So sweet

Just what I needed tonight....after a long work week.

My son was quite fussy this evening...I think due to still randomly waking up too early, like 6:00am even though his clock turns yellow and he can get up at 6:40am. It seems that after these last three weeks of allergies and coughing/sick he’s out of sync again. So, when he gets up too early he’s been pretty whiny, crying, and just tired.

Tonight he wanted shower instead of bath, so fine. When he was done he raced out of the bathroom to ‘hide’. One of his favorite things to do.

Then he started getting dressed and as he’s sitting in front of me he just pauses, looks at me, and says:”Mommy you are so beautiful”. I said thank you, gave him a kiss....then he says “just like a rainbow”.  I gave him more hugs and kisses. Then he says, “a hundred rainbows”.

My heart just melted. So darn sweet.

And throughout all that my girl sat quietly watching shows with no fuss herself.

What started out a tough evening simply turned into a great one.
These moments are the best.

Thinking

I’ve had some time to reflect post my transfer not working and it’s been challenging.  On one hand, I feel confident that I did the right thing by giving it a shot, one the other hand, it didn’t work and there’s a lot of thoughts tied up in that. The time, effort, money, hope, resulted in nothing.

And….the hardest part is, I thought I would feel a sense of relief that I was ‘done’…one way or the other.  And that feeling just hasn’t come. I’m just not at peace yet about it all.

 

I did have my follow up with the physician and much as I expected, he didn’t have a reason as to why it didn’t work. He genuinely said he was sorry, sometimes they just don’t work even if everything was lined out right.  We did talk about the fact that we didn’t know whether the embryos were ‘normal’ since they weren’t tested, and he did say he had a bit of trouble with the transfer—but honestly, science and technology can only take you so far.  My biggest question for him was—if I just wanted to explore further with my own eggs, am I too old?  Frankly, I was preparing myself for him to say that yes, my time was up and I was too old—especially after all of the reading I have done. However, surprisingly that’s not what he said. He said it’s possible, and would depend on a few tests, one of those being AMH and the other an ovary ultrasound, I think.

I left that appointment feeling a level of hope, but not really sure about wanting to pursue and ‘start over’.  There are way more hurdles now than 5 years ago, but I told myself it can’t hurt to just do the blood test that day and just see what the data tells us.

 

This is where I get a bit frustrated w/ the Dr.’s office. I had the test Friday April 12. The following Friday, the 19^th I got an email from the IVF coordinator asking about whether I was interested in additional IVF and to let her know. I responded back that the Dr. and I had discussed options but I was waiting for the AMH test he ordered to come back, and the Dr. could advise from there.  Like, do these folks communicate with each other? I know that they have a lot of patients, but after a failed cycle, you would think they would be proactive to make sure they have the most up to date information. It just put me off a bit---not even acknowledging the failed cycle…but asking hey, ready for more? AND, without even checking with the Dr first even after knowing I had a follow up consult with him. It just feels disappointing and very impersonal.

The reality is if I didn’t have such a long history with this office, I’m not sure I would be as forgiving. But, the Dr. is a specialist, he knows my entire medical history, I’ve been seeing him since 2006, and I have confidence in him as a doctor.  It’s not him….it’s his support staff that’s been a journey. For awhile there, the front office people were terrible, now it’s perhaps the coordinators.

 

Aside from all that, I had been logging into the portal daily to see if the lab results were up. The Dr. said that if the amh was less than 1.0 that wouldn’t be great and if it was close to zero, like 0.3 or something, it wouldn’t be good at all.  I had no idea what to expect, but my test came back today at 1.41. The coordinator sent an email saying that the Dr. would move forward w/ that result and would recommend doing 2 rounds of retrieval with embryo testing. The coordinator said I could talk to his other IVF Dr. about what process we would use….if I’m not mistaken, it’s more of a mini ivf of sorts where they try to get fewer, but quality eggs.

 

In a way, this all would have been easier if the Dr. said I was too old.  Some days, I feel old. I’m certainly not in the best shape and without a doubt that would need to change if I wanted to pursue this. It’s kind of a now or…..it’s not ever.  This has been the real struggle for me. While waiting on the test results I’ve continued to think through if I really want to do this, put my mind and body through it, do I have the energy for it, dealing with the hormones, etc.. with of course a possibility of the same outcome I just had. I feel a level of anxiety about it.  It feels like such a bigger decision than even moving forward w/ the embryo transfer I already had. Part of me is leaning towards just getting as much information as I can such as: cost, protocol. Timeline, etc.. then make a decision.

 

Parenting is dang hard at times…..but, it’s in my soul what I want to be doing with my life. I’ve had a great career and it’s what supports our life, but that isn’t my focus and hasn’t been for awhile. I’m certain with my two children we will have lots of great experiences/challenges, and it’s a matter of how far I want to or will go to see if adding to our family is possible.  I don’t have an answer to that just yet.

11 days pa.st Tra.nsfer and.........

