Just a quick acupuncture/ chiropractic update! I had an x-ray on Monday and it showed that I have arthritis in my lower back :/ All stemming from that damn accident in 1998 (the gift that keeps on freaking giving!). The chiropractor said that it makes sense that I haven’t gotten pregnant… that with the inflammation and pain I’ve had (for years) in my back I’m not getting enough blood flow to my uterus, that the pain receptors in my brain are sending it to my lower back and away from my uterus… I just thought I had lower back pain because I sit at a computer all day… oh and because I’m a fat a$$. LOL!
Lord I pray that he’s right and what he’s doing at my appointments works. He said that he’s had a lot of patients come to him for infertility and there are a bunch of pictures of different babies in his office (I am optimistically assuming that they are satisfied patients saying thank you, haha).
Fingers crossed!
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
Acupuncture, Chiro... and softcups! Oh My!
I went for my first acupuncture and chiropractic appointment last night… it was awesome! I decided to try an alternative route while on our break from the IF clinic because I have read so many wonderful things about it. I have a friend who tried for 3 years and attributes her 6th IUI finally working because she had acupuncture.
I saw my OBGYN (yearly pap) on Tuesday and of course I burst into tears when she asked how everything was at the IF clinic. She is so sweet and so nice. She told me that the patient she saw before me went through 5 IVF’s and when they decided to take a break she got pregnant at 42. She kept saying to me, “don’t give up, don’t give up.” She said she has many many patients who have taken a break from the IUI/IVF treatments, relaxed, and then got pregnant. She also said something else that I found to be very interesting – she said that “this has nothing to do with God. It doesn’t mean that you’re not a good person, this is all about science.” It was almost like she had been reading my mind. Not that I blame God- there are too many awful things in this world for me to go to a place where I start to blame God. But the part about me being a good person – that’s something I’ve said many times. “Aren’t I a good person? Aren’t we deserving people?” It certainly gave me something to think about.
Anyway, she was very happy when I told her I was going for acupuncture. She said that she has heard many success stories in her office about acupuncture and hopes that I call and give her good news very soon. I went to a doctor who does acupuncture and is also a chiropractor. The first appointment was more like a physical with him getting to know my body and he was doing all these measurements, stretches, and checking my reflexes. He asked about any “trauma” to my body besides what I had written on the forms and I told him I was a passenger in a bad car accident in 1998 and I was thrown out the back passenger window (it’s a miracle that I survived and didn’t have any broken bones). But I landed on my hip and then slid 20 ft on my side. I have tendonitis and bone spurs in my shoulders and as I have gotten older, I always have lower back pain but I attributed it have a job where I sit in front of a computer all day. He said that I’m all “backed up” in my hip/pelvis area because of the accident and that may very well be why I’m not getting pregnant.
Well, that’s surely something.
After he adjusted my back a little he had me go into another room and the nurse put electrodes on my back for some electric stimulation. Then I laid down and he put 11 needles in my body – my forehead, ear, neck, stomach, pubic bone, legs and ankles. I didn’t feel a thing. I only felt a light tap, like he was tapping me with his finger. It was actually very relaxing. Then he took them out, I rolled over and he put 4 more in my back.
I need to get an xray of my spine to make sure there isn’t any arthritis and he said he wants to see me 2x a week for the first month. I’m not sure if it’s going to always be a combo of acupuncture and a chiropractic visit but I feel pretty good today!
Today is cd16. I got my first “high” on the CBE Fertility Monitor on cd14 and then it went directly to a “peak” day yesterday and today. I read in the booklet that you can get 1 – 5 days of highs before the 2 days of peak so I guess I’m right on target. I drank a quart of the FertiliTea every day up until cd15. I have read conflicting things online that you can drink it all through your cycle or that you need to stop at ovulation so I figured better to be safe than sorry and just stopped at ovulation. But I ovulated around the same time as I usually do when I’m on all the medication so that’s pretty amazing. Who knows if it’s the tea or just a fluke cycle… guess I’ll have to see what happens next cycle with the tea.
Ok… has anyone heard of softcups? I read a lot about them online and they are used as an alternative to tampons/pads when you have your period but online a lot of people are using them for after they have sex to keep the sperm in there. Let me describe them to you… they look a lot like one of those rubber “livestrong” bracelets and it has a silicone piece on one side like a “cup.” You pinch the sides of the band together and insert it and the idea is that it keeps all of the sperm from coming out and closer to the cervix. I think that the good swimmers go to where they are supposed to go right away and then whatever comes out are the “rejects” (lol) so I'm sure about the effectiveness of this. But women were swearing up and down that that’s how they conceived. I looked them up on Amazon and they aren’t that expensive and again the women were singing its praises. It can’t hurt to try it I guess but I can only imagine what the hubs would say when I take one of those out of the nightstand after sex…
I saw my OBGYN (yearly pap) on Tuesday and of course I burst into tears when she asked how everything was at the IF clinic. She is so sweet and so nice. She told me that the patient she saw before me went through 5 IVF’s and when they decided to take a break she got pregnant at 42. She kept saying to me, “don’t give up, don’t give up.” She said she has many many patients who have taken a break from the IUI/IVF treatments, relaxed, and then got pregnant. She also said something else that I found to be very interesting – she said that “this has nothing to do with God. It doesn’t mean that you’re not a good person, this is all about science.” It was almost like she had been reading my mind. Not that I blame God- there are too many awful things in this world for me to go to a place where I start to blame God. But the part about me being a good person – that’s something I’ve said many times. “Aren’t I a good person? Aren’t we deserving people?” It certainly gave me something to think about.
Anyway, she was very happy when I told her I was going for acupuncture. She said that she has heard many success stories in her office about acupuncture and hopes that I call and give her good news very soon. I went to a doctor who does acupuncture and is also a chiropractor. The first appointment was more like a physical with him getting to know my body and he was doing all these measurements, stretches, and checking my reflexes. He asked about any “trauma” to my body besides what I had written on the forms and I told him I was a passenger in a bad car accident in 1998 and I was thrown out the back passenger window (it’s a miracle that I survived and didn’t have any broken bones). But I landed on my hip and then slid 20 ft on my side. I have tendonitis and bone spurs in my shoulders and as I have gotten older, I always have lower back pain but I attributed it have a job where I sit in front of a computer all day. He said that I’m all “backed up” in my hip/pelvis area because of the accident and that may very well be why I’m not getting pregnant.
