Transfer, IVF 3.0

Our transfer was Friday, 11-11-11, which some people think might mean good luck but at this point I'm wary of anything that might be considered good luck. Since we didn't have to be at acupuncture until 10AM we went out for breakfast. After breakfast I went to acupuncture for 45 minutes before we headed to the surgery center. Friday the surgery center was completely packed, the nurses were pretty apologetic, they had a lot of procedures that day. Once they brought me back we had to share the waiting area with a two other couples waiting for transfer as well as a woman who appeared to have just had some type of eye lift done and another woman who was behind a curtain and had abdominal drains in, ick. Dr. Downer came in and I have to say that maybe we just caught him on a bad day last year because he was 100% better this time. I wouldn't say he was warm but his bedside manner drastically improved and he was pleasant. I suppose I shouldn't call him Dr. Downer anymore. 

We transferred (1) 9-cell, grade 2; (1) 8-cell grade 2 and (1) 7-cell grade 3, they all had some fragmenting but I'm not sure to what degree. The grade 3 was the Doug embryo and the other two were the embryos with donor sperm. The nurse who was with us during the transfer was SO nice and sweet. When the embryologist brought the embryos in Doug got to look at them through the microscope which was pretty cool since he hasn't gotten to do that before. The transfer took no time and I had zero cramping, which was pretty remarkable. They wheeled me out to recovery and had me lie down for 30 minutes before I got to get up. Right after we left the surgery center we headed back to Dr. Needles office for another round of acupuncture and then we went home. Bless Doug's heart he waited on me hand and foot all weekend. I watched a lot of television, played on the internet and knit. I didn't shower until Sunday, after my 48 hours was up, and I was so ready, I felt grimy and greasy by then. 

I did get the call from the lab this morning that the remaining three embryos didn't make it. Two of them arrested after day 3 and one made it to blastocyst (day 5) but it was poor quality and didn't have enough cells to freeze. Granted, I imagined we wouldn't have any make it to freeze because we never have, but it still upsets me because what does that say about my egg quality and the quality of the embryos we put back?

I'm going to acupuncture today and I'll continue going twice a week until the beta, which is Thanksgiving week. This will either be the best Thanksgiving ever or the worst.

Here are our embryos, I think the one in the lower left hand corner looks the best (to my untrained eye at least).

Embryo Update, IVF 3.0

Well the good news is they all made it through the night, the bad news is that the two fertilized with Doug's sperm are not doing so great. Our clinic uses a grading scale of 1-4, 1 being the best, 4 being the worst. The two with Doug's sperm are a 2 cell, grade 3 and a 4 cell, grade 4. The four with donor sperm are a 7 cell, grade 1; a 4 cell, grade 1, a 4 cell grade 2 and a 5 cell, grade 3. To compare last year we transferred three 8 cell, grade 2 embryos. I don't think we've ever had grade 1 embryos before so if those two make it until tomorrow that will be really good. I don't have a transfer time yet because apparently there are a lot of transfers tomorrow so I'm waiting for a call back. 

I'm trying super hard to be optimistic but I have to say I'm a little dissapointed we didn't have more eggs/embryos to work with. Last cycle we had 9 embryos make it to day 3 (granted the ones that weren't transferred didn't make it to day 5 but still). My poor little ovaries. I know we are lucky to have what we have though and hopefully one of those embryos will implant. 

I'll go to acupuncture tomorrow morning before the transfer and then right after transfer, hopefully that will help my stress. Plus Doug and I have tickets to David Sedaris tonight and he never fails to make me laugh.

Ovary Update #1, IVF 3.0

So they aren't doing blood-draws to check my estrogen. I assume because last year my estrogen was low but they still got eleven eggs so I guess they're relying solely on the ultrasounds? After three days of meds I have five follicles on the left ovary and five on the right ovary. Based on what the nurse said there are three larger ones and two smaller ones. My lining is 6.5 right now too. I'm currently taking 450 IU of Bravelle every night, plus DHEA, Leztrozole, Dexamethasone, Doxycycline and a prenatal. My only side effects seem to be sleepiness, yesterday morning at church I could barely keep my eyes awake.

