It's Been Rough

I won't lie. This past week has been one of the tougher ones in my history. The only time I can remember crying this hard or being on the verge of crying this consistently I was in elementary school and my best friend had just died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm. I find myself being a hermit because I loathe crying in front of people and just about anything can set me off.

I skipped out on my niece's second birthday party and feel horribly guilty for it but it was two days after my negative beta. I did what was best for me. If I had gone one or all of several things could have happened...

• a. someone would ask me when we're having kids  
• b. someone would give me that puppy dog look because they know about our failed cycle 
•  c. someone would comment about how my niece 'looks exactly like' me 
• d. someone ie (my brother most likely) would have said something stupid and I would have gotten violent very quickly and finally
• e. I would not have been able to show affection to my niece like she expects which would have upset her and in turn everyone else including me.

I know I'm a ticking emotional timebomb and I have no desire to explode in front of anyone or to take anyone out with me when I go. All of the above scenarios would have resulted in a lot of ugly crying, a panic attack for being seen crying, and alot of explanation on the part of others for my behavior. No thank you. I did however send gifts.  My brother in his amazingly clueless manner got vaguely upset because he thought it would be better for me to be around my family during this time. Uh no. If he can't see why that's a bad idea then he doesn't understand the nature of the beast. I can barely step inside of town without having to blink back tears because everywhere there's babies and pregnant women and overheard conversations about babies, pregnant women, and adoption. Just going into Joann's for fabric was hard because I saw all the cute fuzzy fabric and yarn that I was just dying to make baby blankets with.
I can't say that my negative beta blindsided me. I was and still am well aware of the stats. At best its a coin toss. I am blindsided by my emotional reaction.
One of the things that is particularly hard to resolve is the damage that I did to my foot while working in order to pay for this cycle. It has been a month and a half since I left work and still not a day goes by without some level of pain. I am frustrated beyond words that before I took the jobs to pay for IVF that my foot was the best it had ever been in my life. No pain, no limping, increased movement etc. And now it is the worst it has ever been consistently. I could have handled this sacrifice if the payout had been there. But now its hard to think of all that I have lost for the sake of that one cycle. I hurt myself perhaps permanently for nothing, I spent more money on that one cycle than anything else in my life save our house.
I keep feeling like I am being pressured to move on and make a decision both from without and within. I know how I feel now that I don't want to do another cycle especially not a full blown one. At our clinic that would cost meds and all somewhere in the $25k range. That is almost a third of our remaining mortgage. That is almost four times the cost of my car or two times the cost of my husband's. I know if it were to work it would be worth it. I also know that if it didn't work I would become such an angry bitter resentful old biddy the world would not be able to handle me. I don't even know if I could handle me. And it would take a minimum of 6 months to get there financially and that's a cutting so far back you're on a bread and water type diet. I spent the last 9 months living exclusively for this chance. I don't know if I can handle living another 7 or so just for it to fail again.
On the flip side we've a couple friend, actually our bestman and his wife, who are adopting. Their profile went live recently and they will have spent about $18k when all is said and done. We have almost 13k in the bank from the car accident and there's a chance that we could actually spend less than what they are.
Both arguments are compelling and I'm having a hard time sorting through them. I'm thinking of going to a counseling session just to have an unbiased opinion.
At the moment I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

