Beta was negative

So much for Accuclear.

Sigh

I really wanted to stop doing the whiny "is it positive?" type posts. I really wanted to. I went plum crazy at the store today, and bought four different types of pregnancy tests. Yes, four. I really figured I'd get a positive on a couple of them (maybe all of them!) and I could post triumphantly that I believed.

Clear Blue Easy Digital says: Not Pregnant
Equate says: Not Pregnant
First Response says: Not Pregnant

Accuclear has another faint pink line. Which may be a tad darker than yesterday's faint pink line.

Is Accuclear really that much more sensitive? Am I just getting errors? The test I just tried was from a different lot than the tests I did before. Surely they wouldn't all be crap?

Sigh. Roll on beta results.

Wringing hands and wondering

This morning's pee fest didn't really turn up anything different from yesterday.

The ept is perhaps a smidge darker than yesterday morning's. Definitely darker than yesterday afternoon's, but that's not hard seeing as that one is pretty near impossible to see. Maybe a disinterested person would say "wait, there might be a shadow on here" today. Maybe the scanner would pick it up if the lighting were right. The Accuclear has another faint line, much like yesterday's. Maybe a teeny smidge lighter than yesterday's.

So, I'm still too afraid to say that this is a real positive. Shouldn't they be darker this morning? I mean, it's 14DPO after all! I'd have expected nice dark(ish) lines by 14DPO. Anyway, they are lines and that's what matters, so I'm just going to say I'm cautiously optimistic, but I'm going to wait until good beta results before I actually say the "p" word. The beta is tomorrow, so at least I'll know fairly quickly.

And yes, I'll probably buy more tests tonight and do some more testing later. You know, just in case I'm one of those afternoon people who gets better pee stickage in the afternoon.

P.M. peeing

More tests!

After holding pee for 3 hours and 40 minutes, I tested again. The top one is an ept, the same test as this morning. Looks negative to me. The bottom one is an Accuclear. I think I may like Accuclear!

No, wait!

The test dried a bit darker. I'm upgrading it to inconclusive.

You still need POAS squinto-vision, but if you do squint really hard, click your heels three times and hope for the best, there's the merest hint of a faint darkening where a line might be imagined to be.

So, therefore the upgrade: inconclusive.

It would still be negative to a normal person, so don't go getting all excited on me.

And the test says...

Well, I suppose there was no surprise really. Resigned despondency more like.

It was negative.

Well, I should rephrase that. It was negative to any normal person, but to an experienced POAS-er who is prepared to take the case apart, there was the faintest of evaporation lines. Like super faint. Like you'd have to have taken many pee tests to see it. But I've had plenty of evaporation lines in the past and none of them have turned into a real line the next day, so I'm not going to get excited.

Don't know what to feel, really. I think I'm kind of numb at the moment. It looks like my future involves dieting and counting points, and not morning sickness and babies.

Fuck.

Miserable Monday

I've moved on from yo-yo head to just plain inconsolable. I am so miserable. Of course I am in a buddy group on "that" charting site and everyone is getting positives. Everyone. And it was supposed to be safe because it is an IVF veterans group. I just get that sinking feeling that I'm going to be the one left behind again, and I don't want to be there again. I don't want to be the one that gets the "I'm sorry" responses and not the "congratulations" responses. I'm so tired of being that person. I'm just so so scared that this didn't work. It seems so much more damning this time because if it didn't work with my only "perfect" embryo, I don't know what will help it next time. If there is a next time. And it seems so much harder to make the decision to do another cycle. I seem so stuck in my decision making.

Anyway, I have decided I just have to know. One way or another. So I think I'll test tomorrow. It'll be 13DPO, and while there is a chance that it may be too early, I just have to know. I was trying to hold out for longer, but I don't think I can any more. I can't stand living my life just wondering if it failed or not. I need to be able to think positively (and I do try - I can still get myself into a semi-meditative state and be all positive for a short while). But it's just so hard.

So, there you are. Tomorrow I will have an inkling of what the next few months hold.

