Due Date

So this weekend would have been my due date.

Would have been, but it's wasn't.  Instead of a crib in the would-be nursery, I have a desk.  Instead of mother goose, I have Grey's Anatomy (the book not the dvd's :) ). Instead of being sad about this, I'm motivated.  I would love to have a child, don't get me wrong, but I am truly thankful to have this opportunity to go to nursing school, now, before I have a child running around.

Let me quote myself from around a year ago in "The Emotional Tests":

"The worst part of the roller coaster is that you can't disembark. Well, you can, but that means you have chosen "child-free" living as infertility types like to call it (sounds pretty awful to me at this point). I suppose you could always take a break, but for me, I am scared of missing a chance. Even if I tried to take a break, I would still know when about I was going to ovulate and when I could start expecting symptoms one way or the other...so again, I'm stuck on this ride until either I give birth, or hit menopause."

Hands down...I think this is the most ridiculous statement I've said on this blog. (Excluding my post-HCG test blogs, which are too painful for me to re-read just yet).  To be fair to myself, I'm sure it was inspired by a fertility memoir written by a 40-something...but still, c'mon July 2011, MK...buck the ***k up!  (See Mama, I am learning...) 

So let me show you this little gem:

Or, translated for those of who can't stand the French:

I'm not forty yet...I'm not even darkening 35's door...I got a little time, and I had a little work to do on myself.  My desperation for a child, was, in part, desperation to have something I was proud of in my life.  I was not happy with my life as it was, and mistakenly thought a child could distract me from that.  I gag at the thought of what kind of mother I would have been.  Controlling, impossible expectations, over-bearing, helicopter, angry mama bear are all things that are coming to my mind.  I'm kinda glad I'm not my own child!  

I think, even though we'll never know until we know, that this experience has softened me a bit.  I might not take every possession away from our child for making an A-, now...I'm KIDDING!  But I seriously am contemplating selling back the Tiger Mom book to McKay's (STILL KIDDING!).  I will just be so dad-gummed appreciative of the fact that I get the chance to be a mother, the little things seem to wash away.  Straight A's, piano lessons, getting into the right dance school, gymnastics, looking like they just stepped out of a Brooks Brothers for Kids catalog...those things don't seem as important as they once did. 

The other thing about a break is that it lets you focus on you as a whole person instead of just your ovaries.  You do deserve to be happy. I deserve to find happiness with or without children.  My husband deserves to be happy without children. We deserve to just be happy, today and from tomorrow on regardless of our reproductive systems. 

So today, I graciously accepted a prescription for Depo-Provera (Actually, I kinda begged, but that's for a different installment of this blog...). Twenty-six months later, I can close the door on this chapter of our fertility journey and enjoy being pain-free for the first time in over two years.  I can enjoy my husband, my friends, and my life without fertility trauma.  I can accept we may possibly be the oldest parents at our child's kindergarten graduation. Just think how much I'll have improved by then!

Peace, Love, and Margaritas,

Mary Katherine aka MK 2.0

Last bromocriptine!!!!!!

Yay, last one of those! Soon the real fun shall begin! Now it's time for my prolactin to rebound! (Hence, the bromocriptine rebound cycle.)

As I've mentioned before, I'm having a lot harder time being all gung ho about this cycle, and my acupuncturist even got on to me on the matter. I had been interpreting his Zen wisdom as he thought we should try naturally for a while longer. I asked him what he thought I should do if this cycle fails. He looked at me strangely and asked me why I was there.

Duh! I was there because I'm trying to make me better for a pregnancy now. Not next time, not a year from now, but now. It goes back to my control issues. I told my acupuncturist I had to have a plan B (technically, we would be on plan G) to help cope with a failure. He said, "Ok, plan B is for you to decide what to do after plan A,". Did I tell you I loved my acupuncturist?

