Extreme Frustration

I made my peace with IVF. Well mostly, but now that we decided we are gonna do it, I just wanna get this show on the road. And of course my body chooses now to do what it was supposed to do several weeks ago. (TMI warning: if you don't wanna know more about my body than you ever thought you would, skip to the end)

As I was going to the bathroom last night, I noticed a good bit of CM (cervical mucus-see I said TMI). It was far different than anything I had seen before. It was totally EWCM which is the kind that you get when you ovulate. I peed on several OPKs (ovulation predictor kits) but got no positive tests. Based on my previous experience, I think that if I do ovulate, it is without an LH surge so the kits don't work. The RE agreed. So the nurse at the REs office wanted me to come in for an ultrasound. So take the afternoon off work then pay $275ish for it. So instead we decided to put IVF off for a month and wait two weeks and pee on a stick.

In reality this will be waiting til July will be good. We can save money for an extra month and we can lose more weight. We are working very hard right now to lose as much weight as we can. We are doing lots of working and hiking and eating on a low GI diet. Watching our portion size is the biggest change since we always eat pretty low GI. We are doing well so far, but it has only been a few days. Plus we don't have a scale. I think I am going to get a string and have the hubby help me measure myself with it. Then I can check back every few days to see if I'm loosing size. That way I'm not focused on weight.

But even though there are lots of good reasons to wait, I don't really want to. It makes our time table more comfortable. I won't have to go get a Hysteroscopy next week. I can wait til I work my next Saturday (that way I can take off early one day for the long drive and long appointment). I don't have to start BCPs today. And I don't have to worry about having a BFN right before my good friend has her baby. She is due right around the time we will do our transfer. So with any luck, I will be feeling optimistic and happy for their big day.

But man, I really want to get started!!!

Welcome ICLWers!

Welcome to all of you stopping by from ICLW. I'll give a brief history for any of you who haven't stopped by before.

The hubby & I have been TCC for 18 months. We tried for a year on our own (we should have gone to an RE sooner since I didn't have a single period during that year, but my hubby wasn't totally ready yet) then went back to our RE. We originally saw an RE when we thought we would have to do IVF with PGD because I was diagnosed with a terrible genetic disease. As it turns out, that was a misdiagnosis. For more on that go here. 

Needless to say, a misdiagnosis of that magnitude shook me. But back to the RE we went. We tried a round of Clomid with IUI (hubby has low morphology) but I didn't respond at all. Then a round of Letrozole with again, no response. So now we are moving to IVF. The big guns.

We plan to do the IVF in July. So keep your fingers crossed.

IVF

I think I have made my peace with doing IVF. After researching a bit more, with the hubby's motility I think IVF is really our only choice. We could try a bunch of injectable cycles, but since we don't have insurance that covers any fertility stuff that would be several grand a pop with a low chance of success.

So  IVF it is. I want to be able to try for two kids before I'm 35. I turn 29 in two weeks. (In case anyone who plans to give me a bday gift is reading this, a donation to the IVF would be the best possible gift!)

We decided to go with financing for the IVF. It seems wrong to be financing our (possible) baby. At least we got a good APR. I'm not terribly impressed with the companies (ARC and a lender that they work with). They have told us twice that they would call us in 1-2 hours with a decision and then 5-6 hours later we call back and they say "Oh yeah..." Its terrible customer service (I work at a bank that is BIG on customer service). If we did that at work, we would get in big trouble. But I don't have a lot of options so I guess I'll deal.

We are hoping to start the cycle right around Memorial Day. Its a bit fast, but if we don't do it then, we would end up waiting til the end of July. One of my closest friends here in New Mexico is due mid July. I am her secondary go to person if she can't get in touch with her hubby and she goes into labor. So I want to either be done with the transfer before the end of June or wait til her baby is here.

I really want to get started as soon as possible, but I'm also worried about how hard it will be to see her baby for the first time after a possible BFN (big freaking negative on a preggo test) and a really pricey BFN at that.

Either way it will be hard. But I am so happy for her. I feel less jealousy of her than of most preggo ladies. She lost her first baby and struggled with that for a long while. She didn't have any trouble getting pregnant, but she battled to stay pregnant.  She still hasn't bought very much for the baby. She feels that she may be jinxing the baby.

Has anyone out there dealt with a similar situation? Do you find it easier to know how your cycle went or to have the hope for a future cycle? I am leaning toward knowing just because once I see that baby, I may be super jealous, but I will love her immediately. I think being able to help my friend out (even now she calls me with kiddo questions cause I have been around little ones my whole life) might make a possible BFN a bit easier to bear. And if its a BFP (big freakin positive) it would be a great time to celebrate.

