The end of one life, the beginning of another.

Where to start? Well, IVF #6 was cancelled, voluntarily. Shocked? So was I, to be honest. But this time around life just got in the way. I've decided that I've just had enough of everything: IVF, my marriage, my misery. I can't remember what it was like to be happy anymore and so, realizing that there were two things that were making me miserable I decided to change the one that I had control over.

So, here I am. On the verge of divorce, possibly consigning my life to being a single mom to a single child and I'm feeling more energized than I ever have before. It's so freeing to finally put my foot on a path of correction. Lives will become irrevocably changed, but it's all going to be for the better. It has to be.

Failed. Again.

I got my period this morning. Well, it's not full-force yet, but I'm spotting and I took a test this morning, just for laughs. Negative. Just for laughs? I'm not laughing anymore.

So this is IVF cycle #5 and it's another bust. I've now killed seven embryos, never mind the 10 that the lab destroyed. I feel stupid to even have imagined that we had a shot this time. I know the odds about FET cycles, I know the odds about this lab. I know, I know, I know. I just don't know why it isn't working, why it's so hard to live life day after day knowing that I may never have another baby. The world just isn't fair.

I'm working really hard on pulling myself together. I spent the night crying about my failures so I have to get over it and move forward yet again.

Barreling forward, yet again.

As I figured, not a single one of my lovely 16 eggs released. All because I didn't ask for a trigger shot. Actually, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have given it to me anyways, but it would have been worth it to just ask. So, because I am just fated to have to experience every aspect of infertility, I am now on Provera because my period was no where in sight. Today is day 4 of the five-day cycle and once I finish these pills, the RE says I should expect my period in about 10 days. At least there's an end in sight to this torture.

As if I needed any more proof that the universe is having a good laugh at my expense, while I was on the way to the lab the other morning for my beta and P4 test, there was a car in front of me with the license plate "FERTIL". I am not joking. I imagined that the driver was hung-over, smoking a cigarette while her six kids sat in the backseat without their seatbelts. Poetic justice isn't funny.

The better part is that once this cycle ends, I'm telling the RE that we want to do the transfer no matter how crappy my lining looks this time around. We've decided to do a natural FET cycle which means no drugs at all. It'll be refreshing, but annoying at the same time. It's hard to sit back and do nothing. I'm hoping it will be worth it, but I have serious doubts about the abilities of the RE to get the timing right.

Along with the agony of waiting for my period to make it's appearance, I've caught some terrible throat infection. I went to my regular doctor and they tested me for Mono and pneumonia, which both came back negative, thank goodness. I can't even imagine how I would have felt if I had to be put on hold for three months because of Mono.

I have to keep repeating to myself that this is going to work somehow, some way. My body can do this. I know it can.

IVF #4 / FET #2 : Epilogue

Yet another FET cycle was cancelled. After ten days or more of stims, my lovely ovaries generated 16 follicles. The RE decided to try to wait it out and they got to a whopping 22mm to 25mm. All 16 of them. And still my lining stayed put at only 4mm. Yes, 4mm. It was just heartbreaking. The RE actually said that my ovaries are very impressive. I said too bad the rest of me isn't impressive. Sigh. So he cancelled the cycle and told me to use protection if we had intercourse. HA! That's a freaking riot. Do you honestly think that after trying to make a baby for over 26 months I'm going to ABSTAIN when I know that I have 16 ripe follicles hanging out, just dying to be fertilized? Of course, there's no guarantee that I ovulated any of them, but we gave it out best try. And here I am.

I'm sad. I'm really pissed. I'm on the edge of my seat. I have no idea when I ovulated so I'm up in the air about when my period is supposed to come. Normally, I wouldn't care if I thought we didn't have a chance, but two days ago, on Tuesday afternoon I had this, well, glob of EWCM that was pink and tan colored. Which made me totally think about implantation spotting. And then the spotting stopped. Nothing at all. My CM is still pretty normal and every time I pee I'm straining my eyes to see if there's anything there on the toilet paper but nada. Nothing. Not that I really WANT to spot right now, I just want some answers. So I took a test lat night and it was negative. No hint of a second line. So I launch myself into the realm of 'Was it too early to test?'

