I wouldn’t really call it pain. It’s more like… serious discomfort. I am moving very slowly at work – today I spent the entire 4 hours just wishing I could go home. So glad I don’t have to go back to that job until wednesday! Getting up off my seat every few minutes was bothering my ovaries. I didn’t realize how much I get up and down until yesterday. Hitting bumps in my car, also not so fun. I think it’s anytime I clench my stomach muscles… it squeezes my ovaries and they shriek in outrage. I like to just lay back and relax… then they’re fine.

I am also still very bloated. My pants – which have been very loose on me for weeks – are quite snug. I am very fond of my sweats right now. I’m tempted to pull out my maternity sweats, but I know they wouldn’t fit me at all right now, since I lost a good bit of weight since then.

The good news is that I still don’t have any further symptoms of OHSS, so yay. Also I read back to the time after retrieval of my first IVF cycle, and it seems that I had the same reaction then. That time it went away the day after transfer, so hopefully this follows suit.

I’m so looking forward to tomorrow. I wish my clinic had the capability of photographing the little embryo, but I’m happy just to hear how good they’re doing. Tomorrow I will have a little embryo in me!

Upgrading WordPress. Things will be very wonky for this weekend. Excuse the mess.

This morning, about 15 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, my phone rung. The number wasn’t one from my address book. I answered it and the person introduced themselves as “so and so from the RE’s lab.” My heart started pounding… Den later said my voice had a tinge of panic in it. She continued, “Just reminding you about your transfer this morning. Be here at 9:30 for a 10:00 transfer.” I thanked her and hung up… and then collapsed back into my pillow in relief. They’ve never called me to remind me before! Don’t DO that to me!

We grabbed some breakfast on the way, and I drank a bunch of water and hot chocolate to try to make sure my bladder was full, as per my instructions. I remembered bring my valium – although it wasn’t valium, it was something else, something similar. I took one while we were in the car, then another when we got to the hospital. Next time I have to remember to take them earlier, because it really wasn’t doing much for me.

Yet again I got dressed in the lovely hospital gown, though this time with my huge bloated belly. I patted it and mentioned to Den how this brought back memories from the last time I was dressed in a gown with a belly. :( Next time will be much different, much better.

After fighting for space on my bed I finally got in it with the blanket on top of me – Den was using the bed to fold all our clothes. He’s very strange. Den got dressed in scrubs too, as he was going into the OR with me this time.

This time was so much easier than retrieval – no IV, no huge long forms to fill out, just a couple of consent forms to sign and they wheel me and my bed in. (I enjoy that part. I wish I could just take some valium and then get wheeled around the hospital for a while. That would be FUN.) Into the special Operating Room, with Den at my side.

The embryologist came in to show us the sheet on the embryo – Jellybean was listed as a 7-cell embryo and she said it was compacting. (Devin was an 8-cell that was compacting. So very promising!) They’re going to culture our second embryo out to day 5 or 6, then decide if it meets the criteria for freezing… but I have good feelings about it.

They got the stirrups all set up, my legs spread open, all the fun stuff. They checked the position of everything with an abdominal ultrasound. And then we sat and waited. I’m pretty sure I was the most uncomfortable in the room. Just a guess.

Finally the embryologist came in with the catheter that had Jellybean in it. I didn’t feel a thing. A little blip on the ultrasound and that was that!

I layed in the bed, covered with warm blankets, trying to just chill out and meditate, for 20 minutes before they said I could get up and get dressed. And off we went, with everyone wishing us good luck.

My beta would have been 14 days after retrieval, but that just happens to be Christmas Day. So it’s scheduled for the 26th! Den doesn’t want me testing christmas morning, even though I want to, because he doesn’t want the entire day to be ruined if it’s bad news. We will have to work out the timing!

::

This evening was the yearly memorial candle lighting ceremony at our local Angel of Hope. We were standing there, holding our candle in memory of Devin, thinking how fitting it was that today was the day that Jellybean was put inside me. We didn’t feel quite so alone as we did before.

When I learned I had the explosion of follicles in my ovaries I posted “I’m just a big jar full of jelly beans.” I laughed at myself, because that’s really what I felt like.

I never got around to posting it, since I was making a cute little graphic when the Dr called with the news that only one egg mature (and thus I got distracted and didn’t feel like fiddling with graphics anymore) but I came home from retrieval and took a photo of a glass of 38 jelly beans. I thought it would be cute.

When we got the fertilization report it was natural to call them my two jellybeans. And when we put this one back inside me it definitely felt like that was my one Jellybean. The name has just stuck. Den says that’s what cute nicknames are supposed to be – spur-of-the-moment names that just come to you in the middle of the situation.

