"Your ovaries are obviously able to overpower microdose lupron"

Why are buttons popping off my shirt?

I just got an email from RENurse and that is what she said about why I ovulated very early on Lup*ron. The "microdose" is what they use for "older women". I told her my ovaries would blow them away! :)

Older woman....peeshaw!

BCP's and lupron and then IVF#2 starting on May 12.

Starting Over

Cycle Day 1.

Oh the squeals of joy coming from my bathroom this morning...if only you could have been there! My last gonal-F was Friday morning. I finally started my period this morning. This could have taken weeks and I am so glad it happened quickly.

Waiting to hear from RENurse. My best guess is that I will start the pill tonight and stay on it until we begin the IVF cycle.

Pituitary gland that won't stop

Yeah, um, okay...so I ovulated on Lup*ron! That's right folks, I am the lucky winner of a high progesterone level in the middle of stims! It seems my ovaries kicked out an egg in the last week or so. As of right now, my ovaries are full of lovely developing eggs...about 15 of them. They are officially toast as the cycle has been cancelled.

The RE is stumped and will devise a new protocol.

For now I am to stop all meds and wait for my period to start. It could be a few days and it could be a few weeks.

So much for that $900 worth of Go*nal-F.

Will update later when there is something to report. If anyone else has had this happen, please give your input!

Ice, ice, baby

Never underestimate the power of ice.

Our first injection was Saturday, March 31 at 7AM. Ivan is now an expert with sub-q injections! The key to making it through each one is to ice the injection site beforehand. We used the polarpack that was shipped with my Gonal-F (which we started Monday).

Two rules of injection time....I have to cover my face and I can't utter words, sounds, etc.. It has worked nicely so far.

Today was my first ultrasound and blood draw to see how things are coming along. I am awaiting the call from RENurse now. Dr. Smile announced several follice sizes for the nurse to write down. There were 4-5 on each ovary but the left ovary had larger follices which concerns me. Will update when RENurse calls with the numbers.

"oooohhhhhmmmm"

Wow, have I ever broken a big blogging rule....it has been several days since my last post. We are just meditating here until our cycle begins hence the "ooohhhmmm" title. I was obsessed with IVF blogs for weeks and weeks and felt the need to take a break and just enjoy life without thinking about it all.

Drugs arrive tomorrow...perhaps I will snap a photo of all the goods and post it here.

Back to my soothing meditation......

It's been a good decade...removing my armor seems like such a bad idea

While moving forward into this journey, planning this "party" with all the trimmings, I have not truly considered the emotional ride I am once again signing up for. After reading some posts written by disappointed IFers on other blogs, I am reminding myself of the potential pain and heartbreak ahead.

I remember it all well...the many AF's that would come and go...the excitement around day 5 of my cycle when the cramps were gone, the estrogen was rising and my was body re-setting itself to possibly host another life. I was a working-outside-the-home corporate gal then, it was just Ivan and me. My yearning for a child was suffocating at times, the pain enveloping me.

It was 1995...Dr. Google was not out of medical school yet and we had only recently gotten a PC at home... a desktop that cost $2000.00 and had 16 MB of RAM. (((are you up off the floor yet?))) The Internet was NOT what it is now so the information-at-hand was sketchy. We had a limited number of online minutes, Blogdom!

By the end of 1996, I was emotionally drained. We had only been trying for a few years "on our own" and we also did five IUI's after my surgery for endometriosis. Despite Dr. Smile encouraging us to do IVF, I knew the long arduous IF road was not for me...I just wanted to be a mom.

In early 1997, we learned a baby was going to be born that Spring. And, on my birthday in February, we learned that we would be the parents to this child in a few short months. The courageous woman carrying this child had chosen us to parent her baby. The powers-that-be had intervened, knowing I could no longer keep up the IF pace, however low the incline. We knew this was the road we should take...we did not seek the adoption, it came to us. And what a glorious, glorious event.

Goose was born that spring and then we adopted Lili three years later. Life has been full. Busy. Wonderful.

For ten years, I have been a mom. A Mom.