Lost

Yesterday was beta day. I was ridiculously excited and afraid at the same time. When we stopped for breakfast after what had to have been the most painless easiest blood draw ever I had to restrain myself from buying little baby booties to surprise my husband with. I walked out empty handed on the grounds of I didn't want to jinx it.
The day seemed to go on forever. Hours passed and no phone call. When it finally did ring at 3:00 pm almost 8 hours after the draw, I hesitated. On this side of the phone call I was PUPO, on the other who knew. I took a deep breath closed my eyes and pushed the button. "Hello?" I know my voice wavered a little. I shut my eyes at the very perfunctionary tone at the other end as my stomach sank. My nurse Candy told me that my HCG came back negative. Inside I shattered. She went on her spiel about stopping my medications and asked if I wanted to speak with Dr. Scotchie since Dr. Murray wasn't in. I took another deep breath and tried to marshall my control. "What's the point?" I failed miserably and my voice shook and cracked. In my head I'm going really what is the point what is she going to say to make this better. Candy was silent for a moment before starting back in 'well lets go ahead and set up an appointment to talk to Dr. Murray.'  "I'd like to talk to my husband first," I choked out. Candy apologised and said she'd see me next week. I thanked her for calling, which is so wrong to thank someone for shattering your dreams with a simple sentence. As soon as the phone was off I slumped over my desk, burrowed into the crook of my arms, and started to sob. My mom who had fallen asleep on the couch after our early morning drive woke up and came in. I pulled myself together and stood up, stomping down and locking up the pain for later examination. She tried to pull me in a hug and I growled out, "No." She looked hurt by my refusal but I know that the fragile walls I had just put up would collapse in her arms and I would let out the very ugly cry that would hurt her to see. Instead I put on my shoes and invited her on a brisk walk. Any activity to keep the hurt at bay. When the pain in my legs began to fight the pain in my chest for recognition I turned back. I got inside the house a minute or two ahead of her and closed the door. Knowing she wouldn't see, I slammed my palm into the side of the refrigerator so hard that all the magnets fell off and clattered to the floor. I hide on the other side of the frig and flexed my hand making sure I hadn't broken anything because I'd used way more force than I had intended to. A few minutes later and I finally convinced her I was fine and she should leave. I waited til her car drove past the house and then let the walls down. I lay in the middle of the floor and cried so hard I couldn't breath. I don't know how long it took to get the worst of it out but then I got up and systematically removed all signs of our failed cycle from the house. It hurt the most to remove little acorn's picture from the fridge and drop it into the box with all the rest of the unused meds and needles. I crawled into bed and turned on a video game. Something mindless. DH come home an hour or two later. The excitement as he came through the door cut me like a knife. I just shook my head because the words were too much to say.
We hugged then went out for ice cream. We talked alot in the car. When we got back we both crawled back into bed even though it was barely 7 o'clock and went to sleep.
I'm so glad that I didn't buy those stupid little red booties. There is no doubt in my mind that they would be flung out into the middle of the woods right about now.
We took this major gamble the biggest one of my life, and we lost. I don't know what to do now.

Furbaby

I feel like a bad furmomma. I really do. I've been so caught up in this whole IVF process that I didn't even notice Claire was having an issue shedding her claws. On Friday afternoon I noticed she'd licked the fur off of two of her toes. I went to investigate and discovered that her poor little toe pad was being pierced through by one of her claws. I examined it for a good few minutes and determined that I couldn't fix the issue myself without hurting her. And of course it's a weekend so I have to wait a few days and stew in my guilt. On Sunday I looked at the rest of her feet and discovered another claw that was very very close to piercing its toe pad and a tiny itty bitty baby claw that looks like she'd pulled out almost at the root, which had to have hurt so badly. I feel really guilty.
So Monday we took her to a new vet. She did remarkably well with them. Never hissed, never blew, never growled, never even meowed or struggled. She just kept an eye on me the whole time. Poor baby bled like a stuck pig when they removed the offending claw. Her poor little foot pad. She shook the first bandage they put on her off in about 5 seconds. Flew all the way across the room. They put the second one on nice and tight but told me I could take it off that night. They surprisingly didn't fuss too much at me for her being overweight, a whopping 15.6lbs!, but did suggest I put her on a diet. Uh she's been on a diet for well over 6 months now.
I think she had a worse time of it in the car though. She just lay on my lap leaned up against my chest and panted. I turned the air up on high just in case my body heat was making her uncomfortable. She was very happy to get home til she realized she couldn't shake her pink bandage and then she hid.I tried to help her take the bandage off before bed time and she got irritable with me, so I finally cut it the rest of the way off and let her get the super sticky part free.  She got sick a couple times during the night which makes me wonder if I should continue dosing her with her antibiotics. I think maybe she just didn't eat enough yesterday cause there's still plenty left in the bowl.
Sometime during the night she decided she wasn't still mad at me and crawled up on my leg to sleep. Good. I hate it when she's mad at me.
Oh at the store I had to pick up some special litter for her til her foot pad heals and without thinking I bent over and picked up this huge bag. I guess it was probably a 30 lb bag. I didn't think anything of it til I turned and saw my mother's horrified expression. Oh shit. I quickly handed it off to her. Really really hoping that I didn't screw something up.

