PUPO!

Wow, I am technically pregnant right now. That is awesome and also kind of hard to believe.  We had our 5DT yesterday and transferred 1 beautiful grade 7 blast. As it turns out, it was a GREAT decision to wait until day 5 since the embie they were going to transfer on day 3 ended up not growing as well. PHEW! We also found out that at least 2 of our embies will make it to freeze (possibly more)!!!  I am so freakin happy about that I can't even tell you.  Of course all this was not without some drama first...

I am sick.  The OHSS has been kicking my ass - I have no energy, no breath, tons of fluid in my abdomen, pressure, cramping, diarrhea (but also a constant feeling of constipation), and lightheadedness (is that a word?). That's all been really fun but then on Tuesday the nausea and vomiting started as well. As Laura so eloquently put it in one of her previous blog posts, I've been feeling like "the filling in a shit sandwich" lately. (I'm getting nauseous looking for google images of "shit sandwich" so you'll just have to imagine one here.)

Yesterday morning I felt absolutely awful. We were supposed to leave for the transfer at 10:45 and at 10:00 I was still bent over the toilet losing my breakfast.  Hubs and I had a long talk about pros and cons with just going ahead with the transfer or cancelling and doing a freeze-all then doing a FET sometime in January.  I'm still not even sure how we came to the decision we did but I decided to rally and armed with a puke bucket and saltines, we made the 1.5 hr trek through the driving rain and wind down to the hospital in Boston.  (I'm pleased to report that although I came close a few times, I never actually needed the bucket.)

Because I am lightheaded, short of breath, nauseous and so crampy I can't stand up straight, walking is hard. Once at the hospital, it took 3 stops along the way and a near fainting episode in the ridiculously hot (and SLOW) elevator to make it to the IVF suite but I did it.  Every time I had to stop Hubs was like: "That's it! We're not doing this, come on, we're going home." And I of course was like:  "Like hell we are! We've made it this far, I'm not turning around now!" Luckily, the nurse immediately got me some anti-nausea meds which was a lifesaver and after confirming with the doctor that it was still okay for me to go ahead with the transfer, we started prepping for it.  

It was so quick and easy and although I was still feeling crappy I was (am) SO happy to have it over and done with and to not have to wait until January.

Also, Hubs was adorable during the transfer - he was all wonderment (I'm using all kinds of potentially made-up words today!) when we were in the OR and he could see the embryo and fluid entering my uterus.  I agree it was kind of neat but I wasn't quite so amazed since I am so used to seeing the inside of my body through ultrasounds that I guess I'm kind of dulled to it all now.  This was the first time Hubs has been present for any sort of actual MEDICAL aspect of IVF - I've been the one going in for all the monitoring and bloodwork, giving myself the shots, and of course going through the egg retrieval...I didn't think about the fact that this was all new to him.  Once we got out and were relaxing we had a nice emotional moment with hugging and kissing and tears.  We may have just made our baby.  I am technically pregnant with our little Pete.  (PS: We are not naming the baby Pete. Hubs has been jokingly calling it that because it was made in a Petrie Dish, hahaha!)

Sigh. I am happy and relieved and just hope that A) this works and B) I don't get sicker. 
My beta is scheduled for Monday, Dec 9th.  I am hoping to try to hold off on POAS until the beta but with the progesterone (aka: crazy-making juice) coursing through my body, I make no promises.


PS: Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!  Unfortunately, I will be staying home on the couch today trying to feel like a human instead of eating delicious food with family, but Hubs has promised to bring me home leftovers which I hope to be able to keep down :-)

A very silly day.

So this morning I got the call from the hospital saying I should come in this afternoon for a 3DT. I was bummed to say the least. All signs had pointed to a 5DT (I'm young, I have a ton of fertilized eggs, the nurses and retrieval doc said I'd most likely be Day 5...), so I was really upset that they wanted us to do a Day 3 because that must mean my embryos weren't very good quality. I cried. (Shocking, I know.) I did call the nurse then to let her know about my concerns with transfer due to my OHSS symptoms and she talked to the doctor who then called me and told me to still come in, just 1.5 hrs earlier so they could do testing first to see how bad the OHSS was. If it wasn't too severe then they would transfer this afternoon and if it was bad then we'd do a freeze-all and a FET in January.

We left the house honestly not knowing what we were hoping for.

