I got my beta number today. The negative cutoff line for my RE is 5. Mine is 5.4 at 8dp5dt.
The RE's view is that we are testing a day earlier than she normally would since I am going out of town tomorrow and that it could continue to go up, in which case we just have a late implanter or something, and so I am keeping on with the estrogen and progesterone.
So I guess there is still hope, which I find sort of confusing, because I had just gotten used to this having failed. Seriously -- what's going ON in there?
Now, part of my brain thinks I should be all kinds of excited because this means there is still a chance that it will work. That part is small but persistent, and won't let me just ignore it.
The bigger part of my brain thinks:
- this is clearly not a viable pregnancy
- why am I being tortured with false hope - isn't a negative bad enough?
- this is just delaying forward progress
- this is totally fucking up my weekend away.
Now, the last one seems like it might be a small deal, but it's actually a big deal and here's why:
this weekend 10 of my friends from college are convening from the far corners of the country and are going away to a "destination spa" to celebrate our collective 40th birthdays. And I love spa stuff. But now not only do I have to forgo fun things like drinking, hot tubs, saunas, but I am going to have to deal with everyone murmuring about it "why isn't she drinking? is she pregnant? What's going on with the two of them anyway -- don't they want kids?"
Please bear in mind I'd definitely live with all of this to be pregnant and have a real shot to have a real, live baby at the end of this, but this part of my brain just thinks I am being toyed with.
I was already kind of terrified of this trip: 1 woman is 7 months pregnant, 8 women have already kids (4mo-7yo), 1 isn't married, and 1 has just failed her 10th ivf cycle. So I'm kind of worried that this is just going to be a "let's compare stories of motherhood" weekend. But I was prepared to deal with it by hiding in the gym/ sauna/etc with the other two childless women. But now? Now my plan is foiled and I have this added complication of fuelling rumors among my friends.
Am I stupid to have this little glimmer of hope? Because I fear that I am just going to get hurt more.
AAAARGH. Why can't I just get pregnant like everyone else???
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
There's a first time for everything
I'm not pregnant. The Boy doesn't even know yet, since he was still sleeping when I left this morning.
How do I know? Because last night, as I was walking through freezing pouring rain, I took shelter in a drugstore and, while there, bought my very first ever box of HPTs. I even bought the branded version. And since I bought them, I figured, why not use them?
So when I got home last night I tested. Negative. And while that empty space where a line should be felt like it was growing so large that I would be swallowed up inside of it, I went to sleep by rationalizing that it was still early and I'd get a more accurate result this morning.
And so this morning I tested again. More accurately, I tested at 4.24am when I woke up to go to the bathroom. And it was still negative. And so those wonderful rationalizations that I built up last evening just fell away like so much dust. The empty space where I was hoping beyond hope that a second line would be? It just screams "barren" to me. Because that's how I feel right now: like a fucking empty, barren wasteland. And lucky for me, I had 2 hours of lying in bed staring at the ceiling to think about how broken and fucked up I am, and how I clearly made wrong decisions that have led me to this point of trying to have my first child when I am almost 40, and just resenting the hell out of everyone who has this come naturally.
Because my mind is totally cluttered today, even though I know for certain that this had not worked, I am still taking the estrogen and progesterone. I know it is stupid and futile, but I'm just afraid of fucking something up, and so will take my medicine until told otherwise because I can deal with this not working, but I couldn't deal with it not working because I decided to just stop everything. Rational? No. But I'm not exactly in a really rational place right now.
Where I am is sad, and increasingly desperate as I approach my 40th birthday, and angry that I have to deal with this shit, and losing hope that this is going to work for us. I know that some of these are irrational feelings -- I mean, we only put back one embryo each time, and this is our very first cycle, and we still have one on ice. But I wanted us and our luck to be better than the statistics and have it work without a whole lot more emotional suffering. But that's clearly not my lot. More suffering clearly lies ahead, and today is just going to be a long struggle not to cry.
How do I know? Because last night, as I was walking through freezing pouring rain, I took shelter in a drugstore and, while there, bought my very first ever box of HPTs. I even bought the branded version. And since I bought them, I figured, why not use them?
