All aboard, once again…

The rollercoaster has officially started again. I went in for my first ultrasound after starting the Follistim and the nurse didn’t find a single follicle to measure. Not one. She did find ‘multiple’ less than 10mm in both ovaries but nothing that seems to want to develop into eggs. This is not good news. In fact, it’s terrible news. After five days of the stimulation injections, I have nothing growing. I am trying so hard to hold it together at work, but every time I think about it I get tears in my eyes. Who would have thought after having such a great response to all the IUI meds that I would be in this situation? I asked the nurse if this was normal and she said that it happens ‘sometimes’. She also said that I have the ‘potential’ of getting some follicles to grow, but that we’ll have to wait to see what the blood work says. So it’s now all in the hands of my estrogen.

To top it off, I’ve been feeling much more moody and cranky the past two days. I’m sure it’s hormones, but it’s not helping matters. I finally got around to making this soup that I’ve been dying to try in the crockpot yesterday. I started it in the morning before work, which made me late for work, but the idea of having dinner ready and waiting when I got home was worth it, only to discover when I got home that I had plugged in the blender, not the crock pot. Talk about meltdown. Yes, I cried over soup. I was so frustrated and it was one more thing to add to the ever-growing list that of things that I seem to be failing at lately.

To make matters worse, I've started bruising like you wouldn't believe from all the shots. The shot this morning immediately turned black within an hour and I still have at least five more days, possibly more of the injections.

I hate this. I hate the rollercoaster of the injections, the fears that it won’t work, the side-effects, the constant worrying. Some people have no idea how easy they have it. IVF is on my mind every second that I breathe. I even dream about it now. It is all-consuming and it is beyond terrible. R says he's trying to be hopeful for both of us, but I worry that we're beyond hope.

I feel like I am trapped in hell.

All (reproductive) systems go!

The baseline went well yesterday. No cysts on either ovary and my stripe was thin. The nurse did find four follicles less than 10mm on my right ovary and multiple less than 10mm on my left ovary, but she said that was normal. I'm hoping that it's a good sign of things to come in the next few weeks. I'll be a little scared if I only get four eggs on each side. It's sad to think that just a few months ago I would have been estatic to have four follicles total. These days the numbers game takes a greater significance: more equals better. I'm hoping for at least 12 follicles total. I know I shouldn't get my hopes up either way, but 12 seems like a nice number right now.

So, now that they have confirmed that everything is quiet on the reproductive front, I've been given the go-ahead to start the next round of injections. I start my second daily injection on Saturday and it will be 225 units of Follistim taken between 7:00pm and 9:00pm every night. On that same day they want me to reduce the amount of Lupron to 5 units taken between 7:00am and 9:00am. So, basically for the next two weeks I have to take some sort of shot every 12 hours. My next ultrasound is scheduled for Halloween morning. And then the real worrying begins.

The flood damage is still being calculated. The adjuster got the estimate from the contractor yesterday and he thought it was too low, so he's making the contractor submit another estimate. We're still looking at about $40,000 worth of construction and $10,000 worth of clean-up. Luckily, everyone wants to move fast on this one, so it's not nearly the hassle it normally would be. I'm sure it'll start to be a bother once we need to pick out cabinets, carpets, flooring and the other little details.

E has been in a rare mood the past few days. He's chatting up such a storm that it's almost dizzying sometimes. Yesterday, during our ride home, he says to me "Momma, did you know that NBC News is the world's news leader?" I am not kidding you. I really need to stop that kid from watching the news.

The half-way mark... sort of.

Two weeks of Lupron injections are starting to take their toll. I’m more tired than usual and I’ve started to get the beginnings of menopause symptoms. Oh joy. The RE’s nurse said to expect them, but it’s still unnerving to have hot flashes and insomnia at my age. I’ve also started to have the lovely symptom of ‘vaginal dryness’ which, as you can imagine, is not so much fun. In fact it’s irritating. Literally. Laugh all you want, but at least when I go into menopause I’ll be fully aware of what life is going to be like. See? There’s that pesky silver lining again.