I asked the same question to my husband the night before. (Like I said, I'm having my doubts...) Lately, I've been happy. Granted the door to parenthood is far from closed, but I haven't had time to think about it much because I've been so busy. It's taught me that I can be happy (at least when I'm crazy busy) despite all of this. I've enjoyed the last few weeks of fertility pressure-free bliss. I am truly as happy as I've been in a long while. I have a great husband who has a great job, a great job, myself, with three amazing co-workers, a great dog (well, we're working on it) and last, but far from least, some great friends. Oh, and cats...we have cats.

So happy, that I had an inkling of fear that maybe, if this doesn't work, we should think about the hideous word "child-free." So, as I said, I asked BJ what he thought we should do should this cycle fail. "Let's get through this cycle, first, and then ask Dr. Donesky, but I want to be a parent."

I do, too. So I've finished one prescription and ordered $4,200.00 more drugs. Monday morning, I have a suppression check to make sure my ovaries have shut down appropriately. They'll draw my blood for an Estrogen (E2) level, which we want to be under 50. We are looking for no cysts on the ultrasound and 16+ antral follicles. Antral follicles are our potential. They are where the eggs will mature. Starting with around 16 gives us a great chance at having an optimal number of eggs to work with (20ish).

If everything looks good, then round 2, here we come! I believe in Dr. Donesky, and I believe in our decision. I want this to be the ticket. I want this to work, please. I want to spawn!

In the meantime, please pray, meditate on, send vibes to my blogger role-model, Tamara. She's in the worst part of the process...the wait. Tamara, I'm thinking about you tons and can't wait to hear your good news!!!! Xoxo (Oh, and check out her blog...it's amazing! Awkwardlysocial.com)


Peace, love and rebounds,
MK

Ho-Hum

So more acupuncture, less fertility happenings...which is why I've not blogged so much because I hate to bore everyone.

Any-some-how, BJ and I are chugging along.  Good things are happening in some areas of our lives.  BJ is about to embark on a new adventure.  He has accepted a position at a small little university in town.  We are both ecstatic as this has been a 3 year job search.  Fortunately, (OK, extremely fortunately) BJ has been able to stay employed during this job search after an internship/possible career did not pan out back in November 2008.  Perhaps the tides are turning for us...

On the spawning front, the IVF coordinating nurse is patiently tapping her fingers waiting for me to call.  So yeah...I'm patiently waiting, too.  It's day 32 of this cycle and nothing seems to be happening.  I'm 99.9 sure a miracle conception did not occur, so I'm not rushing to pee on another $8.00 stick and be disappointed. It's not worth the $8.00.  I can't start shooting up for this cycle until after I start my period, so I'll continue to wait.

It's an improvement for me to not be panicking at this point.  The nurse telling me that this cycle is a go for us no matter the date it starts helps me not worry about that stuff too much.  And, they even have a December cycle if it doesn't, so it's not like I'll be waiting until January.  It's all good!

BJ and I, in the meantime, just keep trucking and taking our horse pills.  We are trying to eat more organically because they say that's good for his swimmers and my eggs.  Emma has even joined the cause...

Emma Grace has expensive taste as that is an  organic honeycrisp apple that she pilfered as I  was putting up groceries...Gotta love retrievers!

I guess that is all for now...

Peace, Love, and Apples,

MK

"Adopt the pace of nature:  her secret is patience."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

And the waiting begins...

A person is a person, no matter how small. ~Dr. Seuss

Yesterday, after a nerve-wracking two and a half hours late phone call, I learned that out of our 17 babies, 4 arrested, or quit developing.  So we are down to 13.  I can't say I'm not disappointed, but realistically that is still an amazing amount to work with.  I guess it all depends on your philosophy of when life begins, but when all you've ever had is an embryo, each loss is difficult and leaves us with fewer attempts at a frozen embryo transfer, later.  Again, they only ever expect 30% of embryos to make it to day 5, so anything above 5 and we're beating the odds.

