AZ trip

I'm back from Arizona and didn't even get too sunburnt despite the crazy-hot weather. It was in the 90's every day on my trip, with little relief from gentle breezes. I went to two spring training games, which is something I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Of course, AF arrived and tried to ruin the trip with her cramping and heavy bleeding, but I was prepared for her arrival and didn't let it get me down too much.

I only had one incident with my littlest nephew. On the last day I was there, he made a comment that I was so fat that I should have a baby in my belly. I managed not to cry or yell at him, and just told him that it wasn't true. My sister didn't hear him say it and I really didn't feel like listening to her try to deal with it (though it might have been entertaining to hear try to explain infertility, coming from a fertile myrtle like her) so I didn't mention it. I did get the "maybe god has other plans for you" line from both my sister and my dad--ugh! It took everything I had not to fight back at those comments, but I didn't want to ruin a short trip with people I love and don't get to see nearly often enough, so I tried to let them go.

Now I'm home and some depression has set in. It's starting to sink in that this "decision break" that we are on may be permanent. Part of me is relieved to not have the stress of treatments at the moment, but part of me is still grieving the loss of that dream.

I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with going to work tonight and tomorrow. I think the people at work are just tired of hearing about all of it. When I posted about it on Facebook, I got very few comments from my work friends. With the failed IVF in the fall, I found that I was more upset by people not asking how I was doing than I was when I started to talk about it and cry. I guess I just want to know that people still care.

No POAS for me

Well, I skipped the POAS drama. I talked to one of the docs I work with and we decided that I really didn't need the prophylactic antibiotics. I only had the patient for an hour and barely went into her room. When I did, I was wearing a mask and then I put a mask on the patient for transport to the floor. He said that if I was going to get meningitis from her, I would have had some symptoms in the week it took employee health to decide to contact us. Overall, it just wasn't worth the icky side effects of the antibiotics for something that was such a low risk exposure. So, I didn't POAS and I didn't take the meds--I'm still alive to tell the tale, so I guess it wasn't too crazy of a decision.

I finally called the RE office today about my missing AF. I guess they didn't get the operative report from my myomectomy in December, so they aren't sure what to do about it yet. I had to call the surgeon's office to get the report faxed over and I should hear back tomorrow on what my next steps should be. Unfortunately, I will be in a re-certification class all day tomorrow and Friday, so I can't even get in for a blood test until Saturday at the earliest (more likely next week when I can go to the closer office).

Welcome ICLW!

Wow, I just realized that today starts ICLW and I haven't written a single post all year. Holy crap! Can you say slacker?

The year is starting off pretty well. I'm finally starting to shake the cold that I got at the beginning of the year. Yeah for no more coughing!

I've stuck to my commitment to 100 consecutive days of exercise. I was very frustrated after the first two weeks since I lost a combined 1.6 pounds in those two weeks. It didn't help that DH lost almost 7 in the same time frame--men! When I looked at it, though, I realized that I was still eating crap despite professing my desire to shed some poundage. So, I started back on my eating plan that I used last summer when I lost some weight before IVF. I stuck to it pretty faithfully and lost 3 pounds this week. DH just got home after being gone all week, so the diet will go out the window for a nice dinner out tonight.

We are still on a treatment break to let my uterus heal from the myomectomy in December. I haven't seen AF since November, but I'm hesitant to request her presence just yet. I've been doing the calculations and, if I call the RE office now, they'll put me on prometrium to bring her visit. So, if I start that now, take it for 10 days, then get AF a couple days after that, I'll be getting her visit around the end of the month. Which would likely mean that I could expect her again at the end of next month and I definitely don't want her around then. See, DH and I have booked our lovely anniversary trip to Mexico for the end of next month and AF would kind of kill the vibe, if ya know what I mean. So, I'm going to wait until next week (or maybe the next one) to call the office and get the process started.

I find it a little sad, actually, that I don't even have the slightest bit of hope for my missed period to mean a pregnancy. Most normal (aka fertile) women would have peed on at least one stick by now, but I haven't even seriously considered doing that. I guess it's just another sign that this has become so ingrained in my brain that I can't even imagine a missed period meaning anything other than my body being screwed up again. How sad is that!


ETA: It looks like I'm going to have to POAS anyway. I was exposed to meningitis last weekend at work, and the infectious disease doc wants to put those of us exposed on a short course of prophylactic antibiotics. Since the meds they generally use are not safe for pregnancy, I need to make sure that I'm not pg before I can take the meds. I'm pretty darn sure I'm not and it's just the surgery that screwed with my cycle, but I would be devastated to find out later that I was and that the meds caused problems. So, I will be POAS tomorrow before I get the meds, just to be sure.

Back on schedule

Well, the bleeding has slowed down to just spotting again. When I talked to the IVF nurse yesterday, she said that if it became full flow AF again, we would consider it CD1 and just move forward with the cycle. I would need to come in on CD2 for u/s and blood work, start Lupron on CD2, stims on CD3. Um, hello? I haven't even had my consultation yet! I don't know what my med schedule is yet! This isn't supposed to happen out of order like this! Can you tell my control freak side isn't handling this well?

