The newbie

I went for my baseline u/s today, even though Aunt Flo hasn't made her appearance yet. I guess normally the baseline would have been on Monday, and what with the holiday and all, it got switched. Seeing as all they are doing is checking for cysts, I guess the actual timing doesn't really matter all that much.

But oh dear oh dear oh dear. The normal u/s technician at Local Clinic was off today. Normally that would be a good thing, because she always has to comment about how gassy I am and tsk and tut like I deliberately filled up on beans just to annoy her. And I did have a nice meal of lentils and brown rice last night, so this could have been a day for plenty of gas-related discussion. But she got the day off. And they got a temp in. Who is a new u/s tech. And I don't mean new as in "new to them", I mean, new to the job. A fresh graduate. Doesn't know what the fuck she is doing new.

So, being as she was as slow as molasses, I didn't even get in to see her until about 10.10 this morning. When my appointment was for 8.30. And I'd had my blood drawn so long ago, the needle stick had healed and grown fresh skin. In fact, I think I acquired a couple more freckles on my arm as well, and a few extra wrinkles around my eyes, it took that long. So I was not in the best of moods when I got in there. Then she couldn't understand the whole "yes, I go to a different clinic, but I come here for local monitoring" concept, so that took some time to explain. Then she left the room while I went to pee, and left the wrong screen up on the computer, showing me everybody's full names, and breaking who knows how many HIPAA rules. (Or is it HIPPA? HIPPAA? Whatever). Then she didn't come back in the room in forevah. I felt like going out there in my paper drape and asking her to get the fuck on with it. I mean, I don't know how much privacy she thinks we need to get on the table, but the other tech just stays in the room so that she can get going as soon as we're ready. There is a changing area with a curtain, after all.

But we finally got started. And she wielded the u/s probe like a teenage boy wielding his dick. In other words, like she was a blind person operating a battering ram. Luckily she gooped it up with so much lube that it finally slid towards the right opening, although I admit to being worried for my urethra for a while there. And then there was silence. She rotated the wand around a bit, staring intently at the screen. More silence. More gyrations of the wand. After a few minutes of this, I offered to press down on my belly if that would help her find my ovary. She said she'd found the right one, but was trying to get a pretty picture. I felt like telling her that nobody's gotten a pretty ovary picture out of me yet, what with the gassiness, but I kept quiet. Another age went by. I again offered to press down on my belly. Stand on my head. Anything. And she finally started counting, and pressed the button to generate a print. I think she counted to 7, but it could have been 6. She certainly didn't share the information with me, but as it was all far too much to do without having to count semi out-loud, I was able to read her lips for the information.

Then we went searching for lefty. Infamous lefty. The ovary that has been left out of numerous ultrasounds. That was even left out of an entire egg retrieval because it had swum up to nestle somewhere near my diaphragm and the RE didn't have a needle long enough to reach it, even with a nurse pressing her full weight on my belly. So, newbie tech hunted for a while. She rotated that wand like she wanted to carve me a new va-jay-jay because mine wasn't quite big enough. I tried offering helpful hints like "it's high up and over to the left", and "let me just press down on my belly to move it for you", but she refused the belly push. Instead she got up, and said she was going to try to move my bowel out of the way, so started trying to almost grab a section of bowel and push it sideways. Needless to say, that didn't work. She asked if anyone had ever used a transabdominal ultrasound to find it. I said no. Cruelly. Well, it is true but I guess I could have told her that other techs have just given up and said that if I had a cyst they'd be able to see the ovary so they just hoped it was all fine. I just didn't trust her to make such a judgement call. She dithered over getting the transabdominal attachment out. There was more rotating of the wand. I think my poor vag got more action today than it has in a very long time. It was certainly getting sore by this point.

In the end I lost patience, and just used both hands and pressed down hard exactly where I know I need to press down to make the darn ovary show up. And what do you know? She was suddenly able to find it. Who'd have thought? That I could help her find my own ovary? She counted six follicles. No cysts.

Finally I was free to go. I had so much goop everywhere, including half way down my legs, that it took me an age to clean up. I checked out of the clinic at 10.30. Two freakin' hours!! I told the receptionist that the u/s tech really needs to speed up, and she chirpily told me that the tech was only here today. Great. So, the one day out of, what, 4 months, that I need an u/s, I get the freakin' newbie. On the only day that she's there.

So, anyway, that's that. I am good to go for this cycle, assuming my estrogen is nice and low. Yippee-ay-yay.

Lupron fueled rant #487

Sigh. Lupron. God, it turns me into an angry, angry lady. Thankfully, today is my last day, as I switch to Ganirelix tomorrow. But anyway, please humor me while I rant...

So what is it with companies that think their products are so effing valuable that they need to be signed for on delivery?? I order a lot of stuff from the internet because, well, I'm lazy. I don't particularly enjoy shopping unless it's for clothes. Or maybe perfume. The thought of traipsing through the mall or some big box store looking for some mundane kitchen appliance does not fill me with glee.

But while I will stay in and wait for a delivery of follistim, that's pretty much my limit. Everything else is just going to have to get left on my doorstep. And thankfully, nothing has gone missing so far in the 4+ years I have lived at my current house. I mean, an Amazon box was opened once, but I guess that could have happened accidentally in transit. Luckily for me it was a delivery of infertility books so if it was opened by thieves, I assume that they were too disappointed to even throw them around the yard in disgust.

It really narks me off, therefore, to get home to a freakin' FedEx sticky on my door saying that they couldn't deliver because my item needs a signature. It just means an extra day of waiting for the damn thing, because I always sign the little slip that says "just leave the effing thing on the doorstep, thanks" (or words to that effect). The Post Office is worse, because with their little slip it takes them an extra 2 or 3 days to redeliver as the first day after delivery they leave the box at the Post Office in case I want to go and pick it up. Uh, no, not driving to the Post Office and standing in line thanks.

Why oh why don't companies tell you in big letters on their website that they're going to send it signature required? Why don't they give you an opt-out function? I thought I had a general exemption filed with the delivery service (although that might have been UPS) to just leave stuff automatically, but I guess not. Effing hell.

I expect that the item they tried to deliver is a $150 CD containing Office for Mac - which is probably small enough to stick in the mailbox or could easily be partially hidden behind a plant pot. And the darn thing annoyed me to start with because there wasn't a downloadable version available. Ugh. Shoulda gone to the Mac store I guess.

The end of pills

Tonight I will take my last BCP. Possibly ever. I can't imagine myself ever using it again for contraception. Hahahaha, excuse me while I laugh maniacally at the thought of contraception. All there will be on that score will be disease-prevention methods until I can persuade any boyfriend to give TTC the old college try, after fully explaining the miserable odds of success and having "the talk" about what nasty microbes we might each be carrying. Assuming I manage to acquire a boyfriend before menopause, that is. Although I suppose the plan will be the same after menopause, but obviously there'll be no need to have the TTC/odds of success chitchat. I also can't imagine using it for regulating periods/acne/PMS/whatever. I think I'd rather go au naturel on that score from now on. I've taken more than enough hormones for a lifetime, so I would like to just let them do their own thing. Besides, now I'm hitting the big four-oh this year I figure I don't need the added blood clot risk. Besides besides, if one attends acupuncture school, presumably one figures out how to make oneself all healthy by sticking needles in oneself.

So, there we are. Unless I actually have normal embryos, and need to take BCP to get ready for the frozen transfer, I will be done with them.

It's crept up on me - just like starting lupron on Friday. I am just so not focussed on this IVF at all. In fact, that's kind of nice. Although I will probably forget a med one of these days and then have a panic attack, but assuming I can keep managing to check the calendar daily, I think I should be good. After all, one gets into an IVF routine, so a lot of it can go on auto pilot at this stage.

The lupron is going OK so far. I haven't wanted to kill anyone yet, so that's always a bonus. And I think I get to drop to a half dose tomorrow, so that's even better.

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Thanks for the comments and emails on loans, by the way. I have got it (mostly) straight in my head now, so that's one less thing to worry about. Phew.

Oh the maiden aunts

Has anybody been watching Cranford on PBS? The last episode was on yesterday. As usual with everything these days, it reduced me to tears. Even though it had a happy ending, overall. But it just broke my heart to see the women there who never managed to get married. Because even though in the early Victorian years they were starting to have some opportunities to make some money if they did not have "independent means", they were still severely limited. And of course they were very limited socially. So if you didn't manage to catch a husband, your life had to be lived on a very reduced scale. You weren't allowed to have too many aspirations in life, because life didn't very often provide opportunities. Even if you did marry, the chance was that your spouse would die early. Just so much sadness all around. And to see Judi Dench playing a spinster that had her chance of marriage taken away not once, but twice, and who ends up saying wistfully to a younger women how she feels when she sees women with babies. Ahh, it broke my heart.

In this day and age, we have an expectation that we can "have it all". Women like me think that we don't need to focus on marriage and babies at an early age. That we can go down to the sperm bank when we hit our late 30's and have that child after all. And then we get so beaten up inside when it doesn't work. Watching the historical fiction stuff makes me think about all those women through all the centuries. The maiden aunts. The ones that didn't manage to marry and who had to accept the very reduced circumstances that that brought to their lives. Did they feel any less deeply than us? Of course not. Did it matter to humanity that their genes were never added to the gene pool? Of course not. Did it matter to them? Of course it did, but they couldn't do anything about it.

Which of course brings me around to me again. As usual. It's all about me, after all! I have to accept that I am like those women. That my life is not as I wanted it to be, but I still have to stoically put on a brave face to the world and move forward as best I can. That I have to accept my lot in life and that I can't do anything about it. That I am a maiden aunt. Well, not so much of the "maiden" but unmarried. Barren. Alone. And will the rest of humanity go on with their lives around me? Of course. Will it matter that my genes aren't continued to the next generation? Of course not. Not in the grand scheme of things. It would have been nice. Boy, it would have been nice. But, getting back to the old "ego" discussion, I deserve what I want out of life no more than any of the millions who have come before me and who will come after me. This is my cross to bear. And in some bizarre way, thinking of all those women makes me feel less alone. Less like my life is spectacularly shit. More like it is just run-of-the-mill shit. It is what it is.

