Bring it on, 2011!

And now, the obligatory year-end blog post.

Adios 2010! Sayonara sucker! Au revoir mon cheri! Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya! (Can you tell I'm really ready for it to be over?)

Needless to say, it's been a really rough year. I've shed more tears than a person should in one year. I started the year with 4 failed IUI's (number 1 of 5 failed at the end of 2009). In the midst of that mess, I lost my dear Thor, the sweet giant who was my heart for 6 years. It was the first time I've lost a furbaby, and it was beyond devastating. I still cry when I think of the big lug.

Summer brought a much-needed break with some great vacations. One of the major highlights of the year was our trip to Alaska. Such amazing beauty in one state! I can't wait until we can get back up there and see more of it.

Fall rolled around and brought our IVF cycle. The meds arrived and brought with them more hope than I've had in a long time. Everything went along swimmingly until the end--BFN. Recommence the tears! I sank into a deep funk, which lingers at times until this day. Being told that my eggs suck and that I may not be able to have a biological child was just the proverbial icing on the craptastic cake. Toss in a recurrence of my fibroids and I'm ready to be done with this year!

So, I'm welcoming in 2011 with open arms!

I generally don't make New Year's resolutions--I never stick to them and setting myself up to fail seems stupid. I do make general goals though, and tend to give myself the whole year to accomplish them. DH got me started doing this the year he gave up his pepsi habit and switched to diet--it took him the whole year, with lots of relapses and restarts, but he did it. So that's how I choose to look at the inevitable desire for self-improvement that comes with the fresh start of a new year. That said, here are my goals for 2011:

1. Resolve our family-building situation. Obviously, I would love for this year to end with a baby in my arms (or a very large pregnant belly). Our current plans are to move forward with another cycle of IVF in March, with a FET in April of any genetically normal embryos (and maybe more in the freezer, I hope). In the event of another BFN, I need to make peace with what that entails for my family. If that means we will be just a couple of DINK's who take awesome vacations and adopt giant breed dogs, I will need to find a way to release myself from the weight of jealousy, bitterness, sadness, etc. and move forward with my life.
   
   
2. Become healthier and lose at least 10% of my current body weight (25% if I don't get pregnant). I've gained more weight than I care to admit in the past year. I tend to eat when I'm sad, anxious, stressed, bored, etc--all of which have been a big part of the last year. And I may have taken the "no strenuous exercise in the 2ww" to an extreme and, just to be safe, extended it to the whole cycle. Yeah, not a pretty number on my scale right now. But, I'm going to change that for the better. To that end, I've signed up for The 100 Days Challenge. DH cleared away all the junk around my exercise equipment, and I updated our gym membership. I found a local rec center that offers various classes since our small gym doesn't. I've even got an accountability sheet taped to my bathroom mirror for motivation. DH and I also are taking on the additional challenge of trying to eat dinner at home for the duration of the challenge (except date nights). I think the timing of this will be perfect to meet my goal of losing 10% of my body weight before any FET takes place in April.
   
   
3. Read at least 25 books in 2011, including at least 5 "classics". I love to read and have lately let myself get pulled away from my books by fun toys like my iPad solitaire game. When I do read lately, I tend to only read for a little while at night before going to sleep. This has led to an overflowing to-be-read bookshelf (it would be more, but DH has put limits on my Borders excursions). I've also downloaded lots of free classics for my iPad, so I'd like to read some of those as well as the fun chick-lit that I usually read. I'm going to post my list on here as I go, so I can keep track of where I am with my goal. I should probably decide on my first book soon, huh?
   
   

That's it--three measly goals for the year. I'd love to be one of those people that includes things like personal growth, financial stability, forging new relationships, and making the world a better place, but I'm not--call it shallow if you will, but I'm just trying to get by for now.

Happy New Year! Goodbye sucky 2010! Welcome 2011!!!

Me vs. the Fibroid--round 2

Well, I had my second fibroid removal of this long TTC journey yesterday.

This one happened so quickly. I met with the surgeon last Monday. He did an u/s in the office and said that it would probably be easier to remove hysteroscopically due to its location. This means a faster post-op recovery, but a delay in cycling again since the endometrium would take a while to heal. Fine with me--we weren't planning on stims until March anyway, and any transfer would be April-ish since we will do testing on all embies this time.

The hardest part of this surgery was that it wasn't until 1pm. This hospital wasn't as lenient as the last one, so I could have nothing to eat or drink after midnight. I've never been so starving and thirsty! Of course, when they tell you that you can't do something, that's all you can think to do. I had to be at the hospital at 10am, so I couldn't even sleep most of my NPO morning away. We registered and then the pre-op nurse came to get us in the lobby. She took us to their GYN surgery area, which is their old OB unit that they closed a couple years ago. It was nice to be away from the busy main OR and prep area and the staff seemed to like it that way too.

Another nurse came in to try my IV. She seemed to be unsure of where to start it, since the anesthesiologists usually like a hand IV but mine aren't very good. She tried anyway and blew the vein--no big deal, I figured that would happen. She ended up starting it in my antecubital (elbow) area anyway since that's where my better veins are. Then she really got it--I was bleeding everywhere when she finally got it. They drew my blood for a beta and a CBC--my beta was negative (shocking!) and my blood count was OK.

So, then we just waited around for the OR to be ready. I fell asleep for a few minutes from the dramamine they gave me. Poor DH was starving, so I sent him to the cafeteria around 1 when they told me it would be closer to 1:30 start time. He came back after scarfing down some cold pasta just as the OR nurse came in. They wheeled me away, got me into position, and then I was out. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in recovery with minimal pain. My head hurt worse from the lack of caffeine all day than my uterus did. I hung out there for about 90 minutes while I woke up a bit more, then they went to get DH. We were on the road by 5pm--a long day for sure, but I'm glad it's over.

