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? :(

Not Pregnant

Beta #2 came back at 3.9 today.

We have lost the pregnancy right at the very start.

I feel lost. Broken. Depressed.....and on and on.

Where to go from here?

IF we start again, and right now I just can't fathom it and I don't think we can afford it, so that's a big IF, we will be getting a second and/or third opinion. We will not be working with our current RE.

I am disappointed in their professionalism and compassion. After calling with the results today, the nurse (who is pretty much the only one I like there) says, "So, we're doing another fresh cycle with you, right?"
Are you freakin' kidding me? You just tell me that I lost this pregnancy, this pregnancy that we have worked so hard for, and want SO BADLY, and in the next second you ask me when we are cycling again?? Can I have a little time to mourn?

Anyway, that is it for now, I can't focus enough to write anything else.
Thanks for your thoughts.

Beta is in

It's really very low for where we are at in the cycle.

It came back at 10.

We won't give up complete hope, I will keep praying, but we are on the cusp of losing this pregnancy.

Please pray that it doubles by Monday.

Is it Friday yet?

I need to have my beta drawn!! Need!!

But, at the same time, I love the idea of being pregnant, and while I hope that my beta doesn't dash it, in that aspect, I don't mind waiting.

My dad just left this morning to head back to Michigan. So the wait is a little bit harder now. I can't stop thinking about every twinge, whereas when he was here, we stayed pretty busy and I didn't dwell as much.

As for "symptoms" or whatever you want to call them, they are as follows: My boobs are "huge" (for me, seeing as how I am a definite member of the itty bitty titty committee) and sore. My lower back has been hurting off and on pretty much everyday since transfer. About 3 days in I felt a weird localized pain in my uterine area (hoping it was implantation) and starting yesterday I have had weird "pulses" of pain in my uterus. Still feel like I could start my period at any minute, so all of these could be nothing, just side effects from the drugs, but I am praying otherwise.

Trying to have faith in God and my little babies. My brother texted me a wonderful text on the day of transfer (I wrote and said, Transfer is complete! Now we wait and pray), May God complete what He has already begun. It brought tears to my eyes and I kept repeating it to myself.

Will update with results..........................keep your fingers crossed!

2 embies on board!!

Our transfer is complete! We transferred our 2 day6 blasts yesterday.

Now we wait and hope and pray that they snuggle in really tight....for a good nine months!!

I have put myself on 'slight bedrest'. My RE does not believe it's necessary, but I will do anything I can to help these little ones stay around. We went out to lunch after transfer yesterday, B.dubs, yum!! And then came home. I took a quick shower and got in bed. I have only been back downstairs 2x - to get my meds and to make breakfast. Otherwise I have just been getting up to use the bathroom.

Tomorrow my dad comes to visit. This is shaping up to be a REALLY GOOD week!!

Keep us in your thoughts, please!!

Transfer Scheduled

We are on for tomorrow at 1pm. We have to be there at 12:30, with a full bladder (for me, of course!).

I wish I could be only positive, but I am scared. This is where things went wrong with the first cycle (as you know we didn't even make it to this point w/the 2nd), so even though the embies have made it this far I am nervous for them. I told A that he is driving (because I was driving to the last one) and if the phone rings, he is answering it (because I answered last time and it was bad news). Supersitious, I know, but I think of it more as protecting myself.

C'mon, my little embies, you can do this. Soon you will be "home", and hopefully growing and thriving!

OMG, I am so hungry!

And my a$$ hurts!! That would be from the PIO and estrogen injects - 2 in one side last night, boo - but it's all worth it because it means...........we were given the go-ahead!! We are on for this cycle.
Transfer is scheduled for this upcoming Tuesday, so my new request would be this: If you pray, please pray that our embryos thaw well and start thriving again. I just want to give them a chance, I just want to give our babies a chance. I truly hope that God gives us that opportunity.

I started my Hepa.rin injects yesterday too. Those are kind of painful and the make my belly bruise worse than my Lu.pron ever did. I already have one small bruise and two red injection marks. Fun, stuff, this all is!

Other good news....my dad will be here Thursday. I am amazed that I will get to be "pregnant" while one of my parents is in town. :)

This is going to be a good week. It will.

It will.

And with that, I am STARVING...off to find something to eat. :)

Umm....::waves hi::

It's been awhile I know. I actually can't believe how long it's been. Sorry that I haven't updated in awhile.



Quick synopsis of my life since Dec. 30th:
First things first - Happy New Year, albeit a little late!!

FET progress: Last BCP was 1/3, first u/s was 1/12 - went great, we were given the go-ahead to start estrogen injects, which we did that night. 2nd u/s was today. Not so great. It looks like my left ovary is gearing up for something, which we DON'T want to happen. :( We did another estrogen inject tonight and I go in for b/w on Thursday to check my progesterone levels. Praying that they are nice and low and lefty is playing tricks on us. If not, the cycle will be cancelled and I will be devastated.
I do realize how important it is for my body to be working correctly and for my progesterone to be low, and I don't want to move forward if everything isn't perfect, but the ups and downs and the hopes and disappointments of these cycles kill me. So, if you don't mind, cross your fingers (toes, eyes, whatever) for us and send up a little prayer that everything comes back ok.