I will admit I’ve also been feeling more moody than usual. After feeling so positive and upbeat about our IVF journey it’s hard when I slip back into the doubting and fearful side of it. I’ve been trying to regain my positive footing but my hormones are playing their ugly tricks. So, I’ve been trying to pamper myself whenever possible. I did realize that the downward slide happened after I stupidly searched online for IVF blogs to see what other people have gone through. Stupid, stupid mistake. For every good success story I found there was another miscarriage or failed IVF attempt. I vowed to myself to stop researching and this is exactly the reason why: whenever I read personal stories, I start to doubt myself and my own process. It felt better to know that’s what dragged me down, but still doesn’t help to prop me back up. It was a good reminder of why I shouldn’t keep reading other people’s stories; they aren’t me.

Tomorrow I have my baseline ultrasound and bloodwork. Then, as long as everything is calmed down and the ovaries are quiet, I’ll start the stimulation medications on Friday. Tomorrow marks the half-way point of this cycle. Well, sort of. It’s the halfway point to the retrieval and transfer… and then we have the excruciating two week wait until the pregnancy test. Which I’m sure will just drag, drag, drag by. Funny how sometimes two weeks will just fly and then other times two weeks drags. It’s going to take all my will power to get through each day.

Life is what happens when… well, it just happens.

As if there wasn’t enough going on these days, God has decided to throw me another curve ball. Or maybe it’s the Fates. I don’t know. But whatever it is, it has a funny sense of humor.

R called me at work yesterday and said “Are you sitting down? Unit D is off the market.” If I haven’t mentioned it before, we own four townhouse units with R’s best friend (J) and his wife (E, but we’ll call her EV). We live in one unit, J and EV live in another and we rent the other two units out. About a year ago, we put Unit C and D on the market so that we could get out of the landlord business and start to build our own nest egg to buy another house. So, the units have been empty for about a year, but since we live on the property, we check them out every weekend or so. With that background in mind, the story continues… R tells me that something happened to the toilet upstairs in Unit D and it leaked water. Ok. It didn’t really leak water, it more like gushed water. All over the house. The ‘leak’ was so bad that it collapsed the kitchen ceiling below it. And warped the flooring in the bathroom, the kitchen, soaked the carpets through the entire house, shorted out the light fixtures, and then poured into the basement. The house looks like the apocalypse. R and I spent the rest of the afternoon calling the insurance agent, the adjuster, contractors and a water restoration company to come to start cleaning up the damage. They set up about 12 fans and two huge dehumidifiers to start drying the place out. They later told R that they think the kitchen cabinets and countertops will have to be replaced as well. The adjuster came this morning and told R that he wants us to get a quote from the contractor and he’s estimating that the costs are going to run…take a deep breath… $50,000. And no. I’m not joking.

Trying to remain positive about this, I remember three things: no one was hurt. The house didn’t catch fire even though the water got into the electrical system. We have insurance.

There’s always a silver lining, right? I’m getting good at finding it these days.

One week down, one to go

It's Wednesday. Jeepers, it's Wednesday! I had a conference to attend the past two days so this week just feels more than half over. I used to love professional conferences when I was 'just an assistant' because they got me out of the office and into something different for a few days. Not any more. Now all I think about it the work that it piled up on my desk, waiting for me. I even stayed late last Friday to catch up on some work and was actually HAPPY to have done so. For a brief minute I felt like I had a grip on my workload... and then I went to a conference. And now my desk is buried again. And I'm blogging instead of writing. Or are you already pointing that out as you read this? Smart ass.

Not much new to report from the IVF-front. I'm still doing the daily injections and getting used to having to jab my stomach once a day. I seem to always bruise when I inject my left side but not my right. Very strange. Still, even though I'm bruising, none of the injection sites are hurting, so I worry sometimes I'm not doing something right. I'm also not really getting any side effects other than being tired, tired, tired at the end of the day. But that could be because I'm not sleeping well because of that pulled muscle in my neck. These days anything could be a side effect, right?

I'm still in good spirits about everything, but I'll admit, I'm wary about seeing other pregnant women. I try to keep my distance but it's more of a tolerance than an outright acceptance. I'm working on it.

My freedom is coming.