During this decade of growth and tantrums and fevers and irreplaceable cuddles, goodnight kisses, late-night talks and many, many "I love you's", I have still felt the sting of infertility now and then. IF leaves a hole, not a wound as much as a sense of incompleteness. With that said, many of you might feel wounded after miscarriages and several failed IVF cycles. I never took it that far so my "cross to bear", so to speak, is this hole - this piece of me not fully developed - a potential not realized. It is that hole, however small, that has brought me here with advancing age as the final catalyst. It really *is* now or never.

We could have done this when I was 27 but my Goose was about to be born.

We could have done this when I was 30 but my Lili was waiting for me from across the globe.

And now, well, now I don't feel another soul calling out to me...not yet any way. I know this is the right time for IVF, ten years after Dr. Smile suggested it. Now, a decade later, *I* am ready to do this.

But at what cost?

I see your pain, Blogdom, and my heart is heavy for you and maybe a little heavy for me in advance. And I want to pinch myself and say, "what in the h$ll are you doing, Ashpash, inviting this pain back into your life?" Pain that will no doubt be magnified by the needles, drugs and expense.

Will my journey end in six weeks when we get a negative pregnancy test at the end of April or will this blog take a fresh, miraculous turn with the sharing of symptoms and pictures of an expanding belly?

Either way, I am confident my pain will not be as stinging because I am already a mom. The loss of my fertility will always be there and it will never go away. But, somehow, being a mom will soften the potential disappointment with IVF.....right?

This, my friends, is where I think I might be fooling myself.

If this fails, I will still be a mom, still active, still healthy, still adored by my children.

If this fails, will I feel a sense of "we were so close" and want to go back for more? Will the photos of those embryos Ivan and I created be too painful?

I don't know where this is leading me but I know that regardless of the outcome, I want to experience it...the good or the bad. As I await my cycle to begin, I will continue to read your stories...your sorrows, your triumphs and your ongoing struggles somewhere in between. Thank you for sharing your stories, Blogdom, they inspire so many on a daily basis and help moms like me summon the courage to move on and see what life will bring.

Punching the illness ticket

One of my great fears about this cycle is that Goose or Lili will be sick the morning of the retrieval or transfer. (The schools this time of year are absolute cesspools of bacteria and viruses). A friend is happily keeping them overnight for our big visits to the RE but, geez, that is asking A LOT to have someone care for your *sick* child. This friend works outside the home so she would have to take time off...just not something I can ask her to do. However, considering by that point we will have burned a few thousand just on meds, ouch, cancelling would absolutely bite the big one!

With that said, I am hoping we have punched the proverbial illness ticket for several months. A few weeks ago, both daughters had a mild vomiting virus. Whew, I thought, wiping my brow...they have been sick. They will be fine for April.

Then this week started with Lili and a low-grade fever, clear snot, cough. FOUR DAYS LATER she went back to school.

Dentist appt for me today, acupuncture tomorrow!

Not.

Goose was up at 2AM flailing a flashlight into my room exclaiming "mom, I think I have a fever!" Once I recovered from the booming voice and lights in my face I was able to function and check her temp. (I had been dreaming that DH and I were at a Bob Dy*lan concert so I had to change modes...)

Fever indeed. It was 105.3. Magic ibuprofen and ice chips were administered and babbling Goose was finally on her way to sleep again. Blodgom, you should have heard my friend gasp on the phone this morning about Goose's fever. Ha, high-fever virgins, they crack me up. Bring on the fevers, people, nothing scares this veteran. :) Give me a cheek hot enough to fry an egg on...now THAT is an immune system with some gonads. Poor Lili, her fever was a puny 100.5, which is why the virus lasted so darned long. Of course, you would have thought her major organs were being parboiled based on her moaning. Not one for pain, my youngest little darling. She takes after her mom.

Now, dear Blogdom, I must admit that these new viruses have thrown me for a loop. In my experience, once kidlets get something - anything - their immune systems seem to be on high alert and they don't get anything else for a while.

Surely THIS IS *IT*! I am feeling very confident that illness is OVER in Ashpash's house for MONTHS or certainly for the month of April.

Note to rogue bacteria and viruses: We punched our tickets...think Tom H*anks as the conductor in Po*lar Ex*press...the darned punched holes are all over my living room! Go away!

