FINALLY

Okay, so I've put this post off for a month now. I know it's long overdue, but I couldn't quite figure out if it was real or if it was just another high before a huge crash for me to endure. As far as I can tell, this is real, and it is actually happening.

I AM PREGNANT!

Yep. It's been confirmed several times. Irony of all ironies, the very day after I wrote my last post, upon finding me hysterically emotionally compromised about my health and depression, my husband decided to take me to the urgent care clinic to see if they could figure out what was causing my ill symptoms mentioned in the previous post. Yeah, even now when I read them I crack up. It's not like I didn't know they could be pregnancy symptoms. In fact, I actually mentioned it to my husband that if I didn't know better I'd think I was pregnant! But of course I thought I knew better. I actually looked up chronic nausea online to see what could be wrong with me and had to wade through the loads of pregnancy references to see what else it could be. I never thought in a million years that I could actually be experiencing morning sickness!!!!!!! WHAT THE HECK!??????????? And how in the HELL did this happen?!??! Yeah, I still can't believe it. It was totally natural and unplanned. After 9 years of trying everything under the sun to get pregnant, I was shocked out of my pants to discover that during the month my husband came down with pneumonia and both of us were sick as dogs, we had a couple of sleepless nights and managed to conceive a child by complete fluke!!!

The experience at the urgent care clinic was one memory I won't soon forget. We walked in there nervous and thinking I'd have to really defend my claims of symptoms and try to convince the doctor that it wasn't all in my head--at least I really hoped it wasn't. I knew I would have to first rule out the possibility of pregnancy, but I was prepared to prove them it wasn't as "simple" as that. Nervously, I took my husband in the room with me so he could help explain what was going on. Sure enough, they decide to give me a urine test and like a good sport I played along. I told the nurse we'd been trying for 9 years, so I sincerely doubt I'm pregnant, although that would be amazing. I was sitting on the little exam table waiting for the doctor to return when my nurse popped her head back in the room with a big grin on her face. Strangely she was being followed by 3-4 other nurses and my doctor. I had no idea what was going on, but nothing even remotely close to what was actually happening entered my mind at that point. The nurse handed me a plastic baggie with something in it and giggled, "Happy Thanksgiving!" I looked at the item in the bag and frowned before I realized she just handed me my pregnancy test stick! I stared at it trying to comprehend what just happened and noticed the TWO lines on the little test window and my jaw dropped. "It's positive, honey!" she laughed, probably realizing I was having trouble figuring it out on my own. "WHAT!??!" I shrieked when my husband jumped out of his seat to run to my side and see it. "HOW!?" he shouted in disbelief. The nurses just gave him a funny look. Then both of us just looked at each other, laughed and started bawling our heads off. We hugged and hugged. It was the most amazing moment I've ever experienced. No offense, lovey, but I'm quite positive it even topped my engagement proposal by a long shot! I am so happy my husband was there with me! After the initial shock (even though it was still there) they gave me a confirming blood draw to get my hCG levels and then sent me over to the hospital to get an ultrasound where we saw our little 7 week 4 day old baby, heart beating away in my uterus, completely clueless to the outside world and our enormous struggles to create it. It was absolutely the most amazing thing I've ever seen, and I was so amazed at it I even made my ultrasound tech cry. We got several print outs of our baby that the tech titled "Baby Dellosa", oblivious to our blog of the same name and it made us rather emotional. The next day, my parents came for thanksgiving at our house which I believe I mentioned I was hosting this year and we sprung the news on them at the table and then later called Mike's parents in California to let them all know too. It was an amazing day...


A month later, it's Christmas Eve and I am nearly 12 weeks along already. I have been to my first prenatal appointment, had a 2nd ultrasound and got to see the baby bouncing around in my uterus and actually hear the heartbeat this time. My uterus is growing nicely, says the doctor, and everything is looking great. I'm filling out in my belly area as well as my chest area, unfortunately (never thought I needed bigger breasts than the ones I already possessed, but this baby has other plans). The worst part, the morning sickness (which, my friends, is 24 hour sickness) is still an active part of my daily life, although I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. It could be tapering off, and I hope so, because it is by far the worst thing I have ever endured (illness-wise). But the mere fact that I know what is causing it is comforting. I can't say I haven't complained to my husband about it a few times, but every time I do it does make me feel guilty. You have to remember, hormones are flying and I'm gonna feel huge ups and downs, and I truly have. Even though I have been enduring this for nearly 3 months now, it's still ridiculously amazing to me that I am carrying a baby inside me. I feel like this is all a big insane dream. I don't believe it, even when I am getting up at 3am to go to the bathroom or get a fruit cup (my favorite midnight snack) to feed this surprisingly hungry 2 inch child.

This just goes to show each one of you infertile couples in the world that there will be a day when all of that will come to a crashing, explosive end and you will be jerked from one extreme to the other. Infertility to Pregnancy just like that! I'm still blown away by it, but here I am, the very thing I despised just a day earlier: a pregnant woman. It's not an easy transition, I have to admit. I am still annoyed by people who could easily get pregnant and tell me not to worry about this or that. It's easy for them to say, I think. THEY didn't take 9 years getting pregnant! Pregnancy is terrifying. I'm trying to relax and just know that this baby and my body have no idea I've been trying that long, so my pregnancy is probably just as stable as the woman who washed her underwear with her partner's and conceived by accident. Of course I'm trying to remain calm, but this is all so new and scary and unbelievable, I think anything could go wrong! I've never wanted anything so much in my life, and the feeling that I've actually accomplished this feat is just still shocking, but I've replaced this desire to achieve pregnancy with the desire to successfully complete the pregnancy. The day I'm holding my precious little creation in my arms is the day I will celebrate. We hear this day should be somewhere around July 8, 2011. :D !!!!

Lost in Life

How do you describe something as indescribable as infertility? All I can say is that I am depressed, but even that somehow doesn't seem to explain how I feel.

I am lost in my life. I am so sad, angry, confused and sick. I feel like I have lost everything in my life. When I was a little girl, I used to dream about my life. I imagined what I would do when I grew up and began a career, fell in love, got married, bought a house, had children. I'm now 31 years old and I feel like all of those things I dreamed have been destroyed. Every dream I ever dreamed feels like it is no longer even really possible. My first failure was never really grasping onto a career. And without one, how can you ever realize the dream of buying a home? Okay, so I am married. My husband is a beautiful person with an unbelievably huge heart. He truly does love me unconditionally, and for that I must be grateful. We have a home, too, which we pay a mortgage on, and have for 4 years now. These are what I call phantom successes. Because neither seemed to be as successful as we had imagined before we achieved them. Our house is 675 square feet. We've lived in apartments bigger than that. We go crazy with such a small space to share between us, 2 cats and a big fluffy Alaskan Malamute. Our marriage suffers even though the love we have for each other has never been greater. Our lives are at a stand still, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do to motivate ourselves to go on again. To achieve something, or reach for some kind of goal. Where is the motivation? The hope? Our dream of success? That word automatically converts it's self into "failure" in my mind.