Changing the subject

So, tell me about student loans.  I know nothing.  

Back in the day, many moons ago in my home country, the government actually paid you to go to college.  They used to hand out "student grants". Can you believe it?  I mean, OK, it was means tested, so not everybody got paid money to live on, but everybody's tuition was free.  Not that a full student grant was quite enough to live on, but you could manage not to go into debt if you had a part time job as well.

And I gotta tell a story here about my dear old dad.  My dad was going through college at the same time I was - at night school.  He'd been doing it for quite a while before I went away to university, and finally graduated the year before I did.  (Go dad!!)  So, he had decided to become a teacher for his second career and he quit his first job at the start of summer.  In other words, he was technically unemployed for a while there.  And when we reapplied for financial aid, as you had to do every year (cos I had a partial student grant even when he was working), voila, unemployed dad = full grant for Sarah.  Then he started working for the local education authority, who were the very people that paid out the student grants, but they didn't actually notice until nearly a full academic year later that papa was no longer unemployed.  Now, OK, technically, you were supposed to tell them when you found work but he, uh, "forgot" to tell them on the basis that he thought they'd automatically know they were writing him a paycheck as well as giving his daughter a full grant.  Once they realized, of course they asked for most of the money back.  By which time, dad said that I'd spent all the money (true) and he couldn't afford to pay it all back at once (umm, perhaps not entirely true), so he'd have to set up a payment plan.  Which was his devious aim all along.  So pops, bless his scheming heart, managed to get a free loan.  And because he had kept paying me the money that he had paid me all along (parents were supposed to make up the difference between a partial student grant and a full grant), I was able to quit my part time job in my final year and concentrate on my drinking, er, studying.  Hehehe.   I did end up slightly in debt by the time I started work, but it wasn't anything major, and was mostly caused by me going off on vacation and buying new work clothes and shit like that.

Anyhoo.  Where was I?  Oh yes, are there any restrictions on what your student loan can be used for?  Say, hypothetically speaking, you have enough money for tuition and you might be able to get by on a combination of work and being a slumlord.  So you don't know if you'll need a loan during your first year.  Might, might not, depending on how that whole slumlord/renting a room out thing goes.  Should you apply for a loan in advance, and use it for the tuition on the basis that some loans are restricted and must be used for actual college expenses and not living expenses?  Or just wait and see what you need?  What's the difference between all these bewildering types of offerings?  Also, do you just keep getting new, small loans as you go along, so you end up with a bundle of loans?  Or do you look at the situation and work out that you'll need X thousands throughout the entire time you'll be studying, and apply for one loan in advance?  How does one sort out what the best option would be?  I've tried doing some googling, but am completely confused.  Especially as most 18-year old students don't have access to things like a home equity line of credit - if I got one of those, could that have better terms than a student loan?

Or, can you just point me towards a good website that explains the whole situation?

I hate NY Clinic, part 2

NY Clinic had me in tears this morning over this stupid billing stuff. They are just so uncaring and bureaucratic. Apparently I do owe the money. Great, just what I need right now when I'm completely panicked about money and trying to pay for this last cycle while in danger of being fired and trying to figure out how on earth I am going to pay for college. Overextended much? If they'd have effing taken the money in November I probably wouldn't have noticed it, and it wouldn't have caused me palpitations. But nooo, just send me random bills six months later, why don't you? Gah, I really shouldn't have signed up for this last cycle. I really shouldn't have.

It turns out that for my July cycle, they included the anesthesia fee in the IVF fee that I paid. They didn't in November. Why? I have no frickin' idea. Apparently the anesthesia fee is $750 on top of the hospital fee of $1005. I was not aware of the subtle difference, before because I am not up on the intricacies of how the damn hospital in NY is run. Which their billing department seem to think that all patients should know intimately and therefore immediately understand when they huff and sigh and say "that wasn't for anesthesia". Anyway, as to why this fee was not included when I paid the IVF cycle fee, they just said that I have the choice to pay in advance or have them try to claim from insurance. So they assume that I opted not to pay in advance. I do not recall being offered this choice, and if I was, I'd have certainly paid in advance because I know my insurance only too well. Likewise with the coculture fee. I'd rather get a reimbursement later than be stuck with a bill for an IVF cycle that failed. Maybe it'd be OK if I was now six months pregnant, but I'm not, and those bills really sting. Especially when they are uncaring about the whole thing.

Not that they explained the whole "choice" thing that well. I had to dig through my old receipts and put those together with the scant information that I was offered and figure it out for myself.

At least my insurance company did cover some of it. At least it's only about $300 and not the full $1000. At least there's that. And I may be able to figure out a way to stay in Vegas for the cycle without renting a car, so hopefully I can save the money that way. It'll involve lots of walking and shuttle bussing but I think I can do it.

Oh, and in other news, I started lupron this morning. That totally crept up on me. I was sitting there last night watching TV and I suddenly had a thought of "wait!! Lupron starts tomorrow!" I'd even told the acu earlier in the day that I start lupron on Friday but I think I was thinking that it was Tuesday or something, because Friday seemed to be a long way off and certainly not the next morning. So there we are. Now lupron on top of the other stresses.

ETA: Oh! I just realized that we get three paychecks this month. I'm paid every two weeks which means 26 paychecks a year, and means that two months out of the year I manage to get 3 paychecks. Which is awesome, but the months vary so I'm never quite sure when it is. Not only do I budget for 2 paychecks in a month, but some things they only take out of 24 paychecks so that 3rd check is actually bigger than normal. Can't remember what, but it might be the medical account thing and/or insurance stuff. Anyway, phew, phew, phew. The money might work out after all. That makes me feel so much better.

Panic at the disco

Still battling with the various NY billing departments. I suspect it'll be an ongoing theme of the next few months.

Anyhoo, my meds arrived yesterday. So I waited in for them, even though I am in SO much trouble at work for slacking off (that's a whole other post of its own but I'll save that for another day). I really shouldn't be staying home, but, you know, meds are important.

So they arrived at about 10.15. I ripped open the box and was horrified to find nine boxes of follistim. Nine. You see, thanks to some absolutely wonderful bloggging angels, I am the very proud and very thankful recipient of some donations, after my little whine fest the other week. I was able to get some follistim and ganirelix. And you know who you are ladies, but I feel the need to say THANK YOU again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. OK, so, while nine boxes was the original amount on the prescription, when I had ordered the meds, I'd specified the amount of follistim I needed, which was a lot less than nine, and the amount of ganirelix and told them that I didn't need any needles or syringes. This particular pharmacy charges for needles and syringes, and as I have enough to equip a small hospital, I didn't see the point of paying more money just to have exactly the right sized stuff that the RE thinks I need. Even if I have to use a 10ml syringe to measure out 0.2ml, or use an 18 guage mixing needle to stick myself with, I am going to save cash, damn it. Right, so, anyway, they got the ganirelix and needle/syringe instructions correct, but sent the full $4000+ amount of follistim. Despite me fucking triple checking with them on the phone, and sounding like an ass for being so paranoid. Wankers.

I have never dialed a phone so quick in my life.

I must admit, the girl on the other end of the phone was very nice, and didn't seem to mind that I was hyperventilating so much that I was practically heavy breathing. She apologized for the error and said she'd arrange for FedEx to come back and pick up the box, and I'd just have to repackage the follistim I didn't need, send it back and they'd credit me for it. Luckily I have so many cool packs in my freezer from previous IVF meds shipments that I have plenty on hand for just such emergencies. She put me on hold while she spoke to FedEx, and then came back and said they could only give me a four hour window of time in which they could come by the house. Now, in a normal, rational state of mind, I'd have just said "eff that, I'll drive to a FedEx dropoff location" but in my panicked state, all I could think about was getting fired for missing more work, and what was I going to do, oh woe is me. So I whined a bit about not having enough time to hang around the house for four hours and sounded suitably pathetic, until the girl on the phone said "hey, well, do you have time to drive to a FedEx dropoff location?"

Uh, duh. Yes!

So she gave me their FedEx account number, and I shot out the front door with the box o' repackaged meds under my arm so fast I'm lucky I was able to remember to grab my handbag on the way. And off it went. I was able to get to work by 11, so it wasn't so bad after all.

It's funny how if I buy a pair of shoes on the internet and they don't fit well that I slack so much that I never end up returning them and they spend their lives gathering dust in my closet before being donated to Goodwill. But an overcharge of $2500 or so puts a rocket under my arse like nobody's business.

I hate NY Clinic

Or, more to the point, I hate their billing department.

I haven't cycled there since November/December and yet I am still getting random bills.  Most of them marked as "overdue" when this is actually the first time I have received said bill and when I paid for the entire cycle in advance anyway.  It is seriously annoying me.  

The first bill I got was $150 for sperm storage.  I called them up and told them I didn't have any sperm left there in storage, so could they please tell me if the bill was for the months that I did have sperm there, or was for the next quarter in advance.  They said they bill in arrears for the storage, so it was for when I had sperm stored there.  So I owed the money.

I paid the $150.

A few weeks later I received a check back reimbursing me $150.  Apparently, no, you pay for storage up front, and I had already done so.  Funny that, seeing as you pay for absolutely everything they do up front, so it was never clear to me why only storage would be payable in arrears.

Fecking idiots.

Then I got a bill for $300 for a "sounding" in July.  I'd received this bill before.  A sounding is an u/s measurement of the ute, in preparation for transfer.  I'd had a sounding done by Dr. S., and paid $300 in advance for the privilege.  Then apparently Dr. C. had done one on me when I was having my ER.  I complained that it wasn't fair for me to have to pay twice to have the procedure done twice when if they'd looked in their file they'd have found the information they needed.  That it was clearly a mistake on Dr. C.'s part to have done it in the first place.  After some hemming and hawing, they said I didn't need to pay the bill.  I didn't get any reminders for 9 or so months, so I figured everything was hunky dory.  Then got an "overdue" bill.

