Dreams and False Alarms

First Beta Ever

Ugh. Tomorrow is the day I've been both dreading and hoping for, all rolled up into one. I really think that I'll get a negative, but I have to get the test anyway. 

Plan if the test is Negative:
Have a cocktail as big as my head
Sushi
Antihistamines
Amb.ian
Call IVF coordinator for new IVF Calendar

Plan if the test is Positive:
Collect and reconstruct exploded head
Sit tight until 2nd test confirms first test
Re-collect and reconstruct exploded head.

Smart money is on scenario 1.

Good News!

We are NOT terminated from the Shared Risk Program!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whew. They gave us the option to withdraw, use it as our first IVF cycle or pay for the IUI, and the next cycle will be our first cycle. We're going to pay for the cycle, and start over with the next cycle.

After my last post, I felt 'good cry' good, but after I got the offer from the Shared Risk folks, there were positively  rainbows coming out of my a*%.

Off to dose the kitty with Plavix (because she's no match for a dangerous clot.)

Deflation

I think I'm in a state of deflation. Not that I've actually been elated recently, but I just feel like I'm soldering through and not really thinking much of anything. My breasts have deflated as well, although I still need the bra for sleeping, but really, the likelihood that this IUI is going anywhere is pretty low.

So.  What now? I'm going to make a killer carrot cake for my best friends birthday. I'm going to see some old friends from high school, weather (and backs) permitting, we're going to ride down a huge slide at a park near my house. I have a full day of work tomorrow, and then a good Friday planned. So I think I'll be able to hold on until Tuesday afternoon.  Oy.

I believe it too

I was rushing out the door this morning, I heard part of this segment from the NPR series This I Believe.

It's a quick read, but worth it.

Over the last 18 months I too have come to believe in Biology, and I find it infinitely more comforting than the religious beliefs that I've courted over the years, and the ones that were knitted into me as a child.  I am comforted by the knowledge that there are processes, some of them work, some of them fail, but that the processes don't hold the key to my goodness, my worthiness, or my destiny.  This time last year I was in such a state of distress about not getting pregnant that I was hardly rational. My longtime therapist fell apart under the weight of her own life, and couldn't bear my off-the-charts decent in to crazy meaning making about why I wasn't pregnant. Painfully, she cast me out. I don't mean that melodramatically, she insulted me and my sanity, my husband and my work.  I did find someone who was better able to handle my pain, and that was when I had the first inkling that I was hoping to get pregnant as the final act of redemption for things I felt terribly ashamed of.

I imagine that some might have felt that I could have turned to Jesus, or Gaia, but that kind of faith didn't touch my pain, it just drove me deeper into my own twisted meaning making.  So at some point I moved to  biology.  It feels gentler to realize that I am not the master of my fate, and that I might have 95% of the needed equipment to make a baby, but that 5% is the difference.  This doesn't protect me from grieving, or sadness, or even the decisions I'll have to make in the future, but it does allow me to grieve what is real, what is true. 

I am nearly 1/2 way through my two week wait.  It is an odd bittersweet kind of waiting. The progesterone supplements make my breast heavy and sore, but I can't feel excited by it.  I had to buy a larger bra on Friday, and one to sleep in. For now I'm calling them my "IVF Bras."  On Tuesday April 8th I'll  know the outcome.

The lovely Dr Calm

We met with the lovely Dr Calm this afternoon, and she was calm, and now I feel calm. She seemed a bit surprised that we'd been converted to an IUI, and seemed to indicate that she might have made a different decision. But in the end, we all agreed that we'd been given a reasonable choice, and that there was still a chance.

I was scared about asking her to advocate for us, but she actually offered to write a letter on our behalf to the shared risk folks.  Whew. 

Our next cycle will be estrogen priming, followed by Lupron Micro Flare (whoo hooo! fireworks in my ovaries).  So this is going to take a fuck of a long time.  If I'm not pregnant this cycle (which could still happen, right?), I'll stop the progesterone suppositories, I'll get my period. I'll pee on an OPK, 1/2 way through my luteal phase I'll take estrogen. When/if I get my period, I do lupron on like day 4 (or something like that), and then continue lupron, gonal F, menopur until the eggs come home to roost, and do my egg retrieval sometime near the end of May, or something. Ok, that part if fuzzy. Obviously the best result would be getting pregnant, but the second best result would be responding normally, getting all the way to ER and ET, and if I'm really being crazy, embryos to freeze.

Oh yeah, and a day or two ago, husband expressed a softening towards aiming for twins. Not that we can control it, but he was firmly in the 'if they are grade a, transfer only one' camp. The reality of this crap- shoot has hit both of us, and being too confident that it will work at all, or work twice, seems crazier than two babies.

