You look like a monkey, and you smell like one too

I don't usually tick off my ailments for everyone to see because, really, who cares? But I feel so shitty that I have to tell someone and I choose you guys. :-)

I don't feel shitty in that ooh-i-think-i'm-pregnant way. I just feel shitty in a dozen different ways and have since the retrieval and transfer. In a way it's nice because with the first IVF (at least the first one that made it to retrieval and transfer), I felt this shitty and it worked (albiet briefly). With the second IVF, I felt totally fine -- I swear it was like I had defective estrogen pills and progesterone in oil because I felt no effects at all whatsoever. Go figure.

Anyway, without further adeiu, here are my complaints for today. I refuse to call them "symptoms" because they cannot be related in any way to the ficticious HCG that may or may not be floating around in my system since implantation that happened about 8 seconds ago (it's 8dpo so, in theory, time for implanting).

1. Feel shitty - Um, yeah, I just feel shitty. Luckily the horrific headaches that I got on the stims are gone. This benefit far outweighs any of the problems I prattle on about here, so don't think I'm not feeling like one lucky duck. But it would be nice if I didn't have 827 random pains whilst I feel like the entire inner cavity of my body has been hallowed out and filled with wet sand.

2. Round ligament pain - I had insanely painful round ligament pains when I was pregnant with Megan. They were truly debilitating. Ever since she was born, I've continued to have them especially around AF's visit -- my guess is that even the subtle changes in uterine weight caused by the extra blood puts strain on them. It really sucks. They always reach an all-time high just before AF comes during a progesterone-enhanced cycle.

3. Bloating - I look like a dead trout. Okay, if I was to be cute about it, I'd say I look like I'm 5 months pregnant. But mostly I feel like one of those nasty, decaying, bloated fish you find washed up on the shore of a highly toxic lake. It's so not cool.

4. Heartburn - Ugh. Nothing seems to keep it at bay. I'm nervous to take Tums or Pepcid too close to my morning and evening estrogen pills/vitamins/etc so my window of attempted relief is pretty small. Over the weekend it hurt so much I swear I was having a heart attack what with all the pain in my chest. Actually, today, it's considerably better so who knows.

5. Sore stomach - I distinctly remember reading other people's complaint lists post-transfer and seeing them complain about sore stomach muscles. I didn't really know what they meant, but now I do. It feels like I've done 1,000 situps in a row. (Truthfully, I haven't done 1,000 in the past 12 years combined so that's just hilarious to me.) It's sort of a weird feeling, as if I'm constantly tensing up my stomach muscles and can't make them relax. It makes me mad because I'm trying desperately to relax and visualize my embie(s) gleefully burrowing in, but I'm afraid I'm creating a hostile environment with all this tight stomach muscle nonsense.

6. Spotting - This is SO annoying. I bled the day of and the day after my retrieval. Then everything was fine until the back-to-back transfers. They both hurt more than any of the previous ones so I remember thinking that I'm surely going to bleed from this. I didn't bleed that day, but every single day since I've spotted. The first day, it was pink and since then it's been brown every day. Again, it makes me feel like my ute isn't being very hospitable to the new neighbors.

7. Cramping - This too has been there every single day since the transfer. For the first 3 days, it was a constant, never-ending mild cramping. More annoying than anything else, except that it makes me clutch my midsection (particuarly in the uterus-ovary region) often which I have to assume makes people suspicious. I typically get cysts after a stim cycle so I'm sure part of the pain is my ovaries making their displeasure known -- especially since it's often on the right side and that was the ovary that overachieved (well, at least as compared to it's counterpart). Luckily it's waaaaaay too early for me to be worrying about an ectopic problem, I'm just chalking it up to a statement of displeasure regarding the poking and prodding last week, and some nagging cysts.

So there you have it. I feel like shit and I bet I look like it too. (Anyone else humming that version of Happy Birthday?) POAS is set for Wednesday but I might start tomorrow just so I can feel like I'm doing something. Plus, I'll have already gotten over the initial shock of a negative test so that I don't get all freaked if it stays negative for the next few days. Of course it won't do that because this cycle WORKED. I am hopeful that it did and LJ has simply WILLED it to work, so it must.

Choose Hope

So, Leah, how is the 2WW going? Usually, I'd say, "Fine, just fine. Thanks ever so much for asking!" Then I'd go off into a corner to review the donor egg paperwork again, resigned to the impending doom of next week's POAS adventure.

