Sick

Well, here's a new IVF experience for me. I am sick. I have been up all night being a veritable fountain of puke and diarrhea. I wonder how this will help or hinder my eggs!

I think my dinner did not agree with me. Well, that's putting it mildly. It's something I've eaten plenty of times before - a frozen fake chicken thing [Quorn] with goat cheese and cranberries in the middle. It's rather tasty. I've never had an issue with it previously so either it was stored incorrectly somewhere along the distribution chain and melted and was refrozen, or I've just eaten too many of them and my body has now decided that I was a foolish bint for doing so. But I started feeling weird right after eating it and then the puking started at bedtime.

It kind of reminds me of the time I discovered that I can no longer tolerate peanuts. All thanks to prometrium, which I used in most of my IUI cycles, and I think because of the repeated use my body started to rebel. I'd feel crap every 2ww with a ton of nausea but I just thought it was a progesterone side effect. And then we had a hurricane, and I, being a good girl, had stocked my cabinets with granola bars and other hurricane standbys. So in the days when I had no power I would have 4-6 granola bars a day. All peanut containing. And then the puking and the diarrhea started. I assumed that, because we'd lost the water supply for a day as well as the power, I'd somehow picked up a bug from that. I went to the doctor who diagnosed generic gastroenteritis, and told me to build myself back up by having peanut butter on toast. Yes, literally. Who ever heard of a doctor prescribing peanut butter on toast? So I went home, had some, and more fountains of vomit and diarrhea ensued. Finally it started clicking, but I have to admit, it took having peanuts a few more times and several more incidents before I was able to admit to myself that my days of eating peanuts were over. Anyway, now all the RE's have me marked down as the girl with the peanut allergy and I have to have a conversation with every single nurse and doctor (or so it seems) about whether I'm about to go into anaphylactic shock.

Anyhoo. I've never quite puked as violently or as projectile-ly as tonight, apart from actual food poisoning incidents. And I don't think this is food poisoning because I've had that a couple of times and had really awful stomach pains along with it. This just seems to be my body emptying everything out. And I mean everything. I keep trying to sip water because I'm getting thirsty and I want my eggs to stay hydrated, but nope, that comes back up too. And every time I have diarrhea, that makes me puke. Or dry heave, depending on if I've had some water recently.

Ahh, fun times, fun times. And the kicker is that I have been trying to clear my desk at work ready for a week away in Vegas, and I don't think there's any way to miss work today. At least I've perked up enough to think about sitting up and whiling away the time on the computer so I do seem to be improving somewhat.

But, really. Can't a girl catch a break around here sometimes?

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ETA 7.45pm: still sick. I never made it into work, and I still feel like crap. So I don't think it was just me being intolerant of the food because when that happens I usually feel fine when it's been cleared out of my system. And I found that other people have had exactly the same thing happen, so it may be a bug. Fun, fun, fun. Now I have a shitload of stuff to do tomorrow before catching my flight. I hope I'm up to it! Ugh. HATE being sick!

Monitoring

You know, when I first switched to NY Clinic, I was rather surprised that my RE kept droning on about how they monitored patients really closely and it was one of the things that differentiated them from other places. Because I couldn't really see what the eff they were doing differently. Local Clinic monitors patients pretty darn closely too. I mean, perhaps I had one more ultrasound at NY Clinic. Maybe. Perhaps not. But that was it. I couldn't see what the fuss was all about. There really was no discernable difference and arguably Local Clinic monitored me more closely, because at least they took their time to measure every follicle, whereas NY Clinic would often only look at the biggest two on each side and call it a day.

And here I am now, realizing that there can be a big difference in monitoring. I have done 3 days of stims, when I would normally have gone in for the first ultraound today at either NY Clinic or Local Clinic and yet I have no freakin' clue what is going on in the old ovaries and I still won't have an ultrasound for 4 more days. Yup, my first ultrasound is after 7 days of stims. Aaand I didn't have one right before I started stims either. I mean, I had one before starting estrogen priming but then hung around for a week doing that so I didn't start stims until a week after my ultrasound. It's already odd that NY Clinic did estrogen priming before AF, and LV Clinic does it after AF. But then not to even take a quick peek? Just seems odd, that's all. Especially as on my "dominant follicle" cycles I triggered after 6 and 7 days of stims, respectively. Oh well, I'm sure it'll work out OK. It's not as if anyone ever said "oh my god! We need to drastically reduce your dosage!" after any of my ultrasounds. Normally it's "well, we think we'll keep you on the same dosage for another day or two to see if any more develop." And it's in the plan to drop the dosage on the 7th night of stims anyway. I should be fine. I shall repeat this as my mantra. I should be fine.

I can feel some ovary action going on. I feel twingeing and growing and all of that. Of course, I hope this means that more follicles are popping up, given that I often don't feel my ovaries until closer to trigger, but I know that really it means nothing. After all, I still vividly remember my 3rd cycle where I was convinced, convinced I tell you, that I felt a gazillion follicles growing and that my abdomen was practically about to explode, only to go in for the ultrasound and have them discussing cancellation because of a poor response. I felt so disoriented having such a disconnect between how I was feeling and what was actually going on that it has stayed with me.

How does your clinic monitor during IVF? Are they standoffish or do they want you in every day after the first few days? I'm wondering if I have gone through the two extremes and if there's a happy medium somewhere, or if there is no happy medium and it's either one or the other depending on the RE's favorite school of thought.

Meme

Calliope tagged me. Here are the rules:

Rules, rules, rules: post what you’ve got on the table (chair, nightstand, whatever) beside your bed. Leave nothing out. Nothing. Heh. Link back to the kind person who tagged you and then tag 3 other folks. Really tag them - none of this “whoever hasn’t done this meme yet” tagging.

OK, so I was going to take a photo and then I got all lazy and didn't. So, nightstand. Well, I have two, because being single there's noone else using the other one, and I'm only going to tell you what's ON them as opposed to what's IN them. Because they have drawers. Which are mostly full of junk and it would take far too long to list everything and we all know I have that laziness streak a mile wide. OK, OK, so there are embryo photos, and a journal started back when I was optimistic and first TTC'ing and which makes me cringe now every time I open it, and maybe a battery-operated toy, and some leftover BCPs from this cycle and other miscellaneous items. There, that's enough information for you.

On the left-hand nightstand I have three photos and a coaster. It's all fairly minimal because for some reason kitteh loves to get up on the bed via this particular nightstand, and she is VERY good at knocking things over. So most of the nightstand is taken up by blank space for kitteh leaping purposes.

On the right-hand nightstand I have a phone, a reading lamp, a tea-light lamp (hardly ever used), a coaster (love me some coasters), a glass with a slurp of water still in it that has probably been there for several weeks and needs to go to the kitchen, a moisturizer, an anti-wrinkle serum, the remote control for my clock/radio/CD thing, two books (currently "Start Where You Are" by Pema Chodron and "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Thich Nhat Hanh - yes, I was trying to improve myself), a broken pair of eyeglasses, a crystal pendulum (used during 2ww's to ask "am I pregnant?" over and over again and which never gives me a reliable answer), and a large-ish purple box/basket thing containing: face tissues, my watch that I never wear but which is set so the alarm goes off every day as a back-up in case the power fails and the other alarm doesn't work, a tube of handcream, a herbal muscle freeze-relaxant thing that is great for those days when my neck and shoulders are painful from hunching over the computer too much, and a jar of moisturizer that I really didn't like but I haven't yet gotten around to throwing away.

As for following the rules on tagging three people, sorry, I am breaking that one. Unless Bleu would like to do it, because I know how much she loves being tagged! [Just kidding, Bleu - I know you would rather kill me by stabbing me repeatedly with a blunt pencil than do a meme.]

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In cycle news, I am bruisey and lumpy. I got tired of injecting the cetrotide suuuuper sloooowly so went a bit too fast this morning. Yup, lump. I've picked up two big bruises, one from cetrotide, one from stims, so I'm sure by the time I get to Vegas I'll be black and blue all over. I am also feeling "congested" down there. It is too early for the follicles to have perked up enough to cause bloating, so maybe the feeling is just them having to get on with some work. God, I hope there are more than 7, but of course I will deal with whatever I get. You'd think that with 600 iU's a day something would perk up in there, but we'll see.

Ode

Oh follistim needle, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

You are teeny tiny, and more importantly, sharp because you do not have to puncture a rubber stopper on a vial. You slide oh so gently into my fatty belly like a hot knife through butter. And did I mention that you're teeny tiny? So much better than all those other nasty wide blunt needles, it is almost a joy to use you.

Almost.

Mope and stim

Thank you all for your comments. It means a lot to know that I am not alone. Sometimes it seems that only one view is acceptable in the IF blogosphere (that motherhood, no matter how you get there is the only ultimate goal) but then you remind me that we all have our own paths to walk and that I am not alone in my thinking.

And just for the record, in case anyone has any doubt (which most of you don't, but I am often unsure of whether I really get my feelings down in writing properly), I have no doubts that I would love any child - whether from DE, adoption, donor embryos or my own genetics. I have NO doubt about that. Anybody who has ever loved a pet can know that they have it in them to love another little being that is placed in their care so so much. And of course with a child the feeling would be magnified many many times. I can only imagine how amazing that love must be. The only thing that holds me back is that I feel that I owe a child nothing less than absolute 100% unconditional love. And I wonder if, because I will always grieve the loss of a genetic connection and will always know that it was my second choice, whether it is fair to only love a child with 99.99999% unconditional, joyful love. Would I always have that little 0.00001% of regret in my heart? And, knowing that, is that a fair burden to place on a child? That's what concerns me. That it would not be fair to them.

