On the ledge....

So today I went to get my hair cut. The girl who cuts my hair, Shannon, is awesome. Her mom and my mom are good friends and they were our neighbors in high school. Anyway, she asks me about being an aunt and stuff so I show off pictures of my beautiful niece, Ava. Then she starts to tell me about how she is going to be an aunt in April.....her brother's girlfriend is pregnant. Okay, whatever. Then she says, "How's IVF going for you?"

Umm...WHAT??? I'm struck dumb for a second. She asked me seven weeks ago (at my last appointment) if we were going to have kids and I said something along the lines of "hopefully" so she asked, "Are y'all trying?" So, I said "Yes." I didn't want to lie but I didn't go into the IVF details.

Back to the conversation today in the salon......so with my head in the sink I say something like, "It's going good. We're just waiting to see if it worked."
Shannon: Yeah. Your mom told my mom that y'all were doing IVF. So what exactly did they do?"

So I start explaining the IVF basics to Shannon and the hair wash girl in the middle of the salon while trying to control my anger. I'm livid with my mother. I cannot believe she told Shannon's mom. This means other hometown ladies know too. It also means that their daughters know......some of which are my age and while we've known each other since 6th grade we aren't close friends or anything.

WHAT THE HELL MOM???? She told the hometown people about my IVF?!?!!? I'm so frustrated and upset right now......for two reasons:
1) If this IVF doesn't work then how many gosh darn people am I going to have to explain that to?? JW and I prayed about it for weeks before sharing with our Life Group at church and there are other couples in our Life Group dealing with IF....one of them even did IVF and it was hard for us to share it with them. It is on thing to share your disappointment with your family and close friends but casual acquaintences?? Oh dear. I didn't even want to tell the people I work with that I see everyday and actually like!!!!
2) If this IVF does work than so many people will know we are pregnant right off the bat! This is so stressful to me because I know that nothing is guaranteed in this world.

I'm not embarrassed that we are doing IVF. I think that once we have a baby I won't have a problem telling people that yes we had trouble and yes our baby is a miracle.....but holy crap! I really didn't want the whole hometown knowing my business while it is going on!!!! This incident also makes me think that my mother has told our extended family which totally takes away some of the excitement of telling them we're pregnant if we are.....not to mention the fact that we wouldn't have wanted to tell them for a few weeks.

I know I'm probably being dramatic due to all the hormones coursing through my body right now (although JW was also angry when I told him).....but I'm just tired of other people airing our IF laundry out to the world. So here is the new rule:
You can know about our infertiliy and what we're doing about it IF I tell you face to face or you read my blog. If I know you in real life then you are NOT allowed to share my experience or information with ANYONE without my permission!!

Well, I was up on a ledge but now after venting I feel a little better so I'm going to get JW to massage my PIO injection areas and then I'm tucking my hormonal self into bed.

Triggering tonight...

We went in this morning for one more ultrasound with Dr. K. None of his staff come in on Saturdays so it was just him and us. He drew my blood and did an ultrasound. The follicles are looking good with about 10 total in the 15-20 range and most of them closer to 20. There are two that are 23 and 24mm but Dr. K said sometimes they don't get eggs out of the bigger ones.

Anyway, he told me to trigger tonight at 7:30pm and I almost fell off the table because I knew what was coming next: Egg Retrieval at 6:30 am on Monday morning!!! 6:30?? In the morning?? I'm not even up at that time on a work day. I'm not very good with mornings but I'm thinking that I'll be so nervous/excited that I won't have a problem getting up.

Part of me can't believe that we're even doing IVF and that all of this is real. So, keep your fingers crossed and say a little prayer for us on Monday morning!!

Here's the plan....

I went in for bloodwork and an ultrasound this morning. I showed my stomach to Dr. K because I have red blotches around my injection sites. I also told him that the repronex burns when I inject it.....so he said not to do the repronex anymore and that I could do two doses of Gonal-F instead.

