2011 in review

I don’t actually expect anyone to read this, it’s really for my own purposes.

I had already met my deductible by January 3 thanks to monitoring appointments for our first IUI! I was inseminated on Friday, January 7. It didn’t work. I had a pelvic exam to examine the weird vagina, AKA vaginal septum. It was at this appointment that my OB and I discussed that my bicornuate uterus could also be a septate uterus and that only a laparoscopy could tell. So after a great deal of tears, I scheduled the lap.

In February we had a giant blizzard that shut down the entire county for two days. I spent it curled up at home eating Crunch Berries and reading the Hunger Games. I had my laparoscopy, which revealed that my uterus is perfectly shaped and the HSG was just plain wrong (WTF?) and that I had mild endometriosis, even thought I had no symptoms (surprise!) and that I had ovulated on my own for the first time since TTC (hooray!).

In March my friend told me she was pregnant, putting a big strain on our already burdened friendship. We took a vacation and a quick break from trying. We went on a cruise to Turks and Caicos, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau. We went snorkeling in Turks and Caicos and horseback riding in the Bahamas. I drank a lot. It was a great time. To the surprise of my family, taking a vacation was not the magic cure they had hoped it would be. Still not pregnant!

On April Fools Day, we were inseminated yet again. This negative cycle tore me apart. Also in April, my already strained friendship with one of my closest friends completely fell apart. I spent the whole month in despair as we waited to see the RE. I went on Welbutrin.

I spent most of May partying and enjoying our break. On May 23 we made our first of many trips to the RE. Waiting to go into that appointment was the oddest type of anticipation for me. We liked him immediately and he gave us a choice between IUI w/injectables and IVF. It was a big decision to make, and I was so preoccupied the next day that I went to work with two different shoes on. Also in May, people actually started coming to my support group!

In June I got promoted at work and we quietly got the ball rolling for IVF #1. We got our infectious disease tests and I took BCP. On Tuesday, June 28 we did our very first at-home injection (Lupron).

We took one day in July to go to Six Flags and ride roller coasters/water rides and revel in not being pregnant. I spent my 25^th birthday at the RE and cried all the way home. I packed up my Lupron, Bravelle, and Menopur to begin stims for IVF #1 while visiting friends in Des Moines. We retrieved 8 eggs. 5 did not fertilize, and of the three that were ICSI-d, only one fertilized normally. I spend 24 hours crying (no exaggeration) over the fert report, because my eggs had failed me. We transferred a 6 cell embryo on day 3. My friend had a baby and I went to the hospital to meet him during my 2ww.

On August 2, our third anniversary, we found out IVF #1 failed. It was a dismal anniversary. Never in a million years did I dream we’d be married three years and have no child. On the same day that I took a big exam at work, we had our follow up phone call with the RE and he cleared us to go straight into another cycle, with no break.

On September 1, I again packed up all my injections and this time, flew with them for my second ever trip to California! I spent 5 days sightseeing with a dear friend and basically ignored the fact that I had a retrieval coming up. It was a great trip, the highlight of which was seeing Muir Woods. This time, I paid dearly for my 17 eggs with painful OHSS combined with a nasty reaction to the anesthesia. I cried myself to sleep in the ER, a nurse holding one hand and my husband holding the other, saying “I just want to be a mom”. We transferred a blast and an early blast on day 5 and froze a hatching blast. On Saturday, 9/24, I got my first ever positive pregnancy test.

October was the month of the ultrasounds, at 6 and 8 weeks. The days leading up to them were always frantic for me. After the 8 week ultrasound we told my grandparents we were pregnant. It was a much anticipated and emotional day. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day as long as I live.

In November I saw the Indigo Girls in concert for the third time. I hit the 12 week mark. I went to a baby shower and it didn’t feel like my heart was getting pulled out of my chest and stomped on.

In December I celebrated a happy Christmas with joy and gratitude in my heart. Our quad screening came back negative and we found out we are having a boy!

All in all, 2011 kicked the pants off of 2010. I would say the worst two days were

1) when I got the fert report for IVF #1

2) retrieval day for IVF #2.

The best two days were

1) the 12 week ultrasound, because the baby was so baby-like and moving around so much, it truly made me feel pregnant

2) when we found out it was a boy.

Also 3) the day we went snorkeling and got day drunk on the beach in Turks and Caicos – that was a marvelous day, too : )

update on my cycle/anti depressants

I have been on BCP for two full weeks now. The first week was terrible. I don’t understand, because I took BCP for 8 years and had no problems. But I guess getting adjusted to it is the hard part, because I was so hormonal last week I couldn’t stand it. It was worse than anything I experienced on clomid.

That seems to have resolved itself but now I have unpleasant physical side effects. My acne is worse than it has ever been and my hair is falling out in handfuls (literally). 

