Hope Floats

After several people have recently asked me about my blog, I realized I really need to get back into it!  Turns out it is just not as fun to write about things that aren't going as expected :) However, I started this for a reason and I will keep it up until I don't have a reason to discuss it anymore.  Especially because I heard through the grapevine someone who also has been going through IVF was not sure if they could bring it up to me or if I would want to talk about it!!  That is the WHOLE POINT of this blog!  Yes, discuss, don't feel bad!  I didn't do anything wrong to be put in this position!  Fertility issues NEED to be more accepted and no one should feel ashamed.  In case you missed it, here is how we got here.

So, back to present time - or recent anyway. Now I am sure unless you are a member of my immediate family you probably didn't notice that the time for us to be able to start trying again has come and gone.  Well there is a reason for that, after having a normal period after the failed IVF cycle and again at the beginning of February we met with the doctor and were going to go ahead and get started after my next period...but it never came.

Then the doctor office had to cover their bases so they ordered me to go get my blood drawn for a pregnancy test.  Well I kind of laughed it off because obviously I can't get pregnant on my own, the nurse said "you would be surprised" and haven't we all heard those stories of the woman who gets pregnant after going through IVF once or the woman who finds out she is pregnant right before she is scheduled to meet with a infertility specialist....it does happen.  I even know a few people in real life that it has happened to.  But I have slightly different issues than most infertile women - there is literally a road block that makes it physically impossible for me to get pregnant.....then again, that block is scar tissue, scar tissue does have the ability to change and even dissipate....there is a very tiny remote chance that it could be....

And there it was - HOPE.  As much as I tried to tell myself it was stupid to even entertain the idea that I could be pregnant, I couldn't help but think about it.  I mean it could be....but no, that is stupid....but, you never know...yes, I do know, it can't be...and on and on.  I even took a pee test that was negative and I still could not stop myself from having thoughts of a potential positive blood test result.  As much as I tried to suppress it, that hope kept creeping back in.

It wasn't only me either.  When talking to my mom one day a few weeks ago she asked "did you hear back about your test" I only said "yes" and was a little distracted.  When I finally turned to look at her she said "Well??" and I could see it there glistening in her eyes - hope.

Unfortunately and as expected the test was indeed negative. So the doctor said to wait another month to see if I get my period.  I didn't. I finally went in for an ultrasound and the doctor said it is just related to PCOS but everything looks fine and we can get started again as soon as I wanted.  I had my first Lupron shot in mid-April and I will have another on May 16 and then the daily injections begin again.

I think what I realized is that it is not only OK to have hope but I think I really need it.  I went through the last round of IVF knowing in the back of my mind that it would work, but never letting myself feel fully committed to the idea so I wouldn't be as disappointed if it didn't.  That is something that I am really having a hard time with, I have to keep telling myself to think and act like I am going to get pregnant, there is a lot to be said for a positive outlook as it relates to your health.  I am going to let the hope float on up this time :) I saw this on my cousins FB and it reminded me how much I love that movie.  I think it is time to break out the DVD (of course it doesn't hurt to watch Harry for a few hours either now does it?!)

Starting Over

It is a new year and a new start for our efforts to expand our family.  Jeremy and I decided relatively quickly after the first failure that it was worth it to try the IVF process again. We really didn't dwell on the negative for very long, that is just how we are I guess.

We decided to wait until after Anna and my little Florida vacation to get back to the doctor office so just over a month after finding out the results from our first round we were back with the doctor to reevaluate the situation.

The doctor was very straightforward and matter of fact about the situation, which I guess you want from a medical professional.  He also was very compassionate and I felt he was truly disappointed and almost apologetic that the procedure did not work.

He went through my chart and reviewed every step of the procedure with us.  Basically it came down to fate...or bad luck....or God's will (more on that in a future post) because everything had gone according to plan and looked great up until the fertilization.

He again said that the sperm quality was great, my egg retrieval went well and my 13 mature eggs were all very strong. There just is no reason it didn't work.  There is no good reason we didn't achieve fertilization on our own.  I think that is a little bit worse than actually having an explanation.  Not knowing why is hard.  The doctor did say that several of my eggs, not all, but several had thickened walls.  This is something that is common with women who have PCOS and for this reason women with PCOS are almost always set to do ICSI right away (where they literally inject the sperm into the egg).  Of course I was one of the exceptions seeing as how I had gotten pregnant on my first try three different times already, obviously we did not have an issue with the sperm not penetrating the wall of the egg.  And really, that wasn't the issue here either because this time the sperm did not even try to get through the wall no matter what the thickness.

