I swear I'm alive.

And still pregnant. It's just not until recently until I can stay awake long enough to do anything productive.

I've been so anxious about this baby. Do you tell or do you not tell? How do you have any idea if things are going ok in there? You're just counting the minutes until the next ultrasound and trying not to go totally insane.

I had to find a new OB cause I moved. So I did that and turns out that I kind of love him. And he's kinda cute too. That helps. He made me feel like things would be ok. Gave me a pap and said I'll see you in four weeks. Um, what? 4 WHOLE WEEKS? I'm totes used to Le Baby Factory where they talk to you daily. I don't do well with 4 weeks in between. Gah!

So to ease the pain of the wait- I ordered a doppler. Except then I could never find the heartbeat. And the anxiety got worse. J FINALLY found it for me about two days before the NT Scan. PHEW. I scheduled my NT Scan and first trimester screening for Friday July 5th. I had the day off so we headed to the MFM. The ultrasound was ah-maz-ing. No more is the babe a blob or a gummy bear looking creature, but it looks like a for serious baby. And you could see everything. Little heart beating away. Arms and legs wiggling around. Unreal. All of that going on inside my body while I don't feel a thing. Just unreal. We had great measurements and now just waiting for blood work to come back. The MFM likes to monitor IVF patients (and told me he knows that I'm going through ultrasound withdrawal) so he's having me come back at 16 weeks just for a growth scan. Thank you sweet baby jebus. I would hate to have to wait till 20 weeks. Nightmare.

Anyway- I'm doing great. We've told the world about the baby. And I'll blog again. Pinky swear.

Meet My Baby

One perfect little baby. Heart beating away at 120 beats per minute. Already the love of my life.

May 28, 2013 6w6d

Then today I got this. 8w2d Heart still beating away in there. 

I said goodbye to my nurse and my RE. And now I'm just a regular pregnant lady. What?? I'm a pregnant lady. So surreal. So thankful for every day with that little heartbeat. 

Last Beta

6839! Whoa. Maybe there really are two baking in there.

No more betas. Now we wait for the big show. Ultrasound. I'm scheduled for 5/28. LONGEST.WAIT.EVER.

In the meantime, I'm moving back in with my Mom this weekend. Well WE'RE moving in with my Mom. I guess J and Boo Kitty can come too. And then right after that my Mom's having heart surgery. It's gonna be a loooong two weeks. I need it to be June.

Beta #2!

1930! That's a doubling time of 42.5 hours. I'm feeling good about the numbers. So now just one more beta and then we'll schedule the ultrasound. And in the meantime, we'll move. Ugh. Why can't we ever just do one thing at a time??

Beta #1 is in!

883. Um, is this real life?? 883. Holy Crap.
Repeat beat is Thursday.

Yep. Still pregnant.

This is so shameful. Cause that's not even all of them. I've been peeing on lots-o-sticks. Lots. But my lines are getting darker and they appear faster. And for now- I'll take that as a good sign. Beta is like a billion trillion years away. Sike- it's on Tuesday, but it feels like it will never come. It's also next to impossible to not to tell every.single.person. Worst Best Secret of LIFE.

6dp5dt

Maybe not an evap line, huh?

Holy Shit. I'm having a baby. I'm going to be a MOM. 

Beta is still over a week away. That's like forever.

PS- If I know you IRL- NOT a peep about this. NADA. I haven't even told my Mom yet. 

5dp5dt

I've mixed meds, done like a bazillion shots, but taking a pregnancy test- a total mystery to me. Ugh. I haven't done this for serious in a long time. I acted like SUCH a NOOB today. I woke up, POAS, saw that the test was stark white and pitched it. An hour later- I saw this. See that SUPER faint line? My internet friends saw it too. And I have NO FREAKIN CLUE WHEN IT ARRIVED?!?! UGGGHHH! How could I do this to myself??? 

So now I wait. I wait to pee tomorrow. I went out and bought First Response tests today. 

Holy crap what if this worked?

What I'm Listening To

John Mayer's Heart of Life

I usually hate John Mayer. Ok, well I don't hate him, but he's so annoying. I heard this song and it reminded me of J. It sounds like something he would say to me when I found out someone else was pregnant, or when IVF #1 failed. He's the best. My J- not John Mayer, that is. Mayer's just ok.

My favorite lyrics:
You know, it's nothing new
Bad news never had good timing
Then, circle of your friends
Will defend the silver lining

Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No it won't all go the way it should
But I know the heart of life is good.

Fun's Carry On

I'm really lucky to have just about the best little group of interwebz friends EV-ER. 75 women who have stuck by me through all kinds of bullshit. They are pretty amazing. My friend Kati (you can find her blog here) made a little tribute video for our 75 and this song was in it. It's just about the best song for a sunny day with all your windows down and singing at the top of your lungs. Wanna see the video? It's super mega awesome. Click HERE. 

