was the rule.  So this time I asked my RE about AH and said I'm still over 40 and he smiled and said yes, we will do AH this time!!!!!!!

So I've ordered all my meds and I'm back on BCP till next weekend.  I have my next u/s on Monday to make sure we are ready to go for next weekend.  Egg retrieval is tentatively scheduled for August 28th, one day before the 1 year anniversary of my miscarriage.  Not sure how I feel about that, but I guess I'll find out.  This cycle might be a freeze all, to allow my body to snap back and relax after the stims, but we will see.

That's it for now.

Thanks for reading.

#2

Here I go again.  Transfer tomorrow of 3 embryos.  Yup, 3!  Based on my past numbers my doctors and I feel pretty confident that the possibility of all the 3 embryos catching and being good enough quality to become babies is slim, slim, slim.  But as I may have mentioned here before, I am ok with twins.  Yup, I know crazy right!  Single mom with twins.  But with crazy supportive parents and my sister, I know I can do it.  So one or two I'm good.  THREE, that's a whole 'nother question and I'm not worried about it in the least (famous last words)  My dad is going with me, which I'm happy about because it means he's back on board, so to speak.  I know after my miscarriage last summer he needed to separate himself a bit from the process and I totally understood.  But I'm extremely happy he wanted to go with me tomorrow.  Thanks dad!


So 1:30pm is the transfer and my Beta is on the 28th.  Here I come 2WW

WHEN!!!!

Okay.  So I took a break.  Not a long one, but just long enough.  I didn't care if I took my prenatal, I didn't care if I drank my fresh juice in the morning.  I didn't care if I did my visualizations or took my dose of Royal Jelly or Verdant Vitex.  Nothing.  And it felt good.  And now I'm back.  And coming back was so easy.  The day I knew my cycle was starting that was it. It was like a switch went on.  I just started up and didn't mind.  So here we go...AGAIN!

CD5, and 5th day on estrogen patches.  My numbers on day 3 weren't high enough so I've got 4 1 inch stickers on my belly trying to build up my lining.  The stickers are estrogen patches :)  Then a week from Monday I go in for an ultrasound and another blood test to check my lining and my levels, and then 6 days later we transfer.  3 embryos this time.  I know scary but given my track record I just feel like 2 is not enough.  So 3 it is.  Lets be honest I'm not looking for triplets, but I think I've said this before, Twins are ok by me.  I want my children to have siblings, so twins makes that really easy.  Although anything with twins is not easy, I know that too.

So, its onward and upward!

Oh and the biggest update is that I stopped using the word "IF".  I would always say if/when I get pregnant, if/when I move in with my sister.  Now its only WHEN!!!!!

Now!

Waiting...again...I know that's what this is all about.  The inability to control the elements involved with trying to become a mom.  Whether its going about the good ole natural way, and waiting for things to happen at the right time with the right egg and the right swimmer, or seeking medical assistant through IUI, IVF or FET.  Or even going the adoption route.  Nothing is in our control.  For those that get pregnant quick and easy, there is nothing to learn as far as patience in this world of fertility and motherhood, but for the rest of us... As a TYPE A personality, this is very difficult to accept.  One would think that after a year of this I'd be used to it, accepting of it.  HA!   I am learning it just seems to take time.  I've got help.  My acupuncturist, my RE, my therapist, and now I have someone new in my corner.

During NIAW, National Infertility Awareness Week, I became aware of a woman who helps women find direction and support during this process.  She has already helped me out by recording a visualization for me.  She's trying to help me see the future and get past my mental obstacles and fears.  She has a program that is going to start sometime in the next few weeks that will offer me and other women weekly support in our quest.  I'm so looking forward to it.  Once it begins I'll try to write updates about it.


Its amazing how much better I feel once I take the time to add an entry to this blog.    Thanks for reading.


-Debra

Well I guess this is where those good numbers will come in handy.  I have 10 frozen, so the good news is, (if there can be good news in this) I get to do a FET next instead of having to give myself 3 shots a day.  A FET is a frozen embryo transfer and I have 10 of those to work with.  Of course, with the blood test today to find out if the IVF worked I also got a bill for freezing those 10 embryos.  It seems to never end, the $$$$  mean.  Even though I prepaid for the cycles, there is so much additional expense that shows up.  I know I won't care once I'm holding my baby in my arms, but on a day like today, when the news is shitty, it just makes it shittier :) if that's even a word.

