Holy Crap, I Just Canceled Myself!

We had our 8:45am appointment with Dr. Pompy today. An U/S appt to see how the follicles were doing. On the way to the appointment J protested that he didn't want to do another IVF cycle after this one. That he was tired of "throwing good money at bad". Yes, his words. I protested that I wasn't ready to throw in the towel just yet but he voiced that if I wanted to keep trying that it would be on my own. Fine. And shall I look for donor sperm, too, while I'm at it? "No, I didn't say that". Me, paraphrasing, "Okay. So you want the privilege of being a parent but you don't want to write your 50% of the check to help us be parents?" OMG. It was a terrible and hurtful argument. Infertility hurts couples in so many ways: emotionally, financially, and then there are the physical considerations. The shots, the hormones swings, possibility of overstimulating, etc. It's endless. But arguments like this are poison. Toxic.

So today is something like day 8 or 9 of stims. I tender in the ovary region and seriously bruised from the lovenox.

A bit of history: recall that we started off with 12 follicles...but they found a cyst...so they put me on stronger lupron in order to make the cyst go away. Dr. Russian said that antrals vary. They come and go. This was in response to his finding 7 on our last U/S about a week or so ago. I panicked but he seemed to imply that the others would likely be coming back.

But they didn't come back.

Today they only found 7 follicles. One at 7mm, a few at 11 and 12mm, and one at 14.4mm. I expressed concern over the 7mm follicle that it might not be able to "catch up" to the others. Dr. Pompy said "it might" catch up. So in reality we only had 6 follicles to work with.

I was devastated. This was my worst cycle ever. I always wind up with more follicles than they think I'll have. Heck, Dr. Moustache would always find extra follicles in the OR when he was poking around with the retrieval needle.

Withdrawing the wand, Dr. Pompy said that he wanted to test my estrogen to see if it was high enough to proceed. He didn't seem enthusiastic about it given how many follicles had disappeared.

I asked a multitude of questions as to how they might have disappeared:

"I worked out quite a bit the last two months. Might this have caused this?"

"No."

"I was on lupron since February 8t. Could it have put my follicles to sleep."

"No." (I have my doubts about this. Honestly, I think this was the culprit.)

"Okay. I've never done a cycle with menopur before. Do you think the LH did something to suppress my follicles to the point of disappearing?"

"No." (There are docs that would argue in my favor)

What he did say is that he felt that I'd done quite well for my age up til now and that it was possible that in the last year that it's caught up with me.

"But what about the 12 follicles? 12 is more like what I normally produce." I protested. There was really no answer for this.

Dr. Pompy said that they'd call with E2 results and would let me know what dosage to take for my evening shot. He said that if my E2 was lower than 250 that I'd be canceled and we'd try again next month. If this were the case I'd trigger with my hCG to induce ovulation so that I could get the "ball on the road" as soon as possible, rather than waiting up to six weeks for AF to arrive.

So we left and we argued all the way home as to what to do. It just doesn't sit right with me that 5 of my follicles disappeared. This has never happened to me before. With our first two IVF cycles I had 12 and 15 (or was it 16?) follicles. We had fantastic retrieval & fertilization rates.

About 4:30pm they called with my E2 results. 445. I asked what sort of number this represented in the spectrum of typical results. "Average". Okay. So I have less than normal follicles for me, and my E2 is average.

Evening came and I took my shots as planned save for the menopur and lovenox. It wouldn't matter if we proceeded or not: I'd still have to take them in order to trigger tomorrow. No reason to take the latter two shots as I'd made up my mind.

8:30pm came and I made the call. I telephoned our sweetie pie nurse and confided in her that J didn't want to do another IVF cycle after this one and that I didn't feel that we were truly giving it our best shot. I'd been thru the ringer with the cysts, the 2 months of lupron, and now I'd lost a huge percentage of my follicles. I explained that I didn't think that this was an optimal cycle for me and that I felt it was best that we cancel and start again with the next AF. I think I probably told her a bit too much about our reasons for canceling. Hopefully I didn't burden her with undue information.

I'm not sure why I felt the need to apologize to her, and to Dr. Pompy, but I did. I feel that I kind of let them down in a way, but as La Coloratura said, I paid them for each visit, ultrasound, and blood draw. I had a right to do whatever I wanted with this cycle. I fought back tears of disappointment during our conversation. But it's done. We're canceled. I'm kind of shocked we canceled ourselves, but hopefully next month will be better.

It's a hell of a let down after all we just went through.

[Millie if you're reading...I'd love to hear what you think of all of this.]

Stims Day 8The Beginning of Panic

Tomorrow is our first U/S since commencing "stims" to see how the follicles are shaping up. The nurse who made my appointment today said for me to administer my shot of lupron, but not the FSH, as they might change the dosage during the appointment. I'm already doing 225iu of Gonal-F in the AM & PM, and 150 of Menopur (50:50 mixture of FSH and LH) so I'm getting a total of 525iu of FSH a day. This is more than I've ever taken. One would think that perhaps this would lead to overstimulation...at least I would, however, I'm feeling a bit tender in the ovary region but it's nothing outrageously terrible. I'm still working out without issue and going about my daily business without much thought to what's going on down there. Once in a while it feels crampy down there.

Clearly if they are planning on changing my meds, I would think they'd adjust them downwards as the risk of overstimulating me looms.

The hCG will change my tone of complacency. It always does.

After the shot of hCG that 36 hour clock starts ticking rather loudly, nerves set in, I start to panic, and who wouldn't? My ovaries will start to feel like they have lead weights attached to them and I'll fret that they'll explode before I can reach the clinic in time. I am already worrying if their custom blended lupron is adequate to suppress me. I'm 5'10" and weigh more than many of the waifs that I see in the clinic. Is 5iu twice a day enough for me? Such is the way in which I panic. This is the 3rd time. It's my routine and I do not anticipate wavering far from it.

