3/30/2017 0 Comments A New ChapterWhere to start? I don’t really know. It’s hard to grieve the loss of someone you never knew. Someone you love more than anything, but you will never meet. It occurred to me that we’ve lost 3 babies in less than six months. What’s an appropriate time to grieve this kind of loss? What behaviors are appropriate? I have no idea. I don’t care what anyone says. Having an ectopic pregnancy and losing two embabies is the same pain as losing any naturally conceived pregnancy. Maybe it's even worse considering all the time, money, and physical and emotional energy spent creating those lives. Even though I wasn’t sure and didn’t really believe we were going to actually get pregnant, it doesn’t mean I didn’t want it. I wanted it more than anything. It doesn’t mean baby names hadn’t started floating around my mind again. Dreams of Matt kissing my growing belly … Feeling a life growing inside me...Dreams of redoing our spare room into a nursery. Dreams of being a family of 3 people and 3 cats. They were all there.
So to my unborn babies wherever you are… If you are… I am so sorry my body failed you. I will never say you weren’t meant to be in this world, because you were. You were meant to live and breathe and grow. I know in my heart you were meant to learn and read and experience the world. You were meant to be loved by your father and me. Your precious, perfect little ears were meant to discover the wonder of music and good lyric. You were meant to experience love and heartbreak and the comfort of a faithful cat (or dog…I wouldn’t have forced you to choose a side). You were meant to be rebellious or straight laced. I was meant to be your mother and you were meant to be whatever you were supposed to be and I’m so sorry I couldn’t do that for you. Just know that any time anyone ever says you “weren’t meant to be,” I will remind them that you were. It’s just that it didn’t work out that way and I’m so sorry for that. You were so precious to me and you always will be so important to me. If the world has taught your mother anything, it’s that things don’t happen for a reason and there is no good reason that your life had to end too soon. I keep reading articles and blogs about people who are grateful for their infertility experience. I’m not there yet. How does one get there? I could sure use a map. I also notice these women who write these kinds of stories have already had their miracle. Where are the blogs of angry, bitter, jealous women who wish they could somehow strangle infertility and watch it die? Well…here’s one. I wish I could somehow eradicate infertility. I wish infertility could be something that never exists for anyone. At this point, I kind of wish I had brain cancer because at least that can kill you if you don’t win your battle. Instead I’ll likely live a very, very long life. Although, I am at a much higher risk for ovarian cancer now thanks to my diagnosis. That kind of really sucks. I feel like you should only have to have one thing. Infertility or cancer. Why both? Thanks universe. Also, I hate that people who have cancer first also usually wind up unable to have children. It just seems too cruel. This may seem like a ridiculous comparison but there have been studies to show that an infertility diagnosis is just as devastating as a cancer diagnosis. I absolutely believe those numbers. They’re both extremely personal illnesses that require a lot of time off work and significant amounts of money. The treatments wreak havoc on your bodies (although I am well aware chemo/radiation is far worse than progesterone or Lupron). But if I had to choose…I would choose to have had a healthy baby and then brain cancer. Instead, I’m getting no baby, early menopause, and probably cancer anyway. Great. Thanks body. Knowing the number of people with breast cancer in my family, I’ll likely have that too. Full disclosure. I have a very small will to live at this point in our journey. Right now, I feel like I’ll never be excited by anything. I honestly don’t know what happiness would look like in my life--especially without a baby. But, after carefully considering just about every conceivable way one could kill themselves, I discovered I’m not particularly fond of that option either. This may seem like an overreaction or silly or self-ish or whatever you want to label it. But, unless you’ve been down this road you have no understanding of how awful it is. I saw the term “agonizingly lonely” used to describe infertility. That term almost describes the hell of this journey. Even that doesn’t quite seem to capture how debilitating this is. I don’t think there is any possible way for someone to imagine this journey. The constant up and down of emotions. Living on hope from month to month. Believe me, hope was not meant to be lived off of. If I could have it my way, I’d like to be in a medically induced coma until things feel better. But, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. I have to figure out how to live in the hell of my current reality and make the most of it. I should probably just focus on the living part for now. I am beyond thankful I found an extremely skilled therapist when I did. I’m not sure I could get through this without that support along with the support of my husband and friends. So, now I have to figure out a way to pick up and rebuild. Let go of the dream of seeing myself in someone. I’m so thankful we have the opportunity to attempt egg donation. Science is truly amazing. I’ve been in close contact with our new clinic. I must say I’m incredibly impressed with how quickly they respond and the quality of the answers/support I’ve received so far. Yesterday morning, I received word that our first choice of egg donor agreed to cycle right away. We aren’t officially matched until her blood work comes back good and our contract is signed and our deposit is paid. But for now, she’s gearing up for all of her blood work to make sure everything looks A-Okay. This process takes about two weeks. If everything checks out, then she will start her stimming medications after she has her next cycle. When her eggs are ready, then she will have her eggs retrieved. Matt’s sperm will be used to fertilize the eggs and then on day 5/6 they will freeze however many embryos make it. The cool thing about this clinic is they guarantee six eggs. If we don’t get six eggs we either get reimbursed or we can have some other frozen eggs from another donor to make up the difference. I have learned this week you can actually mail in sperm. WHO KNEW THIS?! I will always look at Fed Ex trucks in a new light. For about $350 we can overnight Matt’s sperm in some kind of fancy box. When they receive it they will freeze several vials to use. This is amazing because now we only have to make the trip to Syracuse once (hopefully). IF things stay on track (but we all know they don’t—especially in the land of infertility), I will have an embryo transfer in June. Which to me seems like a really far away date. But the frozen embryo transfers “only” cost $9,000 (plus the unknown cost of medications) and if we did a fresh transfer that would cost us $12,000 plus the cost of medications. Apparently the statistics aren’t as bad as they seem online. For whatever reason they don’t have their new stats on their website. Apparently for a fresh or frozen transfer the odds of it working are about 50-55%. So, not great…but much better than 16-27%. So, now we go back into the black hole of waiting. Hopefully in 2-ish weeks we will be officially matched to our donor. I feel like I should be more excited about this part, but I’m just not sure I’m all that excitable these days. I’m still not feeling totally optimistic about this, but I know our odds of having a baby are 0% if we don’t at least try. Fifty percent is a far better likelihood than 0 percent. I would love for there to be minimal bumps in the road. Maybe I’ll feel more comfortable once we are officially matched. “She’s got her jaws just locked now in a smile, but nothing is all right.” –Third Eye Blind.
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I’m really glad I had the weekend to decompress and that I’m a week away from spring break. I’m beyond ready for a vacation. Well…a stay-cation. Friday I watched 10 episodes of Grace and Frankie without as much as a bathroom break. I would’ve finished the whole season if Matt hadn’t come home. So yesterday Matt left to help some of our friends move. I finished Grace and Frankie. Took a nap. Watched about 12 episodes of Sister, Sister on Fuse. I did anything but think about my situation. Occasionally thoughts of being barren would enter in my mind. I just can’t hold on to them. While I watched Tia and Tamara graduate from high school I got a little choked up. What if I never get to see my child graduate? I think one reason I’ve been watching that show like its 1997 is because they’re adopted in the show. Lisa and Ray are always so proud of them. And even though they each only adopted one of the girls they are both equally in love and proud of the other’s child. It gives me hope for how I could feel about an egg donor baby. Or if we eventually have to go down the road of adoption. I’m just not sure we will have the money to consider adoption of the egg donation goes south. Not in the immediate future anyway. Plus, I’ve heard as many horror stories of failed adoptions as I have failed IVF cycles. So, nothing is guaranteed.
