Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

An un-pregnant pregnancy

Dec 1, 2008 — 10:56 am

So apparently I have morning sickness. Wait… what?? I’m not pregnant yet! How can I have morning sickness?? I have no clue, and yet… here I am, feeling nauseated as all hell.

Yesterday morning I cooked a big omelette for breakfast. Den got a large half, I got a small half. I took one bite… and immediately felt very ill. I actually ended up throwing up the one bite. I didn’t feel like eating much until a few hours later. But me and eggs, we don’t always get along, so I shrugged it off.

This morning I didn’t eat breakfast at all. I was driving to Costco to pick up the order for work, and I just felt so nauseated. Like I had to heave really, really bad. But I was in the truck. So I just focussed on breathing through my nose, taking big gulps of air when I had to. When I pulled into the parking lot I pushed the door open, fell out, and immediately started dry heaving. For like two minutes.

So I ask you – what the fuck was that?? Is it a coincidence that this started the day after I started stims? Is my mind playing games with me? But if that were the case, why on earth would I be “tricking” myself into morning sickness before retrieval? That sounds completely non-sensical. Last pregnancy I didn’t get sick until I was 6 weeks pregnant, and I certainly didn’t expect anything different. This is so weird.

::

This morning I was thinking about how it’s been a year and a half since my last IVF. It’s really hanging over my head. I mean… holy crap. This weekend will mark 9 months since we lost Devin. That’s an entire pregnancy length. How did that go so fast? I have now been not-pregnant for as long as I was pregnant, and that seems significant somehow.

I really hope this cycle works, for so many reasons. The timing just seems right. Not that I believe in signs anymore (ha, yeah right), but it all just seems right. Meaningful. 9 months in, 9 months out, 9 months in. I’m ready to take this on again. I’ve been ready.

I just hope this is my time again, that I don’t have to wait any longer. In a little over a week we should have an embryo. And that is definitely significant, knowing how few embryos I’ve ever been able to create.

Hope. That damnable, blessed thing. Hope.

Early mornings make me yawn

Dec 1, 2008 — 10:51 pm

Because Kel tagged me.

Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write 6 random things about yourself.
Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post.
Let each person know he/she has been tagged.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

1. I used to be a singer. I was in a group that played… ukuleles. Yes. We were actually quite professional, we travelled to hawai’i every year (I went four times), produced several CDs. But… I hated it. I’m not meant to be a professional performer.

2. I have a scar at the corner of my right eye. When I was little I fell off the couch into the corner of our coffee table, gashed myself pretty good. I’m damn lucky it missed my eye. Den happens to have the same scar on the opposite eye… same reason.

3. I was a very outgoing child. Because of that my parents opted not to put me in preschool. My brother was very anti-social, so he went to preschool. And in the end both of us are pretty much the same when it come to relating to others, though I have a couple more years experience than he does, obviously.

4. Up until grade 5 I absolutely hated math. I can’t do anything in my head… multiplication, addition, nothing. So all those times tables drills? They freaking SUCKED. But then in grade 5 we started long division and I loved it! In highschool I got the highest score in the school for the math contests several different years. I love math…. as long as I can write things down and use a calculator. But trig? Algebra? My FAVORITES. Just don’t ask me what 8×6 is. Just don’t. I’ll cry.

5. Before I decided to be a computer programmer I was leaning towards pursuing architecture. I took several drafting courses in high school… I really love CAD. When I was younger I used to spend hours looking through the large books of house plans that my aunt always had laying around. I kept a large stash of graph paper and would carefully design houses to scale. It was my “thing.” I still do enjoy doing it, but when you’re dealing with the constraints of a real house (can’t move the foundation) and money (can’t spend much money) and a husband (he doesn’t like this or that) it is a LOT more frustrating.

6. I started programming very young… must have been when I was 11 or 12. I got this little “computer” game thingie, and one of its “games” was BASIC. It had a little instruction booklet about how to code it to do things: prompt you for answers, string them together, make decisions, spit out answers. It was so cool! Unfortunately the computer did not have a memory you could save to, so that killed my desire pretty quick. If I had been able to save what I was doing I probably would have created something crazy.

