Beta

Doubt started creeping in on Monday.  We've been constantly on the go this vacation and I've been exercising a lot (so much fun to have so much time to work out!!!), but that also meant that I hadn't taken much time to sit still and pay attention to what my body was doing and how I was feeling.  I couldn't get a good assessment of what I thought was going on in there, so when I had a free hour Monday afternoon, I immediately decided to head to the local lab to get my bloodwork done.

After jumping through a few hoops, the results were finally sent to my clinic and I got the results this morning.  My beta was 584 and my progesterone was 36.6.  That's rather high for a singleton at 15 DPO, but no complaints.  I will take it!  A few nervous thoughts about the possibility of identical twins have definitely crossed my mind (and the possibility that they accidentally transferred two blasts!), but hopefully they will be laid to rest in a few weeks.

I'll be back at the lab tomorrow afternoon and hopefully I'll get some good results and can schedule my next appt.

It worked

It worked.  The FET worked! 

I tested this morning at 8DP5DT.  The symptoms were all there.  I didn't doubt that I was pregnant.  And when I tested, there was no squinting.  There was no waiting until the three minutes were up.  There was none of that.  The second line appeared quickly. 


Obligatory HPT photo

 The mood in our house is very different from last time.  Last time, I was confident...too confident, as it turns out.  I had a chromosomally normal embryo.  I knew that my problem was getting pregnant, not staying pregnant, so I let myself go. I even wrote that I knew that I was probably being overly confident and that karma would come back to bite me.  A little foreshadowing maybe??? 

We are much more subdued this time.  I can tell that my husband is not ready to get attached.  He needs time.  And me?  This time I am focused on upcoming milestones and am simply very grateful for the opportunity to take on the hurdles that will be presented over the next 8 weeks.  The first step that opened the door was the positive pregnancy test.

I am not sure what I will do about the beta.  There are in-network labs nearby that I can go to this week, but I don't know how much time it will take away from our vacation to head over there, deal with insurance info, get the blood draw, and then come back.  Does anyone know if HCG doubling times remain the same at 5 weeks?  Is there any harm in waiting until I get home and testing a week later?

7DP5DT - Back on the exercise wagon

Ahhhh, I went for my first run today since the transfer.  That was nice.  Six days away from running is a long time!  I went for walks everyday, but it's not the same to come home without being sweaty or with a high heart rate, etc.

I know I could have gone running (or swimming, or biking) this week.  My RE has told me that there have been studies that have shown that exercising does not move an embryo once it's been placed in your uterus, but on the other hand, when you've spent a lot emotionally, physically, and financially on trying to get pregnant, you don't want to do anything to jeopardize your chances.  With that in mind, I run the morning of transfer and then minimize bouncing, just so that if it doesn't work, I never look back with regret, wondering whether I did anything to cause the cycle to fail.

So today is 7DP5DT.  I have my trusty (and trustworthy!) pee sticks safely stowed away in the bathroom cabinet.  I decided to wait until tomorrow to test so that I could focus on the mountain of work that I have to get done before I head out for vacation.  Information, positive or negative, would be very distracting.  Plus, I have a 5 hour drive tomorrow, so there will be plenty of time to think and plan.

One more day.

5DP5DT - Mind games

Ay ay ay!  The darn two week wait (that isn't even a two week wait when you're doing a frozen transfer) is quite the mind fuck.

So yes, I'm just checking in to say that yes, time is creeping by as slowly as I had expected.  It's so amazing to me that the weeks have just sped by over the past few months, even while I was cycling, but once the embryo was transferred, it stopped.

So what's new over here?  I ordered some FRERs for my testing pleasure at the end of the week.  Yes, that was a big step for me.  I love Amazon Prime, so I timed the order so that they will arrive tomorrow night, which will keep me from testing before Friday.

Google has been a friendly companion this week.  Everyday we get to google something new: 3dp5dt, 4dp5dt...sigh, you get the idea.  I've tried to stay away from symptom watching because I know that I don't tend to get pregnancy symptoms other than cramping (that I will get pregnant or not) until after I have a good amount of HCG in my system. 

