Trying to take a Halloween picture.

This is how things roll at my house...

I am so not wearing that hat.

What were you thinking, mama?

I am pretty cute though.

Alright, alright, you can have one shot.

xoxo

Mirroring

My emotions during these FET cycles seem to be mirroring my first three rounds of IVF that we went through to get E.

Before IVF#1, I was so blissfully naive to believe that the statistics would be on our side and we'd be knocked up after one try. We didn't even want to spend the extra $10k for the money-back guarantee. Ha! When it failed, I was more surprised than upset. We quickly rolled in the next round.

Before FET#1, I was confident in the knowledge that the only time I had two 5-day embryos to transfer, one took. So knowing that I had two fabulous embryos, I was more worried about twins than that it might not work. Surprise! 

On IVF#2, I felt like the first cycle had just been a fluke. I earned my Dr. Google degree with all of the time I spent researching my hormone values. When none of my five eggs fertilized on the first day, I was gutted. Devastated. I remember physically hurting while we waited for more new. Even though two fertilized late, that cycle was the roller coaster that jumped the rails, leaving me flat.

Before FET#2, I thought something must have been off with the first cycle that couldn't possibly occur again. When the embryologist shared that one of the embryos was hatching, I kind of thought we had it in the bag. Today as I was driving to my appointment, I just hurt.  There's no way I would ever be in the depths of despair that I was before E, but it was harder to take than I ever thought.

For IVF#3 (with donor eggs), we took some time off to regroup and I entered it with a kind of "whatever be will be" attitude.  I knew it was the last treatment we would try, and I was okay with that. This last FET is shaping up the same way for us.

I just hope we find the success we did the first time.

xoxo

He has a point.

After my initial freak out over my hubby's suggestion, I came to realize he had a point.

As we've gone through fertility treatments and pregnancy, we have moved twice. When we moved from Louisiana to Missouri, we did an IVF cycle in between having our stuff picked up from our house in LA and delivery of our furniture in Missouri. My rock star hubby, unpacked the whole house by himself while I laid on the couch hoping that my disaster cycle worked. It didn't, but my next cycle did. That wonderful cycle had me knocked up and in my second trimester when we started our move to Alaska. Once again, my hubby was completely protective of us, so he did all of the supervision of the moving, carpet cleaning, and driving of our personal vehicle across to Seattle and up through Canada. The day we closed on our new Alaskan house, I went into labor and was in the hospital while my hubby unpacked and readied everything in the new house. Do you notice a theme here?

Moving is not easy. Even with the Army paying for movers to come and pack up our belongings, there is still a tremendous amount of work required to get everything organized. Besides this, we are going to be selling our house which means continuous house cleaning for several months. Throwing in the logistics of traveling with a toddler 3,487.6 miles...

what the hell am I thinking?

Doing this while I'm pregnant is possible, but I'm pretty sure that it would be much healthier for everyone for me to NOT be pregnant.

So, I'm going to wait.

Although it took me a few days to be 100% sure of the decision, I feel like the pressure is off. Physically, it will give my body time to clear out all of the drugs and feel healthy again. Emotionally, I will have a chance to regroup and try again when I'm not hurried or stressed.

Thanks for weighing in and lending your support.

xoxo

Figuring it all out *updated*

Well, crap.

We found out this week that we will be PCSing (Army-speak for permanently moving) to Fort Leavenworth near Kansas next summer. To know that we are moving this much in advance is an incredible luxury and I'm suuuuper excited about it!

However, this puts a huge speed bump in our baby making plans. Well it's huge for me because I've been running around trying to figure out if I can fit in FET3 before the holidays. Coincidentally, I can since I got a rip-roaring CD1 yesterday. However, if miracles of miracles occurs and I actually get knocked up this time, I would be due on July 31. That would be the month that we would be scheduled to move.

We can't move the timeline later because we are moving to go to a training that only starts at two points during the year. We can't move it earlier in the year because my hubby needs a specific amount of time in the job that he currently holds. Not hitting the year mark in that position would limit our choices of where we go after the school finishes.

Ultimately if I was a normal pregnant woman or even just a lucky infertile woman, we could swing it. However my crappy cervix precludes us from flippantly running to the doctor to spend thousands of dollars to get pregnant whenever we jolly well feel like it.