It has come to a point in our infertility journey that people have stopped asking us questions about it and our endeavor to parenthood. It's like this has gone on so long now that no one knows what to say anymore. They've already given us all the great advise they can. I never thought I would miss the "just relax and it will happen" comments, but the silence is an even greater shock to me. Now people are treating us as though we have accepted and chosen a childless life like we don't even want kids! Somehow I am even more hurt by this than I was when I heard all the senseless advise on how to achieve our goal.

Some days I literally cannot get myself out of bed. I do not know why, but I feel sick. I'm tired, nauseous, and the scent of certain things throws me over the edge. I can't even feed my animals anymore--something I've never had an issue with in my life. The meat smell is completely repulsive I have to shut myself in my room for at least an hour while and after my husband feeds them. I spent so many hours on my computer playing monotonous games while I was feeling so ill that suddenly I can't even do that anymore. The mere thought of it makes me feel sick. So now I can't even occupy myself with things that keep my brain active and off my depression. Now I'm stuck facing it head on with no distractions. I've spent all day in my jammies, bundled up because there's like 5 inches of snow outside, I can't think of a single thing I want to eat besides my mom's amazing yogurt jello (which of course I don't have). Everything else is repulsive.

Thanksgiving is in two days. It's hard to believe this used to be my favorite holiday. My husband actually proposed to me on Thanksgiving 9 years ago yesterday. But now, I'm unsure what the hell I can even pretend to be thankful about in my life anymore. My parents and brother are coming over to our house for dinner and I'm sad I don't even have a dining room. All we have is a foldout table that we shove against the wall in the kitchen and hardly ever use. Our nightly dining room table is the coffee table in the living room. Originally I thought our house was sweet. It was cute and charming with 3 huge shade trees and a nice big back yard. I thought we would be fine with the size, but it turns out pretty much anything looks amazing when you're married and living in your grandparents' basement.

I don't like talking to people anymore. I mean I constantly find myself trying to explain to people why I haven't returned their calls or messages. Whenever I go over it in my head it just sounds so dumb: "I'm just depressed and I really don't feel like talking to anybody." But it's true. I've alienated every friend I've ever had. Even my family. And it's all because of the child factor. You know, they have children. They don't have to do anything or say anything else to cause an uproar or a falling apart. Just have children. I cannot, no matter how hard I try, pretend to like people who were blessed enough to have children. I know everyone thinks it's jealousy because they have something I don't, but that isn't why I can't stand them. It's that they will never understand me. There is no going back once you fall into the parenthood role, you are an entirely different person with different thoughts and beliefs and while you may or may not sympathize, you will never understand my pain. Whenever someone I loved or liked gets pregnant, I grieve inside because I know I have just lost that person forever. Unless I can become a parent myself, which is so highly unlikely at this point, I will be forever alone in more ways than one.

I know my sister is offended I don't share her love and thrill and joy of her son which may easily be the only source of happiness in her life, but I just can't. It isn't there. I'm torn apart whenever she sends me pictures of him doing random little kid things that she finds so fulfilling. To me they are just painful reminders that I'm childless and that she doesn't understand it. Even my husband has all but alienated his own sister for her lack of tact in sharing the great news with us that she gave birth to a son on the month anniversary date of our failed IVF cycle in which I lost the two embryos I still have nightmares about. She already put a huge damper on our Christmas visit 5 years ago when she announced the pregnancy of her first child just after our first failed IUI attempt. Her timing is amazing. I feel like fate is slapping us around. It's like the worst practical joke on the planet that one can play. What I hate even more about it is that it's destroying who I am--who I WAS. I'm bitter at the world. I hate people who are happy. What the hell are they all so happy about anyway? And how can they be when all around them people are suffering? The world is cruel, and the sad fact is probably that most little girls' dreams, like mine, never come true. That perfect life with the perfect house, husband, friends and family? Only a dream. I have discovered that people who actually achieve these things become the most selfish and stuffy people I've ever met and I am repelled by constantly having to look up their snobby nostrils. Maybe it's better that we don't achieve our dreams so easily, but then why is it that everyone elses dreams seems to be realized but your own? I feel like I've been thrown out of a car on a dark, dusty road in the middle of nowhere alone with no money, no coat and no shoes.

Post IVF

It's been about a month and a half since our IVF failed, and I decided our blog needed the aftermath of IVF. Not a lot of people talk about what happens afterward, not like it's all that exciting, but it is insightful and I sure would have liked to know before getting into it what I would be like if it failed.

First off, you should know that fertility clinics are obscenely overly optimistic. It's part of their treatment to fill the patient with as much positivity as humanly possible without actually going so far as to tell you that you have a 100% chance of getting pregnant from the procedure. The whole time, my nurses and doctor were saying things like "WHEN you go in for your first ultrasound" and "Take this drug all the way until your 12th week of pregnancy" as if I were already expecting. The point of all this is not to misguide you or anything, they just want to keep you feeling positive because they know that most infertile couples are struggling with overwhelming negativity and stress, and fertility doctors know stress is arguably the number 1 killer of cells (and embryos)!

But, the problem I have with it is very difficult for me because while I understand it and agree with their methods (I certainly wouldn't like to be told constantly that it might not work!), I feel that it led me to the deepest depression I had yet to experience. When I was told that I was not pregnant over the phone that day, I completely lost whatever was left of my sanity. I had been nervously awaiting that phone call for a day and a half by the time they finally called, and was listening to music on my bed with the phone on my chest. I remember the song I was listening to when I got the call, ("Someday" by Rob Thomas) and still today can't listen to it without feeling like bursting into tears. The irony is in the lyrics. You'll have to listen to it if you don't know what I mean.

For people that ever knew me before all this infertility stuff, I never was one to cry. But on July 20th, I did nothing but cry for something like 5 hours straight, eventually giving myself a migraine so that by the time my husband came home from work, heartbroken, distraught and tearful, I couldn't even console him. I was paralyzed, and all I could do was lay there while he brought me cold water and Tylenol. Then we just laid there together for what seemed like forever, quietly, and finally slept.

I didn't want to have contact with anyone after that. I had texted my best friend, as promised, called my mom and my husband at work, but that was it. I couldn't talk to anyone else for days. I stayed in the house and did absolutely next to nothing. Then my period came, right on time, just as my nurse had forewarned. A perfect 30 days from the last period brought on by the pill just before my IVF cycle. It was horrible. Just know that after a month of extreme hormonal injections, your failed IVF cycle period is going to be hell. And I'm not just talking cramps. Be prepared for a flood. I'll say no more.

It's been well over a month since that period now, and I am right back to my old self again. By old self, I mean my pre-drug self. The one that breaks out like a teenager, grows hair in all the wrong places and waits 45-60 days for her next period. It still hasn't come. We read and heard a lot about "post-IVF sex" and how many couples are successful in conceiving at that time, for some reason, so we thought what the heck... might as well make use of an opportunity. It's funny how I am now exactly 10 days late, judging from my last period, and the idea that I might be pregnant has yet to enter my mind. I don't have to pee on a stick anymore. I just know I'm not. I mean, if stress kills, I'm more than positive a post-IVF pregnancy is not in the works here.

