The Weekend Update at 8 Weeks

Thanks so much for all of your helpful comments on my last post. Week 7 was HARD. But, I think I might have made it sound as if I wasn't eating--but I am. I was just having a hard time eating and finding anything that sounded appealing.

Regardless, I have continued to make myself eat. I know a lot of people lost weight during the first trimester--but I really can't do that. I started this cycle at a very low weight (it's my normal weight--but it doesn't leave any room to lose pounds) and I do need to gain.

To my great surprise, I have! I didn't think I possibly could with the measly amounts I've been eating, but I've managed to gain 3 pounds since the June 6th transfer. I'm good with that.

Saturday, Chicken and I were supposed to go out to a Global Music Festival in Brooklyn, but I failed to leave the house all day because I felt exactly like I was suffering from a crappy hangover minus the good times the night before.

We'd also planned on going to this lady's Housewarming Garden Party, but failed to make it there either.

Finally out of nowhere, I declared I wanted to walk to Shake Shack and eat a burger and fries. I couldn't believe it myself as I hadn't been craving anything in over a week.

Although waiting in line for an hour for a burger on a Saturday night was not on Chicken's weekend itinerary, she indulged the crazy pregnant lady and I shocked myself by eating my meal and enjoying it. It was so awesome to enjoy a meal again!

Sunday we had a really big day planned and I was more than a little bit nervous that I would have to cancel on our friends based on how I'd been feeling. But I gave myself pep talks all morning and we got out of the house and on the train without incident. It ended up being the best day I'd had in weeks both in terms of energy (no nap!) and food (no aversions!).

We met our friends in Maplewood and spent half the day at the pool, where we ran into other friends and their triplets, and then went to a local music festival.

This NJ suburb is gay, gay, gay friendly and full of families with young children. It's kind of a perfect place to raise a family and we'd been tossing around the idea of buying a house out there ourselves. This was our first trip out there since finding out we were not only definitely pregnant, but with twins. We thought it would be a good test to figure out if this was 'the kind of place' for us. We have to move in December one way or another...

But in the end, our number one choice, Brooklyn, still came calling loud and clear. We're just not cut out for the suburbs--at least not yet!

We are both city girls and are really looking forward to "Brooklyn, Baby, 2010!"

Overall, it ended up being a great weekend with the Chicken and I hope that I continue to feel better this week.

I have done a crap job at keeping up and commenting on everyone's blogs lately, but I hope I have some more energy for that soon.

Trying to Escape from Funky Town

This has got to be the hardest time period of TTC I've ever gone through.  I never took a BFN this hard, never got this down about a cancelled IVF cycle, but this...this is the worst.

To get me down even further, New York is going through a period of endless gray, cool, rainy days that are not helping my psyche at all.  It seems like the sun has completely disappeared and is never coming back.

I am trying to be optimistic and hopeful about this new cycle, but I am so damn scared.

It has been very, very difficult to come back to NYC in the rainy, cool season--jobless, in an economic crisis, faced with the realization that you can't have bio children.

Last week was the worst of the depression.  That was when I found myself seriously wondering if I had any worth at all and maybe the world would just be better off without me.

The thought was only a fleeting one and I wasn't contemplating anything, but the fact that it popped up in my head was a giant warning signal.

I have suffered from depression in the past, but I have med free now for almost 5 years.  It's been wonderful!

Now, I find that I'm having to work a little bit harder to be 'normal'.  That scares me.  

But after I got over the 'due date' of last week, I did find myself lifting up.  I didn't think it would be so difficult to get past that day--but it was--especially seeing other blogger's births posted that were born the same day/time.  Ouch.  That fucking hurt.  I mean, I'm happy for them, don't get me wrong, but fucking ouch.  Sometimes I just have to step away from the blogs....  

K has been wonderful throughout all of this.  She gets me out of the house and encourages me to workout, cook, take a walk outside, get off the computer.  We've walked down to Chinatown multiple times, exploring new streets, making lists of places we want to eat, gorging on Vietnamese food, shopping in the produce markets and getting Chinese massages in dodgy palours.  I love that she knows I'll feel better after getting an "Asian fix".  And I do, I always do.

But let's talk about meds/donor egg cycle now.  Tonight is my last birth control pill, yeah!  I've had 6 Lupron injections and (knock on wood) so far, so good on the side effects.  As in glory hallelujah, I've had none of the insomnia, migraines, etc, etc.  I cannot blame the depression on the Lupron as that started long before the injections.  But I am hoping the Lupron does not make my depression worse.  Only time will tell.

My SIS (saline sonogram) was painless and the RE declared me "clean as a whistle" so I'm good to go on that.

The RPL blood panel came back fine and there's nothing to worry about there.  My RE is going to have me take baby aspirin starting at the time of the retrieval as a precaution.

K's genetics blood work panel passed with flying colors--everything looks great.

Next on the list:  K goes in to the fertility center this Friday morning for blood work to make sure she ovulated (I saw the EWCM, it looks like she ovulated!).  Once they call her back telling her the bloods show she ovulated, she'll inject a micro dose of Lupron.  Lucky her, she only has to shoot up Lupron once!

