So today is the 1st day back to work and it feels good to back in the real world - even tho the longer I lay around, the easier it got to lay around. Either way, here I am back at work and loving it. I also do like that I am leaving at 11:30 to get out to another doctor appt in Illinois - but I am quite sure that by Wednesday or Thursday I will be over this whole “back to real life and work garbage”, hahaha.
Anyhoo - today is technically 8dpo so I could be implanting right now! How exciting :0)
But in the IVF world I am 5dp3dt (5 days past 3 day transfer) and in the IVF world to the doctor that just means that I am still waiting...... waiting...... waiting...... to see if this cycle worked. Im usually pretty cool up until about now. Im only a few days away from knowing - and then after a positive pregnancy test is when my real worry or anxiousness starts. The 2 weeks after a + test in my life are 2 of the L-O-N-G-E-S-T weeks of my life. Its like in the movies when you feel and hear every second click by. Man, that’s rough but I would much rather have that then a negative that is for sure!
I am a POAS (pee on a stick) addict so I already know that the trigger is out of my system which is good cuz that means if/when I get a + it is a real one. I have been tricked b4 so now I test to see the + first then the - then the + again. Its crazy but for whatever reason it makes me feel a lil control in this uncontrollable stuff. Gives me another reason to get up in the morning - silly but true. Not that I dont have things that get me up in the morning but, well, you people who have been thru this understand and there is no other way to say it.
Today I will be going for another IVIG treatment, gosh I wish i could have booked it for Wed instead cuz by then I could ask for a blood pregnancy test to see if this is even something I need to do. Its another $2,100 which is fine if it helped but come to find out that after my treatment (2 days after) my KC actually WENT UP, yes, i said UP. They have an explanation for everything and sure it makes sense but I was really wanting to hear that they went down. They were borderline last time and they went up from 15 to 42 AFTER treatment. They told me that it was cuz 2 days after i had the treatment i had my retreival where they were "poking around" up there which makes the natural killer cells start to get all crazy. I just dont know what to think, but i am going back to get another treatment so.... yeah..... I just dont want to say "I shoulda had that treatment this time. I cant have closure if I dont do everything possible this time so I will go and let them take the money from us. I am stopping for fast food tho.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Update and instant love
So here i am sitting on bed rest - bored. I always look forward to this part of it all for the relaxation but by day 2 I am bored and sick of seeing all the things that I could be doing. Oh well, the rest will be good.
Yesterday was the transfer. We had 6 embryos. One of A quality, 3 of B quality and 2 of C's. She told me that they wanted to transfer the 4 best ones and the C's will prob die off by the next day. Ummmmm, yeah, no. So we went back and forth a bit how i wanted them all to be transferred. If they are gonna die, at least let them die in me - not in a dish in the lab. Embryologist did not want to do it and wouldnt even consider it until i finally said that the doc and i had already decided this and i wanted to talk to my nurse Sue. She didnt seem concerned, went out to talk to the new doc and came back within min to say it all was fine. No worries - the doc made some jokes about how my babies I am gonna have and that was that. Now i have to hope that embryologist didnt hold a grudge and poke a lil too hard on the embryos while she was doing the assistant hatching process. Just kidding, Im sure all is fine.
I showed the pic to the kids and bray FREAKED when i told him each of those blogs was a potential baby. His eyes got HUGE and said "YOUR GONNA HAVE 6 BABIES?!?!?!". It was cute, but i had to explain to him how that was not gonna happen. When i showed Harmony the picture i asked her if she thought they looked more like me or Matt, lol.
Im sure everything thinks I am nuts and have lost my mind but this is it, this is the last chance and I just couldnt live with myself if I didnt fight for what we wanted this time. I couldnt have closure on all of this if I felt pushed around this time. If this doesnt work, i need to be able to know that I did EVERYTHING possible in my power to have made it happen. In order to move on I cant live with "what if's".
My beta pregnancy test (the blood one) is next Friday and then another on Saturday. I wont know anything until Saturday - as far as those results go, however, I'm sure all of you know I will be testing so I will know before I go in there. Id love to be able to wait, but I'm not gonna even pretend its gonna happen that way cuz its not. I have at least 40 pregnancy tests here and they are SCREAMING my name already :-)
Started back on the blood thinner injections yesterday and now they are twice a day, 12 hours apart. Plus the intermuscular progesterone shot in the back/bum. Not worried or annoying in the slightest about it. Loving the shots if they can help get us to our goal.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Why do people have to be so difficult?
I’m having an issue with the embryologist and I am quite sure she is having a problem with me as well. We are not gonna be best buds anytime soon. After I talked with her I got more and more upset about the talk we had which was more of her scolding me for even thinking about putting all the embryos back in. How silly that would be - no doctor will do that, etc. Such crap.
As a side-note to all of this ** that dumb ass octo-mom really F*d up the fertility world in my opinion.
