A Raspberry Sized Bundle of Nerves...I Mean JOY!

     I have always been a cry baby.  Crying has always been a thing about me that I hated but also had to come to accept about myself because as hard as I have tried to be better about not crying, I have just never been successful at it.  As a society, we look down on crying.  We see it as a sign of weakness or hysteria, especially in women.  We praise women who keep calm under pressure and show no sign of emotion.  We love characters in movies or on television who keep their crying in check only to hold it in long enough to get somewhere private where they can really let loose.  So, while crying is often portrayed as something akin to using the bathroom, something that makes you uncomfortable but you can hold it in long enough to get somewhere private, I have always felt it compared more to sweating, something that happens when you get a little too uncomfortable and it can show up at any time in any place for any reason.  I have always been really ashamed of it too.  I have cried at work, I have cried in public, I even cried when a police officer gave me a fix-it ticket for my tail light.  Ridiculous behavior!!!  In all of those scenarios, though, I wasn't forcing it.  If anything, I was trying my hardest not to cry.    It was only recently when I heard an interview with Kristen Bell who spoke about how she cries if she doesn't stay between a 3 and a 7.  That means that anything on the sad level below 3 and on the happy level above 7 will make her cry.   She shared a funny moment of her crying over a sloth coming to her birthday party and everybody laughed, including me.  I shouldn't have, though.  I am exactly the same way.  In fact, I am probably closer to a 4-6 range normally.  And now, with the pregnancy hormones, the added injected hormones and the anxiety about first trimester and whether I should do an amniocentesis (due to my advanced maternal age) let's just say that if I am not rocking a steady 5, I am probably in tears.  I have made a lot of tears recently.  While I know it is normal to be emotional during pregnancy and that I am not experiencing anything new, it certainly is worth mentioning.  Everything is heightened and just a little more difficult.   I am right on the verge of tears at any given moment.  I even sometimes think I am about to throw up from morning sickness when instead I just break down crying.

      I am about to be 8 weeks pregnant in 2 days and to even say the words, "I'm pregnant" feels like a dare.  I seriously feel like I am standing on super thin ice with this whole deal and at any given moment it can all be lost.  Every cramp or twinge I feel, which is quite often, makes me feel like I am going to miscarry.   I am terrified.   I just feel like we tried so hard to get pregnant and to be fair we should be able to stay pregnant now that we made it this far.  Yes, I know that life does not work that way but don't you sometimes wish it did?  I guess that's why it is so nerve wracking.  Just because we had trouble getting pregnant doesn't mean we will have trouble staying pregnant.  Just because I am 35 doesn't mean my child will have chromosomal defects.  But, it does increase the chances as far as the statistics go and boy do I ever hate statistics.   I had a horrible statistics professor in college.  I didn't think I could hate that word more then I did back then...until now.  There is nothing worse then pregnancy statistics.  It's a constant threat level on your head and the doctors throw numbers out as often as the internet does.  It doesn't necessarily help the anxiety and worry.   So, what do I do with all this anxiety inside of me?  I was told not to exercise too much and that is usually a great stress relief for me.  However, to modify I have been walking and swimming  and once the nausea eases up, I have found a prenatal yoga class to attend.  I think that will really help.   The statistics on the evil internet have made me really worried about my weight because I am already big and bigger then usual because of the IVF weight.  I have also found that morning sickness is similar to hangovers and tends to be soothed by cheeseburgers.  This is not good.  I wanted to be one of those women who didn't eat for three months.   No such luck there.  Instead, I am more hungry then I have ever been in my life.  And when I am hungry, the nausea is so much worse.    I am going to have to get a lot better about nutrition.      There really is so much to think about.   So much to consider and I haven't even gotten into all there is to research on parenting styles.    I know that it feels like because I went through IVF, I should be all smiles and gratitude now that it worked.  I am certainly grateful and excited but I am just as nervous as any expecting mother.  Maybe I shouldn't be?  Maybe I should just be happy we made it this far?  I am not sure.  There is nothing to be sure about.  I just want what every expecting mother wants, a perfect pregnancy with a perfect baby at the end.   Is that too much to ask?  

     So, to sum up, I cry a lot these days, my thoughts are all over the place, and I am super nervous.  I am really excited too.  Maybe I am weak and full of hysteria.  Maybe my kid will be too.  Then again, maybe crying is not so bad.  It always makes me feel better then I did the moment before I cried.  It's certainly better then that horrible feeling you get when you try to swallow it down and it feels like a rock in your gut.  Anyway, I don't have room for rocks in my belly right now anyway.  I have a raspberry in there...a very important hormone secreting raspberry trying to fix the drought in California with its mother's tears, that I love more then any other thing on the planet.  My cousin recently told me that she tends to just trust the world.  She really does too.  I never thought about her that way but once she said it, I reflected back on her difficult moments in her life and realized that she has an amazing ability to just trust that things will work out and to tell the truth, they have.  I really should take a few pages out of her book.  Life doesn't have a check and balance system but maybe there is a way to just trust that it will work out if I just keep moving forward.  Breathe in, breathe out, repeat.  Worth a shot.

The Wait is Over/Just Beginning!! Now on with the Weight.

Hello Friends!
I apologize for being out of touch for the past few weeks.  When last we spoke I told you that it would be 2 weeks before I knew anything and that was sort of true.   However, pregnancy with IVF is sort of a slow and steady up hill climb of hope mixed with anxiety and nausea.  In fact most people say that with IVF you don't know you're pregnant until you are out of the first trimester.   And that's because so much can go wrong.   But, today is not about things that could go wrong because today we had our 6 week ultrasound and confirmed after 4 home pregnancy tests and two blood tests that we really are pregnant with a baby in my uterus!!  Pause for smiles.

