Trying to Reisist

I am trying to resist the urge to go buy some tests and pee on a stick (poas) early. I can't decide if seening a BFN now would be less painful because there is still a chance or if it would hurt just as much as usual. This is really the first chance I have ever had for it to be positive. I know its early and unlikely to show anything no matter what, but its hard to resist. If I have to go to the store today, I might have to give in.

5 More Days of Insanity!

I think I'm going crazy. Everytime I feel ANYTHING in the middle portion of my body I get very excited and then worried. Is that a sign of implantation? Is that a bad sign? Am I preggo? Of course I'm not preggo. I don't get preggo. What am I thinking?

I just keep running through the same 10 thoughts. I know this is probably totally normal (at least for those of us living in the land of IF). I have read enough other blogs to know that lots of ladies feel the same. It just seems strange because up til this point its never even been a possibility. I have only ovulated once and that was way late with tiny follies so no chance. I "thought" I had a 2ww with my first round of Clomid, but nope. False positive on my OPK.

So this is so new to me. We have been trying different stuff for so long that it is very surreal to have an actual chance. My hubby keeps poking my belly and telling the embryo that it better grab on or it won't get to go to Disney World. Its very cute. We both keep trying not to think too much about it, but obviously thats not working.

We have a number of things planned between now and Wednesday (aka Beta day). Luckily since we have to do two Betas and they don't do them on Saturdays for some reason, I get to go one day early. Beta #1 is Wednesday and #2 is Friday of next week!

In the mean time we are going to see Cowboys & Aliens (don't judge, I am psyched!). Then on Satuday our friend that is staying with us is going to go camping til Sunday afternoon. I am very excited to have the house to ourselves for a while. I'm thinking romantic dinner and a movie at home. Sunday I'm hoping to go see my friend and her new baby then that afternoon we are going to hang out with some friends. Sunday might be a bit rough depending on how my emotions are that day. The friends we will be visiting have a 6 month old and the other couple who is coming have a 14 month old. So we will be the only ones without a baby. Or if I'm feeling optimistic, without a baby that has a window seat. Thats how my mom always referred to babies in utero.

And on a completely random note, a former parent of one of my kiddos (back when I taught preschool) just came into the bank. She told me about the store that she is taking over. It is a crafty, scrapbooky, consignment store. And then she asked if I wanted to have anything there in consignment! It has been so long since I have done crafty stuff just for the fun of it. But she got me thinking about starting up my polymer clay jewelry that I used to make. I also started playing with wire jewelry techniques. The two work so well together. I may have to pull out my stuff and start working tonight.

Maybe I'll post some stuff soon to get opinions! And now I better get back to work!

4 Frosties!!!

Huge sigh of relief! I am so much more optimistic. Boy, no joke this IF thing is a roller coaster! Now I can go back to watching sappy girly movies.

I also wanted to say that you ladies ROCK!!!! It has been so awesome to know that there are lots of you out there rooting for us! I wish I could send you all lovely gifts, but since I can't (both due to the anonymity of the bloggy world and the fact that we spent ALL of our money on this IVF thing) I will just continue to try to make you all feel as loved as I feel!

So basically THANK YOU!!!

And with that I will leave you with a couple of hopeful pictures.

I'm not sure which one is the one we put in. I'm hoping to talk to the embryologist when I go back next time and find out. The other guy is one of our frosties.

The little white spot inside the gray doughnut is our little embryo inside my uterus!!! Sorry for the crummy picture of a picture. I'll try to scan them and put up a better one later, but the scanner is upstairs and I'm still doing the bed rest thing :)

Transfer

Well we did our transfer. We transferred 1 blast. It was not the highest grade. When he told us I only had two blasts out of 13 fertilized, I was a bit shell shocked. Sunday they said they were all doing good so I was totally floored. We have 4 early blasts that may keep growing and be blasts by freezing time tomorrow. We for sure have the one to freeze and possibly a couple more, but none are great quality.

I am feeling very defeated today. I'm trying to think positive, but its hard. I never have good enough luck to fall on the good side of the odds. The doc said with this blast we have probably a 40% chance with my weight and age factored in. Its not the worst, but we went there thinking it was about a 65% chance.

I'll update tomorrow when we know how many little frosties we will have.

