The Next Circle of IF Hell

The IVF Big Fat Fucking Fail! I knew it was coming, but it doesn't make the blow any less. At least we have our snow-babies. I am praying our take home baby is there. Unfortunately we can't start our frozen cycle until after the holidays. So we get to spend yet another Christmas with my empty uterus.

I just can't understand. We did everything right. I completely de-stressed my life. I only let positive energy in and was completely optimistic (which I never am, and this is the reason why). I ate completely organic and healthy, I didn't let a single unhealthy thing enter my body. I went to church. I prayed. I shoved countless needles in my body happily. I have bruises on my stomach, on my thighs, on my ass, on my arms. I tortured my poor body and I did it all with a big fat fucking smile on my face thinking the whole time I will do anything for my baby! I had faith, I had hope, I had it all, and it all ended with nothing.

I saw a quote today that really does sum up exactly how I feel right now:

The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence. For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend, we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful some not. Still we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only “I’m sorry for your loss.” But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?" ~Laura Bush

One Lonely Little Line

That is a sight I have seen far too many times. One sad lonely pathetic crushing little line. I took a home pregnancy test this morning and it looked like every one I have ever taken in my life. Stark white. My heart was beating so fast during those two minutes. I just knew that second line would pop up and I could jump and yell and scream with excitement like I have dreamed of doing for so long.

The longer I stared at that screen the further my heart sank. I squinted, I stared, I willed a second line to magically appear with every bit of my being. Nothing. I have never looked so hard at a pregnancy test in my whole life. I have never wanted this more than I do now. Instead I am crushed.

Here it is again, that horrible awful feeling that I will never experience a life growing inside of me. That I will never hear the sound of my own baby's cry. That I will never have a family of my own. That I am not meant to be a mother.

New Job!

I accepted a new job today and I am elated! I know it is a pretty crazy time to accept a new job, but if infertility has taught me anything at all, it has taught me that I can not make any decisions based on what may or may not happen. If this IVF worked, I may end up on Maternity leave relatively soon, but if it didn't... well you know. My current job environment is so toxic that I really really needed to get out. Plus this is a huge raise so that helps too.

The new job has been in the works for months, but I didn't want to talk too much about it because I didn't want to jinx anything. I went back and forth believing that I was ever going to get a new job. It seemed like it was going to work out and then something got in the way and then back and forth for months. Sound familiar? I am really praying that the other roller coaster that I have been on ends just as well in the next couple of days!!

My First Blog Award

After going insane in the 2ww, seeing this blog award really made my day! Liebster is the German word for beloved or favorite. It is specifically designed for blogs with 200 followers or less. So thank you so much to Our Life in Cycles for making me feel special today. 

To share the love I am to pass this on to 5 bloggers that I follow and love. There are so many great blogs that I follow, so this is going to be tough. So here they are in no particular order:

1. Heather for Life After 11 Thoreau
2. Aime32 for Life As I Know It
3. Jen for Beyond Jennifer and Jason
4. Katie for The Zawisloks
5. Happilyhomespun for Life, Infertility, and the pursuit of a family

Shouldn't I Feel Different?

I keep feeling like I should feel different right now. Shouldn't I feel pregnant if this is working? As a woman, shouldn't I know if there is a life growing inside of me?

I just feel like me with some cramps and really sore breasts. I know every twinge and every "symptom" is due to the hormones I am taking and I don't expect to feel early pregnancy symptoms because by now I know better than that. But I still feel like there is a part of me that should know.

I had a wonderful dream last night that I saw a beautiful healthy growing fetus on an ultrasound. I then gave birth (quickly and painlessly! Well.. it is a dream right) to a beautiful baby girl with bright red curly hair!

I guess in my dreams I believe it worked, but when I wake up, I just feel like me.  After everything we have been through, it just feels impossible to truly believe this will work.

Thankful

Today I am thankful for the most amazing husband in the world, an amazing family, and that I am pregnant until proven otherwise!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

We Have Snowbabies!!

4 of them! Seems appropriate with the season!! Having so many make it to cryo makes me even more certain that we made the right decision with the single transfer!

I feel sad for the ones that didn't make it. I know it is a part of the process, but those were my babies too. I will be saying prayers for them as well.

For now we have snowbabies and hopefully a sticky baby too!!

