20

I have been a very bad blogger. Things have been a little crazy, and I have been struggling to keep up. Joseph has had a busy week or two at work. His busy week just happened to coincide with the worst of my IVF cycle. Add a two year old into that mixture, and you have an exhausted, hormonal mommy that doesn't blog.

We started this cycle pretty normally. My last cycle started off with too little medicine, and it was an uphill battle the entire time. We ended up with six mature eggs. This time my doctor had the goal of more eggs. He started me out at a higher dose of medicines, expecting me to respond similarly to our last cycle.

My body decided to take that medicine seriously this time. My first blood work showed that my body was overly responding. My medicines were decreased, and we officially were dealing with too many eggs. My estrogen level was way too high. We went from threatening cancellation due to under stimulation to threatening cancellation due to overstimulation.

My monitoring office was guessing that I had thirty plus measurable eggs. That is a lot! I was obviously uncomfortable and the high estrogen levels made me feel horrible. We were not sure how many of those thirty plus would be mature. My doctor guessed fifteen, but I was a bit skeptical after my six from last time.

We pushed through and made it to the egg retrieval today....

They got 20 mature eggs! I was shocked when I woke up from the anesthesia. That doubles the amount that I got from my first cycle (9).

So now we wait. We have to see how our fertilization report goes. IVF is such a numbers game. You start out with a number, and slowly the number drops as time goes on. I'm just hoping for enough to transfer and freeze a few. Anything more than that is a bonus.

My baseline went better than I thought it would yesterday. Everything looked perfect, and I was given the all clear to start shots last night.

So, we should have an egg retrieval around the 10th or so. Funny little side note.... Blake was transferred within days of this schedule. So if this works, we could be having double birthday parties for awhile.

Again...

Here we go again...

I have my giant box of medicines, my baseline monitoring appointment, and our sad savings account. Our last IVF cycle was supposed to be our last, yet here we are. I have caught myself saying the same again this time. This is my last.... My last time dealing with the pharmacy and all those meds. My last time waiting on my cycle to start so we can just get things going already! My last time trying to figure out what day we will be doing this or that, and what day I will be on bed rest. This is my last.... I pray.

Today is my baseline. I'm a little unsure of how things are going to go. The last few times I have gone for something routine, it's turned into a setback. Part of me feels like that will probably happen again today. We will see. I'm hoping we can get started today, so we can avoid cycling during Christmas. I stopped taking my birth control pills I haven't started a cycle yet, which makes me think I have a cyst. I would not be shocked.

I have no idea how people can do cycle after cycle of IVF. It just is not for me. The stress and unknown nature of IVF is enough to drive me crazy. Last cycle, I had the benefit of three years of forgetting. This cycle I don't. I just did this, and I didn't really enjoy it. The excitement from last time is gone.

So here we go... I'm praying that this is a smooth cycle with a lot of success.

Recovery

My surgery was Thursday. We arrived two hours prior to my scheduled surgery time of 11:45. The nurses did the normal questions, getting us settled in, IV, and all the other normal hospital stuff. I found out the Wednesday that my latest uterine biopsy had come back positive for infection, so they wanted to give me IV antibiotics while I was there to finally get rid of it.

The surgery went really well. The anesthesiologist took good care of me. They gave me something that made me loopy on the way to the OR, and I really could not have cared what they were about to do to me. I woke up in pain. As soon as I said ouch, they gave me something that made me equally happy. I had some nausea, but they also took care of that for me. By the time I left, I was very groggy. I slept all the way home (2.5 hours).

The surgery took about a hour and a half. My doctor fixed my tube issue, worked on my uterus a little, and also removed the infected lining. He was very happy with how it all went. He even gave Joseph pictures and was proudly showing him my remodeled female organs.

I'm sore, but it is nothing the pain medicine isn't taking care of. My worst pain is from my belly button incision. It is really uncomfortable for some reason. Pressure seems to help, so I have been keeping pillows on it.

Overall, it has not been horrible. I am still moving slow, but on the mend. My lovely husband even made me pumpkin pancakes from Trader Joe's today. Which may have been worth the entire process ;) Seriously. They are amazing.

