Just a note

Always a shadow in my heart
Always a scream in my soul
Tears that jump to the surface
Pain that will never dissolve

So much time waiting for you,
So much searching and praying and begging,
My heart stopped for so long

I have you in my live little one
And I still feel pain in my soul
Just a note from the one that found you
Sends me on a spiral and I'm gone

Can't wait to hug you, my miracle
Dry the tears of my soul.
Keep me from drowning again,
Please hold me afloat.

24 hours

Can't think today. Yesterday night I started having cramps on and off and it hasn't stopped. Well, it is "off" right at this instant but it is "on" on my mind. I freaked out last night, ran to the washroom, nothing (thankfully), plus I also got a headache so my thought was "cramps, headache, here we go, it's coming now". It hasn't yet, but is it the progesterone and estrogen doing their job? Just a timing thing? Or did the IVF actually work?

It was a really mean joke to make it so the pregnancy symptoms are actually pretty much the same as getting your period, it is not funny or amusing and it's torture. I keep going to the washroom almost every hour, checking. I am going crazy.

Nothing I can do but wait, nothing I can do but worry, nothing I can do but try to have hope on a very hopeless couple of days. I keep running through so many scenarios in my head. When do we tell our parents, when do we tell our friends, should I avoid going to x or y, how can we make it special if it's good news, how can we make it less painful if it is bad news.

The thing is, it doesn't matter how, it will be special if it is good news, it will be special because it has been years and years of suffering, because everyone is cheering for us, because this is one of the most wanted miracles and the most waited for in our families.

On the other hand it will be painful if it's negative, no way around it. It will be painful for us because it would be the end of this dream, it would be painful for our families and it will be torture to tell friends and family. We'll be heartbroken, and we won't know how to keep going for a while. It will be our saddest Christmas yet. We will survive, but it will take a while to pick up the pieces and continue walking.

I debated telling people about this cycle, but I did it in the end because I need to share this painful journey. I need to know I am not alone and there are people out there to hug us and dry our tears. Yet I am now in this place, contemplating how to tell so many people the news if they are bad, how to swallow all the good-intentioned comments that are still going to hurt.

And tomorrow? How long are we going to wait for the call? Until 10? 11? 2pm? Do we work from home so we can receive the news in a private place? Do we come to the office so we can be distracted? Do we come and leave at noon if they haven't called? What if they call while on a meeting? Do I have the will to let the call go to voicemail and concentrate on the meeting?

My heart is breaking already, it is preparing for bad news, and it's making me feel guilty. I should be hopeful right? I should be looking forward to tomorrow, but the fall would be so much harder. 24 hours more, survive that and then it will just be minutes. Or feel a cramp again and freak our again and go to the washroom again to check. 24 hours.

Tick Tock

Such a crawling few days. Even nights crawl when you can't sleep or keep awakening every hour or so. Nothing much to report here except that feeling physically better makes you go insane in the 2WW and you blame it on not having worked (the cycle).

Since I am going crazy doing numbers in my head, I decided to put a lid on it by actually calculating everything fair and square and writing about it. I know once I do it, I can let it go and continue with the waiting without calculating every couple of minutes, so here it is.

I have done 3 IUIs, 2 IVF (counting this one) and 1 FET. On the IUIs I was in a type of progesterone, on the IVFs I have been in another one (both IVF the same one) and on the FET on another one. With the IUIs I didn't get my period until I was told it had not worked and to stop the progesterone, then 2 days later (after stopping) I would get "the visit". During the IVF and the FET I got my period BEFORE the blood test, so I would call them to move it ahead, and go in knowing it had not worked (no, it doesn't make it better). So, now I wonder, when/if am I getting my period before Friday when I have my blood test scheduled.

Lets see the numbers:

IUI #1: Trigger Jul 6, insemination Jul 8, period Jul 25 (day 17 after insemination, 19 after trigger)

IUI #2: Trigger Aug 3, insemination Aug 5, period Aug 23 (day 18 after insemination, 20 after trigger)

IUI #3: Trigger Nov 26, insemination Nov 28, period Dec 15 (day 17 after insemination, 19 after trigger)

IVF #1: Trigger March 20th, transfer March 27, period April 6 (day 10 after transfer, day 17 after trigger)

FET #1: Transfer June 16th, period June 29 (day 13 after transfer, no trigger, but equivalent would have happened 19 days after trigger)

IVF #2: Trigger Nov 22, transfer Nov 27 (today is 16 days after trigger, embryos are 14 days old and we are 11 days past 3 day transfer)

If we go with the progesterone pattern and compare IVF with IVF, then if this cycle didn't work I would get my period tomorrow.

If we go with trigger average (it triggers ovulation and period comes 14 days after ovulation), then if this cycle didn't work I would get my period on Friday (day of the test).

Basically I am where I started, I don't know anything today and need to wait, yeay -_- Since we are 11dp3dt I could do a pharmacy pregnancy test and it would show if it worked or not, but there are 2 reasons not to, false negatives due to late implanters and if it's negative I agonize on it for the next few days until the blood test confirms it. Agonizing over a false test for a few days, or wonder and ask over the few days? Personal choice, I still don't know my answer except that J wants the wonder and ask over the negative test. While we don't test we are still pregnant, once we do, we could not be.

Time is craaaawwwwling.... Tick Tock...