Last night, I decided I needed to break my diet. I mean really break it. So, I asked Matt to bring home some General Tso’s chicken. Today I’m having a bag of mini Cadbury eggs. I also had a real cup of coffee this morning. It feels nice to be a person again. Even though I know I’ll be tightening things up again tomorrow. This morning, I woke up at my new natural wake up time of 7am. I suppose this is a side effect of waking up at the exact same time every day for weeks to take morning shots. My back is still killing me from the shots. It literally hurts to lie down on my back because my back is still so sore. My uterus is still quite angry as well. I haven’t started my period but my uterus is so heavy and there’s so much pressure it literally hurts to sit up right. It’s so hard to get comfortable between that and my back and my sciatica flare up from the shots. I’m still having night sweats too. It’s so horribly cruel and unfair to have all these physical symptoms and know that not only am I not pregnant, but I’ll never be pregnant with my own child. I still don’t know if I’ll ever be pregnant. Late last night some ladies in my support group added me to some secret Facebook groups for CNY patients only. It’s been really nice connecting with other ladies getting donor eggs from the same clinic we will be going to. One piece of advice someone gave me was to pick my top 5 favorite donors in case I don’t get matched. I had initially set in my mind I would be matched with our favorite cat lady donor. But when I saw this advice, I knew I better go back and look for some more donors. I know how my life works out. Some other advice I got was to pick the youngest donors possible. That seems like solid advice. So, back to the drawing board we went. I think we spent at least 2 hours and we only looked at brunettes. I adjusted my expectations a little. Okay, so they don’t have to have green eyes. But they do need to be below 5’5’’ and have brown hair and similar ethnic backgrounds. So I looked past the terrible quality cell phone pictures and squinted a little harder. If anyone is considering donor eggs I highly recommend making a drinking game. Most of the answers on the personal question section were pretty canned. I’m pretty sure you could get really drunk if you took a shot for everyone that considered themselves “out-going and selfless” or rated their most important attributes in a friend as “trustworthy, loyal, and/or honest.” Most identified their parents or grandparents as their hero for the same reasons. I started realizing I was identifying mostly with those who seemed to have genuinely thought about egg donation and the reasons they are doing it. One lady was actually honest and said she needed the money to get through college. Kudos to her. Most people say, “I just really want to help others have something they can’t have.” My new second favorite egg donor described her friend’s struggle to get pregnant and how much that affected her. All of her answers seemed so much more authentic than all of the other donors. She doesn’t even want kids of her own. That’s the kind of person I want as my baby mama. It was interesting to see what became important to me. I saw two donors I was interested in but one had a dog allergy and one had severe nut allergies. Nope. Keep moving. One person described her favorite music as, “Anything from the 80s, especially The Beatles.” Bless her heart. I didn’t want to choose anyone who couldn’t identify a personal weakness. Really? There’s NOTHING you would change about yourself? I tended to identify with those that said things like, “I’m indecisive,” or “Sometimes I get too involved with others and get hurt.” Me too sista! I’ll put you guys on my list! One woman was very adorable and had great baby pictures. But she wrote IN ALL CAPS. Can I look past that? I ultimately decided to because I related to a lot of her answers and she’s extremely adorable, short, and has brown hair and blue eyes. I kept seeing women who listed their college GPA as 3.5 or 3.6. I had a 4.0. None of these women had a 4.0 GPA in college. Occasionally I would get a pang of jealously that these women had extra eggs to offer and most of them didn’t even have or want kids yet. So, after combing through the list for hours I picked out 6 donors for fresh eggs and two donors for banked eggs. Depending on which route we end up going. For those not savvy with donor egg lingo banked eggs are eggs that have already been retrieved and are frozen in a cryogenic bank. Fresh eggs are eggs that will be removed from the lady at the time of her choosing. I hope our number one pick will agree and will be willing to do it on her next cycle. I was feeling good about our options and apparently felt the need to go ahead and ruin that. For whatever reason I thought it would be a good idea to get on the Google machine. Why did I ever think that was a good idea?! According to the CNY website their live birth rates are: 27.7% of fresh donor eggs (fresh eggs/fresh transfer on day 5), 16.2% for frozen embryo transfers (fresh eggs/frozen transfer), and they only did 18 banked egg transfers and 5 of those resulted in a live birth. These results are from 2013 and I know the science gets better every day, but those stats are horrifying! To think we could throw another $20,000+ into this and still have a negative result. I felt betrayed by my doctors yet again. Since we first started talking about donor eggs they kept insinuating our success would be so much higher. I assumed that meant over 50%. I have heard CNY has lower rates because they do not refuse any patient. So I looked at our local clinic and they had done 19 donor transfers and 5 resulted in a live pregnancy. So, it’s almost exactly the same! For some reason they don’t break the egg donor stats out into age groups. I have to tell myself it’s all the 40+ year old women dragging down the stats. I’m now feeling much less hope about this. But I still feel like we have to try. This morning I was reading about a woman who had 7 donor eggs. Only two fertilized and one quit growing on day 2. Her only living embryo was a successful live birth. I told this to Matt and said, “Why can’t we have this kind of luck?” One embryo that works. That’s all I want. His answer was, “Our luck has to change sometime.” I think I do feel like that. Eventually things have to work out, right? I can’t consider any other alternative. Pretty much my whole life things have been hard, but it has always worked out. I really didn’t think I would get to go to college and at the last minute I got almost a full ride to school. I worked really hard and got a 4.0 GPA and graduated in 3 years. I was scrambling at the last minute to apply to graduate school because I didn’t really understand what that entailed as I was the first in my family to do so. My father lost his job right before I graduated. Again, I had no idea if I was going to get to go to graduate school. I got a job that paid for my tuition, gave me a stipend, and a place to live with a meal plan. Again, at the last minute. When I graduated I was looking for a job and wanted to live close enough so that my husband and I could finally move in together. At the last minute, I got the job of my choice. When my husband and I got married and decided to move away and start fresh somewhere new I got a job. My husband could not find a job, but at the last minute, got a job. When we bought our house the paperwork got hung up and we were almost homeless. Within the last 48 hours of our lease we finally got approved for our home and made it into our new home just in time. Everything has always worked out. This entire process I kept thinking, at the last minute our luck will change and we will get pregnant. Well that ship has sailed and we’ve had to restart the clock. We had to get a whole new clock. I have to believe that something will work. Or, could this be the one thing -- the thing that matters most -- that doesn't work out? “A flood of emotions rushes into me. Pain and anger. Sadness and pity. But most surprising of all, hope.” ― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why 3/24/2017 0 Comments Beta DayLast night I decided I better look at egg donors in case luck wasn’t on our side. I logged into my new CNY patient portal. It was kind of overwhelming. When the screen loaded there were lots of pictures and profiles. I wasn’t really expecting the pictures. I’m not feeling overly picky about an egg donor…or at least I didn’t think I was. Out of the 94 candidates there was one that met my (very short) criteria list. All I wanted was someone relatively short, brown hair and green eyes. I scrolled through the page a few times looking to see how many people met my criteria. Some were too tall, their pictures were a huge turn off, etc. I’m shocked at what these people think are appropriate pictures. Some had extremely poor resolution cell phone selfies. Some had very expensive looking professional photos. Some had on way too much make-up or emo looking clothing. I got very picky. I only even looked at 4 profiles. The first person I found I liked quite a bit. She’s very cute and young. Long straight brown hair like I used to have. Her face was kind of the same shape as mine, but she was pretty. The profiles on the donors were very intense. It was a very thorough and descriptive. Some even uploaded baby pictures. This donor did not have a very cute baby photo. Who knew you’d suddenly be so picky?! I looked through her profile and she has no real family history of any diseases. She was raised by a hard working single mother. Her favorite color is purple (my second favorite color). She considers herself average at school (3.0 high school GPA and 3.5 GPA in trade school). She reported her talents to be music and espiecally art. She reported that she is extroverted, optimistic, and easy going. She likes cats and she’s indecisive. There’s some similarities there. But I couldn’t help but notice that…she wasn’t me. None of these women were me.