So when I got home last night I tested. Negative. And while that empty space where a line should be felt like it was growing so large that I would be swallowed up inside of it, I went to sleep by rationalizing that it was still early and I'd get a more accurate result this morning.
And so this morning I tested again. More accurately, I tested at 4.24am when I woke up to go to the bathroom. And it was still negative. And so those wonderful rationalizations that I built up last evening just fell away like so much dust. The empty space where I was hoping beyond hope that a second line would be? It just screams "barren" to me. Because that's how I feel right now: like a fucking empty, barren wasteland. And lucky for me, I had 2 hours of lying in bed staring at the ceiling to think about how broken and fucked up I am, and how I clearly made wrong decisions that have led me to this point of trying to have my first child when I am almost 40, and just resenting the hell out of everyone who has this come naturally.
Because my mind is totally cluttered today, even though I know for certain that this had not worked, I am still taking the estrogen and progesterone. I know it is stupid and futile, but I'm just afraid of fucking something up, and so will take my medicine until told otherwise because I can deal with this not working, but I couldn't deal with it not working because I decided to just stop everything. Rational? No. But I'm not exactly in a really rational place right now.
Where I am is sad, and increasingly desperate as I approach my 40th birthday, and angry that I have to deal with this shit, and losing hope that this is going to work for us. I know that some of these are irrational feelings -- I mean, we only put back one embryo each time, and this is our very first cycle, and we still have one on ice. But I wanted us and our luck to be better than the statistics and have it work without a whole lot more emotional suffering. But that's clearly not my lot. More suffering clearly lies ahead, and today is just going to be a long struggle not to cry.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Status
Hey -- Even though I have sucked beyond suckiness about writing recently, I just got inspired and thought I'd fill you all in on what's going on. Or rather, what's not going on.
So let's recap -- after a negative to IVF v.1.0 right before Christmas, we started the process for FET v.1.1. And we transferred one lovely, beginning-to-hatch blastocyst on 17 Feb.
Why one when we had 2? I can handle a negative more than I can handle my husband hearing that we are pregnant with twins. Plus, this is so much fun, I'd like to do it again.
Anyway, here I am almost at 6dp5dt and I am starting to freak out a bit. I really don't know what to think -- I want so much to be hopeful and to think that this is really the one that worked, but at the same time I know that the more hopeful I am, the harder I will be hit by a negative. I'm going in early for my beta on Thursday (8dp5dt), so I'll know something. I'm going in early b/c Friday I am going away for a long weekend, and I would seriously lose my shit if I didn't even have some indication of whether this worked until Monday.
My symptoms are essentially nonexistent. Last time my boobs were hurting like crazy, but I had a lot of hormones in my body from the trigger and the 17 eggs I produced. This time, even though I am jamming progesterone up into my nether regions 3x daily, they (that would be the boobs) don't hurt at all. So no symptoms at all, unless you count some low-grade GI weirdness, but I think that just might be nerves.
But the fact that I don't feel physically anything isn't making this emotionally any easier. I just made plans to go visit my family (Mom and 94 year old grandfather) in late-March. What I want more than anything else is to be able to tell them that I am pregnant. Please please please let the little seed be doing something that will help it grow. Please please please.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Inch by inch...
Slowly, slowly we are making progress towards our FET... this is a very different feeling than the first IVF cycle and so it seems somehow less fraught with expectations/ terror/ hope/ etc.
Here's the schedule and where we are:
- 2 weeks of lu.pron 10units -- check
- Begin 2 estrace per day and drop lu.pron down to 5 units for another week -- check
- Start progesterone pessaries 3x daily -- check
- Transfer date: 17 Feb
A couple of things about this cycle:
- lu.pron is such a nothingburger shot after all of the mixing of the stimulation drugs. Seriously, I think I can do it with my eyes closed. Yay for me!
- the lu.pron did not make me as full of inchoate rage this time around. In fact, I had practically no side effects, and no cyst either. Again -- Yay! (and the Boy is incredibly thankful, too, since he was nearly rent limb from limb last go round).
