lap?

I'm also wondering if I should push for a lap now? I have a family history of endo, but haven't really had symptoms myself (only have mild-moderate cramps). It might be worth having the peace of mine knowing what is really going on inside there. After hearing about SoCo's recent experience, I'm tempted to push for this now.

So many questions and so many decisions. Like my friend -M always says, decisions are the hardest part of IF.

Sending her lots & lots of luck for her test on Monday. And same for Serenity tomorrow!! I hope you both see that beautiful second line!!

Side note - This time around it took 6 days to get my period after stopping PIO/suppositories -- which is odd because my P4 and E2 were so low for this cycle. Maybe it took longer because there wasn't such a sudden drop?

next steps?

I went to the RE's office this morning to get my blood drawn for my follow up NK testing. I talked to the nurse a bit about our cycles and now I'm a bit confused about next steps. We still do have 3 embies in the freezer and it would be fairly "easy" to do another FET...and it might take some time to get started up in NYC anyway...

option 1
push to cycle in NYC ASAP
pro: sooner we get started the sooner we'll be cycling with TopNYCDoc; good chance we could get another fresh cycle in 2006; this feels like our best chance for BFP
con: might have to wait for additional testing/procedures before we get started anyway; "wasting" our frozen embies

option 2
do another natural FET down here (with 5dt, steroids, Intralipid), but also plan out NYC cycle immediately after FET (might push it out a month)
pro: changing some factors; will use up all embies; if it works it'll be cheaper/easier than all out fresh cycle in NYC; could potentially have another transfer before the end of October
con: very low expectations for these embies - they were good enough to freeze, but were slightly lower quality than those already transferred. wasting a little bit of time/money? Might push out NYC cycle by a month - pushing into 2007?


Guess we'll decide over the weekend after we've had the consults (current RE is tomorrow, NYC RE is on Friday). Any thoughts? Other options?

BFN

On Friday as we were heading out of town I did get the call from the RE. BFN. I actually just let him leave a message because we were in the car with friends. He said he's not sure why it didn't work but we can talk more in person to determine next steps. I'll probably do that next week when I have some time.

I was only a minor mess over the weekend -- a bit depressed after an extended discussion with the girls about pregnancies and Clomid and IUIs. I didn't share any of my experiences (too close to the surface) but I was quite the expert on the details. One of the other women has been trying for #2 for "a while now" and is exploring her options because she wants to be PG by the end of the year. I didn't even comment on that, but I did smile a bit remembering back when I thought we had some sense of control over the whole thing.

Anyway it was a nice weekend with friends. Nice to feel normal (with the exception of that painful conversation). And I was fascinated with the beautiful sunrises (which is odd because I'm NOT a morning person in any way).

I got back to some very bad news about my grandmother. She has been feeling very off over the past couple of months and just went in for some extensive tests. Turns out to be cancer of everything (lungs, lymph nodes, etc.). Wow. It hasn't really sunk in yet. I'm expecting it to hit me hard - she is my last grandparent and I am fairly close to her (much more so than my other grandparents). For now we are planning to head up in a couple of weeks for a little visit.

So in the mean time we'll continue pushing ahead up with IVF#3 up in NYC...and see if we need to take a break if it seems too difficult emotionally down the line.

14dp3dt

So today is the day. It feels a bit anticlimatic. Normally I'm pretty upset when I go into the RE for the beta, knowing what the outcome will be and holding back tears until I can get back to my car. But I was completely fine and even joked around with the nurses this morning.

I'll probably get the call when we're on the road. Not sure if I really need to ask anything - normally I'd ask about scheduling the next cycle, what went wrong, etc. So maybe instead I'll let them leave a simple voicemail. Negative.

And not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but we did decide to skip the other FET down here even though it might take some time to start cycling up in NYC. We'd rather just save the money for a cycle that is more likely to work. So our three little frosties will sit in the tank until we figure out what we want to do with them.

And I guess I need to figure out some logistics. Will I need someone down here for some monitoring? Would my RE do it? I'm pretty sure he'd be pissed if I went somewhere else locally, but what if I'm going out of town. Would he be OK with that? I really hope they will do it because I really like the whole staff and will miss going there. :(

I was going to say something like "it's my alma mater so I just HAVE to go there". Think he'd buy that? Speaking of which, I wonder if TopNYCDoc will give me an alum discount? ;)

Anyway off to finish packing and hopefully will have IF off of my mind soon! Back on Monday!

da vino is calling my name...

Wine Tasting (Montalcino)
Originally uploaded by Kristi & Nick.

Guess I better wait until tomorrow for a glass of wine, right?

13dp3dt

Another HPT this morning and...another BFN. And I started spotting very lightly (which I never do on PIO/suppositories). :(

DH and I talked more last night and he's fully supportive of whatever I want to do for our upcoming cycles -- he just doesn't want to spend the next five years doing IVF. That works for me! So we're good. And we are adjusting some of our financial plans to prepare for more cycles as well (helps now that the TH is sold!). I am curious about insurance coverage available with DH's new job (my coverage was zapped earlier this year) -- it would be out-of-network since this place doesn't really take many insurances, but any kind of coverage would be nice. Need him to get a copy of the benefits details...

