VIVF--Living and IVFing

In the meantime...

Although this last negative was physically and emotionally hard, I didn't spend too much time suffering from the disappointment. At times, I do feel like it would be easy to succumb to the dark side--depression and despair--, but what would be the point? I mean, I have a great husband, a nice home, rewarding work, wonderful family and friends, so what can I do but live? Sure, another Spring un-pregnant hurts. Had our pregnancy succeeded, we would have a one-year old baby now. Instead, we have a miscarriage and a string of failed IUI's and IVF's. Still, the tulips I planted in memorium are blooming and inspiring us to go on. I've been visiting donor egg pregnancy sites on the internets and simply skipping the fertiles' sites. Literally all my cycle buddies are pregnant.
So what is the plan? We have a donor who can cycle in September which isn't ideal because I've decided to go back to work full-time in the fall. Our nurse put us back in match meetings to try to connect us with a donor a little earlier. Basically, we are not going to be picky about our donor. We want someone who is comfortable donating and who already has her own children. In the meantime, I'd like to lose some weight, read some books, prepare for teaching school in the fall, finish my current work on the University grant, and complete some home projects.
Also, I have some fun things coming up: In May, a girls' weekend in Chicago, finishing my classes, starting a Spanish class; in June, a visit from my sister and travel to Hong Kong and Greece; in July, time in Chicago; and in August, I start my new job. Hopefully, the time will go by quickly and we'll do the donor cycle before you know it!

Negative

We'll start donor cycle #1 in July.

FET Postponed

The doctor wants this to work. My lining is only 7.2, so they've decided to postpone my transfer until Wednesday. So...I had to eat my airplane tickets, cancel the car and hotel, and rebook for a cheaper car and hotel. Although the airplane tickets are sunken costs, we did down-grade enough to stay out of too deep of a hole from hotel and car costs. When Mr. Viv and I were doing the cost-benefit analysis, he said aloud "6 days alone with the Lo Po ("wife" in Chinese) in a Colorado hotel." I said, "Is that a cost or a benefit?" We both paused and laughed.

You see, I've been a Lupron and estrogen induced lunatic. Two days ago my nurse from Colorado called to talk about the postponement. My poor husband was trying to eat his dinner and his nam nam nam chewing noises were so ANNOYING. I asked him to eat more quietly. Well, actually I said "Can you pleeeeeease not eat so loud?" I said this with a tone of annoyance that I can't capture in text. (As an aside, why can't men eat more daintily? Do you know any man who doesn't chew, slurp, and scrape his plate like a caveman?) Well, even this aside illustrates the point. I've been a beeeyotch. I feel sostressedthensoguiltythenso stressedthensoguilty. I'm just going to go to Colorado alone for the first few days then Mr. Viv will join me for the transfer and bedrest. Have I mentioned that this man has been steadfast?

Now that I know I will have a few days to cope just with myself, I am going to try to be very zen. I am too much of a scarred veteran to be all optimistic about this working. However, would it kill me to muster some cautious optimism? It COULD work. My embryo is genetically healthy, my doctor is being very careful about my lining thickness, and the lab where my embryo was created is the best. I must remind myself: ALL WILL BE WELL

We fly on Wednesday...

I've never done an FET before. To tell you the truth, I am tired of being on meds. Specifically, I cannot wait to get off the Lupron (tomorrow is my last shot--hooray!) However, I'll be on the estrogen and progesterone all through the two-week wait, and hopefully beyond. So, if I have to stay on the meds because I have a BFP, so be it. Still, should I feel this nauseous, and is it from the estrogen or lupron? Or something totally unrelated?

This cycle COULD work. Still, I MUST. NOT. GOOGLE. "pregnant with only two follicles." Too many of the stories are grim. But there was one out there that read: "I went to retrieval with only two follicles and now I have a beautiful baby boy." I felt like copying and pasting it to my desktop.

At any rate, we fly on Wednesday and the transfer is on Friday. Tomorrow, I have to go for my estrodial/lining check. I hope all is well.

A Day to Remember

While you’re pregnant, you’re not supposed to garden for the same reason you’re not supposed to change the kitty litter: toxoplasmosis. During the early autumn of the year I was pregnant for a while, the word “toxoplasmosis” just sounded scary enough to keep me away from my garden and away from kitty latrine duty to boot.
So, the Fall after my miscarriage, I took to digging in the dirt. After the d&c, I ordered some beautiful tulip bulbs off of the net and planted hundreds of them: on the box they were rose and cream, deep purple, light lavender, and bright mauve. Beautiful. Perfect. And they were supposed to bloom close to my due date.