We got there and waited forever again and then the nurse brought me back, had me change into a gown/hairnet/the whole nine yards, and proceeded to draw approximately half a billion vials of blood.  Then we waited another 45 minutes for the results. We found out I have moderate OHSS which sucks but is not a huge deal (just very uncomfortable) and that we could still go ahead and transfer!!  So the doc brought out the info on all our embryos and showed us a picture of the 2 lovely 8-cell and 9-cell embies that the embryologist recommended for transfer.  Then we told him we only want to transfer one since we want to decrease our chances of twins. He agreed that was the prudent choice (again, since I am young and should have a lot of embies to freeze for more chances if this one doesn't take), then told us he'd be right back to bring me in and went to inform the embryologist. Then he didn't come back for 20 mins.

Now keep in mind, I had already been there for 2 hours by that point and was drinking water and Gatorade that whole time since you need a full bladder for transfer. That, coupled with my huge ovaries pushing down on my bladder was causing me to have to pee so badly I don't even know how to explain it in words. It HURT. It hurt like a motherfucker and I was seriously about one second away from standing in a puddle.  I started to panic and just as I was flagging down a nurse to say that if the doctor did not bring me back NOW, this transfer was not happening because I was about to pee myself, my doc plus 3 other gowned staff were walking over to us while in the midst of a lively discussion.  Ooooh-kay.

All four were doctors: 2 REs and 2 Embryologists, and as we found out they were discussing the merits of transferring now vs. waiting until Day 5. I did not know that was even an option at this point.  We came in thinking we were either transferring TODAY or doing a freeze-all (because that's what everyone had told us all day long) but apparently that was not the case.  The doctors were somewhat at odds with their thoughts on what would be best but left it up to us to decide.  Long story short: My embie report was JUST under the cutoff for an automatic 5DT which is why they had us come in today but they think quite a few of the embies will make it to blastocysts, one of which could be transferred on Wednesday and the others frozen.  By waiting we are obviously taking a gamble since we were already gowned up and ready to go and staring at two healthy 8/9 cell embies, but the odds of implantation are better with a 5DT. They said that if we had planned to transfer both embies today they would have gone ahead but since we only wanted to do one, the better choice was to wait.  If we waited, I'd also have a little extra time for my OHSS to get better. So we talked it over quickly and decided to take the gamble with Day 5. Then I ran (RAN!) to the bathroom and peed for 2 minutes straight.

Sooooo, that was an unexpected turn of events.  Throughout the day I went from being anxious about whether we'd get "the call", to crushed that we had to go in for a 3DT (thinking my eggs were bad or the embryos were no good), to scared that we would have to do a freeze-all, to elated that we would be able to do the transfer, to confused about what was best, to completely unsure of whether we made the right decision.  We definitely left today feeling a little shell-shocked, confused, annoyed (that we had to go through all of that for nothing just to have to go through it all again on Wed), frustrated, and also slightly hopeful since we had wanted a 5DT all along.  When I asked Hubs how he felt he said it felt like we had just bought a new car, went to go pick it up, signed all the paperwork, and had keys in hand and then were told we'd have to come back in 2 days to get it.  Pretty good analogy but I'm not really sure who is the car in this scenario...

All in all, even though today was a crazy-ass rollercoaster, I guess in the end this is probably the best case scenario!!  I really hope we made a good decision and I hope that this is what will bring us our baby. I just pray that we will indeed have some blasts on Wed.

What a day.

And in case you are interested, here is the state of my embies as of early this afternoon:

• 24 eggs retrieved, 14 fertilized, 2 abnormal/did not grow past 4cells. 
• Of the 12 remaining embies; I have qty1 - 11cell; 2- 10cell; 1 - 9cell; 5 - 8cell, 2 - 7cell, and 1 - 6cell.   
• The two the embryologist recommended for transfer today had the least amount of fragmentation (highest score).  It looks like 3 of the remaining 12 have a low fragmentation score so we may lose those.

All in all, great embryo report and I'm excited for Wednesday! 

Aliens & OHSS

Alrighty. So as you know, I had my ER on Friday. It was kind of intense.  Maybe that was because I have never had a surgery of any sort before (besides wisdom teeth), or maybe it was because it was kind of intense.  

When they took me into the OR and laid me down, it felt like I had been abducted by aliens. 

There were at least 6 masked/gowned people in the room and all of them pounced on me the second I laid down: the anesthesiologist was adjusting my head, the nurse was putting my arms in the right place, someone was changing my gown, two different people had ahold of each leg and were forcing them up and into stirrups, someone was putting the oxygen mask over my face, someone else was asking me questions...I had no friggin clue what was going on.  As the Propofol (aka: Michael Jackson juice) started to seep into my veins I remember responding to the questions of my first and last name, my birthdate, and just as I was starting to answer why I was there my brain just shut off. The next thing I remember was waking up in complete confusion of where I was and what the hell was happening.  They wheeled me out of the OR into the recovery room and the alien abduction was over (but apparently not before the anal probe was complete since I found out from Hubs later that they shoved a tylenol suppository up my bum. Awesome.).

