Everything is gonna be alright

I went to get my blood drawn to check my estrogen and progesterone levels this morning. Since Que.st labs isn't open on the weekends, this involved driving over an hour to my clinic just to get it done. Yesterday my husband had the bright idea of making this a family outing, we would get the kids up and dressed and out the door, quick dash in to get my blood drawn while they all waited, and then off to the neat little restaurant the two of us ate at transfer day, then to the little mall on the way home to see if the shirts he'd ordered were in.

It seemed easy enough. Except that I had to get up at the ass-crack of dawn to get in the shower. I woke up feeling a little...oogy. A little nauseous, everything seemed to smell a little strongly, and my coffee tasted bitter and metallic.* And then, the heavens opened up! It was POURING, buckets, cats, dogs, and elephants. On the way to the car, everyone got wet, and the drive was, in a word, tense. My husband was driving and he kept going way too fast. No matter how many times I asked him to slow down the speed kept creeping up there until I was ready to throttle him, and the road was barely visible in the downpour.

We got to the clinic alive. While dashing into the building I noticed that in spite of the fact that my shirt was nearly soaked there was a huge white stain right over my right boob, which I then remembered was toothpaste that I thought I had taken care of. Wrong. I dashed to the ladies to try and clean it, but the stuff was on there. Grrr....

I came out to find that hubby and the kids had been splashing in puddles to keep the troupes entertained. Everyone was wet and muddy, but thankfully smiling. On to the restaurant...

Where, naturally, being that it is Sunday morning, was totally PACKED. There wasn't even anywhere to sit and wait. The kids were thrilled, though, and the wait was promised to be short. Then hubby pointed at my boob and said "You know, you've got a little something there on your shirt." Yeah, I know, thanks.

We finally get to sit down, but the kitchen is swamped. The kids get crankier and we only have packets of jelly and hubby's cell phone to entertain them. But when the food arrived it was very good, which is a good thing because I felt like I could eat a horse. Then I started to hear the music. I'm not sure if they just put it on, or if I had been too distracted to notice, or if someone cranked the volume. It was Dave Matthews singing a cover of a Bob Marley tune, and all of my kids started bobbing to the music.

Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright now
Everything is gonna be alright

Then my little Nate beamed his beautifulest smile and said "I'm so HAPPY!"
Everything is going to be alright, indeed, no matter how this cycle goes. It's gonna be all right. :)

*vaguely interesting possible pregnancy symptoms. They have since abated, but since HSG and it's symptoms are strongest in the AM, especially early on, this is typical for me. Doctor said that prog and estrogen are right where they want to see them. Yeah!

Chicken the Pig

A few brief answers about me.

• Chickenpig comes from my maiden name ( Peck ham). It was a nickname given to me in college by some of my closest friends, when the internet wasn't even a twinkling in Al Gore's eye. But, we did have bulletin boards, mostly inhabited by college kids, and open chat rooms, and Chickenpig became my identity. It has been ever since. I was occasionally called 'the Oinkclucker' .
• I am 40 years old. I'll be 41 the day after my beta for my 7th IVF, 4th frozen cycle.
• I am an art historian and worked as a museum professional. Because of the difficulty of finding any job that pays in my chosen profession I have made eyewear, worked in a daycare, and passed my black jack dealer's audition at one of our local Indian casinos.
  
• My husband is a mechanical engineer. It is his job making giant machines of death for the navy that has paid for the conception of our children. Like being in the military, because his company and the military work hand in hand, he is often sent on long term work assignments, the longest for over a year. He is 41 years of age, and has wonky sperm.
  
• No, twins do not run in my family ;)
  
• I have 3 children, twin boys who are 5 and a daughter that just turned three. One of our sons has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism.
  
• We all live in CT, our house was built circa 1810 on the town green. The neighborhood is on the national register of historic places. Before I ever dreamed of being married, or having children, I dreamed of this house.
  
• I can weave, hook rugs, sew a gown by hand, cook over an open fire, set type by hand, and operate a printing press all while telling tourists where the bathroom is.
  

Thanks for reading :)

State of the Ute

3dp3dt and all is well. :) I just felt like posting something to help me focus on the here and now instead of the ambiguous future.

What I'm doing:

• Playing a TON of Gardens of Time on FB. The twins, especially N, really like this, and I admit it kills a lot of time...and it's free.
  
• Trying to remember to drink plenty of water.
  
• Avoiding the stairs, lifting anything heavy, or raising my core body temperature.
  
• Spending every spare minute I'm not working reading the blogs of fellow cyclers of the Tour de Crotch.
  
• Eating...a lot. The progesterone makes me HUNGRY.
  
• Feeling very upbeat and optimistic. :)
• Staring obsessively at the picture of my embryos. They really are beautiful.
  
• Taking estrogen, baby aspirin, pre natal vitamins, estrogen patches, and shots of progesterone in the upper quadrant of my ample buttocks.
  

What I'm not doing. (or trying to not be doing, take your pick)

• Obsessing every minute about symptoms or how I'm feeling.
  
• Checking the mail every five minutes to see if the letter from the clinic about the remaining embryos is there.
  
• Worrying about how what I'm doing or not doing, eating or not eating, is affecting the embryos ,chances of implanting.
  