[Update: A serious note about fever...the temp does not matter as much as the child's behavior. Some children can be extremely ill with a low fever. It's more about how they are acting than what the number on the thermometer reads. This is great advice from Dr. Sears on fevers.]

Let Freedom ring!

Free*dom Drug, that is. :)

They called last night to verify the order my RE placed for my protocol. What a nice lady I dealt with! She was so pleasant. Their shipping is free, they send the syringes free of charge and they place the order with Fed*Ex for delivery on the day of your choice. Also, she took my insurance info because she was sure that our prescription insurance would cover at least a few of the items. I can't say enough good things about them!

After I talked with her, I was absolutely giddy with excitement! For the first time in my life, I am looking FORWARD to needles piercing my flesh. (But I must admit that the thought of those PIO's is still making me cringe...at least by then I will have pictures of embryos to stare at each morning when that ridiculously large needle is once again introduced to my bum.)

Bring on the mind and ovary altering meds! Ashpash the pin cushion coming soon!

What music rocks your world?

Despite the title, Blogdom, I don't want recommendations for rock music.

I want your feedback on what music relaxes and inspires you. My iPod is a constant friend lately (when I am alone, that is...I just cannot go along with wearing the thing around the house ignoring my family!) As we move closer to our protocol beginning, I need something to keep my mind calm, positive, at ease, inspired. Along those lines, I love En*ya (A Day With*out Rain), Jew*el and Lor*i Mc*Kenna to name a few. I like deep lyrics that inspire along with soul touching music.

Don't get me wrong...I love my share of loud rocky booty moving music. But, right now I need something that feeds my soul.

Please, Blogdom...my Congo Line friends...tell me what you like...what keeps you inspired?

My iPod awaits.

We Have a Protocol!

Good grief. This is really going to happen, isn't it?

Our meeting with REnurse went very well. I like her very much and she gave us all of the time we wanted. Ivan was a pro with the practice injections...that's my boy...ultra fertile AND good with needles!

Lup*ron starts March 31 with stims on April 2. Egg retrieval is expected April 9-12 and transfer April 13-16. Pregnancy test planned for week of April 23.

I told REnurse that I really want a 5-day transfer if the embies look good enough. She said that she would make sure the embryologist knows this.

Here are the drugs I will be using:

Lu*pron, 20 units
Go*nal-F, 225 units
Ovi*drel (hCG)
Med*rol (corticosteroid)
PIO
Vivelle estrogen patch, day of transfer

First acupuncture treatment Friday.

My first blood draw of this adventure was taken yesterday. That d@mn needle hit a nerve and the pain was intense! My arm and shoulder hurt for hours afterwards. When I was leaving the lab, I was thinking how I am NOT cut out for this! :O

But, here I am any way.

"Grade A" Eggs Lost on Youth

Going into this I have assumed that my ovaries will kick out some "grade A" eggs and they will fertilize beautifully and me and my just-transferred perfect blastocysts will walk happily into the sunset together. Uh huh.

In these time-wasting little daytime diddies, I dream about Dr. ColdSpeculum gushing about my grade A eggs and our unbelievably perfect embies.

Yes,I dream and all the while neglecting basic responsibilities in life...for instance, getting all of the G!rl Scout cookies delivered that Goose and Lili sold. Who I am to deprive people of their minty, peanut buttery, lemony guilty pleasures?

BTW, Grade A? I feel like a dept of agriculture item for inspection.

What in the h$ll am I thinking with these thoughts of perfect egg-ness? The only Grade A anything in my near future will probably be the bruises left on my bum and belly.

I am now THIRTY EIGHT years old! Hello!? - Ashpash? - you are no longer a twenty-something college student wearing ripped jeans to concerts and doing marketing papers on a word processor. (It took an ink ribbon people...it had a hammer that made contact with paper...do you see how much aging my eggs have done?)

Even if my eggs do somehow end up being "fair" in quality the chance of success is quite low...like, if the doctor told you that you had this percentage as your chance of living through next week, you would immediately get a will drawn up and find a home for your Se*x and The C*ity DVD collection. This European-vacation-being-spent-on-trips-to-Dr.ColdSpeculum-and-lots-of-needles is nothing more than ME making sure I have crossed t's and dotted i's before I find myself eating my nightly 5PM dinner with my fellow widowed sister at Wy*att's Caf*eteria.

