Before I Depart...

I just wanted to thank everyone who left messages to say congratulations. I'm heading off to board the cruise ship in a little bit so I may be out of touch for a while. I'll try to get online to read your blogs and to check in on MoMo and Sube. I'm looking forward to being on vacation, but I can't wait to get back and take the next two beta tests. I'll fill you in on the trip when I return next Saturday.

So Much Can Happen in One Hour

I'm sorry that I couldn't post earlier. Blogger was doing some weird stuff. Anyway...

My hCG level is 304!!! I can't believe it. It doesn't feel real yet. I'm so excited I could explode.

That's not all though, I have more good news. For the past year my husband has been searching for a job everywhere between NJ and MA. Right now we live 8 hours away from my family. Weekend visits don't really give you much time together. It's difficult to squeeze things in. I know that there are people that live further away from their families, but I grew up with my whole family living on the same street in our small town in CT. My sister just had a baby and when Howie and I have kids I want to be closer to them. Anyway, he had an interview today in NYC, and they offered him the job. He doesn't have his offer letter yet and nothing has been signed, but they know how much he wants to make and they still want him. So that seems pretty good.

It was a lot of good news to get in one hour. There's a lot to think about and we need to take things one-step at a time. Nothing is for sure right now, but it's the first time we've come close to having the things that we've wanted for so long. I just want to enjoy this feeling right now.

Psycho-symptom-atic Syndrome

Symptoms of OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrom):

Abdominal bloating and feeling of fullness
Diarrhea
Weight gain
Urine is darker and amount is less
Skin/hair may feel dry
Thirst
Shortness of breath
Lower abdominal pain

OHSS always disappears in a few days unless a pregnancy occurs. In early pregnancy the problem may last weeks and require prolonged hospitalization.

Hmm......... I've only had these symptoms since Monday. I guess by the time I can say that I've had the symptoms for more than just a few days I'll have my beta test results. My symptoms are not severe, and I realize OHSS is nothing to hope for, but if I have to trade comfort for a baby (or babies) I'm more than happy to do that! I've probably jinxed it now. I'll get a negative on my beta and have to delete this horribly embarrassing entry when you all aren't looking. I'm really just experiencing Psycho-symptom-atic Syndrome.

Friday Can't Come Soon Enough

Here I am. Waiting. Waiting for Friday. Friday is my first beta test. I'm testing three days early. On Saturday Howie and I will drive up to NJ where his parents live. On Sunday we drive to NY where we (the in-laws, Howie & I) will board a cruise ship headed for the Bahamas. That means that I will have just enough time to pull myself together if the news is bad. If I’m pregnant, well, that means I have to wait another week to take my second and third beta tests. That also means that I will be on edge not knowing if my hCG level is rising or dropping. If it’s going to happen it’ll happen, it doesn’t matter where I am or if I took a test. I’d just rather know. It’s something I’ve feared since my miscarriage. The happiness that would come from the first positive beta test will only last so long, my next worry is if I can get beyond the third beta without the numbers dropping. I know that things can still go wrong after the third beta, but I guess that’s my own personal hurdle because I’ve never been past that point.

I’ve already started to play head games with myself. Am I having good pregnancy cramps or is it just the red wave? Am I sleeping for 14 hours a day like I did when I was pregnant or is it just fatigue from PMS? Well, when I was pregnant it was just easier to dose off, but I my entire body didn’t feel fatigued like it does right before my period. I think it’s more like when I was pregnant for 3 days. No, that’s silly, how could I have pregnancy symptoms so early? It’s just the stupid drugs! I can’t be pregnant! Well, Dr. Sunshine said that she felt really good about this cycle, she thought the blastocysts looked strong. Why wouldn’t they attach? Because they don’t always stick! They probably didn’t stick! We’re probably going to have to do this again and Howie’s boss is going to be an ass. He’ll tell Howie that whatever time he needs off is fine, then he’ll get pissed because we can’t predict exactly when things are going to happen and he’ll accuse Howie of “springing” this on him. I think we’re starting to really get on his nerves. Fuck him, we want a baby! I don’t want to do this anymore! No, I don’t want to quit because I want to have a baby. I want to be pregnant and know what it feels like to have a little person growing inside of me more than I want to quit. It’ll all be worth it in the end.

