My First Try at sticking myself with a Very Sharp Object

This morning I just couldn't wait to get out of bed. I mean, gosh! I get to poke myself with a very sharp object! How fun! How exciting! Big B left for work at O-dark:30, so I was left to figure out all the needles and whatnot by myself.

First I had to find the correct med in the fridge. There are several. But this specific one was hidden behind the mostly empty jar of raspberry jelly and the full jar of mom-in-laws plum jam (Blek!). Luckily, they idiot-proof the meds for you. The previously mentioned Ginormous Box of Meds has them all neatly ziplocked into packs for each type. There's one for the Lupron (which I would be trying my hand at this morning), one for the Menopur, another for the Follistim, yet another for the hCG shot, and two more filled with various medicines in pill form. It's all so confusing. How do they expect us to keep this all straight when we can't even have any coffee??

I located the correct pouch housing the needles and the sterile swipey pads for the Lupron. With those in hand, and the actual vial of the stuff already sitting out, I read the directions for the millionth time, and began. I filled up the syringe with the meds like a regular user. Let's get this over with. Oh wait. There's some lightheadedness. Maybe I'm getting dizzy. Probably should stand next to a wall or I might tip over. Deep breath (but not too deep). Grab the (plentiful) roll of fat, squeeze, and send that thin little needle barreling into the depths of my belly. Squirt it, and pull the needle out. Forgot to wait a few seconds before pulling it out. And forgot to let go of the roll of fat. This resulted in a bit of the liquid gold coming back out through the hole (gross!) and a little bit of blood.

All in all, it wasn't bad. I have a feeling I'm going to get really good at this.

Drugs are bad. But sometimes they're good.

We got our ginormous box of meds in the mail Friday. The box was WAY bigger than I had expected. Originally I was going to have the FedEx guy just leave them on our front porch..but the woman I ordered them from had a little lilt in her voice ("...are you sure you want to leave them on the front porch? Are you sure you don't want to sign for them? Okaaaaaaaay....."). That made me think a little - I guess the box of meds IS worth over $3K. But who wants a bunch of meds that make you bitchy, bloated, and possibly give you ovaries the size of Texas? But, ya never know. We do live in Seattle. In a rather crappy neighborhood. It would be funny, though, if someone stole it, expecting some major prize that they could resell at the pawn shop, and all they got were these crummy meds.

Also last week, we had a little training session on how to administer all these wonderful drugs. Because they all must be injected, you have to take a little class to make sure you don't stick the needle in the wrong place or poke your eye out. B and I sat around a table with two other couples. I spent most of the time trying to figure out if the women were older than me. One for sure (I think), the other maybe the same age (but she seemed older). For some reason this was really important to me. Way more important than practicing sticking a needle in a big ball of foam. My mind was busy constructing a story for each of the women: one was a successful career woman who decided at the last minute to produce offspring with her successful husband; the other a woman who had some horrible things happen to her Fallopian tubes. Somehow it made me feel better to know that there were two women, about my age, who were going thought the same thing. They both decided to take the chance, knowing the odds are only 38% in their favor.

Steppin' up to the Majors

Yes - it's been awhile since I've posted. I think we kinda put everything on cruise control and just coasted. That didn't mean that we put treatments on hold - heavens no. Went through three, count 'em, three MORE rounds of IUI. Back to back. No taking a month off for good behavior.

It was a lot easier though. Just pretending that we were just going about our business. The dreaded two-weeks post proceedures seemed to float by. Again, pretending that nothing special was going on. Come to think of it, nothing special was going on.

After our third round, we threw in the towel. Five IUI's and one failed pregnancy - It didn't seem like our odds were getting any better. So, a quick check in with the FE, and we were called up to the majors: The IVF.

We've gone through a flurry of tests 1. Making sure my supply of eggs is suffiecient (although they can't tell how many of them are crappy and will never amount to anything vs. healthy and robust and just chomping at the bit to become a real live little baby. Test #2, making sure my uterine cavity is healthy and willing to take a tiny little guest in for 10 months. Test #3, Making sure all the approriate hormones were doing their thing and weren't planning an early trip to menopause. #4, the hubby and I both had to make sure we weren't carrying any contageable diseases since the folks at the lab will be working with all our junk on a very personal level.

Sooooooo sleeeeeepy

We've made the successful transition from our old FE (Fertility Expert) to our new one since our previous one retired right as we were going through the big MC. It was pretty painless (the doctor switch). Other than the $250 bill they waived in our face as we left. Our sweet little finance director lady seemed to sneer, "don't forget to pay your bill before the door hits you on your butt! Your insurance covers nooooooothing! You should work for Microsoft! Neener-neener-neener!" We met with the new doc, talked a lot about our bodies and family histories, and then promptly handed them over $250. I really just wanted to say, "could ya just read our charts? we've been through this many times before." But then again, how would our sweet little dr pay for her children to attend private school?

Anyhoo...it's the start of another cycle. This means that I have to kick the caffeine again. I did it last time, no caffeine no alcohol, from cycle day 1 onward - and it worked! At least for a little while. So I'm going to try it again. However, I've drank copious amounts of caffeine for the last 6 weeks so now I my withdrawal symptoms are horrible - have a horrendous headache, and my eyelids need to be sewn open right about now.

My little barista doesn't know what's going on at ALL! She can't figure out why I've gone all "decaf" on her. Last time I had the excuse of Lent. Now I just tell her that I realize it's SO much better for me! If I stay off caffeine! If I drink worthless coffee! That I don't really need the caffeine - that the warm coffee-like substance is enough for me. HA.

