Aislinn Turns 2!

Hi there. Sorry to write such a weepy post and then not return. I'm still sad and we have talked about adoption (thanks D.K.). We actually talked about adoption a while ago. At this point we don't have enough money for adoption or IVF so, maybe we'll revisit that someday but for now we're just trying to keep our heads above water. I guess in that sense it's good that I'm not about to have a baby in 10 days.

So, Aislinn turned 2 on January 29th. We spent her actual birthday alone with her. We didn't have family or friends over, we just wanted it to be the 3 of us. I pretty much let her have her way all day unless she was doing something naughty. We had so much fun. Our neighbors came over with a cake around lunch time and the kids played and then had some cake. She took a short nap, the shortest nap ever. When Howie came home we opened gifts, had dinner, made cupcakes with Aislinn and then ate them. Then she had a bath and went to bed. It was a good day.

On Saturday we had her birthday party at The Little Gym. It was the easiest and most fun birthday party ever. I want to have my birthday party there. LOL. The kids ran around and played on the gym equipment but we also played with the air track that blows up and they jump on, and the parents were allowed on too! We played with the parachute, bubbles, this giant wheel that they got to roll over. It was a good time. Then we ate cake which I made so that it was peanut free for my niece, vegan for my neighbors, and gluten free for a friend of ours. It was tasty. Family came back for lunch and to open gifts. My sister, brother-in-law, niece stayed late and had pizza with us. My sister-in-law was there for the weekend so it was nice to see her. My brother wasn't there because he's somewhere in Iraq right now. It was a really good time.

I can't believe how grown up she is. Yesterday we went in for her 2 year check-up and she got to stand on the scale, stand against the wall to be measured, had her blood pressure checked for the first time, and she got to wear a little gown. She's so grown up. I can't believe it.

I made a montage of her second year. She was such a baby last year and now she looks like a big girl! Ok, enjoy the montage!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Pregnancy Symptoms?

Ugh, I'm on birth control but it's sugar pill week and I have not yet had my period. The whole reason I'm on birth control is to make sure my period comes and then goes. I clearly don't need it for pregnancy prevention. How silly. I did eat some grapefruit though so I guess if I were the lucky type I could have gotten pregnant. That so doesn't happy to me though, let's not be ridiculous. I am extra weepy lately though. I have no problem breaking down and crying over absolutely nothing at all. And I've been sooooo nauseated. I don't even want to think about eating. So, what the hell is going on with all the symptoms. Ugh. I love the worst of the symptoms when a baby is involved but there is no such thing right now. I peed on a stick on Saturday night and then again last night. BFN. Why do I bother? I hate pee sticks.

Maybe it's just me. No joke, EVERYONE I know in town is pregnant. Ok, just EVERY woman. If they're not currently pregnant they just had a baby. I really can't take it anymore. I feel like my head will explode. My husband told my neighbor that I'd be coming to her Pampered Chef party yesterday because he thought it would be good for me to get out. Are you kidding me? The moment I walked in her door I went straight for the bottle of wine and filled up my glass. I stood there for an hour drinking as much wine as possible so I wouldn't break down in front of everyone. I'm usually a happy drunk so I was thinking that if I got drunk enough I wouldn't care that my neighbor's pregnant belly finally popped and I lived through watching guest after guest getting a tour of the nursery. About 1 1/2 bottles later I was able to take the tour myself. Then we had to look at pictures of her and her other pregnant friend putting their bellies together. Oh God! All I could think about is how I should be hugely pregnant right now. I should be due to have a baby a few weeks from now. I should be meeting my new baby on Valentine's Day. This whole thing is becoming unbearable. Aislinn is turning 2 on Thursday and I can't stop thinking about how quickly she grew up and how I could just go back and slow things down because I'm not going to get to do that again. I sound like her birthday makes me sad. It doesn't really, I just wish you could go back and visit little moments again.

Aislinn is great. I love her like crazy. She is more and more amazing every day. She's the best thing to ever happen to us and I'm thankful for her every day of my life. I love her so much I want more.

Happy Holidays

Just days before Christmas two of my friends had babies. I think that the fact that the babies are here somehow makes it easier on me. I thought that I'd have a massive breakdown but it turns out watching my friends BE pregnant was more tramatic for me than them actually having a newborn. I don't know. I could be wrong. I haven't actually seen the babies in person yet so who knows. Breakdown or no breakdown, I am happy for them. We were all pregnant at the same time and then I miscarried so I think that in addition to being sad about loosing the baby I was also sad that I was no longer sharing the experience with them.

Anyway, I'm dealing with the fact that I'm not pregnant and that there aren't any frozen embryos for another cycle. That's it for us unless we win the lottery. After having a pitty party for myself I got over it and decided that I have to find a way to get pregnant without IVF treatments. I have already read a lot about PCOS but I got online and read somemore. I also bought The PCOS Diet Cookbook because I'm getting bored in the kitchen and need some new ideas. I'm about to get a jogging stroller so that I can get my ass in gear. Aside from the obvious need to kick my ass to lose weight I've found two different options for PCOS in the form of supplements. The first is the Insulite Labs PCOS system which was developed to reverse the effects of PCOS. The other is FertilAid. There's a formula for both men and for women. I found it when trying to find a way to improve the morphology of sperm for Howie. I researched this all over the internet and found a lot of positive feedback about it for both men and women. I don't have my hopes up. Believe me, if it worked I'd be shocked, but there's no harm in trying. I'm not taking both suplements at the same time because I don't want to overdose on my vitamins so I'm just taking the FertilAid for women right now and Howie is taking the FertilAid for men. I'll be impressed if my period comes and goes regularly. I'm charting my basal body temperature for fun too. So far, I've got my period, but that's no surprise since I just got a BFN on the pregnancy test a couple of weeks ago. What does impress me is how light my period is. It's usually so heavy that it's a wonder that I'm able to stand up and function. So far I've been bleeding for 4 days so the trick now is getting it to stop. Once I start to bleed I don't stop. I will be sooooo excited if it stops. How nice would that be? I'm just taking baby steps. I'm trying to keep myself from daydreaming about peeing on a stick and seeing two lines. Although, I can say that if this does work and I do get pregnant I am going to freak the fuck out. I would just explode! But please, lets focus on how exciting it'll be if my period STOPS, and then starts again in the next few weeks? and then stops again! I'll have a small party with balloons and... umm... I don't know, some kind of PCOS friendly dessert! So keep your fingers crossed for me and my hopes for a normal 28 to 30 day cycle!

