If You Need Meds....This Might Help

http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/7749/medic.htm

I just scored some injectable progesterone in oil from Tulsa, OK!

Baby Stab Me One More Time

Bright and early to the RE's on a brilliant Fall morning! My FSH is 7.4 and E2 is 37, antral follicles show about 3 on each side, so 6 total. Not spectacular, but for my 'advanced age' but I'll take it!
We headed to Grand Central after that to catch the train upstate, cooler with meds in hand along with a yummy apple bread pudding I made to celebrate K's belated 31st birthday.
Her mom, step dad and cousin picked us up and we spent the rest of the day in the Mohonk Preserve on a 6 mile hike. The weather was perfect, the leaves just starting to change and it was wonderful to out in the fresh air surrounded by family who love and support us.

I know that for the majority of this month, I'm going to have to 'take it easy' but I'm not really sure what that means for these days before retrieval. Over the last month, I've really loved having the freedom to workout and do whatever I want and not worry about 'harming' anything. As a result, I've lost the few stubborn TTC pounds I'd gained over the summer and am glad that I'm starting the IVF cycle at my real weight.
I feel very empowered and satisfied to have my 'body' as I know it back to me.

So, I'm a little nervous about 'taking it easy'. I'd like to hear from others who have gone down this path and what you limited your activites to both pre-retrievel and post tranfer. I've basically been told 'walking is OK'. Hmm...I already walk to work every day making for an hour total. Is that much walking OK? No one seems to know...I guess there are no true answers.

The first injection was a bit excruiating in that we were trying to watch the video online and the internet up here in the boonies is so freaking slow that the video that should've taken about 5 minutes ended up taking 30. I just wanted to get it over with! After a 2 false stabs, I finally did it. It doesn't hurt--it's just that willingly getting your hand to do something painful to your stomach is hard!
K took a stab at it this morning and I like that much better. So, I think I'll have her do it when she's home and I'll do it when she's gone M-TH. Overall though, so far, so good. Super easy that Follisti.m pen.

Thanks so much for all of your kind words and encouraging words of hope, they really mean a lot to me!

Meet My New Best Friend

The Follisti.m pen.
That’s right, I’m starting IVF.
Less than 24 hours after I came back from Bali, I found myself sitting in an IVF orientation class.
When I found out about the miscarriage in August, I called to get on their schedule as I really didn’t want to waste any more time.
My RE assured me that with my early miscarriage I’m 100% good to go as long as I’m mentally and emotionally ready to go.

I’ve never felt so ready.

There was a moment in Bali when I was having a massage and I thought, “but I got pregnant last month with just a little help from Clomid, I can do that again.”
Why not a few more IUI’s?
So I walked into the IVF orientation thinking “I’m just here to get some information”.
Then I opened up my folder and saw my RE had already written out all of my RX’s, they handed me a free Follisti.m pen (no meds inside), and away we went.
When I got to the stats page…well, my mind was already made up. I was here for the long haul now. IVF take me away.

The Iffy News:
Maybe I could get pregnant again through IUI. Maybe. But I’m no spring chicken (remember, I’m 39) and those stats are dismal. I’m incredibly lucky it worked even once. I’m wasting my time and insurance money to expect it to work again. I’d like to think I’ve paid my dues in miscarriage land, but those stats are dismal too. I’d love to see that I have at least a 50% chance at having a real, live baby with IVF—but I only have a 33% chance of doing that (and that's transferring back 2-3 good blastocysts).

The Good News:
33% sure as hell beats the IUI/Clomid stats of 5-10%.
We have enough insurance left to cover two full IVF cycles (without meds).
My RE says that I’m a perfect candidate for this to work.

The Best News:
This week has been spent running around New York City with a soft sided cooler and an ice pack doing d.rug deals.
Some really wonderful people have stepped forward to donate their leftover medications to me for this first cycle. I’ve received meds that aren't covered by my insurance co-payment--for free.
This has been a huge stress relief as the meds are almost as much as the cycle itself.
I am still overwhelmed at the kindness and generosity of these friends—two of the couples I met online (not in blogland) and have only met in person a handful of times.
It really does take a village to make a baby!