Stims Day 5Black and Blue

Yesterday my stomach had a few bruises from the injections thus far. Post endermologie session, not only was I left with petechiae all over my upper back, leaving me to look like a victim of domestic abuse, but the purplish marks on my midsection are starting to coalesce into large purple bruises. Honestly, this is so icky that I've asked my BFF, JS, so swing by with her camera to capture the moment. If my child ever asks if s/he was "wanted" all I will have to do is whip out said photograph and it'll be clear that I walked through hell bring him or her forth.

Tomorrow morning I go in for my first IVIg infusion of the cycle and a routine blood draw to test my NK levels (Natural Killer cells). If elevated, I'll be doing yet another infusion of IVIg two days prior to the embryo transfer (knock on wood that we get some!). It's disconcerting to be doing an IVIg before we even know how many embryos we might be getting (one report said 12 follicles, one said 7, the latter report came from Dr. Russian who clarified that antral follicle counts can fluctuate within a cycle) but at least we'll know for sure by the time of the next treatment. I am worried about the idea of 7 follicles. We're used to much more. At my age (42) it's reported that 1 in 5 eggs is "normal" (which aneuploidies they're referring to is up for grabs) so I am quite uneasy about having so few. I'd like to put back 10, yes TEN, embryos as that would give me a chance at two normals, and hopefully one will implant. Both implanting would be ideal, actually, but given my score card, I think one will do nicely.

Stims Day 4Human Pincushion

Seven shots a day is excessive. There is little uncharted territory on my stomach for this to go on much longer. The Lovenox isn't creating huge bruises, as the heparin did, but I see telltale black marks where the needles entered.

What is most surprising in this cycle is how f*cking much the Menopur shots hurt. IF women will complain about the heparin. How it burns and the intensive bruising that it causes. They plead with their physicians for scripts for Lovenox, and that eases the pain a bit and lessens the bruising. But Menopur is something created in hell.

Tonight, for the first time in 4 cycles, the pain was so much I took the needle out and had to start over. Never before has that happened. Well, it might have happened with the Humira, but that memory is buried safely away.

I noticed this evening, while preparing my quartet of injections, that I have a veritable menagerie of infertility drugs in my refrigerator. Gonal F from Z, from JP, and even one box of Gonal F with a woman's name of it that I have never met, nor do I recall how it came into my possession. A few follistim pens without instructions, lot numbers, or expiration dates, a multidose Gonal F vial, a couple of 450iu multi dose vials, three boxes of 900iu pens, and so much more. Five boxes of menopur that were gathered from at least three sources, not one a pharmacy. There's even a box of vivelle patches in the lettuce drawer. I'll probably never use a few of these things and when this cycle is over, I'll pass them onto the next IF woman who is in need of such things.

One day she, or perhaps yet another woman, will find my name on a box in her lettuce drawer and wonder who I am, and what my story was.

Stims Day 2 Scale Success!

Tried to work out at the gym yesterday and I found myself exhausted much earlier than normal. I think eating a carbohydrate laden fruit/nut bar (a chocolate/coconut Larabar) before a workout was a total mistake. Rather than burning fat, my body was focused on digesting and after burning 300 calories I was winded and I quit. I can't blame my lack of performance on the single dose of Gonal F I shot up right before heading there as it is just too early for it to have had any effect on my ability to do cardio. I truly wish that someone would make a whey protein bar that is otherwise dairy free (no casein, caseinates, or the like) that didn't have a shitload of sugar in it, natural or otherwise. I just don't see them out there. It's so repulsive, to me, to eat a protein bar, in essence a meal replacement, only to have it coated with chocolate, or have 18g of sugar (or more!). I totally adore some of the nut bars that have come onto the market lately, but honestly, they really don't have much in the way of protein and they still have way too much sugar in them. J says I should go into business and make my own. Not sure where he thinks I'll find the time between IVF, classes, buying and rehabbing foreclosures, and everything else on my plate.

My digital scale says I've lost another 1.5 pounds today! Down 15.5 pounds total. Do I dare to trust it? Yeah, why not. I've finally figured out I have to place it in exactly the same position each morning, and then recalibrate it a few times before stepping on. I am totally wow'ed by my efforts. 15.5 pounds is a smidge over 3 of those 5 pound bags of flour you get at the market. That's a frigging lot of weight that I gained Put three of those in your hand basket at the market and walk around for a while. No wonder my lower back pain has been so bad in the last year. I got the "wake up call" to lose weight in late December when I hopped on the scale at the doc's office. My BMI was "right" at 25 and just about every IF knows what that signifies. Today my BMI is at 22.7. Just about right in the middle. I always wonder if when we're all looking at those BMI charts that the RE gives us if we're supposed to be in the middle? Or towards the lower end? I don't think I could ever have a BMI of 21, or 20. But if someone told me it would double my chances at conceiving I'd lose the weight in a heartbeat.

We do tend to eat really healthy food, mostly organic, here at home, so it wasn't the sorts of foods I was eating but, rather, the lack of movement. J is also a carb nut. He loves pasta, bread, tortilla chips. Dr. G was right on the money. The last month or so I've stopped making anything with starches or laden with carbs in the evening. If mom and J want rice, they'll have to make it themselves.

This tactic has worked wonders, so far. The entire pantheon of gods, if they're up there, will probably knock me up this cycle just because I lost weight and it would be oh so entertaining to watch me gain it all back with a big belly to boot.

I've tried to keep my weight loss to around 2 pounds or a bit less per week. Apparently this is a "safe" rate at which to lose. I wonder what they mean when they say "safe". Hopefully my pre-antral follicles have slept quietly through the cardio and the high protein diet and won't be affected by any of this. I've also been wondering if all of the hour long cardio sessions in the gym might help to get extra blood to my ovaries? I do femoral massage but it just doesn't seem like it can do much for long periods of time.