But then he did the sonogram and saw what my ovaries were doing and said.....Actually do the Gonal-F tonight, the lurpon in the morning and then you should come back tomorrow and then we're probably going to be ready for retrieval on Monday. Holy cow! Monday!! I can't believe it. So I have an ultrasound again tomorrow and we're probably doing retrieval on Monday....woohoo!!

I'm excited and nervous all at the same time. I really want to stay focused on the Lord throughout this whole process. He is the one who holds our lives in his hands. We will have a family when His timing is right. I think it is easy to lose focus or to focus on the wrong things. I don't want to put my hope in medicine or my doctor. I want to put my hope in Jesus.

Holy Bruise, Batman!

Wow! I don't know what I did yesterday morning with that repronex shot but I have a huge bruise and it hurts!! The difficult thing is I can't give myself shots on that side of my belly button now because I can't pinch up the skin because of the bruise.

This morning's repronex went much better.....and I made JW take me out to breakfast at my favorite little breakfast place.



I did tote my Gonal-F to the Baylor game last night. I did the shot in the backseat of my brother in law's car while we were leaving the stadium. I was kind of nervous about it but I don't think anyone even noticed that I gave myself a shot....I'm just that smooth (at least with the pen....not so much with the repronex).

Update on our friends: All three of our friends' embryos survived the thaw and were transferred on Thursday afternoon. We're keeping our fingers and toes crossed for them to stick!

A pedicure, an appointment and the first day of school...

This morning I treated myself to a manicure and pedicure. It was great to sit in the massaging chair and relax. My toes and hands look great.

Then I had an appointment at Dr. K's office. I wonder if he noticed how good my feet looked in the stirrups.....JW came with me because I was having a hysteroscopy and then we were going to learn about all of our meds. (I'm still working on the picture.) Anyway, as they begin the procedure Dr. K tells JW that JW can stand up if he can't see the screen. JW said he was okay sitting and not seeing. So, Dr. K took a look and told me that my uterus looked "perfect" although in my opinion it was pretty gross looking. Of course I look away during most of the surgery scenes on Grey's though. I was really nervous about the hysteroscopy for some reason but I think the anticipation was worse than the procedure itself.

The weird thing about the appointment today was that there was different music playing in the office. Usually there is just instrumental music but today there was modern Christian music playing. It was kind of weird and unexpected since my RE is Jewish. Anyway, as we were waiting for the hysteroscopy my favorite Third Day song came on. I posted about the song a while back. Here is a link to that post: http://dancingwithinfertility.blogspot.com/2007/05/going-through-valley.html
(I can't remember how to make the link imbedded in a word) This helped me calm down a lot about the procedure. This song and laughing with my husband beforehand.

Then we met with the medical assistant and she went over all the medications I'll be injecting over the next few weeks. When we walked out of the office JW says, "I didn't understand why she was telling me everything at first and then I realized that I'd have to give you the shots." Priceless. In all the discussion about IVF I'm not sure how he missed that part!!

I also learned that I only have to do the progesterone in oil (PIO) shots until we get a positive beta and then I can switch to prometrium. I was so excited because sometimes the shots have to be continued for weeks and I was not looking forward to that.

Tomorrow is the first day of back for teachers. It is weird this year to be getting more prepared for tomorrow than for the actual first day with kids. Working in the office means that I'm making at least 3 presentations during inservice week and facilitating some small group meetings. Tomorrow is my big day. The Monday that the kids show up will be almost relaxing because I'll get to be in my office working.

So tonight I have to pick out a cute outfit to wear tomorrow....something that will go with open toe shoes so I can show off my pedicure.

