Spotting

After a few hours this morning, I saw the dreaded spot on the TP. The first one was light pink. The following ones all brownish red. I know spotting is normal, but it's much hard not to freak out about it. All activities today for me were cancelled as in no cleaning or walking the dog. Instead I spent the day in bed with my legs up and watching season two of Eureka. Yep, I'm a scifi nerd. Now I'm going right back to laying down too.

xoxo

It's lovely

I must say that I never thought I would be climbing off the IF roller coaster. It's kind of like jumping into Willy Wonka's boat and going through the tunnel of freaky flashing colors. Where we go no body knows! But now, that I'm off, I'm getting my balance back and trying to just enjoy the moments of happiness.

I'm delighted to say that I have been feel pukey and exhausted at every turn. There has been no hurling however, you're not even suppose to get morning sickness until the sixth week. I kind of like it though because it reminds me that I have massive amounts of hormones floating through my body! With a little Sprite in my system, the bubbly goodness does the trick for me at this point. I'm not in love with drinking soda, but it's the only thing that sounds good. The exhaustion on the other hand is constant! I must say I have never been more grateful for the lack of a full time job than I am now! I've been sleeping in extensively and really struggling not to give in to a nap about six. This is where teaching my online classes is fabulous since I can do it anytime of day.

With our insurance through the military, I have a primary care doctor (PCM) whom I have to have a referral from to see any other doctor. Usually my PCM is on the military post, but since this post has so many soldiers, all family members are shipped off post into the local community. Now apparently, I get to go back to their OB clinic where I have to follow their regulations. Regulations such as, I can't get an ultrasound appointment until I attend a group registration meeting for all newly pregnant women. They go over the basic things with everyone at the same time. Of course the next registration appointment is the day after my RE wants me to have my six weeker. I asked the woman who called how long it would take to get my first u/s. She said one or two weeks! Um, no that's not going to work for me people! I am an obsessive  post-IVF girl! Don't get between me and my first u/s! So I explained my circumstances, and she said I would be one of the first people to get an appointment. However, on Monday, I'm going to call and try to see if I can whittle my way in. :)

In other fun news, a cousin did write on FACEBOOK a big congratulations to me. Ummm. Don't you think if I wanted to talk about it there, I would have an announcement? I realize that my pregnancy is not much of a secret as I allow my friends and select family members to read my blog. I also told my grandmother because she needed some good news. However, I would prefer for the ancillary members who I do not share this blog with not to know until I am further along. Too late! I wrote her a nice message and deleted her post and she apologized. I know she meant well, but I would prefer for FB to be the last frontier of announcements!

That's all for now! Thanks for all of your positive comments! I am trying to take it one day at a time and to enjoy this lovely happiness.

xoxo

What's Next?

I must say that I have been literally showered with congratulations over the past few days from my lovely friends who read here. Each comment just brings this warmth to me that makes me smile every single time. I have heard the most delightful tears of joy over the phone from both coasts and places dotted in between. Meanwhile, I'm delighting in these moments even when I feel a little nauseous or sleepy because it makes it ever so slightly possible for me that this is indeed real.

I am pregnant.

If I write it enough times, it might actually be true.

Now for me the question is what comes next? My nurse in California finally called to give me the positive pregnancy steps to follow including slight changes to my medication. These things I know how to handle. Inject this, swallow this, carefully place that! However, she also followed this up with you need a six week ultrasound on 3/8, an eight week ultrasound on 3/22 and a ten weeker on 4/5. Of course they are in California and I am here in Missouri so I have to figure out if I can convince my new OB to give them to me and write some medical reason so that I do not have to pay for them. I have great insurance, so I figure now it's time for it to kick in. Even these things are pretty simple to deal with though.

What I really wonder though is, what's next? What's the next thing I need to prepare to guard my heart against so I don't fall apart when it happens? I know the first hurdle is the heartbeat, so this is the step I'm focusing on and I'll figure the rest out later. However, I feel almost bad for being worried. It's like I've made it to the Olympics which is a huge step in and by itself. But, now I have to figure out how to get through my short and long programs. You can't worry that you're at the Olympics right?