Introducing Baby Blast Scuba

After much discussion and the doctors STRONG recommendation that we transfer only 1 embryo - that is  exactly what we did.

Of the 10 fertilized embryos 8 were still growing. It looks like about 6 will probably make it to freeze and we transfered the very best beautiful expanded blast today. He or She is actually with me inside my body as I type this. How wonderful is that!!

A few family members not very supportive of us transferring only one, but for us it was absolutely the right decision. The doctor said that if we got pregnant with 2 that we would have over a 60% chance of twins. That is just too high for us. Twin pregnancies are always high risk and I am a pretty small person. Then there is the double cost for everything, double feedings, double crying, double the craziness, and yes double the love and amazingness. Don't get me wrong, I would be thrilled with twins, but I need to put mine and the babies health first and with twins there are so many more land-mines. I know exactly why people transfer 2, and a part of me really wanted to, but what I want more than anything is just a normal single pregnancy. I hope that is not too much to ask after dealing with the heartache of infertility.

I have faith that we made the very best decision for us.

So without further delay, I would like to introduce our beautiful expanded blast - i.e. Baby Scuba

No News Is Good News

We didn't get a call to come in this morning for a last minute 3 day transfer. That means our little embabies are still growing strong! I wish I had a little more information about them, but then again maybe I don't!

We did get a call yesterday about the sperm and they were able to use all fresh sperm. That means we still have ALL of our frozen sperm left if we need it in the future!!!!!!!

I am sending all the love in the world to my little embabies praying with all I have that our take home baby is there right now just waiting for us.

Grow Embabies Grow!!

So we got our fert report this morning - of the baker's dozen, 11 were mature and 10 fertilized normally!!! We are still waiting to find out if they had to tap into the cryo sperm or if the fresh was enough. I have a feeling the fresh was used, but we will find out soon. For now we have 10 little embabies growing in a lab right now. That just feels so strange to me. Is it weird that I already feel protective of them?

The office did a GREAT job of freaking me out this morning though. When I called after 9 per my instructions, my nurse who is always sooo bubbly and nice and wonderful was very awkward and told me that they hadn't made a 3 day or 5 day transfer decision yet and they would call me back in 10 minutes. When I got off the phone I told Mr. Scuba that it just didn't sound good. I told him they were probably going to get Dr. T to deliver whatever bad news was waiting for us. Then Mr. Scuba convinced me I was just being paranoid. Fast forward to 10 minutes later - Dr. T was on the phone. He asked how I was doing I and just burst out with "well not good anymore since you are the one calling so it has to be bad news!" He said "oh no!!! I just wanted to see how you were doing!" He then gave me the report and then felt really bad for almost killing me by heart attack!!!! We laughed a bit about it, but man did he freak me out!

We will most likely be doing a 5 day transfer on Monday, but we are on call for a 3 day transfer on Saturday if necessary.

So there it is, we have 10 embabies growing in the lab. I just want to be with them every second of every day.

Margarita and a Kiss: Home From Retrieval

Today was a good day! The short version: We had fresh sperm and got 13 eggs!

The long version: We started off by getting some amazing new: Mr. Scuba's sample from yesterday had 100,000 sperm!!! He went in for 2 this morning as well so we are hoping to get some more. I was so happy when he told me, I cried!!

So around 9:30 they took me in and got me into the gown etc.. and then into the evil looking procedure room. The anesthesiologist was really nice and really gentle. They got the IV in and then got all my lady parts washed out. The anesthesiologist said it was time for a margarita, so I asked Mr. Scuba for a kiss first. The nurses all laughed and said "A margarita and a kiss: the perfect makings of a baby!" I thought that was really cool and sweet.

Then it was time for Mr. Scuba to leave. I don't really remember because that is when they started with the good drugs. The next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room. I expected to feel horrible, but honestly I just had some mild cramping. I was pretty out of it. They were feeding me sprite and saltine crackers. When they had me go to the bathroom, I think that was the worst part.

The Doctor came in and said we got 13 eggs which is great. I was honestly hoping for a few more especially with the amount of follicles I had, but the doctor was really encouraged. Mr. Scuba calls them our little baker's dozen!

I got dressed and we headed home. I am now on the couch relaxing, knitting, and praying that those little eggs and sperm turn into beautiful little embryos!

Trigger Tonight!!

We got the official word today that we will trigger tonight at 11pm for a 10am Wednesday retrieval!! I am really excited!

