It's not that bad.

I haven't really been in the mood to update. There was nothing on day 5 to transfer. It was a sad day. Besides the obvious reason, it was also pretty sucky that I had to waste yet another day of PTO for no good reason. So, we've decided to move on from our current clinic. This doesn't mean that I blame them for our 3 failures there. I think they did all they could do. It's not them, it's me. It's my crappy eggs. So I went yesterday for a consult with Dr. Klein at RMA of NY in Westchester. It was a pain in the a$$ getting there and back. I also have another coonsult on November 13th at Cornell in NYC with Dr. Kligman. At Cornell they do co-culture. They take a biopsy of your endometrial lining after ovulation and freeze the sample. They thaw it after your egg retrieval and have your embryos grow with the sample. It's a familiar enviroment for the embryos and they tend to grow and divide much quicker like this. This seems like a winner to me. This is what our poor little embryos need. BUT, Joe and I have decided to give RMA NY a shot before we make the trek into NYC for a cycle. That alone will stress me out enough to have another failure. I wish I could just jump right in and get on board with the whole Cornell co-culture but I am just not ready for all that it entails. So 1 more cycle at RMA to finish off 2012 then if unsuccessful, we have something to look forward to in 2013....Cornell! At least we will feel like we have one more awesome option if we need it.

So back to the title of the post...it's not that bad. I have to stop asking God "why NOT this and why NOT that" and start saying "thank You for THIS and thank You for THAT". A little boy in my area passed away on Wednesday. Cancer beat him. He was 5 years old. I read his mothers blog. I cannot even think about it without tears beginning to roll down my cheeks. His mother held him as he gasped his last breath. When I think about this my heart tries to come up my throat. It's not fair. THAT is not fair. My issue is so minute compared to this. Maybe God knows I am not strong enough to handle something like that so he is dealing my cards differently. I would much rather go through the "pain" I am going through now then to hold my child in my arms helplessly and be able to let them go. I would not be able to do it. I can't even think about it. I'd much rather not have another child at all then to have them given to me only to be taken away from me too soon. My heart hurts. My heart hurts for that mother. How do you explain this to a sweet innocent little child? That it's not their fault? How do you make them understand how much you love them? And how much you are sorry that they have to go through this? THAT is not fair. Not me having 3 failed IVF's. So Thank You, God for my health. For my beautiful and HEALTHY daughter. For my amazing and HEALTHY husband. And for all of my family and friends health. I am truely blessed. I have too many amazing things in my life. My life would be "too perfect" if this came easily. I am up for this challenge and I AM going to win.

Choking back tears

I can't write much right now because I am at work and I've been choking back tears. Dr. Talebian says a couple of our embryos are good and some are abnormal (multiple nuclei per cell- something called "MNB" or multi-nucleated blasts).  It doesn't sound good at all and I am so sad. My ET was pushed back to 11:15 so I have to wait an extra 2 hours on top of all of this nonsense. I have been checking the success rates for DOR at all the nearby clinics. Success rates for DOR are SO low. So low that it is scary. I don't know if I should even be doing this anymore.

PIO=PITA

Welp, my body did it! It did not let me down this time. I barely slept Friday night because I was sure that my estrogen level would've dropped again and the cycle would've been cancelled. I almost didn't even go in for the blood draw I was feeling that negative. Dr. Nasseri called me at 10:30 Saturday morning. Usually phone calls = bad news. Not this time! The booster worked and my estrogen level shot back up. It was 3674 after trigger. Which by the way the trigger almost never happened. I was supposed to take my trigger at 11:15pm on Friday night. Well at about 10:55 I started icing the area and preparing the injection. Only to find out I cannot find the HCG. I was a basket case. I thought they never sent it to me. I had my empty jars from the past 2 cycles but neither had enough for a 5000iu trigger. I was able to pull out the order form and see that it was in fact delivered. But where was it??? My meds were shipped in styrofoam coolers. About 6 of them all together. I happened to save 2 of them because I thought they may come in handy as coolers one day. Well I ran down into the basement and started throwing all of the melted ice packs out. There at the bottom, shining like gold, was my box of HCG. Thank GOD!!! So we triggered a little late but at least we triggered! I thought for sure at that moment the cycle was a bust.

