Decisions and Opinions

After yesterdays less than stellar egg retrieval, and a meeting with Husband and Dr Yelian, he said to us “There is good news and bad news about this retrieval. The bad news is that we didn’t get an egg. The good news is that your lining is perfect for a transfer. Since no egg was retrieved yesterday, I will monitor again on Tuesday before transferring on Wednesday, assuming I go through with it.

I left the office with progesterone in oil, syringes for the injections, progesterone capsules and another prescription for Estrace. Its kind of a terrible decision to have to make. Its one that I’ve flipped flopped about at least 4 times in the last 24 hours. Normally I am extremely decisive, so this is new for me.

Pros:

• My impatience would be at least temporarily satisfied. I could be pregnant by the end of the year. Last night this is what I really wanted.
• According to the Dr this is looking very good for a transfer.

Cons:

• My Dr is an optimist. (this could also be interpreted as a pro)
• In the cold light of day and a return to logic, I have 3 retrieval left, this is my last frozen blastocyst and honestly I’d feel better with a backup.
• The last couple of cycles have been really disappointing. I am not sure there is enough distance between the stress and anxiety of the last 2 months and my previous failure.

I spoke with Dr Yelian today and he said that 1. everything look good, but that he wants to test my levels to see how things are the day before the transfer. If anything is even a little off the cycle would be cancelled. So why is this such a hard decision for me to make? Why am I struggling so much with this one?

He asked that I start with the meds last night so I did. But I’m not 100% committed to this transfer and I told him as much, I am still thinking about it.

You guys have heard almost every detail since March 1, when I started this blog, so I’d like your opinions. Assuming you were me, and were facing this decision, what would you do? Please do not pussyfoot around my feelings. I prefer honesty and I hope that you guys will be kind enough to give it to me.

What would you do? Throw caution to the wind and try, possibly fail again, or give it some more time, do more retrievals and still potentially fail?

Secret

How many of you are on Facebook? How many of you need more than the blogging community to vent, discuss, complain, cry, and have people who completely understand what you are going through to talk to, even if they are virtual strangers?

I have started an IVF Peer Support group on Facebook. It’s a “secret” group meaning no one but the people in the group ever see the posts, and it doesn’t show up in anyone’s feed unless they also belong to the group. I can guarantee your privacy.
Anyone who is dealing with infertility is welcome. From whatever stage you are in, you don’t have to be doing IVF, from first diagnosis, to starting Clomid or whatever, doing IUI‘s, IVF, anyone with autoimmune issues, anyone facing issues with fertility, including those of you that are now pregnant.

There is an embryologist in the group, and a nurse, so there are times that you can get your questions answered straight away. I will invite the RE from my clinic from time to time, to answer questions if there is anything that is really urgent and pressing.

The purpose is to get advice, share experiences and stories, give and get support, make friends, and have someone rooting for you, no matter what.

I’d like to open it to this community. If you’d like to join please contact me at jlko@att.net. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have. If you are uncomfortable with it, I understand, but I hope you will at least consider it. Lastly I do not work for nor am I compensated by my clinic, I started the group because as its well documented here, I just don’t have enough support at home.

The group is small now only about 8 people, but I’m hoping it will grow. I just wanted to offer, because crappy as my day has been, I’m determined to find a silver lining. And this might be it.

.I..

 

Guess what? I had my egg retrieval this morning for my perfectly textbook cycle. There was nothing there. As in, the follicle was still there but it was empty. Not even the cumulus cells were present. I knew I couldn’t trust that left ovary, in 11 cycles I’ve never gotten anything but teeny immature follicles, and 2 enormous cysts out of it. I think I’m going to go take a nap.
In case you were wondering, the title of this post is my emoticon for the proverbial finger. It’s not pointed at any of you. Its pointed at my left ovary.

 

 

The Best Laid Plans, Never get Laid

This is actually the title of a song by “The Bears”  from a CD called  Rise and Shine who are mostly member of King Crimson from the 80’s. Admit it, none of you have any idea who I’m talking about….

My plan has worked well this last few weeks. I’ve felt genuinely peaceful and content for at least 10 days in a row.

Until last night when the husband lost his shit over me getting him a new iPhone 5. Everyone Anyone else would be like… “YAY!” but he was all “OMG I hate technology, I hate this thing, nothing is where I left it and its all your fault”

Whut? Normal husbands would be like..”OMG you are the best wife ever, you ever transferred everything over and set it up for me how can I be a better spouse to you?” Also, I didn’t get one for me. I just got one for him because he hasn’t had an upgrade to his phone in 3 years.

Nope! None of that here. Instead he texted me, and then called me and yelled at me for an hour until I solved his problem and then he was all…”Whoa you are like the iPhone whisperer”

SERIOUSLY? seriously?