I spoke to my RE and I have at least the basics of the game plan.  Stop all meds today, which I did, and wait for my next cycle to start.  Then 21 days later go in for a baseline ultrasound.  From there I wait for the next cycle to start and I just have to use estrogen patches for 14 days and then add in progesterone and then 3 days later we defrost a few frosties and give it a go.  So much easier, just not any faster.  Just as much time between cycles.  At least with IUI, I got to go cycle after cycle, but that didn't seem to work so maybe its better for me to be forced to take a break between attempts.

BUT I KNOW THE PLAN!!!!  And for right now that's all that matters.


Goodnight!

On to the next!!!!

So it was negative.   Waiting to hear what the plan is for the next cycle.    Ugh!!!!!!!

Waiting....

For my Beta test results.  Am I pregnant or not.  Countdown 3 1/2 hours.  How will I handle the answer? Either answer.  If its yes, then I need to wrap my around it and get myself prepared for each week and each ultrasound and not going crazy that this could be the week that it stops growing.  Week 8 would be my current goal, if I'm pregnant.  Just getting farther than I did last time will be my first goal.  IF I'M NOT pregant, than I have to start dealing with the emotional cliff that I will inevitable fall off of later today and try to climb back up sometime this weekend.  I'll email my Dr and ask him whats next and how soon and when do I get to try again.  That's my protocol...what's next!!!!!!?????  That's how I survive the disappointment.  Keep the train moving!!!!  Push Forward!!!!!    That's just what I do.

I'll update later or not (if its not good news)  But I will update with what's next once I know.

Patience

What a hard thing to learn.  And I really need to learn it.  Everyone keeps telling me that I need to learn to wait now since all of pregnancy is waiting and all of motherhood is waiting and well just life is full of waiting.  But right now, in my 2WW(two week wait between ovulation and taking a pregnancy test)  waiting to get my blood test on Friday, my patience is running very thin.  This will be the longest I've ever had to wait to see if I was pregnant.  I've tested at 8dpo (days past ovulation) and seen both of my positives by 11dpo.  But with IVF, my doctors recommend waiting 16 days.  It seems so far away, but I get it.  They want to know for sure that something is sticking.  See with IVF I think chances are better for implantation to start, which could lead to a positive test, but it may not always stick, so waiting 16 days gives you a better chance of not seeing a false positive.  I normally have cheap internet test strips in the house, but I didn't buy any this time.  None!  Not one!  I do have one digital test, but I've asked my sister to steal it from my house so that I can't test.  I truly don't want to test.  I can't handle a false positive and I'm not sure I can handle a negative either, so I'd rather just wait for the real deal blood test.

Patience!!!!!!!

23! 17! 14! 12! 10!

So what do all those numbers mean, well I'll tell you.  But first, let me start by giving a summary of my adventure so far for any new readers and for a new blog I've been asked to participate in.

All my adult life I always said if I'm still single by the time I'm 40 I would try to have a child on my own and if I couldn't then I would adopt.  I told myself I would be okay if I couldn't have my own biological child and I'm still ok with that, but how far I'm willing to go to give birth to my own child has changed drastically.  I always said that if it didn't happen naturally (well as naturally as possible for a single woman) than I would move right to adoption.  No meds, no stims and no IVF.  Or so I thought.

10 artificial inseminations (IUI), 2 miscarriages, and heartbreaks, here I am waiting to see if I'm pregnant from my first IVF attempt.  Yes I did it.  I truly believed I had no choice.  Last summary I saw a heart beating in my belly.  It was small and barely there, but it was there.  And I saw it more than once.  And then it was gone.  It was the most horrible thing I have ever lived through.  It was devastating in ways I never knew possible.  I'd been in such an amazing place in my life both personally and mentally and workwise and just everything.  I was happy all the time.  I mean I had a few dips in mood, but nothing I didn't get passed in a few hours.  I was good, really good, for a long time and then IT happened, and my world came crashing down.  It was my second miscarriage in 4 months, and my only way of survival was knowing I could try again as soon as possible.  I turned 40 six weeks after, and I'm good with 40, except for not being a mom.  Big except.  Big I made it through that week and the surprise party my family threw me by having another IUI the morning of my party.

Everything seemed okay again.

#1 - I got pregnant, twice. That's one of the biggest hurdles for women suffering from infertility issues.  I mean at this point I didn't consider the idea that I had issues.

#2 - I have tons of eggs.  I mean I'm 40 and my reserves should be on the downswing, but as my doctor tells me and the ultrasounds show each month, my ovaries are pumping out 15 to 25 potential follicles a month.  At 40 my doctor hopes to see 10 a month.

#3 - I ovulate on my own every month.  Another huge thing, since many women do not.

#4 - I was doing everything right.  No more coffee, no more drinking.  Eating healthy.  Acupuncture every week.  I was golden!

