And just like that my period is over. Three nights of heavy heavy flow, this morning I woke up and there was… almost nothing. All day today, wearing large pad, waiting… for nothing. Tonight? Still only a little bit of spotting.

So there you have it. Heavy, assholish period, then bam it’s gone. Ummm… okay. Sure.

::

I am feeling blessed by the people in my life. It is strange for me to sit back and really try to take in the whole picture. Most people have friends, yes. And I do. But I have far more than friends.

I am thankful for the friends who have walked beside me for years, listening to my ugliness and nastiness, sharing in my laughter, and babbling about the inane.

I am thankful for the friends I have made through this rough time – whom I probably don’t keep up with as much as I should – but who still encourage me forward and think of me often.

I am thankful for the blog readers and aquaintances – yes, even you lurkers. I know you are there, and I feel your silent thoughts and prayers. And, yes, it matters to me. Thank you for taking precious time out of your day to read my thoughts, share my fears, hear my cries.

I know we humans like to classify things, including friendships, but my friends and aquaintances range the gamut. I have made friends through shared desires, shared fears, shared grief, shared hobbies. Some I am closer to than others, but I hope they all know that does not mean I care for them any less. You are all special to me. You all hold a place in my heart.

It is unfortunate in some ways that so few of my friends live nearby. But every time I read my forums, my email, my blog comments, I am reminded that I am so surrounded by the warm embrace of friendship. Anyone who has every said, “Just an online friend” is utterly, completely missing the point.

So here we are, more than a year after that day. I’m not even really sure how I got here… it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been a year already. And yet in some ways it feels like an eternity since that day… like a span of my whole life has passed between then and now.

I worked the whole week. I wasn’t entirely sure I would, but I figured I would just take it as it came. Wednesday was, by far, the worst day. That was the day I realized AF was hitting, and I spent the last hour of the day in tears. I thought to myself, if today is so bad, how is the rest of the week going to go?? I prepared myself for the worst. But, as is typical, it didn’t go as expected. Somehow, by the time Thursday rolled around, I had already processed most of it. I had been grieving the cycle’s end since Monday, so I guess it was easier for me by then. The beta was no surprize. And, in a way, it felt a little relieving that at least it was over and now I could move on.

But, as I wrote earlier today, this period has not been an easy one. Very heavy, very crampy, very strange in many ways. The cramping wasn’t the usual vice-grips, it was more… labor pains. It felt so familiar. I remember standing at the drive-up window on friday, watching a customer drive away, thinking that it wasn’t so bad, I was doing just fine. As I was thinking that, the car pulling forward revealed a carseat in the back seat, just as one of those labor pain cramps squeezed my empty uterus. Maybe not as well as I thought, the voice in my head said sadly.

I ran out of my normal pads, since it was so heavy, so I found myself digging around the closet for the package of pads I knew I had in there somewhere. I found them on the top shelf – big, thick pads. The ones I bought – and haven’t used – since my post-birth lochia. I stood there for a minute, holding them in my hands, thinking about how very ironic it all was. The timing of this all is just beyond ridiculous. It doesn’t feel sorrowful, though – just strange. Sad. A little bit of deja vu.

I was getting nervous by Friday afternoon, thinking about everything we had yet to do for the dinner party. I had gone shopping to buy all the needed food ingredients, as well as picking up a tablecloth, placemats and cloth napkins – I really wanted the evening to be… well, not quite formal, but not casual either. We don’t exactly host dinners very often. Or ever, really.

The evening did go very well, other than a few minor things. Hearing my MIL greet my neice was hard – I can dote on her all I want, but hearing others do it is always a little grating, especially on Devin’s birthday. The food was behind schedule so we ate later than planned. And we served steak, but didn’t realize BIL and SIL couldn’t eat steak on fridays during Lent (they brought fish, and it was no big deal). But all in all everything came out just fine. The men mostly were the ones cooking – shocking, I know. I did the cake and icing earlier, I organized everything and had recipes out, but then Den took the reins with BIL (who is a fabulous cook) giving him some help and instructions, and I realized I was just one extra person in the kitchen. So the women ended up sitting with the baby while the steaks cooked.

