Update

Labs were great, got my meds protocol, and I now have my IVF calendar! Woohoo! Just waiting on Tuesday now...

The Waiting Game

My appointment today was eventful! I don't have my labs back yet, but my ultrasound looked fine. I start my birth control pills Friday to begin the suppression and then I go back on Tuesday for my HSG and we'll go from there. If everything is good then we will start the Lupron at the end of September and my retrieval is tentatively scheduled for October 11. If they find anything that needs to be removed then we will put the whole cycle on hold until it's fixed and we'll have to start all over. I was slightly overwhelmed with everything this morning when he was rattling off dates and calculating things out loud so I had to call my nurse back and just have her explain everything in English. She was able to kind of put it all in simple terms for me. We are pretty much waiting on Tuesday to see what the next step is.

Why Feelings Are Overrated

I don't post a lot about how I feel about this process because honestly, I just can't let myself go there most days. I try to separate how I feel about it from the process of it so that I don't lose my mind or lose focus. Today that was just impossible. This is one of the worst periods I've had in a long time. I'm in so much pain that it's hard to focus. I couldn't sleep well last night and even now, 24 hours later, I can't bend to either side without feeling like I'm being stabbed in the uterus. It's absolutely awful and it's a very painful reminder of what I can't have right now. I want to cry pretty much all the time, but I don't because I don't want Matt or the kids to realize how hard it is. I've been watching our insurance claims come through because I was fairly certain that they wouldn't cover any of our testing (even though the office called to verify and I have a reference number for it saying they would cover my labs) and everything went through over the weekend with whopping sum of $2500 left unpaid. That doesn't cover the labs, ultrasound, HSG, and scheduling appointment that we have in the coming weeks. My heart just sank when I saw that. All the money we were hoping to use to cycle in October may now get used to cover just the testing that has already been done and the remaining that still has to be done. If that's the case I have absolutely no clue when we will actually be able to our IVF and if we don't do it by the end of the year we will lose our grant money. I seriously contemplated just giving up today. Is it really worth the disappointment every month when my period shows up and I have no idea when we will be able to afford IVF? How many more months will I have to do this? Can I just keep myself from being so attached to this process that it has me in tears every month that we aren't able to do it yet again? At least once a month I reach this horrible breaking point where I just don't know if I can keep doing this. I don't know how to be ok with the fact that it's just money keeping us from doing this. I don't know how to not be angry about it. I don't know how to get over the fact that if we didn't have that stupid house and all of the stupid payments that go with it we would be able to afford it right now. I just don't know how to get past everything and just be ok knowing it will somehow work out...

Here We Go Again

Today is cycle day 1 so I made the call this morning to schedule this month's labs and ultrasound. This is such a long process and it just feels like it's going to go on forever and not get anywhere. Some days I feel like it will be over with quickly and everything will be fine, and other days I feel like it's just never going to happen. PMS makes it a million times worse.

The kids went back to school this morning so I was actually able to get to the store, water the flowers, make a few phone calls, get a workout done, and clean the house before 11 AM. I heard a mom at Target saying how much she missed her kids already and I couldn't help but feel a little bit guilty that I don't feel that way at all. I am so glad they are back to school! They were to the point that they were constantly bored, sitting in front of the tv, complaining about everything, and fighting all day. I'm enjoying the quiet house and ability to spend an hour on the treadmill without hearing my children fight over Fruit Ninja on Xbox. There's no Disney Channel playing as the background noise to my day and the house is in the same state that it was when I cleaned it this morning! I love and adore my children. If I didn't like this whole parenting gig I certainly wouldn't be paying a small fortune to have more! The good moments definitely outnumber the bad, but I sometimes have to remind myself of that when I'm putting them to bed and everyone seems to think I'm mean. Because it's just awful that I expect my children to bathe, brush their teeth, and be in bed by 9 on a school night.

Yay!

Progesterone was 15.4 so another thing to check off the list. Yay! Next Tuesday is another ultrasound and day 3 labs!

In actual fitness news, we purchased a treadmill and weight bench to go with our punching bag and bosu ball so we essentially have an entire home gym. We are both so crazy busy right now that we were struggling to get to the gym 20 minutes from the house. The kids also spotted a park next to their school so the kids and I have been riding our bikes over there a lot. We made it 4 miles the other day! That's not a huge workout for me, but it is for their little legs! Jack is now officially riding with no training wheels consistently too so that's going to be a huge help in going farther on our bikes. We plan to ride to school as often as we can. I'm not sure how often I can ride while doing my IVF cycle, but my doctor is all for riding and working out in general for as long as I can during pregnancy. Hopefully it will help keep my blood pressure under control and I won't have to deal with that again.

Thank God Monday is over and the rest of the week should go pretty smoothly from here. Monday is back to school!!! Yes!!!!