Despite the low success percentage and high cost, I have to cross it off my list.

Our song is playing and we are not sitting this one out. Let the band play (even if along the way a few notes are sour!)

More needles?

Geez, I gripe about the length of needles and then I sign myself up for more!

Today I spoke with an acupunc*turist in the same city as (and recommended by) my RE (Dr. ColdSpeculum). Her Chinese accent made it wonderfully hard to understand her English...I was comforted by her voice...she feels like a red thr.ead to child #3.

"It is a widely shared Chinese Legend that the red thr*ead 'connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break.'”

Dr.Xiaolei told me that I should NOT consider driving there the morning of my transfer (3.5 hours one way) as it will add too much stress to my body and I will not be in optimum shape for the transfer. Heeding her advice, we have decided that we will absolutely drive the night before and get a hotel room. The morning of the transfer I will have an acupunc*ture session with Dr.Xiaolei and then return to her immediately following the transfer. Also of interest, I found a local acupunc*turist who has her bachelor's in pre-med and also her master's in Chinese Medicine. My first session is Friday March 10.

Does anyone have input on their acupunc*ture experiences?

It's all in the numbers...and the length of the needles

Dr. Cold Speculum's nurse emailed me the IVF documentation yesterday! She must have sensed that I needed something heavy to read...I needed numbers and details...I have been like a caged woman deprived of chocolate! The chocolate has been administered and was absolutely inhaled.

And now for the numbers...

IVF Class Appointment: 03-05-07 (Monday!)
Amount insurance is going to cover: 0%
Cost of cycle: $9500-$10,500
Cost of meds: $2500-$3500
Deposit expected at appt: $6000

Ivan had a rather rude awakening last night when I shared these numbers. Remember, this is the minimalist man who barely requires oxygen to breathe...and he is going to be plopping down $6K in cold hard cash for something that has a 30% chance of working.

I am pretty sure he had a cold beer after our conversation....and then slammed his head into the wall a few times.

Now, about those needles....I read that gonado.tropins are administered subcutaneously as well as the Lup*ron...am I silly to be excited about this? Even that one-time trigger shot of hCG is SQ! SQ's I can handle...it's those IM's that terrify me...are we not talking about a major difference in length of needle here? I am thrilled to learn that the only intramuscular is the progesterone and THAT is available orally and vaginally. This is where Always-Helpful-Blogdom comes in. I have already learned from you amazing women that the vaginal delivery of progesterone is rather, ahem, tough on the Victoria's Se*cret bikinis. And I swore I read someplace that the oral progesterone is not as effective?

What does the Congo Line recommend?

I read about Cri.none gel being good...who has used it and how did it go? What seems to be the most effective progesterone?

Inform me Blogdom! Wash your knowledge over me---my dose of "chocolate" is wearing off and I need another hit!

Information. I. Need. It.

Mom, are you on your period or something?

Me: "Excuse me?...Why would you think that?"

Goose: "Well, in the books you gave me (about puberty), it says that when women are on their period they tend to be crabby."

Me: (((laughing hysterically)))

Yes, Blogdom, I opened that can of worms and it has already come back to bite me in the @$$. Elvis is leaving the building and my little girl is holding his hand.

Fourth grade has been a real milestone in Goose's emotional development and much to her joy, we pulled out "THE" books this week. I have had this gem of a book for FOUR YEARS in my dresser drawer waiting for the right time. I found it at the library and immediately knew it was the book for us (of course I did return the library copy and bought my own...you are relieved I'm sure). This outstanding book talks about every conceivable topic (conceivable...ha!) and does so without religious or political ties.

For the record, the reason I was being "crabby" was because I had realized five minutes earlier that I had planned two Lunar New Year parties in two different classrooms for the same time and same day. Would anyone in Blogdom care to guess WHY I might have done this?

It's called I. V. F.

I am a scatter-brained-one-track-mind mommy these days. It's downright scary to think of me on injectables in the next few weeks! Lord help Ivan.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign - and I DO mean the Tesla version

Ahh, Tesla takes me back to my college concert-going days (#77, 78).