Anyway, something happening recently on a board I am on has made me realize how self-selecting all our little groups are. A former poster came back to say hi, and perhaps posted a bit too much and expected a bit too much support, but as her life circumstances are no longer the same as the rest of the group she was asked to only post about things that the group has in common, because otherwise some of the other posters feelings may be hurt. So that has made me realize more than ever that at the time I take that decision to be child-free, I will no longer be part of the IF community. I will have to move on. I will no longer be welcome at my old haunts. It is yet another hard blow to realize that I will have to stop posting at places that I have been a member of for nearly 4 years and will have to cut myself off. I mean, not that I necessarily imagined constantly torturing myself following other people's kids lives and only being able to post "cute pic!" or whatever. But I didn't think I would be unwelcome. I did think that the women I thought of as my internet friends would like to see the occasional update from me. So of course, that makes me think about all the other women who came before me and took the childfree option instead of continuing treatment. And they are not visible because they moved on, so that makes those of us struggling with these decisions feel like everybody else in the world thinks differently. When that is not the case at all. The ones that think like I do just got booted out of the community or felt it was too painful to remain.

I am therefore trying to cut back on one group I am still in. I already stopped going to good ole FF a while ago and am slowly weaning myself off another. I'll get there eventually. Maybe I'll just join new groups based on my fabulous new interests that I'm bound to pick up when I no longer waste my time moping over my ovaries. We'll see.

But, enough moping and worrying over things that may not come to pass. Today is stim day 1. I wonder if my follicles stayed nice and small and if half a dose of cetrotide really is enough to keep them subdued. But I won't find out until next Monday as I don't have another u/s until then. It's a bit scary waiting that long, but hopefully LV Clinic knows what they are doing. Either I'll have a giant 40mm follicle or something, or I'll have a few nice evenly sized little guys. One more week and I'll have an inkling how this cycle is going. Eek!

The harvest and the odds and the dirty secret

I was lying on the acu table last night, willing my ovaries to produce at least one good egg this cycle, and I started running down the numbers. Which, I've got to say, didn't exactly help me relax.

I have had 49 eggs retrieved.
28 eggs were either immature or didn't fertilize properly.
21 eggs fertilized normally and became embryos.
Of those 21 embryos, 17 were transferred back to me. 4 were either discarded or arrested (actually I think only 1 was discarded because it stayed alive long enough to become a blast but was not good enough quality to freeze).
Of those 21 embryos, 8 were 8-celled or greater on day 3.

And presumably none of them were normal, because none of them stuck around. Or some were normal and I've got an implantation issue. All three RE's don't think it's an implantation issue, although I've had plenty of immune and thrombophilia testing done just in case.

So here I am, cycle 7, with 7 antral follicles. What gives me the audacity to think that any of these will be normal? I suppose just blind, fervent hope. Just hope that maybe with a new protocol I can produce a normal embryo. Or maybe just perseverance and luck of the draw that 1 out of 50+ finally comes up good. I mean, that's worse odds than is usually bandied about for 43 year old women as far as having chromosomal abnormalities goes. And I'm 39, so you'd think I should still be able to produce a good one somewhere.

The odds seem miserably slim, though.

But anyway, it has cemented my decision to go forward with CGH even if I only have a couple of embryos. There's a part of me that wants to know now if all those embryos really were abnormal or if it really is perhaps an implantation issue. And that of course means that I may well have already had my last embryo transfer. I may be done with that completely, because I am determined to do these last two cycles and then stop TTC'ing. I am determined not to say "oh just one more cycle" after that. More and more I stare down the end of this TTC road, trying to face up to it bravely, with squared shoulders. It is hard. It will be one of the hardest things I have ever done - walking away from this dream. I've decided that donor eggs or donor embryos or adoption are not for me at this point in my life. Maybe I'll come back in a few years, once I'm done with school and have switched careers, but there's a large part of me that doubts that that will happen. You see, we all have stopping points. Lines we will not cross. For most people, that line is somewhere around 3 IVFs with their own eggs - they move on to more of a sure thing after that. But for me, I think it is the loss of that genetic connection. My dream of motherhood has always been to have my own child. Yes, I know that is hopelessly politically uncorrect to say. An adoptive child IS your own child, because it was fated and all that jazz. But I hope you know what I am trying, clumsily, to say.

Perhaps those of you that have gone the DE or adoption route just shrug your shoulders in despair here, and think I am cutting off my nose to spite my face. That I will be missing out on all the joys of parenthood, which when you come down to it are all about raising a child and not the genetics. However, it seems to be a dirty secret in the IF community that some of us have come to realize that we want our own genetic children or nothing. Because, if I am being honest, this is where my head and heart are right now. I know a few others like me - perhaps we seek each other out on the message boards or in our clinic waiting rooms, because we do seem to be rare and it's such a wonderful connection to make. It's so emotionally satisfying to have your thoughts validated by someone else who thinks the same way. To know that you're not crazy (well, not completely batshit crazy, at least). It's almost electrifying, in fact, to sit in a cafe somewhere with someone who has also travelled across many many miles to go to a top clinic in a desperate bid to try again and to go "oh!" with that realization of a kindred spirit. OK, if I'm being honest I know three or four women who I class as being like me in this, all of whom read my blog (you know who you are), and I hope I am not putting words into anyone else's mouth or letting out anything that should not be shared. But you see how small a group? Three or four out of how many women I have come across in this journey? One (hopefully, god willing, hoping that nothing goes wrong) has had success on her 7th IVF, and one has stopped treatment (maybe temporarily, maybe not). The rest of us are still plodding along. There are others that I see out there in blog land that I make assumptions about, due to the numbers of cycles they have done, but I've never emailed them or spoken in person so I don't know for certain what they are thinking. I do take comfort in knowing that they are out there, though.

I don't know why I have drawn the line where I have, but it somehow feels right. At least, more right than any other choice. When I think about having a child using donor eggs I get a searing pain through my heart as if I've been stabbed. It is less painful to think about never having a child than using DE, which almost feels like a betrayal to my family in some bizarre way. Truly, I have thought long and hard about this. I did try to pick a donor, to really try the idea on for size. And...it is not for me. At least not now. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind later if circumstances and my thinking change.

But why does it feel like a dirty secret to make this choice to stop completely? Why do those of us that don't want to do DE or adoption feel marginalized and somehow less like real women or true mothers than those who would do it? It's not like we don't move heaven and earth to try to become pregnant. We are the ones doing the super-multiple numbers of IVFs. Interestingly, everyone that I have spoken to that takes this track seems to have some difficulty with adoption - maybe their DH is deemed too old, or in my case my single status and immigration status make it difficult, or maybe it's something else. So the choice comes down to DE or donor embryos or another cycle with our own eggs, and with doctors who say that it's worth trying again if we have the strength and are aware of our pathetically miserable chances of success, we forge on. I mean, until it becomes completely impossible and if you've got the means to keep going, why not? Other women move heaven and earth by grieving the loss of the genetic connection, squaring their shoulders and accepting DE or going through that home study and the endless reams of adoption paperwork. And they are, rightly, celebrated for coming to terms with the whole "parenting=child rearing not genetics" equation. Why then, when we are all busily also going to enormous lengths to fulfill our dreams, are we not celebrated for saying "enough is enough" when the time comes? I guess it's because nobody wants to admit that IF doesn't always have a happy ending. There's a big part of us all I think that wants to say that there can be a happy ending if we try hard enough, even if that means moving on to other methods of conception or parenting. But for me, I don't know if DE or adoption would truly make me happy. Wouldn't I always have a pang of grief that this was not my genetic child? Does that make me selfish? Or, is it less selfish of me to realize that I probably can't get past this and not inflict my less-than-overjoyed heart on a child who could be loved completely with a different parent who is less hung up on genetics than me? Isn't it better to say that I can attain a level of contentment with a child-free life, even if not truly happy, than to bring a child into the world without 100% joy?

The house next door

I think cetrotide is making me just as grouchy and ranty as lupron ever did.  Because here follows a rant.

My street of houses started off as little single-storey 50's ranch houses.  Since then, some of them have grown to two storeys, some have added on big side wings and some have stayed little.  Except for the house next door to mine.  Which not only had a big side wing added, but a three storey extension, just to be different.  But the addition wasn't designed terribly well - I mean, it looks very pretty from the outside but when I went for a look around I could tell that three of the rooms were pretty much unusable for anybody normal.  It was for sale when I bought my house, back when the market was hot.  It languished on the market for a year that I know of, and I don't know how long it was on the market before that.  And this was when people were falling over themselves to snap up houses as fast as possible.  All due to bad design.  

Eventually, the house sold, for much less than its exorbitant asking price.  But then we found out that the couple that bought it run a business letting out vacation homes.  They had at the time I think 5 vacation houses around the city, and this was going to be their biggest one.  So they spent a fortune putting in a swimming pool and adding fancy landscaping and furnishing the place.  My friends and neighbors and I would get together and exclaim in amazement about how anybody would want to come and vacation on a perfectly ordinary street, or pay the price this couple were asking for the house.  OK, so we're in Florida, but there's nothing nearby that would draw you in - it's not like it's on the beach or near a theme park or anything.  Just an ordinary street.