I am still going back and forth between excitement and stress. My support group met this week and while we are supposed to be supporting each other, they kind of made me want to turn and run the other direction.

I have worked my butt off to lose 10 pounds in three months and my pants have been delightfully baggy, but I know that by the end of the IVF cycle I’ll be giant again. I know it’s shallow but I’m not looking forward to the bloating. It is really going to throw a wrench in my self-esteem, which is already suffering because of the acne.

I haven’t said much here about antidepressants. Now that I have been on 150mg of Welbutrin for two months I can say that they have helped. I still have conflicting feelings on the medicine and I haven’t told anyone that I’m taking them besides A. 

My depression isn’t the kind where I can’t get out of bed in the morning or I weep every day. The main reason I knew I needed help was actually work. My work performance started really suffering. I didn’t have the energy to do my tasks as well as I used to, or even at all. 

That changed almost immediately after going on Welbutrin. Obviously, I’m not happy all the time. And it’s not a miracle drug. And I have to stop it once I get pregnant. But I think I made the right choice.

I start Lupron on 6/28 and take my last BCP on 7/5. I’m trying to decide when to stop drinking. Obviously after the transfer. But should I stop when I start stims? Or when I start Lupron? Or now? I only have one drink every now and then but I don’t want to give it up before I have to. I also need to ask the nurses when to stop going to the gym.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Support Group Success

For the past four months I have gone to my support group and sat there, reading. No one showed up, and I went home. It was very awkward at times, sometimes discouraging, and sometimes I felt personal rejection. What am I doing wrong? Why doesn’t anyone want to come talk about infertility with me?

Well this week was different. This week, two women came. It was incredible. I can’t believe how quickly we bonded. It wasn’t awkward at all and we talked for an hour and fifteen minutes - having just met each other - and we could have stayed longer.

I’m not sure what other circumstances could bond women so quickly. Immediately we had a whole world in common.

It was beautiful.

Poster child

Last night was the first meeting of the Resolve Peer-Led Support Group I’m trying to start. No one showed up, but I wasn’t really surprised by that. My fliers have only been up for two weeks and I figure it’ll take a few months to get the group off the ground.

I got to the location about 15 minutes early, got myself a drink, and tried to find a table near the door but not right next to anyone. I had made a tent card with the resolve logo, which just says “resolve” really big and underneath in tiny letters “The National Infertility Association”. My plan was to set the tent card up on my table, because people who had seen the flier would recognize the logo, but people who didn’t know what resolve was probably wouldn’t notice the words underneath. (My original plan was a giant poster board that said “INFERTILE PEOPLE OVER HERE”, but I nixed that one)

It was a lot scarier than I thought it would be. Even though realistically, no one was paying attention to me and wouldn’t be able to read the word “infertility” on the tent card, I just couldn’t bring myself to stand the tent card up like I had planned. Basically declaring myself to everyone there as infertile. To make matters worse, one of my husband’s friends was there and I was terrified he’d see me and come talk to me and ask what resolve was and I’d have to tell him the whole thing.

I settled for laying the tent card flat on the table in front of me. I figured people would still see it if they were looking for it.

I am pretty “out” about my infertility. The girls at work know what’s going on, my family knows, my closest friends know. So I didn’t expect it to be so hard to make myself the area poster child for infertility. I was almost relieved when no one showed up.

Maybe it will get a bit easier every time, and by the time people start attending the group, I’ll be more comfortable.

CD 15 follicle report

Everything is still too small to trigger, but I have a juicy follicle on each ovary, both right around 16 mm (twins! twice the chance it will work! thank you ovaries!).

I go back on Thursday and assuming they keep growing, we’ll trigger and have the IUI on Friday, late morning or early afternoon. So I’ll probably come in to work Friday morning and take the rest of the day off after the IUI. It works out perfectly. I have no plans this weekend so I can just lie around getting pregnant!

We have been abstaining since my 12/31 scan. Dr. Lovely (I got to see her! More on that later) said to have intercourse tonight because she doesn’t want A abstaining for 7 days. Apparently that’s worse than only having 2.5-3 days worth of sperm. So I’m a bit nervous about that since we had so many sperm issues with him. It would have been nicer if it worked out to an even 5 days or so right before the IUI, but that’s not the case and it’s out of my hands.

Overall, I’m very happy with the way this is working out.

I did ask to see Dr. Lovely. I haven’t seen her since my initial consultation in November, and I deal exclusively with her nurses (over the phone) and her ultrasound techs who monitor my cycles. They run everything past her, but really they run the ship. This is probably very different from going to an RE, but I don’t mind it. Dr. Lovely has really incredible, sensitive, and supportive staff, unlike my last OBGYN whose staff was incompetent. They deal with a lot of infertility and PCOS and they know all the right things to say.