So, I am feeling like one of those mediums we are all skeptical of...the ones who say..."I am seeing a woman, with an "A" name...." and the person hoping to reach a departed loved one replies, "oh, oh, my great, great Aunt Annie whom I never met and have no emotional attachment to at all!"

Yeah, well, I like to think that what I have been experiencing is deeper that the great great Aunt Annie connection.

It's the signs, people. Lots of em. Their significance is up for debate.

Sign #1: I received a "pregnancy" magazine in the mail last week. Not with my name. It was for a neighbor on another street with the same house #.

Sign #2: My latest "In Style" magazine has pregnancy ads in it...the same ones from the Pregnancy magazine that I perused before putting it back in the mailbox for delivery to the rightful fertile-big-bellied owner. I have never seen pregnancy ads in "In Style" before. Right about now you are saying, "oh, they were there but you never noticed them." No, I am telling you, they have not been there before!

Sign #3: While trying to come up with a cute, cutting edge, says-something-about-me banner for my blog, I found this piece of clipart which I had never seen before. I saved it for my blog.

And there it was yesterday, in my latest issue of Cooking Light. That same piece of obscure clipart staring back at me from a huge full page ad.

If these are signs then what do they mean? Could it mean we are on the right track...could these signs be indicating IVF might actually work...is this the universe telling me that we picked the right time to do this?

Perhaps it just means I need to get a life? :O

Warning! 80's Flashback

Happy me just bought and uploaded Pat Be.natar "Crimes of Pas.sion" to my iPod! :)

I got the original vinyl album for Christmas in the early 80's and it was a staple on my bedroom record player. I used to sing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" while using a boat oar as my microphone. Ahh yes, I see the picture so clearly now...I was wearing Luv-it jeans and before each performance I would touch-up my feathered hair using the comb stored in my back pocket. I seriously doubt I was wearing a bra yet, not that I need one now. My bedding was Holly Hobby and my bed had a canopy on it.

We. Rocked.

Liver anyone?

Eleven years ago (or was it twelve?), during the first song of our fertility dance, Ivan's semen analysis returned results that were stellar which prompted my Gyn, Dr.Smile, to ask if I feed him liver every night. Nice. Well...you never know what two kids and a crazy wife can do to those little fellars....so... at my recent RE visit, Dr.ColdSpeculum went ahead and acquired a fresh speciman from Ivan to see where we stand.

We are standing at attention, thank you very much, and our troops are ready, willing and more than able to fight! ;)

It seems that if Ivan had not married ME, he could have bio children filling several elementary schools in at least three counties. I suppose this is assuming an issue with promiscuity but you get the picture.

My man has quantity, motility, lovely shape and a 24 hour survival rate that leaves you saying wow. Really, WOW! :)

A mish mosh of posts - cyst, snot, gag reflex, healthy ute to name a few topics

2-20-07
Trip to Dr.Smile today. He was his usual sincere self.

So, that rather large cyst the RE found a few weeks ago? Ya know, the one that could be hit with a bat and sent into left field, way over the fence? Well, this morning, during a very drippy hydrosonography it was determined that not only is my uterus pristine, my baseball cyst was G O N E. No needle aspiration for me! :) Go team!

The next step is to meet with the RE nurse who comes to town regularly to meet with IVF patients. I am hoping she will be here next week. Once we learn how to shove needles into my tender skin, we are off!

Why? are we doing this
How? will I handle the needles and mood swings
What? are we thinking

I am going to start acupuncture to help with implantation. My biggest 'worry' is getting those buggers to implant. I have huge amounts of confidence in my ovaries and the lovely embryos we will create. It's the getting them to stick part that I am concerned about. Endo patients have an especially hard time with implantation.

Ha, ha, ha, I have to laugh....MORE NEEDLES! ;)

**Update: RE nurse emailed me. She will be in town on March 5. I must make a note to mention that cold speculum with her. I am thinking AFTER the injection lesson. :)

2-7-07
First trip to the RE under our belts. I like my RE a lot. I had a lovely "test transfer" to see if the doc could pass the very thin catheter through my stenotic cervix. He could and it pinched. May I ask what happened to warming the speculum before insertion? Ahem.

