Public, Private, or somewhere in between?

Our pregnancy is not yet public knowledge (even though husband is having a VERY difficult time keeping his mouth shut!). I am hesitant to let everyone know for a variety of reasons, mostly from a fear of miscarriage or something going wrong.  Our ultrasound at 6 weeks was completely normal.  The baby is measuring at the right size, we saw the heartbeat that was going to town at 129 bpm!  It was so wonderful to see it.  It is so hard to put all of our different emotions into words.  There really is something in there!

Because of our means of pregnancy, we'll get another ultrasound at 9 weeks with our RE.  If all is well, I will "graduate" to my local OB and get a third ultrasound at 12 weeks.  One of the perks of infertility: multiple ultrasounds of baby!  It almost makes up for all of the vaginal ultrasounds during treatments!

When one is in the throes of infertility, the end game is a pregnancy or at least a child to love.  The end justifies the means - whether that's adoption, IUI, IVF, or through the use of donors - to name a few.  Often, however, everyone (at least the fertiles of the world and even me) forget what the ramifications of infertility is once a child has come into the picture.  There is an impact on the parents, the child, and the child's world.  Fertiles would have me believe that once I have my kid, infertility is a problem of the past. No one needs to know the difficulties we had to overcome to have this child, do they?

Unfortunately, I know that infertility will always be with me, one way or another.  In particular, my current pregnant state is definitely not the end of our story. It will not be a secret that we used a donor to bring our child into this world. The choice to use a donor was a difficult one. It is one that we both continue to struggle with - in particular for my husband. As any man would, he really wants to pass down his genetic charms. And with this pregnacy, it proved that I am able to get pregnant and that most of our infertility struggles truly were male factor. He has said more than once that this is a bittersweet time for him. He is so happy that we are pregnant, but so sad that it couldn't be with his sperm.

We are choosing that we will be up front with our child regarding their biological heritage.   It is not a disgrace, but I believe, a pregnancy by the grace of God.  However, this honesty about biology is like walking a tight rope. I want my future child to feel comfortable with his/her scenario and to know that it is completly "normal" for us and for him/her.  But, I also don't want to emphasize the genetics as to hurt my husband's feelings.  Then, if my child talks about it during the course of their upbringing, certain others would need to know, too.  Like doctors and teachers and friends.

But even before this child is born, do we mention biology in the course of our pregnancy announcements and talks? Of course, we will with our doctors and medical personnel, but do we talk about it with anyone and everyone? How up front should we be?  How up front do we have to be? Some know we went through infertility treatments, others do not. Even less know that we chose the donor route - mostly just close friends and relatives.  Even in the midst of extreme happiness at being pregnant, these are the questions that are constantly on our mind as we approach making this whole thing public.

Lamb or Lion?

What do they say about the weather in March?  In like a lion, and out like a lamb?  Or vice versa.  In like a lamb, and out like a lion?  I'm not sure which one is more accurate for my situation, but I started out the month peeing on a stick, waiting for a positive sign of ovulation, and not pregnant.  And I've ended the month peeing on a stick, waiting for a positive sign of pregnancy, and...I actually am pregnant!  I've waited a very long time to say that and to see and/or post a picture like this:

I was SO convinced that this cycle of donor insemination would not work.  I didn't allow myself to think it would work.  I didn't blog about it and I didn't talk about it with anyone except my mother (and husband, of course).  I was already planning on my next cycle and next vial purchase and counting the days to my next potential ovulation date.  On my work vacation in Las Vegas, I brought my usual stash of pads and tampons in preparation for aunt flo and one lonely digital test.  And lo and behold, for the first time in literally 20 years, I did not get my period and did not need my arsenal of personal hygiene products.

We had been in Vegas for one night. I wanted to be able to drink during my workation, so I decided to take the test a day early on St. Patrick's day.  I had to pee at about 6 am, so I figured I might as well get this over with.  I peed, tested, and barely got my pants up before the 'Pregnant' popped up on the digital. I guess my plan of having drinks over the next few days was not meant to be.  Happy St. Patrick's Day to us! 

