The Eternal Guest Room

Infertility kinda sucks.

the beginning

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I’ve been waiting to post until I took a picture of my meds, but I just can’t seem to get myself to do that so I’ll go ahead and write something in the meantime.

It’s kind of weird right now. Everything is very surreal.

I’m ready to be done with the birth control pills. Ever since I started taking them I’ve been more emotional and much more irritated. Last week I snapped at my supervisor and nearly lost my temper completely with her – which would have been very bad. They give me mood swings and I’ve had a few complete breakdowns, some of which were very embarrassing. And I learned the hard way that the pills and alcohol are a bad combination, at least during my first week of taking them; so much for enjoying some wine at a wedding. And the side effects are getting worse instead of better as I take them longer. I’m worried about how the rest of the meds are going to affect me – I’ve taken one of them without much problem, but it was a lot less. It’s only the beginning of the hormones and so far it is not going well; I’m scared of the next 2 months. Right now I feel like a crazy person.

I’m actually sort of having a hard time as IVF gets closer. Well, now that it’s here. I was excited and looking forward to it for so long but now that it’s here, I don’t want it to be. I’m not sure why. Maybe because for months I thought (or hoped) we wouldn’t really need it. Maybe it has something to do with spending time around children that came with no problems. Maybe it’s all the shots in my fridge and needles on my kitchen counter. Maybe it’s just too real.

I wish I was happy and excited and hopeful, but I just feel like skipping the whole thing and giving up entirely. It’s so dumb. And maybe it’s a defense mechanism. I don’t know.

But I feel crappy about the whole thing. I feel like a whiny child: I don’t want to do it, why can’t I be like everybody else? I annoy myself completely.

I have needles in my purse. Every time I see them my stomach turns over. I mean to take them out but I always forget when I’m at home. Now that it’s here, I’m terrified of the shots. There are so many.

I know it’ll be fine. Millions of women have done this and survived. I remind myself that the shots are temporary; lots of people have to take shots their entire lives just to stay alive. I can suck it up for 2 months.

I’m hoping that these feelings don’t last; I’m hoping that I start to get excited and hopeful and do all that positive thinking business. Right now though, it just isn’t happening.

I think I’ll blame the pills for that too. That’s fair, right?

it is on

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You know what sucks? Not being allowed to pee.

You know what really sucks? Finally being allowed to pee, but only enough to fill a tiny cup, and then having to stop and hold the rest.

And you know what else really sucks? Having one person push down on your full bladder while a doctor pokes around inside your uterus.

This was my day.

After following the instructions to drink exactly 32 ounces of water exactly one hour before our mock transfer appointment was scheduled, we were called from the waiting room 15 minutes late. Then the nurse said “Okay, we’re going to do your medication training first.” And after seeing a look of panic in my face, she allowed me to pee – a tiny bit.

Then we did our medication training. She showed us how to do 2  kinds of the shots (we’ve already done the other 2 kinds), including the biggest needles I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing. After asking me “are you going to pass out on me?” she gave us a handful of slightly smaller needles, and I felt immensely relieved that I’ve lost 9 pounds and qualified to be small enough to get the “Small” needles. 1.5 inches instead of 2.

Yay.

After a crapload of instructions, we got to go back to the sonogram room. I laid down and the sono lady put blue gel on my stomach and pushed a little and immediately said “Wow – you need to go fill another cup” and so I got to go pee a tiny bit more into another tiny cup, then return to the room with a still uncomfortably-full bladder.

It was weirdly kind of fun to finally get the kind of sonogram with the blue gel and the outside sonogram thingy (you know, the kind that pregnant ladies actually get to enjoy)  – instead of the big freaking wand that goes up inside. But in its place was the lovely speculum and catheter combo, so that was kind of short-lived.

So the doctor measured my uterus while the sono lady moved the thingy around, and together they made me super uncomoforbale for several minutes while I stared at the ceiling and tried not to A. Pee on the doctor and B. Clench every muscle in my body and C. Stop breathing.

And, as these things do, it all eventually ended. I guess everything was fine. Measured and planned, or whatever they do. It was a quick process, after all the full-bladder pee-holding.

When we left the room I started to wander down the hallway and D said “don’t you need to go to the bathroom?” and I said “oh yeah” and got to pee for the 3rd time. I’d gotten so used to my uncomfortable state that I’d forgotten what it felt like to not have to pee in a serious way.