While he was checking out my girl parts, he found a very lovely cyst the size of a baseball on my right ovary (well it looked that big on the screen). I wish I had a picture of that darned thing. It took up the entire screen. Endometriomas? Corpus Luteum that won't stop? Only time will tell. If it doesn't go away, I will need to spend yet another day traveling so that he can aspirate it.

With a needle.

That passes through the wall of my vaginal canal.

Is it any wonder that when I sat up from this glorious exam that I had to lie back down so I wouldn't slump over into the floor?

1-31-07
Fever people! I had a fever and when I am feverish I cry. It seems the cold virus that clogged up my head managed to do such a good job of it that my sinuses were hosting an infection. Well, what I call an almost-sinus-infection. I decided that if I approached this situation with aggressive treatment, I could forgo the trip to the dr and one week of antibiotics that would eventually lead to an itchy yeast infection. A lot was at stake. And a fever was burning away.

This is where the dynamic duo comes in.

So, pseudo*ephedrine and gua*fenesin together.....da bomb! We are talkin' the Pied Piper of snot removal people! Sadly, my aggressive intake of meds still did not guarantee me a good night's sleep. It wasn't because I was clogged and trying to breathe out of my mouth leading to a dry throat which wakes you up every time. No, it was because the rapid expulsion of fluids out of my various cranial orifices required a good nose blowing every, oh, I don't know, every seven minutes or so. After the first few blows, I would let out a very superbowlish-themed exclamation of victory, "oh, yeah!" (as if each soiled tissue was a touchdown). After a few hours of that, however, I just wanted sleep...clogged nose or not. Around 5 AM, when the meds had worn off, I was actually sleeping soundly. Not helping last night was the fact that my DH (who gave me the virus that spawned this ugly beast of a cold) is still not 100% unclogged. Therefore, he has been snoring. Not just snoring. SNORING. The princess that I am, it seems that even the slightest noise awakens me out of my royal slumber. I am seeing those sticky snoring prevention things in his future. Like tonight.

So, I have found that nothing conjures up a good gag reflex like Mucinex (ya know, my new guafenesin lover). Not only do those things feel like a mega block going down, just thinking of the taste makes me grimace. And, no matter how far I place said block in the back of my throat, my taste buds are still inundated with that horrendous toxic...blech...I am gagging just writing about it.

It's all about the "O"ma's

EndometriOmas that is.

The RE's nurse finally called me back after they reviewed my file. The RE is very concerned about my endo history and they want to do an ultrasound to rule out endometriomas that may have returned (and probably have). If they are there, I will need a lap before we proceed. This is something I had already considered and feel like I am in good hands since the RE is being so proactive. We have an appt with the RE on January 31 and in the mean time I should start my period and will promptly go back on the pill. I LOVE the pill! It shocks me that so many of my friends don't like it. The regulation of hormones ROCKS! PMS and I don't get along really well.

So, I thought I would share a photo of my darling dog, Ben.

In this photo you will see that apparently the ever-naughty cat caused one of the placemats to slip off of the dining room table (Ya know, as he was climbing around. On the surface where we eat).

The cozy looking place mat laid there beckoning to Ben and he could no longer resist....he decided to take a nap. On the place where a dinner plate would sit. Filled with food. Intended for human consumption

Ahem.

So, visitors to our home can be assured of two things:
1. the cat was on the table before your arrival, and
2. the dog may have napped on your placemat. :)
Bon appetit!

Curse of the Winter Birthday

Well, drat, my darling youngest daughter has been cursed with having a winter birthday....just like her mother. Not only is her birthday within one month of Christmas, she also has to endure the possible "canceled birthday party" because of snow.

One guess what the forecast is saying...snow for this weekend...the weekend of her completely-going-to-be-a-blast Build-A-Be.ar party! :(

Let's see....just how many birthday parties did I have snowed out (or almost snowed out) due to wintry weather. I so feel her pain.

Hoping for a change in the forecast or at least temps above freezing.

Update: The temps stayed at 34 so we just had a cold rain all day. The party was great fun and enjoyed by all. Meet da bears: