11/22/2016 0 Comments Don't Let the Muggles Get You DownThis month we had our Letrozole dosage doubled to 5mg and tried Gonal-f. Let me tell you, there is no better trust building activity than having someone give you an injection when you know they have 0 experience giving shots (aside from practicing on a box lid). I’m not really afraid of shots or needles (not that I find the experience enjoyable), but letting someone give you a shot with no experience is terrifying. I’m sure Matt’s experience giving the shot was no less terrifying.
I went through the week with the WORST headaches I could ever imagine. I experienced memory loss which was completely terrifying. I couldn’t remember how to spell simple words that I spell frequently. I couldn’t remember conversations I had had with people at work. I had more hair loss and general fatigue. My stomach cramped and bloated. I swear I could feel my follicles growing away. My ovaries were so heavy it hurt to sit upright. I was worried I would have so many follicles they would cancel our IUI for fear of too many multiple births. I knew this was our month. I could feel it. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate my body more, it decides to up the bar. We went in for our mid-cycle monitoring yesterday. There was nothing. There was so much nothing, the doctor had no words. My uterine lining was too thin and there were no follicles. Even without the medicines there should have been something. But this month was a “misfire.” So IUI number 3 was also cancelled. There are no words to describe the frustration and despair. I have never felt so angry and bitter in all my life. Last Saturday, they retested my AMH (AMH is a soft predictor of how many eggs you have left). Originally my AMH was 1.3 (they expected it to be over 2). This left me with the diagnosis of “marginal ovarian reserve.” Anything below 1 is low and anything below .5 is considered very low. My new results came back with a staggering .22. This is such a significant drop the doctor doesn’t even believe the results. He is calling it a “lab error” and having me redo the blood test. Something tells me it is not a lab error. If this reading is accurate I’ll be extremely lucky to make it to 40 before I start going through menopause. So it seems our next step has to be IVF. The scary thing no one tells you about IVF is that, it doesn’t usually work the first time. You can spend well over $10,000 for a “trial run.” Our clinic has a package you can buy that gives you 2 fresh embryo transfers and unlimited frozen embryo transfers. To have two fresh transfers and one frozen transfer it will cost us between $25,000-$30,000. We also have to consider the fact that three tries may not even be enough. If it worked the first time, we would spend considerably less than this. But what a gamble to make. I keep trying to make space in my head for what my life would look like without a child. The only vision I can conjure is of the grumpy old man from Up. I’m pretty sure that will be me. How do you let go of the idea you’ve had about your future for your entire life? How long do you grieve the death of someone who never lived? Before we bought our house we rented a very tiny house. When we first started trying to have a baby I kept telling Matt we needed a bigger house. One day he came home from work and said, “Where will we put our baby?” The look on his face was excitement and terror all in one. I’ll never forget that look. It was the first time he really talked about our baby as if it was really happening. Now, it may never happen. Matt would be such an amazing father and he may never have the opportunity. For now, I can only cling to the delusion that maybe once Matt graduates he will get a job somewhere in Europe. We could live in the tiniest little cottage we can find. I could learn a new language and sell wine or cheese. We could sleep in every weekend as long as the cats will allow. We could travel the world and try all the local delicacies. But it still feels like an empty picture. So, that is why we are now reaching out to our friends for help. They say it takes a village to raise a baby. Apparently, it takes a village to create a baby too. We are so lucky to have had so much support this far. We have a fantastic village full of people praying and sending positive energy to our not-yet-conceived baby. We could never express how appreciative we would be for any donation amount. Every little bit helps. We are using bonfire.com to help fund-raise. It’s as trustworthy as gofundme, but I feel very weird just asking for donations. If you would like to buy a shirt we would earn $15 for each shirt. If you do not want to buy a shirt, you can leave a monetary donation of any amount. It also allows you to add an additional donation to your shirt order. If you can’t donate, please feel free to share to get the word out. You guys know I like a good quote. Our shirt features one of my favorite quotes, "Don't let the muggles get you down." This quote is something I say to myself often and represents my fertility journey. Follow this link to check out our shirt: https://www.bonfire.com/helpfillournest/
