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Well, cycle day one has arrived a couple of days early, and with a definite vengeance. Today marks the beginning of our first, and hopefully last IVF cycle to conceive our first child. Tonight I will take my first birth control pill and baby aspirin.
The next two months will be a whirlwind of meds, blood work, injections, ultrasounds, hotel stays and lots of four hour car trips.
We are hoping that in the end, we will be blessed with a healthy pregnancy. Until then, we’re just trying to enjoy the rest of our summer and stay as positive as possible.
Yesterday I went to my third ever Reiki session with Lisa. When we sat down, she asked me how I had been doing and I told her that we’ve decided to move on to IVF and will be starting that at the end of this month. I also told her that I’ve been feeling so much less stress and pressure lately. I’m not sure if it’s because I feel like IVF is going to work for us, or if I’m just over my obsession, but whatever it is, I feel good. So she said let’s get started and see what comes up.
She started by putting her hands over my eyes and normally within a minute she takes her hands off and we talk about something. The first session she said “You’re all in your head, aren’t you?” and the second session she said “Tell me how you’re feeling about moving on to IVF.” This time, she had her hands there for a good 5 minutes and didn’t say a word. Finally she moved on to my head and she said “You REALLY are feeling so much more calm.” I agreed and said that I felt so much less stressed about everything. I mentioned how we had told my parents about our upcoming IVF cycle, actually our fertility struggles in general, and how they had offered to watch our dogs and go to appointments with us and everything. I said how it was nice to know that we had their support. By this point she had moved her hands over to my chest and she immediately said “So tell me what it is about telling your parents that has left you with a heavy heart?” Shock. That’s all I could come up with was shock. I started giggling because I immediately knew what she was picking up on, but I was so shocked on the inside. While telling my parents did not go at all how I had envisioned it going, I certainly didn’t feel bad, sad or hurt about the way it went. Or did I?
So I explained to Lisa what had happened, and mentioned that I was surprised by what she had picked up on because I didn’t even know that I felt anything other than impartial about the subject. She said that there was definitely a blockage in my heart about this subject and we needed to fix it. Lisa sensed that the “little girl” part of me felt like she was hurting and that she wanted recognition from her mom. Like when you were little and fell and skinned your knee, you wanted mommy to pick you up, take you inside, clean you up and make you feel better. I didn’t get that from my mom when we told her about the IVF and the little girl inside of me wanted that recognition of her pain and struggles, but it never came. So Lisa had me envision a younger version of me and had me tell young me that it was OK. That mommy didn’t even realize that we were struggling with infertility and didn’t know how to react. Mommy didn’t mean to be hurtful in the way she responded, she just didn’t know how to respond in any other way. And as hokey as it sounds, it worked. Though I can’t honestly say that I felt hurt by it, I did find myself replaying the whole discussion with my parents over in my head once or twice a day, so it was probably weighing on me. Since my Reiki session, I haven’t thought about it at all (until I started to write this post, that is).
After that, most of the rest of the session was devoted to getting myself into a “good place” for the start of our IVF cycle. She had me ask my mind, body and spirit to clear any blocks that might be in the way of our success and then to give thanks for all of the work that my mind, body and spirit have done so far. At the end of the session, I felt good and ready to start on our IVF cycle in a couple of weeks.
In other IVF news, we got our home equity loan squared away so we’ll have the money ready to go when we need it. Our plan is to put the whole shebang onto 3 or 4 credit cards (gotta get our points!!), then pay those off immediately with the home equity loan. Then we will likely use some of those balance transfer checks that we get in the mail all of the time to transfer the money from our 7.45% interest home equity loan onto “no interest until September of ‘09” credit cards. I think that we’ll definitely be able to handle things financially and hope to have the debt paid off in three years or less.
We also got a rough estimate of our IVF calendar yesterday. I was concerned about the timing of everything since Mark was supposed to go to Vegas for work the week of September 21st and I also though that was going to be the week of my retrival. As it turns out, my estimates were off by a week and I won’t go for retrieval until the week of the 28th, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s crazy how having that calendar right there in front of me makes me realize how real this really is. Two weeks from now I should be popping my daily birth control pill and we couldn’t be more excited! How crazy is that?