I bought the Circle + Bloom set for IUI/IVF and I've been listening to it every night. It's similar to the meditation course I took last year, although this is more relaxation than chakras. I'm seeing Dr. Needles twice a week, Mondays and Fridays and I have to say I look forward to it. It's very relaxing and it forces me to clear my head. 

I also need to say how very lucky I am to have people to check in on me (you know who you are!) It means so much to me to have so many people rooting for us.

Here's to hoping for several mature, high quality eggs and embryos.

Nerves set in & remembering

Nine days until my baseline ultrasound. Medicine ships Monday. Going to acupuncture twice a week now. Trying to remain calm, cool, and collective and not think about how much we have riding on this cycle (which is, um, everything). 

I should learn to stay off IVF message boards but I don't. I guess I'm looking for reassurance, for stories of other people who've had success with multiple IVF cycles.I have to hope and pray that this cycle will be different, that the acupuncture will help turn the tide of failure. This week my RE clinic is at the ASRM Annual Meeting, presenting research about the success of their partnership with my acupuncturist (Dr. Needles*). I'm desperately crossing my fingers that acupuncture will make the difference this time. If this cycle is a failure I'm not sure what we'll do, I don't where we'll go from here, probably back to more waiting and saving since we've scrapped everything we have into this cycle. Or maybe we'll both quit our jobs and move away.

Saturday was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I knew about it mainly because of the other IF blogs I read. It probably isn't as personally significant to me as it is to others, mainly because when I got that super low beta there was an immediate black cloud hanging over me, I was not 100% convinced that the pregnancy was going to stick around. It still feels weird to call it a pregnancy, I feel a little like a fraud, like I really wasn't actually pregnant. It never got bigger than a poppyseed and never had a heartbeat, but for the ten or so days I was technically pregnant, I loved that scrappy embryo with everything I had. The bleeding I woke up to that Friday morning wasn't as physically painful as it was emotionally painful, it was the black cloud exploding, a punch to the gut, a heart cracking into a thousand pieces. There are many, many, many women with stories a hundred times more heartbreaking than mine. Women who have endured multiple miscarriages and sweet babies born still, these are the stories hurt my heart too. I hope that those who have lost so much will one day be able to recover but never forget.

*obviously not his real name

You can FedEx anything & other musings

Today I'm tracking our vial of donor sperm on FedEx's website. The precious cargo has arrived in my city but has not yet arrived at the RE's lab. Currently it is "On FedEx vehicle for delivery". We picked a new donor, with identity-release, meaning that if we have a child, at age 18 that child will be able to contact the donor. This has become important for us, for any donor-conceived child of ours to know his or her genetic parent(s). Maybe they'll want to know or maybe they won't, be we want to make sure that the option is there.

A close relative of mine recently made the remark: "Do you think God meant for you to not have children?" I was a little stunned at first but quickly recovered by saying that no I didn't, because I assume that God has given doctors, nurses, scientists, embryologists, etc., the knowledge and the skill to help couples achieve pregnancy. There's a lot of other things I was thinking at this time too but I most of them aren't fit to type out. Most people in our lives that know about our infertility have been super supportive so hearing this comment from a relative kind of blew my mind. I wonder if I should send this person a link to Infertility Etiquette?

Life continues to go on right now, we're just doing a lot of waiting, which I hate more than anything. It can seem that, at times, the whole rest of the world is moving forward at a dizzying pace and we're still here, waiting, seven years later. I'm trying so, so, so hard to lose the jealously, sadness and bitterness I'm carrying. I know it's not healthy but some days those feelings seep out in places and situations I don't even mean for them to. Although, as I say that I also have to say that I feel more positive about IVF #3. I was at acupuncture the other week and while I was lying there I just kept visualizing a nice, highly graded, non-fragmented embryo implanting and growing. Maybe I've just officially gone over the deep end but I keep thinking "It's got to work, third time's a charm. It will work." My daydreams about IVF cycles have morphed into daydreams about nursery decorating. However, despite the positively, there's still the very distinct possibility this cycle will not work either and we will have to make some difficult decisions. For now though, I'll keep daydreaming.