    Now, it is still extremely early and no woman in her right mind should be sharing this news publicly but I think it's pretty clear by now that I am not a woman in my right mind.  I never have been.  Anyway, as much as the process of going through IVF is sort of mind and body altering, early IVF pregnancy is even more so.   That's because every symptom I have felt can as easily be attributed to pregnancy or to side effects from the drugs I am taking.   The week before my blood test,  I started having menstrual cramps and they really freaked me out.  I am on Progesterone injections so even if I was supposed to get my period, I wouldn't.  I was totally convinced that my period was circling though and so disappointed.   With that in mind, I decided that waiting until the date of the blood test would be too much for me and I took a pregnancy test.  Now I have taken A LOT of pregnancy tests over the past year and I am very familiar with what a negative test looks like.  However, this test had a very thin line in the positive window.

 Normally I would say "Wahoo, any line means positive because when it's negative there is nothing there."  However, I had taken an HCG trigger shot before my egg retrieval and that can take between 10-14 days to get out of your system depending on your metabolism.  This can give a false positive.  I started doing a ton of math to see exactly by the hour when the test would be out and it looked like it should be gone.   This made me hopeful but I decided to take another test the next day.  This was a less sensitive test and the line was even more faint on this one, but it was there.  I called UCSF the nurse told me that this was pretty good news and most likely meant I was pregnant but I still had to wait until the end of the week to do the blood test.  At this point, the internet scared me.  I started reading stories about women who tested too early and it was only the HCG trigger shot.  So, then I took a regular digital test the next day because that is the least sensitive test and that actually said the word pregnant.   Well, it doesn't get more clear then that.  I knew at that point that this test was not sensitive enough to give a false positive based on leftover HCG.  I had to be pregnant.  By the time I went in for my blood test, I was pretty confident.   When the nurse called to tell me the results which were positive, I was so excited but still cautious because she warned me that the risk of ectopic during this time period was so high.  At that point they said to behave like I am pregnant but that I should not tell a lot of people because until the ultrasound, it's just a chemical pregnancy.  I of course wanted to tell every person I have ever met and even those in passing on the street but hubs asked me to keep it on the DL for a few weeks until after the ultrasound confirmed that things were as they should be.  So, I passed the time by going to Vegas with my mom and cousin and had a great sober time!  I was in bed by about 10:00 both nights.  Good times, indeed!

       I have had a lot of symptoms which are in part due to the pregnancy and also the injections.  My stomach is bloated so I already look pregnant which is fine now that I actually am.   I have only had a little bit of morning sickness so hopefully that will stick.  Maybe now that my body has been on a constant cocktail of hormones for almost a year, pregnancy won't cause as much of a shock.  Just a thought;-)  I guess the one thing that I really notice though is that I often feel crampy.  It feels like I am about to start my period and every time I go to the bathroom (which is quite a bit more then usual) I have a moment of panic.   Then I freak myself out by researching symptoms on the internet and convince myself that it's over.   It's not, though.  It's just beginning.  I feel like everything is just beginning.  My entire life from this point on will never be the same.  What a truly radical thought.

That big black blob is the yolk sack.
The jelly bean at the top is our little "Alpha."

     We had some friends visiting from Sweden for the past few weeks and it was actually really great to have what felt like witnesses to the entire process.  They arrived the day of the egg retrieval and left a few days after the second blood test.  They got to see all the fun stuff.  One particular moment comes to mind though.  Cindy, said friend, and I went to Beverly's fabrics to pick up props for her sister's wedding.  We were standing in the yarn aisle the day after the first blood test and I was looking at this baby yarn that I have seen a thousand times before.  I picked up the yarn and something inside me just burst and I started crying.  I mean heavy crying into this ball of soft creamy white yarn.  Cindy, being the excellent friend that she is, joined in and cried with me.  It was such a special moment.  I feel like it was the absolute first moment I really let myself believe that it might be true.    She commented on how excited she was for me that I was getting to have something that I wanted this badly for so long.  At the time, I had too many emotions going through me to really receive that so I just bought the snotty yarn and went home, but this morning when the doctor said "132 beats per minute" and we saw that little jittery heartbeat, I felt it again.  I felt that gasp of reality and awesome hope.   My body is growing a human with a heart that is beating.  This is really happening.  Yes, it is still really early and anything can happen but this is further then we have been before.    Normal pregnancies have high risks, though.   Children are risky once they're here too.  I am pretty sure I will be filled with a new worry for the rest of my life now.  There are so many risks but I guess all I can do is keep hoping and praying that things will work out.  Between science and faith, there is a pretty good chance.  But get ready folks, he's (or she's) coming!  He (or she) is on the train and in 7 months and 20 days, he or she will be here.  Oh I am so excited.  I can hardly wait.

Baby Heartbeat = 132 BPM
Maks and MK =  Roughly 700 BPM

May The Embryos Be Ever in Our Favor..

     First off, I want to say that I feel so blessed to have such a supportive group of Facebook friends.   I go back and forth on whether I like the effects technology has played in our ability or inability to really communicate with people.  I love that I am able to keep in touch with friends from all my various paths in life.  I sometimes wonder, though, about the disconnection we also feel with the involvement of technology.  We can make our life look however we want it to on here and whether or not that is the way your life is becomes irrelevant.  The story of who you are or were at any given moment is recorded and as time passes that becomes the truth, wrong or right.  Then it can feel at times like a competition for who has the best life on Facebook.  Who takes the best photos? Who goes to the best places?  Who says the funniest comments and gets the most likes?  Who shares the most relevant articles and gets the best comment threads?  It can be exhausting keeping up with the image of yourself you create on social media.  And then it can feel like even though you have all of these "friends" none of them really know what you are going through.  And it's not because they don't want to, they just don't have an opportunity to.  It wasn't until I started writing this blog that I started to really value social media for what it is best at.  Instead of disguising my experiences with an upbeat positive example of who I wish I was, I started sharing how I really am.  I didn't even realize how great that was until I started becoming actual friends with some new people through this.  I've reconnected on a real level, beyond just liking their vacation photos, with people I haven't spoken to in years.   I found other blogs of women going through infertility and truly felt a combination of hope and sadness for being part of such a large group of women.  All of these experiences have been intensely real.  And as someone who does fear the disconnected technological world of lies and truths that my eventual child will grow up in, I am comforted to know that there is a way to keep a story true and honest.

