Based on comments I got yesterday in a variety of places, I wanted to post the calendar, since it seems like people like being able to see it! So, here ya go. Frozen Embryo Transfer - Take 2. This is just the first half, as always. If everything looks good at my appointment on the 14th (at 3pm) I'll get the second half of the calendar with all the details about the Progesterone injections etc.
I have really neglected this blog lately. In part, I think I've been trying to live life normally, during this break from treatment cycles. In part, I've just been hella busy, and in part, I've been seeking support through other methods and haven't felt so much like sharing with the general public.
To touch on each of these things:
Living Life Normally
I have not been tracking my cycle, undergoing any treatments or tests, or even "trying" for the last month and a half. So, there hasn't been much to report in this category, and it's been nice to have it slightly less constantly on my mind. Slightly. Hella Busy
Work. Travel. Visitors. Death and medical issues of family members. These things have all taken priority over the past few months as so much is going on with them. I am an introvert, and so sometimes taking care of myself means withdrawing a little bit. I hit a sort of threshold of interaction and if I go over it, I begin to feel drained all the time. So with all of the above things going on, my threshold has been hit rapidly and online interaction of any sort puts me over the edge. So, I'm behind on emails, I am behind on phone calls, and I no longer keep up on Facebook or blog reading (work-related, infertility-related, or just fun stuff). It's just too much. I've kept up with local friends as best I have been able to, but that's been pretty minimal too, of late. This past weekend was the last of my travel for a minute, and the visitors have stopped visiting, and I hope my family members are done having bad things happen, so I may soon have more energy to direct in other directions.
Seeking Support
This is another place where a threshold has been hit. I don't really know how to explain it, but it's a big one. I feel my support system getting smaller and smaller for a variety of reasons, in regards to infertility. None of it is intentional or the fault of the people who love me. It's just that, I have been doing this for a long time now. It has been a year (my next FET will be almost a year to the day from my first IUI) of actual unsuccessful treatments. I think I have surpassed everyone I actually know who has been through infertility, if not in terms of length of time, certainly in terms of number of failures of procedures in this process. So the successes I used to look at with hope no longer provide that anymore.
In addition, as I move into what must be like the 5th wave of people going through pregnancies and childbirth in the time that I have been trying, I find myself withdrawing more. Now there is another new batch of friends who are actively or about to be actively "trying" and I just already feel like I have to take a step back from them, just in terms (and I can't emphasize this enough) of infertility support. Not in terms of anything else. But I just need to feel less of a huge loss when they become pregnant, not because I am not happy for their pregnancy and MOAR BABIES in my life, but because it is a change in what I am OK with expressing to them about my own process.
I just also think that at this point I don't expect anyone to be able to understand what I'm going through. I love the support I get from people and appreciate the questions people ask and knowing that everyone cares. I am happy to talk about this stuff with almost anyone. I've just stopped expecting people to be able to really empathize with my emotions, especially since I can barely figure them out myself from minute to minute. Truth is, I also don't have the energy to take care of anyone else's emotions about what I'm going through. I don't like feeling like people want to cheer me up, because it makes me feel like I'm not allowed to be sad. I don't like feeling like people want to "let me" be sad, because sometimes I'm completely happy and not thinking about it. I also just feel like this must be boring and tiring for people to hear about - I mean, it's boring and tiring for ME. How can you keep up if I can't even keep up? And even if it isn't boring and tiring, I feel like it is and worry that it is, so that colors how I can communicate about it. I also don't actually want my friends to have to go through this with me...the ups and downs and highs and lows. I don't want to be that friend. So I share, in limited ways and with limited expectation of comfort.
Anyhow, the point to all of this is that I've joined and am now co-hosting a local Infertility Peer Support Group. And these strangers - women who have nothing to do with my normal everyday life - they provide a comfort and a support that I need. So, that's been good. And it takes some of the pressure off of all of my friends and family to be understanding and supportive and "there" for me at all times. I would like to be able to enjoy my life outside of this process without it coloring everything, so keeping this support system a little separate seems to help with that and lets me just enjoy my friendships.
So, what now?
Well, I'm getting ready to begin my next Frozen Embryo Transfer cycle. The transfer should be sometime the week of March 18th. Our plan this time is to grow all 6 of our frozen embryos for 2 more days so we have day five blastocysts. The hope is that at least two of them will survive until day 5 and then we'll transfer the best 2 (or 1 if there is only 1) of them. Day 5 embryos have a higher likelihood of implanting, but many of them don't survive to day 5 outside of the body, so until now it made sense to try with the day 3 embryos. After two failures with day 3 ones it becomes worth the risk to grow them a couple more days and see what happens.
So, that's pretty much the plan. If it doesn't work, we'll talk about doing another full IVF cycle, and we'll also probably start talking more seriously about adoption. With another full IVF cycle, we would likely grow all embryos to day 5 and do genetic testing on them to be sure we were only transferring genetically healthy embryos.