I don't mean to whine or complain, but I'm just flat out scared and elated all at the same time. It's like the time Sweetpea ran off in the woods when she was little. I ran miles on the trails trying to find her, only to return to my house to find her at the top of the stairs, panting, and waiting to be let in. I wanted to strangle her and hug her at the same time. This feels very much the same.

Thank you for hanging in here with me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

BTW the due date is estimated for 11/1 by the doc and 10/30 by my IVF calculator!

Beta Drumrole.....

Three twenty-five

325


THREEEEEE TWENNNNNNNTY-FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVEEEEEEEE!

Another Day of Torture

Because I live in PODUNK, I don't get the results of my beta until tomorrow.

T O R T U R E !

xoxo

The Reactions

As my family and friends have been there for every step of my IF process, those who know what we have been through also got to know about our news yesterday. Most of me still feels like this is a piece of hope floating in the wind and not very real. However the reactions yesterday were so very lovely that I have to share them with you.

Immediately after my post I sent a mass text to my family and close friends telling them to "Check my blog please." My husband said this was a little cruel as I should have called my parents. However, I thought this was kind of fun so everybody knew at the same time. I then called my mom who was laughing and crying at the same time. The softness in her voice went straight to my heart and made me think that this might be happening. Apparently my sister and her were dancing around the kitchen in California. FairyEggs was crying so much when I called her, she was just gushing with relief and happiness.

Things here at my house are still pretty subdued. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

xoxo

********

Direct from FairyEggs:

Woo Hoo!  There are really no words to express how happy, ecstatic and completely over the moon I am!  My mom got a text and said, “Look at your cell phone; I think you got a text from J.”  I immediately ran to my phone and then ran to my computer.  I made my husband stop doing our taxes so I could read the blog and immediately started sobbing.  Completely uncontrolled crying. I didn’t know whether to call or text J when the phone rang.  I was so glad J called me and we chatted about the great news!  It is very hard to be “cautiously optimistic” on a day like today.  I am choosing pure joy!  I will be cautiously optimistic tomorrow…

On a side note, I am so relieved this is over for me.  I have felt so much pressure (from myself ONLY) to help J, that now I can just breath and enjoy.  I have done everything I can for her and hubby and I can sit back and watch J go through all of the joy and nausea it takes to grow a baby.  She has listened to me complain through three pregnancies and listened to me when I had a miscarriage.  She listened to me cry and complain when I had an unexpected pregnancy.  Little did I know that three short years later she would be dreaming for an unexpected pregnancy.  I still have guilt about my feelings about my beautiful daughter that I thought I didn’t want.  She is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  J has been with me through one of the toughest times of my life and supported my decisions and listened to me for hours.  The bottom line is she deserves pure joy.  It is her turn. 

Love you Jenicini! 

What does this mean?

When I POAS, I often examine the sticks looking for the slightest bit of color in the cross or the line or whatever kind of hoopla they ask us to jump through. So when I use the fancy fool proof test that is suppose to be clear, I have to ask myself "What the heck does this mean," because seriously I've never seen anything like this. Check it out.

Yes, it says I'm pregnant. Really? Little tiny cartwheels going on inside of my heart right now. But at the same time both hubby and I are just cautiously optimistic. Things are on the right track, but I need to see the BETA number on Monday. I know that things can change all too quickly.

So all of you who know me in real life, there are rules: no calling people, no naming babies, no telling! I know this will be torturous for you, but the fact is that this is just the first step and if something happens I don't want to have to explain it to the world. So please ask before you share. However, please feel free to hug each other and send lots of prayers and happy thoughts for good numbers this week. 

