12/28/2016 0 Comments Emotional SurvivalLast week I finally started my period (ironically enough, the day after my last blog post.) I’m so thankful it didn’t take as long as I predicted. So today we had our first appointment to start our IVF. I had a SIS (I really can’t keep up with what all of the acronyms are at this point). Basically they flushed water into my uterus with a catheter to see if I had any polyps or weird stuff going on in my uterus. Everything was clear. That was good news. They also did a mock embryo transfer. For this, I had to have another speculum/catheter stuck into my uterus. Nothing says good morning like two rounds of speculum first thing in the morning. Also, nothing wakes you up quite like being pinched on the insides by the speculum. Pretty sure how I discovered how to make a human levitate today… For the mock embryo transfer they require that your bladder be full. This allows the bladder to push your uterus down so that the catheter can go in straight – otherwise it would have to go in at a 90 degree angle. They do a mock transfer to map out any weird curves or anything that may make it difficult for the real deal. Apparently, someone was supposed to tell me to drink 40 ounces of water. They did not. So, I drank an 8 ounce up of decaf, a pint and a half of water, and an entire water bottle on the way to the appointment. By the time I got there I still didn’t feel like my bladder was full so I had two cups of water waiting to be called back. Turns out my bladder was 2/3rds too full! Oops. I didn’t realize how long it takes your brain to catch up to your bladder. Better too full than not full enough I guess. After these tests, we both had to have blood taken to check for infectious diseases. It’s actually a law that this has to be completed. Of course, my veins were useless as normal. My only good vein kept rolling so she kept having to dig around for it. Then when she finally got it, my vein was barely leaking blood. Then I heard her say, “Well your vein is going to blow, but it should be healed by your next blood draw.” Well…that’s comforting I guess.
I started ovulation predictor kits (OPKs) yesterday. When I get a positive, I’ll call and they will order my medications. When I start my period next month, I’ll go in for baseline scans and blood work on cycle day one and then I’ll start stims on cycle day 2. We qualified for compassionate care so that is going to save us a TON of money. Our medications will cost about $1,800. However, they’ll likely have to order more as they monitor me. That medication (Gonal-F) is $477 a day before our discount. Our discount will save us about $115 a day. I still have a trigger shot ($115) that we haven’t used yet. I was seriously expecting the medication to cost about $5,000 a month so $1,800 actually didn’t sound so bad. The protocol they are using is called the Lupron Flare protocol. I’ll be on the highest dose of Lupron, which I hear is pretty much the worst. This is one of the most aggressive IVF protocols. They aren’t expecting me to get many eggs. It also is possible we will get no eggs. Since we are buying a package of two fresh and unlimited frozen cycles, if we don’t make it to egg retrieval it doesn’t count as one of our fresh cycles. But, we can only afford to buy so many months of medications. If all goes well, we will have our egg retrieval at the end of January – a week after my birthday. I’m nervous about this because my birthday has pretty much been a curse for my entire life. I literally can’t remember the last birthday I genuinely looked forward to. I woke up on my 15th birthday with Bell’s palsy so it’s pretty much been downhill since then. I can’t help but be a little superstitious. We are freezing all the embryos (assuming we have some) because our clinic has higher rates of success with frozen transfers. So, the transfer won’t actually happen until February sometime. I feel like I should be more excited and optimistic. But I just can’t seem to get my hopes up. For every success story with IVF I know of 10 failures. Although I have my age on my side…that seems to be about it. I can’t even begin to imagine my disappointment if this doesn’t work. Obviously some part of me has to be hopeful. Otherwise I wouldn’t be about to spend $25,000 for this. I know if it works it will be well worth it. But, if it doesn’t work…I can’t imagine how not worth it all this will be. I’ve never been more afraid in my life. But we are out of options. Spending time with our families this Christmas I couldn’t help but analyze everyone’s features. I never noticed how many of Matt’s family members have blue eyes. I couldn’t help but imagine what our baby could look like. It hurts so much to think I may never get to know. Would our child have a quick wit? Would our child have a cleft chin? Would our baby have my nose or Matt’s nose? I might never know. It is the most frustrating, unfair feeling to know your body doesn’t do what it is literally designed to do. I’m trying so hard not to be bitter, judgmental, and hateful. But it is SO hard. Sometimes it just sneaks up on you when don’t even notice. Infertility is so consuming. Sometimes I literally wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. I dream about it when I am able to sleep. Sometimes I don’t even know how to not think about it –even when I’m actively trying. But, I saw a quote from Carrie Fisher that inspired me to try to be a better person. While I know she was talking about her mental illness, I think it applies to anyone with a challenging disease. “We have been given a challenging illness, and there is no other option than to meet those challenges. Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic – not ‘I survived living in Mosul during an attack’ heroic, but an emotional survival. An opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder.” I love the term “emotional survival.” It definitely could not be more fitting for what infertility is. May the force (and sticky baby dust) be with us all.
