Negative Ghost Rider

Beta today = Negatory

Got the call today and once again we got a negative. We're sad, but doing fine. I already knew since I cheated and just felt not pregnant so I have had a few days to come to grips with it.

I'll do a longer post later, I just wanted to update everyone.

Again, thank you for your prayers and positive thoughts. It has meant so much to us to have the support we do.

Cheated.

I POAS'd at 9.5dp3dt, 10dp3dt, and 11dp3dt with FMU and got BFN on all of them.

Not good.

Dear Embryos,

Oh my sweet little embabies, the nurse called today and said none of the other embryos survived to be frozen. This wasn't surprising, since we've never had any to freeze, but it made me a little worried about you three. I need you to keep growing!
Today you should be blastocysts and start coming out of your shell. Don't be shy now! Dr. A did assisted hatching just for you, to help it be a little easier to get out. I know you can do it.
I need you to stay with me and snuggle in for the long haul. Your daddy and I have been waiting a very long time for you to get here and many people love you and are praying for you! You are so wanted and so loved already. Please, please, please stay with me.

Love,
Your mommy.

My Husband is Awesome :)

Anyone who knows Eric in real life knows how super awesome and amazing he is.. But I bet you didn't know he was THIS awesome- last night after my nightly PIO shot in the butt, I said something like "How would you like this needle in your butt? Then you could get a little glimpse at what I go through with these shots." (yeah I was being a little bit of a brat, but it really does suck getting stuck in the butt! My butt is soooo freakin sore already, and it's only been 5 days!)
Anywho! Eric said "Okay, do it." ..as in stick a needle in his butt! Say what?! Does anyone else have a husband that would let you stick this sucker (refer to picture) in his gluteus maximus? I seriously doubt it. I asked if he was serious and he said yes.. So I got a new needle out, got an alcohol swab out and wiped down the designated area. Again I asked if he was really going to let me and he just laid (lay, lie?) there waiting. Honestly I thought maybe he'd punch me or something out of reflex.. So I stretched the skin out and... BAM! Stabbed him right in the butt like a ninja!


...okay that last sentence was a lie.

It was more like, BAM- Brenley's a little ninny! I just couldn't do it! I know how it feels and I just didn't want to inflict any pain on him I guess haha you'd think after all the shots he's stabbed me with, I could do it. But, alas, I could not.

But common, seriously people, the fact that he was going to let me do it- how awesome is he? He didn't have to say it out loud, but just doing that shows me how supportive he is and he wants me to know he's there and that he cares and appreciates what I'm going through.

Ahh I just love that guy. :)

Things I've Done Differently

I decided to compile the things we've done differently this cycle into one post here, so if it works (when it works (; positive thinking right?) and people asked what I did differently than the last 2 cycles, I'll have my list!

1. Lost 30lb
2. Took Metformin for 5 months prior
3. Antagonist Protocol
4. Darcy was there (a new nurse haha)
5. Acupuncture (2 days before ER and directly before and after ET)
6. Actual Bedrest for day of, and 2.5 days following ET.
7. Assisted Hatching
8. Wore socks all the time except for when I went to sleep for the night.
9. Told everyone (in real life and online) about this cycle, blogged about it, and asked everyone for prayers and positive thoughts.
10. Cried
11. Ate a chunk of pineapple core for 4 days starting day after ET.

That's all I can think of right now, but if I remember or realize something else, I'll add it to the list. :)

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians!

My embryos got their report card and we had 1 A, 1 B, and 10 C's. Not great, but not too bad!

Dr. A decided to put back A, B, and 1 C... so I have 3 little embabies tucked away in my ute! He also decided to do something called assisted hatching since we've had 2 failed cycles, so we'll see if that makes a difference this time! I also did the acupuncture today before and after the transfer and am interested to see if that helped as well.

Now the waiting begins! Our first ultrasound should be the first week of Jan, I believe, so unfortunately nothing too exciting will be happening on our blog before that.

