Out, damned egg! Out I say!

Calling Dr Bombay. Calling Dr. Bombay

So I didn't get to see Dr Bombay today but he sure could have helped. I did she Dr Endo. She had some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that my tsh is up from near negative levels.

The bad news is that it's up to a whopping 0.05.

She's recommending another huge decrease (first was by 33%, this one is by 50%) and retest in 3-6 weeks. I said 3, she said 6.

So if you guessed our transfer will probably be put on a hold a bit, you're a winner! She strongly recommend waiting until I'm in that perfect range of 1 to 2.

Oh and I tried to schedule our appointments for our home study physicals. The first available appointments were in June. I'm less than thrilled. They do get a lot of cancellations but don't have a cancellation list. I can just call once a week or so. How helpful, right?

Then I got home from all that to find some mean girls on the internet. Can you believe that? Didn't they see the movie? There were actually two separate sets of folks bashing on two completely different friends of mine. One thread was locked before I could get my two cents in. The other forced me to do a long ranting post on a certain yellow board. Feel free to chime in there if you're a regular, or used to be.

soooooo not happy today

Remember how I was going to take this time before January to line up ducks in pretty little rows? I've tried and now my ducks are running all over the place.

I finally heard back from my primary care doc regarding my TSH levels that were checked, oh back in SEPTEMBER. I've called a couple of times but finally talked to her today. Yah, I try to give her the benefit of the doubt because she was on maternity. Her second since I first went in for my infectious disease bloodwork nearly FOUR years ago. Not that I'm bitter.

Anyway, my tsh has hovered between 2.8 and 3.12 if I wasn't under treatment. Not too bad but definitely not the magic 1-2 that everybody who loves Dr Google as much as I do knows you should be at when ttc.

So today's level? 5.5. FIVE point fucking FIVE. Give me a fucking break.

She said "this lab's normal range is from .5 to 5.5 but I think I want you to talk to our endocrinologist. Who can't see you until January."* I told her my tsh needed to be at 1-2 by January and that I was starting to freak out. 

What the fuck? So I have an emergency call in to Dr Local to get me some freakin' synthroid. She couldn't have called a half hour earlier when someone from his office said he wanted to talk to me at 8:30 am Monday morning. I could have just pled my case then.

There are a lot of drug dealers that 'work' near me. Think any one of them can get me what I'm jonesin' for?

This is not how I wanted this to go. Not at all.

*Deadbugs, guess who I'm seeing? Yup, your doc.Does it really take that long to get in? Do you know if she buys the whole 1-2 range for ttc?

And the inbetweens I've never understood

Here we go with what I like to call the broken record post. Guess that's life here in limbo land.

Millie is spending her days sitting on her ass, watching the grass grow in between taped tv shows. See, I never, ever watch live tv. I can't stand the commercials. Thank goodness for the invention of the pvr.

The mister is working incredibly long hours and super stressed.

No other news. Just waiting. Waiting for bloodwork. Waiting for the ectopic to either go away or force a showdown in the operating room. The second dose of the evil neon yellow drug caused many bad side effects yesterday. There was some pain (not enough to get me to the er, just enough to keep me crabby and worried), a really bad headache, and nausea. Lots of nausea.

Getting the second dose of drugs was a bit tough. It's harder and harder to hold it together in the clinic. I really don't want to cry there. Dr Local stopped by to answer my questions. He claims there's around a 50% chance that the second dose will do the trick. Do we believe him? Let's revisit some fun stats.

• Donor cycle #1: 70% chance of success. Actual Result: BFN.
• Donor FET # Only: 30% chance of success. Actual Result: ectopic.
• Chance of first ectopic (only risk factor back then was age > 35): 1%. Actual Result: Oh yeah.
• Chance of second ectopic: 2-10%  (risk factors: age > 35, previous ectopic, IVF)
• Meth dose #1: 70% chance of successful resolution. Actual Result: No such luck.
• Meth dose #2: 50% chance of successful resolution. Actual Result: TBD.

So it seems like when the stats should be on my side, it never works out. When something is more likely NOT to happen, that's when I seem to have the luck. So if I were a betting woman, I'd be betting on surgery next week.

The other thing I've been doing to pass the time is try to come up with a plan for the future. I'd really like for my future not to include another ectopic pregnancy. If I were a sane person I'd be moving heaven and earth to get this other tube removed.

I think it's fairly clear that I'm not a sane person. I know I should have the other tube removed. I know what my chance for a third ectopic is if I don't (50% folks, 50%). I really, really, really don't want another ectopic. If you remember correctly, I didn't want THIS ectopic. I was scared of it from the beginning even though it was unlikely.

But having the surgery means giving up the dream, the fantasy of becoming an urban legend. You know the one. The woman who had two ectopics, high fsh, only one tube and then somehow accidentally got pregnant naturally in her mid 40s (after successfully have a donor egg or donor embryo baby). I know rationally it's not going to go that way for me. For my friends, sure. I know all kinds of urban legends. That's not my fate, though.

So why is it so very hard to let it go?

I can't get this song out of my head today. Pretty obvious why, once you see the rest of it. Here's today's title quote in context (a quote out of context would be a completely different song):

Go ahead you can
Laugh all you want
I got my philosophy
Keeps my feet on the ground
And I trust it like the ground
And that’s why my philosophy
It keeps me walking when I’m falling down
I see that there is evil
And I know that there is good
And the inbetweens
I never understood
Won’t you look at me
I’m crazy
But I get the job done
Yeah I’m crazy
But I get the job done

when good numbers go bad

What a long weekend!

I woke up around 4 am Friday with a fair amount of pain. All the feelings and pains of the last ectopic came rushing back. It was really weird and strangely familiar, kind of like, "oh yeah, THAT'S what it feels like and man does that ever suck." Not fun at all.

I went in for my bloodwork that morning like the good little trooper that I am. I was quite late thanks to the bridge traffic. I was so late in fact I got a call from my nurse as I was walking up to the building. She was worried that I'd forgotten. I glanced around at all the other women and couples. Most of them looked fairly happy, a few a little scared. I just wanted to get called back because I had nothing in common with anyone there. Good things still don't happen to me in that office.

One vial of blood drawn and I was back on my way home.

The weekend passed. I got to see lots of the lovely Liana and it was so good for me (and I hope for her as well). We had a fab girls' dinner out Friday night. We also had dinner with the mister last night. He was also so very glad to see her. It had been such a long time.

I was able to take pain medicine (I didn't earlier because I was concerned about the whole liver functioning thing) and my outlook certainly improved when I added prescription motrin and a little vicodin to the mix.

The mister had to work all weekend. Many many long hours. I made cupcakes for his team yesterday (vanilla with vanilla frosting and vanilla with lemon frosting...there were also chocolate ones that are best forgotten). They were very appreciated and I even got high praise from a couple of total food snobs. The best part was it brought a smile to many tired and stressed out faces. You just can't eat a cupcake and be stressed at the same time.

I also talked to my folks. My mom had been quietly freaking out but very respectful of the email the mister sent. She was super relieved to hear I was actually ok. Her heart is breaking along with ours and that's as hard for me to bear as the ectopic.

Another beautiful morning in the bay area today meant another drive to the city. I thought I'd be smart and do casual carpool* to save time. Turns out it didn't save any time but at least I feel environmentally friendly today (and I saved the $3 bridge toll so that's a bonus).

More time in a waiting room with nervous and excited folks. To my credit, I didn't tell them all to just flee while they can. I just sat and waited for my turn.

Today was three vials of blood. Gotta make sure those kidneys and liver are still working. Several nurses stopped by to ask how I was while I was waiting. I think that started to freak out some of the other folks waiting. Dr Local even stopped by and was quite concerned.

Just a quick aside: I'm so very touched by and impressed with the medical care I'm getting. I don't think there's any way it could be any better. My nurse updated the weekend nurses about my situation. I got a call each day asking how I was and checking in with me. Everyone has been just so great. The nurses I see most often start to tear up when they see me.

Ok, now for today's results: turns out I still can't trust what I'm feeling. I thought the pain on Friday was just 'separation pain.' The nurse said it might happen and would probably last 24-36 hours. It did last about that long. Now I'm having cramps. And still have bleeding.

My beta was supposed to be 15% lower today than it'd been on Friday. It only dropped 3%. This means that the drug isn't working and earns me another dose. I postponed it until tomorrow due to all the protests today that are snarling traffic but I had to promise to call if things get worse. I even have a couple of super special numbers.

The wait continues.

*Casual carpool works incredibly well. I'm not sure it'd work anywhere else. There are designated spots where if you need a ride you go stand in line and if you've got a car you pick people up. There's even a website devoted to the etiquette and rules. Things like what can be on the radio (NPR or classical music only) and when you can talk. I LOVE casual carpool and was a driver back in the high flying tech boom, and a rider after the bust and I lost my job and free parking. The benefit (besides meeting interesting people and trying out lots of backseats) is that you get to skip the toll and the metering lights. You can save a ton of time that way.

keep on keeping on

I don't really have much to say but did want to tell you all how much your comments, thoughts, support and love mean to both the mister and I right now. I feel like a broken record because I've said it so many times before but it is truly so incredible to us.

I'm in a kind of daze these days. I'm still watching too much bad tv, spending much of my time on the couch. I should be honest and tell y'all how often I just hit 'refresh' or 'check messages' just to see the comments and emails. Each one means an incredible amount. I'm so very touched by all the lovely people in the computer who take the time to write and offer up kind words and support.

I would love to have the energy to write you all back and tell each one of you how much it means. You'd think with all the time I spend on the laptop that would be easy but I just don't seem to have it in me. Maybe I will in the coming weeks. Hell, I'm still hoping to send out holiday cards for last year. Who am I kidding?

The mister wrote a nice email to our families explaining the situation. I think it was the right way for us to handle things for now and am glad some of you agreed. I'm just worried that my folks are terribly worried about me. I'm not quite ready to tackle the phone yet, though.

I think the methotrexate is starting to do it's thing. I'm feeling a lot of cramping (but no pain) and just generally icky. I think with the big progesterone crash that I might start bleeding soon. I'm so grateful that everything seems to be so stable this time around.