I'm also going in for an endermologie session on Sunday. Girls, if you have never done endermologie you have GOT to try it. It's a fancy machine assisted lymphatic massage that was developed by a doctor for breaking up scar tissue on burn victims (I think he created this for himself, I could be wrong) but it was found that it has all sorts of other great side effects: lymphatic circulation, toxin release, skin becomes moister, more elastic, increased collagen growth, reduction in cellulite, it helps with the pain from fibromyalgia & arthritis, and so much more. You slip into a sheer white stocking, for privacy and so that the machine stays clean, and they rub vacuum assisted rollers over your body in various directions. I've done massage here and there for years and let me tell you that this is by far more intense than any massage I have had.

I did acupuncture in the last 3 cycles and this time I'm just going to do endermologie instead. It's guaranteed to stimulate the hell out of any meridian point on your body and it is so much more relaxing that having someone jam needles into your body.

Stims at Last - Day 1

Well, after three postponements....we've finally been given the green light to start stims today. I had Dr. Russian again, instead of Dr. Pompy...not sure why we were given him twice in a row, especially as Dr. Pompy was there today. But there you have it.

Dr. Russian did an abdominal u/s rather than the usual wand (don't ask)...and so he wasn't able to "see" my ovaries as normal. He spent quite a bit of time pressing and looking and finally said, "I can't see your ovaries, and I can't see any cysts." He said they're run my estrogen to make sure it was still low, and if so, that I'd start stims this morning.

Bloodwork showed estrogen had dipped from 16 or 17 two weeks ago to 14 today...so nothing should be going on down there.

But actually things have been going on down there. Last Friday I started spotting and by Monday it was looking like AF had come. But how could that be? I'm on full strength lupron. Today the spotting had dwindled to a mere smear, at least I could be happy for that. But that was short lived as it just returned to Monday's levels. Dr. Russian said it should disappear altogether by day 3 of stims.

I'm quite pessimistic going into this cycle. What with two IVF losses and one FET loss all with a span of 14 months, who wouldn't be? What's more? J was totally freaked out over having to write a check for his share of the IVF w/ICSI fee. He argued, "I didn't know we had agreed to do ICSI!" even though the doctor said we should basically keep most things the same as we know they've worked for us in the past. When we get to the actual ICSI bridge I think we'll have to revisit. We each wrote our check for $5100 US. Ouch. That hurt. Oh yeah. I need to get to the bank today and deposit the moolah before they realize that there's nothing there.

And with check in hand I depart...

What's next?

I started spotting three days ago. Lightly, but bright red, but it persists and even got a little bit heavier this morning. The 21st will be six weeks that I've been on lupron, the latter two weeks on full strength lupron. I shouldn't have ANY lining TO shed at this point. What gives?

Nearly two weeks ago I had some rather intense ovary pain on the right side, fertile CM (nice and clear). One would think I was ovulating. On. Lupron. Nearly two weeks later I'm spotting. I honestly think that this is when I'd normally have AF. So why isn't the lupron shutting me down? I don't understand. Millie? Help?

I anticipate being canceled this Thursday when we go to see Dr. Pompy & Dr. Russian. Everything has been so abnormal this cycle.

Maybe it's for the best at this point.

Rambunctious Ovaries

So I'm five days into my new bottle of lupron, the stronger stuff, and someone forgot to tell my ovaries that they are supposed to be behavin'. I've been been having loads of twinges in the ovary region that feel like mittleschmerzes as well as copious amounts of fertile CM.

And my libido should be absent. Right? I'm supposed to be in chemical menopause, aren't I?

At this point, I believe we'll be canceled when we got back to see Drs. Pompy and Russian. Something's just not right.

What gives?

Good News, Bad News

Good News:

I have lost 13 pounds since the end of January. Nearly 1 stone for you UK folks (thanks for the correction Pamplemousse!). It took daily torture sessions on the elliptical trainer and a diet that was as lacking in carbs as I could stand, but at long last I have made it back to the weight I was at last summer.

Bad News:

At our last ultrasound (Thursday) Dr. Russian found a cyst on my RIGHT ovary that measured 17mm. Okay. We knew we had a cyst on my LEFT ovary the previous week: it had gone from 17mm two weeks ago to 11mm a week ago. Progesterone was down to 0.6 and so we anticipated getting the green light to start stims on Friday.

He gave us two options: (1) Test for estrogen and if it was low enough, start stims, watch me like a hawk, and if the cyst started to take over we would cancel the cycle. (2) Put me on full strength lupron (after having been on a microdose Rx for an entire month) for two weeks to see if we could get it to suppress. If not, the cycle would be cancelled.

Being that the first option would waste up the bulk of my GonalF, which will not be replaced by insurance (we are all maxed out) I opted for the second option. I also figured that my uterus, formerly chock full of endo, might actually benefit from the lupron, and I did not want to give that cyst a chance to grow. Either we suppress it or screw it.

So we are in a holding pattern of sorts, and I am descending further into the hell that is lupron. I am certain, at this point, that J is close to killing me and burying me in the backyard. Lupron is evil stuff and let me tell you: doctors do not warn patients enough of how bad it will mess with your psyche.

Blessed Cursed with a Good Memory

I'm one of those strange cookies that remembers the details of my life with a bit too much detail. Sometimes I even dream and awake with perfect clarity of the details, remembering smells, textures, colors, etcetera. Dreams are sometimes a little too vivid for me and, on occasion, I awake and am not sure where the dream leaves off and reality begins.

But it has been pointed out to me a few times in my life by friends, coworkers, and family, that I have a knack for remembering details, events. One of my supervisors, many many years ago, was rather frustrated when I challenged him with the details of a raise that he had long ago promised my trust coworker, JS, and myself. My recollection was so precise, quoting him nearly verbatim, that he whined, "...you and that damned memory of yours!!" We wound up with a raise, but nothing like that which was promised.

