Beta Day

Today’s the big day! Got up ass early to make it to the clinic for my test. I should hear between 3 and 4 today. Am feeling pretty hopeful (yes, I am shocking my paranoid self by feeling this way) about this. For the last three or four days I have been having quite a few symptoms of sorts, starting with a saucy dream on Thursday night which almost resulted in the big “O”. Somehow the lucid bit of my brain intervened to put a stop to it, reminding me that I am not supposed to have one of those during the 2ww! At that point I woke up to realize I was having intense burning cramps in my uterus of a somewhat different nature than A.F. Must have been the cause of all that, ahem…stimulation down there. I felt the urge to eat something immediately which, of course, I did. I could not sleep the rest of the night due to the discomfort. Not sure if from the cramps or the load of food I’d just cramped down my gullet. The following couple of days brought on a few bouts of the same in addition to some crazy abdominal distention (which made me look about 6 months pregnant and kept me from being able to button my pants) and lots of pain which lead to another couple of sleepless nights. A call to a clinic nurse two nights ago confirmed what I suspected….A mild case of OHSS. The good news there is, she explained with cautious optimism, that delayed cases of this are often brought on by increased hormones of pregnancy. Here’s hoping! I have been trying to lay low, drink electrolyte-filled liquids (finally switched to Sm.art. Water after not being able to stomach all the sugar in Vit.a.min Water). It seems to be helping somewhat. The mornings are much better than the evenings when I have lots of discomfort and have a balloon stomach. I am pretty much out of tunic shirts that will hide this sham bump. How sad. I’ve always wanted a big round bump but not like this. Such a farce. Or maybe not.........

The significance of the beta happening on the last day of 2007 is not lost on me though I feel that I should hold off on pontificating about it until the results are in. Until then, loads of work sit in front of me to keep me busy and keep my dreamy head reigned in and close to earth.

5dp5dt

The 'Bros (Bad pic quality due to crap scanner NOT to bad 'bro quality. Hooray!)


That's right. Despite my crazy neurotic fears we did make it to a Day 5 transfer! Things got a little nuts with packing for our trip to the in-laws outside Bost.on which is why I didn't post sooner. They put back two "beautiful, textbook" (dr's words) blastocysts. There were two more, though the quality was not quite as good. 3 more had not yet made it to blastocyst stage but they were going to try to grow them in the lab in order to freeze. Just heard today that two of them (not sure from which bunch) were good enough to freeze. Praying that we won't have to use them this time around but would (slightly?) lessen the heartbreak of a BFN. We had a brief discussion with the doc on how many to transfer, toying with the idea of only putting back one. Kind of a crazy decision to make somewhat suddenly. I hadn't even thought about the single embryo transfer option until the night before. We decided just to go ahead and put back two in the end. I think both of us would definitely panic initially if there were two in there but certainly wouldn't send them back ;) and I just can't help feeling like putting one back would definitely lessen our chances of a positive outcome despite evidence to the contrary. My twin panic comes during moments of positivity when I'm SURE this thing is going to work (like on day of and day after transfer). On down days when I am SURE this cycle's a bust I would welcome a litter growing in there. I go back in on Dec 31 for my blood pregnancy test.

It's really been great that part of the 2ww has been over the Christmas holiday. We left for the in-laws on Saturday and have been immersed in distracting family visits and festivities for days. Strangely, the surprise presence of our sweet, precious 8 month old nephew did not bring on the bitter, ugly feelings. Not sure if it is his pure sweetness or the fact that I was feeling so positive about our own cycle that kept them at bay. At times, I actually managed to forget about my "'bros" hopefully hunkering down in there. During quiet, down times, however, I have been looking closely for any hint of a symptom and becoming increasingly more negative despite the "rational" part of my brain trying desperately to remind me that it is still early. I did have some mild cramping the first day or two post transfer but not much else that seemed too significant. Did have some very vivid dreams while we were away though could have just been that I slept like a log in nice quiet suburbia (no all-night cabs honking or drunkards shrieking outside my window like i'm used to). Boobs seemed to have been getting less sore and not more. Last night felt under the weather though in more of a "getting a cold" kind of way. I did feel really warm yesterday in a house that is ALWAYS unbearably cold. Could be due to feeling under the weather. Or are all these signs of something else? Ugh. Give me some definitive sign, would ya universe?

