So…

Tomorrow is D-Day.  And I would be lying if I didn’t say that part of me thinks there’s a chance this really worked.  I’ve tried hard to be realistic about the chances of this working, but I am human.  And my heart is in it.  And I want it really bad.  I had a crazy wave of nausea tonight, and I remember that happening with my son.  Of course, it could have been anything.  It could have been the unholy stench practically growing off of my child’s feet.  Maybe I was dehydrated.  Maybe I was hungry.  Maybe it was a side effect of the PIO.  But, it’s hard not to think everything means something when you are in The Waiting.

I did, however, today manage to go all day without thinking about the fact that tomorrow is D-Day.  I kept busy at work, and it wasn’t until I was leaving and realized I needed to let people know I would be in late tomorrow because I have a doctor’s appointment, that I remembered.  Right.  Tomorrow.  9DP 5DT.

 

Back-Up Plan & Healing

Today a friend told me that she was impressed with all of the work that I did mentally and physically to prepare for this FET process, and that she wasn’t sure that she would have been so dedicated to getting healthy for it.  The interesting thing is that my mental and physical work on myself was never about trying to get pregnant again.  It was actually about recovering my life and myself from 3 years of being emotionally, physically, and financially destroyed by infertility and pregnancy loss.  It was about moving on, and moving forward.  It was about finding a point of control again and not feeling like everything I cared about was slipping through my grasp and I had no way to change that.   It was about conquering the encompassing  the depression that owned me after 3+ years of infertility treatments, failures, and losses.  It was about healing, and becoming whole again.  It was about taking back control of something in my life.  Because I took the time to heal, I finally felt like I could try this without falling back into “The Dark Place” if it does not work.  Don’t get me wrong, I will be distraught, sad, disappointed – I probably can’t come up with enough of those words to describe how I will feel if this didn’t work.  But I won’t fall back into “The Dark Place”, where the feelings own me.  And I was relatively sure of that before I started the process this time, and that was the only reason I went forward with it.  I had finally healed enough to not be broken by it again.

That being said, with the dreaded beta looming on Friday, I realized I need a back up plan.  I know, most people are excited about their beta day, but I have just had too many bad ones to think of it as exciting.  I dread the idea of having my hope smashed, it makes me a little sick to my stomach to even think about it.  But, I’ve had so much history with even getting a positive and then loss, that I know I won’t stop being worried even if it’s positive.  Hell, I’ll probably worry even more.  Because then there’s really something to lose – not just hope.

So, I need a back up plan in case this didn’t work and I don’t have additional worry to keep my mind occupied.  My back up plan will not involve making babies.  I was thinking about what I could do to challenge myself.  To occupy my mind and body, and have something to work towards.  I also know I need timelines.  So, I have decided my back up plan will be training for a 10K in January.

I was always the fat girl who thought that I could never possibly run a 5K.  Those were for other people.  Not for people like me.  But then the running industry got smart, and decided to make these events fun, low pressure, and accessible to people like me.  So, I did it.  And I’ve done several of them now.  It’s not problem – I could do them multiple times a week, and there for a while I was running about 5K about 4 nights a week.  Since I’ve been on the fertility drugs that has slowed substantially – my side effects from these things are intense.  These days I am lucky to be able to stay awake until 8:30 PM – I’m pretty sure the PIO shots have knocked me on my ass.  I have to set an alarm in the evening to wake me up so I can do my shot – all I want to do is sleep from about 7 PM onward.  But, I digress.

Since I conquered my fear of running, and being around “skinny” and “fit” people, I think this would be an excellent challenge for me.  I’m not intimidated by gym regulars, or people who are skinnier or in much better shape than me.  Who gives a flying fuck what they think?  And chances are, they don’t think anything at all – I’m just projecting my own insecurities.  So, a 10K it is.  And after that, a half marathon.   That’s going to be quite an accomplishment for a formerly painfully insecure, self conscious, fat girl.  I may still be a fat girl in progress, but my self esteem is recovering from a lifetime of negativity about my body – both externally and self imposed.

Back-up plan.  Check.