Having a great memory also proved useful in college for remembering human bones, noble & diatomic gases, the cranial nerves of the head, organic & biochemical reactions, handy phrases in Egyptian, Japanese, and Vietnamese that I'll never need to know, yet they are stuck in my head. Permanently. Why on earth do I need to know how to ask for a "key" in Japanese? I have no idea but it's burned into memory. I aced my pre-med courses thanks to a good memory. How else is it done, really?

I remember with uncanny clarity people that have come into my life. Places we visited, things we did. Most of all I remember situations or events. Where each person sat or was standing, what they wore, the exact sound of their voices in particular situations, the words they used, the expressions on their faces be it happy or sad. The smell of their cologne or of a room. I am not so good with sequencing events (or remembering people's names), but if left for a while to sit and brew, I can piece everything together into a chain of events, and sometimes even the names come back to me.

It's wonderful to remember good times with people who are still a part of my life. Happy memories that I can linger over and relive. But there's a dark side to having a good memory.

I remember all too clearly those that have disappeared from my life, and where memories are conflicted with good and not so good, the conversations and situations that preceded our parting are memories that I wish I could bury at times. They're just too vivid, too painful. They singe and burn. I guess I can't have a good memory only for the purpose of recounting the positive events in my life though. But sometimes the memory is just too intense and I wonder if I would be better off without such "total recall".

I've wondered if part of the reason for this memory curse is that I have always kept in touch with people I've met throughout my life. My DH, like many, does not keep connections with anyone from the past, whether schoolmates, old coworkers, old flames, etc. I have never been that way. I've always felt a need to stay connected with people that made marks or impressions in my life. If the person was valuable enough to me, say, 15 years ago that at that point I spent years of quality time with them, time out of my very short life, well then why on earth would I suddenly behave as though they didn't exist? I shared many years of my life with them. To shun them is to ignore that part of my very finite life. Many people grow apart, and that's fine to do so, but we're all together in this common experience called life and it just seems so strange, to me, that people try to erase everything. As if it didn't happen.

So in the last few weeks I contacted a few people that I hadn't talked to or seen in a few years. I just had to. Call it a lupron-induced mania if you will, but I had to do it. I always wonder if these people are truly happy to hear from me, or if they wonder why the heck this person is writing, calling, emailing me out of the blue? Are they possessed by their memory as am I?

Is my memory is the result of my unwillingness to let the past disappear into the ether? Am I purposefully staying in touch with people in an effort to not forget? Or am I helpless, a slave to this memory thing, and as a result of it I have no other option but to stay in touch with people from long ago?

I wish I knew.

----------------

On the infertility front, our U/S is scheduled for Thursday morning. Two days away. Hopefully that nasty cyst has disappeared and we can move forward with stims. All I know is I do NOT want to be told, "Oh just come back in another week. That'll be $500."

Holding Pattern

Today we did our baseline U/S with Dr. Pompy.

Lining 5mm. 5mm is "borderline". A bit too thick and he'd like to see it thinner. I'm on day 2 of AF and I should have started on the 18th. Instead AF came on the 21st, taking her own sweet time.

Left ovary: 5 follicles & a small cyst (corpus luteum). There might be more follicles behind the cyst but impossible to tell. It appears to be blood filled so he said it's likely a remnant of ovulation and thinks another week will help it to disappear.

Right ovary: He had a really hard time finding my ovary with was a bit strange. I wonder if it's moved due to adhesions or scar tissue. 7 follicles.

Bloodwork:
Progesterone 2.3
E2 35

Nurse K said that the progesterone should be at ZERO and that because it's not they feel the cyst is a corpus luteum that is just taking a while to disappear. U/S #2 next week. If I'm still bleedin' I'm going to postpone a day or two as those $290 U/S rack up fast.

So 12 follicles in all. Maybe more. I pray that a few more come out of the woodwork and surprise us.

So we continue on with the lupron for another week.

Yippee.

Weighty Issues

I dared to stand on the scale today.

Since late January I've lost about 10 to 11 pounds or so, depending on whose scale you believe. But today I discovered that I am within 1.5 pounds to get back to where I was when I started my last FET last September.

Gone is a large portion of the fat on my ass from my trip to NYC to visit Dr. Hungarian where we enjoyed way too many lovely meals....then Bologna, Italy, where I inhaled everything in sight: pizza, tortelloni in porcini mushroom cream sauce, near-pint-sized servings of gelato, and let's not forget the chocolate....the divine chocolate..... then came Thanksgiving dinner, my birthday dinners (yes plural), and of course all of those boxes of candy from Christmas, pre Christmas dinners, the actual Christmas Eve dinner, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseaum. It's no wonder why I gained the weight.

I've been doing a 45 minutes to an hour a day on the elliptical trainer, followed by about 15 to 20 minutes of weights. I'm a wimp though. When I am done with cardio I can barely move. I slither off of the elliptical trainer all sweaty and with "bad hair" and am barely able to get my sweatshirt back on. I make my way back downstairs to the weight room, legs trembling, and try to do 15 minutes of weights. That is about all I can do. As for diet/food, I've been laying off of all things white (sugar, flour, rice, potatoes) and eating lots of protein (especially at night). I am thankful that it worked. I pray my eggs have not suffered from the change in my diet and hope that the increased cardio means that more blood has gotten to my ovaries.

Dr. Moustache puts these pages in with his IVF documents that discuss BMI and probability of conceiving. If you're too thin, you don't get preggers. If you're too fat, you don't get preggers. I understand the skinny part of it. Fat produces estrogen and you need estrogen. But if you're heavier, how does that function in infertility? Why is it that BMI screws with an IVF cycle anyways? Anyone? Please pipe in. So my BMI is about 23.4 once again. I am thrilled. No quite in the middle of that safe zone of 20 to 25, or is that 19 to 25? But close enough.