I woke up in such a crap mood this morning, feeling very negative about my lack of symptoms and the prospect of sitting on a 5 hour bus ride home. However, maybe the universe is throwing me a sign? I began to have mild cramps on the bus ride home, followed by more intense ones this evening, with little bits of queasiness (not full blown nausea) here and there. I never have PRE-menstrual cramps, always during A.F. so I am assuming this is not just me gearing up for my period. Within the past few hours I have been having little twinges in my abdomen and on the sides of my lower back. In addition, my temp is raised to 98.6 (my regular body temp is 97.5) which I think may be a good sign and hopefully not just more evidence that I just have a cold.

For the first time I have been toying with the idea of POAS in the next few days. 5dp5dt definitely seems too early, right? I did not think I would really be tempted. Maybe because I've never had a history with HPTs since this is our first real stab at the pregnancy thing. But now I'm reconsidering somewhat. If I continue to have these "symptoms" of the last 12 hours over the next day or two and am feeling positive I might do it, hoping for the chance to at least feign being a "fertile" and maybe stare at two pink lines. But part of me would also just like to wait for the real thing and have butterflies in my stomach as I wait for the phone call with "Congratulations Ms. P...." This is the , of course, my cinder.ella ending. Since I am in a moment of optimism I am not entertaining the alternate one.

Have lots of blog reading and catching up to do. Hope all had wonderful holidays!

5 Day Transfer It Is!

So that was the good piece of news that I got this morning. The doc I spoke with reported that they felt there were enough good quality (8-10 cell) embryos to push me off to a Day 5 transfer, initially alleviating much of the worry I knew I would have if they told me to come in today. It is nice to know sometimes that the universe has it's own plan that is (shockingly!) not influenced by your own neurotic and negative thoughts and proceeds ahead independently. A novel idea, I know! My negative thoughts just seem to carry so much weight in my puny little head that I sometimes I forget that I can't control the outcome of world events just by worrying about them. It's good to be put back in my place! When I was little I used to have this paranoid fear that if I stared at a plane in the air that I would make it crash to the ground just by looking at it. You can see the root of my neuroses....

That was my brief bit of optimism for this morning. It lasted all of about an hour. Apparently, optimism and grand revelations about the universe are NOT, after all, as powerful as the evil little man in my head. Who knew? My worries evolve just as quickly as each little bit of information we receive. Ready for this second's bit of fear????? That our overachieving little embryos will suddenly stop growing between now and Friday as I know that this is the time that the sperm DNA really kicks in and could result in the sudden arrest our little buddies. Since sperm issues have been our greatest challenge up until this point I feel like this fear is justified and not that unreasonable. I also realize that many people out there would give anything to get this far so I feel guilt that I am not just basking in my current luck! I wish I could spread it to all!

Getting Real

10 eggs out of 15 fertilized! Won't know until Wednesday morning (Day 3) if will go ahead and do transfer that day or Friday. They will only push til Friday if there are around 7 good quality embryos left on Day 3. I am still in shock that we made it this far, that at this very moment Mr. P's and my DNA is mixing together in incubators somewhere uptown. I can't believe we've made it this far! My shock and glee over this fertilization report makes me realize how much I doubted we would ever make it to fertilization. I know that we have very far to go before we can even think about bringing home a baby. But that my eggs and his sperm, as screwed up as they are, still have the capacity to make an embryo is just beyond me. We've overcome what I considered our biggest obstacles...the rest seems like a breeze. I'm scaring myself a bit at the moment with my unabashed optimism. I almost feel like I need to go Go.ogle something scary and bad about what could keep them all from growing further, or problems with implantation, just to feel like myself again. But am SO trying to resist that urge and remain on this high for as long as possible. It feels so good!