My favorite lyrics:

If you're lost and alone

And you're sinking like a stone

Carry On

May your past be the sound 

Of your feet upon the ground

Carry On

PUPO. Again

Introducing Mary Lou Reton (on the left) and Reggie Boop (on the right).

We transferred these beauties today- Mary Lou is a highly graded expanded blast (a gold medal winner, clearly) and Reggie Boop is just a hair behind Mary Lou. Transfer went perfectly and both my RE and the doc that did the transfer said we should be very optimistic. Beta is scheduled for May 14th. I'll never make it until then. I'll b\pee on all the sticks long before then. 

Seven.

All 8 were mature. Seven fertilized. SEVEN! As of yesterday- they were all 4 cells and growing normally. We were pushed to a 5 day transfer on Tuesday. HELLO RELIEF! So much better than last cycle.

DANGEROUSLY hopeful.

Eight is my new favorite number.

I haven't posted much about this IVF cycle. Well haven't posted anything about it. I feel like I talked SO much about the last cycle that it made it so consuming. Then having it fail, learning of my DOR diagnosis, and   having to tell EVERYONE that we talked with about it that it didn't work made me go into the closet with this one. My interwebz friends know what's going on as well as a very few select and wonderful people in real life. And that was enough for me this go around. I just didn't want to update everyone every single day and talk about it non stop. I think it would have made me batty.

So here's my update all in one post! We maxed out on stims from day 1. And lemme tell ya, that's a lot of drugs. LOTS. Thank goodness for insurance cause I probably blew through $8,000 in drugs this cycle. Yikes! Things started out slowly- but started improving relative to last cycle. My e2 levels were rising better, my follicle counts were higher, my attitude was better. We triggered Tuesday and had retrieval today.

8 eggs! Holy Shit! 8! I was hoping for anything over 4, but I was so relieved when the nurse told me 8. I'm in quite a bit more pain today than last time, but I'm taking my vicoden and rolling with it. I'm going to go into work tomorrow and just see how I feel. I should get the fert report tomorrow as well. At my last monitoring appointment on Tuesday they were all really close in size so I'm hoping that will lead to high numbers of mature eggs. J was also scheduled for a surgical extraction of sperm as a back up this morning and based on the SA from yesterday and the fact that we have frozen sperm as a back up- it was cancelled and we were told it wasn't necessary. So far- all good news. We're planning for a 3 day transfer on Sunday unless we hear otherwise.

Cross everything. Everything you have. I'm dangerously hopeful.

Yeah. Starting Again.

Can't you sense the excitement? I have been neglecting the blog. But it's just cause I've been doing nothing. Well not nothing- I turned 35. We hit the three year mark of trying to have a baby. A good friend who just got married in October is having a baby. Yeah. 

We're starting IVF again. I did my first injection this morning. My heart isn't in it this time. I guess I just have so little hope that it will really work that I just can't get into it. I can't seem to care about this. I go for monitoring on Tuesday. I'm just hoping that if I can see that there's been some growth, then maybe I'll get into it. Maybe? 

We've registered for an adoption seminar in mid-May. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that yet either. 

I'm left with sad thoughts of what happens if J and I end up alone. We would have a great life- I'm sure we would. I just don't want to always be sad about this- always feel like something is missing, wish we had tried again just one more time. I guess being in the middle of all of this still leaves all these feelings unresolved. And that part sucks. 

Maybe a new plan?

J has always said he's not into adoption. He said he couldn't think about that until we had really run out of options to have biological children. When we were going through the whole donor sperm ordeal, I learned that he has a strong need to have biological children, and I get that. So up until now, adoption has been off the table for us.

When we got the news about the DOR diagnosis, it became a real possibility that with only two tries left at IVF, that biological children may not be in the cards for us. So one night after the news of the DOR, we were having dinner and J tells me that he thinks we need to start thinking about adoption. I was happily surprised. I was glad that he was the one to bring it up and not me. We're not totally sold yet, but we agree that we need to start educating ourselves about adoption and figuring out if it's right for us. There is so much to learn- it's all very overwhelming. But I got myself a book and found some good resources in other girls that have adopted in the recent past. I'm hopeful that IVF isn't the end of our journey.

Meanwhile we're getting closer to IVF #2 and I'm not so excited about it. I guess I've been stripped of a lot of the hope I had for IVF and now it just feels like we're going through the motions. I guess time will tell.