And then 5 more attempts went by and not a single BFP (big fat positive)  I thought I'd get pregnant everytime and just have to be worried about it being the right one and getting to 9 months and holding my baby in my arms.  But I was wrong.  It didn't happen, so we moved on to IVF.

So here I am 14 months after I started down this road and ready to explain those numbers.

I spent around 20 days giving myself anywhere from 1 to 3 injections a day.  And it paid off.  My doctor said the very first time he gave me an ultrasound that my ovaries were much younger than I am and man did they prove themselves last week.

Last wednesday I went in for whats called Egg Retrieval.  That's when the doctor goes in and takes out all the eggs that I've hopefully stimulated into all growing at once rather than the single one we naturally ovulate each month.  And we retrieved 23!  23, what a crazy crazy amount for a 40 year old.  Well for an any year old for that matter.  And I recovered pretty well from all of those eggs.  I mean I was uncomfortable for a few days, I mean my ovaries were pretty swollen, but by Sunday I felt great.

17!!!!  that's how many of the 23 were mature eggs.  Another incredible number.

14!!!! That's how many of the mature eggs fertilized after being mixed with sperm.

12!!!! That's how many embryos were still growing 5 days after retrieval!  My doctor had the biggest smile on his face when he told me.  And they were all amazing quality.

We transfered the two best looking ones and now I'm trying not read every ache and twinge my body is giving me, since I have 9 days before I have a blood test to see if either one worked.  And then I the next 7 to 9 weeks to wait for all the testing to get done and my first trimester to end before I can take a deep breath.  The big week being the 4 weeks or so from now when I hopefully see a heartbeat that is older than the one I saw last summer. :)

10!!!!!   The number of embryos I got to freeze, so if this round isn't the right one, and my baby isn't quite ready to join me yet, I have 10 possibilities waiting for me :)


There's plenty more i'd like to write about, and I hope you join me as I continue to share my journey, but right now I need to go by a lottery ticket don't I!!!!!!

The big day

Well the next BIG DAY is wednesday!  Two days from now.   6:45am!  Everything went great with my shots.  Not a lot of side effects, just a lot of bruising on my belly.  I responded amazingly well to the hormones.  They did exactly what they were supposed to do.  In the words of my RE, "I'm responding like one of their egg donors"  You know like a 20-something going through this to donate their eggs to other women for money.  Like the sperm donors, just a whole lot more that they have to go through then the guys.  Guys just you know, do their thing.  I mean there's lots of tests beforehand but the actually donation is a "donation".  Women donating eggs have to do basically what I did for the last week.  Give themselves 2 to 3 shots a day and feel things going on in their ovaries, that start to become very uncomfortable, especially if they respond well.  Which I have!  We are hoping for around 20 follicles on wednesday.  That's gives me lots of chances that at least one will produce a nice, healthy, grow to nine months, egg.  Here's hoping!


I'll update on Thursday when I get my fert report.  That's the fertility report where they let me know how many eggs they actually got and how many fertilized and are still growing.

Ten Words

So someone in my fertility forums shared this blog with us.  It pretty much sums it all up!  Enjoy

Ten words that describe infertility

by The Actual Pastor

This is my favorite excerpt from it:

8. Despair. The cycle of hope and despair with infertility can take you out. I remember getting so excited when Mary was 2 days late, and just knowing that this time, it’s going to happen! Then, a few days or hours later, when she told me she got “it,” I would plunge into despair. The alternative is to temper your hope so that your despair doesn’t get so low. After about a hundred months of experiencing this cycle, we found that the best route is to keep hoping, and if it doesn’t happen, keep crying. It’s too hard to pretend that you’re not excited and that you’re not depressed. Be excited. Be depressed.

It’s okay to hope, and it’s okay to cry. Keep hoping and keep crying.

Get ready for Menopause

No, seriously...at least that's what my nurse said to me yesterday, as she was showing me how to prepare my Lupron shots.  Hot Flashes, headaches, moodiness.  The best thing she said when she remembered I was going solo on this project was "good thing you don't have a husband to go crazy on"  LOL.  This is true, but I did come to work and warn my assistants.  Both men.  I said if I start acting like a bitch just know its the shots not me.  I actually gave them on of the sealed syringes to wave at me if I start acting out.  One of the guys said "I'll just tell you to relax", my response was "I guess you didn't see your mom go through menopause, "just relax" is the WORST thing you can say.

