And away we go...

Today is CD3, so I hauled my rather large rump to the clinic. First time cycling through Dr. H 2.0's office and I felt like such a newbie. The clinic was jumping, I couldn't believe how many people were in the office. It was like a very complicated game of musical chairs, one person gets called in another takes the seat and so on. I had my full bladder external utlrasound, internal ultradsound and blood work, not necessarily in that order. All looked good, no fibroids etc etc. I have 6 antrals, that's pretty good for me and my dusty ovaries.

Here's how it breaks down. 6 antrals, one small cyst on the left, but not enough to stop me from cycling. FSH was 8.9 and E2 was 69. All in all, pretty good for this old cat.

I started my puregon tonight - 300ius. I did 300 ius during my IVF cycle, but it was divided up 150 twice a day. So, I never had the true pleasure of giving myself the full dose until tonight. Holy mother that hurt. Not going in, but after it stung. H. was calling me a "big girl" the whole time I was moaning. Not funny.

I would like to say thank-you to Sandra D. for nominating me for the Sisterhood Award. So, thank-you. I was very touched by it! I will come back and post about the awared and do my own nominations later. Have to ruminate on it a little bit.

For those of you keeping track, I go back on Wednesday for a follow up ultrasound and bloodwork. Oh and I also have the pleasure of having to book an SHG this week. Boo!

Edited to Add: SHG has now been booked for Friday at 1pm.

I'm a Duck

I read a post on a blog today – a final post. It was so filled with excitement and hope for the future, and was all about looking and moving forward. It was from a couple who had done their time in the IF ditches and had finally, resolutely, made the decision to move on to adoption. It talked about feeling calm and relaxed and about how great it felt to get out of the ditches. Of not having to look forward to the next cycle or worry about the last one. It brought a tear to my eye and I’m not sure why.

H. and I have been talking a lot lately about adopting. Neither of us is ready to start that process and to officially give up on trying for one of “our own”. I am finding it tough to even contemplate not having a bio-kid, but there is a certain appeal about giving up this battle. I am getting tired of always staying positive, always being hopeful, always thinking this might be the one.

I feel like I’m a duck. You know that metaphor, everything is calm above the water as the duck sedately floats by. Meanwhile under the water his little legs are paddling feverishly away. That is so who I am right now. Must keep my eye on the prize, no being negative, no giving up, certainly not acknowledging those feelings of contempt for my body or envy for my cousin/friend/co-worker/stranger that just “got” pregnant. Must appear serene, strong, confident and happy. Don’t forget the happy. Nothing to see here folks, I’m fine, we’re fine. It’s all going to work out fine.

BFNK

So, I can’t believe I did this. I bought FRERs (a two pack) and actually POAS this morning. What was I thinking? Of course it was a BFN. And as if that wasn’t insult enough we drove into work behind a car whose license plate read – BFNK. (K is my first initial). Sweet.

CD25

I don't know if I mentioned it, and am too lazy to go back and check, but H. and I had rented a cottage for a week in July and then cancelled it around the time the market crashed. We felt in pretty dire straits financially and had just had a failed IVF, so we backed out. Well, I've been checking periodically to see if the cottage got rented out again - if it had we'd lose around $200, if it hadn't we'd lose our whole deposit. I checked yesterday and it was still available. H. and I looked at our financial situation and we figured that we can cover it ... so we're back on!

I can't wait for a week of quiet in the country! We've invited my parents, my brother and his girlfriend and my aunt & uncle up for one of the weekends. The cottage is huge and has a Wii. So, if it rains we're still golden.

On a completely separate note, I'm currently on an estrogen patch. I've had no side effects from it that I can tell. In fact, I feel great. Are you supposed to have side effects from the patch? And, do you know if it lengthens your cycle? My last cycle was 23 days. The nurse at the clinic said that it was probably due to the IVF. Shrug. I'm on CD25 now and am hoping for a regular cycle of 28 days. (well, what I'm really hoping for is a BFP). I have no idea if I ovulated, so this could be an anovulatory cycle that just runs on. Fuck, I hope it's not that.

Sorry about the f-bomb, but I'm leaving it in. I've been dropping a lot of them lately... guess it's just the mood I'm in.

Got a Plan

Dr. H 2.0 is not playing around. I went for an appointment with my cycle monitor nurse, let's call her Sunshine, today. It went really well. I thought when they said that we'd start out with cycle monitoring that it meant that they'd just monitor a natural cycle. NOPE. They are monitoring me to see how I respond to the Estrogen Priming Protocol. I start the patches today; the patches last 48 hours and then you have to change it. I do this until CD28 or I get my period, whichever comes first. Then I go in for CD3 blood work and they do a vaginal and external ultrasound. If all is as it should be I start 300iu of pure.gon per day. That's what I was on and didn't respond to for my IVF, so I'm a little worried about that. Then we will trigger and do 2 iui's back to back.

