Lucky

It had been nearly a year since I’ve been here.

So I posted. But I have no clue what happened to it. Apparently, I forgot how to publish a post. Not surprising, since I also forgot my log in.

I will try this again.

I’m not sure why I haven’t blogged. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to or needed to, but I just haven’t been able to come here. I’m not sure exactly why.

My last post (you know, that I actually managed to publish) was after our zero fertilization with our last IVF cycle.

But I didn’t quit. I couldn’t. I wasn’t done. I couldn’t walk away.

So we did a donor egg cycle. It was not without ups and downs.

But it worked.

I am 29 weeks pregnant with a baby boy.

He was conceived with donor eggs as well as donor sperm as it seems that we are both broken beyond repair. We were rejected from the DE program based on Mr. Wonderful’s stellar sperm. We also learned his DNA fragmentation levels were quite high and that could have been what led to the zero fertilization with our last two cycles. He made the decision to use donor sperm. It was a tough call to make, for many reasons, but mostly, I worried how a child might feel who was conceived from both donor eggs and donor sperm.

We have made the decision not to share our son’s origins with anyone right now. I have family members who would treat him differently, especially with K being a fully biological child. We will allow it to be his decision if he wants people to know about his origins. To us, he is no less our child than his sister. He is our son. That’s really all that matters.

I’m still not sure what happened to my last post. Clearly I have no clue what I am doing here anymore. It may appear out of nowhere. I don’t have a clue.

I am so incredibly grateful to be where I am.

And I know I am so very lucky.

It’s over before it could even begin

My ovaries are clearly done with reproduction. They aren’t willing to play along anymore.

Our one egg didn’t fertilize. The cycle is over, except for the $12,000 period that is still to be had.

So, now what? I think I have cried all the tears I can for today. Tomorrow, K and I go home after almost two weeks away.

D and I will be back on the 20th to meet with the clinic about a donor egg cycle. I can’t just walk away from this all. I feel really strongly that K has a sibling. I know this isn’t a guarantee, but it has an 80% success rate. I know it is possible for me to carry a baby to term, and using this program would give K a half biological sibling. I feel like it is our best shot right now.

I am tired of all of this I know my ovaries are done, so I’m hoping that eliminating them from the process will lead to better results.

This cycle has sucked ass, it has been emotionally draining and left me feeling totally defeated. Krista has been a godsend through all of this. Thank you, my friend, from the bottom of my heart.

I know that we were only able to retrieve one egg, but damn, I’m incredibly sore today. It hurts to take deep breaths and I’m all kinds of swollen and bloated. I am glad this will be my last retrieval. I don’t think I could go through this again.

I am going to go home and focus on the holidays with my miracle girl. And try to ignore the fact that the house flooded again while I was here cycling.

I will be back here soon because I need to work through some of my feelings on using a donor. If anyone has any input, advice, tips, whatever, feel free to leave them for me.

One

Today was retrieval. We got one egg.

This is it. It is my last fresh cycle with my crappy ovaries.

I hope with all I’ve got that this one egg can do it. K was a one-egg wonder, so I know it is possible.

Now, we wait for the call in the morning to know if we have fertilization.

My ovaries suck.

This has been proven cycle after cycle, so it doesn’t come as a surprise.

It is CD12 and I am responding slowly to stims. I am on 600 IU of FSH and it looks like we may only have one follie for retrieval, but my doctor is hoping we will have two or maybe three. I’m not holding my breath for that many. My FSH this cycle was 4.88, which is shockingly low for me.

If this cycle is a bust, my clinic has started a donor egg program with a clinic in the US. I don’t know if I can just quit without giving my girl a sibling.

I am staying with Krista this week and I cannot thank her enough for her friendship, support and everything while K and I have been here. She is truly one of a kind.

We are taking this cycle day by day. I hope to have more of an idea of what will happen tomorrow. I’m tired of cycling, I feel defeated. I’m ready to stop, but I have to do it for my girl. I feel like we owe it to K to do whatever we can to give her a sibling.

I just have to do my best to keep hoping and believing that we will get lucky a second time, somehow.

So, I will finally ramble some more.

It has been so long since I’ve been here that WordPress has changed so many things, I almost couldn’t figure out how to start a new post.

