And Just Like that...It is All Over

I was still so hopeful, earlier today, even though I really wasn't feeling any early pregnancy symptoms...and then this evening, my world shattered yet again.  Tomorrow is my beta...and I again didn't even make it to beta.  I started spotting this evening.  Basically that means that it is all over.  Sure there is a slim chance.  Maybe it is early pregnancy spotting, maybe there were two, and I am losing one, maybe, maybe , maybe.  And even with these maybes...there isn't much hope.  These maybes represent less than 1% statistically...so we know it is over.  The doctor still makes you go in for the blood test...just in case, but I know what the result will be.  You would think that this would get easier, or that you would get used to this, after going through it so many times.  But I never do, it hurts just as much, and actually it hurts even more now, because we know that there are embryos that we are losing, and financially...well, we just can't keep affording this.  We need a break, not only for our sanity, but also financially.  So...now we need to come up with our plan...what will we do next.  It is tough to know where to go from here. 

Beta Tomorrow....Can't Wait for the Wait to be Over

Tomorrow is my beta blood test.  I have not tested at home, but we plan to tomorrow morning.  I know it sounds crazy to wait until the day of the blood test, and then test at home.  We just don't want to find out while Hubby is at work and I am at home, by myself.  So we figure, we will test before the blood test, and know what the results will be, before they call with them. 
As for how I am feeling, I have never been so tired in my life!  I sleep plenty.  But that is really all I feel like doing.  I have been feeling this way for several days now.  It could be a side effect to one of the many meds that I am on.  But I definitely didn't feel like this last time.  I am on double the crinone, but since it doesn't absorb into the blood like PIO does, it doesn't come with tiredness as one of the major side effects.  So...what about estradiol?  Well, I am on half the dose I was on last time, and it has never made me feel this way.  The steroid, folgard, baby aspirin, and prenatal all don't have that side effect.  So that brings me to the lovenox...dizziness, is listed, but not exhaustion.  So...either I am reacting differently to the meds this time, or...maybe this actually worked. 
I am hesitant to believe that it worked because I am lacking some of the major early signs of pregnancy.  No breast tenderness, no real PMS symptoms at all.  No major bloat going on, no constipation, no major nausea, just nothing that shouts out to me that I am pregnant.  However, I am exhausted, pants are a little tight, slight headache on and off, rapid heart beat (which is common for me,) and just an all round not good feeling...but not a feeling like AF is on her way...no sign or feeling of her coming to visit...just not feeling great.  Less than a day more to wait, and then we will know for sure.

Every Minute Gives Me a Bit More Hope

Today is 11dp3dt.  This is the longest that we have made it....and I have hope.  This morning I woke up with mild period like cramping, and I nearly lost it.  I thought it was all over.  During our last IVF in November, this was the day that AF started.  All week long I have been dreading today.  I worried and worried and worried some more that AF would show up today...and that we wouldn't even make it to Beta.  So far, so good.  I have not taken a home test...I don't want to ruin the hope that I have right now...so I will wait.  Three more days till beta, and every minute that I make it with no AF, I get a bit more hopeful.  My period is as regular as it can be.  Even when I have been on progesterone in the past, pre-ivf days, I would always get AF on time...give or take a day.  And like clockwork during our last IVF, she came, on time.  I still had to go in for the beta...and since they let me come in early...they wanted to double check...and so Thanksgiving day, I was waiting to hear that I could stop the meds, and more importantly....DRINK!  After AF showed up last time....I knew it was over, but I still wasn't going to do anything to mess things up....just in case.  But once I got the official word that it was indeed AF...I wanted to enjoy my bottle of wine.  This time...I have made it further.  I am constantly praying that I make it through the next few days, with no AF, and no spotting.  I am praying that those little beans stuck, and on Tuesday...I will finally get that positive that we have been trying for...for almost three years.  I am also trying to not get my hopes too high, just in case.  I know that the lack of spotting, does not mean it will be positive...but my chances are better, the closer I get. 

