CD1, Attempt #6

Got my period today and so cycle #6 begins. I have been such a Debbie Downer that I haven't felt much like blogging, but I am up for it today. (I think.) Thank you for thinking of D and I and sending us your nice thoughts, friends-on-the-interwebs :)

Tomorrow, I start taking Femara. 5mg, days 2-6. Wednesday, I will go in for a "baseline ultrasound." I have never had one of these on CD3 so I am curious as to what it will tell us. We will also pick up the Bravelle from the Doc on Wednesday. 

D and I have decided to go ahead and insist on 2 insems this month. It may mean throwing money away, but if we don't do it and we don't get PG, I know I will kick myself. It absolutely is worth it for my piece of mind. Because of that, we are back to the drawing board in terms of sperm. The bank we have been using for the past 2 months is too expensive for us to use again, much less to use to buy twice as much sperm. Bye-bye Cryogenic Labs! You were no bloody help to us anyway. We are currently debating between switching to Midwest Sperm Bank OR going back to donor #1. Midwest is super-affordable (only $200 a vial!) and their sperm supposedly has fantastic numbers. I hope the message boards are right. We are also tossing around the idea of going back to donor #1. He had fantastic numbers (always between 23-28 million motile sperm) and we did get that one chemical pregnancy with him... We just aren't sure yet. We will have to make a decision this week.

It is a real struggle to think positively/feel hopeful at this point, but I am trying. I am also trying to get my ass back on the treadmill. For realz. I have gained a lot of weight since TTC, and adding the injectables this month only guarantees that I will gain even more. Of course, if it all results in a baby, I will thank each and every new pound personally. Heck, I'll even take them out to a restaurant, maybe get 'em a lil' massage! ;)

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and a happy, healthy, and *lucky* new year!

♥ N

14DPI

10DPI --> warning: not a happy post

Pity party for 1, please.


Last night I lost it a bit. Couldn't stop crying. Not feeling ANYTHING whatsoever and pretty convinced this month was a bust too. Today I went to the pharmacy to pick up our Femara to try again next cycle, because I will prob get my period while we are out of town for the holidays and we will need it on day 2.


I hate, hate, hate to sound like a brat - because I see wonderful women on the message boards everyday who have been trying for a lot longer than we have with no luck either - but WTF?!? What are we doing wrong? It wasn't supposed to be this hard, considering that we have medicalized this process from the beginning. 3 - 4 cycles, max. Now, I realize much of this process is out of everyone's/anyone's hands, but c'mon --> It's supposed to be SCIENCE! 


It must be me. My sh*t doesn't work and I am throwing thousands and thousands of dollars down the toilet. Dollars we don't have. I am as barren as the gd Sahara desert. Nothing can survive in me. My uterus is an inhospitable wasteland, just like my soul.

My gd uterus. And soul.

I hate this. I hate everything about this f*cking process and what it's doing to my f*cking body and how I feel about myself. I want to quit. I wish I felt like a baby was worth my sanity, but you know what? I don't. Maybe that's why I am not PG yet. I don't want this bad enough and the universe knows.


Well, f*ck you universe. Blow it out your f*cking ass.


>:/ N

8DPI

Feeling a whole lotta nothing so far. But it's still early.


In other news, D and I had our 2nd consult with the RE on Tuesday - the first since we have started this process. When we saw him a week ago for the insemination we were pretty devastated because we had just found out that our sh*tty insurance provider is refusing to pay for my HSG procedure. (They have paid for NOTHING thus far.) This means we will have to fork over $2000 to pay for it ourselves. I should make t-shirts:

I paid $2000 and all I got was this lousy camera-phone photo.

I was in tears during the insem because paying for that procedure means we can't afford to move on to more aggressive baby-makin'. I must have looked pretty pathetic because he told us he would not charge us for the consult and not to worry, he wasn't "giving up on us."

On to the consult: Doc was pretty adamant about moving on to more aggressive treatment if this month does not result in a pregnancy. The oral is obviously not enough to get me PG. He wants to keep me on the Femara days 2-6, but I am going to add injectables to the mix on days 7-12. One shot a day, subcutaneous (in the fat, thank gawd), for 5 days. I can handle that. He assured us that adding injectables would triple our chances of getting pregnant that month. Holy f*ck, if that's the case, bring it on! 

However, being on injectables also means a lot more monitoring - multiple ultrasounds and multiple blood work-ups (and multiple babies!). Blergh. But here's the *wonderful* bit: Doc is going to find us the drugs at no cost to us (-$1000) and he is only going to charge us for 1 ultrasound (-$700), so that, after everything's said and done, this month on injectables will cost us no more that what we have been paying each month on the oral meds.

