Two Embryos in the Oven

I've got two embryos in the oven and hoping for the best.

We did PGD testing on our embryos again and this was the first time our clinic could offer us same cycle transfer with the testing. They shipped our biopsies on day 5 and they were shipped back by 9am the next day for a Day 6 transfer!

We got 11 eggs, did ICSI (which is recommended for PGD testing) and 8 fertilized. Of the 8, 5 were ready by Day 5 for biopsy and of those 5, only 2 came back with normal genetics. Those 2 were a grade 2 out of 4 and a grade 2-3 out of 4 (whatever that means).

Our doctor recommended we transfer two based on this. With a single transfer, we would have had a 35% chance of pregnancy. With transferring two, we have a 60% chance of a single pregnancy and a 25% chance of twins.

Let's see what happens. I hope I can remain peaceful in this 2 week wait and particularly peaceful if it's a negative result. I think I can.

And I'm also concerned that even if it's a positive result on July 8, that something will happen 1-2 weeks after that as it has to us so many times now, but this is why we're doing all this genetic testing.

I've got to stay hopeful and peaceful.

"Free and Easy" IVF #3

My husband is calling me "free and easy" these days. It's a quote that the Wash.ington Na.tionals Manager uses a lot to describe his management style! I guess B. feels like my positive upswing and they way I've been handling going into our next IVF captures that sentiment.

I've taken a whole new approach with our fresh IVF #3 cycle: I'm minimizing it.

I've minimized it to the point that I've told NO ONE it's even happening outside of my husband (ha! obviously!!), our therapist and my support group. No one else knows. At least from me. Not my family. Not my best friend. No one.

And I've told B that with whoever he tells, to them them that I've been so positive these days by minimizing it that contrary to how I handled previous cycles, I don't want to talk about it. His family is visiting this weekend and I even told him to tell them not to ruin my zen place by bringing it up!

So, how has it been going? Really well! Here's my progress:

• Still LOVING the new job!
• Down 6 lbs on Wei.ght Wat.chers after 2 1/2 months!
• Increased bik.ram yoga to 3-4x/week and running 1-2x/week
• Our marriage is awesome

I know I'm still burying the hurt and sadness of infertility a bit by I've also chosen to focus on ALL of the great things happeneing to me instead of the ONE thing that isn't. And that's made me A LOT happier. 

I've also been realizing that lots of people have sucky things happening to them and I'm just one of them. And approaching life with what IS working is better than what ISN'T. 

When I was searching 'infetility woes' a couple of months ago, I came across this post which just resonated so much. I've spent my entire mid-30s - 5 years! - being sad, depressed and letting this characterize my 30s. Well, after I read that, I thought, I'm not going to let that be me anymore. I'm not going to let infertility define my life anymore.

So far so good. 

Egg retrieval was today. We'll see about the rest. I'm not going to sweat it. Things will work out one way or another. With this. With life in general. I'm riding this "free and easy" right now. 

On a Positive Upswing

I did have a little set-back a few weeks ago but I am doing so much better now!

It's interesting too, since this week marked 8 weeks since my miscarriage and that I'm actually STILL going through it. Yes, I'm still bleeding and my hcg is only down to 18. (It's been a very, very slow climb down the last 5 weeks in particular).

But I am doing great and here's some reasons why:

• I'm LOVING my new job! I think changing jobs after 5 years was really the kick I needed to infuse my life with new energy. I was stagnant and not feeling valued there (by not providing enough value because I was feeling stagnant, vicious circle). Much as I loved that job and had mixed feelings to leave, I absolutely love, love, love my new job. Two months in and I really jive with my boss and the senior team and I love commuting to work on my bike again!
• I'm having success with Wei.ght Wat.chers again! I joined 4 weeks ago and have lost 2.5lbs so far (I've got a mini 5lb goal and an overall 10 lb goal (I'm short so those are 'more'/harder than one may think). 
• I'm exercising a lot again--whether it's been bik.ram yoga 2x/week, biking to work everyday (which is only 1.5 miles each way, but still...) or running 2x/week, it has all felt great. I want to  try to do one more yoga a week but I'm really proud of this!
• My marriage is so much better! Counseling once a week for the last 3 months has really helped to turn us around. I realize my depression and sadness were starting to turn toward him and that wasn't good. I had started not appreciating him which wasn't good. We've worked on some things (mostly me) and now we're so happy again!
• I'm appreciating all the great things in my life... and not dwelling anymore (as much) on the thing we don't have. I think by focusing on the things I really like - taking advantage of the int'l film fest that came to DC recently, going to baseball games again, doing my yoga and running, etc. helped my energy level on things that are great about my life.
• Still making progress on family building. I finally got most of my medical records for our consult on May 24 which was a big hurdle. We're going to R.M.A. in NJ and making a weekend in NY out of it so that's good.
• Being on a somewhat forced break because I'm still bleeding and my hcg isn't back to 0 has actually given me the freedom to not be in that rat race with it all, which has been good.

