Laughing with Sarah

Today is Monday. I am currently four days past embryo transfer, and feeling curious about whether I am pregnant, though not anxious. How far we've come in all of this, that I could have such a deep and yet such a loose hold on the outcome of this cycle. More on that in a moment. Probably our best pre-transfer selfie ever! First of all - what? You didn't know that we had started another cycle? Oh right. Because I never mentioned it. Maybe all of this has become routine enough that I haven't felt the need to chronicle it all? Maybe frozen cycles are more of an obnoxious and tedious process rather than the excitement of a fresh cycle? Maybe we've just been busy? Anyway, we started a cycle mid-March. Protocol was birth control pills for a month, then pills and Lupron injections for five days, and then Lupron injections and estrogen pills for a couple weeks, transitioning to just estrogen pills and progesterone up until transfer, and continuing through my pregnancy te...

That's the theme of my last week. Up. Up. More up. Up to Rochester. Up for bloodwork and ultrasound on Friday. Up for bloodwork and ultrasound again today. As we get to the fine-tuning business as we near retrieval, up again, perhaps more frequently this week, to watch and micromanage meds until everything is just perfect. I'm not yet sick of the drive, which is good. But I'm also getting impatient and careless. I got pulled over this morning because I was rushing to get up for my appointment and was definitely going faster than the 55 mph speed limit. Thankfully, he was a wonderfully kind State Trooper who, upon learning that I'd never been stopped in Minnesota before, wasn't a regular commuter, and was on my way to a doctor's appointment, gave me a warning and a kindly suggestion to slow down and watch for Troopers down the road. :) Up go my numbers, slowly, finally. After last Wednesday's appointment, they bumped me up to 225 units of Gonal-F and 150 ...

Depending on how you count, we are either five or six days into our new IVF cycle. We started meds on Friday night. 150 Gonal-F and 75 Menopur for starters, and then they bumped me up to 225 Gonal-F and 75 Menopur after Monday morning's blood draw, which was itself a bit of an adventure. (They're remodeling the lab at our local hospital and can't process same-day results, which meant that I went through the bother of the blood draw only to have to drive up to Rochester - a 3 hour round trip - to re-do it that afternoon.) This morning, I rode with a friend up to Rochester for my next labwork. She had plans to be up here for the day and offered to give me a ride, which is lovely, because I'm going to be doing plenty of these round trip drives alone in the next week. Of course, her schedule vs. my schedule means that we left early - shortly after 7am - to get me here in time for my blood draw, which took about ten minutes total, from registration to getting up from the c...

I spent fifteen minutes on hold this morning with a customer service rep from one specialty pharmacy, while she waited on hold with a different specialty pharmacy so that she could track down a fax number for me. It is a weird, weird world out there, where your health insurance plan can partner with a different company to provide you a prescription plan, and said prescription company owns at least two specialty pharmacies through which they handle medications that your local pharmacy wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, and sometimes those pharmacies get their information crossed, and sit on hold with each other to find you a stupid fax number. All this is to say that today's small (though unconfirmed) victory is that I found the right fax number for the right pharmacy so that the clinic can send in my order so that I can have meds in time to START OUR NEW ROUND OF IVF THIS FRIDAY! Yes, the time has come. I've been writing about it for a while now, because it has invo...

To follow the whole story, begin here: Tuesday, November 19 At around 6am Wednesday, when I wondered whether to start timing the pain in my upper belly, the nature of the pain changed. It didn't come and go, it just stuck around. I still wondered/hoped that this might be labor, but as I felt worse and worse, I also started to worry about whether I'd be able to handle labor if I was already feeling so in pain and sick. I hopped in the bath at about 7, which was wonderful. I shaved my legs - just in case! - and washed my hair, because the prospect of standing in a shower just sounded like too much. Out of the bath, though, I was still so very uncomfortable. And a little worried. About what, I didn't know. We had a regular 39 week OB appointment scheduled with Dr. Locke later that morning, so I just figured I'd hold on until then. If it was labor, he could help me figure it out. If it was something else, we'd take care of it. Just in case, I edited and repacked my...