And mostly, our predictions have come true.  The house is empty 90% of the time which is lovely and quiet for me.  But surprisingly, some people obviously do pay the crazy prices to live in this house for a weekend, or a week, or two.  And when they do, like this week, it drives me nucking futs.  I mean, it's not that the people who rent the house are crazy loud.  They are just doing normal vacation things, like letting their kids play in the pool at all hours of the day.  Or sitting out on the patio grilling and talking and having fun.  The house is big enough that it attracts a group of people, so it's usually more than just one family unit at a time and they have lots of catching up to do.  The trouble being that if it was their own home a) they wouldn't be out there all the effing time, and b) they would modulate how noisy they are because they'd care about disturbing the neighbors.  I guess nobody cares about disturbing the neighbors when they're on vacation because they won't have to see them again.  But fer fuck's sake, it cuts right through me to have somebody else's kids screaming and cannonballing in the pool at 7am while I'm trying to face another day and another IVF cycle.

Gray

Why do we say we're feeling blue when we're sad or depressed? I've never quite understood it, because to me blue is a happy color. Even that deepest of midnight blue is happy, because to see it normally the sky has to be clear which usually means nice weather and twinkling stars. What's so bad about that? And nobody could call sky blue a sad color. Or Caribbean sea blue (or turquoise, I suppose). That's a pretty sweet sight too. Forget-me-knots or irises or plumbago are all some of my favorite flowers to look at. All blue. All pretty and happy.

So why blue? The only bad blue seems to be the blue of a bruise, but then bruises go through so many purples and yellows and even greens and grays that it seems a shame to pick blue out of the bunch for special treatment.

Now, brown, maybe. Gray, yes. Black, yes too. All colors that inspire less than happy emotions. But yet blue has stuck for some reason. And I don't particularly feel like it is the right color for the emotion.

Therefore, I am going to break from tradition. I'm feeling gray today. Just kind of blah. I know that I just need one good egg to form one good embryo and I will be good. It only takes one. But it seems that IVF is just filled with one disappointment after another for me. If it's not the antral count, it's the way the follicles are responding, or the fertilization report, or the development of the embryos. Or, and here's the biggie, the end result. I should know, going into these last cycles, that it's going to be more of the same. Even if the end result miraculously ends up being different, I shouldn't compare myself to previous cycles or everyone else who seems to get 20+ eggs each time. I know I shouldn't do that. And yet I do. I can't help myself. I can't help but look around and see how long and how hard my struggle has been and how easy some other women had it. And sometimes I can't help but wondering why life is so fucking unfair. And wishing it were different.

So there we are. The nurse confirmed that I was OK with yesterday's cetrotide shot being a bit late. I made sure not to forget this morning. And I will start my estrogen tonight for the estrogen priming part of the cycle. I will motor on. I will get through this sorry ass cycle somehow. And yes, I'm sure I'll get through the second cycle too. And then there'll be an end, one way or another. By the time I'm 40 later this year, there'll be an end to this madness. I hope, of course, that it ends well. But today I can't help but think that it won't.

Good news/bad news

The good news is that I have no cysts.

The bad news is that the tech only counted 7 antral follicles - 3 on the right and 4 on the left.

And of course, had to mention how gassy I was. I don't know what it is with this tech - if she's not telling me I'm gassy, she's telling me that my bowels are full. Enough already, I get it. Next time maybe I should just trump in her face and tell her that that should make the picture clearer.

Oh well, I guess I'll fall back to the old "quality not quantity" mantra. I won't pretend I'm not disappointed. In fact, I'm downright depressed about it, but maybe just maybe the week of estrogen priming that I'm about to do will allow a couple more to pop up (please?).

ETA: Crap, crap, crap. It's 10.53am and I just realized I didn't do my cetrotide shot this morning. My routine was all messed up because of going to the RE's, and I just forgot. Damn. OK, off home now.

ETA again: Managed to do the shot about 3.5 hours late. I've emailed the nurse just in case there's an issue (with being on only half the normal dose, I don't know if the timing is more critical than normal). But seriously, ugh. The day is not starting out well.

No cysts plskthx

There seems to be reduced lumpage since Friday.  I am injecting super sloooowly in the hopes that the med has a bit more time to dissipate and not form a lump.  It seems to be working.  My skin is still red and irritated for a while after the shot, but whatevs.

Tomorrow morning is the big "no cysts" check.  I am feeling fairly confident because I haven't actually ovulated since the end of November but after the shock of my 5th IVF getting postponed partly because of a big ole cyst, I am not counting my chickens.  My period is supposed to have arrived by then, and uh, well, it hasn't quite yet.  And yes, I did just have one.  Like, two weeks ago.  That's what comes of scheduling everybody together in a batch.  But again, whatevs.  I have had some spotting so hopefully everything will get its act in gear today.

It's so weird to think I haven't ovulated since November, by the way.  Since the last fresh IVF in fact.  There was the 2ww with attendant PIO shots, then straight on the BCP for the FET, and then that interminable period on lupron and estrogen patches, then the PIO shots.  And then straight on BCP for this cycle.  If there's any truth in LV Clinic's theory that suppressing the production of LH and male hormones helps with egg quality in oldies like me, then hopefully the fact that things have been suppressed for the entire 3 months that these have been developing will help things even more.  Maybe.  Hopefully.  We'll find out sometime in May, I guess, when the CGH results come through.

I'm very proud to say that I went out for a bike ride today.  Yay me!  I have been terrible about exercise since the last fresh IVF.  I just couldn't motivate myself to get out of bed in the mornings to go walking on a consistent basis.  But a group of us at work started walking up the stairs in our building, first once a day and lately it's been twice a day.  15 floors!  Twice a day!  Yes, it did take a while to actually be able to get to the top floor, but I can do it now.  And OK, so I'm not exactly sprinting up there nor am I able to hold a conversation for very long on the way up, but I'm proud of myself.  As with anything exercise-related, the more you do, the more you want to do, so it's been motivating me to add more exercise again.  So I am determined to do a bike ride once a week, and will get back to walking/jogging at some point soon(ish).

Oh, and I went to see Spamalot yesterday.  Lots of fun!  I know, I should be planning on going to shows when I'm in Vegas, not before.  But still.

Lump

I have a lump of cetrotide in my belly. Still. And it's now 4 hours since I did the shot. Earlier it was actually sticking out and red so I had a lopsided belly, but now I only feel it when I squidge the fat.

Weird.

IVF mishmash

I am definitely feeling more upbeat today than I was yesterday. And I was more upbeat yesterday than the day before. So that is all good, and no doubt due to halving (halfing?) the lupron dose and ending the BCP. I threw my lupron bottle into the trash today with a vengeance. I think if I had had a baseball bat handy, I'd have happily taken it out to the backyard and given it a good thrashing. How satisfying would that have been, to smash the cursed thing into smithereens. I am so glad to be done with it. I think the evil lupron is the source of most of my IVF angst, I really do.

Tomorrow it is on to a whole new drug (new for me, that is), cetrotide. Never taken it before, so hopefully it'll treat me better than 10 units of lupron does. I hope it'll be kind and gentle and understanding of my lady bits. Just enough suppression to prevent LH and FSH release, thanks, but not so much that I turn into a raging homicidal menopause cliché or a weeping hysteric. If you could just get that right, oh lovely cetrotide, I will be happy.

I spent a grand on two vials of sperm yesterday. A fucking grand! Two vials! Dayum, that's a good business to be in. I think I should change career track immediately and open a sperm bank.


I also checked out the new IVF stats (for 2006) on SART. My local clinic did 174 cycles on women my age in 2006. Four of which were me. Me! Little old me appearing in the IVF stats. How fucking depressing is that? I remember when I was checking the stats for the first time, back as a fresh-faced newbie, and thinking, wow these stats are old, man. These are from, like, years ago. Of course, this was back when you could only get the stats from the CDC which are a year behind SART, so the stats have jumped forward a year. But still. I never ever thought I'd still be trying while also contributing to the statistics. It's quite sobering really.

And finally, in this rather jumbled and disjointed post, I have come to realize that one of the perils of blogging through several IVFs is that when you feel that you just must have some information about something vitally important to do with IVF, you end up googling yourself half the time. I mean, surely I don't need to read what I wrote about something? Or do I? Do I just need to remind myself that, yes, I covered that topic a year ago so I shouldn't revisit it yet again. But then, there's that drive to be doing everything possible, to see if that one little tweak will make the difference for egg quality.

So here's the question of the day which I was googling and which I'd be grateful for your opinion on, internets - should one increase protein intake or not? There's a study that says a high protein diet is bad for egg quality. But then again, there's also other people that say you should take a protein shake, like whey protein, every day. And then again, that Harvard study on diet says that you should try to increase your percentage of plant-based proteins over animal-based proteins. As a vegetarian who doesn't always include a protein source at every meal, adding a protein shake would hardly take me into the high protein territory, or make me have too much animal-based protein compared to meat eaters. Then again, I didn't do protein shakes for my NY cycles and had good embryo quality. But I didn't do it for a couple of local cycles either and had crap embryo quality. On the third (fourth? fifth?) hand, isn't it all down to age and stim protocol anyway? Bleh.

My little calendar

A friend at work gave me one of those little tear-off calendars for Christmas. You know the type, where there's a sheet for each day, and a little cartoon or pithy saying on each sheet. Well, the one she gave me was called "Zen" and here's today's saying:

"When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength."

- Dalai Lama

Now, whether infertility really qualifies as a "real tragedy" or not is I suppose debatable. At times it certainly feels like it. But today I am quite grateful for my little Zen calendar keeping me on track. And thankful for my internet friends who let me know I'm not alone and that it's OK to be blue. In fact, I think I would be weird if I was really hopeful and excited after so many failures, so I have to remember that too. It is normal to go into IVF cycle #7 with more dread than anticipation.

