4dp6dt

Today has been a roller coaster of emotions for me. This cycle by far is already the cycle where I have tested the most. Yikes. I thought since this was my 5th cycle....7th transfer. I would be alittle more cool and collected. Nothing has been farther from the truth.


Last night at 3dp6dt I had a positive on a FRER.....super exciting until this morning when I tested and the line was much lighter....cue the dramatics. Internal dramatics, mind you. I haven't told HB I have been testing, I haven't talked to my sister or my friends about it. I don't want to jinx anything so I have said nothing at all.


I did a total of six tests today. I can't even imagine the amount of money I have spent on hpts. It's unreal. Thank goodness for FSA so at least it's not taxed. Ultimately I am cautiously optimistic with the outcome. The tests from 7:00pm yesterday to 8:30pm today are both positive and appear to be getting darker, or pretty close to it.

It looks like I am pregnant!! I don't even know what to do with this information. This is the first time I have been the one to hold this knowledge on my own and I like that. This cycle has been my journey, the further realization of my dreams. It has been a battle leading up to it. Fighting with HB about whether we would have another baby or not, convincing him, fighting my body, endless drives back and forth to San Francisco, working with a new clinic, wishing for quality eggs, hoping those eggs make it to day 3 and then day 5. Pleading that those two embryos would come back chromosomally normal, and finding out while caring for my dying father that one  of them was days before he passed. Being able to have one of the last things I told him was that we were likely going to be able to give him another grandbaby and seeing the smile on his face.  This cycle, my 5th, is for me and I and worked so hard for it, on so many levels and I fucking deserve it.


I am still terrified of a chemical pregnancy, or that this baby won't make it. But for right now, in this moment, I am pregnant and that's pretty awesome.


Symptoms:
Today I have had mild cramping all day with leg cramps (thighs and calves sometimes). I feel what I can only describe as pressure in my uterus and have been feeling pulls in my uterus on and off. Maybe an occasional pinch.


This is my first natural cycle so I am hoping all of these symptoms are a good thing. At least I know none of these things that I am feeling are because of the progesterone.


I guess that's it for now. I wonder how many sticks I will pee on tomorrow???

2DP6DT

Feeling a bit low today. That is what happens when you get inside of your head the way that I always do. I haven't felt any symptoms yet. No twinges, no zings, no cervix pain, no nothing. So I am feeling like it isn't looking very good. At this point during the Coconut's pregnancy I was feeling all sorts of things so I am feeling like this may not be successful :( I may have felt some period like cramping....light....MAYBE, but it could all just be in my head too. That's likely the situation.


Logically, a hatched embryo would take less time to implant because it is already out of its shell so I think I should be feeling something by now, as soon as it may seem. Logically, it makes sense that I would, right?


I have been trying to test out the trigger. I think it is pretty much gone, I see the faintest of lines....real squinter so I am hoping its either gone by tomorrow or darker to indicate pregnancy, but we all know that it's too soon for that, but logic heads straight out of the window during the two week wait.


I am begging for some symptoms, some sort of indicator that this is working and that my little raspberry is snuggled in tight.


Today when I was getting things together for my dad's memorial/obsessing over the raspberry.....a little ladybug walked right up to me on my kitchen bar. I am taking it as some sort of sign that every thing is going to be ok and that luck is on our side.


Here's to hoping.....

New Clinic, New Hope, 1DP6DT

Yesterday I had my semi-natural FET at Spring Fertility, my new and very fabulous clinic. I say semi-natural because we did end up having to trigger with 250mg Ovidrel but other than that I have taken no meds, which is super weird for me because I was so dependent on my progesterone for the Coconut's cycle, it almost seems wrong not to use it this time. But I am trusting the very smart doctors I have in my corner.

The last two transfers I had were under anesthesia because the doctors at my former clinic (PFC) could not easily navigate my cervix and multiple times had to use a tenaculm to finally get the catheter to go in after approximately 20 mins of poking and prodding.....not super fun. This was painful and traumatic and from what I have heard, the more difficult the transfer, the harder it is to get a positive results. I am sure that is not always true but it's not very encouraging to hear after such hard transfers.

Luckily for me, this time was a breeze. My doctor (Dr. Tran), was able to easily get the catheter in, the only pain I felt was from the ultrasound pressed against my overly full bladder, but even that was short lived. I really couldn't of asked for a better transfer. I am feeling very fortunate.

So now the waiting begins. I tested yesterday to see if the trigger is still in my system. It is, so I suppose I will HAVE to continue to test it out ;) Hopefully it's out soon so the real crazy can begin! I live to pee on sticks.

It's already hard to think of anything else and we are only on day one. I am wishing and hoping to feel some sort of symptom, twinge, zing, cramp, anything. But there is nothing yet.