It took me about 1.5 hrs to recover although it felt like 30 mins because I was high on Percocet for the majority of it; it was lovely. At first I was in pain but the drugs kicked in quickly and then it just morphed to soreness.  I was lucky not to have any nausea and once the embryologist came over to tell us they retrieved 2 dozen eggs we signed some paperwork and were allowed to go home. It was a long ass day.  

The nurse had told us to be there by 9:15am ("and do NOT be late") and since that meant we'd need to drive into downtown Boston during rush hour, we left really early. Once we parked we actually dozed in the car for 30 mins then went in and found out that there was a miscommunication somewhere because we weren't supposed to be there until 9:45 and oops, we were actually pushed off another 20 mins on top of that.  We spent a lot of time waiting that morning.  After prepping and getting the IV (which was in my arm, not my hand - hooray!), I finally went in at 11:00, the procedure took about 45 mins and then after the recovery time and drive home we didn't get home to our poor little pee-filled pup until after 3pm.

I have been sore and bloated ever since.  There really hasn't been pain per se but I'm super uncomfortable with pressure and cramping, diarrhea, and a constant feeling of constipation from enlarged ovaries pushing on my colon; all from Ovarian HyperStimulation Syndrome (OHSS). You can read about it HERE.   The biggest risk factors for OHSS are: young age (check!), lots of follicles (check!), and high estradiol level (check!). At the hospital just before I went into the OR, the doctor came to speak with me and said that she thought it was likely we would need to do an embryo freeze-all because she could "almost guarantee [I'd] have complications from OHSS afterwards" and OHSS gets worse with pregnancy so it would be risky to do a transfer right now.  The only thing she wanted to see first was the number of eggs retrieved.  She said the absolute cut off was 25 - if they got 25 eggs or more I would definitely be having a freeze-all and then a FET in January (I would have to get a period, go on BCPs, then take estrogen until my lining was ready for transfer).  Luckily, they retrieved 24 eggs.  I was under the cutoff but they were still skeptical and said I need to be vigilant about my symptoms and make sure I rest a lot and remain as hydrated as possible. I have been chugging Gatorade, Powerade and water like it's my job and have become a constant fixture on the couch with my heating pad. I'm not sure it's working though...I really hate to admit it but I am not feeling any better :-(

In the meantime, a 3DT has been scheduled for tomorrow at 2:15pm and as long as I'm feeling okay and I don't get the call saying it will be pushed off until Wed for a 5DT, the plan will be to transfer 1 embryo tomorrow.  As badly as I want to be pregnant, because of the OHSS I don't know if I should go ahead with transferring tomorrow!  The whole point of this is to get pregnant but if I do, the extra hCG is going to make me feel even worse for many weeks and the holidays will be an absolute nightmare.  My hope is that the transfer will be pushed to Wed to give me a couple more days to get better and hopefully I'll feel more confident at that point in doing a fresh transfer. I'm thinking that it is likely the transfer could be pushed to Wed since I have 14 fertilized eggs - at least a few of them should be in good shape and growing well, right?! (please please please)  If not though and the 3DT remains the plan for tomorrow I'm not positive if I'll pull the trigger or not... I said that to Hubs and he is obviously disappointed.  He was so thrilled when the doc said we wouldn't be forced to do a freeze-all but he also isn't the one who has to deal with feeling like this.  I don't want to disappoint him but even more, I don't want to make the wrong decision just to make him happy and then really regret it.

Yuck. This should be an extremely exciting time and instead I'm feeling crappy physically AND mentally.  I hate that I'm unsure if this is the right thing to do or not.

Eggies!

Yesterday was my egg retrieval and I'm thrilled to report that they retrieved 24 eggs!!  That is a crazy amount.  Also, 24 just happens to be my favorite number :-)

Lucky #24!

The embryologist called earlier today and let us know that of the 24, 14 of them fertilized.  That is amazing and I'm so relieved that with that number, the odds are in our favor that we'll have some to freeze in case this cycle is a BFN.  Phew!

I'm still feeling a little rough - crampy, lots of pressure, tired...not much actual pain though thankfully. I took Percocet yesterday for the pain but am just on Tylenol now. I'm hoping the rest of this will go away by tomorrow.  

I don't have energy right now to write all about the ER but will try to post again tomorrow.
In the meantime: Yay!

Triggering tonight!!