However, this time around, I just decided to say “Fuck it.” I’m going to be hopeful. I have always been the type of person that sets their expectations low. That way, I’m never disappointed. Either it doesn’t work out and it was what I expected anyway. Or it does work out and I get to be pleasantly surprised.

But I’ve learned that it doesn’t really happen that way.

It turns out that while I’m busy preparing for the worst, keeping optimism in check and dwelling on my low expectations, I must have let a little Hope seep through. At the time, I don’t feel like that is what’s happening, but when the world comes crashing down (cancelled cycle, BFN, miscarriage, etc.), it still hurts like hell. So obviously I’ve let myself get my hopes up.

Let’s review the options:

1. Be hopeful and then get disappointed when it doesn’t work out

2. Be pessimistic and then get disappointed when it doesn’t work out

Hmmmmm. I’m a college-educated woman so the similarity of the outcomes doesn’t escape me. The chief difference seems to be how I am CHOOSING to spend the time prior to the disappointment. Heck, I could get really crazy here and assume, just for shits and giggles, that there isn’t a disappointment at the end of the road. Yeah, but I’m not ready to go there quite yet.

I hate to harp on any one thing, but I can’t stop thinking about some advice that Mel gave to LJ. It really resonated with me and has caused a subtle shift in my attitude. The advice was basically, “Celebrate whenever you can. Even if it’s short-lived.” Well, damnit, she’s right! Being the realist (read: pessimist) that I am, I’m essentially robbing myself of happiness.

Let’s expand further on the above options:

1. Be hopeful, spend lots of time wishing and dreaming and fantasizing about a new baby in our lives and just generally have a happy outlook during the 2WW, then get disappointed when it doesn’t work out

2. Be pessimistic, spend lots of time fretting and worrying and being convinced that it isn’t working and just generally have a shitty outlook during the 2WW, then get disappointed when it doesn’t work out

I can choose to spend the 2WW dreaming of baby names and midnight feedings. I can choose to spend the 2WW calculating my due date and planning how to tell our families the big news. I can choose to spend the 2WW wondering if MORE than one will stick.

Or I can choose to spend the 2WW being a giant ball of stress, nerves and bitchiness.

I’ve made my decision. I’m going to choose Hope. It may not work, but I’m certainly going to give it a try. Wish me luck.

2 for the price of 1

Picture this scene… It’s transfer time. I’m lying on the table, knees spread nice and wiiiiiide apart, bright light shining on my could-be-manicured-a-little-better womanhood, speculum wrenching my girlie bits wide, painfully inserted catheter hanging out, 400 pound gorilla pushing the ultrasound probe on my full bladder so hard I think it’s going to pop like a well-fed tick. Everyone is gathered ‘round my crotch staring with an intensity so sharp that I expect them to start munching on popcorn and Raisinettes at any moment.

Mr. Hot-But-I-Look-Dumb Embryologist comes with in our 3 fabulous embies, glances at my fully-exposed private parts (with nary a complimentary word, hmmph), and hands the embryos to the Doctor. Said Doctor pushes the plunger and shazam! In go our embies. Much celebrating and high-fiving occurs.

Now we all sit very still for 1 minute to let things “rest.” Everyone in the room is clothed except me. Everyone in the room has their sexual organs covered except me. Everyone in the room is staring at my crotch except me.* It’s a super-dee-duper comfortable situation.

The Doctor smiles, says that everything went “perfect” and gives the catheter to Mr. HBILD Embryologist to check and make sure none of the embryos got “stuck” and left behind in the catheter. Since this really never happens, we all assume it’s fine and they begin to dismantle the scene – the sonographer starts cleaning up the 14 pounds of goo she put on my abdomen to slide the probe around, the Doctor takes out the speculum and begins to lower the table. I start dreaming of baby names.

Suspiciously, that damn Embryologist isn’t back yet. Ms. Doctor sticks her head out the door into the Lab and asks, “All clear?” I’m sure you can guess where this is going.

Sure enough, one of the embryos is stuck in the catheter. The Doctor quickly covers and says, “Oh, it’s not a big deal, it happens.” To which I reply, “Really? How often?” She says, “About 5% of the time.” Great. She then spent lots of time reassuring me that this will not affect the outcome of embryonic health of our future child(ren). Amazingly, I didn’t freak out, I just sort of accepted it.

