Blastosicles!

Can't type much -- hubby is impatiently waiting for me so we can watch a movie -- but wanted to shout out my good news. Yes it's true, we actually had 3 blastocysts go to freeze. Though I hoping we won't ever need them AND I'm very aware that they could not make it through thaw if we do need them, I'm just so happy that we hit another new milestone. I'm just stunned, especially because I never heard from the clinic and then after leaving a message waited ALL day for a response, so I was convinced none had made it. Surprise, surprise, when I heard the message on my answering machine telling me there were 3. Happy weekend everyone!

Mind Games

Ok, so my imagination is running amok. I'm not even 48 hours past transfer and already I'm ultra aware of any and every internal sensation and when I go to the bathroom my eyes immediately go towards the undies. Really I KNOW that it's ridiculous but I seem to have no control! I'm also finding it very difficult NOT to daydream about a big fat pregnant belly or maternity leave next spring or (dare I admit it) twins.

I really wish I could just turn my brain off for awhile. In the past I've actually sort of tried to remain pessimistic. I'm not doing that this time. In fact, I'm trying to remain positive, hopeful, and generally happy. Nevertheless, I feel as though fantasizing about the future is really just tempting fate at this point.

I haven't heard any news about our potential frosties, but I'll post as soon as I do.
Now, time to go do some serious commenting -- I'm already behind for NaComLeavMo!!!

1AA and 2AB

1AA and 2AB were the grades of the two blastocysts that we transfered yesterday. So, I'm officially 1 day into my 2WW. Of the other 10 embryos we'd started with, 4 had stopped growing and the other 6 were pre-blasts. So, we should find out sometime tomorrow if any of them are ok to freeze. I'm trying not to think to much about the possible outcomes for those 6 or for the 2 inside -- easy now, we'll see how well I'm doing a week from now!!!

T - 2 1/2 hours!

So, we've got exactly 2 1/2 hours until transfer time. We're planning on leaving the house in about 1 1/2 hours to make sure we get there in time (DC are traffic can be a real bitch at any time of day!). The past two days have been ok. Unfortunately, Sunday morning I started feeling chilled and achy and sure enough by mid-day I had a fever over 101. Poor hubby was soooo worried, but when the nurse called with our transfer time she assured me not to worry and sure enough after a good night of sleep yesterday I felt fine. But the REALLY good news yesterday was that I finally pooped after 2 1/2 days! Sorry if that was TMI, but let's just say it was making me very unhappy! Also, as of Sunday when the nurse called we still had 12 growing and 6 were eight celled -- according to the nurse -- excellent news.

NaComLeavMo!

Today's the day and I'm sooo proud to say that it's just 9:30am and I've already left 7 comments! Let the commenting begin!!

Day 5!!!!

We were scheduled to go in at 10:30am today for the transfer, but just before 8am the phone rang and it was a nurse telling me that we'll be doing a day 5. Not only have I never had 12 embryos growing before, but we've never even been in contention for a day 5 before. I was so giddy that I completely forgot to ask for any details on how things are going -- Duh! I guess I can ask when they call us this afternoon with our Tuesday transfer time. Plus this means I get to enjoy even more of the beautiful weather this lovely holiday weekend! Dare I dream that we may even have a few healthy blasts to freeze? ;)

15, 14, 12 -- Phew!!!!

