I am the person I hate here at work

I am that person, that person who calls constantly even tho they continue to say they will get the doctor a message - ugh, I hate that when people do it to me - but here I am in that same place.

I have called and left 2 messages, but called much more than that, over to the specialist in Illinois about my natural killer cell count but now I am getting panicky about it all. I can only assume they are not around on the weekends and since it takes a minimum of 24 hours to get the IVIg treatment to the office and an hour for me to get to their office - time is really running out. The nurse yesterday cuz one of my injections out completely and cut the other down again to half of what I was taking and added the other injection to stop my body from ovulating on my own. The have me scheduled to go back in Friday morning to look and measure but didnt want me to take any stimulation medication at all b4 I go in 2moro. The have me in the book for egg retrieval on Monday, which is great cuz less time on stims and injections is alright with me - however, that is way faster than I was ready for, esp since the death of Dr Katayama took everyone out of commission for a couple days.
Still haven’t heard from the new doc about what he is like or meeting with him, guess thats out of the question at this point. We will meet as I am going into a Valium induced state of happiness.
I have been lucky enuf to talk to others who are in the same place i am right now and another lady who actually did an IVF cycle - which resulted in her baby girl - with this new doctor so that eases my mind. She has also been told that even tho he is VERY conservative he will be doing all cycles the way Dr K would have done them, again, putting my mind at ease.
Im just worried about the NKC treatment and taking off of work all those days. IF i hear back from them i would need to go and have the treatment 2moro (also a blood flow u/s to make sure its all good in there) so there is 1 day off of work - very short notice. THEN if Monday is the ER date then I will be useless that day, cant come back to work after ER. So there is another day off. And since it falls on a Monday and i dont have tons of eggies to work with I can only assume I will do a day 2 or 3 transfer so that means off either Tues-Friday or wed-Friday. Again, short short notice.
I feel awful cuz I hate leaving him high and dry, I hate coming to him to tell him that I will need all this time off. I think if he was an a-hole it would be easier. But he isn't and would never tell me that i couldn't have off, I just know how crazy the phones are and that I am the only person who can do it. He cant even turn on the computer so its not like he is gonna pop out a brief or divorce papers. He will pretend its not a big deal and wish me luck - but i know it stresses him out. How could it not?

The UGLY truth of IVF

If anyone out there is thinking “How bad can it be, its just a few injections” or thinking how much fun it would be to take several injections a day and pump mega doses of whatever into your body - I am posting this for you. Not that I really think anyone out there thinks that it would be fun, but I don’t think anyone can actually understand how it really is. Just like a person who has never given birth can understand how painful it is, or how a person without children can understand the strong bond and emotion that comes after the child is born - or a person who is not wanting anyone in the room while delivering cuz of vanity or embarrassment could understand you wont give a sh*t if a high school marching band comes in just as long as they get the baby OUT! I’m sure you get my point. The injections are not bad, I don’t even feel them, however, the bruises are another story. There are hard lumps in the middle of the bruises and, of course, for whatever reason I chose to inject right where my waistband sits so I am reminded of the tenderness all day as my pants dig into the bruises (and bloating). Crazy that as a child they would have to call in nurses to hold me down to get vaccines.

Went in today and found out natural killer cells are at 14. They like to see them under 13 - of course they do! So now we chose if we want to drop 5k on the treatment or take our chances since the numbers are so close to “normal”..... it couldn’t be way over or way under, right? Nothing is ever easy in this game. My thoughts right now are to go ahead with the treatment and cover all bases, just so I cant come back and say we should have done it if this doesn’t turn out well. I do, however, have a call into the specialist so we can get her opinion on all of this. Since her office doesn’t really get much money from the treatment I can assume I can trust she will not tell me to do it for her own financial gain.

u/s went well - still 9 follies with one leading that is pretty big so we will prob lose (from being over mature) that one to get the others, which is fine. By the end of all this each of my ovaries will be almost the size of baseballs I assume which will make putting on pants pretty darn difficult.
I was actually able to remember to ask why they cut my meds in half on Monday and she said that after 3 days of meds my E2 (estrogen) level was at 500 and that was way higher than they wanted so hopefully today is more in the range of where they want it to be.
I'm really hoping for a weekend retrieval - Sunday would be great but I’m not holding my breath. I am thinking more on the lines of Tuesday - I’d love the weekend one so no extra time off of work but whatcha gonna do? My follies don’t seem to grow on my work-week schedule so I do what they want.

