Mary Scarlet

Not pregnant

Completely negative beta

This morning I was surprisingly OK, thinking about the other good things in my life, and I thought I wouldn't be crushed when I got this confirmation. But I am.

This was our last IVF, we're done trying to conceive. I am going to take a break for a little but I hope to be back.

Love to you all
Mary

Two pee sticks

Two negatives

I'm still going in for the beta tomorrow morning but I know where this is headed.

Thank you, all of you, for reading and cheering me on. I so appreciate all the love and sisterhood. God I wanted this to end differently. I'll post the beta results and then I think I need a long break.

Love,
Mary

Deflating

7dp3dt

Until today I had been coping pretty well with the 2ww.  I have a scowl plastered on my face and my husband is mad at me and giving me the silent treatment (I think due to a scuffle over dishes doing last night, but he won't admit to being mad).

Yesterday I allowed myself to sleep until 11:30 (after getting up for shots at 7), and today until 12:30. This may be too much sleep causing my mood but I'm feeling panicky and worried.  My body has completely deflated in the last 3 days; my stomach is back to its normal size and my boobs have shrunk. They are still technically sore but I know that's just the progesterone talking. This means the HCG trigger shot has left my system, I think. I don't remember what being early (doomed) pregnant felt like so I can't take any hope in anything right now.

I had to do Lovenox and PIO shots and a suppository in a stall in a  public restroom with NO level surfaces on Thursday. I know we've all been through this but I forgot how much that sucks. The only good thing about it is that being in the bathroom for 10 minutes pretty much goes unnoticed when it's a large public event. Tonight we have to go to an Oscars party at a friends house, and I know 10 minutes locked in the bathroom will be very conspicuous. Trying to decide if I should just make things easy on myself and take the meds an hour early.

I can't concentrate and I'm trying so hard not to feel doomed again.  I have been trying to read and comment on blogs but I feel my heart leaving me.

Beta will be early Friday; I've taken the afternoon off work so I don't have to worry about suffering through meetings after getting bad news. I'm helping my mother host a bridal shower Sunday and two of my pregnant cousins will be there (pregnant for 2nd and 3rd times).  I will be a ghost.

Skip if easily grossed out

My snootch smells like gym socks.

I'm sorry, I know that ^^^ is the definition of too much information, but what the eff? It's not as if anyone else is going near the area (AT ALL, husband has been warned that it's off limits for a minimum of two weeks and possibly as long as forty), but when it reaches the level where it grosses ME out, it's significant. I have a pretty high tolerance for my own brand. I'm hoping this is the progesterone gel/suppository fun and not a yeast infection caused by the 5 day course of antibiotics.

Question: how do we feel about using the abdominal muscles when we are trying to achieve pregnancy?  I generally try very hard not to use mine but found myself clenching them all day today at work because I'm such a tub of guts. The one OB visit I did have last time, the OB helped me to get up from the table, and one of the RE's nurses has insisted on helping me sit up right after transfer (though this time, it was a different nurse and she didn't). Does this have any effect at all? What about, and excuse me again, using them to get the gas moving?

Question: butt shots or thigh shots for intramuscular? I'm getting tired of the butt shots and would like to try thigh but I need a good visual primer as I wasn't instructed on this at RE's office.  I do my own injections, so not pulling a muscle straining around to reach my hips every time would be nice. (Plus with butt/hips, I can't get the leverage to do the little pull back test to make sure I haven't hit a vein, etc.)

As for being a tub of guts: I've decided not to worry about the 15 pounds (!) I seem to have put on since September because each boob weighs five pounds by itself right now.

Lovenox does TOTALLY burn, as Amanda warned. But so far not as gory as the nurse predicted which is good--no spouting pio injections or spraying nosebleeds.

I was awakened last night at 1:30 by a feeling that I can only describe as razor sharp teeth biting into my uterus (I assume it was the squirrels). It went away after a drink of water, a move to the guest bedroom, three book chapters, another drink of water, some cat petting, and a final drink of water. Which took 'til about 2:45 a.m. I was stellar at work today.

Thanks to you all for the very kind words of love and support...I am feeling slightly more optimistic today, but whatever happens it is comforting to know that you guys understand.

Transfer

10:15 am, four embryos transferred. This seemed scary to me, like a lot, but the grades were not good: on a 5 point scale (5 being highest), we had two grade 3 and two grade 2. Plus, our track record is pretty poor. So, all four transferred.  My expectations are no higher than they have been this cycle, but I know I'll be anxious these two weeks anyway.

Lovenox (heparin) starts tonight. I understand this is going to increase my bruising, and make p.i.o. injections even more messy than they have been.

Still feeling pretty bloated and crappy from retrieval. And can I just say? My boobs are absolutely huge, and very sore. They were even before retrieval, but in the past two days it's just gotten ridiculous. Like as in I'm going to have to go bra shopping because I don't fit into the size I bought in August when I was briefly pregnant.

The agonizing wait begins.

Fert report

Of 10 retrieved, 7 were mature and 5 fertilized with ICSI (I'm assuming b/c all others have been ICSI though they didn't specifically say).

Our past two cycles were:
IVF #1: 11 retrieved, 9 mature, 8 fertilized, 4 survived to blast for freeze, 2 survived thaw for FET (retrieval and transfer were separated by a few months for lap and recovery)

IVF #2: 8 retrieved, 5 mature, 4 fertilized, 3 transferred on day 3, 1 cultured but didn't make it to blast/freeze

Hoping at least 3 make it to day 3 transfer Sunday morning; I have little hope that there will be anything left to freeze.

