BC day 14

I’m so over the stupid birth control side effects…..hot flashes …….really…….is that necessary. Ugh, I can’t wait to get the injection portion….it’s actually far more tolerable.

So, I think I have had a career crisis. I love caring for children, but I want to do it on my own terms. I am putting all of this effort into having children, I really want to take care of them myself. So, I did some window shopping online. It will cost about $5,000 to purchase anything and everything I can possibly think of wanting to start my own in home kindergarten prep program. I figure I can bring in 4  2-3 year olds and do a 2 year kindergarten prep program with them, and then replace those 4 with a new 4. I have all of the education necessary to offer an educational in home program so I can set myself apart from your average home day care facilities. I am thinking I might get myself incorporated and start a business account too so I can keep everything official. This vision seems like a real option, if I can figure out how to swing the $5,000 starting costs.

And so…….. I’m sitting here watching the series finale of Rules of Engagement. ***Spoiler Alert****
Jeff and Audrey’s baby via surrogacy arrived. Jen and Adam got married, so did Russell and Timi (to keep Timi in the country). And at the very end, Audrey says “you know how I’ve been feeling sick lately, I got checked out and I’m pregnant”    I liked the fact that the show featured infertility and differing avenues of conception, but they ruined it by the surprise…….you miraculously conceived….it’s just not realistic. Maybe I’m just a debbie downer, but I like the realistic side of things lately.

And now Mike and Molly  are having trouble conceiving…they’ve talked about IVF, ovulating, peeing on pee sticks, and now they are talking about proper care of your testicles……..this approach of trying trying trying, and comedy works for me. Realistic, but funny.

 

Ok, I’m done with my odd rant.

 

BC day 9

Only 10 more days to go and I can’t be happier to count these bad boys down. I felt so miserable today that my supervisor let me go home and didn’t make me use any of my paid time off that I’ve been scrupulously saving for the procedure. She just said, you stay late unpaid so many days, just take today for yourself. Boy did I need it. Snot has been trailing down my face and throat, it’s miserable. I’m slowly feeling a little bit better, but I still can’t breathe right through my nose. I’ve also been feeling a little less weak and dizzy, but the nausea is still here.

Right now is really not a good time to be feeling sick though. I feel like I have so much that I need to get done at work. I need to keep preparing the children for their graduation ceremony. I need to do assessments and get ready for parent teacher conferences next week. I need to keep up with my daily lesson plans. I need to do some research on the Maryland Book Grant for my boss. I need to write up the invitations and program for the graduation. There is just sooooo much to do, and I honestly don’t know when I am to find the time to do it all. Could I have gotten some of it done today…..sure, but I felt so cruddy that I spent most of my day laying on the couch watching trash tv.

This weekend will have to be crunch time. Since I finally have no where that I have to go this weekend, I will have to just lock myself in my office and get to work. My goal is to get everything squared away so that when I get closer to retrieval and transfer I can be as relaxed as possible.

BC day 7

Welcome birth control side-effects!

I awoke Sunday morning to some nasty nausea and dizziness. I thought it was just because I was nervous for a reminder of yet another Mother’s Day that I am not a mother. By the time I got to my mom’s house, my hands were shaky, but I tried to power through it. Eventually, my brother took my blood pressure and it was 90/59…..ooops. A couple glasses of water later and I was feeling a bit better, but I was concerned as to why it dropped like that. This morning, I woke up feeling much the same, except with post nasal drip to add on. My throat was killing me, I had a headache, I felt weak and shaky. Sure enough, blood pressure was low again. I started looking up some stuff on post nasal drip and found that hormone medication, especially birth control can cause a change in the secretion of the mucus membranes, ie, post nasal drip. It has a common underlying effect as high blood pressure medication, which also makes low blood pressure a common side-effect of birth control. Oh joy! I am on this crap until May 25th.

 

I’d very much like to say that it’s all worth it, but that’s just it isn’t it. I don’t know if it will be worth it. I don’t know if it will lead to a beautiful baby. I want so badly for it to be worth it.

BC day 5

I’m a fourth of the way through the birth control phase. Woot!

My RE office also put in the order for my medication, but they did it with the old pharmacy from my old insurance. So I told the pharmacy rep that called to cancel the order and called my RE office up and told them to please look at my new insurance and put the order in through the correct pharmacy. Well, yesterday I got a call from the correct pharmacy and unfortunately it was right when I was alone outside with my class. I took the call because it was important, but I could barely hear the lady over the children screaming and running around. She was rattling off all of the medications ordered. They are all the same medications I took with the last cycle of IVF, except he ordered 5 600IU cartridges of follistim this time instead of the 2 ordered last time. That means that he probably intends to double my dose of follistim……oi vei for estrogen overload lol. I also received in the mail my protocol sheet with the approximate dating of everything. My next appointment is on May 26 to do the pre-ivf evaluation to ensure that my levels are all at base line and that my ovaries are nice and suppressed. I will start injections on May 29th, if there are no cysts (please let there be no cysts). With about 10 days of stimming my trigger will be on June 8th and ER on June 10th. So that puts the ET on either the 13th or 15th (most likely a day 5 transfer like last time). If I stim for 12 days instead of 10 like last round then add 2 days to each of those dates. It makes me feel relieved that I won’t miss my classes graduation.

It’s starting to get real again. I am very excited for this cycle, but I am trying to reign in the hope to step by step levels. I don’t want to get my hopes up so high to where I was last time, believing that the cycle absolutely had to be a success. This time I am taking a more realistic approach and saying I will be content if at least something positive comes from this cycle, whether it be a better egg yield, or better quality embryos. Those are the only factors that we can really affect with this whole process. And then the implantation and positive is up in the air from there.