So last Tuesday we got up bright and early to head down to Iowa for our consultation with the new clinic. We were really early, so we had some lunch and then went to the mall for a bit before heading over to the clinic. We registered with the receptionist and were taken back within a few minutes. The nurse that took us back took my weight and blood pressure and then we met with Dr. C. As usual, he started with the whole medical history bit, and went through my records and entered all of my test results into his system. After that, he went through all of the basic causes of infertility and crossed them off one by one and ultimately came up with the conclusion that we have unexplained infertility (duh). The only possible explanation that he gave us for our difficulties in conceiving was that that it is possible that Mark may have developed antisperm antibodies as a result of a hernia repair surgery that he had last year. If that were the case, it would lead to fertilization problems, which could explain why we’re not pregnant yet.
Once he officially gave us his diagnosis, he said that he guessed that we were ready to move on to IVF since most people wouldn’t travel 4+ hours for clomid and IUI’s. BINGO! At his clinic, they do ICSI for 90% to 95% of their IVF cycles, and he would recommend that for us too because of the possibility of antisperm antibodies and ICSI would bypass the entire fertilization issue.
Dr. C seems to think that IVF will do the trick for us, and of course we are hoping that he’s right. He said that I have responded well to the oral meds in the past and that bodes well for how I will respond to the injectables. He also thought that we should be able to participate in the shared risk program which will allow us to do three fresh IVF cycles along with any associated frozen cycles for one fixed cost. The nice part about this particular program is that meds are included in the package price which is a HUGE cost savings. Comparing my previous clinic’s shared risk program to this new one, we will save somewhere between $6,500 and $17,500 depending on how many tries it takes us to get pregnant.
So before we can move on, Dr. C said that I would l need to have another sonohysterogram/mock transfer. This will be done so that he can determine the curvature of my cervix so that inserting the catheter for the embryo transfer is as easy as possible, and also to determine the shape of my uterus so that he can put the embryos in the “sweet spot” where they will have the best chance to implant. Mark and I also both had to have blood tests for HIV, Hepatitis, etc, which we did on Thursday.
All that’s left now is to have a phone meeting with the financial advisor Monica and then take the IVF patient education class. And unfortunately, that seems to be where we’ve hit some stumbling blocks. Dr. C said that he would have Monica (who also seems to be the person who determines if we can participate in the shared risk program) call us last Wednesday to go over everything. Well, today is Monday, and we still have not heard from her. I left her a voicemail and also sent her an e-mail, and still no response. My mock transfer is scheduled for Thursday and I need to know if we are accepted into the shared risk program before then. If for some reason we cannot be a part of the shared risk program, then we will likely not go forward with this particular clinic due to the distance. There is no sense in heading down there for a mock transfer if we won’t be pursuing treatment with them. So at this point I am beyond frustrated with the lack of communication.
Additionally, we need to attend a patient education class before we can start IVF. It just so happened that they were doing one of these classes on the very same day that we were there for our consult. We actually asked if we could stay and do it then since it would save us a trip, but the receptionist insisted that we must have all of our pre-testing and financial appointment completed before we can take the class. We had asked Dr. C if there was any way that we could do both the SHG/mock transfer and the class on the same day, and he said that it would probably be doable. Well when I called to make my SHG appointment, the receptionist told me that the next class wasn’t until late, late August. What?!? Do they only do these classes once a month? If we had to wait until late August before we could take the class, we would miss a whole other cycle, which is certainly not what we want at this point.
So I called on Friday afternoon to see if there was any way that we could pay extra to have a special class just for us. If not, could we start the birth control pills BEFORE we took the class since you don’t really need a whole lot of education to pop a BCP. Either of those two options would work out just fine for us (of course we’re hoping that somehow we can arrange a special class just for us on Thursday, which would save us another trip down there), but we still have not heard anything back yet.
I’m frustrated because when I initially contacted this clinic, I had asked about doing treatment from out of state. Monica had responded that they just had a client from Wisconsin get pregnant from treatment there the previous week, which made it seem like they were experienced in dealing with patients from out of state and that perhaps they were accommodating to their needs. So far I have not noticed that to be true, and my frustration with their lack of response is certainly growing with each passing hour with no return phone call.
