I'm ready for IVF

We did our fourth (and last!!!!) IUI this morning.  I will officially let the world know that I unequivocally hate Clomid.  I hate IUI.  I hate monitoring sperm counts.  I'm not sure someone could pay me to do this again.  My body will thank me profusely when this damn Clomid is out of my system.

I'm still hoping for a miracle, as I do every other two-week increment, but I'm looking forward to our likely upcoming IVF cycle.  We'll take a month off after this cycle, and then start up again after that.  Ignoring the financial aspect, I really love IVF (relative to IUI).  There is more rigor behind it, and it appeals to my analytical side much more so than IUI.  The stages are better defined, and you can actually pinpoint where the issue may be (such as implantation).  That doesn't mean you can necessarily solve that issue, but the knowing aspect is a huge relief.   With IUI, I just feel that we throw a bunch of crap at the wall to see what sticks.

While this TTC madness is ridiculously life and relationship consuming, T and I do have an existence outside of it (although sometimes that is hard for us to believe).   We attended my stepdaughter's band concert last night, which was SO much better than the last one where we heard more squeaks than audible on-key notes.  She is an amazingly awesome and accomplished girl and I couldn't be prouder of her.  Her tween angst is starting to shine through though, so we'll have to keep a look out for that.   I only have to think back my own tween/teen years, and I then consider myself adequately forewarned.

Our August is chock full of family, friends, and fun.  We'll have multiple visitors over the next several weeks, are attending some concerts, and just are generally looking forward to some respite from the insane temperatures of the last month.  I'll be honest.  Sometimes, T and I have to consciously remind ourselves how truly good we have it.  Almost all of our friends are in the midst of baby mania of their own in some way or another, and it can be easy to dwell on the fact that we have been so unlucky in that area thus far.  In reality, our lives are so permeated with love from each other, our extended families and our awesome friends, that it sometimes seems petty to ask for even more.  But that one small thing that we desire is truly the biggest thing that would ever happen in our lives, so we'll keep on truckin'.

The most fabulous news on this Friday is that we have NO plans tonight.  We were meant to hang out with some friends, but switched it to a different weekend since we were unsure if our IUI would be today or tomorrow.  So, friends, while we love you, we are greatly looking forward to some T and C time.  Wine will be flowing, grill will be grilling, and big screen basement TV will likely be playing an awesome movie.

(On the movie note, we watched a REALLY good movie this week.  If you like creepy, but not scary, movies, and can handle foreign films, rent "The Orphanage (El Orfanato)".  It's in Spanish, and is a technically a ghost story, but is ultimately about how much a mother loves her adopted son.  I totally cried and thought it was great).

Have a phenomenal weekend!  I keep promising an adoption post, and I have one percolating in my head, but I'm not quite ready to get thoughts to paper (screen) on that one yet.  So sometime soon...

Clomid is an evil, evil wench

I'm not "officially" out yet, but my temperature dropped this morning over 0.6 degrees to my coverline.  That was probably only meaningful to like two people reading this.  Translation:  period is coming and coming fast.

I was noting to T all through this last week that it wasn't successful as I was having no symptoms at all.  He would be quick to remind me that early pregnancy symptoms (i.e. before a positive test) could be a bunch of hogwash, which is certainly true.  But I still figure I'd feel something.

Then yesterday, my body went a little crazy.  (This is where we enter the "too much information" section of the blog.  Move along if you don't want to hear about my boobs being on fire.)

I'll step back and note that I really don't get PMS symptoms.  Maybe a little cranky one day, but I'll get some very specific cramping about 12 hours before my period starts.  I'll maybe get some shooting pains in my boobs a day or so before.  Then once it actually starts, I'll have more generalized cramping for about an hour.  Then I'm on my merry way.

So yesterday, day of boobs being on fire, made me start thinking something was HAPPENING.  Hmmm...I thought...here is the "different" I was searching for.  I also had crazy itchy nipples, which I NEVER have, along with that generalized cramping I get normally after the period starts.  At this point in our "journey", I have definitely learned to not get ahead of myself, so off to the googles I went.

In all my preparation with Clomid, I read extensively about side effects while you were actually taking it early in the cycle.  I didn't read about (nor knew about) the impacts it can actually have on your PMS.

Boobs on fire?  Quote from random girl on internet:  "I never had sore breasts in PMS.   But with Clomid, I almost wanted them to fall off to just leave me alone."

Itchy nipples?  Whole post on one of  my websites entitled "Clomid sore and itchy nipples 2ww" with multiple respondents.

Crazy cramps?  Chalk up to Clomid as well.

So my moment of hope only lasted about 10 minutes.  I actually had a visual of the Clomid witch running away cackling while I chased her with a raygun powered by the Google engine.  God bless the interwebs.