On the hunt

for symptoms that is!
I can't help it. Today I'm 5dp5dt and I'm already micro examining every twinge and persnickety element of my body. Even though every rational cell in my body is screaming that a. it's way too early for symptoms or b. any symptoms I do have are far more likely to be caused from the progesterone supplementation than anything else.
I keep thinking that if little acorn is still in there it has officially spent as much time, actually a little more at this point, in my body as it did in a dish. That makes me feel good. So here's the breakdown of my 'symptoms'...

Today:

• I am snacky all the time, not hungry just snacky. And when I say all the time I really mean about 2 hours after a meal instead of my usual 4-5. 
• At about 4:30pm I experienced a small bout of nausea. Nothing major just enough that I thought it wise to sit up and breath deeply for a few seconds. It passed within minutes. 
• I started to tear up watching Shark Week's Shark Fight show, even though I saw the same episode last year.
• I feel sleepy most of the day
• The heat gets to me even quicker than normal.
• I woke up at 4:30am and couldn't go back to sleep. Shortly after I rolled over in an attempt to refind my comfort zone and scrubbed my boob on the mattress through my bra and sleep shirt, it still hurt.

Yesterday

• At about 3pm ish we went to our local marina to eat at their dock restaurant. Excellent burgers and you get to fed the fish and geese. I spent the entire time feeling off, not quite nauseous, but more like my equiblibrium was off. Since the entire restaurant is on a floating dock that might not be too weird except never in my life has that bothered me and I've spent a fair amount of time on boats and docks.
• The heat oh the heat I feel like I could swoon.
• Earlier that day at walmart grocery shopping I felt off again. This time like a panic attack was circling even though I didn't feel particularly anxious. 

Friday

• Sleepy all day but maybe that was just boredom. 
• A small case of the shakes when I forgot to eat lunch.
• There was a moment when the icing for my cake wasn't working and I had just discovered that my stove's bake element is broken that I felt out of control anger. I threw out the icing and then sulked in bed til I got a grip on it.

Previously in the week/Continuous

• Discovered that I can no longer wait to eat upon waking. Usually I piddle around for a couple of hours and eat when I'm good and ready no consequences. Not now. 30 minutes after I get up I'm shaking and need to eat.
• Gassy, Bloated, and Constipated. OH freaking Joy.
• The occosional random twinge in my lower stomach area. 
• I feel like I can smell everything.

So I know that most of this is just hyper attentiveness to my body and the things that aren't are just side effects from the supplemental hormones but if I'm going to obsess about them in my head might as well put them down on paper too.

I also secretly tried to sniff out if maybe just maybe DH might cave and let me take an hpt early just to see but uh-uh he's not having any of it.
Normally at this point in my cycle I would be spotting about now, and thankfully I haven't had any of that. Again I know that I probably wouldn't given that's kinda part of what the progesterone is for but it does make me feel a little better.

4 days until Beta day and we find out if little acorn has stuck around for us.

Transfer Day!

