Moving Forward

I went back today for my follow-up with the surgeon. I drove over 2 hours round trip for a measly 15-minute appointment. Essentially, I arrived, gave them my new insurance card, filled out a questionnaire on my surgery and recovery experiences, then met the doctor in the ultrasound room. A quick dildo-cam revealed that all seems to be healing well. No obvious fibroids that he could see, and no major hematomas in the uterus. He said we can proceed with our next IVF whenever we feel ready. After telling me to let him know if I get pregnant, I was out the door. It's a good thing I could stand to get a few things at a nearby Whole Paycheck so that the long trip wasn't a complete waste of time.

He did see some free blood because...AF finally arrived today!!! After 6 days of spotting (sure hope this is not a new trend), she arrived this morning full force. No cramping, though, which is lovely. With the surgeon's blessing, and CD1's arrival, I called the RE office to see where to go from here. When the IVF nurse called back on my drive home, she informed me that the RE wants to run a few more tests. After scheduling all of my tests (blood work, SSH, hysteroscopy, trial embryo transfer), she called in the prescription for my BCP's. I start them on Friday and take them for 21 days, then start stims on 3/6.

IVF 2.0, here we come!

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!