Dreams and False Alarms

The good the bad and the worried

After my period started on Tuesday I was in a whirlwind. I had been expecting the first week of the cycle to be this week (the 12th), and I'd scheduled an important project wrap up for the 14th.  However, I'd heard such horror stories about lup.ron, and the whole week of monitoring last cycle was such a roller coaster, I decided to move my work thing up, and now it is over and I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! 

Thus far:
I thought Lup.ron was giving me a headache, but it clearly seems to have been tension because one I finished the project, my neck was about 100x less tense.  The lup.ron shots are easy peasy--I love an insulin needle.  I'm doing 300IU's of Gona.l F in the morning along with 10 units of Lup.ron and then another 10 of loopy and 150 of Meno.pur. It isn't that I necessarily want side effects, lord knows they sound awful, but one of my crazy worries is that no matter how much I do, my body won't respond, and the side effects seem like at least you would know your body is responding. However, that is just foolishness, and I'm going to make myself stop it...oy. 

I have been very disciplined about doing the shots every 12 hours. The last two nights we went out to dinner with our house guest and I brought my dorky insulated lunch pail packed with pre-filled vials, and ice pack and alcohol wipes.  At exactly 9 I've gone into the ladies and shot up.  I don't know if this will make the cycle more successful, but it's obsessive protection, and that's worth something.  I feel pretty positive about it at the moment,  but if Tuesday's scan isn't  positive I'm going to be bumming hard.

This morning when I pulled my 300Iu's out of the Gona.l F bottle I was perplexed at why there was so much there, so I called the pharmacist. It turns out that there is always extra, not always double,but always extra. However, premixing my meno.pur 2 hours prior to taking it was not a Genius idea. Luckily I refrigerated it, but in addition to bacteria that could build up and give me an injection site infection, the medication could have started to break down.  She was either not too concerned about it, or was softening the blow, but she thought a 2 hour lag wasn't a huge risk. I tell you if I go in on Tuesday and there is nothing there, I'm going to lose my sh*t.  Not at them, but at myself and the feeling that I always screw up some part of things (not everything,but something like this!)  So from now on, carry meds in their original bottles, do your mixing etc on the spot, even if it is in a tiny bathroom with nothing to balance my stuff on...oy.

Today is mothers day and i don't feel particularly freaked out. The fact that my family doesn't have much of a tradition around mother's day must be part of what makes it easier. Also, I'm so much less raw than I've been in years past, but overall, it has never been one of my hot button times.

I'm not having many big exciting thoughts. I am hell bent for egg retrieval, and then I'll start dreaming beyond it for a postive beta. But if you don't retrieve eggs, you can't get pregnant (at least with IVF)!

Suprise Suprise (Maybe)**Updated

My period showed up yesterday, 24 days after I'd started my cycle, so it was on track, but since I had no idea when I ovulated, I was expecting it next weekend.  As you can imagine I approached my day 2 lupron baseline screening with a fair bit of speculation.  I was convinced that I would be full of cysts and there would be no chance that this cycle would go forward.

Surprise surprise, no cysts!  Hurdle one cleared. I'm anxiously waiting for the Dr Calm or her lovely nurse to call and tell me if the estrogen is low enough and if I'm cleared to start the May 2008 jab-a-thon.

So hopefully the good surprises will keep on coming (if only for today.) One day at a time, eh?  I'll update later.

**Green Light! All Hurdles Cleared! Pessimism unwarranted!  Watch this space for lup.ron symptoms!

Oy vey

I heard from Dr Calm's lovely emissary yesterday afternoon, and she relayed that Dr C didn't want me to come in for an ultrasound, because if I'd ovulated it wouldn't show anything useful.  It seems hard to believe, but she's the doctor, eh?  So I go in for a blood test Monday morning, to see if my progesterone is high enough to indicate ovulation.  I think it must have happened either Monday or Tuesday. things have gone back to their usual level, of shall we say, moisture, my pits are a bit smellier than I'd like (an odd PMS symptom for me) and well, the test showed bupkis.  My worst fear is that I didn't ovulate and I've got lots of tiny cycsts on my ovaries, thus screwing up my chances of having an IVF cycle in May. 

I'm sorry to not have written more, but I feel sort of dried out. I'm putting a lot of energy into a work project I'd like to complete by the 14 of May, and a family visit coming up next weekend.  So, as the thoughts and such occur, I'll post.

all's quiet(ish) on the ovarian front

Today is Wednesday, the day before I am allowed to call the doctor and lament my LH surge less state. I did sneak in an email to the IVF nurse, but that doesn't count as harassment, does it? I didn't call, I merely emailed, just to do a little pre-planing for Friday.   Alas, she hasn't replied, perhaps that is her patient management technique. Or she isn't there. Or it's not about me?  Crazy, I know.

My acupuncturist said I'm having trouble going from Yin to Yang.  I need more ompf.  Ompf me up mister.

I'm feeling some painful stirrings, so hopefully we're just in 'slow and steady wins the race' rather than on the 'fast train to cystville.'