Shortly after I planted my tulip memorial, I started to fear for the worst. Perhaps I was being naïve. I just THOUGHT they would bloom that Spring. Why didn’t I test the soil where I planted them, measure the depth and width more precisely, or buy some magic tulip food to increase their chance of blooming? Was my timing off? And then there was the horrible winter. More snow than we’ve had in years, ice storms, and insanely hungry-looking chipmunks scavenging around the garden. I feared my memorial was doomed, and, along with the Pampers and Similac sent to me in the two weeks around my due date by cruel, cruel marketers, would just serve to mock me and remind me: I should be having a baby soon.

It couldn’t be so easy to just stick the bulbs in the ground and wait.

But guess what? I had more tulip buds poking up through the ground than an over-stimulated ovary has follicles. My memorial grew and grew (I counted over forty buds in one day), and it was just that easy.

I’m doing a FET on March 14th. The last one. After three IUI’s and three IVF’s we’re at the end of the road with my eggs. About the time I know the results of this transfer the tulips should be budding again hopefully both to celebrate what is, but also to remind us of what was almost.

Good news and bad news on the TTC front. Even though we only had two embryos to test, my dh and I found out through CGH testing that one embryo is normal. So, we will be going to Denver for a FET on March 14th. I seem to have more physical energy from wearing the estrogen patches, but my mind is mush from the Lupron. Not good because I really have to think, read, write, and talk a lot for my job. I wish I had the mental energy to focus. Oh, well. It won't be long now. In my opinion the BCP, lupron, estrogen, progesterone cycle isn't any better than the stim protocol. After three IVF's and three IUI's I really hope this is it. Our chances are quite small, we know this. However, our plan Z is a donor cycle.

And this is the bad news. We had been matched with a donor, but she can't wait until July to do the cycle. We can't do the cycle any earlier because we have to switch our insurance in May so we can get coverage. This whole situation blows. I've moved on in some ways. In other ways I am as invested and nervous as I was during other cycles.

Husband and I are starting a bookclub

with just the two of us as members. Our first book is The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Llama. Our plan is to cover a chapter every Sunday night. I'll lead the discussion tonight and he'll lead the discussion next week. This is just one way that I'm trying to focus on the living aspect of enduring our infertility. We are on hold with TTC as we are waiting for CGH results at CCRM. Also, though we've been matched with a donor, we are holding off until we get the CGH results. My doctor called last week, apologized profusely, and told me that we wouldn't know until the end of February. If our embryos are ok, we'll do a transfer this Spring. If the transfer doesn't work, we'll do a donor cycle. I hope we can do the donor cycle in July since we'll be able to change our insurance to CIGNA in May, which will cover some of our cycle costs. Otherwise, we are paying completely out of pocket.

So will The Art of Happiness help my dh and me with our communication and ensure the health of our relationship? I don't know. I DO know that IF can either tear a couple apart or bring them closer together. For us, I think we've been fortunate enough to come together. For that I am eternally grateful.

Not great at updating...

But I really like writing when I get the chance. No one knows about this blog, except for my friend M, so it really doesn't function like a blog. It does, however, serve a purpose. Although I don't update daily, I do find that writing here helps me when I need it. So what's going on...I had been waiting for my period. It finally came on CD 40. My home nurse did my baseline and there is a tiny "something," maybe a cyst, measuring 16 mm. Also, I still have only five antral follicles. I am waiting to hear from CCRM to see if I can do my Clomid Challenge Test with the tiny"something." If not, I am surely waiting another month to do the CCT.

Meanwhile, I am doing acupuncture, DHEA, vitamins, and now awful tasting Chinese herbs. Today it occurred to me that I am really paying quite a bit of money to feel in control. It's just that with my poor antral counts and abysmal success rate when doing IVF and IUI, I want to optimize my chances. I just don't know if any of this is actually helping me, or if I am just so vulnerable I will seek out help wherever it is available. You know, I could see how someone truly in trouble medically or psychologically could be vulnerable to exploitation. Literally snake-oil or at least something snake-like, based on the looks of my Chinese herbs, starts to seem awfully tempting when you are desperate.

I was really feeling down these last few days. Every time I go to the office for a baseline I just feel sick to my stomach. Time to pick myself off the ground and get myself moving again.

