6dp5dt (11dpo)

Trina started cramping yesterday. They weren't very strong, some were only twinges, but they were there. This morning she started spotting. Even though both of these things can be signs of implantation & early pregnancy, it really scared her to see blood. Going through the miscarriage and 11 failed cycles has left us both pretty gun shy. She told her manager what was going on just in case it got worse and she had to leave early. Her manager told her to just go home and lay down, no point in waiting to see if it got worse. She spent the day resting and drinking lots of water & the spotting stopped until just a little while ago...

Over the last few days Trina has had a bevy of what could be construed as "early pregnancy symptoms". They could also be progesterone or estrogen side effects or absolutely nothing... She's been getting hungry every 2-3 hours. She's had odd food cravings. Example: last night she ate a half a jar of pickles, pouted because there weren't any more then washed them down with 2 huge glasses of chocolate milk. Yuck... She's had several bouts of nausea and light headedness. She's been extremely thirsty. She's been more tired than usual. Her boobs hurt like mad and her belly is a little distended.

Our first beta isn't scheduled until March 5th which is 13dp5dt (18dpo). As of now, Trina does not want to do a HPT until that day or maybe the day before. She's scared to death to see a negative test. I've been trying not to even think about the possibility of getting a negative test. I've also been avoiding things like knowing how many dpo we are or counting how many days are left until we test. The less I think about specifics, the better off I am mentally and emotionally. I hate that the icy fear is just under the surface waiting to grow into instant panic at the slightest nudge. I yearn for the day when I'll feel grounded and secure about this baby makin business.

Frozen Family

Before our embryo transfer on Sat, the doc told us we had two perfect blasts that he would be putting in, 2 morulas that may make it to freezing the next day and 3 that were "trailing". I thought "2 perfects and 2 maybe's? OK, I can handle that." The 2 that went in were that day were the most important after all. Monday morning I had Trina call to see if our 2 maybe-babies made it to the freezer. The nurse said there wasn't any info on them in the computer so she'd have to ask the embryologist and get back to us. I immediately "knew" that they didn't make it. My reasoning was that if they did get frozen on Sunday there would be no reason for them to not be in the computer on Monday. I was a little more crushed than I thought I would be. I didn't realize that I was hoping for that safety net as much as I was. That afternoon we got the call saying that we had 3 blasts on ice. Not only did our 2 morulas make it, one of our "trailers" kicked it into high gear and made the bus. I was shocked. I had mentally written them off. Somewhere along this long infertility road I lost my hope and optimism. I wonder if that comes back after you hold your precious new baby against your chest and smell their sweet little head. Anyone know?

They're In!!!

At exactly 9:45 this morning, these two "perfect blasts" were transferred into my wife's womb. As of right now, she is pregnant with twins. Here's hoping they decide to stick around. :)

IVF Update

I was wanded and had blood draws both Friday and Saturday. My left ovary made an appearance but only after some coaxing and it still didn't come perfectly into view. They could basically tell that I had several follicles over there, but that they were running smaller than the ones on my right side. I had a total of 14 follicles, but they were of varying sizes. My estradiol went from 1591 to 1727 over those two visits. No wonder I was acting like an emotional freak! Sat afternoon I got the call telling me my egg retrieval would be Monday morning at 6:30AM. I was both excited and nervous. That night I took my first HCG injection and Trina started her PIO.

Monday mornig we showed up at the doctor's office bright and early. They checked me in, I filled out a ton of paperwork, they asked me a million questions, told me to change into some very stylish operating room attire and hooked me up to an IV to patiently wait my turn. When the nurse came to get me I wasn't nervous at all. I was dying to know how many "good eggs" I had since Lefty was causing so many problems. The anesthesiologist was a nice guy who talked me through all of the injections he was putting into my IV. He told me "OK, I just gave you the good stuff, you'll be sleeping in a second". I knocked out almost immediately. The last thing I remember was someone bringing in the isolette for my eggs.

The next thing I remember was being rolled into recovery. I was barely conscious when I heard myself ask "How many eggs did they get?" The nurse chuckled and said 8. Then I remembered I had a dream that I had 8 and almost shared that with the nurse when it dawned on me that it wasn't a dream. It was a memory of when I had asked the nurse before. I said "I've asked before haven't I?" The nurse chuckled again and said "It's OK, it's the anesthesia". Her phrase and the chuckle brought back another fuzzy memory of my apologizing and her saying it was "ok". Doh, I wonder how many times I asked... After a short stint in recovery, Trina got me dressed and we were out of there. The next day we got word that of the 8 mature eggs, 7 fertilized with ICSI. We're doing a 5 day embryo transfer Sat morning at 8:45.

I can't believe it's almost time. Depending on the moment, I'm either excitedly optimistic or completely terrified. This is it, the big cycle. It's out of my hands and there's nothing else I can do to sway the odds. It just HAS to work, right?