Last time, I came up with a plan during the tww,  I knew exactly what we were going to do, if things didn't work.  I planned out the next few months, with fun and exciting things that I wouldn't get to do, if there was a positive.  I did this so I would have things to look forward to...trying to turn the negative into a positive...and it did keep me from completely losing it, when we got that negative.  I even planned out, our next step in this process, and worked out the finances for another round.  This time, I have had a harder time doing that.  It isn't because I don't want a plan.  I keep trying to come up with one...I just don't know where to go from here.  After one failed IVF, I felt....try again, statistics show it would be likely to work.  I can't think past a second failed attempt.  I have a few ideas in my head, but I need a break.  I can't keep doing this.  Both financially and emotionally, it is way too hard.  I constantly think about the embryos that we have already lost.  I believe life begins at conception, and so we have six beautiful snowflakes, and hopefully we have two more embabies growing inside me....but I think about the 9 that didn't make it in round one, and now the 12 that didn't make it this time.  21 total that we have lost already.  I pray for them.  It may sound crazy to some, but I pray that God has them with Him, and that he is taking care of them.  I pray that they are given the life that they didn't have a chance to live on Earth.  I then also pray that God keeps safe our 6 snowbabies.  And I pray for the two that I hope are still growing in me.  God gives me hope.  I am holding on tight to that hope, praying that we will finally get those two pink lines!

IVF#2 Tww Symptoms So Far

I didn't keep track of my tww symptoms the first time around, and now I really wish I had, so I could compare.  Last time, it didn't work...and this time, well...we don't know yet.  But I wanted to list my symptoms, so even if it didn't work I would have a list to compare for next time.  So here it goes:

I had severe heartburn like pain right after the lovenox injection day of transfer, it went away, but came back in the morning.  Then I had it again that evening after the injection.  It has not happened since.

Starting 2dp3dt I started having mild cramping.  It intensified a bit, but still mild over the next few days, and faded around 6dp3dt.  I have had mild twinges since then, primarily on the right side, but not as far right as my ovary.   

I have been extremely tired since about 7dp3dt, and still am at 9dp3dt.

I started having hot flashes and night sweats 6dp3dt, and am continuing to have them.

I woke up with extreme thirst night of 7dp3dt and 8dp3dt.

I have had several episodes of extreme thirst since 7dp3dt.

I woke up last night, 8dp3dt with hip and upper leg pain.

I had a headache all day today, at 9dp3dt.

I started crying this evening 9dp3dt, for no real reason...love to see the look on hubby's face when this happens! :)

I have had some mild twinging throughout, mild lower back pain occasionally, an occasional dizzy spell, mild nausea in the morning when I wake up. 

I know that many of the things on this list can and probably are caused by all the crazy meds I am on.  I wanted to list them all though, so that I can remember for future reference. 

From Hopeful to Not So Much

We went in on Tuesday for our transfer...and our embryos looked basically the same as last time.  So they transferred an 8B and a 7B+, and told us that we would have to wait till Friday to see how the rest do.  I was really hopeful at that point because out of 10 last time, we ended up with 4 to freeze.  I was figuring that we would end up with at least that many this time, since we had 14 sitting in the lab.  Not so much.  I got the call this morning that we only got 2 to freeze.  I know I should be rejoicing that we got 2.  I am so happy we have those two...incredibly blessed, because we now have 6, but at the same time, I am sick.  I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me.  Out of 14....we got 2.  I had a good cry over those 12 that we lost...the ones that really never had a chance, my nonviable embryos.  And now I pray.  I pray for the now 21 embryos that we have lost in this process, I pray for the 6 we have frozen...my little snowflakes, and I pray most of all at this point for the two beautiful embryos that we had transferred a few days ago.  I don't know their fate yet, and I can only be cautiously hopeful that this whole process works this time....That one or both of those beauties survives and thrives.  I am trying my hardest to stay positive, to still have hope, but it is so hard when time after time, we end up with the same outcome.  I need a break, and a glass of wine!  No....I am not going to have one, that would be crazy!  However, if in a week and a half we find out this didn't take, I am going to have both of those!  I have decided that I need a break from the world of infertility, to just enjoy life again.  I can relax and travel a bit, knowing that I have 6 snowflakes waiting, for when we are ready to try again.  As for the wine, you bet during that break, there will be plenty of it! 