I paid the $300 just to have an end to the matter because I didn't want to see anything from NY Clinic ever again.  I probably should have argued the point, but I just wanted some peace.

Then I got a bill for $117 for anesthesia, after they subtracted what my insurance paid for the ER in December.  This is after I paid $1005 in advance for the anesthesia.  So in fact, they should be crediting me whatever they got back from my insurance company, not billing me extra.

Then yesterday I got an "overdue" bill for $166 for endometrial sampling, for the coculture biopsy, after they subtracted what my insurance paid.  Again, I paid the full amount (in this case, $250) in advance. Again, they should be crediting me whatever they got back from my insurance company, not billing me extra.  Again, I never got a bill prior to this one, so marking it "overdue" is just overkill.

I am waiting for the billing department to get in (and to remove that annoying voicemail message of: please call back during normal business hours), and will be giving them a piece of my mind.

Seriously, I don't need this aggravation.  Not right now.  Not ever.

ETA: OK, so the anesthesiology billing department say that I never paid $1005.  I told them I have the receipt in my hand.  They said that I may have paid another department or for another service.  Nope, I say, it was specifically for anesthesiology.  They dispute the fact.  I am supposed to fax a copy of my receipt in, and they will look at it.  They refused to look anything up over the phone when I offered to read to them what the receipt said.  The receipt is pretty much identical to the one they DO have a record of, from July, down to service codes and everything.  But they won't believe me.  The RE billing department (because of course there isn't just one billing department) kept me on hold for an age then flipped me to voicemail.  I am waiting for a call back.

Fun times.

Grudgingly getting on the cycle again

I have finally ordered my meds. I have been such a slacker this time around. I think it was because if I spent money, it would be confirmation that I really was going to do this. This pointless, waste of money, bad idea, I should have stopped treatment already, cycle.

But if I am going to do it, I need to start lupron on Friday, so I thought it was about time I got off my arse and put my money where my mouth is.

I still haven't booked flights or the hotel yet. I did check some travel websites at the weekend, but I was paralyzed with indecision and disgust at spending the money, so I postponed it again.

Sigh.

Maybe this weekend...

Deserving / Not Deserving

You're right (of course), I should cut myself some slack. I have this need to be perfect, and have a horror of being called a bitter infertile. When I am a bitter infertile, of course (but working on the bitter part). So people should just have to deal with that.

But I wanted to mention the deserving / not deserving thing. Because I think it's important.

Having sat around the IF community for a while, I feel pretty safe in saying that babies are NOT given out according to who "deserves" to have them. You either get pregnant, or you don't. End of story. There is no angel in heaven with the title of "Baby Awarder" who will give or withhold depending on whether we have been good girls, or whether we need punishment. Besides, even if there were such an angel, our notions of who deserves what are very human and limited, and we can't possibly say how such rules should be structured. Just because on a mean day I might think that a crack whore doesn't deserve a baby doesn't make it so. Maybe she is a victim of her circumstances, maybe a baby will help her clean her act up. Maybe she really does deserve it, but I just can't see it.

Anyway, I have never thought that I don't deserve a baby. [Well, OK, there's been an occasional question in my mind.] I mostly suffer from the opposite problem. An ego that thinks that I DO damn well deserve to have a baby. Because you know, I'm nice. Mostly. I think: "Why her? Why not me? Why is life so unfair to me?"

But the problem all basically boils down to our thoughts about this. It is our thoughts that cause a lot of the suffering. If we think we deserve a baby, and then we don't get one, we suffer. If we don't get pregnant, and then think it must be because we don't deserve one, we suffer. If, on the other hand, we accept that this is somewhat random and there's no discernable reason, we only suffer with the not getting pregnant part. We don't additionally burden ourselves with thoughts of how unfair life/karma/God is.

I think that's what the quote I wrote out is trying to say. It's not that we will never suffer in our lives. We will. But if we can accept that life has suffering, and our particular burden is infertility, we actually suffer less than if we spend hours brooding on and wailing about unfairness and deserving. And all that. We take on one set of reasons for suffering (infertility) without adding another set of reasons (life is unfair, I deserve a baby OR I must be bad, I don't deserve a baby). By accepting that there is suffering (infertility) instead of thinking that my life should be a bed of roses and that I should never have any problems, I end up suffering less over all. I think. I think that's what he's trying to get at.

I hope that makes any sort of sense. So by trying to neither think I deserve a baby, nor think that I don't deserve a baby, but instead take out that whole "deserving" part of the equation and accept that life is just awful sometimes, it should be a tiny bit easier to take. That's what I'd like to get to, anyway.

Suffering / Mother's Day

There were tears yesterday.  And I thought I was doing so well.  But I found out about someone's pregnancy and this bitter voice in my head reared up immediately and said "must be nice to be fertile".  In a really not-very-pleasant way.  And then I immediately hated myself for being so catty, and asked myself if I couldn't even be happy for this person.  Sadly, the answer was no.  I can be glad that she got what she wanted.  I can be glad that she's spared the pain of infertility.  I can be glad that a child is going to a loving person where he/she will be wanted and loved.  Glad, yes.  But happy requires energy and I simply don't have that to give any more unless it is to one of my fellow strugglers.  And that's a sad state of affairs.  

My reaction is nothing to do with her personally.  She could be anybody.  It is all about me.  I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.  I am petty and too bound up in my own sadness and suffering to be able to spare someone a little bit of happiness at their good news.  I should be happy for her, I know this.  Nobody needs to remind me of that fact.  Hey, at least I can get as far as "glad".  But it is far from ideal.

I wish I could accept infertility and move on.  I wish I could be "at peace".  I wish I could accept that I have failed, even though I tried really freakin' hard.  I wish I could accept that I simply left it too late.  That I don't get to contribute to the gene pool.  That I don't get to be a mother to my own genetic child (even though the door is still open for motherhood by other means).  But it's so very painful and raw still that it can catch me unawares and leave me crying bitter tears at the slightest provocation.

I have been reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, and I'm wallowing in all the chapters on Ego.  I know it is my ego that thinks I deserve to have the same as so many other people.  That I deserve to be fertile.  That this should not have happened to me.  That I should not be suffering so.  I wish I was enlightened enough to not only see that intellectually, but to know it in my heart.  But my ego lives in my heart and it's very bruised and battered and full of pain. Especially today, on Mother's Day.   When I am left without my own mother, and also mourning the loss of my dream to become one myself.  My emotions are raw, and my unevolved, unenlightened self is finding it all hard.  So, I will leave you with an excerpt from the book in honor of Mother's Day.  I thought it was apt:

Conscious suffering

If you have young children, give them help, guidance, and protection to the best of your ability, but even more importantly, give them space - space to be.  They come into this word through you, but they are not "yours."  The belief "I know what's best for you" may be true when they are very young, but the older they get, the less true it becomes.  The more expectations you have of how their life should unfold, the more you are in your mind instead of being present for them.  Eventually, they will make mistakes, and they will experience some form of suffering, as all humans do.  In fact, they may be mistakes only from your perspective.  What to you is a mistake may be exactly what your children need to do or experience.  Give them as much help and guidance as you can, but realize that you may also at times have to allow them to make mistakes, especially as they begin to reach adulthood.  At times, you may have to allow them to suffer.  Suffering may come to them out of the blue or it may come as the consequence of their own mistakes.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could spare them from all suffering?  No, it wouldn't.  They would not evolve as human beings and would remain shallow, identified with the external form of things.  Suffering drives you deeper.  The paradox is that suffering is caused by identification with form and erodes identification with form.  A lot of it is caused by the ego, although eventually suffering destroys the ego - but not until you suffer consciously.

Humanity is destined to go beyond suffering, but not in the way the ego thinks.  One of the ego's many erroneous assumptions, one of its many deluded thoughts is "I should not have to suffer."  Sometimes the thought gets transferred to someone close to you: "My child should not have to suffer."  That thought itself lies at the root of suffering.  Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.  The man on the cross is an archetypal image.  He is every man and every woman.  As long as you resist suffering, it is a slow process because the resistance creates more ego to burn up.  When you accept suffering, however, there is an acceleration of that process which is brought about by the fact that you suffer consciously.  You can accept suffering for yourself, or you can accept it for someone else, such as your child or parent.  In the midst of conscious suffering, there is already the transmutation.  The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness.

The ego says, "I shouldn't have to suffer," and that thought makes you suffer so much more.  It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical.  The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.

My lovely new header

I hope you are all admiring my lovely new header.  It was put together by the fabulous Ms. Calliope based on my feeble instructions.  Which went along the lines of "um...I like lavender, I like your scrolly things, can we include a photo of bouganvilla from my yard but make it kind of triangular like a bough coming over.  And miffy!  We have to keep miffy."  Well, OK, there was more backwards and forwards stuff going on, particularly on colors, fonts and miffy placement.   But the backwards and forwards stuff was fun!

And then I put it into my blogger template, which wasn't hard to do at all.  It did require a little bit of messing around to get the placement just so, and to remove the old header image, but honestly it wasn't bad.  If you've been scared of tinkering (like I was) and not artistic at all (me again) and yet you've been wishing you could be a cool blogger with your own header (oh the green eyed jealousy I was harboring), see if Calliope can hook you up.  And you'll be helping her raise money for her FET with a very small and reasonable fee.

Question

Thanks for the congrats!!

Yay me! Still pretty happy over here.

So now I will have a ton of questions for you guys while I try to transition to a different lifestyle. The first one that is bothering me is: backpacks and laptops. While I'll still be working where I am now, of course, because I love my job and my employer, now that I am able to, I want to start attending college in the fall. I'll probably be commuting on the train, and then taking a short bus ride. Once there, it will not be a big campus that I'll have to walk around, as it's a very small place. Luckily the place is very accessible by public transport, which is quite unusual for this area. I suppose I might drive one or two days a week, depending on what other stuff I have to do or what the timetable is like, but as I can work on the train, that's the #1 choice.