I guess I’ll just have to keep myself entertained and distracted until Friday. I’m going to forget about Friday and just look forward to little things, like TV shows! So, tonight I’m going to look forward to American Idol. On Wednesday I’ll be counting down the hours to the 2 hour finale of Lost! On Thursday it’s CSI: Las Vegas. Friday is a bit different. I need a daytime distraction. So, I’m saving all my filing for Friday. I should be filing for hours and hours on end. I plan to come in early so that I can leave early if the news is bad. If the news is good, well, I still get to leave early! Then I have another week of waiting on the cruise. I’ll have to keep myself completely busy doing something that is safe for delicate pregnant women so that I don’t have to think about beta tests two and three. Wish me luck!

Trying to Smile Through the Boredom

I'm REALLY bored at work, and I kinda hate my job right now. I considered writing an entry about why I hate my job even though I love the company I work for, but then I decided that it was all too boring. Just because I'm bored doesn't mean that I have to bore all of you to death. So, I decided to entertain myself with some infertility sniglets. You can read all of them if you go to the site, I just wanted to list my favorites:

Bladder Praying: praying that your bladder will fill up so that you can take an HPT - because it's day 29 and you KNOW FOR SURE THAT THE TEST RESULTS ARE GOING TO BE POSITIVE THIS TIME.

Briefectomy: furtive removal of all tight-fitting briefs from your husband's underwear drawer.

Clearpit Easy: bottomless pit into which women hurl buckets of money while repeatedly testing for pregnancy way too early or while testing for an LH surge.

Clomidbuddy: the invisible but very useful "nobody" who is TRULY responsible for all the awful things mistakenly attributed to a woman on Clomid. ("It wasn't ME who smashed those dishes onto the floor in Clomid-induced anger ... It was the Clomidbuddy.")

Coinus interruptus: the impact of infertility treatments on one's pocketbook.

Day-one-dering: wondering why oh why you have to deal with "day one", yet again!

Fanta-sizing: Dreaming what you would look like nine months pregnant.

Freeballing: the step beyond boxers taken by truly devoted husbands with low sperm count.

Hormonophobia: dread fear of saying the wrong thing to your wife when she is on fertility drugs.

Joe Pesci Syndrome: the overwhelming urge (which occurs around day 12 of a Metrodin/Humegon cycle) to attack someone rude with a pen, pencil, or whatever's handy.

Male sex drive: something constantly in motion, but shuts down completely from his wife's cycle days 10-16, because, after all, what's the use...

Miss Mannerism: the habit, when people ask you nosy questions about when you're going to get pregnant or make rude comments like "want my kids?" of looking a combination of shocked and puzzled and saying something like, "Why ever would you say such a thing?"

Multiple Dwarf Syndrome: a state caused by the ups and downs of fertility treatments, characterized by describing oneself as some combination of grumpy, sleepy, dopey, bashful, etc; especially effective descriptor if you include what we like to call the "alternative dwarves," such as horny, bitchy, barfy, crampy, etc.

Petri dish: a womb with a view

Preconceived notion: the idea (before trying to get pregnant) that one will get pregnant within a month or two, three at the most.

Preggozone: the magnetic area around all infertile women that draws expectant mothers into close viewing range; the first day of any cycle has the greatest magnetic field, closely followed by any day on which an infertile womans fails a pregnancy test.

Pregsplotion: the sudden abundance of pregnant women in your vicinity within hours of your negative pregnancy test.

Prince Charming (or Hubble without a Choice): the name for a sweet husband who is infinitely patient and kind while you have Multiple Dwarf Syndrome.

Psycho-symptom-atic Syndrome: a psychosomatic condition afflicting women during the two-week waiting period; marked by a tendency to incorrectly attribute every bodily twinge and twitch to the early stages of pregnancy.

