Thursday, September 29, 2011

First Homestudy Meeting

I've had the worst period ever. Well at least the last few years. I had to actually take a couple of hydrocodone (the ones I had left over from when my periods were so painful - and they were expired) so I could tell how long it's been. I don't know why this one was so bad, when they haven't been that way for years now.

Yesterday was our first homestudy meeting. There will be three of them. The first was one with me and L at the social worker's office. The second one will be individual meetings at her office. Only the third will actually be in our home.

It went all right. I didn't get a warm and fuzzy feeling from her. She actually upset me so much at one point that I almost got really angry and started crying. I'm hoping I just misunderstood, but the more I think about it, the more I'm annoyed.

She asked if I was going to put IVF on hold while we were profiled. I wasn't sure what profiled meant so I told her no. I said we weren't trying right now but that didn't mean we wouldn't try again in the future. She told me while I didn't have to legally, I really needed to because adoption is so emotional and IVF is so emotional I really can't handle it. That's where I got really upset. Don't tell me anything is so emotional I can't handle it. I've handled two open heart surgeries, I've handled the loss of 5 babies, 2 IVF cycles, 1 FET AND done adoption paperwork to date, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I CAN HANDLE!!!

Then I stopped crying long enough to tell her maybe I just didn't understand what being "profiled" meant. She told me that's when we're matched with a birthmother. Which I totally didn't understand originally and which was fine with, at least initially. In my mind, we're going to finish our homestudy and wait months and months until we hear from the agency and I was being honest that I wasn't sure I was going to NOT do a cycle while I hear nothing. But if we're matched I of course wouldn't do anything. That I'm ok with. She said we should be profiled within 1 or 2 months. We'll see.

The more I think about it though, the more I realize it's just not as simple as that. What if I'm in the middle of a cycle when I get the call that we're matched? I'm not about to throw away a cycle or my money when nothing is definite. I wouldn't START a new one if we were matched, but IVF cycles are very long, and I think she doesn't realize it.

So nothing's simple, even in adoption (well especially in adoption, but you KWIM.) Still ignorance even there...

It's hard.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Beta Day

Moved my beta up to today, as it was scheduled for 7am tomorrow. I already knew it was going to be negative, why wake up extra early just to find that out? This way I get to sleep in tomorrow.

As thought, it was BFN. HCG was 0.3. Wow...they didn't take at all. My E2 was over 800 and my P4 was 19, so I know those were both good levels. I know my body pretty well - and I felt NOTHING. I didn't even waste my last pee stick!

So...that's it..onto...I don't know what. Do I stay locally and try a cycle with the local team? do I go down to NYC where they have much better success rates (but I would need to use FMLA because I can't make that commute during stims?) I don't know. I am done for at least the next month though. My 33rd birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I might as well be drinking and eating sushi during it. I'll continue to work on my weight loss (now down over 11 lbs in the last month, thank you Jenny Craig), and somehow figure it out.

I said a little prayer for my embies...off to join everyone else. Momma loves you.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Welcome ICLWers

Hi ICLWers and welcome to my blog. I have bullet points to my "story" down the side of my blog, but it's really long by this point so let me give you a summary here.

DH and I have been married since 2007 (we were high school sweethearts who dated a looonng time before getting married) and trying to have a child since 2008. In that time I've had 5 pregnancies (or really 4, but one was twins) and have miscarried all, the most recent being twins at 11 weeks in June. I've been tested for recurrent loss to no avail, and the D&C genetic testing showed chromosomally normal boys, so all doctors are stumped. As you can imagine, this has been very hard for us.

I am currently towards the end of a 2ww for my first FET. Today is 12dpo and I'm pretty sure it didn't work. I had two 2BB thawed embies transferred last week and today I got a BFN on a FRER. It just feels like I can't catch a break.

We also started the adoption process back in February, but it was on hold for a few months when we last got pregnant. However, since losing the last pregnancy, we kicked it into high gear and just got matched with a social worker to write our homestudy. Our first meeting will be next week, and it looks like if everything goes smoothly our profile will be ready to present by November 1st!

I am hopeful one way or another we will have a baby within the next year, but the length of time and heartbreak that has gone on has really made me a much sadder person. I don't think I will ever begin to reclaim myself until I have a child one way or another though, so we keep trying. Not trying means not getting to where I want to be.

Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Willpower

For the first time ever, I bought ONE box of HPTs and didn't proceed to take them in consecutive days.

I now don't really want to take one (I was planning on taking one tomorrow morning, and a digital Friday morning, as beta is Saturday, so that I'm prepared for the news), because I just don't want to see that stark whiteness.

Yesterday's HPT was still blaringly white. 5dpdt. I got my last positive on 4dp5dt last time. True, it was twins, but I feel like I would see even the faintest of lines.