Taking care of myself

While we wait (again) I'm trying to be better to my body. There are some things that I'm willing to do and other things I am not (like give up the one latte/dose of caffeine I have per day). I have started seeing Dr. Needles (the acupuncturist) again. I'm going once a week and I am not drinking the herbal crap 'tea'. I still enjoy acupuncture and I feel like it helps my stress level tremendously.

I have also started yoga again. It's been over a year and a half since I was regularly practicing. I'm taking a class at a local studio and it's a restorative/deep relaxation class so it's me and about four other women (and one guy). I'm the only person in the class without some type of injury/physical limitation. I just wanted to take a less strenuous class, which is how I ended up there. It's kind of silly sometimes because I can do the poses without the supportive props but I remind myself I'm trying to be gentle to my body.

I've started vitamins/supplements again. I'm taking a prenatal, Vitamin D, fish oil and CoQ10. I'm not doing the DHEA yet because it gives me headaches and acne, even in small doses. Last year at my annual exam my OB/GYN noted that in my bloodwork that my Vitamin D levels were lower than normal so I hope the supplement helps. I go back on the 13th for my annual exam so maybe there will be some improvement.

The overall goal I'm working towards is less stress, less negativity, less jealously and bitterness, more hope. It's always hard, especially in the midst of friends who are expecting/just had babies. I went to Target yesterday for some random things and when I walked past the baby aisle I lingered for a minute, it smells overwhelmingly like baby (clean baby, not baby-with-poopy-diaper). Sometimes instead of suppressing the daydreams about us as parents, I let them bounce around in my head and entertain the thoughts of Doug rocking a baby that is all ours. Not a niece or a nephew or a friend's baby, just 100% ours. It's a sweet daydream.

An unintersting update

Nothing interesting happening right now. We've put another IUI off indefinitely, it's just too expensive without much chance of success. It makes more sense to save for something more expensive but with a higher success rate. I also broke it off with Dr. Needles Saturday. I really enjoy acupuncture (in spite of the dirt tea) and I 100% believe it's helped me and I would recommend  it to anyone However, we aren't cycling right now and in order to save money to cycle again at some point I had to break it off. We just can't save for more treatment while continuing to pay $135 per week for treatment and tea (especially such crappy tea). He did wish me luck and I told him I would probably come back to some point, I'm just not sure when.

I've read two of the three adoption books we bought and Doug (slow reader that he is) is  halfway through one of them. I've liked all of them so far, most everything I've read makes sense to me, there haven't been any big surprises. I enjoyed the stories about ordinary people who adopted. I feel like we aren't the 'perfect couple' that people might choose to parent their baby and so it gives me hope that somebody might choose us one day, even without the white picket fence.

I went to church yesterday, Doug was out of town so he didn't come with obviously. It's the same church we went to briefly several years ago but didn't join.They seem to be a pretty progressive group but with a  fairly traditional service, which I like. I did see one of my professors from last semester there (awkward) but he didn't see me. Towards the end of the service one of the pastors read anonymous prayers members had written on scraps of paper. One of the prayers was "I pray for a baby for our house." My heart sunk a little for someone else then, someone else who is going through this shitty, shitty situation too. 

We're still muddling through, thinking a lot and trying to make decisions. Sometimes it feels like this whole thing is like pushing an anvil uphill. Every.single.thing. is complicated and requires phone calls and consults and a lot of money. I wonder if we'll ever be able to take a deep breath and relax? There has to be an end to the madness eventually. 

Keeping my head above water

Still here. We're planning on dIUI #2 (overall IUI #5) in April. We're also making some moves towards other options, nothing concrete yet, just preliminary stuff. I'm feeling a little better, although the last few weekends I have barely wanted to leave the house. It's much easier to be at home where I'm insulated from the outside world. I'm still seeing the acupuncturist, although since we aren't cycling I'm down to one session per week instead of three and I haven't been very good about drinking all of my tea every day. Oops.

I bought several adoption books for us to read, The Adoption Decision, The Family of Adoption, and Parenting Your Adopted Child. There doesn't seem to be a book (that I can find yet) written about embryo adoption/donation, so I'm of looking for a book on third-party reproduction to see if some of that can apply. 

I have come to a realization that if embryo adoption/donation does not work, I would like to go the egg donor route at some point so that I could have the opportunity to be pregnant. That's a really important thing to me and I realize that we may end up adopting domestically first and then maybe in a few years doing donor-egg. I have been perusing adoption agencies too and have found a couple of good contenders. They're located out-of-state but their philosophies fit better with our lifestyle and beliefs.

All and all we're both hanging in there. We're planning a massive road trip across the country for early-June and we're getting really exciting about that.

IUI #4

Got to clinic at 9AM, waited f o r e v e r. We had to wait so long Doug had to leave for a meeting. Eventually they came out and said the vial the lab thawed only had a count of 4.3 million and did we want to thaw another vial to add to it? I said yes please and had to wait again while they thawed the second vial out. Finally I got called back and the total count was 9.something million and the motility was around 38%, all on the low side. Anyway, normal IUI, a little cramping and then it was done. I laid down for a few minutes before jetting off to the acupuncturist.

He only did my front side, he put needles in my arms, legs and forehead. He also covered my abdomen, apparently I'm supposed to keep that area warm. It was relaxing, except for the person in the next room that had a wall-shaking cough. Ick. 

I know I'm supposed to be thinking positive and all but I'm not feeling this cycle. With the left ovary crapping out on me and the super low counts I'm not holding on to much hope. Ugh.

Groundhog Day

Yeah, it's not Groundhog Day but it feels like it. It's actually Cycle Day 3. This morning I made my return to the clinic for bloodwork and ultrasound and to give them all of my money. We had a balance of $340 from last cycle, can't really explain that because we paid them every time I stepped foot in the door. I think it has something to do with out shitty insurance/deductible, which I don't get because we're paying out of pocket anyway. So within seconds of getting there this morning I had to empty my wallet to the tune of $1000 - and that's not the last of it.

Sweet phlebotomist was there and despite her best efforts she had to stick me twice. There was yet another woman with her toddler in the waiting area. This makes me batty. We're in an infertility clinic people, leave your babies at home please. My ultrasound was fine, although at first the nurse thought I was on day 10 or something and was confused as to why there was no growth. Then I told her I was just day 3 and hadn't had any drugs yet. She counted 17 antral follicles, yay for that. 

I start Bravelle tonight, 225U until Wednesday when I go back for follicle check and bloodwork. My guesstimate is that the IUI will be on March 1, a Tuesday like last time. Acupuncture is still going well, this week's 'tea' mix is tolerable, I'm able to get it down without gagging so that's good. I'm trying to go into this cycle with a healthy dose of optimism and reality.

How to make a cup of revolting tea

1. Bag of flora and fauna from Dr. Acupuncturist

2. Put bag in pot, add 6 cups of water

3. Cook for 30 minutes until it smells horrifying in your kitchen

4. Drain tea

5. Choke down cup of sewage water, alternating it with orange juice to help get the putrid taste of 'tea' out of your mouth.

Bon appetite

The club I can't get into

I'm seventy-two days away from turning thirty, which seems completely impossible. Some days I feel like I'm still in high school. But I'm not, I'm an adult who has been working full-time since I was 19. I have a mortgage, I pay taxes, I'm closing in on seven years of marriage, I go grocery shopping, I have health insurance, I donate to charity, I'm responsible. Yet, when I'm around my friends/families with children I feel like a child myself. I don't feel like an adult, I feel younger, the way I used to feel when I was a teenager and babysat for my aunt and uncle. Being a parent seems like a special club - a club that keeps turning me away at the door. We had dinner Friday night with my family, including my sister-in-law who is a considerable amount younger than I am but she's a mother. Being around her makes me feel impossibly immature because I'm not a mother. I don't know if Doug feels the same way with his friends but I feel like I'm getting the "you wouldn't know because you're not a mother" vibe sometimes. Or perhaps I'm paranoid, that's more likely.

There is so much frustration sometimes because we've done everything we're supposed to, we go engaged, we got married, we bought a house, we've stayed gainfully employed - yet starting our own family continues to elude us. Sometimes I wonder if we should have done things backwards, would our luck have been different then? Sigh. 

I had my third acupuncture session today. I'm definitely feeling more relaxed - except when I have to choke down that godawful 'tea'. I don't know if the feeling is just in my head or what but as long as its useful I don't care. I'm currently waiting on CD1 to start, I'll probably order my meds this week, we'll be using Bravelle again. Oddly, I don't feel too much stress about the impending cycle - which is good - I think.

My love affair with needles continues

Monday I bit the bullet and made an appointment with the acupuncturist my RE's clinic works with. I figured it couldn't hurt. Yesterday was my first appointment. The acu-Dr.'s office is new, bright and modern. He is the entire staff though so he's running around a lot. He's a very nice Chinese man, a little hard to understand but I mostly got everything he said. He took my pulse and looked at my tongue and told me my qi is very low and I think he said I have problems with my spleen, kidneys and liver. He also asked very um, 'detailed' questions about my cycle - questions no one, including my OB/GYN or RE have ever asked - but I assume it's important information for him. Anyway, I had thought I'd just have a consultation at first and then go back for the needles but after the pulse/tongue exam he told me to take my clothes off and lay face down. (not while he was in the room mind you) I was totally cool with that except I had not anticipated being in my underwear so soon, otherwise I would shaved my legs beforehand! I really should know better, practically every doctor I see these days required me to remove my clothes. 

I laid down on the table in my skives and he wiped certain areas off with alcohol and then did the needle thing, which was super quick and not painful at all. He put a few at the base of my neck, some on my arms, my back, my legs, one on each wrist and one on each ankle. Then he pulled this heat lamp over on me and left me there for around 15 minutes. It was relaxing but I had a hard time getting my face/head in a comfortable position. He came back, removed the needles and then I turned over and he put more needles in, one in between my eyes, one on each arm, a lot in my abdominal region (I guess that's my trouble area), a couple in my legs and another set on my ankles. I got the heat lamp treatment for another 15 minutes and then he came and took out the needles and I got to get dressed. 

He gave me a plastic bag full of small white paper bags filled with a mixture I'm supposed to brew for tea. He told me it was going to taste bad but I should just hold my nose and drink it. I can only describe the 'tea' in these bags as sticks and berries with other miscellaneous flora and fauna. I steeped my first batch last night and y'all it is the nastiest tasting liquid I have ever put in my mouth. It smells like rancid mushrooms and dirt. It's the color of the Mississippi River and I was barely able to get a cup down. I'm supposed to drink it three times a day! This morning I tried to drink a cup and I got most of it down and then...(Kenan if you're reading this divert your eyes!)

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the last few tablespoons came right back up, ewww. My gag reflex for this stuff is not strong enough. It's soooo disgusting. I tried it with a straw and I don't know if it made it better or worse. Blech. I go back for more needle poking on Saturday morning. The acu-Dr. said treatment would be a long-term thing and once I get pregnant I'd see him for three more months or until he felt comfortable. In comparison to the other IF-related expenses the acu sessions are pretty reasonable and relaxing so I think I'll try it.  Although at the this point if someone told me to wear a chicken suit and dance down the interstate and I'd get pregnant I would probably do it.