• Acupuncture, pineapple eating, wheat grass drinking, standing on my head, or any other 2ww craziness.
• Giving into feelings of despair or hopelessness that this cycle is a bust. (at least not yet)
• Peeing on a stick. I will not. no no no no no.
  
• Drinking alcohol, more than one cup of coffee a day, drinking anything caffeinated other than my 1 cup of coffee.
  
• Sleeping very much.
  

What my embryos are doing (hopefully...fingers crossed)

• At six days post ovulation the embryos are most likely still expanding and collapsing like supernovas on crack. At some point, maybe today (please, oh please), the embryos will stretch and polarize. They are now blastocysts and they snuggle into my uterine lining, as they continue to grow, and split, and then IMPLANT. (Woot!).
  

PS....

Beta is on the 13th, the day before me birthday. Still no word on the embryos in culture.

Non pregnancy pregnancy symptoms

A couple more days and I'll be half way through the 2ww. Which is another way of saying that it has been a whopping 2 days since my 3 day embryo transfer ;)

Right now I have what feels like the worst case of PMS going on. Thanks to being shot with 1 and 1/2 cc's of progesterone in the butt, plus taking estrogen pills 3X a day on top of the patches, I'm a giant bowl of hormonal soup. My boobs are the size of Texas and are SORE , I feel weird random cramps and twinges, and I seem to be endlessly hungry. On top of this, the prenatal vitamins make me feel queasy and give me heartburn. (I take them at night, because otherwise it bothers me during the day. Now I remember why I stopped taking the *beeping* things during pregnancy last time. Vitamins don't agree with me).

These symptoms bother me because they will only continue the more progesterone I do. In the past, I have been able to separate the real pregnancy symptoms from the drug induced pregnancy symptoms, but I don't think I will be able to this time. I just wish I didn't feel like I'm on the verge of the period from Hell ;)

Pretty is as pretty does.

Transfer day! Everything went according to plan. Hubby and I arrived right on time. I had it timed just right, bladder full but not uncomfortable. Business as usual. Unfortunately, they had to thaw all 4 embryos to get two good ones to transfer. Both of those embryos are a grade 2, 8 cell, beauties. About as nice as you can get frozen, according to the Doc. The other two were both grade 2's also, one a 6 cell and the other only had two. They are putting them in culture for a couple of days to see if they make it to blast and then re freeze. My RE says there is a good chance the 6 cell will make it, but not so much the 2 cell.

I was saddened by the news. I wish now that I had told them to transfer the 2 cell embryo as well, what would it have hurt? I don't believe that the pretty embryos are always the ones that stick. In fact, I have lots of evidence to the contrary. My twins started out as lumpy, poor grade embryos of only 4 and 6 cells respectively, with lots of fragmentation to boot. On the other hand, I transferred 12 embryos that were picture perfect. You should have SEEN the 4 beauties I transferred in my first two cycles. They looked like embryos from a text book. And so did the ones I transferred today, with just a teensy tad of fragmentation from the thaw process holding them back from perfection. What a mystery this whole process is.

Anyway, chances are I don't have the fall back plan I was hoping for. This scares me, because in my mind I was already prepared for the next FET. If I don't get pregnant, and the embryos don't make it to the next stage, this may be the end of the road for me.

Honey Badger Don't Care

I've been reading around the blogosphere lately, infertility blogs for the most part. (no surprise) And something has come to my attention. Women who become pregnant after infertility are a guilt ridden, apologetic, lot. I admit, I have succumbed to this phenomena as well. I have a fair share of survivor's guilt, or maybe it's just common sense. I don't want to throw the fact that I have been successful in anybody's face who may be reading this blog. I understand that I have signed up with other women who are undergoing treatment at the same time as I am. I have rolled out the red welcome mat, so to speak, to people who are trying RIGHT NOW to conceive. Chances are they don't want to read about my problems in the parenting trenches.

On the other hand, I am reading the blogs of women who are trying to get pregnant, and some that have recently become pregnant, and I want to continue reading their blogs. I'm hooked. I want to read about ongoing treatments AND ongoing pregnancies. But...I don't want to keep reading the apologies.

When you have had your head in a toilet bowl for 12 hrs straight because you're pregnant with twins, there is no need to preface your post with "I know I shouldn't be complaining about pregnancy symptoms, and I am really, really, grateful just to BE pregnant, BUT....." . You don't have to apologize. We get it. And if there are readers who don't get it, they should.

Listen up infertility universe, I'm talking to YOU. It is hard for us to get pregnant. And here's the kicker, it can be just as hard to BE pregnant. And after THAT (you're not going to want to hear this...sorry) it can be just as hard to parent. Yup, that's right, all three can really, really, suck. And at all three stages, we should have EVERY RIGHT TO COMPLAIN!

Complaining doesn't make you ungrateful. Having a hard day doesn't make you unworthy. Having to wait doesn't make being pregnant or parenting easier for us. (wish it did, but nope).

So bring it on, ladies. I will be reading your blogs, whether I get pregnant this cycle or not. I dare you all to say "I'm glad to be finally pregnant, but DAMN some days it just sucks!"

No apologies necessary :) Honest.