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12/20/2016 0 Comments If we make it through DecemberMy blog posts have been few and far between lately. I figure it’s time for an update. I still haven’t got my period so it looks like our IVF is going to be pushed back to February. The constant half steps forward and 15 steps back is getting old. I started Provera last Thursday. I’ll finish this round of Provera on Christmas Eve. You can start your cycle at any point but it’s expected within 14 days of your last pill which means I’ll likely get my next period January 8th. I hope anyway. Sometimes your body doesn’t even respond to this…so really who knows when or if I’ll get my next cycle. So, when I start my next cycle we will get to start MORE testing. So infuriating. I stopped taking my birth control two years ago in January and I don’t feel any closer to having the family I always dreamed of. If anything it feels farther away than ever.
I wish I could be one of those people that could see the positive in terrible circumstances, but that is just not me. I’ve heard people say “infertility made my marriage so much stronger” or “my friendships are so much better than they used to be.” Well good for you. My marriage and my friendships were just fine before infertility. While I have learned which of my friends are willing to let me lean on them the hardest, I think I would’ve been just fine not having to figure out which of my friends are most trustworthy of my feelings. Another cliché I’m pretty tired of, “infertility made me not take things for granted.” If anything, infertility is making me take everything for granted. I know I have good things in my life. I know my life could be worse. But I am so blinded by infertility. I can’t see or feel anything but negativity. I’m so bitter and worn down. I judge people that I wouldn’t normally have such hateful thoughts about. I begrudge people with several children out of pure jealousy. I hate Christmas cards with baby announcements. Any disappointment of any size is just unbearable. Everything feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. Today I found out my eye doctor doesn’t take my new insurance and I just couldn’t handle it. I cried so hard. Everything feels so out of my control. I really hope this is my lowest low point. I can’t imagine it getting any worse. I hope it can’t anyway. Christmas seems so beyond pointless. I’ve tried so hard. I put up our decorations. We finally got a tree up and decorated. I even managed to choke back all my tears as I put the decorations on the tree wondering, “What is the point of this? Why are we pretending?” I keep seeing things on Facebook and hearing people say, “Christmas is so much more fun when you have your own kids.” Well good for you. Please keep that to yourself. As I was hanging one of my favorite Christmas ornaments all I could think was, “I should be telling my child how I got this ornament and how they’re going to take it for their tree one day.” That’s when I decided not to even bother decorating the back of our tree. The back of our tree is barren, empty -- just like me. The last three Christmases I kept thinking we would finally be able to celebrate Christmas our own way. But it seems we are destined to never have our own family traditions. “I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then.” – Alice in Wonderland 12/4/2016 0 Comments Final ActIt’s been about two weeks since my last update. Not much has happened to report on. Thanksgiving was hard. I’m glad we didn’t go anywhere. A few holidays ago I remember being so excited for the next year’s event. I kept thinking, “This is our last *insert holiday here* without a baby. Next year will be so different.” Last year, I had the same thoughts. Except last year, I was certain it was our last holiday season as non-parents. This year, I keep thinking that this is it. This is how all of our holidays could potentially be. I used to fantasize about what kinds of family traditions we would create with our own family. Now I wonder if we can just figure out a way to never acknowledge holidays again. All I can do is hope that next year really will be different.