Progesterone, My Ass

I did my first ever PIO shot tonight.  It was just about the only part of fertility treatments I had never experienced.  So, now we can mark that off the list, too.   I asked for a prescription for EMLA cream, which is a lidocaine/prilocaine cream. OMG- awesome.  I didn’t feel anything when I did the shot.  It was completely painless.

I’m slightly concerned that maybe I did it wrong, it was so painless.  But, needle stabbed into upper outer quadrant of buttocks (I really love the word buttocks).   Needle in all the way, injected oil.   Can I have screwed it up?

Anyway, highly recommend the EMLA cream.  I had to do the shot myself and that really, really helped.

Uterus? Check.

I had my lining check today and it was good.  10.5, with a triple stripe.  I guess all of that estrogen is doing it’s job, along with the side effects.  Next step, PIO shots.  Which I will be doing myself.  And I’ve never done before.  Gulp.

Chowchilla, CA

I forgot how these drugs impact me, but now I’ve been reminded.  I started Lupron, and within 2 days was thoroughly settled into the sulking rage that I had so conveniently forgotten that Lupron brought me.  That lasted about 7 days until I added the Vivelle dot estrogen patches.  Within a day, I slowly emerged from the sulking rage phase into the uncontrollably weepy phase.  Ahhhh, yes.  Sweet uncontrollable tears,  I had forgotten about you.  Look at me – I cry.  Breathe near me – I cry.  Shoelace tied too tight – I cry.  Unruly piece of hair that just won’t behave?  You got it – I cry.  I have to drink at least one extra bottle of water a day to rehydrate from all of the tears.  SAnd there are two other side effects from the Vivelle this time.  One oldie I had forgotten, and one new one.

I’ve never gotten sore boobs with Vivelle before, but holy crap!  They are big and achy!  I can’t even find a sports bra tight enough to keep these things from hurting.  That’s the new one.

But, the real other side effect is one I have never told anyone about except my wife. I feel like it’s time.  Because somebody, somewhere, needs to know that she is not alone.  Once, about 4 years ago, I was in this process, and I was in this same phase.  5 units of Lupron daily, 2 Vivelle estrogen patches changed every 2 days.  I was in the car, driving to a business meeting in Fresno.  The drive from Sacramento to Fresno is long and boring.  About 5-6 hours.  It’s directly down the middle of the state, on small roads, through farm country.  There are not a lot of stops, not many places to pull over, take a break, etc.  Just farms and countryside.

So, I’m driving to Fresno, all dolled up in a business suit for a fairly important meeting.  Well, about 4 hours into the trip, I have to go to the bathroom.  NOW.  It hit and needed to instantaneously be let out.  But, there was no option for pulling over, there were no exits.  No restaurants.  No gas stations.  No convenience stores.  Just fields as far as the eye could see.  5 minutes pass.  10 minutes pass.  Still nothing.  I started running scenarios in my mind on how I could pull over and go in a field….no.  I could not find a scenario in which this could be possible on this flatland as far as the eye can see.  But I had to go NOW.  I held it for like 20 minutes.  My colon was spazzing.  I was sweating, periodically groaning out loud, squirming in my seat, clinching as tightly as anyone ever has – it was seriously the most desperate I have EVER been to get to a bathroom.  And then I saw an exit…for Chowchilla.  Yes – they had a McDonalds!  There had to be a bathroom.

I jet off the exit, get into the parking lot, open the door and stand up.  And my ass explodes.  Explodes.  Not a little.  Explodes.  Not knowing what else to do, (I can’t get back into my car), I head into McDonalds, shitting my way through the restaurant, all the way to the bathroom.  It took me a good 20-30 minutes, and I did have to dispose of a few articles of clothing, but I eventually was able to get cleaned up.  I resumed my trip, significantly worse for wear, and held a successful meeting.

I had not forgotten The Chowchilla Incident.  It was such a substantial moment in my life, it has a name.  But, I had forgotten that it was Vivelle that caused The Chowchilla Incident.  So, this time around, I wasn’t as careful as I should have been.  You can see where this is going.  I was sitting at my desk at work, got the urge, and thought, “Well, I’ll just finish these last two sentences in my email and then go to the bathroom.”  Nope.  Big mistake.  I Chowchilla’d.  3 steps outside of the office bathroom door (which is incidentally no more than 25 feet from my office), with a co-worker about 4 steps behind me also headed to the bathroom.