I've also since read that it's a miracle that anyone gets pregnant by IVF during her first cycle. It's so stressful and nerve-wracking, it's a wonder SHE survives it, let alone her embryos! Our doctor had given us a 70% chance of success during our first cycle, but we fell in the 30%, go figure. Now that we're IVF veterans, the very fact that we have a failed cycle under our belt knocks our chances down to 60%. Throw in the fact that if we did a 2nd cycle, we would use frozen embryos, and that number drops down even further to 50%! Now, given all the 50% chances in my life, like the fact that whenever I plug something into an outlet, I always try it the wrong way first, or I flip a coin and it lands the opposite side that I called, I'm pretty darn certain that if I did something so grand as a frozen embryo cycle, I would come out the negative side of 50%.

Once my post-IVF period was over, we finally got to have a phone consultation with our fertility doctor about our failed cycle. (I'm pretty convinced they plan it that way so they don't have to deal with a psychopath infertile woman with PMS--clever, I must say). He basically just walked us through our cycle and gave us a recap on what he did and would do again. He told us he was very surprised it hadn't worked, and it's always heartbreaking when that happens for no apparent reason--which was in our case. There was no obvious reason that this pregnancy attempt failed. Everything looked great with my blood-work and all the ultrasounds, etc. There was just no pregnancy. He called it "embryonic arrest". I imagined my embryos in little handcuffs being escorted quite violently from my uterus and wondered how that was possible since they hadn't even developed hands at that point. --Oh, and I should add that you'll probably develop an even worse sense of humor than you had just to keep yourself alive during all this.

Anyway, our doctor said he would very much like to try again and felt that we had a good chance. Embryonic arrest is just something they say happens when the embryos aren't in the best of genetic quality, and said that half of all embryos are genetically inadequate and will not implant. I was surprised by this information. It was news to me! I hadn't realized before that the chances were that low for embryo implantation. I nievely thought that once you had embryos, all of them could implant and become babies--not 50% of them. But, there it is, folks. The ugly truth. That made us question why we had only put 2 embryos in. I mean, given the fact that we only have a 50% chance now and that the embryos also only have a 50% chance of implanting (okay, maybe these odds are combined to create the overall success, but this is how my brain works), why would you only want to put a measily 2 embryos in?!?!!? My husband argued for at least 3, and eventually won. They just want us to be aware that while the chances are set at 50%, it is still likely that all 3 could implant and that we could potentally run the risk of having triplets. We'll take those chances, we said. In our minds, after learning the slim chances of success, triplets are highly unlikely to occur. What we are pulling for here is the chance at ONE of them surviving! And with the extreme cost of IVF, we think we should be a little more aggressive with fighting our odds.

Even though we are severely depressed and the thought of a 2nd IVF cycle is less than appealing, we are still giving it some thought. We had another consultation with our IVF nurse coordinator and the financial department, and they assured us that we have a much easier procedure ahead of us with a frozen embryo transfer. First, you only have to be in the vacinity of the clinic about 3 days, since all it entails is an ultrasound, infusion and embryo transfer. Second, it's about 1/4 the cost of a fresh cycle, costing roughly $3k instead of $10k. You only have to buy medication to prepare your uterus for implantation and we were told that the ovulation stimulating drugs are what costs the most in IVF medication, so since we already have the embryos, we would only have to pay about $1k on prescriptions instead of the $3-$4k of a fresh cycle. So, add in travel costs and we only have to pay roughly $5k. Another loan could easily cover that, and my parents are biting at the bit to help us aquire that loan, so that isn't even the problem...

The problem is us. We are still getting over our last failed cycle and don't know whether or not we can handle yet another potentially likely negative result phone call. I think I'm getting better, but then something happens that chucks me back into the depths of despair and I can't see the light anymore. I don't trust my emotional stability, and other people around us just plain won't stop having babies!!!! It's making us blooming crazy! I understand that they're just proud of their offspring. Yes, we get it! Trust us, we understand probably better than anyone how joyful a newborn baby could be! Just think about the level of that pride for a moment and then try to imagine the grief you would feel if you never got to feel it. You know full well that it exsists, because it is your heart's greatest desire, yet no matter what you do you cannot experience it personally. Instead, everyone else around you gets to, and what's worse is that they seem to think that sharing this with you is going to make you feel BETTER?!?!!?!?!???

Honestly, world, seeing your pregnant belly or a picture of your precious child's shinning smile does not heal my barren soul! Rather, it makes me want to commit suicide! It has nothing to do with your child, or the fact that you think we are now hateful female dogs. It stems merely from the fact that when someone slaps something in your face that you cannot have and want very much, it HURTS. My friend is a single girl in her 30's right now and rivals over the fact that I am married and she is not. She shocked me into reality oneday when she finally pointed out how annoying it was to hang out with me and my husband and watch us be all lovey-dovey and couple cute. It made her want to puke! I hardly thought that Mike & I were lovey-dovey and couple cute, but apparently in my friend's eyes we are. While shocked, I immediately understood her meaning. You don't have to intentinally brag about something for it to be noticed by the less fortunate. In my case, just watching you go about your blessed life without a second thought is enough to make me want to go find my leftover prescription drugs and a big glass of water.

Infertility is hard. It is even harder when you have spent every last cent of your life savings on a single procedure of IVF that you thought would be the key to ending it forever, only to discover that it too failed. Our fertility doctor recommended we set up a session with the complimentary therapist--a free service provided by the clinic. We haven't yet, but it's part of our eventuality plan. Neither of us have much get-up and go nowdays. It's a wonder the floor gets vacuumed once in a while. I'm really depressed. The stupidest little things tick me off. I'm like a bomb constantly waiting for that last spark to set me off and blow me up into a bazillion pieces, taking out anyone in my vacinity. And I'm not looking forward to a therapist telling me that it's all me, and that I need to take control and turn my life around. I already have a mom, you know. And I just don't think it's that simple. Don't get me wrong, I WANT to see a therapist, actually! I just think it's going to be a long process, and I don't ever expect to be entirely healed from this--even if I have children one day, finally. In fact, I hope I won't ever be healed completely because the lessons I've learned on this infertility journey are too deep to forget. It's what makes me so sad when other people experience so much blessed joy in their lives and not enough grief. If you don't experience hardship, how can you ever grow? How can you ever learn how to turn pure hatrid into feelings of true compassion and humility? Being in tough situations changes you in ways you could not ever forsee. Why do you think Disney movies always kill off one or both of the main character's parents??? Awareness is a gift from grief, and I would never wish it didn't happen to me. What I wish is that everyone had to experience it, and that everyone was aware.

Who knows what's going to happen now. All I know is that we're trudging on. One way or another, we are determind to be parents. What lucky children they will be, too. They will always know how hard we worked to have them, and their little minds will be filled with awareness!

The End: IVF Result

Well, they finally called yesterday, approximately 24 hours ago now, with the results of my beta blood test.  "It's not positive, I'm sorry," the nurse said after confirming I was in fact Heather.  Obviously my heart sunk.  "Of course not," I told her in reply, sadly.  "Yeah, your progesterone level was great, so the environment was there, just no pregnancy.  I'm sorry," she explained before going on to tell me that I have 5 frozen embryos left and wondered if we would be interested in flying back to do another cycle.  The news had left me feeling completely deflated, like she had actually just slapped me back to Earth from cloud 9--which is why I said "of course".  Of course I'm not pregnant.  Of course, because this is me we're talking about.  I've been living a foreign life for the passed month, and stupidly allowed these people to convince me that this could actually work for me!  That I could actually become pregnant!  I told the nurse we would love to try again, but had no money left so we would have to wait.  Lastly, she scheduled a follow-up phone consultation with our doctor to discuss the failed cycle and talk about what we should do next.  It's not until next week. I want to talk to him now.  I want to know what happened, what went wrong, and why he was so overly optimistic about my success when I knew deep down that was a mistake.  He had to have overlooked something.  I have not been able to get pregnant since I began actively trying at the age of 22!  WHY NOT??? Meanwhile, I was told to stop all medications and don't worry about taking the 2nd blood test.  The first result was quite clear.  I'm not pregnant.