AND I was able to get a much earlier appointment with another RE at the same practice. So I'm heading up to NYC next Friday!!!!!!! I'm so excited!!!! So hopefully we'll be able to get in one more cycle in this year! I enjoyed working with my RE down here, but I think it's time for the big guns.

We just decided to bring some yummy red wine that we've been saving for a while (from our Italy trip) to our little vacation with friends this weekend...just to make it a little festive.

11dp3dt

Last night the acupuncturist took my pulse and say "Oh! you have a very clear rolling pulse so you are definitely pregnant (!)...............or have some kind of phlegm issue, like a stomach ache" Um yeah, my stomach was bothering me all day, thanks.

And I didn't POAS again this morning as planned and immediately regretted it after I started peeing. I really, really, really hope that my HPT from yesterday was wrong (but I know it's not). Anyway I'm all out of my good HPTs - only a stinkin' digital left and I will only use that again when I know I'm PG. I hate the very clear message "NOT PREGNANT". Yeah, thanks. So maybe I need to run out and get a couple FRERs to torture myself...

DH and I had an interesting discussion last night. If this FET doesn't work he was saying that he doesn't have the energy to do a lot more cycles. And I'm ready to keep on going until I've exhausted all avenues. So we have a little discrepancy in what we want to do. I can see his point because we have had our lives in limbo for a couple of years now and it'd be nice to feel like we're "living" again.

But I'm a little annoyed because if I knew that earlier I might have been more aggressive about this cycle - e.g., done the Intralipids...pushed for the steroids. Things that we discussed and decided together that we can push for in future cycles. So if we have a limited number of cycles that puts the pressure on, huh?

So we might just skip a final FET down here and really just focus on cycling up in NYC once or twice (yikes). So given how long I'll have to wait for my initial consult up there (November) I probably won't be cycling again until early 2007 because I know they close down in December. So with the cancellations & delays & a mini-break we only had three attempts this whole entire year.

I could theoretically get in on a cancellation slot sooner. But before that can happen I also need to send up CD2 bloodwork from a non-medicated cycle. So we'd have to take a month off of all meds so I can do the bloodwork (putting us into late October). And then I can try to get a cancellation spot. Which is only a week or two before my currently scheduled appt so that doesn't buy us much. And I'm assuming that some of my tests have "expired" so I'll need to redo some things. And if we do something like co-culturing that would take up another cycle as well.

So I guess I'm kinda pissy today because I am impatient and frustrated that it takes so f'in long to cycle. And then when we do cycle, it doesn't work. I hate IF.

10.5dp3dt

Today has been a productive day! I've somehow managed to get some work done (gasp) AND I made some progress on "plan B":
- scheduled follow-up with my Endo (Levoxyl rx is running out)
- scheduled appt with TopNYCDoc for early November (sooner if I get all of my records up there - and there is a cancellation)
- organized a copy of my records (except for latest FET) for TopNYCDoc; it's ready to send!!
- requested copy of my HSG; it is waiting at radiology at our hospital for me to pick up tonight (I'm surprised just how easy that was to order!); this is needed for TopNYCDoc
- ordered NK Panel + APA tests from Millenova (will do it early next week)


Go me!

Am I better at being a non-pregnant IFer? Seems like I just *know* how to do it and I'm good at it. Not sure how I'd handle ever being PG -- I'd have have no clue what to do!! ;)

---

And here is my HSG pic!! I've *never* seen this before (one good reason to get copies of your records)! Are the thicker parts of the end of my fallopian tubes normal? (hope the link works - it's hard to blog on a Mac)

10dp3dt - not looking good...

Maggie's Paw
Originally uploaded by Kristi & Nick.

I woke up early feeling very nauseous and crampy this morning and felt compelled to HPT. And just as almost every bone in my body expected, BFN. I'm strangely not upset at all. Didn't even shed a tear. I just immediately went into planning out next steps - AKA "plan B".

I think I'll do another FET (natural?) down here while waiting to get consults with some other docs. And I'll get the steroids (finally) and also do the Intralipids in Chicago for fun for that.

I do have some weird sense of focus and clarity - which is odd for me so early in the morning. But I feel like I can focus on some other life priorities today and not be so distracted by Friday's beta (which was ALL I could think about yesterday). And by some miracle I still could end up with a different beta results (possible late implanters from FET)....but that is just sooooo f'in unlikely.

I still think I might puke though -- maybe it was the frozen spanikopita I ate last night? Yuck!

And I think I am developing a dog foot fetish...Maggie must think I'm a freak for photographing her paws so much. :)

9dp3dt

Had my last luteal bloodwork today - both went down but the nurse said they are still fine and it's typical for them to fluctuate so no need to adjust meds:
E2 = 300
P4 = 29

current plans for the week are:
9/26 - acupuncture & finish a couple urgent tasks at work (last potential productive day)
9/27 - POAS (11dp3dt)
9/28 - acupuncture
9/29 - beta (13dp3dt) & leave for vacation with friends
9/31 - massage with girlfriends

I had a pretty emotional day - mostly not TTC/IF related...although that is really always there in the background, right? So overall I'm feeling pretty crappy and I'm dreading the news later this week.

Going to cuddle up with Maggie & DH and watch a movie tonight for a little escape...