That lady NEVER had a m/c and NEVER didn’t get preggo with a IVF cycle and also had PLENTY of embryos to freeze so why they would have put that many into her is beyond me but now I am paying the price for her dumb ass. Ugh. I have a history, I have had several IUI’s that I have had more than 4 or 5 mature follicles and more than 100 million sperm and no pregnancies from those, plus all the m/c’s and the other TWO failed IVF cycles, nothing ever to freeze, I could go on ...... geesh, c’on lady - lets look at my history then talk about the “risks” of putting too many embryos back in.
Do I want to have 6 children at once, no. Do I think that it will happen, again, no. Am I in the slightest afraid that all of them will stick and then thrive, no. Maybe that is stupid, maybe its just that I am afraid that I will end up with nothing yet again, either way, I’m not afraid in the least.
I just don’t understand how or why she is fighting with me about this, it is something that my DOCTOR and I had already decided and now that he is gone do I need the added stress of dealing with her..... ummm I’d say no. I did talk to of Dr K's patients who had the same issue with this particular embryologist. They (patients and doc) had decided that even the “non-viable” ones would be put in since life starts at conception for them and doc and nurse were a-ok then the embryologist fought back and forth with them about it and how it was “too risky” to put them in, however, she had just got thru telling them that they are ‘non-viable’ and the only way they can be non-viable is when they completely stopped growing so how do you say in one sentence that they are non-viable and then tell them what a great risk it is to put those back in. So this lady would have felt better tossing them in the garbage instead of going with the wishes of patient and doctor and giving the babies a chance at life. So stupid. She needs to chose one side and go with it.
This lady I talked with actually won the “fight” and they put 2 viable and the 2 non viable back in - all 4 stuck but only a week later only 1 heartbeat and no one knows for sure which one it was, non viable or viable.
NOW, I do understand the risks, I am not an idiot, like I said b4 I don’t want to have 6 babies at once. That’s just craziness for anyone but for me, its even more crazy - I'm too old for that! I understand why the docs don’t want to push it, I really do, i respect that they are afraid to do that cuz of the risks, I just want them to look at my history and base the decision on THAT instead of what could potentially happen. Look at the history as well as the fact that they keep telling me that there is only a 10% or less chance that I would have the last 2 to freeze and that this is our last chance and that we have already had failed cycles and that my doc and I had a plan. In a perfect world I wouldnt be going thru this, but in a perfect infertility world in which I live in at the moment, I would put 2 in and get one baby then have the others to freeze - however, my life doesnt work that way so I want to maximize my chances at pregnancy. I would rather have 2 or 3 babies than no babies.
Ok, venting session done - I will be bringing my boxing gloves to this meeting 2moro and she better be ready for a fight. I will make sure I talk to them b4 they try to pump any sedatives into the IV, lol
I am leaning toward fighting for all 6 to be put back in 2moro but we shall see about all that......
As a side-note to all of this ** that dumb ass octo-mom really F*d up the fertility world in my opinion.
That lady NEVER had a m/c and NEVER didn’t get preggo with a IVF cycle and also had PLENTY of embryos to freeze so why they would have put that many into her is beyond me but now I am paying the price for her dumb ass. Ugh. I have a history, I have had several IUI’s that I have had more than 4 or 5 mature follicles and more than 100 million sperm and no pregnancies from those, plus all the m/c’s and the other TWO failed IVF cycles, nothing ever to freeze, I could go on ...... geesh, c’on lady - lets look at my history then talk about the “risks” of putting too many embryos back in.
Do I want to have 6 children at once, no. Do I think that it will happen, again, no. Am I in the slightest afraid that all of them will stick and then thrive, no. Maybe that is stupid, maybe its just that I am afraid that I will end up with nothing yet again, either way, I’m not afraid in the least.
I just don’t understand how or why she is fighting with me about this, it is something that my DOCTOR and I had already decided and now that he is gone do I need the added stress of dealing with her..... ummm I’d say no. I did talk to of Dr K's patients who had the same issue with this particular embryologist. They (patients and doc) had decided that even the “non-viable” ones would be put in since life starts at conception for them and doc and nurse were a-ok then the embryologist fought back and forth with them about it and how it was “too risky” to put them in, however, she had just got thru telling them that they are ‘non-viable’ and the only way they can be non-viable is when they completely stopped growing so how do you say in one sentence that they are non-viable and then tell them what a great risk it is to put those back in. So this lady would have felt better tossing them in the garbage instead of going with the wishes of patient and doctor and giving the babies a chance at life. So stupid. She needs to chose one side and go with it.
This lady I talked with actually won the “fight” and they put 2 viable and the 2 non viable back in - all 4 stuck but only a week later only 1 heartbeat and no one knows for sure which one it was, non viable or viable.