The first time I went to college, I didn't have a computer. Not even a desktop computer. Yes, I am old. Does everybody take laptops to class these days? I guess I am worried because while I can touch type I find that if I am typing what I am being told, the topic completely bypasses my brain and goes straight to my fingers. So it might make more sense to take notes the old fashioned way, with a pen and paper, and transcribe them later. It will mean much more concise notes because I can type faster than I can write, but they'll be more stuck in my brain which is after all the important thing. And what if my bag gets lost/stolen/dropped with a laptop in it? I don't know if I'd be able to afford to replace the laptop.

Second, tell me about books. I look up on the interweb for suitable college backpacks, and they all go on about lugging a ton of books backwards and forwards. Do you really need to carry books everywhere? Last time I pretty much never needed to take any books with me - we were lectured at, wrote notes, and then only needed the books for working on assignments. Maybe that was a function of what I studied, but come to think of it, I didn't see other students lugging around an entire library on their backs so maybe it was a function of the UK system as opposed to the US system. In fact, I often went off to college with only a pen and a few sheets of paper in my pocket (and some coins for that pint of milk that used to suffice for lunch). Cause, you know, the whole pad of paper was, like, heavy, dude. And I'm not really a back packy person. I'm more of a messenger bag type person.

So, in other words, will I really need a big old backpack that can fit a laptop and lots of books? And more importantly, lunch. Let's be honest, transporting lunch is key! The reason I'm asking so far in advance is that I kind of want to get as much purchasing out of the way now, while I have any disposable income, and so I don't have to just grab the first thing I find in a panic. Maybe I can find something nice and eco-friendly, but they tend to be a bit more expensive than your average college student can afford. Otherwise I'd wait to see what I need. Gah, maybe I should wait anyway, and be the person that turns up on day 1 with a grocery bag. Or, more likely, some conference freebie messenger-type bag, as I have a couple of those somewhere. Maybe. Unless I gave them away.

Finally, some fucking GOOD NEWS for a change!

Awww, thanks for the comments, guys. You stayed for the snark? Sniff! I'm so proud! Although I think the blog has been pretty sappy and wishy washy lately, so I will try to improve on that.

I was going to blog today about dieticians and why I could never be one (my god, they need the patience of a frickin' SAINT - I could never say the same thing over and over and over again to try to get people to eat better). Or maybe about the idiots that run my local gas company (got a letter yesterday, dated 4 days previously that unless they heard from me within 5 days they would cut my gas supply off so they could do something with my meter). Or maybe I was going to do my semi-annual rant about why some Americans can't understand that they too have an accent (yes, you damn well DO. Everybody has an accent).

But instead....

some good news for once. Insanely awesome news. Absolutely wonderful, the best news I could hope for - short of getting knocked up - type of news. After nearly 8 years, I got approval to get me one of these!!!

I am freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Pulling away/changing

You know, I've meant to write for a while about how weird it is to be entering this time in my life. For over 3 and a half years I have been all about trying to conceive. I joined websites and boards. I chatted endlessly. I read blog after blog after blog. My entire life revolved around it. And before that, I always assumed I would have kids. I assumed it would be easy. I assumed that things would go according to plan. So I always had some interest in the whole baby/pregnancy/child-rearing stuff.

And now? Not so much. I didn't keep up my membership in one site because it cost money and was too depressing because (mostly) everyone else got knocked up. I deliberately pulled away from one board because it was too depressing that (mostly) everyone else got knocked up and I realized I didn't "fit" any more. Other things I haven't made a concious choice on, but I find that I have pulled away too. I just don't have the interest any more in IVF sites and in a lot of blogs that I used to read. Not that reading about other people's kids or pregnancies isn't fine and dandy in certain respects, but I find that I am casting about for things to occupy the rest of my life, which I am assuming will be child-free. And therefore I am losing interest in a lot of things that used to take up a lot of my time.

I think it's natural. That will not be my life any more. And (most of) your lives will be very different from mine. We may have a mild interest in keeping up with an old acquaintance or friend but we're not necessarily into the nitty gritty of every day happenings unless they are the same as ours.

But even though it's natural, it's hard to redefine myself outside of this sphere. What am I passionate about? What do I want to be involved in? I really can't see what the future is going to be. I don't even know myself a lot of the time. And I alternately stress myself out or get excited over going back to school. I mean, I'm going to be really hard up for money. For the first time in a very long time. Have I forgotten how to survive on not very much? Or can I still do it? Then there's the weight loss and getting fit aspect too. I mean, partly I assume that I'll be too poor to eat and the weight will just fall off, but I want to make sure I don't fall into the trap of eating cheap junk food just to fill myself up. I've been chatting on a weight loss board, but that's not going to be a permanent thing. Or maybe it will be, I don't know. Maybe I'll just be interested in general health and fitness.

So, anyway. I guess it'll all be easier once this final cycle is finally done, and once I've changed my work situation. I won't have time to dwell too much then, I guess, and I won't still be waiting to change my life, I'll be in the middle of it. Yes, I am assuming that the cycle won't work. I am doing it, but I have no hope. Ha, if it does work, I can be the poster child for "no, you don't need a positive attitude". But really, who would have any hope in my situation? Who would even be dumb enough to try one last time? Most everyone else would have moved on long ago. And then I look at my blog, which is purely an infertility blog and I wonder if it's worth keeping up, or whether I should morph it to something else. I'll probably keep writing, because I like to blurt out my feelings every now and then, and it gives me something to do. But how can I keep any sort of readership? All my readers (yes, all 5 of you) are infertility/TTC/SMC related people. Will anyone be interested in the ramblings of an impoverished acupuncture student? Can I get back to actually writing witty and interesting things like I used to try to do, instead of just morose thoughts on why my latest cycle failed?

I guess we'll see.

Shout out to Annie

annie_rattie, please see my comment below yours in the comments on the money thing post!

Smorgasboard

Random crap post:

*I grocery shopped at Walmart this weekend. I know, the evil empire. I shouldn't shop there because I am supporting their evil practices. But I am trying to rein in expenditure as much as possible, so bite me. Besides, they are trying to go green so I gave it a go. Anyway, Amy's personal frozen pizzas for $2.97! Score!

*I have lost 7 lbs since ER day, which was a month ago yesterday. Yay me. Eating 1700 calories a day rocks. You don't feel (too) deprived, yet you still lose weight. Obviously, though, if I was close to my goal weight I probably wouldn't lose much weight so I will have to drop down on the calorie intake eventually but I'll wait until I hit a plateau before doing that.

*I bought awesome new running shoes. I'll post a picture when I can. I am doing really well with my jogging, all thanks to the shoes.

*I've lost the damn battery recharger for my digital camera. Waaah. So no pictures of new shoes will be forthcoming just yet. I hope the recharger is around the house somewhere and I didn't leave it plugged in in a hotel room in Vegas or something.

*Please, if you're the praying kind, pray that I get my g..reen c..ard this week. Or else send warm fuzzy thoughts to the imm..igration service. There have been developments, and I'm so close I can almost taste the freedom. God, I hope it happens this week, otherwise I might go crazy.

*Still haven't booked the next Vegas trip. I am so reluctant with this damn cycle. I must force myself soon.

*Did anyone else watch Cranford on PBS last night (or earlier in the week depending on when your local station carried it)? LOVED it! Love, love, love. If you missed it, you can watch online here.

My joy thing

I'm fairly sick of reading myself whining, so I thought I would share with you all something that makes me happy.

It's a simple thing. A very simple thing. A cup of tea.

At my darkest hour during this infertility crap, yes, I considered suicide. I just didn't see the point to life if I couldn't be a mother. There didn't seem to be any worth in living a half-life. In not contributing to society in the way that I had always imagined. I just did not want to continue on. But I didn't do it, because that is not me. I could never ever cause that sort of pain to my family. And besides, I've been through other tough times before, and looking back, can't even remember what I was so down about. So I knew I would get through it somehow.

At the same time, a friend of mine was going through a happy phase. Which is weird, because I can usually count on him for a good hate session, especially over work. But there he was, all cheery, and I had a face as long as a horse's. So he kept on at me to tell him something that was good in my life, something I was grateful for, something I was happy with. And I just...couldn't. But, being as he was being all optimistic and in my face, he didn't accept no for an answer.

And eventually, I said that I'd found this tea that I really enjoy. It's an organic loose-leaf tea, so you have to spoon the leaves into the pot or brewing basket, and you get this wonderful smoky, oakey aroma. And then waiting for it to brew, and then drinking it just is a wonderful experience. And it was apparently one of the teas that was thrown in Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party which tickles my funny bone for some reason. You know, English person in America, still drinking the same old tea. So, I was happy about my tea. Hooray for Bohea!

That was it, that was all I was grateful for that day. But hey, it was a start, and it eventually enabled me to think of a few other things I was grateful for. And that helped to bring me out of my slump.

But now, every time I make my special tea, like today, it brings a big smile to my face, remembering that conversation and remembering that it is my happy tea. And that makes me happy all over again.

The money thing

I am tying myself up in knots over money these days, and I don't like it!

When I first starting this trying to conceive business, I'm not going to lie, I was quite comfortably off. I was rich, I suppose you could say, although not super rich. Not even alternative minimum tax rich. But I had more than enough for my needs. I have a well paying job, and I have always lived below my means and been a saver. Therefore, I had quite a large cushion of cash saved up. I imagined that cushion of cash enabling me to have an au pair for a year or two after the birth of my child. I imagined fully funding a pre-paid college fund. I imagined being able to take vacations to Europe as the child got older. I imagined buying a nice new, safe car like a Volvo. I imagined doing some work on the house to add on a bathroom. All of those things. I imagined not having to worry about money even though having a child on my own would be expensive.

And then the trying part of the trying to conceive thing got very...trying. Time dragged on. Procedures got more and more complicated and expenses piled up. I hated it, but what can you do? I was at least lucky enough to have savings. I didn't have to forego treatment because of a lack of money. I knew I was SO very lucky on that score. But now here I am. Over three years and so much money later I don't even want to admit it to you. I will own up to it being six figures. I am pretty much out of savings, although have a little bit scattered here and there. More importantly, infertility has changed me. I am not the same person as I used to be, and having a career is no longer so important. I want to be able to help others. I want to have balance and meaning in my life. So I hatched this crazy plan to go to acupuncture school. So I can help other infertile women NOT go through what I have gone through.