Good thing I got that Google School of Medicine Degree

Yesterday I was skimming through a book about IVF. It was given to me by a friend and is very informative...although I already know most of the info from the internet.
Anyway, I noticed something in the Stage #1 of IVF chapter that mentioned a hysteroscopy and mock transfer. We had discussed doing IVF back in June but it was cancelled because of our insurance but I did recall that the nurse at the time initially scheduled a hysteroscopy. The current nurse hadn't said anything about this during our phone conversations. So, I called and left a message that went something like this:

"I was wondering if I needed to schedule a hysteroscopy at some point. Also, I have to use F.reedom Drug and my insurance company likes to fill Gonal-F not Follistim. Call me!"

So she called back today to say that oh yes I definitely needed a hysteroscopy and to call the scheduler and set it up. So I call the scheduler and she told me that I had to do it before CD 10....which is Friday!! This is very frustrating to me because I've been off of work all last week and Monday and Tuesday of this week but I have a workshop to go to Wednesday and Thursday.....plus I'm a little frustrated that I had to be the one to call and suggest this procedure. I set up the hysteroscopy for Thursday at noon.

Later the nurse called me back and said "Oh, it doesn't have to be done by CD 10. Monday will be fine." I mentioned the F.reedom Drug and Gonal-F business again and she seemed confused again. I have this sinking feeling that they are going to call it into the wrong place again and then act put out when I call to correct it......but maybe they'll prove me wrong.

A running theme throughout this process seems to be that as a patient you have to be an advocate for yourself. I just wish that doctor's offices would be on the ball enough so that I didn't feel like I had to be my own advocate quite so much.
I wonder what would have become of me without my internet resources. We would probably just be having sex and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.

Good thing I got that degree from the Google School of Medicine!!

Moving on up....

We got the call this afternoon that our beta was negative. IUI #3 with injectibles was a bust and we're moving on to IVF. Weirdly I'm totally okay. I'm disappointed but excited and ready to move on to IVF.
So now we're just waiting on Aunt Flo to arrive so I can start the birth control pill and we'll be on our way.....The nurse told me a ton of stuff when she called but it is all kind of a blur....I know step one is to call when my period starts and step two is to take the pill. I'll figure out the details and ask questions on that first call I guess.

I know that 6 months ago I never imagined that we'd be doing IVF because I didn't know our insurance covered it and we certainly couldn't afford it out of pocket.....but they do cover it and here we go!! Once AF arrives this will be the 24th cycle of trying to conceive....2 years down....hopefully not long to go!

Sushi and good friends.

Last night we went to eat sushi with our good friends, T & N. They had never had sushi before so it was exciting to see them trying different stuff and finding things they loved. The sushi place is less than 5 minutes from their house and I think they might be regulars after this!!

It was also a good night because they told us about their plans to do a FET in a few weeks. T has already started her medications and they are looking at the beginning of September for their transfer. I'm so excited. It made me happy to see that infertility had knocked them down but not out.

Let's get technical.

Yesterday for the 4th we spent some time with my family. First we went to my sister's house under the pretense that we were going to help them move some furniture because their baby crib was coming on the 5th.....she tricked us though and the crib was already set up. It's beautiful. Now all they need is a mattress and a baby....they are in the process of adopting domestically. I'm really excited because there is a good chance that they'll have a baby within the next few months and hopefully we'll get PG within the next few months which means the cousins will be close in age.

Then we went over to my parent's where we cooked out and played board games (because it was too rainy for the pool). Toward the end of the night my sister was asking me some questions about IVF and I gave her the whole run down. It feels so good to be able to put my medicine degree from the Google School Of Medicine to work sometimes. Actually, my understanding of the IVF process came from my friend Traci who let me borrow this informational book her clinic (GIVF in Fairfax, VA) gives to its patients. I'm sure that my brother-in-law wasn't so excited to walk in on the end of our conversation about ovaries.....but he survived. ***And a special "Good luck!" and "We're praying!" for Traci who has her retrieval this Friday!!!

I know IVF is a good shot for us to get pregnant....I just keep hoping that we'll get pregnant from these IUIs because sooner is better than later.....although honestly later is better than never.