And again...

Well things are going well so far.
My mid-cycle u/s yesterday showed a 17mm and a 15mm follicle on my right with a smaller 12mm as well (that won't release most likely) and a few under 10mm on my left...no wonder I'm so crampy! How do you IVF girls carry around all those eggs?!?
Anyway, we're triggering Saturday (tomorrow) so that the 15mm will release as well. By Saturday, they should be at least 21mm and 19mm, making them around 25mm and 23mm when they release on Monday. My lining was already great at 8.4mm, so we're looking good.

I'm nervous of course, but extremely grateful for another try. Now is the "busy" part of the cycle, so I'll update again next week when the waiting begins!

Moving ahead

I've been superbusy lately, so I've barely had time to myself.

Last Thursday, I had an u/s and my cyst was completely gone. Stopped BCPs, started bleeding profusely on Sunday morning, started Femara on Monday, and took my last Femara pills this morning...I'm still spotting which is pissing me off, but we'll see what happens. I'm just hoping my body responds...I've definitely had a couple of hot flashes, I'm sluggish, but I didn't have the headaches that I've had before (I know, what a dumb bunny to complain about a lack of side effects with fertility meds). Anyway...midcycle scan is next Thursday (my mom's b-day) so we'll see what happens...trying my best not to think about it.

Other than that, all is well. I've been frustrated lately with pregnant women, but what else is new. One of my co-workers had her baby last week. I went and saw her at the hospital and went by her house this weekend to see the baby...he was beautiful and holding him just made me ache that much more for this. My other pregnant co-worker had her big ultrasound this week, it's a boy, she's barely showing and very, very skinny, I swear I just want to hold her down and feed her. And then there are other friends I know who drink occasionally while pregnant or exercise way too hard, and while I know that's "okay" with some doctors, it just hurts me that I can't get it right being so careful.

I'll just never understand how some people keep getting pregnant over and over again while here I am, doing every freaking thing I can, and I lose them over and over again...I've given up trying to make sense of it all, but it still hurts...

All I can do is keep trying...

History Lesson

We went to visit my family this weekend, and I ran across some very old pictures. Some of my baby pictures, some pictures of when my mom was a kid, and pictures of my grandmother and grandfather in their twenties.

It was so amazing to see those pictures. I plan to put them all in an album the next time I visit, and we're making plans to slowly scan them all in and send them out to other family members (lots of my great aunts/uncles are also in the pics and I'm sure their kids and grandkids would like them as well). My grandfather was unbelievably handsome! He was still good-looking at 70, but I had no idea what he looked like closer to our age. My grandmother was apparently very fashionable, I couldn't get over some of her outfits (and the HATS!). And my mother was absolutely gorgeous as a teenager. I really had no idea. This long lean thing with the biggest smile...I don't think my grandmother had ever shown me those pictures.

Looking back at those pictures was a bit of a history lesson...things I'd known but forgotten. My grandmother was one of 5 living children, having lost 2 brothers at a young age. There were some pictures of them as children, and it looked like they lived in one of those camps where all of the houses looked the same and faced each other...I can't describe it so I'll have to post the pictures once they're scanned. They started out with so very little...but they looked so happy. My grandmother never finished high school, although by her own account (and by all of the pictures...LOL!) she had no shortage of social life. I swear she was posing with a different boy in every picture. The pictures of her and her 2 sisters were awesome...just 3 girls in pretty dresses headed to a dance. Then slowly you start to see each of their three husbands come into the picture. On a fertility note, I've always found it interesting that all 3 sisters only had one child a piece...something unheard of in those days...all 3 tried for more to my understanding...makes you wonder.

Anyway, my grandma had my mom in her early 20s. My mom had me right before she turned 17. In my direct line, I was the first to graduate high school, the first to graduate college, obviously going to be the first to get a PhD. I'm certainly not ashamed of where my family started, but it's just interesting to look back and see all of the opportunities that I have that they never did. What's more amazing to me is that I was raised knowing that I would go to college and go on to some sort of post-graduate education. My grandparents and parents never expected anything less of me.

So as I sat there with that box of pictures, I suddenly felt very proud...proud of my grandparents for toughing it out, proud of my mom for keeping me and doing what was best for me, proud to have had all of them in my life, and proud of myself for taking my family a step further in my generation.

I can only hope that I will have the chance to produce another generation...and that they'll do even greater things.