Oh boy am I ready: U/S this morning showed 31 measurable follies (31!!) - 8 above 20mm and 3 of those are at 24. I am relieved that I'll be triggering tonight and going in for the ER on Friday (1 day ahead of schedule) because I can't wait to get these damn things out of me! 

Last night and this morning have been pretty darn uncomfortable and I look like I'm about to have a bunch of Oompa Loompas roll me to the juicing room. Seriously; my stomach has grown by at least 4 inches and I fit into exactly 1 1/2 pairs of pants right now: my comfy yoga pants and 1 pair of jeans which I have to unbutton when sitting.  I feel like my stomach is going to bust open and every time I laugh, sneeze or poop it feels like my ovaries are going to fall out.  

My tummy also can't take much more since I am one big bruise and have officially run out of real estate. Last night I had to give myself 3 separate shots to get the full 112.5 iu dosage of Gonal-F since I am down to the dregs in the pens. That was fun. If I wasn't triggering until tomorrow I would have had to actually drive about an hour to the fertility pharmacy today to pick up another pen for tonight! Glad I don't have to worry about that or pay the extra $ for more meds :-)

Ahhh I am so excited!!!  I almost can't believe that it is really happening.  I don't know why since I've been preparing for this multiple times a day (i.e., sticking myself and taking meds) for more than a month but for some reason it is FINALLY now starting to feel real.  

Hubs is all freaked out about having to give me the shot in the bum but I'll do the mixing/prepping and all he has to do is stick me.  I've reminded him that he did it perfectly once before (even if it did hurt like a bitch) so hopefully he'll get it together in time for tonight.  

I'm so happy!! (I can already feel the anxiety starting to creep in though...I'm trying to ignore it.)

Moar follies!

Monitoring today showed that I have 21 measurable follies. BAM! My current superstar is a 19mm and there's a bunch of 16s and 15s and then most of the rest are still between 11 & 13 (and I of course have the tons of little PCOS follies). I'm starting to run out of room in there! 

Lining is great at 11.5 and my Estradiol is high which is to be expected since I am borderline hyperstimulated. I will be consuming lots of Gatorade and protein bars over the next few days hoping to keep that in check.

The nurse told me that I should expect the Dr to cut my stims dosage in half starting tonight. I'm currently going in every morning for monitoring and she expects Thurs to be my last time since I will likely be triggering that night for ER on Sat AM!  There's a possibility I'll trigger tomorrow night with ER on Fri but their preference is to hold off one more day if possible to let the eggs mature some more.

I'm excited! This is really happening (and soon)!!

The Stork Award!

Thank you to ttuprincess from Table for Two (a recent addition to my list of blogs that I love to shamelessly stalk) for nominating me for The Stork Award!! Excitement!

I like the name of this award; I am taking it as a positive sign since I am praying for this damn stork to make its appearance soon :-)

So here's how The Stork Award works:

1. Add the avatar for the award in your blog post

2. Link to the blog that nominated you
3. Answer the ten questions given to you
4. Nominate other bloggers
5. Ask your nominees their ten questions
6. Let your nominees know they've been awarded 

7. Put the award icon on your side bar if so inclined

Click here to read about the origins of the Stork Award!

Here are the questions ttuprincess gave me: 

1.  One item your days would not be the same without. (clothing, kitchen items, office supply, etc)  My comfy PJ/yoga pants! 

2.  The best book you have ever read? Pride and Prejudice 

3.  A song that always takes you back to a certain place or time?  One that evokes strong memories? I Shot the Sheriff (Eric Clapton version). It reminds me of standing in my living room when I was a little kid, singing along with my dad while he played the guitar. 

4.  If you could have any job what would it be and why? I've always struggled with this question because if I knew the answer to this I would like to think I would be doing it!!  I know I want to do something I find fulfilling, helping people in some way during times of need. I just don't know what that is yet but I hope to figure it out some day. 

5.  One thing you wish you were good at but are not. Being able to put my emotions aside with certain situations/decisions. If you are familiar with the Myers-Briggs, I am almost 100% Feeling (as opposed to Thinking). I could never be a boss responsible for firing someone - I'd cry through the whole thing and then wimp out. 

6.  Your favorite vacation? 10 day European "tour" with a girlfriend. We went to Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges, Paris and London. It was amazing and I wish I could relive it. 

7.  Describe yourself in 5 words. Personable, Capable, Smart, Funny, Independent. (Before IF, Happy would have made the list but that's sometimes debatable now. I'm confident it will make the list again though.

8.  Did you have a moment where you knew your DH was "the one"? I don't think so.  However, we went out to dinner a few months into dating and after that date I distinctly remember thinking that being with him was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. I was keeping a journal then and I remember writing in it around that time that "this could be something real...and I hope it is". 