So day 2 is done, tomorrow is my last day of BCP, and 3rd day of 10 or so of Lupron.  I go in next friday to learn how to give myself my stims, how to mix them and when and where to inject them.  The meds in questions just arrived in NY, and are waiting to go through customs.  I figure they will arrive on saturday which means I'm driving to work to get them, rather then wait until monday!  Of course!  Maybe my dad will take a ride with me!  I also get an ultrasound next week to see what my starting point is for stim.

The greatest thing to come out of yesterday's appointment was that I get to have an empty bladder for the transfer next month.  THANK GOODNESS!!!!  Yesterday I was told to arrive with a full bladder.  OMG, so hard and annoying and painful.  So happy that my uterus tips backwards and I get to come to the transfer with a totally empty bladder.  So much more comfortable, especially when you have to stay put for about a couple of hours before and after!

Enough TMI for the day!

Phew!

Breathing a little easier now.

My meds from Israel have finally appeared on USPS.com.  They original email says it takes a few days, but I can't explain the relief I feel right now, knowing they are on their way.  I picked up all my other meds from a local specialty pharmacy and spoke to them about getting the extras if I need, from them.  They also gave me all the needles and other stuff that I needed and couldn't get from overseas.

But truthfully for all the times I hope for distractions during this time and other things to think about, what happened yesterday in Boston does not fulfill that need.  The heartbreak and concern and fears about this incident fill about as much of my brain as my IVF future does.  I actually find myself preferring to think about my timeline and my meds and the future potential side effects of the stims, rather than wanting to see the news or read facebook updates about Boston.  It hurts to think about Boston. It hurts to see the pain, it hurts to see the hatred that has already started to pour out of people.  I'm trying to avoid all news reports, because the scenes are just too painful.  I find myself trying to avoid the sinkhole I fell into after 9/11.  My body and my brain do not need nor can they afford that sadness.  I love the fact that my forums at fertilityfriend.com are not discussing it.  We have enough on our minds, enough sadness, enough struggle, and don't need to add to this place, this safe zone the tragedies of the world around us.  I'm sure in all of the women's outside lives they are discussing and dealing with the devastation of Boston, but not in this place.  ❤ Love these women and this site.

All my thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Massachusetts and the runners of the Boston Marathon and their friends and families.  

Money, Money, Money

Kids are expensive.  This is a known fact.  Everyone knows it.  But for me and many other fertility challenged women and couples, the expense begins long before the child is born.  Some insurance covers infertility, but most do not.  As my RE said, someday the government and insurance companies will recognize the fact that infertility is an actual medical condition that it needs support in all areas.  But for now, that is not the case.

So out of pocket or OOP is how I'm dealing with this wonderful journey.  2012 brought my first year ever of enough medical expenses to take advantage of the tax write-offs.  Everything is a write-off, even the sperm donor!  Miles driven to and from the doctor, the acupuncturist, the sperm bank, and anywhere else I went.  Parking fees and meters at all of these as well.  So that helped.  A lot.  Especially today!

Today I officially got my loan from Springstone Patient Financing, and also found out that I qualify for Attain IVF.  What that means is that for a one time fee, I get 2 IVFs, and 2 FETs.  IVF is a retrieval and transfer of fresh embryos.  So I get two chances with that.  FET, is a frozen embryo transfer.  Assuming I have enough eggs retrieved to produce enough healthy viable embryo's to do the fresh transfer and then freeze the remaining ones, if I don't get  my BFP with the first IVF, I can follow it with a FET.  And then if again no BFP, I can do another fresh retrieval and transfer and then have the pick of the litter with all the remaining frozen, if I find myself still not preggers.

I feel amazingly positive about the upcoming months, but some of that might be that I know that I will finally have some answers about the quality of my eggs.  I will know in about a month if my RE thinks I have a chance of getting pregnant.  Up to this point, we know I have lots of eggs, we know that I can get pregnant, we know that my numbers are amazing not only for my age, but even if I was 5 years younger, the only thing we don't know is if my eggs are any good.

Wow, I've gone off topic.  I was talking about the expense of infertility.  Hmmm, infertility, I'll save that for another day.

So the package does not include the meds!!!  From what I've gathered, meds can cost anywhere from $1000 a cycle to $5000 or more.  UGH!!!  That's what my tax refund is for!  Woohoo, that arrived in my bank account today!  I did find an overseas pharmacy where the meds are less expensive, since many countries have controls over the pharmaceutical companies that America does not.  I'm hoping to be able to order at least a few things from there, although I don't know what I need yet, and it takes about two weeks to get things from overseas.  Hopefully next week when I go in for my next scan, and to I start my Lupron, I can get prescriptions from the nurses of what I'll be taking, and maybe get the first few days worth from the local pharmacy but order the rest from IVFPharmacy.com.