In my heart, I feel like this is the clinic that we need to be at and we will get pregnant from this. But at this moment, I am so upset and frustrated, I just don’t even know what to do with myself. I know that frustration is the last thing that I need when we’re going to be starting IVF, so I really hope that the communication improves from here on out. I have no idea what we will do if it doesn’t.
In more positive news, a woman in my real life support group who has been undergoing IUI’s for over a year (her husband is sterile due to cancer treatments) finally got her BFP. It was so thrilling to hear that it finally worked for her. I cannot imagine taking 12.5 mg of Femara and doing two IUI’s every month for 15 months. The stress and emotion of 5 IUI’s was nearly too much for me.
Additionally, two women from my online buddy group are also pregnant, one of which was just about to start IVF for severe male factor infertility. She thought that the only way they could get pregnant was IVF with ICSI and somehow they got a miracle BFP. It is exciting to know that it is happening for other women. On one hand it makes me think that if it can happen for them, then it can happen for me. On the other hand, of course, it makes me wonder how come they can get pregnant with presumably such major issue, but we can’t with presumably minor or non-existent issues. It’s a frustrating mixed bag of emotions. But I am very truly happy for all of them. I’m just wishing that our time comes soon too.
So I was watching HGTV the other night and on came a commercial for Lowe’s. Essentially there’s a woman who looks to be 6, 7 or possibly even 8 months pregnant on the phone saying “Well mom, it looks like we’re going to have to pick out couple more names…we’re having triplets!!!”
Good lord. Are you kidding me?
Does Lowe’s honestly believe that in today’s day and age people don’t find out how many babies they’re having until the woman is as big as a house? I sure hope not. I’m guessing that they’re aware of how stupid this commercial makes them appear, but they just couldn’t resist the obvious increase in store traffic that this great commercial would bring. Riiiiiiiiight…
In non-pregnancy commercial news, I am super excited for our appointment with the new clinic on Tuesday. We are so hoping that we will be accepted into the shared risk IVF program and can get started soon. Please keep us in your thoughts as we move forward with this next step.
Well, I’m exhausted since I can’t seem to get myself into bed at any sort of reasonable hour when my husband is away on business trips, so I’m going to finally go to bed.
Mark left yesterday for a business trip and will be out of town until Thursday evening. Knowing that, it totally figures that today on cycle day 13 my OPK is 100% positive. Only twice in my 14 cycles of charting have I ever ovulated on cycle day 14 or earlier, and one of those times was brought on by a trigger shot of HCG so it totally figures that the ONE cycle that Mark is unavailable until cycle day 15 I will ovulate early. There goes the dream of getting a miracle natural BFP during this break cycle before we begin IVF. Oh well. It would have been a long shot anyway.
It will be extremely strange to go through a two week wait with absolutely no chance of being pregnant. I have no idea if that will make things go faster or slower, but there will definitely be less anticipation.
In more positive news, I passed my clomid challenge test! My cycle day 10 blood work showed an FSH of 4.3, so that puts me well under the maximum combined total of 20 for the two FSH scores and means that I passed! I e-mailed our (hopefully) new clinic and told them that we have had almost all of the required pretesting done within the last year. I wanted to know if we would need to repeat all of those tests, or if they would just take them as is and let us into the IVF shared risk program. She stated that if the doctor felt that “the results were within normal range then we would not need to repeat.” This is great news for us as hopefully it means a small cost savings for us, but more importantly it means that we will hopefully be able to get going on an IVF cycle as soon as this cycle is over. Of course I don’t want to be overly optimistic as I know that something will probably come up that will prevent us from getting going right away, but I sure hope that we can start at the end of this cycle.