The Guilty News:
I think I’ve been holding this news back because I feel guilty. What I mean is: this is an easy decision for me because I have the insurance money to pay for it.
I’m well aware that most of you out there don’t have this luxury and it’s so unfair.
Please don’t hate me for it.

Why Am I Finally Telling You This?
Because I just started my period.
IVF starts tomorrow.
I’m on a ‘no Lupron’ cycle which means I start stimming tomorrow, I’ll do retrieval in two weeks.
By Halloween we’ll know if I’m pregnant or not.
Damn that’s FAST.
I am so, so, so excited to finally be doing this.

I'm Back....

I've been back for a week actually. There's a lot going on.

My feet don't like shoes and the bed seems too small after sleeping in Kings and Queens for weeks (yes, we have a double here in the PufferHouse).

Getting over the jet lag has been hell, but I can't complain because I got on that plane willingly! It was the 10 hour layover in Tokyo that really screwed us up.

Me: Can you double check what time our flight leaves tomorrow night before I get a taxi? I think it's a midnight.

K: WTF? We have a 10 hour and 10 minute layover in Tokyo?

Me: No, that's an hour and 10 minutes.

K: No, you missed a ZERO.

Me: That sucks. But I emailed that to you! You signed off on that! (like we're business partners or something) You agreed!

Now, what probably happened is that we both saw the 10 hours way back in June and agreed to it as the next ticket was about $400-$500 more. But the brain has a funny way of forgetting painful things...and I made that 10 into a 1.

Also worth forgetting: Jet Lag. Seriously, if I remembered how bad it sucked recovering from a 12 hour time difference, I'd never go to Asia again. It's a good thing we have a year in between trips so we've conveniently forgotten just how bad coming home is.

So, last week was all about catching up on home, the cats, work, personal life, running errands and trying to stay awake--which I failed to do quite spectacularly.

Three mornings I was wide awake at 3am--wide awake and starving. There's no food in the house and I defrosted raspberry/yogurt "Emergency Cake" from the freezer (the cake you freeze when you don't finish it all but know it could come in handy later?) and ate it with my hands while drinking milk straight from the carton. I wanted McD's breakfast. Too weird as I haven't been to a McD's in Years. But as soon as I got out the house with the light of dawn, I went there and happily munched down on a bacon/egg/cheese biscuit with one of those horrible-for-you-but-tastes-so-good hash browns. I wondered that night if this is what it felt like to be in the first trimester...

Finally, I was waking at 4am, then 5 am and finally I'm pretty solid at 6am these days. I can do 6am. I'd rather do 6:30 or....7. But it's a big improvement from 3am when I thought I might DIE.

I came home to dreary, cool weather; the news that my troubled brother who was living in Galveston not only fell 20 feet (after surviving the hurricane) and badly injured himself but is now also homeless and the world's economy is in the worst crisis since the great depression.

Fabulous.

I'd rather be here right now:

Or here:
Vacation photos are being edited...I'll send out a link when I'm finished if anyone is interested.
It was Fab.

PufferPoo Finish

The poo is gone. Just a 24 hour buggy and she's fine now.
We've been on a 2.5 hour trek this morning through rice paddies, villages and tons of art galleries.
We bought two amazing paintings from a local guy for $40 total. Now, in USA we would never hand over $40 and just 'trust' that he would bring them to our guesthouse, but here we do....and I think they'll be there when we come back this afternoon.
In the middle of this village is a Western cafe with free internet, so here we are!

Yes, once you pay the price of the plane ticket you can live like Queens and to PBX, we have encountered about 2 Aussies mainly because we have no interest in partying like maniacs and so have purposely stayed away from the main tourist hubs (like Kuta).
It's been brilliant.

Thanks for the love.

xoxo

Live from Bali!

Hi Blogger Friends,

I hope that everyone is doing well. I quickly skimmed through my G reader and saw some good news, some bad news, some still waiting news and some hopeful news. I didn't comment, but I was too curious to know what's going on not to read up!

So, there are 5 days left of the vacay and I am feeling great. Let me tell you, it wasn't 12 hours past arrival that I'd totally forgotten about the 24 hour plane ride. Before we landed they showed a video titled "Bali-The Healing Paradise" and I knew we were in the right place.

