Our first Circus Performance - The long story short

I've put together a short version of the long (but not long enough) story of our first IVF. Mainly for me to remember but also for others in a similar situation to find information.

Oct 7 - Start stims CD2 of natural cycle. Gonal F 225IE. Stims make me tired, thirsty and "fuzzy" in the head.

Oct 11 - Fly to Sweden from England. 

Oct 12 - First u/s shows 3 follicles in right, left ovary not found. Increase Gonal-F to 300IE and add Orgalutran (stings and irritates).

Oct 16 - Second u/s shows 6 follicles in right, 2 in left (still hard to find). Ovaries slightly achy.

Oct 18 - Trigger shot of Ovitrelle. Do the baby dance.

Oct 20 - Egg retrieval with local anaesthetic and morfin. TESA with local anaesthetic. 8 mature eggs retrieved (6 from right, 2 from left). 5 successfully fertilized with ICSI. Start vaginal progesterone suppositories 3 times/day - boobies start getting sore almost instantly.

Oct 21 - 24 - Have a few glasses of red wine. Eat good, spend time with family and relax.

Oct 25 - Embryo transfer, 1 blastocyst transferred, 1 frozen. Drink lots of water and a glass of pineapple juice a day.

Oct 26 - Fly from Sweden to England. 2 additional blasts are frozen. 

Oct 27 - A pulling, tugging sensation in uterus all day off and on

Oct 28 - First nose bleed ever and start falling asleep on the couch by 8 pm

Oct 30 - Light brown spotting after walk

Oct 31 - Nov 1 - Spotting continues and gets a little heavier

Nov 1 - Get disgusted by crayfish that I normally LOVE

Nov 2 - Spotting starts to look like a light period, this is the day my period would have arrived in normal cycle (full moon)

Nov 3 - 4 - Bleeding increases and turns redder

Nov 5 - BFP!?!?! Red bleeding continues to increase

Nov 6 - 7 - Bleeding gets BRIGHT red and I pass small stringy clots. Start to get attacks of nausea and/or hunger 

Nov 8 - Find an old HPT in a drawer and take the test at night after drinking lots of water and peeing like a race horse... Get another strong positive.

Change insertion of progesterone suppositories from vaginal to anal in hopes to stop the bleeding, thinking they're irritating my cervix.

Nov 9 - Worst day of bleeding yet, like a full on period in a crimson red color. Go see doctor to take Beta HCG test. HCG comes back 490 mlU/ml.

Nov 10 - Bleeding seems to slow down, pass a few clots the size of a quarter (common during my regular period). Feel nauseous all day, have hunger attacks and boobies are very sore. No pain.

Nov 11 - Bleeding picks up again and get a lot worse. Bright red. Fill a big pad in less than an hour. Stop progesterone supps.

Nov 12 - Heavy bleeding continues, feel faint and weak, go to ER. Heart Rate 105 and Blood Pressure 150/48. Get fluids via IV. HCG test shows 1044 mlU/ml. No embryo seen in uterus with vag. u/s. Endometrial stripe 9mm. Told I'm miscarrying and offered meds to speed things up. I decline and ask for repeat HCG to confirm miscarriage.

Nov 13 - Heavy bleeding continues. Repeat HCG shows 1331 mlU/ml. BP 115/69. HR 91. Mildly anemic. OB/GYN can't find embryo in uterus and is worried about ectopic and wants to give methotrexate to terminate pregnancy. I decline and ask for options. Offered to come in two days later when HCG levels should be above 1500 mlU/ml to try to locate pregnancy. 

Nov 15 - Bleeding slows down a little. HCG shows 2168 mlU/ml and OBGYN is able to locate a gestational sac in uterus. It measures a little small (0.51cm) and is slightly irregular. Get a little hopeful in spite of all the bleeding. BP 124/73. HR 98.

Nov 16 - Wake up early morning with a feeling of not being pregnant. Boobs are less sore. Still have food aversions. Bleeding changes color to slightly darker and slows down. Pass a few clots and start having mild cramping.

Nov 17 - Turn 35. Dark bleeding, mild cramping, pass a few clots.

Nov 18 - Extreme fatigue. Bleeding slows down to heavy dark red spotting.

Nov 19 - Miscarriage confirmed with HCG of 894 mlU/ml. Mildly anemic. Opt to miscarry naturally, prescribed iron (Ferro-Sequels). My heart breaks.

Nov 20 - 28 - Spotting gets less and less. Have one or two bleeding episodes and pass a few more clots. All pregnancy symptoms slowly disappear. Do the baby dance on 28th.

Nov 29 - Bleeding stops completely. 

Nov 30 - HCG shows 12 mlU/ml.

Dec 7 - Miscarriage complete. HCG shows 1 mlU/ml. BP 116/68. HR 80. No longer anemic, stop iron supplement. Told that period can arrive in 1-3 months and will most likely be abnormal. 

Dec 15 - Light spotting starts

Dec 18 - Bloody Monster arrives. Painful cramping but otherwise she seems normal.

January 1-2 - Ovulation pain on my left side.

January 14 - Bloody Monster arrives 27 days after last bleed. Pheuw! Heavy, but normal.

Seems like my body has bounced back nicely. Now we can start planning our natural FET in February 2010.

Unexpected revelations.

A few months ago I had a major melt down. I found out that four of my coworkers at my first agency job were expecting their first child. All of them successful women and men ranging from their mid-thirties to mid-forties. I wasn't upset because I didn't think they deserve the happiness of having a family. It was more that I thought they were happy without children. In the back of my mind I had used them as positive role models in case I was never able to have a child of my own. And now I was suddenly robbed of said role models. Of course I was happy for them but the selfish little girl that lives in my chest was bawling her eyes out, screaming "it's not fair!". 

Over the course of the past weeks since we joined the circus I've posted cryptic status updates on facebook. Things like "... has a bruised belly, ... has retrieved the magic number eight, ... has five little sparks of hope". So people that know that we're going through our first IVF gets an update and it's still vague enough so people who don't know won't get it. 

Wednesday I got an email from one of the before mentioned coworkers (who had her beautiful baby girl in September) saying she had followed my daily updates and was hoping everything's okay. I wrote back telling her what was going on, about the circus and that we had just gotten the news of our five fertilized eggs. Here's what she replied: 

Hi Circus Princess (all names have been changed),

I had a feeling.....only because I just went through it myself. (They were able to extract 6 eggs from me — 3 of which fertilized.)

We had been seeing a specialist and trying different things for 8 months. Each time the treatment didn't work so he continued to get more aggressive. That led us to our first round of IVF last December. (A week before the procedure, I landed in the ER with an asthma attack. Not good.) The odds were completely against us... a 20% chance. And it actually worked. The Dr. was even surprised. Little Miss V is a result of that IVF.

I COMPLETELY understand how difficult this is. Physically and mentally exhausting. I don't know how I got through the shots!! All so fresh in my mind.

Hang in there. Most of all, relax and stay positive. Best of luck to you!!!

Big hug, T

When I finished reading it felt like something inside me had healed and that I had gotten one of my role models back in a completely unexpected way.  Her story gave me more than hope. It also opened a door to a new friendship.

Meanwhile I'm trying my best to not go nuts about not knowing how our five little acrobats are doing. Relaxing, staying positive and embryo whispering: Divide and conquer, little acrobats, divide and conquer.

The "what if not" list

My Hubster writes lists. Excessively. It helps him organize his life and feel like he's in control. I don't. I'm more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. As a matter of fact, lists scare me a little, because if I did do lists and I didn't stick to them (which in my case is very likely) there would actually be proof of the things I didn't do. 