In news of that other calendar, I took my last BCP yesterday (only 13 days!) and dropped my lupron dose down to 5 units this morning. So I hope that will help me feel more rosy in my outlook.

Blue

I'm feeling kinda blue at the moment.  I guess this is the effect that lupron is having this cycle.  Or maybe I'm just blue anyway.

I feel ridiculous for spending so much money on a long shot.  For spending the money that I could use to go to college for my second career and that I will now have to borrow.  For anxiously wanting to change jobs as soon as my g.reen card comes but worrying about whether I should stay just to get maternity benefits in case one of these final IVFs actually work.  And worrying about whether I'll get fired because my performance is so bad at work these days. And worrying about money in general.  I have been gaining weight again and am probably the biggest I've ever been.  I feel like this will impact the IVF and wish I could have got the situation under control.  I tried a swimsuit on yesterday thinking I might take one to Vegas, but oh Lord the sight of me in a swimsuit was just a rude awakening at how much weight I've gained so I'm scratching that idea. 

Mostly I just feel a fool for even doing more IVF cycles and I wish I could stop.  I feel stupid for signing up for the two cycle plan at LV clinic because it's just extra money to throw away.  I feel stupid for ever having any hope.  And then I look at other peoples babies and something inside me dies a little further.

So, there it is.  I'm feeling blue.  I will do the IVFs because I've paid for them.  There's no point backing out, but I am really hating the whole process at the moment.

Biss-feeney what?

Does anyone listen to The People's Pharmacy on NPR?  I had to set my alarm this morning to get up for my lupron shot (ugh) and they had a whole program on bisphenol-A so I ended up listening to it.  It scared the crap out of me.  And I thought I was doing great on the bisphenol-A score because I got my Sigg water bottle and wasn't using polycarbonate any more.  And I bought a bunch of pyrex containers for taking lunches to work or storing leftovers.  Except I use a lot of canned foods - beans and tomatoes mainly.  I eat quite a lot of beans and have always been too lazy to cook them from scratch.  AND I decided that in order to lose a bit of weight and save a bit of money I'd try to have soup for lunch a couple of times a week so just yesterday I bought 6 or 8 cans of soup (they were on special offer).  Of course, it turns out all the cans are lined with BPA and canned food is a big contributor to BPA intake.  Jesus effing hell.

I've been poisoning myself with BPA all this time!

Good god, people, no wonder infertility (and other diseases) are rampant.  The world is poisoning us.

So, that's that.  No more buying canned goods.  Except I have a shelf full of them in my kitchen cabinet which have to be used up.  Or I guess donated so some other unfortunate can poison themselves.  Maybe if I limit myself to 2 cans a week or something, and then stop if I ever get pregnant.  And no more heating plastics in the microwave, which I was sporadically being good on but I get lazy sometimes about moving my lunch from a plastic container to a ceramic bowl.  But I promise I will be vigilant from now on!

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Update on the 5 things I have to do this week: laundry is done, the blood draw is done, the lupron is started.  The dining table is still a disaster and the taxes are nowhere near done.  So guess what today's tasks are?  

But, actually, this was a pretty good meme because it is making think I have to get the shit actually done, rather than leaving the mail pile to grow until it covers the entire table!

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Update on the sudoku-mania: I have managed to solve the "medium" puzzles without guessing, so I've figured that out.  It always makes me feel good to get the hang of something.

I love lupron

No, I don't really. I just felt like writing it. As we all know, my enmity towards lupron runs deep.

I started lupron today. I used my old bottle left over from the FET, which I first started using on February 4th, if I remember rightly. Or maybe it was the 2nd. Whatever. So it's a tad past 28 days or 30 days or whatever it is that you're supposed to throw away vials that have been opened. But I just don't care. Given that I only used a few doses last time, and given that I'll only be on it for a week this time, I just didn't feel it was worth getting a whole new bottle. Perhaps I am bad, but really, I just don't see that it could have gone off too much. And it's been in the fridge the whole time, I promise. However, if I die from some godawful raging infection, it was my own fault, people.

But gawd, did I get a dull needle this morning. The damn thing just didn't want to go into my skin at all. And I realized that I have in fact come to dread sub-q shots and that IM shots have taken over as my preferred injection option. IM shots in the hip/butt using a nice fresh needle that didn't have to pierce the vial of juice just seem to hurt less than trying to force a blunt lupron needle into my gut. At least the follistim/gonal f injections have better needles, but the actual juice can sting and burn, so those are no fun either. It doesn't help that I can't seem to pinch an inch of spare skin as a big old lump of fat comes with it, so I'm probably not doing myself any favors on that score.

Joy.

In other joyful news, I just wasted an entire morning in mandatory marketing training. I love my job.

Blood draw #963

I finally went and did my blood draw for whatever test it is that LV Clinic wants as part of the CGH study that I'm doing. I think it's HLA something-something. I didn't pay much attention to be honest, as they're not actually testing it now but storing it for some future test. It has to be FedExed to some lab out in California, and the lab told me I'd have to get the blood drawn, and then take the vials myself to FedEx to ship it to them overnight. Which was kind of annoying, but oh well, what about this process isn't annoying?

So instead of going to the nice, luxury downtown blood draw place that has remarkably few people waiting in line and therefore generally gets me in and out within 20 minutes or so, I decided to go to the crappy, permanently crowded, guaranteed to have a pregnant woman doing a GTT, blood draw place that is nearer my house. Because the place nearer my house is also nearer to the FedEx office, and I didn't want to just leave my precious blood samples lying around in a drop box in the Florida heat so I figured a special trip was necessary. And may I just say that I also think it is crappy that I am now knowledgeable about every freakin' blood draw place in a 20-mile radius and have gone often enough that I have a favorite.

Anyway, off I went, and sat and waited, and waited, and waited some more. And did a bit more waiting, cursing myself for not having made an appointment. Eventually I got called and the clerk said "oh no, we don't give the blood back to patients, we'll get FedEx to pick it up from here." Which should have made me happy, as it was removal of an extra time-wasting step for me, but instead just made me curse my decision to go to that particular blood draw place, and not the luxury, no-waiting-around place. Without the pregnant women. Ah well, we live and learn.

So that's one item crossed off my "5 things I must do this week" list. Only 4 more to go.

Meme and mindless question

I've been tagged! Calliope tagged me on this one.

Step 1. Reference back to the blog that sent you.
Step 2. Make a list of 5 things that you have to get done this week, no matter how small.
Step 3. Get 2 other people off their asses to get their shit in order.

1. I must organize this weird blood draw for LV Clinic and ship it off by FedEx. I basically only have tomorrow left to get this done because I kept putting it off.
2. I should clean up the big pile of mail that is sprawling all over the dining table.
3. I have to start lupron on Friday.
4. I need to do laundry as I'm running out of clean clothes. Maybe I'll manage it tonight.
5. I really really must do my taxes this weekend as I need the refund. No more procrastinating!

But now I've listed them, does this mean I really have to do them? Even the taxes? Ugh.

I am tagging Bleu and Almamay.

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OK, changing the subject. Any Sudoku fans out there? I resisted Sudoku for a long, long time, because I tried playing a few times when it first came out and couldn't do it. But given that so many crossword fiends that I know are into it, I felt that I should try again. I can never resist a good crossword, so why not eh? And I'm getting better, but I'm playing it online with a nice little hint feature that tells you if you've got a full line right or wrong (so far I'm only at the "medium" level - I can do the "easy" level without hints and haven't tackled the "difficult" ones yet). And it seems that there comes a point in every game that I end up guessing, and make use of the hint feature to see which one is right. Usually it's not a huge guess - I know, for example, that the 4 and the 9 occupy two spots, but I don't know which one goes in which location. But it seems like I'm cheating, and if I was doing it in a newspaper I wouldn't have a hint available to me. Does there come a point where you don't have to guess any of the placements? Or are you supposed to guess, and then miraculously hold your guesses in your mind so you can work the rest of the puzzle around them? And if so, how do you do that? I can't remember a damn thing.

Surrounded by dorks

Got an email from a former colleague yesterday.  We haven't communicated in maybe 2 years.

The email said: "46XY.  That is all."

Yup, another pregnancy announcement.  Another bouncing baby boy.  Urgh.

Unwanted assvice

What does one do, internets, on receiving unwanted assvice? Usually I politely reply, thank them for their concern and point out that, why yes, I have heard of doing acupuncture with IVF, thankyouverymuch. And usually that stops that particular piece of assvice. 99.9% of assvice is usually driven by someone trying to help, after all.

But then, if they continue? And keep unintentionally rubbing your failures squarely in your face with every sentence? [At least, I hope they are doing it unintentionally.] Then what? Ignore them and hope they go away? Or post the entire conversation on your blog to prove to them and the world what an ass they are being? Trust me, I have thought about the latter option a lot over the last few days as a certain person has been sending me messages that are just plain annoying. But I have restrained myself (barely).

Anyway, I'd like to make an announcement - I KNOW about LV Clinic. I know about their reputation, their marketing tactics, all of that. I know. But I have already paid the cycle fee and I am going forward. I am well aware that I am taking a gamble, but it is my gamble to take. Trying to talk me out of it now is a tad late. I know that NY Clinic is stellar, but you know what, they didn't get me pregnant, and I have no real desire to just do the same old same old again. If it didn't work last time, why think it will work this time? So please don't try to change my mind. Don't send me horror stories or tell me what a mistake I'm making. Don't tell me of your NY successes and expect me to think that that'll happen to me. Please. Just. Don't.