That's it.  It's getting better, it really is.  But this month (well, April, May has been better) has felt like I'm rock climbing and I can't see the top of the mountain and my arms are getting really, really tired.

Thanks for all of your wonderful comments on my last post and for pulling me up the mountain.  I feel all of your strength and I couldn't make it without you.

If you've called me or emailed me and you haven't heard back from me...please forgive me.  I haven't been myself.

One Night Stand

Apparently, my body was just getting used to the BCP's as the next day life went back to normal (thank God).  Let's hope I'm just as lucky with Lupron...which starts this Friday.

Things are progressing over here...I go in for an SIS tomorrow and my mock transfer.  This will determine all is well with the baby-growing location (my uterus) and where exactly they will put the potential poopers.

Kate has genetic counseling tomorrow and soon, we should both find out the results of our blood work for the genetic screening and the RPL panel.   Some of mine for the RPL have come back and so far, so good!

We're both on prenatals, she's also on L'arginine for egg quality and I'm on B6 for the ute.

The weather has been gorgeous so we've been going out running almost every day as well as yoga and pilates for me.  My RE said I can work out every day right up until transfer so that was great news to hear!

I've been weaning K off caffeine...without her knowing it!  Since I'm home now and so is she (she's on a project working from home since December now), and we're with each other pretty much 24 hours a day, I'm in charge/control of...oh everything.  

I'm basically a SAHM minus the kid.  Which means, I make the cappuccinos every morning (and do the shopping, run the errands, do the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry,etc etc.).  

So, for the past month, I've been sneakily replacing her tin of espresso with half of my decaf to wean her lightly.  Problem is...for all the lack of attention that girl pays to detail, she realized that somehow the container was never depleting.  This is when I realized how precious espresso is to her.  She'd remark "I think we need to go Porto Rico and get more espresso" and I'd be all like, "no, we're fine; we have plenty."

Finally one night she asked me and I fessed up.  She was a bit peevish, but I told her if I'd let her know she would've played it up in her head and thought she was tired all day long--which she totally was not.

Anyway, she's agreed that once stims start she will abstain from all caffeine and running until this is over.

This is huge for her, but she is so excited about outsourcing the womb, she's willing to suck it up!

We've both started acupuncture now in preparation of the upcoming cycle..it's all starting to feel very, very real now and I'm getting more excited and optimistic every single day.

Pill Poppin' (Baby) Mama

So....I've been getting emails asking what's going on and when am I going to blog again.  Well, there's been a lot going on, but I've also been waiting to see exactly what that is.

I can now officially say "Game ON"!

  

Last week Kate went in for all of her genetic testing, blood work and baseline ultrasound.  This was the moment we've been waiting for because K is not a 'proven donor' and until we saw the ultrasound we were damn nervous.  I didn't even realize I'd been shaking the entire time we were in the office until we went to look at K's lady business and our RE said "whoa look at that!" 

And there we had it, a basket full of eggs.  There were at least 15 antral follicles on her left ovary and about 8-9 on her right.  The RE wasn't going to count them at first saying "you have nothing to worry about, she's going to produce a lot of eggs" and I countered with "we're paying a lot of money for those eggs, count them."

While we were there, I also insisted on an RPL (recurrent pregnancy loss) blood work panel for myself.  Not that I've had recurrent losses, but at this stage in the game, I want to have every single thing checked out.  We caught my thyroid almost by mistake and I'm not assuming everything else is fine.  At this point, I want every test done.

  

So now we're waiting for the blood work to come back for both of us.  That should be another week.  The good thing is that even if something in the genetics testing came back wrong--because she's my partner, we get to decide if we want to go forward whereas if she were a donor the cycle would automatically be cancelled.

In the meantime, Kate has started her period and we've already been back for a Day 3 u/s.  Once again everything checked out A-OK and it's cute to see K preening around boasting about her bumper crop of eggs.  You can almost see her feathers all fluffed up; she's very proud of herself.  I think she was scared of her body letting me down.  We are both breathing a sigh of relief around her.  So far, so good.

I started birth control pills yesterday, CD3 and will be on them for 15 days.  So far, just one little pill has wreaked havoc on my system.  It gave me insomnia last night and made me feel so nauseous I had dreams of barfing.  I spent the entire night tossing and turning and woke up retching.  I couldn't eat, was shaking and felt completely out of sorts.  K knew it was serious when I refused my usual (decaf) cappuccino!  I went back to bed by 9am and slept through until noon.  I really hope tomorrow is better, because otherwise I am going to be worthless.  Hopefully my body just needs a bit of time to get adjusted.

If all goes as planned (famous last words...) we should be doing egg retrieval/transfer either the last week of May or the first week of June.

Moving right along now....

Test Drive the Egg Basket

It's hard to look in the mirror and see someone so young and yet have your eggs be so old.

Me and my bad eggs, we're finished.

I know you can't compare making a baby (and the cost involved) to buying a car, but well, yes you can.

I am the lemon.  K is the Volvo.

Why would we keep spending more money to fix up the lemon when we have the chance to drive the Volvo?  Also, keep in mind I come from a long line of lemons and K's family has a garage of Volvos.