This suspense is terrible. I can honestly say that if it really is negative, I'm alright with it. For once in my life, I'm really alright with it. But I want to know what's going on. I am praying that if I am pregnant that it's not another miscarriage. I don't even want to think about that possibility.

I got this terrible pang of sadness this afternoon just thinking that it's negative. Yes, I know I said I would be alright if it's negative, but it's still a sad thought. I'm pinning all my hopes on a pink/tan glob right now and I keep second guessing myself. I keep thinking 'Did I really see that?' but YES. I did see it. It was undeniable. It was there. But what the heck does it MEAN?

I'm just tormented. I can't test again and have it be reliable. This suspense is enough to kill me.

IVF #4 / FET #2 ... how did I get HERE?

I can’t even recall how I got here: IVF #4, FET #2. It’s like having Infertility-Alzheimer’s.

After a weekend of deep-thought and very little discussion between me and R, I decided to go with option number 3: injections. I figured it was time to call out the big guns and quit the screwing around with indecision. I’ve done injections before and since we’d treat an out-of-phase lining with injections anyway, I figured let’s go for the gold. So, on Monday morning I called the RE’s office to tell him that I had started my period on Sunday afternoon and waited for the return call. The nurse called a few hours later to let me know that the biopsy results hadn’t come in yet, so they would call back on Tuesday morning. On Tuesday, the RE calls me himself to say that he has good news and bad news. The good news? My instincts were right on. The bad news? My lining won’t sustain a pregnancy. Just fantastic, really. Just knowing that it was probably my body and not a genetic abnormality that made me lose the baby in February was enough to make me want to die. After all of this, my lining is probably the problem. Let’s see, how long have I been griping about my thin lining problem? (A quick scan of past posts reveals that the first time I mentioned a thin lining was on Monday, June 25 after my one cancelled and two completed IUI cycles.) I’m furious at myself for not requesting the biopsy a year ago. I’m frustrated that it took this long to get to where we are, only to have to worry about the same problem that I’ve been worrying about since the beginning. I’m upset because my body probably caused that baby to be miscarried, not ‘nature’.

So, after a brief discussion with the RE, we agreed that the injections are the best course of action. I asked the RE what he would prefer to do and he answered “the natural cycle”, but I’m just not up for that. We did too many unsuccessful natural cycles to be able to say it’s worth it right now. I need some results. I need some hope again. Trying a new treatment is the only way I’ll get that hope back. I need to see my body respond to SOMETHING.

And, right on time, while I’m spinning deeper and deeper into my own personal despair, R calls to tell me that his sister had her baby. Healthy and everything. It takes all my strength to not burst into tears right now. There are so many reasons why that news is just painful, but I think above all it’s because I feel as though he doesn’t even care to tell his family how hurt I am right now. He doesn’t bother to take the time to explain what life if like for us right now and so they end up thinking I’m the cold, distant, terrible daughter-in-law. They make a million and one excuses as to why I should have felt bad for R’s sister when she was trying but because I already have a child, I shouldn’t feel anything now that I’m infertile. God, life is a terrible, slow, evil torture lately.

I’m feeling so angry and annoyed these days. I’m so tired of people not realizing what they have, how freaking LUCKY they are to have the life that they do. I’m tired of people complaining about their good luck, about how awful it is to be pregnant. I’m tired of seeing people get what they want at the drop of a hat, or making a big deal of their little tiny two or three month struggle, and not even care how life goes on for people like me, suffering and struggling just to create another life. It's has been 25 months for me. I’m tired of the utter un-fairness of all of this. I deserve to be a mother again. I deserve it. And I may never have it.

Infertility testing as medieval torture.

