3rd Attempt

Well, here I am, quick rundown of all the waiting I had to do to get to here. 

• Waited to hear if my husband was laid off or not - thankfully no.  
  
• Waited to hear the results if I had a false positive for HTLV - yes, thankfully it was a false positive.
  
• Waited for AF to arrive - and she did a day early!  

I guess some of those events could have made for an interesting post or two...sorry.

Today was day one of my 3rd IVF attempt.  "How did things get this far? Why am I doing this again?"  These questions plagued me all day - from the minute I stepped back into the clinic this morning to standing in line at the pharmacy for my big bag-o-medication to writing an email to my principal telling her of all the upcoming dates I'll be missing from work.  Well, I have realized that there are no answers to these questions and as long as I stop asking myself I'll be more open to seeing this cycle for what it is - another chance - the possibility of Hope.

So, I had my baseline ultrasound today and everything is o.k.  I go ahead with my protocol of follistim starting tomorrow (my last two cycles I was on follistim for about 11 days) with u/s and b/w appointments scattered amongst those 11 days, followed by Menopur, then my Lupron trigger.  I don't take birth control pills (something to do with my high blood pressure) so my ivf cycles fly by like the wind.  My earliest date for ER is 5/3, less than two weeks away.  Yikes.

I have some guilt though.  I didn't follow my doctor's instructions.  He told me to continue taking DHEA, but that supplement is doom and gloom in a bottle.  I had terrible acne, weight gain, mood swings, and just an overall feeling of doom and gloom - when I told the nurse that I had stopped taking it she didn't seem all that concerned and mentioned that it is all theoretical anyway and there is a possibility that the doses that I did take did something.  Who knows?  It's another wait and see game that we'll never know the outcome for sure.  I would have been on DHEA for almost 7 months - at a dose 3x what is suggested on the bottle.  

Actually after my miscarriage I stopped taking everything, even my high blood pressure meds - I know really bad - but, well, at that point I was finding it difficult to do any day to day stuff.  So one morning, after I got back on my horse, I remember reaching for the DHEA bottle and something just made me not want to take it anymore - so I didn't.  

Thank you so much for all your kind words, there are so many crying signs on this ivf journey, it's comforting words that can make all the difference.  

So, I changed my mind, I don't think I want to replay my last FET cycle.  I know that it's pretty scary to get wisdom from a TV show, but I was watching this show called John Doe.  It's about a guy who wakes up with no memory of who he is but knows EVERYTHING in the world.  I know, kooky premise, but what can you do when you want to be a couch potato.  So, anyway, one of the characters is telling this John Doe that he needs to make new memories and not lose himself trying to recapture the past.  She plays some kind of brain doc and she said that the patients she sees that recover the best are always those that "stop looking in the rearview mirror and focus on what lies ahead."   

I will never forget, and I don't want to, but I think I'm going to look to what will be next.  So, what's next?  Two things.  One I am waiting for AF (we are always waiting for something right). Two, I'm working on being social again, without the tears or moodiness.   Not doing the best job on that as last week I cried at my SIL's and last night I bailed on going to the movies with a friend.  Well, my dh wasn't too keen on going either so I had an easy out.  

To borrow from Evergreen:

What am I grateful for?

-Hulu (unlimited shows - we don't have cable)

-my job

-my purring cat on my lap

How will I take care of myself?

-going to the gym after this post

-trying to eat healthy - no more skipping lunch

-watch less Hulu :-)

What is going on?

I know much time has passed since I last wrote and yes quite a bit has happened. Good and bad. As I start writing this I'm not sure if I want to give the quick and dirty story or a long drawn out one over a few posts. I guess I could do both.

I've been keeping up with many of your blogs and I've seen some heartache and for a while I just couldn't bring myself to add to it. But, amidst the disappointments I saw such great strength, support and hope. Over the last weeks I have been lurking (yes I saw nutshells post :-), reading and commiserating, but silently, and I'm ready to start being a part of the blogging life again.

So, the quick and dirty.
Nov 21st. FET Tx 3 embies - FET's so much easier on the body!
Dec. 2 Beta 1 ----BFP! @451
Dec 4 Beta 2 --- 862!
Dec 16 1st us - saw heartbeat 6w3d
Dec 23 2nd us - found two heartbeats! Woah! Identical Twins! Best Christmas presents ever!
Dec 30 3rd/final us w/ RE - no heartbeats - Worst New Years ever
Dec 30 -- D&C
Jan 15 -- Chromosome Analysis - Normal Female Karyotype -- girls! But, what happened? Why? Questions that will forever plague me.

That's it. That is where I am now, missing my girls I lost between 7 and 8 weeks. I haven't cried in a few days and I can get through most days without feeling too discouraged. I think I've come a ways, because two weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to type this post. I will try over the next week (I'm not the best blogger) to post some details, and what is up and coming for me - first steps are my follow-up appointments with my doctors.

I will leave with a poem by Emily Dickinson my mom sent me:

Hope
is the thing
with feathers
that perches
in the soul
and sings the tune
without words
and never stops
-at all

No Budding Pumpkins

I got the BFN today.  Sad.  Disappointed.  Hurt.  Tired.  Dreading the painful cramps and the unrelenting not knowing why it didn't happen thoughts.   Right now I am just going through the motions, keeping myself going with the mundane things of life...laundry, dishes, lesson plans...

The worst part for me is I had this secret hope that I would be able to call my mom on her birthday (tomorrow) with some special news, not gonna happen.  I've been really lucky in that my mom is not one to ask every week when a grandkid will come along.  She's actually never really asked.  We've discussed it, but she's never pressed the issue.  When I told her about our IF she was really supportive and had the 'if it happens it happens' attitude.   I kept her updated during my first cycle, but for some reason this one I couldn't do it.  I ended up not telling anyone that I was going through another round.  I don't know which is better.