The nurse went ahead and called in all my meds to the pharmacy so that I could have them this weekend in case I needed to start. They called me yesterday with the list of like 13 meds that were ordered. Thank goodness for great insurance that will cover all of this without a co-pay!

And have I mentioned how much I love my DH lately? When I thought that I was going to have to start all this over the weekend (and I still might), I arranged for Saturday delivery of my meds. Someone has to be available to sign for the truckload of stuff and, while I will technically be home, I will be sleeping all day in between work shifts. I totally forgot that he had plans with a friend for Saturday morning. He immediately offered to cancel his plans with his friend, or at least delay them until the meds show up. (his friend will totally understand--they know about all of this and they had to deal with IF prior to having their son) I told him that I could sleep on the couch to wait for the meds so that he could go do his guy thing. "No way", he said, "if you have to give yourself a thousand shots over the next few weeks, the least I can do is stay home to get the meds." Isn't he wonderful? (hi honey! *mwah*)

WTF?!?

Argh! So frustrated right now!

I've been spotting intermittently since Sunday--probably leftovers from the trial embryo transfer on Friday, so no worries, right? When it continued into Monday and Tuesday, I thought it might be a little much to be coming from the procedure, but they warned me about spotting while on the pill. Today, it seems to be turning into AF--cramps, diarrhea, actual red blood flow, etc (sorry if it's TMI). WTF?!?!?

I let them know about my BCP issues before they put me on this. The last year or two that I was on the pill, I would bleed at random times during a pack of pills, sometimes for just a day or two, sometimes like a full AF. When I was training for a marathon in 2006, I was calling my GYN office regularly because I couldn't seem to control or predict when I was going to bleed. I did not want to be running 26.2 miles with my stupid period and all the paraphernalia that entailed. (Luckily, it worked out) At one point last year, I decided to take a pack of pills so I could time AF to stay away from our anniversary trip--nope, bled/spotted for like two and a half weeks instead, nearly ruining the trip.

So, here I am again--on day 12 of my 21-day pill pack and bleeding. I've called the IVF nurse line and I'm waiting for a call back to see what, if anything, I should do. Why can't my body just do things right for once?!?

ETA: Just spoke with the IVF nurse. She is going to meet with the RE at lunch, but she said he might just want to count this as day 1 and get started with stims. Eeeeeeekkk! Now it's really happening too fast! DH is out of town and in important meetings all day so I can't even talk to him about it.

Here we go again!

When we got back from our Alaska trip, my mind flipped back to TTC mode. Taking the summer off of medical interventions was the best choice for us. We took a great trip that we won't be able to repeat until a kid is older. We both got to visit our families and got to have one last kid-free chance to party in Vegas. We managed to take a mental and emotional break from the stress of TTC. It was never far from my mind, of course. I did still hope for the "just relax" vacation miracle, but wasn't totally crushed when it didn't happen. I feel totally refreshed, even if I didn't manage to lose the weight I wanted to lose. I did lose a lot of the bitterness that I felt while we were in the throes of hormones and disappointments, and I feel so much lighter for it.

So, with AF's arrival today, we officially start back into the wonderful world of ART. I called the RE office last week to get an idea of the plan going forward. I will need to have CD3 blood work and ultrasound done, including a repeat of my AMH, then I will start 21 days of BC pills. I am a little leery of the BCP, because the last year or two before I stopped them, I didn't do so well on them. My previous mid-cycle spotting would turn into real bleeding, with long and painful AF. Heck, one AF was 17 days long when you count the pre- and post-AF spotting. Obviously, this would doom an IVF cycle as I'm sure there would be no lining left. I expressed these concerns to the IVF nurse, and she assured me that it was probably the fibroid and not the BCP. Since the fibroid is now gone, hopefully these problems went with it.

I have a lot of mixed emotions moving forward. On the one hand, I am so excited to be back in the game and finally have a real chance at getting pregnant. I didn't think we would have to go this route, but since we do, I'm glad the time has finally arrived. I feel like I'm more emotionally ready to start this process again than I would have been 3 months ago.

On the other hand, I can feel the old anxiety creeping back in sometimes. I mean, everything else we have tried has failed, why wouldn't this? What about the side effects from the meds? I did pretty well during the last stims (at least I think I did--my DH might say otherwise), but I'm assuming that the meds and doses will be increased. What if we increase the meds and I still don't make lots of eggs? What if I make plenty of eggs, but none of them fertilize? What if I don't have enough embies to freeze and the fresh cycle fails? I know we can't afford to pay for another fresh cycle and our insurance will likely only cover one. So, if we don't get the protocol right, or we aren't successful for whatever other reason, I may not get another shot at this. Argh--sometimes I hate the "what if's" in all of this!

But what if it does work? (I think I just found my happy place)