A step in the right direction??

On Wednesday I went for my annual w/my GYN. I missed it last year because I was in the middle of an IVF cycle, and just never got around to making up for it.

Anyway! We were talking about my cycles and I asked her, respectfully, to not mention anything we talked about to my RE. I know, I know, patient confidentiality and all that, I think docs watch out for one another, so I felt the need to mention this.

She says, "Ok, I never talk to him. And can I be honest? I have heard a LOT of bad things about him recently." She didn't go into a lot of detail, but mentioned that she has heard from multiple patients and one of her office girls about his lack of professionalism and bad bedside manner and inability to discuss anything.

She mentioned that a lot of the tests he uses are outdated and he is unwilling to share any patient info w/her (she wants to follow up on patients she has referred and see how things are going) and is really bad about providing records to patients when they are requested.

It made me feel good to know that I am not crazy, that he is really difficult to work with and that I am making the right decision to move on and cut my losses, but sad that other women are dealing with his "sub-par-ness" as I have termed it.

Then she gave me the names of two other REs that she has heard great things about, one which one of her office girls see. :)

So now, I just need to call and make an appt with one or both of them and see what I think.

In other news....I have been having tons of pain each month. Like, crazy pain. Taking NSAIDs 2-3 times a day. So I mentioned that to her, and she has me going in for an u/s and then possibly getting another laparoscropy in the near future. She offered to put my back on the devil (aka BCPs) for six months to quiet everything down, but I turned her down. I just want to get pregnant too badly.

Where should we go for vacation??? Why can't I decide? It was fun to look at first and now I am just finding it stressful because so many places look nice and I just don't know where to go!!!!
Help!

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!

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.

Tired blogger

Sorry I haven't been posting much.

Here's the rundown since last week's great appt:

Friday, started stims, Omnitr.ope, E.strace, and Dex.amethasone. Felt kinda nauseated that day for some reason. Figured it must be a lot of medicine hitting my system at once.

Saturday, same, went shopping at Ta.rget and Ko.hls and got some lunch at Pan.era Bread (YUM!!), but then started feeling icky while shopping. It passed, but the bed was my friend the rest of the day.

Sunday, more of the same. Didn't really get out of bed much, didn't feel good after eating lunch, getting kinda sick of feeling sick.

Monday, got smart, decided to take my Est.race with my breakfast instead of with my morning OJ. Lo and behold the nausea lets up. Smart me! Finally.

Tues, feeling good again.

Well, other than the complete exhaustion I am feeling from the insomnia from the Dex.amethasone. It's really doing a number on me still. I slept alright last night, but not good by any means. It's okay though, whatever I need to do, I will do it.

As for our appt yesterday....can you say nervous?? I am not feeling as bloated or sore as I did last time so I was wondering what, if anything, was going on. Again with the upset stomach before the appt and thoughts running through my head; What will we do if........(can't even say it), I can't start over again, OMG, I just...............and on and on.

So we go, I undress, as per normal, from the waist down, and get in position for the lovely dildo cam.

Dr. S puts in in and instantly turns the screen to me and asks me if I see what he sees......a bunch of black circles surrounding my ovary. Righty has about 7 (all 8-10) and lefty has about 5 (all 8-10). Dr said he "is happy" with this. I am too!! Last time we had 8-9 follies and got 7 eggs, five which fertilized, so the potential of more to work with is amazing!! Grow my little follies, grow!!!

We are staying on the same dosage (which for reference.....began at 6 vials of Men.opur, 25 units of Omn.itrope, and 10 units of Lupron with 2 Es.trace/day and 2 De.xamethasone/night for 3 days and then we dropped the Meno.pur to 4 vials/day and the rest stayed the same) and we go back in on Friday morning to see how things are looking.

My boss knows that I may miss a day or two of work and he does not want me to miss Tuesday, but for some reason I have a feeling that might be our ER day. We will see though.

C'mon body, you can do this!! I am trying to have faith and trust in a higher power and believe that this will work this time. It's one of the most difficult things I have ever done, but I am doing all I can. The rest is up to God.

Today is a Good Day

We went in for our baseline u/s today. I was beyond nervous. Totally TMI, but I always get an upset stomach before I go to the doc.......ya know........

Today was no different, I tried to ignore it, but that didn't work so well for me.

ANYWAY!! I left work at 9, picked up A, and we headed in. We walked right into the room, the doc did his thing with the dildo cam, and I waited patiently. Okay, maybe not so patiently. And I might have cried on the way to the office.

An interminable wait later (okay, maybe two minutes or so), I hear, perfect left ovary (yes!! fist pump!), nice, thin lining (yes!!!), and.......hmmm, where's your right ovary, are you hiding it on me (cute......?). Oh there it is! Perfect, you are good to go. Start your stims tomorrow. We will see you next Wednesday.

OMG!! Perfect? That is SO what I needed to hear. So here we go! The race to grow the biggest, best follies is on. This cycle is going to be (has to be!) our winner.

I listened to "Don't Stop Believin' about 20 times this morning....on the way to work, on the way to pick up A, and on the way to the RE. It's my anthem right now.........just hold on to that feelin'!