So, other than the rage, the tears, and the pants shitting – I’m great!

And now you know my deepest, darkest, secret.

Better than Amazon Prime

I just got an email from the shipping company that The frizzle has been delivered to my clinic.  Now, I am sure that they have not opened the tank and checked everything out yet, but I cannot believe this thing has actually made it to California!  After so much stress, it is probably here.  First milestone.  Of course, it still has to thaw, and stick, and all of that.  But, one day at a time, right?

We used a company called Cryoport to ship it, and it cost a bloody fortune, but they were excellent.  It’s worth the money.  (No commercial here – but if you need to know about shipping an embryo, maybe this will be useful.   Because, it’s not like there’s a ton of information out there about who to call to ship a frozen embryo.)  So, Cryoport provides the cryotank/nitrogen, coordinates with both clinics on pick up and delivery dates, arranges all of the shipments/labels, makes calls to follow up if things haven’t happened when they are supposed to, and they work directly with the embryologists and their teams.  I was pissy about spending the money at first, but once I had all of the issues with this process and Cryoport was completely reliable and proactive, I was glad I went with them.  I got email updates for every leg of The Frizzle’s trip – every pick up and delivery.  I could track The Frizzle and know where it was and scheduled/actual delivery times.  And once the shipping clinic got it together and got everything done they needed to do – The Frizzle was delivered to my clinic overnight.

Now I await the call from my embryologist that it is correct, they only shipped the one we are supposed to have, and that we’ve gotten completely past this first hurdle.  I did my first lupron injection this morning, so here’s hoping everything is as it should be!

Well

Well, I’ll be damned.  The Frizzle shipped.  And just like that, my cortisol levels have returned to normal.

Final PersonalTrainerFood.com Review

I mentioned a few posts ago that I have lost 45 pounds so far this year, and several posts before that I was reviewing Personal Trainer Foods.  So, I thought it appropriate at this point to synthesize my experience with the food and my weight loss.  (Also, to distract myself from the glaring reality that travel and storage plans for The Frizzle have not yet been finalized.  It was supposed to ship from Boston today, but it didn’t.  No one at the Boston clinic has returned calls from either my clinic or the shipping company.  And The Frizzle is not on the way here and no one can seem to tell me anything about it.)

So, back to the subject at hand.  I placed one 30 Day worth of food order from Personal Trainer Foods, in April of this year.  If you open my freezer today, you will still find most of the food there.  I don’t have the heart to throw it away, and I don’t have the stomach to eat it.  I threw away anything red meat.  Everything I tried that was red meat was just completely inedible – brisket, fajita meat, etc.  Done – in the trash. And I threw away a lot of the vegetables.  I like my vegetables overcooked and soft – that’s how I cook them.  But these were grossly mushy when heated.  The green beans, though, are a notable exception.  The green beans are good.  And despite the Personal Trainer Food money back guarantee, you have to tell them within a very short number of days from receiving the food if you don’t like it in order to get a refund.  There’s no time to try one of everything if you have a good assortment of items within that window.

Here’s what Personal Trainer Foods did for me:  every time I set my mind to being on a strict eating plan, I forced myself to eat the Personal trainer Foods for the first two days.  They are so gross, that it helped motivate me to cook healthy and tasty food on my own.  And those two days help reduce my appetite and sugar cravings.  So, by going through that process every time I “fell off the wagon”, I developed a plan that works for me.  I can cook my own food – which is fresh and delicious, and even though I have to make time to do it, I TRULY APPRECIATE being able to eat healthy tasty food.  And every 2 weeks, I give myself one day off and eat whatever food it is that has been calling to me – pizza, Thai, ice cream – whatever I want.  And the next day, I go back to my own cooked, healthy, tasty meals.  And I don’t need to use the Personal Trainer Foods as a crutch anymore.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the freezer full of food I have that I just am not going to eat.  I actually think I keep it there as a little mental reminder to stick with the plan I have developed or I’ll have to eat that stuff again.  We all have the little things that motivate us, right?