So, moving right along. I am now working from the lovely cycle calendar that LV Clinic sent me. Eek! So soon! I have to say, I do like the little multi-colored calendar with each medication set out in its own little box, with its own color. And with a square next to each box for me to check off when I have taken the meds. I checked off my first little square last night. The two other clinic's calendars were not nearly so much fun or pretty. Can you believe I start lupron this week? It all seems a bit surreal to me, but I've always had one or two cycles break between cycles and that hasn't got me anywhere, so why not try going straight into one for a change?

Oh, and I got a baby shower invitation this morning for the gal I told you about in the last post. Nice.

Knocked up

I found out about an accidental pregnancy at work this week.  It's a woman I don't have much contact with, so I hadn't seen her other than sitting at her desk behind her computer screen for a few weeks but I saw her earlier this week walking around looking obviously pregnant and was actually just wistful rather than feeling like I'd been punched in the gut.  But then I heard the full tale when I went out to lunch with a few of the girls yesterday.

She's single and 37.  She was dating this guy, taking the Sea.sonale BCP and then they broke up.  She started thinking she was gaining weight, so she started dieting.  And it wasn't working, so she was restricting her food more and more.  Then of course the end of the year was approaching, and she was trying to find a new guy so she was out partying.  A lot.  She drank like a fish at our office holiday party.  She was smoking pot (not at the office party, you understand!), taking her BCP religiously and of course didn't have periods because it prevents them for months at a time, and she was taking one or two other prescription meds.  And drinking.  And the new year rolls around so she redoubles her diet efforts, but by this time various people were saying to her "are you sure you aren't pregnant?" because she was starting to really look it by this point.  Apparently she was persuaded to take a test and of course it was positive so she went off to the doctor in a panic.  And found out she was nearly 5 months pregnant.  She's now about 6 months.

Her age makes it a little hard to bear, of course, because I started trying to conceive earlier than that.  And to be reminded that it just happens for some people is an annoyance, but I'm surprised at my reaction because if this had happened a year ago it probably would have sent me into a tailspin of depression for a while.  But maybe partly I am OK because I wouldn't want to be her.  She is now left worrying about whether the baby has been damaged by what she was doing before she found out.  I would be too.  I would also be feeling a tremendous amount of guilt which is something I don't want to have during pregnancy or child rearing.  I can't imagine watching my child like a hawk for any sign of mental damage due to my partying, and of course you'd blame yourself for any slight thing too - even if they'd have got ADHD or whatever anyway, you'd always think "was it the drinking?"  The guilt would eat you up.  So I do feel bad for her too, especially as the guy doesn't want to know, and this was unplanned and a complete shock.  She must be reeling, poor thing.

So the girls at work were all talking and saying how it's a shame she found out too late to do the amnio or the other blood test they do, so she would know if the baby was harmed, and I refrained from pointing out that testing if all the chromosomes are there in the right amounts doesn't actually pick up on whether the baby is going to have fetal alcohol syndrome or other environmentally caused damage.  I am not supposed to be the expert on baby-related things so I try to keep my mouth shut, but of course having been trying to have one for over 3 years and having sat through my internet buddies' pregnancies I know more about the subject than most of them. 

Sigh.  When will it be my turn, oh universe?  How strange the world is that these things go on.  You and I, dear readers, struggle and struggle, eat the right things, do our best to be good girls and still have to get medical help.  Others, not so much, eh?  Not so much, indeed.

Mmm...chunky!

Chunky. That should be all that I'm going to say, but you know me. Never fear to tread where others might usefully decide it's all too much information. I've seen 'em before, the panicked posts about post FET whitish redish flesh chunks, especially after chemicals. But I didn't have a real chemical, just a maybe early chemical that never even made it to beta day. So I didn't expect the same myself and therefore I'm fairly confident that this is lining chunks and not baby chunks. But still. This isn't terribly normal or pleasant, and makes me wish for good old clots. At least those don't make you go WTF? Am I chumming the freakin' waters now?

Makes you wonder if the FET-built lining is the same as the regular stuff. But I guess lots of people DO have success with FET's so I suppose it works just the same.

IVF. Just a whole lotta fun. Or, a lorra lorra laffs, as Cilla would say (which reference you'll only recognize if you're English and of a certain age). Ahh, my sides ache from all the fun.

Day One

Finally the FET is done.  After stopping meds last Friday I have been waiting and waiting and...nothing.  And I had a deadline of tomorrow by which time I had to call Local Clinic if my period hadn't arrived, so they could do another beta to rule out an ectopic.  Which I knew I wouldn't have, so it would have annoyed me immensely to waste my time and no doubt money on that little errand.

If I can start the bcp tonight, I'll be on them for a grand total of 14 days.  The minimum that LV Clinic wants you on bcp is 10 days, so it was cutting it fine there.  I'd much rather have 14 days than 10 days for some reason.  10 days doesn't seem like it would do anything to control your hormones at all.  But whichever it is - holy crap my next IVF is coming up quickly!  

Cycle meds and detritus

...or, my own private pharmacy.

There's something of a rite of passage in the IVF blogging community.  The moment when that giant box o'meds arrives for someone's first IVF cycle, and they exclaim in awe at the sheer volume of stuff that they are going to have to figure out and shoot up.  And because it's a momentous occasion, they usually post a shot of all the meds.  I never did that because I didn't start blogging until IVF#3 and was too cheap to buy a digital camera for a couple more cycles.  [And don't tell anyone, but I secretly love those shots, because they remind me of that cycle-just-starting optimism and the almost Christmas Day-like joy and hope of opening up that big box for the first time.]

Well, today was meds delivery day.  And as I usually do while waiting for the FedEx truck, I sorted through all the detritus from prior cycles so I can throw away garbage, and to group together the same size syringes, needles, alcohol pads, leftover meds, etc, to organize everything.  And then decided that I may as well pose everything nicely on the bed for a commemorative photo once the new meds turned up to join their leetle friends.  Just so I can have one of those "wow, look at all my meds" photos too.  Except of course with several cycles worth of leftovers, I hope I win the "mine is bigger than yours" bragging contest.

Yes, I have a shit load of needles and syringes.  I refused delivery of needles and syringes on one cycle and in retrospect should have done it on this cycle too.  Yes, I have two full sharps container waiting to go to the county sharps exchange program.  I will get around to it at some point.  Yes, I have a ton of leftovers - I suppose that's what you get for going to three clinics and doing many different protocols so that a leftover ganirelix is just left languishing in the bottom of the meds box.  One day I hope to actually get pregnant so I can donate the leftovers to a fellow infertile rather than doggedly hanging on to them in the realization that I may just need them another time.  Yes, pretty much every single fertility med I can think of is included there, except I forgot the lupron bottle that was in the fridge so it didn't get included in the family photo.  Oh, and maybe bravelle, which I've never used.  Or the newer ones like endometrin.

Ain't they purty? Though I would be very very happy not to have any of them, so I'm not a very grateful owner, I admit.

Shopping

I've been shopping over the past couple of days - for sperm. I have used the same donor (the third that I have tried) for all my IVFs, mostly because of my little frozen embryo as I had this dream of actually having...gasp...siblings. I was hoping one of the fresh cycles would be successful, and then that the FET would be successful and I wouldn't have children with different baby daddies. But alas, 'twas not to be.

So now it's on to donor #4. It is beyond time to move on, as I should have moved on a long time ago, but my RE's reassured me that the sperm was not the problem, despite people I know in real life saying "are you sure the problem is with you and not the sperm?" Uh, pretty sure, thanks. Crap, old eggs = crap embryos. Studly young college student sperm does not equal crap embryos. At least choosing a donor is so much easier now. For that first one, I trawled through all the banks' online catalogs. I agonized over whether I wanted more of a math nerd or a jock, or whether I needed an all rounder. With musical ability to boot. Whether the donor would be wiling to be known or not. I debated with myself whether it was really so important that the donor should be over 6 feet tall, or whether I could accept someone in the 5'10" - 5'11'' range. I ordered many long profiles and baby photos. I struggled to find some sort of "connection" in what they'd written so that it would be someone I could like in real life, even though the donors are all college kids and therefore much younger than me. I really cared about this genetic material that would form half of my children.

This time, I went back to the same bank I have been using all along, plugged in the important criteria, pregnancy = yes, blood group = same as mine (haven't done this before, but am trying it just in case it helps immune factors), and then the optional criteria, race, two choices of hair textures and two choices of eye colors. And that was that. The optionals were really just to narrow the field and weren't anywhere near as important as on previous selections - I would have jettisoned any of them in a heartbeat if no-one suitable turned up. I very quickly whittled it down to two top contenders, bought their photos and long profiles et voilà - one was a fugly baby, sorry to say, so his long profile has never even been downloaded from the site. The other is the choice. Done. Donor #4 picked.

Now all I have to do is get the forms for shipping signed by LV Clinic and then fork over the cash.

Hello internets

I am here.  Not pregnant, but here nonetheless.  

First, as many of you will have guessed, because you know me oh so well, there was drinking on Friday.  Despite my protestations of not having time to wallow due to my next cycle being so soon, there was wallowing.  There was a whole bottle of red wine, some decadently fattening food, Leonard Cohen played rather too loudly, and some sobbing.  And then on Saturday morning I went out and bought pretty flowers for the garden and planted.  It was all quite nice and healing really.  And while I did have a coffee yesterday and too much dietary fat, because I couldn't quite break the cycle that quickly, today I am determined to get back to being saintly.