Despite my attempts to stay away from stress, it has sought me out this week.  I am in a constant state of holding back tears. It's extremely professional...not!  I am so unhappy and really hope I can get away from the crap called work when I am on vacation next week, but I am not confident.  I work on a small team of three and am posing as two full time roles on a project while my coworker is on sabbatical for two months.  I've held up pretty well for the first have of her absence, but everything seems to be unraveling.  I am not handling things well.  So not cool!
Anyway, I feel like an excited teenage girl as I am waiting for the day to come when I can POAS.  I don't like the feeling, but it's comforting to be so excited about something that had been slowly drifting away from my visions of the future.

And then time stood still

My biggest fear of doing a frozen transfer is that the embryo won't survive.  Many of you know the anxiety that comes in when you get close to that last attempt...and I wanted to have these two chances before I hang up my shoes.

Luckily that fear went unfounded today.  My transfer was uneventful...and then off I went to work!

Life has been skipping by quickly the past few months.  Busy work days and long evenings have made the weeks fly by.  We decided at the beginning of the month that work shouldn't take over our lives so much that we didn't have a vacation together this summer, so we booked a vacation down the coast and we head out next Saturday for a week!  I have a lot to do to prepare, both personally and at work, so in some ways I welcome the inevitable time stoppage that happens during the two week wait!

It has been SUCH a long time since I've had this wait.  My last transfer was 6 1/2 months ago!  Wow, that is a long time, but I'm sure it's like riding a bicycle.  Ha.  It's still transfer day and I'm wondering how things are going in there.  I think I will fit right back into the two week wait seamlessly.  Of course the neurosis will really set in on whichever day I end up working from home!  It will be even more fun when I get up the nerve to buy some HPTs.

Okay, I'm settling in for a fun ride this coming week.

Crutches

I have always been an independent person.  My parents enjoy telling stories of me as a two year old yelling, "leave me 'lone!" every chance I got because I just wanted to do something myself.  

Not much has changed over my lifetime.  I don't like to ask for help.  I like to let my body take care of itself.  And I prefer to not take medication.

When I starting TTC many years ago, it took me more than 15 months before I got up the nerve to schedule an appointment with an OB/GYN and ask for help.  I didn't like the idea of taking medicine that could turn me into a raving bitch (thankfully that didn't happen until I met Lupron).  It just seemed unnatural, but what could I do?  I wanted a baby...and it wasn't happening.

Fast-forward almost 8 years.  I have been around the infertility block a few times...and I find my viewpoint shifting.  I have accepted that I need help and in many ways have swung to the other end of the spectrum where I feel more comfortable with help.  I don't expect my body to be able to work on its own.  I was a bit of a leap of faith when I agreed to do a natural cycle for my FET.

I had a monitoring appointment last Friday, CD12.  Per the instructions for this cycle, I used an OPK that morning.  It was positive.  I couldn't decide if I was happy or not.  My body appeared to be working, but could I count on my body to ovulate on time?  And what if it wasn't a strong ovulation?  I don't want to waste an embryo.  Did I make a mistake by going natural?

I then dutifully tested again.  The instructions I was given said to test with SMU.  This one was negative.  Well, crap.  I had no idea where that left me.  

At my appointment, we found good lining, one good-sized follicle, and blood test revealed that my LH was relatively low, so I was directed give myself the HCG injection.  I felt such a sense of relief.  I didn't realize how much I had grown to lean on these fertility drugs, but I can't tell you how happy I was to "have" to take the medication to direct my body to ovulate.  

Transfer is set for Friday morning.  I am excited.  I hope this turns out better than last time.

Regret Management

It was a little over a year ago that we decided we were ready to try for a baby.  I must have had some memory loss about my infertile status because I worried about a holiday due date, a pre-term holiday due date, and other frivolous things that a mostly infertile woman should never let enter into her baby-making formula.  We did an unmonitored Clomid cycle with leftover meds in May and then returned to the clinic in June.  