I would love to lose the other 11.5 pounds I've gained in the last six years, but I think I will try to be pleased with the progress I've made. If I could lose the rest of this weight I'd suddenly have access to a huge wardrobe of clothes I've put aside. Stims start Thursday night or Friday morning so I guess I just try to maintain from here on out.

The protocol from the RE is looking like the following:
5 iu Lupron AM & PM
225iu GonalF AM & PM
75iu Menopur AM &/or PM (TBD on Thursday)
10 days of doxycycline before retrieval

The protocol from Dr. S is as follows:
50mcg Synthroid (1X/day)
30mg/.3ml Lovenox AM & PM
30g IVIg on day 2 of Stims and 2 days before transfer
Dexamethazone (1X day) *This is something we're likely to skip out on
Baby Aspirin
Folgard
4g Fish Oil

The protocol from Dr. Hungarian is as follows:
500mg Zithromax 1X/day.

It's hard to keep this all straight in my head.

Dr. Hungarian said "No immune meds!" so he doesn't want me to do Dexamethazone or Humira. Both of which I will be a bit afraid to cycle without. (What is the reason for the steroids anyways? Thalia? Anyone?)

I guess we'll be making a few quick decisions if we have the green light on Thursday.

Lupron Crisis

I am literally freaking out.

I'm pissed for no particular reason, and for every reason in particular. I have warned all parties in the house that I'm jacked up on lupron and things will only get worse. I'm not using this as an excuse to "go off". Really, I'm not. I actually thought that I was impervious, impenetrable, immune to the evil lupron, and I didn't cave in easiliy, but this time all bets are off.

It remains to be seen if my dosaging was increased this time. Dr. Pompy's nurse mentioned to me, "You'll either be doing 2.5iu or 5iu twice a day." Turns out they gave me 5iu twice a day. I'll have to check my old protocol sheets to see if this is an increase or not.

Increase or not. This stuff is hell.

We set out late to see houses today. J had the idea that we should go to the new Panera in Campbell and use our "free coffee and bagel" coupons today. I'm not thrilled about the idea of a carb filled bagel so I get mine to go. Mom can eat it. I get my cup and pour some decaf into it. Absentmindedly, I poured soy into my coffee. Then suddenly realized that I can't have soy right now. I poured out the coffee. I refill. Then I come to the oh so late realization that the coffee was in a styrofoam cup. STYROFOAM! Grrr.... I was on autopilot from my usual trip to the Bux where they have the sense to use paper cups. Don't people know that this stuff leaches out chemicals. I poured out a second cup of coffee and went and sat by J and mom while they ate their carb laden bagels. This was the beginning of a very ugly day.

Off we went in search of a few houses in Redwood City that fit a number of our criteria. There were two in all. The original list was something like 12, 14 or 16 homes, but after I got ahold of the list and culled out the "undesirables" a mere two remained. Driving 20+ miles in either direction to see two homes? Even J wondered about this. "Yes, that's all that is worth seeing on the market right about now." So we continued on.

I misinformed mother and J that our appointment to see "house A" was at 2pm. Our appointment was at 1pm. Luckily we arrived on time. $1.05M and it needed kitchen and bathroom remodels. Jesus christ. It's bad enough that housing is expensive in the Bay Area, but to spend that much moolah and still have to remodel? Screw that.

We left.

J and I got into numerous mini fights over just about everything while we drove looking for the second house. He went to turn right. I said go left. Then he wanted to go left when we needed to go straight. Everything was grating on my nerves.

Second house was just under $1.0M. Old windows, old doors, shitty kitchen and bathroom. I screamed, "ARE THESE PEOPLE ON CRACK OR WHAT??? I sold the house five doors up the road for $880,000 a year and a half ago and it was UPDATED! And had a view!" I can only hope that the next agent coming in after us didn't hear me freaking out.

We left. J thought we should just drive up and down streets looking at homes. Okay. Fine. But let's go somewhere NEW? How about Belmont? San Bruno? San Carlos? There's nothing worth seeing in Redwood City in our price range.

No. We were going to see "the streets of Redwood City." We came across a really sweet house in RWC. I tried to pull it up on the WIFI phone to no avail. J got impatient with me. I crashed my browser. Had to reboot my phone. I started to snap at him for being impatient and it got pretty bad, so bad that he parked the car, got out, and went for a walk while I tried to coax beat the listing price information out of my WIFI phone. After we leave the house and drive down about 10 more streets I find the "really sweet house" on the MLS. $2,395,000. Jesus f*cking hell. Why is it that one needs to spend a fortune to have a nice house in this area? I just don't get it. The housing here all sucks. It's old, dirty, rundown, and it's likely next to an apartment building with cars parked everywhere. I want to scream, yell, move back to SoCal where $800,000 buys you a villa in my old area.

By now my stomach was really pissed off that I didn't eat that stinkin' bagel. I said, "I need food. I don't care if you two aren't hungry, let's just get to Bear Sushi so I can get food. You can eat, watch me eat, or share a bowl of soybeans but I need food." J meandered through a few more streets. We get to Bear Sushi. The sign says "open". We try to park but that, too, leads to a fight over where to park. We get to the door and the lady says, "Oh, we closed!" Yeah, "But your sign...it says 'we open!'" So we left and headed downtown. We finally were able to get food into me at long last. Good thing as a girl hyped up on lupron with hypoglycemia is an ugly ugly situation.

While we're eating I have the sudden realization that my menopur is due to arrive today. I can't pull up the FedEx page of the phone and start thinking about how my menopur might be baking in the sun on the front porch. (It's unseasonably warm this week and I am just loving it). We eat and dash home.

No package.

I login to the FedEx website and see my package isn't due to arrive at all today. It's due to arrive tomorrow.

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. All that freaking out for nothing.

Okay. I don't need it today, but hopefully it's sitting someplace "cool".