I walked out of the bathroom in a state of shock, and just stood at the foot of the hotel room bed where my husband half-slept.  "What?!" he said.  I mumbled that "it's Positive!" and then broke down crying.  I still couldn't believe it.  We texted our parents and over the course of the next day or two we talked to a few family and friends - but were majorly hesitant to spread the word too much.

Then, the battery ran out on the digital test by late the next day.  I could no longer pick it up and read it over and over again.  So, two days after the initial test, we stopped at the Walgreens on Las Vegas Boulevard after seeing the fountains at the Bellagio to buy more pregancy tests! It was mildly embarrassing and DH made sure to comment on it as we walked through the aisles and went through the checkout!  So that night, positive picture #2 was born:

DH wanted to watch this one turn positive himself.  And sure enough it did, and quickly!  Because we were out of town, we couldn't get to the doctor for a blood test, so we waited over a week until Monday, 03/25.  That, too, was positive and my progesterone levels were great.  They look for over 15, and my number was 29.  Overachiever!  So, now, I am pregnant.  I am pregnant! I am pregnant!! The 6 week ultrasound is scheduled with my RE for next Thursday, 04/04.

Day 21

It has been 3 weeks!  I've peed on a stick (at work, no less) something like 12 days in a row and spend close to $100 in tests.  I was expecting a positive ovulation prediction of my LH surge on day 12-14, but instead, it didn't happen until day 20, on a Saturday morning!  This is really late and could almost be considered "late ovulation".  I haven't charted or tested my ovulation dates since 2008.  Why would I?  So, I'm not sure if this situation is "normal" for me, or if we picked the wrong cycle to go through this.

I contacted the doctor's office.  My usual RE is out of town.  The backup doc is from San Antonio and knows nothing of me or our situation, but he asked me if I wanted to wait until another cycle to go through with the IUIs because my positive OPK was so late.  Ugh.  No.  I don't want to wait. any. longer.  So what if this is not an optimal cycle?  It probably won't work anyway (pessimistic, I know).  So what if this is a waste of about $2,000?  If we don't do it, and they test my progesterone and I am still considered "normal", I may have wasted yet another cycle.  So, we threw the dice and it's done.

But now I worry.  Maybe this won't work (again) because my eggs are low quality.  Maybe I'm the problem.  Maybe we not only have male factor infertility, but female factor, too.  Maybe my polyps have returned.  Maybe I'm not ovulating on time.  Maybe my lining is not nice and thick without the aid of fertility drugs.  Maybe if I sneeze or poop too hard, this won't work.  I had coffee this morning and am drinking a diet soda now.  Is that bad?

Of course, this all occurs over the weekend that DH is out of town.  So alone I drove eaat 6 a.m. today (Day 21) and alone I waited and alone I was inseminated with Marky Mark's funky bunch. As a compromise, DH will join me tomorrow (Day 22) as I'm inseminated a second time.  I think it is important that he join me - even though he wouldn't have to.  I want him to feel as much a part of this as I am.  We may not be using his sperm to conceive, but we made this decision together and are in this together.

Day 1

The one month I want my period to come quickly and it comes about two days later than normal!  Ugh.  Today is finally, officially, Day 1 of this fateful cycle.  In anticipation, we've already ordered our two vials ($1,100)...husband calls them marky mark and the funky bunch!  And they were shipped today ($220) overnight to be delivered to our clinic tomorrow.  We're ready to go.  Next week, I'll start peeing on a stick to figure out when my LH surges.

Last week, my co-worker announced she is 15 weeks pregnant with #2.  Due in early August.  Why can't she announce these things when I'm NOT in the middle of a treatment cycle?  Like, say, the last 9 months?  Ai-yi-yi.  Oh, well.

Unlike husband, I'm not telling ANYONE about this project of ours.  I have only told my mom - but only because she asked.  I haven't told my closest friends and I've even made this blog private over the last few months.  I haven't told anyone at work about what we're up to, either.  I just don't feel up to witnessing the disappointment from others.  I know everyone is supportive of us, but it is even more heartbreaking for me when others know our pain or express their disappointment for us when it doesn't work.  I have very low expectations. 