We obviously have a lot to learn about cooking and dinner parties – there were several times when I was really wishing I had Mrs. Spit in my pocket to refer to (note to self: pay more attention to Mrs. Spit), and I know it was far from perfect. But we enjoyed ourselves and it was a nice evening. I think we’d like to start entertaining more often, and I do think it was a very nice way to celebrate Devin’s birthday. Maybe we can make this a tradition.

The centerpiece I made.

And me with his gifts: his train, 2 angels, and a little sheep.

Happy birthday, my sweet boy. March 6 was a horrible day in so many ways, but it was the day we got to meet you. No matter what, I am your mama and always will be. I miss you – I will always miss you – but it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it once did.

I have a lot to talk about, since I’ve barely had time to sit and check my email in the past few days, so I’m going to have to split it up. I’ll talk about Devin’s birthday later, right now I’m just going to talk about my body and this cycle. Ohhh fun.

On the good side of things I am progressively losing weight. It’s not a lot of weight, but it’s noticeable for sure. I was plateaued at 136lbs, but now I’m down to about 133. Just as a reminder, I was 142lbs when I got pregnant with Devin. I haven’t been this low in over 5 years. The other day I was dressed in my work clothes and Den said, “You aren’t wearing that, are you? You look like Charlie Chaplin. Don’t you have any other pants?” I didn’t really – everything I own from the last 5 years is now too big and slipping off my butt. So I had to rustle around in my drawer and pull out some old old pants I couldn’t bear to part with (since I liked them so much). But they are a size 8, and, needless to say, I have been unable to wear them in a very very long time. Well… now they’re my only pair of pants I can wear to work. I need to go shopping. (Only problem is that they fit everywhere except the belly…. my pooch still makes them hard to close. But anything that fits my pooch sags off my ass. WTF annoying.) I’m feeling very happy with myself. Every time I step on the scale I think, “Wow! I really can do this!”

However the body is still not exactly the shape I would want. I’m losing weight from some areas – definitely my arms and face and boobs (sigh), even my butt… but not the thighs or belly so much. So it can be kind of frustrating. I want to get rid of the “spare tire” thing I still have going on…. but I don’t think that’s going to happen unless I really start working out, which brings up another whole set of problems. I might start swimming, since that’s something I can do even while in a two week wait or early pregnancy without freaking out that I’m hurting something. But still, despite those shortfalls, I may actually fit into a bikini this summer… at least among friends. That’s kind of crazy.

On the bad side of things my body is not exactly making me happy right now. During IVF#3 the nurse mentioned that if I didn’t get pregnant the period was probably going to be heavier than normal. I didn’t get pregnant, I got my period, but it was nothing remarkable. I thought nothing of it. Until I got my period after this failed cycle. Holy eff, man, this shit sucks.

First of all, cramps. And not the normal kind of cramps that I ever remember. Then there’s the bowel distress… I don’t even know how else to describe it. I know the nurse had mentioned that my left ovary was tucked behind against my bowel and might cause some lower back aches, but this is way beyond little aches. I am still having problems sitting in chairs… when I sit straight down I get this shockwave right up my tailbone through my bowel. A LOT of pressure… like when you get a wicked gas bubble. And it won’t go away! It has to be from everything pressing funny, but it is just so not fun and I would really like this to go away now.

Oh, and don’t forget the bleeding. Heavy bleeding, started Thursday, thrugh Friday and Saturday, and now continuing into Sunday. This may be normal for many people – not for me. I normally have piddly little periods. This is like a big fuckin mega-period. And it is getting really old really fast.

I’ve been thinking about how much my body has changed because of the pregnancy. I expected my lifestyle would change, I expected my mindset to change, I definitely expected my body shape to change. But I really wasn’t prepared for all the little things that are different now. My body just seems far more sensitive to, well, everything. Let’s just run through the list: I now have allergies to dust and cats, an allergic reaction to a medication, I majorly overstimmed on the same dosage as I took before with no problems, I’m getting sick from alchohol when I never did before, and hell, even my sense of smell is more sensitive than it used to be (which is saying a LOT). Sometimes I just sit in stunned silence and wonder whose body I got – because it’s obviously not mine.