Here it is! My little Raspberry <3. It is a 6BA meaning it is fully hatched out of it's shell and is good quality. I'll be thinking happy thoughts and would appreciate any positive vibes that can be sent my way!

3dp3dt & 4dp3dt

And so it begins......

It is only 4dp3dt and I have already tested 4 times. I tried to lie to myself and say that this time  I would not test during the two week wait. Yeah....I tried real hard. Who was I kidding? I held out all of to days.

Needless to say the tests are negative. Well actually they are coming out with a faint line which is absolutely the trigger...I am waiting to test out the trigger so the real fun can begin.

This is the first time I have had a three day transfer. The two week wake is hard enough as it is......the wait until your beta is mostly unbearable. However, the cruel trick of a three day transfer is you have to wait even longer to get that positive (or negative, whichever the case may be). The next week is going to be rough.

I got  a call from the embryologist from my clinic today. She mentioned that while the last embryo that we were waiting on didn't make it to biopsy or freeze, it did exceed their expectation and made it to an early blast on day 6. She went on to say (in a cheery voice) that that information might bode well for the embryos that we transferred.....that they are probably strong. That was really nice to hear. Encouragement is always welcomed, especially from my clinic.

As a side note, I wanted to mention I have noticed my blog posts have changed since I first started this journey. My thoughts and posts now are disjointed and I apologize for that. I guess my mind is a bit different than the last time as I am working full time, coming home to a sweet toddler and then trying to squeeze in some time to write down how I am feeling during this process down here. So please bare with me and my scattered thoughts.

So let's get down to symptoms. Real or imagined, these are the symptoms I have been noticing:

3dp3dt
-Hot flashes in the middle of the night
-Slight, light cramping of the left side (I think)
-One or two pinches down in my ladies parts (can't really tell if it was my uterus or cervix)

4dp3dt
-At least 3 or 4 lightening bolts (zings) down in my cervix and uterus (similar to what I can recall experiencing the last time I was pregnant).
-Tired (however, that can be attributed to the fact that I woke up to 3:00am and didn't really go back to sleep.

As mentioned above. These could all just be made up. I don't what to think. I wish I could fast forward the next few days.

This has to work.

Recap & 2dp3dt

RECAP SINCE LAST POST:
Unfortunately the last embryo we had (the one from 2015) was no good. I was able to have Natera test it up front with the expectation they would test embryos from our next cycle as well in a process they used to call batching. It was great they were willing to test this one ahead of time because it took the guess work out of what steps we should take next (i.e. FET or fresh cycle). So, long story short, we found out the little guy we had frozen was no bueno - not chromosomally sound. This news was hard to take, but luckily for me I have become a bit numb to these types of things so I was able to pull my head up and start making plans for the next cycle of IVF.....#4 to be exact.

Since the beginning of the year I have done two cleanses and have been doing my best to be as healthy as possible. Gluten-free, dairy-free, no sugar (ish), no alcohol (ish), no caffeine. So hopefully this next round will be successful. I feel as though I have been doing everything on my end to help the process to hopefully grow really healthy follicles. Likely this will be my last cycle and I wanted to make sure I did everything in my power to help the outcome......if that kind of stuff really even does help. I have also be walking more and trying to get myself moving.

I started at the beginning of July: trips to SF, injections, stress......its amazing how quickly all of that stuff comes back to you. Just like that I was taken back to 2015.....IVF is kind like riding a bike. Only now, instead of just worrying about myself I am chasing around the Coconut, worrying about how I will do my injections with her running around, ensuring I have child care for the roundtrips for monitoring appointments and trying to spend time with my family (which includes my 12 step-daughter who has no idea this is going on, and likely wouldn't be too stoked on the idea of yet another sibling - her mom and I were pregnant at the same time and ended up giving birth within 5 fives of each other).

We three previous cycles under my belt I had readjusted my expectations of how I would respond to the stims. Like all of the cycles before I went 15 days of stims. Much longer than the average infertile (lucky me) - but that ok. Like I said - expectation were adjusted. It was looking like there were about 7-8 follicles that would grown to the right size. This is less then previous cycles, but still decent as far as I was concerned. I went in the ER fairly confident things were going to go well, only to find out they were only about to retrieve 5. A lousy 5. Just when I think  I know what to expect, life changes it up for me. What's worst is that only 2 fertilized properly!!! I was spoiled in my previous cycle to have 100% fertilization rate so I was floor to see that only have fertilized. From there, it wasn't looking good.....so my RE recommended we do a day 3 transfer if either of the embryos made it. So I anxiously waited for a call from the lab on day three and was luckily surprised to find out that both are graded 1 (the best) - one was six cells , one was 8. It was go time.

