My New Protocol!

It looks like a freaking breeze compared to my last one! I did the long lupron for IVF #1 and I ended up on lupron for six weeks and bcp for three because I didn't suppress correctly.

This is the breakdown of my IVF cycle and the cycle before:


Get period, start low dose steroid, have office monitor me until I ovulate
7-10 days of bcp starting after ovulation to synch hormones
Get period
Start stimming with Follistim on day 3
Add in menopour and granilex as needed
Trigger in the RE's office
Start on PIO on cottonseed oil, progest. supp, and Vivelle patches(jeez, that's a lot of hormones post ET)
1000 mg of Vitamin C starting today

And that's it! By a quick calculation I think I will have to do 60 less shots with this protocol then with my last since we aren't suppressing me with lupron. Woot woot.

I believe we are going to start suppressing not this cycle, but next. With my long ass cycles that will probably put us into September which is fine so we can enjoy the rest of our summer without having to worry about pinpointing my ovulation.

Everything is ordered, paid for, and will be sitting in our fridge for when we are ready for it.

Weekend Pics

Here are a few pics of my first visit to Ocean City, MD!

I tried to get a more centered view but it wasn't happening

Watch out for flying crabs!

Chris and I at Seacrets...we clean up pretty good for getting ready in the car

Saturday went from the day from hell to the best day of the summer. It was the morning from hell because it took us an extra 2.5(4.5 total) hours to get there. There was one minor accident on the way down but you know everyone needs to stop and look at it and then we simply could not find a parking spot. I will have to admit that I was thisclose to crying because I was so sore from sitting in the car and frusturated for such a large city having barely any parking. I told Chris at one point that he might as well just turn around and head back to Delaware. Another thing I didn't get about the city was the hotel/motel prices. They all look like dumps and they want close to $300 a night! Come on! I am not staying in a 1.5/2 star hotel for $269 a night. Priceline will be my friend I am hoping when we go down again at the end of August.

Once we found a spot and decided for sure we would drive home that night, the day went much smoother. I got a fake tattoo, we laid on the beach, and then we went to The Dough Roller for dinner. I can not comment on the pizza, but the sandwiches were just so-so which was disappointing. Chris and I then headed to Seacrets were we proceeded to get ready in the car, thank god for the sundress that I wore that day. Chris is always impressed that I can get changed without anyone seeing my bra and underwear. The cover for Seacrets was only $8 so I didn't think that was bad at all.

The bar looked exactly like something that you would see in Mexico. I felt like we were back on vacation while we were there. The beers weren't too expensive and in addition to a restaurant there was also a stand were you could get pizza and pretzels which is a plus if you are me and you drank too much too quickly. We had to leave the bar around 10:30 because my friend and her man came down and he couldn't get in because of his attire. Oh well!

Lets try this again

My IVF coordinator called me today and left me a mesasge telling me that she had our plan ready...but she has yet again lost our stim sheet from our first IVF and she needed me to fax it to her again. This is the 3rd time I have sent it to them. That's a bit ridiculous if you ask me.

Luckily, I still had the stim sheets from the last time she lost it at work so I faxed it right over to her. I left her a message telling her that our insurance screwed us and we have to put IVF off for a little while. I am hoping for a call back tomorrow to verify that she did get the sheets and when exactly to call again in my cycle when we are ready to do this again.

The rollercoaster of hormones I am on right now is out of control. One day I want nothing to do with anything baby related but then when she called me and told me there is a plan in place I got so excited. Ugh! I am hoping next cycle I will see everything more clearly without the crazy hormones ruling my emotions.

Chris and I did talk yesterday and I told him that we need some fun time. We had the best weekend last weekend! On Friday night we went to a friend's house and just talked around a fire until one in the morning. On Saturday we drove to Ocean City, MD, laid on the beach, grabbed dinner, and then went to Seacrets. What a freaking blast. I have been missing out on so much! I know I have been saying that a lot lately, but it really took having such a fun weekend to really see it for myself.