Well, that’s surely something.
After he adjusted my back a little he had me go into another room and the nurse put electrodes on my back for some electric stimulation. Then I laid down and he put 11 needles in my body – my forehead, ear, neck, stomach, pubic bone, legs and ankles. I didn’t feel a thing. I only felt a light tap, like he was tapping me with his finger. It was actually very relaxing. Then he took them out, I rolled over and he put 4 more in my back.
I need to get an xray of my spine to make sure there isn’t any arthritis and he said he wants to see me 2x a week for the first month. I’m not sure if it’s going to always be a combo of acupuncture and a chiropractic visit but I feel pretty good today!
Today is cd16. I got my first “high” on the CBE Fertility Monitor on cd14 and then it went directly to a “peak” day yesterday and today. I read in the booklet that you can get 1 – 5 days of highs before the 2 days of peak so I guess I’m right on target. I drank a quart of the FertiliTea every day up until cd15. I have read conflicting things online that you can drink it all through your cycle or that you need to stop at ovulation so I figured better to be safe than sorry and just stopped at ovulation. But I ovulated around the same time as I usually do when I’m on all the medication so that’s pretty amazing. Who knows if it’s the tea or just a fluke cycle… guess I’ll have to see what happens next cycle with the tea.
Ok… has anyone heard of softcups? I read a lot about them online and they are used as an alternative to tampons/pads when you have your period but online a lot of people are using them for after they have sex to keep the sperm in there. Let me describe them to you… they look a lot like one of those rubber “livestrong” bracelets and it has a silicone piece on one side like a “cup.” You pinch the sides of the band together and insert it and the idea is that it keeps all of the sperm from coming out and closer to the cervix. I think that the good swimmers go to where they are supposed to go right away and then whatever comes out are the “rejects” (lol) so I'm sure about the effectiveness of this. But women were swearing up and down that that’s how they conceived. I looked them up on Amazon and they aren’t that expensive and again the women were singing its praises. It can’t hurt to try it I guess but I can only imagine what the hubs would say when I take one of those out of the nightstand after sex…
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Back to Basics
Well here we are again. I feel like it’s over 2 and ½ years ago when this journey started. Since we’re “taking a break” from the fertility meds I’m going to try some different things this time then I did way back in the beginning when we first started to TTC.
I am not temping this time. I was a religious BBT temper (Basal Body Temperature). Every morning for a year and half (no matter where we were) at 5am my alarm would go off and I would stick that BBT thermometer where the sun don’t shine in my va-jay jay. Hubster had no idea what I was doing and I think after a while he stopped hearing my alarm. He is a very deep sleeper… me, not so much. So a lot of times after I would take my temp I would not fall back to sleep. Made for some pretty tired days. The idea is that at the same time every morning before you really move you take your temperature. It’s your base temp and you will see throughout your cycle it should go up when you’re going to ovulate and peak at ovulation. Then during the 2 week wait it’ll either go up up up until you have a positive pregnancy test or start to fall when you’re going to get your period. I did this every day for over a year and a half. I have a nice big folder filled with charts. On the charts you also put what your cervical mucus (CM) was like (dry, sticky, egg white) and when you had sex. It was really interesting to see how my cycles went, they were (are) really long and it was good to have that to show my OBGYN and then later my Fertility Specialist. I read the book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler, and it was really really informative. I recommend anyone who is starting on this journey to read this book. I learned a lot about the goings on in my body. But this time I feel like I do not need to go through all that again because frankly after a while it stressed me out.
I also will not be using OPK’s (ovulation predictor kits). Well, I should clarify – I will not be doing OPK’s like a mad woman. I would get the “cheapies” from Amazon (like 40 for $6) and use them in conjunction with the temping. I would start them on day 8 or 10 and then do them 2x a day until I ovulated. Sometimes I would not ovulate until day 25 (during 40+ day cycles- that sucked). I had a whole system down pat. I would stop drinking liquids at 9 am, hold my pee, and take the OPK at 11 am. Then I would stop drinking liquids at 2:30 pm, hold my pee, and take the OPK at 4:30 pm. I would do this until I ovulated. Talk about stressful! So yeah – I will not be doing that whole thing again!
I had mentioned in the prior post that I was looking to get a Clear Blue Easy Fertility Monitor on eBay. Well I got one! This seriously makes the whole process so much less stressful. I ended up getting it the day that I wrote the last post and then it arrived at my house on Monday! I read the booklet and you can set the monitor up for a new cycle up until day 5 and my day 5 was Tuesday so it was perfect timing. Every morning you get up and push a button on the monitor. You have a 6 hour window of time to do this, for example, I pushed the button for the first time at 7 am. So I can now get up and push the button anywhere from 4am-10am. That is SO MUCH less stressful than temping! Starting on the morning of day 6 it asks you to insert a stick when you push the button (of course it’s a special stick for the machine). Same concept as an OPK- hold your pee (so it’s more concentrated) and then pee on the stick (or like me I pee in a Dixie cup and then dip it in there for 15 seconds because I pee all over my hand the other way), then insert it into the slot in the machine. It then flashes for a couple minutes and it tells you if you’re low, high or peak. You want to have sex every other day starting on your first high. Some people have sex every day starting on the first high but my doctor said that once a man gets over 30 they could be shooting blanks if it’s every day. This machine is worth it just so that I’m not temping and peeing on OPKs all the time for days on end. That all seriously stressed me out because it was all that I was thinking about. I might start doing the OPK’s once a day (probably at like 4 pm) once I get a high but we’ll see. I might just see what happens with the machine this month.
I also have to keep in mind that I only have one tube… so even if I ovulate every month it’s not necessarily on the side with the tube. Grrr frustrating.
Anyhoo – nothing I can do about that. But I am taking the CoQ10 that the FS told me to take. I also started to drink something called “Fertili Tea.” I got it on my favorite place (Amazon, of course) after reading a bunch online about it when I was looking into the CBE Monitor. It has Vitex Agnus Castus (Chasteberry), Green Tea, Red Raspberry, Ladies Mantle, Nettle Leaf, and Peppermint Leaf. These are all things that are supposed to help women with long cycles (*jumps up and down waving hand, “Me! Me!”*) and general reproductive health. It was created by a fertility specialist and all of the ingredients have been scientifically proven to enhance fertility. Sign. Me. Up. It’s a lose tea so I used a mesh tea ball. I actually made it last night and drank it today, haha. I filled a glass quart mason jar with boiling water (4 cups) and then the tea ball with the lose tea and let it steep overnight. This way I was able to pour it over ice and drank it on the way to work this morning. It’s just too warm out for me right now to be drinking hot tea. I didn’t put any sweetener in it and the only way I can describe it is that it tasted almost like peppermint tea. If you do not like peppermint then this is not the tea for you, lol.
I am still trucking along with the Paleo. I’m mostly doing a modified version of it though. I’m sticking to the basic premise of no dairy, no legumes, and no grains/carbs. So pretty much veggies, fruit, meat, egg whites (because I can’t eat the yolk, makes me physically sick) and nuts (but no peanuts). I will be honest that I do cheat sometimes. Like last night we had tacos – I always have a taco salad versus the shells because I can’t eat corn (I’m allergic to it). I tried to have the taco salad with just a mescaline lettuce mix, shredded carrots, tomatoes avocado and the taco meat… but it just wasn’t cutting it without a little sour cream! So I had a little spoon full and all was well with the world. I feel like if I really stress myself out and not let myself cave every once in a while then I will not stick with this. I know myself. The Paleo diet also says that you should have all organic fruits and veggies and only grass fed meats. Well… I do what I can. But I will say I’m certainly feeling better and sleeping a lot better. I’ve also started to slowly but surely lose some weight too (halleluiah).
Hubster and I have been getting up almost every morning and taking our boxer for a walk. We have a small manmade lake near us that is a mile around that we do at least 2x (depending on what time it is since I have to get ready for work). We also live in a very rural neighborhood so it’s nice to walk around there as well. He has been working on his final thesis for his masters so this gets the dog tired out so that she’s lazy for the rest of the day and he can work. I think it’s good that we’re both getting up and getting the blood flowing – I know it’s beneficial for my reproductive organs and I can only assume it is for his as well.
Clearly “taking a break” doesn’t mean just going with the flow! My cycles are so irregular that I felt like if we just did our thing I would be constantly wondering if we had missed my ovulation and (I know myself) stressing out about that. I feel like the monitor takes all the guess work out it.
So… here we go :)
Friday, July 19, 2013
Doctor Visit
We had our appointment yesterday with Dr. B. There was also a new OB fellow who sat in – we go to a clinic which is a part of a large teaching hospital so we are used to students and fellows being in on the appointments. This gal was not one of my favorites because she sat there the whole time picking at her nail polish while I was making a tissue pile on the desk because I was crying (of course I was). That was annoying.
Anyway.
Dr. B said that the entire team (meaning all of the doctors/students/fellows in the practice and the embryologists) sat down to review our case. There is no real cut and dry reason as to why we aren’t getting pregnant. My eggs look good and really the only “thing” with me is that I only have one tube. Hubs sperm look good and he had had some additional testing done on his stuff after the first failed IVF and all those tests came back with great results. They do not know for sure why when my eggs and his sperm are combined for IVF that the embryos aren’t surviving. Good news is I did get pregnant so one of the embryos did attach but bad news is obviously the embryo started to die.
He then presented us with 4 options.
1) Cornell University in New York. They would take some of the cells from my uterus and use them to make a base medium for the embryos to grow in the petri dish. Not a new procedure but not something that our place does. The thought is that the embryos could do better in a medium made from my own cells that would closely mimic the natural environment. He said that he has referred patients there and some have gotten successfully pregnant and some have not. This costs upwards of $15,000 with no insurance coverage and most likely this price doesn’t include medication. I would be able to do some of the blood work and ultrasound monitoring at the clinic that we currently go to in CT but the majority of the monitoring and all of the procedures will need to be done at Cornell. They are at least 3 hours from us and with 6 hours of travel time alone this is not a feasible option with my job,
2) IVF with ½ Donor Sperm. The embryologist has a “gut feeling” (those are Dr. B’s words) that the issue is the hubs sperm. Even though all of his testing has come back with flying colors she thinks that this is what the issue is- that it’s something with his sperm not meshing correctly with my eggs. So we would do the same long down regulation medication protocol like the last IVF. He said they would try a different medium in the petri dish for the embryos but they would fertilize ½ of my eggs with hubsters sperm and ½ with donor. If there are good embryos with hubsters sperm then we would use them and freeze any left. If there aren’t any good embryos with hubsters sperm and the only good ones are with the donor then, obviously, we would transfer the ones with the donor sperm (and freeze any left). We would then know if the issue is in fact hubby’s sperm. The IVF would be $8,060 (the financial gal gave us this price due to our combined income). This doesn’t cover meds or the donor sperm. The donor sperm is about $600. My meds last time were almost $7K but I have a lot left so I’m not sure how much we would have to spend on medication. There is a program that we can apply for that if we meet the criteria we can get assistance with paying for the meds. But in any case, this is the option that Dr. B recommends.
3) IVF with Donor Eggs. The embryologists say that it is not my eggs and we didn’t really go into the details of this option because Dr. B isn’t really that convinced that it’s my eggs either. But if the donor sperm option doesn’t work then we would know that it is my eggs. However… donor eggs alone cost upwards of $10,000. That’s just the eggs. I’m not sure if this is an option that we will explore because of the price but we will cross that bridge if we get to it.