   

Matching hats and face masks are all the rage these days!

 On to the news.  There is not much to tell at this moment.  We did have our transfer yesterday and all but one of our embryos were doing well.  We had one, however, that was exceptionally awesome.  It was graded a 5AA which pretty much means that as far as a blastocyst goes, it was in the best shape possible.  So, that was the one that we had implanted.  I was a little distressed when I arrived because my doctor had told me that he would be doing the procedure himself but when we got there it was someone else.  In fact, it was a doctor I had never had before.  This makes person number 15, who is not my husband, who has been up close and personal in my lady business this year.  Yeah, I get more action now then I did during my 20's.  Anyway, the transfer is sort of a delicate process.  The embryo has to be set in just the right spot so as not to hit the back wall of the uterus or be damaged in the process.  I am pretty sure my vagina has some sort of U turn or mountain top in it that always seems to confuse new doctors when they get in there.  There is this moment when they seem to think everything is going well and then things start to hurt and I hear, "Hmmm...."  Early on in the process, I underwent this procedure called an HSG which is supposed to be fairly simple.  They inject dye into the uterus under X-ray in order to make sure the fallopian tubes are open.   The doctor in this case had to call in another doctor to help.  So I got to experience this really awesome hour of my life where I was spread eagle on a table while three people stared in amazement at one doctor who decided that force was probably the best option.  It was entirely unpleasant.  I was sore for days and even my own doctor apologized for what had happened.   For some reason, he doesn't seem to experience the same confusion.  Every time he does a procedure, he just gets it done without the drama.  That's why I really wanted this procedure to be with him.  So, when this new doctor walked up to me in the prep room, I prepped him with all the various terms I had heard all the different doctors use over the past 9 months.  I let him know that it could be a difficult path so he should just be patient with it.  I don't know if it was the valium they gave me or what, but I was pretty proud of myself for speaking up.  When he reached that moment, he too had problems but did his best to get past it with minimal pain and long story short, he got through.     I know I am getting graphic but the process of baby making in labs and hospitals is graphic.  It's not as fun as the other way some people claim babies are made even though I have not found that to be true.  All in all, this was a pretty easy procedure.  The only part that is pretty uncomfortable beyond the usual is that you have to have a full bladder when they do it and they press on your belly the entire time so there is a minor fear of peeing on your doctor's face.  I didn't do that, though.  Big win for all involved.

    After the procedure he told me that our embryo was the best looking one he had seen all week.  I told him that I bet he said that to all the infertile ladies but in reality I felt a strong sense of pride in my little over achieving embryo.  Maks calls him Alpha as he is the strongest of our group of embryos.   Our other embryos were frozen and will be kept safe until we need them which will hopefully not be for a while if this one takes.  I think we have a good chance.  I certainly hope we do.  And we have 4 more embryos to use if we encounter any future problems.  They didn't necessarily recommend that I lay down for the rest of the day yesterday but  they did recommend taking it extremely easy for a couple of days and I took that to mean binge watch a television show and make the hubs make dinner.   I feel a little nauseous and the progesterone shots I take make me tired all the time anyway so taking it easy isn't that far removed from how I want to be.

      So, at this point we just wait.  In two weeks I will know one way or the other.  I really wish they could tell sooner, though.  Two weeks is practically and infinite eternity.  We will get through it, though.  Thank you again for your support, love and prayers.  Maks, Alpha and I thank you for it;-).

First family photo!!!  That's our little A+ embryo.

Some Good News!!

Well, this will be a quick one but I wanted to make sure I updated the blog when good things happen so I can look back and truly remember the intense roller coaster of emotions this journey has taken me on.  So, here goes...

     If you recall, I had been told that I had 6 fertilized eggs cooking in the incubator on Wednesday.  My doctor told me that he was optimistic and would be very surprised if I lost more then 50%  and the likelihood was that today we would have 3 embryos doing well so 2 would be transferred and 1 would be frozen.   However, if more survived and looked like they were doing well, we would push the embryos to blastocyst (this is basically the true beginning of the embryo - the actual true definition is a little complicated so if you want to know what it is I am sure you can google it.)   Basically, transferring 5 day old embryos gives the doctor a better chance at knowing which ones are the strongest and have the best chance at growing.  It takes the percentage of success rates up from 40% to 60% which is a huge leap.   So, the past two days of waiting have felt much longer then your usual 48 hours but I woke up this morning excited and ready for the transfer that we would inevitably be doing today on day 3.  I didn't see that as a failure in any way.   3 strong embryos was fine.   However, when the call came, the nurse told me that all of my embryos qualified to go to blastocyst.  ALL OF THEM!!!  They all survived!!  All 6 of my children are healthy at the moment;-)  I am over the moon excited.  I am hopeful and even my imagination which had started to give up on me has started to work again.  I can imagine being a mom.  I can feel excited about it and while I know I should protect my heart I don't really feel like doing so at the moment.  I am enjoying this.

     We go in for embryo transfer at 10:45 on Sunday.  I feel really good about that.  I am not really a church goer as I have very confusing thoughts about religion.  It's not that I don't pray, or even that I don't believe.  I just don't know what I believe in.  However, I have come to find myself praying a lot lately and I truly appreciate all of you who are doing so as well.  It seems to be working.  So, Sunday during church going time seems like a great time for that little soul to implant.  Now, I just have to get through the next 2 infinitely long days.