Embryo in Travel Crisis

OMG – so maybe my anxiety dream was right on time.  I got a call from my clinic this morning saying that they do not have all of the paperwork they need to receive the embryo, nor did they confirm they could receive the embryo on the scheduled delivery date.  And if the embryo is shipped as scheduled, they will have to reject it.

BUT, the shipping tank has already been delivered to the clinic that has the embryo and they are supposed to ship it tomorrow.  So, I called the donor’s clinic to see if they can fax over the necessary paperwork.  Then I called the shipping company to find out why the shipment was scheduled if no one had confirmed receipt with my clinic.  Apparently someone at my clinic DID confirm they could receive it on that date.  And there was miscommunication between the two clinics on what paperwork still needed to be transferred.

Thankfully people are willing to jump quickly on this – maybe they could hear the tears in my eyes over the phone.  Because I am panicking a little bit.  Or a lot.  Take your pick.

Just a Little Anxiety….

First off, I have lost 45 pounds this year.  BAM!  Party for me!

Second, we are on our way to frozen embryo transfer.  Our donated embryo from Boston is days away from reaching it’s new cryo-tank home in California.  It should be here within the week. That’s not exactly step one, there have been a LOT of steps to get to that point.  But, it’s a big milestone in this process.  I’ve been super relaxed and focused on other things, which is a great mental approach to this all.  I am thoroughly invested, but I have a more healthy attachment to the process than in the past – less desperate, more hopeful.

But, last night I could tell some anxiety started creeping in.  I dreamed that my friend sent me a picture of the embryo – the kind the clinic takes with their microscope.  And that was cool.  But then,  the dream shifted and the clinic that currently has the embryo decided to thaw it to check on it before they shipped it.  Their plan was to thaw it, check it’s viability for 24 hours, then re-vitrify it and ship it to my clinic.  But they didn’t tell us this, they just did it.  And so, out of the blue I got an email from my friends who are donating the embryo, and they said the clinic had just called and the embryo had regressed to the morula stage and was not likely to survive being re-frozen.  And then she explained using a very long equation that looked somewhat like this: 2(x-y)= 46(z-y)/(x-z)*10<46x(y+zx)  and on and on for like 7 full lines.  I could not understand, and didn’t much care, about the math-iness of it.  All I cared about was no more embryo because some dumb ass decided to thaw it when they shouldn’t have.  My friend felt bad and wished the clinic had told her they were going to do it, too, so she could have stopped them.  And then I woke up.   So, yes, I suppose underneath my collected outer demeanor, I have a nervous streak building about this.

I’m already in the process of prepping my body for the transfer.  I have had a batch of bloodwork, a saline contrast ultrasound to make sure my uterus looks pretty enough, and an endometrial scratching procedure.  I wasn’t actually prepared to have that done even though I asked for it, because the most recent information I had was that the doctor doesn’t do that procedure because he doesn’t think there is enough science behind it.  I knew my nurse was advocating for me though, and that she had done them before with another doctor in the practice, I just didn’t know it had been resolved.  So, both were done – and the saline contrast ultrasound was just a little pinchy, but otherwise just fine.  The scratching, however, that one hurt.  I’ll take “Things I Don’t Want to Hear My RE say for $1,000, please”  – “This catheter is thicker and more rigid than the ones we usually use for other procedures and it’s getting stuck on the ridges of your cervix when I try to push it in.”  Yeah, I could feel all of that.  I did need to go home and take a pain pill and sleep it off – it left me not feeling so great. But, it’s over and I’m fine.  I’ve never done PIO shots, and I am going to do them this cycle – I’m guessing they are going to be WAY worse than the scratching was.

At the RE office there were many jokes by the nurses about the baby being born with a Boston accent and a Red Sox jersey… I’ve been through too much in the past to let myself actually think of this as actually being a baby at some point, so that was a little mentally jarring.   I mean, I know that’s the desired outcome here, but we still have miles to go before we get there, and I haven’t been able to make it through all of those miles in the past and get one of these to actually turn into a baby, so I’m hesitant.  And self protective.  And I don’t count my chickens…errrr, frozen embryos…before they hatch.  Or something like that.