Dusting myself off

CD4

I am trying to pick myself back up today after a pretty terrible yesterday.  When I got home last night after my cycle being cancelled that morning, I found a nice birth announcement in our mailbox complete with cute picture of said baby.  From that moment to opening the bottle of wine was maybe 30 seconds.  I enjoyed some shiraz with my grilled cheese (classy, eh?) and commiserated with DH when he got home. 

He is starting to really feel the disappointment, not as much as I do when cycles fail or are cancelled, but I can see the void in his life growing where our family should be.  He is trying to stay positive for me, but he is hurting too. 

I am trying to think of ways to keep myself busy this month while we are on break.  It is tough during the day because my job is pretty slow right now and my motivation is pretty bad.  I think I will focus on my mom’s 65^th birthday party that we are planning as well as redoing our family room.   

I had a thought as I was walking Winnie last night, maybe I needed this cycle to be cancelled so that my lining could get a little thicker so that IUI #6 is a success and I will be saved from IVF...it is a nice thought, hopefully it is true. 

Rough morning

CD3

Today is not my day.  It is not my month.  It is not even my fucking year.  I went in today for my CD3 baseline ultrasound and what did they find?  Oh just a 42mm cyst!  THIS IS WHY WE GET MONITORING PEOPLE!   I saw that thing on the screen and my heart just sank, cancelled again.  We only have IUI #6 standing in the way of IVF and I just wanted to get through it.  After my ultrasound I had scheduled our IVF consult with the RE (you know because we were supposed to be doing IVF next month if I hadn’t been cancelled this cycle). 

The consult went well, I already knew a great deal about the process through The Bump 3TC and IF boards, but the RE filled me in on what protocol we would follow.  Since I get migraines with an aura he doesn’t want to put me on BCP (due to increased stroke risk) and he isn’t going to put me on Lupron either – we are going to go right into stims on day 2 if I don’t have any FUCKING CYSTS (sorry, you can tell I am pretty upset).  So that is one plus – fewer needles and shorter IVF cycling time.  If I can do IUI #6 in late March/early April then IVF would probably be in May.

I pray this month goes by quickly and that the red she devil comes on her own so that I don’t have to induce her with provera.  This is a very angry post, but I can’t help it.  I hate sitting out cycles – I just sit around and see all kinds of pregnancy announcements and babies being born and it hurts.  

CD1 has arrived

CD1

CD1 has finally arrived.  Actually I didn’t have to wait too long, but it I have had 30 days cycles recently and this one was 32 days, probably because of the Crinone.  The name of the game this month is to just get through it.  I don’t expect a BFP on our 6^th IUI, so if we happen to get one then I will be very surprised.  Mostly I am just trying to get through this month so we can figure out IVF.

 Timing this month actually worked out well because my CD3 when I go in for bw/us is on Wednesday when we already have our IVF consult, so I only have to go there once this week! 

Last night at dinner DH told me one of his friend’s wives from home is pregnant.  I kind of figured it was coming, and we don’t see them very often, but it still stings a little.  He said another friend had left him a voicemail about wanting to “catch up” but this friend hardly ever calls so of course I figured that he too was going to tell us some BFP news.  DH got off the phone with the friend and said “nope, no baby” and I was a bit relieved, but then immediately felt bad that I felt this way.  It is ridiculous for me to want others not to get pregnant just because we can’t. 

Spreading the word

CD29

Getting pretty crampy so I can tell the red she devil isn’t too far off.  I timed it out and if she comes Saturday like I expect, and if everything else goes timely this cycle, then my first beta would be the weekend that DH’s parents are visiting…interesting. 

DH mentioned to me last night that his mom keeps hinting to him about when to start to see someone if we have trouble getting pregnant (they don’t know about our IF).  I told him I was fine if he wanted to tell his parents about what we have been dealing with.  We haven’t told them yet because sometimes his mom gets worked up over things and we didn’t want her to stress over this for us (and stress us out further).  But since we are nearing IVF it makes a bit more sense to clue them in.  I told DH to tell them that we don’t really like to talk about it much, because it is pretty personal, so I hope that means his parents won’t bring it up much.  He is also going to tell  them that it doesn’t leave our immediate family (no need for aunts and neighbors to know the inner workings of my reproductive system, ey?). 

DH told his sister last night while g-chatting.  She is younger and isn’t married so isn’t really in a place to understand IF much, so i don’t think DH was too surprised that she didn’t really get it.  I am sure she is supportive, but I don’t think she understands fully what we are going through.  I think it is good for DH to have some people to talk to about it though, I have some friends and my mom and SIL, but he really doesn’t have anyone but me to talk to and it is becoming more and more tough on him each month.  