So, hopefully that's enough to keep this positive energy up!

Some Progress, Some Tripping Up

I've been making progress lately. I'm enjoying the weather. I'm running again. I've been taking advantage of an international film fest in my city.

I'm getting all the paperwork done for an out of state consult we have in late May.

I'm also still bleeding. I've been bleeding for 6 weeks now. A constant reminder of our miscarriage.

My hcg levels haven't dropped as quickly as we had all thought. Each week I go in for bloodwork and have seen it go from 400 to 200 to 100-something to 100-something to 69 to 21. This week surely it will be at 0.

I bled a lot more on Friday and Saturday so am hoping that was an actual period but who knows.

And I've also gotten tripped up.

My brother-in-law texted this past week telling us to call to know whether we'll be having another niece or nephew. We learned on speaker phone that it will be a boy. And as much as I'm happy for them, for us, it tripped me up. They'll be adding a boy to their 18 month old girl and it feels like they'll have it all while we're 5+ years into our struggle. And it made me mad that I got sad. Why can't I just be 100% happy for them?

And then friends of us texted last night with 'call us, we've got news to share'. They've struggled with infertility despite having 2 kids now. And we know they were trying for a 3rd, but surely this wasn't what they were calling about, was it? They know about our struggles and wouldn't make this a big deal, would they? But they did and that's what the call was about. I don't know how many times I can exclaim 'that's great' without feeling so isolated with my pain. And I can't possibly continue to joke about getting a van to fit 3 kids when we don't even know if we'll ever have 1...

It is so isolating at times. Especially in the joyful times of our friends. Especially when our pain isn't acknowledged alongside their happiness. It's such a lonely place.

And yet I'm making progress. I filled out pages upon pages of medical information for our consultation. Getting medical record requests forms from 4 different places was a pain. And re-writing our history was jarring and had a sting to it reminding me of how not normal all of this has been for us.

5+ years with 3 IUIs, 2 fresh IVFs, 4 FETs, 2 surgeries and 6 miscarriages.

So yes, I'm making progress. But I do get tripped up sometimes. Can you blame me?

Miscarriage #6

Pretty unbelievable. It's a wonder we continue to try, really.

So, our FET #4 worked with the PGD testing. Just 1 embryo and it worked. I couldn't believe it. Did a home test the day before and was so happy, but also cautious.

We've gone down many roads of a positive test but with low numbers where it ends up miscarrying or becoming ectopic/suspected ectopic.

But this time our first beta was 566! They didn't even want/need to see me again for 4 more days and by then our numbers doubled to 2099! I was ecstatic. Finally, like a light switch, I wasn't depressed anymore.

Then, at 5 1/2 weeks, as always, I had massive bleeding within the span of 2 hours. I just knew that that couldn't be good. I went into my clinic and they did an ultrasound and said it was too early to tell or that the blood may be disrupting their view but they said to still be hopeful and said they thought they saw a sac. My bloodwork, though, came back at 2400. They said that didn't necessarily mean anything but I was suspect at that point. That was on a Thursday. They said rest over the weekend and come back on Monday for Week 6 ultrasound.

Well, there was no sac. And my level had dropped to 421. At least it's not ectopic. With having gone through this so many times, it's amazing I took it all so calmly and was relieved that it wasn't ectopic.

My doctor was out of town all of last week and we're not scheduled for a phone consult with him until this Thursday. I'm so eager to know what he'll say next. But I'm also somewhat fearful that we're so much closer to the end of line on this. I don't trust my body anymore. The only thing I can think of that may help is whether I need blood thinners or something. I have no idea. My mind is jumping now to gestational carriers and whether that's something we'd actually look into and afford. It's all overwhelming.

B and I are really strained in our marriage. The last couple of months haven't been great. We've been going to counseling once a week and that's been really helpful but I just want us to be normal again and close. Especially when something difficult like this happens.

I'd been bleeding for 10 days and finally stopped today. That constant reminder was becoming to be too much.

When are we going to get our family??? When am I going to feel normal again? I'm sick of being sad all the time and not being able to be myself and interact with others like normal. I can accept that we're not able to have the life we thought we would have and that this is going to be long and difficult but I just want to be able to feel normal about it all.

I know it'll get better and we'll figure it all out. It's just been a hard last 10 days.

