Chicken

Well, I was going to test tomorrow.  13 days past retrieval....but...I'm chickening out.  I don't want to ruin another lazy Sunday being sad about a cycle.  So, maybe I'll test Monday?  Maybe Tuesday?  Any chance I could keep taking progesterone forever and just never have to deal with a negative?

Same old symptoms that everyone feels during two week wait post IVF.  Breathlessness. Cramps.  Lower back pain. Itchy nipples.  Blah blah blah.  I can hyper analyze these, but I know well enough that I've had the same symptoms when I've been pregnant as when I haven't.

Better news: Baby Girl is WALKING.  Full on.  Only 10 months old and she is taking up to 15 steps in a row.  She's still a little shaky, but she is SO proud of herself!  She starts clapping for herself before she even begins walking and has this HUGE grin on her face the entire time.  I'm so excited for her to be able to keep up with her brother. 

The past four days off have been wonderful.  Every morning, we pull Baby Girl in bed with us to have a bottle and then eventually her big brother comes and joins us.  She gets so excited when he joins us that she starts kicking her legs and jumping all around.  Big Brother is not so excited and really just wants to snuggle sans baby sucking on his nose or stealing his binky.

My husband and I are at war over my son's binky.  Husband thinks is WAY overdue for us to eliminate the binky.  I don't see that it is necessary to have a big fight about it and assume that he will grow out of it when he is ready.  Husband contends that it is impacting Nugget's speech...which very well may be true.  I think this might be a battle I lose.

Off to sleep.  This progesterone makes me want to sleep for 10 hours a night.  I do not know why some people love this stuff (thinking of you, Tippy!).

Red Stuff

This morning, I noticed that the discharge from my suppositories was brownish/reddish.  I have been pretty crampy the past few days.  I've never not made it to at least 15-17 days post retrieval before Aunt Flo decides to make her arrival, but seems she just can't wait this time.  It's only been 9 days post retrieval and 6 days post 3 day transfer, but apparently that's a long enough luteal phase for Aunt Flo.  Sigh.  I had stupid hope for this cycle.  And, I know that people will claim "implantation bleeding!" but I've NEVER had it before and am tired of trying to find reasons to hope.

2 Frozen Embryos

Got the cyro report today.

2 Frozen Blasts.
1 AA, 1 AB

Not bad.  I was secretly hoping that we'd have more.  But, my clinic only freezes top quality embyros and I guess the rest didn't cut the mustard.

So, combined with our one 32-year old embryo in NJ, we have 3 frozen, good/great quality embryos.

If this cycle doesn't work, we'll have to decide whether we want to do an FET or do another fresh cycle.  I'm inclined to do a fresh cycle in December, if possible, as that would completely suck our current insurance plan dry and then do a frozen in January while we wait for approval from our new insurance company.  I don't know if my clinic would be open to doing a natural FET.  A medicated FET is 2 cycles and they typically end up shutting down my ovaries for a couple of months (aka, no bleed, no ovulation) and I don't really want to take that time out.

Sigh, even as I write all this I get tired.  Maybe, if this cycle doesn't work, just do a last FET with all 3 embryos and be done with this.

Trauma

I am restless.  Ever since the transfer, I have been waking up in the middle of the night, lying in bed, unable to go back to sleep.  Inevitably, after an hour, I get out of bed and end up scouring the Internet to read "multiple ivfer" boards just to scroll through the signatures with people's stories of woe.  4 cycles.  7 cycles.  Beautiful embyros and yet never, never any success to knock some fear back in my heart.  Largely, I have been successful.  I was talking with my close, uber-fertile friend who naively asked if I had any symptoms and when I would take a pregnancy test.  Yes, I told her.  I have a ton of symptoms.  I'm hungry, cranky, exhausted, my nipple tingle, peeing constantly and these symptoms are completely meaningless because I will have them regardless of whether I am pregnant.  I will know I am pregnant if I pee on a stick two weeks post transfer and two lines pop up.