A lil security goes a long way?

I did something I shouldn’t have today at Target. I bought a baby thing. FOR SHAME! It is a small, softest thing you have ever felt, mini baby blanket. Its my fav color purple and I needed to have it. I have not bought anything (baby related for myself) since the 2nd IVF when I carried around 2 nuk's in my purse the whole cycle. I don’t even know where they are anymore.
I don’t buy baby things, mostly cuz I am a realist but also because it hurts too much to see the stuff after so many failed cycles but I just had to have this blanket - it says it’s a security blanket and I will be the one needing the security and will be sleeping with it. Silly, but true.
I think that it may give me some happiness during the cycle - something to remind me why we are doing this yet again, something to wipe the tears or either joy or pain after the cycle is over. Hopefully something to give to a baby of ours as well.
I just needed to have the blanket - I’d carry it around town if I didn’t think people would toss me in a straight jacket for it!

Slow and Steady wins the race?

Got a call from the nurse, apparently they are trying to keep things as “normal” as they can over there for us in mid-ivf-cycle. She actually took all my injections and halved them. I guess they want the follies that I do have growing to not grow as fast. Most people are on injections for 10 days at least and I usually go much less than that. I think the 1st time I only took them for 7 days and my body was ready to give those mature follicles the heave-ho so I had to do the egg retrieval. The 2nd time around I think I injected or “stimmed” for 8 or 9 days so much more normal. Today is my 4th day of injections and they are already half the size they would want them to be to be considered “mature” so I guess that would be why they cut the meds in half. Whatever works as far as I'm concerned. I go back on Wednesday so if they are growing too slow or my estrogen level is too low then they will bump me up again anyway. They have me scheduled to come in for blood-work and ultrasound Wed, thurs, Friday and Saturday..... geesh, a lil overkill but whatever they want I suppose.
As the day goes on the more confused I am about what to do about all of this. I felt good with Dr Katayama, felt like more than a patient, felt safe and as if he was looking out for me and wanted the same things we did. Now, I am so afraid that he is gone. I feel like I lost my biggest cheerleader (even tho I didn't see him as much as I did the nurses) I knew that he was there overseeing my chart and making sound decisions in my best interest. I don’t know this new doctor, I don’t know his bedside manner, I don’t even know if he is covered in my insurance plan. I do know that the only time I would actually see him would be the day of my egg retrieval so honestly, is it that big of a deal that he would do it instead of Dr Katayama? The embryologist will do everything after that and then the new doc would do the transfer. As long as he and I are on the same page as far as how many to put back in then I guess it really doesn't matter, right? I just don’t know. I'm sad and confused. Thinking about it makes me teary for a lot of different reasons (partly cuz of the hormones I’m on) but other parts cuz I feel like we lost someone who was really good at what he did, someone who was passionate about what he did. He just had this way about him that made you feel like he knew what was going on.
Pictures are all over the office of babies that he made happen, pictures of him with all the couples that he helped build a family that otherwise may not have happened and looking at his lil face you could tell he was so happy to have done that. Not cuz his "numbers" went up, not cuz he was playing God, not that he would make money cuz of it, more of a smile of a person who was proud, excited and just plain happy to have given people a family. I feel sad for the people he left behind.
I feel like I need to remind myself that this new doc was a friend to Dr Katayama and I should trust that he is going to help me just like Dr Katayama would.
I am so sick of saying or hearing "everything happens for a reason", or "this is the way it was meant to be" or trying to figure out why this stuff is happening - why so many snags along the way. Why this has to be so difficult, as if the whole IVF thing isnt difficult enuf but to add extra stress is no fun and not fair, but I suppose what is fair in life - obviously his family is feeling that same not fair feeling 100x worse than i am right now.

I have choices here - i can stop this cycle and then go and start from scratch and that makes me feel lightheaded and sick to my stomach. The process is so hard but to go thru it yet again, just is too much for me to wrap my head around right now so I wont be doing that just yet. I will give it a few days to see how I feel. Yes, I am in the middle of a very expensive cycle, yes, I should sit down and pound out another plan but I just cant do that right now. I need a few days to chew on this and then start making calls or whatever it is that I need to do.
I can say that I am handling the snags better than I have ever in the past and for that I am grateful among many other things I am grateful for that is.

Better news and AWFUL news.....

So I go to the doc nice and early this morning in a pretty good mood considering I have been injecting hormones that make me a crazy person for the last 4 days. I go in and something just isnt right, the nurse who is ALWAYS like a cheerleader is so down and wont look me in the eyes - great - what is going on now, of course I figure they will tell me my cycle is off and to go schedule my hysterectomy cuz my child bearing days are o-v-e-r! Nope - my doctor passed away on Saturday. He was at the office doing his thing then went home and later that night his wife found him dead. They don't even know why at this point, very healthy man. Ugh, how awful for these people. There is no other doctor in the practice so they will all lose their jobs.

Which brings me to how selfish this whole infertility makes you. After the news and I felt bad for everyone who just lost someone they loved very much, I thought "what about me? What am I gonna do?". So I sheepishly asked the question and lead off with "I'm so sorry to ask this but......." what do I do now, who will help me now. I finally found a doc that I felt was gonna help me and wanted to do the same things that I did, someone who understood me and how aggressive i wanted to be and now he's gone. What do I do now. I felt horrible asking but I had to. There is a doctor who Dr Katayayma trusted and was very good friends with that has graciously said he would take in anybody in mid-IVF cycle. He is out of Waukesha Memorial - I gotta go with if the doc I trusted trusted this doc then he is the way to go. I have asked to make an appt with the doctor to see if he and I are on the same page as far as all of this goes. Now, they are all still in shock over there and trying to go over everything and notify patients, etc so she asked if i could give her a few days to get me the info I need for the other doctor. I have appts on Wed, thurs and Friday so I am sure that will be fine. The other "issue" is the IVIg treatments which this new RE does not do, does not know about and prob would laugh at so i need to talk to the other specialist in Illinois to get that now. WOW, what a morning.
When I was pregnant with Harmony I saw my OB and the week later got a letter telling me he was choosing not to be a doctor anymore, wasn't retirement, just didn't want to be a doc anymore. I freaked then found another doc. I guess i would rather that have happened than someone lose his life. So sad.
Anyway, the better news is that I now have 6 measurable follicles on the right side and 3 on the left so 9 total instead of the 3. They all may not continue growing but at least there are more to see at this point.

Trying not to freak

Today was my "clearing u/s" to make sure all was ok to get started with the injections for IVF. Everything went well except the u/s was super fast so of course i had to ask how many follies she saw to start with. Yeah...... 3, THREEEEEEEE f-ing follies. To all of you non IVF'ers - that is not a good clearing appt. I think the only thing worse would be to be told you had none and to go home to never return. Why the hell would I pump hormones in mega doses into my body for 3 follies, why would I go thru the pain (emotional and physical) of the egg retrieval process to have three follies? I suppose because its 2 more follies than what i would have on a regular cycle, but still. When you go with IVF the point is to get way MORE follies than you would normally have. I was hoping for 40 but more realistically just 10-15 would have made me happy.
I left with tears in my eyes - deff not a cry, but wet eyes nonetheless.. The nurse said that sometimes after a few days of the injections some secret ones pop out, but I think that was to make me feel better. She took blood and said that she would talk to the doc about what his thoughts were on the whole thing. **Sigh**. Now I sit and wait for the call.....
Im trying to not do what I normally do and doom the whole cycle already and I think I am doing better, but deff not able to look at this as a good thing, just yet.

The troups have arrived!