Have you ever looked at a picture of medieval torture devices? If so, you may have recognized some of those instruments as appearing in your local REs office. I swear, the tools they use could only have been developed by a man. There’s no way a woman ever would have wanted to develop a ‘cervical skin grabber’ and unleash it onto her fellow women. I just refuse to believe it.

So my biopsy went as well as an internal, still-awake-for-the-entire-thing procedure could go. My cervix was being particularly petulant and had decided that it didn’t want to come out to play like a good little cervix. So the RE had to use this terrible ‘pin-it-down’ device which then led to having to use the ‘cervical skin grabber’ (and I swear these are his terms, not mine) to force my cervix open. Yes, force was used. And yes, it hurt as much as you might imagine. Probably more. I nearly jumped off the table, but the nurse came and grabbed my hand and the RE told me to count down from ten, which at least got my mind off it. A few little suctions with a catheter lately and I was a few endometrial cells lighter.

After our little biopsy party, the RE had me meet him in his office to discuss the options for next cycle. He really wants to do an unmedicated, natural cycle so he can see what my body does after being on fertility drugs for almost a year. I’m not so keen on that option, but he seems sold on it. I’m still gunning for trying to replicate our September cycle where the lining got to 7.5mm, but even with that, he wants to try it with no estrogen. Once again, we differ. My body just doesn’t process estrogen the way it used to, so I’m thinking giving it that little extra boost with the Femara might be all that it needs to get that lining fat and then we can concentrate on getting it trilaminar. Decision, decisions. You know, it just should not have to take this much thought to get pregnant. It just shouldn’t. So, the options are as follows:

1. Do a natural, unmedicated cycle using only an OPK to time the blood work and ultrasounds. When I get my first peak reading, get blood work done to measure progesterone and other hormones (possibly estrogen and LH) and then once the progesterone gets to a certain level, schedule the transfer. Get pregnant.

2. Assist ovulation with letrizole (Femara, taken for five days) to force my body to make more follicles thereby making all those follicles make extra estrogen with the hope that it makes a nice thick lining early in my cycle; add extra estrogen for five days after ending the Femara to keep the estrogen-train going and hopefully getting that lining nice and thick. Induce ovulation, monitor with a few blood tests to make sure progesterone is high enough and schedule the transfer. Get pregnant.

3. Use injectable medications to perform the same task as the Femara, but at a higher, more potent doseage (not as high as an IVF cycle, but higher and more reliable than Femara). Do this with the hopes that all the extra follicles will make natural estrogen and a thicker lining. Induce ovulation, monitor with a few blood tests to make sure progesterone is high enough and schedule the transfer. Get pregnant.

4. Give up all hopes of ever having another child and get on with my life.

Right now, I’m leaning towards number 2, with number 4 as a strong back-up.

The RE wants me to take the weekend to think about it. In the meantime, he’s going to wait for the biopsy results. Which, of course, could change everything. Good results would throw me into choosing between number 1 and number 2. Bad results would force me to consider option 3 or 4.

Decisions, decisions.

Cancelled and holding.

After giving it the ‘old college try’ (as one nurse put it), my RE cancelled this FET cycle. Talk about a blow to my psyche. It’s awful to be on the receiving end of a cancelled cycle. Actually, awful isn’t even a strong enough word. Ugh. I’m just SO tired of all of this IVF stuff. I’m trying every day to just hang in there a little longer. As though it will get better. I wish with all my heart that I just KNEW it was going to work and we’d end up with a baby. It would make all of this torture worth it, if I just knew the outcome would be worth it. Why does everyone else seem so damned sure that it’s going to work for us? What do they see that I DON’T?