Only a handful of co-workers (ok, only two) know about our infertility anyway - at least directly.  I'm sure more suspect or even know about it via other means.  No one asks me about when I'm having kids anymore.  But, hey, they don't tell me when they are going to have sex to try to make a baby, so even if they know about our infertility struggles, why should I tell them when I'm going to be inseminated?  None of anybody's business!  I'm just trying to figure out a good lie to tell them why I have to be out of the office (potentially) two half-days in a row for insemination. My brother will be in town from AZ that week, so he (and my cute, little niece) may have to be my little white lie!

How to Choose

As much as I want to move forward with donor insemination, I am holding back.  I'm allowing Husband time to grow to the idea and to take somewhat of a lead or at least make the first move.  This is a big decision and I don't want him to ever feel bad about doing this.  Once the deed is done, it's a little too late.  If he is at all uncomfortable with this, we won't do it.  Period.  So, I hadn't done any searching until Husband came home from work with a post-it note.  The note listed his 5 requirements of a donor: Blue eyes, Brown Hair, White, Greater than 6' tall, and less than 200 pounds.  Without saying it out loud, this was his way of telling me that we're really doing this.

I've never had the privilege of online dating, but I would suspect that searching for a donor baby daddy is not all that different.  Basically, we want a donor that has similar features and attributes as my husband. But, is it so wrong that we can look for a few "extra" qualities that he doesn't have? For example, 20/20 vision would be awesome. And if the donor has a high GPA and a college or master's degree? Well, why not a professional athlete that likes body building? And, I can tell you that husband hasn't been under 200 pounds in years!  Those qualities in a donor can't hurt, can they?!

So, I went to the website and registered as a user. I can search for donors for free (at Level I) based upon basic criteria, but if I want more detail, I have to purchase a donor information subscription.  I can pay $145 for 90 days of Level II access.  That gets me a childhood picture and an extended profile.  If I want even more personality tests, facial feature reports, and conversations with the donor, I have to pay $250 of Level III access.  If I get pregnant, I can pay the subscription fee (if I haven't already) to get a Donor Keepsake Packet. 

For now, I'm going Level I only. At first, DH wanted to see pictures, but after realizing that can't really help too much, we decided to wait to get that info. There are 427 total donors on the website.  I plugged in the criteria one by one.  We want tall kids, so the 6 foot height criteria dropped the donor count to 172. Blue Eye color dropped it down to 44.  Brown Hair color and Caucasion ethnicity dropped it down to 25.  I also could filter by blood type, hair texture, education level, religion, ancestry, and even celebrity look-a-likes! 

Some people prefer a certain blood type, too - especially those that are keeping the donation a secret from everyone, including the future child.  This is so if the child ever does the blood-typing exercise in science class, they won't accidentally find out that their father could not possibly be their biological father.  In our situation, we know we will be open and honest about this with those close to us - and especially with the child (of course, how this will be communicated is yet to be determined).  But anyway, I decided to start with the 25 donors, and ignore the blood type as a factor in our decision. 

After a few hours of browsing and playing with the filters, I narrowed it down to my 6 "favorites". I'm surprised at how young these guys are.  Most, if not all, are younger than me.  They were all born in the mid to late 1980's.  Also, their profiles are often filled out more than 2 years ago.  Among my initial favorites, I picked out a lawyer with a "strong jaw line", a baseball playing Mark Wahlberg look-a-like, a Catholic with a 29 ACT score, and a guy that likes fruit smoothies and wants to start a farm in Hawaii!  How to choose?

As an important decision as this may be, it took husband all of 20 minutes to make a decision from the six I chose.  I was shocked as I was expecting the analysis paralysis that I had experienced.  His quick decision was the "Smiling Athlete", the baseball playing (semi-pro) Mark Wahlberg look-a-like.  He liked the physical attributes, the "athlete" quality, and that the donor is described as laid back with a joking attitude.  I don't disagree, so #13521, you're it!

A New (and Old) Process

So how does this process of using donor sperm through insemination work, exactly?  Frankly, I get the premise.  I mean, we have done 9 IUI's, thank you very much! Just trade husband's spunk for stranger's spunk.  And we're done, right?  Yes, that is true, but it becomes a little more complicated.  This time around, I have to pay close attention to my cycle and ovulations on my own - again.  I haven't done that in 6 years!  This is now a natural process for us (sort of).  No drugs!  No clomid, no injections.  You don't know how happy that makes me.  I just pee on a stick every day and when the LH surges, call for an insemination appointment.  The RE's procedure in this case is to inseminate two days in a row.  The doctor's office pre-washes the thawed out stranger's spunk before placing it in the proper place inside me.  Then, we hope for the best.  We would do this 3 or 4 months in a row before a change in donor or an uptick in drugs (like clomid) would be called for.