Yes. I'll admit. I love poetry. But most of the stuff out there is crap. Sentimental, touchy-feely, lovey crap. That just doesn't appeal to me. Considering the life changes I've been trying to install, this spoke to me. No, I didn't really cry yesterday, but there have been a lot of yesterdays for me lately.

My freedom is coming.



Yesterday I Cried by Iyanla Vanzant


I came home, went straight to my room,
sat on the edge of my bed,
kicked off my shoes,
unhooked my bra,
and I had myself a good cry.

I'm telling you,
I cried until my nose was running all over
the silk blouse I got on sale.
I cried until my ears were hot.
I cried until my head was hurting so bad
that I could hardly see the pile of
soiled tissues lying on the floor at my feet.

I want you to understand,
I had myself a really good cry yesterday.

Yesterday, I cried,
for all the days that I was too busy,
or too tired,
or too mad to cry.

I cried for all the days, and all the ways,
and all the times I had dishonored,
disrespected, and
disconnected my Self from myself,
only to have it reflected back to me
in the ways others did to me
the same things I had already done to myself.

I cried for all the things I had given,
only to have them stolen;
for all the things I had asked for that
had yet to show up;
for all the things I had accomplished,
only to give them away,
to people in circumstances,
which left me feeling empty,
and battered and plain old used.

I cried because there really does
come a time when the only thing left
for you to do is cry. Yesterday, I cried.
I cried because little boys get
left by their daddies;
and little girls get forgotten by their mommies;
and daddies don't know what to do, so they leave;
and mommies get left, so they get mad.

Yesterday, I cried.
I cried because I hurt.
I cried because I was hurt.
I cried because hurt has no place to go
except deeper into the pain that
caused it in the first place,
and when it gets there,
the hurt wakes you up.

I cried because it was too late.
I cried because it was time.

I cried because my soul knew that I didn't know
that my soul knew everything I needed to know.

I cried a soulful cry yesterday,
and it felt so good.

It felt so very, very bad.

In the midst of my crying,
I felt my freedom coming,
Because Yesterday,
I cried with an agenda

My life as a pincushion

My days as a human pincushion have started again. Today marks the second day of my Lupron injections and, after a little rocky start, I'm getting better at this. I'll fully admit that the first day was a bit of a joke. It actually took me three tries to get the needle in. I think I numbed the area too much because the needle actually bounced off my skin the first two times. Except that it didn't really bounce off fully and I ended up with three little dots on my belly where the first two attempts failed. Oops. Still, once I realized I wasn't jamming the needle in hard enough, I gathered my courage and stuck it in the third time without a problem. This morning was only one attempt and it was done. I'm turning into a pro. And no side effects yet. Yet.

So now it's injections once a day until October 24. The BCPs stop on Sunday and then the second injection will start after they check me out on the 24th. Once those start, it'll be one injection when I wake up and one injection when I go to bed. Needles, needles, needles. Thank God I got over that needle-phobia years ago.

As always, my life (besides IVF) is still marching on. I am so swamped at work that most days I can't even see straight. E is still potty-training although he's doing much better these days. He'll stay dry for about 90% of the day but he's still holding out on the pooping. He's done it for me three times so far but he's not interested in doing it for his teachers at school or the nanny. Still, this is how the successful peeing started, so I'm sure it's just going to take some time. Remind me of that again when I'm freaking about it in six months.

I've been following my own advice and staying away from all those bad IVF websites and books. I'm really concentrating on succeeding and trying to surround myself with positive energy. It feels good to start to have some faith again.

One foot in front of the other.

The migraine finally went away so I think my body is getting adjusted to being on BCP again. My period, on the other hand, was just not happy about it. All week my period has been yucky and just plain abnormal. Still, it's done with as of this morning. Not that you really need to know about that part of it.

I got a call on Friday from the pharmacy that is supplying the meds for my IVF cycle. I can't even comprehend the costs of some of these meds. The Lupron alone was over $600 without insurance; the Follistim was in the $1200 range. Thank god that RI covers these medications. We're only required to pay 20% of the amount because of state-mandated infertility coverage. I can understand now why people take a second mortgage out on their houses to finance all of this. I praise my lucky stars every day that we have such good coverage. When all is said and done, it looks like we'll be paying about $600 out of pocket for the medications. How's that for a 'co-pay'?