Friday night I had a little melt down and a good cry. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the two big glasses of Cabernet I had before dinner. D is not a big fan of me crying and wants to immediately make things better and "fix" the problem. But what made me cry is equally a good thing as it is a bad thing and not really a problem that can be "fixed". I cried because we're about to join the circus. Full on, no going back, joining the circus. We're going straight from ttc on our own to IVF/ICSI with sperm aspiration. No IUI. No regular IVF. The full monty. And it scares the living crap out of me at the same time as it fills me with this overwhelming feeling of hope. What scares me is that this is it, this is our chance to have the baby we long for, and what if it doesn't work? What if it's not meant to be (and I truly hate that expression but it does have an unarguable meaning of faith).

Being faced with my dual emotions and my hardly comprehensible sobbing attempts to explain, D resorted to just giving me a big warm hug. And then he turned to his one reliable solution to most problems. List making. So somehow I've now agreed to writing two life lists if you will, one "what if (we have a child)" list and one "what if not" list. In my head the "what if" list is a very long already written list whereas the "what if not" is completely blank. Tonight we'll try to start that worst scenario list so we at least have a backup plan, something to fall back on if our circus careers don't work out.

Am I looking forward to it? Not so much. Unless I can send my "what if" list to Santa.

There you are you little fcker!

She showed up, The Bloody Monster, and you'll be pleased to hear I didn't fall for the temptation to test. So I'm relieved and disappointed. A little less disappointed than the past 28 months, but bummed out none the less... But now we can book our tickets to go to Sweden for the circus next month. That makes it real. Holy shit! We're actually doing it. Yay! Is it weird to want to start injecting yourself with hormones? I can't wait. I'll jab that sucker into my belly without hesitation! Had I told my 10 years younger self this she would've laughed out loud and reminded me that we're very scared of needles. Not anymore.

Talked to my Mamma on the phone the other day. I think she's possibly more excited than I am. Not sure if it's the possibility of having a grandchild in August or me coming home to stay with them for almost 2 weeks while doing the circus performance. I don't care, it'll be good to have their support. I feel a little sorry for D who'd probably also enjoy being there with me. But somebody's got to bring home the bacon. And you do need a lot of bacon to join the circus. Maybe I should start making frozen dinners for him to eat while I'm gone... that's what a good wifey would do. And I am. Most of the time :)

Stars that may or may not have joined the circus.

Allow me to speculate... A lot of stars nowadays have kids late. I can totally understand why, they were, you know, busy starring in various blockbusters, walking down a million red carpets, and simply being fabulous. But I can't help but wonder how their personal life looked when time came to start a family. Did they go through years of trying, worrying and hoping for a miracle? Did they too resort to joining the IVF circus when all else failed? I'm inclined to think so... My question then is: Why are they not talking about it publicly? Stars share all kinds of trouble they've gone through in their lives, failing marriages, trips to rehab etc. so why not infertility? We could sure use some famous role models here at the circus... Anyway, here's my list of "Did they or didn't they?":

Angela Bassett (twins at 47)

Beverly D'Angelo (twins at 49)

Carcelle Beauvais-Nilon (twins at 41)

Geena Davis (twins at 48)

Halle Berry (first child at 41)

Helena Bonham Carter (first child at 41)

Holly Hunter (twins at 47)

Jane Seymour (twins at 45) 

J-Lo (twins at the age of 38)

Julia Roberts (twins at 36)

Lisa Marie Presley (twins at 40)

Marcia Cross (twins at 44)

Nicole Kidman (new mom at 40 having adopted in previous marriage)

What do you think?

