NIAW and Stim start!

Today wraps up National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW)- I know, I'm a little late to the game but I'm new to this stuff!  I found a couple of things that I read on other blogs that capture how I feel PERFECTLY!!

 Yesterday, appropriately during NIAW, I had my first monitoring appointment before starting stim meds.  I start Bravelle tonight in addition to the normal injection of Lupron I've been taking since last Friday, April 22. Also, M & I have to start taking antibiotics to keep some kind of bacteria count down that affects egg and sperm quality. Not really sure what that's about but I'll do anything to protect my egg quality, considering that it's beyond sub-par to begin with...I've been channeling my inner egg all week long since last Sunday was Easter!!


Speaking of Easter, I got a very interesting gift from my sister in law on Easter Sunday. Now, my SIL also happens to be my best girlfriend from college.  She met M's brother our senior year and they introduced us a year later. Needless to say, we have so much fun together.  So anyway, my SIL and M's brother had some fertility issues of their own- after trying for two years, she went on Clomid.  The Clomid ended up not working so she went off the drugs to prep for an IVF cycle.  Now, during this time period, they moved to a new house.  They met the seller, who was an older woman in her sixties, at settlement.  The woman told them that the house was very special and that she had left them a "gift". Upon moving in, they searched every room and in one of the bedrooms, they found a Christmas ornament of the Holy Family.  One month later they were pregnant.  They have a healthy 8 month old and she swears that the good vibes from the house and the Holy Family helped to get her pregnant.  So, last Sunday, she gave me the ornament to "borrow" because she is sure she will need it again :-)  It is currently sitting on the windowsill of the future nursery and I kiss it every day before I leave for work.  

All in all this week I have felt pretty much like my normal self I'm on an emotional rollercoaster.  I realized that when I wrote "normal self" usually that includes a couple of little peaks and valleys throughout the week so I guess I'm pretty much on track....  The Lupron injections weren't NEARLY as bad as I imagined; it's such a tiny needle and even though it's twice a day, I barely bruised and can hardly feel the needle!  M gave me my first couple of days worth of injections, but I took over on Thursday and Friday of this past week because he was working so much I felt bad having to make him do that, too!  Speaking of the sweet, sweet man, he surprised me mid- week with a little gift from Simplestarfish.com:  

Yeah, that got me.

Next monitoring appointment is scheduled 7am Tuesday, May 3.  Come on, eggs, start growing- I will need a lot of you to beat my 5% odds!!!

Injectables Teaching

Well, tomorrow is the start of the injectable meds!  I am thoroughly looking forward to becoming the human pincushion if the result is a baby!  Even if the result is not a baby, we are just going to work through the process and push forward for as long as it takes.  I can do this for another five years, right?!  Sort of kidding...sort of not...

Today M and I had our injectables teaching appointment since I start my meds tomorrow morning bright and early.  I am taking Lupron (5 units, 2 x per day) until April 29 when I go for my first monitoring appointment.  I was just thinking that this is the last day for a couple of weeks that I will not be sticking myself daily- I feel like a true IVF -virgin.   I could not fall asleep last night just thinking about the trigger shot alone.  I kept picturing how it was going to be when we actually had to do it- would I sit up or lie down? Could I ice the area first? How long would it take to inject all of the HcG? Can I have a couple of glasses of wine first?! My mind was swirling so much I finally just took some Nyquil since I am sick anyway with a cold- two birds one stone.

I don't know what to expect with regards to side effects.  I've heard people refer to it as "loopy" Lupron, and I am already loopy so if it magnifies that trait M should pretty  much run for cover..:-)  God bless that man...he is my rock, sanity, and strength and I am so lucky to have him.  When I think about our situation, in my own mind I think of it as "tragic", but really, it is not.  Tragic would be losing M.  I know that I can get through anything as long as he is with me.  That said, I'm going to apologize to him in advance for my behavior in the coming weeks- whether it is on "loopy" Lupron or my forthcoming Bravelle/Menopur combo- I'm pretty sure we are both in for a wild ride.

I hate statistics

Statistics are not on our side. Not that I thought they were actually on our side to begin with, but now I know for sure that they are not.  

I previously said that the medical field speaks in generalities and hesitates to give hard numbers.  I am retracting that statement because I recently got all of the hard numbers I could stand in one phone call with the PGD genetic counselor.

We were told by our first genetic counselor that I had about a 40-50% of having a good egg come through for us to lead to a healthy baby.  Then, after speaking with the embryologist at our RE’s office during IVF orientation, he gave us around 30% chance of having healthy embryos free of chromosome abnormalities.  Finally, after speaking with the genetic counselor from the company that will actually be performing the PGD, we were quoted a rate of 5-10% chance of an embryo without chromosome abnormalities.

The new, lower rate is primarily driven by the fact that my inversion spans around 80% of my chromosome 7.  I knew I had a pericentric balanced inversion, and I knew it was large, but it practically takes over my entire chromosome.  Almost all parts of my genetic material are reversed, and that means higher likelihood of my egg cells having this defect…and thereby leading to an abnormal embryo.  Not just abnormal, incompatible with life and with excess or missing genetic material.

I feel like we just got kicked in the stomach again.   I don’t know what to do with this information.   This is substantiating my previous fears that we are going to spend all of our time and money shooting me up with drugs, harvesting eggs, performing PGD, and no embryos will be viable.  The unfortunate part about this whole process is that there is no way to find out unless you complete the cycle. 