Job Change, Genetic Testing, FET #4 & Travel

Gosh, lots has happened since I last wrote. And it's been almost 2 months.

Job:
First, I quit my job in early Jan. I had been thinking about it in Dec and knew when I started up with all the doctor stuff again, that I couldn't keep my energy up about work. As we were planning for 2013, my heart just wasn't in it. I quite citing personal reasons. My boss has known what we're struggling with. Honestly, though, he just became not so nice in the last couple of years and it was really, really hard to quit because I really did like it. I just couldn't take him anymore.

The day I quit felt bittersweet. I had been there almost 5 years and headed up HR for this organization that was 45 people when I joined and was 150 when I left. We went global. I did a lot for them and I'm quite proud of my work there.

By the next day, I felt complete relief.

In the meantime, I had been interviewing with 2 other opportunities and ended up in a situation where BOTH wanted me. I could hardly believe it. It felt so good to be wooed after having felt like I wasn't doing a great job for over a year. I decided to go with the less exciting job where I felt like I could still make an impact with little stress. It felt like a good culture fit and where I could walk to work again. I took a month in between. I start on March 4.

Genetic Testing & FET #4:
We did genetic testing through our clinic with Na.tera on our remaining 4 frozen embryos. One didn't  survive, and of the remaining 3, only one was good/normal. I can't exactly remember what the other two had - I think one had an extra chromosome 23 which normally doesn't make it thorugh pregnancy (which may be the reason for some of our chemical pregnancies) and the other had an additional chromosome 2 or 3 which doesn't even make it to a positive pregnancy test.

So, we were left with just 1 and transferred that one last Fri, Feb 15. My pregnancy test is next Thurs, Feb 28.

I'm a little anxious but I think I feel that if we need to do another fresh IVF, I'll be hoping that we will have at least 1 or 2 to freeze since I'd rather have 'younger' eggs now than try this again in 1-2 years... but that's a lot of projecting and I'm trying to stay in the moment which brings me to...

Travel!
We had so many miles stored up from putting our IVF fees on our miles credit card that once I quit my job and prior to doing our transfer, I went to Honduras! It was so incredibly gorgeous!!! I went alone for 3 1/2 days to an island called Roatan just off the Gulf/Atlantic cost. It was exactly what I needed.

And tomorrow, I'm getting ready to go to AZ and Palm Springs, CA for 6 days, solo also. I'll be visiting Tucson for the first time and I'll also be going to Scottsdale close to where a friend from high school now lives. And then to CA where I'm excited to see Joshua Tree National Park.

So, lots going on... and for now, all heading in a positive direction!

Last Cycle Negative, Moving to Genetic Testing and Possibly Adoption

Our last cycle in November was negative.

I mostly expected it but what really helped was having B with me when we got the results. Actually, having him take the afternoon off and wait for the call with me and then was with me on speakerphone as I have often heard the words from our nurse, "I'm so sorry but I'm not calling with good news...".

We've had a total of 5 transfers with 6 embryos (all but the last were single transfers).

Our doctor has recommended we move forward with doing genetic testing. We're in process of that right now. I'm eager to know whether any of our 4 remaining embryos are normal. If so, we'll start an FET.

Odd thing is is that I haven't gotten my period since Nov 7. I spotted, for like a minute, around when my period was supposed to come but now we're on 7 weeks with no period - and I'm NOT pregnant. I did bloodwork around the time I was supposed to start another cycle and though I had a glimmer of hope, I would be, who am I kidding...

We went to an orientation session with an adoption agency in the area and had mixed emotions on that. It's definitely something I'm sure I will be grateful for but I'm not sure I'm done grieving not having biological children and adoption is not a replacement for that, I'm learning. It's another path to having a family. There is so much involved with considering family ties to the birth families that I'm not emotionally ready to deal with... one day, but not now. (I think because B is finally on board with considering adoption, it's finally allowing me the space to grieve that our biology may not ever happen...)

So, here we are - a new year closely upon us. Me reflecting on 5 years of my inferitility woes, which, in my opinion, is 5 years too many.

I'm doing some soul-searching this week and next on whether to finally quit my job and take 3-6 months off from my career as we figure this out. My job is a growing role in a fast-pace environment and I haven't been able to keep up for the last two years and infertility and fertility treatments have taken its emotional tolls on me. I'm also interviewing at a couple of places and seeing if a new job would be best for me.

All I know is that we need to figure this out. I think the first part of next year will be about medical options and the second part will hopefully be settling on an adoption agency and taking those steps.

If I don't write again before 2013, happy new year and thank you for being on this heart-wrenching journey with me. Love and hugs to you all!