The RE was so puzzled as to what was happening that he wanted to see me face-to-face rather than breaking the news about cancelling the cycle to me over the phone. It’s admirable, but I’m sick of going to that office just to get more bad news. We’ve decided to try an endometrial biopsy to see if we can figure out what my lining looks like up close, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s not going to be good news. I’ve looked and looked (online) about how to treat a lining that ‘fails’ an endometrial biopsy but there’s very little information out there. I asked the RE what he would do to treat it if it’s out-of-phase (which is a failed test result) and he said something about injectibles and FSH. That confuses me because they usually use FSH to stimulate your ovaries. I’ve taken it in the past for my two (FAILED) IVF cycles, and it didn’t do jack for my lining. Sure, it makes me produce more eggs than a chicken, but it doesn’t fix my lining issues.

In the meantime, R and I have decided to go forward with one more attempt with this RE. We have an appointment with another RE for a second opinion on April 28; I got the intake forms last night from the new office and I was completely intimidated by the packet. There’s so much information that they ask for; it’s hard because my doctor already knows all of this information. Is it really going to benefit me to go over all this again with a new doctor? It’s such a hard decision.

My current RE and I discussed what we should do with the next cycle. I remembered that my lining got to 7.4mm in September when I was using the Femara, but looking back over my chart, the RE discovered that was also the only time my lining didn’t achieve the triple stripe appearance it needs to be viable for a transfer. So it appears as if I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Still, he agreed that we could try to mimic that cycle and see if I respond the same way. We just have to make sure that I don’t ovulate prematurely.

Just another day in IVF paradise.

How many times can you get to the edge of giving up?

The ultrasound this morning went terribly. My lining was only up to 3mm. I can't remember a single cycle where it was that thin 14 days after my period. I have no idea what the hell is happening to my body anymore, but I'm just not responding to the oral Estrace right now. They would expect to see my lining around 7.5mm or so right now and I'm not even half of that. Not even half. I feel so hopeless and lost. I'm starting to lose faith that this is ever going to work for us. It seems like every time I get the faintest sense of hope and healing, it comes crashing down. My body is just betraying me at every turn.

For the first time ever I really felt like I should simply give up. I don't want to but I don't see a way out of this hell any longer. We've been at this for two years now. And the only thing we've gotten is heartache and bad news. I've let my family down, I've let myself down. I feel like I only have myself to blame at this point. It's my body that's causing all this pain and suffering.

It amazes me every day how fertility-centric this world is. Leaving my house has become an obstacle course of fertility avoidance. The supermarket is the worst minefield imaginable. Today at the checkout line a woman was telling the very young cashier that she would 'regret not having a second child' someday. The cashier said 'Everytime I see a little baby come in here I think I want another one, but I know that's just crazy!" and laughs. I wanted to burst into tears. I wish I knew that my body would work one day and that I would have the option to have another one. But it's looking more and more like that's never going to be.

Why is this so impossibly hard? Why do I have to feel this way every day of my life? Why can't this just go my way for once? I just want a baby. Why is that too much to ask?

FET to be.

I'm finally starting to feel like I'm on the road to healing. It's been a terrible road. Worse than I could have imagined, but I'm starting to feel better about life. It probably helps that I finally got my period and have started my medications again in preparation for the FET. My first ultrasound for this cycle is on March 22 and if all goes well, I could be having the transfer as early as next week. Holy cow. It’s been a long time coming, man.

E is having surgery on Thursday morning. He’s getting his tonsils and adenoids out and tubes put in. I’m so very nervous for him, but I know in my heart it’s what is best for him. He’s been unhealthy for so long and I feel like this could give him a jump start to a healthier life. The fevers have been going on for so long, it makes me worry about what may happen to him later in life. What if all these fevers affect his fertility some day? My heart would break for him if he and his future partner ever have to go through what we’ve gone through to bring him a sibling. It shouldn’t be this hard for a child to be born. It just shouldn’t.

He’s been such an amazing little man the past few weeks. I feel like he’s coming into his own personality and once in a while I’ll just sit and watch him. I wonder how he’s going to take to being a big brother when the time comes. I wonder if I screwed it all up by waiting so long between children. I wonder a lot of things.