Oh, and I started my FET protocol today: one patch. Man, this is so easy. No injections – none. It doesn’t feel like a real cycle.

One year ago tonight was the last night I slept as a pregnant woman. One year ago I still thought everything was okay.

::

Everything I said last night still makes perfect sense – to use the insurance for stims and bank all the embryos we can for future use. I was planning in my mind for a May cycle – whether FET or stims.

When I walked in to the clinic this morning the staff was all sitting around in their receptionists area. I told the nurse that my period had arrived, and said I didn’t even know it could happen. She said it usually doesn’t – which implies that sometimes it does. I got my blood drawn anyways, just for closure’s sake.

The voice mail message later in the day confirmed the negative. Not surprizing in the least, considering I’d spent the whole day wincing against cramps. The message also gave me a little bit of info about a FET cycle… that, if we we wanted to, a FET cycle could be done right away. Like, now. Like, starting patches this weekend.

As much as doing a stims cycle makes sense… as much as waiting two months for a February due date sounds “better” to me… I am really fucking sick of waiting. I want a baby now. Fuck planning for after I have a baby. Fuck planning due dates. Look at right now. I am heartbroken, I am tired, I am just treading water. What could would 2 months do me right now? 2 more months of grief, of sitting around twiddling my damn thumbs and watching people get pregnant all around me.

One of the reasons this last cycle was not a massive failure, despite its poor outcome, is because of those frozen embryos. To me a FET feels like an extension of the original cycle. We get three tries for the price of one. And this is one of the reasons I was so adamant that we only transfer one. Transferring two embryos at once only increases your success rate slightly. But transferring one embryo at a time, twice, has a better chance of giving you a baby. And we had three out of one stims. So even though the first one, the fresh one, didn’t work, our chances of getting pregnant out of three transfers is pretty high. This is the thought that keeps me feeling positive and not so beat down and hopeless.

So for me – for now – we are doing an FET. It’s like getting a second chance at this cycle.

The one concern with an immediate FET is my vacation. I am finally getting to go home to visit my family, flights are booked, it’s all set. I leave March 30, for 2 weeks. (And let me tell you, it is a MUCH NEEDED vacation!) I did manage to get ahold of the nurse on my lunch break and ask her about it. She pulled out a calendar and counted out the days. It should be done before I leave, she said. No problems.

Which means, dear readers, that I have another transfer scheduled in 3 weeks.

It also means my entire my wait and testing will take place in Canada. I’m not sure what this will mean for a beta – if they’ll do one when I get back, just have me test with pee sticks… not sure. For me I think being away for that period will be really really nice. But to be honest I’m worried about my mom. If it comes out well it will be fabulous… but if it doesn’t? It’s not how I’d want to spend my time home. My mom is taking all of this VERY hard and I don’t want to see her all weepy. :(

Maybe we should wait. It’s definitely more my MO to wait and plan and make things align in the sky. For some reason I have my eyes set on a February due date, that “feels” nice and round and organized to me. But every time I think about waiting three months I just want to cry. So I’m not going to plan. I’m not going to crunch numbers. I’m not going to worry about where I’ll be for testing or the due date or how this will pan out down the road.

I’m taking a page from Den’s playbook and just going with it. When I brought up the whole future-children frozen-embryos thing to him he said simply, “We’ll figure it out when we need to worry about it. Who knows what will happen by then.” That’s always been how he’s seen life. Sometimes it drove me crazy (okay, still does a lot of the time). But sometimes it makes an aweful lot of sense.

Right nowe we just want a baby. Any baby. Any time. The sooner than better. So we’re jumping in with both feet.

We drove home mostly in silence. I couldn’t speak – I knew I’d lose it. I got home, went to the bathroom… more blood. I kept hoping it would go away, that it would turn back into “just spotting” and I could relax and get a tiny bit of hope back for tomorrow. But there was just more blood.

I posted, Den fed the pets. He climbed into bed quietly, and I just sobbed in his arms for a while. We fell asleep… an escape, a short reprieve.