Good News!

We got approved for the grant! They are covering my entire first cycle of meds! I seriously could not be more happy about this. I've been worried about it all weekend and I knew if we didn't get it then we would be looking at a January cycle most likely. I could wait until January and I'm sure the world wouldn't fall apart or anything, but my hormones disagree. My body says I should be doing this yesterday and absolutely no later than that. This is the only chance we have at doing it this fall and even then it's pretty iffy depending on finances. It's awful to want something so bad and be **this close** and yet it feels so far away. It doesn't help that the kids are going through this phase where they are constantly asking when why we don't have another baby. I don't know how to say it's because we don't just have $10,000 laying around to play with at the moment. It sucks.

Finally Some Good News!

My OB is THE BEST. Seriously, I just love him. He doesn't ever bullshit me and I always feel comfortable in his office. I am such a worrier and have horrible anxiety regarding doctors because my last OB was always convinced that something was wrong. I had high blood pressure during my pregnancies and every time I went in I would get so anxious and my blood pressure would go up even more. She was always like, "OMG someone is going to die!!" It wasn't even that high. It wasn't great, but at 140/85 nobody was going to die in the immediate future. But, back to my current OB that I love, I went in today to get my biopsy results and the first words out of his mouth were, "This is really fucked up. The latest pap test came back normal and the biopsy was just barely abnormal. I don't know what the fuck is going on. Come back pregnant." And that is why I love him. I'm sure some people wouldn't love his language and casual demeanor, but he's my perfect doctor. He would really love if I ended up with twins because I would be his first twin patient. He asked if he could call Dr. G and offer to slip him some extra cash if he knocked me up with 2. I told him that would be fine with me. I'm so not worried about being his first because his dad is in the office and has 40+ years of experience. They also have a midwife and everyone in the office is just fantastic. I feel like I'm in good hands.

In other news, he okayed me to go on the cruise if I got pregnant before then. He advised I not do anything stupid. His only suggestion was to ask for the non-injectible progesterone for those few days so I wouldn't have to worry about taking it on the boat. He made a good point about something I hadn't considered too. He said if it doesn't work then having the cruise a few weeks later will give me something to still look forward to. He said in that case I had his permission to do as many stupid things as I want.

I also called today about a grant for the stimming meds and we will get at least a $400 rebate, and there's a possibility they may cover my entire first cycle for free. That's a good $3000 worth of medications we wouldn't pay for up front. We would still have to purchase the Lupron, HCG and PIO, but in comparison those are nothing. Lupron averages about $200-300, HCG is $70, and the PIO is around $100. That means we may only have to pay $500 of the $4000 med cost. I'm keeping everything crossed that this goes through and we get it because it would make a big difference in when we could proceed. Our clinic is one of the selected clinics working with this program so I feel very fortunate that we have the opportunity for this as well as a 6 month option to pay for the IVF.

One Step At A Time

The nurse just called to say all of my labs were great so we are still moving forward! Yay! Of course the next 2 lab days are equally important so hopefully all goes well with those. Progesterone next week and then day 3 FSH and LH the week after. Those day 3 labs are extremely important in telling how many eggs I still have left and what quality they might be. At this point I'm going to take the little bit of good news that so far everything is good and things are moving the right direction. This process really sucks for those of us who are less than patient. :)

I Swear They Are Secretly Vampires

This morning I had my first round of labs and it totaled 6 vials. I was smart and dank lots of water the last couple of days so it wasn't too bad. I did have to be fasting for this round though so I was feeling kind of lightheaded by the time I got out of there at almost 11. They also did my baseline ultrasound and I have no cysts and just 1 polyp in my uterus that measured 8mm. It will most likely need to be removed, but it sounds like they will most likely do it when I have my HSG in a few weeks. Really, after having that damn biopsy I think I can handle this. I was shocked that he didn't find any cysts on my ovaries because I had tons of them 8 years ago. They have apparently all dissolved since my hormone levels have evened out from losing weight. I have to go back to my OB/GYN on Thursday, and back to Dr. G next Monday so they can take even more blood from me to check my progesterone. He told me this morning he hopes to be done with me by Halloween. I'm not sure that's the timeline we were thinking, but I guess we will see. We have a cruise in mid-November that we have to work around. First of all, I don't know if I want to be pregnant on a cruise ship. Second, OMG this costs a small fortune and that gives us like 60 days to come up with the cash. Insurance won't cover anything IVF related, including the meds. Just the medicines alone can total $4000 and they have to be in hand before you can commit to a cycle. While I was waiting this morning I was listening to a lady (who was completely hormonal and batshit crazy) talk to the receptionist and she was writing her checks for anesthesia, retrieval fee, and transfer fee. I honestly wanted to hyperventilate for her. My God that's a lot of money. Then I realized I will be writing those checks soon. I think they break it up in to different fees so the checks are smaller and make you feel less bad about it. The other thing I heard her say was that they were not freezing any embryos. I know Dr. G has probably talked to her about it and I know she *thinks* she knows that she is only going to do this once, but it's really stupid to not freeze them. I know it's $900 and I know that the process sucks and everybody wants to get pregnant on the first try, but that's not reality. What if she doesn't get pregnant? What if she does get pregnant, but miscarries? Then she has to start over with another fresh cycle (which costs more than twice as much) and put her body through more than she has to. She didn't seem to grasp the concept of it. The receptionist kept telling her that you can only make that choice before your retrieval and there's no going back. I could tell she didn't want to say "what if it doesn't work?" but this woman seriously needed that dose of reality. She also didn't seem to grasp the concept that the embryos are destroyed if not used. I heard both the nurse and receptionist explain to her that the embryos can either be frozen and destroyed at a later date (you can store them for many years) or they would be destroyed at the time of transfer if they chose not to freeze them. You always freeze the damn embryos lady! It's like an insurance policy. If you're already spending $15,000 trying to get pregnant, why would you skimp on the $900 insurance policy?? Women like her make me realize why these doctors explain every stupid detail to you even if you already know what you're doing. It has to be frustrating to deal with that level of stupid all the time.