IUI #5 is a bust

CD28, 16 dpt/14dpIUI

I sound like a broken record. Well the call from the nurse made it official, IUI #5 is a bust.  The good news is that I can stop the crinone now. The bad news is we are 1 cycle away from IVF.  My goal for this next month will be to try and eat as healthy and exercise as much as I can. 

A coworker was asking me via instant messenger about how often I run and I said “well right now I am not running much due to the meds I am on” (certain weeks during the month my ovaries hurt so much that running is not a fun thing) and she asked if everything was ok and I pretty much had word vomit about everything IF related.  She didn’t even know we were trying so I am pretty sure it was shocking for her to hear what we have been up to.  She is very religious so she said she would pray for DH and I and I thought that was very nice. 

My SIL and I are planning a party for my mom’s 65^th birthday in May and I am hoping that will be a welcome distraction over the next couple of months.  

All Signs Point to No

CD27, 15dpt/13dpIUI

I haven’t tested since 8dpiui, but I told DH that I was going to test yesterday at 12 days past IUI because that would give me a good indication.  We both had the day off so I got up at around 7:30 am and grabbed the test and DH said “good luck” as I went into the bathroom.  I did my thing and waited a few minutes and looked at the test.  It was stark white.  Not even a hint of a second line to give me some hope for Wednesday’s beta.  DH came in and looked at it and didn’t see a second line either so we went back to bed.  He held me as I cried for a little bit – nothing major just some tears streaming down but no sobbing. 

I know I am still not out until the beta tomorrow, but usually results at 12 days past ovulation are pretty good.  I let my hopes get up a little this month because I figured with the injects + progesterone we had a better shot. The timing would have been nice if it worked this month because I would know I am pregnant before my cousin gives birth, and I figured that would make things easier on me, I also would have been able to tell people at mother’s day that we are pregnant.

 Up next is IUI #6 with injects again.  Honestly my expectations are so low for this next cycle.  I am just trying to get past it so that we can move to IVF.  I am going to try really hard to focus on eating/general health this next month so that I can shed a few lbs before IVF time, since I know you can’t work out once you start stims.  

Babies babies everywhere and not a drop to drink

CD23, 11dpt/9dpIUI

Ok so the good news is that I don’t feel quite as crampy today at CD23 as I have on previous CD23s, so let’s hope the progesterone is working!  DH keeps saying that he has “good feelings” about this cycle, but I have been burned so many times in the past that the doubt keeps creeping in all the time.  I fear this cycle will hit me hard if it is negative. 

Yesterday I overheard my coworker who sits in the next cubicle tell another coworker that his wife is expecting.  They already have 2 year old twins (not from IF).  I am happy for them, they are both great people, but the thought of all the coworkers that will be stopping by and saying “wow 3 kids under 3 how will you manage, blah blah blah” makes me vomit a little in my mouth.  Part of me thought “how come they are so lucky to be blessed with so many children already when we have so much trouble getting 1?”  I know that way of thinking is both unfair to them and unhelpful to me, but that is what goes on in the IF mind. 

Then last night I saw a friend posted a baby announcement and a u/s picture.  I am not close with this person and I heard a while back they were having trouble, so it makes me feel a little better, but this slew of baby announcements seemed to hit me hard. 

 

The trigger has left the building…I think

CD22, 10dpt/8dpiui

So the right test is from Monday morning, which was 7 days past trigger and 5 days past IUI.  The test is a clear positive since the trigger was still in my system.  The one to the left was from this morning at 10 days past trigger and 8 days past IUI.  I think what you see is an evap line but I am not 100% positive.  I have had issues with wondfos where if I turn it and squint I can see a line, but it is usually not a real positive.  What do you think?  Is the trigger out? 

I have never really tested my trigger out before, and I am sort of only doing it half ass this time since I only have 2 more wondfos left. 

So Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!  I feel like today is a great day to think about how awesome our significant others are and how much crazy they put up with during this infertility journey.  My DH has been good about not getting mad at me when my “crazy” comes out.  Sadly since I now seem to be medicated most of the month, the crazy is coming out more. It makes me so appreciative to have a great partner to take this journey with me. 

Today also makes me think about all the single folks out there, and how perhaps their desire to have a partner somewhat resembles our desire to have a family.  It makes me think that maybe Valentine’s Day is the single person’s Mother’s day for infertiles.  

Foregone Conclusion it Seems!

CD20 9 dpt/ 7 dpiui

Just got a call from the fertility pharmacy that I get my meds from.  They were wondering when I was going to need shipment for my next round of meds.  I felt like saying "at least let me fail this cycle first before trying to send me drugs for the next cycle!" sheesh.  