Negative

Umm... so I'm not pregnant. I am, however, very bitter and very pissed off and a touch of sad. I don't know what to say. I don't know if there are any frozen embryos yet. I'm very sure that my mother-in-law is all sorts of pissed off about the amount of money they "wasted" on this and I am still NOT pregnant. This does mean that I will be drunk off my ass through Chanukkah, Christmas & New Years. Happy Holidays!

Waiting

My... week 1/2 wait is over on Wednesday. In the past the two week wait started after transfer but this time it seemed to have started on the day of retrieval. It hasn't be any easier than a full two weeks. I peed on a stick on Sunday, or maybe it was Saturday, I don't know. It was negative. So were the other 2 after that. I know it's still early-ish and I know that you can get false positives when the hCG from the trigger shot is wearing off and the hormones from the possible baby are kicking in, but it seems like everyone in the world gets a positive but me. Of course, I think that's later, and this is still kind of early. I didn't do one with any of my IUIs or the IVF cycle when I got pregnant with Aislinn so I don't know what is normal for me. I just waited it out because that is what the doc advised. I wish I had done the same this time because now I'm just driving myself more crazy. I mean, I'm exhausted, I have been all day, and here I am up at 2 am!

So, possible symptoms? My boobs hurt so much. They hurt more and more each day. I'm exhausted... but I'm always exhausted. However, this really is a whole new level of exhaustion. On Friday I couldn't stay awake and I fell asleep while Aislinn watched 1 1/2 hours of Backyardigans. TV is a great babysitter! Then I woke up and played with her until it was time for lunch and then it was nap time for her and for me too. I slept for another 3 hours. Then Howie came home and I think I might have fallen asleep on the couch again. I slept just about 90% of the day on Saturday and I didn't sleep but I laid around all day on Sunday. I get winded when I walk up the stairs. I honestly have to take a minute to catch my breath when I get to the top and I'm huffing and puffing. On Friday I desperately wanted buffalo wings and on Saturday all I wanted to eat was onion. I know it seems early for cravings but I was the same way when I was pregnant with Aislinn. I started to tell myself that it's just all the hormones in my system doing it to me, but it's the way I felt when I was pregnant with Aislinn and before my last miscarriage so that's what I know. Oh, and I'm really moody. Bitchy, cranky, and weepy. A Zales commercial made me cry last night. It was really sweet. And I got a bit teary during Chuck tonight but I don't think that Howie noticed that. I have awful headaches but I don't think that's a pregnancy symptom. Well, I guess it could be. I had a brief moment on Saturday night when I was sure I was going to yack but I didn't. I felt a bit like puking tonight too but I didn't. Let's hope I don't.

Let's hope that it's not just the drugs, lets hope that one or both of the embryos have grabbed on. Now I think I can maybe get some sleep. Night night!

Day 3

I went in on Saturday for a day 3 transfer. Their paperwork said to come in with an uncomfortably full bladder. Their idea of uncomfortably full was drinking 32 oz. of water starting an hour before the transfer. Look, my family has always made fun of me for what seems like an unusually small bladder. When I was little we were evacuated from a beach home we were renting in RI because of Hurricane Bob. There was barely time to pack our stuff and our animals into the car and get home so I don't know if I just didn't remember to go to the bathroom before leaving or if I did but had to go again. We were driving home to CT in rain so heavy you could barely see outside in our ghetto minivan that would stall whenever you break for too long in rainy weather. I don't understand it but that was really the problem with the car. I waited as long as I could before asking my Dad to pull over somewhere. The whole family was so pissed off that I had to stop and pee in the middle of this storm and they were afraid the car would stall. They pulled over at a McDonald's but they still talk about the time I had to pee during Hurricane Bob. Since then I would dehydrate myself before trips or whatever so that there's no need to stop. No good, I know. One of my worries when I got pregnant with Aislinn was that I would have to pee at the most inconvenient times again. I got over it, and the fact that sneezing would make me pee, but my new clinic wanting me to come in with an UNCOMFORTABLY full bladder. The last place just said moderately full, which is something that made me anxious enough, but I wanted to do what they said because they also said in the paper work that if my bladder wasn't full enough they'd have me sit and drink more before the transfer. Man, I've never had to pass the full bladder test before. So, even though I thought it would be a bad idea I drank 32 oz. of water in an hour. I wasn't feeling too uncomfortable at first so I was getting worried that I wouldn't pass the full bladder check. When they took me back to have me change I just lied to the nurse and told her I was uncomfortably full. I said it a few more times on the way to the room so she decided to not check it with the ultrasound. Then I got really worried that when they were ready to do the transfer they'd feel that I wasn't as full as I previously said. Within like 2 minutes of waiting in the room I got uncomfortably full. The doc came in and asked how many we'd like to transfer. We asked what the embryos were like. Turns out we still had 8 embryos but it was obvious which ones were the best already so they didn't think it was necessary to wait until day 5. He went through the grading of the other embryos. There was a 4 cell, slow, 6 cell, still a bit slow but maybe it'll make it, others were 8 but two of those 8 rocked and those were the ones they recommended for transfer. I felt my bladder getting fuller and fuller so I just said "Lets do the two! I'm sold! Sounds great!" The nurse came in, we signed the paperwork, confirmed our identities and I laid back. The doc was all about making sure I was comfy. I told him that I wasn't because of the full bladder and the nurse pressing down on it with the ultrasound. One thing that distracted me from my discomfort was the screen they had on the wall that was hooked up to the microscope in the lab. They put our dish under it and there was a drop on it. You couldn't make anything out in it but then they zoomed in and there they were, the tiniest little embryos. I know they're tiny but I could never really wrap my head around it until I saw them on the screen. They sucked them up and brought them in. At this point I was really concerned about peeing on the doc and I let him know it was a possibility. I just wanted to give him fair warning. They got them in before I exploded but as soon as they did I asked if I really had to lay there for 20 minutes before I peed. Normally I'm all for it but the need to pee was far beyond everything else at this point. So the nurse told me she could give me a bed pan. I don't care who looks at my girlie parts but peeing in a bed pan with people around? I realized I was horrified with that idea but I had to take the bed pan. Howie thought it was funny. I thought that I had peed as much as I could but she emptied it and said I had about 5 more minutes, about 2 minutes after that I had to go again so badly I thought that I might cry so I made Howie go out and tell her so she let me up early. I tried to walk and not run but it was more like a run to the bathroom and I had never felt better in my life.