How do you like your eggs? Fertilized, please!

The best husband ever.
I can't imagine a better partner to have throughout all of this.  

Well, for the first time in 3 years I really feel truly hopeful!  Sure, I have had moments of hope speckled in here and there but I have never actually been able to say with 100% certainty that I finally know that my eggs are not deformed!  YAY!!!!
So, here is the story...details to come.

     As you all know, we went in for our egg retrieval yesterday.  We did a trigger injection on Sunday night in order to fully mature the follicles growing inside me and turn them into viable mature eggs.   Then on Monday  I actually got to experience an entire day without a needle being poked into me.  I know it doesn't sound all that exciting but even though I know the pain that comes with the shots is fairly minimal, I still anticipate the pain each time.  Having a day without that anticipation and pain was quite nice.  Also, over the past week I have had to do a lot of blood draws and the fertility meds have seriously dehydrated me even though I am drinking more water then I ever thought I could.   This causes my veins to be a little lower and flatter then they should be and that makes the entire blood draw experience unpleasant.  Sometimes I feel like they just poke the needle in and hope they might come across a vein if they move it around enough.   And I am pretty sure that is exactly what they were doing yesterday when they looked for the vein in my hand to put the IV in.  I wasn't allowed to drink any water for 12 hours before so that only added to the party.  So, after they gave me the IV and prepped me for the procedure, I went into the little operating room where they had a stellar pair of stirrups much more advanced then the regular ones I usually get waiting for me.  There was also this cool looking incubator sitting right next to the table which is I am guessing where my future babies are growing as we speak.  Somewhere in the middle of my room exploration the anesthesiologist told me she would be giving me a mild sedative just to relax me while they got set up but I would get the good stuff later.   I don't remember anything after that.    The mild sedative was apparently not so mild.    The waking up part was very unpleasant.  It sort of felt like they scrambled my insides.   All the literature they gave me told me that I might experience some mild menstrual cramping afterwards.  They say that about so many female procedures.  I'm not sure if I am just a wimp about things or if these terms are being decided by men who have no concept of what menstrual cramps are in the first place so they just go with that as a description but put the word "mild" in front of it in order to downgrade it.  I would not use the word mild.  I would use the word spicy.  I have some seriously hot and spicy cramps.

And here is why.  In order to perform the egg retrieval they use and ultrasound probe attached to a needle.  Under the guidance of the ultrasound the poke the needle through the vaginal wall and suck out the eggs one at a time.   That means that aside from the discomfort already felt from the drugs and growing eggs inside me in much larger numbers then normal, they also poke holes in my vaginal wall and ovaries.  But just mild menstrual cramps to follow...right.
Walking was tough, shifting from one side to another in bed was painful, and to tell the truth just sitting still hurt.    I can walk around today but not much more then that and certainly not for a long distance.  Maybe I am just a wimp, though.  Now, I have heard that childbirth itself is also painful so I know that if this works, the pain of it will pale in comparison to that but lets remember that I, like any other person undergoing IVF, am going in blind.  We don't know if this will actually work.  We don't know why it hasn't worked.  We know nothing about why our conception process is broken so we don't know if this will fix it.  We just cross our fingers, pray, and hope it works.  In reality, though, I am happy to go through all of this and more if it really makes a baby.   And, for the first time in years, I really think it might!

I woke up with the number 9 written on my hand.
 That was to let me know how
many eggs they collected.
 It's also the number fertilized
if I turn my hand upside down;-)

     One of my biggest fears has been that my eggs were deformed in some way and that would be the reason why we haven't been able to conceive naturally.   I finally now know that at least on the surface my eggs are perfectly healthy.  They retrieved 9 and 8 were fully mature.  They performed ICSI on all 8.  (This is the procedure where they select the strongest and fastest sperm to inject directly into each egg.)   Of those 8 eggs, 6 were fertilized.  This is great news!!!  Now, it doesn't mean that I am going to have 6 babies.  Apparently there is some confusion about this.  Having 6 fertilized eggs at this point is still a small number considering a few might die off over the next few days.  There is also the fear that my problem is during implantation and we won't know that until we actually transfer an embryo into me and see if it takes.  Lots of trial and error here.  We also won't know until Friday if we are doing a 3 day transfer or a 5 day transfer.  The chances of us getting pregnant are higher with a 5 day transfer but we also risk the embryos not surviving in the artificial environment between day 3 and 5.   So much to worry about.  I wish there was a nanny cam that would allow me to watch over my embryos during the next three days.   I am not sure what I could do to save them if things go wrong but I would feel better if I could see them.

      For now, though, I guess we just wait.  I have been researching success rates and it looks like for my age group and my egg retrieval count, I have about a 40% chance at a live birth.  Considering my chances of becoming pregnant naturally were less then 20% and with IUI were only about 25%, 40 feels like a real improvement.   I am hopeful.   I'm nervous and full of anxiety.  I'm still feeling those mildly spicy cramps we talked about earlier but hopeful.   I hope he is on the train.   He has to be..

Oh please little baby.... please get on the train.    

An Eggstravagant Egg Hunt Indeed!!

   Well, it's been a while.  I have now received two messages asking how things are and I figure it is time to get back on the blogosphere and update the world on the inner workings of my inner parts.  Where to begin...again?  I guess I should tell you that taking a month off was actually not that bad.  It had been 7 months since I had spent a month without hormones being pumped into me in one way or another and it was actually quite nice to remember that I am not crazy, my body temperature doesn't actually fluctuate that dramatically on its own and exercise can be enjoyable when you're not super exhausted and bloated.  I enjoyed some wine with friends, some needed dental work and even had a little stress free non baby-making intimate time with the hubs.  All in all, it was a pretty nice break from baby-making.
     