4) IUI with ½ Donor Sperm. Dr. B threw this one out there merely because of the cost. This is the most “cost effective” option. Donor Sperm is $600 and the IUI is $300. So without meds it would be $900. Without meds it is a crap shoot though because I would have to be monitored to see what side I’m ovulating on. Since I only have one tube if we did a non-medicated “natural” cycle and I ended up ovulating from the non-tube side then the procedure is a no go and we wait for next cycle. So it could potentially end up costing more than $900 if it’s over the course of more than one cycle because of the monitoring. But if we go this route and it ends up not working we won’t know why it didn’t work – was it the sperm or did we just not catch the egg? No way of telling.
Afterwards we met with the woman in the finance department. That’s where we got the numbers I mentioned above. Needless to say we left there with our heads spinning and a lot of paperwork.
We didn’t talk about it for a couple hours; we both took the time to process everything that we had heard and sat on the deck later that evening to talk. I’m having a hard time with the donor sperm option. I honestly didn’t think that I would but all of the dreams that I’ve had about our kids and any time I’ve thought about them I always envisioned little boys who look like the hubs. Of course I know how stupid that sounds. I take full ownership of how moronic that whole thought process is. I have no idea why I feel that way and I think in time I’ll get over it because hubs doesn’t have a problem with it and he’d be the one without his DNA in the mix. If we chose to use donor anything we need to have a consultation with the psychiatrist anyway, which I think makes total sense. That’s a huge step and I think meeting with a professional to hash it out is a good idea.
Another thing I have a problem with, and hubs agrees, is that this is a whole lot of money without a guarantee that it will work. I know that we have been very very fortunate to have had the insurance coverage that we have had and that a lot of people go through this process paying out of pocket and taking that risk that it won’t work on the first or even third try. But for us that’s a huge gamble and we’re not sure if we’re ready to take that yet.
So what we agreed on is that we should take a few months off and just try on our own. Dr. B said that there isn’t any reason why I can’t get pregnant on my own. In thinking about that now I don’t get it since he said that the issue most likely lies with my eggs and his sperm coming together but maybe that’s just when it’s done artificially? I’m not sure. In any case that’s where we are now. I went on eBay and got a Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor and some sticks to go with it for a pretty good deal. I feel like we’re starting right back at square one but I’m almost excited about it. I had borrowed a CBE Monitor from a friend way before we started all this IF jazz but I only got to use it for one cycle. When she lent it to me she was pregnant with her third (she has 7 year old twin boys) and she ended up losing the baby at 14 weeks to trisonomy 13. It was heartbreaking and of course I was ok giving the monitor back because they wanted to try again. Once they were ready to try again she ended up getting pregnant rather quickly and now has a 7 month old little guy. I decided to just buy my own because it will be good to have if it works and if we end up trying for another one in the future.
So yeah. Lots and lots of info. I ended up getting my period today (which makes the huge waterfall of waterworks yesterday make more sense). I think I have to use the CBE Monitor starting on day 1 so I wouldn’t be able to use it this time anyway. Maybe we’ll just have sex starting on Day 4 and then every other day for 10 days. The monitor comes with some ovulation sticks that aren’t for the monitor so I might use them. I don’t always ovulate in the middle of my cycle and my cycles are not a “normal” length (this time it was 39 days).
So we’ll see how this all works… onto the next adventure in baby making!
Anyway.
Dr. B said that the entire team (meaning all of the doctors/students/fellows in the practice and the embryologists) sat down to review our case. There is no real cut and dry reason as to why we aren’t getting pregnant. My eggs look good and really the only “thing” with me is that I only have one tube. Hubs sperm look good and he had had some additional testing done on his stuff after the first failed IVF and all those tests came back with great results. They do not know for sure why when my eggs and his sperm are combined for IVF that the embryos aren’t surviving. Good news is I did get pregnant so one of the embryos did attach but bad news is obviously the embryo started to die.
He then presented us with 4 options.
1) Cornell University in New York. They would take some of the cells from my uterus and use them to make a base medium for the embryos to grow in the petri dish. Not a new procedure but not something that our place does. The thought is that the embryos could do better in a medium made from my own cells that would closely mimic the natural environment. He said that he has referred patients there and some have gotten successfully pregnant and some have not. This costs upwards of $15,000 with no insurance coverage and most likely this price doesn’t include medication. I would be able to do some of the blood work and ultrasound monitoring at the clinic that we currently go to in CT but the majority of the monitoring and all of the procedures will need to be done at Cornell. They are at least 3 hours from us and with 6 hours of travel time alone this is not a feasible option with my job,
2) IVF with ½ Donor Sperm. The embryologist has a “gut feeling” (those are Dr. B’s words) that the issue is the hubs sperm. Even though all of his testing has come back with flying colors she thinks that this is what the issue is- that it’s something with his sperm not meshing correctly with my eggs. So we would do the same long down regulation medication protocol like the last IVF. He said they would try a different medium in the petri dish for the embryos but they would fertilize ½ of my eggs with hubsters sperm and ½ with donor. If there are good embryos with hubsters sperm then we would use them and freeze any left. If there aren’t any good embryos with hubsters sperm and the only good ones are with the donor then, obviously, we would transfer the ones with the donor sperm (and freeze any left). We would then know if the issue is in fact hubby’s sperm. The IVF would be $8,060 (the financial gal gave us this price due to our combined income). This doesn’t cover meds or the donor sperm. The donor sperm is about $600. My meds last time were almost $7K but I have a lot left so I’m not sure how much we would have to spend on medication. There is a program that we can apply for that if we meet the criteria we can get assistance with paying for the meds. But in any case, this is the option that Dr. B recommends.
3) IVF with Donor Eggs. The embryologists say that it is not my eggs and we didn’t really go into the details of this option because Dr. B isn’t really that convinced that it’s my eggs either. But if the donor sperm option doesn’t work then we would know that it is my eggs. However… donor eggs alone cost upwards of $10,000. That’s just the eggs. I’m not sure if this is an option that we will explore because of the price but we will cross that bridge if we get to it.
4) IUI with ½ Donor Sperm. Dr. B threw this one out there merely because of the cost. This is the most “cost effective” option. Donor Sperm is $600 and the IUI is $300. So without meds it would be $900. Without meds it is a crap shoot though because I would have to be monitored to see what side I’m ovulating on. Since I only have one tube if we did a non-medicated “natural” cycle and I ended up ovulating from the non-tube side then the procedure is a no go and we wait for next cycle. So it could potentially end up costing more than $900 if it’s over the course of more than one cycle because of the monitoring. But if we go this route and it ends up not working we won’t know why it didn’t work – was it the sperm or did we just not catch the egg? No way of telling.
Afterwards we met with the woman in the finance department. That’s where we got the numbers I mentioned above. Needless to say we left there with our heads spinning and a lot of paperwork.
We didn’t talk about it for a couple hours; we both took the time to process everything that we had heard and sat on the deck later that evening to talk. I’m having a hard time with the donor sperm option. I honestly didn’t think that I would but all of the dreams that I’ve had about our kids and any time I’ve thought about them I always envisioned little boys who look like the hubs. Of course I know how stupid that sounds. I take full ownership of how moronic that whole thought process is. I have no idea why I feel that way and I think in time I’ll get over it because hubs doesn’t have a problem with it and he’d be the one without his DNA in the mix. If we chose to use donor anything we need to have a consultation with the psychiatrist anyway, which I think makes total sense. That’s a huge step and I think meeting with a professional to hash it out is a good idea.
Another thing I have a problem with, and hubs agrees, is that this is a whole lot of money without a guarantee that it will work. I know that we have been very very fortunate to have had the insurance coverage that we have had and that a lot of people go through this process paying out of pocket and taking that risk that it won’t work on the first or even third try. But for us that’s a huge gamble and we’re not sure if we’re ready to take that yet.
So what we agreed on is that we should take a few months off and just try on our own. Dr. B said that there isn’t any reason why I can’t get pregnant on my own. In thinking about that now I don’t get it since he said that the issue most likely lies with my eggs and his sperm coming together but maybe that’s just when it’s done artificially? I’m not sure. In any case that’s where we are now. I went on eBay and got a Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor and some sticks to go with it for a pretty good deal. I feel like we’re starting right back at square one but I’m almost excited about it. I had borrowed a CBE Monitor from a friend way before we started all this IF jazz but I only got to use it for one cycle. When she lent it to me she was pregnant with her third (she has 7 year old twin boys) and she ended up losing the baby at 14 weeks to trisonomy 13. It was heartbreaking and of course I was ok giving the monitor back because they wanted to try again. Once they were ready to try again she ended up getting pregnant rather quickly and now has a 7 month old little guy. I decided to just buy my own because it will be good to have if it works and if we end up trying for another one in the future.
So yeah. Lots and lots of info. I ended up getting my period today (which makes the huge waterfall of waterworks yesterday make more sense). I think I have to use the CBE Monitor starting on day 1 so I wouldn’t be able to use it this time anyway. Maybe we’ll just have sex starting on Day 4 and then every other day for 10 days. The monitor comes with some ovulation sticks that aren’t for the monitor so I might use them. I don’t always ovulate in the middle of my cycle and my cycles are not a “normal” length (this time it was 39 days).
So we’ll see how this all works… onto the next adventure in baby making!
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Twiddling My Thumbs
The nurse told me on June 10th that the doctors and embryologists will be meeting to review my case and then the doctor will give me a call.
By June 28th I still hadn’t heard anything so I decided to call myself. The nurse said that the doctor was on vacation but that he wants us to come in for a meeting to discuss some options as to what we can do next. One of them is using ½ donor sperm and another one is going to Cornell in Manhattan. She briefly explained that they would take some tissue from my uterus and make some sort of fluid that the embryos would be grown in. I would have to go to New York for the ER and the ET but I could still do the blood work and ultrasounds in their office. So we have an appointment for July 18th to go in and talk to Dr. B about all these new things. What we need to know first though is what, if anything, our insurance will cover. Unfortunately at this point it comes down to what we can afford. We have been extremely lucky for the insurance coverage we have had so far but we know it won’t last much longer and we may have tapped it out.
The doctor has had me start to take CoQ10- 300iu 2x a day. I Googled it a little bit and it is for heart health mainly but it also helps with cellular growth. I also saw it discussed on some message boards and from what I read, a lot of women credit it for helping them conceive. So… we’ll see.
We have actually been enjoying this little break. I haven’t had all this weighing on the fore front of my mind 24 hours a day… thinking about when my next shot will be and when I have to go in for blood work and ultrasounds. There have been moments when I forget and just live and have an honest to goodness good time laughing and being happy. My sister was here from Germany for the month of June with her husband (he was only here for a few weeks) and their 2 ½ yr old daughter. It was so great to have her here for this month and I hate when she leaves.
On Sunday, after my sister left, the hubs and I were floating in the pool on our rafts and talking about all this stuff. Bottom line is we have to wait and see what the doctor says and we’ll figure out the money situation. I’m nervous about spending all that money when there is no guarantee that it’s going to 100% be successful. Of course I can’t go into this thinking that way but it is hard not to. We also discussed adoption. Hubs knows 2 couples who went through the adoption process and hearing their stories really freaked him out about. Neither couple had a positive experience and because he knows people in real life it makes it harder for him to take in the shiny happy stories that you find online. We decided that it is an option to keep on the table but for now it’s something for down the road for “if.”
On a completely unrelated topic I have been experimenting with Paelo. It actually hasn’t been as hard as I thought to cut out all the dairy and wheat/gluten. I even refused ice cream the other night – which is huge for me because ice cream was one of my loves! But I didn’t have the craving for it like I used to, which is something that I read about in one of my books. So we’ll see how this all works out but I have definitely been sleeping better and I noticed when I do eat like I used to (we went to my grandmother’s for a BBQ and I didn’t follow Paelo) I felt like garbage and slept horribly. The food prep is a lot more work and it’s easier to grab for processed convenience foods but I know that I feel better eating the Paelo way so I am making the effort. So far so good :)
By June 28th I still hadn’t heard anything so I decided to call myself. The nurse said that the doctor was on vacation but that he wants us to come in for a meeting to discuss some options as to what we can do next. One of them is using ½ donor sperm and another one is going to Cornell in Manhattan. She briefly explained that they would take some tissue from my uterus and make some sort of fluid that the embryos would be grown in. I would have to go to New York for the ER and the ET but I could still do the blood work and ultrasounds in their office. So we have an appointment for July 18th to go in and talk to Dr. B about all these new things. What we need to know first though is what, if anything, our insurance will cover. Unfortunately at this point it comes down to what we can afford. We have been extremely lucky for the insurance coverage we have had so far but we know it won’t last much longer and we may have tapped it out.
