Introducing A New Team of Superheros

31 March 2011

We are bringing on a new team of superheroes to take on the evil IF dragon. We left off the last episode after a brutal defeat of the original cast. Some did not make the cut for the new season and will not be returning for this episode. A few new ones have come on in their place. We've opted for a bit more feminine cast this time. It's a slightly larger one, and the cast is demanding a raise, so it's no cheap venture.

Gonal-F -is back. She's one potent lady.
Menopur -Gonal's trusty cousin and a slightly more natural version of her.
Cetrotide -She'll be making an entrance slightly later and will help to keep the first two from rushing their dragon attack.
DHEA -This old man is hanging on steady and strong in his supporting actor role.
Estrace -This lovely blue gal is making a double appearance both in the prologue and hopefully again during the last act.
Prometrium -last and certainly least, the slimy prometrium snail may be back at the end of the show.

The cameras have begun recording, but we won't know what the outcome of the first act is for several more days. Fingers crossed that the new team is working their magic.

1st Anniversary

29 March 2011

Well today was a big day. Exactly one year ago today I had my first appointment at the fertility clinic, so that makes today the one year anniversary of my RE and I seeing each other. The traditional gift exchanged at a first anniversary is made of paper. I was handed a new stack of consents to sign, blood work requisitions to complete, and protocols to follow. He also provided me with a nice paper cover on the table and a sanitary napkin to take home as a souvenir as it was a day 2 ultrasound visit today. I handed over a large sum of cash. So, I guess that covers our exchange of paper gifts.

Drum roll... the good news is we are going ahead with IVF! I start my whopping dose of stims tomorrow night. Hooray! I'm out from under that darn limbo pole and out of the gates at last.

The less good news is that I didn't have as large a crop of antral follicles as I'd hoped for. There are 4 measuring 4-5mm and a couple more very small ones that they aren't counting, but could potentially join the party. Not a huge surprise, but more would have been nice especially after being on DHEA for 4 months, and 10 days of estrogen priming.

It's a huge gamble, but it doesn't look like it's going to improve anything to wait and I'm ready to move ahead to get some more information rather than sitting here with all the unknowns about my eggs. It could just work and we'll be on our way to a pregnancy. However, if all it provides us with is closure on this IVF chapter, it is still worth it.

My next appointment is on Monday to see how many are responding. Fingers crossed these precious few follicles get busy!

Monday Monday

25 March 2011

I woke up this morning to find Aunt Flo's dog spot on my doorstep. Usually when Spot shows up AF is just a day or so behind him. I wasn't really expecting her until later in the weekend. Minor panic! I need to go into the clinic on Day 2 of my cycle for my big decision making assessment to see if I can proceed with IVF, or... (let's not go there). I learned from some of my fellow clinic pals here that my RE is out of town until Monday. Wait a minute... that means I'll have some other doctor potentially making this big decision. NO! I thought, mentally stamping my feet like a 3 year old. I want MY doctor that knows MY history. I'm sure this other guy is nice and all, but I've been down this road once before where I felt abandoned at a critical time in an IVF cycle and I had to rely on a fill in doctor's decisions.

So, I called and talked to the nurse at the clinic this afternoon. I asked if my full period starts tomorrow whether or not I could wait until Monday, which would be day 3 rather than day 2, to see my regular RE. She got in contact with him and he agreed that coming in on either day 2 or 3 would be fine, as I'm not slated to start any injections until day 3 -but only if the estrogen priming has done it's job. So it looks like Monday will most likely be the day. Hopefully I'll cross under that limbo pole and be on my way to starting stims, and having a good crack at getting to egg retrieval!

Limbo

23 March 2011

I'm stuck in the IVF limbo game. Most people get to just waltz under the stick and get let through to start a nicely predictable IVF cycle on some sort of a schedule. Not me. I keep playing the game, and clearing the stick, but they keep moving the bar lower and lower. I'm now frozen at the point of being bent over backwards with my head near the floor awaiting the judge's call as to whether I can continue to play the game or not. The worst part is that I'm not sure how long I need to remain like this. My back hurts! It's hard to swallow my estrogen pills upside down.