Fertile Thoughts

I really don’t understand where the time is going. I had every intention of posting on Wednesday when fab new laptop came. It is, btw, FABULOUS . And now suddenly it’s Sunday and I couldn’t even tell you where the rest of the days went. Thursday I went in for another monitoring appt. Follicles had grown but not enough and I was told to come back the next morning after another night of meds. I was sure that on Friday they were going to tell me to trigger that night. But lo and behold that was not the case. I had a couple over 20mm but most were lagging and the Dr. thought another day would be beneficial even though he knew I would not be super happy about it. I counted around 10, though since many were small I was feeling quite pessimistic . I was also annoyed that the delay in triggering meant I would have to come back in on Saturday early for another monitoring and would not be able to sleep in, something that I have been desperately needing to do for the last two weeks. Plus, delaying another day likely meant a Monday retrieval, requiring a day off of work on a very busy day. Plans changed again that afternoon when Dr. called to tell me he wanted me to trigger after all on Friday as my blood work revealed a drop in E2, indicating my body was ready to get those eggies out. Any change in plan has made me nervous and my head immediately turned to worse case scenarios---eggs would be over-cooked or not mature enough, drop in E2 could mean I ovulated too early, etc. No medical evidence to back this up of course just my head going to all those bad places. It’s good at that.

The trigger shot wasn’t bad at all though I was nervous in a way that I wasn’t with the others. It’s just so big! But it slipped right in (unlike the completely dull Gan.i.re.lix injections which comically bounced off my stomach numerous times after trying to jab them in roughly). Some muscle tightness in my bum was my only side effect that night.

Saturday brought my wonderful friends from my old job in D.C. into town. The kind of friends that are so comfortable and supportive and with whom you settle back into to easy conversation and connection so quickly, as if you’ve never been apart. One of them is pregnant, about 23 weeks. Another has two kids and the other is single. There was a lot of talk about pregnancy, babies and kids. But I realized, a few hours into their visit, that I felt none of the usual twinges of jealousy, bitterness, sadness, that I feel around others who chat about these things. Beyond that two of them have experiences of losses themselves and understand some of the difficulties and challenges of infertility--four miscarriages between them--they are just generally and naturally some of the most supportive and giving people I know. My single friend knitted me some very colorful “fertile thoughts” mittens which she instructed me to rub on my belly. I did. They were sending so much freaking positive fertile energy my way that it was ridiculous, and strangely not annoying. And even, dare I say it, believable. I left dinner last night feeling more positive (and strangely fertile) than I have in weeks. Nuts? Maybe. But I’ll take it.

Some of that energy must have transmitted properly. This morning 15 eggs were retrieved! Woohoo! This was great news and far more than expected given there had only ever been 10 or fewer follicles, many of which appeared small. Maybe there were multiple eggs per follicle? I don’t know how many were mature but I am definitely pleased with the numbers. I felt incredible sadness, however, when I heard the nurse tell the woman next to me in recovery that they had only gotten four eggs of which two were mature from her. I wanted to reach out to her but also didn’t what to pry. The disappointment and sadness in her voice was palpable and hard for me not to respond to. I tried to send some good thoughts and energy I had received her way. I will keep on doing so and pray that it works for her

…Perhaps even better news for us was that Mr. P. was not called back in after the first sample to give another one which we presume meant that there were some moving sperm to work with from the fresh sample. I will be waiting anxiously for the fertilization report tomorrow. I still am fearful that nothing might fertilize though the nurse assured me that this was rare. Transfer will be either Wednesday or Friday.

I am feeling a bit more bloated, tender and in pain than I expected. Not something that I can’t handle (these symptoms are not all that dissimilar from endo symptoms I have dealt with for ages) but part of me worries if I am supposed to feel this way. It is painful to get up, walk at all or go to the bathroom. Anyone else felt like this following retrieval? I’d better feel better tomorrow since I am planning on going to work no matter what. Can not afford to miss two days of work this week. Also, I weighed myself yesterday for the first time in a week and had gained almost four pounds. A definite surprise to me since I had not been feeling particularly large and bloated until after the hcg trigger. Am hoping it’s all water weight. Am afraid to weigh myself again now. Ugh. Oh, and my boobs are boulders plummeting to the ground.
unbelievably sore. When I took off my bra this afternoon they felt like boulders plummeting to earth. Ouch!


Will post fertilization results tomorrow. Wish us luck!