Since arriving home (5 days ago) I've been:

• talking with the RE,
• the egg donor program coordinator,
• the insurance company, 
• the billing department,
• the psychologist assigned to our case,
• had my blood drawn to do a gazillion tests related to my thyroid
• set up an appointment for my endocrinologist to review the results of the thyroid testing 
  
• set up all appointments for K to enter egg donor program
• caught up on everyone's blogs

And that's just the TTC-related stuff!  I have been one busy Puff.

We've been looking down this path for so long...we didn't even need to talk about it that much.

It woke me up at 5:30 the morning after I got home and I just got up, starting making a list, looking at the calendar and figuring things out.

There's a possibility we might be able to do this at the end of May, but more probable is the first/middle of June.

While we both know there's no guarantee K has superstar eggs, we know hers are 8 years younger than mine--PERIOD.  So, we're going with that and hoping for the best.

It's good to be home.  Funny thing with K and I--we need no 'readjustment period'.  We each do so much travel and have for so many years...it's like I came in the door and it was like, "oh I'm home again".  Sometimes she'll come through the living room and smile looking at me and say "you're really home!" She's so cute and willing to do whatever it takes--even if she has to carry the damn baby herself--to make our little family dream come true.

Getting Better All the Time

I've been fairly quiet over here in Pufferland as life has been busy, busy, busy.

In fact, tonight is the first night in over a week I'm not out and about.  I had plans tonight, but I cancelled them as the weather outside is frightful.  I can do rain.  I can do cold.  I don't particularly like either, but the combination of rain+cold makes me miserable.

The updates:

• After the 3K in sperm was accepted and then rejected by our flex spending with A.D.P., we made an appeal....and as of yesterday they have accepted it!!!  That was great news to know we didn't lose all that money.
  
• I've had my nurse rep  at UHC working with the billing rep at the RE clinic in order to figure out if we have donor egg insurance coverage or not.  As of today, the clinic is rewriting their...I don't know...whatever they rewrite...and we have coverage!!!  This means if I don't get pregnant with this last IVF cycle (if I even get to DO a last IVF cycle) then K can donate her eggs to me, they bill her from her 15K coverage and then bill me for the carrier portion.
  
• The most we would have to pay is my portion if I went through this last IVF because I'll have no money left (since it was reduced 10K).  That could be 10K out of pocket, but that's a lot better than the 20K we were looking at.
  
• If my IVF cycle is cancelled due to poor response again, there's a good chance we wouldn't owe any more $$ for the egg donor cycle.  All around, great news.
• K is thrilled because we're back to the plan where she gets to outsource her womb!
• I have been running, lifting weights, doing yoga and pilates and trying to eat as healthy as possible.  I've lost 2 lbs and all my pants fit nicely again.  I'm well aware that 2-5 lbs may not seem like a big deal, but I am very petite and my clothes are all very fitted.  When you already wear skinny jeans there's really nowhere for that weight to go.  That's why I always keep it in check.  Two becomes 5 becomes 10, etc.  
• I made a promise to myself when I started this TTC process that I would not gain weight until I actually got pregnant.  It is the ONE thing in this entire process that I have control over.  It's kept me healthy, fit and sane.  I'm keeping that promise to myself because it's working for me.  It's really hard, but it's worth it.
• The spotting finally stopped after two weeks (with a two-day period in between).  No one knows why.  Could just be a one-time thing.
• Yes, the teenage mother really did hit me.  Let's just say the subway at rush hour can be a very volatile place.  It makes me really happy I walk to work and can avoid it most of the time.

New Stuff:

• My blood work from 2 weeks ago came back showing I have a little bit of a hyperactive thyroid problem.  Thyroid issues issues are directly related to fertility issues.  Nice.  A 'normal' level is 0.4-5.2.  Mine is 6.27, so usually most doctors would call this normal, but we're not taking any chances, so I start meds tomorrow and will go back in 4 weeks to have it re-tested.
  
• Because the spotting just stopped and now I'm on a new med, I've decided to take February off.  I want to have an entire month of a clean cycle to see what my body is doing.  I am not comfortable with pumping more hormone drugs in the Puffer without knowing if my body has regulated itself.  
• My acupuncturist is going to dig deeper to try to figure out the reason behind the spotting.  It could have been a chemical pregnancy in December, but there's really no way to know for sure.
• I'm getting a saline sonogram done before the next IVF to make sure the ute is fine and dandy.  I will schedule this as soon as AF comes next month.  I had an HSG done last March and RE declared I have a perfect uterus, but I want to know more before I roll this last dice (especially with the irregular spotting).

I'm having a difficult time keeping up with the blogs and commenting.  So, I've been a little silent.  But I'm out here, floating around, following all your stories.  

It's just hard sometimes, like tonight when I read about someone who is about to enter the 3rd trimester and I realized that if I had stayed pregnant I would be one week behind her.

Incredible for me to believe that I'm still waiting and trying but I could have been 6 months pregnant if only that sticky rice had stuck around.

It's times like this I need to focus on myself, my health and not be so focused on TTC itself.

I am just living my life and what will be, will be.  All I can do is be the best vessel possible in body, mind and spirit.