It's transfer day! Today I am reunited with my little acorn.
I woke up at 4:30am this morning and even though it was almost 30 minutes before the alarm clock would go off I couldn't stand to stay in bed for even one more minute. So up and at 'em. I took a shower, got dressed, cut up a cantaloupe for breakfast, and started the very uncomfortable, at least for me, process of filling my bladder. We left the house a little after 5:00.
The long drive to Chattanooga is luckily absolutely gorgeous in the mornings. We have to cross monteagle mountain which is small compared to the mountains out west but large in this area. In the mornings the sun rises in the direction we are traveling and low lying fog clouds carress the valleys and shadows left behind. Some mornings it looks like fluffy pink crowns haloing the green mattress of the mountains. Others it looks like at any moment you will cross through this dense wall of white and come out on a magical land on the other side. Of course the other side is never too magical just more interstate and beautiful tennessee countryside. Further on down the line if we get an early enough start we cross the river with its floating green islands, fog steaming off the surface and glistening streaks of brilliant white, orange, and pink cascading in brilliant water color. It is a beautiful trip.
This morning however I was so concentrated on my overly full bladder and the excitement building that I probably didn't notice too much of the beauty around me. I guess since I got a slightly earlier start I was a little too full by the time we reached the clinic. I paced in little circles trying desperately to hold my bladder, oh my. But thankfully they got me back rather quickly cause it was becoming an iffy situation. Shane explained that our acorn was now a grade 1 morula and looked great, just about a half a day behind which should be nothing to worry about and then handed me a picture, that I barely had time to look at. With my husband by my side they took me back in the room. Which immediately tried to set up nerves since it was the same room from my ER. I talked myself down quickly in my head. This would not hurt. Shane called my name and birthdate out from the window as she brought our little acorn out and confirmed that we were transferring one beautiful embryo. There was a lot of pressure on that poor bladder between the ultrasound on my stomach and the speculum. And then there was a little bit of an issue with the catheter. Apparently Dr. Murray said that it actually looked like my bladder was alittle too full and causing everything to kinda bend. So he had to put  just a tiny crook in the end to get our little acorn into position. He set off on this odd little speech about the little engine that could and how this was the little embryo that could. He called it robust. Afterwards I raced to the bathroom for a little relief, got dressed, and after a short instructional briefing headed back home.
I keep staring at the little picture they gave us of our acorn. My fingertips gently grazing the shiny surface. It doesn't look like much more than a little bubble. But at the same time I know that potentially this could be the very first photo of my child. That little bubble could grow and grow and one day look up at me with big glassy eyes and a gummy smile.

We are over the moon excited at this point. I am officially PUPO and plan to enjoy every second of this momentous time that I can. I am sending tons of loving sticky vibes at my little acorn, envisioning myself as a fertile earth where the little acorn can be planted and grow to its full potential.
In 9 days I go back for my beta. 9 days seems like forever and no time all at once. DH and I decided together that we'll be going beta or bust, so we'll see if I can keep myself away from the pee sticks come next week.
Its apparently also been decided amongst my family that I should do nothing for the entirety of this time and beyond if we're successful. The way everyone talks I'm a little afraid they're going to wind up locking me in a padded room for 9 months, even my father who is normally very 'you can do everything I can do and should' not too mention excruciatingly anti-lazy.

Monday Phone Call

I am relieved that our embryologist did in fact decide to peek on our little acorn this morning. These early morning phone calls have kept me going, kept the hope alive that this is all going to work out. Our clinic changes grading criteria today. Previously they had been looking at growth, symmetry, fragmentation, and cell size. Our little acorn has held on strong at the number 1 grade in these areas. But today they throw those criteria out the window and start looking at how compact the embryo is becoming. I am imagining it in my head like a flower bloom. You want it to open up at first and then close back in. Or like a supernova sci-fi explosion. Bam out into the world and then suck back into place. In this area of grading our acorn has fallen to 4. If they were still grading it the other way Shane said it would still be a 1 as it is now 14 cells and still has absolutely no fragmentation. She expects acorn to be a late stage morula or an early stage blastocyst by transfer. So while I'm disappointed acorn is now graded as a 4 I'm still very happy about the fragmentation part and the fact that it is still growing, still dividing away.
My transfer is bright and early tomorrow morning at 8:00 chattanooga time. I am thrilled to announce that my darling husband has decided to use a little more of his comp time from work so that he can be there for the occasion. I am thrilled. It slightly bothered me to the think that at the moment I technically become pregnant with his child that he would be 4 hours away. I have taught him the slang term PUPO and he is now using it at random to show his excitement.
We have talked about how weird this experience has been so far, how polarising. It is hard to explain the immense levels of excitement we feel that are shadowed so completely on the other end by this crushing fear.
I feel like I'm walking a tightrope. One side is hope and excitement and the other fear and sadness. If I lean too far one way or the other I cannot help but feel that I am doomed. So I'm walking this very thin line borrowing a little bit of each in my hands to keep balanced.