The doctor has had me start to take CoQ10- 300iu 2x a day. I Googled it a little bit and it is for heart health mainly but it also helps with cellular growth. I also saw it discussed on some message boards and from what I read, a lot of women credit it for helping them conceive. So… we’ll see.
We have actually been enjoying this little break. I haven’t had all this weighing on the fore front of my mind 24 hours a day… thinking about when my next shot will be and when I have to go in for blood work and ultrasounds. There have been moments when I forget and just live and have an honest to goodness good time laughing and being happy. My sister was here from Germany for the month of June with her husband (he was only here for a few weeks) and their 2 ½ yr old daughter. It was so great to have her here for this month and I hate when she leaves.
On Sunday, after my sister left, the hubs and I were floating in the pool on our rafts and talking about all this stuff. Bottom line is we have to wait and see what the doctor says and we’ll figure out the money situation. I’m nervous about spending all that money when there is no guarantee that it’s going to 100% be successful. Of course I can’t go into this thinking that way but it is hard not to. We also discussed adoption. Hubs knows 2 couples who went through the adoption process and hearing their stories really freaked him out about. Neither couple had a positive experience and because he knows people in real life it makes it harder for him to take in the shiny happy stories that you find online. We decided that it is an option to keep on the table but for now it’s something for down the road for “if.”
On a completely unrelated topic I have been experimenting with Paelo. It actually hasn’t been as hard as I thought to cut out all the dairy and wheat/gluten. I even refused ice cream the other night – which is huge for me because ice cream was one of my loves! But I didn’t have the craving for it like I used to, which is something that I read about in one of my books. So we’ll see how this all works out but I have definitely been sleeping better and I noticed when I do eat like I used to (we went to my grandmother’s for a BBQ and I didn’t follow Paelo) I felt like garbage and slept horribly. The food prep is a lot more work and it’s easier to grab for processed convenience foods but I know that I feel better eating the Paelo way so I am making the effort. So far so good :)
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Limbo
I went to get my blood drawn again on Monday June 10th and yes, my numbers were in the negatives. Duh- I wish I could’ve saved myself the trip because my period started that morning. I looked it up online and because I had IVF the period after the chemical pregnancy was more like a miscarriage. Let me tell you, it was like nothing I had ever experienced. I will save you the gory details just that it was very very very heavy and there was A LOT of stuff. I had very bad cramps and lower back ache but what was really weird was that I also had a lot of pressure in my uterus, which sounds strange but that’s the only way I can describe it. It said online that since I had (2) embryo(s) put in that the body was starting to get ready for a pregnancy because they were fertilized. Then since the cells started to divide and give off the hCG hormone things really started to get ready… but then the cells died.
So, yeah.
As with our first IVF, we’re now waiting for the doctors and embryologists to get together to discuss our case. Good news is that I was able to (kind of) get pregnant. I’m just hoping that they can figure out something new to do that will help me to get all-the-way pregnant. This time I think we have to pay out of pocket, which I know that a lot of couples have to do right from the start. We are very fortunate that we had up until now the insurance coverage that we did. We have to wait and see what kind of costs we are looking at and then at what kind of payment plan they provide.
The thing that really depresses me (obviously besides the not being pregnant thing) is the amount of weight that I have gained since I started on fertility drugs in December 2011. I already had a little bit of extra weight on but now I have another 40 pounds. I kept telling myself that it would be worth it in the end because I would be pregnant but now here we are with 3 IUI’s and 2 IVF’s under our belt (not to mention all the cycles on just clomid) and all I have to show for it is this big butt. I am not, however, going to sit here and completely blame the meds for packing on the pounds. They made me extremely hungry and had me hold onto any extra weight that I put on but they didn’t make me make poor food choices. That is on me.
I have decided that I need to do something while we’re waiting. I can’t keep going the way that I have been. The doctor swears that my weight has nothing to do with me not getting pregnant but I’m sure it doesn’t help. A lot of my friends on Facebook have been talking about the Paleo diet so I ordered “Paleo for Beginners” by John Chatham from Amazon. I should get it on Friday but I have been reading a lot about it online and it looks really interesting. I’m excited and I will of course keep you all posted on my experience. I need something to occupy my time while we’re here in limbo.
So, yeah.
As with our first IVF, we’re now waiting for the doctors and embryologists to get together to discuss our case. Good news is that I was able to (kind of) get pregnant. I’m just hoping that they can figure out something new to do that will help me to get all-the-way pregnant. This time I think we have to pay out of pocket, which I know that a lot of couples have to do right from the start. We are very fortunate that we had up until now the insurance coverage that we did. We have to wait and see what kind of costs we are looking at and then at what kind of payment plan they provide.
The thing that really depresses me (obviously besides the not being pregnant thing) is the amount of weight that I have gained since I started on fertility drugs in December 2011. I already had a little bit of extra weight on but now I have another 40 pounds. I kept telling myself that it would be worth it in the end because I would be pregnant but now here we are with 3 IUI’s and 2 IVF’s under our belt (not to mention all the cycles on just clomid) and all I have to show for it is this big butt. I am not, however, going to sit here and completely blame the meds for packing on the pounds. They made me extremely hungry and had me hold onto any extra weight that I put on but they didn’t make me make poor food choices. That is on me.
I have decided that I need to do something while we’re waiting. I can’t keep going the way that I have been. The doctor swears that my weight has nothing to do with me not getting pregnant but I’m sure it doesn’t help. A lot of my friends on Facebook have been talking about the Paleo diet so I ordered “Paleo for Beginners” by John Chatham from Amazon. I should get it on Friday but I have been reading a lot about it online and it looks really interesting. I’m excited and I will of course keep you all posted on my experience. I need something to occupy my time while we’re here in limbo.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Gutted.
