Kim's Journey To Motherhood

Dear Embryos…

It has been six days since they placed you in me.  I rested as much as I could those first few days.  But if you’re anything like me (and hearing that you’re a bit overachiever-ish like me suggests that you might be…you perfect A embryos, you) you’d know that sitting still isn’t my strong suit.  Sitting still is hard.  It gets even harder when you have a urinary tract infection to boot.  So I know a bit about how much it sucks to sit still.

So it is with great understanding that I ask you to plant your not-yet-developed asses down and take a seat for nine months.  

I am dying to meet you.  I want to hang out with you and get to know you.  I want to watch you pet Brooklyn the Dog and chase Spencer and Lucy the Cats.  I want you to meet your family.  I want you to remind me of my youth…to make me feel like time is flying…to truly learn all of the hell I put my own parents through.  

But I need you to work on developing and growing and SITTING STILL first.  Plant your cell-walls in my uterus and call it a day.  Better yet, call it a nine months.  

I hung your pictures on our fridge.  There are two amazing little embryos blown up to oversized wallet photo size watching me as I pass by each morning and night.  Let’s get more pictures up there.  Let’s cover the refrigerator with the glow of your growth.  Let’s lose track of where the fridge ends and the wall begins.  Let’s do this together…you and me…and I promise to be proud of every last picture you bring me.  

It’s time, little clumps of cells…it’s time to settle in and rest up.  You have a big bold life waiting for you if you can just make it through these next nine months with me.  

Love always,

Your New Petri Dish…aka…The Host…The Mother-in-Waiting.

24 Hours

In 24 hours, I’ll be headed into the procedure room for my embryo transfer.  A mere 24 hours stands between me and pregnancy (until proven otherwise).  It’s a weird feeling.  I’m not as militantly hopeful as I was last time around, but I feel like the timing is really perfect this time.  It just feels right.

Friday’s retrieval yielded 15 eggs.

11 were mature.

7 fertilized.

As of yesterday around this time, there were still seven embryos growing and developing.  Keep growing, embies!  

I like that this clinic gives me detailed information about each one.  My last clinic was not good about that (yet another one of their failings).  My nurse also seems genuinely concerned about how I’m doing and giving me tips about how to feel better, etc.  Another failing of my previous clinic.  

They are going to sedate me for the transfer at this clinic, though.  When I did the trial transfer there was an issue with reaching my uterus, but I thought my bladder was just overfull.  After my retrieval on Friday, I remember hearing the doctor say something about needing anasthesia for the transfer (which the nurse later confirmed) because of the location of my uterus.  I’m not entirely too surprised by this since reaching my uterus has always been an issue.  Always.

But that does mean that they have to be creative getting fluid in me to fill my bladder.  So although my transfer is not until noon, I have to get there at 10 am, get an IV and wait as it fills my bladder for two hours prior to the procedure.  I guess it’ll give me time to read and listen to my Circle + Bloom.  

And then, after tomorrow, comes the waiting.  The unbelievably long and anxious waiting.  I’m trying to fill up my calendar and my mind for the next two weeks so that I don’t notice it as much.  But that’s damn near impossible.  It’s the best I can do, though. It’s worth a shot.  

Today is the day

Egg retrieval…less than two hours from now.  It kind of weirds me out that I’m just sitting in my living room and there’s less than 2 hours to go.  Shouldn’t there be some long preparation?  I guess not. I’ve been through this before. I know better.  

I’m anxious but I’m calm.  Weird state to be in.  I am really hoping for a good number of eggs.  This is our last insurance-covered round of IVF.  I need there to be plenty of everything to choose from.  

All I can concentrate on now is the new and unfamiliar smell of a new brand of shampoo and conditioner from my drying hair.  Everything else comes and goes in flashes.  I’m trying not to think about how I’d like a big breakfast or a tall glass of water.  Whoops…I just did.  

Think of me today at 11:30 if you can…I can use all the help I can get.  Hopefully I’ll be drifting off into a quick slumber as these eggs of destiny are pulled from me.  

Sounds exciting, no?

It’s here….

…egg retrieval. Friday. 11:30 am.  

Trigger tonight (2 shots of ovidrel) at 11:30 pm.

Blood work tomorrow morning at 8 am.  Final instructions at the same time. 

FINALLY.  

Let’s get this thing started.  Word.  

For the love of follies

I was a bit worried at first due to my whole estradiol issue that I wouldn’t respond to the stimulation meds.  

WRONG.  

I’m pretty much on track with where I was last time around.  I have 15 follicles (or “follies” as we call them in the IF world) on each side.  To give you an idea of what this means, a woman normally produces one on either of her ovaries each month.  Sometimes two—one on each.  Rarely three—two on one and one on the other.  Never fifteen on each one.  