It was a little under a year ago, August 16th, to be exact, when a cyst resulting from a second failed injectible IUI cycle put me on the bench.  The next few weeks included a lot of thought regarding my next steps.  To IVF, or not to IVF?  To "go backwards" and use clomid, or not to use clomid?  The injectible drugs were not working for me.  They were cyst creators, not baby creators.

Plus, it was scary.  I was getting 4 or 5 follicles, but I only wanted one baby!  I just don't see how I could make it through a pregnancy with multiples.  And selective reduction?  I just don't think that's a path for me.  It's just best for me to avoid that possibility.

During my decision process, I asked for a lot of advice.  At one point, Sunny suggested that I look at the situation with respect to which path might cause more regret.  For example, if I spent months on failed Clomid cycles and then went to IVF and it worked vs. spending money on a failed IVF and then returning to Clomid and having success(!!), would one give me a bad taste in my mouth?  (Isn't it nice that both those options end in a happy ending?  Thank you for the positive thinking!).

In the end I decided that IVF gave me the best odds at getting pregnant as soon as possible, so we proceeded down that path.  What I didn't know, and couldn't have known, was how my body would respond, not just in terms of number of good eggs/embryos, but also in terms of the post-cycle recovery.

I have spent much of the past five months waiting...waiting for a normal period after my miscarriage, waiting for the IVF cycle to start while I was on BCPs, and then the longest of all, waiting 53 days for my body to recover from the latest fresh IVF cycle just so that I can have a chance to try to get pregnant.

A 53 day cycle will mess with your mind.  I spent a lot of time thinking...thinking about whether going the IVF route was the best decision.  It's hard to think back on the past year and to know that in the past 12 months, I have only had FOUR opportunities to get pregnant.  Okay, I agree, I am glossing over the fact that I actually did get pregnant one of those four times, but somehow it just doesn't count when it becomes a miscarriage.

How would I have felt if I had done Clomid or some other stimulation drug for several more months?  Is it harder to go month after month of failed TTC, or is it harder to have fewer opportunities with seemingly higher probability of success?  Not doing IVF is nice because then you always have that to fall back on, i.e. "if this doesn't work, then we can bring in the big guns and do IVF", but it's also hard because I would sometimes wonder if I was just wasting time by trying treatments that had a lower chance of success.  Doing IVF brings a lot of pressure, i.e. "If I can't get pregnant with IVF, then what is left for me?".

Thankfully, the end of a marathon cycle brings new hope and less despair, but I still wonder about what would have happened if I had taken the other path.  Deep down, I don't regret my decision.  I do believe it was a good one that just had a bad outcome.

I just hope that the path I'm heading down results in a good outcome.  Fingers crossed....

Au Natural?

CD1 arrived on Monday and I finally got in touch with one of the nurses at the clinic yesterday.  I had thought that my doctor was going to push hard for a natural FET, but when I talked to the nurse she said that I could do a natural cycle if my periods have been "regular" or we could do Clomid to ensure ovulation.

I don't know what to do.  In theory, I am on board with the natural cycle.  In reality, I wonder if it will just set me up for a cancelled cycle, or worse, a failed cycle.

I have never gotten pregnant without Clomid, so there's definitely the emotional comfort that I have from using it.  I know I ovulate on Clomid.  And who knows whether I will ovulate on my own.  In the past year, I have either been on a recovery cycle or a treated cycle, so there's no telling whether my body is ovulating on its own.

On the other hand, Clomid thins uterine lining.  In fact, my RE was ready to cancel the cycle last time when I hadn't progressed very far by CD11.  It turned out okay and my body did what it was supposed to do.  Also, we have no information as to why I miscarried last time.  The embryo was euploidy....  My RE's thought is that perhaps a more natural environment could work better.

I think I am leaning towards her recommendation, but I don't feel 100% comfortable.  I have been waiting a long time for July, and it would be unfortunate to watch another month slip by without an opportunity to get pregnant.  On the other hand, it's only one month.  At this point, is it that bad to skip a month?

I haven't spoken with her in over two months since they did the biopsies, so hopefully she has a sound argument that will help me jump on board when I have my baseline u/s tomorrow.

Oh yeah, happy 4th of July!  If it's as hot where you are as it is here, stay cool and enjoy the day!