I'm also feeling a bit detached from the whole thing. There have been tears but not as many as you might expect, though today seems to be full of tears fo far. I'm just kind of numb, going through the motions I guess. Maybe once the bleeding starts it will feel more real? Maybe I'm just so glad that we finally know for sure what's going on? Truth be told, the failed cycle in January was a much bigger blow. We weren't expecting that kind of pain and sorrow. So far we're just so glad to have such close monitoring and not be in the emergency room that the rest seems kind of easy.

I'm slowly trying to think of things/do things that will be soothing to me. The dogs are loving the longish yet incredibly slow walks they're getting every day. I'm going to another restorative yoga class at my fave studio today if I'm not feeling too emotional. I'm going to get an expensive mani/pedi soon if I get around to scheduling it. I have a friend who's offered me access to teensy puppies and there's nothing that soothes my soul like puppy or kitten time. I have a girls night out planned this weekend with the two of the strongest, smartest, funniest women I'm lucky enough to call friend, Liana and Francine.

And I will keep hitting refresh and finding a great deal of comfort from my friends in the computer. The mister and I thank each one of you.

i've got this pain in my heart, that's all

Might as well get straight to the point.

It was an ectopic pregnancy.

The radiologic ultrasound was still a good call. The tech was amazing: efficient, competent, caring and most of all compassionate. She talked us through the whole thing, even though she wasn't supposed to tell us anything. There was a large mural painted on the ceiling: one huge sunflower surrounded by lots of smaller ones. It was so nice to have something to look at.

After much poking and prodding she found something outside the uterus. On the left side. Definitely not where it should be. It was strangely reassuring as there was most definitely nothing in the uterus.

Then more waiting. We wanted to talk to Dr Local before proceeding with the methotrexate. Just to know what would happen later. One of my biggest priorities is now preventing ectopic #3. He has some ideas about that. There will be another hsg in a month or two (assuming all goes well). There's some snazzy doc who does a very cool procedure to cap off tubes. That might be an option. This ectopic pregnancy might do the trick. We'll see but we'll be sure that this can never happen again.

It also gave us the chance to pin him down on the donor embryo program. I even offered my consulting/project management/process engineering experience to help create the structure they desperately need. I think they might be taking me up on it. I asked him to do his best to get his shit together so that in the 3 months or so that we're forced to sit the bench there is some real progress.

He also offered to send us up to his step-daughter in the Emerald City.  Turns out she runs a big donor egg program up there with very reasonable costs. We're not sure we want to do another donor egg cycle. In fact, unless we can get some reassurances that this will never happen again we're not sure how we want to proceed at all.

Then the very kind nurse took me back for the shots. The drug itself is a strangely glowing yellow color. She assured me that I wouldn't glow in the dark but I'm unconvinced. Two shots in the hip and that's that.

I go back in for repeat bloodwork on Friday (for a 'baseline' hcg level) and lots more bloodwork on Monday (to check hcg, liver functioning, white blood cells, etc). I may feel some pain on Friday or Saturday. I might not feel anything. If I feel a lot of pain or get very dizzy then I don't pass go and go straight to the emergency room.

When we were waiting on Friday, I saw two women leave who were crying. Yesterday,  I counted three. I was fairly sure that I'd be one of those today but so far there haven't been any tears. I'm just drained and completely spent. In a way I'm very grateful to have resolution. This isn't how I wanted this story to end but at least I can be certain in the course that we took. Now we can finally begin to truly move forward and we're not in limbo any more. I'm also getting great care and being watched very carefully so I feel good about that.

I'm trying to decide how and what to tell our families. We've been cycling on the down-low for quite some time now. It was easy enough not to tell them about failed cycles but this is different. It's so much  bigger. And I think they'd want to know. We're both going to be grieving for quite some time. We're not likely to want to talk to anyone much and I don't want there to be hurt feelings. I'm considering sending an email to everyone but not sure I'm up to that. I'm definitely not up to any phone calls.

For now I think I'm going to take my sore hips and my broken heart and just plant them in front of the tv. I've got a couple of bad movies left to watch. If all goes well I can have a drink or two on Monday.It's kind of rubbing salt in the wound that I have to abstain until then but I've got a few tisers left and some coffee ice cream and chocolate to tide me over.

Make you banana pancakes, pretend that it's the weekend

We woke up fairly early again this morning. I'm sooooo not a morning person but lately have been waking up around 6 or so. The nice thing is I usually get a nap in before 9.

The mister thought we should follow the advice of the wise surfer sage and make banana pancakes and pretend like it's the weekend. We are pretending all the time, anyway, so it seemed apropos. They were yummy.

We, like thousands of others today it seemed, headed into the city to start our day. We got some great news at the clinic when we convinced them to try our most recent diagnosis code with our insurance company (the ever popular PREGANCY_UNCONFIRMED) and much to the surprise of the receptionist and the billing folks, we were only on the hook for a $15 copay. That was the first good news we've EVER gotten at the clinic. We figured we were on a roll.

It took a while but finally we saw Dr Italian. He of the soft, dreamy kind eyes and very sexy accent. I hoped he was a better wander than Dr Local but apparently they all suck.

Nothing on the ultrasound. Niente. Nada. Rien. You get the idea.

He's very concerned. Now we have two concerned docs. Great. It was so much easier to dismiss one but they are definitely on the same page.

They drew many more vials of blood today. One for hcg, one for my blood type, a couple for liver and kidney functions. In preparation for the possible methotrexate. The nice nurse who drew my blood asked if I could just stay in the city all day today. She didn't feel comfortable with me crossing the bay bridge.

So here's the fun part: the mister and I are still in complete denial. We're holding out for today's beta. We're not inclined to pursue methotrexate at this point, unless the beta CLEARLY indicates we should. We're hoping against hope that there's a tiny tiny chance that we have some kind of viable pregnancy.

I know we must both be completely crazy. We're normally fairly sane people, even rational. Other people have found us to be intelligent (especially him---he's very smart). But for now we think we know better than the docs and even if there's only a 1% chance this might work out, we're willing to risk a bit more.

And believe me, this is a huge risk for us. We're not normally risk takers. The thing that scares us both more than almost anything is another ectopic pregnancy. Boy, those Freud's were onto something with their defense mechanisms because that's the best explanation I've got for why we feel the way we do.

I'm not a big believer in astrology but sometimes one particular on-line horoscope seems to speak directly to me. Here's what today's says:

A winning attitude helps when it comes to having things go your way. It's amazing how much works out well simply because you expect it to. Keep your chin up and your hopes high right now.

So I guess we're back to more waiting. And worrying. With a tiny bit of hoping thrown in.

******UPDATE*******

The nurse just called with my beta level. It's 4795 (doubling time of 53 hours). Oh shit. What do we do now? They strongly recommend we come in for the meth shot. I don't think we're ready for that but are getting fairly scared. I'd like to see evidence of a pregnancy outside the uterus before I commit to that. Shouldn't we at least see a sac with a beta that high? We might be able to stall for a day or two. I just don't know what to do right now.

***Yet Another Update*****

Talked to Liana and Dr Local. Both are super smart. Both recommend radiologic ultrasound asap. Which has now been scheduled for 10 am tomorrow. At least we'll have more information and be able to make a decision tomorrow. Apparently we don't want to get too far beyond a beta of 6000 because meth is less likely to work, and ectopics are much more likely to rupture. Both bad things.

Thank you all for the messages of love and support. And especially the concern from other ectopic survivors. I know y'all get it and are scared for me in a way that I probably should be. Once again, both the mister and I are just overwhelmed by the love from the internets. Y'all rock.

Sunday night ruminations

It's been another long weekend at Casa Millie. I had to spend a lot of time at a board retreat for a volunteer group I'm involved with. I think it's safe to say that's about the last thing I wanted to do this weekend. I am proud of the fact that I attended and even paid attention to some of it.

I am happy to say I watched a lot of bad tv and some bad movies. Seems to be a recurrent theme around here, no?

The mister had to work a lot this weekend. That was good for both of us. He was able to get lots done at a quiet office and I was able to watch even more bad tv. Oh the joy!

I also spent a lot of time consulting Dr Google. I found a few things that made me thing I wasn't a complete idiot for continuing to hope. Most of those indicated that a beta hcg level of 2000 was a better diagnostic criteria than the previously quoted 1500. This site even gave me the following quote:

3.) Criteria for     presumptive diagnosis of Ectopic pregnancy:
    Positive Serum HCG and absence of detectable intrauterine pregnancy when:
    Gestation of 5 week menstrual age or more. Gestations of less then 5     weeks are not reliably seen by ultrasound. Since menstrual age is not 100%     accurate, verification by serum HCG levels above the "discrimination" level     of 2000 mIu/ml. (1 IS, 3rd IRP) suggests that an intrauterine gestation     below the ultrasound detection threshold is present.
   
    Note: In this case, diagnostic laproscopy is often indicated because of a     high probability of ectopic pregnancy. None the less, as many as 35% of     patients with a value of 2000 units and negative ultrasoud will have ongoing     intrauterine pregnancy. Because of this, negative ultrasound and HCG > 2000     units should not be the basis for therapeutic termination, such as     methotrexate injection, but only further diagnostic manueuvers.

Not one to split hairs, I'm definitely more than 5 weeks gestation but I do like the fact that up to 35% of patients with betas above 2000 and negative ultrasound will have ongoing intrauterine pregnancy. That's a real number that I can hold on to, right?

I've been paying close attention to every twinge, twitch and cramp I've felt all weekend. I've convinced myself it's definitely ectopic then a few minutes later am just as sure that it's just gas. I thought a lot about pushing back the ultraound and bloodwork a couple of days, you know just being more than a bit passive-aggressive.

The mister and I talked long and hard about it. For a while it looked like we wouldn't be making the long trek into the city during rush hour on a Monday morning. I thought about asking you lovely folks for advice, maybe even doing a poll and letting you pick.

