I never was very good at the limbo.

In school, I couldn't do the limbo very well. I don't think my back is very flexible. Yoga is helping, but it's still not supple. I'm also not very good at being IN limbo. I have no idea what my body is doing right now. Did I try to O on the bcp? Did the stims royally screw up my hormones? Will this take a long time to get out of? I am sick of waiting and wondering.

Today was not a good day for me. I have several online friends that I'm in buddy groups with and there have been a few new BFPs this week. Usually I am sooo excited for my friends and take it as proof that people do come out of this infertility thing with a pregnancy to celebrate. Today, all I could muster was a congratulations and poor attempt at geniune interest. All I could think of was how sad I am that it's not me. I broke down today and sobbed for a while. Not the little welling up of tears and sniffles, but honest-to-goodness sobbing. I think I've been holding that in since the IVF was cancelled. I wish I could say that it made me feel better.

Not-So-Wee-One had a playdate this afternoon and the mom also has a 6 mo old little girl along with the 3 yr old boy. She confided in me today that she's having a hard time and thinks she's got a touch of post-partum depression. I told her my story about how when NSWO was about 1-2 weeks old I had a lot of anxiety and couldn't eat or sleep. I started meds, but when the anxiety lifted after just 2 doses I stopped meds (they couldn't be working already so it couldn't be from them) but probably should have stayed on them longer. The dark clouds finally lifted months later and I've been mostly fine since. Talking to her today just brought back memories of how hard that time was. I was not myself back then, I was sad, cranky, generally unhappy. I didn't take much pleasure in being a mom for quite a while and I feel a bit of guilt about that to this day. For the first time since we started working on a second child, I wonder if maybe we should just count our blessing and move on as we are. I want to cry just typing that sentence, but I'm just so tired.

I'm tired of what IF is doing to me physically and emotionally. I want this whole thing to be over but don't want to give up yet. A tiny, itty-bitty part of me wants to go thru the IVF and not get pregnant so that I can say we gave it our all and it just didn't happen. Then maybe I can get on with my life - you know life - that thing that happens while you're busy making plans. But what would I do with my time and energy if I'm not invested in this infertility thing? I feel like I can't move on with my life until this chapter is closed. I know that 2 years + isn't all that long compared to a lot of gals in the trenches, and if I didn't already have NSWO I know I'd want to endure longer.

But the fact is, I DO have NSWO and I just don't know how much longer I can wait around for resolution. I think if I was able to actively cycle I would feel different, but yet again, I'm forced to wait and I'm SO OVER IT! I waited all of May to recover from the m/c, then June-July-August was occupied by stupid cysts and now I have to sit around for October and maybe November before I can get going again.

I never was very good at the limbo. Not then, and not now.

I've been tagged!

Thanks Gabby for giving me something less depressing to post. I'm actually feeling pretty good today. Looking forward to the break. Had a REALLY nice red wine last night (thank you Lisa and Lewis), got coffee with the MOMS Club this morning, and have been eating Hot Tamales for lunch. Oh, and the welt on my tummy is gone.

Ok, for the tagging, I'm supposed to write something about 4 words of Gabby's choosing. My four words are: consult, motivate, thirst, and scholars.

Consult: I'm debating whether or not to consult another RE practice before the IVF in November. I feel very well cared for at my current clinic, but I feel like I ought to at least do a phone consult with one of the out of town REs who specialize in treating patients with highFSH.

Motivate: I need to figure out a way to motivate myself to get some projects done around the house during my break. NSWO’s bathroom still has this dreadful bear border in it and I want to get that off and re-paint at least. With NSWO starting pre-school soon I should be able to do the messy stuff uninterrupted.

Thirst: I am looking forward to quenching my thirst at dinner tonight with a Diet Coke with full caffeine. Being on a break does have it’s perks.

Scholars: I wish there were a bunch of scholars out there working on treatment for highFSH instead of the ‘hurry up and do IVF before you run out of eggs’ option that seems to be the predominant course of action currently. I realize that TCM/acupuncture is another option, but it would be nice if REs had more tools to choose from too.

Now, who to tag? I know - Shannon & Kim. Kim is recently back to her blogging (yippee!) and Shannon has yet to post any sort of update to hers. Maybe this will get them going again. Your four words are: chocolate, carry, confirm, and crimson. Have fun.

Status report = not good

I'm just going to put it out there at the beginning. I'm scared to death that they're going to cancel my cycle. I'm trying to be non-chalant about it and crap, but I'm not doing such a great job of really believing myself yet.

