8dp3dt

Apparently my threshold is 7dp3dt. That is as far as I can get without going crazy.

Yesterday I lost control. I woke up feeling like it didn’t work. I sunk further and further into depression so that by the time we got in the car to go to my mom’s house, I was crying and my heart was just so, so heavy.

I haven’t cried in a while, not since we found out Little E was going to make it to transfer, and those were tears of relief.

On Friday, I went to see my co-worker/friend’s two-day old baby and I didn’t even cry then.

Yesterday I started the mourning process for this first IVF cycle.

But then. Then! This morning I continued my pee stick routine. And there is no doubt about it (well, a little doubt, but not much). Yesterday and today (7dp3dt, 1 day post booster 3 and 8dp3dt, 2 days post booster 3) are a little darker than 1 day post booster 2 and 2 days post booster 2. Can you even read that sentence? I told you I’ve lost my mind. I even started posting photos of things I’ve peed on to twitter.

This could mean anything. HPTs are not reliable, let alone after a bunch of hcg boosters. The lines will either continue to get darker tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday until beta on Friday, or they will fade. I can deal with either result, I know I can.

I don’t think it would be so hard if our anniversary weren’t tomorrow. On my wedding day, I never, ever, EVER would have thought I would reach my third anniversary without a child in my arms. The fact that we have been married for three years without so much as one pregnancy is gutwrenching to me.

Furthermore, I’m so disgusted by how much of our marriage has been consumed with this bullshit. From the “longing to TTC but waiting for health insurance” stage, to “waiting for ovulation”, to “waiting for Metformin to work”, to “clomid”, to “do you have sperm or not?” (yes, thank God), to “is my uterus messed up?” (no, thank God) to “surgery time”, to “IUIs”, to where I am today…that’s our entire three years. It hurts.

Anyway. We shall learn a lot in the next 48 hours, ladies.

5dp3dt

Ever since my very first two week wait (and what a long, long time ago that was), I have known that the whole thing is a huge mindfuck.

This two week wait, the stakes are much higher, the possibilities much greater, the investment much more intense.

That said, at 5dp3dt, I am feeling good. I have not lost my mind yet. My beta is one week from today, and although I know between now and then time will slow to a screeching halt, the past 5 days have gone much faster than I thought they would.

I’m continuing my “science experiment” of taking an HPT every morning and keeping track of all the lines. They are varying degrees of light to dark, depending on the timing of my booster shots. The effects of the first booster shot had gotten very faint by the time I tested the morning of the second shot.

I’m hoping that with my last shot on 7/30, by about 8/3 the test will be either blank or truly, honestly positive.

Transfer day.

After all of the heartache following the fertilization report, the transfer was a good experience.

On Saturday night we drove back to the RE (our third 3-hour trip in one week - *whew*). We had déjà vu checking into the same hotel we had checked into three nights before.

TMI, but I was suffering from some really serious constipation around transfer time. I tend to be constipated anyway, but this was terrible. It hurt to even sit down on the bed, I had to sit with my legs folded under me for cushioning.

Therefore, I spent most of the night before transfer trying in vain to have a bowel movement. It hurt. I was stressed out about it because I knew in the morning I’d be loading up my bladder and it would be a bad time for my bowels to start moving.

We got to the hospital and I took the Valium I had been directed to take upon arrival. They settled me in with my gown and some beverages.

The embryologist came to give us a photo of our embryo. She said they would have liked to have more to choose from and some to freeze, but overall this was a beautiful embryo. I know enough to know that 6 cells isn’t great. But I chose to believe her.

In what seemed like no time, Dr. Friendly came in to take me back.

I wish I hadn’t taken the valium because it made me feel very floaty. My memories of the transfer are fuzzy, and I had questions to ask him that I promptly forgot.

I did remember to ask what the chances were of this working. He had previously told me I had a 75% success rate with IVF, but that was before The Day My Eggs Turned to Shit.

He just looked at me and smiled and said “It’s gonna work. That’s the attitude we have to have. It’s gonna work.”

Another note about Dr. Friendly: that man is a WHIZ with a speculum. The radiologist who did my HSG practically wrenched me apart with his speculum, and both my IUIs were uncomfortable bordering on slightly painful. Maybe it was the valium, but his just glided right on in.

I could see the catheter on the ultrasound machine and watched as he squirted Little E into my uterus. I laid there for about 5 minutes, and then it was time to go home.

I stayed in bed all day Sunday and on the couch all day yesterday. Now I’m back to work and the girls here are being incredibly sweet by doing a lot of my work that requires walking for me.

I am upset because I am on these hcg booster shots. Has anyone heard of these? I take the 7/24 7/27 and 7/30, beta on 8/5. Unfortunately any HPT I take prior to 8/5 is going to be unreliable. I have tested every day since the day of the transfer and I’m keeping the tests taped to a piece of notebook paper so I can monitor the boosters’ effect.