So our next steps is, unfortunately, IVF. Each step of the way I’ve kept some hope that it would not come down to this. But, here we are. It is our only option. The doctor seemed quite optimistic that IVF will work for us if we act fast. Reading through the 60+ page informed consent was overwhelming to say the least. There is a link between ovarian cancer and IVF drugs. Although apparently this is just a correlation and there’s just as strong a correlation between women who experience infertility and have ovarian cancer who don’t do IVF. So basically, I have a high risk of ovarian cancer with or without the IVF drugs. If we are able to successfully conceive and have a live birth, our child is at a higher risk of a disability and/or childhood cancer. Not to mention all the horrible side effects of infertility drugs including Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS). This causes your ovaries to enlarge and can be life threatening and is relatively common among women who use IVF drugs. Our clinic does not do IVF in December because of the holidays. I have to wait to start my next period and then call to make an appointment. They will go over more in detail the process and what to expect. But, this is what I know so far. Because it has been 6 months since my last HSG, I have to do something called SIS. This is essentially where they use a saline injection into my uterus to check for any polyps or other abnormalities. They’ll also do a “practice embryo transfer” during this procedure. They’ll stick a catheter into my uterus to map out any weird curves or other unexpected things. We will both have to go in and be tested for infectious diseases (this is actually a law…kind of crazy.) Luckily, since our last IUI was less than 6 months ago, Matt will be spared from having to do another seaman analysis. Once I start my period in January I will begin injections. I won’t know my actual protocol until I have my next appointment, but essentially I’ll be doing injections one to three times a day for two weeks. I’ll have to go in for monitoring several times during these two weeks. When the follicles appear mature they will do an egg retrieval. For this procedure you have to be put under general anesthesia. They go into your ovaries and pull out the eggs from your ovaries with a needle. Then they will put the eggs and sperm into a dish to let the eggs become fertilized. Then we will have to wait 5 days to see how many are good enough to transfer and/or freeze. We are likely going to do a frozen embryo transfer as this somehow increases the likelihood of success by 10%. So that means we will have to wait another cycle to transfer an embryo. Once they transfer the embryo, you still have to wait about 2 weeks to find out if it implanted. And if it implants, you pray and pray and pray you don’t have a miscarriage or stillbirth. So as you can see, this is an extremely long process. So much waiting. So while we wait the doctor has prescribed me with 60mg of a vitamin called CoQ10 three times a day and another supplement called DHEA 25 mg 3 times a day. The nurse warned me that DHEA would cause my skin to be oily which would cause acne and it will likely cause facial hair growth. Lovely. Because already being fat and having hair loss from the other fertility meds doesn’t suck enough. Let’s add facial hair growth. What she did not warn me about was that a couple of hours after taking the DHEA I would have a gastronomical event. Every. Single. Time. Luckily, I was able to discover this on a weekend. Matt and I are also not allowed to have caffeine, alcohol, or moderate (or greater) exercise starting a few days ago. I’m also trying to cut back on carbohydrates and sugar, but one step at a time for my own sanity. So, this is our last act. We are buying a package of two fresh cycles and unlimited frozen cycles. So, if this doesn’t work on the first try, or the second try, we could be traveling down this path for several more months depending on how many embryos we get. If this is ultimately does not work we will be out of options and money. We will have to move away from these last 2+ hellish years and try to figure out what’s next in our lives without children. I know I need to prepare myself for this to not work, but I can’t make the space in my mind that this won’t work. This has to work. It can’t not work. Update on Bonfire campaign: Our T-shirt campaign is going very well! We could not possibly express in words what it means to have so many people share our link, buy a shirt, and/or donate money! We are forever grateful and humbled by your support. It means a lot to know we have such fantastic and caring friends. I thought a $500 goal was lofty, but we reached that goal very quickly without even selling the 35 shirts! Our campaign is still active until December 12th and we have adult and youth size shirts if anyone would like to buy a shirt or make a donation: https://www.bonfire.com/helpfillournest/ We will be using this money to help pay for the anesthesia cost as that cost is not included in the package that we purchased. That $550 charge must be paid for with a check so this money will be perfect for that! The remainder of the money will go towards acupuncture treatments. Acupuncture is $80 per session and I’ll need to go one to two times per week during the treatment. I can’t think of a more fitting quote to end this blog post: “I get by with a little help from my friends.” – The Beatles |
Heather Joyce
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