And, all my readers are tagged. I just don’t do the tagging thing. (Sorry. Or you’re welcome… which ever.)

Mystery Solved

Dec 3, 2008 — 12:26 am

Yesterday I was flipping through old blog entries from IVF#1, remembering that first cycle and how long it’s been. Then I came across this nugget: “we’re to start the doxycyclin (antibiotics) today and take them twice a day for 7 days. And I was reminded to take it with food or it will upset my stomach.” The flickering lightbulb in my head suddenly sprung to life and whacked me between the eyes.

Know what I did Monday morning before driving to Costco on an empty stomach? Yeah. Antibiotic. Ouch.

So this morning I made sure to eat a nice peanut bar before taking the pill, then went on about my day. And lookie there, no morning sickness.

I can be such a moron.

::

After we lost Devin I got many thoughtful gifts from people. Included in those were two gift cards to a local spa. I used one a couple months later, for a hot stone massage. (It was interesting.) I’ve been holding on to the other for a rainy day.

What better time to use it than during an IVF cycle? So that is what I shall do. Now the question is: facial, or massage? I’ve done a massage before, so I’d be interested to try a facial… but I think a massage would be more relaxing, and that is what I need right now!

Maybe I can schedule something for the day of transfer. That would be ideal.

::

One week to retrieval; two days until my next monitoring ultrasound; 4 days of stims already done. I feel so frickin’ good to finally be in the middle of this. Yes, I am very very eager for this part to be over with, but I feel like a child with my hands shoved in a mud pie. It feels good to let that mud slide through my fingers. It feels real. I’m not just standing at the side watching anymore.

::

I’m trying to ice my belly as long as possible before my injections, to help prevent stinging. But then afterwards it’s not only cold, but it feels sluggish… like I need to rub my belly to get everything mixing and moving again. So I’ve taken to putting a heating pad on my belly after the injection. It helps me feel all warm and toasty inside.

Last night after my injection I went to bed to relax. There I was, reclined up against my pillows in bed, laptop on my lap, heating pad under the covers on my belly. It felt so very reminiscent. The warmth, the weight, the bump of the sheets… it made me think of my time spent here with Devin.

So I pulled up the videos – the ones of me laying here, belly exposed, watching things jiggle and push underneath my skin. I teared up watching them again, even though I’ve watched them many times before. There is one moment where I press down and he pushes back, and I remember how I could feel his little foot beneath my fingers. I remember.

When I took them I knew these videos would be a neat keepsake. I had no idea how very special they would become. This is the only thing we have of Devin alive, moving. We have photos, which of course a treasure… but this video shows him moving. Alive in my womb. I touched him, I felt his little foot. I never got to feel it on the outside, never got to see how his rolls and kicks looked like. But at least I had something. At least I have this memory that lives not only in my head, but on video for all to see.

My belly still feels so empty. It’s hard to believe that it will ever feel full again.

Monitoring #1

Dec 4, 2008 — 11:01 am

I’ve been on stims for five days now and this morning I went for an ultrasound to check progress. They don’t have to monitor me too closely, since I’m on the same protocol as last time.

Today’s result: right ovary has 16 total follicles, all 10 or 11mm. My left ovary – which I’ve been feeling twinging – is squashed by my bowel and has 10 total, 6 of which are around 10mm. I think – and don’t quote me on this – but I think this is a little more in number than last time.

However, my ovaries seem to be a day behind my last cycle, putting retrival at possibly wednesday, instead of my estimated tuesday. Which is good for my eggs, slow and steady is healthier and happier, but bad for my work schedule. I may need to take two days off work instead of just one. But whatever. I feel bad for calling out, but there’s really nothing I can do about it!

They will call me later today with my instructions, but they said I’ll probably go back in on sunday morning to see where they’re sitting.

The nurses agreed with me that the goal of this cycle is to get me one really good embryo. But she added, “One for the freezer would be really nice!” And the did mention the early trigger to let them cook a little longer – it’s reassuring to know they haven’t forgotten about that (since it’s a very unusual thing to do!) I really like the nurses. They take good care of me.

If retrival is wednesday my due date would be Sept 2. If if’s thursday it would be Sept 3. My birthday is Sept 3.