The docs do test my ovulation after Clomid by taking a blood sample about seven days after the supposed ovulation.  They want to see the measurement (of progesterone) over 15 which simply means you ovulated.  Mine was 44.  I ovulate like a boss.

We're trying this one more time, but then I'm done with this IUI crap.  It's time to pull out the big guns of IVF again.  We'll probably end up exactly where we are now, but it definitely won't be without a fight.  Plus I've decided I like shots better than Clomid crazy as it sounds. 

Now I'm going to concentrate on the positive side of not being pregnant:  drinking.  We're going to St. Louis this weekend to watch the Cards crush the Cubs with my parents (my husband is a Cubs fan - ha!).  $9 beers for all.  And next weekend we have tickets to a dinner at a new brewery opening in town -- multiple courses paired with local beers.   I'm happy.  I like beer.  Life will be just peachy these next few weeks (and that was not sarcasm).  Have a good weekend yourself!

It's really a miracle anyone gets pregnant

If you have an hour to spare (and it really is worth it), check out this documentary entitled "The Great Sperm Race".  T and I consider ourselves somewhat experts in how reproduction works, and there were still some interesting tidbits here.  It's a very quick hour!

It's my birthday!

Looking forward to fun times with friends and family.  I'll ignore the fact that I'm getting older and my eggs are rotting even more :)

Please keep your fingers crossed for good news for us these next couple weeks!

It's always something!

I almost had to go to the ER last night.  For anyone who knows me and my husband, that probably elicits more laughter than fear.  Between the two of us, we seriously go to the ER 1 or 2 times a year.  My stepdaughter has not been since I've known her (more than 4 years now).  But yet, T and I are intimately familiar with the nice new hospital near us on the west side of town.

Somehow I rammed my foot into T's foot while at a music festival last night.  At first, I just spewed out some expletives since it just hurt a lot - like stubbing a toe.  Then I made the mistake of looking down.  My big toe's toenail was flipped backward and blood was gushing out of my toe and pooling up on the ground and my sandal.  Awesome.  We found the first aid tent and they wrapped me up all nice (while the tech's girlfriend ran away screaming -- I'm serious).  They said if it still hurt, I should go to the ER because they couldn't tell if there were lacerations and I may need stitches.  It did hurt this morning, but I decided to just go to the walk-in clinic instead.  All's good and the ER was avoided, but I apparently won't have a big toenail for 6 months to 1 year.  And I had to get a tetanus shot, so now I have a super cute bandaid with butterflies on my left arm.  I'm guessing the hipsters at the music festival tonight will find it ironic, and I'll start some major trend.

Hopefully we'll be able to tell our kid someday that he/she was conceived on that crazy weekend where I almost lost my toe!  Since this was our first month on Clomid, we went in on Friday for an ultrasound to check out the progress.   Friday was cycle day 13.  Per my instructions, the ultrasound should technically be on CD14, but they won't schedule them on weekends.  However, when we got there, the nurse said that really they should be on CD15.  So she was concerned that the ultrasound would be too early.  Since we are paying out of pocket (an ultrasound is ~$300), she wanted us to consider coming back on Monday.  I normally ovulate on CD15 (Sunday this time), but wasn't sure how the Clomid would change things.  We hemmed and hawed and then said it's only money and went ahead with the Friday ultrasound.

The nurse immediately said we made the right choice, as there was no way we'd last until Monday.  They are looking for follicles on both ovaries to see how many eggs we could potentially have.  A follicle is considered mature around a size of 20mm and grows about 1-2mm a day.  We were hoping for two follicles -- or at least one REALLY good one that was maybe "better" than my prior natural cycles".

I had THREE follicles > 20 mm (one 25mm, one 22mm, and then one right at 20mm).  I also had one at 14mm that could feasibly have an egg, but would likely not.  So she called them 3.5 follicles.  She was shocked they only retrieved six eggs during my IVF while I was on the grandaddy of meds versus these 3.5 follicles on Clomid.  I think this definitely shows if we need to do IVF again, they will be changing my drug protocol, because I can definitely react to something!

T and I had originally said that we'd go forward with the IUI with three follicles, but not with four.  The 3.5 of course put us in the gray zone.  After some chatting with the nurse, she reminded us that the follicles may not all have eggs, and of course even if they do, all eggs may not fertilize.  We took a deep sigh and decided to go for it.

I had not seen a "smiley face" on my ovulation predictor yet, so she wanted to go ahead and schedule the IUI for Saturday morning since we were obviously ready to burst.  She was afraid we somehow missed the LH surge that gives you the smiley face.  We were supposed to wake up Saturday morning and test again -- if it was negative, we'd come in for the insemination on Saturday.  If we did get the smiley face, then we'll know it's working correctly and reschedule to Sunday (day after the surge).  We indeed got the smiley this morning, so Sunday morning (CD15 - right on schedule), I'll go in and give this whole crazy thing a try again.