I know that some of you have been waiting for this update… I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this on here but I wanted to wait to get the final outcome, which we did yesterday.
Let me start from about a week ago- Saturday June 1st… I was 8dp3dt (8 days post 3 day transfer). I got up that morning and took a pregnancy test. I had one box left of Clear Blue Easy Digital tests, the ones that say “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant.” I wanted to be able to take a picture of that magic test when we finally saw the words “Pregnant.”
Right away a “Not Pregnant” came up.
Oh crap. I was devastated. I got back in bed and sobbed… the hubs had to leave to go and proctor the SAT’s so he wasn’t able to stay and comfort me for long. After a while I turned to my trusty friend Google…
Oh.
It was too early to test.
Hubs was so mad when I sent him a quick email, “whoops just saw online that it was too early to test!” He was like, “why do you do this to yourself? Please don’t take any more tests; you’re just making yourself so upset. That’s why they are having you come in next week!!”
Fast forward to Tuesday June 4th, 11dp3dt.
I went to the clinic for my blood test. I did not take a pregnancy test that morning. I sat at my desk in my office staring at my phone all day willing it to ring. Finally at 2:45 they called.
I got a positive test! I was pregnant!!
But…
My numbers were really low. Like only a 12 low. Yep. Twelve. They usually like to see at least a 50 but anything over 5 is considered pregnant. The nurse said she has seen a few cases where the patient comes back for their blood test again two days later and the number doubles (they would be looking for at least a 20 or higher). She said that one or both of the embryos could have implanted late and to be “cautiously optimistic.” But she also said that in most cases the numbers start to go down and it’s then what they call a chemical pregnancy.
A chemical pregnancy is when some of the cells of the embryo(s) start to produce the pregnancy hormone hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin - which is what the blood test measures). The hCG levels will continue to double every 72 hours finally reaching its peak between 8-11 weeks of pregnancy where they level off at some where close to 300,000. They will slowly start to go down as the baby develops and at about 40 weeks gestation it could be around 117,000 (these numbers are just an approximation, I am sure there are many women out there who have had nothing close to this but this just to give you an idea).
I spent the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday praying. Praying my fanny off. Talking to the embryo(s) and telling it/they how much we want them, how much we have prayed for them… about the wonderful life it/they would have if it/they would just hang on and grow…
Thursday morning I woke up and had the brilliant idea to take another test.
Not Pregnant.
Ugh. That probably wasn’t the best idea. I was, once again devastated. The hubs had already left for work so I was alone in my grief. I sobbed in the shower. I just sat on the floor letting the water spray on my back and just let go. I then went back onto the trusty internet and saw that women who have IVF really should not take hpt’s (home pregnancy tests) because they only read very high hormone levels (especially the digital brand I had) and that they are very unreliable in these cases.
Oh.
Well.
Maybe there was still chance? Maybe there was a chance that we would get our miracle and later I’ll laugh about how silly I was with all my crying antics in the shower.
I went to get my blood test (14dp3dt), went to work with a little bit of doubt but was trying to be super hopeful. This could work. This could be it. I was currently pregnant. I was exhausted all the time, starving all the time and my breasts were “fuller” and killing me… they also looked like a road map with all the blue veins that seems to have come to the surface (a huge pregnancy sign). But it could also be from the hormones in the Progesterone in Oil (PIO) shots that hubs had been giving me in the upper butt area since the day after the retrieval.
At 1:50 my phone rang and my heart went into my throat. I thought it must be good news since it was so much earlier than the last time they called.
It wasn’t.
My number was now an 11. The nurse said that since it didn’t go up but instead started to go down that it was, in fact, a chemical pregnancy. I need to come in on Monday June 10th for another blood test to make sure my numbers were back down to negative. She said the doctor needed to meet with the rest of the team and that he will call to let me know the next steps.
I think I said, “thank you” and hung up the phone. I tried to start to get back to work, tried to tell myself that I had taken a test that morning so obviously I knew the outcome and this shouldn’t be such a surprise.
It then came apparent to me that I needed to go home. I needed to get the heck out of there and go home and just let myself grieve. I dashed a quick email to my boss and power walked to my jeep. I started hyper ventilating the second I closed the door. I took a few deep breaths and somehow was able to start the car and go. I kept whispering “Oh my God” and “I can’t believe that just happened” over and over again. I never turned on the radio, just sat there trying to calmly breathe and make it home. I finally pulled into our garage, shut off the car and as the garage door started to roll close I lost it. I screamed with everything I had in my heart. I beat the staring wheel. I cursed everyone and everything.
I just don’t understand why God put this intense desire in my heart to have a child/ren for my whole life and it just seems so unattainable. Why is this so hard? Why are we the couple that can’t conceive? What kind of crappy karma was I working with here? I started to cry harder when I thought about how unfair this all is to my husband. He would make such an amazing dad. I feel broken. I feel unwomanly. We have been going through this for 2 and a half years. Countless doctors’ appointments, medications, self-injections, surgeries, extremely invasive and intrusive procedures… and all I have to show for it is knack for giving myself an injection and 40 extra pounds. Yep that’s the ugly truth; I have gained 40 pounds since I started on all this fertility medication. I kept telling myself that it would all be worth it when I was finally pregnant but here we are at the end of what our insurance would cover and I was still not pregnant but I am the heaviest I have ever been.
At this point I don’t know what we’re going to do. The hubs and I had a long talk last night and we’re going to hear what the doctor has to say but maybe we’ll just take a break for a little while. I have this irrational fear that every day I’m getting older and that my time is running out but honestly I don’t know if I can jump right back into this again. This last IVF cycle was 2 ½ months and it was a long and terrifying journey. I know that if we end up doing this again I’ll be a little more at ease because I’ll know what to expect but at this point we don’t even know what, if any, insurance coverage we have left. I know that it won’t cover it 100% like it has been (and I know how lucky we have been for that) but I’m not sure if it will now cover anything and I’m not sure if we can even afford to pay for this out of pocket.
We’re going to have to take this one day at a time. Actually at this moment I’m going to have to take it one hour at a time. I am technically still pregnant until my numbers go down past 5. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
We were just soooo close this time.