So I scrolled back through the other two profiles I was moderately interested in. One reported she often didn’t understand jokes. NOPE. That one is off the table. The other woman was a bit older and had significant family medical issues. Meh… The other woman described her “worst feature” as being overly shy and viewed as standoff-ish. Meh… So back to our donor. I looked at her profile again and decided that she would do. I had an instant internet connection with our cat Maxwell when I saw his adoption photo online, so a donor shouldn’t be that much different right? So, this morning at 2:00am I woke up. I tried to force myself to go back to sleep. At 4:00am I woke up again. I could not force myself to go back to sleep. I wanted to do a pregnancy test so bad, but I knew I shouldn’t. So I just stayed in the bed. We did our morning shot ritual. Normally, our cat Maxwell supervises all of our shots, but this morning our cat River was on guard. She really looked genuinely concerned. It was cute. I got to the doctor’s office before they even opened and there was a couple waiting for the elevator. We awkwardly rode the elevator together. I noticed their IVF packet it in their hands. I wanted to tell them everything would be all right. But, I didn’t want to lie. Within minutes of arriving several other patients had already arrived. They were down two nurses and it took longer than anticipated. The nurse told me it could be awhile before I got my results because they were short-handed. So, I went to work. I finally got the call I was waiting for, but I was in a meeting with someone and just couldn’t bring myself to answer even though he knew my whole story. I knew it would be negative and I didn’t know if I could get through the building and into my car without drawing attention to myself. So, when I finally got to my car I listened to the voicemail. She masked her voice well. I really couldn’t tell if it was sad or not. But I figured if it was positive she wouldn’t have said, “Call when you get this message.” I didn’t feel anything. I knew it was negative. I called back, but they didn’t answer. I had to leave a message. I waited and waited. And waited and waited. I finally went home and did a pregnancy test. When I had my ectopic pregnancy the test almost immediately popped up “pregnant.” As soon as the timer started spinning I knew it was negative. While the timer was spinning I got a work related phone call. I don’t think she had any idea I was waiting to find out if I wanted to keep living or not. It finally popped up “Not pregnant.” Nothing happened on the inside. Nothing. I just tossed it in the trash. When I finally got off the phone I texted my husband. I worked while I waited for the doctor to call. I got another work related phone call. While on that call the doctor called. I had to answer. The nurse told me it was negative. Again, no emotional or physical response on my part. I told her we had already found a donor in Syracuse that we liked and asked how many donors they have in their pool. They have four. I figure if out of 94 women I only liked one, I’m not going to like one of their four better than the one in Syracuse. Plus, I’m sick of waiting. Staying with our clinic is only going to result in more waiting. There will be waiting with Syracuse, but not as much. So after I finished my work call, I called my husband to let him know it was official. His reaction was the first thing that gave me any kind of response. I felt gutted that I couldn’t give him a baby …especially for his birthday. We talked about our donor and I said I’d call CNY to let them know we want to proceed. It turns out they don’t answer the phone either and even their voicemail tells you to send an email through the patient portal. So I diligently double checked the number of our donor, even though I had the number memorized from the night before. I had even thought about putting it in this blog, but then got paranoid someone else would realize how awesome she is and try to steal her. Since I messaged them late today, I’m guessing it will be Tuesday before we hear back since the message says they’ll get back to you within 48 hours. I guess that’s one downside of going to a cheap place. Everyone all over the world goes there since it is more affordable. So, I don’t expect our services to be any better than what we’ve currently been getting. I hate that I have to put a price tag on my family. That’s one of the most unfair parts to infertility. So, since we seem to be leaning towards a fresh egg/frozen transfer cycle we will have to go to Syracuse twice: Once to deposit the sperm and once for the transfer (and then any additional transfers if the first one doesn’t stick). I think the worst part of this failure is having the sobering realization that donor eggs might not even work. I can’t even bring myself to think about that. The other caveat is that our egg donor may ultimately change her mind or want to wait to cycle during a particular month. Getting rejected by an egg donor will be devastating especially knowing there's no one else I was even remotely interested in. Over the course of the day, I’ve had a few feelings start to creep in. For a few minutes, I hated every woman that’s ever delivered a healthy baby. I hated everyone woman that’s retrieved double digit number eggs in an egg retrieval. I hated everyone who had a successful IVF or IUI. I hated everyone woman that's complained about being pregnant or made petty jokes or complaints at their kid's expense. But, I hate that I feel that way. Before when I would get negative results I just felt sad. I literally haven’t cried once today. If anything, I just feel angry. Of course the most pervasive feelings/thoughts I’ve had is, “Why would it have worked?” I don’t deserve for this to work. I clearly don’t deserve to be a mother. It is really hard to get myself out of that thought cycle. I’m not really religious. I don’t really talk about this because I know it’s a touchy subject—especially with my beliefs. I do sincerely appreciate everyone’s prayers, but if I ever could’ve believed in God – or any god—I certainly can’t now. Please don’t try to convert me or make me believe. Many have tried and many have failed. You will not be any different. I’ve had many prayer warriors and clearly God isn’t listening. Please don’t say anything like, “he’s just waiting for the right time” or “maybe if you believed in God you would get pregnant.” If you want to say things like that please be prepared to explain to me how people who don’t want children keep having them. Explain to me why women addicted to drugs get pregnant and have multiple babies. Explain to me why parents who physically, emotionally, or neglectfully abuse their children. It is what it is. One lesson I have learned time and time again through this and other life experiences is that people don’t get what they deserve. Bad people get great things and good people get shitty things. It is the way it is. I have to keep reminding myself that. I cannot live in a world where “things happen for a reason.” When our last cycle failed someone texted me, “Remember, things don’t happen for a reason.” It was the nicest thing anyone has ever said during this time. I have to live in that world. Because otherwise I need someone to explain what reason I’m having to endure this. What reason did I wake up every day to receive injections that left me in crippling pain? What reason have we spent almost $30,000 only to have to find a way to scrape up another $20,000 for something else that’s not guaranteed? For what reason do I have to constantly be failed by my body? Even if there’s something that I’ve done to deserve this, what did my husband do to deserve this? Is choosing to have married me so unforgivable he has to be sentenced to a life with no children? As much as I hate myself sometimes, I can’t possibly ever believe that I’m that horrible. From the bottom of our hearts we would like to thank everyone who has sent positive energy, prayed, and check in on us. I must’ve had 2 dozen or so people checking in on me today. It’s nice to fill so special knowing so many people care about us so much. “I’ll be fine they tell me. I won’t die. I’ll just hurt a lot.” – We Were Liars 3/23/2017 0 Comments Beta EveOur two week wait is almost over. This has been the longest week ever. But this time tomorrow we will have our beta results and know if we are pregnant or not. I initially thought I’d write a blog post every day during my two week wait. But here I am still unable to describe what this two week wait has been like. It’s my busy season at work so work is really busy. Luckily, that’s kept my mind mostly occupied. Weirdly enough, most of the time I have almost forgotten it’s a two week wait. The progesterone shots are brutal. There is not a spot on my backside that doesn’t hurt when I walk, sit, or lie down. I have been totally brain dead all week – forgot my work bag one day, went to the wrong school one day, almost left my lunch box at work.