@#$#$%#@$

Which translates to Letrozole didn't work. My RE thinks I have so many little follicles that I would have very high chance of high-order multiples (i.e. three or more) with injectables. So he wants us to do IVF. I have mixed feelings about this. We also need ICSI cause of the hubby's SA (semen analysis). His morphology is low. So I think that is another reason the RE is leaning toward the IVF.

So now we decide what we want to do and start saving. If we do IVF we are shooting for June or August.

And thats all I got today. If you are one of the few people who know me in real life, I will not be answering the phone tonight. I think I may sleep for a very long time.

Signs Its Gonna be a Crappy Day

Lots of little things today:

• Pup got into the litter box (YUCK!!!) first thing this morning. Making a cover for it just got bumped up to the top of the to-do list.
• Pup spent 20 minutes trying to get the cats to "play" with her. This consists of hunching really low and quietly woofing at them then rolling over and showing her belly. Her woofs get steadily louder as the cats don't respond. After about 10 minutes of this, it was impossible to keep pretending to sleep.
• Hubby took a bath (I had to get after him cause we could to an IUI this week, so no baths) and used up most of the hot water so I finished my shower with cold water.
• Pants felt too tight to wear so I had to switch to a skirt.
• Had to get allergy shots and the nurse was late which made me late for work.
• Left arm allergy shot hurts more than usual. Normally I can only feel it if I touch the bump, but today I can feel it every time I move my arm.
• Letrozole seems to have upset my tummy on top of the emotional upheaval.

I am hoping that things will get better, but I'm not holding my breath. At least I only cried once so far (in the car on the way to work. Not sure why).

Sorry for all the blogs being grumpy lately. I feel like a different person when on Letrozole. I can hear myself thinking mean things that I normally wouldn't think. My inner monologue is very pissy today. I hear myself bitching about stuff in others that I do. Luckily its all internal so no one hears me being such a hypocrite, but I hate feeling that way. Hypocracy is one of the things that make me the maddest. So to be feeling like a hypocrite sucks.

Today's Ultrasound

So basically we know nothing from today's ultrasound. I am very unhappy with this. It seems like every time I go to the freakin RE we get more questions instead of answers!

The biggest follie on my left ovary is 9mm and 8mm on the right with lots of smaller on each. I'm at CD 12 so I should be ovulating within the next 5 days. With these follies thats doubtful.

So tomorrow the nurse will call me with my lab results (progesterone & estrodiol). As long as they don't show that I ovulated (ha, thats funny) I get to start a higher dose of Letrozole. Woo hoo. More weepiness and moodiness. Yay. (Insert sarcasm here) Then I go back on Friday for another ultrasound.

So now I'm gonna sit here and drink some wine and cry a bit. It could be worse, but it could be better.

A Bit Stressed

At 3pm this afternoon, I go for an ultrasound to see if Letrozole worked at all. Fingers crossed!!!

If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what will happen next. We might do injectables or we might go straight to IVF. My RE said he was hesitant to do injects with someone so young (I'm almost 30, it doesn't feel "SO young" to me!).

IVF is SO expensive. I think I'm gonna push for at least one injectable cycle first. I'm also considering taking a month off to do Nurtisystem and try to loose some weight. But I'm afraid my head might explode if I do that.

I just found out that two more of my cousins are preggo. While I'm very happy for both of them (L. has been seeing an RE for a while and the S. is single and 38 so she figures this is her only chance, her words not mine) it makes me sad. L is the only cousin younger than me on my dad's side. And S. being preggo make me the LAST cousin on my mom's side. All the rest have kids, even the ones who are younger than me. S has a step-sister who is only 20 and doesn't have any kiddos and I have two step-sisters and a step-bro (all between 16 and 18 so the better not have kids before me!), but of all the non-steps, I'm the last. I didn't realize that til this morning.

On top of that I feel a lot of pressure to hurry up so my Grandma on my dad's side gets to meet my baby. She will be 94 this year. No one is putting pressure intentionally. I think its mostly K, dad's fiancee. She thinks shes helping, but she is just making stuff worse.

I know they say that you only notice all the preggo people cause you are trying, but I am totally convinced that there are more preggos around than usual. I have never had 3 preggos cousins at the same time before. Plus two good friends. Plus two cousins just had babies in the past few months. Thats a lot of babies!

So thats my stream of consciousness ramble for today. I'll try to update this evening after our drive back from the RE. But if I don't its probably cause the meds didn't work and we stopped for beer.