NOW, I do understand the risks, I am not an idiot, like I said b4 I don’t want to have 6 babies at once. That’s just craziness for anyone but for me, its even more crazy - I'm too old for that! I understand why the docs don’t want to push it, I really do, i respect that they are afraid to do that cuz of the risks, I just want them to look at my history and base the decision on THAT instead of what could potentially happen. Look at the history as well as the fact that they keep telling me that there is only a 10% or less chance that I would have the last 2 to freeze and that this is our last chance and that we have already had failed cycles and that my doc and I had a plan. In a perfect world I wouldnt be going thru this, but in a perfect infertility world in which I live in at the moment, I would put 2 in and get one baby then have the others to freeze - however, my life doesnt work that way so I want to maximize my chances at pregnancy. I would rather have 2 or 3 babies than no babies.
Ok, venting session done - I will be bringing my boxing gloves to this meeting 2moro and she better be ready for a fight. I will make sure I talk to them b4 they try to pump any sedatives into the IV, lol
I am leaning toward fighting for all 6 to be put back in 2moro but we shall see about all that......
Ive got a COLD - YIPPIE!
Sounds so silly doesnt it - who hopes for a cold? Meeeee...... i take that as good news since that means that my natural killer cells are so low that they cant fight off this cold. I feel like crap and of course i would rather feel good but i like the little assurance that spending $2,100 may have done what they wanted it to do. Of course I wont know for sure until i have my blood tested and then hopefully a BFP then 6 or 7 more of these treatments. The cost is unreal, but of course worth every single penny if it can stop me from miscarrying babies!
Monday, March 1, 2010
The call I’ve been waiting for!
The call from the embryologist - not as bad as expected so that is always a nice plus.
Got 10 eggs:
8 mature
1 immature
1 degenerate ( i think that means too mature)
Out of the 8 only 6 fertilized.
They will watch the other 2 but don’t expect much from those slackers.
I wanted to transfer all 6 on Wednesday but she said the doc wouldn’t do that as of now since they all look "normal". So what we will do is transfer the best 2 on Wednesday and then again the best 2 on Friday. Its called a subquential (spelling?) transfer. And then the chance of the other 2 being any good for freezing would be 10%.
I don’t understand if they think they only have a 10% chance of “taking” then why they wouldnt just put them in. Dr K and I talked about it and he agreed to put in even the ones that they call “non-viable” and now they wont do it. I am NOT happy about that at all but I have to move on. Can't argue and piss off the person who will be “watching and caring” for your embryos. Would hate to have an accident occur in the lab, yanno?
My issue with it all and I’m sure she is quite annoyed with me, but she will get over it, is that we have NEVER made it to day 5 (which would be Friday) so why would I push it to day 5 with so little amount of embryos? Doesn’t make sense to me to "push my luck" where I have 2 other cycles that show the embryos don’t make it that far but so we chose to do the above type of transfer. I can also choose to put 4of the best in on Wednesday (a day 3 transfer) if they don’t look that great that day. And then hope we chose correctly and that the others would make it to blast to be frozen on day 5 or 6.
I don’t know how to feel about it all, I am very happy to have more to work with and she just kept saying “if they are gonna work then they will, nothing we can do about it”. I don’t like that but I know she is right. Its gotta be pretty easy to say that when its not YOUR last chance or YOUR embryos or YOUR dream.
Got 10 eggs:
8 mature
1 immature
1 degenerate ( i think that means too mature)
Out of the 8 only 6 fertilized.
They will watch the other 2 but don’t expect much from those slackers.
I wanted to transfer all 6 on Wednesday but she said the doc wouldn’t do that as of now since they all look "normal". So what we will do is transfer the best 2 on Wednesday and then again the best 2 on Friday. Its called a subquential (spelling?) transfer. And then the chance of the other 2 being any good for freezing would be 10%.
I don’t understand if they think they only have a 10% chance of “taking” then why they wouldnt just put them in. Dr K and I talked about it and he agreed to put in even the ones that they call “non-viable” and now they wont do it. I am NOT happy about that at all but I have to move on. Can't argue and piss off the person who will be “watching and caring” for your embryos. Would hate to have an accident occur in the lab, yanno?
My issue with it all and I’m sure she is quite annoyed with me, but she will get over it, is that we have NEVER made it to day 5 (which would be Friday) so why would I push it to day 5 with so little amount of embryos? Doesn’t make sense to me to "push my luck" where I have 2 other cycles that show the embryos don’t make it that far but so we chose to do the above type of transfer. I can also choose to put 4of the best in on Wednesday (a day 3 transfer) if they don’t look that great that day. And then hope we chose correctly and that the others would make it to blast to be frozen on day 5 or 6.
I don’t know how to feel about it all, I am very happy to have more to work with and she just kept saying “if they are gonna work then they will, nothing we can do about it”. I don’t like that but I know she is right. Its gotta be pretty easy to say that when its not YOUR last chance or YOUR embryos or YOUR dream.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
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?
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?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
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.
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