I am going on a self prescribed bed rest for three days so I'll just be hanging out in my room if anyone needs me! Last 2 times I only rested the day of the transfer and was back to my busy schedule the next day so this time I'm going to take it easy and make sure AB&C stay put!

Keep the prayers coming! These babies need to grow strong!

A Dozen

21 eggs
19 mature
12 fertilized

We have a dozen embryos growing in their studio apartments (aka pea-tree dishes.)

I wrote a post earlier about the retrieval and it disappeared like that other one.. So annoying! Everything went well and very smooth. I'm pretty sore today but nothing too bad.

Our tentative transfer date is Monday at 10:30am. Pray for my little ones to continue to grow strong and receive great grades!

Pull the Trigger!

I'm a little behind so let me catch you up:

Tuesday: US/BD appt- things progressing, not quite ready for trigger, E2 levels were about 2,900 I believe, right around what it was supposed to be.

Yesterday's US/BD appt the eggies were looking good and finally the right size for trigger as long as my E2 levels were good. They came back normal.. I think it was like 3,500? I can't remember. So trigger time last night was 11:00pm! Woohoo!
I actually fell asleep but had set an alarm to wake up for it. Eric was great- I didn't feel a thing! I was slightly worried, since it is an intramuscular shot in the butt and usually I feel it, but I think everything is fine. It's sore this morning! Haha

So today I don't have an appt- yay!- since I did my pre-op appt yesterday instead. Dr. A is having his baby boys today! Well they're actually here I'm sure because the c-section was scheduled for 7am. So exciting!

I go in tomorrow at 10:15am with egg retrieval scheduled for 11:00am- we're almost there! I can't wait to see if the Metformin and weight loss helped my egg quality. I'll update tomorrow after I get home as far as how many eggs they got and everything! So stay tuned! :)

I went to the acupuncturist yesterday and he was very nice. As soon as Chelsea and I (she's my sister, but my husband for this week since Eric can't make it due to work) walked in to the office, we were greeted by this dog. She was so friendly and calm and soft, the receptionist said her name was Willow. Haha it was bizarre that she was just walking around the clinic, but it was cool. She was super well behaved and it almost seemed like she was trained to be soothing. I went into the room and sat/laid on a table with an S shape. I totally want one for my house- It was super comfy! The dr came in and we talked for a little bit about the IVF, my health, and a few different things, then he did his thing with the needles. He put them on my head, belly, legs, arms, and feet, and I really didn't feel anything. Then he put headphones on me and told me to meditate with this lady's voice. I was kind like "uh.. okay?" not sure what to expect but I actually really liked it. The lady was a dr specializing in fertility and it was a meditation session specifically for pre-egg retrieval. It just had me focus on my breathing and to really get in-tune with my body. I had to visualize my actual ovaries and the eggs growing with the medicine and my uterus thickening. I'm a believer in positive thinking and I think the mind has a lot of power, so it was nice to be able to focus on everything working in a reaxed environment like that for a half hour or so.

That was basically my experience with acupuncture for the first time.. Not too creepy haha! He's also going to come in the day of the transfer (probably Monday) and do a session right before and directly following the transfer, so that'll be great and I've heard it ups your chances of success so we'll see!

Sorry the picture is so awful. I didn't have time to get all the way ready for the day before my dr's appt at 7:45 haha and I'm suppper bloated from having so many eggs- my ovaries are now the size of softballs- but I wanted to show you the cool chair. :)

Chugging Along..

I wrote an entire blog post yesterday about my appointment and the medical center's name and even attached a picture and it just disappeared! So I didn't rewrite it because I was over it.. And now I can't remember everything I wrote- my bad!

One thing I did write about was the name of the medical center where my clinic's main office is located. It's called the Princess Medical Center. So fun right?! It always puts a smile on my face when I pull up. I usually only go there if its the weekend or for the actual treatments. I generally go to a closer office to me for monitoring appointments.