It’s a little heartbreaking to see three positive pregnancy tests and know I’m not really pregnant. But I hope that by keeping careful watch on the lines, I have an idea of how the beta will turn out. I have to get the news at work and my husband will be out of state when we hear. So I really want to have a good idea going in.

Thank you all for your support, and HOORAY for making it to transfer!!

PUPO!

Yesterday morning my husband and I were sitting at the dining room table. I had my phone close by because the IVF lab had said they would call if our embryo stopped dividing, and if they didn't call, it's good news.

Well, they called, and my heart sank. I picked up and she said "This is soandso from the IVF lab, I just wanted to tell you your embryo is dividing, I checked on it very early this morning and it is a beautiful 2 cell." I let out a huge sigh of relief and said "You have no idea..." and then got choked up. She said "I know, I could tell you were holding your breath so I tried to talk very quickly!" Haha.

Friday was spent grieving. I cried a lot. I cried because we wouldn't have two to transfer and I wanted twins (I really, really wanted twins). I cried because we wouldn't have any to freeze and I'd have to go straight to another fresh cycle if this fails. I cried because I doubted the quality of this little embryo if all of his other friends were so messed up.

But mainly I grieved the notion that my eggs are young, perky, beautiful, and capable of anything. This seems to be false. That is still a hard pill to swallow and things like "premature ovarian failure" keep popping into my head in dark moments.

But by the time I went to sleep Friday, I had stopped grieving and had focused all my thoughts towards this one little embryo making it through the night and coming back to my body.

And he did! I am PUPO. I will write more about the transfer tomorrow.

Thank you all so, so much for the outpouring of love and support I received from my post on Friday. It means more than you know.

1.

Of the 8 eggs they got yesterday, my clinic did TBS (to be sure) ICSI on three.

Two fertilized abnormally, one fertilized normally.

Of the other five that were left to their own devices, none fertilized.

We are set for a day 3 transfer on Sunday, if the one little guy makes it that long.

The embryologist indicated that the egg quality is a concern.

I just turned 25 two weeks ago.

I am devastated.

8.

They got 8 eggs. I'm not sure if that's good, I usually hear people getting a lot more, but my friend who had her retrieval yesterday got 5, so I'm happy with 8.

Everything went pretty well. We checked into a hotel last night which was a huge blessing. This morning we checked into the hospital and were taken back pretty quickly, which was good because I am REALLY grouchy when I can't have breakfast.

(Question about pre-op instructions. Does anyone drink their toothpaste water? Why do they always say "Nothing to eat or drink after midnight, including water, you can brush your teeth but make sure you spit out the water." WTF? Who swallows that crap? Nasty.)

Anyway, I was pretty stressed out once I got in my hospital bed because the nurse in charge of me was flitting around, told me she was feeling scatterbrained, and could be heard loudly complaining in the hallway about how she was running behind and was too busy to get everything done. Excellent.

The embryologist came and and told us how everything would go. That they would call me tomorrow morning with the fertilization report and tomorrow afternoon to tell me if it's a 3dt or 5dt.

Dr. Friendly came in and said hello. He rolled me into the OR and I got on the table. I noticed the little door where he could communicate with the embryologist. He told her that the last person's husband was happy to only get 3 eggs because they didn't want to do cryopreservation anyway.

Then they started the twilight anesthesia (the anesthesiologist was the nicest, most polite and most comforting person I've ever met in a hospital) and I was out.

I woke up and was in quite a bit of discomfort. The scatterbrained nurse asked me what she could bring me and I asked for a muffin. She laughed. She brought me crackers and apple juice.

A came back from giving his sample and we hung out for a bit and they wheeled me out.

I'm home now and I feel okay. Very crampy. Hard to walk. Need the heating pad. But I feel better than I expected. I will probably return to work tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted!

The first time I had sex with my husband.

I remember the first time I had sex with my husband. It was in my first college apartment, on a twin bed, with pink and black polka-dotted curtains above us, to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird". It might not sound like it, but it was super romantic. That was five years ago.

Today, a nurse in a different state told me to have intercourse with my husband tonight. The funny part is it didn't seem odd to me at all to have a doctor's office ordering me to have sex.

The part that bothered me the most is that I don't want sex tonight. My abdomen hurts. I want everyone to leave me alone, and all through my very shitty 10 hour work day with no lunch break, I dreamed of coming home and putting on my PJs. Intimacy is a giant chore today.

So tonight I called my husband and politely requested that he masturbate before I get home so I didn't have to deal with it.

How did that young naive college couple making love on a twin bed get to this place?