I just had my period last week on January 13th, so we have until my next period (approximately, February 9th)  to make a decision on a sperm bank and a sperm donor.  We would place our order with the sperm bank for 2 vials and call the doctor's office.  The doctor sends documentation to the sperm bank and then the sperm bank ships the little purchased swimmers to the office in time for insemination after my LH surges (around February 21st). 

The RE's office does not promote or endorse any specific sperm bank. However, the nurse had a personal vote for the California Cryobank, because their website was user friendly and they haven't had any problems with them medically.  They gave us a fancy brochure and after checking the website (and the costs), I realize we have entered a whole new world of a multi-billion dollar industry.  It is scary and a bit overwhelming. 

A New Path

If Husband had his way, we would keep doing IVF until we were financially destitute, I was poked with so many holes that I spring leaks, and until it worked - at least once.  As for me, I'm done.  At least for now. We can no longer do this financially, and we can no longer do this for my sanity.  Everytime I think of our many failed attempts, I can't help but tear up at the thought of feeling sorry for us and the thought of getting our hopes so high just to come crashing down to earth each and every time.

So here we are.   After almost 10 months since our last failed attempt, we visited with our RE this week. We wanted to talk about what happened, what went wrong last year, and where do we go from here. As usual when we are at the office, husband seems to clam up and become very quiet (which is much out of his usual character).  I'm stuck taking charge, asking the questions, and directing the meeting.

We rehashed that we have done 9 IUIs, 3 fresh cycles of IVF and, 1 FET over the last [gasp!] 6 years.  We had some modem of success with the last two attempts because we actually had 2 embryos to transfer each time.  However, the end result has been the same.  No pregnancies.  Nada.  The RE had no real answers for us except to indicate possible chromosomal abnormalities or birth defects that may have caused the embryos not to take.  But that is just a theory.  There was nothing that they could see at the time that would have made them think it couldn't work.  Boy, we've heard that before.

So, I steered the conversation to the future, to our [my] thoughts on donor sperm and what the RE thought about it.  He talked for awhile about other people in similar situations and those that miraculously get pregnant on their own after a donor baby.  I hate that, but I'm sure he could feel husband's animosity toward the thought of donor sperm, and he was trying to make him feel better about it.  Bottom line, the use of donor sperm is less invasive, less expensive, an may be more successful.  The RE thought it was a good route to take for us.  The babies still come out super cute.  He also mentioned that we could do IVF again in the future, if we so decided.  That seemed to make DH feel a little better.  But, still, the ride home was mostly quiet as we both were thinking about what this path would mean; for us, for our families, for others, for our future child.  How would we handle this?  How will others react?  How will this decision play out?

Time Flies When You're NOT thinking about Infertility

Wow! How long has it been since I last posted here?  A pretty long time.  I even started writing this post in October...but now it is January.  My last post 7 months ago, in May, I was just coming down from a crappy bout of infertility treatments.  Since then, a whole summer and a majority all of the autumn AND Christmas season has passed us by.  And where does the time go?  So what did I do with myself?  A few things:

• As most of us experienced, the summer was hot and dry. And for me, devoid of any and all thoughts of infertility (at least for the most part).
• I turned 32.  Yup, 32.  Another birthday.  Husband turned 35.  Yup, 35.  Our biological clocks are ticking, but in our case, they probably were never really ticking to begin with!
• I agreed to teach a second Masters level class online on top of my full-time job in the fall.  What else am I going to do with myself?  There's only so many good TV shows and at least I can get a little extra pocket money...
• After working together [very closely] for over 7 years, my dear friend and co-worker retired. I miss her.
• I applied for a different position within my company in another state.  After 2 months of waiting, I found out I didn't get it. 
• I battled my insurance company for access to the preferred provider discounting after hitting the infertility max for the year. And I lost on appeal. Twice.  Still working on that one.  Finally appealed to our parent company, and got nowhere.  I give up.
• We're getting ready to go We went to Atlanta.  Sight-seeing, a Sunday night football game, and time with my brother-in-law's family in Alabama.  I need another vacation already!
• Halloween - I dressed up as a 20's flapper.  After first agreeing to be a mobster, Husband changed his mind and to be funny, dressed up as an injured Iowa Hawkeye's football player.  That's only funny if you know about college football and you're NOT an Iowa fan.  Husband thought it was hilarious. 
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas and new thoughts on babies (or lack there of).  I have a dream where I am having an ultrasound on my swollen, pregnant belly.  I am so happy [in my dream].
• New Year's and new thoughts on babies (or lack there of). But we still don't want to talk about it.  With others, to each other, or even with ourselves. We're not ready for adoption and can't handle another IVF (emotionally or financially).  What to do?

And so, 2013 brings on new hope as most new years tend to do.  So we've made an appointment for later in January to finally have our WTF discussion with our RE: 9 months later. Ah, what will the new year bring us?

La Dee Dah

I'm back to my once-per-month posting...I gotta get at least one in for the month of May!

Again, there is nothing much to report in infertility land.  I have submitted an appeal with my insurance company to try to get them to apply the provider discounting to my claims above and beyond my annual infertility limit.  This effort may be in vain, but at least I'm trying.  If they (or my doctor) decide to actually apply the network discounting, we may try to do donor sperm IUI this year, upon finally speaking with the doctor.  If not (which is most probable), we will most likely wait for 2013 before doing anymore medical interventions, when our infertility limit starts over for the year.  At that point, I still don't know if we'll do IVF again.  I hesitate because if another round of IVF doesn't work, we'll be in the same predicament we are right now.  Rinse and Repeat.  I've suggested we start the process for adoption in the meantime, but DH is not quite on board with that option.  I dread having to do more medical stuff, but we gotta do what we gotta do, I guess.  So, as of right now, we are doing absolutely nothing.

My trip to Arizona to visit my brother's family and to take care of their 7 month old daughter was great.  My little niece is adorable (and don't take my word for it - just see her picture!) and a very good baby - so easy to take care of (in general).  She's on the move, army crawling all over the place, putting anything and everything in her mouth that she shouldn't, and getting plenty of pool-time!  I only teared up a couple of times when my thoughts wandered too far into our hopeless situation.  But otherwise, it was wonderful to spend time with her and my sister-in-law.  Still, I was grateful to get home to my self-absorbed life with my dogs and DH.

While on vacation in AZ, I got an email that the girl I hired as an intern about 5 years ago and now works closely with my department is pregnant.  Not only that, but with twins!  She's only 9 weeks along and is telling people - I just pray that it doesn't backfire for her.  She is already showing, though.  I don't know her situation first hand, but I would put money on it that it was the result of infertility treatment of some sort.  Of course, infertility being what it is, we just don't talk about it. I find myself avoiding seeing her at work or talking about her pregnancy. Again, I'm struggling with conflicting emotions of happiness for her and sadness for me. 

As a way to rebel against the fates that have left me childless, I bought a cute car bumper sticker/magnet in the Denver Airport.  It is in the shape of a paw print and says, "My kids BARK".  Funny, right?!  There - I'm making everyone think I'm childless by choice.  Maybe if I put that out there enough, I'll start to accept it for myself.

Per Usual...

I've been going about my life per usual.  Nothing new and nothing to report.  We haven't met with the doctor yet.  I don't really feel like paying $200 for an office visit for him to tell us that he isn't sure why the IVF and FET didn't take.  As for our next steps, I'm blissfully ignoring our next steps (or as blissful that I can be about this) .  Frankly, we plain just can't afford much of anything.  We've hit our limits, both for insurance and finances and also emotionally (at least for me).  And that's ok.  I'm not sure if we'll do anything this year or not.  And if we do, I'm not even sure what that will be.  DH is talking donor sperm over adoption.  I'm just enjoying NOT going to the doctor or being on any drugs right now.  (Even though I am still faithfully taking pre-natal vitamins every day - I'm sure I have way more folic acid then one person needs...!)