9.  Aside from dealing with IF what has been the biggest challenge or struggle you have had to deal with or overcome? The few years post-college were the hardest for me. I worked almost around the clock waiting tables, cleaning rooms at a B&B and as a coffee barista and STILL could not pay my bills. I got evicted, lost my car, and finally agreed to move to New York with my current boyfriend even though I knew the relationship wasn't going anywhere. Eventually we broke up, I moved to Mass and lived on my sister's front porch/couch until I finally found a solid job and an apartment. It was a very hard time in my life but it helped make me into who I am today and makes me grateful every day for my life now. 

10.  If you could have dinner with any famous person or celebrity who would it be?  Past or present, dead or alive.  Hmmm...maybe Adele. She is spunky and hilarious (and talented obv). I would love to be friends with her.

Now I get to nominate some other bloggers!:

Miles Yet to Travel: J, you know I love you and stalk you shamelessly at all times. I liked you even before I really knew you (pre-blog), just from reading your posts on TB!  I'm so happy we're friends now. Always rooting for you, lady!

Running and Dreaming for Two: CC, I love that you are so open and honest. You are inspiring to others, even if you don't know it. I will forever be appreciative of you bringing me into IDOB; I feel like you saved my sanity and continue to do so daily just by naturally being such a wonderful and supportive person. <3

The Harder to Get, the Better to Have: Runnin' Red, you were the first blogger I formed a bond with. By following in your bloggy footsteps, I learned the ropes with both blogging and T-TTC. Even if you don't know it, you helped me along at a time when I had no idea what I was doing or where to turn and I am so grateful to you for that.  I am absolutely thrilled that Lucky will be here any day now and I wish you all possible happiness!

 

Here are the 10 questions for my nominees (I'm passing along the disclaimer that this is supposed to be fun as a way to get to know each other a little better so please don't feel pressure to do this if you don't want to or don't have time!) 

1. Share a favorite memory from when you were little.

2. What was the best part of your day today?

3. Besides your marriage, what is the most important relationship in your life?

4. Favorite food/drink? (only one!)

5. What are you most proud of?

6. Describe yourself in 5 words. (Stealing this one!)

7. Describe your perfect day.

8. If you could travel anywhere in the world for free where would you go?

9. If you could be anyone else for a day, who would you be?

10. If you won a million dollars tomorrow, what's the first thing you would buy with it?

Making progress!

CD9 Monitoring today! The 11mm follies have turned into 12s and I have three more now at 11. Hooray! These are the best U/S results I have ever received which I realize is slightly pitiful but I don't care; I'm happy and the nurse was so happy she actually gave me a high five!  All the measurable follies are on the left ovary although there are quite a few immeasurable ones on the right side; we'll see if they catch up. E2 levels doubled since Thursday but that makes sense since the follies are growing.  They're keeping me on the same protocol with 10iu Lupron each morning and 150iu Gonal-F every night and then I'll go back in on Monday AM for more U/S & B/W.

I am so relieved that there was some growth.  With this appt I finally broke through that 11mm barrier that held me back with every previous medicated cycle. It's been a long time coming just getting to this point and it feels good to FINALLY clear that hurdle :-)

Email diarrhea

As I'm sure you are aware from my ample bitching lately, I've been feeling pretty crappy over the past week. Luckily, I normally work from home 3 out of 5 days a week and only go into the office twice so if I don't feel well I can still work-- in my PJs :-) But I actually haven't gone in at all this week.  That's not a huge deal because I have a lot of flexibility but I've felt like a slacker lately. That, coupled with feeling like a big pile of poo, somehow convinced me that it was a good idea to email my supervisor and a coworker the other day about what I'm going through and why I'm slightly MIA lately and will likely need to take some sick time. I seem to have email diarrhea (copyright!) lately about IVF. I just can't hold it in!  (haha, gross)

Seriously though, I should stop telling people.  In this case I convinced myself it was necessary since it has sorta been affecting my work. However, I probably could have just gotten away with saying I was sick/feeling under the weather and no one would have asked any questions... Maybe it's just that it feels weird to be going through something so big without important people in my life knowing about it! I am normally a very open person and it's strange to be so secretive about such a large part of my life right now.

My coworker's reaction could not have been better though so I don't regret emailing. I've copied her response here because it makes me feel so lucky to have supportive people like her in my life and I don't want to forget that:

I am thinking about you and love you. Focus only on yourself and do what you need to do to take care of yourself. Work is so unimportant compared to what you are doing now and you need to devote all your physical and emotional strength to this. Tell me what I can do to help.

xo

Is that a perfect response or what? I cried of course. I love her. This is the same coworker I told many months ago about our trouble TTC and she shared with me that she suffered 15 miscarriages (15!!!) while conceiving her 3 children.   Talk about putting things in perspective!