Den likes the name, too, because he says our two little embryos are the black licorice jelly beans. They’re his favorite flavor, and of course the most rare – you have a whole bag of jelly beans and you might get one or two. Of course I don’t like black licorice so I’ve been arguing with him, saying NO they aren’t black!! But the metaphor really does fit.

We may come up with a different name for this little guy if/when we see a heartbeat on an ultrasound. Devin’s embryo was Han Solo from the moment we found out we had only one until our first ultrasound when Den proclaimed that it looked like a sheep, at which time he became Sheepie. (And he still is our Sheepie, even after we named him Devin at the level II ultrasound when we saw the boy-parts.)

So I really don’t know how long this name will last, if something new will come along. But for right now it’s our little Jellybean.

Den and I are having a disagreement over when to take a pregnancy test. My beta – the definitive blood test – is set for December 26th. It should have been December 25th, going by dates, but of course that happens to be Christmas Day. So I get to wait an extra day.

Den wants to wait. We are happy now, hopeful… he wants to just live in a state of suspended belief through Christmas. He wants to rest in the knowledge of what could be, instead of having to deal with what amounts to a loss, a great sadness, on a day that is time spent with family. Especially since we don’t want to tell all the family right away – it’s easier to give vague answers when you yourself don’t even know.

And that all does make sense to me, in a way. I do understand where he’s coming from, not wanting to ruin the day with bad news. But I don’t think I can do that.

First of all I have to work both on December 24 and 26th. I really don’t want to have to deal with customers all day after such momentous news – good or bad. If it’s bad news I’d prefer to go and have a good cry; if it’s good news I’m going to be bouncing off the walls and not wanting to just sit there with no internet all day.

I could test Tuesday, but the likelihood of actually getting an accurate answer that day is pretty slim. Possible, but it certainly wouldn’t be conclusive.

But there is a much bigger reasoning to my desire to test on Christmas Day, far more than convenience.

You see, Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I’m an athiest, and as a teenager I strongly rebelled against any hint of any religion – except for Christmas. It has always been sacred in my mind. Christmas morning I would sneak out of my bed to plug in the lights on the tree and just sit on the living room floor, basking in the glow off all of the presents. I loved spending that time with my family, always opening our stockings first, eating chocolates and nuts from our stocking stuffers while passing out gifts, surrounded by ripped wrapping paper and bows, the dog nudging through each pile in the hopes that another bone would be buried in there somewhere. There was a feeling of utter contentment that only ever came about that one day a year. It was the perfect day.

Last Christmas we flew home to Canada, me with my almost-third-trimester belly, Devin nestled safely inside. I woke up early, as usual, giddy, thilled to be sharing this special year with my family. It was just like old times, except my husband was there too, and I was carrying a baby – a very special baby, long awaited and much rejoyced. I was so happy. I sat in front of the lights and the presents, the wrapping paper and the dogs, just like I’d always done, and I felt such joy at the future.

A year has passed. But my house is not decorated with Christmas items. There are no stockings over the fireplace. There are no presents under the tree.
There is no Devin.

I didn’t know that last year at my parents’, pregnant and glowing, opening presents of knit booties and board books about trains, was going to be my one and only Christmas to celebrate with my baby. That there would be no “first” Christmas. There would be no more gifts. There would be no more pictures amid wrapping paper and toys. Only tears, and memories.

So when my retrieval date was set and I counted out the number of days to testing and landed on Christmas Day I got a little sliver of hope back. That maybe this year I will still have something to wake up for on Christmas morning. A reason to be joyful.

And I know it’s far from guaranteed. I know fear and anxiety, too. But can it really get any worse? No matter the news of this cycle, there will still be the hole in my heart to contend with. There will still be tears. If it’s negative there will probably be more tears. I accept that.

But maybe it won’t be. Maybe, just maybe, we could have something wonderful this Christmas. That is what I hold on to.

I was talking to Den about personality type tests and how me and my co-workers were on different ends of the spectrum in many ways. I find it hard to pin down my husband’s personality type. I led him through a quick Jung personality type and found out why: he’s pretty borderline in almost everything. It did peg him as the “Champion” type, ENFP, and I can see a lot of that in him. But there are large portions of the description that just aren’t necessarily right. He fluxuates. I can see a lot of ESTJ in him, even (moreso than any other – isn’t that strange).

After he fell asleep I took the test myself to see how I’ve changed over the years. Interestingly enough I fall into the INFJ category now. The introverted part is a no-brainer, and after reading some descriptions of different types I do certainly seem to be an NJ – intuitive judging. But it’s that little F that’s a surprize.