We moved.  It sucked.  The house flooded before we moved in and we are still dealing with the hassle of it.  The contractor who did the renovations still hasn’t completed the job.  This move has been a nightmare of epic proportions.  But I can’t do anything about it.  I’m stuck here, in a small town, with not much to do.  We are near the US border, though.  So that means I can go to Target whenever I want.

My girl.  She’s a feisty one.  I am still battling her on weaning.  I went cold turkey with her on Easter weekend.  I have had bandaids on my nipples since then.  If they are off, she latches.  She asks to “durse” several times a day.  She refuses to quit.  I’m at a loss as to what to do.  She clearly wasn’t ready to wean, but it is time.  K is happy, busy and never stops.  She is amazing.  She is now in a big girl bed because she refused to sleep in her crib in the new house.  She loves her big girl bed.  But not if she has to sleep alone.  So we sleep with her.  Small steps.  We got her out of our bed.  We got her in her room.  Now we will work on her sleeping without us.  We will get there eventually.

IVF.  It is about to start again.  I am on BCP’s now and will stop them at some point next week.  I am not sure if I am ready for it, it means packing up what I need to be away from home for about 2 weeks with an almost 2-year-old without my mother finding out I am in town and cycling.  Whatever.  I will just go with it.

So why have I been away so long?  Many reasons.  A big part of it is living in the boonies with a shit internet connection that only works sometimes.  At best.  It has been a constant battle.  Part of it is not really knowing what to come here and say.  And part of it is trying to balance my life.  I feel guilty if I don’t read every post and comment.  I feel like I am letting people down.  So, I have been reading and not commenting.  Blogging is time consuming and I don’t have the energy to devote to it like  I once did.  I will post updates about this cycle.  This is, after all, my spot to bitch about my uncooperative ovaries.

I guess at this point, I have a love/hate relationship with this space.  I am going to try to love it a little more.

 

A post in which I ramble. . .

I am sitting in the dark at one of my favourite hotels in one of my favourite towns.  I am listening to my baby breathe heavily as she sleeps.  I went to dinner with my girl tonight in the wonderful restaurant at the hotel, then we came back to the room, she had a bath and I put her to bed.   Mr. Wonderful is at a dinner at a winery on a business thing. 

I think this is what my life may become. 

Me, with my girl, with my husband at a business thing. 

He has been travelling more and more and does business things sometimes several times a month in the evenings.  My life has already become this – me and my girl – in many ways, but at least now, I have friends and family nearby. 

In two months, we will live in a new house with 5 bedrooms on a large property that overlooks an apple orchard.   It sounds nice, but I don’t know how nice it will be when it is just me and K on our own. 

I guess time will tell. 

This weekend wasn’t a total bust.  (And of course, there never was a miracle and on Sunday there was still nothing going on in the dish, so that’s it, cycle over, except for the $10K+ period that is still to come.)  Our house sold in one day.  It went for $43,000 over the asking price.  I am shocked.  I always hated that house, and was quite depressed living in it in the last year or so, we were so cramped, it was so cluttered because it was just too small.  I know moving to a much larger house will be nice, but I think it might be pretty lonely, too. 

I wonder how a little person can take up so much of a king size bed.  I glanced over at her and she is sprawled across the bed.  I will be able to get in just fine if I sleep sideways.  Mr. W may have to sleep on the floor.

This week has been pretty blah.  This morning was horrible.  I was on the verge of tears and had no patience for typical toddler antics.  I wanted a break from it all, my whole entire life.  I needed to get away for a bit.  But that never happened.  I have an appointment at the spa in the morning for a body wrap.  I figured that hour will be my time to recharge and just focus on me and not have to fish things out of  the toilet and chase K around a hotel room. 

I guess this is a pretty random and rambling post.  So much has happened in the last month and I think I am just beginning to process some of it.  We are moving.  My cycle failed in a whole new way.  I busted my ass to get our house in to showing shape and it paid off.  I am beyond exhausted.  I am at wit’s end with my mother.  I am looking forward to having 3 hours of distance between us.  I can’t take her attempt at guilt trips anymore.  Telling me over and over that she isn’t happy we are moving isn’t going to change a damn thing.  The house is sold.  We leave in August. 

I am ready for the week to be over.  I am ready for my ovaries to stop aching.  I’m hoping tomorrow will be a nice day with my family, just the three of us, at least until we have to head home early so Mr. W can put out a fire at work. 