I don't understand how the world is so over-populated.  I really don't get it.  It is so foreign to me that people can accidentally get pregnant "washing their underwear together" as they say.  I hate those people.  I absolutely hate them.  We went through the most scientifically detailed procedure there is in the world in order to have children, and even it did not work for us.  I don't know what is wrong with my body.  Why is it that everything was going so clinically perfect with my cycle, but it failed anyway?  It doesn't make sense. 

 I love you flowers from Mike 

 

On his way home from work yesterday, Mike stopped to buy me flowers.  I had called him the second I heard news, as I promised, so he was already heartbroken and aware, and completely helpless, and wanted to give me something to remind me how much he loved me.  As he walked through the store with the flowers, he said it was our old irony back with avengence to haunt us.  Pregnant women and babies everywhere.  So, in order to save me from going to prison with assault and battery charges to pregnant women and women with babies, perhaps I should stay indoors for awhile.  I agreed.  Although attacking women with a herd of stair-step children behind her is my dream...

But honestly, I don't want to do anything.  I don't want to go anywhere.  I don't want to see anyone, and I don't want to talk to anyone.  My 31st birthday is in 5 days, and it's completely ruined.  I want nothing to do with a birthday party of any sort.  There isn't anything in the world worth celebrating right now, and I would just appreciate spending it alone and quietly with no one but my husband. 

Up until this point, we have been overly open and extremely public with our IVF cycle.  We did so not for ourselves, but for the benefit of other people so they could see what it's actually like to be unable to conceive.  We have always felt that the world has no blooming idea what it is to be infertile, and wanted people to know.  I guess we succeeded.  Now that it's over, we want to end the website blogs about our fertility journey.  Not that we are closing the book to try and become parents, but just so we can go back to our private lives again.  The sacrifice to be public for the sake of awareness was truly difficult because when you get to the sad end like this, everyone wants to know how it went and talk to you about it, and all you want to do is be left alone to grieve for your unborn children...again and again and again.

There are enough sad reminders in our life as it is.  We don't need people to verbally remind us about our failure, too.  All the syringes and vials of medication, and the sharps container sit on my dresser.  My bottles and bottles of oral drugs and vitamins took over the kitchen.  IVF papers from our clinic are scattered about everywhere in the house, and our folder with the first photos of our now deceased twin embryos sits untouched on our desk.  I feel almost foolish every time I look at my battered stomach from all the fertility drugs and Heparin shots, or feel my aching hips from the deep inter-muscular progesterone injections.  All these things remain as silent reminders of our IVF experience.  The last thing yet to come is the icing on my birthday cake, as usual; the period I am to expect within the next 5 days.  

 Heparin injections on my battered stomach

To think we went through all of those months of raising money and insane pre-ivf testing, financial applications and calculations and legal paperwork, house sitting arrangements and pet sitters and flights from hell, choking down a thousand drugs a day, all the painful injections, weeks with swollen ovaries, ultrasounds, going under anesthesia, recovery, IVs, bedrest, fluid restriction and more just to get home, wait painstakingly for a day and a half for a phone call from the nurse telling us it didn't work.

Ten Days Waiting, Waiting...

On bedrest at the hotel, day of the embryo transfer

It's been 11 days, exactly now to the minute from when my embryo transfer occurred, and I have been agonizingly awaiting the d-day ever since.  D-day was yesterday, by the way.  The first blood pregnancy test.  But, of course I am still waiting for the results.  

We're back home now, as of Saturday, and that meant I had to get my blood draw back at my local lab.  Unfortunately, my lab is as slow as they come, and told me Sunday morning when I went in for the draw that I would probably get the results by Wednesday!  WHAT?!  I know, really.  It's a pregnancy test.  Are you telling me that's really gonna take you 3 whole days to test my blood for that?!   Not cool.  So, later that day my fertility clinic called me to let me know they talked to my lab and I guess they talked some sense into them because now they say they should have the results by 5pm yesterday.  But, because of the fact that my fertility clinic closes at 5pm, I was told I probably wouldn't get the results until today!  Well, I'm still waiting for that call...  My cell phone and the home phone have been next to me where ever I went in the house this morning just so I don't miss it, but the suspense is literally driving me mad....

Sorry, the phone just rang and I think I lost my heart for a minute there... had to go find it.  It was just my insurance company.  Fools!  I'm not answering unless you are my doctor!

There is a lot of mystery about these 10 days waiting after transfer that really bothered me, and I tried to look up online what other people experienced during, but it seems to be a whole lot of unknown.  In my experience, I have felt fairly mild and random cramps, like menstral cramps, and only recently in the last couple days did I notice any spotting of any sort, but it is so almost non existent I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not been actually watching for it.  

What I read online is that it is quite common for women to experience cramps in the days after the IVF embryo transfer, but I found it strange that my clinic didn't warn me of this.  They've been so informative otherwise that I was a little concerned when I started feeling them and didn't realize it was normal.  Other than that, there is absolutely nothing else I can say I feel differently that could indicate one way or the other if I'm pregnant.  The progesterone shots and suppositories pretty much mask any "pregnancy" symptoms I might be having, since they cause you to become tired and moody and make your breasts hurt like mad!

As for the suppositories; wow.  It was funny how I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them since they came with no instruction except "insert vaginally at bedtime".  It looked like a white crayon and has the consistency of bar soap or a wax candle.  But once you put in in there, it melts in a matter of minutes.  I highly recommend using panty liners of some sort while using suppositories!  Enough said.

Well, it's 11:30... Mike is at work.  It's his first day back after 3 weeks, and he's bound to have one heck of an interesting day today!  I've been hoping my clinic will call during his lunch break when he will be home (noon to 1pm).  Otherwise, I will be alone and who knows what will happen... 

Whatever happens, though, I'll post soon...

 

Transfer Day!

The last 5 days of waiting between the retrieval and the transfer were difficult, but not as much as I'm anticipating the next 10 days will be...

I had to relax.  Not do anything strenuous or exerting after the egg retrieval until the day of the transfer.  I was sore, and my ovaries--especially that right side--were hurting.  In fact, they still do hurt somewhat!  My nurse assured me it's only natural they feel that way since after all, they did retrieve 21 eggs!  There were a lot of follicles to go through!