Lately, I can't shake this sense of loss.  Loss of my career.  Loss of the woman I used to be.  The emotionally mature response is to say that I am a newer, better, stronger self.  And, sure, I am.  But, I feel so lost in my career now.  I went from being one of the "high performers" to this drab wall-flower with promotion potential decimated.  It's not something that I couldn't make up for in a couple of years with a lot of hours and maneuvering and hard work.  But, it just feels so....artificial.  I just can't pretend it is something I care about any more.  I also miss my physical aspirations.  I guffaw to think I seriously thought I had a chance of running a 2:50 marathon.  I wanted to run 90 miles a week. 

It seems like my heart just can't hold of anything anymore.  I have no aspirations of any sort now.  Or at least I don't know where to point my ambition.  And, I love my kids, but being a mom is one aspect of my personality.  The only aspect of my life that I have focused my perseverance and hard work on the past few years.  I got lucky in that I can look at my two children and feel that I am accomplished something.  But, I am exhausted from it.  I don't know how to revive the rest of my life and the thought of continuing to live like this, with all other ambition muted seems....empty, scary, isolating?  I can't find the right adjective.

Sigh.  I should go back to sleep.  The combination of waking up in the middle of the night plus drugs is making me a human zombie. 

Who is this girl?

Today we went in for transfer expecting it to be like all the other transfers.  One or two to pick from.  All the others dead.

But, today...they were all still growing.  I didn't memorize the number/cell/grade of each of them, but they were all still in the running and some of them looked very good.  Usually, my clinic would have insisted that we wait until Day 5, but we refused.  Day 3 is all that has worked for us, so we're sticking with it.  We picked the two best embryos, a 7-cell and a compacting 8-cell with 0 fragmentation, both grade 1 (highest grade). 

We will find out out Monday whether they were able to freeze any embryos.

We are trying so very hard to not be hopeful.  To not fall victim to the allure of beautiful embryos and a nearly perfect cycle.  To not look up due dates.  To not think about how crazy it would be to manage three children.  To not wonder if maybe we would have a second boy or girl.  To not think about how different our perspective would be about life should it work out to be so EASY to have another child. 

They cycle that hurt the most was the cycle that we did up in New Jersey with the beautiful hatching blastocysts and the embryologist who told us she couldn't imagine that this cycle wouldn't work.  We hoped.  We were stress-free and elated the entire two week wait.  After the negative, I didn't get out of bed for days.  I had horrible fights with my husband.  I can't let myself fly too high because the fall is too steep and too horrible.  Instead, I will choose this middling place.  I am content with my two children.  It would be interesting, a nice to have, but I will not die or sob in bed or miss any more of my life if this cycle doesn't work.

And so the wait begins.

All 9 Still Growing!

At 48 hours post retrieval, embryos should be 2-4 celled.  Yeah, yeah.  We all know that.

As of 9 o'clock this morning, all 9 embryos are still growing.

I have:
2 3-cells
3 4-cells
2 5-cells
1 6-cell
1 7-cell

So, at least 5 normal embryos.

Transfer is scheduled for 10:30 tomorrow morning.  Think good thoughts!

Why is this happening?  WHO knows!  This is the EXACT same protocol that I did in April 2011 with Baby Girl, which yielded 6 eggs, 4 mature, 2 fertilized.

This ART stuff is freaking insane.

We'll see if there are any take home babies in there.

Mwah!

Best Fertilization Report of ANY Cycle I have Ever Done

15 eggs
10 mature
9 fertilized

AH-Mazing!

We'll see about the progress report tomorrow.  Hoping that we have at least 2 to transfer on Thursday.

I'm trying so hard not to let my excitement get the best of me.  I know what a roller coaster ride this is.  Some great cycles NEVER translate into pregnancies.  Some pregnancies never translate into take home babies.