Of course, sitting here a 6dp5dt today, I can honestly tell myself that just perhaps it was too early at the equivalent of 10dpo, especially if only one of the two frozen embies made it. I can feel bad, but not too bad, not yet.

But tomorrow, when it's white, I will have to face the fact that it most likely didn't work. And that the last two months of injections were all for nought.

L made a huge mistake the other day, a rookie mistake, I call it. We own a condo and he was outside puttering on the deck when he calls over and says "does it smell like someone's smoking?" (he hates cigarette smoke, loves cigars) I mindless call to him, "it's probably our neigbor down below" (because the young couple always has parties and hangs out down there). He came in all haughty and said, "He better not be since his wife is pregnant."

It was total news to me. We've already made comments back and forth to each other about these new neighbors, so much younger than us it feels like, with about 4 different really nice cars (including a hummer), money to burn in totally fixing up their condo (the trucks bearing names for tile work, renovations, etc. have been lined up outside for months). Now on top of all that, she's also pregnant?

I just didn't need to find out that way. It's like some people live these golden lives, and then others, like me, get shit on constantly.

I had AF type cramps yesterday, and if it comes early I will be so so pissed. AF cramps at 10dpo seems too late for implantation and too early for AF (unless it comes early) so I am stumped. Other than that, and mind numbing exhaustion (I don't think progesterone suppositories have ever affected me as much as they have this time)...and that's it. I keep trying to convince myself that my boobs are sore (I'm squeezing and pawing at them so much I'm probably making them sore in trying to find out) but I think it's all in my head.

The only thing that's keeping me in hope that AF is not coming today or tomorrow is because my weight was down again this morning. Yay!! I've been doing Jenny Craig for the last month, and as of today am officially down 10 lbs, which is 4 lbs less than when I had my BFP in April. Usually I gain around 5lbs just for AF. And at least when this cycle is over, I will not have added even more weight (which is what has been going on the last few years) and feeling down about that as well.

I'm cranky and bitchy today. Ugh.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Still nothing much

Just writing this so in future months I can compare dpts (days past transfer) for the symptom game. Nothing worthwhile today. Bloating not too bad (saw my mom today and she commented that I've lost weight), very little cramping, if at all (we stayed really busy and I'm trying not to think about it). That's it. :/

I am already writing this cycle off because I just don't feel anything. I'm also looking up stuff because L and I decided tonight that we're going to start getting a nursery prepared because of our homestudy coming up. I'm hoping one way or another we will have a baby within the next year.

We're not going crazy, mind you. We tried to sell our home last year for a full year and the market is so slow we took it off, paid off my student loans, and are going to save till next Spring before putting it back on the market. So we need to do things that will help us sell. We already talked about putting in hardwood or laminate flooring instead of our wall to wall carpet, and since we're going to be repainting what would be the nursery anyway to sell, we're going to change the flooring there first before the rest of the house. That requires us to take off the baseboards anyway, so we'll paint in the color we want for a nursery (a nice yellow color, I think) and then all we need to do is buy the baby furniture and decorate it. In the meantime, it'll continue to serve as our spare bedroom.

Thinking about this makes me happy. Moving forward in anything makes me happy. We've been stuck for far too long. I'm trying to live for today.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Symptoms

I've been feeling so depressed ever since last night. Genius me decided to look up the SART statistics for my clinic for FETs. Why didn't I do this before? I might have saved myself the last 2 months. They are horribly low. I don't even understand why so low? How can it be so much lower than for the fresh IVF cycles?

I had a bunch of cramping on the day of transfer, a *little* cramping yesterday and nothing since. I kind of feel like it's over. I started feeling bloated yesterday, but nothing major. I feel like I've been working towards this for weeks now and it's already done. Ugh.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Another go

Today I had my transfer for my first FET. We put back two snowbabies - both 2BBs. Definitely not as awesome as my fresh IVF cycle, but I'm hoping one sticks. I didn't really relax that much afterwards, but my day job is a desk job so I'm hoping it doesn't matter. I took off half a day only like I did last time and that seemed to work out ok (at least initially).

I don't really think this will work out for me. And if I do magically get pregnant, I'm pretty sure it won't end well, but I will always try. We are actually waiting to get assigned a social worker as all of our Homestudy paperwork is in, so I have that in the back of my mind. At this point, I just want a baby - no matter which way. The only problem is that one costs me $30k. Yes, I'm blessed to have my insurance cover IVF, at least up to a certain threshold.

On the way into work today I called into a radio show and won the prize! Haha!! Just a little gift certificate to applepicking (totally up my alley) but it brought me a lot of joy because I NEVER win anything. Hoping that means good things for the transfer that happened today as well.