Transfer day was yesterday, 7-8-10.  Ironically two years ago was my laparoscopy at this same time.  Mike's mom drove out with us to the clinic yesterday morning and we were there in plenty of time.  I was of course nervous.  I didn't know what to expect during our consultation with the doctor, but it went rather straight forward ans smoothly.  He basically answered all our concerns before we had a chance to even voice them (you can tell he does this for a living!).  What's more, he actually informed us that we had 15 embryos instead of 13!  Apparently, 2 of them they thought hadn't fertilized actually had!  So, what he told us he would do is transfer the 2 best embryos.  No more because of my "youthful age"!  At 30, I am considered a baby in a fertility clinic, apparently!  That is okay with me!  HAHA!  Because of my age, the quality of my eggs were perfect, and the better the eggs the more likely they will implant.  So, the more likely they will implant, the less eggs you need to use for insurance policy in the IVF process.  My doctor thinks that my only problem conceiving naturally was simply that my hormones were off balance which in turn caused me not to ovulate.  Therefore, I have a very good chance that these 2 embryos he puts in me will implant.  Call me a skeptic or whatever, but even still, I have a hard time believing that.

After the consultation, we followed the doctor into the procedure room where the nurses prepared me and Mike for the transfer.  I had to have a full bladder for the procedure because they needed to use an ultrasound, so I was forced to drink a half liter of gross grape Propel (I've been drinking nothing but Propel for 8 straight days since the beginning of my fluid restriction, so that was hard since I am so sick of that stuff!)  They took my vitals and gave me a valium pill to calm me, then we changed into our procedure clothes (you know the ones--check out the pictures below).  The nurses chatted it up with us while we waited for the doctor to come in.

When he came in, he handed us a folder with an actual photograph of our two embryos and explained what we were seeing.  They were our two best about to be transferred.  We were in awe.  I mean they were two little circles with different shades and shapes of gray blobs inside them.  I don't know why I became so entranced, but to me it was so much more than blobs.  I was looking at mine and Michael's genetic children for the first time!

The actual transfer was really an awesome experience because unlike the retrieval, I was able to be awake and see what was going on and Mike was able to be with me.  There I was in the same frog-leg position on the table with the doctor between my legs.  There was an ultrasound and a tv screen in the room which they explained to us how they would be used.  First, the pathway to my uterus was sprayed out with a saline solution and then a second time with the same solution that my embryos were floating in for the last 5 days.  This is so they aren't shocked by the new environment.  After that, my stomach is prepared for ultrasound and we can see my thick and primed uterus, then the doctor called the lab and told them they were ready for the embryos.  He told us to look on the tv screen as a live video appeared.  We can see a petri dish with our name and special number written around it and inside are two incredibly small dots; our embryos.  They are so cute and I think I said that out loud!  We watch as the embryologist takes her tiny tube and gently sucks them both into it.  A moment later she enters the procedure room and exclaims "Heather Dellosa, I have 2 embryos for you!"  Their system is incredible.  They do this so they don't have any of those frightening mistakes you hear about that occur at fertility clinics.  You know the ones where they accidentally implant the wrong couples embryos into a patient.  Our clinic wants no chance of this happening.  They use your name constantly when they are talking to you and check your wrist band every time they come in the room. 

Once the embryologist entered with the catheter of our embryos, the doctor gets ready and tells her to transfer the embryos and as she does, we can see the catheter on the ultrasound enter my uterus, then we watch as a white streak slowly shoots out the end.  It's the embryos being injected there, and then the catheter is slowly pulled back out.  They take a still shot of the ultrasound and hand the picture to us.  A picture of our babies inside me.  You can't see much but a little white speck, but again it's my babies and to me it's an amazing white speck!  It is protocol for them to double check in the lab under microscope to make sure the catheter is clear and no embryos decided to hitch a ride back.  During this time, the doctor is quiet.  He sits almost frozen between my legs with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together in a meditative almost prayer state.  It's touching and when the embryologist comes back, she gives the all clear.  He removes his instruments from inside me and I'm finally free.  Mike is excited and grins.  "So does that mean she's officially pregnant?" he asks.  The doctor smiles and says "Yep, she is pregnant!" then pulls me back flat on the bed so my legs are no longer propped up froggy style, and then shakes our hands, as if all goes well, this is probably the last time we will meet.

When I'm rolled out, they tell me I can immediately empty my bladder.  I'm afraid because they just now injected my embryos into me from that very area.  I'm told not to worry.  My cervix is closed and they're not falling out!  I'm led to a recovery bed to rest for the next hour and Mike's mom came in to wait with us.  It's now just a waiting game.  I got my post-transfer discharge instructions from the nurses and they are strict.  I'm given a new medicine.  It's one no one mentioned before: progesterone suppositories to do up until the pregnancy tests for 12 days.  Of course I'm ordered on bedrest for 24 hours and nothing but laying around for 2 more days.  I cannot go shopping or walking in any fashion.  No heavy lifting, no baths, hot tubs or swimming until first OB ultrasound, no aerobics or over-exertion and no intercourse or orgasms either!  Mike's mom eyed him suspiciously as the nurse read these words aloud and teased him.  "You hear that Michael?"  We laughed.  Even if we wanted to, in the swollen, hormonal and uncomfortable state I've been in lately, there isn't a chance in the world I'd want or feel like doing anything under the sun intimately!  Ironically this is my best chance at becoming pregnant in this fashion: making certain that we do NOT have sex!  Doctor's orders!

I'm just beside myself now.  I can't believe this has just happened to me and I'm carrying 2 potential children inside my uterus at this very moment.  It's the closest I've ever been and ever felt to being pregnant and I can't believe it.  I keep thinking about everything the doctor and all the nurses told me about my chances.  My beautiful uterus, my plentiful and amazingly stimulated follicles, my gorgeous eggs and superb embryos.  I am youthful at the age of 30 in a fertility clinic, and everything is gagged by that simple fact.  It all seems too good to be true for me.  Everything was always so negative for me the last 8 years, and now suddenly it's all too perfect and all my instincts tell me that we're about to experience a huge blow.  But further orders upon leaving the fertility clinic yesterday were to think happy thoughts, talk to the babies, and just keep on remembering that until my official blood pregnancy test confirms that my embryos either survived or not, I am pregnant....

Egg Retrieval Day!

Ouch.  I hope I can get through this post okay, because this hurts.  I thought putting a pillow under my laptop would help, but the pressure isn't so comfortable...

It's the 4th of July today and yesterday was the egg retrieval!  I really have to say I can't believe that we're actually at this point in the middle of IVF.  I feel like I'm living a dream, literally!  The experiences I'm having are so completely foreign to me.  Being in a clinic filled with nothing but infertile patients like us is bizarre.  There are absolutely no parenting magazines or baby magazines in the waiting room, and no kid's play area either.  And no one dares bring children with them.  On top of that, having a fertility doctor tell me continuously that everything is going fantastically for me is another unbelievable occurrence.  Since when do things go "great" for me in the infertile world??  I'm absolutely beside myself.

I've been incredibly sore the last few days before the retrieval.  My abdomen has swollen with eggs making walking, bending and sitting up an absolute chore.  I can't seem to describe the feeling to people either when they see my struggle.  It's not like menstral cramps.  It's like two gigantic bruises on either side of my lower abdomen, right over my ovaries.  So, having the retrieval day finally arrive--and so soon, too--I was thrilled.  