A week ago, I was at a conference in Des Moines. A lovely 48 hours hanging out with other pastor-types, talking about social justice, worshiping together, and even finding time to sneak off and eat at Zombie Burger (yum!). Woke up Tuesday morning in my hotel room with a little bit of a sore throat and not much voice. Which made me nervous, because Matt's been sick with some flu for a couple weeks now. But I powered through the rest of the conference, survived the ride home from Des Moines (four hours in a car...and feeling worse with each hour that passed.) By the time Tuesday evening rolled around, I was feeling terrible. Chilled, exhausted, slight fever, sore throat. Yuck. Wednesday morning, still felt the same, so decided to do the responsible thing and go to the doctor. I have never been one to just head off to the doctor the second I get sick. I'm always good for waiting things out. But since EVERY pregnancy book and website says "if you come down with flu symptoms...

We are so officially in the third trimester, I can't quite believe it. Last Tuesday evening, the church council officially approved my maternity leave, and with an overwhelmingly excited, supportive attitude. I feel blessed. Two days ago, I received my shower invitation in the mail - which made everything feel that much more real! Weird to think that people are now actively browsing and buying off of the registries that I spent so much time putting together, trying to keep myself occupied and sane during the slow second trimester. Hedgehogs are cute. Then today was my first every-two-week OB appointment (instead of the previous once-a-month schedule). I always feel pretty happy after appointments, but especially after today's. There was just a lot of good going on. After last time, when I'd gained a whole bunch of weight out of nowhere, I didn't gain anything measurable in the last two weeks. I think that having an appointment right after the Minnesota State F...

Ready to go! (IV in right hand...sad band-aid on left hand...) Nope. Didn't keep up tracking my meds here this time. It was a quick cycle and I was busy. Having upped my dosages to speed things up, my estrogen level was up to 4000 by this past Tuesday morning, which (according to Dr. Google) is on the high side of normal. So this probably why my doctor had me trigger Tuesday night for a Thursday morning retrieval. Yesterday's retrieval went well. Well, mostly.  They had trouble getting my IV in, so yeah, that wasn't great. A nurse was digging around in my left hand and I am so surprised that I didn't faint. Yuck. But try two on my other hand went quickly and easily. I wore my lucky socks yesterday - socks that I had started knitting during our first IVF cycle but didn't finish - and the last thing I remember as I drifted off in the procedure room was explaining the socks after being complimented on them. I woke up easily and felt good but sore. ...

And so, without much fanfare, we have started this next round of IVF. At our consult last month, my doctor had no real reason to believe that there was anything except for bad luck to blame for our first IVF and FET failures. The only thing he could think of to do was try to shorten the time between start of cycle and retrieval, so he upped my starting dosage of the Follistim. Last IVF cycle, we started at 300 IU Follistim. This cycle, we begin with 450 IU. So Saturday night we started injections. We attended a friend-of-my sister's wedding (because I officiated!), and it was beautiful. And it was really fun to hang out with my sister and her boyfriend at the reception. Except that near the end of dinner, I came down with crazy migraine, which made all of me feel just terrible. So we ducked out of the festivities early, got home, and I settled on the couch with a pillow and blanket, trying to feel better. And so I was not so pleased to have to do our first injection. ...

Here it goes again, indeed... Did another round of bloodwork and ultrasound last Saturday morning, and got the good news phone call Saturday afternoon that this week is transfer week! Last injection was Saturday night. Starting yesterday then, a routine of both estrogen and progesterone, along with the usual low-dose aspirin and prenatal vitamin, and then embryo transfer on Thursday! Praying for good thawing on Thursday so that we have both of our frozen blasts to transfer. And hoping and praying that at least one sticks this time. I'm not feeling confident, but I know that by Thursday, I will be unbelievably hopeful. Keeping my fingers crossed...

FET cycles are slow and boring.  Just thought I'd let you know. A long stretch of injections, but only a tiny dosage.  And then adding to the routine some teensy tiny pills.  And far fewer blood draws and ultrasounds.  Which makes everything feel quite casual. There are two (marginally) notable things about this cycle so far, however. First, that I bit the bullet and successfully stuck myself with a needle!  More than once!  Having guests staying at our place, Matt being gone for a weekend - both of those things made me feel bold to try giving myself the injection, and even though I FAR prefer to have Matt do them for me, I have successfully injected myself 3 or 4 times this cycle. Second, my baseline blood draw and ultrasound took place last week, and Matt was sick, so I went all by myself.  And it might not sound like a big deal, but this is my first solo blood draw in six years...and that last solo blood draw is the one that initially turned...