I drove up to SF, was put under anesthesia. This was the second time we did this for  a transfer. The first time was the Coconut's transfer. I think it is the best choice given the complexity of how transfers have gone for me in the past. Easy for me, easy for the doctor to navigate through my completely messed up insides. I woke up and was told everything went great. In face, by the time they transferred the embryos, the 6-cell had turned into 8! I had on-site acupuncture both before and after the procedure right in the same bed the transfer happened. I didn't have to move, which I liked. I know its absolutely crazy but I don't want the embryos slipping out or anything :).

So now here we are 2dp3dt. I tried to say that I wasn't going to obsessively POAS but then I found myself at the Dollar Tree today purchasing 20 test....oops. I plan on testing out the trigger and then seeing what happens. What's hard about  a day three transfer is that you have to wait even LONGER to get a positive result......so not fair. But then again, when has anything been "fair" in this process?

I don't think I feel any symptoms, which I think is about right at this point. However, I did feel a quick sharp-ish cramp/pain down around my cervix and I don't know if I am making it up in my head or not but it feels like I am starting to get alittle crampy....even a small amount of right leg cramps. Its probs all in my head....lets be real.

I don't know what I think just yet. I don't know if I think I am going to become pregnant from this cycle or not. What I do know at this point is that it is going to be a really long two weeks.

Big week

This week is big. We worked out a deal with the company that screens our embryos for chromosomal abnormalities to run the test for our one frozen embryo from 2015 now instead of waiting and batching it with our next fresh round of IVF in June. Without sounding too much like the d-bag Donald Trump.....THIS IS HUGE!! This means that instead of waiting and potentially spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on a fresh cycle of IVF we may just be able to do a FET, if the results come back chromosomally sound of course, and get pregnant with that! That means no more injections, round trips to San Francisco, stress about travel, stress about follicle growth, stress about the retrieval. This could be the most amazing thing ever.......Or it could not be.

In a few short days we will find out the fate of our little embryo, that is technically two years old. For two years, I have been hoping and counting on the fact that this embryo could get me pregnant and by next week we will finally know. It's a surreal and scary feeling, as my doctor doesn't give this embryo the best odds.

We have to take the following into consideration: 1) an embryo from a women my age (29 at the time of retrieval) has a 70% chance of resulting in a pregnancy (my odds maybe even a little less as I have been told I have "old" eggs); 2) because my embryo is a day 7 hatching blast (grade 2) that lowers the odds as day 7 embryos take longer to get to the right spot to freeze at, indicating there maybe something wrong with it (-20%), so now we are at 50%, not terrible, but we're not done yet; 3) since this embryo hasn't been chromosomally tested it brings the odds down again (-20%), so now we are at 30%.

Only a 30% chance of this embryo working may not seem like good odds, but at this point I am doing everything in my power to have positive thoughts. I didn't get to where I am today but laying down and accepting shitty odds or outcomes, so I have to believe if I keep up the same mentality then maybe good things will happen. We have to get past this hurdle, this embryo has to be good. Haven't we experienced enough bad news on this journey? Don't get me wrong, the Coconut is the absolute best thing that has ever happened to us, but she came following years of heartache and stress. Wouldn't it be amazing if this time around we were able to get pregnant without having to go down the most intense route? Don't we deserve that?

I believe this can happen. I will forever be an optimist, a hopeless romantic and I will continue to refuse that the hardest way is always going to be the hand I am dealt. So for now I am dreaming of our little embryo, tucked away and waiting for its shot. I will send all of my positive energy it's way.

Until we find out......

Realization

Now that HB and I are on the same page and are moving forward with another round of IVF, I am finding myself in a place that I haven't been in a while......nervous. Now that I have gotten past the unexpected and heartbreaking hurdle of semi-convincing my husband to have another child with me (or at least try), I have realized that now I am faced with the even scarier prospect of not being able to get pregnant again through this next (and final) round of IVF. This is it. I promised HB that this the last try, but what if it doesn't work? What do I do then? I am so incredibly lucky to have to Coconut, having another child would be an incredible bonus, however, I am realizing more and more now that it is a bonus that I need. There is a lot riding on this one round of IVF. It took us three rounds to get the Coconut. Will I be lucky enough to have it work two cycles in a row?

It's becoming more and more real now as I am scheduling appointments at my clinic. I  think about the prospect of holding another sweet baby in my arms and it is something I imagine that will weigh heavily on me until I either a) become pregnant or b) exhaust all of the embryos of this next cycle (and the one we currently have on ice). This is something I will have to work on throughout this process. I will need to work through the anxiety and the stress and somehow learn to accept  whatever happens, will happen and just do the best I can along the way. This will not come easily but I am starting this practice of acceptance now. I need to be prepared for the worst, and will always continue to hope for the best.