Tax Flash Backs

22 March 2011

Last night I did the final pulling together of all of my medical receipts to file my 2010 taxes. It stirred up far more emotions than I had expected. It was like watching a movie over again as I went through all the dates in chronological order. Wow, remember that nervousness of the 1st RE appointment. Oh, all those hot summer drives for IUI monitoring appointments. OMG that horrible sonohysterogram/ biopsy turned lining scrape with no pain meds. Oh, that was the day that my world crashed down and my IVF was officially canceled.

Alright, so even though this made me feel a little low, I've got to feel better once I know I'll be getting something back as a tax refund. So, I plugged some numbers into Rick's handy calculator. Hmmm let's see...

We put on 5250 km driving to and from clinic appointments -that should get us back about $250 on the tax return. Gas is now $1.30/L so that should buy me at least another fill up.

The $7500 on medications and procedures -the tax return should cover about one day of meds for my next IVF cycle.

OK, I'm not feeling awesomely better.

Come on BC, it's time to shape up. Other provinces have taken the leap, or are at least considering it in the near future.

Blue

17 March 2011

It's St. Patrick's day and green is the colour of the day... but for me it's blue.

It's my day to start estrogen priming with the lovely blue Estrace pills. Since my current vitamin organizer is overflowing I treated myself to a new granny pill sorter in, you guessed it, designer blue!

So for dinner it was Mexican caaserole with a dash of Estrace on the side.

Estrace you are my last hope for getting me to IVF. Come on little blue friends work your magic.

Cancellation Anxiety

15 March 2011

I need to get a handle on this looming anxiety around cycle cancellation.

My first attempt at IVF was canceled right before retrieval due to a poor response. We came up with a plan to go ahead the next time with whatever number of follicles I had, to take some stress off the numbers game. Well, my next chance was canceled before even getting out of the starting gates due to a single dominant follicle. So a new plan was devised to get me to egg retrieval. Estrogen priming during my luteal phase, and then re-evalute my ovaries on the next day 2. It sounded simple enough, just monitor for a urine LH surge, and confirm ovulation with blood work before starting Estrace. So after 35 cycles of ovulating on day 12 or 13 my body decided to have a late ovulation around day 15 putting things in limbo for the past several days.

Today reached an all time peak of anxiety. I thought I would for sure hear from someone this morning about yesterday's blood results. I was so sick with worry when I didn’t. My brain went to the worst (maybe mt RE was waiting to call himself with the bad news). By noon I couldn’t stand it anymore and called and left a voicemail asking if they could call my cell to let me know what was going on. Finally this afternoon the nurse called back, and was chipper with good news. After 3 rounds of blood work and days of agonizing waiting for phone calls, I finally got the go ahead to start the Estrace on Thursday. Phew! I have reached step 1.

So now for the wait until my day 2 assessment where the chances of cancellation are actually greater. Why does it have to be this hard? If I'm going crazy now how am I going to get through the next several steps?

I need some better strategies for getting though this. It's only the beginning. Any ideas? Except please don't tell me "just think positive and everything will be fine". I need concrete doable things.

Bravery Beads

13 March 2011

My MIL sent me a multicoloured glass bead necklace a while back that she picked up for a fundraiser for Sick Kid’s Hospital. They have a Bravery Bead Program there which allows children to collect a different bead for each procedure or event while visiting the hospital for treatment. The goal of the program is to make a necklace with colourful beads that represent the unique and special journey of a particular child to represent each child’s individual story through treatment.

When I put the necklace on today, I thought of all of the things that women undergoing fertility treatment endure. It got me thinking what if we had an IF Bravery Bead Program and added a bead to our necklaces for every visit, procedure, injection, or blood test?

Here is a possible legend:
Red bead -blood draw
Pink bead -vitamin swallowing
Blue bead -oral med eg: Estrace
White bead -prometrium insertion
Clear colourless bead -injection
Black and white polka dot bead -u/s wanding
Long skinny tubular bead -IUI/ embryo transfer
Swirly psychedelic tie dye bead -egg retrieval
Star pattern bead -painful test/ surgical procedure
Yellow bead -POAS

What would my necklace look like? How would it represent my story? I think I’d be nearly tipping over from the weight of all the beads around my neck. Maybe that’s why I feel so tired sometimes I'm carrying around all these darn beads. But seriously, we all have colourful histories and stories to tell that shape how we live our lives. Kudos to all of us for our endurance and bravery.