Please visualize those two words being said with 2 HUGE eyes, A pale blue face, racing heartbeat,  high blood pressure and a look of complete disbelief. Assuming you know what my face looks like.

I don’t respond to stress like a maniac! Also I may or may not have mentioned he’s not technology er… savvy. Which is the nice way of saying he’s a moron when it comes to every single thing that makes sense to me in this world. I *might* have just projected a lil anger onto him, but come ON! Most people would pee on themselves to get the newest best model Apple product.

Plus I stayed up until 2am to order it for him so he’d better step off! Lastly, he asked for it. He denied it last night, but he asked for the new one because of its larger screen. Aside from perfection, nice paintings, old expensive architectural books and perfect grades from both me and stepdaughter this man doesn’t ask for anything for himself. So when he does. I listen.

I also know his limitations and his tolerances so I (wrongly) thought that me transferring everything over, and handing a new phone completely synched and working with all his favorite apps in the right order would be enough.

Next time, I will just buy one for myself and call it a day.
I had meetings this morning, acupuncture this afternoon and the radio show Facebook thingy I host tonight.

Then I will meditate on my single follicle and tell it to behave itself and to do its job. Tonight, my weird retrieval cleaning and routine. I admit it, I’m slightly OCD about the retrieval thing.

Tomorrow, If I haven’t ovulated the little effer early, the first dominant follicle from my sad little left ovary ever.

The Bears Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLtWj4S3Vy8

Textbook

Here’s a first. I’m having a textbook cycle. I know right? I didn’t think Id ever have one again!

Ideally in a retrieval cycle, you want your lining to be about 14 on the day of your retrieval if you plan on doing a transfer after. I don’t know if I will be doing one, I’m leaving it to the Dr so probably not.

You want your E2 to be about 200 or higher for single a good quality egg, your LH not to be peaking, anything under about 20 is fine. P4 should be low, because a high P4 means you’ve ovulated. A high P4 is anything over about 1.8. As your E2 rises your FSH should decrease which is also happening to me.

Blood work again today, and ultrasound, Dr came in to check the size of the follicle which has gone from 15mm to 17 mm since yesterday. That’s another thing. Any follicle over about 20mm before retrieval, will likely be “post mature” or you know, unusable.

While doing the ultrasound, he said “that is really a beautiful follicle” patting me as he left the room. A beautiful follicle? Another first. I don’t know what that means, all I saw was a big round blob of dark grey, but it made me happy, and he said please wait for blood results before discussing retrieval.

Results: E2 194.4, LH 15.7, P4 .42.

Lupron trigger tonight, at 10:30pm, retrieval scheduled for Friday morning at 9:30.

Welcome back to the Circus!

Underachiever

CD10 Monitoring
I’ve had this really uncomfortable pain that’s been radiating from my back to front on the left side. Last Friday I thought it was related to my  car accident, neck and back injury. Now a few days later, and after some exploratory poking around my stomach/uterus/left ovary area I realized that its my withered little almond-shaped ovary stretching to fit what feels like an angry little gnome. It’s weird how one little shift can cause my mid-back to spasm and me to feel like the hunchback of Orange County. I am very familiar with this pain, but not on my left side. Normally its on my right. My last retrieval was in early July, so its been more than 2 months since I had one. And since my left ovary is such a underachiever, it didn’t occur to me that it was “Excuse me, I’m trying to grow an egg in here” pain.

Lets see what the blood results and ultrasound show. My appointment its at 11am this morning.

Results:

1 follicle still on the left side, now 15mm, E2 180, up from 72, 4 days ago, which is perfect for retrieval. Generally you want an E2 of 200 or more for 1 follicle. P4 .31, LH 16.8. Follow up visit tomorrow, trigger either tomorrow or Thursday which would mean a retrieval on Friday or Saturday. I’m hoping Friday.

I have plans on Thursday morning with a friend for breakfast, which makes me incredibly happy,  I’ve been asked to give a cooking lesson for my other friends twins 8th birthday party for 14 little 8 year olds, and I have midterms coming for my classes. 2 of these things I’m really looking forward to. It’s amazing how much having something to look forward to can shift your perspective. My “pretty pink positive thoughts” plan is really working well.

I’m getting excited for Halloween! We get a million kids here and everyone in the neighborhood decks out their houses. I am trying to decide if I want to dress my dogs up like crayons, or the Travelocity gnome. (you might begin to notice a pattern. I like gnomes.) Don’t ask me why I don’t know.

Lets put it to a vote: Crayons or Gnomes?

What I do know is,  there’s a life lesson in the phrase “Never Roam Alone”

 

Flowers for My Ladies

 

101

My last post was post number 100. I didn’t even notice.