Yo-yo head

Hi! Welcome to the crazy yo-yo world of Sarah's head! Yes, I have been up and down, up and down, up and down. Culminating this morning in a complete inability to get out of bed, and lying there staring at the ceiling doing nothing. Except thinking about IVF #5. And whether it was even worth flogging my ovaries one more time. I do have one more vial of sperm left, so I'm kind of coming down to doing one last cycle to use it up, then an FET even if my solitary embryo has little chance of making it through the thaw. And then calling it quits. Or maybe doing a DE cycle. Or maybe adoption. Ha, so I really haven't got very much further with my thinking. I do have these imaginings of a child-free life involving going back to school and doing something completely different, but due to my immigration woes I have to stay at my job for another 3 years or so (boo!) so even if I pick that course I have time to figure out what my second career will be.

The only thing I am certain of is that I won't arrange the post-IVF consult until well into the New Year, and I will be doing Weight Watchers if I'm not pregnant. Although I've lost the 3lbs stims bloat weight, there's still the little matter of the other 30 that need to go as well. And yes, I am way up from the last weight I posted on this blog, but let's not go there just yet.

Well, here's the good and bad news so far this weekend:

Good
The acu says I have a deep, slippery pulse. Which Randine Lewis says in The Infertility Cure is a clear sign of pregnancy. Except my body seems to like deep, slippery pulses and I've had them on other cycles. The acu told me it was "good, but could go either way".
I am kind of off my food. Nothing is really appealing, except bland soft cheeses like cottage cheese or mozarrella, or custard. Or cookies. Last nights dinner was rice pudding. Yup, still on the rice pudding kick.
I may be imagining it, but I may have the beginning of a metallic taste in my mouth. Or that could be the aftertaste of Friday night's Indian food still.
I have been cramping. Yesterday I think it was worse than in previous cycles. Today it is milder. It seems more constant than in other cycles, though.
My pee smells sharp. It always does after the trigger, but then fades. Doesn't seem to have faded yet.
I have become obssessed with cleaning my teeth and spraying myself with perfume. It's not that I am smelling bad things really keenly, like pregnant women are supposed to do, but more that I'd rather be smelling nice things. And without all the cleaning and spraying I don't think I do smell nice. Again, could still be just lefover Indian food aftertaste working its way through my pores and mouth. Maybe Indian food is a bad idea late in the 2WW!

Bad
My boobs have deflated and aren't sore any more, even when I poke them. No pert progesterone-filled lovelies any more for me!
In similar boob-related news, I don't have veiny boobs or sticky-out nipples, which would be good signs in my book.
I haven't exactly got a good track record.
I expect it to fail.
I'm a pessimist.

OK, so basically I seem to be pretty positive apart from the boob issue. Except I'm not. I've had so many potential "signs" in past cycles that I tend to discount them all as either figments of my imagination or progesterone side effects.

Poof! It's magic!!

Just like that, ladies and gentlemen, I can magically make all hope disappear at 9DPO. Every cycle. Like clockwork. Hit 9DPO and poof! Despair.

What on earth am I going to do if this cycle didn't work? I just don't know if I can do another IVF cycle. I don't know if I can do donor eggs. I don't know if I can do adoption. I don't know if I can live child-free. I am stuck.

My aunt handily pointed out that I am still ovulating and I'm not yet 40. Which would be fine if I had a husband and hence a ready supply of sperm (assuming it was good sperm of course). Sure, then I could just continue with the acupuncture, call it quits on the ART stuff and try naturally knowing that a miracle could happen in the next few years. But I don't. And I'm not likely to find anyone in the next few weeks. And I'm not ready to just leave everything up to fate, because I have a sneaking suspicion that fate is eyeing me as the crazy cat lady.

So, if I want to keep TTC'ing with my own eggs, either I find a known donor, or I continue with IVF's or I go back to pointless and expensive IUI's with frozen sperm. I suppose I'm stubborn enough to do another IVF, but it's getting kind of embarrassing at this point. 5th IVF? Yup, sounds great! Sign me up! Why not try the same thing again and see if the result will be different (wait, isn't that a definition of madness?). Will my RE even continue treating me at this point? Would it be better to go to an out-of-state place, as had been my original plan if this cycle failed (but I heart my RE and he knows me now, and I keep thinking he has the best chance of putting together the protocol which will finally work).

