Doubling Beta!!

My beta today was 58! Up from 22.9 on Monday. Can I be happy now?

Back on Friday for my next one.

Oh My God!

I'm literally in shock. My nurse just called me ten minutes ago and said,

"Congratulations!"

My beta was 22.9. They wanted it to be over 20. I go back Wednesday.

The bleeding has stopped.

I'm totally freaked out. I don't know what to do. Is this real? Will it work? I'm obsessively googling to try and find out what a Beta of 22.9 on 10 days post 3 day transfer means, but I can't find anything.

I want to throw up. I want to cry. Right now, I am pregnant.

9dp3dt

My optimism is fading fast. I'm still spotting - alternating between a barely anything spotting, and a heavier bleed. I'm convinced we'll get a BFN tomorrow.

I've been having a hard time sleeping lately too as my worries keep waking me up. I'm not thinking that we realistically have a very good chance of bringing home a baby after IVF. Assuming that I'm right and this is a BFN, we would have gone through 2 IVF cycles and only achieved 2 embryos - and not really great ones at that. So, I'll have a consultation with my doctor and figure out what our chances are. I'm also considering taking a break until January and trying to lose some weight and get in better shape. But, I also have to consider if we should continue down this path or do something else?

I think all the time about how to build our family. If IVF doesn't work, what do we do? Do we give up, or try to build a family in other ways? Can we afford adoption? Should we consider foster care? International adoption vs. domestic? How would my family react to an interracial adoption? What about donor eggs/ sperm? How can we afford any of this? Are we too old / too fat / too crazy to adopt?

I worry all the time. I can't sleep. I have crazy dreams. I worry about Christmas, and dealing with the birth of my new niece or nephew at that time, and again thinking that one day, M and I will be the old Aunt and Uncle that have no family and no where to go for .

I wish for and hope for and desperately WANT good news tomorrow, but I don't think that will happen. Beta in the morning. What a great way to start the week.

6dp3dt - and Thankful Thursday

Today I started spotting. A tiny bit so far. I'm completely freaked and absolutely certain that this didn't work, while trying to convince myself that this is implantation bleeding. Dr. Google says that it could be anything and there is nothing to do about it. Could it be my period? How soon would I get it, and would Progesterone prevent it? Anyone? I think I'll call the IVF nurse tomorrow to see.

In an effort to try to turn my mood around, here is another installment of Thankful Thursday:

1. My mom pulled weeds in my backyard today while she was taking my dog out for his afternoon constitutional. Gotta love that!

2. Soon, I go on vacation. Some blissful time away from all the madness of work and IVF sounds so fabulous!

3. My sister is fabulous and always good for a laugh. I need it on days like today.

4. Only 4 more sleeps until I have my beta and end this horrible waiting.

5dp3dt

As you can tell from the title, I'm 5 days post 3 day transfer. I'm doing the obsessive symptom evaluating - however I know that each symptom can be attributed to the progesterone. It is so bizarre to think of what can be going on in my body right now.

I'm trying to live in gratitude every day for having this chance and opportunity to become a mother. I've spent some time praying and talking to my embryos telling them how much they are wanted, providing encouragement, and letting them know that as long as they do their best, we'll be happy. We'll love them, the mere possibility of a baby, despite what happens.

I am alternating planning for pregnancy with making a contingency plan for a BFN. I find out my results on Monday, and I am not looking forward to getting that news at work. However, I don't want to POAS. I don't think I can take the disappointment. I have a lunch planned with my good friend on Monday to hopefully celebrate but also perhaps have consolation.

A little pregnant

I am home safe after the transfer of 2 little embryos. One 5 cell and 1 4 cell. A little behind the curve, but hanging on nonetheless. One of those is a day 2 embryo, so it hasn't had as much time to catch up.

There is still one little 2 cell embryo hanging out in the lab. So, we'll see what happens with that.

I'm happy and content right now. We've done all we could and it's out of our hands now.

Fertility Report

I actually have a fertility report! It's not great, but it's a hell of a lot better than last time.

Now, to the nitty-gritty.

I had 3 mature eggs out of 8. Of those 3, 1 fertilized normally, 1 didn't fertilize, and 1 fertilized abnormally. (Not sure what that means). They had 2 eggs mature today, and they've ICSI'd those. So, I have 1 embryo(!), 1 maybe embryo that they're watching, and maybe 2 more coming on line.

I'm tentatively scheduled for a transfer on Friday.

Considering that I was expecting the worst, I'm pretty happy with these results. I have 1 embryo.

Post Retrieval

I apologize up front if this doesn't make sense. My head is still foggy, but I wanted to give my post ER report.

I slept terribly last night. I was up half the night with my cold, and just felt miserable. When I checked in to the procedure room, it was pretty obvious to the nurses that I didn't feel good. I just have to say, they took such good care of me.