Off to shove greasy capsules up my hoo ha.

Underwire bra=I'm a big fat liar

Yesterday I was wearing a very low tech sports bra (what my aunt would refer to as a sling), and I was breast sore all day.  Today, I had to jet out of bed to drive my dad to the airport, and I put on an underwire bra.  I'm still sore, but less than in the sling.

It turns out I can't help but feel as if the soreness is meaningful, even when I promise I won't.

On Sunday I was feeling particularly low, and I wrote this in an email to a friend:

"I too know that I will be mother, and though I don't know how my children will come to me, I know that they will come. At the moment I'm working on letting myself feel the weight of the possibilities. I don't feel filled with dread or anger or even shame, but a low painful sadness that the one thing I wanted to heal for myself, through children (always a bad idea, eh), is coming into a family fully, simply desired and welcomed, with very little to mourn. My own entrance into the world was so fraught with my families prior pain and my brothers death.  It has felt like a wound that only crusts over, but never heals.  And I know that my healing is the only thing that heals my wounds, but this is a very old fantasy, and it has its tendrils deep into me.  I'm going to go through the IUI tomorrow, and fight for staying in the program, do a new protocol and keep on moving forward. But this is setback, and I have to respect that it hurts.  And that is hard--I wish I could just be angry, or obsessively clean my house, or eat a pint of ice cream. "

I just want a baby. I want to get pregnant, give birth and have my dream. I will be a parent, and I know that I may adopt, and that ultimately what I want is to mother, but at this moment, I want this dream.

 

Medicated IUI's are not for sissy's

Oy, my ovaries.  I never did a medicated IUI before, and I must say, it is involved.  My uterus feels sore and full. Hmmm.

Even though we didn't make it to retrieval, I sure made it to severe ovarian pain. Youch.

Physically one of the hardest things about this cycle is that there is an incredible amount of progesterone circulating in my body, making my breasts very sore, and yet it doesn't fill me with hope that this cycle will work. In the mind fuck cycles of last year, I was ecstatic to have sore breasts and heartburn, this time I just feel wary.

Last night I put in my first progesterone suppository--not awful or anything, but weird. I had lots of get up and go this morning, but now I'm sleepy--again, portents and signs are useless.

When I was waiting for my IUI on Monday I witnessed a rare thing: A woman who got pregnant by IVF who thought everyone would be ecstatic for her. She told everyone who walked in, and talked about it endlessly to the receptionists.  On one hand I wanted her to shut the fuck up, on the other, I was impressed (not even sarcastically) with her sense of entitlement to her pregnancy.  I  know that one issue a lot of successful  infertility bloggers struggle with is what to do when they get pregnant--who are they now. I hope that if I get pregnant in this process that I can strike a balance between feeling entitled to my happiness, and being respectful of what others are going through.

Off to take a nap, or go to the grocery store, or fold laundry. Or take a nap.

Over and Out

Well, that didn't go as I'd planned.

We went for our next scan and we had a nice juicy follicle at 21, and another at 17, and the rest were lagging, so we were canceled and converted to an IUI. The good part is that we still get a chance at using the good eggs, the bad part is that we are most likely out of the Shared Risk program. Ok, were totally out of the shared risk program, but we are going to see if we can appeal the termination on the grounds that my ovaries may have been too suppressed by being on the BCP for 26 days, and that without changing protocol we don't know if it is me or the protocol.  It doesn't seem likely that we'll get anywhere, but it doesn't hurt to try.

I trigger at 10:45pm tonight, husband does the dance of the cup and the hand at 8:30 Monday am, and we load me up at 10:45am Monday.  Not exactly what I was planning for.

I have been quite a wreck all week, waiting for this shoe to drop since Thursday morning, so I think I'm spent; I just can't cry or worry or have freak out fantasies anymore.  And that damn hope addict is thinking maybe the IUI will work, and the baby aspirin and the progesterone suppositories will help, and we'll be on the road.  But if it doesn't work, we'll take another run at it with the lupron micro dose protocol and see where we get.

When we were waiting for the prescription today I made small talk with the medical assistants and one came up and asked what we were up to, and I said "I'm just hoping doctor S doesn't come out and tell me it's curtains for this cycle."  She looked at me quizzically and said "You're very good at being happy."  I wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic, so I asked and she said most people are angry.  I said "I feel sad and worried, but who is there to be angry at? Myself, my body, the doctor, god?  It just is what it is."  And I mean it.  I have spent all my rage. It isn't fair blah blah blah, but it is this reality.

So the last self inflicted shot of the cycle,and then  I'm off to the gooey world of progesterone suppositories.  Ick.