Category Archives: infertility

February 28, 2012 · 10:27 pm

Passing the Time

Hey hey, I see people have been checking in but I haven’t really had much to say. I had a horrific cold/cough/sore throat which put a damper on my supplements as I couldn’t really swallow. But I’m back on the regime and I’m still not 100% sure but I’m keeping on track so my options are open.

In the meantime, I’m starting a new blog. I have realized I need to spend some time focusing on being a Mom and not just trying to be a Mom. So if you feel like getting to know that part of my life better, skip on over to mommydo and have a look. I’m still filling content and working on some things. I haven’t spread the word there’s anything there. It feels a little light – but I suppose after baring my soul here for almost 3 years, recipes and sewing projects would seem a little light.
I’ll still be posting here from time to time. But as this in-between plods along there might be more there than here.
Hope everyone else is well.

If you have a moment, drop on over to see Mo @ Mommyodyssy. She recently lost her boy Nadav at 23 weeks.

Gotta go take some more vits.

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Filed under 3rd ivf, infertility, ivf

June 24, 2011 · 10:09 am

It’s like the covert arm pit sniff…

You know, when you see someone (ok someone like me) do some weird stretchy move then lean in and take a big whiff to see if they’re stinky?
The bo.ob equivalent is what I keep doing to my chest. Cross my arms in front and squeeze? Does that make them hurt? nope.
How about press my bag against them? nope. Brrr, it’s cold in here…and squeeze. Still nope.
I’m not feeling very prego here. Not that I did this early the last time or anything. Not that anyone on the internet, even if you spend an hour or maybe two googling it, feels anything this early.
But it seems like I should get to feel something by now.
Except this feeling of dread that creeps over me in quiet times that whispers “negative, negative, negative.
I forgot how much I hate this wait. (sorry, had to stop typing for a bo.ob check – nothing) I really is the worst.
Oh – and in case I didn’t mention it – our last little guy didn’t make it. So these two on board – they’re our only hope. My last hope. Which just splits my heart right open.
I just don’t feel ready to say, we’re done.

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June 21, 2011 · 12:25 pm

What to Expect

when you’re waiting to hear if you’re expecting.
Today is transfer day. Of the 5 that were there Sunday, 2 had arrested. 1 was no looking good. 1 was a cavitating morula and one is a perfect AA grade blast. So the A student and the B student were transferred at 10:30 this morning – the doc was 1/2 late and I told him we should get 2 babies for the price of one ’cause he kept me waiting 30 min with a full bladder.

So we’re pregnant until proven otherwise. 2 maybe babies on board.
When we were driving back to from the clinic my husband yelled at a dumb driver – “Hey- precious cargo here, blasts on board.” That made me chuckle. If only we had signs like that or a secret handshake to let others know we were the walking waiting. The hopeful. The damned. Maybe then this stupid wait wouldn’t seem so long. Or so lonely.
I am pregnant today.
And I wait.

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June 20, 2011 · 9:51 pm

Transfer Eve

Tomorrow I’ll learn if any of the embies survived (they don’t check them today, they just let them be). Tomorrow, if we’re lucky, one or two will be safely aboard. Tomorrow, if we’re really really lucky will be the first day of whole pile of firsts.
Tomorrow one wait ends and another begins.
It’s a big day tomorrow. Big day.

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June 15, 2011 · 10:21 pm

The Follies come out, tomorrow…

Retrieval tomorrow morning.
Sigh. When they’re all still in there, nothing can go wrong…

Out here in the big bad world – big bad things can happen to them – and I can’t protect them any more.

The one thing I think having Bubble has done for me in this cycle is make me acutely aware of the potential in each of the Follies. Last time there was an over arching sense, a vague sense of what they might become and what that meant to me.

Now there is concrete proof of what’s in those little fellers. And what I’ll lose with every one that ceases to grow as we wait to transfer.

That is, if we get any to fertilize and thrive at all.

Gawd. Stupid unknown. Stupid secondary infertility. Which doesn’t feel all that different from the primary infertility that put me in the same retrieval-eve panic what seems like yesterday.

I’ll let you know how it goes once I know.

It’s only a day away.

