Redirection

I need to get back into this, to redirect this blog into something that is not about infertility and our struggle to become pregnant, but about my life.

There are still struggles, good days, bad days, things to celebrate, things to vent about, I just need to do it.

So much has happened since I last blogged. First and foremost and most life changing......We have a daughter. A beautiful, perfect, healthy daughter. She is my sunshine. She is my life. I cannot imagine living my life without her in it. When I look back on my darkest days of struggling with IF, I can honestly say that although it was painful and I am forever scarred, she was/is worth it. Totally, totally worth it.

I guess I should begin with her birth story and move forward from there.

C was born on 2/14/11. 2 weeks early. By C-section (which surprised us). I started having contractions on 2/13/11 at 2:45am. They were consistently 10 minutes apart throughout the rest of the morning, shortening to 9....to 8...to 7, and then just when I am thinking, "Maybe this is it." They kind of calm right down . To 11 minutes apart at one point in time, at which point I stopped timing them.

I decided to lay down and take a nap. Wasn't happening, but I was able to rest quietly for a bit. My parents came over and we bbq'd steaks and had baked potatoes and sauteed mushrooms. We even had dessert (a love cake - Funfetti with a Valentine's Day theme). I was uncomfortable throughout dinner, but still not really having timeable contrax. My parents left and A and I went to bed around 8ish (I was tired from not really sleeping the night before and wanted him with me). As soon as I laid down, boom! Contractions started back up, right at 5 minutes apart and with great intensity. I sat on my workout ball and bounced around, which helped a bit, but they quickly became more and more intense. I was moaning and crying and feeling embarrassed that I was making such a fuss. I tried rocking on all fours during a contraction, which seemed to help also. Around 10:30 I begged A to call the doctor to see if we could go to the hospital. We got the go-ahead.

Grabbed all our stuff and drove in. Got checked in, moved to a room (this is around 11:30p) and a nurse checked me. (In the midst of this I threw up my love cake :( and now I don't really desire Funfetti cake, lol) She called another nurse to do a check also (me moaning and apologizing for it throughout the entire time) and the conversed quietly about how the doctor was hopefully arriving soon and told me I was at a 9. A 9! All I could think was, "Crap, now I can't have an epidural." (Which coincidentally, I hadn't wanted, but once I was to that point, I really, really did) The OB arrives (not my OB, the on-call, who I actually ended up liking better!) and he checks me and calls for an u/s machine. Turns out our baby was breech, which we were unaware of. Time for a c-section.

A suits up, they wheel me to surgery, and within about 30 minutes of getting back there, our baby girl is born at 1:20a on Valentines Day. She weighed 7lbs 1oz and was 19.5in long. Beautiful, with lots of hair, and dark blue eyes.

We didn't know what we were having, but we had names picked for either gender (1 for a boy, 2 for a girl). We named her, A went with her to get checked out and I got all stitched up and taken to recovery (where she was waiting!) and life has never been the same.

I think it's time to update

My last post was a very heartbreaking, emotional one. It truly felt like one of the worst days of my life.

Things began to look up soon after. The bleeding began to taper off and I started to wonder what was going on. I called my OB/GYN the Monday following, but she was on vacation so I was scheduled to see a NP. Got b/w done and it confirmed pregnancy. Started on progesterone supps and returned for b/w to see an increase. Went in the following Thursday (almost two weeks after the bleeding began) and saw..........a tiny, flickering heartbeat. We are expecting a baby!

Next to the sac was a huge clot of blood, which the u/s doc said was a subchorionic hematoma and that it would continue to cause bleeding. Whee.

Scheduled my first OB appt for the following week and got to see lil babe again.

I am currently 13w5d pregnant and at a quick appt last Monday (8/16) for another bleeding issue, we got to hear the baby's heartbeat and movements.

I don't feel out of the woods yet. I don't think I ever will, not after the pain and time and loss that we experienced trying to get here, but I am trying to find joy and happiness and most of all hopefulness. I am pregnant and hopefully this baby is a strong fighter and we get to meet him/her in February.