Another RE Visit

We had to head back to the RE's office this morning. Luckily the car is all fixed (my hubby rocks!!). I'm still not enjoying the car. Seat belts are tight on the tummy. The doc had us come back in because I had fluid above my uterus. Thank goodness, the fluid is gone, but during the ultrasound the doc say that yep I am definitely hyper-stimulated. My ovaries are each 9cm x 7cm. I looked up the normal size of an ovary. They are normally only 3cm x 1.5 cm! Mine are more than 3 time the normal size! No wonder I feel like a whale! I have gained 7 pounds since Thursday!!! If anyone has any tips on how to make this go away faster I would love them. I'm drinking lots of Pedialite & Gatorade. I have had my feet propped up (really I have been laying around on the couch with my legs up on the arm). I'm taking Tylenol and walking around regularly.

Because of the hyper-stimulation my RE has me doing Lovenox injections. Lovenox is basically Heparin a blood thinner. Hyper-stimulation apparently can cause clotting. Lovenox burns!

We have no news on the embryos today. They don't mess with them at all today, but tomorrow they will call us just in case we have to do a 3 day transfer. Its unlikely with 13 embryos, but they call just in case.

In other news, we started doing Progesterone in Oil (PIO) injections today. Its not as bad as I figured it would be, but holy crap those needles are big! The hubby keeps redrawing the circles for the injection spots so we make sure its in the right spot.

And on that note, I'm gonna go sit with a heating pad on my HUGE belly. I caught my my profile in the mirror and thought, "Crap, I look preggo!"

Crappiest Day Ever

WARNING! I didn't have a great time with my Egg Retrieval so if you are doing one soon and haven't done it before, you might not want to hear my story. I'm fine and it wasn't too bad, but I don't want to make anyone worry...and with that on to my crappy day.

First the good. We got 15 eggs! Then the crappy. My ovaries are hard to get to so I was in more pain than usual when I woke up. So they gave me some big time pain killers. No one warned me that having a fat belly might mean that ER could be more painful. I could tell that this was an unusual circumstance because they normally only give ibuprofen and the fact that I suddenly had 5 or 6 nurses and both docs hovering around me. After the first dose of pain meds didn't really help much, the doc wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure nothing had gone wrong. So I got up to head to the ultrasound room and the world swam. I made it to the bed and collapsed. the quickly gave me a bowl and some meds for the nausea.

The ultrasound showed everything looking normal. The pain seem to be just from the normal retrieval process and nothing strange was wrong. They helped me back to the recovery room and gave me another dose of meds. I was finally able to sleep. I slept for over two hours and woke up feeling a million times better. After some Gatorade and crackers they said I was good to go home. They have now called me twice to check up on me.

And now for the crappiest part! We live over a hundred miles from the RE's office. On the way home, my car broke down. The water pump needed to be replaced. We were about 15 miles outside of Albuquerque. We had to get towed to a repair shop. We waited 45 minutes for the tow truck. When our Jeep was all loaded up, we got in the tow truck. That was the worst car ride of my life. I had a pillow between me and the seat belt, but every bump was agony. Tow trucks make you feel bumps that you would never have felt in a normal car. It was of course rush hour so the drive took forever (aka an hour and a half to go 20 miles!).

The repair shop confirmed the problem, but couldn't fix it until the next day. The nearest hotel was a long way away. My hubby does most of the work on our cars and new how to change the water pump out. So I stretched out in the car while he worked on it. After a couple of hours and a couple of trips to Auto Zone it started getting dark. I went out to help. I mostly held flash lights and helped position the water pump. We finally got home around midnight. I quickly passed out.

This morning I can tell that I over did it. I feel like I have been hit by a truck! But when the nurse called me this morning she gave me my fertilization report. Of our 15 eggs, 13 fertilized!!! So maybe karma is paying us back for such a crappy day. Keep growing little guys!!!

ICLW PrePost

Hi all of you ICLWers! I am posting this a day ahead just in case I don't feel up to posting tomorrow. Tomorrow (Thursday) at 10:15 am Mountain time I will be having my first egg retrieval for IVF!!! If you are new to my blog feel free to click here to see how this all started. Its been a crazy couple of years and I am hoping we are on the down hill slide!

Hope you all are doing well. I'm going to try to update tomorrow with how many eggs we get. Fingers crossed for lots!!!