I told H. about this and he responded exactly as I was feeling "i don't know why.. but it sounds exciting.. i've got a good feeling about what you've just said."

So, we're back in the game. Oh and they got my TSH back, it was 3.17. They say that's normal and will only be worried about it when I get pregnant. Since in the first trimester they like to see it closer to 2.0.

Land of Denial

I live in the land of denial and actually quite like it. Every month, I watch my cycle and H. and I have sex at the most appropriate times of the month. I then obsessively check my boobs and scan myself for symptoms until inevitably AF shows up. Then I start the whole process over again.

The likelihood of us getting pregnant is somewhere between 5 and 8%, yet every cycle I am hopeful. I am disappointed every single time. I sometimes wonder how long I can keep this up.

Last week was tough. I was pretty much down in the depths of despair. I even made an appointment with a psychologist. Which I ended up cancelling after speaking with her. When I made the appointment I said it was to talk about stress management and my infertility. When she called me back she said ‘It says here that you mentioned infertility, you do know I’m not a medical doctor’. That right there ended it for me – what am I a complete idiot, why would I possibly think a psychologist would help me medically. Argh. I felt like she was calling me a moron. Then there was her voice. All whispery and caring, so phony; how could she possibly be that concerned for me… we hadn’t even met and she had no idea what I wanted to talk about. I cancelled the appointment.

Also I think it was just a rough patch that I needed to get through. I’m doing much better now; I have such a better mindset. Who knows, maybe I’m in denial about this too.

Sigh.

So, H and I are basically having to make ourselves ok with an unconventional (for us) route to parenthood by using adoption or donor egg, to make our family complete. Or, the other option is just being the two of us. Friday’s appointment highlighted just how dire our situation is and Mother’s Day highlighted how strong my desire to be a mother really is. So, today I go on to the message board that I follow, and something tells me to check a particular board. My cousin is online there and I know that it’s her, but she doesn’t know it’s me. I don’t comment to her and I generally don’t post stalk her, but I’ve been very bad when it comes to TTC. So, I check into this board because I just know she’s going to have a post there. And, sure enough I was correct. She got her BFP yesterday, on Mother’s Day. She is so excited and I will be excited for her, but first I have to get past this angry at the universe feeling.

I’m kind of glad that I found out this way; at least I’ll be prepared when she tells me in person.

Dr. H 2.0

Well, we had our appointment with Dr H 2.0 yesterday. I already feel like he means business. We went over my case and things are not promising. Donor eggs were discussed, but we told him we're not ready to accept that fate and so we decided just to do the workup. He's going to monitor my next cycle and get the results of the blood tests - 12 vials in all and they're testing my AMH. I'm expecting that the AMH one will come back under 2.0, which will just confirm that my ovaries are fucked. Dr H 2.0 says my ovaries are responding like those of a 43 year old. He also sent my hubby for another SA that is some sort of DNA test.

I feel like we're in good hands and that they're going to try to get us pregnant.

The weird thing about this appointment is that it made H and I think a lot about our options. where just a couple weeks ago we weren't open to donor eggs or adoption, we are thinking a lot more about it now. We are open to the options, whereas before we were just dead set against it. It's true that you really don't know how you'll react to things until you're faced with the situation.

Dark Place

Hubby is at a course tonight and I've had a lot of alone time. Maybe too much. I'm really good at shoving my feelings way down deep and ignoring them. Or I just eat them away. Tonight they are bubbling up. I'm just plain sad and angry. I was snuggling with one of our puppies and was hit with the thought that this may be as close as I get to being someone's mother. Then I just got angry. Quietly, sadly, angry with the universe. What have I done that has made me this way? Why me? Why us? I don't let myself go to this place very often because there's just no good answer. There's nothing tht we did to bring us to this spot. And, there's nothing we can do to change it. Oh we can go to doctors, and we can take our vitamins, I can shoot myself with needles and face the indignity of the dildo cam. But, really, in the long run that's just giving us a shot. There are no guarantees. And, that scares me.

It also scares me that I've been looking around at our life and thinking "hmm, we don't really need kids, we've got a pretty good life" etc. As if I'm preparing myself for some inevitable outcome. I don't want to think like that. I'm not done fighting. I watch different shows about parenting or see families walking down the street and this little piece of my heart just sceams out in longing.