Years of trying

Thought I'd put together a little list of what we've gone through to get here. I'm listing the tests and medical procedures we've had done but I need to mention some of the psychological trials as well. My wish to start a family actually began soon after we got married. D however thought he was way past that part of his life after having 3 girls followed by a vasectomy. Hope is a weird thing, for over 3 years I was secretly hoping for a miracle, that somehow one of his "swimmers" would find a way past the cut parts and get me pregnant. Surprisingly that didn't happen... All the while I kept talking to D about the possibility of him having a reversal. I reminded him of what he had told me on our first date sitting under the stars on his front porch talking about regrets in our life: "-The only regret I have is never having a son". I asked him to reconsider starting a family with me and getting a second chance of having a son. And that's when our journey really started.

May 22, 2007 – D has a vasectomy reversal at Madigan Army Hospital 

May 24, 2007 – I have my first normal pap result in many years (history of abnormal paps after cervical cancer in 2001 treated with cone biopsy)

In June I start tracking my cycle, checking my temp, going through ovulation kits, testing mucus, you name it. We begin trying for a baby and have lots of fun practicing :) I try to increase our chances by taking robotussin and folic acid. Even stop drinking alcohol 2 last weeks of every cycle.

August, 2007 – I start spotting between periods, OBGYN tells me it's nothing to worry about and that it's considered a good fertility sign. Also experience extremely painful periods.

October 22, 2007 – I'm 3 days late. I'm never late and we both get excited! Pee on 2 sticks, both negative and the morning after the bloody monster arrives.

January, 2008 – I have a bunch of hormone tests taken, all come back normal... doesn't explain spotting or infertility.

March 6, 2008 – D has a "date with a cup" at Providence

March 11, 2008 – Results from sperm test is low count, low motility and abnormal morphology. Not good.

October 6, 2008 – Get a different doc at annual and tell her about my spotting and our infertility. Finally somebody listens and she gets me a referral to an ultrasound. 

October 9, 2008 – I have an ultrasound at Pacific, WA. Technician tells me I'll get some answers about our infertility from the results??

And then we move from Washington to England and everything medical is put on hold for a few months while we try to get all the other parts of our life sorted out...

February 2, 2009 – Repeat ultrasound at RAF Lakenheath, England. Polyp/cyst found in uterus.

February 9, 2009 – Hysteroscopy evaluation by Dr. Crawford, find uterine polyp. PAINFUL.

February 23, 2009 – Hysteroscopy, Dr. Crawford removes a 1.5cm uterine polyp under general anesthesia .

March 11, 2009 – Meet Dr. Ruch at RAF Lakenheath who takes the time to look over my medical history and decides to get me all the required referrals for a fertility work-up

April, 2009 – Do all the hormonal labs AGAIN. Still normal.

June 4, 2009 – Hysterosalpingogram (tounge twister). Balloon inflates twice and catheter is expelled but they're able to see that the left tubes are open. Can't handle the pain for them to insert catheter, refill balloon and inject fluid a third time so right tubes are still a mystery...

August 7, 2009 – D has another date with a cup - shows less than 2 million but isn't specific

August 21, 2009 – Meet with Dr. Wood at the Fertility centre in Gothenburg, Sweden. D meet his beloved "cup" again and we find out that his reversal has somehow reversed and that there is no sperm at all present. Talk about IVF with ICSI and sperm aspiration and decide that it's the right thing for us. Dr. Wood tells us we have a 35-40% chance of pregnancy per treatment. Sounds pretty fantastic considering the circumstances. 

I'm not talking about the cost of any of these tests, operations or consults but I'm sure you know it's quite steep. And that of course adds to the already high levels of stress. But we've come this far even if the road here has stretched across oceans and have been far from straight. In October we take another huge step on this journey when we join the IVF circus. Let's keep our fingers and toes crossed that we'll finally be able to start our family.

I've got tickets.

Early October 2009 we're joining the IVF circus. 

Tickets are expensive and don't guarantee seats. And I need drugs to make it worthwhile. But I'm excited and hopeful because for the first time in almost 6 years my eggs and D's swimmers will have a chance to meet. And make magic. 

I'm also terrified and need somewhere to vent my feelings about this performance. So I'm here. Doing something I never thought I would. Blogging.