      That being said, we are actually smack dab back in the middle of a new IVF cycle and the good news is that we are actually moving forward with this one.  I started my injections about 10 days ago with a double dose compared to last time.  This created quite a bit more side effects (both emotional and physical) but I suppose that is just par for the course.    Last week was a bit of a roller coaster because my Antral Follicle count was much lower then expected. (These are the follicles that you recruit each month to hopefully make one egg with.  During IVF you grow all of them if possible so a higher number is better because it ups your chances of a successful cycle.)  I was hoping to have about 16 follicles to grow and only had 9 which lead me into a huge tailspin of depression and anxiety that I might be losing follicles at such a dramatic rate as to start menopause in July.  The internet is scary.  We then went to the doctor again on Wednesday and learned that only 6 were growing.  This was very disheartening and although I had been trying to get hold of my doctor for a few days, I had not heard a response so I did more internet research and really started to lose my mind.   Finally my nurse called to tell me that the doctor was in fact concerned with the number and had me come in again on Friday.  On Friday, the doctor actually found 9 growing which made me feel a lot better and my personal doctor actually came in at the end to check in on us.  UCSF doctors work on a rotation so I don't actually get to see my doctor all that often and it's really frustrating when everything is time sensitive and expensive.  My feeling is that I wake myself up at the butt crack of dawn to drive through 2 hours of bay area rush hour traffic to get to that doctor and I think the least that could happen is that my doctor actually be there.  However, UCSF has a different philosophy and as frustrating as the hamster wheel is, I am on it so I just have to keep running.  On that note, though, I think it is important to say that I really like my doctor.  Whenever I actually do have an appointment with him, I feel so much better.  I ask a lot of questions and it really puts me at ease to be able to just ask them all right there.  So, since my doctor was there on Friday, I asked lots of questions and he decided that we should move forward with the 9 eggs.   It was a very positive experience and actually revived my ability to even try to think positively about this entire process.   Today, however , the easter egg hunt only yielded 7 eggs so 7 is the number.   While that sounds like a good number,  each process lowers the count so the likelihood with 7 eggs is that they retrieve 5 and we hopefully end up with 3 embryos.   I know that many have said that you only need one but while that sounds true, it's not. You need more because another frustrating part of this process is that we don't actually know where things are going wrong.   If the problem is with implantation or hatching then we need other strong embryos in frozen storage so we can try other things.    It's a very deep rabbit hole of what can go wrong and once you really start to look at it you wonder how anyone gets pregnant ever.   However, this is our time.  Tuesday is the big day.   They will put me to sleep and take out my eggs while my husband goes to another room and produces into a cup.   Seriously, this process is so hard on the man.

The beginning nightly dose.  Not so bad at that point.

      So, those are the stats of what is actually going on in my body.  The real stuff however is up in my head.  There is so much waiting and wondering and waiting and waiting.    The only consolation is that the drugs I am taking exhaust me beyond belief so I don't really have the energy to be as anxious as I want to be. Don't get me wrong, though.  I am still a head case.  I suppose the hardest thing is to "stay positive".  I hate this advice.  I understand where it comes from and I understand the reasoning behind the advice but I also feel like I would have to be an idiot to only think positive.  I have educated myself a lot on this process and when the numbers come back lower then expected, I am smart enough to know what that does for our chances.  That is not to say that I give up my faith.  It is just a realistic way of looking at it.  It actually reminds me of when I was in college and had to do this sequence of turns in Cinderella.  I was right in the front leading all of the fairies in this turn sequence that was so difficult for me.  In fact,  the director stopped a rehearsal to yell at me for how I was ruining the entire act by not hitting those turns.  He said "Just visualize yourself doing the goddamn turns and do them right."  That was his big advice.  Just see it and do it.  It wasn't until I was in the practice room with the girl playing Cinderella.  She watched me and after only one sequence told me to push down with my arms in order to keep my back steady.  With that one technical bit of advice, I was able to do the turns.  From then on I could visualize myself doing the turns and do them.  I couldn't when I was blind, though.  I just kept falling out of them with no real understanding of what was happening.  That's how I feel when people tell me to just think positively.  I feel blind and out of control.  I need something to cling to.   I can know that 7 eggs means the likelihood of 3 embryos at best and be disappointed by that but still hope for all 7 to fertilize.  It's maybe not the most attractive way to look at it but it's what I can do.

       My brain is also flooding with all the fears that every mom to be has.  I fear not being healthy enough to carry the baby and having a miscarriage.  I fear losing the baby during childbirth.  I fear that the baby won't be healthy because I am too old to be doing this.   I fear a lot of things on top of just getting pregnant.  I try to talk myself down but it's a difficult road when you're pumped full of hormones.   But I recently spent an evening babysitting for a baby that screamed at me for hours.  I am not saying she cried, I am saying that she whaled.  She was so upset that I was not her mom and it felt like there was no way on earth I would ever calm her down.  I was so frustrated and started to beat myself up with thoughts that I can't do it and I will be a terrible mother.  It wasn't the most enjoyable time of my life.   Every time I tried to do what I thought the babies mom would do, I failed.  It was only when I did what I thought would work for me that I was able to calm her (and me) down.  I strapped her to me in her Bjorn and took her for walk outside.  I swayed and sang Joni Mitchell songs until she fell asleep.  It took a while but it worked.    I don't think I have ever felt more accomplished in my life then I did when I finally felt her heavy little head hit my chest.  I think that taught me a lot in just a little bit of time.   It's so important to listen to myself.  It's especially important when everything feels so loud and out of control.  Somewhere inside of me, my body knows how to do this.  Somewhere beneath all of that fear and anxiety is someone who can be a good mom.  I just have to trust myself.   I have to ask a lot of questions.  I have to relish in the positive moments and I even have to wallow in the sad ones.  It's the way I stay most true to myself and at this point that is what feels right.