!!!

This was/is *amazing* news. We are both extremely grateful, but... we also feel like this is the right thing for our Doc to do. I mean, he charges us $235 for a 3 minute insemination and $356 for a 7 minute ultrasound. We have given him $3000 over the past 5 months, for what has probably totaled no more than 1 hour of his time. That's a pretty hefty hourly rate, in my opinion ;)


Of course, we are still hoping we will not have to take him up on this offer! 

creepiest Barbie ever.

On a slightly different note, there is something I have been paranoid about for the past 3 months and I don't know what to do about it. I have been triggering ovulation every month with an HCG shot --> Pregnyl. And every month I get these paranoid feelings that we *missed* my ovulation. My Doc says that that is not possible - that every IVF procedure depends upon those eggs staying in their follicles until hour 36 - but I am unconvinced. I'm only 4'11" and 120lbs... Isn't it possible the drugs are too strong and that I ovulate earlier on it? If I ovulated as early as hour 12 then by the time we inseminated at hour 36 the egg would be DEAD. That's my concern.


The internet is no help here. Half the things I read reiterate what my doctor says, and the other half say it's possible to ovulate anytime 12-48 hours after the shot. I feel as though if there's nothing wrong with my body, and nothing wrong with the sperm, then it has to be the timing, doesn't it? *sigh*


I need to keep reminding myself that the bridge you cross before you come to it is over water that isn't even there. 


6 more days till testing. 

5DPI

IF an egg was fertilized it would have made its way to my uterus by now. It could implant anytime between today and day 12.

Implant, little bugger! Implant, for god's sake!!!

I mean, I love you, sweet fertilized egg. Please, if you could be so kind, and if it's not an inconvenience to you, implant.

Thank you.

♥ N

1DPI

If everything went according to plan, then sometime between 9:30am yesterday morning and 9:30am today, fertilization took place. Now there is nothing to do but (eat pineapple and) wait. 


The insem went okay. New Dr. this time (there are 4 different RE's at the practice we go to), who talked kinda disparagingly about our Dr.'s methods. I asked him about the bruise and swelling I had at the trigger shot injection site and his reply was something like: "well, Dr. X insists on using subcutaneous shots because they are easier on the patient and this is the kind of thing that happens, blah, blah, blah." It was weird. I hardly need one doctor diminishing my confidence in my doctor before a procedure like that, must less implying that patients who don't do intramuscular shots are some kind of infertility wimps. On top of it, he couldn't get the catheter through my cervix - it took several attempts and some bearing down - and then when he did, he just went ahead and injected the sperm. Hey, that's D's job, a**hole! D wasn't pissed about it because she was worried about the bang-up job he was doing to my lady-parts, but I didn't appreciate his presumption. I had lots of cramping and some spotting yesterday as a result of everything, but I am hoping none of that will effect anything. I don't see why it would.


D and I came home from the insem and took a nap, which was lovely. When she got up to go to work, I sat down to do my own work and broke up long periods of sitting at my desk with some gentle stretching to get the blood flowing. I also ate 1/5 of a pineapple, including the core, around midnight when D brought it home. And that's pretty much it for yesterday. Pretty boring, huh? I know. Truth is, I indulge in my boredom now because I figure when a baby's here boredom will be a luxury I can no longer afford. 


I hope all of your own projects are fruitful these days, friends!


♥ N

Pineapple, you say?

I write to you filled with 13.1 million spermies. Or at least I was filled with 13.1 million spermies before they started dying off approximately two and a half hours ago. 

And, actually, I was filled with 69 million spermies, but only 13.1 million of those were not dead, beheaded, or swimming aimlessly in circles after the Big Thaw so those are the ones that count. 

I will update more on the insem later, but I wanted to post something I read today and that I am about to embark upon: the consumption of pineapple to help induce implantation.

I found this on a forum in BabyCenter:

Pineapple Core has what is called bromelain that will help with implantation. 

Using Pineapple to Assist Implantation: Pineapple contains bromelain. Bromelain is a proteolytic enzyme that breaks up proteins that inhibit embryo implantation. Consuming a whole pineapple (focusing on the core as it has the highest concentration of Bromelain) during a fertility cycle can be beneficial.
For IVF [in vitro fertilization] cycle: one pineapple, divided into 5 portions - consume one portion each day, over five days, beginning on the day of your embryo transfer.
IUI [intra-uterine insemination] cycle: one pineapple, divided into 5 portions - consume one portion each day, over five days, beginning on the day of your IUI.
Timed intercourse cycle: one pineapple, divided into 5 portions - consume one portion each day, over five days, beginning on the day after ovulation.
Note: Be careful not to start consuming pineapple too early in the cycle. Beginning to consume pineapple BEFORE the recommended days above can actually affect your vaginal and cervical mucus PH, making it more acidic.