The Surge

12 March 2011

I’ve been peeing on ovulation sticks all week waiting for the elusive LH surge. It’s key to timing the start of my luteal phase estrogen priming for this latest attempt at IVF. I’m not a newbie at using ovulation sticks, in fact I’ve peed on over 50 of them during my TTC journey. My ovulation has happened on day 12 or 13 since I started monitoring my cycles 3 years ago. Usually I get a positive OPK and ovulate the next day. So, I figured this would be easy. But day after day I kept getting the same negative result. I actually had a terrible thought for a fleeting moment “what if I’ve stopped ovulating altogether and my DOR has progressed to POF”. Whoa, push that thought far away! It seems to be Murphy’s law that just when you get comfortable with predictability, along comes change. Not “the change” however.

By Friday afternoon (CD 12) and still no closer to a surge on the OPK, I called my clinic to see how I should proceed over the weekend. The nurse returned my call around 3:30 pm, and offered to send me to my local lab for blood work. She could fax the requisition. The only catch was the lab closes at 4:00, so I sped off and got my blood collected. The nurse said she would call Saturday with the results. Ah, what a relief that this isn’t all dependent on a silly urine test and that I won’t be in limbo all weekend.

Today is Saturday. I spent the morning doing some long overdue cleaning around the house, while awaiting the call. By noon, There was still no call so I called them but had to leave a message on the voicemail, and the recording indicated that the clinic was already closed for the day. Waiting in limbo stinks. What’s a girl in an ovulation emergency to do? Then I remembered that you can check online for blood results done at Life Labs. Log in, and viola, a whole bunch of numbers. Of course, because I’ve been doing enough studying on the side to write my Reproductive Endocrinology exams very soon, I cross referenced them to a table I downloaded from Dr. Google and attempted to interpret my own results. According to Silverdollar MD, the LH and E2 levels looked to be at the beginning of a surge yesterday afternoon. Hmmm... maybe today is the day. So, off to the washroom and POAS. Up pops two lines the same shade. OMG the surge has arrived! We have lift off.

At 1:30 the phone rang. It was the nurse who informed me that my blood levels show that a surge was starting yesterday. Really? I tell her about the positive OPK and she was pleased to hear that everything seems to be on track. So the instructions are to go for a progesterone check on Monday morning and they will tell me when to start my Estrace based on the levels.

The Cat is in the Bag

08 March 2011

I have been instructed to monitor for an LH surge so my clinic can advise me on when to start my estrogen priming. I am almost at the end of the 50 pack of internet cheapies I ordered last year, and just ordered some more so I can pee away to my heart's content without worrying about the cost.

Anyway, I am to monitor in the early afternoon as that is when the LH hormone tends to peak, and my clinic is still open if I need to call. This means I need to take the ovulation sticks to work with me. So I packaged up a pee cup and an ov stick and put it inside a paper bag inside my purse which I keep inside my bag. I did my test (negative -phew) but felt funny about leaving the contents in the garbage bag in the office washroom, so I tucked them back into my purse for later disposal.

Later in the day while I was in the midst of a home visit appointment yesterday, I noticed the family's cat was front paws and head into my bag and starting to scratch at my purse. OMG! My heart sunk and I managed to leap over and grab the cat to pull it off my purse just in time. I said "your cat must be smelling the leftovers of my tuna sandwich I had for lunch" as I set my bag up on the table.

I guess it's time for a better zipper on my purse!

The True Superman

02 March 2011

The late Christopher Reeve played the character superman, and little did he know that years later a spinal cord injury would wind up challenging him to become a true real-life superhero. There were times when just drawing breath without a ventilator was a huge accomplishment.

He said once:

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”


I think of the true strength in all of us here and how we somehow manage to put one foot in front of another and push forward despite devastating set backs, bad news, losses, and repeated heartache while trying to become mothers. Sometimes it feels like we need to be hooked up to a ventilator to draw breath and carry on, but somehow we manage with the life support of others struggling along side, or who remember what it is like to be in a dark place with very little hope left. Thank you.

No Go

01 March 2011

Well, I just had my worst looking u/s yet. Day 2 and there is one 10mm dominant follicle... and only 3 follicles total between the two ovaries. The blood work was done, but it didn't pass the mustard either. Progesterone is too high.

The IVF cycle was canceled. At least this time I hadn't already dropped thousands on meds. But, I can't really say that it's all that comforting.

My RE has one more trick to pull out of his hat. Estrogen priming after this next ovulation. If luck is on our side we'll get to go ahead next month. If not, that's it for IVF.