Still sitting with my laptop on my thighs I open my email and an old boyfriend had replied to an email I sent him a week or so ago. He writes that life is great and his wife is having their FOURTH CHILD the first week of May.

FOURTH. As in 4. Four. IV.

Somebody shoot me. Please.

Thanks For Your Replies!

Thank you's are due to all of you who responded with emails about my plea for menopur. One good pal offered up three vials of the elixer for me and I was able to find three boxes (15 vials) on FGS for a really really great price. The gal selling them got preggers on her 4th IVF with menopur and so I am hoping that her meds are "good luck" for me and that we'll get some good news, too. My insurance company paid for 3 GonalF 900iu pens, but after that I only had $256 worth of fertility drug benefits left. Ever. I have never had fertility drug coverage before so I am ever so grateful that a bit of this burden was taken off of my shoulders.

I'm not sure what it is about adding menopur (or repronex) that really does the trick. I may have this wrong, but isn't menopur just FSH with some LH in it? Follistim is also FSH with a hair of LH in it because it's not recombinantly produced, but is it that it just doesn't have as "much" LH as menopur? Maybe Modern Millie will pipe in with her words of wisdom and show me the light on this mysterious (and tres expensive!) substance.

I have also read that one reason that menopur works for some women is that the LH helps to improve egg quality. We haven't had problems with our numbers to this point (knock on wood, spit, toss salt) so hopefully we can still get some good numbers and improve our quality.

Last night was my last BCP and so I'm lingering on lupron til our baseline U/S on the 22nd. ON that day they'll tell me how much menopur I'll be doing each day and we'll hopefully get an antral count done.

I am praying for a good antral count at this point.

Menopur anyone?

Looking for 20 vials of the elixer.

Lupron Day 4

Today's day 4 of my Lupron injections. I'm doing 5 units, twice a day. No ill effects to speak of except that J is missing his head after saying that I jumped his shit last night. Hmm, I guess I forgot to warm him that Lupron's a hormone that sends one directly into menopause.

Lost four pounds according to the evil scale. I was all excited about my progress til last night when J told me that he now weighed 182. "182? You lost six pounds in a week?" He HAS been sick, and he has a very high metabolism, so yes, maybe he did lose six pounds in a week. But when we came home from the Pebble Beach Pro Am party last night (more on this later), he hopped on a scale and I heard him say, "One hundred eight eight?" Hmm....I know have to wonder if I really did lose anything after all.

I have been busting my ass trying to lose a few pounds before the stims and dexamethazone that will start on the 18th. It's eight days away. Eight days to lose as much as I can, healthily of course. I'm doing an hour on the elliptical trainer a day and then weights. Loads of protein, limited carbs or I just eat carbs in the morning and early afternoon. No eating after 7pm unless it's protein. It seemed to have done the trick, but then I have an evil scale, you know? It's one of those clear glass ones you can get from Tar-zhay. Supposedly very accurate. But I think that if the floor it's sitting on isn't perfectly level down to a nanometer it just doesn't work right.

I hate scales.

But my ass is so big right now that I've gone up almost two pant sizes since September.

I had refused to buy more pants until I'd at least made some headway, but I had to cave in two weeks ago when I ripped a second pair jeans right up the ass. Now, if that isn't a sign from God that it's time to lose weight, I don't know what is.

So I bought three pairs of pants. All were a bit tighter than they should be so I'll be inspired to keep working out. The dressing room attendant may have seen me in front of the mirror in my jeans and wondered why on earth I was buying them. But, hey, so far it seems to be working.

Back to the Pebble Beach Pro Am Golf tournament. J's band played the party for the volunteers last night. There were hundreds of people. At one point an announcer had the band stop and said that Bill Murray had arrived. Bill took the mic for a bit and thanked everyone for their work. At some point I guess Bill noticed that not too many people were dancing, so Bill started telling people to get up to dance. He went down my row and when he got to me he grabbed my forearm and pulled me onto the dancefloor. Me and two other ladies danced with Bill for a couple of songs. J was playing drums and I could see him grinning at me. Later he said that I was like the tallest person on the dancefloor so he was watching me the whole time. He thought that it was really neat that I got to dance with him.

I wanted to ask him to take a picture with me, but I've never been comfortable asking stars for pictures or autographs. I know that they're used to it, but even when I was doing extra work in Hollywood as a child and teenager, and had many opportunities to ask them for autographs, pictures, etc, I just could never do it. I always thought, "They must be so tired of this. I don't want to behave like a groupie."

Case in point: Once I was on the set of "The Omen II" and we were taking a break and having lunch in the studio cafeteria. Alan Alda was there eating in his fatigues, I assume they were filming M*A*S*H. My mom insisted that I ask for his autograph. I resisted. I said no. I didn't want to do it. I pleaded to not have to ask him. She wouldn't stop asking. She nearly pushed me at him. I went up to his table and interrupted his meal. Asked him for an autograh. I felt so bad. Couldn't the poor man eat a meal in peace? This was his time to relax. And here I was a groupie interrupting what was probably his first moment of relaxation that day. His reply? "How about a handshake?" His tone implied he was a bit irritated that I'd interruped his meal. I accepted but I felt like a complete and utter idiot. I was so upset at my mother for forcing me to have done this. This cemented my feelings about asking celebrities for autographs. So now I never ask. I might take a photo from afar, but for the most part I take my memories with me and keep them close.

I now have a neat memory of Bill Murray. :-)

Two Days to LupronOr...Is this a Midlife Crisis?

Picking up the brown evil little vial of lupron tomorrow from Dr. Pompy's office. Our appointment is for noon. I get my bottle and J has to leave a sample of his pollywogs for analysis. He said he's bringing his new Mac Powerbook as it's chock full of porn, the links of which no ART office has ever seen. J knows from experience how dismal the porn can be at an ART office. Dr. Moustache's office had an old VCR that made navigating to "select" scenes a one handed nightmare. But I said to J, "What are you going to do? Balance your nifty new laptop on your lap while you have at it? What if it slips off and crashes to the floor in the heat of the excitement? Won't you be pissed?" He didn't think of that. I wonder if he'll still bring it tomorrow?