I have a follow up in two weeks. We will talk about our upcoming cycle then.

It Never Ends....

Today was our follow up from my D&C and a pre-IVF ultrasound. It didn't go well. I really feel like we just can not catch a break. It is constantly something.

Today, my RE saw that my tube was damaged from infection from the retained tissues from the miscarriage. The antibiotics they gave me has cleared the infection, but that tube has to come out. Goodbye tube. I have never really used you anyway. I have never gotten pregnant without IVF. Tubes are worthless to us.

I also seem to have a misshaped uterus. It's very minor, but my doctor is going to check it out and fix it. He found that while they were examining my tube.

So, I have surgery scheduled for next week. I will get a pretty little battle scar right below my belly button. IVF is off until December. Only a month, which is good. It could be worse, but it is also so disappointing. We have been working on another baby to bring home since April.

I hate that everything is such a fight for us.

Of Course...

My words exactly when my doctor told me I had retained tissues and needed a D&C yesterday.  Of course I do. Why wouldn't I? 

Sigh.  I am not sure why my body has to be so difficult about everything, but here we are.  Frustrated does not even begin to describe my feelings. 

Yesterday, we met with my infertility doctor to plan for our next cycle.  When we first scheduled the appointment, we had planned on using our one frozen embryo.  After scheduling the appointment, we did some soul searching and decided to do another full IVF cycle.  We both did not have a ton of confidence in using only one lower graded embryo, especially after what happened during our last cycle. 

Our RE actually brought up the idea of a full cycle before we told him we were talking about it.  He agreed that the embryo we have frozen is not the best quality, and it just isn't a good idea to transfer it alone.  So we made our plans, talked about medicines, and discussed my miscarriage.  My doctor decided at the last minute to do an ultrasound to make sure I did not have any scar tissue from the miscarriage. 

Instead he found left over tissue from the miscarriage.  Tissue that had to come out, and he was greatly concerned about infection.  Of course.  They offered to do the procedure the same day, which I agreed.  I wanted to get it over.  They gave me some really strong medicine, and I do not remember most of the afternoon. I left with antibiotics and pain pills. I have a follow-up next week, and I am praying that everything will finally be normal. 

Our IVF cycle is on, if I can ever heal.  I am now on birth control pills.  After my follow-up, I will have my medicines ordered, and we will have a cycle in early November. 

Here is hoping for an easy cycle...

Here We Are

I often ask why. Specifically, I ask Joseph why the military does ______ frequently. Things that I just do not understand. Why are you driving two hours to camp in the woods, when we have woods right here? Why are you training for your predeployment training? Doesn't the predeployment training cover it? If not, why don't you expand the predeployment training to cover the multiple pre, predeployment trainings? Apparently it makes sense to someone, but certainly not me.

I purposely left a lot of emotion out of my last post. I wanted it to be the facts. The emotion wouldn't change anytime soon. The facts can be blurred and forgotten.

I'm frustrated. I'm really, really frustrated. I'm angry that I have had four babies, and I have only brought one home. I'm frustrated that we spend so much money on IVF (goodbye college fund) and twice had nothing but tears and disappointment to show for it. Once, we were given the greatest gift imaginable. I'm frustrated with our "bad luck" and how difficult things always are.

So here we are.... Three years after losing Ethan and Jacob. In a similar position. A completely disappointing outcome to our fresh cycle, and we have one sweet embryo in the freezer. One. I wish we had two. Two would make me feel "safe". One is such a risk. I remember worrying all night before Blake's transfer. Praying that one embryo would thaw well. Then I was on pins and needles all day, waiting for the call to say the embryo had not survived.

It did survive though. He is currently eating strawberries and cheese. I really hope that our frozen embryo turns into a baby we can bring home with us. Another IVF cycle seems so difficult right now. Emotionally. Physically, I can handle it. Emotionally.... I do not want to dive into that again. Worrying about levels, eggs, medicines, money, retrievals, transfers... I will do it if we have to, but I would love to transfer our frozen embryo and be done.

With one, it will be nerve wracking through the entire process. Completely our style...