Things We've Set Aside

Today I quit my chorus.

My heart is a little broken.

I've been singing since I left the womb.  My family is full of musicians.  It's my thing.  It's what I do.  It's what I've always done.  Those of you who have followed my blog for awhile have probably read posts about rehearsals and performances.  Unfortunately, I have to walk away for awhile.

When I married J, we had to move to his house which is 45 minutes from my old house and my office.  My chorus rehearsed about 15 minutes from where my life used to be, making rehearsals about an hour from home now.  So on Mondays, I would leave my house at 7 AM, work, head out to grab a bite, get to rehearsal, sing my pea-pickin heart out, drive home, walk in the door around 11 PM.  It was an excruciatingly long day, but I couldn't imagine my life without song, specifically without my chorus. 

It's a group of 60 amazing women from all walks of life.  There are women from college age through the golden years, straight, gay, and probably something in between.  About half of the chorus has doctoral degrees and of course, most are moms.  It is a unique, and diverse group of talented women.  Here's a peak at our sound:


Gets ya doesn't it?  That was Thom.pson's Alleluia, performed by my chorus, which I can't name because I want to stay semi-anonymous.

Ever since fertility treatments started hard core, chorus has been more of a trial than a joy.  No only is the distance an issue, but I had to schedule injections around rehearsal time.  I was bringing lunch totes packed with ice and drugs so I could shoot up in the bathroom, trying to find a point to sneak out at hit up the men's room for shots to lessen the possibility of being walked in on.

Of course there was also the issue of being with 60 women.  You would think that with that many highly educated and diverse musicians there would be some amazing conversations.  Sadly, it was usually about, you guessed it, kids.  That is ALL the women my age talked about.  They wore it as a badge and I clearly did not fit into the clique.  Even the older women were talking about their own kids and grandkids as a running dialogue.  I ended up feeling very alone in rehearsals. 

Singing is an emotional release for me.  Sitting with all of these women, feeling left out of conversations, sneaking off to shoot up with baby juice, and then pouring my heart into my music was just getting to be too much. There were plenty of times I spent a good chunk of rehearsal hiding tears.  It was time to take a step away.  If this cycle does work, I'd be due right around the spring concert.  If it doesn't work, there's no way I'm spending another season in the mommy-pit.

I finally bit the bullet today and let my director know I wouldn't be back this season. I just told him the distance was hard and I had too much of my plate right now, but think he has an inkling of what's going on.  He knew J and I wanted to start a family right away and it's pretty obvious that that didn't happen.  In his very kind response, he told me to give J his best and that I could come back whenever I was ready.

I'm thinking of finding a mixed chorus closer to home once this all settles down, but right now I will be musicless and that makes me sad.  Dammit, I suck at baby making, but I am a good musician.

See exhibit A: Me performing with a band at a resort in Jamaica on our honeymoon (long story):

Yeah, I'm tootin my own horn, and I don't care.  It's my blog.

One day, my life will feel like it's mine again, but until then, I'm going to keep on keepin' on.

What has infertility shuffled around in your life?

Wishin', Hopin', Dreamin'

For the first time in a long time, J and I have been allowing ourselves a little dreaming.  He's named the embryos Jedi 1 and 2.  Last time it was Blob 1 and 2 so we're moving up, I think!  We're enjoying thinking about the possibility that this could actually work, which has led to some interesting conversations.

We were at the store this morning and there was an eyeglass frame display.  We got a little silly and were trying them on.  We've both worn glasses since we were children.  I had Lasik about 15 years ago, but still wear glasses for distance and driving because my vision was that bad (that and I had a weird reaction and won't do it again, but that's another story).  You know the "big E" when you get your vision tested?  I couldn't even see it.  The screen just looked like a white blobby part of the other color blobs that were my world.  J's vision is a bit better, but he doesn't really have an interest in Lasik and is happy wearing contacts.  His parents wear glasses, and my whole family has vision like mine.  If we have biological children, they are pretty much guaranteed to be strapped with glasses at an early age.  So we started talking about the less than stellar traits we carry that our children would inherit, starting with vision.