I'm feeling restless. I'm feeling pessimistic about this cycle. Honestly, I feel pessimistic about every cycle. My mother said to me just a few minutes ago, "You don't seen to want a baby as much as last cycle?" "WHAT??" I nearly screamed. "What makes you think this cycle is any different from the last cycle?" But maybe she's right. I think I am more pessimistic. Who wouldn't be? God help me. Just today I had a lender come to my house...a lender that wants to buddy up with me for mutual business dealings. I told him I haven't been working much because we're on IVF cycle number 3. He tells me that he knows where I'm coming from and that he and his wife did 7, yes seven, cycles of IVF before quitting and moving on to adoption. My god. SEVEN. I can't even imagine. But my girlfriend LL is preggers right now and it was her 7th IVF. Maybe three is NOT the charm. Maybe seven is the new three? Who the hell knows.

But I am restless. I am planning for what happens when the BFN comes. How can I not? I think of how the BFN will come. J will take the call this time. I can't stand the tension of waiting for that phone call. When it comes I will book my trip to Stuttgart to see AA, my best guy friend. I wonder how long I'll go for. Do I come back and do a last IVF? Do I stay long enough to train over to France? Italy? How long does it take to heal from all of this? What am I coming home to? I have itchy feet. I miss AA. He's alone in Germany. A Huntington Beach native, close to my heart is that area where I used to live. He took a job at "Big Blue" outside of Stutgart. Rented an apartment from a fellow "Big Blue" worker who departed to places far. Rented the apartment full of furniture. It's big, furnished, but lonely. He's a fish out of water. Depressed. Lonely. I feel like that right now. Misery loves company and the price of company is about $500 roundtrip if I book soon enough. I don't plan to go to make him more miserable, but I think in our respective miseries we'll find some cheer, some light in the bleakness of a German winter. I'll drag his silly ass off to Zermatt if I have to, stap a snowboard onto his feet while he complains at how cold it is.

Just realized today that some of my Gonal F has expired. This cycle just got a bit more expensive. Ugh.

BCP Day 8

The RE's office called today with our schedule. It's something like this:

• Jan 19: start BCPs
  
• Feb 8: start lupron (oh joy!)
  
• Feb 14: last BCP (27 pills in all)
  
• Feb 17: anticipate AF (hilarious. my mother's name is Flo and today is her birthday)
  
• Feb 22: baseline U/S
  
• Feb 23: start stims (likely to be 225iu gonadotripin am/pm, and menupure in pm). stims to last about 8 days.
  
• Mar 2: follow up U/S, bloodwork (E2)
  
• Week of Mar 4: retrieval

The nurse thought that I'd also be doing 10 days of doxy before retrieval, but I just can't imagine they'd have me to ANOTHER course of abx on top of what I am already taking. It's just mind boggling.

So game is afoot, so to speak.

I'm so worried about whether this is a good time for me to be cycling or not. I haven't lost my weight from my FET and I feel just icky. I wonder if I feel so icky from all the antibiotics or what? A few of Dr. Hungarian's patients write graphically visual stories about their ovaries teeming with CT and that they would wait months after a course of treatment to make sure that things were okay.

But I just don't have months to wait. You know? I'm turning 43 this year and no one knows more than me that time is running out rather quickly. A three month wait, at my age, is a SIGNIFICANT loss of time on the "fertility clock". Our last FET failed late September. It's the end of January. My embies will be removed roughly 5 months after our last FET. I see it as a HUGE loss of time. J doesn't. He believes Dr. Hungarian when he says, "You're a spring chicken! Your ovaries are big! You have plenty of time!" J is a bit naive with these matters. He believes whatever a doctor tells him. He's the perfect patient. He also loves Kaiser health insurance and has never really had to "manage" his own health care.

As for me? I question everything. I think Kaiser sucks ass. They nearly killed me once, with an ectopic (the intern said I had a whopper of an STD and sent me home with a 2 week course of abx), and they misdiagnosed my last major GI episode. I had "the runs" for literally 7 months, and in that time they did upper and lower GIs, gall bladder scans, ultrasounds, and every wretched fecal fat test you can imagine. They found nothing. A fill-in doc for my primary care doc gave me abx one day. Just to see if it would do anything. And low and behold I was cured. 7 months of diarrhea only to find that I had an infection. My gawd. So I hate Kaiser. I don't trust doctors offhand. I question them and many of them hate me for it.

So I don't immediately trust Dr. Hungarian when he tells me that I am a "spring chicken". I think he's a bit reckless to be saying such things to a woman in her early 40's. Let's be realistic. I'm on the verge of losing my chance to be a mother. I am desparate, willing to try just about anything to get pregnant in our next IVF session. But I'm not sure if I'm willing to wait to see if this treatment works better for waiting. I think it's safer to cycle now...and if it fails...cycle again in the timeline that Dr. Hungarian patients profess to be more optimal.

I've got a contingeny plan. Of sorts.

Ah, along another path...I discovered a way to take my thrice daily dose of the foul tasting flagyl. This is something I've been thinking about for awhile now. Visions of dipping them in chocolate was my first idea. But I imagined that hot melted chocolate might disrupt the pill structure too much. I really over thought this though...and a more reasonable method came to me two nights ago. Wrap them inside a capsule! I knew I'd seen empty gelatin capsules at WF's...and yes, they still had them. The "OO" size worked perfectly. A very snug fit but let me tell you that it works like a charm. No nasty taste AT ALL. Yay! Dr. Hungarian also said I could go to 250mg thrice a day from my 500mg dose. So I have a bunch of pills to chop in half and stuff into gelatin capsules. What fun.