Yesterday the 6 boxes of fertility medication/needles arrived. Matt said it took 40 min to put the stuff away (into the fridge), now we have more needles and medication in our fridge than food.

I had to take everything out and organize, just cuz thats who I am. I also needed to go thru all the meds to make sure that everything was there and read up on what needed to be in the fridge and what did not.
Everything ended up on the kitchen table and as I looked at it I felt overwhelmed. Not the same type of feeling as when I first opened the medication box with the first IVF, but still a very strong overwhelming, sadness came over me. I lined everything up and figured I would take a picture of my very own "infertility army". What a weird place to be in, taking pictures of the many medications i will be injecting into my body. Right then Brayden came in the kitchen and the tears came, partly cuz of the weirdness of all of this, partly cuz I needed him to come in and be reminded of why I am doing this and mostly cuz he gave me a big hug - just because.

As he is asking me what the heck all this stuff is a light goes off in his head - so he says in a real soft voice ...... "don't you have to have s-e-x in order to have a baby"..... OMG, gulp..... so I said "nope, not this time" and then went on to try and explain why and how the doctor was gonna do it. WOW, that was weird!!! He was fine with my answer and went on about life, gotta love kids not really needing much of an explanation.

When you are in the situation, its hard to see it as anything else than normal. Just as Harmony’s twice weekly therapy used to be and her yearly IEP is, I used to try to shelter and hide the injections from the kids but it just was way too hard. They are old enuf to be able to be told. They understand what they can and what they don’t doesn’t seem to bother them much. They have been thru all the IVF’s and all the miscarriages and they are bothered by the loses just as much as we are. They are there for all the injections, Harmony has even been “trained” on how to give the intramuscular progesterone injections for the nights that Matt isnt around. How disturbing is that? Ugh, but what else are we gonna do? Brayden cant even be in the room with the injections cuz he says it “makes his legs tingle” to see that stuff. I decided to tell them about it and let them see that I wasnt doing anything illegal since they are really hit hard with the drug talk at school. I deff did not want them peeking in on me doing an injection and busting that nugget out during the class drug talk - ouch, that would be a meeting with the principal for sure!

All the meds in the picture are going to be used in a 8-10 day period, the only ones that wont be will be the blood thinner injections - so the 2 boxes of Lovenox in the back will be left over after the intense days of stimulation. Holy Crap, thats a lot of medication.

When is it ok to stop?

Looking in on the situation I'm sure I would say to someone - you have done all you can and its ok to stop, however, when you are the one its not quite that easy.
I don’t know if or when I will ever be able to say I did enuf if this doesn’t work. I would love to be able to walk away from this IVF feeling good about all I have done and even if it doesn’t work, still being ok with what I have done so far but I don’t see that happening, not at all. I figure I will spend months trying to figure out where I can blame myself for doing or not doing something correct when in all honesty I know that I could not possibly do anything else in my power to make this happen, I have spent more time on this than pretty much anything else in my life. I am not competitive, but I am a fighter when it means something to me, like when Harmony was little and no one would listen to me about there being something “wrong” with her. I pushed til I found someone to listen to me. Im pretty lazy when it comes to life, but some things light a fire under my ass for sure.
I do not want to waste my life with “what ifs” but I don’t know how to stop and be ok. I don’t know how to pat myself on the back and move on. How do you pat yourself on the back for a good job when you don’t get what you fought for?
I am not only fighting for myself, I am also fighting for the man I love. I know I have probably talked about this before but my heart breaks every time I reminisce about when the kids were little or I see them doing something that is totally something that is me or Brian. Matt loves the children, its very obvious, but he cant know the love of having your “own” child and watching that child grow up from birth. Its amazing that when you don’t have children you can love a child in the family and you feel sooooo much love for this child but it cant even compare to the love you feel for your own. You cant explain this to someone who doesnt have children, it cant be explained, its just felt the second that your child looks at you. I want him to be able to feel the love that is felt when a part of you is walking and talking and being wonderful and naughty all at the same time. I want for us to share in all the wonderful and stressful times that come with infant-hood. I remember even as hard as life was when the kids were little, Brian and I would always laugh about something during the day cuz the kids were around and reminding us that most days were just exhausting but amusing.
He deserves to have that experience.
Im sure plenty of people “deserve” things that they don’t get, I understand that people with MS “deserve” to be able to walk and not have vertigo,people with cancer totally “deserve” to live a full life without pain and chemo, etc. - I just don’t know how to get past my feelings of failure and move forward without regret or hatered for myself. That is where I get caught up. I talk to the therapist and she helps but its not a fast process, and as everyone knows, I am not the most patient person in the world. Logically, I know its not a failure but that sure doesn’t help to get past the feeling.
I have flip/floped a lot these last few months. This being the last try is both freakin’ me out as well as making me feel at peace (some days). I have been doing this for almost 3 years now. Everything that I do revolves around this so reaching an ending does sound very appealing, however, if that ending is not the one I envision then instead it is scary, very, very scary.
I don’t know where I would stand in all of this if I didn’t have children. I often wonder if I would fight harder or if I would have given up long ago. Looking at those kiddos makes me know how incredible it is to be a parent and how much I want Matt to also know that feeling. It is the only thing I have ever wanted for myself, to be a good mother. I never cared about college or a career, never had big dreams of being wealthy...... only having children and being there for them so I’d like to think that if I didn’t have children I would still fight this hard. On the flip side tho, how could I possibly know how incredible it would be to be a mother if I wasn’t one? Would it be this hard to walk away since I honestly would have no clue what I was missing. I don’t know and thank goodness I never will.