Changes

Dec 4, 2008 — 11:20 pm

So my instructions on my voicemail from the nurses are to drop my dose of follistim down to 75iu and come back Sunday morning. I asked the nurse why they decided to drop me down, and she mentioned that my E2 had taken a big jump and they want to play conservative, take it slow to make sure my big group of follicles grows together, and not risk OHSS. But when I plugged my E2 numbers into my little graph the numbers from last cycle and this cycle are almost identical. So on one hand I’m seeing us diverge now from the path we took last time and I am very very nervous.

I know in many ways last cycle was certainly not ideal – and that’s something I need to keep reminding myself of – but it worked right? I am very very leery of messing around with anything. I’m of the mind to just follow exactly the same route, that it will get me back to the same place: pregnant.

However there are some major flaws with that method of thinking. My body is not the same as it was. And there are always going to be fluctuations every cycle – environmental, physical, or fluke… nothing is ever the same twice. This is particularly obvious when you look at how many follicles I have this time. This was exactly the same protocol as last time up until today, but the ultrasound shows a different picture.

I know I need to trust them – they’ve done this a million times and certainly know how better to tweak dosages than I do. The nurses at my clinic really are fabulous and I love them. I’m just… scared. Scared that by diverging from the path we are taking a wrong turn. But if we never diverge we will never have the chance at anything better. Maybe this is what we need to do to get more than one embryo.

For right now all I can do is wait and see. I go in Sunday morning.

I Can Haz Hairstyle Nao?

Dec 6, 2008 — 11:38 pm

Today was our work christmas party. A fancy-ish thing, with me in a dress. Well I guess at some point today I just said to myself, “Fuck it.” I made a last-minute appointment, walked into a salon I’ve never been in before, and said, “Do something with this. It’s driving me CRAZY.”

So now I have this. (This is, of course, after a thorough blowdry by the stylist. My hair does not naturally fall straight!)

It’ll be interesting to see how it looks after a shower and self-styling.

Monitoring #2

Dec 7, 2008 — 9:50 am

Well I’m really not sure what to think about this monitoring appointment. My poor ovaries. My right has – wait for it – 33 total follicles. Yikes. I have a whole host of small ones that joined the rest. My left – the squished one – has 18 total. Of all of those in both there are 10 (6 right, 4 left) that measure between 13 and 15mm. So at least that is looking good.

I just feel too many similarities to my first cycle. In my mind lots of eggs equals bad eggs. How true that will end up being, I don’t know. They’ve dropped my dose again, and I’m wondering if next time they’ll go straight to a low low dose.

Oh, and with all those follicles I suspect my E2 will sky high. I’m probably going to get some mild OHSS again.

I guess I’m just not happy about how this is going. My fucking ovaries… Can’t mature the damn eggs, but hey, let’s explode with them so she can at least suffer. If they were all good I wouldn’t have an issue with this… But they won’t be. And my worry is that all the small ones will make it harder on the big ones to get what they need.

Lining looks great at 11mm. Nurse is thinking a thursday retrieval, but if they keep dropping me and maybe coasting me it might be later. I think by the time retrieval comes I am REALLY going to want all them out. I’m already feeling a little uncomfortable (though the drinks and food last night is making it much worse… I feel quite sick today.)

Son of a BITCH

Dec 7, 2008 — 12:54 pm

The doctor just called. Herself. My estrogen was at 4200… And my eggs are still days away from retrieval. This is bad, very bad. They’re having me do no follistim tonight and go back in tomorrow. They may have me totally coast.

I think I’m on the verge of having this entire fucking cycle cancelled on me for overstimming. How the HELL did this happen when I started on the same dose as last time?

I’m really afraid. Not just on this cycle either. What do you do when even IVF is a giant clusterfuck?

I didn’t think it was possible to hate my body more than I already did. Fuck.

Mess

Dec 8, 2008 — 12:03 am

My viciously upset stomach faded away over the course of the day, leaving me to realize that, yeah, my ovaries are upset. I’m very tender. It’s the constant, physical reminder of everything that’s going on, even when I just want to forget about it.