Last week someone vandalized our car.  Our car was parked in the street last Sunday night (which it never is) and someone came by and smashed the side mirror of our car and about 7 other cars on our street at about 3:30 in the morning.  How senseless.  And just one more thing we have to take care of.  We got it fixed (but none of the scratches) and actually came out ahead on the insurance payment.  So that's nice.  DH wants to use the little extra money to visit his brother this fall to go to an Atlanta Falcons football game.  We should use it to pay doctors bills.  But, I agreed to the trip anyway.  Why not?  It will be fun to go.

My brother offered to pay for half of my plane ticket to come out to Arizona to visit in a couple of weeks.  While he is out of town for work, I'll be their day care provider for their 7 month old for one week.  I'm excited for the repreive from work, for spending time with my sister-in-law and my adorable niece, and of course, the Arizona weather and the pool!  Spending so much time with my little niece will either make me want my own baby even more, or it will make me grateful for not having to take care of a little one 24/7.  Probably both.  In any case, I'm looking forward to the trip.

Still Not Pregnant

In case you were wondering, our prayers were not answered, our hearts have broken a little bit more, and our arms will still be empty for the foreseeable future (luckily, however, my lap is still full of dogs).  For our 13th assisted reproduction cycle (9 IUIs, 3 fresh IVF, and 1 FET), the home pregnancy test was negative yesterday.  I shouldn't be surprised...and I'm not, really.  But I've just kept up this little bit of hope for the past 5 years.  But, I really don't think I can anymore.

My alarm clock went off at 6:45. I peed on the stick, set it down on the bathroom sink, and then ran into the bedroom to wait the required 2 minutes or so.  My dreams the night before had foreshadowed the result.  My husband's dreams were more positive.  We walked into the bathroom together to see the negative result together.  Crap.  Then, I peed on another stick.  Double crap.

Regardless of the result, we had planned on taking the morning off of work - in the off chance we would get a positive result and drive to the clinic.  But instead, the rest of the morning, we wavered between despair, hope, the Price is Right, anger, and several bouts of crying (at least on my part).  We called the doctor's office and after waiting for a call back for almost 2 hours, the nurse, although sympathetic, still wanted me to at least go into my local hospital for a blood test to 'make it official'.  We said that we would like to get the doctor's take on everything, and she said that we would need to make an office appointment or schedule a phone consult.  Do we really need to schedule another 1/2 day off of work for this crap? We couldn't deal with that at the time.  We said we'd call back to schedule.   I started crying before I even hung up the phone.

No one can tell us what our real problem is. No one can give us the answer to the 'whys'. There's nothing to do. It is what it is, and unfortunately, we just have to deal with it. We talked about the next steps.  What do we do now?  Maybe we just won't have kids (more crying).  Not really what we want, but what do we do?  I've said before I'm done with IVF.  It sucks, it's expensive, and my heart can't take it.  In my mind, adoption has always been a far out and just as expensive option as IVF.  It has been the option of last resort, or the result of our big-fat failures. It's what 'quitters' do.  Now, I'm thinking a little differently now and it might be the only way.  DH is not entirely on board with it yet.  We talked about donor sperm.  But that, also, would involve doctors and insurance.  And who's to say that it will work the first, second, third time?  There are no guarantees.  If I'm part of the problem, then donor sperm won't matter either.  How many more negative pregnancy tests can one person take?  Unfortunately, we have reached our infertility insurance coverage for the year (as grateful as I am to have at least a little something), so anything that we do in 2012 would cost us full retail for all infertility related services (including a phone consult!)...so even if we went that route, we probably should wait until 2013.  Geesh.  It's only April.  I'm sick of waiting around for the next infertility treatment.  I'm getting very impatient.

After February's blood test at the hospital, I don't think I could deal with going there already 'knowing' the negative result and of the incompetent phlebotomist and nosy lab techs.  DH said I shouldn't have to go. So I didn't. I blew it off. I disobeyed the doctor's orders. Yes. I am a rebel. Then, like nothing life-altering has changed in my life, I went to work in the afternoon. I was glad that I had not told a soul that I work with, because as long as I pretend it isn't a problem and I don't think about it, I can hold it together.

Please Be Pregnant

Please be pregnant.  Please be pregnant.  Please be pregnant.