But fear has gotten the better of me. I don't want to end up back in that scary place I was a couple of years ago. I really need another beta level regardless of what I see on the ultrasound tomorrow. If it is ectopic then now is the time the beta is likely to slow down. If the beta is still going up then I won't care as much if the ultrasound is negative. I'll still care but I'll clutch that 35% statistic and not allow them to do anything except more monitoring for a bit. Maybe I'll see if TomKat would like to see me their us machine.

I'm even toying with the idea of  leting one of the new docs do the ultrasound. I'm not sure Dr Local will be there tomorrow. I don't doubt his skill, he's truly my favorite American RE. Hands down. No question about it. And I've been to a lot and met even more. I hear there's a new Dr Italian with a fab accent. Maybe he'll have the magic touch?

Ok, now time to be honest with y'all on how I spent the rest of my weekend. I am trying to follow my dear friend Liana's advice. I'm trying to enjoy this pregnancy. It might not be here all that long but damn it I've got a beta level of more than a thousand. I've been checking out pregnancy websites and figuring out my symptoms. I've looked at a few new strollers that I'm lusting after (I have a hankering for expensive ones that are not yet availabile in the US but I do have a Dutch supplier that can feed my addiction). I've looked at a few bedding sets (modern patterns, very fun). All of this is online, of course. I've let myself dream just a little bit. I figure that if there's a big fall it's going to hurt just as much. I hope I'm not being too greedy but I just can't help myself. This is the closest I've gotten. I hope I get a  bit closer tomorrow.

not quite what we were hoping for

In an effort to appease our loyal readers from across the pond, we bring this update much earlier than normal.

We had the ultrasound with Dr Local. It was great to see him. He's such a fab guy. He asked us a lot about Cape Town and South Africa and all the rest.

He wasn't quite nice enough to accomodate us with good news. The ultrasound showed nothing. Well, nothing where it was supposed to be.

There may be a mucus plug down near the cervix. There was nothing else seen in the uterus. Or so far outside of the uterus (so I guess that's the best news we got).

We did another beta test today. Here are the possibilities:

• Our little slow-to-start embie is still very slow. Today should be 6w1d so we should at least see a sac. If the beta has risen appropriately this is still a possibility.
• If the beta is going down on it's own, it's just a non-viable pregnancy. We'll continue to monitor.
• If the beta is rising but not so good now, then we likely have another ectopic. Methotrexate was mentionned. Close monitoring was insisted upon.

So back to waiting. The mister and I are in fairly deep denial and counting on a laid-back South African approach. We'll see what this afternoon's call brings.

I know many of you think the chance of an ectopic is really low with ivf. I think I'll take this chance to remind you that I've already had one, which puts me at MUCH greater risk for another regardless and 40% of my RESOLVE support group had ectopics from ivf. Not to mention a couple of internet buddies. So it remains a real worry for us.

Back to our regularly scheduled waiting.

**************UPDATE********************

Ok. Today is officially a completely crazy day. My house cleaner showed up, which I normally love, but I didn't really feel like seeing anyone. So I left and took the dogs for a long albeit slow walk.

When I got home there were half the cops of my fair city parked in front of my house. Turns out a robbery suspect was apprehended in my backyard. It took many cops, automatic weapons, and police dogs to bring him in. Apparently all is fine now, according to the nice officers who were leaving as I got home.

Then we saw another guy climbing around on my back fence so I called 911. Apparently he was looking for the other guy's stash. Oh the fun of living here!

To top it off my next door neighbor stopped by to fill my in on the activity. And bring it to my attention that we'd all gotten our Japanese maples stolen from our front yard last night. I had two, they had one. I spent hours picking out my favorite specimens and they are were cool as hell.

Then the nurse called with today's number: 1863. That gives us a doubling time of 60 hours which sounds ok. Dr Local is still more than a bit worried that we didn't see anything in the uterus. Repeat beta Monday. Repeat ultrasound Monday. If nothing is seen then we being 'ectopic precautions.' I think they mean methotrexate. I think they're trying not to freak me out too much. If I have pain before then head straight to the emergency room, do not pass go.

As crazy as it sounds I think the mister and I are going to continue to live in the great state of denial and just hope for the best on Monday. Otherwise we'll never be able to survive the weekend.

If anyone has good outcome stories from a scenario like this, I would love to hear them.

Walked out the door and the clouds came tumbling down

I know, I know. You're here expected to see a number or some news at least. I'm sorry to disappoint but figured I might as well write SOMETHING. The joys of being a West Coast gal in an East Coast world.

I had my favorite vampire today. They all know me pretty well now and don't seem surprised to see me on a very regular basis. My needle-sticker was all dressed in purple: purple hair ties, earrings, shoes and even purple hair. I love purple so it was very reassuring to me.

I'll admit I came home and used one of my last pee sticks. I'll even admit that it's super cool to see a +++ come up so quickly (even before the control line appeared!).

I planned on showing y'all a few pics today to help pass the time. My computer and photo reader, unfortunately, had different plans for today.

So I'm sitting here wearing my dragonfly pendant (one of the things I wanted to show you!) that is my good luck charm this cycle. I picked it up in Cape Town. I love dragonflies (and I know it's very hippy-dippy but it's kind of my power animal) and found this gorgeous little tanzanite pendant on my last trip. The Infertile Gourmet told me the dragonfly was a symbol of fertility so I had to buy it. I did. I've worn it nearly non-stop since transfer.

I've also got several fertility statues that I got in Africa and wanted to show off today.

I promise to come back as soon as I have real news. But for now, there are some chocolate eggs calling my name. They're another fertility symbol, right? That's what I'm telling myself at least.

******UPDATE******
I just got a call from a very happy nurse. Today's number was 621! That gives me a doubling time of 48 hours. They want an email from Dr Champagne ordering an ultrasound (not sure why they need that but I'm sure he'll be very happy to comply) which they'd like to schedule for Friday.

This is starting to feel a whole lot more real now.

let the sunshine in

Well I just got the call from Dr Local's office. No sense putting you folks off any longer. Today's number was 156. So we're still doubling, with a current doubling time of about 59 hours but Dr Local's people are fine with that. One more beta on Monday.

I still feel the limbo thing. This is a totally different kind of anxiety. I'm not used to good news. I'm not used to this kind of anxiety. I don't have a lot of coping skills but am just staying hunkered down and not doing much of anything.

It's totally gorgeous here in the bay area today. We have actual sunshine, people. Objects even have SHADOWS. I'd forgotten how cool shadows can be.

I had a lovely session with my acupucnturist. Everyone at her office was so happy to see me. They're always nice (well, mostly) but it was great to be going back there with some good news.

Tonight the mister and I will be doing a wee bit of celebration. We're heading to our fave French bistro for dinner. We're trying to enjoy at least a bit of this good news since it's lasting longer than any other we've had before.

NBHHY!

doctor doctor gimme the news

Today's post is brought to you by Dr. Champagne. I think this will make it quite obvious why many others just call him Dr. Fabulous.

Of course I emailed him yesterday with the news so far, looking for guidance, reassurance, something.

Here's what he had to say:

Chances are very good if the beta doubles well, as it has with you!! 
Often with FETs the first beta is a little low and this does not matter at 
all.

I look forward to the next one and hope this little pregnancy keeps going 
strong!!

And, yes, the exclaimation points are all his. I heart him.

Now I'm just trying to pass the time until Thursday. Even my therapist suggested a forced coma or something. We have let Hope into our house-she's being a quite considerate guest so far. I think she knows she's treading on thin ice so she's being very very quiet. And cleaning up after herself.

The mister and I were incredibly touched by all of your comments and good wishes. He read them last night and it means so very much to both of us.

He also felt a need to clarify the whole "42 is my favorite number thing." At the risk of being blogged about.

Like many of you I thought it was because of that fantastic book. Oh, no, my geek is far geekier than that. When he was very young his parents got a digital clock. Not the led kind but the kind where the numbers flipped over. I guess there was a super cool font on those numbers. That looked especially good on :42. Any :42. So there you have it.

Now of course he loves the number 67. Yep we've been listening to a lot of September 67 in our house the last day or so.

(I have my own thing about numbers and vastly prefer even numbers to odd ones. I love very even multiples of 4. And some multiples of 12.  I think I might have mentionned my high school cheer before. For those of you who missed it here it is: Secant, tangent, cosine, sine. 3 point 1 4 1 5 9)

we all use math everyday

We all use math everyday.

If you know what that's from then you're familiar with the second sexiest mathematician around. I've still got dibs on the first.

I don't have a real update yet. Blood has been drawn, the word STAT has been written on the order and now we wait. Oh you gotta love the west coast time, right?

I couldn't wait until the call without doing a test (ok, two) on my own. I know it's not scientific but both hpts showed nice positive results. Didn't even require taking the tests apart or looking at them at some strange angle. They were both clearly positive (althought they're both only sensitive to 25 miu but even I  know that 25 > 15).

I gotta say, it's mighty nice to see a positive result. I know it might not last. But it's so much better than a negative.

I decided the mister needed a bit of cheering up so I im'ed him the good news. Here's what he had to say: "actually if you figure that it doubles every two days, and it's been three, then 15 * 2 ^ (3/2) = 42. 42 is my favorite number!"

Y'all knew he was a geek, right?

I'll be back with the official number once I get it. I'm just trying to stay cautiously optimistic for now. Liana told me today that betas where icsi was used are often lower. I said between that and the jet lag my little blast must have had maybe we have a chance. Just maybe.

*****UPDATE*****

Today's post is brought to you by the number 67. For you math geeks, that's a doubling time of 33.3 hours which is ok with me. Repeat beta on Thursday.

We're nowhere near being out of the woods but if we can keep it doubling for a bit then that's better than not doubling, right?

Thanks so much for the many kind words and thoughts. It's helping me maintain my sanity. Well, what's left of it.

running on empty

This weekend has been an exercise in survival. Here I thought I had it all planned out: lots of drinking and merriment and desperate planning for the next cycle. Instead there was none of that.

The mister came home from work early on Friday with beautiful flowers. To cheer up the house. He's only made me promise him a few things: when we get a postive pregnancy test I must inform him before the internet* and if it's negative I can instant message him but if it's not it requires an actual phone call. We'd never discussed what to do in the case of ambiguous results.