We both have super sensitive skin.  Ours is a fragrance free lotion and detergent house and our list of available soaps is really short.  Speaking of short, our kid would obviously be vertically challenged.

Of course we do kind of like ourselves and have good traits we hope to pass on, but when we're thinking about bringing a perfect little munchkin into the world, it's kinda fun to teasingly think of the less desirable traits they could end up with that would be totally on us.

What traits do you share with your partner that you hope don't rear their ugly heads in the next generation?

PUPO!!!!

You guys, I can't stop smiling.

ALL EIGHT EMBRYOS MADE IT TO DAY THREE!!!  I had in my head that I was hoping for five with three to freeze.  We transferred two perfect eight cell day three embryos and froze SIX!  All six were worth freezing and were between six and ten cells (I guess the ten cell had some fragmentation so we didn't transfer it today?  Just guessing).  The new old doctor did the transfer which made me a little anxious.  He didn't know where all the buttons were on the ultrasound machine and was asking equipment questions of the fellow.  Made me antsy, but he also said, "These are the most beautiful embryos I've seen in my 30 years of experience."  He probably tells everyone that, but hot damn am I excited!

The embryologist came out of the lab to watch the transfer and she was all smiles.  She looked excited, actually and gave us a "1, 2, 3" before he pushed the plunger.  Even she said they were perfect.  She did NOT say that last time.  She hardly said anything last time.

So here they are!

"Perfect is my new favorite word."

We are so happy and hopeful.  I don't think we've been this hopeful ever.  Even before we started treatment.  At this moment, there are two healthy looking embryos in my uterus.  I know that they might arrest, I know they might not implant, I know any number of things might happen, but right now - I'm riding the wings of hope and enjoying it.  When I got off the table he said, "I think you have a very good chance."  That's all I needed to hear!

And I can't believe all of those suckers made it to transfer day!  We have SIX on ice!!!  I'm telling you, it was the lap.  Even the eggs that fertilized on their own last time did not look this good.  Here are our embies from last go around, just as a refresher:

Round 1: Less than stellar

You don't need an embryology degree to see which one is better.  ICSI couldn't have done all that!

GO EMBIES GO!!!!!!

Let There Be Embryos!

Just got the call and I swear I have been a raging bitch all day.  Fertilization report day is a NIGHTMARE!

Of the 19 retrieved, 12 were mature and healthy looking, and 8 fertilized with ICSI!  So we have 8 embies as of now.  That's three more than I had post retrieval last time! 

Let's hope they stick around and divide their little hearts out!!!!  We might have some to freeze!!!

Let There Be Eggs!

They retrieved 19 eggs this morning.  Everything went well and I'm very happy with that number.  26 didn't work last time so lets hope these are a good quality 19!

I'm still kinda dizzy and goofed up so I'm going to step away from the computer, but I wanted to make sure I posted an update!

Oh yeah - they told me their generator is enough that everything would have been a go today even if power didn't go back on.  Hopefully that is not information I will ever need to know again!

And oh yeah again - I guess we're all too loopy afterwards to give a solid account of the retrieval process, but they really effing hurt.  Sedation is not a complete putter-outter, my friends.  You can feel some of that shit and needles through the va-jay-jay cannot be described as... pressure.  I for one remember bits and pieces.  I had a female attending today so I think that helped a lot.  It was not as bad as last time.

Crisis Averted!

Thanks for all the positive vibes. From the looks of the power company's website, power is back on and I can get some sleep!

Never a dull moment!

COMPLETELY PANICKED

I was sitting at work, minding my own business, when the power went out.  Oh tee hee, how funny.  We all get to go home.

Driving home, I noticed that the power outage was major.  Super major.  Then I remembered that my clinic is on the same street.  The clinic does not have power.  My retrieval is scheduled for 9 AM tomorrow. 

There are about 15,000 people in the area without power and they don't know when it will be turned back on. That in itself is a bad sign around here. They at least string you along hour by hour.

I'm not sure if they have generators or what.  I mean I'm sure they have some for the embryology lab, but for the procedure room too?  Maybe?  Hopefully?

The phones must not be working at the clinic because when I called it went to the "the clinic is now closed" message before the clinic was actually closed.  I'm trying not to lose my shit.

Please, please, please, please power people.  Get to my clinic and get the power back on.  I've got a shit load of eggs and nowhere else to lay them.

How Infertility Weasels Its Way Into Everything

As treatment for my case of the hormonal crabbies, I was prescribed a task.  "Do something fun this weekend" the PA at the clinic said.  J bought us tickets to see Batman, so I figured we were all set.  A few hours of movie land sounded like a good treatment plan.

First, there were the ultrasound and E2 hurdles to jump though over the weekend.  In general, no biggie. Today I had 36 follies, but there was a catch.  A third of them were measuring mature, another third were just on the cusp, and the final third probably wouldn't make the cutoff.  The new fellow, we'll call him Dr. Newbie, wanted to check my E2 and talk with an Attending before making a call on when to trigger.  So he sent me home with a blank instruction sheet and told me to wait for his call.  I figured that with my luck, he'd call in the middle of the movie.  You all know how that goes.  No way I was letting it go to voicemail.  Especially not on a Sunday.


We got to the movie early so I could have a seat by the door to make a dash to the hallway in case my phone started vibrating.  We sat through Batman, phone on lap, waiting for the call.  And we waited.  Finally, we got the call.  


And I missed the last 7 minutes of the movie.


In light of what happened in Colorado, I feel like a schmo being upset about that, but dammit!  I just wanted to sit through a movie without having IF get it's nose all up in my good time.


Anyway, my E2 was about 3100.  We're going to push it out one more day to let the other third catch up.  Retrieval is scheduled for Wednesday morning.  Looks like we'll be expecting about the same number of eggs as last time.  Sounds like a lot of eggs, but that didn't mean crap during round one.  Still rooting for a better outcome!

Laparoscopy and Marriage Intervention

Sex and infertility are hard.  We all know this.  We all know it's complicated.  When you have endometriosis, it also hurts.  So here you are, having painful sex, but pretending that you aren't because a) you've already spent a better part of a decade believing that you are over reacting about your pelvic pain and b) don't want your husband to feel bad about your grimacing.

Then a doctor comes along and recommends a lap.

It's a Jasmine moment.  "A whole new world....."

On top of the newly discovered sex life, we brought this hideous brown stained lounge chair down from the crap room/would be future nursery for me to recuperate on post surgery.  Our couches are not comfortable or lounge worthy.  Six weeks later and the crappy chair still in the living room.  Why is that?  Because it's a perfect snuggle depth!  I must admit, my slacking in the commenting department has mostly been because I'm snuggling with my husband rather than hanging out on the laptop.

So there you go.  Not only did the lap save my sex life, it managed to get me a snuggle couch.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

July always brings new medical students and residents to deal with.  I say deal with because, well, in my line of work they can be a pain in my ass. They tend to be overly cocky and see me as a technician rather than a teammate.  For example, I remember being in the OR one July and a resident pointed at me and called me "Hey you."  The surgeon said, "Uh, that's Dr. Hey You to you."  So I understand the breaking in period quite well.  It's fine when it's in terms of my work, but not so much when it comes to my baby making attempts.

My REs office is part of a teaching hospital, which is okay with me.  The fellows do most of the monitoring and they did all of my IUIs.  They do the retrievals with supervision as well.  My favorite fellow just finished his rotation.  That means there's a new one whom I will see on Sunday.  This makes me a little nervous.  The other fellow knows me.  This dude doesn't, and if the fellows I've seen in my work are any indication, he could be a guns-a-blazin' hot shot.  I just want him to tell me I can trigger.  Any other July I could probably tolerate the thought of a new fellow, but friends, there's some crazy shit going down at my clinic and I'm not totally sure what's up.

There's been an odd vibe there lately.  On top of that, my phone calls are taking longer than usual to get returned, to the point that it's unacceptably too long.  Then the staff photo poster that's usually in the lobby was taken down.  Now today, I met a new attending.  I took a peek at the website and sure enough, two of the physicians are gone.  My RE is the only one left.  That makes me uneasy.  The new guy has awesome credentials, but not the most glowing recs online from former patients.  Plus, he's super old.  Not to be ageist, but old makes me nervous.  I don't want shaky hands wielding a a needle tipped ultrasound wand at my vagina.  I also like my doctors to be up on the latest and greatest and in my experience, older physicians have found their grooves and are unwilling to veer from the path.

This clinic has a team strategy for patient management, which I like. My office functions the same way.  They all meet and decide on protocols, etc.  I'd seen all three physicians at some point and they all had a part in my last cycle.  It's important to feel comfortable with everyone there and it's really irksome to have all of these changes, all at once.  So, we're thinking that if this cycle doesn't pan out, we will go elsewhere.  Maybe a private clinic where there aren't fellows and residents.  Hopefully it will all be a moot point. 

So far things are going well with IVF deux.  I don't have as many follicles as I did last time, but I'm all about quality over quantity.  I'll likely trigger Sunday and have a Tuesday retrieval.  Let's hope!

I Am Just Too Obnoxious

IVF #2 is proving to be rough.  I don’t know if it’s because of the drugs or because of the emotions involved.  I’m thinking it’s more of the latter.  

On Sunday, I burst into tears at the grocery store for no apparent reason.  When I got home, I burst into tears again over bursting into tears at the store.  Last night, I had the giggles and the sense of humor of a 6^th grade boy.  I was turning anything and everything I heard on TV into a double entendre and laughing my head off at how funny I was.  J was just laughing at me laughing.  The jokes were really not funny.  Today, I am so freakin’ crabby that I don’t even want to be around myself.  I have gone into the bathroom to cry a few times.  Just little tears, no ugly crying.  An example of my ugliness?  It is my research day and one of my coworkers suggested I see one of her patients for her.  It took everything I had not to go into a raging “DON’T TAKE MY RESEARCH TIME FROM ME YOU EVIL BITCH” fit.  She really thought she was doing me a favor.  There was no bitch intent.

Physically, I’ve managed to get a bruise in every injection spot.  Sunday night, I bolted up in bed at 5 AM to throw up and eventually woke up with a raging headache and the shakes.  Methinks the physical stuff is because I got a bit cocky since things went so smoothly last round and didn’t drink the water I should have.  Yesterday I substituted a bottle with Gatorade and have been feeling fine since.

But it gets worse, friends.  It gets worse.  Last night, I had dinner with a lovely single friend.  She has the worst luck finding men.  She was asking if I had run into anyone worth setting her up with lately, and all I could think of were the two fellows at my clinic.  She works for the same hospital, they are really nice guys – it would be perfect!  Very obnoxious of me, right?  Now, I have no idea if these guys are single or not and have no idea how to find out.  There really is no opportune moment or good way to ask when they are all up in your lady parts.  When the IVF nurse called to confirm my appointment today, I thought about asking her.  Then I thought the best bet might be to ask one of the CMAs when they are doing a blood draw.  They’d probably just laugh at me.  What do you think?  To obnoxious or do I play matchmaker?