Then we checked out and found out that insurance hasn’t paid for a December 2010 visit. Commence eye rolling. Luckily the financial lady at our office actually seems to like me and finally believes me when I say that insurance should cover stuff (these things took a long time to work out) so she didn’t make us pay more than our co-pays. And we got new pricing sheets and found out that the pricing we got back in January is still valid. Yay! I was worried that the price shot up in the last 10 months.

On the way home we filled my prescription for birth control pills. I start tonight because my cycle already started – four days early.

Because that’s how I roll – surprises at every turn.

IVF is on.

getting ready

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Time is really flying by. IVF is almost here.

I talked to the first pharmacy I’m ordering drugs from today. We’re using two different pharmacies because one has better prices on gon.al f & the trigger shot, and the other has better prices on the rest. In the end we’re saving a whopping $45. It’s easy to say “why bother, it’s just $45 out of at least $2000,” but in the end, forty-five dollars is forty-five dollars. I always heave a dejected sigh when they ask “do you have insurance or are you paying out of pocket?” I’m going to call the other pharmacy tomorrow to get the rest ordered (I’ve been waiting for the credit card statement to roll over).

So step #1 will taken care of: Order meds.

Step #2 is next Monday: Mock transfer and medication training. The mock transfer is basically poking around in my uterus to measure it and decide where to place the embryos. It doesn’t sound too bad on the surface, but here’s the fun part: I have to drink 32 ounces of fluid one hour before the appointment and don’t get to go to the bathroom until AFTER the mock transfer. So they stick a catheter up there and poke around while you have a full bladder.

Oh lord, I hope I’m not the one to pee on the doctor…

Medication training is just what it sounds like: Learning about the medications. We had to schedule it for a time when D could come, since he’ll be the one administering all the shots. After all was said and done, we ended up rescheduling the appointment 3 different times. Hopefully it’s set now.

When I go in for that, I get my prescription for birth control pills.

Yes, it’s true. The protocol I’m doing (which is the most common) starts with a couple of weeks of birth control pills. This way they can shut everything down before starting it all up again. After a few weeks of those, we start the shots.

I’ll get into more of those specifics in a later post. For now I just wanted to let everyone know where we are, because people keep asking, because I apparently am super vague and uninformative when I post here.

I think at this point, I’m just really shocked that we’re here. Even after 4 1/2 years, it doesn’t feel like we could ever really be at this point. But here we are, counting down the days, really doing it. It’s so much different than IUIs – those feel like a lifetime ago. The whole thing is very surreal.

scared

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The reality that I will be doing IVF hit me like a ton of bricks tonight.

It’s been so easy over the years to say “I’m going to do IVF” but to actually realize it’s about to happen is another thing entirely.

I feel pathetic, overwhelming self-pity. Why do I have to go through this? Why can’t I be like everyone else? They all have it so easy – why do I have to spend a fortune and take daily shots and get invasive doctor visits on a near-daily basis, when they get it all for free? All for nothing?

It’s easy to say “Yay I’m excited! IVF! We finally have a chance!”

But it’s another to face it.

I’m scared.

Lately everyone else’s IVF cycles seem to be failing.

Why would I be any different?

What if it’s all for nothing?

The future is so cloudy. I have no idea what it holds.

Right now, I’m just scared.

getting closer

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Our IVF consult went well. We love our doctor. I’m pretty sure we held up the entire waiting room while he patiently answered all of our questions and went over all the dates so I could write them on my calendar, but, as D said, “oh well; it’s our time.”

We’re all up to date on all of our tests, so the next step is: Start IVF.

I set up an appointment for a mock transfer and medication teaching session, and planned to start the process around October 1.

Then I came home and looked closer at the calendar and realized that starting then would mean doing shots while shooting a wedding, and worse, put egg retrieval dangerously close to my cousin’s wedding in Austin at the end of the month.

So…we wait…one more month.

It’s ok though. We specifically decided to start in October in case something came up that pushed it back another month, so as long as nothing goes wrong, we’ll still be on schedule. Hopefully nothing else comes up. Hope hope hope.

I’ve decided to update throughout the entire process. I know that’ll make it harder on some levels, being so open, but my hope is that it will give people a greater understanding of what IVF actually is and entails. I know that a lot of people read this blog who know it all, but there are also a lot of people I know in real-life that don’t have the first clue. So I’m hoping this is educational.