Feeling very savvy today

I am convinced that the insurance company makes things incredibily difficult on purpose so that you will eventualy give up and just pay so they dont have to. They are probabbly right in most cases, they got me for over two years with that crap. Now, becuase i have been doing this crap for way too long, i now have the upper hand - or at least i think i do. I bet in a couple years i will find out they would have paid me to take the medication if i tried harder, lol.
I just got off the phone wiht the "speciality pharmacy" aka the one the insurnace gets the best deal from. Its slow as hell and they arent the nicest people in the world but deff worth doing it this way.
When i first started all this mess i was THRILLED to find out that the $3,000 worth of meds were only gonna cost us $300.00 only to find out there was a WAY better deal out there. Those meds, had i gone with the "speciality" pharmancy would have cost us about $40.00. Oh well, live and learn in this game.
I have ordered the medication for the IVF round - all the injections, syringes and such and after adding it all up, there is more than $8,000.00, if not more (if no insurance coverage) worth of medication coming my way...... my price $120.00. Apparently i pay a co-pay of $20.00 per grouping. There is one script i could get at walgreens for $8.00 instead of the $20.00 but it is totally not worth calling and tyring to get that one lonely script out of their hands and into Walgreens. No thank you, I'll just pay the $20.00.
I feel not only savvy right now but very very fortunate - fortunate for the insurance, even if they want to make my life difficult. Without them none of this fertility hell would be possible. So if you are gonna have to go thru this all, having to pay only $120.00 for meds sure does take lots of added stress off the shoulders.
Yay me! :-)

A little explanation.....