Anxiety

We have a saying in our office.  It's kind of tongue in cheek and kind of true.  "Leave 'em where Jesus flung 'em."  Sometimes we see kid who has such a complicated lot in life, that any intervention on our part would make it even more complicated.  When we hit the wall with a situation that is just beyond us, we say "poor kid's done been flung."  Sounds callus now that I'm tying it out, but it's really not meant that way.  Sometimes I wonder if J and I have been flung and we just don't know it yet.


Tonight, we start Gonal-F injections for IVF deux.  The days leading up to some point yesterday were filled with so much hope.  Since last go around, I've had a lap to have endo removed, a hysteroscopy where they removed some "irregular lining," a month of doxycycline, and we're adding in ICSI.  "How can this not work?" we were asking ourselves.

At some point yesterday it hit us.  What if it still doesn't work?  What if we've been though all of this and we still have crappy fertilization?  What then?  It could happen.  There are certainly no guarantees.  All of the sudden, we're feeling really anxious.  We feel like we're heading down a rabbit hole and the wonderland on the other side will be either awesome or awful.  If we get a good fert rate, but I still don't get pregnant, I'd feel good giving it another go. If we still get a shitty fert rate, I'll probably like I've done gotten flung.

I'm not ready to face that reality yet.  As much as I talk with J and my family about how okay I would be without a biological child, I'm not ready to face the thought of giving up on my body.

Please let this work.

Ladies, We Need To Have A Talk

I'm going to come out and say it. It's a controversial topic to be sure, but I need to speak out. It's in the interest of all the short women out there. We're tired of dealing with the quite literal crap thrown our way by the long legged of you out there. It's time to fight back.

Ladies, just sit the hell down on the toilet seat.

Those of us who are of the vertically challenged persuasian cannot hover or squat above a seat. See, when I sit down on most seats, including those attached to a public toilet, my feet don't touch the ground. Hence, there is no way that I can perch my bottom above the comode and have good aim at the same time. I need to sit. There is no choice. Since so many of you Too Tall Taras feel the need to keep your tushies in the hover position, those of us without the gift of height are faced with a dilemma. What to do with the pee you sprayed all over the seat while being so prim and propper. Do we wipe it off? No. Then we have your piss on our hands. Do we put TP down in an effort to block the offending moisture? Not unless sitting on mushy pee is more appealing. So we are forced to leave the stall, hope the next one over is better, and leave the pee cleanup to the poor sap behind us.

See ladies, toilet seats are really rather clean when you aren't peeing on them. They are cleaner than the air being blown out of the air dryer and all over your hands. They are probably cleaner than the mouse you used to click on this post. So please, for the love of all that it good and holy, just sit your ass down. A short girl will be forever grateful.

All Clear!

My baseline ultrasound was cyst free and meds start on Saturday!  My insurance decided to ovary-block two of my Ganirelex (Get it?  Ovary-block?  I'm so funny.), so we'll see how that all pans out.

When I was in the waiting room at the clinic this morning, there was a child there.  It always irks me a bit when there's a kid there, but I get over it.  Today was a little different, though.  This was a boy of about 10 or 11.  Seriously.  A fertility clinic is no place for a boy that age.  Ew.

Fortnight of Fun

I'm back from a much needed respite and visit with my mom.  I had some real BBQ (not the vinegar soaked crap they try to pass off here), wonderful conversations, a baseball game, and lots of wine.  My heart is full.  It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a Cradle Catholic.  I spent 13 years in Catholic school, including University.  I was a catechist for kids preparing for confirmation.  I served on the liturgical committee at my church and I've been a cantor for the better part of 25 years (Jeezle Pete I'm old).  My faith has always been a central part of my life, but it's hard to be a Catholic and a scientist.  Let's face it, Catholics have a pretty shitty track record when it comes to recognizing science as... well... a thing.