Thank you for all of your support! It means so much.

xoxo

8dp5dt...home

Ah, the bliss of being in my own home, with my wiggly butt dog and sarcastic hubby. I would write more tonight, but I am honestly so exhausted. I just wanted to let you know that there will be POASing this weekend! I'm not sure when yet, but I figure I've waited long enough. Hopefully my beta test will be done by my regular doc as I have requested on Monday. So, I'll either be crying or scared crapless the next time we talk. {GRIN}

xoxo

6dp5dt...Sicky

Ok, well my POAS mania has subsided because of two things:

1. My sister doesn't want me to test. WHAT? I thought. Seriously, she is usually the first to want me to do so! I figured out that she doesn't want me here and crying if it's a negative. She loves me, but she doesn't love my tears. I don't blame her.

2. My husband says that if I POAS, it's like opening a Christmas present before Christmas. That capital crime is definitely NOT allowed. So I'm sucking it up and going to wait until the weekend.

Today I went to my sister's classroom during their cooking time so that I could meet all of her kiddos. They of course loved me because I brought them candy. Candy is a sure way to bribe any kid into some friendly smiles. Yes, this is not my first rodeo. :) Unfortunately while I was there I started feeling incredibly nauseous with my stomach churning away. I started sweating a little bit and had to leave immediately after the lesson because I felt like I was going to lose it. Let me say that it wasn't very pretty by the time I got home. Anyway, a few hours sleeping on the couch, and I feel much much better.

Tomorrow I'm headed home after three weeks out here in California. I can not wait to see my precious Sweetpea and my husband! Whoot!

xoxo

Mania...5dp5dt

You know how during the 2ww you are (im)patiently waiting and passing the time, and then you hear of someone else who POAS and got a positive? Then you look at how far along they are and realize that they are only a day further along than you?

Today it happened! Like a snowball to the face, the POAS mania just hit me! Now I want to run out and buy a test or twelve. I want to go. I want to buy. I want to PEEEEEEE!

But I am telling myself now that I must resist the urge. I must resist going walking. I must resist reaching into the cookie jar. I must resist buying pregnancy tests!

In two seconds I went from calm and relaxed to WANTING! Argh! Now the next few days are going to be torture! lol.

xoxo

BTW, Happy 63rd bday Dad! Love you!

The end of pampering

Tomorrow I will be free to not lay down the entire day, roll over when I want to, stretch my aching pinched nerve, and take a SHOWER! The warden brought in my husband to guilt me into not taking a shower so I wouldn't "risk it." And while I sound like I am bemoaning the fact that I've had luxurious bed rest, I've actually really appreciated the fact that my sister has used three out of her four days off to take care of her baby sister! She is now requesting naming rights for my first born. :)

In other fun news, I think I'm getting a UTI which I've only had once in my life. I'm downing unsweetened cranberry juice like tequila shots and have now been banned from the cookie jar and all other sugary things. Fun times people. 

And yes, I'm still incredibly chipper and hopeful that this will work. While I'd like to think that I'm feeling implantation cramps, it's probably those stinky bubbles that plague my system. Isn't that a lovely way to celebrate the Hallmark holiday? 

And speaking of Valentine's day? Boo Hiss!

xoxo

Who likes resting?

Resting is overrated when it is enforced. It's really only fun when it's a guilty pleasure nap that you take on a Friday afternoon after work or a lazy day in bed reading a favorite book. When you have a warden telling you that you can only roll on your side for five minutes at a time for not more than an hour? Torture!

And that's right, my dear dark sister is now my scary warden. "I wouldn't cross her either" said a family friend via text this morning.  However despite her torture techniques, she's really being quite an excellent sister in fetching whatever food I want including bagels and chinese food, occasionally handing me the remote control, and serving up some excellent glasses of water complete with a straw.

Since my parents left me to go on their annual wine trip up the coast, we have taken over their huge king size sleep number bed. Haha, take that! No seriously, they are super excited yesterday and my mom came over to rub my tummy and whisper sweet snuggly phrases to them. I normally would think it was kind of icky-sweet but the look on her face made me melt.

I hope this works. I hope this works.

xoxo

Blastos

Two little blastos sitting in my ute
N-e-s-t-i-n-g
First comes rest
Then comes a test
Then come a baby in a baby carriage!