So I'm probably going to have to suck it up and wait until January to do the cycle so that the timing works better. I know that it's a mere two months, but I'm oddly compelled to do it now. If I have to bear the disappointment of this not working, I want to be able to move on as soon as possible. Being in limbo just isn't that comfortable.

On the bright side of things....I actually have the opportunity to mull this all over as I have two more beautiful embryos in the cryotanks.

xoxo

*update*

My hubby and I discussed the situation after we put E to bed tonight. He's completely worried about me being pregnant at all while we are moving. When I say at all, I mean that he would prefer me to wait for our final transfer until after we are moved. My initial reaction to waiting ten months is "hell no." However, depending on when our Alaska house sells, this could be sooner. This is a very unexpected twist for me. I'm considering it.

xoxo

More

I'm in a dark, unhappy place tonight. Doesn't that make you want to read on now? Yeah, I don't blame you. I pretty much wish I could get out of my own head right now too.

Tonight I'm just sad. How could this cycle have not worked? In the back of my mind, I figured that the BFN from FET1 was just a fluke. With our embryos coming from the mecca of infertility clinics that is CCRM and the batch being proven by the birth of some beautiful twins, I just can't fathom how it didn't take.

I feel pushed up to the wall that we are already on our last set of embryos. This set being our last hope for a sibling for E. Sometimes I picture him when we are gone, and I worry that he won't have any family there to continue loving and supporting him. I don't want him to be alone.

I am so infinitely grateful that I have E. The family that we've created is the most precious thing to me. It's so amazing that it makes me want more.

I want more.

xoxo

Today was just crappy.

I woke up this morning to E's squawk on the monitor at 4:51 am. He settled down, so I trudged into the bathroom for a quick pee before falling back in bed. My hubby was just getting up for work, so he asked me, "What?" I paused and then it dawned on me that I was planning to POAS this morning. I climbed back in bed, mad at myself and stewing over the fact that I was going to have to wait so many hours to find out if this cycle was going to work.

E truly woke up a short time later and we spent an hour watching bub-bub-bubble, bubble-bubble guppies. After awhile, E leaned over and put his head on Sweetpea.

It was pretty darn sweet. Apparently, she didn't think it was so great because she got up licked him and then growled at him. It freaked the hell out of me as that's not acceptable behavior in our house. I think she gets territorial about the bed, and E was in her space. So we did a little doggie retraining and then went on with our day.

I chugged some water and decided to POAS anyway.

Bleepity, bleep, bleep, bleep.

Nevertheless, we ourselves together and headed into Anchorage. We got on-post with no problem, but E decided to throw a tantrum the minute after we pulled our number to wait for the lab. Of course we had to wait about twenty-minutes, of which, E cried the whole time. No matter what I offered or did, he was just inconsolable.

While I was in Anchorage, we went ahead and ran errands. E was miserable the whole time, fighting me at every turn to get down and walk or begging to be picked up. The day continued like this. I dragged us to the crappy, pain-in-the-arse mall to visit the Apple store only to find out they didn't have what I needed in stock. Ugh. Then, my hubby couldn't meet us for lunch. Then the clinic called while I was desperately trying to wrangle my son back into the cart at Costco.

It just went on and on....my craptastic day.

While I know these are small annoyances in the grand scheme of it all...

today of all days I was just heart-broken with a huge weight in the middle of my chest.

I don't know what I would have done without my little boy to snuggle with tonight.

xoxo

Steeling myself.

Here I am, laying on the couch typing away while wanting desperately to run to the bathroom and rip open one of those pretty pink pregnancy tests. But, I'm not.

I'm really trying to resist. (and my hubby FORBADE me!!! Like that works!)

While I was really optimistic before I flew back to Alaska, since being home the doubts have crept in to my happy space. With one of the embryos hatching upon transfer, it seemed like such a good sign.

But now, I'm not in a bad place, I'm just in a more realistic place. A place where I look at the statistics and realize that like with E, I might fall on the bad side of these. It took us three tries for him, maybe it will take three tries for the next one. Or maybe it won't happen at all.

I remind myself of these things, not to be morose, but to steel myself against the heartbreak that could occur on Thursday.

Still sounds morose when I write it though.

Damn it.

xoxo