If you pray, please keep us in your prayers.

It's been awhile

Sorry I haven't been writing much lately. Not really sure what to talk about I guess.

I have had some exciting things happen recently. I got a new job, just part time, but I am excited to be working again.

We also took a week-long trip to Mexico for our 5 year anniversary at the end of May that was just heavenly.

Otherwise, not much new in our lives.

I recently thought I was pregnant. Like, until yesterday. I "thought" I was late (didn't know the exact day of my LMP). My breast were sore, I was feeling pulling sensations in my uterus, just like with my c/p. But when I went to the bathroom yesterday I wiped and it was red and I started feeling crampy.
Made me glad I didn't buy a test, but I have been unbelievably sad since. I just thought that maybe, for once, things were coming together in a good way and my hope was crushed.

I am just really down in the dumps today.

Let's talk about feelings, shall we???

Today I am feeling angry and sad and nervous.

The anger comes from the unfairness of IF. From all the pain and worry and fear that we endure. From that moment, when you think that maybe you have crossed that line, that maybe you are the lucky one, and then...to have that moment ripped away.

I belong to a secret club. The IF club. It's a club filled with amazing women (and their supportive husbands), a club that none of us really want to belong to, but one that means the world to us at the same time, because in this secret club, you can find someone to talk to, someone that really "gets" what you are going through and you can do the same for them.

It's difficult. I watch my friends go through hell to get pregnant. And when they do it should be easy, right? It should be the most commonplace, smooth-sailing pregnancy you have ever seen. But it seems like it rarely is. And all too easily that pregnancy is taken away before one even got to celebrate it. One of my friends has experienced an arduous path to achieve a pregnancy, but it turns out that path is not over. She went for an u/s today and found that she lost the baby. This was after finding last week that she was losing the first twin. I can't begin to imagine what she is going through right now and I just don't understand why she has to experience it. All I can do is pray that she finds peace and healing and the strength to continue on.

But it makes me so angry that she, that anyone, has to experience loss.

This in turn leads to sadness. Sadness that it is so difficult. Sadness that A and I might never be parents. We are trying on our own right now, who knows if we will ever do treatments again, and while I have hope that we could experience a miracle, deep down I am terrified that we never will. Achieving a pregnancy is is not the goal. Getting pregnant, staying pregnant, and bringing that miracle into the world. That is the goal. Is it unattainable? I don't know. I hope not, I hope that God has a great plan for us and that we are just on this long, winding path, and that one day we will arrive.

Switching up the thought process completely.....I am nervous too! My GRE is schedule for tomorrow and I don't feel prepared. Do you ever? I don't know. I just know that I will take my time and do my best and hope for a good score. It's a test you can re-take, but I really don't want to. Especially for $160/try. So wish me luck!

And join me as I pray for all the couples experiencing IF and loss.

Our little embies

One year ago today we woke up excited.

One year ago today we left the house, telling our furbabies that when we got home that night Momma was going to be pregnant.

One year ago today I got one of the most difficult calls of my life.

One year ago today was the day that we found out that our beautiful little embryos had arrested in the night. That our 5 beautiful little babies were gone. That before they even had a chance, they were taken away from us.

I took and still do take comfort in the fact that God is looking after them, that it just wasn't the right time for them or for us.

But it hurt. Badly.

So today is hard.

But it'll get better.

Always on my mind

Recovery hasn't been bad. The gas pains from the CO2 they fill you up with were quite painful, made it kind of hard to breathe, but they subsided by around Monday night I would say. The incision sites were (can still be from time to time) tender, but they seem to be healing pretty well. My mom recommends leaving the steri-strips on until they fall off, which I was against at first, I figured I would take them off after a week, but they still seem pretty attached, so I guess I will give them a few more days.