Michael's mom drove us to the clinic yesterday morning since it was Saturday and conveniently fell on her day off.  Then his sister and her (15 year old) son met us there for moral support.  We were fairly early but they didn't mind.  Just checked me in and whisked me back to the patient waiting room to fill out some anesthesia paperwork with Mikey before I even had a chance to say goodbye to my moral supporters.  There was another husband waiting there alone for his wife who was currently getting her egg retrieval done.  Then they took me back to get prepped while Mike waited.  The nurse took my vitals, and discovered that my heart rate was a bit high (you think?).  I then had to get changed into the cool little paper gown and bungee hat and booty socks.  When I came back out, Mike was waiting for me beside my bed.  Here's a silly snapshot of me at that point in time... LOL

After I laid down a nurse came and plugged in a huge vacuum looking hose to a hole in my fancy paper gown and turned it on.  It blew warm air all over my body and warmed me up all cozy!  Then she started my IV.  I was prepped and ready before 10am when I was scheduled to arrive.  So then I just laid there and listened while several other patients were wheeled in and out of the operating room and got a clear preview of what was to come for me, as all the beds were in one single big room with only curtains dividing them.  You could hear everything, even the conversations with the doctor about how many eggs he'd retrieved, etc.  I was getting so nerve-wracked my monitor kept beeping because I was unstable. LOL.

But, soon enough it was my turn.  Several professionals came to talk to me before we went in, asking the same questions over and over.  "Are you allergic to anything?", etc.  My anesthesioligist asking me questions about any previous surgeries or complications, my doctor himself telling us what to expect, and then finally my surgery nurse who helped my prep nurse get me ready.  At that point, Mike was escorted away to give his fresh semen sample, before which they actually had to ask him if he wanted to kiss me goodbye first. HAHA!  He did, and I was wheeled into the operating room.  I got up and walked to the operating table when we got there, which was just like an ob/gyn exam table.  As I laid down, the anesthesiologist and the nurses all chatted with me about where I lived and my occupation, etc while we waited for the doctor.  I was given oxygen and some loopy medicine through my IV to make me relax.  I felt like I was sinking into the table and it felt so amazing like someone had just whisked every worry off my shoulders.  I was clearly drugged without my knowledge and I cut myself short mid-conversation to say, "Oh, she just gave me something, didn't she?"  Everyone laughed.  When the doctor arrived, he got into position, you know, between my legs where I always see him.  (See folks, when you go through fertility treatments, get used to seeing more than your husband between your legs--you're gonna get to know your doctors really, really intimately, fast!) He smiled and said "You ready to take a nice nap?"  Then I remember the anesthesiologist saying "take a couple deep breaths."  Everything went blurry and I have absolutely no memory of the exact moment when I passed out.  I'm guessing that was probably it...

When I woke up, I was completely disoriented for a moment.  Someone was saying my name, "Heather?" and I opened my heavy eyes.  I was super tired and didn't want to wake up yet.  But my nurse wanted to get things moving right along.  She instantly starting asking me questions about how I was feeling even before I even knew myself how I was feeling.  Then it hit me.  I was in incredible pain!  Now this was more like intense menstral cramps mixed with the already bruised ovary feeling I'd had prior to the retrieval.  My nurse instantly injected pain meds in my IV and in a moment I was relieved.  I don't know if I passed out again or what, but next thing I knew, Mike was there beside me kissing my forehead.  I was so happy to see his face.  The nurse continued to ask me if I needed things, and the one thing I couldn't seem to get enough of was WATER!  I was on fluid restriction since Thursday and couldn't have any food or drink after midnight the day before, so I was completely parched.  My throat hurt and my month was sticking together.  My nurse gave me a small amount of water and then a couple sips of apple juice and then would only let me have Gatoraide because I kept asking for water.  It was then that I learned I would be on another 10 days of fluid restriction.  !!!

When I had to go pee, Mike was asked to escort me there as I was not to be left alone for the rest of the day.  When I was in there, they gave me my clothes and he helped me get dressed into my 4th of July jammies I brought.  :)  Then it was back to bed to start my 2nd intralipid infusion (another $700 IV bag of soy milk).  I was dizzy now and nausea waved over me a few times before I decided to tell my nurse.  Immediately she put some anti-nausea drug in my IV.  It worked just in time for my doctor to come talk to us about the retrieval.  I could hear them talking about where my chart was outside the curtain when finally my nurse gave him a verbal update on me before he came to talk to us.  "How are you feeling?" he asked me first.  When I said I was still a little sore, he smiled and said "Well, I'll tell you the reason you're feeling so sore.  We originally thought you had 9 on one side and 8 on the other, right?  Well we actually retrieved 21 eggs!"  Mike and I looked at each other and our jaws dropped.  "Wow!" I think was all we could say while trying not to laugh.  "So that's really good," the doctor said.  "We have plenty of eggs, so we're going to go ahead and develop the embryos to blastocysts and do the transfer in 5-6 days.  That way we can be sure to pick the best ones, okay?" he smiled before shaking our hands as usual.  

We were shocked.  Twenty-one eggs?!?!  All this time we'd been worried about how many eggs I'd actually make.  People made me weary because of all my problems and lack of ability to ovulate on my own.  I'm a vegan, so how on earth was I ever going to produce the high protein eggs required for pregnancy?!  Everyone wondered.  So I am proud of my ability to produce 21 eggs.  Seventeen follicles was a shocking milestone for us on it's own.  We are once again beside ourselves. 

Mike's mom, sister and nephew came to see me during the couple hours I recovered.  I was given crackers to munch on andAfter the infusion, I was released and sent home with bedrest for the remainder of the day.  Resume all meds and Heparin injections, start antibiotics again and stay on fluid restriction.  Hot pack and Tylenol for discomfort.  It was a long drive home.  We hit traffic in San Francisco that slowed us down at least an hour.  All the meds the clinic gave me were wearing off and "discomfort" was settling in.  Mike's mom stopped by the drug store on the way home where she and Mike bought me some Tylenol and disposable hot packs.  At home, I ate part of the black bean burrito Mike's sister bought for us while I was in recovery and then slept the rest of the day.  

Today I am still sore, mostly on my right side, but I'm surviving.  It's better than yesterday, and thankfully my sore throat is gone.  A few minutes ago I got a call from my clinic with the "embryo report".  This is the phone call that informs us of how many embryos we have.  Out of the 21 eggs retrieved from yesterday's procedure, they injected each one with a single sperm and discovered that 18 of them fertilized.  Out of the 18 fertilized eggs, they told me that 13 of them have survived and have now developed into embryos.  So, in other words, we have 13 embryos (potential babies, complete with both our genetics)!  In 4 more days we will have the all important consultation with our doctor about the quality of the embryos and how many to transfer, and then we will transfer them and I will potentially be... pregnant! But as I always say, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  As much as I want it to be true, it's still impossible for me to imagine that right now.

HAPPY 4th of JULY EVERYONE!!!!!!!! 

Second Ultrasound: Timing is Everything!

There isn't much to say about our second visit to the clinic yesterday except that we learned a few important new details regarding the progress of my follicles the doctor examined.  It was a busy day at the clinic yesterday, compared to the previous day where there were no other patients in the waiting room.  This time there were hardly any seats, and our 10am appointment was pushed back until nearly an hour later.   I got yet another blood test, testing my Estradiol level again, and our doctor did another ultrasound.  Sure enough, my follicles have grown considerably in the 24 hours since last we met in this very same position!  This time Mikey & I remember to pay attention to the numbers.  He counts 9 on my left side, and 8 on the right.  Of the 9 on the left, he dubs one of them an "18", and of the 8 on the right, he calls 4 of them "18s".  That is their size, I presumed, as the others were "17s" and "16s", etc.  Then he looks at me and says they're ready.  He will see me in 2 days!  On Saturday, July 3rd at 10am we will be back for my egg retrieval!!!  