As you would expect from me, as soon as I knew that we were going to undergo IVF I went to the library and checked out all the books I could find that explained IVF, the successes, the failures, the methods, the medications. Everything I could get my little paws on. All of the books basically reviewed the procedure, the processes, what to expect and so on. But I kept reading them over and over, and I just wasn’t feeling satisfied with what they were telling me. And then, while I was talking to a co-worker about the process, I finally realized what I was trying to get from these books: validation. I was looking for one of the books to tell me that this was going to work for me. Obviously there is just no book in existence that is going to do that for me, so on Saturday afternoon, I returned all the books and that was that. It felt good to not have them around. It felt even better to come face-to-face with what I was searching for and to know that there was no ‘answer’ out there.

Now that I'm in my 'positive thinking' mode, I had a realization the other day. This may seem, I don’t know, pretentious, but I realized the other day that with almost every big life event that I’ve undergone, it’s always worked out in my favor even if the odds seemed stacked against me. With my wedding, it poured the day before and I mean poured. But, even though we were having an outdoor reception, I didn’t once fret about the rain. I just knew in my heart that it was going to be a beautiful day and, lo and behold, it was. When I was six weeks pregnant with E, I had some terrible spotting and I remember sitting on my couch, telling my best friend that I was done being worried about what was going to happen; it was just going to work out in my favor and I knew it. Then, while I was in labor with E, I hit that lovely transition part of labor and while the nurses and doctors kept saying “if you don’t progress any further in an hour, we’re going to have to take aggressive measures”, I knew that I wasn’t going to have to be c-sectioned. I just knew it in my heart that it would work out exactly how I wanted it to work out. And it did. I gave birth to a nine-and-a-half pound baby with only a small tear to speak of. It all just worked out.

So, why does this realization matter? I can't explain it, but I'm trying to get myself to that same point: where I just feel in my heart that this is going to work. No if’s, and’s or but’s about it. It’s not an easy place to get to, I’ll admit. Especially if you’ve had to suffer through heartache after heartache for 20 months straight. But I’m doing everything in my power to try to drown that negative, fearful, doubting voice out and let the positive, hopeful voice shine.

This is going to work. I am going to get pregnant again. I will be blessed again.

The new mantra: This will work... this will work...

Repeat after me: This will work. This will work. This will work.

My migraine is almost all gone after popping a few Advil and Tylenol. I just have to sit still and not breathe and it feels much better. I'm starting to freak a little bit about what the rest of the side effects might be like. Six weeks is looking like a long, long time to be dealing with side effects.

I'm feeling a little down the past few days too. I'm starting to doubt myself so everytime I feel those grey clouds creeping in, I repeat my new mantra. I saw a woman on the side of the road, waiting with her daughter at the bus stop this morning. She was carrying a tiny baby boy and for a second, I felt that old familiar anger, that annoyance, that jealousy that comes out when I see people who have what I want so desperately. And then, in a flash, I talked myself off the ledge and said "That will be me someday." And I smiled. Not a fake smile, but a real smile. I almost believe myself these days.

Repeat the mantra.

Red means GO!

Well, it's not a normal period by any means, but I started spotting this morning so I'm calling today as day 1. I called the IVF scheduler this morning and we are good to GO! Our IVF plan officially starts today!!!

Here's the beginning of the plan:

Start BCP today, October 1, 2007.
Begin Lupron injections on October 10, 2007; take 10 units between 7:00am and 9:00am.
Stop taking the BCP on October 14, 2007; continue with Lupron.
Baseline ultrasound and bloodwork is scheduled for October 24, 2007 at 7:30am.
After baseline ultrasound and bloodwork, the rest of the plan will be reviewed based on my response to the Lupron and BCP protocol.

Tentative remainder of plan:
Beginning October 27, 2007, start daily Follistim injections, possibly overlap with Lupron injections.
Tentative Egg Retrieval on November 7, 2007, depending on response to Follistim.
Tentative Embryo Transfer on November 10, 2007, depending on ER and response to drugs.
Tentative Beta on Friday, November 23, 2007. The day after Thanksgiving.

I'm praying that we're going to have a lot to be thankful for this year.