So, as I was supposed to be letting the wave of peace and calm overtake me, instead I was basically enjoying a 2nd transfer. Lather, rinse, repeat. Raise the table up, let your knees fall to the side, insert the speculum, jab in the catheter, slime me with goo and crush my bladder/uterus, etc. Big fun. However, this time, that 3rd one made it to the other side. To the oasis that is my Enclave.

Everyone present agreed that if that 3rd one is the one that sticks, we have a long road ahead of us because it will have been a troublemaker since before it entered the womb. Great, just great.

I wanted to name the embies Frick, Frack and Trouble. That got vetoed. I think we are going to settle on The SuperHeroes: Batman, Robin and Spidey**. I chose Batman and Robin because those two sailed right in together with no problem. Spidey is the one with the sticky feet who refused to climb on out of the catheter. Hopefully the 3 of them are in there, solving crimes (such as oh, I don’t know, The Mystery of the Multiple Miscarriages) and saving all of uterine humanity. I’m proud of them already.

So there you have it. The Tale of the Two Transfers. I don’t recommend it. However, if this cycle works, then I could have gladly endured 200 transfers in a row if that’s what was necessary.

Beta is set for September 20th. Yeah, about 100 years away. Seriously, they purposely schedule it for 18dpo. Isn’t that insane? Whatever. I will be POAS next Wednesday (10dpo). Kevin asked me not to, but I simply cannot refrain. I just can’t, I’m not that person. I’m the kind that pees on sticks. I guess he knows that because the other day he said, “You’ll have to tell me when you start taking home tests, because I know you will.” This is why I married him.

* I let Kevin read this before I posted it and he was quick to point out that HE wasn’t getting to stare at my crotch. I think he said it in an effort to make me feel better, but really it just underscored that 4 other complete strangers were oogling me while, once again, my poor husband is left out of the process. Talk about demystifying the passion of babymaking…

** Obviously, I shamelessly stole the inspiration for our embryo names from Erin. Now hop over there and send her some sticky vibes for the Wonder Twins!

Okey Dokey

Bedrest sucks. I couldn't get wireless to work on my laptop, so I'm Internet-less. Kevin is a strict, raving loon when it comes to the post-transfer bedrest stuff, so I've been chained to the bed. He finally left this morning to go to Target for something, so I snuck downstairs to type a quick update...

All 3 were still going strong -- apparently 2 of them were starting to compact already which is good. Of course there is a story to tell, but I'll post that later tonight after my official 24 hours of confinement have ended.

So, bottom line is that everything went fine and we've got 3 on board. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please let 1 of them stick around for the long haul.

THANK YOU so much to everyone who commented and supported me. It sounds like so much Hallmark-y bullshit, but I really did feel your good vibes!

The Enclave

All 5 are chugging along, but 2 are looking sketchy.

As of this morning, one of them was only 2 cells. Apparently that might be fine, but sounds sluggish to me.

The other 4 embryos were 4 cells, so that's good, but one of them had 30% fragmentation so it's not going to make it.

Hopefully the remaining 3 will hang in there until tomorrow and return to the nice, warm enclave of my womanhood.

Transfer is at 3:30pm tomorrow. Wish me and our embies lots of luck!

So far, so good

Of the 6 retrieved, all 6 were mature. Of them, 5 fertilized normally yesterday. As of today, all 5 are chugging along. Wahoo!

I was crazy nervous because they didn't call me this morning. We went out running errands around 9am and just got home (1pm). All the nurses know to call my cell phone for updates, so when it was after noon and no one had called, I was praying that they just screwed up and called my home phone.

Turns out, that's what they did. For the first time ever, Dr. Chat himself called me with the update. Usually it's a nurse or the embryologist or someone, but I guess since Dr. Chat did the retrieval himself, he wanted to call with the update himself. Very nice of him.

Now I just wait on pins and needles to hear Erin's report!

Okay

Retrieval went fine. The grand total is 6 eggs. I was hoping for more, but am still happy with the 6. Hopefully they are of great quality and we get some nice embies to transfer on Wednesday.

My RE (Dr. Chat) did the retrieval, so it was nice to see such a familiar face. Afterwards he gushed about how picture-perfect the retrieval was so at least I get an A+ for the mechanics. :-)

I've been reading everyone else's blogs, but have been slacking on commenting lately. I'll plan to catch up tonight. Just know that I've been following everyone and thinking about you a lot!

Thanks again for all of your wishes for good luck. Hopefully they worked this time!