So I called him. I think I made the right call, so to speak.

We spent the afternoon playing our games (Websudoku for me, Animal Farm and Tiger Woods on the DS for him) and just hanging out. A lot of tv (including the first two episodes of Deadwood which were PERFECT for us) and some Chinese food delivered straight to our door. Rinse and repeat.

I'm spending the weekend in new pajamas and underwear. I realized earlier in the week that it had been a couple of years since I bought either. Last time it was an online clearance sale at the Pink Store. This time I went to an actual brick and morter mall on Thursday evening. I loaded up with fun underwear in bold prints and super soft pajamas from another place. I met the mister at a movie that night, because we seem to be stuck in a rut.

The movie was Match Point, by the way. I thought it was about a tennis player. Turns out there's a fairly long story line about infertilty. Just to warn y'all.

Anyway I'm still in my pink pjs but I realized something yesterday: the last time I got new underclothes was the weekend of my ectopic pregnancy. I'm hoping this isn't a bad omen. Otherwise these pjs will have to last me the rest of my life. I just can't chance the causal effect they might posess.

We've now watched all our Netflix movies except March of the Penjuins. Yes, we are gluttons for punishment. No, I've got no idea why we even added it to our queue except that it was during our frenzy of trying to see as many Oscar nominees as possible.

We also went to a really soothing restorative yoga class at the lovely yoga studio. It was a very different kind of yoga and I don't know how to describe it well except to say it was very soothing. It was all about release and breathing and just felt so nice to do for my soul (my body as well but mostly for my soul). It motivated me to scrape together the dough to go back there as often as possible. I really miss that place and I think it's very good for me.

I'm off to brunch with some lovely local ladies in the midst of doing the donor thing. I thought about canceling but think it's actually easier to just go. I'm trying not to isolate myself so I've been really good this time about accepting support and seeking it out a bit. I'm not sure I'm ready for public appearances and my bitterness might be a bit of a turn off. No one really told me this might not work, at least the first time around. I know that 90% of women who do 3 donor egg cycles will have a live birth. That's a great number. I just hadn't thought about the 3 cycles part until my first failed cycle.

Tomorrow will come and there may be resolution. Of course that might not happen and this ride might get a bit wilder. That's ok. The mister is just hoping we don't end up in the emergency room again. It's weighing heavy on his mind right now. Part of me is holding our for the tiny sliver of hope that this might all turn around. I know it's the tiniest of chances but it's the most that I've had in quite a long while.

Until then I'll be the one in pink pjs. Trying to pass the time and not go too crazy.

*Back in the Wedding Land days when we first started trying there were lots of posts (obviously not mine) about cloyingly cute ways to tell your partner the good news. This amused me but disturbed him.

when the other shoe is a lead boot

I was all set for the call. Ready to grill Nurse S on the fledgling donor embryo program. Ready to trade video games for blasts.

I said "I know you've got bad news for me. Go ahead. Hit me."

She said "I don't know how to tell you this. Your beta was 15."

15 is not good. Not at all. Not when it should be 200+. Not when I have a history that includes an ectopic pregnancy.

Repeat beta on Monday. There's the tiniest sliver of a chance it could be viable. I'm going to keep up the pio just so I don't feel horrible guillt. But honestly I'm hoping for a much, much lower number on Monday.

I can deal with almost anything. Almost. But not another ectopic.

waiting for the other shoe to drop

Well, it's not looking good for the home team. I broke down and did some peeing today. On a stick. I'm going to wait for the official call tomorrow but I have a feeling there will be a great deal of alcohol in my near future (as opposed to just the guiness in the stew that mostly cooked off). Cosmos, mimosas and gin and tonics. Oh my!

I'm not surprised. I had a feeling it was going this way. I guess I'm at a point where I can't even comprehend that something besides 'not pregnant' would show up on the hpt. I'm beginning to believe that it will be a loooooong time until there's good news on the other end of the phone.

This negative cycle is a bit tough but no where as devastating as the last one. That one took away what was left of my optimism. That was the first time the stats had been on my side. That was a cruel twist of fate.

This one is just more bad news. Same old, same old.

The hard part now is what's next? I don't think I've got another trip to SA left in me. I'm not sure I can bear going back alone. It would have to be for 2 weeks and it would just be so much harder. I'll make a half-assed attempt to see if our donor would be willing to cycle with us again.

We're still on several wait list for donor embyos. Not to put all my eggs in one basket but I think that's going to be what we pin our future hopes on. We've always been more comfortable with donor embryos than donor eggs. We just got tired of waiting. Guess it's just time to wait some more.

Garden State comes out with a new donor embryo list next week. I plan on full-court pressure with Nurse S from the local clinic when she calls with the bad news tomorrow. I'm not too proud to beg. I'm hoping she'll feel sorry enough for me this time to kick-start their donor embryo program. It's VERY close to being a reality. We'd be near the top of the list (if not AT the top). Hell, I'm willing to supply her and her entire family with free video games for life. Think a sign "Will Take Embryos for Video Games" will work for me? Or baked goods. Maybe a combination. Who can turn down both video games and baked goods?

I might even call the other clinic in town with a donor embryo program. I know their wait list is really long but they're covered by my insurance so what the hell.

On the plus side, I can plan a trip to South East Asia this winter to attend a friend's wedding and celebrate my fourth anniversary. Since I won't be 9 months pregnant and all.

It's not over. Don't think that. As Tertia said, giving up just isn't an option for us. It's not going to break us either. Sooner or later (apparently much later) it will be our turn.

i've got friday on my mind

The good news is my favorite nurse will be on vacation next week. So she wants me to get the beta done on Friday. (The bad news for her is she's still going to be stuck in this nasty rain--hardly seems fair when she's being so nice).

So I'll know for sure in just 3 long days. I think I can wait that long. Even my therapist suggested some kind of controlled coma where I don't have to do anything at all until I've got an answer. i went into my session last night expecting to get some structured help with how to survive. But even she said I should just hole up with my dogs, my blanket and plenty of bad tv.

I guess I'm under doctor's orders. I'm doing  my best to comply.

Those of you not from the bay area must think we are total wimps. It's true. We are weather wimps. We do pay a huge premium in real estate prices which I thought went straight to Weather Insurance. I think I was very very wrong.

Since March 1 we've only had 6 days without rain. It's not going to let up anytime soon. We're not built for the rain around here: even our malls are all outdoors. There's no underground or even covered parking, no indoor diversions, everything is open to the elements. We've had a couple of rockslides and that's likely to continue. I'm very grateful that I live in the flats and my house is not in any danger of moving around.

As an added bonus my laundry room is in the basement and I don't feel like getting soaked just trying to wash clothes. There's a mountain of laundry that needs to be done. The mister suggested buying more underwear (he knows my weaknesses, that's for sure) but I don't even feel like shopping.

I do at least have dinner in the crockpot thanks to the Gourmet Slowcooker. How very Suzy Homemaker of me, wouldn't you say? You're all invited over for Beef Stew with Guiness. It'll be done in a mere 4 hours. If only I could have a guiness to wash it down with. Guess that will have to wait until Friday.

nothing to see here

Well, the headaches aren't getting any better. I hoped they would be by this point. They hit me in the late afternoon and suck out all my energy. The poor mister gets to come home to a grumpy, hurt wife most days.

I'm also gaining a bit of weight. This is the oppositie direction I should be going. I'm still following my points (and by following I mean obsessing over them completely), eating right and getting plenty of exercise but they scale is going up. This is why normal people don't try to diet while cycling, right? I get it.

As of last week, I was officially down 14.6 pounds. I was soooooo hoping to hit the 15 pound mark before I get on that plane next week but it's not looking likely. My rational side says I'm not really gaining weight because I'm consuming less than I'm expending. But the scale tells a different story. An ugly story.

I'll begin the steroids soon and that's not going to help any of these side effects. Especially the weight gain. Maybe I'll get all steroid crazy? Won't that be fun? If you here about some air rage incident where a woman continues to demand frozen snickers bars and peartizers on an African-bound plane, you shouldn't be surprised.

I'm trying to surrender. Trying to let this cycle just be whatever it's going to be. I know it's out of my control. I'm now satisfied that I'm doing all I can and should be. Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. I think y'all were spot on and you know ,

I'm not very excited about the trip. It will be fine. I am thrilled to be able to meet up with a couple of folks from the 'net. And to go to my favorite restaurants. And hang out at my hotel. But I'm not taking a lot of hope with me this time.

Last trip I had all that hope. A big ol' suitcase of hope. This time I'm traveling light. I think the first time I tried a cycle of a new sort I felt some of that hope. With donor I felt a lot of it. Part of me thinks I got a bit too cocky. Most of me knows it was just bad luck.

 

So this trip is all bidness. Get in, get checked, drink some, eat some, transfer and get the hell home.

It's also a bit hard getting excited about this cycle with what my friend  Liana has been dealing with this last week.

I don't mean for this to be a downer of a post, just an honest accounting of where I am and what I'm thinking. I'm going to keep at this until I get what I want; I'm pretty stubborn. A very wise woman said to me a while back that giving up just wasn't an option for her, and it's not for me. I think this is just my way of suiting up for the game.

i want candy

Now I remember how much I don't like taking the pill. I'm sure that it's only going to get worse. At least it's only for a few weeeks. But, I'm excited to be underway here with donor cycle #1 (and hopefully only).

I've got a new guy. His name is Howard and he works at an international pharmacy. He's a total doll. He got my prescription from the clinic in Cape Town and quickly got in touch with me. I was stressed about shipment/drugs/costs/etc.

His first email contained this:

"I hope that this puts your mind at rest – if you need any further guidance, just let me know."

And his last one ended with "Good luck."

Howie tells me that I should have my drugs within 3-5 days. All the way from the UK. I'm getting the lupron hammer shot, estrogen and progesterone. I'm a little confused because the drug that looks like it should be estrogen is actually progesterone and vice verse. I'm just hoping it will be fairly easy to keep straight.

So, drugs are takend care of. Clinic deposit and donor are taken care of. Still need accomodations and a car. Guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow.