And I found this on Answers.com:

[zmandel] I know that pineapple contains the enzime Bromelain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromelain) , which can act as a blood thinner. Another blood thinner, Aspirin, is used in fertility treatments (http://www.sharedjourney.com/articles/aspirin.html) to improve circulation. This may increase blood suply to the necessary areas the body needs for implantation. 
Regarding bromelain, it is mostly on the stem of the pineapple. Canned pineapple has no bromelain because it has been heated, so the fruit has to be eaten fresh. 
Another note: Must be eaten with empty stomach, otherwise the bromelain is not absorbed by the blood, and instead, being an enzime, will aid to digest the food in your stomach. [/zmandel]

I am intrigued enough to try it. D just walked in the door with a fresh pineapple. Maybe this is the little bit of help we need :D

♥ N

In all seriousness...

Tomorrow we go in for the fifth insem to date. I'm really excited about this one, and so is N. After going off of Clomid, it's as though her body has gone back to normal which is a great sign. There have been a lot of positive results from switching over to Femera after Clomid, so that's a positive as well. We also still have two tries left (including the one tomorrow) to take advantage of the procedure she had last month to clear out her tubes and make sure there was no blockage. All signs point to yes.

We will be having a different doctor tomorrow as well. As much as I love our regular doctor, he seems to cause physical pain to N during the insem procedures, so a new doctor might be a little more gentle. Speaking of loving our regular doctor, he has agreed to give us our next consult for free after telling him we would have to cancel because our insurance doesn't cover us sitting down with him for ten minutes and we don't want to pay that 300 dollars. Although his generosity brought me to very small almost unnoticeable tears, I think he owes us. Not him personally, I guess, but the universe. So thanks, universe. Now give us a baby!

We also found out our insurance won't be covering the procedure she had done, so that's another couple grand we could be using towards baby. Our doctor also says he will fight this for us, so we'll see. We're not getting our hopes up, though. And another crappy thing we were informed of is my being called upon for jury duty! How lame. Maybe if I act crazy they'll dismiss me.

So, keep your fingers crossed for us. The current time for us is 11:11 and you best believe we both just made our wishes. I can't tell you what it is, though ;-) The end of our two week wait will fall while we're out of town for the holidays. We don't think we'll test. If it was a positive it would be the best Christmas ever, but if it were negative, it would ruin everything. But I don't want to think like that. All the signs are SO GOOD! I have complete faith in this month and that things will go great. If you build it, they will come. How about that!? I just got done reading The Alchemist so I'm feeling quite positive and as though we can do anything. Let's keep it that way, yeah?

Final thoughts: Don't watch the movie Vampires Suck. I will never be able to get that time back.

Love to everyone,

D

My letter to Donor # 2xx1.

2xx1, this is my letter to you. I'm rooting for you. No matter how much money you cost me, just know I love you and I support you and I have faith in you. What I'm getting at, is that I hope there's a lot of forward moving swimmers in this damn vial tomorrow and that you'll find the effin' egg. It's not that hard. You're inserted RIGHT NEXT TO IT. Just swim up to it and GO IN. I mean, really. If you're not smart enough to do that, I don't want you as half of my kid's genetic material. There's this beautiful golden amazingly glowing egg and you don't want in? Then get the hell out of here! I don't want you!

But honestly, let's just get it over with. Just swim in. I know it's powerful and strong and beautiful and doesn't need you because she's doing just fine without you thank-you-very-much but I promise if you go in, she won't be upset. She might act like she's resistant to you, but I promise, she will love you. I know, I know, she keeps glaring at you and only sneaks a smile here and there to keep you interested, but HURRY UP AND DO IT. You don't live that long! Sorry to break it to you, but your time is precious. You and the egg will live a very happy life together. The courtship you two will share is like meeting, dating and marrying a women's studies major. I get it! Not that easy, but incredibly rewarding, I promise!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorrow. I hope you get my gf pregnant.

Love,

D

Ready, set... go!

Haven't had the time or energy for a real post, so here's a quick-n-dirty update:


D and I had our CD11 ultrasound on Monday, and were given the go-ahead to trigger Monday night. The Dr. saw only one follicle that was ready to go - alas! - but one is all we need. He also saw - and this was good news post-Clomid - a thick uterine lining (11 mm). We are heading in to inseminate tomorrow morning bright and early. 


I had a weird response to the trigger shot last night, for some unknown reason. The first 4 were pretty much a non-issue, but this time was really painful and I am still sporting a bruise and red, raised skin. Not sure what to make of it, but will check with the Dr. tomorrow, just in case... Hopefully it's nothing.