My eggs are slowly but surely chugging along. Today they were 13's and 14's mostly. Dr. A is thinking trigger will be Wednesday. I'm a little disappointed because that puts transfer probably Monday, meaning Eric can't be there. :(

I decided I'm going to see an acupuncturist that works with our clinic and specializes in fertility. I'm super nervous about it! I'll go in on Wed morning to see him and get one treatment and then he'll come to the clinic the day of the embryo transfer and do it before the transfer and then again right after. We haven't tried it yet and I'm trying to make sure we do all we can this cycle, that way if it doesn't work- we know we really did all we could. I'm excited and nervous! But I've heard good things so I'm up for it.

I counted today I've had 41 shots since last Saturday- holy cow! My shots tonight will put me at 43. No wonder my belly is sooo sore and bruised! All I can say is my kids better freakin love me! ;)

The Girl With Hidden Ovaries and Ohhh My Grandma.

Good news! I don't have to go in tomorrow! :) I start the Ganirelix shot tomorrow morning and my E2 levels were 940 (they said that's good) so they upped my dosage of Follisim from 75 to 125. I'll go back on Sunday morning for another BD/US (for those of you noninfertiles, are you catching all the lingo yet? (; ) appt which has to be in the Scottsdale office since it's the weekend.

Not much to report with these visits, is there? Haha trying to keep everyone updated, I realize there's not much to say besides a couple of stats! So I guess I'll fill you in with a story I forgot to mention from my appointment on Monday.

Dr. A has a student dr who has been coming in and shadowing him for a little while. She was at my appt on Monday and I asked if she was going to do my ultrasound. Finding out she was, I gave her an empathetic smile and pre-apologized, she looked at Dr A and he told her I had some of the most difficult ovaries of all the patients. When I'm not on stims, they're near impossible to find. It's a little interesting laying spread eagle on the bed with stirrups with strangers having front row seats, but I've come to realize that comes with the territory, and I'm a pretty open person (no pun intended) that knows for drs, a body is a body. Anywhoo, with wand in hand, she searched and searched.. And searched but alas, she did not find my ovaries. Imagine having an ultrasoud wand take up a search warrent in your va-jay-jay... Yeah, not the most comfortable or enjoyable thing! Dr. A makes jokes about me taking them (my ovaries) out before my ultrasound to trick them. What can I say? I have incredible disappearing ovaries!
Dr. A took over (so by then I've been laying there being explored for a good ten minutes) and being the rock star he is, he found those suckers and counted up all my jewels. I apologized again to the lady dr student and said better luck next time.
She was there for my ultrasound yeaterday again and guess what! She found them! Granted, my ovaries are probably the size of lemons now so they take up more room, but I was happy they gave her a second chance!

Thats pretty much my story about my hidden ovaries. Like I said, nothing too exciting.

On a funnier note, my grandma has been coming to the appointments with me and today as we were waiting in silence for Dr. A to come in, my grandma busted up laughing out of nowhere and when I asked her what was so funny, she pointed and said "that dildo wand thing just standing like that right there!" Yes- my grandma called the ultrasound wand a dildo.. Hahaha oh grandma..

(photo credit goes to someone else I know going through fertility treatments- I haven't thought to snap a pic at my dr's office haha but they look pretty much the same.. Only we have pink jelly (; )

Slow and Steady

Not much to report from todays appointment. My eggs are growing slowly, like the first time. My E2 level came back around 300, which is normal, so that's good. My dr said I'll probably have to up my meds (greeeeat!) for a couple days but things look slow as steady. Back again tomorrow and I'm hoping this weekend goes by quickly so Eric will be back and we can get this show on the road!

I'm so ready for my baby(ies)!