Those three little words have been chanting in my head over and over a little more intensely each day.  I have had no 'real' symptoms that I know of since our FET 11 days ago.  And we will not test until our test day - which is tomorrow, 04/11.

I dread tomorrow.  I can't wait for tomorrow.  I dread tomorrow.  I'm excited for tomorrow. 

I've been wobbling back and forth, but mostly have just been sick to my stomach about tomorrow (not in a pregnant-sick way, but in an anxious-and-I-hate-this kind of way.

Our clinic asked that we come in from out of town to pee in a cup and do the blood test rather than do it locally like we did with our fresh cycle.  They didn't say we should "pre-test" before hand like we did before.  So, do we make the 1.5 hour drive and go in blindly?  Then, if it's positive -yeah surprise!  But if it is negative - total meltdown by me - in public.  But at least we could have a "next steps" conversation at the clinic - maybe talk to the doctor.... On the other hand, if we pre-test at home in the morning, we would pretty much know, right?  If it's positive - we'll make the trip to get the blood test - all happy.  But, if it's negative, screw the trip - who cares right? And then meltdown in the privacy of my own home...Argh!  And people wonder why infertility sucks so much.

No matter what, we're waiting until tomorrow morning to find out.  An early test would probably just ruin our evening.  So we're going to have a "last supper" that we can enjoy tonight.  Probably pizza delivery!  Then a restless night (at least on my part) before tomorrow finally comes.  Argh again!

Please be pregnant.

No April Foolin'

This is no April fools'.  Our so-called 'crappy' embryos weren't so crappy after all.  Not only did we get to do a transfer on Friday, but we were able to transfer both remaining embryos.  Even better, they were graded an 'A' and a 'B'!  Over-achieving little buggers.  We didn't even transfer an 'A' during the fresh cycle, and these guys came from behind to transfer with a higher grade!  I don't want to put too much hope into this, as to not feel too disappointed in the end, but I have a good feeling about these ones.  And, for now, I'm pregnant with two buns in the oven.

Nerves: Highs and Lows

I've been on-edge all week.  Our frozen embryo transfer is scheduled for tomorrow morning.  I've wanted tomorrow to get here for the last 2 months.  Ever since we found out the fresh cycle was a big, fat failure.  We rush to get to tomorrow to find out if our two 'crappy' embryos come out of their freeze. I say 'crappy' because they weren't good enough to transfer the first time and weren't even supposed to survive the freezing process.  But they did.  And if they don't survive the thaw, we'll be crushed.  If they do, we'll be elated, but then will have to wait.  Another two weeks to find out if our last ditch effort at a pregnancy for biological children will work.  Either way, tomorrow will be aggravating - happy or sad.

This cycle has truly been 'easier' than a fresh cycle.  Fewer ultrasounds and trips to the clinic, no retrievals and anesthesia, and much less expensive drugs.  However, there were still shots (lupron), vaginal estrace inserts twice a day (fun!), and 3 estrogen patches covering my abdomen practically at all times, and now the progesterone shots.  My womb is nice and cushy - waiting for a nice little embryo baby to take up residency.  I've always had a rock-star uterine lining...how many people can say that?  How many people would actually KNOW that? I do!

Emotionally, this cycle is about the same - if not worse.  Still counting the days and waiting, waiting.  And I'll blame the drugs, as usual, for any mood swing or bout of crying.  I visited a friend that I haven't seen for probably 2 years.  I've known her since college and had worked with her very closely for years.  She knew nothing of our struggles and, of course, asked if we were going to have kids.  I immediately started crying. And. Couldn't. Stop.  It was embarrassing as I told our whole story through my tears.  Of course, she had no idea of what we had been going through and had encouraging words of hope for us.  Which also made me cry.  Then, I went to church for the first time in a long time.  And prayed.  And cried.  Also embarrassing trying to hide the crying in the church pew during a service.  With God, all things are possible, right?  I'm banking on it now.

Post Vacation

We had a great time on vacation!

Balcony beads in New Orleans!

We went to Graceland and I found my new car...

We drank a lot...

We ate a lot...

And it was really nice not to have to think about our infertility woes for at least a little while - except for the nightly lupron shot I had to try to remember to take for our first FET cycle this month...