We have had an amazing beach portion of the trip-2 days at the luxury (free) resort and then 5 days on a small island-Gili Air-off the coast of Lombok, where I did 7 scuba dives, much snorkeling, sunset viewing every night and waking up for sunrise every morning. You can walk around the entire island in about 1.5 hours which we did every night and there are no cars or motorbikes, only horsecarts, bikes and your own two feet. It's fabulous I tell you.
Oh, but there's no fresh water, so bathing in salt water for 6 days makes you a bit..dry and salty. Not so nice.

Now we are back on Bali and have spent 2 our of 5 days in the cultural and artistic center of Ubud. We walked about with our bags and found a steal of a room for $15/night, hot water, fan included and breakfast brought right to your porch chair and table. It's beautiful weather and no need for A/C. The building faces the famous rice paddies and all day and night the ducks waddle by eating whatever they can in the paddies. Then along sunset time, the duck herder comes by and puts them in their pen for the night. The guest house owner brings us tea to our porch around 5:30pm and we sit in our chairs and watch the ducks go by. It's quite a life I tell you.

After all of the salt and sand on Gili Air we did a Javenese Princess spa treatment yesterday--4 hours and I had an hour massage, a salt scrub, my body rinsed and lathered up with yogurt, a soak in a fragrant tub filled with every kind of flower petal you can imagine, a facial, a peel, a face massage, a mani/pedi complete with foot massage, leg massage, hand massage and arm massage followed by a special treatment cream of avacado and aloe vera for my hair. At one point I had 4 different women doing 4 different things to me and it was a little overwhelming. Bonus is they grow everything in their garden and so it's all 100% natural. All for $60. A girl could get used to this!

The shopping is the most amazing I've ever seen. I'm not that much of a shopper and am so overwhelmed by all there is to choose from I haven't bought a thing. I will...but it's really all so much. I could seriously go into just about every store and say yes to one of every thing. It would be a dream to furnish a house from the good here. Oh la la.
There is beauty everywhere here and it's incredible to see how important rituals and spiritual offerings make up the pace of the day. Just going down the street, you are constantly stepping over little baskets of offerings b/c they are placed everywhere.
As far as an entire town goes, I've never been somewhere so astethically pleasing as Ubud.

Unfortunately, K has been bitten by the traveler's poo bug and is a sick little bunny today. So, of course, I brush my teeth with the tap water and she gets PufferPoo. I've been doing Gatorade runs all day and staying close by. We've got some Ci.pro with us which she's started and a bit of immod.ium, so hopefully after 24 hours of this she'll come out on the other side ready to hike up a volcano or take a trek through the rice paddies in the countryside.

I feel good and a million miles removed from just a couple of weeks ago. I took the most challenging yoga class today and have meditated for hours on the beach this past week. It has been so relaxing and decompressing and just what I needed.

It's been so nice not to temp or be 'waiting' for anything related to the TTC. Even so, while we aren't talking about that--we are always talking about traveling with a child and how amazing it is going to be.
K wants to take a sabbattical for a year and travel with the baby...I think that's a mighty fine idea especially because I'm going to get pregnant again when I get home. Oh yes I am.

xoxo
Puffer in Bali

54 and Cleared for Takeoff

The beta numbers have dropped incredibly in the last two days. But still I have yet to see blood.
I read that with an early miscarriage it's possible for your body to 're-absorb' the tissue. Our bodies are quite bizarre at times.

So, while I'm not happy the numbers ever dropped, I'm incredibly grateful that they are dropping now and so quickly. There is no ectopic, there will be no D&C and the trip to Bali is on.

I packed everything yesterday thinking positive thoughts that we would go. I can't think of a better place to relax, rejuvenate and recharge. Bali operates on spirituality 24 hours a day. They wake with offerings to the gods, there are ceremonies for nearly every occasion and family always comes first with children viewed as little treasures. In fact, Balinese children are generally held until they can walk because it is deemed that the floor is too filthy for these little treasures to tread upon.

Thank you everyone for all your kind comments and words of hope. It has been so touching for me to realize how much support and strength this community brings me.
I'm not commenting so much these days, but please know that I'm following along with you--just a bit more silently these days.