I was talking to my mom yesterday. We talked about IF a little, we got started on the subject by talking about moving (as we are contemplating doing so after I take the GR.E, but we are not sure to where yet, I guess it depends on where I may get accepted and where A can find a job), and she said that "watching" us going through this from so far away was really hard for her. I can imagine that it was, as it was difficult for me to be away from her (and my dad), too. She said all she ever wanted to do was be with me, and hold me, and that listening to me cry over the phone, or tell her, "I am going to the ER", just killed her. She said that since we have started on this path that she sits and thinks sometimes about her pregnancy with me. If she did anything out of the ordinary, if it was somehow different that the other two, but she can never think of anything.

She sits and wonders about how IF can affect people, and why certain people are affected and others aren't. Why (and this same thought has gone through my mind millions of times, as I am sure it has other IF women to some degree) she was able to get pregnant so easily and have three healthy children, why A's mom was able to have 4 children (one passed soon after birth to a heart problem), pregnancy coming easily each time, and we can't even get pregnant (at least w/out medical intervention if you count our recent c/p)?

As I have said before, I wish I was truly a faithful person. I would tell myself that God knows and that He has a plan, and I just have to allow His will and wait for it to unfold in the way He wishes. I am not that person. I believe that He does have a plan, but I question it and wonder why it is what it is.........and what it is.

Our 1 year anniversary of beginning on the path of IVF has passed. The next big anniversary, at least in my mind is 5/7. This is the day we first realized, I think, how truly hard this path was going to be. How truly challenging and life-changing. The day we found out about our 5 beautiful embryos. We had life, light, hope...........and it died.

I believe we have truly experienced the grieving process. Maybe we are still within it.....maybe once you experience loss you never really come out of it. Maybe the rest of your life is spent on the path of grieving. At some level you feel the sadness that changed you, but you move forward, for what else can you do?

I don't know if I am making much sense in this post, this is very stream-of-consciousness. We are done, as I have said before, with treatments (for now, forever?), but I never stop thinking about things. It's always a part of me, always at the back (or forefront) of my mind.

One thing I have learned is this:
Infertility changes you. Forever.

What If

This topic has been on my mind a bit lately. I have worried about it since our chemical pregnancy, but I haven't wanted to talk about it because I am scared that it will make it real, if that makes any sense.

*sigh*

So, as were we doing on FET we followed our REs direction's completely, medication-wise. I have never had an inkling not to, well, other than possibly changing protocols, but he deemed that unnecessary, so we went along with it, but I digress.

My point is this:
In our first IVF cycle we did PIO with our protocl, starting that day of ER. Protocol called for 1mL of PIO each day.

2nd IVF is a little bit harder to compare......we did suppositories instead and I am so fuzzy on the period after ER until I got admitted to the hospital and put on IV pain-meds that I can't tell you for sure how many we did, but I wanna say it was one in the AM and one in the PM.

Fast forward to late Jan/early Feb. We have completed our FET and we are at the tail end of the cycle. We did one Estro.gen inject every 3 days and 1 PIO everyday. But the PIO was only .5mL.

Now this seemed off to me. For a couple reasons.
Well, first, we did 1mL w/the other cycle, wouldn't we do at LEAST the same amount now?
The reason I say at least is my second point. During a fresh cycle your body kind of knows what is going on. You actually grow follicles and at ER these follicles are aspirated for the eggs. During a normal cycle when your body releases the egg the follicular cyst that held the egg breaks down and releases Proge.sterone. This also happens with a fresh cycle.

But not with a frozen.

You are completely in charge of what your body "thinks" during a frozen cycle. You are telling it. Ok, now you are in the luteal phase of the cycle, let's create some proge.sterone. Voila, injection!
So in the fresh/natural cycle you are creating this hormone yourself AND supplementing.

In a frozen, you are pretty much just supplementing. Most doctors believe that by 8 weeks that embryo is able to support itself, but up until that time you need to help it along.

So long story short.....why was I on less PIO than with my fresh cycle? I even wondered during the cycle and thought about supplementing with the suppositories I had on hand, but stupid me. I trusted our RE and figured he knew what he was doing.

And now I have no pregnancy to show for it. What if we had used 1(+)mL of PIO, would that have helped? Would I still be pregnant today? What if I had gone with my gut instead of my subpar RE? Where would we be today?