Dr. Tran, when going over everything with us, has expressed that he still just thinks that the failures are "bad luck" in terms of the coin flip of success or failure in this process and not an implantation or embryo quality problem. Each cycle will tell us more and give us a better idea of if that is true or not.
The only other thing worth pointing out is that my lower back still hurts quite terribly from the injections that I haven't done in almost two months. So, that pretty much sucks. I expect it will hurt for a long long time, and it's not going to get better when I have to start doing those injections again in about a month.
I can post my calender for this cycle like I have in the past? Should I? Do people care?
I will try to post more often now, especially now that we're gearing up! I do love that so many people read this and care about the process. I just needed a little break....
Oh! And for Valentine's Day, I give you a little bit of Mr. Greg Dulli.
So, my beta test confirmed what the home pregnancy test told us, of which I had no doubts. Now I am just hanging out, getting ready to go on a lovely vacation, and waiting for my back/butt to finally feel a bit better. Oh yeah, and I'm also busy turning 37 today!
In the meantime, here are the answers to your "Dear Boy" questions. If anyone feels like they missed out and wants to ask him more questions or follow-up questions, I'm sure he'd be happy to answer them.
Dear Boy: I have heard from the super awesome alterna-famousish girl you're with that you are in many ways the solid positive anchor in the process. Can you explain how you do it? What's your theory (or perhaps secret)?
I kind of do it out of necessity. There's a few layers of it. First of all the traditional patriarchal "I am the man so I am the strong one" expectation that in spite of all our radical politics I think continues to exist in some form. But mostly somebody's got to do it and Sharon's the one being filled with hormones and poked and prodded, so really it's up to me.
Sometimes I fail to be the "positive anchor" because I'm in a bad mood or feeling selfish but I hope I've kept that to a minimum. It can be hard when I am upset about how it's all going because I sometimes feel that I can't go to Sharon with it. Any of my complaints pale in comparison to her physical or emotional experience.
The worst of it is probably that I end up turning down my emotions about the whole situation so that I can more effectively support Sharon through it. Sometimes she gets a bit of a numb bum and sometimes I get a bit of a numb heart.
I know it's totally open-ended, but I'm curious as to what his role is in all of your health stuff. So he has to inject you in the bum, right? But do you do the belly stuff? and aside from that, does he come to every single appointment. or does he decide which to attend?
Until the progesterone shots Sharon was unwilling to let me anywhere near her with a needle. Until this cycle I've had an entirely non-medical role. Part of my role has been to "worry about the money stuff" which means shutting up about my frustrations with American's inefficient healthcare system and taking a new job that has some fertility coverage.
As far as appointments I come to all of the "important" ones - where we're talking with a doctor, or there's something more surgical going on (egg retrieval, embryo transfer). I think I've made it to basically all of our appointments this cycle and most of our appointments last cycle. Now that my work is an hour's drive the other direction it's fairly inconvenient to go to UCSF but I've managed to. When we were in the IUI study there were a lot of appointments that were merely a blood draw - I missed a lot of those because there wasn't a whole lot for me to provide.
For decision making so far we've been lucky enough to agree on basically everything. For things that affect Sharon's body (basically everything medical in this process) I feel like she has a veto, but for everything else I feel that we need to come to compromise or consensus.
How do you stay connected to/engaged in the process?
As I said in an earlier answer, I end up disengaging to some extent to be able to provide support. I'm not a writer and less into sharing my personal feelings on the Internet.
I have found that having a job this cycle (injection PIO) has made me a lot more aware of the rest of the stuff that Sharon is doing (synthroid, patches, etc.)
I have a few vices. Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk are not them.
My song would be more like, "Too much coffee and some red wine..." Which I have continued to enjoy during this two week wait. I think I'm in a lot more denial this time than I was during my last cycle. Last night Ian and I were trying to decide when to take the home pregnancy test (you may remember this discussion from last time) and I was just like, "I DON'T WANNNNNA!!!" whine whine whine. It's so funny, because I see so many women who are basically addicted to peeing on sticks, and I am so the opposite. I think there must be two camps of us inftertiles, those for whom the testing makes them feel in control, and those for whom it doesn't. This time more than ever, I just don't want to test. In the end, I think we may do it tonight, first morning urine be damned. If I'm pregnant, it should show up even tonight because I'm at 13dp3dt, which is a solid 2 days past when my period would be due if I wasn't on progesterone, and I have good early response tests. That seemed less unpleasant to me than doing it either this morning or tomorrow morning before my blood test. I think I just don't want to find out and then go to work, maybe?
Anyhow, back to my vices. I think it's worth noting that I've continued to drink more than 1 cup of coffee most days and have enjoyed three, yes three, glasses of wine so far during these two week proving that I'm at least doing a great job of convincing myself that I don't care. Or maybe, more accurately, I'm telling myself that I can drink wine and coffee because of course I'm not pregnant and this cycle hasn't worked in secret superstitious hope that this means I *am* pregnant and am just being a little bit naughty this time. Cause being super good and uptight didn't do me any good last time. Who knows.