Baby can you hear me

Baby can you hear me?

Are you there?

Are you growing and becoming my little angel?

Have you disappeared?

Baby can you hear me?

I need you here with me

Are you still alive inside me?

Have you left me empty here?

Baby can you hear me?

Two, one or none with me

I want you, I love you, I need you

Please be growing inside me.

The pain of infertility

I was reading this article the other day and it really resonated with me. It is called "The Pain of Infertility". I would recommend you to go ahead and read the whole thing, but I wanted to specially share the following part:

Infertility is a prolonged shriek of pain that makes no sound. It is the woman who averts her eyes each time she passes a baby in a stroller, wells up at the sight of a diaper ad, goes numb when a friend announces that she’s pregnant. It is the man who resents providing semen samples in plastic cups, dreads injecting his wife with fertility drugs, longs for spontaneous sex.

Infertility is also the only medical condition that involves two people, but produces three patients: him, her, and them. He resents her obsessive talk about babies; she accuses him of insensitivity. Together, they nurse a lifetime of shared grievances: the disruptive visits to the doctor’s offices, the exorbitant costs, and the thoughtless comments of relatives and friends. Month after month, often year after year, they endure the physical emotional, and financial toll, all in hope of fulfilling one of nature’s elementary designs.

So true, so real. I almost cried reading the first paragraph I pasted here. It is a very accurate description of the pain. The next part, the 3 patients? Couldn't have described it better.

Transfer and PUPO again

Well, last week was fun. On Wednesday the clinic eventually called and let us know that 2 of the 4 eggs had fertilized. When they called, while I was saying hello, I walked as fast as I could to J's desk and received the news with him. I lift 2 fingers to him while I heard the instructions from the clinic, hanged up and started crying. J took me to the car so I could cry as much as I needed in privacy. I cried of happiness for having some fertilized, I cried of sadness because not all fertilized. It was hard to hear that only 50% of the eggs had fertilized with ICSI, maybe the quality wasn't good, would they be able to survive until the transfer?, we wanted to transfer 3 and we didn't even get that many. It was a lot of emotions in that little moment.

After that I came back to the office and tried to survive the rest of the afternoon, which I can't remember at all. During the call they also told me the doctor wanted a day 3 transfer, so the little miracles had to survive until then, that right then was a very scary thought.

Next day they called me again (way earlier than the day before) and when the nurse said both embryos were still fine and growing I almost lost it. I was in the lunch room and I started shaking, tears in my eyes and I just told her "you made me cry". This time it was for sure of happiness, these 2 were fighters, they had already survived two whole days in the incubator, come on little guys, you can make it another day! I took my things and went back to my desk as I couldn't be in the lunch room anymore. J wasn't there and I was just desperate to tell him. When I saw him after, I just jumped at him and said "we still have two". Who would have imagined that would be such a happy phrase to say.

Friday I took the day off and J took the morning. We went to the clinic (with a full bladder, agghh, I hate it) and got prepared by the nurse. When the doctor came in he said "you still have 2 embryos" and again I almost cried. Day 3 and both of our little ones were doing so good! He said one was an excellent grade 4 quality with 8 cells, and the other one was a "not too bad" grade 3 with 6 cells. "We are going to transfer both". I was beaming, stressed, happy, relieved, nervous. The transfer went without a hitch and the doctor said "we now wait and hope".

Here we are now, waiting and hoping. Every so often I talk with them, after all, I am technically pregnant, I have 2 embryos inside me. Are they growing? Will they attach? I don't know, but the 2WW of being PUPO has started. Pregnant until proven otherwise. I am pregnant, I have 2 little embryos inside me. If this fails, it will be a lose, it technically won't count as a miscarriage, technically we will go back to saying I have never been pregnant, but technically I was pregnant already twice with our 2 embryos at Karma, and technically I am pregnant right now with 2. When do you consider the pregnancy to start? For me, it has already started and I hope I don't have to mourn again.


Today we are 3DP3DT.

Retrieval

Yesterday was my retrieval. I feel like it was a bit less painful at this clinic. It might have been that I had way less follicles, or I had more drugs in my system, but at least I survived it. The process started on the left foot, with the nurse trying to get the IV on my left arm. It doesn't work!! I am tired of telling nurse after nurse that my left arm is useless for IVs or to draw blood, they all end up having to switch. After switching to my left wrist, then it was very similar to the first IVF. Wait, go to the operating room, have the doctor come in, get the eggs, tell me how many, go to the recovery room, feel better, go home and rest.

They got 4 eggs, which is a lot lower from the 11 on my first try, but I am hoping these are better quality!. I still haven't received the call to tell me how many fertilized, so I'm up the walls and a nervous mess. Can't concentrate on work or anything else but look at the phone every few seconds to see yet again that is is ON and that I don't have any missed calls. Please call me!!!

During egg retrieval, they go through the uterine wall with a big needle to aspirate the eggs in the follicle.

Today I have some pain left from it, specially when I go to the washroom, but it also includes walking and changing positions, so yet another reminder of what happened yesterday!

This cycle we are also doing ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection), which is the direct injection of the sperm to the egg to make sure the doctor is choosing the best possible sperm instead of some random one, plus helping the sperm getting exactly where it needs to.

If there are fertilized eggs, aka embryos, then we would do a transfer tomorrow or Friday! To the people at the clinic: Please call now!!!