Dreams and False Alarms

How the other half ovulates

So, after a rousing, and confusing 28 day cycle last cycle, I started testing for ovulation on day 7. Even with an FSH of 4, (back when I was a young pup of 36), I still ovulated on day 10, so after a few days of no climbing of line color after multiple days of pee-sticking, I got a bit frantic. No surprise there, eh?  Also, my trusty fertility monitor seemed to be on the fritz--no second bar after many days of testing.

I called my lovely nurse, who got me an ultrasound appointment for Sunday, Day 15, should it come to 'that'. That being no positive LH surge by day 15. 

Yesterday afternoon I started to feel crampy in the lower bits, and I decided to do another test. All I had was the digital variety, but when I popped the stick out after the negative, it looked like the line was darkening up.

Up at 5am, peed in a glass ,and when back to sleep until 9 (highly unusual for me, I assure you) and then got up and did 4 different ovulate predictor tests. That's up from my usual 2 (digital and monitor, and an occasional line-only stick thrown in for good measure).  First up pops the smiley face. Next two lines on both line tests, and then low and behold, the fertility monitor pulls it out of the krapper and shows me the flashing egg!  So, we are gonna shoot me up with baby juice, and see what happens. (sorry for the TMI on your child/brother...) I'm feeling a little reckless optimism--what if it works? 

If it doesn't, at least I had a good feeling about it, and that is more than I can say for this whole project over the last few years. 

So I'm taking DHEA (25mg) 3X a day, 2800 folic acid, soon to increase to 4000 folic acid, 81 mg baby aspirin, fish oil, regular prenatals and Chinese herbs. Ya cain't say I ain't tryin'.

It turns out you can do the happy dance when you are infertile

Hi y'all!

Ok, so I've been taking a break and it's been going pretty well...shocking. Not concentrating on IVF and the lack of a baby in my ute, has been a relief and easier than I thought.

I had my FSH and E2 level checked on Tuesday (I got there when the lab opened so I wouldn't miss the inauguration!), and yesterday my lovely IVF nurse emailed to say that it was 8.0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I know that doesn't mean that everything will work out, but after two months of successively higher numbers, it was nice to see it bounce down, and further down than it was in September. I can't remember what it was in May (when I got pregnant), but a downward bounce made may day.  I'd like to believe it is the DHEA, but really there is no way to know.

And the South B.each diet isn't too bad. I'd like some bread something feirce, but I think the reason I eat a lot of extra carbs is to deal with mild constant heartburn.  Pril.osec to the rescue.

We will be trying this month, and I did do two OPK's this morning (I do the machine and Answer OPK's), and I'm thinking I'll take baby aspirin, just in case it would help. Why not, eh?

Also, my friend Kate (who has been the catalyst for me understanding my envy which has resulted in a lot of personal growth over the last few months), got the all clear yesterday: her identical twin girls are healthy and thriving, and now she can get down to the business of getting excited about them.  There is still Twin to Twin Transfusion syndrome to track, but that is fixable, so let's get the party started.

I surprised myself at how thoroughly overjoyed I am for her (them, her husband is also awesome, and not to be forgotten).  I actually sent her an email this morning asking if she'd allow me to host a baby shower. I know. Such growth. But I really want to. I really want to be a part of their children's lives, and I don't want infertility to rob me of any more love. So it's not over, I'm not done being sad, envious or flummoxed by infertility, but damn, it felt good to really want to do this for her.

And how are you?

Poetry for the journey

Brooklyn Girl posted this a long time ago. I have no recollection of the context, but I was reading this blog entry, and it just seemed to fit.

Stanly Kunitz

Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

The trouble with having a blog is...

You gotta write stuff on it. Or in it. And to write on it or in it, I need to think about infertility, and there are times when I just wanna not do that. I could write about other stuff, and I imagine I will, but uh, yeah. So. Infertility...

We saw Dr. Calm this morning and we ironed out the details of the next 2 months and the next cycle.  We also did an antral follicle count (little spots on your ovaries that turn into follicles) and I had an average amount (should see between 4 & 6) I had 4 on Righty, a known under producer, and at least 6 if not more on Lefty, my rock.

The plan:

We are going to go an additional month on the DHEA, meaning the next IVF will be in March instead of February.  I'm pretty relieved about that. Of course, I'd like to be having a successful cycle around the time that I would have been giving birth to Sparky, but I'd also just like a little more time off.

I am going to have a follow-up antral follicle count in February to see if the DHEA is having a noticeable effect, as well as an AMH test and another FSH test to see how my ovarian reserve is doing--basically are my eggs getting more and more wizened and should we just chuck it and get some from a fresh young gal. But I get ahead of myself.