After Monday morning's bloodwork and ultrasound, they called to tell me that I could stop the Follistim, and I did a little happy dance, because it's nice to be scaled back from three injections to two. It also made me feel like I was on the home stretch. So we did this two-injection protocol on Monday night and Tuesday night, and I went back in yesterday (Wednesday) morning for bloodwork and ultrasound, hoping that since I was out of Ganarelix, that must mean that we had hit the end of the injections. The ultrasound tech and the nurses I talked to yesterday morning all seemed pretty pleased, and thought there was a good chance that I'd be able to do the trigger shot that night in preparation for a Friday morning retrieval. No dice. They called yesterday afternoon, assured me that "everything is looking GREAT!" and then told me that I would do another night of regular injections, and come back for another round of bloodwork and ultrasound this morning (Thu...

I am starting to hit a bit of a wall. I'm just feeling a little tired of all of the doctor's visits and needles, I think. I had bloodwork and ultrasound yesterday (Saturday) morning. Quick and easy. Got the call late in the afternoon about my new dosages for last night (Saturday) and tonight (Sunday). Made it through last night's round of injections just fine. Made it through tonight's injections just fine, though feeling a little weary and resentful, as if I'd throw a temper tantrum about being tired of all of this if I weren't 30 years old... And then tomorrow morning, another round of bloodwork and ultrasound. Going to the doctor every two days really feels like you are just spending all of your free time there. And they are all so nice, and fabulous to us, and sweet and caring. So it's not a problem to go, and I'm even getting used to the routine enough that I don't get anxious about the bloodwork until I'm actually lying on the ...

I had bloodwork and a follicular ultrasound yesterday morning. I knew that they'd call me in the afternoon with instructions for how to modify my injections. I thought I remembered that at this point, they'd bump me from one to two injections. Nope. I was wrong. They bumped me from one all the way to THREE injections. So last night's routine and this night's routine involved drawing hCG from a little vial into an empty insulin syringe for one injection, opening up an individually packaged, pre-filled syringe for the Ganarelix injection, and then loading a cartridge and putting a needle into my Follistim pen. Three injections, three distinct preparations. Yeesh. My red plastic sharps container is really noisy when you shake it these days. Getting fuller and fuller of needles. It is an odd sort of trophy...

Absolutely nothing new under the sun to report. Third night of injections tonight. Belly starting to feel strangely heavy, if that makes any sense. But that's just how it goes. Oh, and have I mentioned that my low-dose aspirin are these tiny little pills...that have little hearts on them??? Cutesy...and oddly comforting.

Nothing much to share, other than we are two days down. No pain or anything, and feeling great. On the train this evening, I realized that I was more aware of my ovaries, like I could sort of feel that they existed, so I wonder how I'm going to feel a week from now... But at least right now, I'm feeling good! And the second day of injections was way easier than the first. Still had Matt do it for me, but hopefully tomorrow I will get the nerve to try it myself. Can I just say that my husband is hilarious? After last night's injection, he was trying to communicate just how good and sharp the needle was, and how easy that made the injection. He said that doing the injection was just like “stirring water with a knife…because, you know, it takes no effort to stick a knife into a glass of water.” But seriously. What an amazing guy. Hanging with me through all of this. :)

Tonight was my first self-injection. An "easy" one, using a fancy pen, rather than a regular syringe. It even comes in its own carrying case: I wanted to be brave and do it myself, but couldn't. I prepped everything, took the cap off the pen, grabbed a pinch of belly fat...and froze. Matt fetched an ice cube, and I numbed my pinch of belly fat, and held up the pen...and froze. Thank goodness for amazing husbands who aren't afraid to stick their wives with needles. And I don't know if it was the ice or the tiny needle, but I didn't feel a thing. So with a little fear of the unknown out of the way, hopefully I will be able to get over my fear and do it myself tomorrow night.

A little more than a week ago, Matt and I went back in for a post-test consult, and walked out of the office with an actual gameplan and an actual start date. There was nothing said in that follow-up consult that was terribly different than what we already knew. My bloodwork came back fine, my HSG came back fine, Matt's SA was a little worse than average, but nothing that we hadn't already figured out when they sent him results following his test. So February 26. That's the date. That's when this all begins. February 26 is the scary first day of self-injections. It is a day that will hurl me toward egg retrieval surgery, and then embryo fertilization, and genetic testing, and (if all goes well) and embryo transfer just shy of a week after retrieval. And then waiting, and hoping, and the possibility of a baby. This is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done. I have had this thought a few times as we've looked ahead toward IVF, but now that I have...