The pre-2 ww?

Ugh. It's really been killing me that I've had no internet access. Access is still down at work and the only reason I'm on now is because I came to a different site to do paperwork. Good news is that new sunny yellow laptop is waiting for me at D.HL which I will head over to in about an hour. I will be able to post and comment with much more frequency! Waiting for it has been a great distraction from the waiting I've been doing for this retrieval to happen. I know, I know. I've only been injecting a little more than a week now but time seems to have slowed for a crawl. What on earth will I do during the real 2ww, praying we make it that far? I go back tomorrow morning for more monitoring. I am guessing that I have a few more days of that though I am anxious to at least know when retrieval will be. Am really hoping it won't be Saturday as I have friends coming into town this weekend. They are very understanding and supportive but I feel bad "messing" up a weekend that has been planned for months. Am feeling a bit more optimistic after last Friday's appt with the doc. I feel like it could go either way though again I am mostly hoping we just have something to transfer. Even if it doesn't stick I'll at least know we have the ability to fertilize.

Thanks to Trace for her comments on my mention of donor sperm. I have been thinking about it a lot and will definitely turn to you for advice, thoughts and support if that's the direction we turn. Mr. P. and I need to have a conversation about it tonight. I have a number of thoughts on it now but will wait to post them later after our talk tonight and hopefully on my shiny new computer.

Our party on Saturday went off pretty well though we were both exhausted after running around all day in preparation. I tried to slip quietly away to do my injection in the bedroom but got caught by one of Mr.P's friends who saw my syringes sitting on the counter. I danced my way around his questions briefly before just not being able to hide the real purpose of them any longer and whispering "we're trying to have a baby and this is our only way it might happen for us!" I have been pleasantly surprised by the reactions I have gotten from most people that I tell about our plans. In particular men have had the coolest reactions, like this friend who looked excited and expressed genuine curiosity about the process and asked lots of questions including "so...Mr.P's "stuff" is in their (pointing to syringe) and you inject it into yourself to make the baby??". He realized how ridiculous it sounded after he said it and we both erupted into uncontrollable laughter. I like the questions and genuine curiosity. I find it easier to excuse the dumb-witted or unintentionally insensitive comments that men make than I do than those of women I feel like should just know better. Men don't come back at you with stories about how their friend "struggled" to get pregnant for three months before getting knocked up or how they "know how you feel" because they get bad cramps when Aunt Flow arrives. At least none of the men I know do! I am not the type to scream from the rooftops that we are doing IVF but if I do feel safe telling someone I do find that I enjoy talking about it and enjoy the genuine curiosity and excitement that most express in response

Speaking of insensitivity....I forgot to mention that there was a 3 week old baby in the waiting room at the clinic on Friday night. I KNOW they have a no-baby policy there so I was shocked 1) that someone had the audacity and lack of consideration for IFers to do that and 2) that none of the nurses or stack said anything to them. I found myself holding back dirty looks that fighting to jump to my face. And then I fought back anger at myself for wanting to shoot dirty looks at a cute-ass baby! What nasty things this IF does to us!

Really must add pictures or graphics to this site. Is b-oring! Will do after introduction to shiny yellow laptop. Can you tell i'm excited?!

The Roller Coaster

Pa-lease let me get off this ride. My god. It's making me sick. What a week to be without internet! I have been itching to post everyday but we've been down at work and Mr. P. has been taking our sole computer (still no sign of sunny yellow De.ll laptop that it seems I ordered an eternity ago) to school with him all day everyday so no connectivity for me.