As for the medicine itself, Dr Calm is changing it from 150 IU's of Me.nopur to 75 IU's because there was recent study that said too much LH (which men.opur has as part of it's formulation) can encourage a dominant follicle to develop, and thus tell the others to go fuck themselves. She totally said that. No, not really, she's a lady. I will take 375 IU's of Gona.l F, which will bring me up to a total of the follicle stimulating drugs that worked in my two cycles.  I think that there will be some dexamethosone thrown in, but I forgot to ask...

So the positives are that I get some info between now and March, but the downside is, it's IVF. By that I mean, it is a pain to do this at all.  I'm kind of over normalizing it.  It is awful to be infertile.

Also, I am fat. No really, don't talk me out of it.  I'm probably 5 lbs over my heaviest weight ever, and I am not interested in doing We.ight Watch.ers. It works, it's worked for me, and I don't feel like doing it.  I'm thinking of doing the Sou.th Bea.ch Diet. The 3 phase model is appealing. I think I just need a jumpstart.

Also. Pilates. I'm going to call the teacher I've been gonna call for a long time. I just read an article in a pain management journal that talked about something similar to Pilates, with a reformer, and it seems like this is my best chance to get a handle on this back pain crap is a Redcord/Pilates approach.

Also, my 60+ year old osteopath looks hawt, and she's been doing Pilates for a year. 

I'm still waiting for my period--but the verge of tears and the straining at the fat pants make me think that AF is imminent.

The well of grief

The Well Of Grief

David Whyte, 1990

Those who will not slip beneath the

still surface on the well of grief

turning down into it's black water

to the place where we cannot breathe

will never know

the source from which we drink

the secret water cold and clean

nor find in the darkness

the small gold coins

thrown by those who wished for something else.

In which I use the word creepy too many times

Hey y'all! I'm sorry for the long silence, but between needing to just repress for a little while, and actually being busy at work, I didn't have the space to write.

After the IVF tanked, I started checking out Donor Egg sources hard core. I got into email contact with at least 3 agencies, my clinic included, and started looking at the, uh, options? Merchandise? What is the correct address for this activity?  It does feel like shopping, and it is creepy.

This is, by far, one of the oddest things I have ever done.

I am not usually a jealous person, I trust my husband, and he is very trustworthy, but there are moments when I feel like he is going to have a baby with another woman, and it freaks me out!  He does not even know what I am talking about--it just doesn't make any sense to him. Before we know what was the issue (as if we really know for sure now...) a couple of people in my family offered to be surrogates, and he felt like that was awfully creepy, and that we would be raising their baby--even if it was our genetic child. So he comes at this from a pretty different place.

Also, as a fan of mini-series and made for TV movies I think I have seen way to many movies when the wife is dying,and she is trying to find a replacement wife for her husband. It's like I see the scene play out, and I'm supposed to be dead, but I'm not, and I'm raising the new wife's baby.  Oy. Again, husband thinks this is ridiculous. However, he did say he could imagine having some of these feelings (but not as flagrantly), if we were using a sperm donor.

It seems like when I'm just having a relationship with the potential donor, and he isn't a part of it, it's comfortable, but I don't know how to have him there and not feel pushed out--as if he would rather have a fertile wife. Again, my fantasies. He wants me, and to have children with me, and to him whhile the loss of my genetic piece is a loss, it isn't the whole thing for him.

There are times when I get really excited about a donor, and I start to imagine the process, and then it hits me what I'm doing, and I flip out a little inside.  It's like shopping for a wheelchair, and getting excited about the wheelchairs, and then all of the sudden realizing your are going to be in a wheelchair. Ya know?

I find myself getting to be ok with it, and then I wake up in the morning and say "but I don't want to do this this way! I just want my genetic child" And that freaks me out. I imagine someone will feel compelled to mention, I am getting ahead of myself, we do have one more cycle. But trust me, this is my process, I could have just as easily named this blog "Getting Ahead of Myself".

So this is kind of disjointed, and it doesn't really capture the texture of this experience, but I think this is as deep as I can go. I really really need to continue coping,and functioning and holding onto the fertile parts of myself that have nothing to do with my ovaries--otherwise I'm gonna be a sloppy mess until the next cycle.

Oh, and I guess I'm avoiding thinking about how Sparky's due date would be a month from now. Yeah, I'm just not gonna go there.

Thanks so much for coming by, even though I've been kinda awol.

 

Well Shut Mah Mouth

The lovely Geohde chose Dreams and False Alarms as The blog of the week! Dang!

I guess I'd better make it worth your while!

Many a sprightly entry for your pleasure (or commiseration, which ever it was that brought you here), and some new Donor Egg Ruminations are on the way.