When we were faced with fertility treatments, I had a hard time reconciling religion and faith.  I read the Church's doctrine on treatment and I was astounded, horrified even, by the misconceptions and inaccuracies that brought the leaders of my church to condemn the choices I was making to treat a medical condition.  You can read my original posts on the subject here, here, and here.  Since then, I have learned to recognize that the laws of the Catholic church were written by men, not God, that humans are fallible, and we have the free will to make our own choices and decisions.  I was feeling pretty good with that.  I haven't been going to mass much, but mostly it's been because of the babies that are all over the place.  I go to a Franciscan parish, so we're a bit more liberal than your typical diocesan church.

Fast forward to this past Sunday when I was with my mom.  She wanted me to go to her new church with her.  It was just built near her house and she was talking about how beautiful it was.  Now, I went to this church when mass was in a warehouse while the new building was being built and I wasn't thrilled with it.  It's really conservative.  Many women wear chapel veils there and it was the first time I'd EVER seen a woman wearing one in the US.  I figured it wouldn't kill me.  I did make it out alive, but that's about all I can say about it!

When we walked in, the whole congregation was kneeling and chanting.  It was a prayer I had never heard before.  I asked my mom what it was and she said it was a pro-life prayer, from when she was a little girl.  I looked at the really young people who knew and were reciting this and thought, "Oh Lord, here we go."  We saddled into our pew and were joined shortly by the youngest sibling of a girl I went to grade school with.  She's one of 9.  My former classmate is already up to 5 of her own.  So now I'm trapped in a pew between St. Mom and captain fertility, in the most conservative Catholic church I've ever set foot in, during the "Fortnight for Religious Freedom" crap (sorry - it's crap.  Maybe our Bishops forgot what real religious persecution is), while I'm on BCPs before my second IVF cycle.  See where this is going?

The homily was about the insurance mandate, but this dude went even further.  In the same breath as talking about how the government's mandate on paying for birth control violated the Church's religious rights, he went on to describe how the Church's doctrine should be governing.  Like, really governing.  He actually said something alluding to things being all fine and dandy when the Catholic church was in political power back in the day.  Ummm, k.  Then he called on his parishioners to vote for politicians who would oppose gay marriage (he went into detail on that one), cloning, and stem cell research.  He said that, "stem cell research hasn't produced any cures" so we should be abandoning it anyway.  I wanted to jump up and yell, "Treatments, asswipe!  Loads of treatments!  You can't wipe a whole research platform off the map like that."  He did not mention IVF directly, but stem cell research and cloning are two of the reasons that the church's doctrine gives for condemning IVF.  Swear.  Cloning.  I was waiting for him to mention ART specifically, but his "protecting life from the moment of conception until death" diatribe said it all.  So there I sat, feeling like a leper in the one place that I should feel the most loved and supported. 

I managed to keep the tears to a manageable 2 streamers.

One of my mom's biggest fears in all of this is that I will turn my back on my faith.  Being the avoider she is, when we got in the car she kept talking about the music and the stained glass.  I just said, "Can we go to your old church when I come to visit please?"  She gave a cheery, "Okay.  The homily was a bit much."  I answered, "A bit?"  She said, "Okay, a lot.  Let's go get some lunch."

I'm still so lost when it comes to religion and faith.  Just when I think I've got it figured out, I plop my butt in a pew and it all goes out the window.  A beautiful stained glass window at that.

The Denial Monster

It feels like the stages of grief keep cycling themselves round and round when it comes to IF.  Denial has been a toughie for me.  It's such a powerful state of mind.  I find myself constantly pushing out the thought that none of this is real.  A part of me is always trying to convince my brain that I'm over reacting.  That if I would just "relax" and stop with this treatment I'd be pregnant no problem.  That same little voice is what keeps me fearful that I'll end up being Octomom because really, there's nothing wrong with me, my uterus, or my eggs.

Denial finally seems to have taken a back seat this go around.  This time, I know that there is something wrong with me.  A surgeon or three saw it up close and personal.  A pathologist tested it and categorized it.  An embryologist saw what it did to my eggs and embryos.  This time, there is no running from the truth.  

It's freeing and frightening all at the same time.