I'll update soon.

Glorious negative LH surge

So, dear readers, after fretfully worrying that my LH surge was never going to come, I had about 3 hours on a nice plateau of calm after my ultrasound on Friday, and then I began some low grade worrying that it would come to soon. I know. Yeesh.  But, bear with me, I'm not merely a worry wart with no target.

One of the questions throughout this whole process has been, is my follicular phase too short?  In a 24 to 26 day cycle I would typically get my LH surge on day 10, have a clear cramp about 30 hours later (late afternoon of the following day), and then do the deed (we timed it better than this implies), wait too weeks (never a question of too short on that side of the slope) and drown my sorrows in an expensive evening of sushi and sake (with extra bad tuna thrown in for spite).  So when I had my ultrasound on Friday and was told that my bigger follicles were around 10m, and that I'd need until at least Monday to get to 18m, I got worried that I'd have an LH surge yesterday or today. I've had some signs that things are heating up in that direction (like, uh, the CM is a bit thin to the point of ookieness), but I had a nice digital negative (backed up, of course, by a simple pink lines negative).  So, I'm not allowed to get worried until Thursday (per Dr Calm, who also reminded me that a watched pot never boils).  I figure since I've made it through Sunday, I may have actually made normal sized eggs all on my own. 

Cha-ching!  Add one to the not completely defective column.

U-L-T-R-A-S-O-U-N-D Spells Relief

Whew.  A lovely ultrasound preformed by a forthcoming tech has put my mind at ease.  I have a 10ml lining (the thickest in my recorded history), and 'many' little follicles, some at 10ml, which means they have about 3 days to go to get to maturity.  Again, whew.

I also saw my acupuncturist who feels that since I had a 'chemical' period, it is really hard to know what cycle day my body thinks it is.  Also, the thick lining means good things for my own unaided estrogen. 

I'm feeling almost human.

Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

Dr Calm, that who! I had to work at the time that Dr. Calm was available to talk yesterday, so my husband talked to her.  She is not concerned about my lack of an LH surge, but she did say I could come in for an ultrasound if I wanted to.  No LH surge this am, so I'm going in at 9am for a dil.do caming!  This could be good, or it could suck, but it a least I won't be left all alone to hypervigilantly monitor my body for cues.

The thing Dr. Calm said that 'made a nothing day suddenly seem all worthwhile' was that women who ovulate when they are are the pill usually have ovaries that are very strong, and ready to do the job.  I really needed to hear something positive about my body, and especially my ovaries, poor little things have been taking a beating, both from the drugs, and me.

Oy. That was a doozy of a morning. I cried a good long time in the shower, and then felt a little less nuts. Apparently crying when you are sad releases an enzyme through your tears that can affect your moods. I should really remember that one.

Oh, and we are doing the micro flare lupron protocol, just without the birth control pills.  She'd outlined both protocols in her notes, and then hadn't updated them with her final decision, so the IVF nurse went with the protocol that usually doesn't involve the pill.  Alas, my husbands insistence that we make sure we know, ourselves, what the protocol is, was very timely.  He is fond of saying "You Christians have the second coming, we have the second opinion." And in this case, it was his opinion that we needed to check in about the protocol that saved us some major trouble.

I'll update after the appointment.

A streetcar filled with dangerous desires

So here is a new problem: it is day 12, and I haven't had my LH surge yet.  Except the months when I was on clomid, I averaged an LH surge on day 10.  So I'm a little freaked out. A lot freaked out, actually.  For the most part I haven't had the feeling of my body failing me, but at the moment I feel on edge about whether or not this damn cycle (in may), is going to happen. We have one year from when we signed our Shared Risk plan, to use the cycles, and every month we don't cycle is agony on the one hand and chipping away at time on the other.  We are going to talk to Dr Calm today, just to clarify some things about the protocol, and to consider whether to go ahead with this next cycle if the LH surge ever shows up, or to wait for another cycle.

It occurred to me this morning that one of the costs of globalization,for me, is despair. I am a Morn.ing Edi.tion/Al.l Thin.gs Consid.ered  junkie, but because of the state of the world, and the state of me, I just feel so much despair about the pine trees dying in Canada, and the cobalt miners in Congo, and anything to do with Ice Sheets.  I remember when I was small my family watched All in the Family.  When Gloria and Mike were planning to get pregnant, or were pregnant, Mike (AKA Meathead) was on a rant about bringing a child into 'this world'.  I feel like that to some degree, but on a more immediate basis, I wonder about myself; can I bear to be in this world?  Clearly this is the depression talking,and I need to turn off the radio. I hate feeling this numb and yet I am clearly so vulnerable and fragile.