People keep texting me to ask, “Do you feel any symptoms?” The answer is: YES. Of course I do. However, they could all be explained by progesterone shots or pure delusion. I’m SO tired. My back hurts, my uterus is heavy and twitchy and crampy, my boobs hurt, and I wake up a couple times a night to go to the bathroom or because I’m having hot flashes. I swear I’ve had “pregnancy brain.” However, I know that this can all be caused by the progesterone side effects. It sucks so much to have these symptoms not knowing if I’m actually pregnant. If I were pregnant I could laugh at work and say, “Oh my gosh. I have pregnancy brain, please excuse me.” or “Man. I’m so tired. I’m pregnant.” But for some reason it’s not quite socially acceptable to say, “Excuse my irritability and flakiness, I’m currently in the process of IVF.” But why is that? So unfair. I recently read an article about a woman who was in television and tried to get the idea of a reality TV show following women in fertility treatments. The company shot the idea down because it would be “too earnest” and it’s a “woman’s issue.” WHAT?! It’s unacceptable to have a show that’s “too earnest,” but perfectly acceptable to have shows like John and Kate Plus 8 or whatever all those other shows are with families with more than 10 kids. Or worse, shows like Dr. Phil or Jersey Shore. Insanity. So anyway, back to the point of this blog. By Tuesday, I was dying to test. But Matt’s birthday was Wednesday so I didn’t want to ruin his birthday if it was negative. There would’ve been no way for me to sneak a test. If it had been positive I would have told him and if it had been negative I would’ve been hysterical. So I told myself I’d test on Thursday. Matt didn’t really want me to test since the doctors told us not to. But this morning rolled around. I got up way before the alarm went off because I had to pee ..because…progesterone… I was in the bed staring at the ceiling trying to decide. I thought about the outcomes. If it was negative I would have to wait for practically two days to find out if it was really negative. But if it was positive, I’d have to wait to find out if it was really positive. I started realizing I was talking myself out of the positive pregnancy test worse than the negative test. If it was positive would it really be positive? Or would it just be a chemical pregnancy? Or would it just be a fluke? When I made the discovery that a positive pregnancy test would actually tear me up worse than a negative test, I decided not to test. If I thought for a day and a half it was positive only to find out it wasn’t….that would be too much. So…I’m going to wait for the blood test. I’m really pretty sure it’s going to be negative. Or at least I’ve done everything in my power to prepare myself for that. You may be thinking, "That’s really negative and you’ll never get pregnant with that attitude" or some other dismissive comment. But, I can’t go into this with a whole heart anymore. This far in, I don’t have the capacity to withstand that kind of disappointment. So, this is all the update I can do for now. I’m tired, grouchy, and I just want to know if I’m pregnant or not. “Waiting for tonight, oh When you would be here in my arms Waiting for tonight, oh I've dreamed of this love for so long Waiting for tonight, oh” – Jennifer Lopez (okay..so I needed something a little fun.) 3/17/2017 2 Comments One week downThe first week of the two week wait is over. This has been the the longest week. I'm sure next week will be longer.
The progesterone shots are no joke. They are commonly referred to as PIO shots in my world. That stands for Progesterone in Oil. Injecting oil into your butt/hip muscle is not fun. I was not properly prepared for them. It burns so bad when it goes in. My muscles have been sore constantly since starting them. The left side hurts way worse than my right side for some reason. My sciatica is back in full force. For two days, I could barely walk. I felt like I was walking like an elderly woman. Doing the "nursing home shuffle," as my parents would say. The best advice I can give for the progesterone shot is to do it fast. Stick the needle in fast and once it's all injected pull it out fast. I also find laying on my side and clutching a pillow helps. Sometimes Maxwell (my cat) is also on standby sniffing my face making sure I don't pass out. Having your partner rub the injection site is crucial. If it doesn't hurt during the rubbing, your partner is not pushing hard enough. Really get in there and move that oil around. It hurts, but you'll be glad later. We've also bought some biofreeze that we spray on a few minutes before. This has made a big difference. But, it still hurts and it still sucks. This should go without saying, but you must alternate sides. I can't imagine not alternating sides. It still hurts two days later when you come back. I actually wish I had a bigger butt for more surface area to choose from (and I am not lacking in bootay surface area.) The worst side effect I've had from these shots aside from the pain, is definitely what's happening in my bowels. One of my friends refers to his bathroom events as "gastronomical" events. That is absolutely what has been happening to me. The first few days I was like, "Yes! My stomach is cramping! It must be my little embryo snuggling down for a long term stay." Well... about a hour later, I realized it was Hell forming in my intestines. This seems to happen every other day or so. It didn't happen yesterday. But today, I was having serious cramps. Today, I thought for sure it was implantation. But 20 minutes later I was barely making it to the bathroom. I don't know how, but a repeat occurrence happened once I got home. It's bad stuff. My next least favorite side effect is how tired I am. I cannot believe how tired I am. Before any of you say to yourself, "you think you're tired now, just wait until you get pregnant." Well..if I were pregnant it would be worth it. But not being pregnant and being pregnancy tired is just cruel. By the time I get home, all I want to do is sleep. Except then I'm not sleeping well at night. Last night no act could have put me to sleep. I'm pretty sure I could've read one of Matt's physics books and wouldn't have fallen asleep. My leg hurts from my sciatica, my back hurts, my butt hurts. I could not get comfortable and I kept having weird dreams. I think I fell asleep (lightly) after midnight but woke up every hour. I am so tired. My mind is constantly racing. I broke down two nights ago and Googled. I couldn't hold out anymore. I Googled some more yesterday. I couldn't help it. I also reached out to my ttc sisters about testing. Pretty sure I had to talk myself down off the proverbial toilet to keep myself from testing. I know it is way too early to test, but I am dying. I am driving myself crazy. "Am I walking too fast?" "Was that too heavy to lift?" "Did I just twist weird...what if I just knocked my embryo out of my uterus?" "Can you do that?" "Did I eat right today?" "Should I eat that?" "Why did I eat that?" "Should I move around more?" My mind. Will. Not. Stop. Everything I do, I second guess myself. I wake up in the middle of the night freaking out about sleeping on my stomach even though I know it doesn't matter at this point. I freak out about my freaking out because I know I need to "just relax so I can get pregnant." The first few days I felt really hopeful and optmistic this could work. I would lay on the couch and put my hands on my belly and channel all my positive energy to my uterus. I would talk to my little embryo and tell it how much everyone loves it and wants it to come into the world. But now, I'm certainly heading into the second week slump. I feel like I have to prepare myself for it to not work. It would be great if it works. More than great. The greatest thing ever. But if it doesn't work, I can't let it (literally) kill me. I already made peace with not having my own biological child. We still have donor eggs as an option. I haven't looked at our portfolio of donors yet. Maybe that's an indication I still have hope. I'm sure by half way through next week, I'll have 3 donors picked out. "Sometimes my mind is a flame. It's remarkable, terrible, and terrifying all at once. But the real trick? Is in not letting it consume me." --Jenny Lawson 3/13/2017 0 Comments Two Week Wait: Day OneToday is certainly going by at a snail’s pace. The doctor’s office recommended I take today off to lay on the couch and I can’t say that there’s any other prescription I would jump at the chance to take advantage of. This morning after my progesterone shot I got ready for acupuncture. I was so hoping this was my last appointment. Alas, I was wrong. She wants me to come once more this week and twice next week. At least I don’t have to do the cupping anymore.
