Fifth time lucky?

Tomorrow we will hopefully transfer our final embryo from our first IVF , we just need it to survive the thaw first, I'm excited and nervous. Please please let this be the one!

Today is a hard day

Today would have been my due date.  Back in October I was so excited for today, it was a date we had dreamed of hearing for years, we had the whole month of October to be excited and talk about the future but in November that ended, when we found out he had stopped growing, we later found out he had trisomy six so he would never have survived.

To my little guy,
I still think about you every day, you may not have been with me for long but you made me a mammy, you gave me my dream for being pregnant.  I wish you could have stuck around so we could hold you in our arms and tell you how much we love you.  Today should have been such a special day but instead I am left just imagining what you would have been like, who you would have looked like more and if we ever managed to decide on a boy's name! We will love you forever.
xxx

Fathers Day

I have to say I'm a lucky girl and have the best hubby in the world, you may think you do but you don't because I do! Which also means he would be the most amazing dad, if we have a daughter I know she would be daddys girl and I could just see him teaching a son how to be a great man just like him. He is one of the most loving people I know so this brings me lots of guilt, for the most part I'm pretty certain its my body that is stopping him from being a dad, stopping him fulfilling what I know would be his most amazing role,  more than anything I want to give this to him, I think I actually want to make him a daddy more than I want to make myself a mammy.  Father's day is just a reminder that I am failing to do this, I know he doent blame me and he knows how hard we ate both trying but lots of it is out of our hands, I can take my meds and try to be healthy but no matter how hard I will it to work, or if it works to stick around I can't, if I could we would have lots of babies by now.
I'm hoping this is his final fathers day without being called daddy and that this cycle will work and next year will be a huge celebration.

Update
Well there really isn't too much to update yet but tomorrow I will go for my intralipid infusion in the morning then accupuncture in the afternoon, and on Thursday I have my lining check, as long as that goes well we will transfer the following Tuesday, its getting close and I'm getting excited.

A Dream

On Friday night I had a dream that my nana came to me to tell me this FET would bring us a little boy, I didn't feel like I was completely sleeping when this happened I was more in and out of sleep.  My Nana died 12 years ago and the hubby never met her, I will occasionally have dreams that I am at her and my Granddad's house and she is there but this was different, it's not like she was in my dream, she had actually came to me to tell me something.   I hope she is right, I have a great sense of calm since I woke on Saturday and any negative feelings about this cycle have gone.
This is gong to be the one, that little guy on ice is the one which will come home with us.



The side effects don't seem as bad now as they did a few days ago, once I get over the first couple of days of terbutaline I start to get used to it again, I mean the shaking is annoying but it's not uncontrollable all of the time like it was the first time.  AF seems like it is finally letting up which is good, because I need that lining to grow.

I wish I could roll time forward to get to transfer, it feels like everything is going so slowly and all I want is to get this frosty inside of me where it belongs.

Ready to go but now I'm worried

I had my basline this morning and everything looks clear, my lining is nice and thin, so now we start to build a fresh one for transfer.  The thing that has me worried is that my e2 came back at 80 and the normally want it under 70 to start the cycle.  Dr D said its ok, because my lining looked good so I'm going to go with it, from tonight we actually want it to start rising anyway so I'm trying not to.worry about it, but its hard.  I want everything to be perfect for this embryo, all of my bloodwork, my lining I want an environment that will be loving and accepting so if anything seems even slightly off it scares me.

I think I had blocked out how bad the terbutaline is and how horrible it makes me feel, I'm so out of it and have walked around like a zombie all day and then I am shaking like crazy. Its going to be a long two weeks, but it'll be worth it.

Hope is peaking through

AF arrived today and with it brought hope, I feel it fighting its way through the fear.  It hit me that this little embryo deserves me to believe in it just the way I did the other four, for my body to welcome it and love it. This embryo could very well be our take home baby, I already know what my edd would be, I already know the place we would announce to the hubby's family and how/when we would plan a trip home to surprise my grandma, yes I have plans for this little one so as of Thursday its time for me to start getting my body ready to make the perfect home for nine months.