However, knowing that now we will go ahead an plan to do ICSI right from the start with our next cycle.  Doing the ICSI process right away yields much better results than waiting a day to see what happens naturally and then doing it on rapidly deteriorating eggs.

Our doctor said the odds of success are the same with the second round of IVF as they are with the first, it is starting with the third that they progressively get worse. He said there is no reason not to think we still have a great chance of the process working for us if we try again.  There are no indications that it shouldn't have worked before or that it won't work in the future.

So we have to wait at least 8 weeks for my body to recover (it has been about 7 already) and the Doctor wants me to do 2 rounds of the Depot Lupron shots which will take at least 2 months and then we can start the process again, probably around May.

I just wanted to take the chance to update everyone who has been following.  Again we are so thankful and grateful for your thoughts and prayers and thank you to everyone who checks in with me to see how it is going and how we are doing, we really appreciate it.  Today marks 1 year since the day I woke up with the excruciating pain that eventually lead to surgery, scar tissue and IVF becoming part of our story.  It has been quite a year for sure with a lot of ups and downs, but I am thankful for what I have and trusting that everything will work out as it is meant to be.  That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

"Everything will be OK in the end, if it isn't OK, it isn't the end"

Box full of needles...

...that is what just arrived at my front door!  All (OK most) of my medications for the remainder of the procedure have come.  They are almost all injectable.  This should be loads of fun.

Here they all are:

 And that doesn't even include the progesterone which has a short shelf life and I will order in a few weeks, or the shots I'll have to take twice a day throughout the entire pregnancy (and for 6 weeks after) 

But, this does also mean we are about to hit the next check point in the process.  We have an appointment tomorrow with the Dr to have an ultrasound that will see if the Lupron did it's job and all of my follicles are at the same starting point.  If not, I will need to have an additional Lupron injection and we will try again, not sure if this will put the procedure into 2012 or not, but I am not worried about that yet.  Let's just hope that we are moving along as scheduled!

5...4...3...2...

Well the big day is here, rather the first of several upcoming big days.  Tomorrow I finally take my first shot.  The medicine I will have injected tomorrow is called Lupron Depot.  It is actually a medication developed for Endometriosis that doctors found will help with IVF as well.

The Lupron will basically shut my reproductive cycle down.  Right now, because of the PCOS, I have follicles of all different sizes on my ovaries.  The Lupron will shut down the hormone that develops the follicles making them all go back to the start in a way so that they can all be grown at the same time and in a controlled manner by the doctor.  This way, there is a great chance of having more eggs develop to the size needed to make a embryo and hopefully when I have my egg retrieval process (in about a month!! yikes!!) there will be at least 10 - 15 decent quality eggs for the Doctor to remove and fertilize.

The needle (this is that $800 shot, luckily only ended up being $50 after insurance) is about 3 inches long and has to be injected into my muscle.  I am still on the fence about having Jeremy do this or going to have the nurse do it.  Not that I don't trust Jeremy, when I started Lovenox after the first ectopic he did all of my injections for quite awhile until I had to learn to do them myself because I traveled for work.  But I can't give myself an Intra Muscular shot because it is best to do it in your back side and hard to reach on your own.

Anyway, I do trust Jer, but A) that needle sure is looong, B) The medication is a powder that needs to be mixed and they explained it to us, but that was more than a month ago when we thought the shot would take place at the beginning of October and C) did I mention it is an $800 shot? I don't want to screw it up...and if this doesn't happen right on this day then we will be all off track again and we really won't be able to fit a procedure in before the end of 2011.  (update from my last post: we are able to get a try in before the end of the year!! I was so happy about that!  Should happen the week of December 11 so well before holiday vacations) There will be plenty of additional shots in my near future that Jeremy will have the joy of administering.  I just don't really feel like driving all the way to Ypsilanti (about 30 minutes) for a shot but since it is a one time medication I probably will.

So as of tomorrow, the wheels are in motion, the process has officially begun!  I appreciate all the thoughts and prayers, keep them coming :)