Cruise: Two words - COLD/FUN!! It was a blast. So chilly and windy and even sometimes rainy, but worth it. It was great to see my friend A! I talked more than I have in a long time (which is saying something!). We flew into Ft. Lau.derdale on Thursday, stayed the night at a hotel there, drove to Mi.ami the next day, cruised around a bit, then went to the ship. Saturday we were supposed to visit their Cay, but it was too rough to tender in, so we skipped it. It was ok, it wasn't beach weather anyway. That night we arrived in Nass.au. We didn't get off the ship until the next day for our excursion - we got to swim/kiss/hug/play with sea lions! It was such a cool experience. I highly recommend it! (It was maybe in the 60's and cloudy and windy - until we got to the destination, then it cleared up a bit and we were protected from the wind, so that helped - so it wasn't the best weather we could have hoped for, but in the end it was great). On Monday we got off the ship, traveled back to Ft. Lau.derdale and had lunch with my grandparents and then flew our separate ways. Short, but tiring, fun trip. :)

We lost power yesterday, due to the heavy rains, for a few hours. I was just starting to get nervous about when it would come back on (because we had just gone grocery shopping the day before) when it started back up. Yay! I was able to fix dinner without having to light the stovetop/oven, so that was good too.

In happier thoughts...my dad is coming to visit us next week. I am so excited to see him. I started working on the spare room today (cleaning, reorganizing the closet - just 'cause, and making up the bed) and I will work on the rest of the house in the next few days. Hopefully I will be on bed rest after transfer Tuesday and into Wednesday, so I want to get done before that happens. It will be cool to know that I will be (see, I am trying to be positive and believe all will be fine with this cycle) pregnant while he is in town.

I actually googled my due date for this cycle (something I haven't done for the other two) and I will (see?!?) be due Oct. 14, 2010 (for a singleton, earlier for twins :)). I am currently 1w5d pregnant, lol!

So anyway, I will try to be better, if for no other reason than to have my FET info documented. Be back soon!!

Updates!

We are moving along in our cycle. I stop BCP's on Sunday (yay!) and we did our Lupron Depot injection on Monday night (I was a little tipsy, so I glad A took care of it for me - it was a good friends bday, I couldn't let her drink alone!) and my bum is a little sore where the injection was, but not too bad.

I started working out on the Active. Started on Sun, did it again Mon, yesterday was my "rest" day and I will get back on it again today and tomorrow. I like it pretty well. I will like it better when I have done all the workouts and can skip the intro's because they are time-consuming.

Only 1 week until I leave for my cruise with my friend A. I am looking forward to it. It will be tiring (3 day round trip from PST to EST), but fun I am sure.

In bad news, we were applying for new insurance for me. My current plan (we have private individual plans) keeps going up and up and up in cost. Our insurance agent said that the plan had been cancelled (which we knew) and they were raising the prices to try and get people to switch, because they cannot force them to, they can just give "incentives", because of the high amounts of claims on that plan - which I guess I contributed to this year by needing to go to the ER 3x and the hospital for almost a week for my OHSS.
Anyway, long story short, I filled out all the paperwork for a new plan, had A go over it (this took about 3 hours) and then had him fax it to the agent from work. She got back with us after reviewing and said that I am going to be denied. Because. I. Am. Infertile.
So, there's that. Pretty depressing. I have to have not been treated for 5 years before they will consider me. Ugh, insurance SUCKS!

Also, have no idea what to do tomorrow night - any thoughts??

Oooooo, post #100!!

"A dream is a wish your heart makes.........."

For some reason those lyrics just came to mind.

We are well on our way for our FET now. Started BCP's on 12/15 and yesterday the infusion nurse came and gave me my IV intralipds. On 12/28, we do my Lu.pron Depot injection and on 1/3 I stop BCP's. My first u/s is scheduled for 1/12 and if it goes well we will get clearance to begin estrogen injects.
Our little frosties will hopefully be "home" around 1/25!

In other good news........I received my first unemployment check on Mon. It takes a huge weight off our shoulders and makes me feel validated in my thoughts of my previous employers.

We are somewhat sad lately though. This is our third Christmas in CA w/out family. It's really hard this year, not that the last two haven't been, but for some reason this year is different. Maybe it's because this year has been so difficult for us, with the two cancelled IVFs behind us, my hospital stay, my job issues, etc, etc.
We are going to hook up A's camera to his computer and video chat with the family on Christmas Day. Hopefully that will help a bit. My mom is really looking forward to it.

In other exciting news, ha, or not! I am applying for different insurance. We have private policies, A's work wasn't the best coverage or price, my work didn't offer, so we have been using An.them for the last two years. Well, my rates continue to raise and it's becoming ridiculous. We were told by our insurance agent that it's because they are trying to do away with that plan, so they raise the premiums to ridiculous levels and hope that people give up on it. So, we will see. I think the sound of the new plan, I just have to wait and see if I am approved. *crossing my fingers*

I am off, need to decide what to eat for dinner, always fun.

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??

WTF appt today

So, RE does NOT think that I had OHSS. Sure, all of my symptoms match severe OHSS, but that is not what I had. In order to have OHSS I have to have produced 40-60 eggs and I did not do that, so it couldn't have been OHSS. He does not know what it was, but it was "perplexing". (please read this with extreme sarcasm)

I about laughed in his face.

He is not willing to change my protocol (long lupron), he feels it is the best/only protocol out there and that he pulled out all the big guns last time. The only thing he would change is to pull some of my eggs and fertilize them with some donor sperm. If they grow great "we have a sperm issue", if they arrest we know "it's an egg issue".

Otherwise, I have TWO embies on ice - one is great, it's about as perfect as a blast can be, the other is so so, but we will thaw and transfer (God willing) both back in Jan.

If it doesn't work, and IT WILL!!!, we will be getting a 2nd opinion. I pray that we don't need to.