       I have so much more to say but I sort of feel like this is a good place to stop for now.  I don't want to over do it with one post considering I will probably be posting a lot this week since this is the big week.  I feel like I am heading into a week of production.  I suppose I am in a way.  A week of reproduction to be exact.   Happy egg hunting, friends!   I have really enjoyed seeing the many posts from my friends with kiddos in their best easter outfits.  Those are the images I cling to.  Keep me in your thoughts on Tuesday if you have a chance.   Maybe eat some eggs for breakfast and send me your good vibes while you do.  I think that sounds like a very healthy way for you to show your support.  Tuesday Egg Day!!  Mark your calendars!  Thank you in advance for all your love and support.  My future embryos thank you as well.

   
   

Sad and Unfocused Rambles of Negative Signs

Sad news this month...just like every month for the last 32 of them.  I don't know why I am still upset by it.  I guess I really had hope this time.  Even though we switched to an IUI cycle in the middle, I really thought that with 4 happy and fertile eggs sitting there waiting to be fertilized by 52 million sperm, that the odds really were ever in our favor.  I even worried that we might get pregnant with multiples.   Even my doctor thought this was going to be it but sadly, my uterus or God or the Devil have a giant middle finger pointed up and aimed in our direction.   My only solace after taking my negative tests for the past three days was knowing that we would start IVF all over again this month.  But, again, disappointments are very common in this process and I have leftover follicles or follicle shells floating around in my ovaries and I have to take a month or two off to let them chill out.  Exactly what the process of infertility needs;  more waiting.  I don't know if I have expressed to everyone how unbelievably frustrating the waiting game is when it comes to all of this.  I spend the first couple weeks of the month shooting up, incubating, and spreading my legs for multiple doctors, and then the second half of the month waiting...and waiting.  Lots of waiting.  And what do I have to look forward to but a big giant FU at the end of each cycle accompanied by a period that is 4 times as painful as the normal one (which wasn't particularly great to begin with).    I know what you're thinking..negative.  I am being negative.  I am.  I am so frustrated.  I am so upset.  I should look at the silver lining here but the only one I can see right now is that I can go get my teeth cleaned and have the one that has been a little irritating looked at without worry.  There's a nice positive thought.  I get to go to the dentist.  I may not have a baby, but I can have dental work done with proper anesthetic.  I also get to go back to working out hard again.  I know it won't really show on my body  but I can do it anyway.  

        I feel so stuck in this situation.  I am stagnated by it.  My entire life is focused around this thing and now I have to sit and wait for another month or two for my fricken ovaries to get on board.  I know it sounds dumb.  What's another couple of months at this point?   Well, I feel like I am missing out.  I'm expiring day by day.  My days are limited here and my time with this baby once it arrives is limited.  Every time it doesn't work, I feel like I'm missing out.  I'm missing him.  (Yeah, I am pretty sure I will have a boy.  Not sure why.  I just feel that way.)   Dar Williams has this song called I'll Miss you Until I Meet You and when I was single I would listen to it and think about finding a partner.  I went through good times and bad on the way, I kissed a lot of frogs, I did other things with lizards,  but eventually I found Maks and he was definitely worth the wait.  I know I should apply the same logic here but there is a part of me that wants to scream at the unfairness of it.   I didn't meet Maks until I was in my 30's.  I used protection for years in order to not bring a child into a non-permanent situation.  Is it really fair that after I finally found him, my eggs decide to go on strike?  I know life is not fair.  Lots of people have told me that throughout the years but I have looked around and life is often more fair for others then it is for some.  I'm sure some of my friends would curse me for being ungrateful for the privilege I have and to you I say, curse away.  I know I could have it worse.  I'm still upset by the fact that I could have it better too.  I think that for anyone who has a hard time in life.    I just read a story about a woman who starved her baby to death.  She was distracted by her pornography ring and meth addiction and she let her little baby that grew inside of her despite all she probably put it through in the womb, die.  Life is not fair.  It certainly wasn't for that little infant and whoever is making the decisions about where these souls land needs some serious google maps help.  I just wish she had knocked on my door.  I would have happily taken that little baby off her hands.  

     Like I said before, I'm upset.  I was really hopeful.  I was positive it would be positive.  I felt like he was on the train.  There was this movie in the 80's called Made in Heaven and in the movie, Timothy Hutton dies and goes to heaven where he meets Kelly Mcgilles and they fall in love.  She is a new soul that has never been to earth and as I recall, her number comes up.  Timothy Hutton is so upset by it that he makes the angel send him back down too and he spends his life trying to find her.  I haven't seen the movie since I was a kid but it was one of those things that left an impression.  When I hear Land of Hope and Dreams by Bruce Springsteen,  I imagine a place where all the old and new souls are together.   When your number comes up, you get on the train.    I figure my dad or one of my grandfathers are probably close to the little soul that is meant to find me.  Maybe Papa Don is holding his hand while my dad is pretending to kick him in the butt if he doesn't get on the train.  At least  I hope so.   And maybe he is not meant to come through me.  Maybe I need to find him and that's absolutely 100% fine with me.  I just want it to happen.  I really want to be a mom.  My mom is one of my favorite people in the world.  She was my first example of unconditional love.  That means so much to me when I look back at how it really was just us for a while.  My life would be so different if she had not been the amazing and loving mom that she was.  I want to be that for someone.  I also want her to have the chance to be an equally awesome grandmother.  Our time is limited.  But, for now, that limited time is at least another month shorter no matter what.  I suppose I will just try to stay positive...or get positive first and then stay that way.  Thanks for reading, friends.  I know it was a total rambled bit of negativity but sometimes lemons are all you have so you squeeze them into a pitcher full of vodka and add ice.  Because, hey, it's not like you're pregnant.   Cheers!

