Someone PLEASE, knock me up!

I really hate it that I feel fragile. I’m being so careful about the way I move. I don’t bend down, I try not to cough hard, rolling over in bed at night makes me use my stomach muscles and I’m oh so afraid that will cause my embies to not implant. I live in Big City, USA and we either walk or use the subway around here. Going up and down the subway stairs terrifies me because I end up out of breath and I don’t want to raise my body temperature. The weather is beautiful right now and normally I would walk 50-60 blocks a day, but now I’m afraid to walk for any extended distance or at any pace so I slowly, oh so slowly walk on the sidewalks basically taking my life in my hands because people here don’t really walk slowly – geez, I look like tourist!

Now, I am not a fragile looking woman either. I mean I’m not fat (well, I have gained 20 lbs since this past June which is just freaking killing me, but whattya’ gonna’ do, eh?) I’m solid, yeah, and healthy looking (I love the “healthy” euphemism for heavy), well I’m definitely healthy looking these days – 5’2” and 160 lbs. That is really about 20-30 lbs more than I should be and where I generally feel pretty good. I loved 140 lbs. I felt good. I don’t feel good now, and I certainly don’t feel “healthy”.

On top of my weigh issues, being so fragile right now, I’m moving about like a I have wine glass in my stomach and one false move and that baby shatters leaving me in a quivering mass of flesh laying on my kitchen floor. Oy, I really don’t like this feeling. I want to be a healthy (and I really mean healthy) pregnant woman. I want to move and be able to walk my few miles a day. I want to not worry about getting my heart rate up and I want to feel like doing so is actually good for me and any embryos/babies we may get. It is such a conflicting feeling – I don’t want to move too much, oh how I need to move more. Confusing to say the least.
What do you do?

Today’s update. Feeling crampy, but have been off and on since the transfer. Boobs still hurting. Constipated and HORRIBLY HORRIBLY gassy (I try to leave the room but that horrible smell just follows me no matter where I go).

We did it!  We have four lovely embryos all transferred from that impersonal petri dish to their new nine-month sub-let.  Welcome home Huey, Louie, Dewey, and Lynn, we’re so excited to have you.  We had a wonderful transfer this morning.  No problems and no surprises.  We ended up with the following: 

1, 8 cell
1 , 7 going to 8 cell
1, 7 cell
1, 6 cell 

to transfer.  Embryo 5 stopped dividing at 3 cells so Dr. A (A = accent, Austrian I believe and really very very nice) said we should put in four.  We were happy to do so.  At my age, I am told that freezing is not worth while and to use the fresh embryos when we have them.  Fine by me.  I’m happy to have these kids home where I can watch over them for a while and not leave them with dear old embryologist Bob.  

We are so happy with all that has happened so far.  Like I said in my last post, we really are celebrating each small victory as it occurs.  

As for the transfer itself, I have a bit of a twisty cervix.  Dr. A said it was not an easy transfer but he wouldn’t call it difficult either.  That felt good especially after Dr. Arrogant at the last clinic told me my cervix was torturous (WTF?).  The other Dr. at that clinic left me bleeding bright red blood for 5 days after what should have been a standard IUI procedure.  I mean really, I am counting my lucky stars just to be with doctors who don’t make me feel bad every time I come in.  Dr. A was really lovely.  As he was getting ready to transfer the embryos he told SB and I to begin thinking positive thoughts and letting our good energy flow towards the embryos.  It was a little surreal to hear a doctor talking like that but also very refreshing too.  SB held the photo of the embies in front of me so I could look at them the whole time.   I have been lying on the sofa ever since and holding the photo on my chest.  The only time I’ve given the photo up is for SB to scan it for this post (now I just hope I can get it to upload). 

I hope all my lovely ladies in “waiting”, the 2ww that is, are all doing well.  I’m thinking of you and feeling strength for all of us come what may.     

Beta on Friday, April 6.  

I am not afraid this won’t work.  In fact, I absolutely refuse to allow myself to be afraid, negative, or tentative in the way I think about this cycle.  Up to this point I have had the best outcome I could ever have hoped for considering the results of IVF#1.  I mean really, we got 8 freaking eggs resulting in 5 embryos, and baby, that totally trumps my prior 3 eggs, 1 embryo (graded FAIR) situation so beautifully.

I am not naïve either and I fully understand the odds we have on this IVF outcome, but I kid you not, I refuse to be afraid this time.  If it all goes tits up, well, I’ll cry that bucket-full of tears then.  I am not kidding myself that it won’t be hell, but it is going to be hell whether I anticipate it or I don’t.  I want to feel happy sometimes and damn it, I’m going to feel happy about every positive little thing that presents itself this cycle.  If my body proves it can do something (even a little thing like letting my eggs be fertilized w/o ICSI) I am going to celebrate.  My SB says it’s cause he has great swimmers.  I think it’s cause maybe, even though I am “OLD” (ha), my eggs don’t have such a hard candy coating on them as my previous doctor led me to believe.  Woo Hoo – that is freaking good news.