I woke up feeling better, but I don’t think Den did. I had already gotten most of my anguish and frustration out. I had a feeling I just needed a really good cry… holding it in all day was making it feel worse, just teetering on the edge over and over. But Den… he is quiet. More than subdued, he is mourning. As much as we hold on to each other for support, there are still many times that we just need to sit in silence, separately, and process. This is one of those times. I am grateful we both understand and accept that.

I get into this habit of thinking that I know what I’m doing and I’m prepared for any outcome – and every cycle has thrown something new at me. I certainly have never gotten AF before stopping my meds after the beta… I didn’t even know it was possible. I will be talking to the nurse tomorrow to just get some answers, but a google search tells me that it does happen to some people, sometimes, in what appears to be a random manner. Lovely.

I’m already moving into the “what’s next” mode. It’s what always keeps me sane and moving forward, rather than curled up under my bed, refusing to ever come out. The main question on my mind is not one that you all will be expecting… what do we next, a frozen embryo transfer, or another stims cycle? I know, I know, your eyes probably just crossed funny and you said, “What?!” But, see, here’s the thing, I’m thinking ahead. We want two living children. The first one we will get from my current insurance, which has pretty awesome coverage. And then I plan to stay at home and raise my child. Which brings up an obvious problem: how the hell do I get pregnant again? Our frozen embryos neatly solved that problem. We cannot afford a stims cycle without insurance… but a frozen transfer or two we could do. Those frozen embryos were supposed to be my insurance plan for the future while I carried the baby from the stims. Obviously it didn’t work that way.

There is a part of me that thinks “banking” more embryos for the future while we can is a fabulous idea. But on the other hand… I am really tired of stims. My body is tired. This last one was especially hard on me physically. The idea of just transferring another one feels so… weightless. Effortless. It’s like a second chance at this cycle… the hard part is already done. But then we use one, possibly both of our frozen embryos and puts us in a tough situation for the future.

So I guess it comes down to, which is more important? The short-term, the “now”? That does make sense, especially given how unreliable the future can be. Maybe planning for 5 years down the road is idiotic and I should just confine my concern for getting pregnant this time. I don’t know. We’ll have to think about it.

The next – and far more obvious – question is: when? After my trip home (April), I know that much. I guess at this point we’re more looking at May or June. I don’t even know the procedure for frozen embryo transfers, how long they want you to wait in between, how long it takes, or anything… I guess I need to do some reading up on it.

It makes my head hurt. This is all just such bullshit that I even have to think about this. *sigh*

On the good side, it seems I adjust faster every time. Maybe it was the days of emotional breakdowns I completed in preparation. That probably helped, too.

The “spotting” was not implantation bleeding… it was, apparently, AF. Mid-day I noticed I was still spotting, and by the end of my work day I was bleeding more heavily. It’s not a full period… yet. But it’s almost there. Enough blood. Some small clots. I tried holding it together for the last hour of work, but there were some tears in the bathroom and back room.

I just don’t understand. How/why would I get my period while still on the prometrium and estrogen? I didn’t miss any thing, that I know of. I’m just at a loss for words. I was not at all concerned with some spotting – maybe even a little hopeful. But this? I am at a loss.

My heart hurts so much, I am lost in this. All of this… the cycle’s end, Devin’s birthday, the continued grief and loss and this huge empty hole. How much is one person expected to survive?

When I woke up I didn’t want to go test. I just layed here, dreading it, but unable to sleep either. Finally Den rolled over and said he hadn’t slept all night, so I got up.

The tests were negative. I’m 13dpr now, this is the day I got a positive with Devin.

And I’m spotting. What the hell does this mean? We’ve been waiting for spotting – it’s what happened in Devin’s cycle, before we got a positive. But at 13dpr? I didn’t get a positive test until 3 days after the spotting. We don’t have three days to wait, tomorrow is the beta. It’s a little late for implanting.

I just have no clue what this is. Is this a sign to not give up yet? Or a complete random coincidence?

Tomorrow I go to work and try to do my job, and then tomorrow I will test again and then just wait for the beta. But we are preparing ourselves for the worst.