I know that this isn't very healthy to think about, but I would be lying if I said I didn't think about it all the time. I know there is nothing we can do now. We lost the pregnancy, I can't go and get it back.

Do y'know.....I would be in my second trimester by now? :(

Is a Break Necessary?

Burnt out.

I can't stop thinking about researching new REs, specifically REs in the LA area, because if we remain in this area LA seems the most likely place to find a new one (an hour closer than SF and some of the REs have satellite offices in cities closer to me), but I just don't have the energy or the motivation, or whatever to do the research.

I am burnt out.

I can't begin to imagine starting over. But I can't imagine not moving on and trying again.

I know I don't have a lot of readers (:)), but if anyone sees an RE down in the LA vicinity and can recommend them, I would truly appreciate it.

Being unemployed is a hindrance definitely, but at the same time it gives me the opportunity to visit a doctor that is further away, without the stress of missing work a lot. So maybe now is the time to do this.

I just want a miracle to happen. I want to just love on A and have a miracle happen. A miracle that will make this path, this journey, all this pain worthwhile.


Onto other, hopefully brighter, topics.............
I am trying to plan a trip. I didn't think it would require so much research, and I am probably making it harder than it should be, but I keep finding hotels to put on the list and I am checking about 6 different websites for the "best deal". We are interested in going to the Riviera Maya, specifically around the Playa del Carmen area (at least closer to that than Cancun). Last year we had to pay on state and federal taxes. Well with all that we spent this year on meds and all the other misc. IVF bills we are getting money back.
We need some time away. Some time for just the two of us. Some time to connect on a fun, relaxing, and physical level. We have the emotions down (loss and hard times have truly done that for us), but as many of my Nest friends can probably attest to, sex is just not the same. Not in the "oh, we aren't newlyweds anymore", but in the "sex is not about us anymore, not about fun, it's about making a baby, or doing it because we haven't in a long time and we should now". It's sad.
Although yesterday we slipped in a quickie at lunch. ;) A had to inspect a building closer to our house and stopped home at lunchtime. It was so nice.

Anyway! If you have any recs on hotels in PDC, let me know that too!

To find comfort

A little background:
I am a Christian, raised Catholic, but not truly practicing. I am trying to get back into church and trying to lean on the Lord a bit more in the journey of life. I know that I definitely need help in this. Small steps is how I am starting - trying to start going to church, I am thinking about a bible study course and then we will see from there.

So obviously my skills (if you would call them that) are very rudimentary. Embarrassingly enough today I googled some Bible verses that "bring comfort in times of loss/grief". I found one I really liked and I wanted to share it.

Psalm 71:20-21Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.

I think one of the reason's I have been against attending church again is the belief of the Catholic church that IVF is wrong. I obviously don't agree, but it makes me feel somewhat hypocritical to attend/belong to a church that does not believe in something that is a very integral part of our lives right now. My belief is that God gave us (as humans) the ability to learn and create these amazing ways of growing our families. He allows the sperm and egg to meet and fertilize and create embryos, He allows families to become pregnant with this miraculous embryos, and He allows those embryos to be born into the loving families that worked/waited/cried/prayed for these little ones. How can He not be a part of this? How can the church say that this is wrong and not the way of the Lord?

Anyway, I guess I am getting a little bit deeper than I meant to........comments are welcome. I am, as I said, definitely on the path of learning. I went to catechism for 8 years, but have not continued to learn really in the time since and I am happy to hear other points of view and ideas.

Oh happy day!

Ugh, what a day....... so today I was waiting for a phone call. Phone call was supposed to occur between the hours of 3 and 5 pm. Did not occur. I called instead, received a message that they were experiencing high call volumes and to try back later. Waited 15 min, tried again, same message. Tried again about 20 min later, office closed. So I got on their website and let them know.

During the end of this, A gets home and my mom calls. I ask if I can call her back and tell him I have no ideas for dinner because I was waiting for this phone call. He says, what do you want? I say I don't care, that I will eat cereal. Finish what I am working on, irritated at the whole situation, and call my mom back. As I am talking to her, A asks me again what I want for dinner, I again tell him I don't care, that I will have cereal (in a snippy voice) and ask my mom what she said. She tells me not to take out my irritation on him. Yes, I know this, but at this point I am not just irritated at the situation I AM irritated at him because I have already said I don't care what I eat/if I eat and he just can't make a decision on his own. I then tell her that I know, but I don't tell her how to talk to/treat Dad.

In an aside, since I have been married, this is one of my biggest pet peeves from my parents, the tips on how to and how to not treat my husband. They don't do it to my older brother, and we do not do it to them, so I don't really see where they get off sometimes. Especially because it's never about the nice things I do for him, how well I take care of him, it's about how I should be, that he is so good to me, and blah blah blah. Yes, I know he is good to me, he is great, but ya know what? He is not perfect, neither am I, but it works for us, this relationship.

Anyway, my mom tells me that she can let me go because she can tell I don't really want to talk. Okay, good idea, let's talk tomorrow. But I think that she is crying by the time we hang up, which makes me want to call her right now and check on her, but I really just don't want to talk on the phone.

Sigh... I know that was all over the place, but I was soo steamed for a few minutes that I was having some thoughts and needed to at least get this out.

so, yeah, there it is..........Happy Holidays.........
and Disney....off, there goes my happy trip
one good thing - interview tomorrow!

Jealous

I am jealous. I feel like an evil person because some of the people I am jealous of have been trying to have babies for awhile too, but I am feeling left behind and sad and that life is just not fair.
I am happy for my friends when they get pregnant, whether they get pregnant the first month they try or whether it takes them months or years. I truly truly am.
But right now I am jealous. We have done 2 IVF's and haven't even had a chance to let an embie grow inside of me. As you know, with our first IVF our embies arrested between day 3 and 4, so we didn't even have a chance to put one back. And then with IVF #2 I ended up in the hospital with severe OHSS and had to cancel transfer. We have 2 frosties on ice and we are scheduled for an FET (frozen embryo transfer) in January.

It's just one of those days where I want to go outside and scream, lay on the ground and kick my feet and cry and rant and wonder, when will it be our turn??

Lost and broken

I am a ball of cheer, I know. But.......I just can't get past this. My life is so messed up right now. I want to get a 2nd opinion, but I don't want to have to drive 6 hours round trip to do so, but I don't want to stick with a subpar RE just because either.

Today was my first day back at work. It was really hard to go back. I am super emotional right now, so I was crying to A as I was getting ready this morning and then when I got there I almost cried in front my boss just because I was so upset to be there and wanted to go home.

The first two hours were difficult too, my boss wanted me to file all the stuff they had left sitting around for the last two weeks and it's hard for me to stand for a long time still. So by the end I was slumping over the top of the filing cabinet, putting things away. But by the end of the day it was hard to sit at my desk too. I couldn't wait to go home. My 2nd boss came in and didn't even acknowledge me. Yes, I don't like them, but after missing 12 days straight you would think they would show a little compassion and ask how I was doing. Sigh, I guess I still expect too much out of them.

I am heading to bed early tonight I think. I am really sore and I have a bad headache. Plus, I just want the oblivion that sleep brings. That's all for know, I feel like I am having trouble articulating what I want to say.........................

Trapped

That is how I feel here in California. I want to move back closer to our families, but for multiple reasons, we can't move back at this time. And by back, I don't mean Michigan per se, just back east and closer.

First and foremost, we have a contract with my RE. He has four chances to get us pregnant (fresh IVF's, not FETs, those are unlimited within the time period) within a 24 month period. So, until/unless he gets us pregnant within that time period, we are at least stuck here until it is over. (And I do see humor in that comment - HE gets US pregnant. Sad humor, but it's there nonetheless!)

Second would obviously been the necessity of a job wherever we are headed, for at least one of us. I had a job when we moved out here and A got one about 3 days later, so we were pretty lucky. At that time I thought it was meant to be, but it seems my feelings have changed. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't naive enough to think it would be easy and we wouldn't miss our families and our "old" life, and we HAVE had some good times, but I am really, truly over it. I love our friends out here, and I will be so sad to leave them, but I just think we need to be closer to our families. Plus, I am just not a California girl.