Anyways, yesterday at retrieval I had tylenol put into my IV. I don't know if it was that or what but I woke up feeling like a million bucks (almost)! Last time I was in a lot of pain and I was expecting it again.
Now I wait for the fert report...

My body hates me

My estrogen dropped again. Deja vu....
Everything looked great this morning. Then I got the call. I know whenever they call that something is wrong. My estrogen went from 2235 yesterday to 1946 today. Bad egg quality again?? Dr. Nasseri wanted me to take a booster dose as soon as possible. So I ran home on my lunch break to take 225 follistim and 3 vials of menopur. I have to trigger tonight at 11:15. The good news is that I haven't heard the word CANCELLED yet. The nurse did fail to give me an ER appt time though which makes me think they aren't scheduling it yet because they don't know what's going to happen. This really isn't fair. I don't know what to do from here. I am so scared for tomorrows blood work results.

Just for refrence... last cycle E2 was 2700 before trigger and decreased to 1800 after trigger.

Crunch time

Well, I wasn't expecting Dr. Nasseri to tell me that he thinks I will have ER on Sunday (trigger tomorrow) but that looks like it may be the case. My follies were about 16mm and my E2 more than doubled in just 2 days. I hope it doesn't get too high because we don't know what my body can and can't handle and my body may give up and shut down if it can't handle it. I go in tomorrow morning for another ultrasound and more bloodwork.

E2. Crap.

My E2 is 955. I feel like it may be climbing too high, too quickly. I go back on Thursday for monitoring. I have a feeling she may be worrying becuase there is really no reason for me to go in on Thursday when my ER shouldn't be til Monday or Tuesday. It's just another unnecessary middle cycle day check up to me. If my follies were only 9-10mm then they'll only be maybe 14mm by Thursday and that is still way too small to trigger. God, I reallllllly hope my body is doing the right thing this time.

I used to be excited to take my injections with the previous cycles. It was the time I actually had control over my cycle and making my follicles grow. Now I dread taking them. They are so painful. The Menopur stings so badly and takes forever to mix up. Ugh, let this be over please and give me my healthy baby! More and more lately I've been seeing pages and blogs for children with cancer/disabilities. It's truly heartbreaking. I come across them and I choke back tears at my desk. One little 3 year old girl was just given 1-3 months to live. I can't. I just can't. It's so scary to imagine going through all of this to get our baby only to be told something so devastating. I don't know what's worse. Not getting the baby we are longing for or getting them only to have them taken away. When I read these children's stories, I wonder if I should rethink the whole process. I don't know if I am strong enough. Life can be so cruel sometimes. It's not fair that things such as cancer can rob an innocent child of their beautiful life. Not fair.

Update

Went in on Saturday for ultrasound and bloodwork. I was a little disappointed. We still only have about 9 follicles. I don't know why but I was expecting a miracle from the Royal Jelly and CoQ10. I thought I'd get lucky and over a dozen would pop up- HA! Oh well. Let's hope my GOLDEN EGG is in this bunch.

Gia has been giving me my lupron injections. She says she is my Dr and she wants to help the baby get in my belly. I really hope she's right and she is helping our little miracle come to life. Atleast this is an easier way of explaining how babys get in their mommy's belly, haha!

This weekend Gia, Joe, and I did a 5K for the March of Dimes. Joe almost won the race! Gia did great running in the beginning. And she ran the kids race. I carried her for about the last mile. I was dying!

Oh, and I "liked" Resolve: The National Infertility Association on Facebook. I wonder if anyone noticed...

I go in for monitoring again tomorrow.