Anyway, I think I'm done with the email diarrhea now. I counted today and there are 18 people in Hubs & my life that know about our IVF cycle. That's way more than I thought.  It's good to have support and people rooting for us, but it also means there will be lots of questions come transfer/beta time on whether or not we're pregnant. If it doesn't work that's going to be a lot of bad news to relay over and over again. And if it does work (please please please!) it's going to be a lot of avoidance/elusiveness on our part since we won't want to announce so early. If that's the only problem we have though, I'll take it!
 

CD7 Monitoring

First monitoring appt: done!  I got the good nurse who found my vein immediately AND the quick u/s tech (yay!). My E2 (Estradiol) level is good at 102, my lining is good at 8.5 and I have a LOT of little follies but nothing they consider measurable yet (sounds familiar...). Two of them are at 11, plus an 8 and a 7 and then a ton of little guys.  I'm staying on the same dosage of meds and then going back on Sat AM for more u/s & b/w. 

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly disappointed.  I'm just so used to getting these exact same results at every u/s and then seeing the follies never grow after that point.  I'm afraid that's going to happen again so I'm a bit apprehensive about the next appt. I just really hope there's some measurable growth by Saturday.

Grow, follies, grow!

Day 5 of stims

Thank the lord above, I am feeling quite a bit better. The headache is still lingering most of the time but has lessened considerably and I feel mostly like a human again.  I really hope that continues and think it may since it sounds like these were Lupron headaches and I'm currently taking half the dose I was before.  

I've now gone through a full vial of Lupron (280iu) and am on to my second. I'm also starting in on my 3rd Gonal-F pen tonight (300iu each), and have just about filled up one of the two biohazard disposal containers they sent me.  That's a lot of shots. When I first started with the shots a little over 2 weeks ago I remember writing that I was so focused on them and hoped I'd get to a point where giving myself the shots was just a tiny blip during the day. It reached tiny blip status about a week ago. Now it feels like nothing, just another routine thing I do, just another cross off my IVF calendar as I work my way towards the end of next week. I'm more than halfway through now :-)

Tomorrow morning is my first monitoring appointment!  The nurse told me they usually just do B/W on CD7 and then based on the results would likely bring me back in the next morning for a U/S, but since I have a 1.5 hr drive she said we'll just go ahead and do both B/W and U/S tomorrow to save me a trip. Yay! I can't wait to see if the stims are making a difference and if things are moving along as they should.  I have not had the best results from ultrasounds (read: my ovaries have never ONCE reacted the way they should to meds so every single U/S has been a disappointment) so this would be a whole new world for me if I find that my ovaries are actually acting like normal functioning organs!  FX!

My poor head!

I have had a headache since FRIDAY. It will not go away in spite of all the Tylenol, naps, soothing baths and cold compresses. I want to bash my head against the wall. Or better yet, reenact the scene from Liar,Liar where Jim Carrey repeatedly smashes the toilet seat down on his head; "I'm kickin' my asssss!".  (Wow, I'm big on referencing semi-popular '90s movies lately.)

It lessens a bit here and there which makes it just bearable, but then other times it's so bad I almost vomit, can't stop crying, and have no idea how I'm going to do this for the next week+ until it's time to trigger.   It's gotta be from a combo of the Lupron and Gonal-F (today is Day 4 of stims). It's like my body reached it's limit of Lupron and started sending caution signals up to my brain in the form of waves of headaches but instead of listening to it and stopping those meds, I just added on a new med that also gives me headaches! Awesome.  

I really hope that although I'm having these bad side effects right now, that my body will get used to being pumped full of these meds and will start adjusting itself accordingly. If this doesn't stop soon I will lose my freakin mind. Overall, I just really really really (really really REALLY) hope that all of this will be worth it in the end.

Thankfully, I am feeling slightly better today than I was yesterday at this time. FX that's a trend. Also, the weird feeling I was talking about the other day from the Gonal-F has gone away too. That one was like a pressure of some sort around my abdomen and back - I still can't describe it.  It was sort of pressure, cramping, pulling, tightness, aches, fullness...but also none of those things at the same time. Impossible for me to explain. I was concerned that it might be the beginning of OHSS (especially since I was already going into stims with 18 follies) but I'm no longer worried and am relieved it went away.  Now I just need to get rid of this motherf@#$%in headache!!!



Other random updates:

Hubs got his repeat SA results back last week and they were fine! Great counts, motility was good again and the morphology was just fine (that was the one we were waiting to hear about).  We weren't really concerned but it's still a relief to have the numbers.

