Stupid Hormones!

Today I really want to quit. I want to take my 16 follies and go home. I want to pack it in and call it a day. I just don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to jab myself with any more needles. I don't want to see the u/s tech in the morning and I never want to have another dildo-cam.

Today I feel like maybe I don't want to be a mother anymore. I don't want to go through nausea, sore nips, even more heartburn, an ever-expanding waistline, a c-section that will be necessary after my fibroid surgeries. I don't want to be up all night with a screaming baby. I don't want to deal with a 2-year-old and her temper tantrums. I really don't care for obstinate children and hormonal teenagers. I don't want the constant worry, the wearing of your heart outside your body, the inevitable sadness as your children move out into the world. I don't want any of it badly enough right now.

I know it's just the hormones talking. I know it's my self-protecting mechanisms kicking in. Heck, it's easier to quit than to fail, right? If I quit, it was my choice and within my control. If I don't go through with it, I can at least control the outcome. If I finish the cycle and I still have nothing to show for it, I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with it. I don't know if I can handle another failure right now.

Second Follie check

After a long night at work and a morning meeting that got out early, I called the RE office and managed to get in earlier than my scheduled appointment. I warned them if I had to wait until my scheduled time, I would likely be snoring and drooling in the waiting room. Funny how a time slot seemed to open right up!

I got my blood drawn and then headed into the u/s room. Luckily I didn't have to wait long as even that table might have been just the spot for a quick nap. My scan was much better this morning--she measured 11 follies on the right ovary, and 5 on the left. It looks like the increase in meds worked!

The only problem was that the increased menopur dose meant that I didn't have enough at home to finish the cycle. In fact, I only had one vial left after my injection this morning. Of course, I didn't figure this out until I did my shot on Saturday, which was too late to get any meds delivered before tomorrow morning's dose. I explained all this to the nurse and she said she would call in the order right away so that it gets delivered tomorrow. She gave me 3 vials to use for the morning dose since FedEx won't be here before 7am. When I get my shipment tomorrow, I will just return 3 of the vials to the office to replace what I "borrowed". I'm so relieved that the office was able to help with what could have been a pretty bad situation.

My E2 level was 450 today. I'm not sure how that compares to my first IVF cycle because I refuse to pull out my records to check. I remember things like follie counts, but not sizes or lab levels. I have tried really hard to fight my control freak/OCD tendencies this cycle and just go with the flow. I really obsessed over every number last time and it added so much to my stress level. Heck, last time I even stressed about doing the C + B meditations right! (yes, I did end up giving up on them when they were adding to my stress and not relieving it)

Next follie check is Wednesday morning. At this point, they are guessing that I will trigger on Wednesday night for a retrieval on Friday morning. While it's not the St. Patrick's Day retrieval I was hoping for, a Friday retrieval means that I can still work next weekend and not jeopardize my work contract. So, maybe it's good luck after all!

First follie check

So I got up nice and early this morning for my date with the dildo-cam. I just think it's rude that I have to get up before dawn to get a camera shoved up my hoo-hah and they don't even buy me breakfast first. It didn't help matters that I had a very restless night with lots of coughing, which meant gushing blood with every cough or turn since a nasty AF arrived yesterday. How unfair that I have to shoot up with meds morning and night, deal with swelling ovaries, and still have cramps and heavy bleeding!

I do love the staff at my RE's more northern office though. I walk in and they are so friendly. I get taken back right on time and get my blood drawn right away with no problems. I head over to the u/s room and wait less than 2 minutes for the tech. This morning, she measured 6 follies on my right ovary, but only 1 on my left. She said there were more there but too small to measure this morning. So, I headed out to the consult room to meet with the nurse. She was very nice and listened to my complaints about having to come in again on Sunday morning. I explained that Sunday is the only day of the week that is hard to come in, since I work 12 hour shifts both Saturday and Sunday night. A monitoring appointment at the main office adds at least 1.5 hours to my already 2+ hour round trip commute, which means I either get a hotel room or try to work on very little sleep. I offered to come in again tomorrow morning and then Monday, just to avoid the Sunday monitoring appointment.

The IVF nurse called back this afternoon and let me know that I could just wait until Monday for my next appointment. My E2 level was only 183, so they felt like I could safely increase my menopur dose and wait an extra day for repeat monitoring. I'm also supposed to start my ganirelix on Sunday night to prevent premature ovulation and allow those small follies to catch up. They are still predicting my retrieval date as next Friday, but I'm really hoping to go Thursday--St. Patrick's Day ought to bring some good luck to this Irish girl!

Big Update

Wow! Has it really been almost 3 weeks since I posted? I've been a bit busy with Wrigley as she tends to demand as much attention as I can possibly give her. We started obedience classes and she is doing very well. I think she is very smart, and I'm only a little biased. ;-) She is quickly learning our household rules and routines. She is getting along so well with Rufus--in fact, they are cuddled on the couch sleeping as I write this. She is still quite a challenge though. DH has been gone quite a bit with work, leaving me to deal with all her puppy energy, neediness, and general untrained behavior. I found myself getting very frustrated by the end of the day, so I enrolled her in puppy daycare to get some time to myself on my days off. She loves it there and the staff seem to love her too! In order to keep her well socialized (something we didn't do with Rufus and we truly regret) we are going to take her there once a week or so. It gives Rufus a break from all her puppy zoomies as well!

Last week we took our annual trip to Mexico for our anniversary. It was sunny and beautiful the whole week. We spent most of it at the beach, just reading and relaxing and playing in the water. We did have a bit of a rough patch when we realized that we have spent so much time apart lately that we aren't quite sure how to spend that much time together. We talked about a lot of ways to change that, primarily being our work schedules. So, I might be looking for a new job soon, but I'm not sure yet. DH is going to try to stay home more when it's possible, and I might try to take some trips with him.

