Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Santa's coming

That's how excited I am. Seriously. I had my bloodwork and ultrasound yesterday, and got a script for BCPs, which I started last night. Later yesterday afternoon, the nurse called me with a tentative schedule and protocol.

Here the plan:
BCPs from Monday 10/26 through Wednesday 11/4. (10 days)
Monday 11/2: Semen freeze (Just in case. And of course I made an inappropriate joke to the nurse here about it being a good thing that I wouldn't have to bribe the janitor for a sample if my husband couldn't do it that day for some reason.) Also doing the mock transfer and the whole "IVF orientation" on this day.
Friday 11/6: Bloodwork and ultrasound
Sunday 11/8: start stims. I'll be doing a combo of Gonal-F and Menopur. Husband will also start meds then too. Some antibiotic, and something else I didn't write down. Anyone know why he'll be on an antibiotic?
Tuesday 11/10: bloodwork
Thursday 11/12: bloodwork and ultrasound
Probably daily visits from this point until ER
ER will likely be the week of 11/15. Happy birthday to me! :)

I can't believe this whole thing will be over - one way or the other - by the end of November. Crazy talk.

Is it terribly inappropriate that I'm looking forward to the valium on transfer day?

And is it even more inappropriate that I'm already thinking I'll take that pill anyway, even if my cycle is cancelled for some reason?

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Meh

This weekend - not my best yet.

It should have been pretty awesome though. It was my husband's birthday on Saturday (he and I are the same age for 3 weeks, until I turn one year older than him, so I love when his birthday finally comes around), and then it was our 6th wedding anniversary today. How did we spend both? This is where the "meh" comes in.

Friday: cute halloween party and parade at daycare. My kid was the cutest Tigger that school - nah, this town - has ever seen. Hands down. Mel's book reading in NJ was cancelled (poor Mel & her family, suffering from H1N1 flu), so we decided we'd do my husband's birthday that night. With kid in tow, we went to a super classy dinner at Friendly's, where we celebrated (aka embarrassed the shit out of my husband) with the singing waitstaff. (Seriously, who is still embarrassed by that stuff??) Gave my husband his birthday present ... a Yankees jersey, because on ...

Saturday: he had tickets to the (hopefully final) Yankees game (until they make the World Series that is). Except, if you're from the NY metro area, you're probably still drying off after the downpour yesterday afternoon and evening. But they had no way of knowing if it would be postponed for sure, so he left in the afternoon for the game that evening, just in case. And of course the game was postponed. Until today, our anniversary.

Those bastards.

We had lunch reservations (at a non-kid friendly place), a movie picked out, and a babysitter lined up for this afternoon. All cancelled.

Here's the bright side. Cause I'm a bright side kind of gal. I got some great quality mommy-kiddo time in this weekend, and I also got to rent a movie that I thought my husband would hate. I always do that when he is out or away. This time it was 17 Again, and it was freaking awesome. I'm trying to figure out why I liked it so much - you'd think it was because Chandler Bing was in it (huge crush), but he was barely in it. And I tend to like slightly edgier movies than this one. I guess I just thought it was really funny and touching, and in my old age I'm appreciating the family dynamic movie thing more.

Plus I got to take a nap today, and my husband was around for most of the day.

Hopefully we'll have a do-over of our anniversary next weekend. We held back our presents to each other in hopes that we can align the lunch/movie/babysitter thing for Sunday.

Friday, October 23, 2009

I have no flashy, cute, or clever way to say this

I was awoken at 3:30 by terrible cramps. Full-on period.

So it's game-fucking-on.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Bronchitis, meet luteal phase

here's hoping you're both gone before too much longer...

I've been a bit out of commission for over a week. I have bronchitis, a hacking nasty cough that doesn't want to go away (even with a trusty Z-pack under my belt, finished a few days ago). I can't even describe how tired of coughing I am. My back hurts, my abs are sore (hey, maybe I'll end up with a six-pack from my bronchitis!), and somehow even my upper arms hurt. How they're involved in my coughing is beyond me.