After acupuncture, I went to Target to peruse. I spent a good chunk of time in there looking around. Of course I did my best to avoid the baby section like the plague. Although I’ve made numerous promises that I wouldn’t buy another book until I’ve read the ones I’ve bought and haven’t read yet…I found myself in my favorite aisle. Naturally, several of the books gave me that old familiar come-hither look. After checking them out on Good Reads, I decided it was okay to buy another book. After all, I have plenty of time to kill the next two weeks! I figure if I’m going to have a vice it may as well be reading. I came home got myself a snack: Brazil nuts and avocado. It may not be scientifically helpful to eat two week wait foods, but I’m taking no chances. I also finished a book I’ve been reading and did some laundry. I’ve watched several episodes of Wheel of Fortune and it’s still somehow not quite 12:45. To say I’m acutely sensitive to every twitch, twinge, or sensation in my abdomen is an understatement. At this point, I don’t even know if they’re real or imagined. I’m glad you start progesterone before your transfer because my uterus weighs 100 pounds right now. Had I not known this was definitely a side effect of the progesterone, I’d already be painting the nursery. IF this does work, the embryo won’t actually implant for several more days. So I know anything I’m feeling now is a product of the medications and/or my over active imagination. This is my first proper two week wait since our first IUI in the summer. If that IUI had worked, we would be having our baby this month. That’s mind boggling. I keep trying to rein in my hope. I want so badly to feel hopeful and positive, but the crash from that will be unbearable if this doesn’t work. Every time I close my eyes I see a positive pregnancy test, but in the next breath it’s negative. I keep playing out in my mind getting the phone call after our blood test. They said they’d be able to call by noon-ish, but I think I’m going to ask them to wait until 5:00-ish. I know that as soon as I answer the phone the timbre of the nurse’s voice is going to give away the results immediately. I’ve gotten bad news on the phone too many times to not instantly recognize it. I don't think I can do middle-of-the-day bad news. I’ve sworn off Googling and so far that’s gone well. I’ve even avoided posting in my support groups, “What day did you guys start testing after 3 day transfer?” or “Who got pregnant on their first IVF transfer?” I figure it really doesn’t matter what the statistics are. Either it’s going to work or it isn’t. It doesn’t matter if we have a 99.9% chance of working. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. We’ve already overcome many statistics just by getting this far. However, today in one of my support groups someone posted about their egg retrieval only resulting in one egg and wondered what everyone’s experience with that has been. I saw 16 comments. I had to read them. Of course our internet is crap. My phone would not load the comments. I was overcome with insanity. I turned off the WIFI and attempted to reload it. STILL WASN’T LOADING. So, instead of taking this as a sign I should back away from the internet, I restarted my phone and tried again. Finally, the comments loaded. Most of the comments were just people responding back and forth. But two of the comments were pictures of beautiful babies. Their mother’s one and only golden egg. I want this to work more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. So, so far this two week wait is going by as slowly as I expected. I have roughly 264 hours to go (depending on what time I ask them to call me), but who's counting? “Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go. I wanna be sedated. Nothin' to do and nowhere to go-o-oh. I wanna be sedated. Just get me to the airport; put me on a plane. Hurry, hurry, hurry before I go insane.” – Ramones 3/12/2017 0 Comments PUPOYesterday we went in to have my lining measured again. They wanted it to be at least 6, but more than 7 was preferred. It was 10! So we were good to go for our transfer. They told us they would call later to tell us the time for our transfer. When they called we were running errands and the nurse said, “Don’t forget to take all of the Valium before the procedure.” WHAT. No one said anything about Valium. She realized she hadn’t even sent it to the pharmacy so she did. When I got off the phone I realized I hadn’t asked her a single question. The only thing I knew was that we had to be there at 10:15 with a full bladder and on Valium.
Luckily, I have some friends who have already been through this so I started texting them immediately. On person did the Valium, one was prescribed but didn’t take it, and one wasn’t even prescribed it! Crazy how each clinic is different. This morning we got up at 7:00 to do the progesterone shot. My husband, being the smart thinker he is, realized that because of the time change we should probably wait to do the shot since they’re pretty time sensitive. You have to take them within one hour of each other. So if you take it at 7:00 one day you’ll need to do it between 6 and 8 the next. So we waited an extra half hour before doing the shot. Then we got up and started getting ready to leave for our transfer. I’ve been trying really hard to not think about our “maybe baby” (I saw this term in an article once and fell in love with it). We had no idea how our embryo was doing. They didn’t really tell us anything specific yesterday. I kept thinking, “What if we get there and they tell us the condition is too poor to transfer?” Would they call and tell us or make us get there before they broke the news?” You also have to go in for your transfer with a full bladder. So I was trying to make sure I was drinking enough water. I drank two glasses of water and was already feeling like I had to pee before we even left. I remembered for our mock transfer I drank way too much water so I was trying to take it easier this time. At 9:45 I took my 3 Valium and we were on our way. On the way out, I stopped to feed the cats. I noticed a small whisker on the floor by their food bowl. A few weeks ago a good friend of mine gave me a really sweet painting. It’s a painting of two cats next to each other with the quote, “Time spent with cats is never wasted.” She painted the background green for fertility and poked three holes for whiskers on one of the cats. She asked we find three whiskers (one representing me, Matt, and our baby.) I’ve had this thing for weeks and haven’t found a single whisker until this morning. It felt like a good sign. When we got there the nurse said she hadn’t had an update on the embryo yet either and she was excited to hear what the embryologist had to say. I got all suited up (or down…) in my gown, hair net and fuzzy socks. Matt also got to have some shoe covers and a hair net. I didn’t realize he was going to get to be a part of this too! They wheeled me into the room where the egg retrieval had been. The embryologist came to talk to us and he said our embryo was as perfect as a three day embryo could be. They grade them on a scale of 1 (not so good) to 8 (best). Our little overachiever was rated as an 8! I’ve been trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but hearing this good news made it hard to fight that off. They put my legs in the stirrups, inserted the speculum, and started looking at my bladder with the ultrasound to see how full it was. It was very full. It was painful when she pressed on my bladder with the ultrasound. When they did the mock transfer the catheter went right in. This time…not so much. They tried and tried and couldn’t get it to go in. They then had to ask me to pee a little bit. I had to pee into a cup standing up and once the cup got to a certain point I had to jump up. This was really awkward and interesting considering the Valium was in full effect. I peed in the cup (I think I am now literally a pro pee in a cup-er). I went back in and go resituated. This time the catheter went in much easier. Once that catheter was in my cervix we could see our embryo on a computer screen behind the doctor. I don’t know what it’s like to hold your own baby for the first time, but I was filled with so many emotions when I finally go to see our little bundle of cells on the screen. I almost cried because it was literally the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It was literally perfect (not just according to me…but also confirmed by the embryologist). They verified my name and date of birth (for the 39007947 time that morning). It was correct and that was our embryo. He took a picture of our embryo that we got to take home. The embryologist came in with another catheter that contained our embryo. They inserted that catheter into the other catheter and placed the embryo in my uterus. They then had to check the end of the catheter to make sure the embryo wasn’t still stuck to it. How cool is all of that?! How in the world did they ever figure all this stuff out?! They wheeled me back into the other room and had me lie there for 20 minutes or so before I could pee. They offered to drain my bladder with a catheter but I felt like I could wait. They gave us a card with our little embryo picture in it. I couldn’t stop staring at it. I think I even had to remind myself to hand it to Matt so he could see it. So I am officially PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise). IVF is not how it was portrayed on Friends when Phoebe decided to be a surrogate. In Friends, Phoebe had her transfer and came home later that day to take a pregnancy test and it was positive. In the real world, you have to wait an excruciatingly long time (about 2 weeks) to find out if it worked or not. The risk of a false positive on a pregnancy test is pretty high after IVF. So, I solemnly swear not to take a home pregnancy test. (At least that’s how I feel today). I also am going to do my absolute best to not Google anything along the lines of “Is *insert symptoms here* a side effect of progesterone or a pregnancy symptom?” It sucks so much that progesterone side effects are identical to pregnancy symptoms and symptoms of a period are also quite similar to pregnancy symptoms. So, I will undoubtedly be driving myself crazy for the next two weeks. We go in for our blood test on March 24th. “There are two ways to live your life. One as though nothing is a miracle. The other as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein. 3/10/2017 2 Comments How do you like your eggs?This morning I got up and showered and dried my hair. I didn't wear it in a pony tail. I washed it with real shampoo--not the all natural, unscented crap I've been using. I got to use my scented hair products and I even put a little perfume on. It felt so good. It's amazing how strong scents are when you've been avoiding then like the plague for so long.