I get irritated with costs out here, the state's economy (and the fact that they are completely broke, but continue to do unnecessary road maintenance on roads that don't need it), the tax rates, the "perfect" weather, living near the ocean instead of lakes, the BROWN of the landscape most of the year, etc, etc.

I probably sound ungrateful and whiny. Honestly, I am so glad for this opportunity. I always wanted to get out of Michigan and being out here does not make me want to move back there, but it has shown me the things I miss and want and need in my life. And I am so proud of us. We had an offer in June, we decided within about 1 week, we both quit our jobs, packed up and moved 2500 miles away from everything we had ever known. And we have done well, we both have jobs, we have made great friends, we have seen a lot of a wonderful state, and we can't look back and ask "What if".

I guess I am just ready for this chapter to be done now. I am ready for a new adventure, one that hopefully includes a child (preferably children) and I want those children to know their grandparents, not just see them once a year. I want them to experience the same closeness and love of family that A and I did, I want them to be able to spend a weekend with their beloved grandparents/aunt & uncles whenever they can, not when money/flights/school/work permit. That's all.

Onto lighter topics - the Gar.lic Fe.stival yesterday was fun! The weather was perfect (ha!) and the food was incredible. A and I had garlic toast and garlic chicken quesadillas. My friend T and her boyfriend D had garlic calamari, a garlic beef sandwich and garlic fries. We all tried a free sample of vanilla garlic soft serve. If it hadn't been free we probably wouldn't have, but I am glad we did, it was great. It was a really fun time and I am glad we checked it out.
Then last night I went out with the girls and I was the DD. We sang songs from the jukebox and just socialized, it was a good time. And one of my guy friends, out of the blue, asked when A and I were going to have kids and I explained about our situation. He was awesome, understanding and really compassionate. He gave me a really big hug and told me that he is sorry we are going through this and that he would be thinking about us. Shows that sometimes you CAN talk to someone and though that might not completely understand, they at least empathize.

Men are from Mars.................

I think it's a men thing. They just don't understand the feelings and emotions that women experience.
I hate that I feel the need to write this, but it helps to get these things out of my system.
So yesterday and today have been a little difficult. Yesterday was my beta day, and as we all obviously know, that didn't happen. Today a friend of mine, after waiting about 36 hours for it, got her beta results back. It was negative. It breaks my heart that infertility IS. That it is experienced, that it causes pain, that it leaves the most giving, caring, wonderful women, empty.

Anyway, on to my real point. I LOVE my dad. More than anything. My parents mean the world to me and we are very close. They have and are extremely supportive of A and I as we go through this battle with IF. But sometimes I wish my dad wouldn't say the things he does.

I think it's hard because when I call them I expect sympathy, not frankness. I called my mom when I got home from work today. We talk about every other day. And I cried to her, told her that yesterday was difficult for me and that I was really sad about my friend and her results and how unfair infertility is. She understands me and my sometimes irrational emotions.
After we finished talking she asked if I wanted to say hi to my dad. I did and I cried to him a bit. And he told me that yes, things are hard, but you have to look at the positives and move forward. That people face difficult things everyday. Yes, they do, but people aren't his daughter, and people aren't the ones calling and crying to him because they are sad that they lost their 5 chances at a baby. He made me feel, and I am even sure in the rational part of my brain that he didn't mean it this way, that he probably just didn't know exactly what to say, that I should be over this and moving on and focusing on the future instead of dwelling on the sadness of the past.

I know in my head that this is what I should be doing. I am mad at myself for still being upset. I feel like I should be able to pick up and move on. That it's time. But........I can't yet. I keep wanting to call the RE, well actually I want them to call me like they said they would, ugh; but I can't. I get my phone out at lunch and hope that I have a missed call from them and say to myself if I don't, that I am going to call them and get this moving. And I don't have a missed call, and I don't call them. I am just treading water right now, not moving forward or back. Just waiting, but I don't know for what.