A Picture of Romance

It is grey and drizzly.

It is cold.

My husband is standing outside of the clinic waiting for me . . . with a smile on his face, a hand to hold, and a "You OK?"

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Nurse (with a choppy Asian accent): You MUST call the day before the transfer to tell us you're coming. The lab will not even touch your embryos unless you CALL FIRST. Write that down. Call first.

Chris: Do people really not show up?

Nurse: All. The. Time.

Chris: Seriously? That's crazy. Why not?

Nurse: It's mostly the mens. They maybe drag their feets and go along with it until the last minute. Or they go home and think about it and talk about it and decide they no want to go through with it. Or they get di-vorced. Or separated.

Chris: Well, we'll be here for sure. You don't have to worry about that. We're here.

And so it goes . . .

So we got the official plan today, and it has turned out to be exactly what I expected with one big change. There were signatures, gowns, needles, discussions of Noah, octomom jokes, awkward men in the waiting room, etc. Typical. Familiar.

Things started off as we expected. A class about what medications we would have to get, how to give injections, a nice drawing of my butt separated into quandrants, several vials of blood drawn, etc. Here is the rundown--


(1) five days of birth control with Lurpon shots (1x daily into my stomach)
(2) Continue Lupron until my cycle starts
(3) Start estrogen patches on 3/28 with lower dose of Lupron
(4) Go in for blood draw after 5 days of the patch
(5) Start antibiotic and progesterone shots into quadrant one of my butt 2x a day, three days before transfer
(6) Target transfer date--April 15 (just realized that was tax day)
(7) Inject progesterone into butt-quadrant one 2x a day until pregnancy test
(8) Continue with progesterone injections depending on results of test


I had the 3D sonogram as well and determined two things:

(1) My ovaries are machines--the doctor was surprised at how many eggs were visible

(2) I have polyps in my uterus that have to be removed before I can progress with #1 above. The removal will occur on Wednesday. Joy, joy. It will be a lot like the retrieval process from the last IVF cycle, which I thought I would get to avoid this time around. Oh, well. I'm actually very gald that we know so that the embryo(s) have plenty of good space to attach and grow. I wonder how many people struggle with infertility and just don't know that they have these polyps preventing implantation. Thank God we know.

We talked about all the scenarios of what could happen when the embryos thawed and how many embryos they would put back. We are thawing to get at least two. We have two canes: one cane has a 7-cell, a 6-cell, and a 5-cell. The other cane has 3 5-cell embryos. They are going to thaw the cane that has the 7-6-5 combo first. If only one survives, they will thaw the 5-5-5 combo. We didn't get a clear answer on whether or not they would implant more than three, but our understanding is that they would have to if it came to that.

It's all very sciency and medical right now. And I imagine this will be the case for a while. I feel like it's a game of numbers that I get sucked into. I imagine it's rather romantic to get pregnant au nauturale. I guess this has an element of romance to it . . . I just have to look for it.

I Heart Yaz

I love this stuff. Sure, I have night sweats still. Sure, my patience level is close to zero at times. BUT, I can handle that as uncomfortable as it feels. Feeling nauseated is the one thing I cannot tolerate, and this pill is a miracle from the hand of God compared to what I was on. Thank You, Jesus!!!! I never knew birth control could be so horrendous until I swallowed orthocyclene for five days.


Anyway, right now, I feel like we are treading water until Monday. Monday is the day we get THE official plan, sign the papers, etc. The 3D sonogram is also Monday, which will determine if everything in there is clear for an embryo to attach. I've done this before so I know what to expect, which is why I will definitely down the 600 mg of ibuprofen they recommend. I didn't last time, and I don't remember why. Ignorance, I'm sure.

For now, I'm just so glad that Yaz has me feeling quasi-normal again. Lord knows, I'll probably have nausea a-plenty in the first couple weeks of the pregnancy. Lord willing.

Soundbites.

I got a new prescription today and am hoping for a peaceful night's sleep. I really loved how the nurse who finally called me back told me (with a supercilious attitude) to take the pill at night with food. When I told her I was already doing that, she (reluctantly) offered to give me Yaz after saying and I quote, "Well, there's no guarantee that this isn't going to make you nauseous either." I. Know. Just. Give me. Something else. NOW.

I guess I can't expect people to understand that I've already done some thorough (Internet) research and have conducted an unscientific poll on how to handle this issue. I wanted to tell Nurse Mimi that calling her was a last resort and that I'm not "that girl" who calls over every little thing.

**A soundbite of my internal dialogue on the phone with Nurse Mimi who called while I was sharing space with a classroom of teenagers**

"I know what I'm doing, lady. Well, sort of . . ."

So Sick

Last night was a rough night--the birth control has built up enough in my body to wake me up (multiple times, nonetheless) nauseated and sweaty. I'm pretty sure it's the estrogen. Duke will be getting a call today to get me on something else STAT. I'm now wondering . . . if this what's happening now, what in the world is next? The birth control was nowhere near this bad last time, so something's up.

Once again, I'm being called to total dependence on God. I was defnitely praying hard at 3:20 am for the most basic things--rest, physical homeostasis, etc. We've walked this path before, but so far, the terrain is totally different . . .

Knowing

I've been thinking a lot about the six embryos we have frozen . . . and the reality that all six will probably not materialize into people with arms and legs and beating hearts.

The notorious "octomom" probably had the same thoughts, which is why I'm not critical of her decision to implant six embryos. She wanted to use them all but didn't believe that all would survive the thaw. . . and then divide. Why she already had six children is another issue, but we are so "there," the place I imagine "octomom" was in her heart.

Before Noah, I didn't "get" "it". I often wonder why I did not photograh and chronicle more of our journey to Noah. Why do I not have pictures of him at 8-cells old? Where are my words from that era? I remember the physical symptoms, and I have general, vague impresions of my thoughts during that time. But that's it. I think it comes down to one fact:

I didn't know.

I didn't know what it all meant. And now I know. I know about the long nights, the laughter, the stress, the simplest of simple joys, the guilt, the hope, the mess, the good days, the bad days. I know it all.

We casually accepted six frozen embryos as great odds, based on science's statistics. I struggle to see it that way now, now that I know the end result.

In all honesty, I fear ending up with six children from the remaining six embryos we have. But at the same time, they are our children. It’s such a conflict of emotions that I don’t know how to handle sometimes. I guess there is no handling them; they need to just be right now.

In less philosophical terms, the birth control is really messing with me this time around. I feel really nauseated in the mornings in spite of my taking the pill at night. Added to that, this is the 2nd day in a row that I’ve woke up at 6:45 with 5 minutes to shower, dry my hair, dress, etc. Thankfully, I’ve made it work on time. I’m seeing that my body is going to get what it needs one way or the other, and I really desire to get the rest of me in sync with what my body is saying.

Yesterday and Today

3/2/09

Started birth control yesterday. Such the irony that birth control leads to life for us. The hormone headaches have already begun. Praying for strength to go the distance with joy and hope . . .