WTF Appointment

We met with the RE today to talk about next steps. He officially diagnosed me with Diminished Ovarian Reserve (DOR). Even though my FSH levels were normal (5.6) and my AFC was normal (12), my AMH levels were low- 1.0. So that combined with my absolutely horrid response to the max dose of stims- I am lucky enough to fall into the DOR category. It's a tough diagnosis. It's just making things that much more difficult. But let's be for serious- Did I expect anything less than complicated and expensive? Um, no.

So since we already know how I respond on the Antagonist protocol- (shitty), the RE wants to use that same drug protocol and front load me with stims. Max out the dose from the beginning to hopefully recruit more follicles at the beginning of the cycle. J and I talked about it and if I'm not showing a good response by 8 or 9 days into stims- I think we'll elect to cancel the cycle. Insurance considers it to be a full cycle if you get to retrieval and being that we only have two left. So I'd really rather not waste a cycle if I'm not responding.

They also said that J had barely enough sperm to fertilize the four eggs we got, so unfortunately we have to have the urologist as a back up again.

All in all, it was all pretty depressing news. I'm left feeling a bit hopeless, honestly. I mean we'll try again, but I guess I just have pretty low expectations.

Back to the Diet

I had a great weekend. Really- every weekend with these girls just kind of helps me fill up the feel good tank and reset myself to a good place. It's so great. I am so lucky and so happy to have them in my life.

We did take lots of pictures and when I look at them- I'm not super happy with what I see. I can't lie- I don't like the way I look. I clearly feel far better about myself than I did 25 pounds ago, but I realized that I still have quite the long way to go. So I'm back on the diet wagon. Back to eating well and back to exercising. LOTS of exercising. I'm thankful that I didn't gain any weight through IVF, so I won't have to be stressed out about that, but I'm back on birth control and so I really need to get things in check.

I joined Diet Bet with some of my friends. It's a challenge to drop 4% of your body weight in 28 days. Eeep!  That seems really hard, but a good goal to go after. That would put me right before starting stims again and I would be a happy camper.

Good for the Soul

My "feel good" tank is running on E. This weekend is the best timing ever. I'm going to meet with these girls. We've managed to continue our weekends together since that first one. We meet up every few months. Spending time with them is good for the soul. It's so nice to be with people who know your history and love you despite the worst things about yourself. It's strange because we're all in very different places in our lives, but we seem to have found each other again at the exact right time. I love them so much and I can't wait to see them.

We're also lucky enough to be having lunch with our high school religion teacher. I don't even know how to explain her. She's most likely one of the most wise people I've ever met.

Beta

Well in case you couldn't infer from the death cramps or all the BFN posts- beta was negative. And somehow it just really sucked to hear it from my nurse. She is really awesome and for some reason all news IVF related sounds the most official when it comes from her. So yeah. Negative.

And as soon as it was over- a new one started. I started BCP for IVF #2 last night. The RE Dr. K thinks that the birth control may have over suppressed me (I agree). He still wants me on birth control, but not as much. So I'm going to do two weeks on, one week off, two weeks on. And then start stims. Antagonist Protocol again. We'll see what happens when we go for our WTF appointment next week. I have lots of questions to ask about my poor response and how we're going to try to fix that. So this whole plan is subject to change.

One big change is that our lips are sealed this time around. No one in real life will know we're doing this. NO ONE. It was so so sucky to have to tell people we failed. So this time we'll keep this under our hats.

Death Cramps

I got my period yesterday. Despite taking progesterone, I got my period anyway. And HOLY SHIZ- it's the worst period I've ever had. Cramps that almost made me leave work and have me eyeing the Vicoden I got after egg retrieval. I talked to the nurse today and she told me to keep taking the meds- Estrodil and Endometrin. Um, probs not. Nothing except a tampon is going in my vag right now. She said "You could still be pregnant." NO I CAN'T. Just let this whole damn thing end. Ugh. And I have to go tomorrow morning to get blood drawn for me to prove to her that I'm not pregnant. I get it- they need some kind of official negative. Ok, fine.

I guess the good part about already getting my period is that hopefully we can move right into #2. Am I nuts for doing that? I can't tell yet. I mean the crazy train is moving- why bother stopping it?

10dp3dt

Negative. I'm feeling like I can really call it a fail now. And I'm FO SHO ready to quit shoving progesterone in my vag. Yesterday was melt down day. I couldn't keep my shit together for nothin. I threw myself a pity party last night and kindly invited my husband. We had a good heart to heart. He talked, I cried. He told me we were going to be ok. And that was what I needed to hear.

I'll keep testing till the beta, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that we'll be moving on to IVF#2 soon.

One thing I've decided is that I told FAR too many people we were doing this. And now it's going to suck to have to tell a billion people that it didn't work. Lesson learned for next time.