I have already started my mediation on a night time, it really helps me focus my mind. Yesterday I went to accupuncture again, he just done some de-stress on me since we couldnt build my lining until I had shread this one.

Three weeks today and I will be pupo!

Scared to death

(I started writing this Sunday night)
I start lupron tomorrow which signals the beginning of yet another cycle, another six weeks of shots, pills, anxiety and excitement, but this time is different usually at this point I'm excited to do that first shot and the possabilities it brings, tonight I'm not excited. I am worried we made the wrong decision to do this now, I am petrified of losing our final snowbaby, scared it won't survive the thaw or it will and won't take or it will take and we will lose another baby.  I'm a little bit of a mess right now.

(Finished Tuesday night)
Now that I'm two days in I don't feel so sad but I'm still not excited, although occasionally I do allow myself to think how great it would be if this cycle works.

I'm trying hard to focus on the positive while I will be devestated again if it doesn't work I know we have a good plan going forward, we will work with Dr KK and hopefully get some great embryos which we will test this time with cgh testing to ensure they are chromosonally normal.

So far the metmorfin is not causing me any problems, I just upped my does today to 1000mg, I have less of an appitite once I start eating but that's not a bad thing.

I will continue on lupron until five days before transfer but on Saturday I will take my final bcp and drop my dose to 5mg, this part of an FET always feels so slow to me like nothing is happening, once I start buliding my lining all of that changes.

I wish I could feel giddy like I used to but I am worn from so many failed cycles, its hard to feel excitement for something which has brought so much dissapointment and that makes me sad, there are so many amazing things that could happen if the cycle worked, so many dreams come true and all of that rides on these next few weeks.

I am starting my circle and bloom medtation again tonight, I used them a lot in our Oct cycle and it really helped me, that was also our most successful cycle. I'm going to try to get my zen on, which is hard for someone as hyper as me.

We have meds

On Monday we collected all of my meds for this FET, it really is crazy how many drugs I will be taking in all different places!

When I was starting out with infertility treatments I always tried to figure out from message boards and blogs what other people were taking so I will break it down here.
My timeline is starting bcp May 18th then lupron May 26th, hopeful transfer June 24th so right around a month.

Lupron - 10 units daily, going to 5 units
Estradiol Viate 2x week staring at 0.2ml usually going up to 0.35 ml
Endometrim - 4x day (closer to transfer)
Folic acid - 1 mg daily
Prednisone - 10mg daily
Heparin - 5000 units 2x day
Terbutaline - 5mg 3x day
Viagra suppositories - 25mg 4x day
Bcp - daily
Cipro - 500mg daily from 5 day before transfer


I have also started taking another pill because by cd3 blood work came back showing my tsh was a little high, we want that at least under 3. There is debate amongst medical professionals right now as to the number tsh should be at for IVF with some belief it should be below 2.5 so hopefully this tiny little pill will fix that.
Another pill I am taking is metmorfin, this helps control insulin levels but could help egg quality, I have been warned the side effects are ugly so I have to start it slow, 500 mg this week, 1000mg next week and up to 1500mg, if I can handle it, so far I'm doing good.

Finally I take co-q10 200mg daily and my prenatal vitamain.

I'm sure if you pick me up in a couple of weeks and shake me I will rattle.

Only our more days until we get this show on the road, I know there is nothing I can really do to make it work but I am determined it will work, I am done with treatments and dissapointment I am ready for success and diapers!

