Symptoms So Far for FET #1 at 9dp6dt

Our transfer was 9 days ago.  Starting on the day of transfer and going through 4dp6dt I had very mild cramping.  Then it stopped and I haven't had it since.  On 4dp6dt I also had mild leg pain, that kept me awake.  Starting on 5dp6dt I had some mild breast tenderness.  It has continued, but comes and goes, so it may be a side effect of meds, and comes when I take them.  The last two days 8dp6dt and 9dp6dt, I have been very tired, but my headaches that I had all of last week (day of transfer-6dp6dt,) is gone and hasn't come back yet.  Yesterday (8dp6dt,) I was eating lunch, and right after I felt like I had something stuck on my bottom front tooth.  I couldn't get it off, so I looked in the mirror, and realized that a very small piece of that tooth chipped off, must have been while I was eating.  It isn't visible unless you go looking for it, but I have heard that pregnancy can ruin your teeth.  I haven't been sleeping great, pretty much since 6dp6dt.  I wake up in the middle of the night, and go to the bathroom...that also can be from all the meds though.  I also can't seem to stay awake late, or I need a nap mid day.  I haven't decided if or when we will test before the beta though.  I am going to talk to Hubby about it tonight and see what he thinks.

FET #1

We went in for our first FET today.  Things went as well as we could have hoped.  They thawed two of our embryos, and BOTH survived the thaw....Finally something in all this went right.  They were both graded 3B-B-.  At our Doc 3 means fully expanded blasts.  The picture of them looked great. 

I got there with a very full bladder, only to find out that there was going to be a bit of a wait.  The great doc was running behind.  So they let me use the restroom on the condition that I don't completely empty my bladder.  So I didn't...well then the doc finished up with the other patients really quickly...and now my bladder wasn't full.  So they had me chug water, and wait about 15 minutes.  Once the bladder was full again, they did the transfer.  It went great! 

I had my acupuncture appointment scheduled for this afternoon, so I went to that, and then came home and took a nap.  I have pretty much been laying on the couch since.  All in all it was a really good day.  I am so very happy that we still have 4 frozen embryos, and we didn't lose any today to the thaw.  Now we wait.  Beta is on June 4th!

In a Better Place

I feel better than I did when I posted my last post.  My hubby was gone on a business trip last week, and that combined with the mega doses of hormones, and everything else going on, I was a mess.  Things have settled down a bit.  Hubby and I went away for the weekend, and now I am back and refreshed and looking forward to this transfer.

First off, I have to talk about our weekend.  The company that my hubby works for flew many people that work for the company to Las Vegas for the weekend.  There were big parties, and other events planned for the weekend.  The major highlight of the weekend though was the award ceremony on Saturday.  My hubby won one of the awards.  He works so hard, and I love seeing all he hard work being acknowledged.  It really was the highlight of an amazing weekend.  I also got to see my husbands family while we were in Vegas, because his brother lives there, and his parents drove in for the weekend.  So between the parties, awards, and getting to visit, we really had an awesome time.

We got home Sunday evening, and went to my mom's to see her for mother's day.  My brother was there, and his wife, and step daughter.  Since we were in China for Easter, we hadn't seen my sister in law or niece in quite a while.  So it was so nice to finally get to see them, and have a nice mother's day with my mom.

This morning, I had my last monitoring appointment for our FET.  I finally got excited about the transfer.  The ultrasound went well.  My lining was at an 8.4.  I got my instructions on what other meds to take when.  Heparin starts tomorrow, Crinone on Wednesday, and our transfer will be next Monday!  After the ultrasound was over, I signed the paperwork, and they brought me in the back to do my first ever intralipids treatment.  I am really so excited about this.  I have read the research on it, and it seems to have excellent results.  The treatment went well.  I didn't have any side effects, and my mom went with me to keep me company.  It was fairly quick and easy and I felt fine after.

I have become my doctor's guinea pig.  I don't mind at all either.  My wonderful doc has never used intralipids with a patient before.  He has researched it, but never has had an instance where he thought it would help.  With me, he figured that it can't hurt, so it is worth a try.  He was just as excited as I am.  He and I both are hoping that this works. He would love to have it as an option to use in the future, and would love to see it help more of his patients.  The great doc even did the treatment himself!  He didn't just toss me over to the nurses, and hope they did it, he put the IV in and administered everything himself.  I am sure in the future, if he decides to continue using intralipids, he will train the office staff on how to do it, but for right now, he is doing it himself.