The next thing we do is sit down with a nurse to talk about the changes we will be undergoing in the next 3 days with us.   First, we are to stop all fertility medications (the Lupron/Bravelle/Menopur injections), as well as no more aspirin, but to continue Heparin shots AM & PM until Friday.  Friday is the day before the retrieval, and since it is a surgical procedure, I can't have any blood thinners beforehand, so I can't have my Friday night or Saturday morning Heparin shots (what a shame, right?).  I was also instructed to not have anything to eat or drink after midnight, as is usual for surgeries.  I was put on fluid restriction since Thursday night and am only allowed to drink 1 liter of fluid in the form of Gatorade or Propel.  No water.  I bought Propel because Gatorade is just gross.  Mike's only instruction was to refrain from ejaculation until Saturday when they will require a fresh sample--Wednesday's sample was just a backup one just in case.  ;)  

His experience was pretty amusing, actually.  I won't get into too much depth, I promise, but I had to laugh when he told me about it.  He said that a nurse led him to a very uninspiring room with a couple of chairs.  One of the chairs was covered in what we  had earlier joked from the ultrasound room was one gigantic paper towel.  He presumed that must be the "jack-off" chair.  The nurse handed him a sterile cup and a remote to a TV (which he later determined was clearly porn of two dudes and two chicks going at it,) then she left him there to do his thing....

The most important thing we were instructed to do was to give me the HCG shot Thursday night when we were called to do so.  As our doctor put it, it is the most important shot of this whole process.  It triggers the ovaries to ovulate.  A call from the clinic later that afternoon confirmed our 10am appointment on Saturday as well as the exact 11pm HCG injection time on Thursday night.  Timing is truly everything!  It has to go along with the egg retrieval time, so that's why they have a specific injection time.  I was exhausted, and both of us fell asleep, but woke up a few minutes after 11pm last night to do the shot.  We finally got it done by 11:20.  Hopefully that 20 minutes isn't too crucial, but I'm not too worried.  At least we didn't completely forget.  I think I would have killed myself.

The First Appointment: Ultrasound, Tests & Infusion

It's Wednesday, June 30th, and today was our first appointment at our fertility clinic since arriving here.  We were nervous, and the drive was long from Mike's parent's house all the way passed south SF where our clinic is.  

On Monday, we went with Mike's family on a day trip to San Francisco where we walked the California Academy of Sciences there for hours.  We had lunch, then walked some more.  Afterward, we drove to Barnes and Noble to walk around and read books while we waited for our nephew's basketball game.  It was getting late and I needed to take my injections, so Mike's mom drove us to his sister's house nearby so we could do them--we had brought them along knowingly.  I was exhausted and my ovaries hurt.  They had been hurting ever since a couple days before our flight, and have only been getting worse everyday.  Monday evening they were throbbing fiercely and I was ready to pass out, so Mike's sister and mom went on to the ball game without us so I could rest.  We later met them at a restaurant for dinner after the game and it wasn't until 12 hours after we'd left the house that morning did we get back.  Only later that night did I read online that when you are stimulating your follicles, you shouldn't do any strenuous activities, or you could cause them to burst!  Oops.  Won't be doing that again.

So, the first thing we did upon arrival at our clinic earlier today was fork over another $700 for my impending IV infusion.  Unexpected, but then I realized we were actually warned about that.  I just forgot.  Part of their policy is giving each female patient intralipid infusions dudring their IVF process to help boost the immune system and increase the chances of embryo implantation.  At our clinic, these infusions have taken the place of the previously used IVIGs which are blood products, take several hours and much costlier.  The Intralipids are much less expensive, take less time, and also have the advantage of not being a blood product.  They are made out of soy protein and egg!  I joked that it looked like an IV bag of soy milk going into my arm.  The nurse laughed.  Everyone at the clinic is extremely kind and welcoming, and I found that refreshing compared to my local doctor's office.  The nurses there actually knew how to draw blood!  What a change from my lab.  I think I had so many bruises on my inner elbows the last time I went to the lab, the girl didn't know which one was better to take from.

So, after filling out more paperwork and spending the unfortunate fortune, we were sent to wait in the waiting room where a nurse called us back for the ultrasound.  We met our doctor once again whom we hadn't seen in about 2 years!  The first time we went was when he diagnosed me with PCOS and I was 28 years old.  I'm now almost 31 and we're finally here.  After inserting the probe inside me, he quickly eased my fears by informing me that I had a great uterus!  It looked pristine: nice and ready for implantation, he said.  And then he looked at each of my ovaries, starting with the right.  Interestingly, my right ovary has been swollen up and hurting way more than my left.  It always seems to do this when stimulated, as I learned when I was on Clomid all those months we tried "naturally" and did our 3 failed IUIs.  This time was a lot more interesting for me because I got to see my follicles!  Before with our fertility treatments I never got any ultrasounds, which I've since learned was wrong of them.  It's really bad practice not to monitor your patients when they are on such intense fertility medication, and I obviously had some really unprofessional doctors back then.

My kind fertility doctor showed me each follicle I was growing, and I pressed on my ovaries as he took ultrasound pictures of them.  There were 8 on the right side and about the same on the left, but we can't exactly remember.  We were too enthralled in watching the ultrasound to look at the numbers he was typing and telling the nurse in the room.  But anyway, my point earlier was that as he looked at my right ovary (big black blobs in my own point of view), he seemed surprised and exclaimed "Whoa!  Mike, you've got a cheap date here!" then laughed before explaining that he meant it didn't take much to get me stimulated. HAHA!  I am ahead of schedule!  The follicles on my right side are plump and plentiful!  The ones on the left were slightly smaller, and seemed rightly so since I hadn't noticed much pain on that side until yesterday.  I just thought it was weird that he had confirmed what I had felt happening.  Shows you really do have more knowledge about yourself than you think!  

So the whole point of this story was the fact that as he looked at my left follicles, he said he'd like to see me again for another ultrasound in a couple more days to check their progress--until he looked at my right side again and compared their sizes.  Then he said "Second thought, I'd like to see you back tomorrow!"  It looks as though, if his predictions are right, we may be looking at an earlier egg retrieval than we thought, within the next couple days, putting it on or around the fourth of July! 

I'm of course relieved to have seen the doctor finally, and gotten confirmation and reassurance about all that we're going through for this.  It just made me relax better than a visit to the acupuncturist!  Especially after my amazing spa treatment infusion afterward!  I was completely pampered in a luxury chair, warm blankets and hot coffee.  They even offered to let me watch a movie on their portable DVD player, but I felt bad watching any without Mike, and he was---hehem!---busy in the other room giving HIS all important portion of this whole deal.  But, it didn't take long before he was back at my side relaxing with me.  My nurse was very nice.  She numbed my arm before starting my IV and was very professional about the whole infusion.  It lasted a good 2 hours, but I listened to my iPod and half slept through most of it.  It felt great.  Still not sure if my $700 IV bag of soy milk was worth that much, but that we will see in a few short weeks, I guess...  If ever luck needed wishing, it's now! 