Thank you for all the encouraging comments, everyone, it really helps to know you are pulling for us. Very sore today and not sitting up too well, but less sore than last night and so far surviving on just extra strength tylenol. Quite bloated but still able to pee, etc. so I think fine there as well.  I am wallowing and feeling filthy today but hope I may be able to rouse myself for a shower before my husband comes home. Yes, the bar has been set very low this week. Not much of an appetite but hoping I can muster one for my favorite Pad Thai this evening.  Until then, a Jane Austen filmfest, Mansfield Park on now.

-Mary

Retrieval

Went reasonably well ... 10 eggs retrieved. Not quite as good as 11 on first cycle, but better than 8 on last.

Fertilization report tomorrow. Off to beddie-bye.

Where will I be? *updated*

It's early in the a.m. have stayed up to take advantage of the week off work and see a late film -- Tristram Shandy, absolutely fucking hilarious.

I have been thinking about what to do if this cycle goes bust, and what I will do, but the image that keeps coming to mind is quite different than what I'd have predicted. Instead of thinking about the adoption steps that will be taken, I see myself, healthy and lean, running, coltish, and looking years younger than I am. I am struggling to understand this, but I think it's probably pretty simple. It has been a bitch of a year, and the 15 pounds and two full clothing sizes I had lost have come all the way back and then some, I've felt like total crap, physically and emotionally, and I am desperate to find some saving grace in the inevitably crushing pain of another, and this time final, failure. So instead of focusing on the next massive, overwhelming family building project, I focus on the simple possibility of regaining my physical being. And I am that long-legged girl in my mind, though I haven't been her for some 15 years or so. And yet it seems easier to think of becoming her than to imagine succeeding at having children if this last IVF doesn't work. It's worrying.

In the meantime, starting to feel the ovarian pressure a bit, but nothing significant. Another minor freakout late Friday when the ewcm arrived and made me sure that I was going to ovulate without leave, ahead of time, with noone there to catch.

Otherwise doing remarkably well, perhaps a little more wobbly than with previous post, but to be reassured hopefully at tomorrow morning's early scan. Which, ek, only 6 hours away now. Time for bed.

-Mary
Listening to "Orphan Girl" by Emmylou Harris
(this version always, always brings me to tears)

*UPDATE 7:45am*

Right ovary still looking beautiful, but Dr is going to coast me for a day to see if the left ovary can catch up. If not, we'll only get eggs from one side. Crap. Come on, old girl. Trigger 1:45am Wednesday, retrieval Thursday noon.

Seventeenth Century Fox

This mornings cleansing was performed by boiling water on the stove and mixing with cold in the basin for a thoroughly unsatisfying sponge bathe. The two month old water heater, emergency-installed when the old one rusted through its butt and covered the basement with water, has gone kaput. If fisher queen's boiler is a strong communist worker, my water heater is apparently a slack and whiny teenage girl. So here I sit waiting for the service man. In my primmest, most buttoned up work outfit, in case you were wondering about the "fox" part of the title.

This leaves a few moments to post about the latest woo-cam visit. No sign of hydrosalpinx this time, and it was the actual dr. looking, which is enormously relieving. In his words, "nothing but ovary, and beautiful ovary at that," so the right side is coming along well. The left side is a bit behind. I realized this morning that I tend to put Lupron in on the left and Gonal-F on the right so I'm switching because who knows? it might make a difference. And will try to even out from here on.

Back on Monday, which means retrieval no sooner than Wednesday, but very likely for Wednesday. Right now I'm scheduled for blast transfer, which would probably be Sunday. I'm hoping they drop me to a 3day on Friday, but whatever.

I feel good. My husband even remarked to me yesterday how calm I've been through this injection period. I can only think that it's a combination of the weeks of PIO shots followed by miscarriage, which make subcutaneous shots seem less horrible (they're still awful, and completely suck, don't get me wrong), but mostly probably because this is the last time I'll be doing this.  And of course, the ultimate reason: because if a live baby results, it is totally and completely worth it.

Yesterday was cold, rainy, and very windy in Chicago. I walked out through the loading entrance to get a late lunch yesterday, and had to pause to take in a big, dark blue/gray sky and lashing rain. It was gorgeous. Wild. My path is clear before me: I've wrapped up everything I had to get done at work this month, and I'm off work after today through the 27th. I feel very peaceful about this cycle. That doesn't mean that I believe our odds are any better than they have been, but I'm not obsessing and feeling black so far, which is a very good thing. Last two cycles I was horribly stressed and anxious for  a long two month stretch. I do wish I'd been able to line up the acupuncture thing, but with the massive load at work it was really just out of the question.

I also feel far less alone, and that is due to all of the lovely folks in IF blog land. So thank you for reading these thoughts, and sharing your lives with me.

-Mary
Listening to "Candy" by Morphine

Eyeball perimeter secured

The RE assures me that my eyeballs are not going to pop. And since bp is normal, there was no swooning or headache, and it's unlikely to be related to the point in my cycle due to estrogen levels, we must assume that I am crazy. I have been sleep-deprived and doing some champion yawning, so perhaps I popped myself somewhere along there. It's all that makes sense.

The No Dr. Google advice was perfectly timed; I kept myself to "stroke warning signs" and did not try "eye veins ivf crazy" and "bleeding eyeballs MTHFR death." Thank you for saving me. One mini panic attack is enough for me. Freakout concluded.

All is well in the woo area. Clearly I will never be a candidate for overstimulation, but at least the ovaries are not laying like wilted ballons like they did with IVF #1. Some 5 on the right and 4 on the left. Back again Thursday jiggety jig.