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11/14/2016 0 Comments 20th Time is the Charm?I’m literally not sure what to write tonight. I’ve been putting it off all weekend. I’ve had so many people asking me for updates. I’m truly humbled by how many people are interested in my uterus – especially those who aren’t making a profit. This week I hit over 10,000 view on my blog. Never did I imagine that would happen. Thank you guys who reached out to ask me how things are going. I don’t think I could keep this blog up if there weren’t so many of you checking in! We had our appointment on Saturday. Somehow although we were one of the first appointments the doctor we were supposed to see was backed up so we got the crappy doctor. He is seriously a hateful man that needs to retire. He was so negative. I even truly question if he put us on the regimen that the other doctor would’ve done. He even smiled as he said, “we need to realize the end game is IVF.” Those are the most crushing words one could ever hear. He didn’t even seem to want us to try an IUI this month. He told us that since we had an ectopic pregnancy we now have a 15% chance of having another one even though my other tube is supposedly fine. The other doctor never mentioned that. In fact, he was extremely optimistic about our chances of having a normal pregnancy because of the ectopic. I hate all the second opinions. I truly only want a second opinion if the first opinion doesn’t match my expectations. I say that somewhat tongue in check. But really, at this point, ignorance is bliss. I wish they would just confidently tell me what I want to hear so that one of us is optimistic.
To kill time waiting for the day to pass for our appointment, I did some research on the different types of injectable medications. I discovered there is one type of injectable called a HMG (Human Menopausal Gonadotropin). It is actually made out of the urine of post-menopausal Italian nuns. At $2,500 a pop who wouldn’t want to try that?! This discovery made me realize I have absolutely no idea what medication is made out of and I never bother to read about how it works. So after reading and re-reading a few articles I discovered it somehow tricks your pituitary gland into making more hormones and somehow that makes it more likely for you to get pregnant. It’s truly fascinating that someone figured all this stuff out. So, at our appointment we were given prescriptions for Letrozole again. This time I’m taking 5mg instead of 2.5mg. We are also doing cycle days 3-7 instead of 5-9. On cycle day 9 I’ll take a shot of Gonal F which is unfortunately not made from the urine of lovely Italian ladies. This involves mixing the medication. So, Matt got to practice mixing the medication and injecting it into the lid of a cardboard box. Something tells me the box was a better subject than I’ll be. So, side effects: headache, nausea, vomiting, stomach/abdominal pain, runny/stuff nose, sore throat, bloating, acne, and the worst side effect: poverty. This shot is $318 per shot! I almost fell over. Although that is substantially cheaper than the holy urine. On cycle day 11 we go in for monitoring to see how many follicles we have and where they are. If things look good we will do our HCG trigger shot and come back in a couple days for the IUI. Then, we wait. (Just want to do a shout out to Costco pharmacy. The Letrozole would have been $150 at this dosage at Wal-Mart, but it was $7.00 at Costco!) Today I got a call from the pharmacy (our clinic uses Mandell’s out of New Jersey) to secure shipping and payment. They automatically apply a coupon and the cost was “only” $159 instead of $318! That was some pretty great news. The two times we’ve had injections shipped from them has been an overly positive experience. They are really very, very nice people. Tonight on the way home I heard “I Got My Mind Set On You.” I haven’t heard this song in such a long time. George Harrison is always good for a picker upper. I never realized just how applicable that song is to infertility. This song will definitely be my new anthem when I’m feeling down. So until then, we will be sitting, waiting, wishing (is this how Jack Johnson came up with that song?) to see what comes next. I’ve never needed something to work as badly as I do now. For the closing quote tonight, you should really read it in a Linus voice and end the quote with “Charlie Brown.” “And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” —Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore |
Heather Joyce
Trying to conceive. Archives
April 2018
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