Then there's donor eggs. I'm conflicted on so many levels about donor eggs. I've been toying again with the idea of using my bro' as a sperm donor, so at least my dad would have one genetically related grandchild. But that could just be so weird. In so so many ways. My aunt, who really doesn't see the point of donor eggs as a single woman because it's not like I have a husband whose baby I want to have asks why I would want to put myself through pregnancy under those circumstances. Uh, because to those of us that haven't experienced pregnancy, it might be kinda cool? And we'd know about the nutrition status of the pregnancy, and that we're not smoking and drinking. And we could breastfeed. She says "why not just adopt?" Well of course, there's always the fact that there's no "just" about it. And I'm limited to domestic adoption, so not only will I be worried that the birth mother was smoking and drinking during pregnancy, she could also change her mind, leaving me devastated. Not to mention that I'd be freakin' broke and emotionally very fragile by the time I got to that point, so I just don't know if I'm strong enough for that whole process.

So you see, stuck.

Doom.

Gloom.

9DPO Despair.

What if, internet? What if it didn't work?

The progesterone saga

Well today was the progesterone blood draw. And the result was an underwhelming 23. Last cycle it was 30. The cycle before it was 17.9. The cycle before that it was 12.7. Blah blah blah. I could go on, with all my lousy results down to 3 the first cycle we tested. I shouldn't complain too much, as it has sloooowly been getting better from an average down around 7 up to now having 3 cycles over the magical 15.

23 is fine. It's within normal range. It's not bad. I tell people all the time that the progesterone result is meaningless. And yet.

And yet, here's the rub. Last cycle and this cycle I have been doing my PIO shots in the morning, about 1.5 hours before the blood draw, because I am also doing progesterone suppositories which the RE told me to do overnight. So you would think that any high result would be because I only just shot up with the stuff, and that it's fairly meaningless. If it was like 70 or something I could say, oh, well, it's higher because it's fresh in my bloodstream. If it's 23 and I only just shot up, surely that means that prior to me shooting up it was lower. Like crappily low?

And how on earth can I be shooting up with 1cc of PIO, putting nasty nasty specially compounded 400mg suppositories up my hoo-ha, and STILL only have a level which some women get on a natural, unmedicated cycle? It's all a bunch of crap if you ask me. Or a bunch of gunk, if we're talking progesterone suppositories, as that's what I've got floating around my nether regions.

Progesterone results are meaningless.

But a nice high number would still have made me very happy today.

I got the Ambrosia rice pudding yesterday, by the way, and it didn't hit the spot either. The custard was yummy goodness, but the rice pudding, not so much. So now I'm on a mission for Kozy Shack, and will probably make my own at the weekend if that isn't good either. But now I feel like it's less like a sign and more like just a greedy phase.

Grumble, grumble.

OK, back to ovary gazing

So, I was thinking about the "it only takes one" thing earlier. And don't worry, all threats of violence have long gone and I'm actually thinking happily to myself that it only takes one. But here's the thing, to get one good 3-day embryo over three IVF retrievals/transfers, I went through 28 eggs. And I got one nice 3-day embryo. Which may or may not make it. And I got one not-so nice 3-day embryo that did manage to make to to blast to be frozen. Which may not be all that great anyway.

One potential good one out of 28 eggs. 3 IVF cycles. 14 embryos. One. Good. One. And at this stage it's only a potential good one, because of course I have no idea if it's actually going to implant and stick around to become a real live breathing baby. Which is after all, the point of all this.

Plus, if I add up the mature follicles (and presumably therefore eggs) on the nicely-timed IUI cycles which also had a chance of working, to the eggs retrieved in the IVF cycles, that's 40 eggs which have been instructed to party with some sperm.

So one out of 40 looked good as a 3-day embryo.

That's kind of a sobering statistic.

I mean, now I'm at the happy place of telling myself that it only takes one, because I now have one good one. I have a decent chance, finally, of this working. But that's why it hurts when you get told it only takes one if you end up having a crappy response to the meds. Because by the time you get to IVF, you already know that you've blown through way more than one egg which didn't end up as a baby, so what are the chances that one of your current crop is the golden one. And let's face it, I've been trying for much less time than some other people. Maybe I'm being a tad over sensitive, but that's where my head's at. That's why I bristle at being told it only takes one, especially from fertile people like most of my family and IRL friends who seem to constantly sing out the refrains of "it only takes one", "maybe you need to relax more" and "just think positively". Maybe I'm just not a positive enough person that when I have one mature follicle I can think "oh THIS could be the one!", but instead peevishly demand some sort of extra proof that this could be the one, like some sign from on high, or a nice embryo grade.