In the meantime, I continue to have on and off cramping, which each time it happens make me even more sure that I am not pregnant, in spite of the knowledge that many many women have cramping in early pregnancy, AND that the PIO causes cramping. It just feels EXACTLY THE SAME as every other cycle. So, I can't do anything other than assume EXACTLY THE SAME outcome. I don't have any other symptoms. None. No nausea, no sore boobs, no zits, nothing. Ya know, other than that giant ache of a rear end/lower back that follows me everywhere I go. But that's not so much a symptom as an expected outcome of sticking giant needles in your body daily.
I have really successfully avoided googling this time. I've, once or twice, done the ol' 6dp3dt style googling, but it has been totally unsatisfying. At this point I know everything the Internet says, and it does nothing to reassure me anymore. I think I'm just hitting the point of being far enough along in this process that I likely won't really believe I am capable of being pregnant and becoming a mother until I am holding a baby. My own baby. (Sorry other babies - I do still like holding you all, though, babies of the world).
So, that's me today. Ian is, I swear, working on answers to his questions. I really hope to get them up before we leave for Switzerland on Saturday. If not, then in the new year.
See what I did up there? Clever, eh? What with the Progesterone in Oil injections being a Pain in the Ass, literally and figuratively??
Um, anyhow.
Not a whole lot to report around here, except that these shots suck a lot. At first I felt like they weren't as bad as I had expected, because the actual needle going in, in spite of its giant size, is fast and not the most horrific thing ever. Even after just a couple of days, though, I started to feel like I was wrong. The more time that passes, the more the pain builds up and the harder they are. Now we are two weeks in and I'm just so so so sore. There are parts of me that I can barely touch. There are parts that when I walk, or we go over a bump in the car, just scream with pain. There are parts of my flesh that are now numb to the touch. (Yeah, I called the nurse about that one. Good news? It happens relatively often and probably just means we nicked a small nerve. Bad news? While I *should* eventually get the feeling back in my flesh in that region of my posterior, there is no telling how long it might take.) There are parts with lumps and knots of the oil balled up. There are parts where my muscle just feels sore (like your arm after an injection). Every night, regardless of what pain I'm already feeling, we have to inject again. I just lay there and breath deeply and close my eyes and Ian makes it as easy as possible. Sometimes I barely feel it. Sometimes it hurts a lot. A couple of nights ago it hurt in a new scary way and when the needle came out, blood poured out, running down my side and staining our sheets. Ian always checks for blood by pulling back on the plunger once the needle is in before injecting the PIO, so we know he didn't inject into a vein, but clearly the needle must have passed through one on the way down.
It's not fun at all, and every night I sort of can't believe I am actually doing this every night. In goes the needle, massage massage massage goes Ian on the spot, heat pad for a couple minutes and then I have to get back up and get on with my life. But, ya know...what else can I do? I have to do it. So I do it.
So, yeah. Fuck you, Progesterone in Oil! Fuck you big time!
Otherwise, I'm doing OK. I have made it past the first week of the two week wait with minimal emotional torture, comparatively I haven't had any symptoms of anything, other than some crampyness and I'm still really delightfully distracted by my new job. I mean, listen, don't get me wrong, I am still thinking about this every second of every day. But at least this time it's not the *only* thing I can focus on every second of every day. It can all share some space in my brain with other things, like holidays and work and my upcoming birthday and travel and...
Ian will answer his Dear Boy questions very soon, I hope.
I'll find out if I'm pregnant or not on Wednesday.
If I start to go insane, which I might, I'm sure I'll post more between now and then.
Time passes differently for me than it used to. I am sure this is the same for many people dealing with infertility, and even for people just trying to conceive who haven't hit major obstacles. Our version is just extreme. I think of almost every date in terms of baby-making and how it hasn't happened yet. Each significant date is a reminder of how much time this has been going on for me and how I am still not sure when it will end. Today is 12-12-12, which would be an awesome day for a baby to be born, or so I hear as people on my various social networks have kindly pointed out over the last weeks to the very pregnant women also on these networks. You know what that does for me? It makes me remember how excited I was when I realized that my ovulation schedule was timed perfectly for a potential due date of 11-11-11 if I had gotten pregnant that month. I, of course, didn't. Nor did I the next month. Not only did I not have an 11-11-11 baby, but I did not have an 11-11-11 pregnancy. Now it's already 12-12-12. Still not a mom.
For a long time I thought of events in terms of "if I have a baby then..., If I am pregnant then...., and if we are still trying then..." Commitments to professional committees that require conference attendance, holidays that I like to travel for, potential visits from friends or family in the distant future, new job opportunities, even things like needed dental work... all fair game for that way of thinking. It just seemed like I needed to plan my life that way because everything was so up in the air. These days, I don't. After two Thanksgivings have now passed by when I had wasted time during the previous year planning for them in that "if i..." way, I no longer bother. Sometimes I catch myself going there, but I've definitely put up a wall on that genre of thought. Now I just live acutely aware of the passage of time, and the lack of need, so far, for me to plan my life around the major events of pregnancy, childbirth and new motherhood.