In unrelated yet important news, I got tons done today. I've made acupuncture appointments for the foreseeable future. It turns out the lovely Fran and I share a needle sticker. I've also made a hair cut and color appointment (these roots are getting ridiculous) and set aside some quality time for face-waxing.

But for today, who doesn't love Howie?

new word for today

Parthenogenesis.

Not one you ever want to hear from your RE or your embryologist. Apparently my little eggie was so desperate to divide that it didn't wait for the sperm. It just starting dividing on it's own. A very bad thing indeed (although I guess a clone of me wouldn't be horrible).

Nothing to freeze. This horrible cycle is offiically over. Bring on the mimosas.

one...singular sensation...

No energy to be witty tonight. Just the facts, ma'am.

One egg was retrieved from the two follicles. The good Dr. SheRE claimed the other was a cyst but I think it was just empty or the egg stuck or whatever.

My lining was still crap so we're gonna freeze what we've got (after fertilization report tomorrow--we're hoping to freeze at 2pn stage because that's most successful to freeze at). I can start some other things to plump my lining that I can take while I'm cycling.

We'll do a low stim cycle next and try to get one more or two more so we have multiple embryos to put back. That should be much easier on me. They're gonna give us the drugs and charge us a whole lot less.  They're also opening a clinic MUCH closer to me so I should be able to get more follow-up done there. I guess I'll find out more from tomorrow's call.

I bought some fun pink fuzzy velour socks for my special day today and they were swell. I also got the free clinic nightshirt and it is lovely. I wonder if I get another one if I do another retrieval? Now I'm just working hard to make it to transfer so I get the CD. I'm all about the swag.

Thanks to all who've commented, sent good wishes, and checked in on me. It really means so very much to me.

OK, back to bed for me.

a day without shots...

Best part of today: NO SHOTS!!

Yup, you read that right. Today was a shot-free day. I felt simple joy. My sharps container stared back at me, hungry, like Audrey II saying "Feed Me." Not today, Audrey. You'll just have to wait.

So, tomorrow morning I'm off to retrieval. Well, actually I've got a loooooong, parched car ride before I get to Oz.

In what I think is a really good omen, so is a good friend of mine. We started stimming together  back so many days ago (well, as together as you can be when you're 3k miles apart) and both have appointments that involve lovely drugs tomorrow. Wish her well at Garden State.

I've got a pair of brand new fuzzy socks jusy waiting to be used. See y'all on the other side.

make a new plan, stan

So here's the deal:

I just had my last shot of stims!!!! Hooray! I'll trigger tomorrow night and since I'm going to such a wacky clinic that means a shot in the arm. Yup, you read that right. My current clinic believes in giving the trigger shot im in the upper arm. Go figure! My first clinic wanted it subcutaneously, my second one wanted it the traditional hind quarters and this one wants the arm. Maybe it will prove lucky?

Yesterday I had two nice looking follies at 16 mm each and if I were in my right mind I might be asking to convert to iui. They're both on my good (still have a tube) side. But, obviously, I'm far from my right mind. I am, however, trying to say over and over 'it just takes one' but we really know better, don't we?

Damn, I can't think straight these days much less write straight. Where was I? Oh, yeah, trigger Thursday night and retrieval Saturday morning. Then IF there is a transfer it will be on Tuesday.

(Did everyone notice the big IF??? That's what they like to call foreshadowing. Heh.)

The big if has to do with my still very pitiful lining. Yup. Days and days of Viagra have done nothing except make me cranky. And I do mean nothing. No fun side effects. The mister was oh-so-hopeful. Now he knows to just stay the fuck away.

So the good Dr. SheRe is still talking about freezing what we get if my lining isn't at least 9 by the day after retrieval. I know the numbers are not nearly as good in frozen cycles as fresh. I'm not stoked about that but really want to have a decent lining so there will be one less thing to blame. I suppose we could even do another round of stims and have a few more to transfer. Although if we do more stims there's no freakin' way I'm doing more than 4 amps a day. I got 3-4 follies on that which if you do the math is roughly double what I got on 10 amps. We tried high dose and it didn't do much for me.

I'm just ready for this to be over. I'm getting daily headaches and that just isn't fun. I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of being sooooo exhausted. I'm tired of sticking viagra up me. I'm tired of driving to and from our lovely capitol city. I know it will be over soon. I've only got a few more days of this crap.

A lot of folks are taking a break or leaving the blog world and that makes me sad too. Other people are writing about that much more eloquently than I possibly could at this point. Check out  what Suz and Chris are saying if you haven't already. I'm so gonna miss Emily, Wessel, Soper, Moogielou and Jen of the Vintage Uterus. I know how important it can be to take a break but I also know how very much I'm going to miss each of them.

Oh, and one more thing. If you are feelilng frumpy and bloated and want to do something nice and pampering for yourself so you feel like an actual woman and not just a pincushion in the middle of an ivf cycle, don't get your brows and lips waxed. Choose a manicure, pedicure, massage, anything but waxing. I learned this the hard way yesterday. I know have a huge burn underneath one eyebrow--it's all red and looks like it might scab over. Let me make this even easier for the google folks "ivf stims waxing brows/lips pain possible scarring=Don't do it."

Now, on top of everything else I have to go for that Veronica Lake look and that is sooooooo not my look. Perhaps I should try a rakish pirate patch instead?

monday's number was so much better

Hmmm, so turns out Friday the 13th isn't so lucky after all. I'm feeling incredibly crappy and have a nasty headache so I'll keep this short. I think my daily afternoon headaches are thanks to Viagra but don't even have the energy to look up the side effects. To top it off, I can only take tylenol because of the stupid steroids I'm still taking.

Well, I was hoping for much better news today. I have a couple of follicles that are developing pretty well (both around 12) and another one that's lagging behind at around 9. The other one has pretty much stopped growing. So what was 4 is kind of down to 2 or 2.5 if I'm being generous. Can you tell that I'm not feeling very generous?

My lining isn't improving, even with all the viagra I'm on. I continue stims (I'm staying at 7 amps a day) and go back again on Tuesday and hopefully we'll know more. If my lining doesn't show tremendous improvement then Dr. SheRE wants to freeze whatever embryos we have (she's being oh-so-optimistic at this point and talking about 2 embryos), let all the other drugs out of my system, and try a frozen transfer in a few months. It was a lot to take in today.

I know I said that I'm just doing this cycle so I can move on to something else and feel like I've tried everything. I really meant that at the time, but reality has set in and I really wanted a half-way decent cycle. For me. Not a great one. I'm not looking for 31 follicles like the newbie in the waiting room who chatted me up (she's nice, and all, but sooooooooooo new to all of this and how does someone nearly 40 even get 31 follicles???). I would have been happy with 4. Of course, I was secretly hoping for 6-8 but was so superstitious I couldn't even whisper that. You know, the-number-that-must-not-be-named kind of thing. I should not have been greedy. This is what happens when you get greedy. I learned my lesson.

No more damn rainbows. Bring on the rain. I'm going back to bed. I did stop by Costco on the way home and have a little something called the complete first season of the Partridge Family on dvd to cheer myself up. My love for the singing Partridges is deep and very embarassing to my friends and family.

C'mon get happy.

today is brought to you by the numbers 4 and 7

So yesterday morning I hauled myself out of bed bright and early for my long drive to Capitol City. It was a great drive--the 'hot doughnuts now' sign was flashing so you know I had to indulge. Ummmmm, glazed doughnuts that melt in your mouth. Nothing is better at 7 am than that.

I had the new Ben Folds cd playing in my car. I even saw a rainbow across the bay. I kid you not. A huge beautiful rainbow. What could be a better omen than that?

I got to the clinic just in time for my appointment and the room was PACKED. All those lovely purple chairs had anxious women in them. I'm used to being about the only one in the clinic so it was quite a shock.

I had my blood drawn (let's give a cheer for the butterfly---so easy you barely feel the needled) then hooked up with a friend from High FSH land. She's also doing her first ivf at this clinic and it was so fun to hang with her and share notes. It really helped the day go by fast.

The good Dr. SheRE found 4 lovely follicles--all right around 7mm. Two on each side. How very egalitarian of my ovaries! There are also a few more smaller ones on each side and who knows what might happen with them. She wasn't thrilled with my lining being another 7 (since we're at least 7 days away from transfer it seemed fine to me but while I think I'm a board-certified RE she actually is one, so I'm deferring to her). We're adding viagra suppositories to the cocktail. I'm hoping for some bonus effects but they tell me that's unlikely.

So, the good news is that I'm responding. While I would love to have as many follicles as I can possibly get this is a 400% increase over my last cycle so I'm going to focus on that. That and the fact there is no dominant follie!!!

I keep up the drugs and return on Friday the 13th. I think I might wear all black and just pretend to be Wednesday Addams. My formerly gothic sister (she's still my sister but now some kind of rockabilly/goth leaning sister) would consider it very auspicious so I'll just have to channel her for the rest of the week. Guess I should hope for black clouds instead of rainbows and trade the Ben Folds in for Bauhaus?

bring it on

I feel like I've been gone for such a long time. I was out of town over the weekend and have been without internet for many days. Oh, the horror! I've got so many blogs to catch up on. I have been thinking of all of you.

Last night was the first night for stims. It was also my first experience with the oh-so-chic pen. Of course, with the humongous amount of drugs I'm on it still takes 3 shots (!!) but it was pretty easy once I got the hang of it.

So were are we? Hmmm. Antagon? Check. That's going great. Dexamethasone? Well, that's going. Something is making me both nauseous and ravenous all at the same time. Could it be our friend the steroids? Probably.

Last week I went to the grocery store when I was feeling a tad sick. Usually, I have no problems going hungry but if I go when I'm thirsty all I buy are drinks. Well, this time I bought a cart full of crackers, yogurt and diet ginger ale. That's all that sounded good. I had no idea they make so many kinds of wheat thins these days. I thought I'd try 4 different kinds. My husband has never seen me eat a single wheat thin in the 10 years we've been together. He was quite surprised to say the least.

