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!!!!!!