     

IVF/IUI - If it makes a baby, I'll give it a try.

Maks is very excited about the game of Doctor.  

    I am floored by the amount of support my friends and family have given in response to my first entry.  I am truly touched and grateful to all of you.   In response to that, I am going to start oversharing a little.  After all, what's the point of this if I don't "empty the tank" as my dad used to say.  He was referring to running but I think the sentiment rings true with emotions and I think he would have agreed (being the cry baby that he was.)

       I really appreciate all of you who wrote and asked me questions.  I feel like IVF is my full time job these days and I have taken it upon myself to geek out on it as much as possible in order to understand it.  So, just in case anyone is reading who didn't write and ask me questions but is questioning, I want you to know that this is my obsession right now and I have no boundaries (obviously).  In fact, we attended a class last week on how to give injections and in the handouts there was a section about protecting yourself emotionally during the process and how you may not want to tell too many people.  I completely respect that but like I said before, I tend to work better with the support of others...or the questions.  Just in case you're wondering, Maks and I have been tested for all the normal things and our current diagnoses is Unexplained Infertility.  That means what you think it means.  Sex is supposed to make babies.  I have eggs that ovulate and he has sperm that swim but sex is not making a baby.  That's why they started with IUI.  It's the most controlled way to make sure we are getting everyone to the party in tip top shape at the same time.   When that didn't work, we graduated to IVF.  The brief rundown on IVF is that we are still using all of our own parts but the embryos are being created artificially in a lab instead of in the body.  All of the drugs basically stimulate my ovaries to turn every follicle I have into a mature egg so that they can take them out of me and attempt to fertilize them all.  We then take the strongest of the created embryos and put them back inside me and continue with more injections while we wait to see if it takes (same as the regular folks).   The hope for me is to get 17 eggs and from there, the doctor thinks he can create 10 embryos.  He would then implant 1 or 2 depending on how strong they are.    I do find it strange to undergo such a big process when we don't even know what is wrong.   It feels a bit like getting a pacemaker in response to shortness of breath.   It's how they learn, though.  It's a great way to get up close and personal with your parts and see why embryos aren't developing or why they aren't lasting.  Well, in truth, they don't really ask a lot of why.  They just keep trying to get you pregnant using ways that have worked on others.  It is strange because I am constantly asking why.   That's the most frustrating and heartbreaking part of all of this.  I don't know why.  I have been at this for a while and spent a lot of time spread eagle on a lot of tables in front of a lot of doctors and all we know is that there is no reason.   I have heard a lot of people tell me to just relax and stop thinking about it because it will happen when the time is right.  Well, the time is right.  Also, telling a person undergoing fertility tests and treatments to not think about it is a bit like telling a contestant on the Biggest Loser not to think about her diet.   I know why people say that, though.  It's hard to know what to say.  What can you say?   It's a weird thing to talk about and there is no justice in why some people make babies easily and some don't.  Teenagers and drug addicts get pregnant for free on accident in the back of cars.  I have a friend who got pregnant with an IUD inside of her.  I have heard stories of people who underwent multiple IVF treatments and once they quit, they got pregnant.   All of these stories are wonderful and I don't mind hearing them but I also don't know how to respond.  It's pretty hard not being able to do something that I am biologically supposed to be able to do and the thought that I am killing my future children by hoping and praying for them is even more stressfull.   Also, we spent a year and a half not thinking about it.  We went on romantic vacations and relaxed and enjoyed one another.  At this point we are on a path that requires us to put some thought into it.   That's all we can do.  

         As for how we are doing, we got some interesting news this week.  I have been doing injections for about a week.  My stomach is totally bloated and I am having a hard time fitting into my fat jeans.  I haven't really had an appetite, which I don't mind.  By boobs are gigantic, which Maks doesn't mind.  The irritability isn't as bad as it was on Clomid, which is probably due to the fact that I am not having constant mood swings and hot flashes.  I much prefer the physical side effects of these drugs to the emotional ones of Clomid.  If stress is a contributing factor to our infertility, Clomid definitely does not help keep that low.   Anyway, after 5 days of it, I went in for an ultrasound and the doctor only found 4 maturing follicles.  That means that while I have 17 available follicles, I only have 4 that are maturing.  So, this is a big bummer.  I was worried it meant that we would have to scrap this cycle and start over but instead, we are turing it into an IUI cycle.  Four eggs are better then 2 so our chances are basically doubled this time around.  While I am ready to get this IVF show on the road,  I am also really hopeful that this works.  I feel good about this cycle and much more relaxed then usual.   It doesn't feel like as much work as it has in the past to stay positive. I don't know if that is from finally throwing my hands up and telling everyone about it or if it really is just the relief of not being on Clomid.  That is a crazy making drug.   In case you're wondering why we wouldn't go ahead with 4 follicles, its because IVF is insanely expensive.  We want to make sure we get as many eggs on the initial treatment as possible so that if the embryo doesn't implant, we have other embryos in the freezer that we can try.

So, yeah!  That is where we are this week.  Lots of pokes.  Maks is a master injection giver, though.  I suppose that's going to come in handy if we take up a heroin addiction.   No in all seriousness, the needles are not that bad.  Just a quick poke, a little burn, and it's over.  Similar to the way some babies are made naturally. (wink!) And I will leave with this final piece of good news.  In the past week, I have encountered two products that improved my life greatly.    I don't know if it's from my history with infomercial products, or just life experience but I don't often find things that really work on the black and white annoyances in life.  Well, this week I found a detangling brush that changed my hair and a mattress topper that took away the back pain I was waking up with.  I am therefore left with an overwhelming feeling that sometimes things do work and they just need a little help.  I didn't have to shave my head or throw out the mattress.   Maybe all of my personal parts just need a little help too.  Fingers crossed.