I think I am done rambling for the night.  I am going to go lie beside my incredibly large baby who hogs the bed and try to get some sleep.  I’m tired.  Night. 

 

 

This ride sucks.

Retrieval was yesterday.  There were 6 follicles that yielded 2 eggs.  Retrieval went ok, it hurt, but that was to be expected.

Today we entered into a new territory in this journey.  Total failure to fertilize.  Both eggs were ICSI’d yesterday, neither fertilized.  Both eggs were mature and looked good. But this is a whole new hell, one we haven’t been to before. I’m not sure I am enjoying it, either. The lab will take another look tomorrow and see if anything has happened and call me in the morning.

I feel gutted. My RE was so happy with how the cycle had gone, I had responded well for me, my hormone levels were climbing accordingly, it was the best cycle yet. This was my 4th retrieval and we have had fertilization in all previous cycles. I wasn’t expecting this. It is a whole new level of infertility hell.

Today I am sitting in a hotel room because our house went on the market yesterday. As of 3PM today, there were 21 showings. I really hope it sells quick. After my retrieval, I went home and napped for about an hour and a half and then got up and made beds, moved stuff around and got it ready for showing. The realtor expects a couple of offers to present to us tomorrow night and I think we might just stay in the hotel until it’s sold. I don’t want to have to pick up toys multiple times in a day.

This cycle really shocked me with the phone call this morning. I was ready to flush the rest of my progesterone down the toilet, but Mr. Wonderful wouldn’t let me. He said I can tomorrow if there is still nothing happening in the dish.

I don’t feel like my family is complete. But I don’t know what my next steps should be. I know I am ready to be done with this. I want to get on with our lives and just live. I am tired of the roller coaster. But I am not ready to give up on my dream of K having a sibling.

I am pretty much an emotional basket case today. I am physically exhausted. We have done so much in the past week and a half to get the house ready to sell. Things have been so busy and it all caught up to me when I got the call this morning that said that there wasn’t good news. My heart sank and I’m sure that all of my emotions aren’t just because of the zero fertilization. I haven’t even had time to think about my uncle’s death and what it means to my extended family. I haven’t really even had time to think about our life changing so drastically with moving in two months time. It all came crashing down with that phone call this morning. I wasn’t even particularly anxious about it because fertilization hadn’t been a problem before.

K is standing beside me while I type and she brings tears to my eyes partly because I know what a true miracle she is and partly because I worry I can never give her a sibling.

This roller coaster sucks. I am tired of this ride.

no time to think of a title.

I have about a 5 minute break in the insanity, so we will see how much I can type.

-Retrieval tomorrow. This cycle has been my best response yet. This is my 6th IVF cycle and I’ve never had this many follies. I have 5 or 6 going in tomorrow.
-After the retrieval, our house goes on the market. We have purchsed a new house in the new town, now we have to get this one sold.
-in the middle of packing, cleaning and cycling, my uncle died. It was such a strange experience caring for him in the last days in the way I cared for K as a little baby. It was a circle of life moment.
-i am not sure how I feel about any of the stuff going on right now. It is all so much at once and I think I will be able to process things when they calm down a bit next week.

And my 5 minutes is up. Have to run.

3 and 3

I went in for my baseline scan on Tuesday and was shocked when the nurse told me I had three antral follicles on each ovary.  I don’t think I have ever gone into a stim cycle with this many follies. 

I have been taking CoEnzyme Q10 and maybe that has made the difference?  Who knows.  I have taken two days worth of Clomid already and stims start tonight. 

Let the fun begin.

And the insanity will begin.

We are moving.

I think I am ok with it, but really, I won’t know for sure until we get there and somewhat settled.

I am not good with being out of my comfort zone and I tend to keep to myself, but I know for K’s sake, I will have to get out in a new town and get involved in the latest and greatest toddler activities. I will have to do it for her and I know it will be good for me to explore new things.

We are leaving tonight to go look at houses tonight with the hopes of buying this week. We will have to come home and get this house ready to sell. That will be a job of epic proportions in itself. We have so much stuff in this house. We will have to pack and store the majority of it before we can put this place on the market. Houses in our area sell fast, so we are hoping we will be looking at a quick sale.

I will take my last BCP this week to start our next attempt at IVF. So that means that the fun of packing and house prepping will be under the influence of Clomid and Menopur. I do think the distraction will be good as I won’t be able to focus on cycling so much. But insanity causing? Hell yes.