Had b/w on Tuesday (day 3 of stims) and my E2 had only gone from 25 to 31.6. Not much of a climb. But, slow and steady wins the race, right? Today was u/s & b/w. The Three Amigos are still there and getting a bit bigger, but not too out of control yet (at least that's the impression I got from the RE). Not much else happening on the R ovary (and I had such high hopes!). The left one has a few follicles and he went ahead and measured 2 of them, both <10 still though. I think there were 4 in total on that side. E2 has climbed to 85 though, so I'm hoping that things are finally waking up in there. I've shot myself up with over $1,000.00 worth of drugs so far, you'd think they could at least give me a little love.

Waiting to hear the instructions for tonight, I assume stay on the same dose. Good news is that tonight is my last Repronex injection, after that I'll be splitting up my daily GonalF dose into 2 injections. I'll be happy to see the Repronex go. The first couple weren't so bad, but the last 2 have left nice red welts on my belly and man is it sore! Holy crap! I just checked on the welt from last night and it's about 2 in in diameter. Yowza! Gotta find a new place to shoot that one tonight.

Physically, this isn't so bad yet. Probably b/c the follies are still small. I'm a lot more tired than usual, but then again, I'm getting up at the ass-crack of dawn to drive 45min to the clinic for monitoring so I can get home before too late so Hubby can get to work.

Emotionally, it's not so easy. I'm not nearly as cranky as with the Clomid (Hubby might disagree) but I'm a lot more sad. Not for any 'reason', but I find myself just - sad. For example, today, as I was leaving yoga class I realized that with not-so-wee-one starting preschool next week that I won't be back to yoga until my friend and I work out the carpooling thing. The kids are going to need some time to adjust to school so it's likely to be at least 2 weeks before I can get back to yoga. This made me very sad that I wouldn't be able to be there. I've missed 2 weeks in the past while out of town, but for some reason, this seems harder. Gotta love hormones.

UPDATE: I'm officially cancelled. They feel that the cysts/follicles are all that's growing and it would be pointless to dump more drugs in at this point. Now we wait until I get a period close to November 1 so I can try again. Pardon me while I go cry for a while. The more rational me will have to come by later.

First day of stims down

I've officially started my stims. 450IU of Gonal-F in the mornings and 150IU of Repronex in the evenings. The Gonal-F pen is very simple to use. I hope that when I get pregnant and need insulin again in the 3rd trimester that it comes in a pen like that. The Repronex is fine, but does burn a bit.

One day down, about 7-10 more to go.

Un-FREAKING-believable!

Well, I had my cyst check this morning. Aptly named really. They checked on the status of my 3 cysts. Yes, you read correctly - 3. The first 2 (the ones we aspirated) are smaller so hopefully on their way out, but a 3rd has now popped up. Un-freaking-believable! Waiting on b/w to see if there is any hope of continuing with the IVF at this point. I'm thinking NOT. Looks like I'll be waiting until November due to the lab closure during October. I'm not even sure I want to continue with where we are right now. I think that if I started stims, I'd lose any hope of getting decent eggs on the R ovary (my better producer) b/c of the cysts and the L one might not get to grow much if the cysts soak up the drugs. Great way to start a weekend. I'll update once I get b/w info and instructions from the clinic.

UPDATE: I got my b/w back, E2 is down to 25 which is great! I get to start stims in the morning - FINALLY!!! Get this, due to my FSH, I'm starting out with 450 of GonalF in the am, and 150 of Repronex in the PM. This is my STARTING dose. eeek! I go in for b/w on Tuesday. I'm officially in my IVF cycle!!!! DS and I had ice cream to celebrate - shhh! don't tell my acupuncturist! :D

Cysts suck. Aspirating them surgically sucks more.

Today was my suppression check. I've been on 11 days of birth control pills and we were hoping that the 15mm cyst would be gone. This is the cyst that has been plaguing me for the past 3 cycles. Well, it wasn't gone and it had grown AND recruited a buddy. 2 cysts at 23mm & 28mm. Crap!

I ended up going back in this afternoon so they could aspirate them both. My husband is out of town as of this morning so I had to scramble a bit to find someone to watch not-so-wee-one and wasn't able to find anyone who could drive me there and back. That meant that I had to do the aspiration WITHOUT ANY SEDATION! Yuck! (and ouch!)

The procedure was in some ways as bad as I had imagined and in others not so bad. The u/s wand had this attachment on it to hold/guide the needle and that was the part that hurt like a MF-er as it scraped along the vaginal wall. I don't know if it was because my body released endorphins from that pain or what, but I didn't even feel the needle at all. The pain lasted for about 15 sec so all in all, it wasn't that bad. Labor will be much longer!! LOL I took 2 extra strength Tylenol before and haven't needed anything afterwards which surprises me.