I'll cut to the chase -- as of about 3pm this afternoon we had 12 embryos growing. Now I'll backtrack. So, retrieval went fine. Except, about 10 minutes after I woke up I started to hurt -- bearable but my past retrievals were pretty much without any pain so I was sort of surprised. Apparently I was really pale too and my blood pressure was going down, so the nice nurse caring for me put something in my IV to help out and sure enough I started to feel a bit more awake within a few minutes. But at the same time the pain was increasing too. We were thrilled when the doctor came in and reported that they'd gotten 15 eggs and I figured that was why I was experiencing more discomfort that usual. Anyhoo, after a few more minutes the nurse called in a prescription for vicodin to the pharmacy downstairs and I sent hubby down to get it lickety split. I took it the minute he got back, but let's just say it didn't kick in right away. So I hobbled down to the car and made hubby drive straight to Whole Foods to get me some chicken noodle soup, because despite the pain I was STARVING! We got home and after 2 bites I felt nauseous so I went to bed and fell fast asleep for about an hour and a half. I felt pretty good for the next few hours, but last night the discomfort came back—not as bad as the pain right after the retrieval, but again something I'm not used to. So I took another vicodin before bed. Woke up this morning and actually felt ok, had a decent breakfast and then headed to acupuncture (pure heavan!). After my acupuncture appointment I went and got a luxurious pedicure and manicure and then grabbed a sandwich at Star.bucks. Throughout the morning I continued to feel really bloated and uncomfortable and then after two bites of the sandwich I felt icky and promptly threw it away. Then I hit the bookstore for about 15 minutes and was ready to head home when hubby called to check in and I realized it was already 2 and I still hadn't gotten a call on my cell about the fertilization—they'd told me to expect a call between 12 and 3. After I made my purchase I checked my work voicemail and there was a message from my nurse saying she was just calling to see how I was doing. Unfortunately I've never been able to figure out how to check our home voicemail remotely! So at this point I was starting to panic and of course got stuck in horrible traffic. By the time I got home it was after 3 and I still hadn't gotten a call on my cell. I was totally convinced that there'd been no fertilization and I cried the last ten minutes home. (Found out later that poor hubby was at work having the exact same worries!) When I finally got to my voicemail machine my hands were literally shaking and I thought I was going to throw up. But all that anxiety turned out to be unnecessary. 14 of the 15 eggs were mature and 12 fertilized. I'm so grateful for that good news that I'm not worrying at all about the next call! Unfortunately, I'm still feeling very bloated and tender. My nurse told me to quit water and drink gatorade, so I've been guzzling it all evening and peeing constantly – but I don't care, because we've got 12 embryos!!!!!

TIRED

No, this will not be a post in which I rant about how tired I am of all things related to infertility. I am just truly exhausted today. Yesterday afternoon when the nurse called and told me my trigger time was 11:30 I knew that today might be hard, but I can barely keep my eyes open! We were actually up until after midnight because after my injection we had to take care of a little business for hubby – per doctor’s orders. I’d originally planned to have everything else done BEFORE the injection, so that at 11:31 we could crawl under the covers and fall fast asleep. But, to kill time until 11:30 we watched a movie. It ended later that I expected and by the time it was over it was too close to 11:30 and I didn’t want to risk having the injection late because by that time I was a nervous wreck. Anyone else have totally irrational thoughts about effing up the injection, or the meds not working right, etc, etc… Hubby kept reminding me that if it was that difficult to get it right they wouldn’t let us do it ourselves, but I’m still nervous. Plus my behind hurts. This was the first time I’ve triggered intramuscularly. The shot itself didn’t hurt too much, but soon after I felt very sore and almost 12 hours later I’m still achy. Never had this with my progesterone shots, so I wasn’t expecting it!

“That’s a Beautiful Response”

Those are the exact words from my RE this morning as he gestured towards the data on the computer monitor after my wanding. Truly it is the little things in life that make me happy. I practically skipped out of the office I was so giddy with joy at those few words. I even stopped worrying about fertilization for awhile. ;)

RE said no need to push it another day, so I'll trigger tonight and retrieval will be sometime on Thursday.

Soon

Well, the ovaries are very TENDER now and I should be triggering either tonight or tomorrow! Everything has been progressing smoothly this time, but of course I wouldn't be me if I didn't look for something to worry about. Even as I became convinced that we wouldn't be cancelled again, I started to worry more and more about fertilization. I mean of course I worry about what happens after that, but really if these little eggies of mine and my husbands sperm don't play nice this time (on IVF #2 NONE fertilized) I think I might be done. I'm hoping that a week from now I'll be laughing at myself for worrying so much about this. But it has happened before. Though, given ALL our history and the surprise pregnancy last fall, my RE doesn't think we need to do ICSI. I'm trying not to obsess about it, but I'm not really being very successful. I just really, really want this to work!

NaComLeavMo and Day 7

I finally got off my ass and signed up for NaComLeavMo. If you haven't signed up just click below!