There's only one good thing about being sick: I get to sleep in the guest room. Now our guest room isn't very pretty; it has paneling straight out of the 70's (yes, it's been on my to-redo list since we bought this place 5 years ago), and it's a bit cluttered. Plus I have to put a pillow over the cable modem because the flashing blinking lights threaten to keep me awake all night. But my guest room has a futon, yes a futon, and it's the most wonderfully comfortable sleep surface ever made. I don't think all futons are like mine. This one rocks. Well, figuratively. So at the first hint of a sinus infection or cold - anything that makes me cough, really - I head upstairs to the guest room. Aahhh, futon. It's not that I don't want to pass my germs to my husband overnight - I don't think he could be any more exposed to my germs than he is during the waking hours - it's just that when I'm up coughing at night, I can't relax enough to fall asleep if I'm worried about waking up him or the kiddo.

And in unrelated news ...

For the past couple of mornings, I've had the opportunity to take my temperature, before I start my morning coughing. And - YAY of all yays - it appears that I am firmly in the luteal phase. (Unless my temperature is just inflated because I'm sick, but I'm ruling that out for now because it's *exactly* where it should be mid-LP, and that would just be too mean of a trick for my body to play.)

This means I'm probably a week or less out from my next period. I'm hoping this means I can get an IVF cycle in this year, before the lab shuts down for the holidays. I haven't had the nerve yet to call the nurse and ask her when that is scheduled to happen, or more specifically, when I have to get my period in order to be able to do a cycle this year. I think I'll do that tomorrow...

Sunday, October 11, 2009

The faces of infertility

I've been thinking a lot lately about how differently people seem to process infertility, and the many ways it can manifest itself. I always thought that I had a pretty typical response to infertility the first time around: I was angry, I felt broken and out of control, I cried unpredictably when faced with other people's good fortune, and I was open with some people about our struggles, while being more guarded with other people.

Now, faced with secondary infertility after primary infertility, I have found that I've lost what little patience I had posessed during that first go-round. Immediately I was infertile - even that month that I had my first post-partum period, I was infertile from the get-go. There was no happy-go-lucky, oooh isn't this fun stage of trying. It was all cervical mucus checking and watching the TP for signs of red. Dreading all the stories of the You Never Know people, the ones who get pregnant *like that* after needing fertility treatments the first time.

Now, I also tell anyone and everyone about our struggles. Sometimes inappropriately: I told a casual acquaintance at work that we "don't get pregnant like other people," when she asked when I was going to give that son of mine a sibling. (Well, c'mon, she asked for it.) My husband also is more open than he was four and five years ago ... I learned this when my step-mother-in-law said to me, "I know you guys have been trying for a while; I'm really praying for you." But at the same time, despite the openness with others, I'm also less raw over the whole thing. Not that I haven't cried, not that I haven't felt the knife of jealousy when my friend (for the second pregnancy in a row) announced that she got pregnant the first cycle trying. (And really, people, when is that ever ok to say, especially to a person you know is infertile??) Those hurts are still there, they still cut deep, and while they might not hurt more than they did the first time around, there are more of them. If that makes sense.

~~~~

This weekend, I had a long conversation with a couple friends of ours who are finally pregnant after their first IVF. I was shocked by how different her take on the whole thing was. Oh, she understood the pain and the frustration, for sure; she certainly didn't miss any of that. But she seemed to keep herself completely unaware of the finer points of her treatment and diagnosis. She was with her OB/GYN for treatment for a year and a half, and when her new doc told her, "go right to an RE, you won't get pregnant without IVF," it was a surprise to her. I can't even imagine. I mean, yes, they're the experts and they tell us things we don't know. But when I got a test result, I always knew what it meant. I had it in my head when I took the call: ok, if my progesterone is under six, that's really bad, and if it's at least ten, then that's pretty good, but if it's over 15, then I'm in great shape." When my doc told me my FSH, I knew what it meant. I asked my friend questions about her progesterone at 7dpo, and about her FSH, and she got this blank look on her face.