On a side note, I FINALLY got to see the Kenny Invitation Only concert I went to and OMG I felt horribly depressed seeing how thin I was at that time! Matt made it so much better when he commented that I "used to be totally badass" and "almost anorexic." That made me feel really wonderful when I'm about to embark on a pregnancy that my OB has said could cause me to gain AT LEAST 40 lbs if it's twins. I'm still working on the weight loss before getting pregnant and would love to lose another 20 lbs between now and then, but I think it will be a couple of years before I get back to that girl who was totally badass. Maybe breastfeeding twins will help me lose weight! Hahahaha! Nope, I'm not that delusional. Maybe I will be too tired and busy to eat though. Getting 2 babies and losing some weight would be a total win!

Doctors, Biopsy, and Children..

There have been many things happening lately, and I really don't know if I want to post about it for all the world to see, but there's only like 10 people who actually read this so I think I'm pretty safe. :) It al started when I was pregnant with Jack and developed a polyp on my cervix and caused me to bleed through the entire pregnancy. After I delivered it went away without any problems, but I had an abnormal pap come back a couple of years later. It went back to normal so I've just been going yearly and assuming everything would be fine. A few months ago I went in for my yearly appointment and I got the dreaded call that things were not normal and they were putting me on some medicine to see it it helped and they would repeat it. Back I went to the doctor, waited for the call, and was told yet again it wasn't normal. Not only was it still not normal, it was even weirder than the first one! Last week I went in to have a cervical biopsy done. I will tell you that if they ever say "it's just a pinch and some cramping," they are totally lying out their ass. It hurt horribly and I'm still kind of sore a week later! They don't think it's anywhere near cancer or anything scary, but it's abnormal cell growth that will have to be removed at some point in the near-ish future. Now this typically wouldn't be an issue for someone who is done having children. They could just go in (although they better numb the damn thing for that!) and remove the cells and it would slightly shorten the cervix. The problem is that we have discussed wanting another child for a long time. I didn't know if I could handle another pregnancy after Jack. The bleeding was just awful, and then he wasn't (still isn't…) the easiest child in the world. I also know that Matt works pretty much constantly. I don't remember ever going on a trip or even out to dinner without his computer or phone being attached to him for at lead 50% of the time. Having a c-section with Jack and being thrown into being a mom of 2 little ones pretty much on my own was hard. It was really hard. I am not delusional and I know this will be my reality again. I know that having a baby will pretty much be in my court and I have 2 very active children that will still require 100% from me. Can I handle that with 1 pregnancy resulting in 1 baby? Absolutely! But then there's the issue that we will be undergoing IVF in order to get pregnant so there's a high chance of multiples. I'm scared of being pregnant with twins and having 2 children at home with little help. I'm scared of having 2 newborns at home, recovering from a c-section, and running the older 2 to activities and school. So how do I know that we should be going forward and doing it anyways? Because I'm much more terrified of it not working. It scares me more to think of not having more children than it does to deal with the practicalities of doubling our amount of children in one pregnancy. So we don't have a date yet. I'm doing all of the labs and testing required in the next few weeks and we will go from there. I still have 1 more appointment with my OB/GYN to get the final results from the biopsy, then when he clears me for treatment I can proceed with the RE for an IVF plan. So that's where we are. I have a million things thrown up in the air and I'm just running back and forth trying to catch them before they fall.

Oh and I'm down 16 pounds. :)