I'm far too uncomfortable to be clever.

Just a quick update!  The transfer was this morning at 8:30 am...we had two very high quality blastocysts to transfer today and expect to have some more to freeze tomorrow.  So...all in all, good news.  As with the first cycle, the worst part was not being able to use the restroom for a period of time, although it was only an hour today instead of four hours like last time.

I had intended to go back to work tomorrow but fluid has built up in my stomach and chest (as a result of the procedures) and it's incredibly uncomfortable.  So, they want me to stay home another day on modified bed rest.  This is now six days in a row of being in pain/uncomfortable/not sleeping much and as Nick would attest, I'm a smidge grumpy.  Luckily, I know it will all be worth it.

XOXO

Emilio Estevez would be proud.

After one more day of not worrying because of yesterday's excellent embryo report, (well, there was a small amount of worrying about the Cardinals ability to win the World Series but I did my part and wore my lucky Cards shirt, so you're welcome, Cardinals.) I woke up at 6am today a nervous ball of energy.  The last two days the embryologist called between 7:30 am and 8:00 am.  I knew not to expect a call that early on a Saturday, but that didn't stop me from obsessively checking my phone to make sure the ringer was on and the battery was charged.

While waiting, I decided to do the logical thing...make biscuits and gravy.  My stomach is still pretty uncomfortable and the thought of drinking my normal breakfast shake made me ill.  I was desperately craving biscuits and gravy, but figured the normal greasy version would probably not be a good idea.  So, I decided to try my hand at making sausage gravy with turkey sausage and skim milk, along with reduced fat Bisquick biscuits.  Surprisingly, it was delicious!  :::pats self on back:::  The scary thing is that now that I know how easy and delicious and relatively not bad for you it is...I may want to make it a lot more often.  I don't think Nick will complain.

After that was done, I realized that Ernie, our new kitten, had somehow gotten into the flour and tracked adorable little extra toed footprints all over the kitchen.  I would be mad at him...but seriously, the tracks were too cute.  Lucky for him.

Finally, the phone rang and we had our embryo report.  I'm pleased to say this cycle's 'mighty ducks' AKA the Tremendous Twenty continue to dominate.   Without getting into a lot of science/biology stuff that I'm clearly not qualified to discuss...a quick refresher on embryo quality.  The lab is watching the embryos each day to see if they are dividing...i.e. a 2 cell embryo turns into a 4 cell embryo into an 8 cell embryo, etc.  They are also grading the quality of the embryo. 

So, here's our report.  On Day 3, they expect to see a range of 4-8 cell embryos.

We had:

• 10 8-cell embryos, 8 of which were considered the best quality 
• 6 6-cell embryos
• 2 4-cell embryos
• 2 2- cell embryos

Essentially....that is awesome.  The 16 8 and 6 cell embryos are really the ones that are still in play either to transfer (but remember, only the two best will be transferred on Monday)or freeze...at this point, the 4 cells and 2 cells probably won't make it.   Nick and I did a ridiculously embarrassing dance around the kitchen to celebrate.  No, I did not record it.

We feel so tremendously lucky to have made it this far and continued to have good news.  On the subject of luck, here's a couple of recent good signs we're hoping will help our streak.

As most of you know, we recently lost my beloved cat, Carl.  It was completely traumatic, somewhat unexpected and I was inconsolable for days.  Three days after he passed away, I was at a monitoring appointment and the nurse pointed out a group of follicles in my ovaries that looked like a cat paw.  Weird?  Yes.  Did I take it as a good sign? Absolutely.

Nick and I have also taken to obsessively collecting fortunes from fortune cookies.  Here are two recent ones that we hope bode well for starting our family.  "This year, your fondest wish will come true." and "Three months from now, something great will happen." (Pregnancy announcement??)

In addition to these signs of good fortune, we continue to be grateful for all your well wishes and support.  We truly could not have gotten through this process without our friends and family, so hugs to you all. 

Today, we're off to the zoo to enjoy the gorgeous weather and another day of basking in our embryo quality.

Another day, another eight embryos...

I was going to make you all wait for the big update today with a big long lead-in to the news, but I'm far too excited to be that mean.  So...by some miracle, not only do we still have the 12 original embryos continuing to develop, but an additional 8 decided to start growing for a grand total of TWENTY.

TWENTY!!!!!!!!

TWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNTTTTTTTYYYYYYY!!!!!

Now, in all fairness, those 8 probably won't be the best quality, but the fact that that many decided to start growing on top of the fact that the original 12 are still kicking it in the petri dish (I don't actually know if they are in a petri dish, but whatever)....that is good news.

And it means that Nick and I can relax for one more day.  I was sick with anxiety this morning; I really thought I was going to have to pull my car off the road.  Then, the phone rang and the area code was the same as the clinic, so I thought it was the update call.  When I heard a man's voice, my heart sank because I thought it was our doctor calling to tell us that all of the embryos arrested. 

But...no, it was just Nick, calling to see if I had heard anything yet.  No, I haven't heard anything yet!  And P.S. thanks for scaring me nearly to death.

So, when I got the actual call and the embryologist gave me the news, I burst into tears which I think scared the poor embryologist a bit.  I explained to her that we only ended up with two embryos our first cycle and she assured me that so far, everything looks really good. 

Then I called Nick to report the good news.  As soon as he answered the phone, I yelled 'it's good news!' which probably startled him a smidge but I wanted to be clear this was not That Kind of Call. 

Embryo transfer is scheduled for 8:30 am on Monday!