Cyst

What else is new...

My scan last Friday showed a cyst. It was right at 15mm, which is the cutoff for cancelling a cycle...but it was also on my right ovary which tends to be more productive than the left. No one wanted to chance more complications or a bad response, so I'm on the pill again to shrink it.

I hate being on the pill...first of all, there's the whole bitter irony of having to take "birth control" when that's the last thing I want! But they also suggested a higher dose pill to be certain the cyst would shrink so I'm currently grouchy, nauseous and feeling miserable...

So I go back on June 7th to see if it's gone, and if so, we can take another shot with Femara.

In the meantime, I can drink freely for my 31st birthday this Saturday...I never thought I'd hate my birthday, but at this point, it's just a reminder of another year gone.

Nope

I took a test this morning...it was negative.

Over the course of the last few days, I had actually convinced myself that I was pregnant. Damn those meds for convincing my body, too. At about 4am this morning, I couldn't sleep anymore so I took a test...just ridiculously negative. I went back to sleep and kept dreaming (having nightmares?) that it turned positive...over and over I woke up to realize which was the reality.

There is something very difficult about that first negative after a miscarriage. It's like you're trying frantically to "catch up" to where you should be that the denial of a positive now just seems like such a betrayal. All you want is to be pregnant again, and to be so close, I guess it's just a bigger let down...the realization that there's still work to do, and that you have to pick yourself back up.

Yet, you find yourself grieving that loss all over again. And for someone like me, I guess I grieve all the losses at once. It just all comes flooding back to me. I don't think I'm able to truly move on from the last loss until I get that first negative.

I didn't cry very much this morning. I cried (and prayed of course) while I waited the 3 minutes for the test, but afterwards, there were very few tears. I'm just waiting for it all to hit...I know I'll have no control when it does.

I'm at work now, but taking a short day. My co-workers know why it's a bad day so they've convinced me to eat badly (there's a bacon cheeseburger on the way). I plan to go to the gym when I get home, then do a little more work, and then have a great night with Patrick. I'm basing what I want for dinner on what I want to drink...tossup between a good cabernet and some dark beer at the moment...we'll see what strikes me later.

I did go for my bloodwork this morning, so of course I'll have further confirmation that it's negative by the end of the day. Somehow hearing it from someone else makes it more real...I expect the breakdown to come sometime after getting the results.

That's it for now...we move on.

My Prayer as Test Day Nears

Dear Lord,
Please take care of me these next few days. I am overwhelmed with anticipation, hopefulness, and pessimism all at the same time. Please give me the strength to handle this, whatever the result.

To say that I've had a run of bad luck is a bit of an understatement. Not saying that I'm owed anything, just timidly reminding you that I'm still here, and functional, and happy, and determined...even after everything that has happened.

If it's negative....
Please give me the strength to take that test at home so that I can cry in the privacy of my own bathroom. If I manage to make it to work, please keep me from slapping my 2 pregnant, whiny, complaining co-workers. And if it's not too much to ask, please make my hangover the next day not so bad.

If it's negative...
Please don't let Patrick be too disappointed. Please let us be able to proceed to the new cycle easily and with hope. Please let the next cycle be the one.

If it's positive...
Please don't tease me or test me again Lord. Please, I beg you, if it's positive, please let this be the one that we take home. Let everything progress normally and on schedule. Let us never have reason to doubt that everything is going as it should. Please just give us a chance to raise that child.

Whatever the outcome, I can do this, you've shown me that I can. Just please prepare me for whatever it is to come.
Amen

I miss my neighbor...

I miss my neighbor and close friend Jenn...

They lived 2 houses down from us for the past almost 6 years. During that time, they had 2 amazing kids. Most of you have heard me talk about Jenn and the kids many times. Gwen was born before we'd even thought about kids, and I think it was seeing them with her that made Patrick first utter those damn words "Maybe we should have a baby"...look where that's gotten me! And then when Cole came along, Jenn was one of a mere handful of pregnant women that I could stand to even be around. She handled it all with such tact and compassion that I swear she should write a book "how to handle infertile friends when you're pregnant!"

Anyway, they moved 2 weeks ago. And while I knew I'd miss them, I really miss them this week...when I'm counting down the days to test. They kept me occupied and distracted. And if Monday brings a negative, we would have had at least a bottle of wine or a pitcher of margaritas that night.