First step, was to get and IV and vitals. My blood pressure was 168/98, my heart rate was up, and my oxygen saturation was low. They got the IV started to give me fluids, turned on a mellow CD, and shut the lights off so I could rest. Nice.

The fellow stopped in to introduce herself and give me the report on my stimulation cycle. I was disappointed to find out that I only had 8 mature follicles, and could only expect 66% of the follicles to produce eggs.

They got me all settled in the procedure room for the retrieval and made me all cozy with a nice warm blanket. Then, they started the drugs - versed and fentanyl. Unfortunately, they weren't that effective. Thank goodness for my personal hand-holder. Anyway, there were 6 people in the room, the nurse who kept calling me "lovie" who was in charge of my sedation, the other nurse who was helping out Nurse Lovie and was responsible for holding my hand, the attending, the fellow, a resident, and 1 or 2 other nurses. A party. The fellow started the retrieval, and I felt the pain. At several points I was moaning, and squeezing the hand, and writhing around. They tried to give me more meds, but my blood pressure was dropping so that was it. I felt like I was wide awake. I don't recommend this at all. It wasn't horribly painful, but definitely uncomfortable. I'd say a 7 on a 10 pt pain scale.

The attending recommended that I watch on the screen, which was a good idea. A nice distraction from what was going on. I think the fellow did the retrieval on the right side, and the attending worked the left because my left ovary hides behind my uterus and is harder to get to. They kept taking breaks to let me rest. At one point, the attending said they had one more to go and asked if he should go for it, or if they should stop. I said go for it.

They ended up with 8 eggs, for which I was happy. I"m holding my breath for the fertility report tomorrow. (I did give my eggs a pep talk last night).

So, I just woke up from my nap, and am planning on diving into a lovely novel in a few minutes. I was given the "all-clear" to take some cold medicine, so I'm feeling a bit better.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this post. Wish me luck!

Really?

Just chiming in the night before my retrieval to say that I have a cold. I'm afraid to take anything until after the procedure. I'm not happy about that at all. My husband has one too, but we've both agreed that I'm the one deserving of the sympathy here.

Thanks for all the support for LFCA!

Retrieval #2 coming up

I spent my weekend waking up before 6am to drive to the fertility clinic for an ultrasound and blood test. On both Saturday and Sunday. Not my ideal way to spend a weekend. But, finally, I'm nearing the end of this journey. I'm scheduled for my retrieval on Tuesday. I am planning on taking Wednesday off from work as well. I don't want a repeat of the crying in my office thing that I had last time, and I think I'd be too nervous otherwise. So, this is looking like it will be a short work week for me. At least that's a good thing.

I was looking over my blog posts from IVF #1. It's amazing how positive and optimistic I was. It's actually laughable. I was worried about having enough embryos to freeze for a frozen cycle. Can you imagine? Now, I'm just focusing on the goal of having this cycle produce 1 embryo. Getting to transfer will be a bonus.

I'm ok with my cynicism. That's more my nature anyway. I'm not usually little miss sunshine. Here's hoping I'm pleasantly surprised this week!

Day 8 - Let the whining begin

Today will be my 8th day of stims. I am really feeling beaten up at this point. I don't remember feeling so terrible, but then again, maybe I was excited to be progressing. I am exhausted, I feel sore all over, and I'm bloated and uncomfortable. Someone please tell me that I'm not alone in having these symptoms. I'm starting to freak out a bit. My sister recently had 5th Disease. She had really bad joint pain as her main symptom. I hear it's contagious and that if you get it while pregnant, it could be fatal for the fetus. I wasn't around her when she had it, but I don't know how long she was contagious. Dr. Google says that joint pain and muscle aches (which I have) could be a side effect of Follistim.

At my last u/s I had 5 follicles between 10 and 13, and my E2 was 904. I'm trying not to compare to last cycle, but it's hard. Then again, last cycle I had a big fat cyst and that could have messed up my numbers. I'm hoping for a retrieval between August 1st (unlikely) and August 6th.

If this cycle doesn't end successfully, I think I'll need a break. IVF feels just so hard on my body and my mind.

A question of support

I have been a pretty crappy ICLWer this cycle. My laptop was attached by some virus and was completely fried. My husband finally fixed it today. So, I've been trying to keep up on my comments, but I didn't keep track of how many I was posting, so I'm not sure how much catch-up I need to do.

The reason I signed up for ICLW is that I so appreciate the support that I get from the IF community. It helps to make this bearable.

IRL, I've been pretty open about our If struggles and journey. The reason we've decided to be open is that I don't want to "lie" by omission to my family and friends, and I thought I'd need the support. What I've discovered is that I don't always get what I need. My mom is very supportive, but it feels like the rest of my family and friends are afraid to ask me about it, so they ignore it. All I want is for them to occasionally ask how I'm doing.