They are a bit worried about Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome (OHSS) and cut my HCG trigger in half. When the nurse explained what OHSS means and what they have to do if they need to drain fluid from my abdomen, I about passed out!! That does not sound like fun at all! I just have to keep my eye on the prize. We are so close!

Almonds to Tennis Balls!

That is the comparison the nurse made about my ovaries today! She said they started out at the size of almonds and they are now almost the size of tennis balls!! No wonder I can't button my pants!

Looks like I will trigger tomorrow for a Wednesday retrieval!!!

"How Are the Follies?"

Mr. Scuba is so cute. After each monitoring appointment, he calls and asks "how are the follies?"

When I get cold at night laying in bed he will make sure to warm me up because "we can't let the follies get cold!" I love him so much!

So the follies are doing great. My meds were lowered a lot yesterday and we started ganirilex to prevent early ovulation. So I am up to 3 shots a day now! Dr. T warned me today that I will probably experience mild OHSS. I am not worried. I am willing to do anything for my babies. Retrieval will probably be sometime in the middle of next week!

1st Follie Check

I have 25 beautiful little follies growing strong!! The Duggars might have some competition!

The Hormones Are Starting to Get to Me

So last night I had a dream that my in real life BFF got pregnant by her boyfriend by accident and had a beautiful baby all before we were able to get pregnant at all. I woke up truly angry and started crying. Then I started thinking about how no one in my real life seems to really get this. I started feeling like I am not getting enough support from those around me who know what is going on, especially my BFF. I was thinking they really just don't get how truly gut wrenching this whole process is. Then I started craving chocolate which I am allergic to which made me cry even more, then I finally cried myself back to sleep.

So that was my first hormone induced bout of craziness! All of the fears and feelings although clearly amplified came from very real places. I really don't think people who have not been through this can possibly understand and I can not blame them for that. They really are there for me and supportive though. Last night I was sitting at the dinner table after a family meal and my Sister-in-law started asking questions about the process and my mother-in-law got in on the conversation and it was nice. It was really nice that they were letting me jabber on and on about what I was going through and how Private Practice isn't a very accurate version of this. They were being so sweet and kind. My family talks to me all the time about this process and is very positive and supportive. My BFF has talked with me a lot about this process and she really has been there for me. It has only been a few days of stims and while for me this is earth shattering, it really is just a few days of shots. I hope she calls to check on me soon, but I know she will, she has always been there for me.

Then I had a dream that a scary duck ate my ring right off my finger and I woke up crying again. Silly hormones!

The Real Initiation

I feel like last night was a true full initiation into the world of infertility. I had to give myself my first menopur shot in the bathroom of a party last night! I couldn't miss my sister-in-law's birthday party, but I couldn't miss my shot either, so I thought no big deal I will just do it in the bathroom. I am still laughing at myself today for thinking that was going to be easy. First of all, it was the first one, so it took forever to mix everything. Second, it was a little hard to sneak Mr. Scuba in there without people noticing. Third, it burned so bad I came out looking white as a freaking ghost!! Fourth, well it bled a lot so I ended up with blood on one of my favorite shirts! No one seemed to notice anything though, except my sister in law who knows what is going on.

The point I guess is that I did it. I lived my regular life and my infertile life simultaneously and survived.

First Injection....

Check! 225 of follistim is now coursing through my body! I can't believe this is actually happening!

Now I want to go and look up every side effect because I am nervous, but I don't want to because I don't want to give myself any phantom side effects either! All this nervous excited energy... ah to start something new.

It Feels Like Yesterday

It feels like just yesterday we were sitting in despair with no hope and no answers and nothing but a big bunch of bad news. It feels like just yesterday we got on this raging roller-coaster of doubt, of fear, of uncertainty, of pain, and anguish. It feels like just yesterday I never believed I would be at this day.

We are now standing at the precipice of hope, that really scary part of the roller-coaster where you have made it through so many of the big ups and downs and you think you might be at the end, but you really have no idea what is in store. What we have today is that huge squint your eyes hard, brace for anything, and hold on tight hope. Hope, something I never thought we would actually have.

Wednesday our baseline went very well and I start injections tomorrow morning. A little needle in a fancy case full of possibilities.

God, tonight I pray to you with everything I have in my soul: Please turn this hope into a miracle. Amen.