Reverse Pharmacology: taking Birth Control Pills in the month before your IVF.

Totsicles: frozen embryos waiting to be transferred.

Transfurryence: treating your pets like human babies.

There you go! And I just got a call from my husband. He just spoke to Dr. Sunshine and she said there was 1 embryo to freeze and it's beautiful! Woohoo! I forgot to give the whole embryo count down on transfer day. They retrieved 13 eggs, 11 were mature, 6 fertilized normally, 1 fertilized abnormally (our little freak show embryo, we hope to donate that one to a circus), 6 went on to the blastocyst stage, 2 were transferred and 1 has been frozen. Dr. Sunshine is, as usual, very positive, very excited, very hopeful. Pffffff... you'd think we hired her to be the freaking cheerleader for my embryos. Ok, I know, it's good to be positive, I shouldn't be negative, my two maybe babies may feel the negativity and run.

My Kitty is a Genius!

This may seem like a semi-long pointless blog at first, but if you keep reading you'll realize that it does have a point. In my first blog posting I mentioned that I have a cat named Kirby. I've had him for about 10 years now. He's my big baby, and I treat him like a big baby. However, when it comes to scolding Kirby for bad behavior, it's pretty much Howie's job. When it's up to me I end up cuddling and kissing him because I'm a sucker for those big beautiful green eyes and his unusually long fangs. I know, so far my mommy track record isn't very good, but I swear that I am much better with human children. It's only my cat that has me wrapped around his paw. Ok, I'm a bit off track, let's get back on track. One thing that Howie often gets upset about is Kirby throwing up on the carpet. Not exactly that he threw up, but that he threw up on a surface that isn't easy to clean. He'll often yell at Kirby and tell him that he was bad, Kirby then looks at Howie likes he's an idiot, and then I defend Kirby, "It's not like he enjoys throwing up! He didn't mean to throw up on the rug, it just happens to be where he was standing at the time! He doesn't know any better, he's just a kitty!" I mean, Kirby isn't like Mr. Jinx from Meet the Parents. He hasn't had extensive training in anything... so we thought. Howie and I were heading to bed the other night and I found a little something on my side of the bed. I called Howie over and we both stared at this odd pile of tissues laying on the sheets. Howie began picking up tissues and there it was, VOMIT! Who covered it with tissues? It wasn't me, it wasn't Howie, that means it was the cat! Kirby actually took a number of tissues out of the tissue box and placed them on top of his vomit. Was he trying to hide his mess because he knows that daddy would be upset, or was he trying to help daddy with the clean up? Either way, we are so proud of our smart little kitty.

Meet Our Blastocysts

Meet our two little blastocysts! The doctor said that the one on the left is "absolutely perfect, just the way it should be" and the one on the right is still developing into a blastocyst. I don't want to make anyone feel less than perfect, so after the transfer I told my little almost blastocyst... embryocyst... that both of them are perfect to us. If it was possible to give them a kiss I'd do it now!

Howie and I are very happy, very hopeful. I couldn't stop looking at the picture all the way home. We are so in love with them already. I don't really know what else to say. I'm trying to stay calm and not get ahead of myself, we have another 2 weeks before we know anything. Right now I'm enjoying this part. I'm just happy to see what we've done so far.

I'm Already a Proud Parent

I woke up this morning about an hour and a half before we planned to leave for the fertility center. I thought about my little embryos while I washed my hair. I wondered if all 6 of them were still growing this morning, what their rating would be, and I was excited that pretty soon they'd be coming home with me. Just as I was getting out of the shower I heard my husband's cell phone ring. It was the fertility center, all 6 embryos were still dividing today! They said that they would call us back later to schedule a day 5 transfer on Monday! I'm so happy that my little embryos are doing well. I wish that I was able to tell them how proud I am of them. Too bad they don't have visiting hours at the lab.

Crawling out of the Pit of Despair

Ok, first I want to bitch, but then I’m going to get over it, so bare with me.

Dr. Sunshine had been making a big deal over my 30 developing follicles. She was talking about how they’d probably get this great number of eggs, not 30, but a good number out of me. Then many of them would turn into wonderful embryos, so many that we’d probably end up doing a day 5 blastocyst transfer. So, stupid me, I totally buy into this. I should know better than to get my hopes up, to expect something great to happen. Isn’t it better to hide away in the black pit of despair and suddenly be surprised by something wonderful… whenever something wonderful finally happens? Anyway, I fell a bit short of her expectations. Maybe what I got isn’t all that bad, I really don’t know. This is my first IVF cycle and it seems that I was overly optimistic. Now I’m let down.

Wednesday was retrieval day. They took out 13 eggs, 11 of which were mature enough to be fertilized. On Thursday morning there were 6 embryos. Today we still have 6 dividing embryos, and our transfer will be tomorrow, a day 3 transfer. I probably read too much about how wonderful blastocysts are because they can be more sure about the viability of a blastocyst vs. an embryo. Now I’m concerned that this isn’t going to work out because we failed to make it to day 5.

Ok, enough of that. Yes, it’s comfortable and safe in the black pit of despair, it’s the best place to vacation during fertility treatments. However, my husband is begging me to come out of there and be happy about our 6 embryos. I’ve taken all his joy away. So, I’m going to cheer up. There are 6 little Amy-Howie embryos, and I love them all. They’re little living pieces of us, so how can that be disappointing? I fell in love with the baby I lost in December and I didn’t stop loving it because it didn’t make it past 6 weeks. So how can I not love my 6 little petri dish babies? I need to get up in the morning and go in for my transfer, I need to have faith in my little embryos. Then we’ll all go home and take a nap on the couch together. Maybe they’ll cuddle up inside of me and think about sticking around for the next 9 months. Wish us luck!

A Message to the Psycho Who Drew My Blood!

To the psycho who drew my blood today, you should quit your job! Ok, part of the blame goes to the asshat that passed me off to you. She claims that you are better than she is at finding veins that hide deep in the arm. If she’s worse than you then I’d probably look like I had been attacked by one of Siegfried and Roy’s tigers right now. Hmm, maybe I should thank the asshat? I will take part of the blame because I have bad veins and I should have ignored the severe bruising and soreness on my right arm. Maybe you have been tapping that vein for the past year, but at least my track marks are like little targets, easy aim. Anyway, back to blaming you. You’re a liar, you said you knew exactly where my vein was, you seemed very confident, I trusted you. You clearly had no freaking clue! I’ve never seen anyone insert a needle and then jab around inside hoping to hit something that contains blood. It was nice of you to suggest that I tell you if you were hurting me, it was bitchy when you ignored my requests to stop and just draw blood from my right arm because OH MY GOD IT HURTS!!!! Thankfully, after many jabs, you hit a vein. It didn’t give you much, which was rather disappointing after all that you put me through. You could have collected as much blood from pricking my finger, but that’s your problem now. My suggestion is that you quit... today! Don’t even give them two weeks notice, too many people would suffer in the next two weeks. If you refuse to leave at least don't poke around in any other arms until you take a refresher course on how to properly tap a vein.

Status Report

Things I’ve been doing instead of posting another blog:

• Sleeping
• Crying over a living bird mourning his dead bird friend in the road
• Shouting at my husband over things that I can’t even remember now
• More sleeping
• Playing Sims 2 for hours on end so that I can live vicariously through the fake Sim models of my husband and myself.
• Falling into deep coma sleep
• Crying over the fact that my husband didn’t want to watch Sleepless in Seattle with me
• Refused to watch it with him after he finally agreed to watch it
• Happily watched Sleepless in Seattle with my husband
• Did I mention that I slept?
• Frying my ass on my heating pad
  

My ovaries have been very busy. One follicle is way ahead of the others at 23 mm, the others are between 14 and 17 mm. Dr. Sunshine hopes that I will be ready for my trigger shot tomorrow night. I have another date with Mr. Happy Cam tomorrow morning. Keep your fingers crossed for me, hopefully the other follicles will catch up.

I’m off to bed, I’m in desperate need of a nap.