NaComLeavMo: More Conversation Than You Can Shake a Stick at

I'll confess right now that I've gotten really bad about leaving comments--really NOT leaving comments. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, I love to read blogs and I read ALOT of them, but I am pretty busy these days so something has to give and the commenting went. Also, I started using Google Reader about 2 months ago, and while I LOOOOVE the convenience, it's not so conducive to leaving comments. So, I figure NaComLeavMo is just the inspiration I need to start commenting again. And who knows, maybe I'll even generate a little more traffic here, which might even inspire me to post more often! :O


In other news, today is Day 7 of stims. Yesterday's appointment went well. I still wish there were alot more follies in there, but at least the ones there are growing. I did have a short lived panic attack when the RE doing the monitoring yesterday reported that none of the follies were measurable. But then she pressed down on my abdomen and voila! -- there they were and they were definitely measurable. I really wish the REs and techs would actually read the F-ing file because EVERY TIME I go in they say "make a note that ovaries are difficult to see" and everytime no one seems to know this! But all's well that ends well and she actually told me that I'd likely be starting the Ganirelax soon. Sure enough the message from the nurse was comforting -- my dosages stayed the same for last night and this morning, tonight I start the ganirelax and add 1 additional vial of menopur. After being cancelled last time, I'm taking every new step as a small victory.

Day 4 (**Updated at bottom)

In a nutshell, my period started on Friday and I started my meds on Saturday (150 Follistim in the morning and another 150 Follistim plus 150 Menopur in the evening).

After my last cycle was canceled guess what I soo sooo soooo didn’t want to hear this morning – the ultrasound tech asking the RE if I’d started meds. UGH. I really haven’t been worried about the prospect of getting canceled again… until this morning!!!

I hope I’m overreacting. After the tech reported that I had 5 on the right and 4 on the left (or was it the other way around? anyway…), the RE told me that’s normal for where we are. I know I’m pushing 39, but still just once I’d like to be the follicle producing superstar (Imagine fuzzy daydream sequence here -- “wow, look at all those follicles, you’re ovaries are rock stars, there are so many we can’t count ‘em!) Ok, so I know I’m exaggerating and that anyone who’s ever suffered from OHSS is probably cursing me right now right for being so silly about it. Seriously though, when reading about other peoples’ fresh cycles and frozen embryos and FETS and I’ve thought to myself how nice it would be to get enough high quality eggs to actually have something to freeze. Now, I’m just worried that I don’t get canceled again.

** Just listened to the voicemail from the nurse and they are keeping my med doses the same for the next two days. I'm taking this as good news, since last time my doses were increased dramatically with each visit.

Drugs Have Arrived

So, last Friday $3000 worth of drugs arrived at my house (oops, what am I saying! $3000 is just my 50% of the cost). So, last Friday, $6000 worth of drugs arrived at my house—follis.tim and meno.pur. I did take a picture of the expensive boxes full of vials along with the all the other stuff I already had on hand from the canceled cycle—gani.relax, progesterone, novarel, antibiotics, estrace—and all the associated paraphernalia, needles and whatnot. Of course, I haven’t actually downloaded said photo yet. Anywoo, so now I’m just waiting to get my period and then we are on the IVF fast track! Based on my IVF history, we’re not using BCP or lup.ron this round, so I start stimming on day 2. I’m perfectly happy to avoid the BCPs and the lupron and the extra time that entails. But it’s a little weird to think we’ll be through the whole cycle in just 2 weeks.

Normally, my cycles are just about 28 days. So, I could be getting my period as soon as the end of the this week. Yikes, I am glad to get going again, but while I’m prepared—as in I’ve got my meds, the bills are paid, and I’ve warned my team at work that I’ll be late a lot and out on leave for a few unspecified days—I don’t really feel mentally ready and I’m not sure why.

Thinking about it makes me a little reflective about things. It’s hard to think about the fact that we’ve been trying for 3 years now. 2 years ago I had just started seeing the first RE, had my HSG and blood tests and was about to have my lap done. I did my first lupron shot for my first IVF on the 4th of July of 2006. We were at my parents house for the week and so I’d hidden my lupron in the very back of the refrigerator. My mom knew about the IVF, but I hadn’t told my sister about it. I was terrified of giving myself a shot and was actually glad that we were at my mom’s, since she was trained as a nurse and could help me if needed. Turns out it was easy—giving myself shots has turned out to be the one thing I didn’t need to worry about. At the same time, my dad was in the hospital recovering from triple bypass and valve replacement surgery. A few weeks later, on my way to my Grandmother’s funeral, I stopped at a McDonald’s in the middle of nowhere, and in the small and filthy bathroom I mixed 4 vials of Brav.elle and injected myself, all while trying to keep my not quite 4-year-old from touching anything!

If anyone had told me back then that I’d still be on this rollercoaster now I don’t know what I would have done. I certainly never expected it to be this hard or to take this long. If someone had asked me back then to think about what my life would be like in 2 years I would surely have imagined us with another baby by now.