And clearly, my RE was right when he told me early on that egg quality was my issue. He's a smart cookie, that one.

Anyway, now, now, now, I am telling myself it only takes one. And it really does. That lucky egg. I hope I found it, because if I didn't, I just don't know if I can keep going at this. I don't know if I have another cycle in me or not.

Single embryo transfer, sort of

The transfer went well. It was very smooth, I got the water drinking correct so my bladder was full but not bursting, and the acu came to the clinic to do a session pre- and post-transfer. In fact, I kind of fell asleep when I was lying on the table after the transfer with the needles in me. Of course, that probably had something to do with the valium I took as well, but hey. Snoozing is good.

But the real news is that I got one good one! I'm pretty happy about it - I got an 8-celled grade 1 embryo. Grade 1 is the best at my clinic, and that's the best embryo I've managed to produce so far. My previous best were an 8-celled grade 2 and a 7-celled grade 2, both on the first ER/ET. Last time the best I got was a 5-celled grade 1. The other two embryos did make it to transfer but they were both 4-celled grade 5's. Which are just about as sucky as they can get and still be transferred, I would guess. In fact, they probably would have been discarded had I had any other embryos.

So, I'm going to look on it as a single embryo transfer, with the best embryo I've ever had. That's not bad, really, and at least gives me one little guy to be positive over.

Fuck fuck fuck

Well, there was me all happy and optimistic. I'd done the Clear Passage Therapy, I'd got the vitamins right (or so I thought), I'd been drinking the whey protein shakes. I had nice even stimming. I thought I'd have excellent quality. I was as certain as I could be that this one would be "the one".

Out of 9 eggs, 7 were mature. 3 fertilized normally.

3.

That's less than I had last time when I only got 5 eggs in total.

3.

The universe is just fucking with me. I know, I know, it only takes one, but I shall personally track you down, come to your house in the middle of the night and stick a kitchen knife in you if you post that. I know it only takes one. But's what are the chances that I have a good one out of these three pathetic little embryos? When I've already produced 10 crappy embryos and have only got one of questionable quality in the freezer?

Damn it all.

Fuck, fuck and fuck again.

The nine

Well, I am back from ER! We got stopped for speeding on the way there, which wasn't a good sign. Effing cops were just getting everyone - we weren't even driving that fast or dangerously. Although I did see a rainbow just before we got stopped for speeding, so up until that point had been thinking that the omens were good. Then my RE completely gave up on my left ovary - my aunt, who was allowed in the room to watch, said she could see the needle pushing against the follicle, but it wasn't going in, and the ovary would move every time he tried to stick the needle in. I guess I've become a tough old broad. He even got the nurse to push down on my abdomen in order to stop the ovary moving around. But he couldn't do it, and decided it was more risky to keep poking around in there as he didn't want to nick the bowel, so just gave up! He said the follicles weren't that big anyway so he just left them. I've had some bleeding, so I believe he really was digging around in there.

But the good news is we got 9 eggs from the right ovary! Good old righty! In fact, thank God for righty on this cycle.

So now I have that odd feeling of fullness still on the left, and sucked-outness on the right. Odd. Not sure if the left ones will just reabsorb or if they'll ovulate. If I had a ready supply of fresh sperm, I might be tempted to ignore the "no intercourse for a week" instruction and try to see if I could fertilize any ovulated eggs. Or at least get my husband to do the deed into a cup for me to shoot up there. But alas, no free sperm, so even if the eggs on the left do ovulate, they'll be wasted. Oh well, I'll concentrate on the ones I do have. Do your thing, eggs and sperm, do your thing and get busy in that petrie dish.

Comfort, or lack thereof

I am not comfortable today. And that's all I'm going to say. I take my hat off to those women who have like 30 eggs, because I don't know how they stand it.

In fact, I can't wait for these eggs to be out of me! Only 15.5 more hours...