Let me start from about a week ago- Saturday June 1st… I was 8dp3dt (8 days post 3 day transfer). I got up that morning and took a pregnancy test. I had one box left of Clear Blue Easy Digital tests, the ones that say “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant.” I wanted to be able to take a picture of that magic test when we finally saw the words “Pregnant.”
Right away a “Not Pregnant” came up.
Oh crap. I was devastated. I got back in bed and sobbed… the hubs had to leave to go and proctor the SAT’s so he wasn’t able to stay and comfort me for long. After a while I turned to my trusty friend Google…
Oh.
It was too early to test.
Hubs was so mad when I sent him a quick email, “whoops just saw online that it was too early to test!” He was like, “why do you do this to yourself? Please don’t take any more tests; you’re just making yourself so upset. That’s why they are having you come in next week!!”
Fast forward to Tuesday June 4th, 11dp3dt.
I went to the clinic for my blood test. I did not take a pregnancy test that morning. I sat at my desk in my office staring at my phone all day willing it to ring. Finally at 2:45 they called.
I got a positive test! I was pregnant!!
But…
My numbers were really low. Like only a 12 low. Yep. Twelve. They usually like to see at least a 50 but anything over 5 is considered pregnant. The nurse said she has seen a few cases where the patient comes back for their blood test again two days later and the number doubles (they would be looking for at least a 20 or higher). She said that one or both of the embryos could have implanted late and to be “cautiously optimistic.” But she also said that in most cases the numbers start to go down and it’s then what they call a chemical pregnancy.
A chemical pregnancy is when some of the cells of the embryo(s) start to produce the pregnancy hormone hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin - which is what the blood test measures). The hCG levels will continue to double every 72 hours finally reaching its peak between 8-11 weeks of pregnancy where they level off at some where close to 300,000. They will slowly start to go down as the baby develops and at about 40 weeks gestation it could be around 117,000 (these numbers are just an approximation, I am sure there are many women out there who have had nothing close to this but this just to give you an idea).
I spent the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday praying. Praying my fanny off. Talking to the embryo(s) and telling it/they how much we want them, how much we have prayed for them… about the wonderful life it/they would have if it/they would just hang on and grow…
Thursday morning I woke up and had the brilliant idea to take another test.
Not Pregnant.
Ugh. That probably wasn’t the best idea. I was, once again devastated. The hubs had already left for work so I was alone in my grief. I sobbed in the shower. I just sat on the floor letting the water spray on my back and just let go. I then went back onto the trusty internet and saw that women who have IVF really should not take hpt’s (home pregnancy tests) because they only read very high hormone levels (especially the digital brand I had) and that they are very unreliable in these cases.
Oh.
Well.
Maybe there was still chance? Maybe there was a chance that we would get our miracle and later I’ll laugh about how silly I was with all my crying antics in the shower.
I went to get my blood test (14dp3dt), went to work with a little bit of doubt but was trying to be super hopeful. This could work. This could be it. I was currently pregnant. I was exhausted all the time, starving all the time and my breasts were “fuller” and killing me… they also looked like a road map with all the blue veins that seems to have come to the surface (a huge pregnancy sign). But it could also be from the hormones in the Progesterone in Oil (PIO) shots that hubs had been giving me in the upper butt area since the day after the retrieval.
At 1:50 my phone rang and my heart went into my throat. I thought it must be good news since it was so much earlier than the last time they called.
It wasn’t.
My number was now an 11. The nurse said that since it didn’t go up but instead started to go down that it was, in fact, a chemical pregnancy. I need to come in on Monday June 10th for another blood test to make sure my numbers were back down to negative. She said the doctor needed to meet with the rest of the team and that he will call to let me know the next steps.
I think I said, “thank you” and hung up the phone. I tried to start to get back to work, tried to tell myself that I had taken a test that morning so obviously I knew the outcome and this shouldn’t be such a surprise.
It then came apparent to me that I needed to go home. I needed to get the heck out of there and go home and just let myself grieve. I dashed a quick email to my boss and power walked to my jeep. I started hyper ventilating the second I closed the door. I took a few deep breaths and somehow was able to start the car and go. I kept whispering “Oh my God” and “I can’t believe that just happened” over and over again. I never turned on the radio, just sat there trying to calmly breathe and make it home. I finally pulled into our garage, shut off the car and as the garage door started to roll close I lost it. I screamed with everything I had in my heart. I beat the staring wheel. I cursed everyone and everything.
I just don’t understand why God put this intense desire in my heart to have a child/ren for my whole life and it just seems so unattainable. Why is this so hard? Why are we the couple that can’t conceive? What kind of crappy karma was I working with here? I started to cry harder when I thought about how unfair this all is to my husband. He would make such an amazing dad. I feel broken. I feel unwomanly. We have been going through this for 2 and a half years. Countless doctors’ appointments, medications, self-injections, surgeries, extremely invasive and intrusive procedures… and all I have to show for it is knack for giving myself an injection and 40 extra pounds. Yep that’s the ugly truth; I have gained 40 pounds since I started on all this fertility medication. I kept telling myself that it would all be worth it when I was finally pregnant but here we are at the end of what our insurance would cover and I was still not pregnant but I am the heaviest I have ever been.
At this point I don’t know what we’re going to do. The hubs and I had a long talk last night and we’re going to hear what the doctor has to say but maybe we’ll just take a break for a little while. I have this irrational fear that every day I’m getting older and that my time is running out but honestly I don’t know if I can jump right back into this again. This last IVF cycle was 2 ½ months and it was a long and terrifying journey. I know that if we end up doing this again I’ll be a little more at ease because I’ll know what to expect but at this point we don’t even know what, if any, insurance coverage we have left. I know that it won’t cover it 100% like it has been (and I know how lucky we have been for that) but I’m not sure if it will now cover anything and I’m not sure if we can even afford to pay for this out of pocket.
We’re going to have to take this one day at a time. Actually at this moment I’m going to have to take it one hour at a time. I am technically still pregnant until my numbers go down past 5. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
We were just soooo close this time.
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