If I bring this up with H. he'll just say I'm being negative and I have to thing positively. It's so hard to be positve all of the time. It's so hard to go to work and laugh, and smile, and pretend to care. Pretend that inside I'm not completely coming undone. I just don't know what to do with myself.

A Bad Case

I've got a bad case of the "what if's". I've been waiting and waiting for our appointment with the new fertility clinic and Dr. H 2.0 on Friday. It's almost here and now I'm getting nervous. This year I had my highest FSH reading to date - 19.9 - and I'm worried that it's keeping climbing. What if he looks at my file and tells me "oops so sorry you've waited too long" or he tells me he can't help us? What if he tells us we need to go to donor eggs and I've already turned my cousin down on her offer? What if there's more to our problems than we originally realized?

What if the fucking files don't get to his office in time for the appointment on Friday? I called today and they need 4 days to release them. 4 days?! I have asked them for a rush and am hoping that they'll get off their behinds and take care of it.

Sigh. I know, relax, right.

On another note, I've decided to write a letter to the last clinic and let them know why we have chosen another clinic. I initially did not want to do this, but I need to get it out. So, maybe if I post it here, you could critique it. And, maybe just airing it here will take away my need to send it off.

Here goes nothing:

I am writing to let you know why my husband and I have chosen to seek treatment at a different clinic. This letter has no reflection on the nurses, lab and reception staff as we found all were helpful, friendly and considerate. For the record, I am not leaving your clinic’s care because of my latest failed cycle. If I had received the care that I was looking for the outcome of the cycle would not have mattered.

I was under the impression that Dr.(insert name) was my doctor through this process and was surprised to have a follow up appointment with Dr. (insert name #2). He informed me that all of the doctors care for all of the patients and that there is no specific doctor assigned to each patient. Dealing with infertility is an emotional and often stressful time, not having a specific person that is “in your corner” was a surprise to me and not what I thought I was paying for. It made me feel like my husband and I were there to navigate the medical system on our own and that no one had a vested interest in getting us pregnant, although, obviously there was a financial interest. I am moving to a clinic where I will have dedicated care; there will be one doctor responsible for my file.

Having dealt with sexual abuse in the past, I have never gone to a male doctor for any of my gynecological exams. It was something I knew that I would have to get past as in the fertility field the majority of the doctors are male. I found it very unnerving to go in for ultrasounds and have a new doctor in there doing the ultrasound. Perhaps when you are having a new doctor do ultrasounds you can make sure that he is introduced appropriately to the patients. Saying "this is dr. so and so" doesn’t go a long way to making the patient feel comfortable. This situation was partly my fault as I should have spoken up for myself at the time.

The biggest factor in leaving your practice was the conversation that my husband and I had with Dr. (insert name#2) after our egg retrieval where only one egg had been retrieved. We were talking to him about where we go from here and he decided that it was a good time to tell us that perhaps “it wasn’t in God’s plans” for us to get pregnant. And then proceeded to tell me about a former patient that was in her 40’s that had several failed cycles (I’m 38, had one IUI fail and one IVF fail in a little over a year of being at your clinic) and had given up on fertility treatments. She went on vacation and got pregnant, but at 7 months (or sometime later in the pregnancy) was experiencing chest pains. Went to the doctor to be told she was fine and then died of a blown aortic valve which was missed because of the baby blocking the view. This story was completely inappropriate and insensitive. Both my husband and I were in shock and did not know how to react to what we had just been told.

I did not appreciate feeling like I was in a factory moving through the line and forking out thousands of dollars for a lecture on what may or may not be in God’s plans for me. We have set realistic boundaries on what we are willing to do, what to put ourselves through to try and achieve our dream. We are going to fight to get pregnant and we are going to make sure we have someone with us who is firmly in our corner.

That's it. I don't know how to end it. Thoughts?

My Horoscope

Aries (March 21 — April 20)

It's hard to believe all the changes about to come your way. A dream that you dearly yearn to turn into reality continues to remain elusive. You must not allow doubt. An amazing success is within reach.

All' Quiet, yada, yada, yad

Is all's even a word? Anyway, nothing much happening here. I'm in the one week countdown to my new RE appointment. Woohoo. I have to go to my old clinic to get my files. So weird, I contacted the clinic and asked them to request my files. They said that they can't do that until after I've been seen by them, but that they always need the files at the initial consultation. Huh? Their circular argument doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but it looks like I have to talk to those people again. Blah.

I am on CD23, which means it *looks* like i'm having a normal period after the failed IVF. Seriously, that IVF feels like it happened so long ago, like months ago. I feel like I survived a war and I'm almost to the point where I can look back on the time with a kind of fondness without vividly recalling all of the horridness and pain.

That's all I've got for today. Hope you have a great weekend!