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!!!!!!

Just breathe!!!! That's what I'm doing now.  and waiting.  My acupuncturist's, Denise, told me there would be lots of waiting and I'd have to get used to it.  I knew that the last time, but nothing ever felt right the last time, so its different this time.  I feel good.  It feels right.


So first Beta on 12dpo was 35.9, second beta on 15dpo ........   484!!!!!!! Now I'm just waiting for the 1st ultrasound.  Only 4 days until that, but I keep POAS everyday, just to make sure the line is still there and still just as dark if not darker.

wow

Great story to share!   A good friend of mine has been ttc for almost 2 years.  She hasn't spoken to her doctor yet and has been sort of temping and sort of using opks, nothing regular.   Last month, right before my IUI, I was hanging out with her and her husband and she asked what should she start with and I recommended at the start of her next cycle that she go for her CD3 bloodwork just to get things started with the dr.  Her husband mentioned that he keeps meaning to get his stuff checked since people have told him it could be him and easily fixed, I said yup, that's great go get your numbers checked.  And I tried to get her to sign up here, but I'm not sure that happened.  Back to the [b]Great[/b] part of the story.  Yesterday I called to check in and chat, wasn't ready to tell her about me, but wanted to find a time we could get together so I could tell her.  Asked how she was, if she had her CD3 stuff done.  She said no last cycle was 22 days and this one is 33, so she's just waiting for AF as it should be here any day.  About 3 hours later I got a picture message from her.  [b]BFP[/b]

Then I did the math, I'm on CD33 too.  We have the same due date!!!! I called her immediately and just said "ME TOO!!!"

7 months ago when I started this adventure, I told her that if was going to get pregnant, so were they and that we would do it together.  HA, I said it but I didn't think it would happen like this.

Here's hoping we all have sticky beans!!!!

Here we are again.

So its been awhile.  Surgery to remove the fibroid went very well.  It was much bigger than Dr. G thought it would be, but everything went perfectly.  As I found myself saying after the surgery, I had something taking up real estate that potential baby needed and now its all cleared out.  Woohoo!!

So 4th IUI or 1st since we resolved issues just happened this past monday, which makes me 5DPO.  Took Clomid days 5-9 for my progesterone issue.  So worked with getting my ovaries on target.  Funny thing, I thought without a Trigger, only one egg would ovulate, no matter what the clomid created.  Turns out, I was wrong!  Went for my day 15 u/s, and the first thing my RE said was "In all my years doing this I've only seen triplets twice on Clomid"  WHAT!!!!!  Of course to balance that out, my donor only had 5.5 milllion sperm, versus 14 million, back in April (when I got preg).  Hoping the 1/3 swimmers balances out the 3X eggs.  :)

Little symptoms that are probably not symptoms at all. No desire to eat chocolate, actually an anti-chocolate wave when I even think about a snack. So NOT like me. Love chocolate!!! But when I got preg back in April, I had the same anti-chocolate feelings. Then this morning crazy nauseas, drinking my morning sickness tea just cause it works, not because I am even starting to think this could be it. ITS WAY TOOOOO EARLY!!!!!

The nurse told me to test on day 16, ha ha ha.  If AF doesn't show up by day 12, then chances are she isn't.  And if anyone thinks I can wait past day9 to start testing, you be crazy.  I'm hoping to at least hold out until day 8.

I'll try to update again later this weekend.