Also, I did hear back from all but one of the friends I told about IVF. The ones I heard from were great and supportive and I'm happy I shared.  The one outlier is a girl who has a history of not exactly being supportive when friends are going through hard times (understatement!) so I shouldn't be surprised. (Example: While a mutual friend was going through chemotherapy, not only did this friend not check in on her/offer to drive her to appts/help in any little way even though she lived LITERALLY down the street from her, but she actually asked her to cat sit for her during that time!  That still blows my mind. So yeah, not so supportive.) I will not be bothering to include her on any additional update emails or anything and I would be shocked if she asked about any of it. Ah well.


In the meantime, I'm just going to deal with this and repeat the following as my mantra (only it's: Just keep stimming, just keep stimming...)

Stimming

I'm now officially stimming for this IVF cycle!  I had my baseline b/w & u/s yesterday at the ass-crack of dawn and all was good so I started 150 units of Gonal-F last night.  The shot was actually even easier than the Lupron - a little less pinch, no irritation at the spot of injection and NO BRUISE! Hoorah!  

My baseline work yesterday was kind of annoying though. I've never had to go in on a weekend before but I learned that (a) they apparently don't bother turning on the heat on the wknds, (b) the weekend Ultrasound Tech sucks, and (c) there is only 1 nurse on duty.

Let's start with (a). No heat probably wouldn't normally be an issue (I was wearing a cozy sweatshirt!) except that because (b) the wknd u/s tech sucks, it became an issue. I'm not entirely sure this woman knew what she was doing. The transvag u/s usually takes about 5 mins tops with the other 3 techs I've seen. This lady had that dildo cam up in there for a full 15 mins just poking around taking a billion pictures. She was slow as molasses and kept doing everything twice. I know this because she talked to me about every single detail as she went along, which I suppose might have been nice with my first-ever t/v u/s but I've been at this a while now and already know what I'm looking at. There's no tactful way to say that though so I had to just grin and bear it for 15 mins while my bare butt was hanging out in the freezing room. By the end of it I was so cold I actually started shivering. It was very unpleasant.

The other thing that was unpleasant was that (c) there is only 1 nurse on duty and she happened to be the nurse that always has a hard time finding my veins for b/w.  Granted, I am not an easy draw because my veins are deep but you're a nurse! Please don't pierce the skin, miss the vein and then keep the needle tip under the skin and dig around in there until you find it!  I may not have a bruise from the Gonal-F but I sure do from the b/w.  She was getting visibly nervous and started saying that she might need to send me over to the hospital to have them do the draw when she finally hit the right spot. Thank god. Ugh. That sucked.

However, my estradiol is good, my lining is good, and I found out that I already have 18 tiny follies making their appearance (11 on the right, 7 on the left).  After 1 month of BCPs and 240 units of Lupron, I'm not so sure that's a good thing though. I'm as suppressed as I'm going to get and I STILL have almost 20 follies in there.  The nurse said they'll have to monitor me closely to make sure we're using the right dosage of stims since they want to slowly grow the follies to get mature eggs, so we'll see how that goes.  Yay for PCOS! (/sarcasm)

Lastly, I feel a little weird this morning physically but I can't describe how it feels. I'm not sure if it's from the Gonal-F or because I didn't sleep all that well. I'm going to monitor that and see if the weirdness continues. I also have an omnipresent headache which started Friday morning and hasn't really let up. Extra strength Tylenol (aka: the only thing I can take) helps a little bit but not enough. Naps don't help either :-( The nurse said it's from the Lupron (since it's forcing my body to suppress its natural activity), so hopefully that will start lessening now that my Lupron dose is cut in half starting today!

That's all in my world!  

Today Hubs and I are going to look for new fixtures, etc. for our bathroom makeover :-)

Pre-Op done!

It was so easy! I was slightly dreading it because I knew the Dr. would have to insert a catheter through my cervix and I have some slight post-traumatic stress from the evil catheter/balloon combo from the HSG but this was nothing like that, thankfully.  It felt similar to a pap and was over so quickly that I don't even really know how he got all the info he needed in that amount of time!