I've been reeling from reading  Kateri's  birth mother posts. Lordy, she feels  just as I imagine I would if I were a birth mother, but the likelihood I will be the adoptive mother is much higher at this point (hey, that is something I can say with certainly!). I really got myself into a frenzy this weekend, feeling as if adopting was bad and wrong and violent. Violent was the word that kept circling in my head. I felt that if my desire to be a mother has to be built on the violence of ripping a child away from a mother, then maybe I just don't deserve to be a mother.  I felt overwhelmed by how awful it is to have a desire and not be able to satisfy it myself (even with IVF), and that if I couldn't I should just go a way and die. Yep. That is where I went. I don't mean suicide, but more of a psychic death; I would roll myself up and go away. I can't imagine the desire to be a mother  would ever leave me, so I would just be a damaged husk of a person, wrapped around my grief. It is as if when I am in the presence of someone else's loss, my gain feel sinister and sadistic.  It is too much to bear being both a loser and a sadist.  I know that there is more to adoption than this, and I know that cutting the birth mother from consciousness is the dominant discourse because it protects the adoptive family. I also understand that open adoption is a way to open up that discourse and shift so that everyone's losses are taken into account.  But inside of me, the feeling that I could be committing a act of violence is hard to shake. 

So here i sit with my quite ovaires, my desire, and not a damn thing I can do but pee on sticks and cry.

When you are not infertile

Last weekend my husband and I spent a few days with his cousin and her husband. They are a very fun couple, very different from us, but easy to be around, and lots of good fun was had by all.  They are about 10 years younger than us and have been casually trying to get pregnant for the last 9 months.  They are not infertile. By that I mean, they aren't scared, they aren't shying away from baby talk to protect themselves from the pain of not getting pregnant.  Granted, they haven't been trying super consistently (they've used OPK's some months), but there was a quality of hope and pleasure about getting pregnant that my husband and I have rarely shared.

A big reason for this isn't just the infertility issues. It was also a matter of timing.  Everyone whose known me for the last 15 years has know that getting pregnant, and being a mother/parent were important to me.  I often spent a lot of time day dreaming about my future children, and once it became clear that my boyfriend would become my husband, I tried to involve him in these plans and fantasies. On one hand he wasn't ready, and on the other, there is a style difference: I get excited about vacation when were planning it, he gets excited when were packing.  The same thing happened when it came time to TTC.   

So the time finally arrived to start trying to get pregnant, and I was 12 kinds of crazy. It is really sad actually--he was excited, and hopeful and enjoying the idea of getting me pregnant, and I was acting weird.  I don't quite remember all the weirdness, but we worked it out, and it was exciting for about 3 months. During that time I had the mind-fuck cycles, and then after that, I sort of lost my mind. No, I really did. It sucked.  The spring and summer  were hard, trying to be hopeful, being dutiful about monitoring everything, and always having it together to have sex at the right time. We did it, and there were some really good times, some good laughs, but there was also a pressure. Especially as September drew near, which marked one year of trying with no results.  We started clom.id, did the IUI's, and still nothing. Again, in so many ways our relationship was richer and closer in ways it wasn't before. But what was missing was the innocence. The sweet innocence of planning,and wishing and imagining our baby in cute little shoes, or wearing that outfit, or just resting in our arms.

What I saw this weekend was so sweet, and I so want it for us, but whatever way we do come together around a baby, it won't be from a place of innocence.

So what does the title mean?  I was thinking about trauma, and that not everyone who experiences a traumatic event is traumatized. The degree to which one's coping is overwhelmed, or a sense of helplessness in the face of the event determines if one is traumatized. Maybe there is a parallel to infertility. At this point, and from a very early point my coping was overwhelmed, and I felt helpless to get pregnant. I wish I hadn't been so damn accurate, but some of that was the mindset I came into it with. My husband's cousin is young, and hasn't really tried too hard, and she doesn't feel helpless.  So hopefully she won't ever come to this point, hopefully she gets to remain innocent. 

Enquiring Minds Want to Know...

So how the heck am I?  Honestly, I'm not sure. I've had a cold since last Wednesday, and it has been quite engrossing (emphasis on the gross).  I'm gearing up to remember to pee on OPK sticks for the next few days so as to find my LH surge and then take Estra.ce to prime my ovaries. 

Mostly I'm ok.  Just ok.  I'd rather be pregnant, that much is true, but I'm holding steady here in limbo-land, trying not to put on too much weight, or think about Hend.ricks Gin too much.  Holy crap that stuff is good. Until I tasted it I was a confirmed gin hater, but my whiskey loving friend introduced me too it, and I'm hooked. So it's bad to not be pregnant, but it's good to commune with Hend.ricks Gin... pathetic? Maybe so.

Everything is sort of a mess. My desk is piled with various piece of opened mail, my closet has that end of winter funk, my kitchen is reasonably tidy, but the garage is getting too full of things we're going to deal with later.  I'd really like to refinish our kitchen table, that seems like a project, something beautiful (or ugly if we screw it up), something to do.

On another note, I've been stalled on a project for work,and I found a buddy with a similar work style, and a similar stalledness, so we're meeting every Mon and Wed morning to support each other in 'getting-on-with-it' already.

So that is my very disjointed update.