I used to be a very solid INTJ: the thinker. Many parts of the description still describe me very well, and I do think it’s dependent on what I am working on at the moment. I can be highly analytical and judgemental, sometimes to the exclusion of others’ feelings and situations. When I’m working, I’m working.

I chuckled when reading the description. There have been times, many times, when at my one job I’ve just made a decision that something is stupid and needs to be changed – so I change it and let my boss find out later. (And she happens to really really hate change.) I am a perfectionist, and my respect needs to be earned – and once lost is hard to regain.

But over the past few years a different side of me has been developing: the activist. The feeler.

This is the side of me that is the writer, the mother. As my social skills developed, so did a great sense of empathy for others. One of the problems we encounter in our marriage is that I am highy reactive to his moods. I feel very, very deeply – I am easily hurt. And I feel a need to reach out to others. It is why I work in animal rescue, why I want to do more with pregnancy and birth, why I want to reach out more to other loss mamas.

I have grown up in so many ways. As a child I felt so very isolated – more, I think, than a typical teen does. I had poor social skills combined with an introvert personality, a biological tendency towards depression, and an overly analytical mind that always had me questioning and working on details.

I feel far more connected to the “mother” earth now, to the world around me. I have made many social connections and found that I enjoy helping others. I enjoy speaking out and supporting a cause – as long as I’m not standing out from the rest.

It is interesting being at such different ends of the same spectrum.

But of course there is a big part of me that thinks these personality tests are hugely flawed anyways. Fascinating, and certainly worth taking a good look at yourself to see if you can learn anything new… but to be taken with a grain of salt.

No frosty. Jellybean #2 didn’t make it.

The last couple days I’ve been hitting the second half of the 2 week wait – which is to say, my optimism is faltering. And then we got the letter that stated: “Embryos Cultured to Day 6: 1; Blastocysts Frozen: 0.” I can say the wind has been sufficiently taken out of my sails.

I sat on Den’s lap for a little bit while we both silently wondered the same thing: what does this mean about jellybean, the one we put inside us? The past week I had this thought that if our secondary choice was doing so fabulously, then the one we put inside me must be doing well. The embryo in the petri dish was the shadow, the mirror.

So now what does this mean? Does it mean the embryo quality this cycle simply wasn’t good enough? Or does it mean that the eggs that matured later just didn’t do a very good job of it? Or maybe it just means that my embryos prefer my uterus to a petri dish. I don’t know. They don’t know.

Now we have no damn safety net. I didn’t feel so upset about this cycle not taking, because we could just pop in the second one for another try at it. No going through this stimming and fertilization bullshit with the added fun of OHSS. Two chances for the price of one!

I was just so surprized and happy at the thought of having a frozen egg. It was so monumental, so unexpected in this fight against my egg maturity problem. It felt like a victory. Well, an almost-victory.

The last week before testing is always so filled with anxiety and unease, bouncing from convinced that it worked to convinced that it didn’t. I much prefer the contentment and conviction of hope that permeates my first week. The wait was always bad enough without disappointing news in the middle of it.

I guess I shouldn’t feel too surprized by this. I was happy just to know that we had one good embryo. And somehow I think I would have felt much better right now if we had only one to start with. I was given something, then had it taken away. And that really pisses me off.

Enough with the taunting, life. Let me get on with it in a straight line. I am tired of roller coasters.

I am feeling anxiety creep up on me. The holidays, the cycle wait, work, the weather… it’s all conspiring to make me feel a little bit jumpy. Plus running out of my anti-depressant probably wasn’t good either. (I’ve only missed one day, which does not have a large impact, but it does start to have some effects at the end of the second day.)

I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I’m wandering the house looking for food, though I’m not hungry. I’m wandering the internet looking for conversation, though I don’t really want to read. I’m just… wandering. Aimlessly.

I’m trying to think more about Christmas and less about this cycle – although, neither topic is very relaxing, to say the least. Packages still aren’t mailed, and I would have had them all ready to go tonight if it weren’t for a wee snow storm we are having at the moment. Everything shut down and I wasn’t going to venture out. (Although before everything shut down everyone was apparently out at the bank getting money so they could buy 5 gallons of milk and fill up their vehicles with gas… so they can go home and go nowhere. This is New England, people. Everything will be fully functional tomorrow. Go home and stop freaking panicking.)

Being sent home early felt like a little gift. I got home before 4pm, whiich is unheard of for me nowadays on a week day. It was fabulous. We moved the tree downstairs (the cats have been climbing it during their unsupervised nights), I decorated… and when I was done I still had a whole evening to enjoy myself. I’ve been watching some TV shows and trying to just unwind.