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June 4, 2011 · 9:48 pm

So you think you’re so tough…

Uh-huh.
Sure did. Until today when it really hit me (in the stomach. With pointy objects. That I was jabbing. Into myself) that we’re really doing this all over again. I swore up and down I never would.
Funny how we’re so sure of things until we’re so sure of exactly the opposite.
And it’s not that I thought it would be easy this time. I just didn’t realize it would be this hard.
Last time (in case you’re new here, last time we were fortunate enough to be successful on our first IVF and subsequently had the Bub) it felt like we were trying something new and it may or may not work and we’d go from there.
This time feels more like an end than a beginning.
If it works – the end, our family is complete.
If it doesn’t – the end. Our family is complete.
There’s a part of me that is resigned to endings – not beginnings. Defense mechanism? Fatalism? Stabbingyourselfinthegutism?
There’s a melancholy in my heart I can’t seem to shake.
Maybe this whole not-so-many-egg thing is just f.uc.king with me.
2 injections – gonal-f dose 300ui, luveris 75 + a thyroid drug that’d been added to the protocol. There will be another injection added in next week.
Yesterday for day 0 numbers there were a total of 6 resting follices (10 the last round) and an e2 of 92.
Not many resties. not many eggs expected. a whole lot of drugs still to be injected. not a speck of hope detected.
I thought I was tough enough. But now? I feel a million miles away from where I had once hoped this would get me.
And i’m finding that to be a tough pill to swallow.

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Filed under 2nd ivf, conceive, infertility, ivf

March 2, 2009 · 8:23 pm

Gimme 5

Day 5 transfer it is. On Wednesday (time TBD) the little embies – or blasts as they should be by that point – come on home.

In case you were wondering:

(answers to some of the brilliant questions I’ve been asked by people IRL)

1. No, we won’t be transferring all six back to make me sexto-mom.

2. No, transferring two doesn’t guarantee we’ll get two babies (or one for that matter).

3. No, we won’t know the sex at this stage of the game.

4. Yes it will be great to have the wait over. (Not that it means the waiting is done – we switch one wait for another.)

5.  No, I can’t visit them in the lab tomorrow.

Right now we still have 6 little dudes in the lab – all are grade 1 and 2 (on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being best). There are 3 9cell+, 1 7-8 cell and 2 6 cell.

Not sure I’ll get a report tomorrow – I think it’s just the time to come for transfer so likely won’t know any more till Wednesday.

Phew. Made it through another day. Hang in there little guys. We’re almost past this part.

PS : I got another award today and still can’t figure out how to get the little picture on my blog. That’s 2 I’m behind on. Can anybody help?

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March 1, 2009 · 9:20 pm

Have my Cake and Eat it Too…

I have to say that when I decided the No-Baby Shower was a good idea I was a long way from where I am today. I was strung out on Lupron – had the threat of cancel at every turn and needed something to look forward to that wasn’t going to suddenly go away.

Then in the blink of an eye I found myself post ER with sweet little embies tucked away in the lab and my need to mark the occasion changed. Changed – but didn’t go away.

My camera got lost in the ‘mom’s coming over oh shit we’d better clean up around here scramble’ but I can describe my first official “NBS”.

I bought myself a gift on the interwebs and it arrived Friday afternoon while I was still floating on a sea of valium/morphine. New Rubber boots. Here, let me see if I can find a photo online.

boots

They’re super swell. Then I made chocolate cupcakes with mint icing for party food. I listened to Ingrid Michaelson as I savoured my cupcake and I had an inch (I swear, just an inch) of Cline – Zinfandel. I really miss wine.

And all the while I was supposed to be thinking about me and how it’s ok that we haven’t added to our family yet and  that doesn’t make me any less deserving of some pampering – I couldn’t keep my mind off our little embies.

(Which doesn’t bode well for all the swearing up and down that if I had a baby I would be able to maintain a conversation about something not related to said child)

So here’s the report: Of the 6 we had yesterday – all 6 are still growing strong. All are grade 1 or 2 on a 1-5 scale with 1 being best. 5 are 3-4 cells which is right where they should be and the 6th is a bit ahead.

As my friend Janice said this morning… (she’s my buddy at the clinic who’s ER and ET are the same days as mine and is the exact mirror of my cycle including estrogen levels as we stimmed, number of follicles retrieved and fertilized and number still going strong today) I am more pregnant than I have ever been to my knowledge.