I feel like I should explain a little about why I am on sooooo many medications. Some, if not all of you know but i was thinking about it last night and it seems so normal to me, however, if i was reading this I would wonder what the hell was wrong with me and why sooooo many medications! Geesh!
After having the 1st miscarriage the doc said "this just happens, its bad luck", after the 2nd we were give the same bogus answer of "bad luck" the 3rd and 4th were pretty much handled the same way until i pushed. FINALLY i found a doctor that was willing to test me for some things that were not "the norm" and tons of crazy a** stuff came up.
Turns out that I dont have 1 or 2 or even 3 mutated genes that cause clotting and "thick blood" issues, i have FOUR of them. Thx to my wonderful genes and my age, I continue to lose pregnancies. Actually, the number 3 comes up in this too cuz although i have 4 mutated genes, 2 of them are exactly the same so actually only 3 different genes, there is my number again, lol.
So thats where the baby aspirin and blood thinner injections come into play. They will thin the blood so that it can flow better to the uterus and thicken up my uterine lining so that there is a nice cushion for the embryo(s) to burrow into. It will also help later on in the pregnancy with blood flow. The double mutated MTHFR (by the way it is shortened, im sure you can sound out what I call that damn thing!) also makes it almost impossible for my body to break down folic acid which is so important for a babys eye and brain development. It also interferes with the way my body takes in and processes Vit B6 and Vit B12 which are important for many reasons but very important in the world of fertility. That is where the medication Metnax comes in. There are super mega doses of B12 and 6 in there and the folic acid is already broken down for my lazy a** body.
Now, there is also something else going on in my body most of the time - I have a really high Natural Killer Cell count, Natural killer cells are in everyone,no whoop, they are good things to have, they help to fight off colds and such. Cept mine are super pumped up like on speed and want to fight everything off, including a baby. Great, thanks. I guess its just like a little kid who wants to do something great like make breakfast for you and when you wake up and come downstairs you are greeted with your great grandmothers broken china in the trash, sticky juice all over and a HUGE mess to clean up and a pile of dog poop strategically placed under your foot as get to the bottom of the stairs - Nice gesture, but lets not go there again. I dont get sick really ever, but I also lose babies. I'll take the cold thank you very much.
So that is where the steroids come in to play - they will calm those lil buggers down (or suppose to anyway) so they aren't so powerful. The very expensive IVIg treatments are basically the same but more powerful and less side effects to the treatment. Steroids sure do make you feel good while you are on them but you can have some crazy things happen due to steroids - Fragile bones is one so that is where the 1000mg of extra calcium comes in.
I think that covers all the extra vitamins and scripts - wait, Vit E......to be perfectly honest, I cant remember why the extra Vit E. I'm sure I could call and ask but I don't really feel like it so we will just say its for the skin.
I will not be going to acupuncture this time around - the cost makes me more stressed so it just isn't worth it. I will be drinking at least 70oz - or at least trying to - of water a day. Now, I am not a fan of water, I don't hate it as much as I did 2 years ago, but I have a strong, strong dislike for the stuff. I would much rather be drinking a Diet Dew, but you do what you gotta do. I gave up soda over a year ago but I do treat myself to one at least a couple times a week. Gives me something to look forward - gosh, that is sad.
The water counteracts the possible OHSS which is over hyper stimulation syndrome that can come with all the high doses of hormone that i will be pumping into my body. It can be serious, I believe your body holds all the liquid and you have to go and have your ovaries drained of liquid so that they don't explode - youch! So they want you to drink tons and tons of water to help that. I haven't had any problems in any of the 8 injection cycles so I'm not real concerned but I will drink the water anyway.

3rd times the charm, right???

I like the number 3, I really do. I'm weird like that - I like to park in the 3rd spot at work in the parking lot, I like to eat things in 3's, I like to type 3 lines then take a break, etc....so I suppose I can look at this in a good way.

So the 6th and last IUI failed, what a surprise. I was actually pretty hopeful this time only cuz of the new meds and vitamins that I have been taking, I was let down with the negative result but life moves on.

Now we enter the 3rd and final IVF and I am freaked out. Freaked out cuz it’s the “last” chance, freaked out cuz i am afraid it wont work, freaked out cuz if it does work I could lose it again, Freaked out cuz I just don’t want to do the whole process over again. Its time consuming and makes me a crazy person, not to mention all the money and emotion that goes into it all. **Sigh**

I will go thru it and make it thru because this is something I want to do and something I want to look back and say was worth it. I'm not competitive but in this situation I want to win, i want to beat this infertility bitch and I want to say I did all i could to give/have a child with my hubby.
At this poitn I swear I am on more medication and vitamins than my 85 y/o grandma, and that is hard cuz she has lots of meds! Hahahaha!