I've lost friends through this struggle, I guess it's inconvenient to be a friend to someone with one tragedy after another when you just want to be happy about your own fertility. But the friends that have stuck by me through this, both the fertile and infertile, you can't imagine what you mean to me. Thank you.

4 more days...

Another day down

Well one more day closer to the verdict, and I'm driving myself nuts!

I've been having mild cramping since yesterday, and I had a backache last night...what's bugging me is that it's all very familiar. I'm getting way too hopeful about this.

And of course, they've just added fuel to the fire because they called to say that my 6dpo progesterone results came back at 37.8. That's a record (this cycle is all about records), and the only time it's every been higher was when I was 5 weeks pregnant the last time (it was over 50). It's never been that high in the middle of a cycle though.

I'd really like to sleep until Monday...

As an aside, anyone reading this, please say a prayer for my sister-in-law who had a hysterectomy today (she's 28). I don't want to go into the details now, but she had been trying to conceive a second child for the past 4 years and was given bad news earlier this week. It's just made me extremely grateful for just the opportunity to try to conceive.

One week and counting...

Well it's countdown time...one week until my beta. Of course, I'm stuck in the age-old debate of whether or not to take an HPT at home that morning so that I have the opportunity to grieve in private rather than get the news over the phone that afternoon...we'll see...I'm leaning towards getting it over with that morning.

I've been incredibly relaxed about it this cycle. Everything has gone so perfectly that there hasn't been much to stress about. But I'm starting to feel that dread set in...that feeling that I'm going to let everyone down, mostly Patrick. He's so sure that this is it, to listen to him talk hurts my heart. He's already vetoed me playing soccer this weekend (and has me playing doubles instead of singles on my tennis team) in anticipation that I'm pregnant. He's already asking if I'm feeling anything, he's already planning ahead...he's already scaring me.

I want to believe...I truly want to believe that this is it, but I am so freaking afraid that I will set myself up for a huge fall. But who am I kidding, I already do believe and the fall is going to suck regardless of how high my hopes were.

I did a quick analysis of my fertilization history today during lunch (science makes me feel better...yes I'm a nerd, what else is new?). I don't count the first year of trying because I had the uterine septum and was consistently ovulating way late with whacked out hormones. So I checked to see how many times we had tried with a good response and good timing since July 2005 (when they resected the septum and removed what I hope was the last of the endometriosis)...we've had 5 good cycles...and I got pregnant on 3 of them. Take a second to digest that.

Our first try after surgery, I got pg (loss #3).
Right after that I got pg again on a natural cycle (loss #4).
When we started trying again after loss #4, I was having trouble with responding, so I had one decent cycle with just a trigger(progesterone was only 14 at 7dpo though). Negative.
Then what looked like a really good 50mgs Clomid cycle (follie was small, we may have triggered too early). Negative.
Then the fateful first try with Femara...which resulted in the best pregnancy to date and loss #5 due to a chromosomal fluke.

So here we are in another Femara cycle that's even better than the last...how could I not hope, right?

7 more days.

I've outdone myself again

I am officially in the best cycle of my life. I've said this before because the last time I used Femara (with the last pregnancy) it provided the previous best cycle of my life..I LOVE Femara! So here are the stats...
Right side: 23mm beautiful juicy follie
Left side: 17mm trooper who just might make it, too!
Lining: A luscious (she even said fluffy) little over 9mm

I trigger tonight between 6 and 8, and then we're off to the races the next 3 nights. I start my progesterone on Friday...progesterone check next Tuesday, and we'll see where we go from there. Beta is tentatively scheduled for Monday, May 21st.

Terri really thinks the egg on the left will release, too. Is it bad that all I've been thinking is twins for the past hour...and that all I can think is how wonderfully perfect an ending that would be to all of this? Sort of a full circle when you think about it.

Patrick doesn't even know yet because he's in a meeting. He gave me the whole "it's okay if nothing's happening yet, your body has been through a lot the past few months" speech, but I know that he's ready to try again. We were just so close last time that it's only made me want this more. Just this weekend I started checking out pregnant women's clothes again (I'm determined to be the most stylish pg woman ever!) and smiling at random babies (what's wrong with me? I'm supposed to glare at babies and pg women...LOL).

Oh God help me get through these next 2 weeks...and give me one more miracle (well...2 if you can spare them ; ) ).