Let's see.... my week started off with what was supposed to be a routine trip to the dentist during which I ended up in tears and scared the bejesus (sp?) out of the hygienist. I have NEVER had problems with my teeth. My check-ups for the last ten years have consisted of "things look good. Just a little tartar. And please floss more"). This visit went more like this....hygienist finishes cleaning, pulls chair close and says in a deathly-serous tone "i don't know what has happened in the last 6 months but you've got some serious problems in that mouth of yours". UH, what? She goes on to say that I am bleeding profusely, my gums are pulling away from the teeth, I have the beginnings of gum disease and she recommends starting antibiotics immediately. Again, Uh what? I looked at her like she was crazy. And then I burst into tears. What is going on in my body? Is there such thing as a premature aging syndrome in which your body starts shutting down and acting like it's 60 when you turn 30? Where your FSH shoots up, your ovaries start to disintegrate and all your hair turns gray. Well, if so, I have it. I have NEVER had dental problems in my life. She seemed as baffled as I when trying to figure out how this could have decompensated so quickly in just 6 months. And she was definitely not prepared for my crying. Neither was I for that matter. At that moment I just felt so let down by my body which seems to be doing nothing right and was overwhelmed by the thought of having one more medical treatment to worry about. I gathered myself enough to slink out of there with some dignity, I think. I know she thinks I'm crazy, though. And I could tell she was telling the Dr. that in Russian. I just know it!

Tuesday...Day 2 ultrasound and blood work for cycle start. Get to the clinic only to find out that mail order pharmacy never sent me Repronex like they were supposed to. Do last minute emergency call to in-town pharmacy and pay for it out of pocket. Call to mail-order reveals that they basically just dropped the ball. Thanks guys. I needed an aneurysm to start off this cycle right. First injection! Not bad. The needle hurt not a bit going in though I was not prepared for how much it would sting pushing in the liquid. I believe I have the Repronex to blame for that. Current dosage is Gonal-F 225 iu and Repronex 75iu. This seems like a lot to me which suggests they think I won't respond well. But what do I know????

Wednesday....Mr.P's SA (which was supposed to be sperm sample to use as back-up at retrieval time) confirms my worst fears as again no moving sperm were found. Devastation and total melt down. Dr. wants him to come back in on Friday for another. They will repeat again on retrieval day and consider TESE the same day if nothing is found. I hold little to no hope they will find anything moving (only 1 out of 10 SAs with any motility are not good odds, my friends). Internet googling in the middle of the night reveals conflicting info on using testicular sperm for ICSI. Not looking good.

Thursday...somehow drag myself to work and feel there is less than 5% chance we will even make it to transfer. That teensy bit of hope is the only thing to keep me injecting myself.

Friday...Mr.P's follow-up SA at 10:00 am. I barely make 1:45 appt (trains delayed, requiring long, expensive car service ride from Brookl.yn to Man.hatt.an with me about to pull my hair out and on verge of tears) to meet very fetching Dr. to discuss options in more detail. Of course, we wait 45 minutes anyway meaning could have just gotten on the stupid delayed train and saved $40. Am barely conscious when Dr. N. excitedly announces that morning SA revealed 1% motility. I believe Mr. P. actually hooted while pumping arm in the air at the news. Woo hoo! Not expected, wonderful news! So we now have cryo back-up for retrieval day with some swimmers. Still prefer fresh swimmers and pray we get them day-of. We discussed Plan C (if no fresh swimmers and no swimmers survive thaw)--TESE which Dr. N. expressed some hesitation about, since chance of finding testicular swimmers might be likely if there are no ejaculated moving sperm on that day. They will not use non-motile testicular sperm either as success rates are low and rates of birth defect increased. Plan D also brought up---donor sperm. Mr. P. and I have not discussed in depth. Know we need to but don't know we are there yet. After all, this really is our first attempt or any kind at pregnancy.

I still have great fears that we will not make it to transfer. That no moving sperm will be available, whether not found in ejaculate or not make it through thaw or not found in TESE. Or that if found and used, that no fertilization will occur or that it won't make it Day 3 or 5 or 6. That's not even entertaining my others fears that I won't stimulate well enough or my eggs won't be of appropriate quality. But, as Mr. P. said, even small victories need to be celebrated. Tonight we will have dinner and toast our 1% motile spermies and leave it at that for now.

Somehow, in the midst of all this drama, we decided to have a holiday party tomorrow. Did I not mention that we are crazy? I am almost repulsed by the idea at this point but am going to force myself to go through it and hope that some of the holiday cheer rubs anyway. At the very least I will be so stressed by the fact that our apartment is in shambles, we haven't bought or decorated a thing and I have nothing to wear for said party, that I will distract myself from the rest of this craziness!

Happy weekend to all!