I was going to test out my trigger again today, but I only have 3-4 wondfos left so I will test tomorrow instead.  I have been having slight cramps lately which is typical for me this early on.  I also snapped at DH last night because he was complaining about the carpet, ha I can be so irrational sometimes it is almost silly.  

Back from Vacation

CD19, 7dpt/5dpiui


I was surprised when typing out that I am already 5 days past IUI, I guess that is a bonus of going on vacation during the 2 ww because the time goes by faster.  

We left for Breckenridge, CO early Thursday morning and got home late Sunday night.  While we were out there we did 2 days of skiing and it was a ton of fun.  The mountains out there are so huge and beautiful.  It snowed on Saturday so we had some nice fresh powder to ski in.  DH and I went out to some fun meals and overall had a very fun and relaxing vacation. Below is a picture of me on the mountain:


 
While we were gone there was a HUGE snow storm back in MA.  I mean 2ft +!  I was a little sad that we were away for the excitement of the storm (I do love a good snow storm), but we were glad we were able to get home timely with all the other cancellations.   We were also extremely thankful that our next door neighbor and my brother snow blowed our driveway and cleared our steps so we were able to get into our house last night.  

So now that the vacation is over and I am back to real life I am of course going to start obsessing over this cycle.  I tested to see if my trigger is still there and based on the below picture it looks like it is still there but barely.  

I have been on progesterone suppositories for the first time this cycle, which is um, interesting.  Nothing like shoving drugs into your cootie first thing in the morning!  But it is much better than the PIO shots that the IVF ladies have to do.  

My temps have been very wonky this cycle and I am sure it is because of being on vacation in a time zone 2 hours away and sleeping in, etc so I am not going to pay too much attention to it this cycle.  

I think I am going to test again in 2 days to see if the trigger is out - i will be 9 days past trigger and 7 days past IUI so any line would still be trigger.  I will probably test again on Sunday which will be 11 days past IUI and 13 days past trigger.  This will also give me some "prep time" for my blood test on Wednesday in case it is negative.  

ETA: I got a call from my RE while on vacation, which is unusually because normally the nurse calls.  He said that my response this month was almost "too good" and if this cycle doesn't work they are going to dial back my Follistim shot amount a bit.  I think they had me trigger early this month because they were afraid of all the follicles I had in there.  

 

IUI #5 is in the books!

CD14

So for the past few days my ovary area on both sides has been pretty sore and I stopped exercising as of last Friday because even the weight lifting I was doing was making the ovaries hurt.  I have been kind of a slug, but meh I can take a break now and then. Today every time I move around I can feel both sides of my ovaries, which hopefully means that the trigger shot worked and I have ovulated or will ovulate soon. 

DH’s appointment was at 10 am this morning and I was at 11 am.  I got there early, like 10:30, because DH finished at 10:10 so I figured they might call me sooner.  When I got there they said they are running about 30 min behind on IUI’s, which made me nervous because I didn’t want his sample hanging out for 1.5 hours before we got this thing going.  Luckily they called me right before 11 am!

DH’s numbers were great as always and I finally figured out how all the numbers they show me fit together.  They said he had about 96 million sperm per mL and he had 4.4 mL of sperm with 33% motility.  So you multiply the 96 X 4.4 = 422m total then multiply that by the % motile x .33 = 140m which is what they said his count was.  Thank goodness one of us doesn’t have issues.  The procedure went fine, typically cramping when they put in the catheter and sample, but nothing major.  They gave me a sheet with what my follies were at on my CD12 appointment:

Right: 15.6, 13.4, 11.4, 10.7, 10.1

Left: 15.5, 15.0, 11.9, 10.8

So yeah that explains why I feel so crampy! They are thinking only the 15’s will be mature enough today as I seem to be growing them at about 2 mm per day. 

I am feeling pretty good about this cycle.  The past 2 cycles I didn’t have high hopes, and perhaps that makes it easier to deal with when the cycle fails, but I need to believe this may actually work this time.  Luckily DH and I are headed to Colorado on vacation tomorrow so that will eat up about 4 days of the 2 ww, and I hope the rest will fly by. 

I already did a Liebster award post, but Lisa nominated me again and I like to answer questions so here goes:

1.            Bacon or Sausage, or neither? Bacon

2.            Stomach, Side, or Back sleeper? stomach

3.            Coke or Pepsi? Regular coke, diet pepsi

4.            Do you celebrate Valentine's Day? Or hate it with a passion? Celebrate it, but only with a card/dinner, we don’t go all out

5.            What's your favorite thing about winter and why? I love to ski!

6.            Socks, slippers, or bare feet and why? Slippers + socks (if I can find where my dog has dragged them off to)

7.            Warm or cold weather vacation and why? I like medium temperatures, I am pretty fair skinned so I don’t enjoy sitting in the sun all day, nor do I like to hang out in the cold.  I would prefer it to be 70-75 degrees so that we can walk around and see the sights!