The thing is, my body responds like a PCOS-er… but I have none of the other markers for it. I ovulate every month, I don’t have cysts, I’m not overweight, I don’t have insulin resistence, and my hormone levels are well within normal. But give my ovaries any FSH and they just balloon like you would expect of a PCOS body. On the good side this does give me somewhere to look for answers and solutions – since PCOS is so common there is a lot of literature about it. Unfortunatey it’s not that amazing. Stim low and steady. Wow, I never thought of that! *smacks forehead* I did find some reassuring articles about how coasting for several days can bring E2 down without compromising egg quality or pregancy rates.

That’s my main concern right now, and why I feel very little hope at this point. Even if they do manage to control my E2 and get me to a successful retrieval, the addition of all these small follicles make the likelihood of me getting some mature eggs out of me very slim. The more there are in total, the less care each one is getting. I saw that clearly with my first two cycles: more follicles in the first cycle led to a decrease in quality. Granted the second time we only had one mature one, but it was a very good quality. When you only get one mature egg, you need to make sure it’s been nursed very very carefully.

I’m still just at a loss to comprehend this, really. I went over all my records, and at no point did I have a million little follicles explode out of nowhere in the middle of my damn cycle. My first cycle I did overstim slightly, but right from the start. Each cycle the number of follicles stayed pretty much the same from my first monitoring appointment to trigger. So this is unprecidented with me.

I really hope I get some answers tomorrow, because I’m just struggling to understand. As much as I try to find something to blame for it, I just can’t. Unless dropping my FSH dose down could somehow be responsible, but that seems pretty far-fetched. It appears this was yet another one of those weird, unpredictable occurrences.

I’m just tired of this. I’m tired of being unusual, I’m tired of not knowing what to expect. I’m tired of being shit on.

I really was so hopeful this cycle. It was looking good, we were going to improve on our track record. I was so looking forward to retrieval. And now, if we get there, I still don’t feel much hope.

Still on track

Dec 8, 2008 — 10:45 am

I am apparently ready to trigger. Wait… what?? I go in today not even sure what to expect. My ovaries still look like party central. (One nurse said to the other, “I haven’t seen ovaries like this in a long time!”) In fact, where before I had roughly 10 follicles total that were in the lead group, it appears that a good number of the small follicles have caught up. My right side has 22 mature sized follicles now, the rest being small, with a total of 30 (yesterday was 33, but that’s a normal variation between techs). My left side has the same total as yesterday (18-ish), with 10 mature and 8 below 10mm. So that’s… hmmm, 32 mature sized follicles. Oi.

I say WTF? How do you go from “a bunch of small” to “looks like mature follicles” in a matter of 24 hours of coasting? Oh who knows, my body is doing weird shit. But there you have it. They will probably get a TON of eggs from me – I wouldn’t be surprized with over 30.

But the question is how many of them will be GOOD eggs. I can pretty much write off all those smaller ones – they won’t be good enough, not after a rapid growth like that. All they did for me was increase my odds of OHSS, the little bastards. But that still leaves us with the original 10, and we know they got at least 5 days of FSH all to themselves. I like that. There might be potential in those 10. Especially when we trigger 2 hours earlier than normal.

My very first cycle I did slightly overstim (started at too high of a dose), and they didn’t know about my egg maturity problem, so to cut down on the risk of OHSS they did the standard procedure of giving me only 5,000iu of hCG trigger instead of the full 10,000iu. With normal people that works just fine – no OHSS and you still get good eggs. With me… not so much. I’ve been wondering for the past year if that half dose is what contributed to the poor quality embryos we had. So this time they’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. What they seem to be leaning towards is giving me a different type of hCG than what I have from the pharmacy – apparently ovidrel has a shorter half-life and less risk of OHSS than whatever it is I already had, allowing them to still give me the full dose. Yay!

Of course we’re still waiting on the blood test results… if my E2 has skyrocketed some more there’s a chance things will change, but as of right now I’m on course for a Wednesday morning retrieval. I do feel like some of the burden has left my shoulders… but not all of it, not by a long shot. This whole cycle has me on pins and needles, and I’m not going to be able to relax in the slightest until they actually transfer a good embryo into me. That’s my goal.

But first goal is getting to retrieval. And so far it still looks good… thank the light.

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