I am even more excited now that I know I can have fun again and when I am done we have a plan in place. I got another bill in today from the hospital itself so that's a bit more we will owe. I am hoping we will know in the next few weeks exactly what I will owe. I have to print the information out to apply for an appeal, but we all know how that usually goes.

Sometimes you just have to laugh

I checked Saturday's mail and in it is a wonderful bill from my ER visit from when I was pregnant this past time. My lovely insurance company is refusing to pay for my visit even though the RE is the one who sent me there since I hadn't kept anything down in over a week. So we will to pay a bill from the ER itself plus a bill from the doctors network. Sweet!

My insurance company has also not yet paid for my anesthesia from my last IVF which is a few grand.

Needless to say we won't be cycling again anytime soon until all of this crap is paid off and I don't feel like I have some sort of hex on me when it comes to all things pregnancy.

Best possible outcome!

I will have to admit I took a xanax before I went in to try and head off any major breakdowns I thought I may have. No breakdowns here...it was a chromosomal abnormality. Trisomy 17 to be exact and from what I have read it is, of course, an extremely rare abnormality. .2% of all miscarriages to be exact.
Everything else with the chromosomes was fine. No traslocations or other abnormalities as they were suspecting, or maybe in my hysterics I misunderstood what they meant by saying it was genetic. Who knows, and at this point who cares.
The RE feels that this pregnancy just further shows that our IVF protocol was all wrong. It sucks that we still are totally unexplained, but I am over the moon excited that genetically there is nothing wrong and there is no need to do PGD.
We will be cycling again in September, maybe even August. The RE mentioned he may want to use my recent pregnancy/hormones to our advantage, whatever that means and start as soon as I get my post d & e period.
The only thing that saddens me at this point is that I saw the sex on the report. I did not want to see the sex. It was a little girl:(

07/15/2009

Ah, the familiar pains of arthritis/fibro are now becoming my friend again. I had to skip my workout this morning because I felt like somone was sticking a knife into my hip over and over again. Also, if this mother fucking headache doesn't go away soon someone is going to get it. I thought it may have been hormone related since it started up right after my d & e, but I am starting to think its a tension headache.

My follow up is tomorrow, not today. I guess I got the dates wrong when I was scheduling it. I was pretty out of it that day so I wouldn't put it past me to get it wrong. I called the RE yesterday to make sure the testing results are in, and they are, but the nurse wasn't giving up any information so I have to wait...one more day. My mom and husband are nervous for me to go myself tomorrow. I think I will be ok to an extent. The news obviously is bad, IVF w/pgd will most likely be our only option. I get it. Ugh. We still have not come to a firm decision on to IVF again or not. I am sure we will end up doing it again this fall just because we don't have the money to adopt so beating up my mind and my body through IVF is the only viable option we have.

Chris has an ulcer he is so worried about where will we ever come up with 40k. We basically refuse to go back into debt so he feels like its all on him to get a higher paying job. Plus all he has heard are adoption horror stories so he is worried we are going to end up with a child like the one on the Orphange previews on tv. (she has supernatural powers and kills people) Nice.

Let's just recap the past year and a half for a minute...2 c/ps, 1 blighted ovum, 1 missed miscarriage, 1 miserabely failed IVF, finding out our problem is genetic(possibly), 2 vacations that we couldn't enjoy because of the miscarriages/failed IVF, skin cancer and 7 surgeries to remove it. Somethings gotta give, right?

Sexy Undies

That's what I bought myself today. I think the last time I bought anything remotely non-cotton may have been when I was in college. (I don't do thongs as I am super proned to UTIs) How did I lose this much of myself in the past 3 and a half years? Reflecting on what has been I came to realize I have completely forgotten how to appreciate my body. I have down on it for so long...pain issues, infertility, weight gain, ect. Well screw all of that, it's time for me to get back to embracing myself. Luckily, I kept off most of the 15 pounds I lost earlier this year and with a little more working out I should be back to my wedding weight in no time...and if I am not then I am sure I enjoyed whatever the hell food I ate to make me not lose.