We really do have an awesome doc.  He knows his stuff, and if there is something that you ask him about, and he doesn't know it, he will research it, and let you know his opinion about it.  He had been thinking about intralipids before I brought it up, after our last failed IVF, and he was excited to have a patient who wanted to try it.  I would love for this to work for both us and him.  I would feel like we are helping to advance his practice, and help future patients with similar issues.

Now all we have to do is hope and pray that our embryos survive the thaw.  We have 6, so I am pretty hopeful!  My bigger prayer though is that the first two they thaw survive.  If they do, we transfer 2...if only one makes it, they will thaw two more, and then transfer whatever makes it.  So we may transfer up to 3.  I am confident that we could handle triplets if that is what we ended up with, but I would prefer not to go that route, mostly because I would worry about the health of the babies.  So I am really hoping for our first two to make it.  Lots of prayers between now and next Monday!

My Heart is Just not in it

It has been a rough two weeks for me.  We got back from China, and I had to deal with lots of stuff at home.  Added on top of that, they found the cyst, and I had it drained, which ate into the time to do other things that were needing attention.

Every year, I plant a garden.  I love it, and I love the fresh home grown veggies I get from it.  This year Hubby and I decided to expand the garden and he built a wonderful wall for it, and I got all of the plants planted this week.  I have also been trying to get my flowers planted under the trees.  I love petunias and we have two big trees in the front that they look great under.  Only last year, weeds grew amid the beautiful flowers.  So this year, I bought landscaping stones to put around the trees, and weed preventing stuff to put there, and mulch on top, so no weeds can grow in the flowers.  I even won some beautiful flowers from all my sweepstaking.  I love planting things and seeing them grow.  This year, I have had a hard time finding the time.  Several things around the house were needing repair and I finally got around to calling a plumber, a new lawn mowing service, our satellite company, and the irrigation company, all to come fix various problems.  I still need to find a company to come fix our garage door.  Our kitchen sink finally doesn't leak, and it was cheaper to fix than I thought it would be.  The new lawn mowing service is great, but after seeing our yard, decided to charge $10 more than the original quote.  Our sprinkler system is back up and running, and it also was cheaper than I thought it would be.  Our TV service though...not so great.  Since we came back from China, our service would cut out on our living room TV.  It was sporadic, but progressively got worse.  I finally called about it, and they sent a technician out.  The guy gave me the creeps, and smelled worse than any smell I have ever smelled before.  I lit a candle and sanitized everything he touched, after he left.  I am not a germophobe, he was just that bad.  He took forever to "fix," the problem, and it seemed like it was fixed when he left.  It is not though.  The receiver is not recognizing the remote.  So they have to come back out and replace the receiver again.  Only they were supposed to call today, and they didn't.  So now I have to call tomorrow, before my doctor appointment.  I am so frustrated by all of this.  Normally I would just deal with it, it would be a hassle, but I would deal...but with being on meds to do a FET, I have NO patience!  I have had several melt downs, as a result of the side effects of the meds.  I feel like crap!

Hubby and I had a talk about what to do on the fertility front, when I was told about the cyst.  I really just wanted to put off a transfer, and give my sanity and my body a break from it all.  Hubby really wanted to do a transfer in May if it was still possible.  At the time it was still up in the air.  I begrudgingly agreed to do the transfer, if it was still a possibility.  So I had the cyst drained, and I went to the doctor appointments, and I have started the meds.  Notice the "I's,"  not "We's."  Hubby has been busy with work and has been unable to go to any of the doctor appointments.  He drove me home the day I had the cyst drained, but other than that, I have been on my own.  I have been dealing with all the house repairs, and I had to get the rest of my work days in before the end of the school year, and trying to get my gardening in...and now dealing with very unexpected side effects to the medications....I just am out of steam.  My heart isn't in to this transfer.  I really just want to not show up for my appointment tomorrow.  I want to stop taking the meds that are making me feel so terrible.  I don't want to have to devote my next 3 weeks to fertility crap.  I want to live my life.  I want to enjoy the spring.  I want to enjoy planting my garden and being out in the beautiful weather.  But with these side effects, I can't enjoy anything.  It just sucks!  I am so tired of my life having to revolve around TTC.  Hubby often tells me that I shouldn't let my life revolve around it.  But that is impossible.  I have quit a job I love, to do this.  I have given up trips, and friends, and so much more, to do this.  It will all be worth it, if this works, but it really doesn't seem like it is going to.  I was ready to start the adoption process years ago.  I have always wanted to adopt, so who cares if we have biological kids first.  I just don't feel like all of the doctor appointments, and injections, and blood work, and medications with crappy side effects, and adding in new treatments.  I would be so excited to try these treatments, if it was a few months from now, after I have had a break, but now, I just don't want to deal with all this.  All that being said, I will go in tomorrow for my doctor appointment.  I will go in for my first ever intralipid treatment, next week.  I will pray my heart out that our embryos survive the thaw.  I will call the acupuncturist tomorrow to make my next appointment.  And I will go in for my transfer.  I will pray my heart out that the changes that we are making this time, will do the trick.  I do think that regardless of the outcome, it is time to start picking out an adoption agency.  We have a few in mind.  We have many of the major decisions made.  Hubby is open to adoption, and we have talked a lot about international or domestic, and choices of agencies.  He and I will need to decide on which route is right for us.  But it is time.  I need a break from infertility, at least for a few months.  During that break, I can focus on starting the process of finding the child that God has intended us to adopt.  I felt the call to adopt, long before I ever met my hubby.  We talked about it while we were dating, and felt that it would be something that we would do at some point.  I do think that we are now at that point.