IVF #2 So Far

We finished up our injections last Thursday, and did our trigger shot that evening, for a Saturday morning retrieval.  We left the retrieval knowing that we got 36 eggs...14 more than last time.  The Doctor said to expect that many of them may not be mature, just because there were so many.  We got the call this morning that 28 were mature, and of that 28, 16 of them fertilized!!!  So all in all, so far it seems to be going better than last time.  we had 22 total last time, of which 16 were mature and 13 fertilized.  Now I am on pins and needles until Tuesday, when we find out how they all look.  Last time they pretty much all had some major fragmentation going on...So this time I am really hoping that with the changes that we made, we may have some better looking embryos. 

IVF is Tough on So Many Levels!

Today all over Facebook, there have been links to articles about what Newt Gingrich will do about IVF, if he gets elected as president.  He wants more monitoring, and wants to make it illegal to use "leftover" frozen embryos for research.  I have mixed feelings about this.  It saddens me to think about all of the embryos left in limbo....with possibly no chance of ever being born.  And I understand that this is why so many churches have a problem with IVF. 
It is difficult to think about what we will do if we ever get to that point, where we have the number of children that we feel completes our family, yet we still have embryos.  We are nowhere near that point, and are dealing with the uncertainty that we will ever even have children.  It is something that I think about though.  With four frozen snowflakes from November's cycle I already care about them.  I worry that something might happen to them...power outages, etc.  I also worry though with doing a fresh cycle this time, we could end up with more embryos than we can ever use ourselves. 
Embryo adoption is such a great option for this situation, but I know in my heart that I couldn't donate my embabies to another couple.  I already feel like my four snowflakes are my kids, and I would feel like I was giving away a piece of myself.  I am amazed at the generosity of the couples that do choose this option.  And maybe when I get to that point, where I really don't want a bigger family, maybe I will feel like giving them life in another family is better than staying frozen forever, or being donated to science...or worse yet, just being discarded.
That is the great thing about the freedoms that we have in America though.  We currently have these choices.  I have always been prolife.  I feel that life begins at conception.  I do sometimes struggle with this as we do IVF.  I could never choose to donate our embabies to science, and I don't agree with embryonic stem cell research.  However, as I hear politicians starting to say that they are going to regulate IVF more, it scares me.  With pushes for legislation deciding that life begins with conception, opens doors to making it illegal to freeze embryos at all.  And then what happens to the ones already frozen?!?!  But then that also opens the door to more embryos being destroyed, before they are ever even given a chance.  Doctors will face the decision then of destroying viable embryos, valuable lives, or transfer too many.  This legislation plain out scares me! 
As I said, I am prolife.  I see value and life in my four frozen babies.  I plan on giving them their best chance at life, God willing.  I also plan to give our embryos from this cycle their best chance at life too.  And I pray that we don't end up with more kids than we can handle because of this plan.  I don't envy the people who have more embryos than they can handle, and I know they face a difficult decision every time they pay the storage bill for their snowflakes.  It is troublesome that there are so many lives left in a bit of limbo, however what to do with them is not my decision, and should not be the decision of a politician. 
As crazy as this sounds I don't feel that this makes me prochoice.  I do not agree with abortion.  I also do not agree with donating embryos to science.  They are lives, that deserve the chance to survive.  Is there a right answer in all of this, I am not sure.  There are a lot of embryos that never get a chance at life, with the way things are currently.  I think that this will stay that way until legislation makes laws against the creation of these embryos, or doctors find a way to not create more than can be used in one cycle.  No matter what, the world of IVF is a scary place.   If you haven't had to make these tough choices about fertility and growing your family, you are in no place to judge someone's choices.  Leave all that to God!  This all is my opinion, that I am free to have on my blog.  You don't have to agree with it.  That is why it is great that we live in America...we are free to have our own opinion!