Yes, I know that I'm way too chipper right now. The transfer went well this morning and was followed with a nice round of acupuncture. With his usual bluntness, my doc came in and told me that we had one excellent, one good and the rest were crap! I took it with a grain of salt because I have never even had a five day transfer before so I figure my chances are still increased from previous cycles. Whoot! Even though Fairyeggs was disappointed, she remained pretty positive at the thought of these two. I'm forever grateful to her regardless of what happens. :) And now, I will be laying here on the couch relaxing away!

xoxo

Quiet Lull

Right now I'm in the quiet lull between Fairyegg and Tink's departure and the transfer. Even though the nurse told me that they would call me the day before transfer to let me know when to come in, my nefarious plan was to bug them until they told me how my embies were doing. I was completely shut down as the nurse told me that they don't do reports. Boo!

It's probably better in the long run because I'm not obsessing over the details. Can you believe that I am not even playing doctor google either? It's strange, but I am completely calm. I feel like I've completely let go of this cycle since I watched it vicariously through Fairyegg's worries and now am heading towards a five-day transfer. Relinquishing control is kind of nice.

Right now I'm just trying to focus on resting and kicking this bug's hiney as my throat has been so swollen that I lost my voice for two days and have been snoring up a storm since I can't breathe at night. HOT, I say. I bet my husband is sad he is missing this special moment with me. Regardless, I now have antibiotics that I am cleared to take until the day before transfer. Already, I am loving my little Amoxicillin.

I had kind of a funny conversation with how many to transfer with my husband. We've never had a choice before and simply transfered the one good one during round one and the two stragglers during round two. Should we round it off with three for round three? My hubby just wants whatever has the best chance of getting me knocked up. I really have no idea but want to keep reasonable since I have high albeit controlled, blood pressure. We'll see if we have a choice by day five. Any thoughts?

So Thursday should be the big day! Send me lots of prayers, happy thoughts, good vibes.

xoxo

FairyEggs departure...for now

This is Fairy Eggs here with a Woot Woot! We are thrilled with the results even though I am a "bad egg donor." In your face with advanced maternal age!!! I am coming down off of the hormone roller coaster and very excited to see my family again after 10 days. I have had a great time here with Jenicini's family and now it is time to go home and see my own. I am so appreciative of her Mom and Dad and Sister for treating me like family and accepting my moods.

I am also very thankful that I have a family that is so supportive of what we have done.  I couldn’t have done this without all of their support and understanding. Thanks Mom for not listening to me about it being too much to come out.  Thanks for the help with Tink! I couldn’t have done it without everyone because Tink is crazy! I also have to think of something really awesome to do for my husband because he was the one who encouraged me to do this in the first place.  Any ideas? 

I also appreciate all of the support from other bloggers.  You keep us buoyed with your great thoughts and wishes.  I have thoroughly enjoyed coming to know some of you through your blogs and wish everyone success in the crazy fertility world!  I will be lurking……..

xoxo

Fert Report

S - I - X! That's definitely the most I have ever had and they are super duper Fairyeggs to boot! All smiles today here.

Thanks for all of the love and support!

xoxo

The hope and joy of it...

As the day has gone by, I have been filled with a hope and joy that I haven't felt in a long time. Infertility has given us so many slaps in the face, so many rugs pulled out from under us, so many big fat FUs that I have simply lost count of the number of bad days. We manage to pick ourselves up, grin, find some remnant of hope, and move onto the next step. Yet the step doesn't have quite the same amount of bounce that the previous one did. It's exhausting.

But today Fairyegg's gift to us finally came to fruition, and I am simply astounded with the idea that I might have an actual chance. It's real. I'll have to actually write a post about how I feel about Fairyegg's gift, but it's 3:13 am and I most certainly won't do it justice. I can't believe that I actually had good news today.