Who else has miscarried?

According to statistics, 40-50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriages. Understandably, most of those end within days of an expected period - so most women think their period was just a little behind schedule, and think nothing of it.

But what about all the women that have miscarried? Supposedly 20% of women have miscarried and do know that it happened. I don't know a single person who miscarried. Not one friend or even an aquantance. It's like I'm the only one with bad eggs and an unlucky uterus. Its been strange for me, because we only told a few people we were pregnant, and then had to tell them that we were going to miscarry. As a woman, I want to talk about what's happening to me! I want to commiserate with other women, and feel like I'm not the only one. Yet how do I say to someone, "hey, I'm pregnant, but not for long!" That's just not an easy conversation. You can physically see people start squirming and wishing they were anywhere other than with you. It's almost like I have leprosy, or AIDS, or some other contageous disease.

And, if I don't tell anyone, then I get to endure the wonderful, over-used phrase, "so, are you pregnant yet?" And if I share with them, then I get the "well, at least you got pregnant!" I know this is supposed to make me feel better, but it doesn't.

It's over, pretty much

When it finally started, I was so relieved. We could stop wondering. We knew that it really was over and that there really was no minute chance of hope. This was something for sure. It started just like a period...nothing crazy at all. I was scheduled for a D&C, but I asked if I could ride it out "naturally," since I started bleeding a few days before the appointment. All in all it wasn't horrible. It lasted about 11 days - but very little cramping. It seemed really like a long period. I guess that made it somewhat easier. I'm truly grateful that it wasn't as horrendous as it could have been.

Now we wait. Yet again. It seems to be a common thread. It's all waiting, very little doing. But, I can tell you that what I have been doing is drinking a TON of caffeine, indulging in a few adult beverages, eating raw fish - all those things you can't do when you're "waiting." It's been grand. I've gained at least another five pounds in pity calories ("poor me...I deserve to eat this entire pie").

We are supposed to take this month off. Apparently the body needs to ramp-up for our next go-round. So...I should probably fall-back to an earlier post where I claimed, "Either pregnant or skinny by summer!" That would mean getting my lazy rump off the couch and perhaps doing some exercise other than opening the fridge and consuming copius ammounts of carbs.

Seriously, Most Definitely Not

After hearing not once, but twice that this pregnancy was highly-unlikely to survive, and that I would probably miscarry at any moment, I've been waiting for "it" to happen.

Friday morning, just before lunch, I had hideously horrible abdominal pain - nothing like I've ever had before. I couldn't sit down. I had to pace...almost wearing a hole in the fabulous blue nylon carpeting in my office. I had been warned that this is what could happen and that I was to call the dr's office immediately if it did. It could be the signs of an eptopic pregnancy (when the egg attaches itself in a fallopian tube instead of the uterus). This is dangerous and requires pretty scary surgury. So, when the pain started coming and showed no signs of leaving, I called the doc.

The wonderful staff told me to get someone to drive me there immediately. Of course, it was lunch time, no one was around, and I didn't exactly want to inform my coworkers that I was a). pregnant and b). going to miscarry it. So, I drove myself. I wonder what the people in nearby cars thought as I screamed in pain and contorted my face in surely grotesque formations.

I am quite sure that every traffic light between my office and the dr's turned red just as I came to the intersection. Every time! I thought for sure I would die right in my car, in the middle of traffic. But, I didn't. I made it to the dr's office, and they wisked me into an examining room and poked around inside my stuff, looking for signs that I had begun to miscarry. Then they hauled me into the ultrasound room to have a look-see with the ultrasound wand. They found nothing. They asked me lots of questions and determined that, I, ahem, had horrible "gas" and was "backed up" in the digestion area. I felt like an idiot. They were totally nice about it, but I'm sure they were none too happy to be interrupted during their lunch hour by a gal who just needed to take a dump.

While there, I took another blood test, just so they could see what was going on with my hcg levels. Perhaps there was a miracle! It took the nurse three tries to get any blood from me. I just wasn't in a giving mood, aparently.

After all of that drama, I got a call later in the afternoon that again, my levels were going up, but not as much as they should. I would "most likely miscarry in the next few days and I should prepare myself. If I should experience any doubling-over pain, I was to call the doctor immediately." This is the third time I had heard the exact same message. They must have a little cheat-sheet near the phone so they can just ramble off the appropriate message.

So, we spent the weekend, saddened by the news, but feeling like perhaps there was still a small chance that it would all work out. We had yet another appointment scheduled for Monday and perhaps then we would get some positive information.

We got up early, went to the doctors, and she did yet another quick ultrasound before telling us both that it was too early to see anything in the uterus, but that the numbers were horrible, and that nothing was happening - this was a bum egg, and that it was just a matter of time before my body would purge it. Was there any chance? We asked. No - she'd never seen a case where a successful pregnancy had resulted after such low, non-doubling numbers.

We felt that those were the final nails in the coffin (sorry for the horrible pun). There is no hope. Game over. Time to throw in the towel. The fat lady sung. The cock crowed.

Now we continue to wait. Just wondering when and how it'll all go down. I've got a stockpile of pads waiting in the wings both at work and at home. I'm trying to pacify myself with thoughts like, "soon I'll be able to drink beer and coffee again." Or, "now I can lose a few more pounds on Weight Watchers."