Save The Drama For Your Mama

So I went for my US/BD (ultrasound/blood draw) appt today and just as I suspected, I have to go in tomorrow and every day after that until we trigger. I guess I'm just one of those that's needs extra close monitoring! Today it looked as if I have around 10 or so eggs in the right ovary and 7 or so in the left. All of them are around 10mm which is slightly behind where he wants me I think, but only by a day.

Now the counting is a little tough to do accurately so they just use educational guesstimating (thats a word, right?) as far as they can see. The first time they thought I had about 10 in each and I ended up with 31 eggs retrieved so that number may just change. Hopefully we have 20ish or more, but we'll see!

On a mental health front, I feel crazy. I feel like crying all the time and just overly emotional about everything. I don't like feeling like this and I hope I snap out of it soon. Eric is going out of town for the weekend so I'll have to try and survive with him gone. I have a feeling I'll be a wreck the entire weekend..

I guess today is just one of those bad days. Tomorrow will be better- I just gotta shake off this dark cloud hovering around me and get back to myself! I really want to try to be stress free for this round to give us the best possible chance. I feel like I can't pray hard enough for this to work.

I'll fill you in on the eggies tomorrow.

All Aboard The Crazy Train..

So I'm on day 4 of my shots and I have been feeling a little hormonal, tired, headachy, and irritable. Slightly more than I remember last time. I'm on a higher dose of meds, so that could be it. I also feel a little crazy. And I know I am starting to act a little crazy and irrational.. I can see it, I just can't help it sometimes! Here's a couple of examples of my medicine-induced-twin coming out:

The night before last, Presley (our 1 year old bulldog) was chewing on the blanket in her cage (which is almost a nightly routine for her) and it was annoying me so bad, so I yelled at her and made her get out of the cage and I took her blanket out and put her back in on the piece of plastic that covers the bottom. I have no idea what I was thinking because her moving around on the plastic is way noisier than her chewing on her blanket. I didn't want to switch it back and I was soo tired (even though it was only like 8:30) so I fell asleep. At 3 am, I woke up to the soud of her moving around again and I was so mad! I got up and took her outside and gave her food and came back upstairs. She started barking as soon as I was upstairs so I put her blanket back in her cage and went and got her from outside. She went right into her cage and back to sleep.. Unfortunately I couldn't fall back asleep so I just lay there, thinking of how ridiculous I was acting that night. I freaked out over nothing and just went a little ballistic at something so stupid. I apologized to Eric in the morning for being a maniac. Of course, he's used to it so he just said it was fine and he loved me. I love that man.

Then last night we were having Family Home Evening about having a positive attitude and not being negative so we can have a good feeling in our home. My dad selected me to participate in the object lesson. Basically, the object lesson is to say negative things to a person and then hold down their arms and try to have them lift them up and then tell them positive things and repeat. When a person is told negative things, their arms are weak, and when they are told positive things, they are much stronger. So my dad proceeded to tell me negative things like I'm messy and don't clean up the house and how
I made bad choices and I suck at this activity.. As he was saying all of these things to me, even though they weren't really mean or true, I just started crying. CRYING! I never cry! Like ever. I've cried only a handful of times in our entire marriage and there I was, just tearing up like a little nincompoop. Then when he started saying positive things like how I'm a beautiful daughter of God and my smile lights up a room and my bubbly personality is contagious, I just cried again! It was super lame and I felt like an idiot and punched my dad for picking me when I'm so hormonal.

I hope I don't get any worse haha. I'm already on the crazy train and we are just getting started! I am pre-apologizing to anyone I come in contact with over the next few weeks, for I am not quite myself:)

My tummy is looking more like a pin cushion and starting to bruise some, and I can literally feel my ovaries growing. It's kinda cool and not, at the same time. In about a week or so, my ovaries will be nearly the size of softballs- youch!