I’m really starting to wonder how long I can maintain working 6 days a week. I know it’s a stressful time for me right now, so I probably need a little more downtime than I would normally, but I’m getting a bit exhausted. By the time I get done with dinner and a little bit of cleaning up (very little), go through the mail, respond to emails, and whatever else I need to do that day it’s time for bed. In order to write a blog entry and watch an episode of my show I have to stay up another two hours, which means I get two hours less sleep. I feel like I either have to choose between my “unwinding” time and sleep. And that sucks. I am wondering if my schedule will change when my coworker who is on maternity leave comes back. There was talk of her maybe not coming back, but it looks like she will be. So I’ll wait and see how they want to manage it.

My bloated ovaries have finally gone down and I no longer have to shuffle around clutching my coat closed for fear that someone will ask me when I’m due. It’s been a couple of days now that I have been comfortable again. It was not such a good week. Anytime I ate something of some weight I immediately felt like my insides were being squashed. It actually felt more uncomfortable than being a month away from my due date. I guess the uterus is designed to expand like that… your ovaries, not so much.

So it was definitely worse this time than cycle #1. My blog entries from then indicate that I was feeling back to normal the day after transfer, and that was certainly not the case this time. I believe it was a full week after retrieval.

Monday at my casual job I wore my jeans, as usual. It did NOT go over well. I felt so sick all day, like they were about to throttle me to death. I had to undo the button, and even sometimes unzip them entirely. And these were my big jeans that haven’t fit me for a month! So Monday evening I did something I swore I wouldn’t do and pulled open my bin of maternity clothes. Most of it woudn’t fit me right now anyways, but I gleefully wore my maternity sweatpants to work on Tuesday and was so happy I did. Oh, oh so worth it.

So I’d have to say that Wednesday I was feeling better, though still feeling big. Thursday I made sure to wear a loose fitting shirt to our pig-out food party at work, so I wouldn’t feel self-concious. But the good news was that, even though I ate a ton of food all day, I never felt sick! So yes, I would say Thursday was the day I really started feeling much more like myself again. A week exactly.

As for other things going on in my body, it’s been a bit interesting. One of the changes I am most appreciative at this time of year is that I am not cold anymore! My blood runs very cold. But between the progesterone and the iron suppliment I started taking again it is doing the trick. I am, of course, a little chilly – it is the middle of a snowstorm, after all – but my hands aren’t freezing cold all day at work. I really really like this. And no, I have no clue which of the two is having this effect, since I was on both during my pregnancy (well, the progesterone was natural for most of it, but you get what I mean) and I started both at roughly the same time. I’m really hoping it’s the iron – that’s something I can maintain regardless of my cycle and pregnancy status.

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed the last week is that, despite the allure of all the chocolate and cookies and sweet treats that I have been lavished with this holiday season I am really not craving them. In fact I have a bin of cookies and a bunch of lindor and ferrero roche chocolates in my house and I have barely nibbled at them. Today we went to Applebees for dinner because I craved one of their salads. So… yeah. Progesterone apparently makes me crave healthy foods. Same as last time. My body knows what its doing.

I have felt some very minor cramping/twinging going on today, mainly from my left ovary. Things getting back to normal size after their ovarian verson of sumo wrestling. It’s not much, just little periodic reminders of the fact that I am in the middle of a cycle still. (Thanks, like I really needed the reminder!)

(And just to point out, my “symptoms” are not that of a pregnancy or not, but rather due to the copious amounts of progesterone I get to shove up my hoo-ha daily.)

I think the hardest thing for the two week wait – and the first few weeks of a pregnancy, I am sure – is the simple knowledge that you can’t make a single damn bit of difference in what’s going on inside you. My reaction is to be careful, act pregnant – which I’m sure is not a bad thing – but if jarring movements dislodged embryos there would be a hell of a lot less pregnancies in this world. And my first two cycles proved quite neatly that one’s attitude during the two week wait does not affect the outcome. It’s in there, it’s where it’s supposed to be, and it’s either going to grow or it’s not. I can’t see it, I can’t feel it, I can’t test for it, nothing. And that is just really weird. When you’re growing the eggs you can see the follicles. When they retrieve the eggs they can count them all. When they fertilize the eggs they can watch them grow under a microscope. And then they put it back in and it’s like turning out the lights for two weeks. I’m pretty sure this is what it’s going to feel like in between ultrasounds, for the first trimester of my next pregnancy… until I can feel movement, or at least hear the heartbeat by doppler.

I’ve never been a very patient person. I hate waiting around. I want to know… but at the same time the thought of another negative test makes me feel a little sick to my stomach. Maybe a state of suspended belief isn’t such a bad place to be, after all.