Who knows what tomorrow might bring.  5 embryos could be less or they could all still be there.  I am going to believe they will be there, waiting for me and looking exactly the way they are supposed to, ready to come home to Mamá.

I am feeling really strong and if you want me to not be afraid for you too, let me know–I can do it.

I know that some readers may think I‘m full of babydust and pulling the wool over my own eyes, but I’m not.  I have not suffered the same losses as many of you.  I’ve never been pregnant, I’ve never miscarried, I haven’t been doing this for years and years – it’s all true.  The shoes I have walked in are different, and although I may be on the same type of path, my experience hasn’t been exactly that of others.  Don’t think I haven’t suffered my share of loss in my life, just not ?yet? in the land of IF.  I hope I never will.  I’m just saying that for right now, this minute I am going to believe in every good possibility and embrace any and all good things that happen.  I am not going to let the good be tempered by the need to not hope too much.  Hope and expectation are my friend today, maybe tomorrow there will be a different story, but this post is about right now and boy do I feel good.

If I end up crashing and burning, well I’ll let you all know about that too and I may rage and rage about my own stupidity.  But, I won’t EVER let myself be sorry I had hope.

I’m extremely happy to report that we have 5 embryos.  It is unbelievable to me.  I actually cried.  After what happened the last time, I really thought my eggs were just not going to get us where we needed to go.  I actually thought, considering we had 3 empty follicles at our first IVF, that I was at the end of the line when it came to using my eggs.  To have the ups and downs of the early part of this cycle — should we cancel, should we convert, will my follicles ever grow, will I have enought to meet their minimum requirement – then to have it all turn around and get 8 eggs out of 8 follicles just sent me over the moon.  Now, today, to have this fert report, 5 out of 8 which is a 63% fert rate, well I’m definitely over the moon and floating on a cloud.  Just to know that my SBs spe.rm can fertilize my eggs w/o ICSI is great information to know.  I don’t know if you can tell, but I am just freaking happy right now.  

We transfer on Sunday at 11:30 a.m.  Oh, and I have to come up with two more names.  So we are calling the embryos Huey, Louie, Dewey, Lynn, and Linda.  Lynn for my trigger shot buddy and Linda for my next door neighbor who has been a huge support to me over the past year and not just regarding IF but about everything.

I’ll let everyone know how Sunday goes.  Fingers crossed for 3 embies to transfer.

WooHoo and happy day.  We got 8, yep count ‘em my peeps, 8 eggs out of 8 follicles.  This is totally unexpected news for me.  I really thought b/c of last time, that half of the follies would be empty.  But NOOOOOO, each one had its own little egg in it just waiting to be sucked up through a straw and put into a petrie dish. 

Of course, we don’t know what the maturity level is on the 8 eggypoos, but I’m just happy happy happy right now to know that my body can make eggs — the rest is just (ha) a timing thing.  I decided this morning prior to the retrieval that I was just going to expect and think only good news and after feeling as ambivalent about this IVF round as I have been, that was quite a stretch.  I’m happy I did it.  Not that I know if there is a cause and affect but I’ll take what I can get at this point. 

I’m feeling pretty beat up.  My doctor today was not Dr.10YO.  Instead I had a doctor I had seen once on one of my monitoring appointments.  She was lovely.  We had a long talk prior to the ER.  We discussed what happened the last time (you remember, 11 follicles and the dr. only went into 6 and we ended up with only 3 eggs) I asked her to promise me she would be as aggressive as possible to get into all of the available follies.  She laughed and told me not to worry as at her last place she was called the Cherry Picker b/c she’d go after every follicle no matter size or shape.  So now she is called Dr.CP.  I really like her.  There are 12 doctors in the practice where I go.  I have been seen by 4 of them and ALL of them have been truly great with wonderful bedside manner.  They’ve all taken time to show me what was going on on the u/s and have made me feel like my questions and fears are important and take the time to answer.  This is completely unlike my last clinic where my primary RE told me he didn’t want me looking at the internet and the other RE was horribly arrogant and would ask me questions about why I was there that made me feel like I was wasting his and everyone else’s time.  I am so happy that I don’t have to go there anymore.  I thought it was the only place my insurance covered and my SB and I had decided we were going to stop treatment cause I always felt so awful after going there.  Needless to say we were so happy when we were able to change around our coverage and get me into a new place.

That’s it for today — I have to go lay down again.  I will let you know about the fert report tomorrow.  Fingers crossed for at least 3 beautiful embryos as I’ve go my heart set on transferring Huey, Louie, and Dewey!

Yep, I got stabbed in the a$$ last night and no, it was not by my SB.  Oh no, no, no, he  ….

 (wait for it)……