I had completely forgotten about doing our progesterone shot this morning. Luckily, my husband remembered. I came downstairs while he was prepping the shot. It's best to lie down for these so we went back upstairs. Yesterday the shot didn't hurt at all...must've been the anesthesia. Today I definitely came up off the bed a bit. It hurt so much. It burned for a good twenty minutes. Later, I discovered it STILL hurts. Like right now...still hurts. On my way to work before 8:00, I got the call from our nurse. Unfortunately, my phone was still on do not disturb so it went to voicemail. I held my breath listening to the message. Her voice sounded upbeat and positive so that was good. I called back and she said that our egg did fertilize. I wanted to be happy about it, but I know it's only the first of many more stages to go through. I also got calls from CNY in Syracuse about their egg donor program. A nurse and the finance person called. My patient portal has now been filled with all their egg donors and their profiles. Matt tested positive for PKU so if we have to go the egg donor route, we'd like to screen the donor for that. The donors do go through a screening panel but PKU is not included. It will cost an additional $300 to have the donor screened. Plus if they test positive for anything they are excluded from the donor program forever. So we may not even convince them to do the screening. CNY actually let's you finance through them and that is incredible. They have many donor egg options. You can do fresh eggs and a fresh transfer for $12,000 plus the cost of monitoring and medications. You can do a fresh egg/frozen embryo cycle for $9,000 plus monitoring and meds or you can do banked eggs for $9,000 plus monitoring and meds. If we chose a $9,000 option we could finance for 2 years and pay $416 a month with a $416 down payment. That seems totally feasible. I feel much better about moving forward with donor eggs now. We had initially talked about selling my car and only having one car to help pay for the eggs. But with this plan we should be fine. I went to acupuncture after work and I was exhausted. I totally fell asleep and had trouble waking up. I spent a good amount of time reading through my old posts last night. It's amazing how much has changed. I never would've thought that I could sleep through acupuncture. I never thought I'd not know exactly when I cried last. I feel stronger. At least for today. We go in tomorrow to see if my lining is thick enough to do the transfer on Sunday. Assuming our embryo is still hanging on. If all stays on track our transfer will be Sunday and we will know in 2-ish weeks if it worked. It feels like our final hail Mary pass. "You should never take long shots. Better to study the odds and take the probable shot. However, if the long shot is your only shot, then you have to take it." Nicola Yoon, The Sun is also a Star. 3/9/2017 4 Comments Egg Retrieval Take 2This morning we got up around 6:15-ish to get to our egg retrieval. I didn't want to get up too early beforehand because I didn't want to sit around not being able to eat or drink water. My tongue was so dry I may have considered pouring a glass of water just to stick my tongue in. I was yearning for my one ounce of water to take my Tylenol with. I was also hungry. I haven't really been hungry in the morning in a while. But I rinsed off in the shower, brushed my teeth, threw my hair in the worst pony tail ever. I put on my favorite sweatpants and my "Virginia is for school psychology" t-shirt. We made sure we had our progesterone shots and packed a bag of diet ginger ale and low carb friendly snacks. (Although let's be real...I was going to eat another bag of Teddy Grahams...when in Rome...or egg retrieval...).
We got to the IVF suite and rang the doorbell. We were greeted by two exceptionally friendly nurses. They didn't make me take out my rook piercing which is awesome because that's a beast to put in and I even got to wear my wedding rings. I changed into my gown, socks, and hairnet like it was old hat. The nurse's looked at my sad veins and knew they were in trouble. One nurse thought she saw something and the other nurse said she'd never stick it. They looked at my other arm and decided it wasn't even worth the effort. So they wrapped my arm up in a heating pad hoping for something in my battered veins. I explained that last time they used my hand. The nurse said she hates using people's hands because the medication burns so much. Well, that explains why it hurt so much last time. They then described the anesthesiologist I'd be seeing. They described him as full of life and like a hurricane. Apparently, that is secret code for asshole. They checked my arm again a while later and thought there was a vein. About that time the asshole...I mean anesthesiologist came and made his debut. He asked me all the questions on the paperwork I filled out. He was kind of a smart-alack but not in a good way. Or at least not in the way the situation needed. He then deemed the nurses incapable and did my IV for them. He looked at my junkie-esq veins and decided the back of my hand was the only way. He put the tourniquet on my forearm right where I have lots of dead scar tissue from a prior break. I'm pretty sure Hulk Hogan would've had a lighter touch. I tried to remain calm and not in pain. He grabbed my wrist with the same force of a hippopotamus clenching down on dinner. He JAMMED the needle into the back of my hand and my vein rolled. I squirmed around on the bed and my eyes watered up. The anesthesiologist "joked" around that I was a nervous Nelly and needed to calm down. He then thumped my hand where the needle was still in my poor hand and thumped it with his middle finger with the same force of a galloping Clydesdale. I was trying everything in my power not to bawl. It hurt like nothing has ever hurt before. Meanwhile, he was still joking that I needed a psychological evaluation (side note: psychologists do not find these types of jokes funny...at all). At one point, I saw one of the nurses gasp and put her hands over her mouth. That was certainly less than reassuring. I later found out she was a new nurse which made me feel a little better. Then, he taped down my IV with an entire roll of tape. Eventually, they rolled me into the next room where the egg retrieval was. They strapped my legs into the plastic stirrups of no dignity and tried making friendly conversation. I have a giant scratch on my arm from our hellian cat. The anesthesiologist asked me if I had pets at home. I guess that was a better approach than asking if I recently tried to kill myself. So we chatted about cats. I don't remember why but he asked me where I'd rather be or something like that. I talked about Italy for a few minutes and how I'd rather be there than having some jam a needle through my cervix and into my ovaries. The anesthesia didn't hit me as quick this time. My tongue went numb first and that was weird. But that was really the last thing I remember. When I woke up (or at least came to), I again thought I was on the couch. I'm pretty sure I mumbled something along the lines of, "I thought I was on the couch watching Shameless." I think every time I've come out of anesthesia I thought I was sleeping on the couch. My therapist asked me where I feel safe or what my safe place is. At first, I couldn't answer this question. Anywhere that I am with myself feels unsafe sometimes...or at least un-enjoyable. And unfortunately, I can't go anywhere without myself. When we revisited the question I jokingly said, "On the couch watching Family Feud or something on Netflix." But, maybe the couch really is my safe place. Not judging myself (or at least trying not to). Whatever it takes to get over the hump. The staff didn't have the same overt levels of happiness as before. I immediately asked if we got an egg and the answer was, "yes." I asked if we got one or two and the nurse had to double check. One. One egg. I must've asked ten more times. I didn't come out of the anesthesia as quickly this time for some reason. I have NO idea what was going through my mind but I was a real chatty Kathy. I talked about politics and Hillbilly Elegy. I was a real fountain of (who knows how accurate) information. I also have zero memories of the words I actually spoke. Who knows what I was talking about! When our doctor came in I asked if it was the left or right one. Shockingly, it was the left egg. So they didn't know if it was mature or not. He said they aspirated the right follicle for a long time, but there was no egg inside. At some point my Teddy Grahams had made it to me and I was half way through the bag when I got this news. Suddenly, my Teddy Grahams had no flavor. I didn't care about my carefully packed ginger ale. A few minutes later, I just lost control and sobbed. I felt like we weren't even going to make it to ICSI. My husband had to leave the room to do his part. The new nurse rubbed my legs and tried to console me. She agreed the pressure to be a woman is more pressure than anyone should have to bear (or maybe even bare..I think both spellings could be accurate here). Both nurses were so kind and sweet. Eventually, I had to get out of bed and prove that I could walk around without falling over. They had me go to the bathroom. Peeing after anesthesia is very weird. You have all the sensations that you need to pee, but no pee comes. I don't know if this is weird or normal. Could be my faulty bladder. But for me, it lasts for hours. I dribbled a little pee and could stand up and move