Sunday Phone Call

Last night I saw the most beautiful amazing thing. We were driving home from the mexican restuarant, not my finest decision but we'll get to that, and all of a sudden the sky started to lighten. I leaned forward to look up and out the windshield half expecting to see like a helicopter or something. Instead I saw a large globule of light plunging across the sky. As it reached the zenith it turned brilliant green and then poof. Exploded into hundreds of thousands of tiny white embers. I stared awestruck. I don't know what it was. I want to think that it was a beautiful shooting star and a wonderful omen. I know rationally that it could just as well have been a stray firework or flare gun or space debris. There's really no telling for sure but it was beautiful.
TMI Alert : So odd to start my night off with something so spectacular considering how the rest of it went. At around 10:30 while I sitting in bed waiting the prescribed hour between my estrace and endometrium pills I started to cramp. Sharp mean cramps. They would fade in and then fade out leaving me breathless at first with their intentisty and then 15 minutes later come back around. I immediately went to the bad scenerio of it might be the medications. But then again everytime we eat mexican I have to use the bathroom. In fact in previous years after mexican was the only time I got a good bowel movement. That's changed recently but I digress. I assumed that maybe that was a cause and here in a few minutes I'd be sent charging to the bathroom to empty myself. That never happened. What happened instead was from 10:30pm to 5:30 am I had cramps off and on every 15 minutes of the night. I was able to use the bathroom a couple of times but it was a strain and not the usual mass exodus. This morning I am still kinda sore from all the repeated interior clenching. I plan on going to the store and getting some fiber rich foods since I was warned that the endometrium and estrace could cause severe constipation. Maybe I'll even get some metamuciel like the old folks do. 
All of that however made my 8:00 phone call come really early. Shane our embryologist called with our acorn's daily report. Still a grade 1, our little embryo has grown from 4 cells to 7. At this point they like to see it be an 8 cell. So even though our beautiful embryo is a grade 1 with perfect symmetry and no fragmentation that little difference is enough to make me worry. I know right now I shouldn't worry there's really no reason to but its so hard not to. Shane has decided to peek in on our acorn tomorrow and see how its doing since we are coming from so far away. That in and of itself also worries me. Is she afraid that our embryo will arrest between today and Tuesday and that we'll come down there bright and early only to discover there will be no transfer? See what happens always going to the dark place. That's what IF does to you I guess.

Saturday Phone Call

I rolled over and looked at the clock this morning it was 8:30. Almost an hour late. I couldn't help but for my mind to immediately go to why haven't they called yet? Is something wrong? Did our acorn arrest? And as I'm laying in bed trying desperately to keep the dark thoughts from spiraling out of control as they seem so wont to do anymore, the phone rings. At 8:45. I think I let it ring once before I picked up, just long enough to check the caller id and know it was the clinic. On the other line was Shane our embryologist. I tried to pick apart her greeting and her tone in seconds and failed.
She continued on in her pleasant even tone and told me again of the grading system they have in place and what should be expected at this point in an embryo's development. I'm practically holding my breath. Then she tells me that our little acorn is a grade 1 4 cell. Grade 1 is their highest grade. She tells me that its right where it should be and looks pretty well perfect. Yes she uses the word perfect. I can't help but be overjoyed at this point. Grade 1 embryos statistically almost always make it the blastocyst stage. Which are so many more times more likely to implant than one who does not make it to that stage. Right now I'm trying to curb my excitement but for the moment I am just overjoyed to have gotten this far and that it looks like we'll definitely have a transfer. Which just blows my mind! Maybe maybe it really only does take one.
Today I also started my vaginal suppositories, bleck. I have to take 2mg of Estrace twice a day and 3 tablets of endometrin over the course of a day. If our little acorn is the one, if thats our little one growing down there in Chattanooga every second of this journey will have been worth it.

Friday Phone Call

At 7:45 this morning our embryologist called to let us know that our little acorn has definitely fertilized and is happily growing.
After a crap night where I battled nausea and stomach pain for most of the night the news couldn't have been better. For a brief moment I was estatic and completely forgot about the discomfort I was in. She also told me that tomorrow's call will bring our little acorn's grade and with that a hint at it's long term viability. I am hoping so much for a good grade, a little reassaurance that it will make it to transfer.
It is almost surreal to me to know that there is alittle piece of me and Phil growing slightly alive in a dish several counties away. A little bitty proof of our love in the world.
Today I am still dealing with some stomach pain, nausea, and am terribly gassy. The last of which is actually a little painful. My mom came out to spend the day with me, we had ice cream and played cards and tried to remain chipper and upbeat in all things.

Last night I started my z-pack of antibiotics and this morning I started my methylprednisolone and baby aspirin.