We are go for trigger

Holy jumping E2, batman!

I'm in a pretty good mood- my E2 jumped from 936 yesterday to 1,752 today, and the u/s showed I have 7 follicles >20mm, 1 at 17.5mm, 1 at 15.5mm and 1 or 2 smaller. I'm so happy the E2 jumped up, as I was worrying that some of the follicles were empty. Well, they still could be, but I'll find that out on Wednesday I guess. I am triggering tonight at 11pm, and egg retrieval is on Wednesday morning at 10am.

All in all, I can't complain about this cycle. I mean, I'd love more eggs, and I'd have loved my left ovary to have responded like my right ovary did, but we got what we wanted - a more even stimulation. And OK, I'm still going a little early, as I'm triggering on cycle day 10, but I stimmed for a day longer as I started earlier this time. So hopefully the quality will be improved over last time. Hopefully. You see, there's me not being able to be entirely positive. There's still that niggling little bit of doom and gloom that I didn't respond better.

It's funny how you always compare yourself in this infertility shit. I don't know why I can't just be happy happy happy about my good response, but then I read something from someone with 30 eggs and think "lucky bitch". I think about people who are younger than me with their better eggs, I think about better responders than me, others think about people like me having the money to afford to do this more than once, and for being younger than they are. We're all jealous over something and yet we're all in this together. In fact, I was doing my customary trawl through PubMed over the weekend, and got so freakin' angry about some of the research projects about the ethics of IVF and trying to prevent people doing any more than single embryo transfer and all the other bullshit, and I was thinking that those people are the enemy. The ones who don't understand the pain of infertility and who just look at things dispassionately and say "IVF babies have a greater than normal risk of certain birth defects so more study is needed before making IVF available to the public". The ones I just want to scream at, grab by the shoulders and shake violently. The ones I want to tell to bite me. The ones who don't understand the need, pure and simple, to have children. So why on earth do I waste energy being jealous of some other infertile who has a better response than me? Why do others waste energy being jealous of me for anything? I mean, just as there's always someone on the beach thinner than you, fatter than you, prettier than you and uglier than you, there's always someone who does better than you at IVF and someone that does worse. And yet, that's just human nature, eh? The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Probably Wednesday

It is looking more and more likely that I will trigger tomorrow, and egg retrieval will be Wednesday. Today's follicle report was that the largest is 21mm, there are 5 at 18 or 19mm, 2 at about 16mm or so, and three smaller. The u/s technician measured the smaller guys at smaller than yesterday, so either she was measuring wrong, yesterday's tech measured wrong, or they shrank. Knowing my ovaries, they probably shrank.

Anyway, so that looks like maybe 8 mature eggs, not bad huh? Except there's a but. There's always a freakin' but in my life. My estrogen level is still pretty low to my thinking. 936 today. If I had 6 mature follicles, which I would appear to have, I'd expect it to be at least 1200. And with a couple of also-rans, I'd expect at least 1400. So I'm now worrying that some of the follicles will be empty, just taunting me, making me think that there was a chance of 11 eggs. So, we'll see what we see when they take the little buggers out. On Wednesday. Probably.

Back for another check tomorrow. We'll see how the blood draw goes. I asked if they could take it out of my leg today, and the nurse just looked at me bemused and repeated "your leg??" with a sneer of disdain (or was it disgust?) across her face. She said they only take blood out of the leg as an absolute last resort, if they couldn't get it out of the backs of the hands. I said I thought it would hurt less than the back of my hand, and couldn't we try it in preference to leaving me with a hand-covering bruise and a useless appendage? The short answer was no, but she was game to have a go on my right arm. So she tourniqued my arm so tight I thought my eyes might start to bulge out. She slapped and prodded. She got a butterfly needle and inserted it to the hilt in my forearm, saying that the vein was really deep. I was not thinking deep thoughts at that particular juncture, but more along the lines of "fuck, I'm a wimp, this hurts". But she managed to get some blood. The other patients in the waiting room seemed to be doing double-takes at the weird placement of my post-blood draw bandaid. But we did it, we avoided the back of my hand for another day. Which is something to be celebrated, at least.

Still here

Still in Miami. My aunt, being the persuasive woman she is, won't let me go. But the cat and I will be wending our merry way back home tonight after dinner. I just cannot face another drive to the RE's from here!