I was still freaking out about the bicornuate uterus and I wanted to talk to the doctor. She repeated the higher chance of miscarriage and pre-term labor, but overall said to stop worrying. She has two patients right now with that problem -- one delivered a bit early but was fine, one had to go on bed rest to stop pre-term labor but is now at 32 weeks and fine. The baby is breech and she’ll have to have a c-section, but no biggie. (the funny thing is, I think I actually know who she’s talking about, creepy huh?)

Most importantly, she told me to ignore any statistics on the internet (huge sigh of relief).

And, while I was there, I saw all the fliers sitting out for my Resolve support group, which starts next week! Hoorays all around.

Starting a Resolve support group!

I have had the most incredible lazy Sunday. I've gotten stuff done around the house, read a chunk of my book, and it has been relaxing. Even though I am completely apathetic about sports of any kind, and so is A, I have had football on all day. I can't tell you who it is playing or what the score is or anything about the game, but the lull of football game noises remind me of lazy weekends growing up at my parents' house. A is out and would never want football to be on all day so it's been nice : )

Anyway, I didn't write this post to talk about my football non-watching!

I officially got the go-ahead from the Resolve folks to start an Infertility Support Group here. I am SO excited. I'm hoping to get it started the second week of January. I plan to use an afternoon of my week off after Christmas to hang fliers at the OBGYNs and mental health professionals here in town.

The fliers will only be up about two weeks before the first meeting. I'm fully prepared for no one to show up in January, and maybe even February. But I hope by March I'll have a good group of people.

I live in a "twin cities" of sorts, with a combined population of around 120,000 people. And there are a ton of "bedroom" communities around here that aren't included in that number. There's no reason for there not to be a group like this here! I'm astonished that this will be the first one (and trust me, if there were one already, I'd know about it. I needed it desperately this summer!).

The only hiccup I'm having is that it's a lot harder than I thought it would be to find a location. I really had hoped to reserve a community room somewhere - a library, city hall, a hospital, etc. That doesn't seem to be working out, for various reasons. I am EXTREMELY reluctant to have it at a place of worship, for reasons I don't need to go into.

I've decided if I haven't found somewhere by this weekend (Christmas), I will just hold the group at a coffeehouse for the first 6 months. If that doesn't seem to be working out, maybe an alternative will have cropped up by then.

A Panera or someplace like that isn't ideal because there's not much privacy. But I'm planning to have the group after dinner-time, so it's not like it will be packed. Obviously a private room would be better but I think this is a good back up plan.

Any thoughts? Would you attend a support group at a Panera?

A year of infertility in review: 2010

January: Naively thought I ovulated like a normal person my first month off the pill. My first ever BFN. Waiting for my period, but it’s late and not for the good reason.

February: Wondering what’s going on. No period for a long time now. OBGYN tells me to call back in April if no period.

March: Took a week off work and it was lovely. Spent a night in Chicago with my hubby. Tried not to think about my MIA period.

April: Still no period. OBGYN prescribes Provera. I am told it will regulate my cycles, so I pee on OPKs for 10 days until I get something that looks like a positive. Lots of S-E-X. Cycle lasts 45 days. Finally get an appt with OBGYN to see WTF is going on.

May: Diagnosed with PCOS. Upset but hopeful. OBGYN tells me that with the help of Metformin and clomid, I will be pregnant by Christmas. Took a trip to California, it was AWESOME.

June: A horrible month. Depressed, feeling isolated and hopeless. The Metformin makes me sick almost daily and is not regulating my cycles as promised. Looking around wildly for an infertility support group but can’t find one anywhere. Trying not to look as depressed as I feel as I attend three weddings and a family reunion.  Have a little fun despite myself.

July: My birthday. Month two of Metformin, finally stopped feeling sick.

August: Month three of Metformin. Still no cycle. Our second wedding anniversary. Never thought on my wedding day I’d be childless on my second anniversary. Took a weekend trip to Chicago with a friend, had a great time.

September: Finally on to the next step since the Metformin did jack squat for me. 50 mg of clomid and a discouraging ultrasound when I found out that I didn’t respond. Was sad for a few days and then recovered. Was thrilled when AF arrived without Provera for the first time in 9 months!

October: Switched OBGYNs to Dr. Lovely. EXCELLENT idea. Start 100 mg of clomid with much more monitoring and general competence. First confirmed ovulation in 10 months. Finally get to do a trigger shot, timed intercourse, and progesterone suppositories.

November: BFN. Happy Thanksgiving. Next cycle cancelled due to cyst. Huge sperm scare. Hubby is depressed for two weeks before we find out we have nothing to worry about (hopefully).

December: Looking forward to a January 2011 IUI! Plans are in the works to start a RESOLVE.org Peer-Led Support Group in my area. I am amazed at how far I have come and how much better I have gotten at dealing with anxiety and disappointment. My marriage is stronger than it’s ever been. I did not get pregnant this year but I succeeded in many other ways. I am hoping that 2011 will be my year.