Time for a Long Overdue Blog Post

A lot has happened in the last month, since my last post.  Hubby and I left for China on April 3rd.  I had blog access, but it was sporadic.  I intended on writing several posts while I was there, but we were so busy, that I just didn't have a chance.  China was amazing.  I would go back again in a heartbeat.  We flew into Hong Kong, and took various public transportation to get to Shenzhen.  We stayed at a western style hotel, that was really nice, and many of the workers spoke at least a little English.  They were very helpful and nice.  In fact most people that I came across or met were as nice and helpful as could be.  They didn't balk that I didn't speak their language (which leads to another post that I will hopefully get around to writing.)  I got to experience so much of the culture while I was there.  I also got to experience so many different styles of Chinese meals.  My stomach did bother me from some of the food, but adding to that was the fact that I had a huge cyst on my left ovary.  I didn't know about the cyst until I got home, and went to the doctor though.

We didn't go too much beyond Shenzhen, except to go into Hong Kong for a day.  Hubby and I almost got stranded in Hong Kong that night though.  We had to find another port of entry than the one that we entered through, because it was closed by the time we were going back to Shenzhen.  While in Hong Kong we went to Lamma Island, and had some awesome seafood.  I ended up getting pretty sick soon after, but I do not think that it was the seafood, since one of the guys in our travel group did not go for the seafood and he also got sick.  So since I was sick, hubby and I sat in the ferry terminal for awhile, while the rest of the group explored the rest of Hong Kong.  While in Shenzhen, I was mostly on my own since hubby had to work most of the time.  There was enough to do within walking distance of the hotel to keep me pretty busy though.  There were theme and amusement parks.  I also ventured a few blocks to the Walmart, just to see how different it would be.  It was very different than Walmart here.  I also went to a shopping area several times, by subway.  In the evenings I would take a cab to meet up with Hubby, and go to dinner.  There are so many details of the trip that I am just glazing over here.  It would take me hours to write about all of the amazing experiences that I was able to have.  I do hope that I get to go to China again.  I loved the people, the culture, and all of the experiences.

While in China, I was expecting AF to show.  It was supposed to start early on in the trip, and I was very surprised that it was a no show.  I knew that having done IVF in February may mess with my cycle, but after November IVF I was only a week late.  By the time I came home from China and made a doctor appointment, I was 3 weeks late.  I took a home test, and it was negative.  When I went in for the ultrasound, it looked like I may be pregnant, so the doctor ran a test, but they also saw a large cyst.  I was told that he would call that evening (which he did and the test was negative,) and to wait a week, and if AF still didn't show, they would drain the cyst.  I asked what went into that, and was told that it was just like an egg retrieval, but without anesthesia, which then caused me to have anxiety all week.  I went back in on Monday, and they did an ultrasound...cyst still there, so they had me go into the procedure room, and prepped me to drain it.  I have a nice doctor who offered to inject lidocaine to numb me up, before draining it.  After numbing me, I still felt it, but it didn't hurt.  It was pretty uncomfortable, but not as bad as I thought that it was going to be.  I asked if all of this knocked us out of being able to do a FET in May.  They said it would depend on when AF finally showed.  She finally came today.  I called, and found out that we can proceed with our FET.  They are going to call tomorrow to let me know more of the details, and what meds to start when.

I am still so excited that I was able to go to China and experience all that I did, and I am soooooo excited that we can move forward with our FET.  Despite the cyst overall I have had a pretty amazing month!