I did come back from Mexico with a surprise--well, two surprises really--pneumonia and an E. coli infection. I started wheezing and coughing a bit last weekend while we were there, but didn't really think much of it since we stepped up our exercise a bit (to battle some of the damage from the all-inclusive food and lovely beverages) and I've been known to wheeze after overexertion in the past. When it continued on for the rest of the trip, I figured it would get better when we got home and back to drier air. Then, the day before we were due to come home, I spent the day in bed with what I figured was an upset stomach (diarrhea and nausea, but fortunately no vomiting) from something I ate or drank the night before. I was achy and feverish and slept for most of the day. It continued the next day for the trip home, but at least I could eat again, so I figured it was getting better. When both problems persisted the next morning, I gave in and went to the ER for confirmation of what I had already diagnosed as aspiration pneumonia from sea water and Montezuma's revenge. The chest x-ray showed pneumonia (he wouldn't say whether it was aspiration via the x-ray but admitted the possibility) and he diagnosed my tummy issues as E. coli infection from the water. The good news is that both infections can be treated with the same antibiotic--the bad news is that it's $173 for 5 pills since we haven't met our annual deductible yet. I started the meds on Thursday and I wish I could say I was feeling better, but I'm not there yet. I'm struggling to sleep since any position short of vertical causes coughing fits.

I put a call into the RE office to make sure that this lovely combination of illness and the meds used to treat it wouldn't cause a problem with IVF 2.0, which is due to start next week. The nurse said that the meds won't be an issue, but I need to be healthy for my cycle. I go in for my CD2 baseline labs and u/s on Monday, so I'm hoping that I will feel better by then. I've called in sick to work for the weekend so that I can rest up and give myself the best chance to be healthier by the time I start shots on Tuesday.

All the meds arrived yesterday, after I gave Caremark a large chunk of my money. I thought we had a problem when they sent the Gonal-F pen rather than the multi-dose vial like last time. I'm going to be giving all of my meds IM again and the pen needles just aren't anywhere near long enough for that. So, I'll just have to inject from the pen into another syringe that I can attach a longer needle to for the actual IM injection. Crisis averted!

Our BIG new addition

Our family has expanded! We adopted a new four-legged baby from the giant breed rescue last week. We had been working with them for a while--they have a pretty detailed application and adoption process. Once we were approved, though, it went pretty quickly. We drove across the state of Colorado to pick her up last Friday.

Say hello to Wrigley:



Wrigley is a 2.5-year-old female Great Dane. She is on the small end for Dane height at 30" at the shoulder and she is very skinny right now. She is just a sweetheart, though. She follows me around whenever I'm home, and wanders the house looking for me when I leave (according to DH). She loves to play and has tons of energy--quite a contrast to our 10-year-old boxer mix. The dogs are getting along great, which was a major concern for us.



She's had very little training, so obedience class will be our first order of business. She is quite the wild woman at the moment--loves to chase bunnies, bark at neighbor dogs, and pull me around when she's out going potty. We're planning on putting in a fence once the ground thaws so that she can have more freedom to run around the yard. I'm just loving her right now and I'm so happy to have another big dog in the house.

Pre-cycle visit #1

I went in yesterday for the first of many pre-cycle visits. They drew 8 vials of blood for whatever tests the RE wanted to run before we cycle again--AMH, immunology labs, DHEA, testosterone, etc. I think they also drew stuff for the genetic screening lab that we will be using for any embryos this cycle.

They also did a resting follicle count and uterine artery doppler. She said my doppler results were fine, which I was a little worried about since I forgot they were doing it and had caffeine with breakfast. My right ovary has a nice cyst on it, which I think is still left over from the follicle the surgeon saw in December at my pre-op appointment. My total follicle count was 22, which is an increase from the 13 I had with my last cycle.

Who knows, maybe the meds and supplements are working after all?

Out!

I did it--I outed myself on Face.book. I've never spoken about our IF there and didn't really have much intention of bringing it up this way. Obviously, I couldn't talk about it there until after our families knew what was going on.

I always knew I would talk about it there, but I figured I would wait until NIAW or something. I guess it's the impending nature of IVF 2.0 that made me bring it up sooner. It was so hard to hide such an important life event the last time we went through this. I posted lots of vague sad things when we got our last BFN, and those who knew about the cycle knew why, but I think it worried others.

I must say that posting about it felt liberating. I was so nervous before I hit that "share" button, but it felt so freeing once it was out there. So many of us suffer in relative silence, sharing with those in the IF blogosphere, but not people in our lives. Blogging affords a large amount of anonymity, which is necessary when venting, crying, etc. is needed. I have no intention of sharing my blog address with the world, as I still feel that I need the safe space to get out the thoughts and feelings that aren't easy to even acknowledge, much less talk about. After all, the rest of the fertile world thinks that hope is an unqualified good thing, when we all know the double-edged sword that it brings. I don't want to have to explain that to people--I still need to be able to put it out there with a wonderful community who just "get it".

Still, the response to my FB "outing" was incredible. I was afraid I would get some negative comments or people telling me to keep it to myself. What I received was quite the opposite--within minutes, I had messages of love and support. I had 4 people respond that they had been through IF treatments, too--woohoo!--one outing leads to another! Not a single negative comment was left on my post.

I plan to continue posting about our IVF cycle on FB. I will try to ask for support when I need it from those who know me IRL, which is actually much harder than asking the IF blogosphere. I want to continue to put my story out there--who knows who might be helped by it?