Back to the drug list. Estrogen shots? Yup. Took care of both of those. Now, I love my husband dearly but he is the biggest wuss ever when it comes to giving me shots. I hope he gets better with practice. He's sooooo very concerned about hurting me he takes for-evah. Like my leg is falling asleep forever. Like his heavy breathing and sighing until he gets the needle in makes me crazy. The first shot took 30 minutes. I kid you not. I had to take a little timeout and tell him to just freaking stick the needle into my hip and be a man about it.

He did. Then he nearly fainted. It's kind of cute because he's incredibly worried about hurting me but man...it's gonna hurt, right? I mean it's a SHOT! HEEEEEELLLLLOOO. Just do it. His whole "I'm not feeling well and think I need to lie down" after is pretty annoying too. I mean I'm the one with the needle in me. What's the big deal?

Well, he's probably got at least a week and maybe two until he needs to give me another shot. Maybe he'll get better. Maybe I'll figure out some way to do them myself.

Back to the other drugs. Hmmm. 10 amps is a LOT. I'm trying to picture the little eggies letting all the drugs in and just having a big ol' party. I'm already feeling bloated and hormonal and way too emotional. I added in estrogen suppositories night before last and I guess they just add to the overall fun.

I normally cry at the drop of a hat. I'm famous in my family for crying at long distance commercials. Now, I'm crying just thinking about long distance commercials. Remember the one where the girl was away at college? And the Excedrin commercial with the voice over by Linda Hunt? "Daddy has a headache." Those always got me.

These days it's tv shows that make me cry. Even the old tried and true Law and Order has me bawling right now. Don't even get me started on Grey's Anatomy or my guilty pleasures (Gilroy Girls and Kevin Hill). Did y'all know that one of the couples on the Amazing Race is doing it to pay for ivf? I love them! She had to shave her head for a challenge and he was soooo sweet. She looked awesome, btw, totally kick-ass gorgeous.

Time to go on a tissue run.

let the games begin

So, yesterday morning I crawled out of bed at 6:15. I was on the road by about 6:40. Yay me! I'm sooooooo not a morning person. I don't know if you've picked up on this but mornings are best spent in bed. Surrounded by husbands (well, one) and dogs. I'm a snooze-button master.

I packed up my morning shot and drugs (with a little ice pack for the trip) and hit the road for the drive to my clinic. The shots are going fine, btw, thanks for thinking of me and asking. I'm only using the tiniest insulin needles so I barely feel them.

I deserved at least something special for getting up so early, right? And there is a drive-through branch of my favorite donuts in the whole word right on the way. I needed sustenance but settled for 2 original glazed donuts. Not still warm but they still did nicely.

Traffic was a breeze and I got to the clinic just in time for my appointment. What? No one else in the waiting room? How can that possibly be? It was Monday morning, right? I was preparing for the long lines of Garden State. Guess I must have a little ptsd over those draws.

They took me back and used a butterfly needle. Oh, man. I love those tiny little needles. I never even bruise from them. You can use them on my poor old, tired veins night and day. Again, this was a different from Garden State blood sucking vampires as you can imagine.

Then I had a couple of hours to kill until the ultrasound. I found a little restaurant with friendly wait staff and settled in a with a big mug of green tea (and some eggs and toast, I'll admit). I had time to read the paper and do 2 crossword puzzles. I love my paper because there are always 2 full puzzles. I was proud to finish them both with no blanks leftover. I also read the bridge column but it was a boring hand.

When I got back to the clinic was when the first sucker punch was thrown. The business person said she needed to charge me for icsi. Um, what? We've had numerous SAs including the strict ones with no problems. We got pregnant by the famous letrozole+hot tub+ champagne cycle. Yup, lots of hot tubbing and old fashioned sex led to our ectopic. We had absolutely no issues with fertilization at Garden State when we did our ivf. We've never had remotely bad numbers on any samples. We're freakin' PROVEN. So, I was more than a little surprised at this news.

First, I had a baseline ultrasound as well as a fluid one. I had 3-4 tiny antrals per side (quite good for me at this point), no cysts, and my uterine cavity looked mahvelous. I tried to focus on that good news.The fluid ultrasound was a bit painful and crampy so it was good to at least think about the possibility of multiple follicles developing. I'm not getting all carried away with the numbers, just trying to think that maybe I will get more than one follicle.

Then, I met with the nurse. All good there. Except for the icsi stuff. She can't tell me much about it so I need to talk to the embryologist who I guess is also the andrologist.

So, we talked. Turns out they do icsi for EVERYONE but only charge you if they think you need it. Hmmmm, I've got some problems with this. They also seem to use incredibly strict numbers so perhaps more people need it this way? Is this some kind of a scam to get another 2k from as many people as possible? I don't really even want icsi, I think it's one more level of intervention and I don't think we need it. I really feel suckered.

For now, they're agreeing to do another SA (since the first was done in a different lab) where they only look at that one parameter. All the other parameters are GREAT. They agreed with that. I can bring in the sample when I go back in two weeks. Even better, it will be fully covered by our pitiful insurance. If the numbers aren't better then we cough up the additional 2k. I'd say I was feeling nickled and dimed to death here, but 2k is quite a bit more. Even I can do that math.

Anyway, with that appointment all finished up I raced by home to ahhhhhh-acupuncture. It was great to get on the table and let all the stress just dissipate. All that and took the cramps away too. Back to zen ...

lookey what we got here

Today was a good day. Because it was Friday? Nope. Because I showered and even put on tinted moisturizer, lip gloss and a tiny bit of mousse? Not so much.

Because I was able to schedule 3 drug deliveries from two separate carriers to all arrive before noon. ON THE SAME DAY! Yup. Nothing makes a gal happy like gonadatropins.

Not to mention Antagon, Dexamethasone, E2V (intramuscular shots of estrogen), E2V suppositories, Progesterone in Sesame Oil, Progesterone Suppositories, Folic Acid, Doxycline, Delestrogen and HCG.

Oh, and the needles! How could I forget the needles. I got insulin needles, 18 gauge, 21 gauge, 22 gauge, 25 gauge, 1 cc syringe, and 3 cc syringes. Could anything be better?

A cute little red box for putting those toys away and cleaning off my dresser, perhaps?

But wait, there's more. There's a lovely, lovely blue and yellow pen I've had my eye on for such a long time. No more glass vials to break (ok, there are a few but whatever). I can look like the chic woman in the gonal-f ad--with her color coordinated bag and pen.

Yes, Millie, there is a Santa Claus...or Easter Bunny...perhaps a Fertility Turtle? Something to make every little girl's wildest dreams come true.

(And a special thanks to my own Florence Nightingale who helped out the Turtle tremendously. I found her over at the free garage sale and she was totally great).

I can't believe I have to wait until Sunday for the first shot. How am I going to sleep until then?

PS The Zen thing is still working for me. So far, so good. I even had some bubble tea today. That's zen, right?

all this quiet and purple chairs too?

I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I went to the new clinic. I wanted to come back and post quickly but obviously that didn't happen.

Last week was filled with doctor's appointments. I had my mammogram last Wednesday and I guess it went as well as it could have. No lumps (very good thing) but no explanation for the pain  I've been feeling either. I need to make a followup ultrasound appointment to make sure they didn't miss anything. It seems strange to schedule an ultrasound that doesn't require stirrups.

This was my first mammogram ever. They put  little green stickers on my nipples. I didn't notice the tiny metal balls on the stickers until I went to change back into my clothes. It totally convinced me I never want to pierce my nipples. Um, not that I really needed any convincing.

I went straight from the mammogram place to the new clinic. Well, there's about 90 miles between the two so it took me a while. I really like the clinic. There was a big sign on the door "No Children." Ahh, good times.

See, Garden State allows kids in the clinic. Lots of crying babies and wandering toddlers. That didn't sit so well with me. I generally do fine with kids but really feel strongly that they don't belong in REs offices. It's already hard enough, kwim?

The chairs are comfortable and there's a lot of purple in the room! New magazines. Soft lighting. Quiet. Ahhhhh, like a spa almost.

Everyone was so nice. They all came out and introduced themselves to me. They even took my picture. I paid the balance of my cycle with a credit card. I have NEVER charged as much at one time. Ouch!

I meet with the clinic coordinator(ummm, how about CC). Of course there are lots of missing tests. Yes, they require even more testing. Garden State didn't send my full file so I've been trying to get more info for Dr. SheRe.

I heard from my friend who went to this clinic that CC doesn't like to be asked a lot of questions. Man, am I ever in trouble. Dr. SheRE loves questions so I should go to her. CC and I didn't exactly start off on the right foot. It took me a while to get her to understand just how soon AF was expected. It's not rocket science, right? Um, hello I have short luteal phases and was 9 dpo when we met. Frankly, I was just super-relieved not to start my cycle before our meeting. When she FINALLY understood that I was perhaps hours away from a new cycle she gave me some bcp. Yay!!

We also had a minor tiff about having the mister come to the clinic for the calendar session. I thought that's why I was at the clinic that day but turns out it was for a chart review. She expected him to take a half day off work to drive to listen to my calendar and sign some papers. CC was mostly worried about the consent forms. She actually said something like "Well, we really need to know what you want to do with all your leftover embryos. It's a serious decicion."

Leftover embryos? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

Once I picked myself up off the floor from laughing so hard I think she finally got it. Just using the plural term for embro is enough to send me into a fit these days but LEFTOVER? Man, that CC is funny.

She told me I could pay to have a notary and have him sign in front of said notary. I said that was a much better choice than wasting a half day driving there to sign the forms. Finally she completely capitulated and said "Why don't we just have him sign the forms on the day of retrieval?"  Duh. So that's what we're going to do.

CC tempted me with a beatiful color coded chart. Each drug gets its own color so the chart is a vertible rainbow. I wanted to take it home and frame it or at least gaze longily at its wonder. But that was not to be. I had to wait until AF so I could get 'real dates' in my calendar. Man, that gave me some incentive to get my period.

After I left the clinic I met a friend , Beijos,who lives in Captitol City. I had to break the news to her that the mister and I won't be attending her fab wedding in South America this summer (Rio...follistim...Rio...follistim....y'all know what I picked). It was great hanging out with her and hearing about normal things (weddings and work) for a change. I'll be able to use their place as a base when I have early appointments and it will be nice to spend some time with Beijos and her honey.