But the thing is, it's a three year full time program. And it's an hour away from where I live. And they say that classes could be any time Monday - Saturday because a lot of the faculty also have their own practices, so it's not even going to be easy to arrange part time work when I am attending school as I will only know right at the start of the semester what my schedule is going to be like. The property market has gone down the toilet, so I may not even be able to free up equity in my house while moving closer to school. I'm looking at a six figure student loan at this point, coincidentally or not about the same amount of money as I've paid out in infertility treatment. Hopefully my current employer will keep me on for 8 hours a week, which I can do mostly at home so I can fit in an hour or two here and there around classes. But I'm seriously stressed about the money situation. I have not been able to save much since deciding to do this, because a large chunk of my disposable cash goes towards feeding my flexible spending account. That I used to pay for an IVF cycle.

And then there's this final cycle. Which a large part of me thinks is completely pointless. But which I know I need to do for final closure and mental health reasons. I can't move on until I know that there's absolutely no hope left. There wasn't supposed to be a clinic fee because I paid for the two-cycle plan. But there is. Let's not use the words "bait and switch" but let's just say it crosses my mind on a regular basis. It is going to cost me about the same as an FET cycle. There is plane fare, hotel costs, rental car costs. And then the drugs. Oh my god, the drugs. I spoke to the pharmacy yesterday, and they told me that the follistim alone was going to be over $4000. Over $4000! I about had a heart attack. I mean, I knew that I was going to be taking a lot of stims, but criminy.

Thankfully, due to some blogging angels, after I sent one email whining about money to the biggest angel of them all, I may be getting some donations so I may have about half the follistim covered. And I thank you ALL from the bottom of my heart. Seriously, you have no idea (well, you probably do) how much this means to me.

And the RE says...

...that follistim is more potent than gonal-f, so I have been provided with the correct dosage of 625 iU. Hmmm. Well, I suppose all those times I was using both, I messed the dosing up. Oh well, it didn't seem to do any harm.

I don't really care, to be honest. At least a lower dose means a slight reduction in drug expenditure. And I don't think dosage matters at this point. I have no hope whatsoever about this cycle working, and am really resenting spending the money on it. I should have stopped by now. I mean, I shouldn't, because I would always think "what if" and so for my future mental health I know I need to do it. But I should have stopped. Because it isn't going to work and I am just throwing good money after bad.

Are gonal-f and follistim interchangeable?

Internet experts out there - what have you been told about gonal-f and follistim?

The reason I ask is that my medication calendar shows me as being on 625 units of follistim. I questioned it with the nurse, who told me that the dosing for follistim and gonal-f are different, and that 625 iU of follistim is equivalent to 750 iU of gonal-f.

I don't believe her. Previous RE's have said that they're completely interchangeable. In fact, I have been interchanging them for the last three cycles due to left overs, donations and uh, grey market purchases.

I've emailed the RE, as something doesn't seem right here. But in the meantime, what is your take on this? Are they one-for-one or different?

Trash thoughts

No, really, this post IS about trash.  Not trash as in trashy novels or trailer trash, but actual trash.

So, the last two Saturdays I have gone down to a little beach in my neighborhood and picked up trash.  I just couldn't bear to look at it any longer every time I walked past.  There used to be a volunteer beach cleanup the first Saturday of every month, but I don't know if they stopped doing it or if a particularly large amount of trash washed ashore recently.  It's not a fancy swimming beach or anything, as it's not on the ocean, so it isn't cleaned up by the county.  It's also not a sunbathing or swimming type beach, so I guess people don't care as much, but people do take their dogs and kids down there for a romp on the beach, surrounded by trash it seems.

Anyway, what is it with plastic drinking straws, America?  I think I've picked up dozens of drinking straws in the past two weeks.  I mean, we get drinking containers (which we also throw away indiscriminately) and then add additional plastic on top because why?  We are too lazy to wipe the top of the container?  Don't want to reapply our lipstick?  Don't want the ice to hit us in the nose?  I've been really disgusted with straws just from the sheer number I've been picking up, and I'm going to try hard not to use them again.

And, if you're having a day out on a boat, or anywhere really, please don't throw your plastic water bottles overboard.  I picked up 50 bottles and cans yesterday.  50!  I picked up 38 last week.  And both times I was only hampered by the size of the bags I took with me.  In fact, please stop using disposable plastic water bottles, and buy a refillable bottle for goodness' sake. Oh, and if you do have a disposable bottle that you kindly take home for recycling, (and thank you for that, by the way) please don't just toss the bottle cap away.  I think the bottle caps and the straws are vying with each other for "most discarded item of trash".

Sincerely,

Grumpy McTreehugger

The low country

Feeling very low today, and I don't even really know why. I guess it's to do with thinking about my final cycle and the end of three and a half years of my life. Well, longer than that really, as being a mother and even going down to the sperm bank to do it is something that I thought about for years before actually trying to do it. Decades in fact. It was always a comforting thought even as a younger adult - oh, if I'm not married by the time I'm xx, I'll get a kid using a turkey baster!

I suppose also it's bringing up all those old feelings of letting my family down by failing to have children. I still can't imagine telling my dad that I'm stopping treatment and he won't be a grandpa. It just hurts so much to think about the hopes and dreams he had, all coming to nothing.

I recently had some contacts from facebo.ok from my high school days too (well, one was from elementary school) and I guess finding out about their lives is also poignant. Oh sure, I seem to be the exotic one that has the fun life and got away from our crap home town. I have the best job. I live in sunny Florida, after all. But they have kids and I don't. And that will (very probably) always be the divider between me and most of the rest of the world. It's funny, really, they envy me for something I don't care about any more (the fancy job), and I envy them for something they probably don't think about (the ability to get knocked up). I suppose the grass is always greener, and all that.

Prepare for ovary blast off

So, I spoke to the RE. Half an hour late - what IS it with docs and their inability to stick to a schedule?

We went over the cycle, and we were both actually happy with how the cycle had gone. Apart from the end result, obviously. Stimulation was nice and even, I got a reasonable number of eggs, the embryos looked good and did well getting to blastocyst, blah blah blah. They just sucked, chromosomally speaking. He thinks it's totally possible I could get a normal one, though, so he thinks all hope is not lost. He said one woman on the cycle got pregnant from one embryo, so he only needs one good one to work with. So when he suggested not changing much, I wasn't surprised. And unlike on previous occasions when docs have suggested not changing things, I wasn't unhappy at that.

We are, however, going to change very minor things. For one, I am switching back from gonal-f to follistim. He said he has a marginal preference for follistim. I didn't tell him that I actually did half-and-half because I had some leftover follistim, but whatevs. Then I am going to be on their highest stim dose. And when I say highest stim dose, I mean a truly, phenomally giant amount of stims. Oh yes, your average RE may say that the absolute maximum dose of stims is 600 iu, usually formed of a maxium dose of follistim or gonal-f of 450 iu plus some menopur or repronex. They may say that you can't possibly go higher than this. But I shall. I shall be on 750 iu of follistim per day. If that doesn't blast my ovaries into submission, I don't know what will. And we'll add lh in increasing amounts as we get closer to trigger. I said "so, clearly you don't subscribe to the theory that increasing stim dosage is actually bad for egg quality then?" and he said "no, I think the body just wastes what it doesn't use". Okee-dokee.

And that's it. He said we may push trigger for an extra day. We may try to do two vials of lh on the last day of stims.

We briefly discussed doing CGH again, and I said to sign me up. I think I'd rather know in advance than go through the 2ww praying and hoping and dealing with progesterone issues.

All in all, it was pretty much what I expected. And that's fine by me.

Happy Earth Day!

What are YOU doing today?

Me, I took the bus in to work. I know, nothing terribly amazing about that, but it's something. I might even walk home if I feel energetic. Although it's a pretty long ass walk.

But, I guess walking home will give me time to ponder on the RE's suggestions for next cycle, which I should be learning at 5.30. I'm not expecting much, as actually I thought the protocol worked well. But I'll see what he has to say. I am not optimistic for the next cycle at all. "At all, at all" as I'm probably imagining Mrs. Doyle would have said in Father Ted. But I will go through the cycle just because I said I would, and I'm stubborn like that. "Ahh, go on! - Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on..."

Sorry, but god, I loved Father Ted. I think it somes up the ethos of the series to learn that "Dermot Morgan, who played the title role, died in 1998, aged 45, from a heart attack he suffered during a celebratory party the day after filming the final episode." Now, if there isn't a man who was enjoying life, I don't know what to say.

Ohh, wait, I've rambled off topic. So, Earth Day. Did you do anything? Change a lightbulb to CFL? Start a compost pile? Hang your laundry out to dry instead of using a dryer?

Infertility sucks ass

I'm sick of infertility. Sick of it. I want my life back. I want to stop worrying and stop weeping and living life stuck in this hell.

As a small example - yesterday I watched Dateline. They had a feature on toxic load, and tested two families - the treehugging vegetarians and a regular family. Not surprisingly, the treehuggers had fewer chemicals in their bodies, apart from Bisphenol A, where they had high loads, and way more than the average folk. Which was due to all the canned beans they eat, because even the cans of organic beans are lined with Bisphenol A-containing plastics. So of course I immediately started berating myself for being a treehugging vegetarian who eats canned beans, and wondering if that is the cause for my infertility. And it didn't matter that I didn't KNOW about this Bisphenol A in cans until a few weeks ago. I was still kicking myself. I hate that. I mean, I've chosen not to buy any more canned things, but am still going through my cupboards using them up. Then I was wondering if I should stop eating the canned beans until after the IVF or if that was just too much overkill. I mean, really, I was beating myself up when it wasn't my freakin' fault. But yet I can't stop, because there's always that little voice inside my head wondering WHY this has happened to me, and if there's anything I can do differently to fix the problem.

