The Journey Continues.....Part 2

By mid-July we were pretty well settled into our new home and ready to make a plan for continuing our IVF adventure.  The kind of odd part was that I wasn't wanting to move forward because I was mourning my recent loss and really wanted another chance for a different outcome (because I wasn't...I was still completely at peace about it all), it felt more like important unfinished business that needed to be addressed.  (Believe me -- I KNOW how detached and strange that sounds, but it was the truth just the same.) So I called the local clinic and made an appointment to get the ball rolling.  Because my fresh cycle was so recent, there wasn't much to do.  All the necessary testing and bloodwork, etc., was already done and my Utah clinic was very helpful in transferring up all those records.  So basically I had a preliminary ultrasound with the doctor, and then met with the FET coordinator to set up my schedule.  Due to some planned family vacations (took the girls to Disneyland -- SO FUN!) and other scheduling conflicts, we decided upon September 8th (today!) as a tentative transfer date.  I left the office with a pack of birth control pills and a plan.

Now that I had an actual date set for the transfer, I began a daily "exercise" of evaluating my feelings about everything.  And I have to say, I was all over the place.  I spent some time with my very-pregnant sister, and kept thinking, "Man! I am so glad that isn't me!!!" (But then again, I have already clearly decided that wanting to be pregnant and wanting a child are for me two very different things...)  But then at the end of July when that same sister moved to a new home close to me (YIPPEE!!!!) and I got to spend time with my newborn nephew, I would think, "Okay - he is so cute and snuggly and warm....I could do this again!"  And for a few days I found myself (for the first time, really) wanting a baby.  Especially when I watched the pure delight on my girl's faces as they held their tiny cousin.  And honestly - that wanting was not really welcome.  If I was wanting, then that meant I was open for massive heartbreak.  I preferred neutral.  Fortunately for me, after a few days of the "wanting," the feeling kind of subsided and I was back to my happy neutral -- either my upcoming FET would be successful and we would be very blessed with another child to love, or it wouldn't, and I would continue to be blessed by the two miracles I already have.  I have no idea why my heart and mind have been so truly neutral about this whole thing, but I consider it a tender mercy from God, since I was absolutely powerless to control the outcome...

On August 18th I went in for my baseline ultrasound.  My lining was a nice, thin 2.27mm and my ovaries were "quiet" - just like it was all supposed to be.  Then the next day I started my first injections of Estradiol Valerate -- basically straight estrogen, I think.  Though I was certainly not eager to start having my hubby stick a 1 1/2" needle in my bum again, the amount of medication was not a big deal, and so the resulting soreness wasn't a big deal either.  And I only had to do the injections on Tuesdays and Fridays, so I was good.  (The biggest problem was that the meds caused my boobs to get sooo sore! Not that any of you wanted to know that, but the whole point of this blog is to accurately record this whole experience, and believe me - this soreness was not to be ignored!)  On August 29th I went in for my second lining check.  The injections had done their job - my lining was a nice, thick 12mm!!  Everything was progressing nicely.

Then came Saturday, September 3rd--the day I had to begin the dreaded PIO (Progesterone-in-Oil) injections. (This clinic doesn't do the Crinone... :( ) When I drew up the full 2ml into the syringe, my dh looked at it and said, "Surely that can't be right...that is so much!"  Unfortunately I had not made a mistake.  Just to be clear, it is NOT the 1 1/2" needle being shoved into my muscles that is the problem, it is the fact that ALL THAT OIL has to go somewhere!  And I can feel it spreading out into the muscle as my dh does the injection.  The initial shot isn't too bad, but about three hours later the whole left side of my upper bum was so painful!  By the next morning, it seriously felt like I had been kicked by a mule and it hurt to move at all.  And what did I get to do?  Draw up another 2mm of oil to inject into the non-sore side.  Then comes Monday, and my left side is still so very sore, but I have to inject another 2mm of oil into it anyway!  And I am not exaggerating when I say that it starts to feel very much like torture.  I pretty much sat on a hotpad all day Monday and tried not to move.  The heat seemed to help and by Tuesday I wasn't feeling quite so miserable anymore.  And I sat in a long, hot bath Tuesday night which also helped ease the ache.  By Wednesday my body had kind of gotten used to the "torture" and the constant ache had settled down to a tolerable level. (Good thing, too, because IF I get pregnant I have to do daily PIO injections until 12 weeks gestation!!)  But believe me when I say that PIO shots really are awful and anyone who has to endure them deserves the right to whine about it as much as they like... (In addition to the PIO injections, Saturday I also started a course of Doxycycline and Medrol in preparation for my Thursday transfer day...)  

The Journey Continues.....Part 1

Yikes!  I can't believe the last time I wrote was clear back in April...   There is so much that I should have been writing, but I didn't.  So I will do my best now to get down the important stuff.  But it won't be in the "present tense" anymore...sorry!