Almost time for din. So hungry! And if this pumpkin bread that I am baking turns out good, I am totally posting the recipe to share. :)

Moving right along

Got some news yesterday. I called my RE again. Strangely he had A's results, but I had to call him to get them, but that's another issue altogether. Trying NOT to complain about that right now. Good things, good things.....
A's results came back normal. Good because of the fact that it means that we don't have any chromosome problems that we can pass onto our potential kids, somewhat bad in the fact that we still don't have any answers. But we are moving forward with what we have. He said that when we were ready we could move on to another attempt at IVF. I told him that we would be ready as soon as possible. Unfortunately, ASAP times ER/ET with the time we are in MI on vacation, so we will have to push it back until October instead. Bummer. Six months after we started our first cycle, and only 2 months before our 3 year TTC anniversary.

I am scared. I don't know how I will be able to have the hope that I had for the first cycle that we attempted. I don't know how I can go into this believing that we just had bad luck last time and that this time we will have rockstar embies that grow and divide just as they should. But it's also hard to think that I can't, that I won't be able to give myself, A, and those potential babies the chance they need. I guess it's a bridge that I will need to cross when we get to that point though.

We will make some changes this time - higher stims to try and produce more eggs (yay!) and some human growth hormone to help produce higher quality eggs.
He also gave us an option to try something - take a couple of the eggs and fertilize them with donor sperm and see how they do. If those survive and the ones fertilized with A's sperm do not, then we know we have a sperm problem that did not show up in testing. I guess otherwise, if they all die again, then we would know that it's probably an egg problem (which is always at the back of my mind).
I couldn't even really discuss the idea with A. I don't want some other man's sperm......and my egg......I just can't do it. Not to say that I have a problem with it per se, just a problem with it and us. I think people that donate sperm and eggs are wonderful people, but I just don't think it's for us. We want "our" baby. As piece of each of us, biologically and genetically. Luckily he feels the same as I do, and we didn't even need to discuss it.

So there is that though, we have a plan. A new plan. And I am ready to do it. I am ready to move on and become more proactive again. AND, I have been working out still. Sunday, run/walk, Mon, walk, Tuesday (today) run/walk again. Not too shabby. :)

And.....finally heard from my doc

Yesterday I finally "grew some balls" and decided that if I didn't call my RE I wouldn't be hearing from him anytime soon. So I called and left a message. I had two questions, first and foremost, do you want me to go and get the bloodwork done (and if so, what is the hold-up??), and I have a rash where I was getting the PIO shots, I figured you should know about this, and what can I do for it?

So after calling, I waited...........and waited..................and waited, and ended up going home kind of pissed off because I hadn't heard anything (which really is no suprise, because it seems like ANYTIME I need an answer to something it either takes forever or multiple phone calls, but I digresss). We ran some errands last night, looked at a new condo and I went to bed early because my head was killing me.
This morning I was at work and I was contemplating calling the office again, when lo and behold, the phone rings and it was my RE. He said that he does indeed want me to get my karyotyping done, and if mine is normal (and maybe even if I have issues), A will go and have his done.
I also asked him about different protocols and stuff, and it was kinda funny because he almost chastised me for knowing about different protocols. I guess not so much about knowing about them, but for using the internet. He seems to think it's a good thing, but at the same time, it makes you walk away with more questions than answers. I agree to a certain extent, but how do you learn w/out questions? And isn't an informed patient better than an uninformed patient? Doctors aren't gods, they don't know everything, so blindly believing in them is not the way either.

Anyway, tomorrow I am going to have my blood draw and get started on this testing. It's funny because I was unsure if I was ready to move on, but now that we are "doing something" I am upset that the testing can take up to 4 weeks. So that could be two months before we are ready to move on/have some answers.
I know I am still young, but I had a plan. I wanted kids "young" so I could enjoy them and know my grandkids. But who doesn't have a plan, right? Why am I special? I am learning. It makes you have to be more flexible, I guess.

And so begins another cycle

Just checking in real quick....

As I mentioned in my title, we are moving on to another cycle. I called the RE today to schedule my clotting test and my husband's further testing, but they close early on Thursday, so I will have to try back tomorrow. It's a pretty easy test for me, just a cheek swab, but I have to go back later in the month (hopefully the stupid trade shows won't interfere with it, but who knows) and have an endometrial biopsy. Gotta say, I am not excited about this at all. My HSG was pretty uncomfortable and I am definitely not looking forward to this. It's all about moving ahead though. This is why I am going to see the RE rather than continuing with the OBGYN, because I wanted to move forward, and I just didn't feel like I was there.

The other day I felt as if I couldn't even go on with this process. It's so completely overwhelming. Maybe we aren't meant to have children this way, maybe we should start looking at other options. But at the same time I am just not ready to give up yet.
It's draining how my mind whirls around and around on this subject, seeking answers, craving peace, hoping against hope each cycle. It goes on and on.
There is a song out by Jason Aldean right now, Laughed until we Cried, or something like that, where he sings about trying and almost giving up, and then they found out they were expecting and they danced around the kitchen and laughed until they cried. I want that so badly.
I have to pray that someday it will happen, and that there is some sort of plan for us. This is just one challenge of many throughout our lives and we will make it through. Maybe in the end we won't end up with what we were expecting, but hopefully we will find peace in whatever comes.

I am really tired, we went to see Dark Knight last night and we were out past my bedtime. :-) I am off to read some of my book and crash for the night. Tomorrow is Friday - one more day of work at that place, then two days of relaxtion (or something other than work at least). Cross your fingers that we start discussing trade shows and figure out who is doing what. Cross fingers and toes that I get out of doing any this season. Ha, that would be GREAT!