Also- I'm not an expert and linking with blogger on my phone (we still don't have Internet) but I wanted to give a shout out to two of my infertility blog friends! Kat at Trying To Make 3 and Amanda at Growing Griswolds both got great news for their Thanksgivings- they're both pregnant!! :) Couldn't be happier for them! Hopefully the positives come our way! ;)

Shoot Me!

Today's the day, folks! I started my stim shots! Woohoo!

My shot regimen is a little different this time around. The past 2 rounds have been very similar, only differing in doses. This time we added a new med and took one of the other ones away.

(I'm about to talk meds now- you can go ahead and skip this next part if you don't understand it or care about which meds I did last two times vs this time.)

Last 2 times: (long Lupron protocol) Birth Control pills for about a month then crossed to 10units of Lupron in the AM for about a week or so then I switched to 5units adding in 75units of Menopur in the AM and 150units Follistim in the PM. The Menopur and Follistim doses changed with each appointment depending on my E2 (estrogen) levels. I triggered with Novarel and then used Vivelle patches and got PIO (progesterone in oil) shots in the butt until negative blood tests.

This time: (antagonist protocol) no Lupron this time! Birth control for about 2 months, finished birth control and wait 5 days and stars stims (today!) with 75units Menopur and 75units Follistin in the AM and then repeated at night.. So 4 shots a day this time. This will continue for x amount of days (until my body is ready) and then add shot #5, Ganirelix- this is new! Until trigger shot, which will be Novarel again. (that'll be shot #6 that day!) After retrieval I'll start the Vivelle patches again as well as PIO shots in the butt again, but this time (hopefully!) until an ultrasound with a heartbeat(s)! :)

Sooo that's basically my shot cocktails for this round. I'm so excited and nervous but really hoping this will be it for us! 2013 should be our year! :) Hopefully Eric will have a birthday present of heartbeats on an ultrasound for his birthday in January! We would appreciate any prayers and good thoughts our way this month and hopefully good news will come in January! :)

I'll leave you with a picture of my first two pokes on my soon-to-be-pin-cushion belly and my first shot- cheers!

Third Times The Charm?

I'm letting the cat outta the bag.. Are you ready for this?

IVF #3 is in the works. I'm not keeping it a secret this time and I'm hoping I don't regret it later haha.

Before I get started with the deets, I want everyone to know that I still have the same concerns with letting everyone know we're doing this, (ie I don't want everyone to know I'm pregnant as early as 5 weeks for multiple reasons, and I want to be able to share the news my way, and possibly surprise people) buuuut I do know how powerful prayer is, especially in numbers and I'm choosing to let that outweigh my selfish concerns. One other thing- I won't be posting results as soon as I get them as far as positive and negative, so don't assume me not saying anything means it worked. We've done it twice with no baby to show so the odds aren't exactly in our favor. The process is long and a little complicated and sometimes a positive blood test doesn't result in a pregnancy that lasts more than a couple weeks. So for that reason, we will be letting everyone know when we know there's actually a baby in there.. Which means waiting. If you are curious about the procedure and timelines of how everything happens, and the possible outcomes, research it- it's pretty interesting stuff! If you don't want to research it, read my "journey to baby" tab and/or stay tuned for my updates about what's happening during this cycle.

I'm excited, nervous and a little freaked out knowing everyone will know what's happening, but I also feel a peace knowing I'll have everyone's support. :)

Sooo... at the moment I'm on birth control pills. So.much.fun! Doesn't it seem a little odd to be on BC pills while TRYING to get pregnant? I thought so too, but the reason is so that the dr can control my ovulation and how many eggs I produce and when. Awesome, right? Like I said, its seriously interesting.. Not to mention miraculous! I've been taking them for about a month now, and I am finally finished with those nasty little buggars on Monday- Hallelujah! They make me a little crazy.. But all for a good cause!

Next up will be dr appointments, injectable meds, more appointments, more shots, and more shots and appointments haha. Sounds fun?

Unfortunately we're becoming pros at this. I'm just hoping third times the charm!