I will say that this cycle - my 1st cycle in 4 months NOT on Clomid - felt remarkably different. Ready for TTC TMI? (If you are not someone trying to conceive, I recommend you skip this bit!) I have had a ton of CM this month - making me realize that I haven't had ANY for at least two months. None. Nada. Not having CM is one of the negative side effects of Clomid that make it harder to get pregnant (not that this effects us because with an IUI we bypass the cervix entirely). But, I figure if I was having one negative side effect of Clomid, I was most likely having others as well that did effect our chances (i.e. an insufficient uterine lining). Ya feel me? It appears that off of Clomid, my body has reverted right back to a healthy normal state, which is super-reassuring. Go lady-parts!


We have a lot of reasons to feel good about this month (see here), so we are excited. Well, excited within reason/balanced with caution, I guess. We're certainly not giddily excited like we were the first few times, when every insemination seemed full of possibilities. (Okay, I'm lying. We do still get kinda excited everytime we do it, even still.)


Here's to hoping.


♥ N

This is hilarious to me right now.

Mompetition: Preconception Mompetition: "Sometimes the war starts before the zygote is even warm. Warning: If you have not battled the infertility monster, you may not fully appre..."

Obsess much?

I am really obsessing about getting PG this month - reading lesbian pregnancy blogs, checking out fertility forums, googling different combinations of words to find new and interesting info about this process. I don't think I've been this obsessed since try #1.


Please let this insemination come soon. And please let it work.


♥ N

Lucky No. 5

Hello friends on the interwebs -
Today is CD7 of baby-makin' attempt #5. It is also the last day of my Femara dosage, aka this month's drug of choice, aka the drug that is going to put a baby in this belly, come hell or high water! Here's some photos of the goods:

Yes, it says not to take this drug if you plan on becoming pregnant. No, this drug is not FDA approved as a fertility/infertility drug. It is conventionally used to treat breast cancer, actually. However, the drug has the (unintended) side effect of causing women to superovulate. Which is why we're using it. Don't worry, it's fine. I swear. But I appreciate your concern.


Also, these bad boys came in the mail today:

These are the syringes and the medicine we use to "trigger" the release of my eggs, hence the name: "trigger shot." The HORRIFYING needles attached to the syringes are only used to draw the medicine into the syringe. The itty-bitty guys above them (a half-inch long and super-thin) are the ones we use to inject me. It's really not so bad, but again, I appreciate your concern.

That's our cat, Frankie. She has nothing to do with this blog entry, but isn't she pretty? :)


D and I switched donors AGAIN. We were able to talk to a supervisor at the very expensive sperm bank we are currently using and she was willing to give us the (approximate) number of pregnancies for several different donors. It turns out that the donor we went with last month has only achieved 1-5 pregnancies. Granted, he's only been in the program a year, and maybe he's just not been that popular, but D and I really want to stack the deck in our favor at this point. Knowing he may only have gotten 1 woman pregnant in a year's time was a little worrisome... Luckily, one of the other gentlemen in our "All-Time Top 3" babydaddies has achieved 10-15 pregnancies - and he's only been on the market since November 2008! 10-15 pregnancies in two years sounded mighty good to us, so that's who we are going with for lucky try #5. We're hoping to receive some really *powerful* stuff this time around --> "super" sperm, even.

(Maybe D should wear this costume at the insemination?)

After some back and forth about the ethics of posting our donor's baby photo, I've decided: f*ck it, who cares? You can download it for free on the sperm bank's website, so it's not really a *secret* per se. Anywho, here he is, friends:

Cute, huh? The eyes are totally D. The hair doesn't have D's curl, but we'll keep our fingers crossed. According to the ladies at the bank, grown-up donor resembles Shia Lebeouf. I could live with that.

Emotionally, I feel really, really good about our odds this month. I am actually impatient to get in there and get inseminated already! This is unusual for me; I'm typically dreading it because I'm terrified of the disappointment of getting another BFN. Here's why I/we are feeling so dang good this month:

1. Super-donor's super-sperm.
2. The switch to Femara. The research I have been doing points to a number of women who, although they successfully ovulate on Clomid, will never get pregnant on the drug because of the side effects that make egg implantation difficult, if not impossible. Many of these women go on to get pregnant immediately once they stop taking Clomid or switch to Femara. 
3. We are still reaping the benefits of the HSG. For the 3 months following this procedure a woman's odds of getting pregnant are increased.
4. We would be testing on Xmas. How could we fail?!? Surely the universe is not that cruel.

So there you have it. Now I need to get some work done. 


♥ N