They say the best way out of hell is to go straight through it.  I haven’t even started my drugs yet, but my body is already burning.

Drugs are here!

Today starts BCP week #2....and the drug cartel arrived today from the mail order pharmacy.  I don't think that I fully appreciated the magnitude of this process until I opened that box.  There are just...so...many...needles.  I know most of them are for mixing but the ones for Progesterone in Oil and the HCG trigger shot....good Lord!  Reality slapped me in the face...just when I start feeling like I am a strong person and have resolve - WHAM!

So, I went to church on Sunday with my parents while M was working.  I hadn't been in a month or so, and I thought it would be good to have some reflection time in the midst of the chaos.  I am still undecided on whether or not  it was a good idea... in addition to every pregnant woman in the congregation sitting near us, my mom & I also cried through most of the service (the songs were sad, the readings were sad, nothing really uplifting).  Sometimes I think this might be harder on my parents than it is on me, but then all I have to do is take a look at my 50 needles and then I realize it actually IS harder on me :-) 

I know I am not supposed to be Googling my "condition" of inverted chromosome 7, but I started to do some internet research (I am using that term loosely) last night.  I can't find anything on it, nor can I find anything with stats on success rates of IVF w/ PGD for my specific chromosome abnormality.  I can find tons of stuff on translocations (forums, blogs, case studies etc) but nothing on inversions. I have a call with our genetic counselor on Thursday and have some very specific questions for her. My impression so far is that the medical community speaks in generalities and avoids hard data, so I doubt I'll get any real comfort but still need to ask.  I also was reading about couples that have had PGD testing done on multiple embryos  and NONE were viable!  I can't imagine the pain that goes with that- you take the drugs, go through the retrieval, fertilization, PGD and find out that all of your embryos are chromosomally abnormal and would miscarry if implanted-what if that is what happens to us?   I try to stay positive but without statistics I have nothing else to really go by.  At this point I don't even have a fear that I will miscarry if I have a healthy embryo implanted...the big fear is that there are ZERO embryos to implant after PGD.  I keep telling M- all I need is one and my uterus can handle the rest!

Facebook and Infertility

So I am currently on a self- ban of Facebook.  When I first joined FB in 2007, I relished the fact that I could secretly view the pictures of people I hadn't seen or spoken to in 10-20 years... I viewed every single picture that every single one of my 200 or so "friends" had posted, no matter how grand or mundane.

Within the past year or two, probably 75% of my Facebook friends have had children and/or are pregnant with first, second or third children. I get that;  I am turning 32 in November, that is the phase of life we are all in right now. But after our second m/c in January, and quite a few views of different friends' newborn baby albums on FB, I decided I couldn't take it anymore.  It seemed like the people who just posted wedding pictures six months ago were already announcing that they were going to become parents!  Why do they get to have it happen so quickly and we have to wait for so long?  Then we start the judging ...."there's no way those two could have a baby, they are so not ready", "they aren't even married two months and she's three months pregnant?!"...it goes on from there...

First, I only blocked specific friends' news feeds to avoid pop up pictures of newly obtained U/S pictures.  Still not enough- we had to cut the FB monster out completely.  I have been FB sober now for about 6 weeks and I may fall off the wagon soon. I sort of feel lost without it.... but on the up side, I have gotten about 3 hours of my daily life back.  Wonder what I can do with all that time...

Kick Off!!!

Big day today!  I went for my first appointment to kick off IVF cycle #1.  I worked last night until 11pm and had to be up at 5am to be at the doctor's office by 7am.  The fertility doc is an hour from where we live and I am so exhausted from working so many hours - but I supposed this is the first day of the rest of my life so I should be excited. I'll get there ...eventually...

They took a couple of vials of blood (after the 7 they already took last Friday for our IVF orientation) and gave me the first set of instructions.  LMP was 4/2 and I'm on BCP again for the next 21 days.  Then, it's the beginning of the injectables (Lupron) on 4/22.  Drugs are officially ordered and will be shipped to our house soon....the nurse told me not to be overwhelmed but I can't imagine what I'm about to go through...the thought of injecting makes my skin crawl.  Especially the intramuscular injections...hubby is going to have to take care of those for me :-)

Injectables teaching is scheduled for 4/21 and next monitoring appointment is 4/29....I just can't believe how real this is.  There was a woman in the doctor's office getting her blood work before me, and I could hear her talking to the nurse about when she could start her next cycle.  I surmised from the conversation that she had just had a failed cycle and was asking when she could try again.  I really hope that is not the convo I'm having 8  weeks from now...

Who am I?

I am your neighbor.  I am your sister, daughter, cousin, and co -worker.  I represent the hundreds of thousands of women (and couples) dealing with infertility every day. I am part of a community that knows heartache, disappointment, pain and loss. We are the ones who still wait, pray and dream of seeing a heartbeat on an ultrasound monitor, feeling flutters in our bellies, and kissing little fingers and toes.  There are so many of us and those who have not been down this path can't understand how our minds only focus on this single topic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  

I started this blog to document our infertility journey. My hope is that it will help me find an outlet for my fears and frustrations during this process.  I know that there are many ways to make a family, but we don't know yet how ours will come to be.  I guess we will find out.