Still Kickin'

I'm still alive!  Lupron hasn't chucked me down to the depths.  Actually - I'm doing pretty darned good.

The first couple of weeks I had a major increase in pain, which is normal, and that was less than enjoyable.  However, it was nice to be able to feel more confident that certain areas where I felt pain were actually endo related.  I'm talkin' 'bout the poop chute, my friends.

There's  no such thing as TMI on this blog, ladies.  Sorry to warn you after the fact.

Anywho, I still have some tailbone pain that I would really like to go away.  The hot flashes are not fun, but they are manageable.  The mood swings are dramatic enough that I can recognize that I'm being completely irrational (Turkey soup, people.  I started a fight about turkey soup.).  I have noticed some joint pain over the past few days and I'm not excited about that.  Hopefully it's temporary.  Shot numero dos is Thursday.

My in-laws were supposed to be here for Thanksgiving.  My father-in-law has been being a stubborn old Korean man and not listing to his doctors having gallbladder issues, so we made an executive decision that made me feel like one of "those" adult children.  We told them we weren't cool with their "let's drive 5 hours to the air port and spend 8 hours flying across the country while seriously ill" plan and convinced them to stay home.  It worked, though!  He moved up his surgery consult (and learned that his gallbladder isn't even functioning at this point, so I'm glad they didn't travel) and scheduled a date.  They say he should be fine once it comes out.

The weight loss is happening!  I'm down 5 pounds.  I'd have to lose about 12.5 more to hit the RE's goal before we start stimming, and since that should happen in about 7 more weeks, I'm thinking I'm not going to get there.  Seriously, why did I let a man convince me this would be a piece of cake?  A tall man at that.  I'm going to keep going and get as close as I can.  My eating habits have been very healthy, and even though my calories are restricted to short girl levels, I'm not starving.  I've been running a lot and my shins are starting to let me know that's not okay, so I'm going to have to hike my butt down to the gym and haul myself on an elliptical I suppose.  I hate ellipticals.  My feet are too small and slide all over the place and I can barely reach the handles.  It's like watching an uncoordinated gerbil try to run up a crooked, giant wheel.

I don't know if it's the Lupron or the time off from the baby-makin' train, but I'm felt my old self coming back at times.  There have been moments of... dare I say it... giddiness.  I actually feel guilty for feeling happy during this little spurts.  It's like part of me thinks I need to give my grief it's due and be sad forever.  Obviously this is ridiculous and I've told that part of me to shut it.

That's life in a nutshell at the moment.  Just boring enough to have nothing to write about and enjoying it.

Why My New RE Is Awesome

A nurse called yesterday to give us the results and told us to schedule a WTF.  Later that morning I was with a patient and saw my phone light up with the clinic's number.  Dang it!  About 30 minutes later my husband's face appeared on my phone.  Double dang it!  He never calls my cell at work because he knows I keep my ringer off (I have a fear that I will turn on a kid's implant for the first time right when my phone rings and my ringer will become the first sound they hear).  As soon as my kiddo left I called J back.

He said that Dr. Awesome called him after he couldn't get in touch with me and sounded almost upset when relaying his reaction to our negative beta.  He was really hopeful that we would have a positive since everything went so well in the lab.  He thought the addition of HCG to the medium and the additions of Medrol and baby asprin to the regimen would do the trick.  Dr. Awesome didn't have any brilliant ideas right off the bat, but he promised to comb through the records from the old clinic, look at the cycle sheets from round 1 and round 2 and see if there is anything he would do differently.  He couldn't promise that there was since I stimmed so well both times and made seemingly good embies on round two, three of which cultured to blast for our FET.  J pointed out that 6 embies have now been transferred, 4 of which were certified as dang good, so could there be an implantation issue?  Dr. Awesome was honest in reporting that we don't really know and probably never will.  My ute looked good on hysteroscopy and we treated the questionable endometritis aggressively.  There's also still a question of embryo "goodness."  As we all know, looking good under the microscope doesn't really mean much in the end.

I can appreciate that so much of what happens with implantation is crazy complex.  Hearing is the same way.  Believe it or not, there is a lot we don't know about the function of the ear and most of the time I can't tell a family why their child is deaf.  It's just too complicated to know.  Too many genes involved, cells, vasculature, ion exchanges, mechanical and chemical reactions.  I'm sure implantation is a similarly complex.  It's just so frustrating to not have answers and to not have something to "fix."  We've tested negative for MFI, clotting disorders, PCOS, thyroid issues, STDs, tubal issues, parvo... wait, that was the dog.

I'm really grateful that he called, and even more grateful that J and I are open enough with each other that he was able to ask all the questions I would have been able to come up with in such a state.  I'm glad that Dr. Awesome is honest with us and that he's willing to dig around to see if there is anything he can do for us.  In the meantime, I'll wait for our WTF and gather my thoughts.  If he can't think of something new to try, we probably won't do another fresh.  If he can, we probably will after the new year.  I'm nervous about taking a few months off because I know that our biggest benefit right now is riding the wings of a recent lap.  I also know that that magic 35th birthday is looming oh so closely.  I just don't want to attempt an IVF cycle over the holidays, we're plumb out of dough, and I need to get some weight off.  Until then, I'm going to be healthy and try to turn my body into something I can at least tolerate for the time being.  I'll work on actually liking it when this is all over, I suppose.

The Anxiety Game

Welcome to the Infertility Anxiety Game!  Here's your host, Random Information!

My RE happened to call today to talk about my biopsy results and said I don't have to come in for the post op since I'm doing fine.  I'm back to exercising - it just still freakin hurts when I pee!  Anyway, the biopsy showed some plasma cells.  Not a lot, just a few.  So it could be that I have chronic endometritis or it could be that I don't.  He wants to treat it anyway because it's not going to hurt anything.  So a month of Doxy it is.  Whoopie!  That's the only thing he had a definitive opinion on.  Seriously, I just wish a doctor would tell me what to do!

So he said we can do whatever we want at this point.  We can try on our own for a bit, we can do an ovulation induction cycle, we can do an FET with our lonely embryo, or we can so a fresh cycle.  I was dumbfounded.  I asked why we would want to try on our own and he said that some people want to do that after a lap just in case it worked well enough to allow for a natural pregnancy and that was fine.  It made me a little nauseous to think about being back at the beginning.  I feel like we had to fail and fail and fail before we had an option to do something that had a chance at actually working.  My FSH is 11.6, I'm 34 years old, we had shitty fertilization, I know the lap gives us a certain time window... why would I want to start at square one?  He said that we shouldn't count out IUIs or natural pregnancy based on the fert rate.  I didn't really understand his rationale.  Something about there being lots of reasons why that could have happened?  Children were screaming in the hallway and I was overwhelmed at the moment so I didn't really wrap my head around it.

I said, "We were prepared to do another fresh cycle, and we have insurance coverage for it."  He said, "Well, your best chance is always going to be IVF and it's hard to argue against it when you have coverage."  So that's what we're doing.  But he wants to sit down with us next week to talk about possibly doing a few months with Depot Lupron.  Oh, and since I haven't had a prolonged temp rise and I gave up on OPKs, if my period doesn't start by Wed I'm supposed to call for Provera.  So here's the anxiety list as it stands.

• My poop chute after a month on Doxy.
• Will insurance still cover ART since I've had a lap?
• Why haven't they finished processing the claim for the lap and hysteroscopy anyway?  That's way more money than I have.
• Will insurance cover ICSI since I'm not going to not do that this time?
• Would Lupron really help or is it just wasting time, sanity, and clean armpits in my clothes?
• Why does peeing still hurt if the culture was clear?
• Will this weight ever come off?
• How soon until the endo comes back?
• What if my period starts before my appointment?  Do I call and see if I'm supposed to start BCPs?
• What if I need Provera?  How long until my period starts?
• How bad is this period going to suck?
• Am I being melodramatic?  Should I just wait and see right now?  Am I pushing things by going straight back into IVF?
• Will I ever have a freakin' baby?

Oh darlings. Some input from my bloggy sisters would be awesome!