And of course I’m hoping that it makes me feel a little less alone throughout the process.

set in motion

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I finally got to schedule my appointments. The office was closed yesterday so I called at 7:31 this morning.The receptionist said “you already had one, do you need another one?” and then “it’s not written in your chart.” Apparently she didn’t see the “three-month follow-up cavity check” that the nurses keep seeing whenever they pull up my chart. I know it’s in there.

Sigh. If we didn’t love our doctor so much, the rest of the clinic would definitely drive us away. It’s pretty amazing. And not in a good way.

This Friday I go in for an office hysteroscopy to see if the polyp has come back. I am hoping, hoping, hoping that it has not. If I have to have a third surgery I might just lose it. Keep your fingers crossed for a polyp-free uterus.

Assuming no polyps have invaded, our pre-IVF appointment is the following Friday. That’s when we learn when we start, what all the days are, etc. It’ll be hard to wait for the appointments; I expect time to stand still this week.

Please please please no more delays. No more surgeries. I need this to be over.

decisions have been made

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I have not been doing so good with the posting lately. In a nutshell, I have been too busy – 6 weddings and almost 20 portrait shoots in the last 3 months, on top of a part-time job and life in general – and anything that wasn’t absolutely essential got left in the dust.

We’ve also been debating lately about what steps to take next. We’ve been throwing a few ideas around, weighing the pros and cons, and trying to find the solution that worked best for us, and for where we are in life right now.

We really want to move. We never intended to settle in Texas, and I’ve never been really happy here. For awhile, we talked about a “move-by” date – we decided to move in March. As soon as I shot my last booked wedding. This is also the reason we didn’t start IVF in May – I just felt wrong about pursuing IVF 9 months before a contracted wedding in which the bride had chosen me several years ago. So we pushed IVF from May to August. I guess this is a good thing, because it means we think it will work. But it does complicate matters. And then a friend asked me to shoot her wedding in Hawaii in May. So, we decided to push IVF back even further. End of year. But then we got my AMH results and decided that there wasn’t a huge rush – I’m not that old, and we don’t seem to be running out of time – so we thought that maybe we’d just wait until after moving (in March) to do IVF.

Then I went to my support group meeting, and everyone and their dog* (*exaggeration) was doing IVF. So I decided I couldn’t wait. Screw the weddings.

Ultimately, we reached a compromise (with ourselves, not each other, as we were pretty similar in our thoughts through this whole process): we will start IVF in October/November. Not sure exactly when, but I’ll contact the doctor in early September to find out what we need to do first and how the dates will fall. We’re definitely planning on doing this before the end of this year.

We’re excited. We can hardly wait. We’re feeling very hopeful. During a total of 6 hours in the car yesterday, we nailed down all of our names. We really think this might actually work.

Of course, it might not – but for now, I think it’s better to think about the positives than the “what-if’s.” At the very least, maybe it will finally give us some answers. Right now it’s just a matter of waiting for the months to pass.

In the meantime, we’re keeping busy. Looking forward to a visit from my best friends from college and a week-long 9-year anniversary trip to Mexico. I’m glad I have some fun things to look forward to to pass the time between now and IVF. We are so, so ready to try this.

I hope October hurries up.

a second opinion

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A few months ago, we went to a seminar hosted by a nationwide infertility institute (which shall remain nameless, just in case) to hear the main guy and the local doctor talk. They pulled you in by telling you it was a 2-hour seminar with a drawing for a free IVF cycle, then held us all hostage for 4 hours, dangling that drawing in front of us. Obviously we didn’t win, but we did learn a lot of new and in-depth information, and it was worth attending.

The whole point of all that isn’t terribly relevant, but a few weeks ago we met with the local doctor that spoke. He seemed nice and I have a few friends that see him, and the institute really pushed that they give individualized treatment and really does things differently than other clinics. We wanted to hear what this doctor had to say about our situation. And the consultation only cost us $15, so we figured, what did we have to lose?

It was definitely interesting. He looked at D’s most recent SA and told us that we don’t have a “male factor” to worry about. He tested my AMH to check my ovarian reserve, and that came back normal. When I asked about the polyps, he said that polyps don’t cause infertility and the only way he would recommend removing them is right before IVF.

Based on these things, he said we fell in the 10% of infertility cases that is diagnosed by – get this – Unexplained Infertility. After 4 years and numerous issues resolved, we have no obvious problems. He recommended IVF.

So we’ve come to the end of the road when it comes to searching for answers. There are no answers to be found, apparently. The answer is IVF.