- the estrace pills are really small, and I am really clumsy, which means that I have lost a couple down the drain. Not the end of the world, but making me really grateful for good Rx coverage.
- Pessary. The word somehow makes me think of the word dromedary. So I laugh every time I shove one of them up inside, and am grateful I don't have to put a camel up there.
- 3x per day pessaries? seriously, that's just a whole lotta mess. But I just keep thinking that this is for a good cause.
We actually met with our RE yesterday for a discussion about our embryo quality, and learned that both that were frozen had started to hatch, so that was a good, positive sign.
We also spoke with her about the twin risk, and about doing two SET instead of transferring two back in. We are still undecided for the very important reason that the Boy and I have slightly different perspectives (again -- please please understand that our desire for a singleton pregnancy is just what is right for us as a family, and should not be taken as our opinions on other people's choices):
- I would be more unhappy to hear I was not pregnant than I would be unhappy to hear I was having twins
- the Boy would be more unhappy to hear we were having twins than he would be to hear I was not pregnant.
But the Boy is reasonable, and knows that a lot of the burden falls onto me, so I ultimately get to make the decision (yikes). Here's what I think is likely to happen: we somehow end up with identical twins, regardless of how many I put back. Because my life is just ironic like that.
Here's the schedule and where we are:
- 2 weeks of lu.pron 10units -- check
- Begin 2 estrace per day and drop lu.pron down to 5 units for another week -- check
- Start progesterone pessaries 3x daily -- check
- Transfer date: 17 Feb
A couple of things about this cycle:
- lu.pron is such a nothingburger shot after all of the mixing of the stimulation drugs. Seriously, I think I can do it with my eyes closed. Yay for me!
- the lu.pron did not make me as full of inchoate rage this time around. In fact, I had practically no side effects, and no cyst either. Again -- Yay! (and the Boy is incredibly thankful, too, since he was nearly rent limb from limb last go round).
- the estrace pills are really small, and I am really clumsy, which means that I have lost a couple down the drain. Not the end of the world, but making me really grateful for good Rx coverage.
- Pessary. The word somehow makes me think of the word dromedary. So I laugh every time I shove one of them up inside, and am grateful I don't have to put a camel up there.
- 3x per day pessaries? seriously, that's just a whole lotta mess. But I just keep thinking that this is for a good cause.
We actually met with our RE yesterday for a discussion about our embryo quality, and learned that both that were frozen had started to hatch, so that was a good, positive sign.
We also spoke with her about the twin risk, and about doing two SET instead of transferring two back in. We are still undecided for the very important reason that the Boy and I have slightly different perspectives (again -- please please understand that our desire for a singleton pregnancy is just what is right for us as a family, and should not be taken as our opinions on other people's choices):
- I would be more unhappy to hear I was not pregnant than I would be unhappy to hear I was having twins
- the Boy would be more unhappy to hear we were having twins than he would be to hear I was not pregnant.
But the Boy is reasonable, and knows that a lot of the burden falls onto me, so I ultimately get to make the decision (yikes). Here's what I think is likely to happen: we somehow end up with identical twins, regardless of how many I put back. Because my life is just ironic like that.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Whoops
So apparently it's not that easy to have a job and post to a blog. I started my new job on the 26th, and have just been so occupied with it that, while I read posts on my bberry, and sometimes find time to comment, I've not really found the time to post myself.
It might also have something to do with the fact that I'm still prepping for the FET... 3 weeks of lu.pron (and yes, the Boy and I are both still unscarred and alive), and now a whole load of estr.ace to get things ready down below. But it really does feel like this is never going to happen, and when it does, that it is sort of divorced from the whole process in December. Either way, I'm trying like hell to not obsess over this whole IF thing (working, but only sometimes) and am just working on staying with my gym and healthy eating regimen now that I'm back to work.
Anyway, this post is clearly sort of disorganized and lacks a coherent theme, but that's kind of how I feel about the whole TTC thing right now... it's neither here nor there, and while I'm moving towards the FET next week, I very much feel at loose ends.
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