We stopped for dinner on the way home since I was starving and a little queasy from the pain med they insisted on giving to me. I felt fine, so we went to pick up my car at the shop (shhhhh...don't tell the cops I was driving right after surgery) and stopped at the store to get some cookie mixings. I made a batch of cookies when I got home, too. I did take one pain pill and a nausea pill before bed, more as a precaution than anything. I did have a twinge or two of pain when I rolled onto my side, but it still wasn't horrible.

Today, I'm up and back to baking. We are heading to Texas tonight to see my in-laws for the holiday. I have to be back on Saturday for work, so at least it will be a quick trip (less time with newborn and his whining mommy!).

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night!

Random thoughts

Lots of little things going on, but nothing big enough to make into its own post.

• We may have figured out a way to get insurance to pay for another cycle of IVF. We get our insurance through my husband's employer, and they offer 2 choices for health insurance. We've always gone with one and never had a problem, but we've maxed out our IF coverage for procedures. Since the other plan offered also covers IF, it is possible that they will pay for another $25k worth of meds and procedures. So, we switched to the other plan. Now, it's possible that this little plan of ours won't work and we'll be stuck coming up with the money out of pocket. But that's what we would have had to do if we stayed with the other plan anyway. The RE office is in-network with both plans, so it's worth a try.


• I've been doing lots of holiday baking since getting home from our Thanksgiving visit. I like to bake, but I don't really want all the yummy treats in the house for me to inhale, so I take them all to work. It makes my co-workers happy and gives us all something to munch on when the nights are so crazy busy. But I can't help remembering doing all of this with my grandma. I miss her every day and make most of her favorites every year. When I started this tradition a few years ago, I pictured myself eventually doing all this baking with my child and how it would create some of the same fond memories for him/her. This year, with one failed IVF under my belt, I'm becoming more and more afraid that my little fantasy will not come to pass. I fear that the next cycle will fail and I will be forced to face the prospect of not becoming a mother. Unfortunately, this fear has taken some of the fun out of my holiday baking.


• Have I mentioned how much I love my husband? He was so great at staving off all of the ass-vice when we told our families. Tonight, when I was getting a bit anxious about our upcoming visit to his niece's house for Christmas (complete with 5-week-old baby), he offered to talk to his mom and sister about being sensitive to how hard it might be for us. I told him that I don't expect them all to understand, but if his niece starts griping about lack of sleep, sore nips, etc., I just might lose it and say something that would upset everyone. So, he called his mom to explain that we might need her help to steer conversation away from the difficulty of having two small children, and that we might need to walk away or leave for a while if it gets too overwhelming.


• I finally talked the RE office into doing my repeat saline sonogram last week. I wanted to do it last cycle, but they wanted to wait until closer to when we might cycle again since my arrogant RE was sure we wouldn't find anything. Well, it's a good thing we did it, because they found another fibroid. Um hello, estrogen can accelerate fibroid growth in susceptible women, and I've done 5 IUI's and 1 IVF since my last surgery. It's not as big as the last one he removed, but still big enough and in a location that might interfere with my lining and, therefore, implantation or fetal growth. So, I have an appointment on Monday with the surgeon that my RE referred me to in order to see about getting it removed. I would love to get it done before the end of the year so that it can go on this year's insurance--since we've met our out-of-pocket max for the year, we wouldn't have to pay a dime for the surgery. I kind of doubt I can get it scheduled so quickly, but I sure as heck will try. Plus, if it's like last time, the RE office will want me to have a full cycle to heal before resuming treatment. Since we were aiming for starting stims in early March, an end-of-December surgery would just leave January to heal before BCP's start in February.

Well, I better get back to baking if I'm going to have enough to get me through 3 shifts at work this weekend!

The big reveal

Thank you all for the feedback on my last post. I decided not to give our families this blog address. I thought it was much more important for me to have a safe space to vent about everything. Neither family is likely to annoy us with lots of phone calls and questions, so they don't need to read everything here to stay up-to-date. To tell the truth, I'm more likely to call them for support than they are to pester us.

Telling DH's parents was so very easy. His mom noticed that I was taking lots of vitamins and supplements, so we used that as an easy tie-in to the TTC/IVF stuff. They are such nice people and DH has trained them (as he puts it) to not bug him all the time. His mom is more likely to text or IM one of us, but even that isn't all that often. His parents were surprised by our news, but very supportive. His mom said that she would want to know what was going on, but promised not to bug us and let us come to her with updates.

I was much more concerned about telling my sisters. They didn't know about us even deciding that we wanted a child, so this was going to come as a shock. I insisted we would never change our minds about that one, so the potential for "I told you so" was quite high. After we finished dinner, my nephews went to play in the basement (thanks Mom for shooing them away) so I knew it was time to spill the beans. Both sisters looked surprised, though my little sister said she had figured it out (or thought that maybe I was pg and had a m/c since my FB status posts had been so depressed). I think the tears welling up in my eyes helped keep away any snarky comments.

DH was great in both of these conversations. He stated straight out that we had done research and were under the care of a great fertility clinic, so there was no need for advice or suggestions. Coming from me, that would have sounded really bitchy, but he managed to keep it assertive without being offensive. I love him so much for that since it kept all of the ass-vice away.

Overall, the holiday trip home went pretty well. We managed to eat most of our at-home cravings. DH scored points by helping with Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house. Neither one of us ran screaming from the room, despite 7 children under the age of 12 (no babies, though, so that helped keep me from crying in my wine glass).