I’ve been on the edge of tears all day. I was supposed to have my appointment with my therapist yesterday, but due to the heavy snowstorm it was cancelled – thankfully she had the presence of mind to reschedule for this afternoon, because I really really needed it. I walked in, said a few words to catch her up, then just started crying about work and the negative pregancy tests and all of it. She doesn’t even do or say much… just lets me get it all off my chest. I somehow walk out feeling a little better, a little more clear. Not a lot – but a little.

Still very emotional today. I’m quite nervous for the rest of this work… I have to work at the bank for the next four days and I really do not know how that is going to work out. Every time I feel like I have half a grip on this pregnancy/no pregnancy thing I start thinking about Devin’s birthday and get choked up all over again. So how the hell am I going to function and not make mistakes every. single. day? Again. My therapist asked if there’s any way I can take some time off. My initial reaction was, “No,” but the more I thought about it, the more I’m thinking that if I’m that much of a mess at work they might want me to just go home and stop screwing everything up. It would have to be unpaid leave, but honestly that’s not a concern for me at all. I’m more worried about having to take time off and how that looks to my boss – I came into this telling them and myself that I was not going to need much, you know? Just a day or two off for the surgeries, that’s all. But then, here I am, on the eve of two of the biggest dates of the year, and I feel like I’m losing it one little piece at a time. So I’m going to go in tomorrow and just see how it goes. Maybe work will be a welcome distraction from everything. Maybe I’ll be a crying mess. No mascara tomorrow, just in case.

One of my favorite little sayings happens to be a religious one, but the meaning still holds even if you take the god out of it:

I think part of the TTCer’s paranoia stems from the belief that you can change it – that what you eat, what you say, what you think will somehow influence the outcome of the cycle. Trust me when I say, it’s easy to get caught up in it, even if you’re not the least bit superstitious. I find myself asking myself, “Should I buy this? Did I buy this last time? If I buy this, that is admitting that I think this is going to work, which means it won’t work…” Round and round you go, losing your mind and sanity. But it’s a fallacy. It’s all in your head. I can’t change this. Whether or not I test with the blue stick or the pink stick, whether I get up at 5am or 7am, whether I wait for the beta or not, the answer will be the same.

And whatever the answer is, I will deal with it, I will get through to the other side. If the answer is no it may take some work. It may take some grief. I will cry heavily… and then I will start to feel better. I will pick myself up and keep on walking. We are far from done.

I don’t remember feeling this lost in the wait for my beta, but maybe time dims some of it. But I think back… my first cycle I knew it had worked, so I was anxious, but at that point I really had no idea that things didn’t always work out. My second cycle I knew it hadn’t worked, so even though I was testing, it was just to prove that I was right and I wasn’t pregnant (which is now quite ironic). Last cycle we didn’t test at all, because it had gone so badly. We had hope, sure, but not a whole lot of it and I didn’t want to see any negatives. It was Christmas. I wanted my Christmas miracle.

This time… this time, I admit, everything went so damn well, beyond all expectations, that there is/was a part of me that really believed that this had to have worked. And I guess there is still a chance. I get that, cerebrally. I understand what people are saying to me. But my heart? My heart doesn’t care. It is so wrapped up with fear, so aware of how things can look absolutely perfect and still not work that it takes these early negatives as a warning sign, a sign to prepare for the worst. So that’s what I’m doing, emotionally: I’m preparing.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m right. But it doesn’t matter, does it. In the end the only reality is the one I’m handed. Maybe preparing myself will make it hurt less. Maybe it’s just prolonging it.

I can’t change this. I can only weather the storm.

Any other IVFers who tested before their beta, when did you get your first positive?

Last time it was 13dpr. I got a negative on 11dpr and didn’t test on 12dpr.

I am totally hating my body right now for being a late tester.

Another negative this morning. I crawled back into bed, pulled Sheepie into my arms, and fell asleep. When my alarm went off I turned it off and fell back asleep. Den got up to take a shower and I just stared at the ceiling for fifteen minutes. When I finally got into the shower I started crying silently. I’m preparing myself for the worst. I cannot see this coming out with good news in the end.

What is so wrong with me? I always thought getting that embryo would be the challenge, and after that it would happen the way it’s supposed to. But if I can’t get pregnant with a good quality blast, what does that mean? Shit luck, or something more?

We’re left wondering if Devin really was some kind of miracle.