Well, after my early miscarriage in April, we decided it was time to take a little break from the whole madness that is fertility treatments.  But first, I needed to get my little embies safely up to Boise.  Fortunately for me, my parents were planning on coming to Boise in May anyway to attend WICKED.  So I got on the phones and got everything arranged for RCC in Utah to pack up my three "frosties" in a specialized cryotank.  Then my parents were able to pick up the tank and strap it into the backseat of their car for the trip up to Boise.  (Normally that tank gets sent via UPS, where who knows how roughly it gets tossed around!  I much preferred the peace of mind of my parents making a road trip with their potential grandbabies!)  And my mom was cracking me up during the drive.  She kept sending me texts saying stuff like, "Things are going well, but #2 keeps complaining that #3 is touching him," and "We had to stop AGAIN for #4 to use the bathroom..."  The best quip I could come up with was, "Too bad my embies were too "cool" to enjoy a roadtrip with their grandparents!"  We were just being silly, but it was fun.  And when my parents arrived in Boise that evening, the clinic was already closed so we needed to keep the cryotank overnight.  It could have been placed anywhere that it wouldn't get knocked over, (it is about 3' tall and 18" wide, and sort of mushroom shaped) but I thought it was funny to set up my port-a-crib and put it in there.  So somewhere I have a picture (I will post it when I find it) of the first night my embies spent at home, safely tucked away in the port-a-crib in their cryotank. :)  The next morning we took the cryotank to the Idaho clinic where my embryos were safely transferred to their storage place.  (And luckily for us, they said as long as we were planning on doing a frozen transfer in the near future, they wouldn't charge us any storage fees! Hooray!)

Honestly, I did breathe a huge sigh of relief knowing that my embies were now safely waiting close to home.  It enabled me to mentally as well as physically take a real break from fertility stuff for a bit.  And that was a good thing, because when I returned home from Utah in early April, I noticed that my next-door neighbor was totally gone and that there were For Sale signs in front of her home.  I didn't know it, but the home had been foreclosed on while I was out of town, and was now bank-owned and up for sale.  I didn't think much about it, because that home had been for sale before in the past couple of years, but always at a price that was waaayyy more than we would have ever considered.  But then a dear friend of mine told me she was looking to buy a new home, and I teasingly suggested she buy the one next door!  So on May 15th I saw a realtor leave the home, and on behalf of my friend, I inquired what the asking price of the home was.  He told me that the bank had just lowered it and told me the new asking price.  I think I about fell over.  They were asking LESS than we had paid for our current home, and this one was 900+ square feet bigger with nicer upgrades.  I went home and told my husband the asking price, and we immediately called our realtor.  Jake came right over (because he is the best realtor ever!) and we all took a look at the home.  Besides the fact that it desperately needed new carpet, the home was in beautiful condition!  And it had all my favorite elements of my current home, just bigger and better with lots of new ones.  (Like a huge laundry room with a SINK, and extra bedrooms for a toy room, guest bedroom, etc., plus still giving Rich an office and me my photography studio!)  That night my hubby and I had a LONG discussion about things.  And even though we had not EVER mentioned buying a new home, we decided this opportunity was too good to pass up.  So the next day our realtor came over and we put in an offer on the home.  (And as it turns out, two other people had the same idea that day, so if we had waited even ONE MORE DAY thinking about it, we would have lost the home.  Instead we got into a mini bidding war, which we ultimately won. :) )  The next few weeks were a total crazy blur.  We very quickly worked out our financing, and managed to convince the bank to let us close on June 8th -- just 21 days after our offer was accepted!  And I spent those 21 days sneaking over to the house (I managed to procure a garage door opener...hee! hee!) dragging different carpet samples to pick out just what I wanted, and measuring different spots in the house to plan where our stuff would go.  So by the time the bank representative came to get the lockbox and signs on June 9th, I already had people in the home ripping out the old carpet, and someone else helping to install my new range, etc.  (The look on his face was pretty funny!)  So in less than one month, we went from NEVER discussing buying a new home to the strange but exciting task of moving all of our belongings next door.  (And I mean LITERALLY the house NEXT DOOR.)

And somewhere in the middle of all that crazy, exciting chaos I paused and thought, "Oh yeah, I just miscarried my pregnancy after an intense full IVF cycle!"  But it was strange...even though that had just occurred, it already seemed like so long ago.  From the moment I got the call telling me that the babies were gone to that point, I had been completely numb about it.  Not grief-stricken-can't-deal-with-this numb, but totally-at-peace-with-everything numb.  And then I just busied myself in the task of getting my new home all organized and put away.  (I should add that before we had even moved, some friends of ours who had moved away told us that they were moving back and wanted to rent our home.  So two days or so after we moved out, our friends moved in.  And they are not only fantastic tenants, but awesome neighbors as well. :) )  So life was just great and the new house was so amazingly fun and sometimes in the back of my mind I would remember that I had three little embies waiting for me to give them a chance at life...