The worst part of it was the fact that I had to have a full bladder. If you've been following my blog for a while, you may remember this old post (I know Jaytee does!) about the first time I had to have an ultrasound with a full bladder.  (Long story short, that was not a good experience for me because I have a really hard time eating or drinking anything in the morning so chugging a ton of water right when I wake up is far from my favorite thing. And oh yeah, I also almost peed myself that day.)  However, I made it through all the gagging this morning without too much of an issue and did not pee my pants!  Hoorah! I did however, learn that I think I have developed a problem with saying inappropriate things when I'm nervous/anxious.  Exhibit A: When I had my HSG done, my body was still adjusting to the Metformin and while the Dr's head was between my legs, I told him I was worried I was going to poop on him. Whoops.  Exhibit B: This morning when the Dr. asked me during the middle of the sounding test if I was doing okay, I said yes, but that I was worried I was going to pee on him.  Both times, the Drs looked at me kind of like this:

Hahaha!  I need to learn to just keep my mouth shut.

Also this morning, Hubs had his repeat SA. Last time they did not bother testing morphology because we weren't planning IVF at that time but now they need the info. We didn't hear back about results today but I'll call tomorrow. Hopefully everything is fine!!

A glimpse at my neurotic side

So I "came out" about IVF to my girlfriends this morning via email. They all knew Hubs and I had been TTC for a while and a couple of them knew we were seeing an RE but they didn't know we were going through IVF.  We all got together yesterday and I was planning to share the news at that point but there ended up being a few girls there with whom I am not very close and I didn't feel comfortable sharing it with them.  So instead, I sent an email to my close girlfriends early this morning with a quick overview and asked them to please just keep their fingers crossed for me and Hubs over the next few weeks.  I haven't heard back from anyone yet.

Ugh, now I'm regretting saying anything at all. I keep checking my email every 5 mins to see if there's a response yet. I'm sure that I'm just being impatient and that it's just that everyone's busy with work this morning and maybe haven't even read it but now I'm all worried that I've shared too much and made people uncomfortable and they don't know what to say...I don't know. I'm just feeling really exposed right now and wondering if this was a mistake. 

I hate how insecure and unsure this all makes me feel! 

I'm sure I'll hear back from them by this evening. Right??!!!?  Yuck.

Is it racist?

If this TTC journey of ours ends in adopting an adorable little Asian girl you better believe I will be making this Halloween costume:

Awesome.

In other news, Hubs and I got together with our neighbors and A yesterday. The wife didn't come. Maybe I am destined to never talk to her, haha!  After talking with A about the retrieval though, I am definitely rooting for them now. Thank goodness I'm only a partially horrible person ;-)

November!

This is the month that I hope and pray will be our month!!

I am pretty darn focused on everything IVF-related right now.  My morning shot of Lupron is on my mind the second my eyes open and at night I feel like I'm just waiting... for what I don't really know. It's like I'm waiting for the exact time to have to run upstairs and give myself another shot. (Which of course makes no sense because right now I just have the 1 shot each morning. I can't seem to convince my brain of that though.)

My excitement from Tuesday has worn off already.  I was so happy to officially get this cycle started (and I'm still glad we're moving forward of course,) but even just a handful of shots in I'm already getting sick of this. I hate needles, I hate the adrenaline that courses through my body when I'm prepping the shot, and I hate that I'm so FOCUSED on it all.  I'm hoping it will just become old hat soon and will just be a teensy blip on the radar of each day.

This whole thing is SUCH a rollercoaster of emotions. I am well aware that one day I am bursting with hope and happiness and the next I am a crying mess.  Take Wednesday for instance: not a good night for me. Correction: it was a GREAT night since the Red Sox won the World Series but even with the excitement of the game and the win, I still could not get my mind off of IF stuff and ended up a crying mess.  While watching the game the tears just kept leaking out even though I was happy the Sox were winning! I had to keep repositioning myself on the couch so I could use my computer to hide my tears from Hubs on the other side of the room.  Normally I'm not at all worried about that but on the night of the World Series, if he saw me sitting there crying for no apparent reason I'm sure he'd legitimately think I'd gone crazy and I wouldn't blame him - sometimes I feel like I am going crazy. I also didn't want to ruin the night for him if he had to worry about me and couldn't just be happy about the win.  So THANK YOU ladies for offering support here and on FB, I really needed it that night and am so grateful! <3

I'm hoping some of these ups and downs will calm down a little bit but realistically I should probably expect them to get worse over the next month.  I am just hoping SO HARD that if we do not get KU with this cycle, that we have at least one healthy embie that makes it to freeze so that I won't have to go through all the meds again the very next cycle.  I honestly do not know if I am strong enough for it and I am blown away by CC and Twinkie's strength and courage in that situation. I sincerely hope that if that is my path too, I will have even a fraction of the strength you two ladies do and I will look to you for inspiration!!

Sigh. I hate this waiting game. I have never been good at waiting for something I want - I'm a Taurus! Instant gratification is my middle name.  If anything though, IF has taught me patience. All good things come to those who wait, right?  (We'll see...)