I am at the beginning of the IVF cycle as I type. CD5 I have chosen to take bcp for 2 weeks so that I can time it right. I am leaving on the 13th of Feb in AZ so I couldnt start the stims right away. Ok, back to the grind..... am not worried about the short amount of time on bcp's that I am on them since I will be on blood thinner injections this time. No worries, cept for the fact that they make me mean and nasty. Oh well, not much difference that normal days I suppose.....moving right along

So for the last month daily I have been taking as follows:

* Citna-natal Assure which is prenatal (scripted)
* DHA pill (scripted)
* Metanx which is high doses of Methylfolate (broken down folic acid) and high doses of B6 and B12 (scripted)
* Baby aspirin (instructed by specialist)
* 400 extra of Vit E (instructed by specialist)
* Two 500mg extra of Calcium (instructed by specialist)
* 500mg of Metformin (regulates and keeps blood sugars in check, scripted)
* 400 unit injection of Lovenox (blood thinner, scripted)
- Total of 8 pills and one injection

On Sunday the 31st of January with the start of my cycle I added to the above:
* One birth control pill
* 10 mg prednisone steroid (scripted)
- Total of 10 pills and 1 injection
Last bcp will be the15th of February and wait for period, usually 3 days after last pill.

At that time I will go back into the doctor for baseline blood work and ultrasound. Hopefully then be given the green light for the daily simulation medication. So I will then add to the above:

* 300 iu injection of Follistim (to stimulate follicles to grow)
* Two vials of 75 iu injection of Menopur ( to stimulate follicles to grow)

- Total of 9 pills and 4 injections daily

Then about 6 days into the stim injections I will add another daily injection called Ganerellix which will help to stop my body from ovulating on its own - once follicles are grown and doc thinks its time to go then I will stop the Ganerellix, Follistim and Menopur and take one injection for egg retrieval called Ovidril. I will also have to stop the Lovenox (blood thinner until after egg retrieval)

For a few days I will injection free- yippie! :-)

I would assume that egg retrieval would be around the 4th or 5th of March. And egg transfer would then be around 7th or 9th. Then bed rest - the pay off for all the work - ahhhhhh!

After ER I will just wait and see how the embryos grow and progress. I would prefer to have a 5 day transfer this time so I know the embryos are nice and strong but if we are forced to do another 3 day with not so great embryos I will insist they put them ALL back in instead of letting them die (most likely) in the lab. I wish I would have thought about that and demanded that the 2nd time but sadly, I am learning as I go. I would rather my embryos have a chance inside my uterus instead of dying in the lab. I would also like to have a pricey procedure called PGD which is just basically a biopsy on the embryos to make sure they are genetically a-ok but when you don’t have a ton of embryos to “play” with the docs don’t like to do that since the procedure can traumatize and ultimately kill the embryos. So as far as that goes, that will need to be discussed after the embryos are here, fertilized and multiplying.

OH wait, silly me, I forgot something I will be doing. I am taking the steroid to try and keep the natural killer cells down and out but because mine seem not to respond all that great to them I will also be doing 2 treatments called IVIg, it’s a treatment and are $2,500 a pop. I will need to have 2 of those treatments before egg retrieval, then IF and when a positive pregnancy test I will need to have that same treatment every month into the 7th month of pregnancy.
Oh and i take a 50,000 unit Vit D pill every month scripted as well - how did i forget that my levels are crap - what a shock!

I love my kids and when I was pregnant with them and delivered them I was thankful for them, but not the way I should have been. Now as I look back I did take them for granted, was annoyed with their little hands messing my stuff up from time to time, didnt take the 2 years that I was lucky enuf to stay home with them and have my only job as mommy to heart like I should have. I regret that and wish I could go back and know how important that time was. Its not like my kids dont need me anymore, they do and I know they always will in some way. Just going thru this particular journey makes me think more about when they were little and very much needed me for everything. I would have never thought I would say I miss the days when Brayden would throw up on me at least 6 times a day or taking Harmony back and forth to physical and speech therapy and working so hard on having her say words that she was able to say the year before. Never did I think that I would miss the days when I was driving a beat-up ass blue mini van and being excited cuz I had been "stuck" at home with the kids and no car for quite some time. While you are in the moment you just cant see how precious every crazy, hectic, annoying min is and I hope to be able to do it again and see things differently.