Had my pre-op scan today, which they schedule when the lead follie gets to 16mm. It involves meeting with an RE, and the guy on call today was Dr. H, who I love almost as much as my own RE. Dr. H said that my file was now almost as heavy as me, and we really needed to make this work before it overtook me.  Funny AND cute (oh wait, is it only me that thinks dorky RE's are hot stuff?). We spent most of the visit talking about England, because after all, when you're on your 4th IVF there really aren't any more questions to ask. I told him my guess was now that retrieval would be Wednesday, and he said that was about right. He also said that my RE was doing the retrievals next week, so I've managed to get him every cycle now. Yay!

As for the follie news, there are still 11 contenders, but not the same 11 as yesterday. One of the ones on my left is falling behind, but an extra one on the right is catching up, so it's now 9 on the right. The biggest one is 19mm, and the others are between 14 and 16mm.

E2 was 676, so it's creeping up there, but doesn't seem high enough to me. I'll be back again for another scan in the morning.  I hope the blood draw goes OK. Today the nurse dug around in my right arm for a bit trying and failing to find the vein there before giving up and taking it out of the left. And yes, the left is starting to hurt like a mofo'. The nurse exclaimed at the amount of scar tissue at my one and only blood drawing site. Uh huh, tell me about it. Why d'you think I put up with the digging in my right arm??  I think I'm going to offer up a leg vein tomorrow and see what they do. The leg has to be easier than the back of your hand, right?  Because I know that we're headed for the back of my hand next, and that won't be pretty.
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Follicular particular

Thanksgiving yesterday was lovely, even if it was a bit odd to stay sober. Miss kitten tolerated me dragging her to Miami, barely.  Let's just say that I'm not exactly her favorite person right now.  Especially when I am trying to force antibiotic liquid down her throat. 

I drove up to the RE's this morning, which only took me 50 minutes as there was hardly any traffic, and let me just say, I have never seen the place so busy. They had 4 nurses drawing blood (usually there are 2) who were just going non-stop. It was definitely the baby-making factory in full flow. The u/s tech said that the day after Thanksgiving is their busiest of the year, as everyone is trying to get one last cycle in before Christmas. Judging by the number of people in the waiting room, I believe her.

As for the follicular news, I still have 11 contenders, but they are starting to get more spread out in size. The largest had an average measurement of 17mm, but it had a length of 20mm. So it's starting to take off. I didn't get a good look at the sizes of anything else, but I think the smallest one was 10mm.  Didn't have any extras pop up on the left, so I guess that side is the lazy one. I don't know if they'll all make it to maturity, but I'm still hopeful for a fairly good crop. E2 was 426 today, up from 152 on Wednesday, so there's still a little way to go. I've got to go back tomorrow morning for my pre-op visit and to meet with the RE, so I should find out which of the team is doing the retrievals next week. My guess is that retrieval will be on Tuesday, but I guess we could squeak through to Wednesday if I'm lucky. It'd be nice to have as much of a chance as possible to have all the follicles as mature as they can be.
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Tofurkey Day

Well, the cat ended up shaved, anesthetized and generally prodded about. The cut had turned into an abscess. Or it could have been completely coincidental with the fight with the other cat, and could have been a hot spot caused by matted hair and nastiness. Anyway, she needs to have antibiotic drops twice a day. She's a pretty pathetic sight.

My next ultrasound is on Friday morning, so driving up from Miami would have been pretty hard. Especially if I have another one on Saturday morning. What with figuring out what to do with the cat, and all.

I made the decision that it was better to just stay here, although I'd drive to Miami and back today for Thanksgiving. It was a firm decision. I was adamant. I was not going to drag the poor cat on another car journey, and stress her and me out by making her stay in a strange house when she's already sick.

I called my aunt to tell her. Needless to say, my resolve failed under pressure. I'm off to Miami with a howling cat, 6 different types of medication between us (3 of which need to be refrigerated), kitty litter, blankets, whey protein powder, a large haul of vitamins, syringes, needles, cat food, my Thanksgiving dish, clothes and anything else I can think of and can stuff in the car. Happy Thanksgiving, blogosphere!