I am the mother of 24 cells – give or take. So I had a second cupcake to celebrate the majesty that will be returned to my care on Wednesday. I know there’s still a very long road. They may not make it through. But I feel so incredibly blessed to feel this joy.

A fab pair of boots. And 6 little fighters. I didn’t get one gift today. I got seven. Eight if you count the hope I thought had abandoned me.

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February 11, 2009 · 10:44 pm

Is there precedent for the Lupron Defence?

First off, I’d really like to thank everyone for their kind words, well wishes and heart-felt support. I really does mean the world to me. And every time a comment arrives, it takes the curse off that hour and makes me feel better. I am very grateful.

Second – between 7 AM and 8:30 tomorrow I have my baseline ultrasound and the thumbs up or thumbs down to continue. I’m really pulling for two thumbs up because I’m not sure I can take another round of Fruit Loups.

Oh Wednesday, Wednesday – more than once today I thought it was already sweet Thursday – but alas – still two working days to go. To get through the Wednesday Drearies, and to mark my one week Lupronaversay I give you…

Ten things I’ve snapped at my Husband about…

(Or ten reasons why my husband won’t be buying pharmaceutical stock any time soon.)

1. What time he needs to drop me off at work… “How the F’ am I supposed to know when you need to drop me off so you can be on time?”

2. Why Idol isn’t recording on the PVR…”How the F am I supposed to know why it isn’t working. Maybe it’s broken”

3. Where are the car keys…”How the F am I supposed to know. Look where you left them”

4 Why we don’t go to bed earlier…”Why the F would I go to bed earlier when I can’t F’ing sleep.”

5. Where the leftover chicken is located in the fridge. “You put it back, how the F should I know where it is.”

6. If I want to finish my juice smoothie. “Why the F would I have offered it to you if I still wanted it?”

7. How I’m feeling…”Look at me, how the F do you think I’m feeling.”

8. Am I ready for work…”I’m standing here in my coat at 8 am, what the F do you think I’m ready for?”

9. What’s the matter?…”I’m thirsty, I’m fattening like a piggy in spring, I can’t sleep, I want to rip everyone’s throat out and I have cramps. Where do you F’ing want me to start with what’s the matter?”

10. (and my personal favourite repeated every day at 6:30 PM) How was that one? …”I just jammed a(nother) F’ing needle in my gut! How the F do you think it was?

Maybe if we finally get our BFP we can name the baby Loupy Von F Bomb. Or Getoutofmy Way.

I’ll report back on the baseline once I hear.

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February 10, 2009 · 11:31 pm

PMMS – pre (menstral/menopausal) syndrome

Right. Forgot. You still get your period on Lupron. Like I’m not crazy enough…

I have this completely irrational fear that I’m going to go to the clinic on Thursday morning to have my ultrasound only to find that my cycle had been cancelled and all this loop-de-lupron will be for nothing.

It’s pretty shameful that I’m not even worried about whether or not we’ll get our BFP because I’m too worried we won’t even get a shot at finishing the cycle.

This whole thing sure does a number on you.

I remember ‘trying’ like it was this carefree, slightly naughty thing we did without telling anyone. It was way too soon in our relationship to have thrown caution to the wind. And when I looked at those early HPTs I really expected to see two lines. I’d shake them like a polaroid picture thinking the second line was just taking it’s time to ‘develop’. And then, oh well, next month. Hee hee – back to the secret naughty.

Somewhere along the line, after the opk’s, the preliminary appointments, the perfectly timed ‘romantic weekends’, the ‘just relaxing’ turned into relax my ass. I am broken. I am a broken woman. (Currently a quite bloated – rather moody, glassy-eyed maniac broken woman). WTF?

Now I’m a whiney blogger too.

ARRGHH! I miss the secret naughty.

I wonder if the people who got pregnant right away are secretly jealous of the injections? No?

The only thing that keeps me hopeful that the baseline will go okay is if the cycle goes away then I never get to make the jump from one needle a day to three. And I’m pretty sure there’s no way the universe would let me miss out on that!

2 sleeps to baseline! then 2 weeks (give or take) till ER.

Please let this work. I’m tired of trying. I’m tired of hormoaning. I’m tired of being the one in the room everyone has to change the subject around. I’m tired of Lupron induced insomnia.

Beh. I’m tired.

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