TMI alert - they got about 1/4 cup of yellow liquid from the 2 cysts, let's hope that takes away their punch. It was funny actually, they put my legs in these cradle things that holds them from the knee down and strapped me in. The Dr asked me when he first came in if I was going to be mad at him and I told him if he's quick I'll only be mad for a few seconds. Later I joked that the straps on my legs were to keep me from kicking him. Deep breathing & visualizing Kaanapaali Beach on Maui got me thru it and luckily it wasn't that long. The embryologist afterwards complimented me on my ability to "cowboy up" to the pain which gave me a good chuckle.

The good news (besides the fact that the cyst twins are now drained) is that they decided to change my protocol from MDL Flare to Antagonist. They are worried that the MDL will get the cysts to fire up again, so I go in on Saturday to see if they are for sure gone and if so, I start stims right off on Sunday. Once a follicle is up to about 14mm, then I'll add Antagon to keep from ovulating before retrieval. I'm very happy about this change as I wanted to do an Antagonist protocol from the beginning, but they wanted to try the MDL first.

Oddly enough, my E2 level from today was 225. Makes me wonder if that 2nd cyst wasn't actually a follie. They didn't measure my LH, so we don't know if I was surging or not. I'm on cd12 which was my old 'normal' O day before starting meds. That would just be the kicker - I'm predicted to be a poor responder due to FSH and they didn't want the bcp to over-suppress me. It's possible that the bcp didn't suppress me at all and I tried to O while taking them. Could I BE anymore messed up? LOL If I was gearing up to O, I don't know if having done what is essentially an egg retrieval today will throw things off for starting stims on Sunday. I'm hoping not, but we'll see. I still have about 5-7 antrals on the left and 3-4 on the right, so I think we'll be in a good place. If/when this IVF works, they'll have to write up a paper on how all these setbacks could translate into a new protocol. Antagonist + bcp + cyst aspiration.

I'm feeling MUCH more positive about things now that the cyst(s) are drained and we are going with the protocol I wanted in the first place. I hope that translates into good results with the rest of the cycle. Goodness knows I'm due for something to go my way.

Finally, a celeb fesses up!

I read today that Marcia Cross (star of Desparate Housewives) is pregnant with her first child - at 44. I'm very happy for her and wish her all the best. I hope they work the pregnancy into the show, it's always awkward when they try to hide it.

The reason I find this news worth a blog entry is that she was , dare I say, brave enough to talk about the use of donor eggs. So many celebrities allow their publicists to spin their later-in-life pregnancies as nothing out of the ordinary, and I suppose that's their right. It is their life after all. But, I really do believe that these celebrities are doing the rest of us a huge disservice by not being more forthcoming with what steps it took to achieve those pregnancies. Unfortunately, a lot of young women see these older celebs getting pregnant and think that they too will have many more years to start a family. For some that will be true, but for the majority of women, getting pregnant after 35 or 40 is WAAAAY tougher than we think it will be when we're 25 or 30.

I applaud Marcia Cross for coming our of the infertility closet and hopefully starting a dialogue that will not end until women everywhere are more educated about their own fertility so that fewer of us have to suffer thru infertility needlessly.

Laughing too hard to be embarrassed

Background: Until about a week ago, I drove a Silver Honda Pilot. I recently traded in the 03 model at the end of a lease and bought an 06 model in a different color.

I was at Costco this weekend picking up a 6' folding table and some chairs for our neighborhood BBQ. I got everything loaded up onto one of the flat carts and carefully navigated my way thru the parking lot and headed to the car. Trying to keep from steering the unwieldy table into other people or cars, I pull out the key and press the button to unlock it. I get the cart to stop rolling at the back of the car and open up the back hatch - and there are golf clubs in the back of my car! We don't own golf clubs and I'm trying to figure out why my husband put someone's golf clubs in the back of my car when I hear a man's voice say, "Um, this is my car."

I look up to realize that I had opened up the back hatch on a silver Pilot. Remember, I no longer own a silver Pilot. I look to my right and THERE is my grey Pilot. Right next to some guys silver Pilot. I'm laughing while I apologize and explain to this nice man that I'm not trying to steal his car, that my new one is right next to it, that I just traded in the silver one and that I'm obviously still looking for a silver Pilot in parking lots. He seemed to understand, but probably just thought I was a strange woman. Heck, I'm not even blonde. (well, not on the outside anyway).


Almost done with birth control pills, looking forward to my suppression check on Thursday. Hoping to see that the cyst is gone. I'm trying to follow the TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) diet to reduce dampness to help the cyst go away. This means cutting out as much dairy, sweets, wheat, eggs as possible. Man, this is not an easy diet, but all worth it if the cyst is gone.


My best friend in the entire world is pregnant with monoamniotic identical twin girls. She's been in the hospital on bed rest for about 6-7 weeks now and tomorrow, Tuesday, September 5 is the big day. She will deliver the girls by scheduled c-section and Regan is going to be a MOMMY!!!!! Congratulations girlfriend, I'm unbelievably happy for you. You made it!