The good news

In my last post I talked about how this week has brought good news, even though I am still in a little bit of a funk I want to concentrate on the good stuff, so here it is.
We got our karyotyping blood work back and it was all normal, this is a huge relief because it is one less thing to worry about if we have to do another fresh cycle - it also gives me a little more hope for our final frosty.
We also found out that one of the new drugs I need to use, endometrium which would have cost over $700 is going to be covered by insurance, we spend so much money on treatments that any money we can save is a very big deal.
Finally we got our calendar, this has actually left me with a mixed bag of emotions since we will be using our last frosty and there is nothing left after that, with each cycle I have always known we had backup if this one didn't work, this time there is nothing.  I always get excited when I get a calendar, it is the chance to have the baby we want so bad, so while I am scared out of my mind I do have butterflies of excitement every time I look at it or think about the fact next month I will be PUPO.

Sad

That's how I feel tonight. I really should feel happy since this week has actually brought lots of good news and my calendar for our FET, but right now I just feel sad and angry.
Infertility and the treatments that go along with it cause you to put so much of your life on hold, the hubby and I live in a city we don't love and with jobs we put up with, we do this because we love our Dr, we trust her and hope she will being us our baby. We are lucky enough to live close to our clinic and have bosses who are willing to allow us to move our schedules around for treatment, they are ok if I'm late because of ultrasounds or my third blood draw of the week, but sometimes I worry we will regret staying somewhere we are unhappy for a gamble. Let's face it IVF is a gamble, we've already failed four times whats to say this fifth time will be any different, or the fresh cycle after that. Its so scary to put your other dreams and life in general on hold for another dream that may never come true.
I'm very tired this week some is self inflicted and some work related, I always feel more emotional when I'm tired so next week I'm going to focus o getting plenty of sleep and also do some yoga to hopefully turn my mind off too.

I'll be back tomorrow or Sunday to share the good news.

The plan

While we are putting our final frosty back in June we know there is a good chance it won't work so we are working on a plan for a fresh cycle which we will hopefully do in September.

1. Tomorrow I will redo my CD3 blood work
2. The hubby and I had karyotyping blood work done last week, we want to see if either of us have a balanced translocation, I will explain more if we do but hopefully this is the last time I mention it.
3. I will lose weight, there is some belief that egg quality can be effected by egg quality and sugar and insulin levels, in the past year of cycling I have gained about 20 lbs. Part of the weight loss is also just to make me happy again.
4. I will start metmorfin, this also helps regulate sugar and insulin levels and there are some studies that think even for people who don't have insulin resistance or pcos metmorfin can still help imporove egg quality.
5. Have an appointment with Dr Kwak-Kim in Chicago, this is the big one! Dr KK is a reprodictive immunologist .(good link explaining what an RI is). While there is debate over what an RI does and there are only five in the country, we think we could benefit from seeing one and were lucky enough to get an appointment at the end of July.
6. Taking cq10 and eleminating chemicals and some food after reading the book 'it starts with the egg'
7. Continuing accupuncture but focusing on egg quality and also sending the hubby to try and help with sperm quality.

I would love all of this to be a waste of time because we get pregnant in June but if we don't at least we are doing everything we can for the next cycle.

Welcome

Heart is broken and tears fall,

What did we do wrong, why us,

So many questions,

What should we do now, will this ever work,

But no answers

The cycle starts and hope are high,

But they all end the same,

Empty arms and sad hearts.

This is the second blog I've started, I made the other private because it turned into a log of symptoms or lack of symptoms for all of our cycles, I will continue to use it during cycles just so I can look back and track or compare things, but it doesn't really tell a story. I want this blog to tell the story of our infertility journey, I really hope one day it can have the famous 'happily ever after' ending.

Today is Mother's Day, last year I had so much hope, today I fought tears and anger, last year I was in the tww from our very first IVF cycle, I swore by this year I would be holding a baby, but I'm not. The past year has been one of the hardest of my life, it has brought the hubby and I closer than ever, it has made me stronger but it has also broke me. I have learned so much, I have gained friendships and lost babies.

Who knows what the future holds but I know we will fight infertility every step of the way, one day I will hear the words  'Happy Mother's Day'