Lucky for me, AF came on Saturday. I started bcps Saturday for 8 days only. I'll start Antagon then and we're off to the egg races. I'm still waiting on my beautiful color calendar but I should get that today. I'm seriously a sucker for color-coded anything.

Damn the torpedoes!! Full stims ahead!

After careful consideration with my trusted advisors (my husband, current acupuncturist, you loverly readers, a few trusted friends, the Magic 8 ball and, of course, my old friend Pinot Noir), we're going for the full stim cycle. For those of you familiar with the nomenclature of this partic clinic, we're currently talking about A10EV2.

Tomorrow should be a most auspicious day:I'll start off with a mammogram to rule out the big C as the reason for some recent breast pain I'm experiencing then drive like a bat out of hell  carefully and strictly observing the speed limit to my lovely state capitol.

Then, let the chart review/calendar session begin. I had to twist some arms to get in this soon but I'm about to get a visit from the witch and want to be able to start asap. I know, I know, I've been on the bench since October so where's the fire? I'm just ready is all and want to get this started and over with.

I am hoping this cycle works, obviously I'd love to see those two little lines on an hpt. I am, however, doing this with eyes WIDE OPEN. I know this protocol works well with some of us High FSHers and is horrible for others. I know it's going to be huge quanities of drugs and may impact egg quality. It might also allow me to have more than 1 or 2 follies so that could be good. I'm trying to get into a cautiously optimistic frame of mind, but not wildly optimistic. I think I mostly need this to be able to say we've really tried and be able to move on sooner.

To my doughnut eating friend, Crispy Creme: I'm going to talk to them and see if 8 would be ok instead of 10, but otherwise trust they know what they're doing and just go with what they said. I generally believe what you wrote but since I'm choosing this approach I'm aslo going to try my best to just trust them and not second guess too much. Some, yes, but not too much.

let there be four

I was trying to simplify my life this week. I swear it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I took a free phone consult with an RE. This would make #4 if you're keeping score at home (although I'm loathe to include the evil first one in the counting, she did take my money and did her best to dash my hopes, so in the count she stays).

Dr. SheRe comes highly recommended by friends and my acupuncturist. She's also part of Dr. HighStims dispersed team. Why did I contact her you might ask? I have got a friend who went to Dr. SheRe but used the Garden State tricks to get to baby #1. I thought it would be a whole lot easier traveling two hours rather than going completely across the country. I also thought the timing would work better and I could still cycle in April.

Now, normally Dr. SheRe uses lots and lots and lots of drugs for poor responders. I researched this way back when. I always thought this might be an option for me-but probably not the best option. I kind of believe that the minimal stim dose might be the way to go, better egg quality, blah blah blah.

Then Dr. SheRe sucked me in. She reminded me I'd never even TRIED a real ivf cycle. We didn't KNOW if that would work better for me or not. She really believes it might. I told her I only had two tries left in me. She felt like we should really try big guns, then we can switch back to the Garden State variety. She quoted me a fabulous 38% success rate for women my age, no matter fsh. She had a rebuttal for every point I attempted.

I said "but I didn't do much better with 4 amps a day than I did with 1 or 2", she said "that's exactly what I would expect. You don't really see a difference until you get to 6 or more...but there's a big difference between 8 and 4, not 4 and 2." I said "but I'm really concerned about quality on that high a stim level", she said "you should be really concerned about aneuploidies at your age and we need to have multiple eggs to weed those out. More really is better."

I emailed Dr. Local just for completion. Give him a chance to step up, see if he'd want to try ivf but I really don't think he understood my email. He didn't seem to understand I was only on an amp or two a day for my first ivf (not the 6-8 he would have tried me on and certainly not the 10 that Dr. SheRe recommends) so he thinks only one ivf is indicated.

Which has me thinking I might as well try cycle with Dr. SheRe, right? Because that WOULD be doing one ivf. My one and only. The first one I did was more like a souped up iui, if you ask me.

I was worried this change would freak my husband out. We had a plan and I wasn't really sticking to it. He sometimes doesn't do real well with change. Of course I should have known better. He reminded me that it was still just two more cycles which WAS our plan, we're just talking about changing the protocol. It also didn't freak him out about another RE because way back when, after meeting with Dr. Evil, I told him there were 2 clinics that could be our last resort. One is the Garden State, the other is HighStims.

I've got until Monday to decide. That's when they'd need the deposit for the cycle. They also cycle everyone together which is a little different to me. Hell, seeing the RE before the retrieval would be very different to me, so what do I know.

Now I need to go find some cheap meds over in garage-sale land. Lots and lots of cheap meds.

High FSH-the beginnings

Well, that's what got someone to my blog today and I don't want them to think they should base whether or not their can be successes with high fsh just based on little ol' me.

If you need some hope right away, go check out the Over 40 Stats Only (it's on the left hand side of the page when you click on the link).

When you get diagnosed with high FSH it feels like the whole world crashes down upon you. I remember when it happened to me.

See, the mister and I got married after many happy years of living in sin together because we wanted to start a family. Yep, we were finally ready and we (ok, really the Royal We for the next part) were incredibly arrogant. It was going to happen on our honeymoon.

So we went to an island paradise for 3 long and loverly weeks. We came home with tan lines, sarongs, tons of pics but no baby on board.

Then I started charting. I read the book, got the thermometer and even found a website where I could do it all online. Too cool! I joined some boards with people that were just starting out ttc. I even joined some for oldsters like me. And we tried. And tried.

There were problems with my charts. Short cycles and really short luteal phases. Like 8-10 day luteal phases. That's never a good thing. Then I tried supplements and tried to get into see my ob/gyn. She was super nice. I was lucky because she looked at my charts and said we should run bw and start to rule things out. See, I was 'old' back then at 37 and she didn't want to screw around.

I didn't hear back from the bw for a while. I remember calling the ob/gyn office and getting a nurse on the line. Must have been a pretty inexperienced one because she told me my doc was on vacation and then she just read me the results. I wrote the numbers down and consulted a higher power to help me interpret them. The internet.

Well, let me just say if it's Friday afternoon and you're at work without much to do except research lab results, you are very thankful that you have a lot of space and not a lot of co-workers. You can cry a lot and no one hears you.

I found a lot of very scary information at first. A lot of sites that said things like "less than 1% chance of pregnancy." It was a long time until I found anything even remotely hopeful.

Then I found the High FSH message boards. They were like crack for me for a very long time. There was hope there. And supportive women. And babies. Ok, not everyone had babies but way more than 1%.

So I lurked. I read. I cried. It took me a very long time to post there but I met some incredible women there.

I read that hopeful book by the woman who had an FSH of 41 at 41. I thought about taking wheatgrass. I researched EVERYTHING.

I made an appointment with an RE who came very highly recommended by a co-worker of the misters. I made the fatal error of not asking if they were high fsh friendly. If you have high FSH, you might do this once, but trust me you never do it again.

We waited a few weeks for our appointment. I knew what the internet claimed. The mister didn't believe me. They took several hundred dollars from us.

Then they told us they couldn't...I mean WOULDN'T do anything. No drugs. No iuis. No ivfs. They'd be happy to take a lot more money and only do ultrasounds. You see, what they didn't say is they care about their statistics. Tremendously. They think it will help not to treat high fsh women. Turns out this particular clinic needs all the help they can get (they just aren't very good as it turns out).

Technically I suppose we got off easy. They didn't quote 1%----they said we had about a 5% chance of getting pregnant with our own gametes. The mister took this really, really hard. It finally clicked it.

It just pissed me off. So I started researching other clinics. I'm lucky enough to live in Northern California where we have lots and lots of REs. We went to a pig pickin' (if you know what that means you've probably been to my home state) and an acquaintance shared her RE and her acupucturist with us.

I was leery so I wrote the clinic she mentionned. Sent in a cold email, if you will. I was amazed when I got a personal email from the head of the clinic AND a phone call from the IVF director. They both wanted to make sure my questions got answered. They both said of course they'd treat me and would never turn me away. That clinched it.

I decided to be pretty open with my fertility challenges. It's worked pretty well for me. I remember shortly after my diagnosis I was talking with someone on the phone. She is a member of the volunteer club I belong to and we were trying to arrange a meeting. I don't think I'd ever talked with her before. She was in the middle of a pregnancy and for some reason I just told her we were having problems.

She amazed me. Told me to hold on. Shut her office door and said she'd had problems and I should never give up. Turns out she was also diagnosed with high FSH! She totally got it and gave me lots of resources and support. She also told me she'd gotten successful with donor eggs and it was the best thing she'd ever done.

Then I went to a local gathering a couple of month's later at the Maven's house. There were 6 of us there that September day. It's been about 1.5 years and now the other 5 have all had babies: one through ivf, one naturally, one adopted, one had twins through donor eggs, and the other twins through donor embryos. It was such a relief to know there were others like me and there was real hope. I'm still playing catch up but I know that I'll get there.

Maven tried for many years and was very active in the boards. She put together an incredible success list that's still being maintained. I'll include the link later on in this post and add it to my lists. It's truly amazing to see all the women with high fsh--some ABOVE 100--and all the kid's they've had. Maven once told me she felt like about half of us got pregnant whether naturally, medicated or ivf. I know this might not be the best sample but it's a lot more than most docs would let you believe.

I remember a few months after I got diagnosed, one of my friends in wedding land got the same sentence. She was lucky--Garden State Girl--and lived right down the highway from a clinic that does wonders for us. I know she felt as hopeless as I did, but I told her to go straight to Dr. High FSH. She went straight there and has a bouncing baby boy to show from her very first cycle there.

Now, as you know, I'm still trying. My local doc believes that high FSH is just an indicator of low ovarian reserve--but not necessarily poor egg quality. He's been supportive, especially through my ectopic (just bad luck...not fsh related) and wants nothing more than to see me pregnant. He's an infertilty patient himself--built his own family through donor eggs--and that means a lot to me as well.

I spent some time being a Garden State Chick myself back last fall. I met a woman in the clinic who told me the most amazing story. I thought she was just an urban legend but she's real. Her FSH was well over 100 and she tried many cycles. In something like 4 years of trying she only ever got one follicle. Which had one egg. Which turned into one embie. And you probably know where this is going but that embie is now her preschool aged daughter. It really does only take one.

I stopped by Maven's house today. That first lunch meeting seems like such a long time ago. It was nice to catch up. Even nicer to see her successes--they're getting big and so smiley and playful now. Her house is full of baby gear. She told me it would be my turn next and I believe her. It doesn't matter so much how you get there, just that you do get there.

We've got a peak

Well, wouldn't ya know it? Peeing on a stick actually gives you information. Who'da thunk it?

We got a peak yesterday and today and actually had some fun. Another novel concept: having fun while trying to accomplish our goals. Wow, sex can be fun. Go figure!

All that and no rain. I'd say it was a winner of a weekend, wouldn't you?

Of course, that tiny constant pessimist voice inside me is saying this  is probaby a right ovary month so it's all for naught but that's out of my control. I"m doing what I can. Sending out left ovary vibes and telling myself if it's a really bright egg that wants to be well traveled, it will find itself to the left tube.

Hope y'all had as good a weekend as I did.

Having a good day, for a change

I thought I'd try a short post for a change. Let's see if this works.

Wow, a day I'm actually feeling pretty good about things. Go figure! It could be the half-way decent sleep I got last night or just the endorphins from my morning workout. Or the huuuuuuge Diet Coke I just drank. Whatever. I'm just going to go with it.

I was looking back over my Fertility Friend charts and think I have a little reason to be slightly hopeful for my next ivf cycle. I guess I wasn't remember things very clearly from last year. I actually had two cycles with multiple follies. One time I even grew 3 nice ones. I must have totally repressed that. Of course, they were on my right=tubeless side so those cycles got canceled. But unlike Dr. Local,  Dr. High FSH Jr would be thrilled with that response and since he takes me to retrieval with just one egg...

I've already talked him into letting me start estinyl on CD1 so now if I can get him to bump up the expensive stuff and mix that in earlier we might have more than a 10% chance. I really want to give these April/August cycles the best possible chance. That way I can move on without too many regrets if they don't work.

So, that's me today. Slightly hopeful. Not such a bad place to be.

Testing the waters

I'm cautiously putting my toe back into that murky infertilty sea. I'm shopping for a new acupuncturist, trying to gear up for another ivf cycle in the next few months, just trying to get some kind of plan together.

I feel a little guilty leaving my acupuncturist. It's like cheating on your hairstylist, but with much larger implications. A bad cut will at least grow out. What if my best eggs are waiting in Dr. Fertility's needles?

I've made a tentative appointment with a new girl. Now I'm pretty demanding up front. I wanted to hear about how she'll do things differently and why I should switch to her. Turns out she worked with my old doc for more than a decade. Actually, my old doc literally wrote the book on ivf and acupuncture. She's gotten tons of women pregnant. Just not me. The new girl got a woman in my infertility support group pregnant when no one else could. Hence the call today.

I also finally wrote Dr. FSH jr for my 'post-mortem' consult. I wanted to hear we'd try different drugs, I should take DHEA, something different. He just said I could use whatever drugs I wanted and maybe start the estinyl on CD1. Hopefully that will get me a couple of follies instead of just one.

My new plan is to head east in April or therabouts. I don't think I could deal with winter storms on top of everything else. My mom offered to come up to the Garden State and stay with me on bedrest. She's trying to say all the right things. She's doing a great job right now.

My heart isn't in it. I don't think anything will help at this point. I made a pact with my husband to try 2 more cycles. Might as well get them out of the way. Then maybe I'll be ready for donor embryos or donor eggs. I'm quickly approaching the place where I just want a baby. If it weren't for my evil in-laws, I might get there sooner.

I used to get comfort from success stories. All I cared about was age and FSH. All those women older than me with higher fsh. That was crack. Now it just makes me more bitter.

Why am I taking baby steps now, you might ask? My husband can't take it anymore. He's been incredibly supportive and this is just too hard on both of us. He's got a headache that won't go away and sends him to bed. Neither of us are sleeping.  We're barely holding on here and holding on just isn't good enough anymore.

At least we have more in-laws coming to spend the weekend with us. That's sure to make it better, right?

Today is 14 DPO. I was supposed to be a good girl and go in for a beta this morning but I didn't feel like wasting the money. I talked myself into an hpt today and another in a week or two to assure me it's not ectopic again.

This cycle we tried Letrozole + 3 amps of gonal f. I only got to take the gonal-f for two days before it was time for the iui.

At my clinic, the doc of the week does the ultrasounds and procedures. Sometimes I don't see my doc at all during a cycle. This was one of those months.

I did get to see the head of the clinic twice. She's one of my favs there. On my CD 9 US, she and a very green fellow came into the room. The newbie didn't seem to have much confidence or luck with the machine. She was having a hard time finding my right ovary. I told her not to bother looking much because we don't really care much about that one (no tube there, remember). I told her that we were hoping for "left-leaning follicles" and I wanted her to find some there. The doc and I started joking about the Democratic Convention going on that week. I was hoping it would bring me luck. I figure as liberal as I am, surely some of my good eggs would follow suit.

The doc took over the us and told me she'd try to give me what I wanted and asked what that was.

I couldn't help myself. Truly. There's really only one answer to that question right now. "A baby."

No surprise today: BFN.

Treading water

It's yet another late night. I don't seem to be able to get to sleep before the wee hours. I don't know why. I'm exhausted all the time but my mind is just racing.

I want to be better at posting here so maybe I'll start with a little update.

Last week I had a consult with Dr. High FSH (ok, technically it's Dr. High FSH Jr, because Sr. no longer does phone consults). This was a big step for me. I told myself a year ago when I got diagnosed that I'd save the big guns for a rainy day. I was sure I wouldn't need to go to such extremes. They were my last chances.

I have an internet friend with high fsh. Her's is actually higher than mine. She is blessed to live near this clinic. She got diagnosed a couple of months after me. She did one iui and just gave birth last month to a bouncing baby boy. I sooooo want to follow in her footsteps. She gives me so much hope.

If you have high fsh, there are really only two docs that anyone talks about. Lots of other REs get some of us knocked up, even more refuse to treat us or start the donor egg speech. But only 2 clinics are worshipped by those of us with high fsh.

It's interesting because both clinics report a great success rate among high fshers. I think they're both currently at about 38% per ivf cycle depending on age. That could be a couple of cycles, actually, I'm really not sure. The most interesting thing to me is that they have radically different approaches. One uses very minimal stims, the other uses incredibly heavy doses. I've had a cycle on higher dose stim and I didn't produce more eggs so I decided to go with the low stim approach. They also charge a whoooooole lot less so I figure I can get 3 ivf cycles for the price of 1.

And truth be told, right now I only think I have about that many cycles left in me before moving on. I'm feeling a little guilty even saying that as I'm nearing the end of my 2ww. Part of me still wants to feel optimistic, but that's a teeny tiny voice in my head that I'm really not listening to much these days.

Ok. Back to my consult with Jr. It was scheduled for the middle of the afternoon. A fine summer day. I wanted to be as calm and relaxed as possible so I tried to structure the environment. I've got 2 dogs that I love dearly but that for other reasons (another long post) have to be kept completely separate for now due to a little dog-on-dog aggression that's the end result of the younger dog being nearly killed by poisoned dog food. I said it was a long story.

Ok. So I take the baby dog next door so she can happily play with the puppy there and put the older dog in our backyard. So I can concentrate. Then I get on the phone with Jr and it's all going great.

He's telling me about their protocol, what they'd do with me, how I'll be a success and only need iuis even with one tube, how we can convert to ivf if all the eggs are on the bad side, etc. It's going great. Then I hear the screams.

The two dogs next door were totally going at it. My older dog was also freaking out in our yard. I cound't get to the dogs. I had to put Jr on hold and scream at them to stop. Luckily they did. Even luckier, there wasn't any blood.

I don't remember much of the rest of my consult because my adrenaline was pumping so hard. But the plan is for him to work with my RE (or another one he's worked with that's only an hour or two away) from here on out. Or we get a fantastic vacation to his lovely clinic.

The good part is that he brought a little hope back to me. I'm almost anxious to get this negative test out of the way so we can begin this next part of our journey. I really believe that if anything will work, it will be this doctor. If not, then maybe we'll be ready to move on. And moving in some way is so much better than just standing still or treading water.

Diving into the deep end

So for the last few months I've been thinking about starting a real blog. I've had lots of reasons why it hasn't happened yet. First, I stressed over a user name and then a blog name. There are so many witty women who's blogs I've been reading and I wanted to start off on the right foot.

Then it was just never a good time. See, this will be mostly an infertility blog and that added a whole other dimension. I try to be hopeful (truly I do) so I thought it would be crazy to start this in the two week wait (although that's often when I'm obsessing the most). I mean, what if I start an infertility blog and then quickly get pregnant? I'd have to leave the club I just joined.

At the beginning of a cycle I don't have lots of energy and am often kind of bitter. That didn't seem auspcious either.

So, I decided to just dive into the pool, so to speak. Here goes nothing.

I just got home from my clinic where today was insemination day. That's right! IUI Day turns out to be BD 1 (that's blog day 1).

I'm feeling pretty tired and don't have much to say but just wanted to get that first post out there.

A little bit about me, fertility-speaking: late 30s (soon to be VERY late 30s), diagnosed with high FSH a little over a year ago (and all that goes along with that diagnosis (given the 5% speech and donor eggs speech in first visit to first RE), had an ectopic in January (not a lot of fun and it cost me one tube), took a long time to recover, so this is only my third cycle of trying all year.

There's more to life than fertility (well, only sometimes): I've got a wonderful husband, two great dogs and a pretty good life. I'm currently working part-time and in pastry school.

I've got on online-journal type thing in another place but am trying to be just a bit more private as I start this new blog. I'm also trying typepad because it came highly recommended by a blogger I respect immensely (yes...add me to the long list of getupgrrl fans out there).

More about all that later. Time for a nap now.