8.            What's you favorite book of all time? Pride and Prejudice

9.            Do you like getting manis and pedis or doing it yourself? I am  not a big nail person, so neither

10.         Do you play a sport? Soccer, but I kind of got kicked off my old work’s team when they stopped letting alumni play. I also run

11.         Favorite type of restaurant? I love Italian, also Mexican

This picture made me laugh, because I totally feel bad for my dog since she gets all of our "baby" attention now! (see some examples below)

 
 
 

Sliding one more in there

 CD12

Last night we went over to our neighbor’s house to watch the superbowl.  We knew they have 2 small kids and figured maybe there would be a couple more kids over there.  We were NOT prepared for the amount of small children at this party.  There was 1 pregnant lady, 3 infants and like 10-12 toddler through 6ish years old.  They were running throughout the house and most of the time the parents were chasing the kids around rather than watching the game.  Now I am not a big football fan, but I figured we would be able to watch some of the game without interruption, but that was not the case at all. 

I love children, don’t get me wrong, but this was just insane.  DH mentioned to me after that he felt like such an outsider at this party.  It seemed like everyone had a kid except for us.  It was tough seeing how some new neighbors that just moved in were bonding with the neighbors we are already friends with because of the kids.  It is like we can’t get into this “parenthood club” and I just have to talk about my dog all the time. 

This morning I had my CD12 monitoring appointment.  I was really hoping that my follicles that were 12 mm had grown to 18 mm so that I could trigger, but my largest was only a 15.6 mm.  Which basically means that we won’t be able to get the IUI in this month due to our vacation.  I am not super disappointed that we can’t do the IUI because DH’s counts have been very good and we can try on our own, but I am annoyed that since insurance is making us do 6 IUI’s before moving to IVF that this just puts us back a month if we don’t get pregnant this month.  It would be nice if it worked this month though and we can have the knowledge that our child was conceived in the mountains of Colorado versus a doctor’s office. 

Update: So I just got the call from the RE nurse and they want me to trigger tonight!  She said that I have 3 follicles that are close to maturity and should reach maturity with the trigger shot and having the IUI on Wednesday.  They also want me to trigger now because my E2 is 1499!  Which is crazy high for an IUI cycle.  They don’t want to wait and let any other follicles reach maturity because then I would be cancelled because the risk of high level multiples would be too high.   

I am so excited that we get IUI #5 in.  There are a lot of regulars on the Trouble Trying to Conceive board on the Bump that just got their BFP’s with October due dates and I would LOVE to join those ladies this month!  My due date would be October 31^st so I would just make it in there.  

Things Are Growing in There

CD10

I went to the RE for an ultrasound and blood work today.  Sometimes the u/s techs will tell me all the details while I am there, but today I got one of the techs that doesn't tell you much.  

I got the call a few hours later that my lining is a 5 and I have the following follicles growing:

L = 11 mm & 12 mm

R = 9, 3 x10's, 2 x12's

This sounds like a lot, but I am thinking when I go back on Monday for a follow up u/s that we will see some have dropped off and hopefully 2-3 are at a good size.  I am still nervous that they won't be big enough to trigger monday night (in which case we can't do the IUI this time because we are going away).  Keeping my fingers crossed that the follies continue to grow and we can get the IUI in on Wednesday!

CD9

CD9

I gave myself the Follistim shot last night.  It was very similar in size/amount as the ovidrel shot, I just needed to figure out how to assemble and prep the pen a bit.  Thankfully there was a good video on the pharmacy’s website for me to view. 

I had a bit of a headache overnight and into this morning.  Not sure if it is caused by the meds or not, but I feel a little wonky today too.  I am excited for my CD10 monitoring appointment tomorrow.  Not super excited to drive to the RE on a Saturday, but I am hoping to see the start of some good follicles.  I am interested in seeing if the inject gives me a good boost. 

I let myself look up what the due date would be if we conceive this cycle – around October 31^st.  I guess I am letting myself believe that it is possible this cycle will work.  The past few cycles I didn’t really have good feelings about it working, so I didn’t get my hopes up.  This time I might be setting myself up for disappointment, but I can’t help thinking about how nice it would be to be able to tell people we are pregnant around mother’s day.  I hope with all my being that I don’t have to go through another Mother’s day feeling like an outsider.