~~~~

I have another friend who just gave birth to twin girls after IUI; she and her husband had been trying for about 18 months. I think this was their third IUI. I mentioned to her during her pregnancy that for me at least, infertility never went away. Even when I was pregnant, and even when I had my new perfect baby. She was aghast. She couldn't believe I could feel that way. "Oh, I'm over it already," she said.

~~~~

I guess for some people, infertility is something to be overcome, something for a doctor to figure out and treat. For me, it was always more of an identity. Why is that? Why did I put on this suit of infertility 5 years ago, and I still can't get it off? Why am I more involved with it than some people? Why do I think that if we end up with the family we hope for ... or even if we don't ... that I'll remember some facet of this experience, and I'll continue to carry it with me, and it will continue to shape who I am and how I parent my son, for a long time to come?

Friday, October 9, 2009

Really, ovaries? Really??

For the love of all that is good .... my temp has *still* not gone up.

Please help me figure this out.

To recap, I have about 30 cycles of temps on fertility friend, and my temps usually fall into very similar pre-O and post-O ranges. So even though I'm not charting full time anymore, at any point during any cycle, I can take my temp and know whether I've ovulated yet, if my period is about to come, or what. (And yes, I know, sometimes there are variations, fluctuations, what have you, that would render a single temperature unusable, but in general, this information has been helpful over the past year or so.)

I'm on day 21. My cycle is usually only 26-27 days (sometimes shorter), and I tend to ovulate around day 12. I started temping about a week ago, just to confirm that I had O'd, and so that I could predict when my period would come. (My temp tends to drop the day before my period, so it's a nice warning.) My temp has been firmly in the pre-O range. Today it fell even lower.

Here are the possibilities as I see them:

1. I am having my first anovulatory cycle.
2. I'm still going to ovulate, just way later than usual.
3. My thermometer is broken.
4. My pre-O temps were a full degree lower than normal this month (I just don't know, because I wasn't temping), so what I'm seeing now is really post-O but still just lower than my typical range. (Is this even possible? In all my months charting, my temperatures have always been very predictable. Pre-O: 97.2-97.7 and Post-O: 98.2-98.7. They have been firmly at 97.5 for the past week.)
5. I'm a nutcase and should just shut the hell up.

Any thoughts? Advice? Feedback? Could the fact that I've been hopped up on stims for SIX out of the past eight months be messing with my normal cycle?

I know, I could have bigger problems in my life than having to wait until 2010 to do IVF. I know this, I promise.

Monday, October 5, 2009

My body's messing with me

Now that's a first.

Ha.

I haven't really been charting (CM, temps, or anything), not consistently anyway. But I have taken my temp for the past three mornings, just so I can plan better (IVF is coming, IVF is coming!! I swear it's like waiting for Christmas), and know when my period is due. I could have sworn that I had fertile CM towards the beginning of last week, which would have been normal for me because I tend to be a really early ovulator. I wasn't really paying all that close attention though, obviously. Today is CD17, so I should be at least 4 or 5 days past ovulation. Well, I finally looked at my temps today, and guess what? They're all pre-O range. Then today I checked my CM and CP, and yup ... all fertile signs.

Bad news: cycle's gonna take longer than I expected. (Santa will be delayed.)
Good news: another chance for more ovulation sex. (My husband is so easy, it's ridiculous.)
Really bad news: well, sex doesn't make babies, not in my house, so see "Bad news" above.

Signed,
me, the eternal optimist

Sunday, October 4, 2009

An infertility free weekend

We had a nice weekend, the kiddo, the husband and I. A couple of trips to the park, a stop at Panera, some take-out chinese, a pizza (wait, did I cook this weekend? Not a whole lot, in retrospect), a weird but kinda funny movie ("My best friend's girl"), and a nap or two. A stupid, where-did-it-start argument with the husband, which I'm happy to say seems to have passed. Oh, and the kiddo officially knows who Bob The Builder is. Guess who he wants to be when he grows up? Not just any builder, but Bob. "Um, kiddo, your name isn't Bob." He gave me a funny look, and an "um" (yes, he says "um" when he's trying to make something clear for me.... guess where he got that?). "Um, mommy, I'm going to be Bob. On TV. With a big steam roller!" All in all, we had a low-key and nice couple days.

We're in this weird sort of place, infertility-wise, since we're waiting out this cycle and ready for a big change next month. I'm excited to get rolling with IVF, but of course we didn't want to miss a chance to get things going on our own this past week or so ... even though I've given up hope that I'll be one of those You Never Know people.

I probably have about another 10 days this cycle. Have I mentioned I hate waiting?