Flexing my waiting muscles

I think Mr. P and I are agreed on doing a new cycle for November. So while I was waiting to have my regroup phone call with Dr. Famous, I called the nurse to ask for a new cycle calendar. I was hoping to get an estimate of this cycle so we can figure out Thanksgiving plans. She said, "No problem, I'll get the word from Dr. F and let you know Monday."

Great.

No word on Monday, so I send an email reminding her about the calendar. I get an email back saying she'd speak with Dr. Famous today, and get me a calendar by the afternoon.

Great.

The phone rings mid-afternoon, and lo and behold, it is my nurse. What, is she going to tell me my calendar? No, I'm not that lucky, I should know better by now. The nurse says, "I spoke with
Dr. Famous and he would not give you a calendar until he speaks with you. I told him you had a call scheduled, but were hoping to get some dates, but he said he needed to talk to you first."

Uh-oh.

I asked her if this meant bad news, and she sort of laughed and said no, she didn't think so. I asked does this mean things may change, and she said she didn't know and was eager to get off the phone. I have a feeling she knew more than she was able to let on, but wasn't supposed to talk to me about it. That was for Dr. Famous to do. Next week.

So a new type of waiting. In addition to the waiting I'm doing already (have a child, get genetic test results back, frozen transfer, fibroid surgery, etc) I can now add this. Waiting to hear if you are allowed to cycle again. Fun!

I'm trying hard not to catastrophize, and I do want to talk to Dr. Famous about how I felt they cycle went, which in my mind was only so-so. But I'm scared. All the "what ifs" creep into my head. I'm scared to hear my eggs are crap. I'm not ready to hear that yet. I'm scared to hear he thinks this won't work for me.

But I have to wait to hear what he thinks. And think the worst until then.

An award!

Thanks so much to Low Fat Lady for this award. She thought of me when I was hitting the bumpy road, and I greatly appreciate it. I am a bit late in turning this around, but hey, better late than never.









Here's the deal:

Rules

1. You Can Only Use One Word! (yeah, that's not gonna happen, but I'll try my best!)

2. Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers

3. Alert them that you have given them this award!

4. Have Fun!

The Fun Part

1. Where is your cell phone? next-to-me

2. Your hair? Brown

3. Your mother? well-meaning

4. Your father? narcissistic

5. Your favorite food? tacos

6. Your dream last night? None

7. Your favorite drink? La Croix orange

8. Your dream/goal? Motherhood

9. What room are you in? Living

10. Your hobby? Cooking

11. Your fear? Heights

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? stay-at-home mom

13. Where were you last night? Brother's house

14. Something that you aren’t? Vain

15. Muffins? carrot

16. Wish list item? new purse

17. Where did you grow up? East Coast

18. Last thing you did? Dropped mom at airport

19. What are you wearing? Sweats

20. Your TV? On and big

21. Your pets? Fluffy kitty cat

22. Friends? loyal

23. Your life? good

24. Your mood? melancholy

25. Missing someone? no

26. Vehicle? civic

27. Something you’re not wearing? gloves

28. Your favorite store? gap body

29. Your favorite color? orange

30. When was the last time you laughed? yesterday

31. Last time you cried? yesterday

32. Your best friend? Mr. P

33. One place that I go to over and over? whole paycheck (foods)

34. One person who emails me regularly? Mr. P

35. Favorite place to eat? chipotle

I nominate the following blogs for this award:

Adding to the Pack

The Pitter-Patter

Last Chance IVF

Ambivalent Womb

Mis-Adventures of a Modern Day Farmer's Wife

Iamstacey

Have fun ladies!

I'm still here

Still here. Still putting one foot in front of the other.

My mom's in town this weekend. I've been hanging out over at my brother's house a lot, seeing my niece. Always bittersweet. And my sister-in-law, who will be 41 in March, is pregnant after her latest IVF. She has always gotten pregnant after every IVF she's done. But, none has resulted in a live birth. (My niece was a miracle natural baby after an IVF miscarriage) But I think she has the full belief that IVF will work. I wish I still had that feeling.

We've inquired about getting on the schedule at the far away clinic for a new freeze-all cycle in November/December. I'm thinking at this point, I might as well cycle while I'm as young as I'm gonna get. My uterus will be there, but I should stockpile embies while I can. So I should get a new calendar Monday. I'll be curious to see if I stay on the same protocol.

And my Auntie arrived yesterday, pissed off as usual. I think the fibroid is making my periods more uncomfortable, and more chunky monkey. Blech.