We do always manage to get excited on cycles where "something" is different - whether a better sperm count or more follicles in this case.  So fingers crossed that this results in something fun (and ideally not quadruple the fun!). 

another reset

Before T and I were even engaged and well before the vasectomy reversal, a person asked me about our intention to have children.  Very cheerfully, I said, “He’s getting a vas reversal.  If it doesn’t work, we’ll adopt.”  It was an easy answer in my head.  To me, it was a very simple dichotomous outcome.  Sperm = biological babies.  No sperm = adopted babies.  No in between.

The vas reversal worked.  We had swimmers.  I was not prepared for the “but…” that needed to append itself to that statement.  I was not prepared for the gray decisions, the heartache, and the now 20 failed cycles.  I am tired.  We are tired.  Every cycle, decisions need to be made.  Do we keep moving forward with this assisted reproduction?  Do we move on to adoption?  Do we stop driving ourselves bat shit crazy and just move to an island somewhere and open a sno-cone stand? 

T is definitely not ready for adoption.  I am also not ready, but certainly to a lesser extent.  Adoption starts involving people beyond yourselves, and I'm not sure we are in a good enough place for that yet.  I just don’t know how many of these cycles I have left in me.  But so far, it always seems that I have at least one more. 

I’m a numbers person, so I just sit on my phone and calculate probabilities with my calculator.  If we have an 80% success rate with IVF and two 4AA blastocysts, then we have a 99% chance of it working in three tries.  If we have a 10% chance with IUI, then we have a 35% chance of working in four tries.  If we do two IVFs and four IUIs, then we have a 97% chance of it working.  I try every combination of possibilities to give me comfort.  I love math. 

If it come down to just the numbers, the decisions are easy.  But of course, it can’t be that simple.   We are people, not numbers.  We don’t necessarily match the general population.  And I’m still worried that the unknown issues with me in my head give us a dangerously low chance of success no matter how many times we try.

Anyway, the question arises of when are going to stop with IVF/IUI and move on to something else.  And the answer is, we simply don’t know.  We’re down now, but not out.  We’re trying IUI again this cycle, but adding Clomid to the mix.  The Clomid should make me ovulate more than one egg (hopefully no more than two), thereby giving T’s swimmers more targets to hit.  I am a little leery of this, as I’d prefer multiple eggs to be in a controlled environment with IVF.  But, we’ll have ultrasounds to monitor and we can always pull the plug if it looks to be too much.

When I started this blog, I specifically said it was not an infertility blog.  I figured we’d nip that part in the bud pretty early and I could move on to bigger and better things.  So I’m sorry that this blog is beginning to sound like a broken record.  But, for better or worse, this is our life.  It exists in two-week increments, waiting for a procedure/ovulation and then waiting for the results.  Rinse and repeat.  At some point, we’ll say enough, but not quite yet.  I’ll still provide our fears with adoption another day and why we’re not ready.  But suffice it to say, just like when we started these decisions, it is a decision we make every time, every cycle.

“The minute you think of giving up, think of the reason why you held on so long.”

Here we go again on our own...

...as in without the lovely crazy drugs in my system.  We got our nice smiley face today, which puts us in the doctor's office tomorrow morning.  And luckily, T gets to be there this time.  We're pretty pumped it worked out to be tomorrow versus Monday morning.  Just a lot more relaxing to come home afterwards rather than trying to rush into work.

Thanks for all the heartfelt encouragement we have received, both recently and in the past.  I know you just think it is a simple text/email/card or whatnot, but I honestly go back and read them when I'm feeling blue.  And it makes my day each time.  I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, but holy bananas I am a lucky gal.

Speaking of bananas, it is a crazy small world - a coworker told me one of her FB friends posted something about doctor's visits and infertility.  My coworker was nice and messaged the friend to get some more details on my behalf...after showing the messages to me, we figure out her friend is one of my neighbors.  So we can meet up at neighborhood street parties and discuss construction noise, who doesn't mow their yard enough, and embryo transfers.  Go figure.  It does show that you never know what is going on behind closed doors.  They weren't necessarily secret about their struggles (similar to T and me), but obviously not something you talk about when you're just waving hello in the morning.

I've been asked by some well-meaning folks (who don't know our issues) when T and I are planning to have kids, now that we've been married over a year and are in our 30s.  "Planning".  Such an odd word to us now.  I'm totally stealing this response from a blog I read:  "They're on backorder.  I totally ordered them, like, forever ago.  I think they keep losing our order."  The nice thing is...things on backorder normally arrive eventually... :)