I’ve been trying so hard to keep a sunny disposition about all of this. I know it’s going to work again. I have to believe that in my heart because if I don’t, the days seem endless and all hope leaves me. Life will get better. I just have to keep moving, keep reaching for that goal. This baby wants to be born.

Paralyzed

It's been a while since I've posted. The past few weeks have been some of the worst times of my life. After all that joy of finally getting pregnant, the pain of having a loss has been worse than I thought possible. I feel paralyzed by pain and I can't snap out of it. I know this is the normal part of grieving but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I got to see my baby when they finally had to remove it from my body by force. Even though it was dead and gone, I still felt so happy to see it. I was glad to see that something was really growing in there, something had been fighting to survive and just couldn't muster the strength to stay with me on this earth. It breaks my heart to think that my body wasn't strong enough to help it along.

I feel broken. More than just infertile-broken. It goes deeper than that. I feel like I want to run away and crawl into a hole. Nothing feels right. I spend my days feeling numb and angry and hurt. I wish I knew what I had done to deserve all of this. It feels like a punishment and I don't know the crime. I hate the bitterness most of all. I think thoughts that are rotten and mean, but the pain that I'm feeling won't go away and that bitterness is the only thing that keeps on coming. R doesn't even know what to say to me anymore and so he ignores it and keeps going on with his day.

As if all of this pain and suffering weren't enough, I've been put on hold by the RE. I think, no, I know that's what's making me feel worse. I can't sit still like this without practically collapsing in grief. The only way I can ignore how I've been feeling for the past 25 months of trying to conceive is to keep moving toward that elusive goal of bringing another baby into this world. Once I stop that forward movement, I die inside. The burden is too great. And now I'm at the mercy of my unreliable body once again. I have no faith in my body anymore and I'm at it's mercy.

I wish I could embrace this break and relax. I wish I could find a way to heal that will help me move on. I just don't know how anymore. It's too raw. Images of fertility, pregnancy, babies and all the things I can't have are constantly around me and the second I think I've gotten skin that's thick enough, it finds a way to ambush me and tear my wall down again. I don't know how to heal except to succeed. And that's feeling further and further away.

Moving forward.

This past week has been such a whirlwind, I don't even know where to begin.

I lost the baby. No, that's not true. I know where my baby is, but it's just not with me anymore. It's not lost. It was taken from me by some strange, cruel force that I couldn't stop. And so, the pregnancy ended. My baby is just gone. And now I'll have no new birthday to celebrate. No first cry to hear, praying for a healthy baby, hoping to see ten fingers, ten toes. None of it.

R and I met with the doctor on Wednesday and saw what was left of the pregnancy on the ultrasound. The doctor confirmed that the pregnancy was no longer viable, but it was so strangely comforting to see that little, tiny, non-functioning sac. I don't know how to explain it, but it still made me happy to see it. I still felt so connected to it, even though I knew it wasn't really alive anymore. It was just proof-positive that I was actually pregnant. That after 23 months of trying to create a life, we did it, even if it was only for a few weeks or even days.

The whole appointment was such a bizarre experience. At first the doctor didn't even know why we were there. It wasn't until I told HIM that I was pregnant, but with low betas, that he understood why we were there in the first place. In the end, he was so embarrassed that his staff had dropped the ball that he gave us his personal cell phone number and told us to call at anytime over the next few days. A few things were still left up in the air, so because we were leaving right for R's grandmother's funeral the RE gave us a basic plan for the next few days. He was wary of letting me sit in a car for five hours, given my shoulder pain and incomplete diagnosis, so he actually hand-wrote a note to give to any doctor should I need medical attention during the time we were in NY. He was worried that the ultrasound may have missed something and that I would end up in the ER with a problem. Here's what he wrote, in near-perfect handwriting and on a yellow sticky-note with a perky little girl riding a scooter at the bottom. Very professional...:

(At the top he wrote my name and date of birth, neither of which I feel like divulging here...)
IVF pregnancy
Retrieval date 1/8/08
By above, 6w1d on 2/6/08
U/S on 2/6/08
- small collapsed sac in the uterus
- NO FF or adnexal mass
Betas
1/23/08 35 miu/ml
1/25/08 85 "
1/28/08 217 "
2/4/08 421 "

And then he signed it, on top of the perky scooter-girl.