My ovaries feel about the size of baseballs.  They’re normally the size of walnuts.  I’m sure by the end of the week they’ll feel like grapefruits.  That’s how it was last time.  

I’ve been doing alright.  My back was all kinds of messed up on Friday/Saturday.  Thankfully it has seemed to subside for the most part.  I go to the chiropractor tomorrow, so that’ll be good timing. I cannot explain how out of whack my body is right now, but it feels right…if that makes any sense at all.  

I’m slightly irritated because I had to order a refill on my Menopur.  It seems like I should have had enough to start with.  Oh well.  I wish it weren’t so damn expensive.

I’ve been listening to the Circle + Bloom sessions almost every night.  Sometimes they really help, sometimes they just help a little.  But I’ve never felt like I wasted time by doing them or money by buying them.  I think it’s been well worth it.  

The ultrasound tech seemed to think that my retrieval would be Friday, maybe Thursday.  I guess it’ll be a short work week for me.  

Melancholy and the infinite hormones

I was looking around Twitter last night and realized that most of the infertility/TTC people I follow have either gotten pregnant, had a baby or moved on to a childfree existence or adoption.  While I’m thrilled for all of them, it makes me remember how long we’ve been on this road…how long these scars have marked my emotions.  

IVF is totally different the second time around.  I don’t feel as militant as I was the first time.  If that makes sense.  I’m not hopeless, but I just don’t feel the same fire in me.  Maybe it’s because this IVF has not gone according to plan.  Maybe it’s because the last one resulted in loss followed by loss and failure with the FETs.  Either way, it’s different.  

Maybe these emotions are all real, but they’re certainly made more heightened by the meds I’m on.  I was cranky as all heck last night.  And that crankiness turned into melancholy.  Then I fell asleep.  

Today is a new day.

Do you guys ever feel this way?

Never a simple answer

So after my estradiol jumped last week, I was instructed to try and do three more nights of Lupron and retest.  Knowing what happened last month, I wasn’t overly hopeful.  Yet, when I got a headache that screamed “ESTROGEN HEADACHE” on Saturday, I started to get my hopes up…maybe it just needed an extra push.

WRONG.

Turns out my estradiol went up.  The RE now thinks this may be a function of my body’s normal system and not a failure to downregulate.  They also tested my progesterone and that was normal, indicating that I had not ovulated and did not have a producing cyst.  There’s no real explanation for why this is happening.

Which is, as you may have guessed, the story of my freaking life.  

So the RE (through my nurse) offered an option: start the stims and see how I react.  We can always not go through with the retrieval if I don’t react properly.  So that’s what I did last night.  

For my own sake and record, I’m on 300 units of Follistim and 150 mg of Menapour.  My Lupron was dropped from 10 units to 5 units.  

I could combine some of these shots, but I chose not to.  I am so worried that I’d screw something up. I’d rather just give myself three shots and at least have the peace of mind knowing that I didn’t mess it up in the mixing.  

Onwards and upwards I guess…with a caveat like always.  Nothing can be simple.  There is no such thing as a green light with me.  Everything is always stuck on yellow.  

———————

P.S. There’s a new post up at Dispatches from the (In)Fertility Wars…it’s One Woman’s Story about infertility and success.  

This is really starting to piss me off

Last week we tested my estradiol.  It was at 37.5.  I was at the tail end of the birth control pills.

This morning they tested my estradiol.  It was 161.  This is after 10 days of Lupron.  

HOW IN THE HELL DOES THIS HAPPEN?  

I am so irritated right now that I could scream.  It was one thing to have this put off once.  If that happens again I’m going to have a fit.  This didn’t happen at all last time.  And other than the birth control pill being different, everything has been the same.  I’d think that if it had to do with the pill being different, that would have showed up last week, not this week.  

I MEAN WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?

Tomorrow morning I go in to have my blood drawn to make sure that I’m ready to start the stimulation meds (Menapour and Follistim).  If anyone has any ideas on how to mentally tell my body to keep the estradiol low, I’d appreciate them.

Speaking of mentally…

I finally went ahead and bought the Circle + Bloom IUI/IVF program.  I thought about doing this last time or even for the frozen transfers, but I never did.  Man, was that a stupid move.  Regardless about whether these programs “work” or not with regard to fertility, they certainly help me relax.  And as anyone who has ever been through IVF can tell you, relaxation is something that is rare during your IVF cycle.  

So keep your fingers crossed for good hormone levels tomorrow.  I am mentally ready to move on.