The doctor recommended we do something called Mini-IVF, which is basically IVF with minimal stimulation. Basically, you take less drugs and make less eggs. It’s a lower success rate, but a lower cost. Not a lot of clinics offer it. We considered it, but the cost would still be about $9000 instead of $13000, so we figured that if we’re spending that much, we may as well go all in. If the cost was closer to half and we could do 2 mini cycles, we might have thought more about it, but then my friend had a terrible experience with this doctor and we completely threw out the idea of ever seeing this guy again.

There seem to be no more tests, nothing more we can do. We were both hoping there could be some other answer, but we are joining the hoards of other couples who have been given no answers. IVF is our answer and we are just counting down the months until we can jump into that. More on that delay soon…

counting

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Countdown to surgery: 2 weeks, 1 hour, 30 minutes.

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This morning I had to take my mom to the airport so she could visit the newest grandbaby. That was tough. Luckily the roads were covered in ice, so avoiding death was a nice distraction.

It’s still hard for me to believe that my younger sister has two children while I still have no idea if I’ll have any. Finding out she was pregnant with her second was expected but still hard. And, without setting specific goals, I thought to myself, “surely, by the time that kid gets here, I’ll have my own on the way.” Apparently even thinking that way is dangerous, but I was feeling hopeful about the most recent IUI at the time and really thought it could be nearly over.

Two weeks until my second surgery. Three months until IVF (possibly more, since you never know). And then, who knows.

Someone recently asked D: “Why don’t the doctors just start with the most ‘sure’ thing?” Meaning: “Why haven’t you just done IVF yet?” D just told him how much it costs, and I think that was explanation enough. But it’s more than that; IVF is a hard thing to go through, emotionally as well as financially.

It does bother me a little to know that there will always be people out there just thinking “Why don’t you just do IVF?” or “Why don’t you just adopt?”

There is no just. But unless people ask – and most probably won’t – they won’t know that.

These days are passing so slowly. I feel like January lasted several months.

I have more stuff to write about, but today my thoughts are scrambled. I’m tired from last night’s lack of sleep due to airport runs and I’m tired of it feeling like it’s 4 degrees outside and I’m tired of not being able to go to work because it’s closed, because it means I just lost a week of income that we needed.

For now I’m just counting down and trying to pass the time.

step 1

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I think that a lot of people read this blog, more than actually comment, I think. Some of them we know, and some of them are complete strangers. Some people know exactly what I’m talking about, and some people have no idea sometimes. So I try to strike a balance between giving updates to family and friends, sharing my thoughts, connecting with people going through similar things, and informing people who don’t really know what the acronyms and details all mean.

I’m going to try to explain all the steps of this IVF process to anyone out there who doesn’t know much about it and who wants to know, whether just for the sake of learning or to have a better idea of what we’re going through.

I hope I don’t bore anyone who already knows this stuff, but if I say something wrong, feel free to correct me. Sometimes I don’t really understand it all myself until I sit down and try to write it out.

And if I say anything that doesn’t make sense to anyone, feel free to ask.

As I mentioned before, we’re using this month to do some testing and planning. I had my FSH tested on Monday, which I was actually kind of nervous about because the doctor mentioned that it was a little on the high side when it was tested a little over a year ago. Basically, you’re born with all of your eggs, and you use them up throughout your lifetime. The best eggs get released when you’re younger (that’s why teenagers get pregnant so easily) and as the years go by, your body uses up the best eggs and starts releasing the eggs that aren’t so amazing. That’s why it’s harder to get pregnant as you get older.

You want your FSH levels to be low. When they’re high, it means that you are running out of eggs, and/or the eggs you have are not great quality. Your FSH number typically goes up as you get older, because you’re running out of eggs. So when the doctor said that mine had been on the high side a year ago, I got a little worried that it would be even higher. But when the nurse called, she said that my level was lower than it was last time. Yay! (It went from 9.9 to 7.4 and they told me that they like it to be less than 10, although from things I’ve read different doctors have slightly different opinions on what numbers are good…I think.)

The thing about IVF is that there are a lot of steps in the process. There are a lot of things that can go wrong along the way. So it helps to celebrate the little successes along the way and look at it as one thing at a time, instead of an overall success or failure. There are a lot of little “milestones” that we have to pass before we get to the end, and this was the first one.

On Monday I go in for a diagnostic hysteroscopy to check for polyps. This is different from the surgical hysteroscopy I had a year ago that involved going to the hospital and being put to sleep. This is just done in the regular office to take a look-see and make sure nothing weird is going on.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that I am polyp-free!