That's it. Hanging in there, trying to be future-focused. Trying to keep a bit of hope in what appears to me most of the time to be hopeless.

The aftermath

After all the bad news Monday, we did get a glimmer of good news Tuesday. The frozen blast from our local clinic IVF #2 was thawed successfully and re-expanded well. Chilly Willy (as he's known in our house) was biopsied and vitrified. He is the same grade as the new blast (Day 6 BB). So we now have doubled our chances with 2 blasts that will be sent for mircoarray genetic testing.

For those of you that have commented about transfer - because of the missing beta-3 integrin issue in my lining, I will never do a fresh transfer. And one of the main reasons we chose the far away clinic was to be able to do full 46 chromosome genetic testing. Results take 6 weeks to get back. And with my fibroid removal and the integrin treatment, transfer won't be until at least February.

I'm trying very hard to keep busy. I'm going to the gym each day, even if I don't want to. I feel better afterward, so I force myself. I'm also cooking again, and have made some yummy homemade mac-n-cheese, pork chops with spiced apples, and the uber-comforting to me homemade turkey taco dinner. And lots and lots of cuddles with my sweet fur-baby Umps. She really missed me while I was away, and has been extra-sweet to me. In fact, she is on my lap right now. Good kitty!

So after all the disappointment of the last week, we are picking ourselves up. Tears find me here and there, but it's getting better. We've scheduled a regroup phone call with Dr. Famous in a few weeks. I've also scheduled an appointment with a local ob/gyn about the fibroid removal. If I can do this locally, it would save us a bunch of cash and drama. We're debating doing another freeze-all cycle (and potentially our last, at least last with insurance). If we decide to do this, I'd like to do it sooner than later, with my 36-year old eggs. They can stay frozen as I age, but I better harvest them while the time is right. But we want to hear what the doc says, his thoughts on this last cycle, and what we'd do different.

One foot in front of the other. Keeping going.

Crash & burn

Bad news today.

Of the 6 that were still kicking Friday, 2 made it to blast. But only one of those is viable, the other being Day 6 CC-. So they are biopsying the one Day 6 BB blast for genetic testing, and thaw the frozen blast from our last cycle (IVF #2) tomorrow. If it survives the thaw (about 75% do, but I seem to be on the wrong side of the odds these days, so I'm not thinking it's a sure thing), we'll have 2 to send for genetic testing.

I'm really upset. Tears streaming down my face as I type this.

I'm really starting to think I may never have children. And that sucks.

Day 3 update

Just a quick update from the lab on Day 3.

For the 4 on-time embies, they all look great. 2 are 8-celled, 2 are 10-celled. All graded at 4 (least amount of fragmentation). My reaction: YAY!

For the remedial 3: 2 are dividing, and look "ok". They don't really grade them at this point, as they are only Day 2 embies. 1 was not doing as well and would likely arrest. My reaction: Meh.

So 4 winning the race, but really 6 still in the running. My reaction: not too shabby.

Next update on Monday. The big one. My reaction: Eeek!

Roller coasters make me nauseous

I'm home! Slept in my own bed last night, and all I can say is "Thank the Lord for Tempur-pedic."

But it has been a bumpy ride since the last post, and the IF roller coaster is knocking me around quite a bit. After getting a very happy report of 12 eggs retrieved, we were feeling confident. Silly, silly us.

As we were driving out of Colorado, we got the call from the lab. Of course, we have terrible cell reception. So cutting in and out, I hear, "So we have the 4."

What? What happened to 12? How did we get from 12 to 4???

After the call dropped, and the lab called back (and I was freaking out in the car), we found out horrible news. Of the 12 eggs, only 6 were mature. And of those 6, only 4 fertilized. This is the worst cycle we've ever had. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. The lab lady did say that they had a few immature eggs that were maturing in the lab (one of the fancy parts of this lab, the old clinic did not have this ability). They would try to ICSI these today, and the lab would call us tomorrow with these fert rates.

I spun into a very bad place. I began thinking about all my worst nightmares that now seemed would come true. It was not a fun car ride. Oh, and happy anniversary, Mr. P. Whoopie.

On Thursday, while driving through endless cornfields, we got the second call from the lab. Of the 6 immature eggs, 3 matured in the lab. And all 3 fertilized.

I began to breathe again.

So that means we have 7 embies right now. I'm expecting another call today, Day 3 report for the initial 4 and just an update on my slow but steady 3. I have my seatbelt on, and am feeling sick from all of these ups and downs. I never really liked roller coasters. I was always more of the "Its a Small World" kind of girl.

Blech.