Additionally, my SIL is currently pregnant after IVF with ICSI. You'd think that she'd ask, but she doesn't. She's in her own little happy pregnant world and isn't thinking about me at all.

I guess I'm a little bitter. And, to be honest, maybe a bit emotional. I'm heading into the last week of stims and I'm dreading it a bit. I just know that I'm going to get increasingly more uncomfortable.

Ok, off to ICLW comment!

Oh so stimulating

I'm shocked and amazed to find out that after a "normal" interval of Lupron, I'm ready to start stims. Amazing to me after last cycle when I wouldn't reach baseline. Tonight I shot up with 225 of Follistim, and we're looking at retrieval sometime between August 1st and August 6th.

I'm currently enjoying my evening watching an encore of my Chicago White Sox and Mark Buehrle pitch a perfect game. Amazing! It's exciting to watch even though I know the outcome.

A good night...

Getting to know you. Getting to know all about you.

Welcome ICLW ers! This will be an interesting ICLW for me as my computer is broken. Completely fried by a virus I received while reading entertainment news on MSN. Bummer. It is currently in triage while we try to restore it's functionality. So, I'll be ICLWing on my work computer during my break. I'll do my best to keep up with the commenting!

For those of you new to my blog (WELCOME!), I thought I'd start the week by sharing some getting to know you facts about me. Some relevant facts, and some just for fun. So, here goes!

1. My husband and I are dealing with male-factor infertility. Therefore, we jumped right to the top of the heap with IVF with ICSI.

2. Our first attempt at IVF was a big fat failure with 0 (zero, nada, nilch) eggs fertilized.

3. We are about to embark on IVF # 2, assuming that the cysts I've been battling go away and STAY AWAY!!!

4. I am currently shooting up with my friend Lupron. Last night, I gave myself a shot in my thigh, and must have hit the wrong spot as blood started streaming down my leg and I have a huge bruise.

5. Lupron make me SO tired. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

6. I love my husband to death. We've been married for 10 1/2 years and have been through our set of ups and downs but he's still my best friend and biggest supporter.

7. Like a good infertile, I have surrounded myself with animals instead of children. I have a English Mastiff dog, and 3 cats. It's a zoo - filled with animal fur.

8. I love to do crafty stuff, but some of my joy for that has waned during this infertility craze. It's hard to make scrapbooks, and knit and sew when I always planned on doing those things to share a bit of myself with my future children.

9. I need a vacation so bad right now. But, I'm having a hard time justifying the cost. The vacation may just win.

10. My husband and I decided that we need something to focus on, so we're going to try to learn Spanish. Got my audio tapes all ready!


That's the highlights for now. I'd love to learn about you too. So, post a comment with the most interesting fact about you and where you're dying to go on vacation. Looking forward to getting to know everyone during ICLW!

And, we're off!

I received the "all clear" from my doctor on Tuesday. All the cysts are gone. I started my 10 units of Lupron on Tuesday, and I have my next u/s on July 22nd. If everything goes ok, retrieval will be between the 31st and the 5th. Of course, we know how well this all went last time. I am starting to get excited and feel optimistic again.

What is the Secret?

I just returned to work today after a lovely 6 days off. I had a good vacation, but today at work, I felt so tired. I feel like those singers and actresses who have "exhaustion." My vacation just wasn't enough, and I think I'm still mentally drained from the infertility and all the stuff I've been dealing with at work and in my personal life.

I've been saving vacations days for when I go on maternity leave, but lately I'm abandoning my glass half full ways. When I really stop and think about it, I just don't think that we'll be successful in having a baby. I just don't believe it will be true, but I'm going through the motions now and hoping for the best. And, at the same time, I am thinking through my consolation prize - recuperating in Paris or on a tropical beach.

Sometimes I do wonder if I'm "jinxing" myself with my pessimistic attitude. Maybe if I believe it; maybe if I make that baby blanket; maybe if I paint the nursery; maybe if I save those vacation days; maybe if I abandon my back-up plan; maybe if I believe that it will happen, it will.

Maybe I will be a mom one day.

Cyst City

I've been on BCPs for 21 days now, and had an appointment with my RE doctor yesterday to check my ovaries prior to moving on to Lupron. Unfortunately, the doctor found several cysts - not huge ones, but nonetheless there - in both my right and left ovary. Interestingly, my left ovary is behind my uterus - that doesn't seem right.

Anyway, the doctor said that I should stay on BCPs for 2 more weeks and come back for another check. We also reviewed my last cycle in a bit more detail and talked about aspirating cysts. He said that there is no definitive research that shows that aspirating the cysts makes a difference, but that he might treat me more aggressively this time.

So, more waiting, and likely no retrieval in July I'm thinking. Next appointment is July 14th.