I'm not naive. I know that tomorrow everything might come crashing down in a heap of crap. But today, I am just enjoying the fact that today is a good day. Today I have hope. Today I have an effing chance that all these machinations might DO something. It's the rarest hope and joy in our cloudy IF world.

xoxo

my little indians...

one little, two little, three little eggies

four little, five little, six eggs ex-pec-ted

seven little, eight little, nine little fairy eggs

ten NO eleven NO
twelve fairy eggs gotten to-day!

Whoot! Ha!

xoxo

Beauuuteeful!

Thank you Cre and Jenn for this cute little award!




xoxo

Blast off with a little HCG!

Well ladies and gents, we are blasting off tonight with a little HCG at 9 pm tonight!

Today the four of us trotted off to Westwood this morning for another date with the dildo cam. Yes, that would be four of us because FairyEgg's mom finally arrived to join the party! Whoot! She stayed with Tink in the playroom while we went in for our check. FairyEggs literally was so nervous that she felt like she was going to puke on the way down there. As of now there are about five mature eggs and five smaller ones still coming along. We obviously don't want to lose the five that are ready to go so we are triggering tonight!

FairyEggs literally had tears running down her face as we were talking to the nurse because she was disappointed with the number. It didn't help that Dr. Leprechaun has some issues with tact as he said, "You are not a good donor." I immediately piped up with, "No, you are a good donor!" Groan, can't you phrase that some other way? Anyway, while we were talking to the nurse she said, "He's rude sometimes, just ignore him." Can you not see that they have dealt with this before? Anyway, while we were reviewing our instructions with the nurse, I started bouncing around. How can I not? I might not be getting twenty eggs from a twenty-one year old little thang. But I am going to get around five eggs from a girl who can obviously have healthy children and who happens to be one of the dearest people in my life. All I need is for some of those eggs to be good ones! At this point I just don't care about the other crap! This process is all about taking everything one day at a time and dealing with things as they come. Today, I'm happy because I have a chance. It seems better than what I've had so far.

Retrieval is set for Saturday at 9 am.

Faith, trust and a little pixie dust. :) xoxo

Stim Day 11

It's hard for me to be hopeful during the cycle right now. I caught some nasty germ from the airport or mouseland that now has me feeling like death warmed over. I literally slept all day today trying to knock it out.  After all, this is really not the freaking time to get sick! My throat is killing me and my body literally feels like a truck ran over me, backed up to see what it hit, and then decided to put me out of my misery with one last smush. . . Some of the stuff kind of comes and goes, but overall, it just keeps coming.

Monday we went back to the doctor's office which definitely has a different atmosphere than my last clinic. I'm not so much concerned about the atmosphere as I am with how FairyEggs feels and the outcome. My first lining check was great at 10 mm with a triple stripe. Whoot. FairyEgg's ten follicles were actually measured this time and ranged from 8 - 12 mm. The doc thinks that the egg retrieval will be pushed to Sunday which is the day before FairyEggs is scheduled to go home. Argh! I don't want her to travel that quickly, but I guess we'll have to roll with it! We are also unsure with what happens to the eggs when you stim for twelve (or more) days. We're hoping for quality eggs.

Tomorrow FairyEgg's mom comes to visit and help out in just being here for her daughter. They really have a beautiful relationship, and I love them both dearly.

With this cycle, I have definitely reverted back to guarding my heart very carefully. I want this to happen, but I dare not hope or get ahead of myself in the planning. One step at a time right? I am also bogged down in the day to day reality of the waiting. Besides the cyle, I think about spending quality time with FairyEggs, Tink, and my family, keeping up with my work schedule from home, staying connected with my hubby and helping him edit his Masters papers, and helping out around the house.

After plunking down another $750 for FDA labs that have already been run, but have to be done again within 30 days of the egg donation and another $1k on medications, I think my husband finally tapped out. He said to me the other day that we should plan on this being our last cycle.  As much as I figured this would be our last try at a fresh cycle, I've still been considering embryo donation as an option if this cycle doesn't work out. Who knows? Day by day.

xoxo