To California! Five Airports Later...

I never want to fly again.

Of all the things to go wrong yesterday, wouldn't you know it, we missed our flight!  You know, the one that we bought a month ago to fly to California for our IVF procedure?  What was I saying about irony?  Yeah, I'm telling you fate does not want us to succeed!

Early yesterday morning we arrived at the airport at 6am, a whole hour before our departure.  It's a small airport with only 1 flight to Seattle per day on one of those little propeller planes.  Upon check-in, we were told that our luggage would cost us $70 since one of the bags was 8 lbs overweight.  Rather than sit down and unpack them to try and even out the weight, we opted to fork out the money and rolled our eyes.  We figured something would go wrong that day, but little did we know that would be the least of our worries!

We then went to stand in the long line at the security check point and watch as they checked people through and inspected everyone's stuff as they do, you know.  They were taking their own sweet time and there was this poor elderly gentleman who they sent in and out of the metal detector about 20 times because he kept setting off the alarm.  Finally, when he was nearly stripped of all clothing, they got him through.  I was getting rather irritated because I was carrying a bag of injectable medication.  Filled with needles and syringes and liquid vials--all the things that airports freak out about.  Of course I declared my bag of drugs and they had to take everything out and search it, then give ME a "random" search while they pulled out and inspected everything in my bag.  When they were done, they handed me back my bag in a bin with all the drugs they pulled out and told me to hurry up and pack it back up because they were going to close the gate.  I did so and met Mike at the gate with several other people who were just all standing there watching out the glass window at the plane.  

Five minutes later everyone was through the security checkpoint and there were about 20 of us standing there watching as they rolled the stairs away and shut the door, then pulled away.  "Are you serious?" people started asking each other, obviously shocked.  No one could believe they would actually just leave us all there!  It wasn't even 6:50 yet, and our plane loaded on our "overweight" luggage and took off without us and 20 other passengers!  Imagine how much weight 20+ people are compared to 8 lbs of an overweight bag.  Along with an angry mob of passengers, we went to the front desk in order to figure out what we were supposed to do then, and the woman there only yelled at us all and blamed US for being "late"!  That wasn't very well accepted by anyone because we were hardly late!  There was a lot of yelling going on between her and the other passengers, so by the time Mike got up there, we knew all we could do was transfer our tickets to another flight and I went to call back my brother who had dropped us off an hour ago by then.

$200. later, we got a flight to Seattle out of the next airport an hour away which left at 9:15am.  If we wanted to make that flight, we would have to hurry.  My brother came back and we were on our way by 7:30.  We made it in plenty of time, even though I was once again subjected to a "random" search and my bag of medication was clawed through and searched for a second time.  We got to Seattle at about 10am and finally relaxed and had breakfast so we could take our pills.  The next flight was a half hour flight to Portland at noon which we were separated halfway across the plane from each other during, and our final flight to Oakland, CA didn't leave until about 2:30, so we had plenty of time to wander around and find a horrible place to eat a spot of lunch before leaving.  This final flight was our original flight to Oakland, so we had caught up with our luggage finally and arrived at 4pm, as planned.  While waiting for Mike's parents (who were caught in traffic) to pick us up, we thought about how much money we had spent on this trip (over $1,000) and vowed that next time, we might as well DRIVE and save ourselves the insanity!!!!

IVF Injections & Travel Plans

It's Friday, June 25th, and I am exhausted.  I don't really have time to be writing this post, but I'm going to because I can't seem to do anything else until I stop panting and sweating.  I've been cleaning doing house and yard chores all day long in preparation for our early morning flight tomorrow.  We'll be gone to California for three weeks to undergo IVF.  The day has finally come, and of course I am naturally not ready.  HAH!  At the same time, I am thinking that FINALLY we are doing this!!!

I've been taking oral prescription drugs for months now in preparation for this procedure, but not until last week, June 13th, did I have to start actually injecting myself with more of them.  We have our own personalized IVF calendar that tells us when to start which drug and how much and when to decrease dosages, get blood draws, appointments, etc, and it stays stuck to our fridge at all times.  It's like our step-by-step IVF instruction manual.  We couldn't survive without it.  It all started out with Lupron injections in the stomach.  They aren't bad at all, because all you have to use is an insulin needle (they are puny) and if you do it right (in a quick darting motion) you won't feel a thing.  Poor Mike was really nervous about learning how to do my injections right.  He does them for me most days because no matter how much I tell myself it's not going to hurt, I can't seem to stab myself with a needle!  I guess I am a little unstable upstairs or something (my mom won't let me say I'm retarded).  Okay, I did it once, but I took 10 minutes trying to trick myself into doing it.  SO, I apparently have a thing for needles.  Thankfully, my dad (who is an RN) was kind enough to teach Mike how to do the injections and has even done a few himself for me when Mike wasn't there.  He's amazing at giving shots, I should add!  I never feel a thing.  Mikey is getting much better too, and I can tell his confidence is rising.  

Just this week we had to add a new shot to the mix; the FSH/hSG injection.  This one is slightly bigger and more complex because you have to mix it before injecting, but still a sub-q injection (small needle) into the abdomen as well.  And it stings!  Along with the new shot, we were instructed to begin even more oral meds!  I had to add a pill to help with embryo implantation, and Mike & I both have to take an antibiotic to clear us of any possible infections before the IVF.  So, I am getting pretty confused with my pill situation, and have had to seriously organize my ever-increasing pill bottle collection, but so far I'm handling it.  Just for kicks, here's my current med list (just keep in mind it is only going to increase the closer we get to the IVF date as there are several more injections I will need to take starting next week!):

ORAL:

Cipro: AM & PM (with plenty of water and NO calcium within 1 hr of taking)

Dexamethasone: AM (with meal)

Metformin: AM & PM (with meal)

Baby Aspirin: AM (with meal)

Prenatal Vitamin: AM (with meal)

Calcium Supplement: 2 in AM & 2 in PM (with meal)

Folgard: PM (with meal)

Tylenol (in case the injections get painful--but I refuse.  Enough drugs already!)

INJECTIONS:

Lupron: PM injection daily

Bravelle/Menopur (FSH/hSG): PM injection daily

As for Mikey, he is only taking a multivitamin and Cipro, and that poor boy has a tough time remembering about those. LOL!  But I shouldn't be mean, he's doing great now that we're so deep in this process.  We only forgot to do my Lupron injection once, and we were only 1 hour late.  Can't be as bad as all that since I know first hand how long it takes nurses to pass noon meds at work!  (News flash: not everyone gets their noon meds at noon! There has to be a flexible time for them).

Well, that's the update for now!  I need to go take a shower.  Mike will be home in a few minutes and before I know it, it will be time for my injections!  Then we are going over to my parent's house for dinner and to drop off our dog for them to take care of for the next 3 weeks!  (Sniff... I'll miss my Roo-Roo dog!) Then my brother is coming to my house to stay while we are away and take care of the cats, fish and yard.  It is summer, and that means everything is growing and needing water and care!  IF we ever do this again, I must remind myself to do it in the Fall or something.  Summer bad.  Signing off everyone!  Until we meet again in California!!!