the recipe in me

Thanks so much for your encouragement and empathy.  I love you all.

My dr was in the office today, so even though she wasn't supposed to be in clinic this weekend, she made a point to come see her patients who came in.

That was really good.  We wanted to know if I'm just not a good candidate for IVF and to hear good practical advice. 

She said that my current cycle confuses her, along with my last one.  Apparently I usually have about 7 antral follicles, which would suggest that I'd have 5-9 mature during stims.  It's really weird that only 3 did the first time, and only one this time.  She thinks that if we don't do BCPs or regular does lupron next time around then I won't be over suppressed, which seems to be the problem.  As you all predicted.

Alternatively, my eggs are just low-quality and only 1-3 can successfully mature during any given cycle.  

We were at a different office today, and the sonogram is better at this one.  There are a couple of smaller follicles lagging behind, so we are stimming again today and going in tomorrow morning for another look.  If by some miracle they've caught up, we'll go ahead with IVF on the three.  If not, we'll do IUI on Tuesday.

The tough thing about IUI is that we are the couple that can't bd every day due to various reasons... so there is always that timing issue.  I think I've got dh to agree to try 48 hours, so we'll do 48 hours three times in a row and hope we get the timing right somehow.  There is something about knowing my little egg can only survive maybe 12 hours that freaks me out for IUI timing.  Oof.

She could tell we were about at the end of what we can deal with, but said that from her perspective we hadn't gotten to see what my eggs are like and all the other stages of IVF.  So we really don't know the likelihood of IVF working for us.  She suggests that, if this cycle doesn't work, we try one more before giving up. 

I think I'm ok with that plan.  And I won't freak out about the schedule of the next round until tomorrow afternoon, as it looks like I'll be in Paris for that meeting I scheduled a long time ago which of course will happen right when I should be stimmimg if we do back-to-back cycles.  But alternatively, I could take the next cycle off and also go see my parents, during which time I will really need to drink martinis and coffee.  They have no idea about any of this, and I have no intention of telling them.

I didn't even flinch

Yesterday I was scheduled to be interviewed by a journalism student doing a tv program for her master's project.  When she showed up I found a beautiful young woman with a gorgeous pregnant belly standing in front of me with another beautiful young woman doing the filming for her.

Since this was all work related I didn't comment or bring it up, but she did.  Her baby is due in July and I made a comment about how her timing is perfect with her graduation in May. 

AND OF COURSE SHE HAD TO SAY THAT SHE GOT PREGNANT IMMEDIATELY WHEN SHE STARTED TRYING, so she had actually thought she'd have the baby a little later...

You know what I did?  I didn't flinch.  Seriously.  Even inside.  Because deep down, I KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO SAY THIS even before the words left her mouth.

And then later when she said this is her third baby and she's 34 years old.  Again, I didn't flinch.  While this was a little surprising and I may have flinched a little inside, I took it in stride.  Afterall, this is the story of my life.  While I recogize that my life is super easy compared to most women in this world, within my culture very little has come easily for me.  Why in the world should I have ever, ever let myself think that having a baby would be?

So I started the ganirelix yesterday.  It stings and the pre-filled syringes are kinda thick needles.  What gives with that?  Oh well.  Just a couple more months of needles.  I go in on May 10th for a baseline and then start my stims... 

lucky toes

I'm 3 days into the gonal-f and menopur stimulation of my little old ovaries, and all I have to say is that it rather sucks.  The migraine that went away on Friday?  It returned in the middle of the night last night. 

I experienced that weird rational thought phase you can have while dreaming. You know when you, your awake self, has a conversation with dreaming yourself?  You know what I'm talking about? 

I was in the middle of this dream about having a really bad headache when I said to myself, "you know, this is a bit too realistic to just be a dream."  So I woke up to the horrible reality that indeed, I had a horrible headache.

I really hope that tylenol is ok to take, as I've been taking it.  Not sure it helps all that much, but I'm desperate.

I managed to get it under control this morning so I could go to work today, but I really, really hope this doesn't get worse tonight when I take my next dose.  This sucks.  If I knew for sure a baby would come out at the end of this road I'd be happy to endure it, but as is, that outcome only has a 20% probability.

And if I've learned anything over the course of the last few years, if something requires luck, I'm screwed.

But if I have to leave so much of my future up to luck, then why not pull out the heavy punches?  I painted my toes green.

(These aren't my toes, but they look just like 'em.)

estrogen or just the freaking situation?

I've been on a high dose of estrogen for the last couple of weeks thanks to my healing now-non-septate uterus, and have a couple more weeks to go.

I looked around on the web and while I can find scientific studies showing that estrogen supplements can cause dizziness and lack of appetite, etc, I'm not yet convinced that it also leads to bouts of emotional wreckage...

This morning I had a particularly hard time getting out of bed, so came into work late. I was a little peeved at myself for this, but generally ok.

One of the first things on my list of things to do was to call the mail order pharmacy to check to make sure they were processing the prescription order from my doctor, and find out if they needed pre-authorization. I called, and first off, the connection was terrible. So the lady's voice was really loud and warped at one moment and then the next she was really hard to hear. I had a hard time understanding her, and then trying to spell my name was a nightmare. We made it through that fiasco only to then find it impossible to get her to understand what I was asking. I didn't know the order number, or specifically what drugs I was supposed to get from them. There are so many, and I just don't really understand what I'm supposed to get from where, or what all I'm even supposed to get. It's really confusing.

So I hung up and tried to call the nurse who told me to call the mail order pharmacy to check. She's off today and won't be in until tomorrow afternoon, but told me that it was urgent that I get the info on pre-authorization TODAY.

I kind of lost it. It was really really hard not to completely lose it, but I'm at work and I can't walk around with a puffy just-cried-my-eyes-out face. It was REALLY freaking hard to pull it together.

I wish someone else would do this for me... I wish none of this were happening.

Is it the drugs or is it the situation? Is this worth all the pain?