I went to the RE today for CD7 monitoring, I have 1 follicle still on the left ovary that is 12.1. FSH is lower, *weird* E2 is about where it’s supposed to be.  It’s grown exactly 6mm in less than 5 days with a natural cycle. Which as of this morning is no longer natural. I’m on a new protocol this month, where instead of Clomid, I’ve been prescribed Tamoxifen. Which I am only familiar with as a cancer drug. Because my mother took it for 10 years, before being diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. That scared me a little, however it seems my RE has discovered that it acts (stimulates) similarly to Clomid but doesn’t thin your Endometrium or cause your LH to surge unnaturally. I monitor again on day 12 (Tuesday) to see whats happening. I imagine, since I’ve done this 10 or 11 times before, that I will trigger, and get a retrieval at some point next week if all goes well with the new meds. In 10, 11, oh who the hell knows, how many retrievals, I’ve never had a dominate follicle come from my left side. Ever. I’ve gotten a follicle or 2 from it before but they always wind up being the immature ones.

My left ovary is all wallflower-ish and under achieving. Like me in High School. Kinda. It’s the one that’s most easily visible and isn’t in a weird place like my right one, but it’s generally kind of lazy. Who else has 1 lazy ovary? How do you get it to be less lazy? Tell it, “You’re grounded until you produce a follicle?” Seriously, is there anything anyone can do to wake the lazy one up? Throw ice water on it? Poke it? What causes one to be lazy? Is there a difference in the egg quality?

Its been a busy week. Remember how I took Chinese III (Mandarin) a few months ago? We this semester I decided since I’m at home alone a lot at night, to take Honors Economics and Honors Political Science and Chinese IV, for fun. Note to self: Stop making decisions while hopped up on fertility meds or in the middle of a depression after a failed FET. Most people would avoid making decisions during times like that. Not me. Bring on some school, and some homework, and some new pencils, and SHUT THE FRONT DOOR this is expensive! Yes. I am an idiot.

My new “plan” is actually going pretty well so far. I’m avoiding the people and the “friends” and the situations that don’t add something positive to my life or my day-to-day. Instead, I’m trying to focus on friendships and classes and activities like Yoga, that make me feel better about myself. I’m also trying to avoid added stress and while the classes “might* have been counter intuitive, I have to admit it does feel good to have my brain engaged in something intellectual. Add a little more exercise and I should have a good recipe for how to better manage the outside stressors in my life.

Since I had to get a scrip filled from the Dr, I stopped at Costco this morning after my appointment. Where I got the scrip filled and decided to bring home some flowers for no other reason than because I felt like it. Usually there has to be an occasion. But not today. Today I just want to be surrounded by pretty, happy, peace and serenity, and there doesn’t have to be a reason. Right?

Whorehouses and Underpants

That’s a title that will get your attention.

Last Wednesday I had my Endometrial Biopsy. After my protocol was 10 days of Estrace and 10 days of Provera. Then shark week, and the circus begins again.

The Husband and I had a nice weekend, we spent Saturday trying to see a movie which didn’t work out so we went to go get his hair cut, and I tried out one of those weird Chinese $15.00 for one hour of foot massage places. If you live in or near a city with a large ethnic Chinese population, you see they are everywhere. Personally I’ve always been afraid to go in one because it might be some kind of whorehouse or something that involved a “happy ending” and I don’t want anything to do with anywhere like that. Because its weird and creepy and obviously my mind goes to the perviest of all places. I only went in because husband was with me and said it wasn’t a secret prostitution ring.

Oh Mah Gerd. I’ve paid 100.00 for massages that didn’t feel as good as this. It was not weird or hinky at all, and the person that did mine really worked some of the meridians used in Chinese medicine. I wondered briefly while I was getting it done, if this would undo anything my acupuncture Dr. has been doing. Mother of all that is holy, there were some areas that freaking HURT! But once it was done, I was so sleepy and felt so much more relaxed, it really was amazing!

You sit in these lounge chair thingies, it’s all very hygienic and you stay dressed because its like one huge room of people getting massaged. There was pleasant music, and a TV on, showing some weird Chinese TV show with Caucasian people speaking fluent Mandarin, talking about eating weird foods. If you know anything about authentic Chinese food, then you know they eat some weird shit. The TV show was sort of surreal but whatever, you’re missing the point. After, Husband took me out to dinner, and we went home. By then it was about 10pm Saturday night. We settle in to watch TV, and SURPRISE! Shark Week is early. I’ve been on 2 separate meds to keep exactly that from happening. It was between 6 and 10 days early, and I still had 6 days of meds left.

Are these 2 things related? I don’t know, my acupuncturist says no. I just know he’s been telling me that my chi (energy) is really stagnant in some areas and that was one of them. I will see him today, so lets see if that’s still the case.