around without falling over. They started to peel off the layers of tape that had been wasted on my arm. Peeling the tape off of my dead nerve endings was pretty rough. They peeled tape off forever it seemed. Then I noticed they even missed a piece. Jerk anesthesiologist... I put my clothes back on. The nurses realized they needed to give me my progesterone shot. So I had to get back on the bed while they taught my husband the correct way to administer these shots in my butt. The needles are very bigly. Yuge even. I was surprised it didn't hurt but maybe my body's pain receptors decided to take a vacation. For progesterone there are alternatives to shots. But, naturally, they're more expensive. Plus I've heard the suppositories get a little gross after a while. I figure if we can save money and if I don't have to wear pads and feel gross every day what's another couple dozen shots or so? So here we are in the waiting zone again. They'll call tomorrow to let us know if it fertilized. Just because they've used ICSI does not mean it will definitely fertilize. On Saturday, I go back to have my endometrial lining measured again. IF it's thick enough we will do a transfer on Sunday (assuming it grows and divides as expected). If not, then we have to wait until Tuesday/Wednesday and see if it makes it to freeze. Then we will wait another 8 weeks. Two weeks to get my period (assuming it comes in two weeks) and then 6 weeks of prepping my uterus with more meds before the transfer. Then we still have to wait 2-ish weeks to see if it stuck. When we first found out that we could do this very discounted cycle, I felt like one of those families on Family Feud that got asked to comeback because of a technical difficulty. I feel like we barely made it to the last round and now I just have to wait to see if my partner (egg/embryo--not Matt) can pick up my slack and get us to the 200 points. I feel like I only got us about 75 points or so and this egg/embryo has some serious work to do. Like it really needs to get all the number one responses for us to get our $20,000. Except we won't actually be getting $20,000...we just won't be spending $20,000 on an egg donor. But it would feel like the ultimate lottery prize for this to work. I am totally obsessed with Jenny Lawson so I will keep providing free advertising for her. I'm getting a free tote bag since I pre-ordered my book so I feel like I should give back. I'll probably be quoting this book until the end of time: "It is possible to be standing on the top of the world and also barely hanging on to the edge at the same time." 3/9/2017 2 Comments 50th postI realized yesterday that my next post would be my 50th post. I meant to write an update just in case our egg retrieval didn't go well. I didn't want my 50th post to be sad and gloomy. But, I got Jenny Lawson's new book You Are Here in the mail (pre-ordered it!) Jenny Lawson whether she knows it or not has really helped me get through this process. I love all of her books, but this new weird "Owner's Manual for Dangerous Minds" is just what the doctor ordered for my egg retrieval. So I opened this book and devoured it in one sitting. It's such an amazing work of art. It's part coloring book, part weird Jenny Lawson anecdotes, part inspiration quotes. Not necessarily in even thirds.
So, I decided that I would be positive about our egg retrieval and not write a random blog. I felt maybe that would jinx our egg retrieval. I have been more superstitious than I have ever been in my life. Really. Not joking. Earlier this week I parked my car in a spot that I THOUGHT I had parked in before so I backed my car out and moved my car to a totally different row. But, our egg retrieval did not go well despite my optimistic demeanor. I don't want to get into the details just yet. I'm trying to keep my angry, jealous, bitter feelings at bay until we get confirmation that there is nothing to work with yet. I think my new strategy is to give up. After all, I have had dozens of people saying things like "Just when you give up it will work out." Well this is me giving up testing this theory. I have 0 expectations that this will work this time. Perhaps that will change the universe's direction and get me pregnant. Just kidding. I don't actually believe that. I think I've really just given up. So for this blog post, which is what I wanted to do last night, I want to type up a few unsolicited pieces of advice for anyone in treatment or soon to be infertile patients. My tips are in absolutely no particular order. The first thing is do not fret over what kind of underwear you are wearing to the doctor's office. I used to carefully choose what underwear I could wear without judgment. You will drop your pants including underwear the moment you walk in the door. Literally no one will see your underwear. IF you need to channel your nervous energy into figuring out what articles of clothing to wear, worry about your socks. Doctors will make comments about your socks. Even with my feet in the stirrups and my legs spread eagle, I have never felt more vulnerable than the time I went in for an ultrasound with a hole in the toe of my sock. There was my big toe just waving to everyone. No one commented, but I couldn't make my toe stop trying to converse with the whole room. It's also weird going in with no socks. Since I got my tattoos I haven't been able to wear socks. Even though they cover the scary metal stirrups with those weird, fuzzy, aloe-filled socks...it's weird. While we are on the subject of clothing, you must invest in some new clothes. I'm not talking cute clothes to boost your confidence. Pick up some new give up clothes. You will need a good pair of sweatpants. Especially if you are going to be having a laparoscopy. Get a good comfortable pair with a loose waistband. Channel your inner Dolly Parton. If you can fit into a small, but a medium feels better...get a large. Your body is going to go through some serious changes. At some point you will bloat like never before. You will look like you are going to deliver a baby, when in fact, you're just pumped full of all the pregnancy hormones. Also, leggings. I NEVER would have worn leggings before this. But let's face it. I lost my dignity a long damn time ago. I wear leggings like they make no other clothing anymore. I also invested in a few jersey knit and sweater dresses. Basically what it comes down to is your body is going to be stretching and shrinking. You need clothes to accommodate that. I also LOVE wearing tunics on ultrasound days because the back is long enough to cover my butt cheeks while getting ultrasounds. They give you a blanket to cover yourself, but if you have on a regular shirt your butt will be out in the open. With a tunic, totally covered on that side. My next piece of advice is the hardest; I think. If there are people in your life that don't get it. They are not going to get it. I tried so hard to make people understand how hard this is. The only that changed was me. The responses from these people never changed. But, I became bitter and angry and sad and petty. If you notice that no matter how many times you try to gently--or not so gently-- express that they are hurting your feelings and they continue with the same dismissive or hurtful behaviors it's time to take a break. I'm not saying cut everyone out of your life the first time they say, "Just adopt." But, if you've worked on letting someone know they're hurting your feelings and not being very nice multiple times. Let them go. Don't let your relationship with someone blow up in your face. I don't care if this person is your sister or your mother or your best friend. Take a break. If it's really bad just move on. If the person doesn't understand you need a break, it's not worth it. If they really love you, they'll come around eventually. This is your crisis and you need to take care of you. Don't get petty. Don't be passive aggressive. Just take a break. You will make yourself crazy if you don't. If you are brave enough to come out to the entire world (yes, brave. I usually actively avoid this, but one of my friends recently came out as Trans and I know realize how brave it is to talk about really tabboo things). So if you are BRAVE (embrace that word unlike me) and you come out to the world, you will find new friends. I would say the people I've become closest to are people I have literally never met or people I would've classified as acquaintances a year ago. You will find good people. You will find other infertiles or mothers with low milk production. You will find other people who get you and hopefully you have a few good friends already. Maybe this advice should come before the last piece. But I'm not in an editing type of mood. Join a support group. There's dozens on facebook. You just have to search for them and request to join. My favorite is the Infertility TTC Support Group. One of my friends told me about this group when I first announced my infertility. This has been the single most helpful thing. People cannot see what you post--unless of course you have mutual friends in the group. It does have over 14,000 members so don't be surprised when you see people you know. I'm also in an IVF support group, and IUI/IVF support group, and a low AMH support group. Join as many as you need to join. You will find other people with the same thoughts as you. You're overly optimistic and don't want negativity? There's people there for you. You want to set the world on fire and watch it burn with everyone still on? There's a group of people for