Today is a good day and so was yesterday. On Wednesday my lovely boss asked me if I could get my fmla paperwork filled out for all of my future miscarriages so we wouldn't have to bother with the paperwork again. That's when I totally freaked out and said no more. Who the fuck says something like that to someone else? Am I that person that miscarries and does treatment so much it is bothering my boss. So I did what any hormonal person would do and got hysterical in my office and told everyone we would never do treatments again. So that in a nutshell is why I totally flipped out and wrote my last blog.

Priority number one for now besides having fun is finding a new job because I really can't take that whole situation much longer!

Decision has been made

Not to be a drama queen, but IF is ruining my life. It has taken the joy out of everything, how am I supposed to enjoy myself recovering from failed cycles and miscarriages? You can't, that is the answer.

I have been thinking and blogging more and more lately about stopping the madness. I tossed it at Chris a few times in the past few days and he said he is ok with whatever I decide. My decision is to give up, no my decision is to move on and start a new chapter. I don't think there is a single thing the doctor can say to make me want to do this again. I don't have it in me anymore. I hated being pregnant because I could not enjoy a second of it and I don't think that would ever go away. The aftermath of the miscarriage is even worse. My fibro is flaring and I have zero energy. It.is.awful. I hope our final appointment gives us some closure on why all of this happened and if there is any chance of it ever working I will stay off bcp and maybe it will. Or maybe it won't. I can't tell the future, all I know is that the past three and a half years of my life I have carried the question of "will this work" around in my head and when it doesn't comes the questions of "why not" and "why me." A part of me thinks we should have stopped after our last IVF but at least this last miscarriage showed us that our problem is genetic, although I am not sure exactly which genetic problem it is yet.

Imagining that there will never be a little Chris and Kate running around makes me sad, but me throwing away another few years of my life on something that most likely won't work makes me even sadder. I told Chris he could leave me but of course he said he never would and that I am important, not the future children we will never have.

So that's that in a nutshell. The new chapter will include adoption but we want to save up for it as opposed to taking out a loan so it will be years and years away unless one or both of us gets a higher paying job. For now, I am just going to plan our next vacation.

07/06/2009

The good news is that my arm is finally healing. I swear I am going to post all of my mole procedure pictures one of these days. Six of them look great, but the one on my forearm where the stitches were taken out too early still looks like hell on wheels. EVERYONE comments on it and it is getting annoying to say the least.

The other news is that I guess I am healing from the d&e. This weekend wasn't pretty, I was having awful pain in my lower abdomen. Going to the bathroom was absolute torture as was standing up. Luckily that part had died down and now the whole area just aches. No bleeding or spotting to speak of so that's a plus.

I have googled "pregnancy loss genetic issues" about a million times now and really never come up with much besides the balanced/unbalanced translocations. Everything else seems to be chromosomal, which from what I was told are just flukes. I have alredy been tested for everything on the rpl and all that came back with was one MTHFR mutuation which is not enough to cause any problems. Ten more days until we find out for sure what happened...

In other news, if 40k dropped into my lap I would never do IVF again and we would adopt. We could take out a loan, but a loan payment plus daycare would pretty much kill us financially. I have zero desire to do IVF again to just go through another miscarriage. Maybe I am just down on myself but I truly have zero faith in my body ever doing this correctly. I just read a post today on SAIF about how many of the women felt like it would never happen for them. So many of them had actual diagnosis' and I can't say that I felt more hopeful reading any of the posts. Maybe if we just knew what was wrong I would be a tad more optimistic. Having genetic issues just sounds frigging awful and I know that my IVF will have to go 100x better to even make PGD worth it. But at the end of the day we don't have the money, we do have insurance so I mind as well suck it dry. Well we would suck it dry, but I used up all of my sick time with the d&e. Fun times people, fun times.