Well, I better get my lesson plans written for work, if I am to spend all day tomorrow with my mom.

BC Day 2

It’s day 2 on the pill, lol. How bass ackwards is this shit, excited to be on birth control. But as weird as it is, I am still really excited to be started. I feel like I want to tell everyone because I’m so excited, but it’s such an anti-climatic part of an IVF cycle. I was thinking about cycle timing and how it all weirdly just worked it’s way out. We were so fortunate that my husband got laid off, and he immediately found a new job with mandated insurance coverage for IVF, and to be able to put tons away into savings because of his severance. So here were are after waiting for his new insurance to go into effect and it just feels like the right time. I know psychics are a load of crock, but on one of my more depressed days I asked one for help. She said that she saw a baby boy in my future tied to the month of June. So he would either be conceived in June, I would find out in June or I would be due in June. Well, that was about 3 years ago. I once again reached out to her after my last IVF failure. She said that she had been thinking of me and that she still saw a boy tied to June for me. She said that she saw my husband taking an extra supplement of some sort, and she saw me getting relaxed with a fertility massage. I took her with a grain of salt, because when I reached out to her my husband and I still had no prospect of being able to afford another round of IVF. But here I am thinking back on her prediction going holy hell. My conception and find out day will be in June. Our new RE also put my husband on Conception XR. And I have looked into a massage for my birthday to alleviate work stress, so why not make it a fertility massage, right before retrieval at that.

I know all of this seems ridiculous, but my hope is gradually escalating. Please, please, let this work this time. Please don’t crush me again. I don’t want to hope because it hurts, but I can’t help but to hope. I’m leaving myself incredibly vulnerable.

 

BC day 1

So per request, I had my CD 3 tests redone today. The nurse called back this afternoon saying everything looked great and I can start the birth control tonight. That’s right today is day one of IVF#2. I am beyond nervous, but I’m slowly getting little twinges of optimism. I’m excited to at least be doing something once again. I’m excited to have some changes made to my protocol, specifically in the realm of selecting better sperm and optimizing egg growth and retrieval. I’m really hoping that making these changes will result in the positive we so dearly yearn for. But, I am terrified that there is something more substantial standing in our way. What if my husband’s sperm is just not genetically capable of combining with my egg.

Well here goes the start to this unnerving roller coaster ride.

Birth Control is OVER!!!!

Apparently I was way to over concerned yesterday. First, the spotting is normal and is just considered break through bleeding. Secondly, my nurse neglected to inform me that I was only expected to take 19 days of birth control, so my freak out over the two remaining pills was unwarranted. Thirdly,I had my Lupron evaluation today and  I am properly suppressed and was given the green light to start my stimulants Sunday night November 11th. The nurse said that my levels were quiet and my ovaries had no cysts. She also said that both of my ovaries have 10 potential follicles forming each. So if the stims work properly I have a potential for 20 eggs at the moment. Awesome!!!!

It’s a huge relief to finally be done with birth control and now the next few days I am just waiting for my *hopefully* final AF for 9 months!

BTW I was told I can toss this bad boy in the trash !

All 19 days of birth control are complete and I am ready to start my stims.

Day 19 on BC

So, I’m still spotting a tiny bit. Still don’t know what to think about it, but my bloodwork and ultrasound appointment is for tomorrow. I plan on asking if I should take my last two BC pills, or *hopefully* my ovaries will be suppressed enough for my nurse to say don’t worry about it. I just don’t want to alter the schedule by bringing it up, but it was her mistake in calculations. Sigh we shall see tomorrow……sorry for the short post, but I just wanna get my appointment over tomorrow.

 

Day 18 on BC

Well I’m almost done, I hope. I just realized that my bloodwork  and ultrasound appointment for the day after BC is scheduled for Thursday, but my last day of BC isn’t until Friday. WTF?!?! Hopefully, my ovaries will be nice and suppressed and I can just not take the last 2 doses.
I am happy to say that I am not as sick as I was yesterday, maybe it was a stomach bug thing. However, I am still getting slight cramps followed by small pinkish orange spotting. Is spotting while on BC normal? I am hoping so, maybe it just means AF is coming a little sooner than anticipated, which would be great.

We shall see.

On a side note, I voted. I had to shake my head at my husband because when he was done he said, “Well I feel like I just failed a test because I didn’t know anything that I was voting for.” Idiot!
Also, we are doing the inspection on our new home tomorrow and the appraisal is scheduled for Thursday. If things keep moving as quickly as they are we will definitely be going to settlement on November 26th and be moving in on December 1st. Woot!!! I can’t wait to finally get things in my life moving in the right direction.

Day 17 on BC

I dunno what is going on with my body today. Sometime last night my stomach started cramping pretty bad. I went to the bathroom several times thinking I was going to vomit for sure, but nope just really upset to my stomach. So when I got up this morning, it still hadn’t subsided fully, but was tolerable until I ate. Then it started twisting and cramping again. I have no idea what to think of this because it’s not common for me to get this sick to my stomach. Also, after the mock transfer I had some minimal spotting and cramping which went away by Saturday, but after coming home from work today I noticed a little brownish pink spotting in my underwear. Is it possible that the BC is causing AF to arrive early or is all of this related to the mock transfer. I don’t know what to think right now. I was going to call my RE and ask, but my husband is like NO, what if you are sick they might delay the cycle. Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated as I hate feeling sick to my stomach.