Sex, Drugs and Alcohol Swabs

I keep trying to figure out where to start talking about this.  It's such an overwhelming process for me that when I really try to boil it down to the beginning, I can't get my thoughts straight.  That's why I am starting with this picture.  We can call this the new beginning.  This is a picture of what my body will be ingesting over the next three weeks.  This is baby making in the 21st century.



 For the past couple of years, Maks and I have been trying for a baby.  The day after we got engaged we decided to pull the goalie and see what happens.  We figured we were too old to wait.   Well, not old and I certainly wasn't too old at the age of 32, but you get the picture.   Alas, I would not be sitting at my kitchen table faced with this elaborate start your own drug lab kit (as Maks calls it) if any of our prior attempts had been successful.   Last summer we started attending the fertility clinic at UCSF in order to try and figure out what we might be doing wrong.  It turns out that my preacher was not exactly correct.  Sitting next to a boy, holding hands, kissing with tongue...none of those things will get you pregnant.  My eighth grade science teacher was also not correct.  Unprotected sex (no matter how much or what position) will not always get you pregnant either.  In fact, contrary to what I had always been taught, getting pregnant is quite a process, especially for us.  Don't get me wrong, I know the old fashioned way works for some and that's great.  It's just not our way, I guess.

        We started with Clomid and IUI.  We did that 4 times.  Basically, the run down on that is that you take Clomid for a week and have hot flashes and nausea for a month.   Half way through the cycle you do a shot of Ovidril to make yourself ovulate and 36 hours later in the most romantic of laboratory settings, your husband goes into a room on the 8th floor and makes his deposit and you go into a room on the 7th floor and have his freshly washed floater and sinker eliminated sperm deposited into you by a very nice lab tech.  Our clinic doesn't have music in the room which is a shame.  I feel like it might make the sperm march with motivation.   Sadly, this just didn't work.  I had a small polyp removed just in case that was blocking the path but no dice.  I would describe the entire process as genuinely irritating and uncomfortable.  I felt like I never knew when I would have a hot flash.  I would get it and then 2 minutes after be freezing.  I gained some weight.  I cried a lot for stupid reasons.   Reasons like mayonnaise on my burger or tripping on the dog leash are just a few.   I yelled at my poor husband for even stupider reasons because I was genuinely more irritated then I had ever been in my life.   Like I said, it was an uncomfortable couple of months.  Perhaps the hardest thing about it is that you're supposed to try to stay stress free and the entire process of being irrationally irritated by the smallest of things and trying not to explode is quite stressful.  However, exploding has its stressful repercussions as well.   The benefits of Clomid are that it's supposed to help you create more mature follicles.  Instead of creating one mature follicle a month, I made 2-3 each month.  Each time we did the insemination, we put roughly 75-85 million sperm next 2-3 mature eggs right inside my uterus.  You would think I would be a mom to triplets at this point.    But,  after all that, no baby.

          That's the hardest part.  No baby.  I have never in my life wanted something as badly as I want a kid.  I wouldn't say that I have always wanted to be  mother but I would say that I always expected to be one.  I have never envisioned my life without children.  As an only child, my goal has always been to have more then one.  And once I found a partner to share my life with, the desire to make our family bigger grew exponentially.  For the past few years we have expanded our holidays to include my in-laws who are now just family.  I am so excited to share them with our children.  I can't wait for him or her to learn Russian and even do little baby vodka shots (sub voda for vodka) or take a ballet class.  I envision myself at baseball games and soccer games passing out Gatorade and even yelling at my children for dragging smelly stinky stuff into the house.  I see my mom teaching them to dance and sing no matter where you are.  I know that I am romanticizing it.  I have been told that it is difficult.  I was even recently told how much I don't understand because I don't have children and how unprepared I am for the reality of it by someone I considered close to me.  That hurt a lot.  All I can do is imagine it at this point.  I don't even have the option of being afraid.  I am constantly being told to just relax and think positively so the best I can do is imagine the positive.  I can't face the reality of parenthood at this point because my reality is a tabletop full of needles and vials.

          That's why I am starting with that picture.  After receiving the drug package and going through it, a friend facetimed me to show me her daughter who just started crawling.  It was the most perfect timing.   This table of drugs is going to get me to that.  It's going to bring me smiles bigger then I have ever experienced.  It's going to be hard and I will write about it a lot.  I have scoured the internet for blogs like this about how people are dealing with IVF and sadly, I can't find enough.  I want to know everything.  I want to know about side effects, good times, hard times, and most of all successes and failures.  I'm now a part of that circle so this is my voice and my take on it.   It's not perfect.  It is probably not even grammatically correct.  I don't fancy myself a writer.  I have thought about writing about this for months but shied away from it because I wanted it to sound so much more eloquent.  It wasn't until I found myself reading the same blog post of another IVF participant over and over that I realized my words don't have to be perfect.  They just have to be mine because this is my journey and God knows it's not perfect.   It feels good to share it.  I won't have a lot of the moments that some pregnant women have.  I won't have a big surprise pregnancy announcement.  IVF will either work or not work and I will have to spend the 12 weeks after it hoping for the best and I don't want to do that alone.  Technology has not only improved my chances of having a baby, it's given me the tools to talk about it with everyone I know on Facebook.   I would love to hear from anyone who might have dealt with this, as well.   I also love hearing from my friends who made babies the old fashioned way.   And as undecided as I am about religion, I am asking any of you who do pray to put me on your list.  If you meditate, put me on that list.  I have started praying too.  I don't know who I am talking to.  It might be my little babies soul.  I think it's worth the effort, though.   In the end, this will all be worth the effort.  Thank you.