Well.....no drum roll this time.....it did not work.  I did the beta at the Dr office this morning.  What I didn't share on here because I wanted to try and stay as neutral as possible and just felt like keeping it to myself was that I did home tests on day 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10 past transfer.  All negative.  So, I was prepped for the call this afternoon.  There was a very small piece of me that was holding out for the final confirmation because of all the crazy stories you can read about people getting positives 10+ days after transfer.
I now understand the difference in tests, however. I could never understand why people would torture themselves with the tests that have two lines, kinda, maybe, was it there a little...test. I've always thought in the past it seems much simpler to use the ones that say yes or no, right?
Well, naïve self, that's because during all my fertility treatments I've never had a negative test before. So, after staring down the digital read that said no, I researched and learned quickly that people use the line testers because they are more sensitive and can 'read' hcg at lower levels, thus why I did the same thing myself and bought ones that would show a line, maybe...sooner.


I think I'm still processing all of this. I kinda just thought since my labs were great, lining was great, hormone levels were great, and embryos were good quality and one was even hatching that this would just work.  Honestly I think we gave them the best shot we/I could. This is where sometimes, it's just not in our hands and truly out of anyone's control.
The one thing I did not do was have them tested to see if they were "normal" embryos....my approach was let's see if it works first, then I would test later. I didn't test any embryos throughout my processes.


I'm supposed to have a followup with the Dr. next week to go over everything, which I will for sure go to....I suspect, though, that there won't really be a conclusive answer. They just didn't take.


Thankfully, I'm not feeling devastated because I have truly been blessed....and I now have an even greater appreciation for the fact that other than the one IVF cycle where I didn't get eggs, everything worked out the way it was supposed to.  So many people struggle and I just never had any insight into it. I can't even imagine going through this cycle after cycle and not being successful. Not to mention all the money, crazy medication, the commitment to take said medication for what seems like all day every day.....just the whole process.  Upon reflection it was a lot. I don't feel like an embryo transfer was any 'easier' than going through the whole IVF cycle.


I'm not sure what now....I truly was envisioning a family of four and in my mind it was a boy. Strange how you can get so far ahead, huh? I do have a small confession, though, that when one of the tests was negative I did feel a small hint of relief. I'm sure it was a day when I was tired from major lack of sleeping and not feeling good. While I had been hopeful throughout, I had also been thinking through the all sorts of crazy it would be with three and I would need to dig deep. It's confusing me because where I'm struggling a bit is the "finality" part of all this. I have no more embryos with 38 year old eggs. I'm 44 now.   I suspect what I am working through is maybe normal?  I (maybe naively) thought that if this process didn't work I'd be fine because I had given my remaining embryos a chance at life. That's the most I could do.  I just don't feel as settled as I thought I would.


In closing, I feel like I need to put a disclaimer that I absolutely do understand how fortunate I am to be a mother of two. I think I worry that someone reading this might think otherwise...especially those who have really struggled.  I think everyone's story/journey is personal and for me, already being a mother didn't negate my hope for this one as well.

6 days pa.st Tra.nsfer

So yesterday and today I’ve had some really bad cramping. I have to say they feel very much like bad AF cramps. I’ve also had some small breakouts on my face, my chest is still sore, however, that ramped up with the additional progesterone. I also feel super bloated. Clearly a lot of symptoms that happen on a monthly basis. I’m trying my best to stay neutral/keep an open mind, etc but it’s been hard. I don’t want to write any hard statements as I just don’t want something black and white in the universe....so I won’t.
I’ve been researching like a fool testing, symptoms, how many Days Pa.st Tran.sfer does everything happen. I’ve had plenty of time to do that because even though I hadn’t had a drop of caffeine since last Friday (until a small bit this afternoon), I have slept terribly. Can’t get to sleep until 1-2 am. Wake up every hour until kids come in around 6:30-6:45am. I’m feeling the effects of that tonight.
I’ve been also researching how early a blood test can be done and since I didn’t have a trigger shot it seems they could maybe test me sooner. I might at least ask if that’s possible.

A nice surprise when I came home late tonight is both kids ran outside even! to greet me. Both of them giving me hugs and saying how much they missed me. Nanny told me my son was counting down the minutes until I got there. If I knew how much love I would get for being really late...might have to do it more often. Ha!
It just felt so nice...so that’s what I will focus on.

3 days pa.st Tra.nsfer

I'm just not sure on this one. I really am not sure.  I've felt some aches/pulling here and there but it has been very infrequent and not very intense or strong. My chest has become pretty tender, however, I've totally upped my progesterone, so I'm not sure on that one either. In the mornings, especially, I feel pretty much nothing. It's hard to not allow yourself to make conclusions too early because as they all say, "you never know", but my mind has been wondering. I'm trying to not focus too much, but c'mon....who doesn't want to know what's going on there, right?!
I've looked back through my old posts from both my daughter and my son to see what I felt and when. For my daughter we did a 3 day fresh transfer and I had symptoms pretty much right away....chest extremely tender that it hurt to change my clothes, regular cramping, noted one really strong twinge 4 days past transfer. I tested for the first time 7 days past the fresh transfer and got a positive. For my son we did a frozen transfer with 5 day. 1 day past transfer I felt some twinges in my lower left part of uterus and it had a 'fullness' feeling. I noted that I felt normal and good. I mentioned I had a lot of twingy crampy zingers the first few days, but after 4 days I didn't feel a whole lot and not much seemed different. My chest wasn't unusually sore although I thought I noticed some blue veining, but wasn't sure. I ended up testing 5 days past the 5 day transfer and got the positive. Apparently the timer took awhile.


So, all that to say.....I just need to wait some more.
Ugh.