And then a little later I watched Masterpiece Theatre which was showing My Boy Jack. About Jack Kipling (ably played by Harry Potter, er sorry, Daniel Radcliffe) going off to war in WWI. Where he was killed at 18 years and 1 day old on his first day of warfare. And they had had a daughter who died when she was 7. I sobbed and sobbed at the thought of children dying. At war. At the thought of me never having children, of always having to live with that sorrow. And in general at just the crapness of life that you open your heart up so much and then have it ripped apart. I never used to be such a weeper but I am now and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.

So there you are. What should have been a mindless evening of TV watching yet again turned into a reminder of why I hate infertility.

Saturday

Thanks for the support, guys. It really does mean a lot.

I am slowly (I hope) climbing out of the pit. At least, I have no more ice cream or cheap wine in the house, and I don't intend to buy any today! Hopefully I can move forward.

I am interested in what the RE has to say on Tuesday. I am not sure there is much more we can do, protocol-wise. This WAS supposed to be the protocol that improved the quality of my eggs. And I guess the real issue is that it may have done that! I don't know just how bad my embryos were before! But anyway, it may simply be a numbers game, in that I may still have a normal one in there somewhere or I may not. Well, we'll see what he's got. I think I've been on every protocol that there is out there, apart from the mixed clomid or femara pus injectables one. At least with this RE I have some confidence that he will go through my file and think hard about what the best next step is, rather than just saying "well, we have a lot of success with the long lupron protocol, and it's a numbers game, so let's try that again." Which, for the record, is the advice from my RE at NY Clinic on what to do next. When I've done long lupron twice with no success.

I will do the CGH again, I think. As long as it's still free and they haven't kicked me out of the study for having the worst embryos they've ever seen. As shocking as these results were, it was easier than doing a transfer. I didn't spend two weeks praying over my embryos, trying valiantly to keep a positive attitude and imagine them dividing properly and implanting. I didn't have a photo. I mean, sure, I worried over them and was anxious, but was nowhere near as emotionally tied up with them as with a regular cycle. And besides, getting that answer sure tells you WHY it isn't working, instead of worrying about whether that time you lifted something heavy in the 2WW caused an issue.

As for whether this could be caused by the sperm donor - it's not. It's me. Three RE's have told me that it's due to egg quality. 80%+ of chromosomal abnormalities are caused by the eggs not the sperm, and that's presumably using regular guys' sperm, not carefully selected donors (allegedly only 5% of guys who apply to be donors are eventually selected). And, the clincher to the argument, I'm on my fourth donor. If it was the sperm's fault, I would have got knocked up on changing from the first to the second donor. Or, you know, the second to the third. The donors are all proven with other pregnancies - I made that a criteria I absolutely had to have after the first one (who is now also proven - he just wasn't at the time I bought the goods).

And donor eggs? Yeah, I already went through that. I am not going to use DE. At least, not at this time. I want my own genetically related child. And if this next cycle doesn't work, I am stopping TTC and going to live for a few years without infertility treatments looming over my head. I am going to go to acupuncture school and radically change my life. I'll probably move into a small downtown condo in the city where the acu school is located, so that'll be a change of scenery too. Cutie acu said he had a dream about me that I'd quit all the treatment, meet a nice guy and immediately become pregnant the old fashioned way. He's not the first person to tell me that, either. It's probably wishful thinking, but hey, wouldn't it be wonderful! At least I might have the opportunity to meet different men at acu school / in the condo building's gym and get to have some s-e-x! Anyway, if at the end of school, once I am actually earning some money again, I decide DE is right for me, I will pursue it at that point. That's the beauty of DE - I can do it when I'm 43/44 because time is not ticking away so urgently. Right now I am so beaten down with treatments that I think I'll probably just live child-free. But we'll see. Hey, if I manage to marry a US citizen, that opens up the option of international adoption, so there's another thought.

I guess this is all a long-winded way of saying that I know the odds of success on the next cycle are miserably low, but I'm going to do it anyway. With my eggs. I think I'll have plenty of closure if I get similarly bad CGH results, and will be able to walk away knowing that I tried everything.

Oh, and as for the badness of the results, I am less shocked by it now. Thinking about it, because most people either don't know their PGD or CGH results (maybe they are just told 3 abnormal + 2 normal and not the actual issues), or don't publicize them, and as most people don't even do PGD or CGH, we don't usually hear how abnormal the abnormal ones are. The only things we come across regularly are where women have a genetic test done on a miscarried fetus, where they will say it was trisomy 13 or whatever. So we come to expect that an abnormal embryo/fetus will only have one chromosome out of whack. But the ones that make it to 8 weeks and get miscarried are inherently stronger/better than the ones that don't implant. So it does make sense that the embryos that don't implant or which lead to chemical pregnancies have more than one chromosomal error. Not that I'm trying to put my results in a better light. They are terrible, I am well aware of that. But I am just not so shocked now that they each have multiple issues, as it does make some sort of logical sense.

Holy Fucking Crap

The RE just called with the CGH results. Yup, they did them within a week, which is amazingly fast.

ALL the embryos were hopelessly abnormal, each with multiple problems. In fact, just so you know how bad they are, here's the results:

Embryo 1: trisomy 1, 6, 8, 12, 18 (trisomy meaning 3 copies of the chromosome instead of 2).
Embryo 2: trisomy 1, 8, 16, 19, 20, + monosomy 18 (monosomy meaning 1 copy of the chromosome instead of 2).
Embryo 3: trisomy 12, 20, monosomy 2, 13.
Embryo 4: trisomy 4, 19.
Embryo 5: trisomy 1, 3, 19, monosomy 2.

Holy crap indeed. No wonder I wasn't getting pregnant. These are appallingly bad results, although I did ask them if they were spectacularly bad and he said that they are finding that where embryos are abnormal there are usually multiple issues with them. So he didn't seem that surprised.

I am seriously bummed. I mean, god, I expected maybe a trisomy 21 or something but having one embryo with 6 chrosomomal errors out of 23, and having the best one with 2 errors is quite sobering.

Needless to say, he suggested donor egg.

I said I'd signed up for the two cycle plan, and I intended to do both of them with my own eggs, then would stop. So he's going to think up what we can do differently with the drug protocol, and we will talk again on Tuesday to see what ideas he has.

Fuck.

But hey, at least CGH did its job, right? I got some answers. Boy, did I get some answers.

13dpER

One week since freeze day. Sigh. I wonder if this really was the right decision? I'd have a beta result by now if I'd just transferred all the embryos, as LV Clinic does early betas. In fact, I'd be doing my second beta today. So I'd know what the score was and wouldn't have to wait until frickin' June.

But then again, if it was a BFN I'd have no additional information over previous cycles and still would have no clue whether the problem was my eggs or my uterus. So I do know that doing the CGH was the right choice. But you can't help but wonder sometimes.

Sigh. Not doing so well with the waiting. I feel so anxious to know about the embryos, which surprises me. I thought I'd be doing better than this. I am just as stuck and obssessed as with every IVF cycle, so there seems no escape from the constant worrying. Hopefully I'll be able to relax once I get the CGH results and just focus on the next cycle but this is just more of the same old torture right now.

In other news, I am down 3lbs since ER day. Which as we know is mostly water weight from the meds. But hey, not bad! The food and exercise stuff is going well and I am determined to be in good shape for June, whatever I end up doing.

Waiting, waiting

OK, you convinced me, I'll stay on the BCP continuously. The only reason that I'm worried is that for one cycle I was on them for 6 weeks, and had a much lower response (5 eggs) than the prior cycle (14 eggs) even though the protocol was the same. As the only difference had been double the length of time on BCP, I always blamed the BCP. Hence my worries about oversuppression. Although I was taking DHEA thinking it would give me like 20 eggs, so maybe that was just slowly damaging everything after the first initial success of getting 14 eggs after a cancellation. But going on and going off BCP probably will mess my system up worse than staying on for 4 weeks. And besides, who wants to be bleeding that often? But I will just hope for the best.

Oh, if only I could just blithely assume that I will be doing a transfer and not worry about my ovaries being oversuppressed! How nice that would be. But that would require removing about 3 years of infertility hell, and we all know that that can never be erased! God, I find myself becoming more and more anxious about the embryos. I couldn't sleep last night worrying and hoping I'd have 2 normals. Yes, lets face it, I've already ratcheted up my hopes beyond 1 normal to wanting 2. I can't stop myself! I keep thinking I'd have a much better chance of this working if I had 2 normals to transfer. But then also, what if I transfer 2 normals and it STILL doesn't work? I think the depression might just tip me over the edge at that point, although I guess CGH will have done its job in identifying an implantation issue.

I keep hoping maybe the CGH lab isn't moving and my testing will proceed without any moving delays. But even though it is a "separate" lab from LV Clinic, it is owned by them, and is in the same building. So I assume that they will be moving right along with LV Clinic, and I won't find out about the embryos for a while yet.

Sigh. Not so good at waiting.

Taxing

Taxes are done. Phew! I filed this morning. I am getting a giant refund, even bigger than last year's giant refund, despite the fact that I claimed less in medical expenses. Not quite sure how I got a bigger refund, but I'm not going to say no to it. The medical expenses annoyed me, of course, partly because of the hours of painstaking work tracking everything down. But that's my own fault due to a lack of organization. Actually, the fact that they were lower ALSO annoyed me, because it reminded me that after a year with NY Clinic I only managed to do 2 IVFs. I mean, OK, one of those wasn't their fault, due to the giganto cyst and Hep C nonsense, but still. In the previous year I managed to do 4 IVFs with Local Clinic. So, it's irritating and makes me wonder if I missed the golden egg during one of those periods that NY Clinic closed its lab down. I am having some anger issues with NY Clinic! And I'm annoyed with myself that it took me so freakin' long to get the taxes filed, when I was actually owed money. AND you can only claim $50 a night for hotel expenses when you travel for medical treatment, which is not exactly much when compared to NY prices. But, whatever, it's water under the bridge.