City to Country

All summer we lived in an apartment in Chicago. Our views from our panoramic windows captured the lake from the north and the Sears tower from the south. At night, I could barely close the shades for grief over closing out the beautiful, blinking cityscape. On Mondays and Wednesdays I spent my time attending Spanish class at the Instituto Cervantes on south Dearborn. On Tuesdays I took the L , or a cab if I was running late, to a creative writing class in Ravenswood. The creative writing class was held in a beautiful loft space with wood floors and soft lighting. The teacher presented mini-lessons and provided prompts and many of us read aloud in order to receive feedback. The teacher kept an enormous container of candy on the table, which was a huge challenge to my self control. On Tuesday afternoons I volunteered at the Children's Hospital, primarily as a helper during their weekly Bingo games in the Child Life Center.

Beyond these scheduled items, I tried to exercise daily (swim, do yoga, walk, do the elliptical, weights), shop for food and cook healthful meals, go to counseling and acupuncture, and meet with friends. Every Friday I met with my friend M who also had a miscarriage last year. Neither of us were doing very well at the beginning of the summer, yet our Friday meetings gave us a chance to obsess about medical procedures, analyze the effects on our respective marriages, and plot our next move in our fertility "journey," or as I like to call it, The Myth of Sysyphus: The Fertility Edition.

In the evenings, my husband and I would read after dinner. Or go for a walk. Or both. Many nights we went out for dinner just ourselves or we met with friends.

Now, I am back in middle America Universitytownland. Suffice it to say you cannot find organic arugula in any grocery store. Not that I NEED arugula. (By the way who do you gotta blow to get a Whole Foods around here?) Still, there is a sort of beauty to the simplicity. Today, I had to work on campus grading placement compositions. I walked all the way there even though it took me 1 1/2 hours. I just miss walking everywhere like I did in the city. You know, it was kinda nice. Not as nice as our neighborhood near The Newberry Library, but pretty darn nice. Few cars mucking up my breathing. A gentle wind and rain. I will get accustomed to our school year life again.

And the good news is we are keeping an apartment in the city. Not the same apartment, but a smaller and cheaper one on the 24th floor. Cripes we are lucky. Lucky we can travel. Lucky we can afford CCRM. I need to express a huge lake of gratitude for how fortunate I am. If I ever forget, I need a good kick in the arse.

Colorado

But first a Clomid Challenge Test

So we had a great time in Colorado. At CCRM on Friday, we met with our new doctor ( a doll), our new nurse (type A and detail oriented to the max--hooray), the donor egg nurse (just in case), and the financial advisor. Husband did SA--said the room had a chair with plastic (ewww) and some porn. He also said it was really cold. I had to have an ultrasound (five follicles--crap as usual). Interestingly, the sonographer recommended that I do a specific accupuncture protocol using electricity on my back to improve blood flow. I also had to have a hysteroscopy (cooter cam) which hurt more than I anticipated but not as bad as the hysteosalpinogram. My uterus looks good. I nearly passed out from the pain and high altitude, but the doctor was so nice and knew how to help me slow my breathing. The lab is doing the sperm antibody test and SCSA. Also, I have to do the Clomid Challenge Test and a mammogram at my home clinic. It will be pretty tough coordinating the two clinics--especially since our insurance only covers my former doctor, but I vow not to get too worked up over it. Once we get the original tests completed we will know whether or not to do one more cycle with my eggs or move onto donor eggs. If we proceed with my eggs, we will do a November cycle. If we proceed to donor eggs, we'll be on hold for a little while, like six months or more.

While in Colorado we also visited Rocky Mountain National Park. We went on a one mile and four mile hike. The four mile hike wound up being a little more rugged than we anticipated. The mountain lakes and vistas were like pieces of heaven. Luckily, we had plenty of water and raingear since the altitude required constant hydration and we found ourselves in the midst of a rainstorm. I'll include some pictures here once I figure out how to add them.

So, while preparing for the CCT, I am going to continue doing the yoga video, now that the great class I was taking is over; continue taking DHEA and vitamins; continue eating organically and trying to keep up the warming diet. I am also going to add Chinese herbs and meditation. I just called an acupuncturist in my hometown about the CCRM protocol. The lady on the phone said the doctor was not accustomed to being told what to do for her clients. Ahhh. Organizing the "help" is going to be a challenge.