So, there you have it. My chart laid out on one yellow-sticky note, complete with perky scooter girl. I did some searching on the "No FF or adnexal mass" line and found that FF means 'free fluid' and the adnexal mass means he couldn't find evidence of an ectopic pregnancy. They did have me run my fifth beta (I think I'm going for a record here) and when he called on Thursday afternoon he told me it was in the 300's. E was screaming in the background, so I didn't catch the exact number. But, I did catch that he was still concerned that it was so high, considering that the baby had already died. Then, late Thursday night I started bleeding. And it was official. At 6 weeks, 2 days my baby was leaving.

I called the doctor on Friday morning to give him the latest news and he was glad to hear that my body was taking care of this 'naturally'. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that I didn't have to have yet another uncomfortable experience in the RE's office. It's still just so wrong, natural or otherwise. But, he said that it's possible that because my body is taking over, the beta levels could drop low by Monday and we'll be cleared for another cycle sooner than we thought. Another cycle.

God. Another cycle. I am so torn about another cycle. We'll be using our frozen embryos this time around, but I hate to say that I don't have much hope in these frozen ones. We've been having such a terrible time with embryo quality that I don't know if they'll survive the thawing process. The RE gave me some speech about how the lab insists on the best quality for the embryos they freeze and all that, but it bothers me that we've already lost 10 day five embryos the first cycle because of deterioration and then lost an additional two more day three embryos the second cycle.

There's nothing we can do to improve embryo quality, so that part of it is out of our hands. As the doctors have told us, it's a matter of odds at this point. We just have to keep moving forward and eventually, we'll get pregnant again. Eventually, the odds have to swing in our favor. It just might kill us in the process, that's all.

From the deepest place I grieve...

This old familiar craving
I've been here before, this way of behaving
Don't know who the hell I'm saving anymore
Let it pass, let it go, let it leave
From the deepest place I grieve
This time I believe
I can let go of it

Though it takes all the strength in me
And all the world can see
I'm losing such a central part of me
I can let go of it

-- Peter Gabriel

How can you go lower than low?

We got a call last night from R's father that his maternal grandmother has died. She's been sick for quite a while, but R was close with her and it's been a second hard blow in just a few days. We have our doctor's appointment this afternoon at 1:30pm and we're still not sure what he's going to say either. It's just a mess right now. It's never the right time to have a miscarriage, but this just adds one more terrible layer to everything we're going through right now.

I won't even bother saying it couldn't get much worse because it could. I just pray that it doesn't.

That sound you hear is my heart breaking.

So, here I am, one day after getting our not-so-good-news. I'm still so depressed about all of this. R and I were able to get the appointment moved to tomorrow at 1:30pm which is probably for the best. I found out from the RE's scheduler that they will do an ultrasound tomorrow to see what is going on, but at this point I know that they won't find the babies there anymore. I'm still having the on and off pain in my shoulder that I've been having for a few weeks. That makes me even less hopeful, but there's nothing I can do about it at this point. I just pray it isn't an ectopic pregnancy. I pray that they can keep my body intact so that I might have some chance of ever getting pregnant again, even after this mess.

I find it hard to function. My eyes are so swollen that they hurt. And in the midst of all this, I have to find a way to stop thinking about the pregnancy symptoms I'm still having. My boobs are still sore, my belly is still bloated, I'm still pregnant. I never thought that word would cause me so much pain. It's painful to think that my babies are still in there, but just not growing normally. It kills me to think that they will never be 'real' children. I'll never get to hold them or see them. They were my children for two weeks. And soon they'll be gone.