I seem to be recovering.  The break from treatments is definitely good for me – mentally.  I just needed a few minutes to collect my shit and regroup.

It was my birthday on Saturday and I didn’t think about IF or TTC one time – all day.  It was a nice break.  My kid had the whole day planned out.  He took me to the zoo, then to the park to play flag football.  We took a nap together – all kinds of snuggly – and then ended the day with Sushi and cupcakes.  My kid is 4, almost 5 – and he realized that on my birthday, I get to be queen for a day.  He went out of his way to make sure that everyone we encountered knew it was my birthday and thus treated me with the appropriate reverence.

It was a fun day.

I’ve also started taking my prozac again.  I had stopped – and I recall having a good reason – but now I don’t recall what that reason was.  Mother’s Day was such a bad day that I realized I had better get back on the Prozac – it’s necessary.  And while I haven’t been back on long enough for it to really kick in significantly, I think it is starting to work a bit.  In conjunction with the break from TTC for a minute, I feel a little lighter.  I have a little more energy.  I’m still more tired than necessary, but I also don’t feel like I am clawing my way out of the bottom of a very deep hole everyday just to try to function.

So, I guess this is improvement.  Today I am grateful to feel better.

 

This is the new…

This is the new plan.  We had to time this to work around a vacation we have planned in June, so it got backed up a few weeks.  I guess after 2 years, a few weeks is neither here nor there.  I am on BCP for several weeks.  Baseline on June 5.  Start Lupron on June 10.  Start Gonal-F on June 17.  Follicle check on June 25.  From there, we will trigger and do a Day 6 frozen transfer of donated embryos.  I plan to also use endometrin for luteal phase support.

Why not?  We’ve never tried doing it this way…and I would guess that most people don’t because injectibles aren’t cheap.  But, if it could work, we’re trying.

I hate waiting to start cycles.  HATE it.  But, I don’t think it would hurt to have a few weeks off.  Mentally.  I am exhausted.  I mostly want to crawl into a dark hole and just stay there until I could come out and everything would be fixed.  We would rewind the last 2 years, and I would not be so broken.

That’s the thing that gets so hard sometimes.  I see that I am just a shadow of who I used to be.  All of that energy and excitement I had for life is gone.  I used to love to travel, to take risks, to explore and have incredible experiences.  Now, I would really love to just lie on the couch in silence.  I don’t like who I have become through this process.  I don’t like how hard it is just to get out of bed everyday.  I don’t like that I can’t seem to find real, long term hope anymore.  There’s nothing else to grab onto, to hold onto – I feel like I am constantly just scrambling for a temporary foothold – with the hope that this is finally going to be the one that doesn’t crumble out from under me.

I’m melancholy.  And it sucks.  Maybe the next few weeks of nothing fertility related will give me a chance to work through some of this.

I made it through Mother’s Day.  It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun, but I did it.

When my son was born, I had never given a thought to Mother’s Day – it just wasn’t relevant.  And then my first Mother’s Day rolled around and I wanted it to be special.  I wanted it to mean something on Mother’s Day that I had carried and birthed this baby.  But, I realized that my kid has 2 moms, so in our house, it’s pretty meaningless.  Nobody gets the day off, nobody gets treated special, it’s all run of the mill – because with two of us, how do you chose who gets celebrated?  She’s just as much his mom as I am – regardless of who birthed him.  I had a really, really hard time with it that first year.  I wanted it to be something special and meaningful for me and it wasn’t.

The second year I was a little better prepared mentally and I was used to the idea that Mother’s Day wasn’t going to be anything special and it wasn’t going to be meaningful.  I came to accept that I was just going to have to give up on that day being anything more than just any other day.  And I was trying to get ok with that.

And then 2 years ago, on Mother’s Day, I had my first miscarriage.  So a day that was already tense and challenging for me, became a day that was unbearable and heartbreaking.  Last year, this year – I forget how much Mother’s Day triggers me, but this year it was a very bad day.  I cried on and off all day – I was clearly miserable.  I tried to stay cheerful by staying busy.  I took my son to the park, went shopping, made breakfast for my Mother-in-Law…but it was all littered with tears.

But now it’s over, and I survived.

I seem to have pulled myself back together.  I have taken some time to sit with this and let it sink in, for what it is.  It’s not our last chance and it’s not the end of the world.  As we approach the end of our supplies (vials of sperm and frozen embryos), for lack of a better term, I had planned for this to be the end of the road.  It felt like a nice clean place to stop.  But I am not sure I am going to be able to stop.  The thought that brings me solace is that we can buy a few vials of sperm and try again, with a different donor.  2 years ago THAT seemed like the end of the world, but a lot can change in 2 years.  I think it hit so hard because this was our last vial of sperm and that really was the last attempt for a full genetic sibling.  So, it was bigger and more meaningful than other cycles – and so I lost it because of what it meant when it failed.  But, life is not over.  It is not the end of the world.  And I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday (who also happens to be a co-worker), and we talked, and I cried.  She asked how much longer I think I will go, and I told her I don’t know.  She said that she’s worried that this is going to break me, and she hopes that I take care of myself.  I told her I thought it was too late for that.  I don’t think you can ever go back.  I think I am about 6 months past broken.  I love her for having the courage and understanding to say it to me, though.  Good friends say the things that you don’t really want to hear in addition to the things you DO want to hear.   And although her situation was so different, I know that she understands this need to have another child, the desperation when you think it isn’t going to happen, etc.  She gets it.

I am working with my clinic to plan my next cycle now.  We have 2 donated frozen embryos left.  They are day 6 hatching blasts.  This FET will be different from the others.  At my request, we are going to do a mock cycle.  I believe that my body responds better to natural hormones than all synthetic, so I want natural hormones in my system this time.  So, we will use a low dose of gonal-f to stimulate some follicles, trigger so I ovulate, use endometrin for LP support, and do the transfer 6 DPO.  The eggs that I ovulate will be throw aways, we just need the follicles to develop the lining and for progesterone after I ovulate.   It’s unorthodox, but I figure if they do FET with natural cycles, why not with a mock cycle to achieve the same outcome?  My gut feeling is that my body will respond better.

I am also concerned that my period has been so short.  2 Days and it’s over.  The last several cycles have been this way.  I feel like something is wrong there.  I meant to ask when the nurse called, but I forgot.  She’s supposed to call me back, so maybe I will ask then.

Things Fall Apart

And by things, I mean me.  I got my period tonight.  It’s starting, anyway.  I will say at this point that while I never let myself admit it out loud, I was 100% sure this IUI worked.  I was as certain as you can be that I was pregnant.  Certain.  And then certain again.  I tried to talk myself out of it – but I couldn’t – I just felt certain.  I’m even having a hard time believing it now – and I am spotting.

I am at this conference, and there is a big dinner tonight.  I am on the senior team – this is a mandatory event for me.  But I just left.  I told one of my colleagues, who said she would try to deflect for me, and I left.  Which is good, because apparently the amount of time it took me to get back to my hotel room was the exact amount of time I had before disintegrating into a weeping, semi-hysterical disaster.  I am currently not at risk of vomiting, which is an improvement over 10 minutes ago.  And I am not hyperventilating.  Also an improvement.

I knew I was going to fall apart some if this was the outcome, but I guess I didn’t expect the complete breakdown that I seem to be having.  I am trying to focus myself a bit by writing, I would like to stop being hysterical.

This might be the first time that I am absolutely not sure if I can do this anymore.  We have 2 more frozen donated embryos, we’ll use them.  I’ll get out of this knee jerk hysteria, and come to my senses.  But, I don’t know.  I’m back to that fucking place where I don’t know how to keep going, but I don’t know how to stop either.

I want to go home.  I don’t want to have to hold it together for another day of this conference.  I don’t want to have to be in front of everyone tomorrow, biting back tears all day.  I don’t hide them well.  And this is not the time for me to slip up- I HAVE to be in control.

It’s hard to blog when my head is everywhere – I feel so disjointed.  But because I am sitting in this hotel room alone, it’s all there is.  This computer and crying and more crying.

No testing, no cry

I’m officially traveling for work. Tomorrow is 12 DPO and I could test with some reasonable expectation of accuracy. I tested at 10 DPO and while I thought I might have seen a hint of a line, The Wife did not. 10 DPO is early and I’ve never tested that early before. So, I remain hopeful- to the extent that I allow myself to be hopeful. I have 2 tests sitting on the bathroom sink, but this time, being at this conference, I think I am going to opt to hold out hope- even if it’s false hope. I have to get through the conference even if by choosing to hold onto hope that I have no right to.

Truthfully, I know the likelihood of it working is slim, but there’s that part of me that still thinks, “This could be the one”.

Ranking with the Dumb

Well, I decided to POAS today, just for shits.  (Read: Because I am an impatient dumb ass).  Excuse I gave myself was that I don’t think I am going to let myself test while I am away at my conference, leaving Sunday, so it’s ok if I test early.  I got the lightest of light second lines.  I was so uncertain that’s what I was seeing that I took the test apart to make sure it wasn’t glare – and I could see it much better with the test disassembled.

It could still be the trigger, since I am 9 DPO now.  And I never test this early, but the fact that I am not going to test while at this conference really worked against my willpower to hold out.  I think i would have made it to 12 DPO pretty easily if I knew I were going to test that day.  But knowing that it’s either today/tomorrow or not until Thursday got the best of me.  So I peed on the stupid stick.  And I got the stupid faintest of faint positives.  Which could be false from the HCG injection.

So, I am no closer to knowing anything that I was an hour ago.  No less tortured, no more tortured.  And I knew that would be the case when I did it, and I just couldn’t help myself.

I think The Wif…

I think The Wife is feeling a little anxious for me to test.  Which, of course, I am as well.  But today is only 9 DPO.  We could still get a false positive from the HCG shots.  It’s also just way early.  I *might* test tomorrow, just for shits because I really don’t think I will test while I am on my trip.  I think if I get a BFN, I will immediately cease to be functional.  As much as I have tried to prepare myself for the moment when we no longer have the option of a genetic sibling, I don’t think I will handle it well.  I know myself – I will not be functional. 

Working a conference is like spending several days on stage.  Every interaction is playing to your audience.  You have to be a star the whole time.  You are the queen on improv and someone is always watching.  Non-functional is not an option.

Survival of the….None

Well, none of those eggs they took from me made it to Day 5.  So, that’s over.  Hope is definitely pinned on the IUI now.  Test date is next Wednesday, so just over a week from today.

I will be out of town and I haven’t decided if I should test or not.  I always test alone, so it’s not an issue of being by myself.  I am more worried about getting a BFN and still having to be not only functional, but charming, outgoing and on top of my game.  We are hosting a conference, so I’ll be out in front of people all the time.  I don’t know how I will manage to wait either, but then again, my period could just come, which would answer the question without it even being asked.

Also, I think I have a new plan for the next cycle.  We have 2 frozen embryos left.  I have a theory that my body does not respond well to the synthetic hormones in vivelle and endometrin.  I also know that you can do a FET on a natural cycle. But, since I don’t have natural cycles, I am wondering of we can mimic one by having me take low dose injectibles to get a few good eggs and a good lining.  Then trigger and let those ovulate.  Rather than do an IUI, we would just time it out from there and transfer the embryos at the appropriate day.  That way my body is generating the hormones naturally, but we have helped it along.  I would probably support it with endometrin, too, but I think this might be a good idea.