I emailed the nurse at LV Clinic yesterday, to ask about possibly transferring in May if I have a normal embryo or two. And unfortunately, I already missed the window for getting into the May cycle. :( So it looks like the next time I will be going to Vegas will be in mid-June. And unfortunately also, in order to make the cutoff for the June cycle, I have to start BCP right away, so I won't get to have an unmedicated rest cycle. Pooey. But, I can delay until cycle day 5 at the latest, so that's when I'm going to start them. If I take them continuously I will have to be on them for about 4 weeks, so I hope that doesn't oversuppress me if I end up doing a fresh cycle. Eeek! They said that I have to start BCP by May 6th at the latest for the June cycle, and if I have a natural cycle there's no way it'll be over with by then. There's a part of me that's toying with the idea of taking them for two weeks, to May 1st, then stopping for 5 days to have a withdrawal bleed, and then starting up again on May 6th and taking them for 10 days before having another withdrawal bleed. Does that sound like a good plan, or should I just take them continuously and not have to bleed so much? Decisions, decisions...

Idiot!

So where was I? Oh yeah, the lack of progesterone doesn't affect me, rock star uterus, normal luteal phase, blah blah blah. D'oh! I am an idiot. Of course doing an IVF cycle without progesterone is going to affect things! And I should know this, because I've done one before. On my first IVF, which was cancelled at trigger and converted to IUI, I didn't take any progesterone. I guess the RE had given it up as a foregone conclusion by that point, although I always thought he should have encouraged me to use the progesterone just in case the IUI might work. Of course, it was then my 9th IUI so I suppose he knew with a fairly high degree of certainty that nothing was going to happen. But still. No progesterone. I didn't have the mechanical damage caused by egg retrieval, but had the hormonal damage caused by lupron so I did not have a normal luteal phase. I had spotting on 9DPO and my period arrived on 10DPO.

So why would I think this time would be any different?

Because I'm an idiot, that's why. This time was no different. Today is 10 days post egg retrieval and the old hag is here. Right on time.

Other reasons for remembering I'm an idiot:

LV Clinic is moving to a new location at the end of this week. Including moving my embryos. So if they have any sense, they won't be doing any CGH testing for the next 2 weeks, and I should not therefore expect my results to come out within 2 weeks.

It's April 14th and I still haven't filed my taxes. I spent frickin' hours yesterday on my medical expenses, and am still nowhere near complete. Why do I think stuffing receipts in random locations throughout the house is a good filing system?

Message from cloud 8

Thanks guys! I still can't quite believe it myself. Five blasts in the freezer! It's more than I ever thought possible. Even if I'd have gotten 10 embryos I think I still never would have imagined 5 of them making it to the freezer, so to have 5 out of 5 is amazing. I am in a happy fog of...happiness.

But don't go getting all cocky on my behalf, now, and start thinking I might have 3 or 4 good ones. It's still quite likely that none are chromosomally normal, especially with my history. That's why we're doing the CGH after all, to get answers once and for all on my embryos. However, the good news has definitely increased my hope that I'll have one good one. And enabled me to have a little spark of hope for two. Not that I think two is necessarily achievable, but you know, one likes to have wild dreams every now and then. Can you imagine? Two normals? I might actually have a chance of....shhhhh....getting pregnant!

It seems like the most recent CGH results have come out in 2 and a half weeks (thanks Staci and Charlene!) so hopefully it won't be as long of a wait as they are saying. But, whatever, I can wait it out. I wonder if I'll be able to transfer in May if that's the case? I'll have to email the nurse about that. I could go to Vegas in May for an FET, because it'd only take 2 or 3 days presumably, and I can lie to my boss and say I'm going to Orlando to see friends over from England or something, but I don't think I can make it in May for a fresh cycle, because I don't think I can take so much time off work that quickly. So I guess I could start BCP as soon as the crimson tide shows up in preparation for either cycle, hoping for a May transfer, but I'd have to stop them again if there were no normals. I wonder if that would mess things up.

Talking of the old hag, I am not on any progesterone so I thought she'd be here by now. I guess I bought in to the theory that IVF damages the corpus lutea so much that they can't produce progesterone. I got one shot of progesterone right after ER and that was that, so I guess I must be producing enough progesterone on my own to sustain my usual luteal phase. The nurses made a big fuss of wanting to give me the progesterone while I was still coming around from the anesthesia so I wouldn't feel it, and then they couldn't for some reason - I guess they got busy and I woke up pretty fast. So then they were all apologetic about having to give it to me when I was...gasp...awake! I was like, please, I've given it to myself six bazillion times, I really don't mind.

And, I gotta say, I am quite liking this whole "no transfer" thing. I feel like I've already recovered from the IVF drugs and like I'm totally normal again. In fact, I was pretty much normal by Sunday or Monday. It's so nice not to have all the continuing side effects and stress post-transfer, trying to keep up being perfect and thinking positively so the embryos will implant, and all that jazz. It's nice to just focus on me, and trying to get healthy again, but being able to allow myself a cup of coffee or glass of wine at the same time.

Anyway, have a great weekend, everyone! Guess what I'm doing this weekend? That I faithfully promised to do a month ago? Yup, my taxes. Ya boo sucks. Somehow adding up those medical expenses is not something I'm looking forward to. I wonder why?!

OMG! OMG! OMG!

They froze all FOUR other embryos!

Yippee! It's the best news I could have hoped for. I asked if that meant all four expanded, and the RE said that two weren't quite completely expanded, but they were almost there so they decided to go ahead and freeze. He said three of them look good.

So that means all 5 made it, because one was frozen yesterday, and they will run the CGH assay on all 5 embryos. He said the results will probably take about 4 weeks, although I notice some people have been getting their results quicker.

OMG!

The call!

The headline news is that 1 embryo is ready to freeze today, and 2 may be ready tomorrow.

So far, so good. Then I asked how they compared to day 3. Apparently on day 3 I had:

Two 9-celled embryos.
Two 6-celled embryos.
One 5-celled embryo.

He said that one of the 9 cells is the one that is good to go today. The other 9-cell is a non-expanded grade 2 blastocyst and is one of the ones that may be good to go tomorrow. I guess once it expands. (?) Then he said that the one that was 5 cells is the other one that may be good tomorrow, and is a compacting embryo so isn't quite to blast yet. So I said "oh, so the 5-celled one is doing better than the 6-celled ones?" But he said that the 6-celled embryos are both blastocysts but are non-expanded grade 3's.

I guess a grade 3 isn't good enough for freezing. (?) But if we're doing CGH why not freeze everything that isn't clearly dead and see what comes out with the test results? Of course, I didn't ask him that point, as I was a bit confused by then. He said they'll keep them all in culture medium for another day and watch them in case they improve. It would be nice if they did improve. I think I'll have to go off and see if I can find out their freezing criteria.

My guess is that I'm going to end up with two - both of the 9-celled guys from day 3, although I hope my little compacting embryo puts on a growth spurt and catches up. But at least the one that is good to go today sounds healthy. I only hope that it really IS healthy.

At least they're all still alive today, so that's one good thing!

ETA: It seems like they only freeze expanded blastocysts. I found this on their website, so they seem pretty rigid on this and presumably won't freeze an embryo that isn't expanded. I guess that's more important than the grade:

Unexpanded blastocyst: A fully "competent" blastocyst, given enough time (an extra day) to develop in culture, will always expand due to the formation of a fluid filled center (blastocele). Failure to expand indicates "incompetence".

Care for some botox with your floss?

Forgot to say earlier -

I went to my dentist this morning for a cleaning, and they are now offering botox. Yup, my dentist went off and did some classes and got himself certified. But seriously, if I was going to get botox done, I would not be having it done at the dentist's office. I mean, call me rigid in my views here, but I'd rather have a dermatologist or plastic surgeon in charge who actually knows the skin and wrinkles and all that. Botox parties or botox wielding dentists are not for me. I mean, OK, I begrudgingly allow my dentist to stick a needle in my gums when I need to get a filling, so he's no stranger to injections. But on the outside of my face? Where people can see? Uh, no thanks.

I told the hygienist this, and she said that they've had one patient do it. So, yeah, I guess other people think like me and it's not going to be a big revenue earner for them. The dentist's assistant also had it done, and I'll admit, her forehead did look lovely and smooth. But I'm sure he did it to practice on her.

Although, now I think about it, if I had to be in the chair for a long time, say for a complicated filling or a root canal, maybe I could tell him to just nab a few forehead creases while he was at it. You know, while waiting for the composite to harden or whatever.

Nervous

I'm nervous. Waiting for the call from the RE, which probably won't come until later this afternoon. It's day 5 today, so I'll find out today how many made it to blast or look like they might make it to blast tomorrow.

This seems like a big test for me. I've never done a fresh 5 day transfer, so I don't know how well my embryos do going from day 3 to day 5. I know I haven't had any die off before day 3, but day 5? I have no idea. I've only had 5 that I didn't transfer fresh, and I know that at Local Clinic two out of four made it to blasts, one of which was good enough to freeze and transfer later. I've no information about the one embryo that I didn't transfer at NY Clinic because getting information out of them on anything is like getting blood out of a stone.

So anyway, I'd think I have a good chance because those that I didn't transfer were not great on day 3 anyway. But I just don't know. Is it selfish to want 3 or 4 blasts out of 5 embryos? Perhaps, but there's definitely a part of me that wants more than 2 to have survived. Somehow it seems that with only 2, I need a 50% "good" rate in order for one to be normal, which seems too high. I know it's not really 1 out of 2, it's 1 out of 5 or 6, which is a 16-20% normal rate. Gack. Even that seems like it's expecting too much.

Yup, nervous.

The new goals

Given that I now have 8-10 weeks before either the next fresh IVF or the transfer, I've decided to focus on a couple of different areas between now and then.