I am in a sort of stunned disbelief that here I am, moving on to another IVF.  Normal people would have stopped the insanity by now and moved on.  But then again, normal people get pregnant through having sex, or if that doesn't work, on IUI numbers 1 through, oh, 4 or 5.  Or at the very, very worse, IVF #1 or 2.  There are no words to describe the surreality of it being me - ME! - that is the barren one.  Isn't this shit supposed to happen to other people, not me?

Well, enough whining.  I have grown to hate whining.  At least infertility has given me that.  Half the time I listen to or read other people whining I think "puh-lease.  This is nothing.  Give me an effing break already."  And the other half I think "holy crap, this is devastating.  How petty MY little worries seem when compared to what this person is going through."  When you think of dead babies, and sick children, and cancer, and loss of loved ones, and war, and famine, and disability, and many other things too numerous to mention, my lot in life is not so insurmountable.  And if I never have a child, at least I can say I gave it my all.

I am moving on with the plans for IVF#7.  Or do I call it #8 because the FET counts as a cycle?  Seven seems a more palatable number somehow, so we'll stick with that for now.  I've booked my hotel, my flight and a rental car.  Today I will pay the cycle fee to LV clinic and order the meds.  And then I'll be set.  Somehow I have to fit two cycles into the next month, which is freaking me out a tad, but oh well.  I'm tempted to ask if I can just start the BCP now and not bleed at all from this last go-around, but I'm not sure if they'll let me do that.  

Yup

Beta is negative. Stop all meds.

The RE was nice on the phone though. He said he wished that he wasn't having to give me the same news yet again, and wished he could say my beta was as nice as my progesterone level. He said I could come in to talk about options if I wanted (presumably about DE) but wished me luck when I said I'd already got a cycle planned elsewhere.

My life sucks sometimes, it really does. But then, there's a part of me that feels bad for writing that because I do have many good things about my life so I should focus on them. At least I have the resources to try again.

Blood is drawn

I like the nice blood draw lady at my local RE's even-more-local-to-me satellite office. There are only two blood draw ladies that work there, and the main one, Debbie, is just lovely. She really cares about me, I feel, and we always have a lovely chat about how things are going with me, and what my plans are next and all that shit. And more importantly, she doesn't try to bullshit me like some of the other nurses when I walk in on 15DPO and say that I know it didn't work. She also said she'd seen it work for women after many many cycles, and she'd never tell anyone to just give up and stop trying. She thinks perseverance is key, if you CAN keep going, as many people can't.

So that's that. My blood is at the lab. The phone call will come some time after lunch. And then it is on to frantic planning for LV, presumably, unless a miracle occurs. A couple of the hotels I was considering are already booked up so I feel like I need to get on with it quickly.

No testing today

Thank you all for your kind words, but I know there's no hope for this cycle. I really felt pregnant up to Tuesday. And then Tuesday afternoon it started sliding away from me. And yesterday, during the day, I felt completely and utterly normal. Now, that could all be psychosomatic, I know, but I believe that I know what is going on. No more dizziness, no more fatigue, no more heartburn. No more anything. Something happened on Tuesday I think, and no more baby. Don't worry, I'm still jabbing 1.5" needles into my arse every day, and will continue until tomorrow when I get the beta result. I'm not doing anything rash. I just no longer feel that it's doing anything other than prolonging the inevitable. I'm not going to test again before the beta, though, as it just seems like a waste of money.

I was having a bit of a freak out yesterday, and at one point decided that I must stop TTC'ing now, this second, and absolutely not go and cycle in Las Vegas. Because, what's the point? Clearly my eggs are crap. And it will never work. And it's a whole lot of money just to blow up my vajayjay for nothing. But a work buddy talked me around. Strange, really, as she's also always the one telling me to be careful what I wish for and how babies are such hard work. But she knows that I'll regret it if I don't try it.

Part of my freakout was about money. You see, I want to remodel my house if I get pregnant, seeing as there's no actual bathtub in the house, and I have to go outside to use the laundry room. I always thought this would be a pain if I had a kid. Not to mention that I don't have a private bathroom so it'd be very nice to add one on to the house for many reasons. So I was freaking out about spending $20k+ on two cycles in Vegas, and then house remodeling money, and then quitting my job to go to acupuncture school + daycare. It cannot all be done. And with the housing market the way it is, I was worrying that I'd never be able to sell my house to move somewhere smaller and cheaper, and therefore couldn't free up the equity in it to help pay for everything. But, giving it some serious thought, I don't have to remodel the house. A baby can be bathed in the sink, and yes, it's a pain to go outside to do laundry in the rain, but a baby monitor would extend to the laundry room so it wouldn't be impossible to deal with. Babies can also go to in-home daycare which is cheaper than daycare centers. I also have to convince myself not to worry about what may never happen - if TTC'ing doesn't work, then financially going back to school is a lot easier to deal with. I can save like a crazy person between now and giving up work so that I have more of a cushion to work with when going to school. And I looked into a home equity line of credit, and my mortgage provider lets you just pay interest only for the first 10 years so I can easily do that too. Plus, student loans have to be available somewhere. I have also been putting money into a "new car" fund as mine's getting on a bit, but that can go into the college fund too - I'm sure the car will last a while longer and I can finance a newer one when I start work again.

So I'm throwing some of my energy into really delving into the budget and paring way back. I already fired the cleaning people. Yes, I had cut them down to once every 4 weeks but was still clinging on to that little luxury. Next to go is the yard guy. Then there's switching the alarm monitoring service, figuring out cost cutting with my email service, and I'm sure many other things. And every single budget cut is going straight into my savings account so I don't have a chance to get used to having extra money and therefore don't try to spend it. I may as well start living like a student now, and then it won't be such a shock when I actually do it.

At least doing something constructive stops me dwelling on things. But really I have no time to dwell anyway, not if I'm going to cycle in LV as quickly as I have planned.

And lest you think I'm handling all this wonderfully well, I managed to break down and cry in front of my boss yesterday over some stupid work matter, so that was classy. Now he thinks I'm a lunatic, I'm sure.

Bye Bye Baby

8dp5dt

Well, I went out and bought other tests, just for you guys. Fat lot of good it did me though, because the line is gone. Gone, gone, gone. Bye bye my precious baby.

7dp5dt

More torture.  When I got home from work yesterday, the test I did in the morning had faded so much it was very obviously fainter than the previous day's test.  So I despaired again, until I realized that the horizontal line had faded right along with the test line, so I tried to tell myself it was a dye issue.  And I was somewhat successful in that.  I also repeated Gabby's comments to myself like a mantra (thanks Gabby!) that I could be going from a beta of 10 to 15 or something like that, and still be OK.  And those betas are pretty damn hard for tests to pick up so I shouldn't be surprised if it's hard to see any difference in color.

I just wish I was one of those blissfully ignorant women who see a line and are immediately planning the nursery.  But of course infertility has ruined all that for me.  For all of us, really. And besides, those blissfully ignorant women are usually testing after their periods are already late, so they get nice thick dark lines to start out.  I should stop comparing myself and wishing that I was somebody else.  This is who I am, fragile, battered and on many occasions, hopeless.   But beta day is Friday, so I will know by then.  This particular torture will be over, and it will be on to other tortures.

And I mustn't forget that after last cycle I promised myself that I wouldn't use HPTs, that I'd wait until beta.  And then I decided that if the faint tests I have are the only evidence of a chemical pregnancy, then I'd rather see them and mourn my pregnancy than be in ignorance.  I don't know if that makes sense to anyone other than me, but I've had two documented chemicals and two other cycles where the HPTs also gave me faint positives that had already faded by beta time.  And as my clinic doesn't give a beta value below 5, I got negative betas and no indication of anything.  So were those two also chemical pregnancies or test malfunctions? I'll never know, of course, but if at the end of this process I never end up with a child, at least I can look back on potentially 4 chemical pregnancies and think of my plucky little embryos that tried hard.

OK, on to the tests.  Sorry I didn't explain them before.  These are +/- tests.  The control line is on the right, and the test is on the left.  If positive, it should show a nice "+" and if negative it should show a "-".  So the horizontal line is always there, and we're looking for a vertical line bisecting it to form the plus sign.   And I've taken the little test strips out of the cartridges because a) they dry quicker that way and b) they are easier to photograph.

The good news is that I'm getting identifiable lines quicker.  On Sunday it really didn't appear in the form of a line until about an hour after I peed on it - prior to that it was more a fuzzy accumulation of dye clustered around the place where the line would be.  Yesterday, I had an identifiable line within about 3 minutes.  Today it was within about 3 seconds.   So that's all good.  I just wish I had a nice dark line so that I could reassure myself.  I know, I know, always wanting what I can't have!

This is test 1 (Sunday, or 5dp5dt) at the top vs. test 3 (today, or 7dp5dt) at the bottom.  I think today's is darker!

6dp5dt

Just the same, really.  No darker test. In some lights yesterday's test looks marginally darker, in other lights today's test looks marginally darker. Back to despair.

The top test is yesterday's. the bottom one is today's.  This is probably the best shot that could be argued to show today's as darker, but it's really a marginal call.

Oh well.  Onwards, ever onwards.  I'll test again tomorrow, and beta is on Friday so I'll know for certain one way or another by the end of the week.

5dp5dt

Thank you, thank you, for keeping hope alive for me.  I think it started to wear off on me yesterday afternoon.

I had to nap yesterday because I was sleepy, and the boobs started to have the merest lightest little pains (that you'd absolutely ignore if you weren't obsessed).  So that was enough to rekindle the flame of hope a little.

Then overnight the boob pain increased, I had a few weird pains in my ovary region as I rolled over in bed, and I had the most vivid intense dream.  About a magical bus ride.  In my old college town.  Well, starting in my old college town but going up into the hills nearby.  And going through a town full of cheese displays (to which I said, ahh, this must be Wensleydale), and a decorated tunnel, and snow and bubbling streams, and a town full of hiking stores with all their backpacks displayed on the sidewalks, and a kitschy 50's style Elvis memorial, and lots of lovely houses that I thought I could live in once I move back there, and a lake with whipped up waves because of the wind (but even in the dream I remarked to myself how the waves didn't look real but looked like a pathetic special effect from Godzilla), and then a town with trees full of blinking lights which were V-shaped and may have been mechanical fake cicadas.  All for a fare of only 75p.  Sadly no sex, so there was no happy ending OMG-I-must-be-pregnant type of finish, although by the time we saw the twinkly lighted trees I was flirting with a nice Indian guy who was also on the bus.  Except he burned my finger accidentally with his cigarette. Perhaps it could have turned good if loud people hadn't gone past my window at 6.49am and woken me up.  Sigh.

Anyway, that's enough to keep me going with a little bit of hope for another few hours.  Bizarre dreams have to be a sign, right?

And if I'm owning up to things, I should say that I went out and bought HPTs yesterday, and tested this morning.  Of course it is negative, but that's not actually bumming me out as 10dpo is pretty damn early.  And if I squint and hold it justso under the light of a thousand suns, I can imagine where a line could possibly be.  So there's a part of me that thinks just maybe that is good enough for 10dpo and could possibly lead to something actually visible tomorrow.  No, you're not getting a photo, because it would be pure lily white and you'd all think I was nuts. Because of course after that dream I posted about none of you have already spotted the depths of my insanity, so therefore I must maintain the illusion.

ETA: OK, maybe a photo, as it dried a little darker once I took the case apart.  This is from 1.5 hrs after being peed on, so it's way outside the time limit.

4dp5dt

The despair is setting in, right on time.  Yesterday I was crampy.  I thought this was a great sign, and was very very hopeful that it was working.

Today I feel like a fool for thinking that.  Mostly because my boobs aren't doing anything different, and you know, the boobs never lie.  Why oh why do I do this to myself every single time at 9DPO or thereabouts?

Ridiculous.  

Positivity vs. Realism

Thank you for embryo-cheering and general stickety-stick vibes. Keep 'em coming, because they are sorely needed!

Quite strangely, I had my "chart review" yesterday with LV Clinic. Yes, I decided to sign up with them even though they may well be selling me the latest and greatest advertising fad. But they are saying that this new stim protocol could very well help me, and my old RE's tell me that different stim protocols don't have that much of an effect. So if LV Clinic is right, it could work, and if my old RE's are right, then the different stim protocol at least won't hurt anything. So I paid a fully-refundable deposit to secure my place in the March/April cycle, and they called while I was snoozing post-transfer on Tuesday to book a time to go over the medication protocol.

It is quite surreal trying to remain positive and think about my lovely little blastocyst, and you know, I really am hopeful that this time it could finally work. And yet having a consultation with an RE's office about the next cycle should this one not work. But I am a realist, and I do know that even a great-looking stat of 40% success means that more women fail than succeed. Oh, and LV Clinic knows all about the FET by the way, and have been super sweet and nice about wishing me luck and hoping that I don't need to go out to LV to cycle there. And we've arranged everything so I don't have to pay the cycle fee and sign up for real until after the beta for this cycle. But, they are realists too, so haven't questioned why I am signing up now. So, if it doesn't work I would be going straight on BCP on cycle day 1, and then starting lupron on March 7th. Which is not very far away at all really. Seems odd to just swing straight into a cycle, but why not? I am hoping that the fact that my hormones have been controlled since before Christmas might work in my favor, as if androgens are an issue of mine, then maybe this will have helped to limit them all through development of whatever eggs I am going to pop in March/April.

Anyway, that's what's up with me. Mostly I am feeling good and positive, but I am already hating people IRL who are telling me that I've got to remain positive when I even so much as hint that it might not work. So basically they're saying that my past failures are due to a lack of positive thinking and that anything less than full-on pollyanna-ish stars-in-my-eyes buying maternity clothes already super positive thinking is going to mean that this one won't work either. Well, bullshit to that. I think the fact that I'm still trying after all this time shows that I am a positive and hopeful person, and I bet each of those "friends" of mine would have given up long ago. I sincerely hope that I can prove them wrong this time so they can see that acknowledging that "it might not work" is not the absolutely worst thing I could say or do. And I sincerely hope that I can use the LV Clinic money for something much more rewarding and fun than yet another IVF cycle.

I had a transfer today!!

OMG, you guys, I had a transfer today!  I was unbelievably freakin' nervous because they never called to update me, so I had to try to convince myself that no news was good news.  It was hard, I tell ya.

But the lovely Stephanie drove me to the clinic, calming me down on the way and making me laugh.  It's good to have friends. :)  In fact, she's currently making me lunch so I'd better go soon.

The embryo survived though, people!  It looked beautiful, even if I do say so myself, and was a grade 3BB.  As it was a grade 3BB on freezing too, it didn't gain anything by being thawed early but obviously managed to catch up whatever grade it lost due to cell damage.

OK, off to eat, and then for a valium induced snooze!

Thaw day

Well, I didn't get my appointment time yesterday. They were supposed to leave a message on their patient voicemail system, and nada. So I made a couple of frantic phone calls saying that I need to schedule things, not to mention that I'm relying on a friend for a ride to the clinic and she needs to arrange her work schedule. And would they please effing call me back already.

I finally got a call back just now. At first the nurse seemed a bit incredulous that I hadn't got a message. And then later admitted that I was the third person today who's called saying they didn't get their instructions. Um, yeah. So clearly they need to fix the damn voicemail system then. Anyway, they want me there at 9.30am tomorrow, so I'm guessing that's for a 10.45 or 11am transfer time.

I asked when exactly they are starting the thaw, and she didn't know. But I'm assuming it's going to be some time this afternoon. I am all sorts of nervous, and my stomach is tied up in knots. I feel foolish that I have allowed myself to get hopeful and excited when this could so easily end in nothing today or tomorrow. But I suppose I have to try to keep the faith somehow.

ETA: 5.40pm. How late do embryologists work if they get to the office at 7.30-8am? No call yet, so is no news good news, or did they just forget me? Again. I suspect the latter.

T-2

OK, don't worry, you can come out of hiding now.  The happy mood has evaporated.  Well, I no longer hate the world, because of course I'm not on lupron any more.  But the extra estrogen has been fully metabolized so now I am back to normal and no more weird super cheeriness is going on.  Damn it.  They should bottle that stuff as a pick-me-up, they really should.

And of course I am starting to stress about the embryo not making it through the thaw.  I read of women thawing 4, 5 or even 6 to get one or two to transfer.  And I think of my one solitary little embryo and quail in fear for it.  I mean, most of the time I am thinking about it in a very binary fashion.  To me, it doesn't matter if the average thaw rate is 70% or 80% or 90%, because with only one to play with I'm either going to get 100% or 0%.  On/off.  Yes/no.  1/0.  I tell myself that if the embryo is good quality, it will make it.  And if it is bad quality, it isn't going to make it but wouldn't have resulted in a pregnancy anyway.  However, as usual, my heart and my head are not really coming to terms with this information in the same way.

It's not like I didn't go into this cycle with my eyes wide open.  I have known all along that there's a big chance of it not surviving.  I have tried to plan for it.  My head is being all very logical about the whole thing.  But I can't help myself getting excited and hopeful that if it does survive, this could be my best chance in a long time.  And because I have allowed myself to get excited and hopeful, the fall is going to be harder I think.  Which reminds me, I must get some alcohol in for Tuesday just so I can be ready.

Anyway, today I find out my appointment time for Tuesday, tomorrow afternoon is the big thaw, so it's the first opportunity for that dreaded call from the embryologist, closely followed by Tuesday morning when they take a look at it again.  I can feel the butterflies in my stomach start up already.

Happy happy joy joy

Dang, I have been in a good mood the last few days.

And I'm pretty certain that it's entirely due to the end of lupron and the extra estrogen I've been on. No wonder women were so unhappy when that study showed that hormone replacement therapy was dangerous. In fact, if it wasn't, I think I'd be urging everyone I know in peri menopause and later to get on some estrogen patches on the double. Or, should I say, on the quadruple, seeing as it's four patches a day that clearly does it for me.

ETA: Do you think we sweat more with more estrogen? It should be the other way around, right? I mean, hot flashes are cured by estrogen. But the last few days I have been thinking that my lovely natural deodorant that I recommended wasn't working for me any longer. I'll admit it, I was stanking by the end of the day. And now today, which has been pretty stressful and you would therefore think stinky, I'm still smelling sweet at 6pm. Well, if not sweet then at least I'm not Stinky McStinkypants. Or maybe it's the the lurve pheromones or something given off when your estrogen is high. Hmmm.

Happy fake ovulation day to me!

Break out the streamers and the party hats!!

No more lupron! 34 days of 10 units of pure "I hate the world" serum, and I am finally done. I did my last shot this morning and I am feeling pretty happy about that. I think that the four estrogen patches currently plastered all over my belly are also helping to overcome the hate-iness so I'm in quite a good mood today.

The bad news is that I start PIO tonight, and then have to do it twice a day for the next 4 days, but oh well, it's not as if my butt isn't well padded enough to deal with it.

Fone fun

Hehehe, I guess Local Clinic has realized just how complicated they made my instructions, as two different nurses have called me today asking if I have any questions about the instructions and whether they're clear or not. I have, I think, surprised them by just saying "yup, I'm fine, no questions - I'm a very good note taker, thanks". They seem somewhat incredulous that I can write out a long complicated list of which drug to take when without batting an eyelid, but I think they have forgotten the super fatness of my file and the fact that this is my seventh go-around at this sort of thing. You'd think they'd put a notation in the file telling them that if THEY have any questions, they should ask ME because I've probably been doing this stuff longer than they have.

I also had my "pre-op" call at which they asked all the usual pre-egg retrieval questions regarding anesthesia, my highest educational achievement, how I like to learn, whether I had any special religious or cultural needs, etc. I kid you not. I pointed out that whether or not I have a degree really has no bearing on a frozen embryo transfer, as they won't actually be doing any surgery on me. And nor should it have any bearing on the amount of anesthetic I receive or anything else to do with an actual egg retrieval. Which I. Am. Not. Doing. So it is just a complete waste of my time to ask me such questions.

At least this nurse laughed along with me at the ridiculousness of the questions, and said that they are required to ask them to keep up with the certification for their ambulatory surgery center, which apparently is what their IVF retrieval/transfer suite is rated as. I have had prior nurses take umbrage at me questioning why precisely they need to know what languages I speak other than English, as surely the point of the question is if I speak another language without also knowing English so that following directions would be difficult. Not whether I am competent at ordering lunch in Paris. I think if I have to go through this again I will throw Swahili in the mix, and ask for a Festivus rite to be performed over my uterus before we transfer any embryos back in there. You never know, that might be just the magic that is needed.

The ever moving transfer date

Well, well, well, my transfer date got moved AGAIN.

We started with Feb. 5th, then went to Feb. 7th, then the 14th and now...drumroll...the 12th. My estrogen was 207 today so they're ramping me up to 4 patches at once starting tonight and off we go. I do lupron up to Thursday morning, then on Thursday evening I start PIO and drop the patches back down to two at once. And I shall finally be done with the lupron! Hoorah. I have to do PIO twice a day up to transfer, and then switch to one PIO and one Crinone after transfer. Oh, and I start medrol and tetracycline on Thursday too. Then transfer on Tuesday.

And other more complicated instructions. In fact, I have several post-it notes filled with complicated notes, which are all compounded by switching lupron over from night time shots to morning shots, and by me only being on two patches right now instead of three as they thought. But instructions are boring, so blah blah blah to them.

Oh, and the other thing they told me today is that they're going to thaw the embryo on Monday night, to give it a bit of extra time to recover before the transfer time on Tuesday. So, internets, I have a favor to ask. Please could you beam lots of "survive the thaw" thoughts down to Florida on my behalf?

9.6

9.6mm was today's lining measurement. Not spectacular, but not bad at all really, especially as I haven't ramped up with the estrogen patches yet - I expect it'll get thicker as I do that. And thankfully better than last week. So, I'm hoping we will stick with the plan of Saturday being fake ovulation day, and the transfer on the 14th. But of course, I'll have to wait to hear from the nurse on my estrogen level and all that jazz.

Lupron public service announcement

So, having been a bit scientific and measured just how much is left in my old lupron bottle, I can tell you all that it is indeed overfilled by about 0.5ml. If you're reeeally really good with the needle, that means you can get 33 doses of 0.1ml or 10 units. But only if you're really good as that last 0.1ml was a bugger to get out, and sometimes during the last 10 days or so I was trying to only give myself a dose of 9.5 units or so in the hopes that the bottle would last, so I may have slightly underdosed on a few days. It'd be safer to count on 4 extra doses.

But anyway, now that I have a shiny new bottle I have switched over because, why not? Why not have shiny and new as opposed to old and dreggy? And, not that I'm counting or anything, but today is my 31st day on lupron. A whole frickin' month of pretty much hating the world. Ahh, the joys of infertility.

I have my ultrasound and bloodwork in the morning, so I'm hoping for good things and NO MORE DELAYS! Please, oh please!

Chewing the cud

I really shouldn't be loitering over my breakfast, posting, but here I am.  I have been ruminating on bitterness, anxiety and similar things.  I had a very disturbed night last night because I was dreaming anxiety dreams about work.  Well, technically it wasn't about work per se - I was on a spaceship and there were alarms going off and we'd crash landed, but we had to evacuate to safety.  But after a few go-arounds of forcing myself to wake up, going back to sleep and dreaming the same damn dream, it hit me that it was really about work.  I won't go into it here, but there's all sorts of crazy going on at work.  Mostly I just try to keep my head down but you can't help being sucked into the maelstrom of intrigue and speculation every now and then. 

Where was I?  Oh yes, in the moments when I was awake last night, trying not to dream the same dream again, I was ruminating over the FET/IVF anxiety and bitterness.  Specifically with the anxiety of trying to force Local Clinic to do the beta a day earlier than usual.  They do betas 12 days after transfer, which is utterly and ridiculously late.  I mean, it's not so bad with a 3 day transfer but it's just inhumane with a 5 day transfer.  And now with the transfer delay it is putting me in a squicky situation with regards to signing up for a fresh cycle at LV Clinic because the day I need to sign up on is now the day before my beta.  I mean, it doesn't really matter, as by 16DPO an HPT should damn well better be right, but I'd like to know for definite.  And I guess I could just postpone a month, but I get so worried about my declining egg quality that another month going by just seems like such a huge event that I don't want to even contemplate it.  Oh well, it's probably all academic, as the embryo probably won't survive the thaw and then I'll know the cycle outcome 12 days earlier.

Bitterness is something else I was ruminating on.  When I first went through this infertility nonsense, with the failed IVF and everything, I got bitter.  It was a white hot, sharp bitterness that seared my very soul every time I saw a baby or a pregnant woman, or heard of someone getting pregnant.  I hated it.  I am not naturally a bitter person or a pessimist (not that I'm naturally an optimist either, but that's probably a separate post).  I worked diligently at facing these bitter thoughts, of examining what was underneath them, at "getting over it".  And you know what?  I did.  I did "get over it".  I reached that mythical place of acceptance - not acceptance that it was never going to happen, you understand, but acceptance that this was my lot in life and that I would be strong enough to power through until I got what I wanted.  I was not a little smug in my secret heart of hearts.  I was evolved, I was healthy, I was the perfect Oprah vision of an infertile.

And then.  There were more IVF failures, the hepatitis C scare, more failures and chemical pregnancies.  And the growing realization that it probably never will happen.  That I'll probably never get what I want, even though I worked really hard at it.  And the bitterness slowly seeped back in.  But this time it is a smoldering, deep bitterness.  A bitterness at the very core of my soul.  A bitterness that pervades every moment of my life, every cell of my body.  A bitterness that is what's left from the burning embers of my hopes and dreams.  It's a different bitterness than I had before - this time I'm genuinely happy for other people if they get pregnant.  God, I wouldn't want them to go through this.  I'm happy that they are spared this particular brand of hell.  I don't even mind seeing babies or pregnant women so much, as they seem so far removed from me that it doesn't register as much as it used to.  I suppose I'm learning how to be a childless person, how to be the maiden aunt.  I look at childless people a lot more these days.  I notice them, I try to gauge if they carry a constant sadness around with them or if they are happy with their lot in life.  But the bitterness is there, and it's all about me, about me not getting what I wanted, about being denied, about being thwarted and stunted.  Oh, and I'm angry right along with the bitterness, I'm angry that my life has sunk to this, this desperate chase to have a child.  The money I have spent, the hours of anguish that I have wasted, the evenings I have stayed in nurturing my ovaries while my friends have gone out for cocktails and fun, the idiocy of McDonald's-eating meth-smoking* lazy ass morons getting to procreate while I sit in my organic, toxic free home waiting for a child to enlighten with trips to Europe, and reading of books, and gentle sweet accepting love.

I do try to accept that life is fundamentally unfair.  That I have plenty of good things that other people don't, and that just because I have been denied this one thing does not make my life crap.  But it's not shifting the bitterness or the anger.  I don't know if I even want to shift the bitterness, to be honest.  I'm trying to use it to propel my life in another direction, to view it as the defining time that will shape the second half of my life into something else.  Something better.  Something more tolerant and understanding of other peoples frailties and difficulties, and yes, their lazy ass moronic ways.  Something that can be about helping other people, and not just about a career and a nice house and exotic vacations and pretty children who go to the right college.  But damn, it is a painful transition to go through.

*Do you smoke meth?  Or do something else like snort it?  I am ignorant.

Le lupron est arrivée, part 2

I arrived home yesterday to a giant FedEx box with my lupron refill. Phew. Thank the lawd and all that. Though why they had to put it in a giant box, I'm not sure, as a small box would have done the trick just as well.

Two estrogen patches at a time seem to be doing the trick as far as holding my lining together. Phew. Thank the lawd and all that. It's now down to barely spotting, so that's reassuring. It's still annoying that I have to wait, but oh well, there's nothing I can do about it. Hopefully the next lining check will show plushy triple-layered goodness, ready and waiting for that perfectly thawed embryo.

So, things seem to be finally settling down on the FET front. However, also waiting for me when I got home was a bill from my old insurance company for my HSG. Which they billed me because, well, my policy was cancelled back in September and I had the HSG on January 2nd. Not unreasonable on their part, I think. But here's the kicker - I paid in full for the HSG as a "self-pay" patient because I know my insurance (new, old or otherwise) wouldn't pay for it. The hospital must have dug out my old insurance information from when I had my laparoscopy in 2005 and billed the insurance company. On top of me paying in full and all the paperwork being marked as "self-pay". Arseholes. So now a fight will no doubt ensue.