So off to bed so I can wake up early for my workout.  DriveCardio is my new found exercise love.  I'm going as often as possible in the coming weeks, since once I start stims, working out will not be that comfortable or welcome.

Goodnight!

CD3 - Blood work and U/S

So here I go.  IVF.  I ask myself how I got here, and I realize its just the continuation on my path to motherhood.  Whether that path ends with me giving birth to a healthy happy baby or whether it ends with the adoption of a wonderful foster child, I do not know yet.  But I figure its time to start sharing and keeping track of this new experience.  10 iui's have come and gone with 2 miscarriages and 8 BFNs.  When I began this adventure, IVF wasn't even an option.  I had always told myself, whether alone or with a husband/boyfriend, I would only go so far with medical help to have a baby.  That was of course before I saw the tiny little flutter of the heart beating in my uterus of my second BFP.  I saw it at 6 weeks old and at 7 weeks old and its something I will never forget.  It's also the thing that changed my outlook on what I would do and what I go through to give birth to my own child.  At the same time, I have absolutely no problem with heading down the adoption path via fostering, if IVF does not work. And on that note I ordered Nia Vardalos' book about her experience trying to have a baby and finally adopting her daughter from the foster system.  I figure it will give me something to read as I wait through the IVF cycle.

So IVF...how does it work?  Well your guess is as good as mine.  I will be updating regularly as new things occur and I learn new things.

Today is CD3 - so I headed to my RE's office for bloodwork and an ultrasound.  Ultrasound showed very healthy looking ovaries, 15 antral follicles at this point.  My bloodwork looks great. Estradiol is at 29.2, which I was told means everything is nice and quiet as it should be.  And my FSH is 3.8, extremely good.  At 40 you hope that your FSH is under 12, so mine is wonderful.  When it was 5.6 last year, everyone thought that was incredible for me age, so the fact that its lower, just means things haven't changed in a year, but I was told how fertile I must be last year, and I'm still not pregnant, so I'm taking it with a HUGE grain of salt.

I received a schedule from the nurse today.  I started birth control pills today and take those until the 19th, with another ultrasound and bloodwork on the 17th.  As well as a mock transfer ont he 17th.  This is where they map the inside of my uterus, so they know where to put the embryo's when its the real deal.   So the purpose of the BCP and the Lupron that I start taking on the 17th, is to suppress my ovaries, so that I build of some more follicles (hopefully) and they all start at the same size when we start using stims.  I start stims on the 27th, with a hopeful egg retrieval (ER) on the 6th and transfer anytime around the 9th of May.

It's exciting to have a schedule, and frightening that I'm actually moving forward with this.   I also found a therapist to start seeing while I'm going through this process and to help me through what I think will be the hardest part.  The first trimester.  After 2 miscarriages, the idea of waiting through the 2 months after finding out scares me more than anything.  I'm hoping Jane will help me with that.

I think that's if for now.  I'll post another day about the financial bits that face me everyday during this adventure.

A little overdue!

Someone recently asked me if I would be willing to share my story (blog about it) and I told them I had started to at the beginning but that I hadn't written since my last BFP.  I realized it was time.  The last I posted I was pregnant and feeling really good about it.  I saw the heartbeat twice and everything seemed to be moving along.  I went bra shopping since I had grown quite a bit in the first 7 weeks and I needed a bra to sleep in, since let me tell you, rolling out of bed to go to the bathroom and forgetting to hold on to them was soooo painful!!!!

Anyway, my sister had been coming with me to all of my ultrasounds and at my 8 week u/s we got bad news.  The baby had stopped growing sometime in the last week.  No heartbeat and stalled growth.  My doctor told me there was nothing I did or could do differently.  I'd like to think that I believed him, but I did not.  I thought about the 1st yoga class I'd taken the week before.  1st one since the BFP, but he said no exercise didn't do this.  The fetus was more than likely missing some information that it needed when it got to the 7 week mark.  I made the decision for a D&C the next day so we could possibly get some genetic information on why I lost the baby.  I went to work!  Yup, I needed to keep busy, I couldn't collapse.  Well, I did collapse in the bathroom at my dr.s and my poor sister heard me crying through the door as well as the nurses and they were wonderful with her.  Pulled her aside and talked to her while they waited for me.

So D&C the next day,  I walked to the surgi-center since its only 2 block from my home and then my dad picked me up after and brought me back to their place to recup for the day.


8 months and 6 more IUIs later, and its time for IVF.   I think I finally updated this blog so I could start blogging about pulling out the big guns!  So hopefully in the next day or two I will start and I won't quit writting until I have a baby, whether its through IVF or fostering to adopt!!!!!!