The first one is that hoary old chestnut, weight. I'm at my heaviest ever, and now have 50 lbs to lose before I'm at my ideal weight. Which is about a third of the way through the healthy weight for my height, so it's not like I'm trying for super-skinny. I'd decided not to diet this year, because I end up feeling deprived and then find myself bingeing, thus putting on more weight than I took off, and yo-yoing. Which we all know is not healthy. But not dieting didn't work either as I used it as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted. So now I am going to focus on tracking calories, but instead of trying to drop to 1200 calories a day, I'm going to aim at 1500-1700 calories a day. I found a handy web calculator which tells you how many calories you need to take in to maintain your weight at your ideal, which for me is about 1700. So even if I just tried to stick to that amount, I'd eventually drop down and wouldn't face the prospect of hard dieting and then trying to switch to a "new normal" way of eating. I'd eat the same way all along. [And if I did manage to get pregnant, I'd add 300 calories a day to that]. I'm going to give myself two years to get to my ideal weight (or 3 if I get pregnant), rather than the usual "I want to lose at least 2 lbs a week" mentality. That's the plan, anyway.

The second one is to have lovely clear skin. And not in the sense of acne and blocked pores, but rather in the sense of getting rid of hyperpigmentation. I have some hormonally induced dark splotches (which have NOT been helped by repeated IF treatment) and this year got my first "brown spot". And I've always had freckles. So I'm going to try out different brightening treatments to try to get that fixed. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them. I've been trying to be all organic, but I figure that this is worth a chemical or two. I bought some new products while in Vegas, and think I'm already seeing an improvement, but that could be partly wishful thinking. I've been told several times today that I look rested from my vacation (even though I think I look crap because I didn't sleep well last night), so maybe the skin thing is helping.

The third one is exercise. I have been happiest when I've been able to run regularly but these days have knee and back issues (not helped by the weight of course). So instead of launching into too much jogging, and hurting myself and pulling out after two weeks, I am really going to follow the slow-and-steady training plans, and try to run three times a week.

The fourth one is to try to not get fired! I have been slacking at my job because I'm desperate to change careers, and am just not motivated. But I'm going to try to accept that until I get my g/reen car.d and I am able to move, this is my lot in life. So I need to suck it up and focus more on my job, knowing that it is going to be temporary. She says while typing a blog post during working hours...

Home again

Quickie post - I've arrived home safe and sound.

Five embryos are still going strong and were biopsied today. As the RE and I were trading voicemails I never actually got to speak to him, so I don't know how they look or how many cells they have. I just know that they have 5 or more cells, as that is the criteria for biopsy. But then again, I don't need to know how many cells the embryos have or how they look. I am quite zen about it all, really. I mean, don't we all know stories of crappy looking slow embryos leading to healthy babies? The important thing is the biopsy result, not how pretty or fast growing they are.

Pretty happy that I have 5 still going strong today. :)

All about CGH

I wanted to answer to a couple of your questions on CGH testing, to the best of my ability (which is not great).

I'm not going to pretend that I understand CGH fully. As far as I can tell, it is exactly like PGD, except that they test all the chromosomes instead of just 8 or 9 that PGD routinely tests. However, because of this, the results take longer to come back than PGD. Initially, they were doing the CGH testing on the polar body of the (fertilized?) egg, which is a cell nucleus that is discarded in normal development. This enabled them to get the results in time for a blast transfer, and didn't involve too much damage to the egg/embryo/whatever. However, they weren't picking up all of the problems with the embryos, because they were only looking at the chromosomal make up of the egg, not the embryo, because the polar body does not contain the combined embryo DNA. So they switched, and now, like PGD, they remove a cell from the embryo on day 3, and test that. But because the results take too long to come back to enable a fresh blastocyst transfer to be done, they freeze the embryos and transfer any normal ones at a later day.

It seems about 25-30% of women don't have a normal embryo to transfer. Which is why I signed up for two cycles, so I can have two chances at producing a normal one. If you transfer a normal one, there is a 60% pregnancy rate, and a lower miscarriage rate than with conventional IVF, which is a much higher success rate than with just throwing embryos back in and hoping for the best.

And yes, taking a cell from the embryo can damage it. But most embryos can bounce back and just divide again to replace the missing cells. I've yet to find any information about whether any normal embryos fail to bounce back - I guess there's always the chance. Likewise, the thinking is that normal embryos will survive the freeze/thaw process easily and those that don't survive weren't normal in the first place. However, there is no guarantee on that score. There's always a chance that a normal one could be irrevocably damaged and killed off when it could potentially have become a normal baby.

It is presumably a great option for embryo selection where you have a large number of embryos, as it enables you to select the normal ones for transfer. So it's definitely a good option for PCOS-ers.

So, the question is, why do CGH with only 5 embryos? Why not just transfer all of them?

Well, in the main, because it is free. I am in a CGH study, so all it is really costing me is the flight for the extra trip to Vegas. Or not, if none of the embryos are normal. I will be getting information on the chromosomal make up of my embryos for nothing. I doubt that I would do it if it wasn't for the study, because I am cheap.

Secondly though, where you are a sad sack of a repeat IVF failure, it can be useful to figure out what the eff is going on. I have transferred 17 embryos. Even if I was 43, statistically I should have had a normal one in there somewhere. So why hasn't it worked? Either they are all hopelessly abnormal and I really should hang up my ovaries for good, or I have been transferring normal embryos and there is some sort of implantation problem going on that we haven't discovered yet. This testing will help us get to the bottom of that. I mean, sure, 5 or 6 embryos is not a great sample size. There's a good chance that all these embryos will be abnormal but have it not necessarily mean that all the embryos I've ever produced were abnormal. Hence the two-cycle plan. If we test over 10 embryos, that will give a better idea that my ovaries really are shit. Or, if we find I have one or two normal ones out of 5, and the cycle still doesn't work that gives us a large hint that we really better investigate implantation issues as thoroughly as possible before doing the final cycle.

I hope it will help give me some closure if all are abnormal. It is very hard for me to give up on this whole motherhood dream. And actual proof of the crappiness of my eggs would definitely help me not to keep plowing on hoping for the best.

Reporting

The results are in - of the 10 eggs, 7 were mature and 5 fertilized normally. The RE said that there's a 6th that may have fertilized but they're not quite sure yet so they're still watching it.

So actually I have the same amount of mature eggs and embryos as last cycle, although that was out of 14 eggs instead of 10. And possibly one more embryo, but I'm not going to hold my breath for it.

I won't pretend that I'm not a little disappointed with the number of mature eggs - I'd hoped for one or two more, given that 9 seemed to be of mature size, but of course it is what it is.

And here comes the scary part - I'm not transferring any. They will biopsy any that are over 5 cells on day 3 (Monday), and freeze any that make it to a blastocyst on day 5 or 6. Then they will do CGH testing on those that made it to freeze. And I will only transfer any that are chromosomally normal. There's a big chance of having none to transfer, but the RE is hopeful that I'll have one or two normal ones. Ha. I bet he says that to all the girls! And the results take a few weeks so we're looking at a transfer in June. Or another fresh cycle in June.

So now I go home, and leave my embryos in Vegas. I'm not actually going until Monday, as I wanted to leave enough time for a later ER when I booked my flights, so I will be heading out shortly for a Starbucks. Full caff. Coffeeeeee. And a cocktail may be drunk as well today, you never know. Wait, what am I saying? There will definitely be a cocktail!

The deed is done

OK, in your best Sesame Street singsong voices, count after me...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9...10!

We got 10 eggs. Retrieval was a breeze, and I'm now back in my room having a bowl of Weetabix. Snoozing will follow shortly, I'm sure. I'm a bit crampy, but nothing unexpected.

And yes, in keeping with the pink theme, they had me wear pink socks for the retrieval. My only surprise was that the gown was not also pink, but maybe they'd have had trouble finding me if it was, as I'd have blended chameleon-like into the background.

It's a lovely day in Vegas

Does not compute.

In my long and far from illustrious IVF career, monitoring ultrasounds have been a cause of stress. What with the poor response, uneven follicle development and runaway follicle growth I often get, I am typically left coming out of an ultrasound telling myself to suck it up, that life's a bitch, and I just have to deal with what I have. Which is often fairly shit, let's be honest.

But today it appears that I have 9 viable follicles out of a total of 14. Nine! I gained a couple. They range in size from 16mm to 21mm, so they're nice and evenly sized still. None of them decided to sprint ahead, and the bigger ones kept themselves from going crazy so the smaller ones could catch up. And everybody's a happy chappy.

Like I said, does not compute. These are my ovaries???

Trigger will be tonight. They will call me early this afternoon with the time, and then ER will be on Friday. I am, I have to say, quite nicely mellow about the whole thing.

The Pink Palace

You know, the more I looked around LV Clinic today, the more pink I noticed. The waiting room chairs are pink. The carpet is pink. The desks are pink. All the chairs are pink. Even the blood draw chair is pink. And all the walls. And the lino. And the counters. The frickin' exam table. Everything.

It's like being in a giant vagina.

Yegads, it would drive me nuts if I worked there. I longed to ask the doc or nurses if the next place is going to be quite so pink, but I restrained myself. Seems a bit rude, after all, to march in and start complaining about the decor when I should be caring about their technical expertise. But really.

But hey! I went to a show last night! I got out of my hotel room and forced myself to get out in public on my own. And admit to the hordes of happy holidaymakers that, yes, I was alone, by virtue of my solo-ness. But actually I spotted quite a few people on their own - I think it helps when you see a sold out show, as lots of parties are split up, so nobody can tell who is the loser freak and who is just temporarily adrift. I saw Cir.que du So.leil LOVE, which is set to The Beatles music. Loved it! I loved Love, in other words.

Oh wait, you wanted to read about the follicles? Well, this morning they are a few 18's, a few 17's and some of the also-rans have caught up a bit. So we are pushing it another day to see if we can get an also-ran or two in addition to the initial 7, and it looks like trigger will be tomorrow, for ER on Friday. But I will be back in the morning for another look-see just in case. I thought I saw a couple on my left ovary that he didn't count - it was hard to see as it was trying to escape out of the side of my body and of course the view wasn't great as there's lots of fat and bowel in the way. But, whatever. Que sera sera.