So we're headed for Tahoe for five days with some friends of ours, and their 2 kiddies (3 years and a bit over 1 year old). J is excited about snowboarding, but I've been so damned cold these past few weeks that the idea of freezing my add off even more just doesn't do a damned thing for me. I'm taking my board and my boarding clothes, but I think I'll be sitting fireside with the kiddies for most of the trip. My idea of vacation right about now is a trip to a beach where the weather is so warm that I actually break a bit of a sweat sitting in my cabana chair. Yes, that's about right. I'm not sure where the best place to be for such weather would be right about now but if you have any ideas please let me know. J can go to Whistler by himself. I want a warm beach dammit.

CD5: I'm Free!

I'm free of my PICC line at long last. A kind home nurse came by the house today shortly after 12pm and she quickly and efficiently removed the line from my arm. Being one that isn't easily grossed out, I watched intently as she pulled the 45cm long line out of my upper arm. I expected it to be covered in blood. I expected to be grossed out and to gross J out by making him watch. I'm evil that way. But it was rather clean til she got to the end of the line. They cover the line where it meets the arm with an "IV pad" that is supposed to catch any blood, but there wasn't much to see. At the end of the line it was a tiny bit bloody, but not much. I was somewhat surprised that it didn't hurt at all when she removed it.

What am I left taking now that I'm free of the dreaded clindamycin PICC line?

The treatment cocktail du jour includes the following:

Items prescribed by RE:

• BCP
  
• 1500mg flagyl
  
• 500mg zithromax
  
• 2.5mcg synthroid
  
• Baby Aspirin
  
• Prenatal
  
• Folgard 2.2
  
• 1g calcium
  
• Diflucan, 1X week while on abx

Items I've added on advice from other IFs:

• 4g Fish Oil
  
• Sublingual B-12
  
• 800iu D3
  
• 400IU Natural E
  
• 50mg 5-HTP (in lieu of lexapro)
  
• High Potency 100 B Complex
  
• 400iu D3 2X's/day
  
• 500mg Ascorbyl Palmitate (H2O soluble vitamin C)

On advise of my acupuncturist I'm laying off of the java, which I will sorely miss. She stresses that the oils are just bad for fertility in general and urges me to drink teas and eat "warming" foods, which makes perfect sense to do in this cold weather. I also think that because I am taking so many antibiotics that it makes sense for me to stay away from foods that encourage yeast (wine, beer, raised breads, sugars, etc). It's easy to stay away from alcohol as flagyl can't be consumed with alcohol, but not eating bread is a bit difficult for me. I really should be cutting out wheat products entirely.

Why? Well there's some research that shows that people with a DQ-alpha of 4.1, which DB fondly called the "killer gene" or "Viking gene", have an immune reaction towards wheat. I'm one of those folks that carry a 4.1 gene varient, so to avoid wheat could help my immune system to keep from freaking out when I start stims. I love things like biscotti, wheat toast in the morning, etc. Wheat really is hard to cut out of one's diet as it hides in many products, but it's not forever. I was doing rather well until today when we went to a place called The Counter lunch and I lost control and had myself a turkey burger.

There's half a bar of Ritter Dark Chocolate with Hazelnuts on top of the refrigerator in jeopardy of being eaten...and I'm off...tomorrow's another day and I'll be back on the diet wagon in the morning.

CD1, IVD6

I finally met with Dr. G today. And the number 1 thing on my mind wasn't that she disagreed with my uterine lavages, but because last night I'd developed a very sharp pain when going to the bathroom. It eminates from right under my laparotomy suture and only happens at the end of a stream. Panicked, I called to see her. What timing. She must have thought that I was there to try to persuade her to do the lavages but, no, it was a legitimate visit.

She checked me for a possible incisional hernia and didn't find anything wrong with the fascia. She said it might just be yet another adhesion that's developed between my bladder and "something" that is causing the pain. "I wouldn't be surprised considering how bad it was in there when I went in". So there you have it. More scar tissue. Lovely.

Right on time, to the day, AF descended upon me at 4PM sharp. Within 5 minutes I was on the phone with Dr. Pompy's office to schedule my bloodwork. Tomorrow they draw blood, and at some time in the late afternoon, I'll give myself a lupron injection. Back to Dr. Pompy's the next day for another blood draw, and by noon on Friday we should know if this is a good cycle or not. If not, we'll postpone another month. I won't be devastated if it's a cancellation.

Why is that? For starters, when I was at Dr. G's today I actually got on the scale without arguing. 1 more pound crept onto my body since I saw Dr. E last month. It's just beyond depressing. When I stepped on the scale at Dr. E's office, I nearly fainted when I saw how weight I'd gained. It's not unfathomable though. I did two months of steroids ending in October. In November I went to Italy and ate everything I could lay my hands on in Bologna where they were having their "Chocolate Festival". Need I say more? But there is more. Then Thanksgiving came upon us. A few days later? My birthday. Then the Christmas season with chocolate, dinners, parties, and more. It's been a nonstop feast since my FET failed. I didn't drink myself into oblivion. I ate.

Since I've moved to the bay area I have gained a buttload of weight. Pun intended. I'm not even writing the amount here because J might read this and find out how utterly terrible it is. (Yes, J, I'm not telling you. Wild horses couldn't drag this from me!)

I am so looking forward to Sunday when this PICC line comes off and I can go to the gym, work out, and then collapse into a sauna until I (gasp) sweat. Until then, I'm going as carb-free as can. I think it's probably a bad idea to go full blown Atkins when I'm starting a cycle, but I can do meager carbs in the morning, and mostly protein at lunch and dinner. Tonight I'll move the scale back into the bathroom and force myself to an honest weigh each and every morning. I totally dread getting on a scale but a daily slap in the face with the truth is really what I need to get, and keep, me motivated enough to do something.

Are you as afraid of the scale as I am?