Hormones Awry & a Peek-a-Boo Ovary

Well it's Day 7 of my injections and boy can I tell. A headache set up shop late on Monday and it's still with me. Tues morning I was thoroughly miserable. I woke up with my head pounding and my stomach doing flips. I spent all morning dry heaving and trying to stay away from light and sound. I asked Trina if she was SURE she wanted to be pregnant, because if it was anywhere near as bad as my injection side effects then it SUCKS. By Wed my lower abdomen starting feeling funny and today it hurts. Emotionally I'm not as bad of a wreck as I thought I would be, but that's not to say that I feel normal either. I definitely have a much shorter fuse and I've nearly cried over nothing several times. It's kind of like bad PMS without the food cravings. As I'm being pumped full of egg-growing meds, Trina is taking womb-cushioning drugs. The same day I started injections, she started taking estrogen tablets 3x a day and switching out an estrogen patch every 3 days. She's not quite as moody as I am and luckily isn't having any of my physical side effects, but neither of us are a walk in the park to be around.

Getting wanded every other day is not my idea of a good time and my left ovary isn't making it any easier on me. While getting my initial exam to see if I could provide the eggs for this IVF cycle, the nurse could not find my left ovary. I was mild-moderately concerned, but she said it was not a big deal and rescheduled me for a time when the doctor would be available to wand me. I went back for a 2nd, then a 3rd pre-IVF wanding and he finally found it by simultaneously wanding me and pushing on my abdomen. It was in a funny position so he couldn't see much more than the outline, but it was there. Whew, problem solved, or so I thought... At my baseline exam, lefty was MIA again. Once again I was told it was no big deal and that when it was stimulated, it would move into position. Monday, lefty was no where to be found...again. Try as she might (ouch) the nurse couldn't even get a glimpse of it. Wed lefty was still hiding. After a few minutes of fishing, Doc says "maybe you don't have a left ovary..." I reminded him that he'd seen it before and he proceeds to tell me that sometimes "other things" can be mistaken for an unstimulated ovary and that if I had one it would be front and center after 5 days of stims. Just as a cold panic was washing over me, he found it. It still wasn't in position, but he could clearly see a stimulated ovary. He was only able to measure 4 follicles, but said he could see the edges of a few more. Whew, I nearly freaked out there. I'm hoping that tomorrow lefty will quit screwing around and show up for picture day on time. I'm way too hormonal for these games.

Now for the numbers. My estradiol went from 41 to 354 to 773. I'm kind of scared to see what it'll be tomorrow. I have 10ish follicles and they've gone from around 8mm each to around 12mm each. Hopefully my left ovary is more cooperative tomorrow so we can get a better idea of how many follicles I have over there. Trina's estradiol has gone from 45 to 397 and her lining is getting nice and cushy for the future occupants to nestle into. Fingers

crossed that things keep going in the right direction...

150IU Br@velle/150IU M3n0pur

My first night of injections:

Mixing up the vials.

Making sure it's bubble-free.

Shooting up.

Holy crap that burns!

Teamwork

Wednesday Trina and I both had our first ultrasounds and blood work for this cycle. Hers came up perfect. Mine, not so much. I have a 22mm cyst in my right ovary. Our Dr assured us that it was considered "small" and that there was a good chance it wouldn't interfere with our plans. It would all depend on the blood results. If my estradiol was low, all was well and we could start as planned. If it was high, I'd have to go back on bcp and have weekly u/s until it disappeared. Then we could start our IVF cycle. Things generally don't go smoothly for us, but I wasn't prepared to hit another roadblock before we'd really even begun. We've already waited patiently through a 3 month break due to the holidays, a family trip and a lab closed for updates. It's amazing how quickly I went from nervous excitement to despair. I didn't want to go to work, I wanted to go home and crawl under the covers. I didn't even know if my cyst was going to be a problem and I felt like a failure already. Trina assured me it wasn't the end of the world and did her best to cheer me up. I went to work and tried to stay busy and not think about anything IVF. When I saw our Dr's office on my caller ID 6 very long hours later, my stomach dropped. Our nurse used her most chipper voice to tell me my estradiol was 41, so we had a green light to start meds on Friday. I asked her if she was sure and she laughed and said she was. I almost cried. All that panic and worry and self doubt for nothing. This is going to be a long road if I fall apart at every hiccup. What can I say? I'm new to this. I've never had the success of a cycle actually depend on "me" before. I've been to every Dr appointment, helped pick our donors, obsessively charted her temps and symptoms, gotten prescriptions from the pharmacy, found awesome deals on HPT, researched every possible aspect of TTC and documented the whole process for prosperity, but never has the ultimate responsibility of the outcome been mine to shoulder. This time we're a true team.

It's Time!

Wow, it's been 10 weeks since I've posted! I just didn't have to will to blog during our 3 month break from TTC. Let me catch you up to speed...

After much thought & discussion, Trina and I decided to use my eggs for our IVF cycle. I've since had all of the requisite pre-IVF wanding, poking, prodding & blood letting. Everything checked out fine, so we filled out all of the paperwork again denoting my new involvement & had our fee schedule recalculated. We've both been on birth control pills for over a month now to sync our cycles. This has been my first experience with birth control pills so I wasn't sure what to expect. Other than some spotting, an increased number of headaches and a few scalding hotflashes, all went well on that front. Trina had her lupron injection on Tues & took her last pill on Fri. My last pill is tonight, my first IVF u/s and blood is Wed and my first hormone injection is Thurs. Although we're still waiting for Trina's PIO to come in, we have a mountain of meds on our dining room table. This is starting to get very "real". :)