Well, after nearly three months of a concerted effort to not consume any sugar, sugar substitutes, caffeine or alcohol, I’m off the wagon. Mark and I went to a wedding for a former co-worker yesterday and I determined that I was going to allow myself to fully enjoy the day eat and drink whatever I wanted. Since I made the decision early in the morning, I also picked up some peanut butter M&M’s and some Nestle Tollhouse cookies when we were at Target getting the card for the wedding. The M&M’s and cookies didn’t really taste as good as I thought that they should have, so I was wondering if the absence of sugar in my diet had altered my tastes, but the cupcakes that they had at the wedding were FABULOUS, so I guess my theory probably wasn’t correct. Sugar, check. Caffeine, check. Might as well throw some alcohol in there for good measure, so two glasses of white wine were consumed at the wedding as well. It was a great time and totally worth it.
And today I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it, but I am left wondering what to do about things now. I know that eliminating alcohol is something that I will continue to do because I wasn’t a big drinker in the first place so it’s not a huge sacrifice to make. And honestly, cutting the sugar out of my diet was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and even if it doesn’t even directly help me to conceive, it’s still just a healthy thing to do and helped me to lose 6 pounds without any other diet modifications. But dealing with infertility is a stressful thing and there are times that I think that sometimes a little sugar for comfort is nice. So for this moment, I’m planning on getting back on the wagon tomorrow and I guess we’ll just see where things go from there. One thing I’m sure of is that I’m not capable to having a just a little bit of sugar. I’m definitely a binger…once I get that taste in my mouth, there’s no stopping me. As a testament of that, two thirds of the bag of M&M’s is already gone. It’s shameful, I know.
In completely unrelated news, I went to Wal-Mart today to pick up my prescription for Femara. When I picked it up, I was notified that they were only able to partially fill the prescription and that the rest would be in tomorrow. So I only have enough pills to get me through tonight, and then I need to go back tomorrow to get the rest. Sigh. Why is nothing at Wal-Mart easy? Of course the easy solution would be to transfer the prescription to a different pharmacy, but the cost savings at Wal-Mart is pretty significant, and I’m a cheapo.
And as you’ve probably already figured out from the previous paragraph, we are indeed pursuing one more round of IUI with Femara. When we started seeing Dr. P and Dr O, we agreed that we would give them at least three shots at IUI before moving on, so this is it. I’m hoping that the third try is a charm, of course, but if not, then we are ready to move forward with IVF. In fact, we’re so ready to move on to IVF, than I’m pretty much writing this entire cycle off and already thinking ahead and trying to plan our IVF path.
After discussing some options with Mark, he’s ready and willing to throw $30,000 towards one of those “you’ll get a baby within three fresh cycles of IVF or you get 80% of your money back” kind of deals. Of course since I’m stingy (and also partially because I think that we would have a really good shot with IVF and might get lucky on the first try), I’m not as ready as he is to sign up for such a huge financial commitment. If we were lucky enough to succeed at our first try at IVF, then I’d forever be kicking myself for “wasting” that money. Without a doubt, it’d be so worth it to spend the money and get a baby out of it, but I’d rather just give one cycle a shot and see what happens.
Of course the caveat to the whole thing is my FSH. I’m not sure that we would even qualify for any of those “money back” programs with an FSH of 12.9. And what if we did sign up for one of those programs and then find out at the first IVF that my eggs are no good? Can we get a refund for part of that fee and opt out of the rest of the cycles? Domestic donor egg cycles are way too expensive for us, so converting the rest of the package to a DE cycle would be out of the question.
And then there’s the option of doing an IVF vacation, which I’m TOTALLY on board with. This would definitely be my first choice as to treatment options if we need to do IVF. I am most interested in the Czech Republic right now as their costs are very low and they have great success rates. Not to mention that the Czech Republic is a beautiful country to boot! I spent a few days in Prague on vacation when I was studying in France and it was gorgeous and I would absolutely love to go back. The biggest issue with doing IVF abroad would be the time commitment. If we were to do a cycle with my own eggs, we would need to take at least two weeks off of work. Donor egg is a much shorter time commitment since I wouldn’t need to be around for monitoring; we would just need to be there for egg retrieval and again for transfer, probably a week or less, but we aren’t ready to pursue egg donor yet.
Anyway, there are a lot of options out there, so there is much research left to be done. Regardless of what path we choose, I am feeling very hopeful that a baby will be a part of our near future.