Which makes yesterday CD2. Blood work, ultrasound, all that jazz. Oh and the results from my Endometrial Biopsy. I have one follicle on my under performing, wallflower of a left ovary that CD2 is 6.1, right ovary is “quiet” for once. Natural cycle for now (no meds yay!) see him again on Day7 which will be Saturday.

While I was waiting without pants for the ultrasound tech, I started wondering why it is that I always hide my panties when someone is going to look at my vagina. Do we all do this? Why? I mean, someone is about to look at a part of our bodies that most of us have only seen a few times anyway. Or is that also just me? My ultrasound tech has seen my junk more than I have in my whole life. My RE has seen it even more than the ultrasound tech, but doesn’t matter, if there is a paper sheet involved, my panties must be folded and hidden underneath my regular clothes. Predictably irrational, anyone?

I’m feeling pretty good about my new plan. In fact I’ve felt better in the last few days than I have in over a month. I keep reminding myself “one thing at a time” “Control what you can left everything else go” I know, I’ve had about as many plans as I have had cycles so yes I know my “plan credibility” is poor. But I’m trying. I really am going to try to stick with this one. My numbers yesterday were not fantastic but whatever, I’m not going to let it bother me which is why I’m not bothering to post them. I’ve had better numbers and gotten nowhere, and I’ve had worse and gotten a blast so I’m not going to let one days blood work dictate my response to the rest of the cycle. New for me, and shows some improvement in my attitude, to toot my own horn. vvg

Dr is going to “wait and see” this cycle to see what happens since I had to stop meds because of the early period. Normally this would stress me the hell out, but I’m ok with it. Lets see what my body does and go from there, it’s still early so, no reason to start thinking negatively.

The results of my Endometrial Biopsy were perfectly normal.
On a completely different note, there have been a lot of women in the Infertility Blogosphere talking about peeing on things lately. A large number of posts about it in fact. I know there are lots of you waiting for BFP’s and I just want to make the blanket statement to all of you that I’m here, each of you are in my thoughts, my fingers are crossed and I hope you get them. But for the love of the sweet baby Jesus, stop peeing on things early. All of you.

Insulation vs. Isolation

 

Today was my Endometrial Biopsy. It went well, I got nervous driving over and my heart was racing by the time I walked in the door. It hurt. About the same amount as an egg retrieval does but it was bearable and I didn’t cry or make any noise during it. I’m not sure I was breathing though, and when Dr. asked “You ok?” I squeaked “yes”. It went fine. Finish Estrace and Provera, wait for shark week, and we will see you on day 2 or 3 at which point we will decide what to do next. I will be ready.

I’ve made a new plan. Because planning for things I can’t control is super useful. Not it’s not actually groundhog day, I have said that before. But before you tune out, this plan is different. This one is stuff I actually CAN control. Imagine that? Me getting smarter over time. I’m shocked at myself really.

Isolation is what I do when I’m miserable. Go off like a wounded animal to lick my wounds in private. Or you know, die. It’s not good. It’s really not healthy as I have done such an exceptional job of demonstrating over the last few weeks.

i·so·la·tion [ahy-suh-ley-shuhn, is-uh-] noun

1. an act or instance of isolating.

2. the state of being isolated.

3.the complete separation from others of a person suffering from contagious or infectious disease; quarantine.

4. the separation of a nation from other nations by isolationism.

5. Psychoanalysis . a process whereby an idea or memory is divested of its emotional component.

I’ve decided to keep working on my support system, try to nourish and grow those friendships, focus on myself and actually be selfish. *Yes. Dr Paul, I know you’ve told me this for almost a year, but I am stubborn and have a thick skull, doy.* Also I’m 9 and still use words like “doy” in fact, I think we need to bring it back.

The growing the friendships and support system part is Part I. Part II is: I’m  going to start insulating myself from things that add additional stress to my life in general. My husband and I talked about it again and he said he’s willing to help try to support me better. I’m getting rid of a lot of eejits from Facebook, avoiding things and people who upset me, and trying again to think pretty pink positive thoughts.

You have to give me credit for persistence, effort and tenaciousness. I keep trying.

Insulating yourself from negative influences, or things that influence you negatively isn’t a bad thing. Right? I mean I’m not saying I’m going to avoid my life, but I am going to stop trying to take on, or responsibility for every single thing alone, and I am going to try to stop isolating myself when I’m feeling particularly dark. It’s new for me, I’m not good at asking for help, but if I have learned anything in the last month, it’s that I am sure I will make mistakes, and its a step in the right direction.

I will decide when this is too much for me. I am still here, a little bruised and shaky, hoping to dust myself off and keep fighting toward my ultimate goal. A family of my own.

I heard this song last year once, and last night again. Its beautiful. And peaceful.