What's next for us?  Our follow-up with our RE isn't until 10/13 - I wish we didn't have to wait so long - I think he's going on vacation or something.  Well we have 3 frozen embies and I remember the RE mentioning that he likes to transfer 3 for an FET.   Our follow up is just over a week b4 my next expected visit from AF.  I don't know if I'll rest a cycle or what.  Maybe spend another month getting in shape mentally and physically.   Oh, how I wish I wasn't writing about this.

After that?  Right now I can't think that far.  Right now my brain is taken up by separating and folding clothes.  I think I might take a brake from blogging for a bit - I might do some lurking and comments, but for now this will be my last post for a bit.  Thanks to everyone who has posted comments and given me positive vibes - it helps to get through some of those tough spots.

Lazy Days Almost Done

I was considering going into work this morning, the tail end of my 72 hours bed rest.  I, well, DH and I, decided that I should just kick back with my feet up until the timer runs out, which will be around noon today.  It's funny, I keep thinking that at 12 o'clock I'm going to jump off the couch and start dancing or something.   Mondays & Wednesdays are long days for me in that I end up staying at work (an extra 2 hours) until I have to go to an evening class.  It's a traffic thing.  So, it'll be a nice transition back into my normal schedule to skip work today but still go to my evening class.

We had some good news over the w.e.  The embryologist called and told us that 2 embryos made it to freezing.  One was already hatching!  The other, although in early blastocyst stage, had good quality so he was confident it would do fine.   That puts us at 3 snowbabies, which is how many our RE likes to have to do a FET.

Beta day is Sept 23, day before my mom's birthday.  I didn't poas last time and I've read so many blogs posing both sides but I think I will wait this time as well.  I know it sounds really crazy, but if I get a positive beta I'm going to go and poas, just so I can see that positive - I guess I'm just a little too nervous to do it before hand.

24 hours in

Yesterday at this time I was experiencing a form of bliss.   I was lying down listening to pleasant music out of a dream, all light drums, chimes, and string instruments.   I was warm and comfortable and feeling very light.  I wasn't thinking about being nervous or about all the things that could go wrong - did my morulae stop developing?  The "what if?" questions seemed to slip away and I focused on the positive, I actually felt like everything was going to be alright.   I again decided to have a session of acupuncture right before my transfer.  Of course for every minute we had to sit and wait in the transfer room for the doctor and embryologist, I lost an ounce of relaxation I had gained.  Luckily we didn't have to wait that long :-)

My last post I questioned if this cycle was going to be different.  Well, up until ER, everything was mostly the same, and my outlook was anything but positive.  But, things took a left turn after my retrieval on Sunday.  They retrieved 4 more eggs (27).  Good.   Sunday afternoon & night, very constipated.  Bad.  Monday, a little constipated and quite a bit of discomfort moving and walking.  Not good.  Oh, and PIO shots hurting a lot more.  Bad.  Find that belly button is bruised.  What?  Weird.  Doesn't hurt, so not good or bad, just weird.  And finally the day one embie report: 10 fertilized!  Yeah!  We had 8 last time.  Great!  Then came the day 2 "decision day":  We were going for a 5 day transfer.   Another difference - great!  Oh and one weird report.  Of our 10, the day three report came back with them at 3,4,5,6,7, and 8 celled.  All in order weird huh?

Well, by day four we had 2 morulae and 2 compacting and yesterday we had 3 blasts with 1 morulae and 1 compacting.  We ended up transferring 3 blasts!  I had heard that they don't like to transfer more than two blasts, but since only one of ours was of a 'good-good' quality they decided to increase our chances.  Our clinic uses a good-fair-poor quality scale on first the cells that will make up the fetus, then a second grade for the cells that make up the placenta.  I've read about the other blastocyst grading system using a number then two letters (like 4AA), seems to give a little bit more info, but I guess I'm not sure what I would do with that!  Maybe sometimes less is better?

I found a cool site that gives lots of pictures of eggs and embryos at the different stages.   Of course I spent the morning comparing my pictures with theirs - to be honest, I can't tell what I'm looking at!

It seems like a really good clinic, is there is anyone who has been to this one in Chicago?

  

http://www.advancedfertility.com/blastocystimages.htm

So, here I sit relaxing and waiting on the couch, trying not to analyze every twinge.  TV, reading, video games, some work, and of course blogging...

Oh, the doctor told me what caused my belly button (it sounds so kid-like to call it that, but I have no idea what else to call it) to bruise - during the retrival the needle must have nicked something and some blood moved up the ligaments that attach the belly button to the uterus.   He hasn't seen it often, has this happened to anyone else?

What's Different About This Cycle?

Not much.  So far all of my appointments have fallen on the same day of the week.  My baseline u/s found similar follie numbers as my first cycle.  And at my appointment yesterday when I asked the nurse if things have changed, she told me only a little.    She said they wanted things to go a little slower than last cycle, but so far it's been the same?  They lowered my Follistim dose from 150IU to 100IU, but is it working?  I like to believe that the number of follicles doesn't tell ALL, that it's quality not quantity.  And, we won't know quality until we know the number of embryos & their subsequent development.  So, the questions I have: Did my having 23 eggs retrieved compromise the quality of all of them? (18 mature/only 4 made it)   Will this slower protocol & dhea improve quality?  Ugggh I hate this not knowing.   But there in lies that beauty - Hope.

Well, if things stay status quo I'll have my ER next Sunday, but maybe this time could I have a day 5 transfer?