Today, I've tried to rest some more as I've got some beginning of the year, raging sore throat megalo-virus.  I can't talk much to my husband's amusement. I've peed like 18 times today so far (still trying to get rid of all the extra fluid).  I gained 4 of the 8 I lost back the next day and now I'm down 5 for a net of 9 so we're trending in the right direction.  I've tried to get the house ready for Emma Grace's grandmother (my mom) to come doggy-sit since we are headed back to Chat-town. I think I've picked my prescious puppy up so many times today,she is getting sore, but today is possibly the last day that I can pick her up for a while so she's just gonna have to take it!  I also hit the elliptical for one last time for hopefully several weeks...(PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE).

I can't say I'm not a little hesitant about the transfer.  My wee ones have a lot of help and support right now, and I'm so scared that I'm going to fail them.  Again, I know I've been extremely compliant and have continued to take all my meds exactly as directed despite a near death experience with a vein and an IM injection (lots of blood, but everyone survived).  There just is not as much control on the implantation side of things. To exacerbate matters, I'm already feeling crampy and pressure in my lower abdomen like before a period starts.  Hopefully it is just the progesterone buffing up my uterus, but it still makes me nervous. I hate to think that there could be something else I could have done to ensure that my babies make it to 4 weeks and then 5, 6, 7....

In 10 days, I will either be the happiest I've ever been in my life, or at the lowest point of my life.  There is no inbetween.  I can't even fathom how I'm supposed to prepare myself if this doesn't work.  How do you get past the feelings of failing at one of life's most basic functions?

Well, it's time to finish packing and begin the next leg of this journey.  All I can do is take it one step at a time.  Give it up to Him and my medical team.  Pray that I'm strong enough to make it through whatever outcome this brings and remember how much I love my husband and how loved I am.

Peace, Love & Survival to day 5,
MK

Introducing me, the control freak...

I'm a bit of a control freak. I had to know when I was going to be proposed to. I wanted to get married in June...we booked the reception site before BJ had proposed! In MK's world where everything is perfect and there is a lot more pink, the master plan had been to be married for two years and then conceive a child in June, tell everyone I was pregnant in October, give birth in April, take the rest of the school year off, and have the summer with my precious little boy. Four years later, my little girl would be born and the Roberts family complete.

Sounds a bit over the top, right? Well, my mom conceived both her children the first month she tried. My mother-in-law conceived both her children the first month she tried. My brother-in-law has a beautiful little girl. My cousins all have children. As far as we know, there is no family history of infertility. Well, if you think about that, duh! How could you have a family? Fertility treatments have come a long way since even 15 years ago. My RE told me that the clinic he was doing his fellowship with had a 19% success rate with IVF in 94. They were really proud of this! That would be considered horrendous by today's standards where they expect over a 50% success rate with women under the age of 32.

Anyway, I had no reason to think that I would have any trouble conceiving. With that in my head I started researching the whole pregnancy thing in February 2010. I read What to Expect and You:Having a Baby cover to cover before we officially started trying. I had to know every detail of everything that could possibly happen. I started pre-natal vitamins in March 2010. I quit drinking caffeine or ingesting anything with artificial sweeteners in May. I wouldn't eat foods heated in plastic. From June 2010 to June 2011 I maybe had 5 servings of alcohol. This baby was going to be exposed to no toxins! June came and I had my yearly scheduled with my gyno. He gave me a plan based on the number of days of my cycle for the best days for BJ and I to get busy. How could we fail? We had a plan! BJ and I were ready to go. This was going to be a piece of cake. Well the Powers that be had an alternate plan...

So, anyway you can imagine the disappointment when it didn't work out. We followed "the plan" religiously. Every other day on the days we were advised, and we still failed. Which is how I took it. It was a personal failure on my part. BJ was not worried, in fact I'm sure BJ was just fine with having to try again and again...

Well enough about my neurosis...

Until we meet again,
MK