So, sorry this whole post is about pee, but I felt like the peeing had overshadowed the embryo transfer that day. When we got home Aislinn was so excited to see me and it was hard to explain to her that she couldn't climb on top of me and that Mommy couldn't pick her up. We had already decided that she'd spend the weekend with my in-laws because she's very attached to me and it would have been a difficult weekend with her. Howie felt it would be easier for me to rest and all of that if she weren't here. She's actually still at my in-laws but she's coming back tomorrow. I miss her like crazy! We've talked to her over skype every night and she got a little weepy each time and actually told us "I cry" which broke my heart. I can't wait to give her a million kisses when she gets home.

So, that's the story. I have a picture of the picture of the embryo. Our scanner isn't working so I couldn't scan it.

EIGHT!

Yeah, two posts in a matter of an hour or so. Wow! Ok, so I got a call from my clinic and out of the 15 eggs retrieved there were 11 mature and 8 of them fertilized! We have EIGHT embryos!!! YAY!!!!!!!!! Wooohoooooo!!! Ok, now we just have to get to day 5.

I've been sleeping

Hi blogosphere. I haven't been posting because I've been dead tired and sleeping whenever I can but here's a quick update for you.

I started my Lupron injections around November 13th... I think it was the 13th. I started my Follistim and Menopur injections on November 22nd and lowered the dose of Lupron. This past Monday, December 1st, we got the green light to take the trigger shot. I took it at 12:30 am that night and went in yesterday (Dec. 3) for an 11:30 egg retrieval. Last time they got 13 eggs which was disappointing to me but this time they got out 15. The extra two they got out this time made all the difference to me, why I don't know. I'm just crazy happy that after just 9 days on the meds (rather than 3 weeks at my old clinic) I was ready for retrieval and with fewer days on the meds, less needling and less probing I produced 15 eggs. I'm so in love with Doc Major. I don't know how many embryos we have yet, but I'll find out between 12 & 2pm. I can't wait to find out how many we have. They wanted to do ICSI this time too. They have us scheduled for a day 3 transfer at 11:50 am but hopefully they will reschedule for a day 5 transfer on Monday. Fingers, toes, legs, arms & eyes are all crossed.

Until then I will try to spend as much time as I can with Aislinn. No more playing horsey soon, or spinning around and falling to the ground outside. Not being able to do the things she loves to do makes me feel sad. I know it'll be ok and I'm being silly but I just feel guilty about changing things up on her. In 9 months she could be a big sister and she doesn't know it could be coming. I know it'll all work out and she might need time to adjust but it'll all work out just fine in the end. I know it'll be exciting and all of that but I so love my time with Aislinn and it's harder on me than it probably will be on her when it has to change. I'm getting ahead of myself. Maybe nothing will change at all. I'm just going to have a good time with Aislinn and do as much as I can with her before the transfer.

Speaking of Aislinn, here are some new pics of her.

The Hysteroscopy

Last Monday I had my hysteroscopy. Surgery doesn't worry me any. I'm not too worried about things going wrong. I know the possibility is always there but chances are pretty good that things will be fine. I look on the bright side. I get to lay around in comfy paper-like clothing. Some nice person puts me into a deep sleep. When I wake up I usually get to see at least one good looking male doctor. Then I have the post-op mini meal. After leaving the hospital everyone is nice and pampers me and I get to lay around and watch anything I want to watch on TV.

The surgery started late but that's ok. I was busy watching HGTV in my pre-op room and I got to go to the bathroom and pee alone before the surgery so that they didn't have to put in a catheter. The anesthesiologist gave me some Valium as I was wheeled to the OR. I remember the OR being amazingly cold and making a joke to myself in my head that it was probably good to make the room a freezer because if someone dies on the table you want to keep that body cold. I know, sick joke, but I kept it to myself. A team of people was prepping me. They were sticking those round sticky things to my chest, other people were putting some padding around my lower legs and ankles and then the anesthesiologist gave me something that knocked me right out. Next thing I know I am awake but my eyes are still closed and I hear Doc Major telling the other doc from the clinic that was there with him to watch the surgery that he didn't expect to find so much in there. I instantly felt bummed out because I knew that he had to do more than simply pluck the polyp out and that meant that we weren't going to move right into the IVF cycle. Then I heard someone say "I'm going to start wheeling her to the recovery room". I few moments later Doc Major asked how I was feeling. I told him I felt good. He told me that things went well and that he was going to have me start my birth control again. Then he told me he was going to talk to Howie and then he'd be back to check up on me. A little while later he came back to see me and told me that Howie was going to treat me like a princess for the rest of the day. I was still a bit groggy but I remember someone asking if I had any cramping and I said yes. They asked what the pain was like on a scale from 1 to 10 and I said a 4 or 5. That pain went away quickly because they put something wonderful into my IV or something. After about 15 minutes (I think) they wheeled me into the recovery area where I could be fed and Howie could join me. I asked for a turkey sandwich with mayo and an apple juice. It was sooooo gooooooooooooooooooood. I was already half way through my sandwich when they brought Howie in. I don't remember how much longer I was there but I was feeling pretty good when we left. I was craving some BBQ chicken so Howie stopped at the grocery store to pick some up and then we went to CVS to get my pain meds. I was still feeling kinda wacky when we got home. Aislinn was so excited to see us when we got home. Howie kept telling me to rest but I wanted to play with Aislinn. I wasn't doing anything strenuous, but I just wanted to be up instead of laying down. I felt good all night and didn't feel like I needed any of the Oxycontin.

Tuesday was good too. I was a bit tired, but no pain. Then Wednesday rolled around. I felt a little bit of cramping and there was just a tiny bit of spotting. Thursday the cramping was a bit worse but it only hurt for a few hours after I woke up and again there was a little bit of spotting but by 11:00 am all of that was over. On Friday the cramping lasted until about 1:00 pm but I just ignored it because it was a busy day. I had to meet with my nutritionist at 10:00 am, then Aislinn and I had to drive another 20 minutes to meet her friends for a Halloween party. Then I had to get her home and put her down for a nap. During her nap I had to run a load of laundry to wash her costume for trick or treating that night. I also had to clean up the house. When she woke up I fed her dinner and then got her back into her costume. When Howie got home I had to shower and then get into my vampire/devil costume. We left a giant bowl of candy on our front steps and met up with our neighbors for trick or treating. After the kids filled their bags we had a little party at the neighbor's house with apple pie, cupcakes and apple cider. It was fun. Saturday morning I was in enough pain the I took 800 mg of ibuprofen. That worked fine and we all went on with our day.

This morning I woke up with a new level of pain. I went to Aislinn's room to get her out of bed. I wanted to let Howie sleep in but in the middle of changing Aislinn I realized the pain was so bad that I had to call Howie in to finish changing her. I went to the bathroom and found that I wasn't just spotting. It was more like light bleeding now. The cramps were also more than cramps. It felt almost like I had gas, but it hurt in my uterus and (excuse me if this is TMI) my vagina actually hurt. Howie had brought Aislinn downstairs so I went down to lay on the couch. I curled up on my side hoping that the pain would get better but it got worse really fast. It almost felt like I was about to give birth to my insides. That's the only way I can describe it. It felt like something was going to come out of me, like I was about to give birth, no joke. I started to get really scared and the pain was so bad that I had to start to scream a little. Howie gave me one of the Oxycontin to help relieve the pain and then plugged in a heating pad for me. It didn't seem to take too long for the Oxycontin to kick in and then I fell asleep. I don't know what the hell that was, but I know I'm going to call Doc Major in the morning and figure out what we can do about it.

Oh, I never explained what Doc Major found in my uterus. He found more growth in my uterus than he expected. He cleaned it all out while he was in there but decided that I should take another month of birth control and then we'd move into an IVF cycle. He showed the pictures of my uterus to Howie after the hysteroscopy. I haven't seen them yet but I hear that they are very exciting.

I was going to post cute Halloween pics of Aislinn but I'm high on Oxycontin at the moment and I'm feeling like I might fall asleep. I'll post the pics next time, I promise.

Boring Hysteroscopy Update

Someone from Doc Major's office called yesterday to schedule the operation to lop off my polyp. Yeah, I probably should use the real term for that procedure, Polyp-lopectemy? Just kidding, but if it was up to me that's what it would be called. Ok, so I'll be having a hysteroscopy on October 27th. Good times, right?

We'll, I'm totally exhausted for no good reason at all. Aislinn is taking a nap so I better take a nap of my own while I can. To make up for my short and boring post I will leave you with some cute pics of Aislinn. Enjoy!

Freckle's Ugly Cousin... In My Uterus

Yes people, I have a uterine polyp. I went in for my saline sonogram yesterday and it was very obviously there. It's absolutely possible that it was there when I had the FET but Dr. Sunshine doesn't check for polyps in all patients every 6 months like Doc Major (yes, I have a nickname for my new doc... he was a major in the army so there you go). So, it's possible that the polyp ended the pregnancy. Whatever, this whole thing is bullshit. Doc Major doesn't want us to focus on how that may have caused the miscarriage because we can't do anything about that now and we just need to move forward. Argh. So, anyway... we're going to have that lopped off sometime this month. We haven't scheduled it yet. The nurse will call with my doc's schedule and we'll get that done possibly by the end of the month. For now I'm on birth control again to just keep my ovaries quiet and to keep those evil androgens from screwing with my body. The rest of our plan stays the same. Lose weight and exercise! Yes sir!

On a totally unrelated topic, Howie and I just celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on October 12th. We've known each other for 11 1/2 years. We've had a lot of hard times but we've also had good times. Howie is my best friend and he is a wonderful father. I can't believe it's already been 5 years and I can't wait to see what the future holds. Here's a little video montage of the past 11 1/2 years Howie and I have spent together and hopefully next year at the end of the video Howie and I will be thinner, LOL.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Trying to Pull It All Together

Hi Blogosphere! It's been forever, I should just quit this blogging thing. I'm so inconsistent. I doubt anyone reads anymore but I forgot how nice it was to have an outlet for my thoughts and feelings so I'll try to keep it up.

So, my last post was forever ago. The end of May. Frost defrosted PERFECTLY! And settled in PERFECTLY. Hormones were rising PERFECTLY! Then right after I went in for my last blood test I started bleeding. Not a little, A LOT! I mean, labor like cramping and blood clots literally sliding out of me. It was awful, but when I got my results back from the doctor that day my hormone level had more than doubled. Two hours after the bleeding started it stopped... COMPLETELY! It was odd. It made no sense. That night I felt fine. I went in for another blood test and the level continued to rise. We had an ultrasound and the baby was there and it appeared to have a heartbeat. So, we went on with life as normal again until a week later when the exact same thing happened again. I dropped Aislinn off with my neighbor and went in for an ultrasound. The baby was no longer there. I cried all the way home. It was awful.

It took like a month and a half for my hormone level to go down to 0. I was trying everything to distract myself from what was happening. Shopping, painting, cleaning, re-organizing the house, researching miscarriages and PCOS. Then I got my first period after the miscarriage and it went on for 3 months. How annoying is that? It's hard to stay happy and positive when your body is going through all of this shit. I'm mad, I'm sad, sometimes I'm ready to move on. I have 4 pregnant friends. I am happy for them but it's just hard to watch them all get bigger. We were all going to be pregnant together. Aislinn is the same age as their first kids and our second ones would grow up together too. It's not like I have to have kids when they do, but... whatever. I don't know what my point was.

Howie and I went to see the new fertility doc here in town. I can't keep seeing a doc in VA, that's just silly. So, I'm seeing her friend who just happens to work in the town I live in in CT. Weird. He's nice. I'll have to think of a nickname for him someday. He was shocked to find out that I have had my period for 3 months because usually with PCOS menstrual periods are unlikely evens, as many of you probably know. So, he immediately had them set up a room so that he could give me an ultrasound and he also had them draw some blood to see if I had anemia and some kind of thyroid issue plus a few other things. Who knows. Things inside of me looked good. Woohoo! Later that day I got my blood test results, I'm not anemic but they wanted me to take iron anyway because it's fun to take and it's a damn miracle that I'm not anemic. My thyroid though... well... that is all out of whack. I have a hypothyroid. PCOS + hypothyroidism = fat, tired & infertile. Well, at least we know what's what now. He had me take some progesterone every night for 10 days and I'm taking another thing for the thyroid issue. I am no longer bleeding to death and my energy level is better. My acupuncturist also gave me some Chinese herbs to stop the bleeding and I think that had a lot to do with it too. Tomorrow I'm going in for some acupuncture and I'm also meeting with my nutritionist to discuss what to avoid and what to add to my diet now that we've added hypothyroidism into the mix. I have another appointment with my new doc on Tuesday afternoon. We're going to discuss how the meds are working and do a saline sonogram just to take another peak inside. Yay!

So that's the quick update. I now must return to cleaning this house. It's a crazy mess and Aislinn should be waking up from her nap any moment. Here's a cute pic of Aislinn pumpkin picking this past weekend.

Night Before the Thaw

Howie, Aislinn & I are in VA for the FET. If all goes well the appointment is scheduled for 1:30 pm. My best friend, Brenda, is going to babysit Aislinn while we're at the clinic. I was feeling good and having a good time up until now. I have been trying to keep my mind off of the whole defrosting Frosty thing. Tomorrow we'll find out what happens. My stomach is in knots and I'm starting to obsess about the odds that our one little frozen embryo will survive the thaw. I know the odds aren't great and we only have one shot at this. I love Aislinn and if she's our only child that'll be fine. She's beautiful and amazing. We are so grateful for her. I would just LOVE to give her a little brother or sister. I just want a shot at it, I just want Frosty to thaw well. After that we'll worry about the next step. Keep your fingers crossed for us. We need it!

Fire Baby

As you know from my last post, we started off Mother's Day by burying Howie's grandmother in Long Island. Before heading to the funeral we had time to squeeze in a Mother's Day cupcake for breakfast along with some Starbucks coffee. Yum! We got to LI a little before the funeral, just in time for a quick lunch at a diner. I had a super greasy and extra tasty bacon cheese burger with sauteed onions. Why not? Aislinn enjoyed some strawberries that I brought for her and then she had some of grandma's toast and I think some of grandpa's french toast. When we finished up there we went to the cemetery and waited for Howie's grandma's body to arrive. We talked to the Rabbi about his grandma. While we were there Aislinn kept wanting Howie's mom to hold her and kept giving her kisses like she knew she needed a little extra love. It was sweet. She was being cute and making everyone smile even though it was a sad day. She makes everything better. During the actual burial Aislinn was getting hungry and a bit cranky so I put her down on the ground and she picked some little buttercup flowers that were growing in the grass. It was getting a bit cold and she had a sweater on but Howie took off his jacket to put around her. She put it over her head and was walking around with it dragging on the ground. We started to laugh because she looked like ET. After his grandmother was buried the Rabbi came over to talk to us and Aislinn gave him one of the flowers she picked and he said thank you. For the first time ever she didn't seem to want what she had given away back. We made her a bottle when we put her into her carseat and she she had finished it before we even left the cemetery. She was pretty good on the way home. She didn't sleep. She had slept for maybe about an hour, maybe less, on the way to LI but on the way home she didn't sleep. Anyway, when we got home it was a pretty normal night. She played, then we fed her dinner, and then it was upstairs for her bath. Her head felt a bit warm to me when we were getting her ready for her bath so we just quickly just used the ear thermometer. We know it's not the most reliable but we figured if she had any kind of fever it would let us know and then we'd do the more invasive rectal temp. The ear thermometer said she was fine so we put her into the bath and she was having a good time, as usual, until the end. She started to shiver so we figured it had something to do with the bath. I wrapped the towel around her and we took her into her room. She was still shaking like crazy so I put another towel around her and then Howie put a blanket around her. She continued shaking and looking really tired. We quickly got her dressed and then brought her down stairs. It was pretty early for her to be that tired but we were thinking that maybe she was just worn out from all the running around during the day and the fact that she had only taken a short nap in the car. We decided to give her a bottle so Howie went to go make it. I sat down with her on the couch and read Snuggle Puppy to her. She usually points out that the puppy has a ball when we read it but she didn't do that this time. She was sweet enough to give me a kiss at the two places in the book where I'm supposed to give her a kiss. She's such a sweetheart! Anyway, after reading the book I tried to give her the bottle but she barely opened her mouth which really weird because no matter how tired she is she is always happy to take a bottle. I still felt like her head was warm even if the ear thermometer said differently about 45 minutes before. Her body was hot too. I asked Howie to take her temperature again which he did and this time the ear thermometer said 102. We decided at this point that we should take her temperature with the rectal thermometer. That one said 103.3. We called her doctor's office and the answering service said that someone would call us in about 20 minutes. We called our parents, his said to put her into a cool bath, my mother (a former nurse) said to go to the ER. I kind of felt like since she was so out of it we should just go to the ER, which we did. When we got there her fever had gone up to 103.6. The ER doc said that her left ear was really red and he thought that it was the reason she had a fever. They gave her some Tylenol, Motrin & Amoxicillin and had us wait an hour and took her temp again. It was down to 102 and she started to perk up a tad. A half hour later the doc came back and said that we could go home once the nurse stopped by to give us a prescription for the amoxicillin. The nurse stopped by and also took Aislinn's temp one more time. It had gone down to 100. When we got home we gave her a bottle which she happily drank and then we put her down for the night. We checked on her once during the night and she seemed cool so we didn't worry too much. I got up at 6:15 am to head over to the fertility clinic for my monitoring and was back by 7:15 am. Aislinn and Howie were still sleeping so I curled back up in bed and Howie and I woke up around 9:00 am. We called her doctor and they said that we could just walk in between 9:00 and 10:00 am without an appointment. We woke Aislinn up and she was burning up again. We were going to quickly give her some Tylenol but we were all out. Yeah, I felt like an idiot! How can I not know the bottle of Tylenol is empty? How can I not have like 2 back up bottles? What kind of Mom am I? So we got her dressed and Howie made her a bottle for the car, which she pushed away. When they took her temp at the doctor's office it was 103.7 and she was barely moving again. They gave her some Motrin and the doc took a look at her ears. He said that he didn't think they looked too bad and there wasn't any fluid in there so he thought the redness was more of a symptom of the fever than the cause. Her throat was red so he took a couple of swabs to get a culture for a strep test and the quick test said it wasn't strep but they sent out the second swab just to be sure. He then wanted to rule out a UTI or kidney infection so we tried to get Aislinn to pee into a bag but she wasn't drinking any fluids so who knows how long we'd have to wait for a bit of pee, plus the pee in the bag wouldn't necessarily be sterile enough so we might have had to catheterize her in the end anyway so we just decided to let them put a catheter in so that we could get a urine sample. That was awful! I hated it and I know she hated it too. I hate bringing her in for shots but I really felt guilty about letting them poke and prod her but we needed to rule that out and it looked like the urine sample was clean. So, the next thought is that it's just some kind of virus or whatever and we just have to try to keep her fever down and get her to drink. He said we could take her home to see if maybe she'd be more willing to drink some fluids at home once her temperature went down, but if we couldn't manage that at home then we'd have to bring her to the hospital where she could get an IV. Fortunately her temperature did go down and she drank a few 5 oz bottles, had a few wet diapers, and played a lot. She also had a strawberry! She had her last bottle and fell asleep around 8:00 or 8:30 pm so I put her down in her crib. We woke her up about an hour ago for another dose of Motrin and to take her temp and it was up to 102.8. Her whole body was hot and sweaty again. We tried to give her a bottle but she refused it so we used a syringe to squirt some pedialyte into her mouth. She just seemed really tired so we let her go back to sleep and we'll just have to check on her again later. Hopefully her fever will go down and she'll be feeling better tomorrow. It's been a crazy couple of weeks for us. I just hope that our luck gets better before the end of the month. Howie gave me my first shot of Del Estrogen tonight. It wasn't too bad but I acted like a big baby until he gave me the shot. I didn't take any birth control today and oddly enough I'm not bleeding like crazy. When I'm taking the pill I bleed, when I don't take it I don't bleed. Right! That makes sense! Whatever, maybe it'll come tomorrow. We shall see.

Un-Happy Mother's Day

Sadly, Howie's grandmother died this morning and the funeral is on Sunday. Howie's parent's didn't want to bury her on Mother's Day but Howie's crazy ass aunt has full control and she said she doesn't want her son to miss school so they are flying up from FL with the body, then we're going to quickly bury her and then his aunt and cousin will hop back on a plane and that will be that. I don't know, but when my grandfather died I think I was allowed to miss a day of school. I thought it was ok to take a moment to morn the loved one that you just lost. His aunt is a cold hearted bitch who basically just drained his grandmother's bank account so I'm not surprised that she and her son barely care. She broke the news to Howie's mother by leaving her a message on their answering machine saying "Mom died this morning(message was left around 5 pm)and I think the funeral is going to be on Sunday. I don't know if you want to come or not." Since she didn't get Howie's mother she then called Howie and told him that his grandmother died. In my opinion nobody should be calling the grandchild before speaking to the parent and telling them in a cold kind of way that his or her grandmother is dead. In the past year she called Howie twice to say that his grandmother was moments away from dying and then the next day she'd say "Oh, you're grandmother isn't going to die for a long, long time." Unfortunately this lady has full control over his grandmother and the money and apparently even had the will changed before his grandmother died. So, who knows what will come from that. Howie's parents are feeling really bad that this has happened on Mother's Day weekend but I'm not at all upset. Well, I mean, I'm more upset that Howie has lost his grandmother and his mother has lost her mother just as Mother's Day arrives. There's no reason for them to apologize. It's not like anyone wanted this to happen, it just is what it is. Unfortunately this isn't the only time this has happened to them. Howie's dad's mom died on Mother's Day when Howie was a kid. I think it's just another knock against Mother's Day for them. I hope that this doesn't ruin Mother's Day for Howie's mom forever. I hope that when the next Mother's Day rolls around she and the rest of the family will be able to focus on all of their good memories of his grandmother rather than on her death.

The Final Plan

Hi y'all! It's been a while, I know! Last week Howie and I went down to VA for the mock transfer. The lining looks good and I asked about the light bleeding and Dr. Sunshine said that was normal and that the bleeding would eventually stop. For shits and giggles she decided to look at my ovaries. The right one is working real hard because I have 24! TWENTY-FOUR! follicles. Yes! That's two dozen follicles that will never pop out an egg. Shitty ovaries. What a tease! Anyhow, here's the timeline:

May 12: Go into CT fertility clinic for monitoring & start Del Estrogen

May 24: Go in for a lining check in the VA clinic

May 28: The Big Day! Keep fingers crossed while waiting to find out about how well Frosty defrosted and hopefully then have the transfer!

I'm oddly calm. I don't know why, but I am. I almost never take anything one day at a time, but that's what I'm doing this time. I don't want to over think it. All I have is one blastocyst and I have to believe that saving it and transferring it is worth it. So, the first hurdle is defrosting, if that goes well the next hurdle is the two week wait and the test. There's other hurdles but I'm honestly just thinking about the first one right now and that's all that matters to me.

So, enough about baby 2.0, what about our current baby? She's doing very well. She's all toddler now, not much baby is left. Well, her cheeks are still super baby kissable. She has 4 new molars and one new lateral incisor on the bottom. The tantrums are more frequent but she is really good at giving herself a timeout when she needs to regain her composure. Howie and I got her a little ATV for 12-36 month olds. She seems to really like it and it keeps her away from our neighbors' kid's four wheeler. It's so nice that the weather is getting warmer because I think Aislinn and I were getting cabin fever. Sometimes you need to get out and run around barefoot in the grass. Aislinn's favorite outdoor activity is picking dandelions. Luckily we have many so it's unlikely that we'll be running out anytime soon. We're really looking forward to taking her back down to VA. Our old co-workers haven't seen Aislinn in a year. I really miss everyone in my old office, specifically my former boss. She's like family and part of me wishes that we were raising Aislinn down there so that they could see Aislinn grow. I feel like I shared every other significant event in my adult life with them and when I finally got pregnant I up and left before you could even see the bump. I have always been torn between CT and VA, I doubt it'll ever end.

More About My Dysfunctional Body

So, I called my ob/gyn, Dr. Hot Stuff to tell her that the birth control wasn't exactly working 100%. I also called Nurse Killjoy. Dr. Hot Stuff's nurse called to say that I need to talk to my fertility doc, Dr. Sunshine, about my blood-gushing uterus because they don't want to tell me to do something that Dr. Sunshine wouldn't agree with. I totally understand but I called her because she told me to call her if the Yaz doesn't stop my period. Nurse Killjoy didn't call back today but I assume it's because she's waiting to get a response back from Dr. Sunshine before she tells me what the plan is. No matter what the plan is I know it's going to have to include the new fertility doc up here (we'll call him Dr. Newby for now) because I'm going to his clinic for the monitoring. However, I'm not officially a patient of theirs yet so I can't just wander in there begging them to PLEEEEEEEEEEEEASE take a look at my uterus with the dildo cam and then give me something to make the bleeding stop. I have no idea why I'd bleed for two months straight while on birth control. My mom is a nurse and she seems pretty concerned about that. I usually convince myself that I have some kind of cancer in these situations, since Dr. Google hasn't given me any indication that it could be cancer I'm starting to convince myself that I'll end up needing a hysterectomy. This is what happens when I'm left up to my own devices. I just need someone to fix me or calm me down. It would be nice if someone just shook me and gave me a good smack across the face. Anyway, I'm sure I'm crazy and that I'm fine, I'm sure by tomorrow I'll be at peace again. My acupuncturist... I really need another name for her. I can't think of one so I just used the Hobbit Name Generator and it gave me Ivy Knotwise. So, let's just go with Ivy. Anyway, Ivy gave me a nice hardcore treatment on Saturday and sent me home with a bottle of herbs in tea pill form. I take 24 of the tea pills a day. I don't know, maybe it's working. It did look like my period was slowing down a few hours ago but sometimes it does that at night. I don't know. Tomorrow I could be having early labor pain type cramps and bleeding heavily again. I wish I knew what to expect.

I'm still worrying about Frosty. I'm starting to think that we should just go into debt and try to get a loan to make some fresh embryos. We could take frosty and a fresh embryo and put both in. If we're going to pay for a transfer, the drugs, and the monitoring why not go all the way? I know it's more but just doing the FET is expensive for something that has a low probability of working. My feeling is that if we're going to put an ass load of money down on making a baby we might as well go all the way and give ourselves the best chance we can. The whole thing has my stomach in knots. I know I need to focus on not getting stressed out. Maybe I should start going back to yoga? They have yoga for all the infertile stressed out ladies at the clinic up here. They have acupuncture too but I'm already seeing Ivy and I'm kind of attached to her now. I need to just calm the hell down.... and get some sleep. On that note I should get going. Night night!

FET: 5.26.08

We heard from Nurse Killjoy today. It's looking like May 26th is the date for our FET. I so badly want Frosty to set up camp for the next 9 months. I LOVE being pregnant and I want this baby. Frosty is a fighter so lets hope for the best.

I don't know if my body will be ready though. I am still bleeding. WTF? It's not super heavy but it needs to stop already. I'm soooooooo tired and I'm soooo worried that it's not going to work. I'm going to try to see my acupuncturist twice a week so that maybe my body will properly behave. We're still trying to sort things out with the fertility clinic here so that I can go in for monitoring. It's really complicated and I'm worried that something will get screwed up. I'm really stressed about that, stressed about my period, stressed about pretty much the whole process. I just want things to be simplified. Last time things were no problem at all.

Anyway, I guess that's the only update since yesterday. I'll keep all y'all posted.

Thinking About the Process

So, I've had my period for TWO MONTHS!!! I've been on birth control for a month but it barely made a difference in the flow. When I got to the sugar pills at the end of the pack the bleeding got so bad that I was going through a super absorbent tampon and heavily bleeding onto one of those giant pads every hour. The cramps on Thursday night and all day on Friday were as painful as early labor. My doctor gave me some stronger birth control and then went to see my acupuncturist on Saturday morning. I'm still bleeding now but it's not quite as strong... at the moment.

I also spoke to my fertility nurse, formally known as Nurse Killjoy. She is scheduling my mock transfer and FET. She's going to call me back this week to give me the dates. With this insane period that stops for nothing I'm pretty worried about the transfer. Our insurance is completely useless so this ONE frozen embryo is all we have. I don't know if we're really going to have enough money to ever go through a fresh cycle again. We have to put our money towards buying a home in a town with better schools for Aislinn, eventually we're going to need a new car, and just saving money would be super awesome. Aislinn may want to go to college someday. Part of me has forgotten how unpredictable and how disappointing this process can be. Somewhere in my head I'm thinking it's a sure thing. I mean, I got pregnant with Aislinn so of course this embryo will stick, of course I'll see that little flickering heartbeat on the ultrasound, sure I'll safely make it to the second trimester and absolutely we'll have a healthy baby sometime early next year. I have to remind myself that we are lucky to have Aislinn. I can't just forget about the 3 failed IUIs and the two babies that we lost before we finally succeeded. The odds of this working out aren't great. I'm back to that place where I have to constantly remind myself of the difference in having faith that things will work out and just being stupidly overly optimistic. I hate the head games that I play with myself during the two week wait. If I am lucky enough to end up pregnant there is only a brief moment of happiness because I need to remind myself that I still have to take this one step at a time. That it's not as easy as getting one positive pregnancy test, I have to get three and then we have to be sure that there's a little heartbeat a couple of weeks later. The next hurdle is getting past the 12th week, and then the 20th. I so resent the fact that getting pregnant is such a process and that if and when I get pregnant the first half of it will be spent trying to keep the excitement in until I know for sure that the pregnancy is legit. I can't believe that some people out there have fun trying to get pregnant and some people get to feel like the positive sign on a pee stick actually equals a real live baby in 9 months. I should also remind myself that I'm still lucky/blessed that I have had the chance to experience pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. I'm lucky that I had any embryos left over for a FET and for now I guess I'm going to just try to have faith that this will result in a viable pregnancy and later a real living healthy baby. Just keep your fingers, toes, arms & legs crossed for us.

Frosty the Snow Embryo

It's been over two weeks since the red wave hit and it is just ending now. I had my annual appointment with my ob/gyn scheduled for this past Monday. In order to cancel it in time I'd have to call on Friday. I didn't know if it would stop over the weekend because it seemed to be slowing down temporarily so I didn't cancel. I should have because it was flowing full force by Monday and I knew they wouldn't be able to do a proper pap smear. It was too late to cancel so I figured I'd go in and get some birth control anyway. They nurse asked me to pee in a cup before the appointment and ran off around the corner before I could tell her I was having my period and it was going to be a really gross pee sample. So I went ahead into the bathroom to basically fill up a cup of super red pee. So gross! I wrapped my hand around the cup so that people passing in the hallway wouldn't think that I just poured blood from a small dead animal into the cup. When the nurse showed me into the exam room I told her that I was still having my period and that I didn't cancel because I thought my period would be over by then and that the pee sample was a mess and all. She took my sample and actually shouted "Oh come on!" at me. Yes, thank you Nurse Bitch! She went on about how there's no way they can do a pap smear and I should have rescheduled and that this was a waste of time and shit. I couldn't believe she was so rude. I had never been talked to like that in this office and I was coming in once a week since I was 30 weeks pregnant, twice a week for the last month or so. I told her that when I scheduled the appointment I didn't know I'd suddenly get my period since I had only had it once since I gave birth and that even before I was pregnant I never knew when my period was coming and how long it would stay once it was here. Even during a period it slows down and then gets heavy and then slows down, it went back and forth so I never knew when it was truly about to stop. I explained that I needed to see Dr. Hot Stuff to get some birth control before I bothered to reschedule. I mean, my period can last a month or two and then sometimes it surprises me with just 2 weeks. I don't know. I already feel like a malfunctioning machine, I don't need some bitchy nurse treating me like some stupid freak. Maybe I'm a little extra sensitive about it because I'm all hormonal. Whatever. So she went out in the hall and I could hear her talking to Dr. Hot Stuff about how I came in with my period and that she told me that I can't get a pap smear during my period and that this could only be a birth control consultation. Dr. Hot Stuff just calmly and politely said "Ok! It's fine. It's not a problem." and then entered the room. She was nice, as always, and asked about Aislinn and chatted for a second then we talked about my PCOS and birth control and my plans for Frosty. I told her I just needed a regular pill, monthly cycle pill, for the next few months. She had free samples of ortho tri-cyclen lo and just sent me home with a bunch of those. Awesome, I don't have to spend money on bc! I know I'd have to start that to be ready for the frozen embryo transfer anyway so it's all good.

So, on to Frosty. I spoke to my old fertility doc, what hell did I used to call her? Dr. Sunshine? I think that was it. So I called the fertility office and asked if they could give her a message that I called. Less than an hour later she called back. She explained what the procedure would be and was happy that I had just started birth control. She said I'd have to go down there for a mock transfer and then again for the real transfer. She said that they wouldn't know how the embryo looked after defrosting until the day of transfer since that's when they defrost it. She explained that frozen embryos have a 70-80% chance of surviving after being frozen and that they have a pregnancy rate of 30-40%. I know those odds look bad with only one embryo to work with but she's optimistic because things with Aislinn and she said that it was a good embryo. One of my friends here in CT that has PCOS was all negative about us bothering to try with just one embryo. She also bothered to tell me one time that I should remember that it's not really a living thing yet and that I shouldn't think of it like it is one. I can't help but think of it that way. I mean, I'm not a crazy right wing super christian that is against abortion because "life begins at conception". I don't want it to sound like that's what I'm saying because if I were raped I might feel different. But this embryo is a life to me, it's a life that my husband and I made... with the help of some other people. LOL! We tried so hard to create this little embryo and no matter how things turn out, a piece of me and a piece of Howie came together and made something - the beginning of a little person. I loved all of our little embryos from the moment we heard about them and I was routing for all 5 (or was it 6) to survive. I was never planning on having 5 or 6 kids but suddenly I was thinking, they're ours! OURS! We made them! I want to give them all a chance. I want to give Frost a chance, that's it. Why did we make him/her if we never wanted to give it a chance.

The only trouble now is the insurance. I don't know how it'll work. If we had the same insurance I guess a frozen transfer wouldn't be a problem because they invested in the creation of this embryo as well. Now we're in a new state with different laws and new insurance. They might say we're required to do 4 IUIs and 4 IVF cycles before we transfer Frosty but that's craziness. I think starting with an embryo we already have could save them money and perhaps with a letter from the doc to the insurance company and maybe some more back and forth we might be able to do it. I'm not going to keep my ONE embryo frozen for much longer. That's crazy! I need to transfer this thing and if I did get pregnant with the IUIs and IVFs that they REQUIRE then I'll never get around to defrosting Frosty. I just want to see how things go with that before moving on. So, I don't know, maybe we'll have to pay for it. Howie and I agree that we want to give Frosty a chance and we are both optimistic even if people think the odds suck. I don't care.

So, I guess we need to talk to the finance department at the fertility clinic and in about 4 weeks I'm going to head down to VA for a mock transfer and then we'll move forward from there. I can do monitoring at a fertility clinic in CT where Dr. Sunshine has a fertility friend. If Frosty doesn't work out then I'll be hooked up with a new clinic. If things with the insurance work out then we're hoping to do the transfer sometime in May! That would make the due date in February. Keep your fingers crossed for us!