you. Somewhere in the middle? Yup. You're covered too. Whatever validation you are looking for, I promise it's there. With the support of these ladies you can let go of those people described above. At least for as long as you need to. If you need a therapist get one. If you don't need one, don't let people bully you into it. Therapy is only useful when you're ready to participate. If you aren't ready, you aren't ready. But when you are ready, go. I've been doing acupuncture pretty much sine the beginning of our medical treatments. Not only does acupuncture allegedly help with infertility, but it is really relaxing. It can hurt, but it only lasts a second. I haven't slept so well in my entire life. I do feel more relaxed when I go regularly. Whatever healthy way you have to relax is the best. I will never say "just relax you'll get pregnant." Because that is total BS. But being wired and feeling miserable all the time really gets old fast. Find a way to relax and pass the time. Things you used to find relaxing or fun may no longer be relaxing or fun. Find something new to fill the space. Whether that's coloring or watching 15 episodes of Criminal Minds in one day (what? Who has done that? Not me? Okay maybe that one day...or maybe two three..whatever don't judge..) There is A LOT of time to pass. Maybe that's more than one piece of advice at once... STOP doing crazy shit. Stop googling. Stop ordering products that promise to make you more fertile. I've tried so many things. Robitussin, Mucinex, Fertile CM, Premama, Preseed. Okay maybe hang on to the Preseed. There is some evidence to support that's useful. I just found some glue on my chest from the electrodes and got really distracted by that. I can't even remember the other products I was going to mention. Like I said...not in an editing mood so this will be a real stream of consciousness today. Anyway...I've seen people buying royal jelly, maca root...god knows what else. We will try anything. Don't waste your money. That stuff is not worth it. Save your money for some high quality ovulation predictor kits and fertility treatments. The cost is never ending. Did I mention stop Googling? Yes that is the worst. I literally had to negotiate with myself. I had to cut myself off. But let me tell you. You can't go cold turkey on Google. I had to set days and times of days I allowed myself to Google. Slowly but surely, I stopped Googling and my life has been much better. Don't get me wrong. I occasionally have a relapse, but I do much better about it now and when I do Google I don't get so upset by what I find. Educate yourself. This seems counter-intuitive to my last piece of advice. Learn everything you can about your body. Just don't google weird websites that are 10 years old. I highly recommend Taking Charge of Your Fertility. It looks like a textbook because it's at least 500 pages long. But it's well written, funny, and user friendly. If you aren't infertile but want to learn more about your body or your friend's body or your wife's body BUY THIS BOOK. It's worth it. Read only trusted articles. Read other people's blogs. Check out those support groups and learn. If I could do anything over with our fertility journey I would have absolutely put my foot down and said "Shut up and take my money. Get out of my way. Do the damn ICSI" last time. I wish more than anything in the world I had been more insistent on doing the ICSI. Even if we didn't get pregnant at least I wouldn't have this giant "WHAT IF" following me around, hanging over my head every minute of every day for the rest of my life. Other things I wish I had done sooner. I wish I had started the ketogenic diet YEARS ago. Ask your doctor if this diet is for you. I feel so much better. I sleep better. I have more energy. I've lost some weight. Even if you are skinny and don't think you need this diet, you do. You need some fatty meats and cheeses in your life. What you do not need are sugar and carbohydrates. Your ovaries and other organs will thank you. This may also seem counter to my advice of "stop doing stupid shit," but I also wish I had given up my dryer sheets, perfumes, and non-natural cleaning products a long time ago. I still haven't given up plastic entirely. Sometimes I create my own definition of doing stupid shit. So disregard my advice of giving it up (minus the googling...seriously just stop). You do what feels productive for you. It is so easy to feel so out of control of everything so fast. Nothing you do puts you in the driver seat of your own body during infertility. Whatever you do you cannot make your ovaries, uterus, or your husband's sperm (if that's your trouble) work. It's all up to your body. Especially on the medications, your emotions can feel so out of control and unbearable. Working moms talk about how difficult that is (I am in no way saying it isn't), but being an infertile woman while working is hard. Especially if you're in a helping field. I've had days where I just want to scream in people's faces that their problems are so minuscule and ask them what the hell their problem is. But I cannot do that. I have to remain calm and helpful and push my own problems back. So this piece of advice is to do what makes you feel in control -- even if that means breaking the rule of doing crazy shit. When it comes to other emotional things, my biggest note to you is to forgive yourself. You got a baby shower notice in the mail and threw it away before you even got it all the way out of the envelope and there's no way in Hell you're going? So what. This is YOUR crisis. It is not someone else's. Right now you are the center of your universe. There's actually a really good article about this, but the title is slipping my mind. Do not feel guilty. Do what you need to do. You saw a pregnancy announcement of someone who you know didn't even want kids so you threw your phone against the wall? That's OKAY. Most of us have been You unfollowed everyone of child bearing age on Facebook? Good for you! You're taking care of yourself! Don't want to go out with friends after work because you have a hot date with your couch and 6 hours of Family Feud! Hit me up and text me because I have that date regularly. Do what you need to do to get through this. Don't stop talking about your feelings or your situation because others find it uncomfortable. Find the people who aren't afraid of all of you and talk to them. They will save your sanity if not your life. Some of the more medically related things I wish I knew when I started. The biggest being IVF doesn't work for everyone. My diagnosis (diminished ovarian reserve) is actually the worst candidate for IVF. Not too many years ago they wouldn't have even allowed me or others like me to participate in IVF but the science gets better every day. But here we are on trial number 2 anyway. It only takes one egg right? So I hear. The next thing I wasn't really prepared for. Your IUI OR your IVF can be cancelled faster than it even gets started. I was absolutely not prepared for that. We had two cancelled IUIs. The first one because I only had one follicle and it was on a side where there is no Fallopian tube anymore. The second was cancelled because we had NOTHING. Not a single follicle. Not even one that was too little. ABSO-FING-LUTELY NOTHING. Our first round of IVF teetered on the precipice of being canceled for the same reason. Luckily, our one little follicle grew...but our egg did not properly fertilize. Here we are again in the same situation. One egg. There is absolutely nothing or at least very little you can do to brace yourself for an IVF failure. It's expensive. It's very emotional. It's painful. This is by far the worst thing I think I could ever go through. So this is my 50th blog post. I'm sure I have more advice ready to spew out, but these seem the most important (as of now). But this is already a terribly long post and I don't even know how many of you will make it all the way to the end. When I first started this blog I wasn't even sure if I would write a second entry. I surely did not think I'd have 50. I thought we'd do clomid and some IUIs and I'd be pregnant in a few months. But that is not how my story is working out. I started this blog in May-ish...Not quite sure the date. But we are almost rounding out a year in our fertility clinic. I currently have had almost 18,000 total page views and almost 12,000 unique page views. I literally thought maybe 5 people would read my blog. It's crazy to know so many people at least open the link. Not sure how many read it all. I'm so grateful for each and every person who reads my blog. I hope many of you find it helpful for yourself or maybe it helps you better understand a friend or family member. I appreciate those that are just genuinely interested in my journey and pray and send good thoughts for us. I know that when or if we have a baby it will have the biggest and best village to help raise him or her or whatever gender neutral pronoun our child may prefer. So I started this blog around 1:00. Usually they take me 20-30 minutes to type up but this one was substantially longer than intended. We did get a call at 2:00 that our egg was mature and has been injected with sperm. I'll write another (hopefully shorter) update on our egg retrieval adventures later today. I'll end this post with a quote from the new Jenny Lawson book, "Happiness doesn't always last. But neither does sadness. Depression lies. Don't believe it." |
Heather Joyce
Trying to conceive. Archives
April 2018
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