Continued thanks for your support, thoughts, and prayers.  XOXO

A Dozen Chances...

Hi, people...just a quick update.  I spoke with the embryologist this morning and of the 34 eggs they attempted to fertilize, only 12 actually did so.  During our last cycle, we had 16 eggs to fertilize, 8 fertilized and only 2 made it to transfer.

We're pretty nervous at this point (understatement of the year!)...we'd like to have at least 4-6 good quality embryos so that we can both transfer some this cycle and have some for subsequent frozen cycles.   We were really hoping that since there were 34 eggs fertilized, we would have a lot more that actually did so. 

On top of that, I am in a lot of pain still.  So much so, that I called the clinic to make sure I wasn't experiencing OHSS.  At this point, they think I'm just taking longer than normal to recover from the procedure and it hasn't turned into something more serious.   As Nick can attest, all of this is making me fairly grumpy. 

Bright spots...a co-worker brought me a pumpkin spice cupcake today, which so far is the only thing I've eaten...and another co-worker brought me the bell I referenced wanting yesterday.  I can't wait to ring it at Nick.  Don't worry...I won't overdo it.  I'm a benevolent dictator.

I think this is the point at which it would be much easier if I wasn't at work.  Although, in fairness, if I were at home, I would have far more time to worry, so maybe it's better this way. 

Thanks for all the good thoughts and prayers...they are much appreciated! XOXO

A Tale of Two Cycles

Egg Retrieval #2...complete!  We arrived at the clinic (which, by the way is 40 miles from our house...I will not miss that drive!) at 7:15 am and by 8:00 am, my IV was in and I was walking into the procedure room.   No waiting around for hours like the first cycle.  By 8:35 am, I was waking up groggily in the recovery room 

And now...the stats.  At my last monitoring appointment, they saw about a dozen follicles on each ovary.  However, today they managed to retrieve 34 MATURE follicles.   The embryo tech seemed very surprised that I had so many that were mature...apparently, that's sort of unusual (read: rockstar ovaries.  I've refrained from talking about my rockstar ovaries this time around as that sort of backfired during IVF#1, but apparently...my ovaries...they cannot be stopped! Behold the power of my ovaries!)

As you'll recall in our first cycle, I had a lot of follicles (18 on one ovary and 17 on the other before the retrieval), but they were only able to retrieve 16 and many of those were poor quality.   So for us to get that many mature follicles...well, we're pretty happy.  All 34 were fertilized and now we wait to find out which ones progress.   Cross your fingers and toes for lots of good quality embryos!  At this point, we'd be delighted to get pregnant this cycle but we'll be even more delighted to have plenty of good embryos.

If we don't get pregnant during this 'fresh' IVF cycle, we'll do a frozen transfer  subsequently, which is much less invasive and less expensive.  This time around, we bought a package of IVF treatments and there was no cost difference between one fresh cycle vs. one fresh and one frozen cycle, so it's nice to know that if we didn't get pregnant, we have a frozen cycle as a back-up. 

The downside of all those eggs being retrieved is that I'm a lot more uncomfortable this time around.  The pain meds aren't cutting it...I'm hoping I feel better tomorrow since I'll be back at work.  Lots of budget work to do. :(

Nick, as usual, was an excellent nurse, despite the fact he wouldn't heed my demand for a bell.  What good is being waited on hand and foot IF YOU DON'T HAVE A BELL?  Harumph.  Luckily, Ernie the newest feline addition to our house, acquiesced to some cuddling.

More to come tomorrow!

IVF: The Sequel...long overdue update!

Wow…massive blogging fail.  Hopefully you all subscribe to the ‘no news is good news’ school of thought.  I’m not dead, wounded or maimed.  Just busy!  Although, in fairness, it would only take me 15 minutes to update the blog, so I guess it’s more like…just lazy!   

I think it my attempt to structure the blog, I sucked what little enjoyment there was to be had from it right out the door.  So…I’m just going to blog when I want, about what I want.  And what I want to blog about today is…follicles!  I know – you’re so surprised, right?!

Started the stims about a week and a half ago, although on a much lower dosage than IVF#1.   Thus far, there have been no major side effects, other than maybe some additional fatigue.  I’ve had several monitoring appointments and all looks good…I’ve got at least a dozen follicles on each ovary.  However, this time around, instead of having 1-2 show-off follicles that are growing much faster than the rest of the follicles, everybody is growing nice and even.  Slow and steady wins the race.

The egg retrieval is slated for this Wednesday, which means a Halloween transfer.  Boo!  We’re going to put some embryos in you! 

I am pretty tired of driving to the clinic…it’s about 45-50 minutes from our house and it’s a pain to get out there in the morning.  And I’m even more tired of having my blood drawn…and having to spell my name to the blood tech (although today he remembered it without me having to tell him).  

The two cycles continue to be vastly different in a variety of ways.   I didn’t see our doctor in the first cycle until the egg retrieval.  This time around, the doctor has poked his head into every monitoring appointment to take a look at the ultrasound and shake my hand (which, frankly, is a little awkward during an ultrasound, but I’ve gotten so used to talking to medical professionals while in awkward positions or situations, it only fazes me a little now.)

What’s also different is that I don’t feel like OMG IVF IS MY WOOOOORRRRLLLLDD, which is basically what happened the first cycle.  Nothing wrong with that and it was nice to have that luxury, but the realities of day to day living and work do sort of occupy enough brain space that I think the space left for IVF is probably a much healthier portion this time. 

BREAKING NEWS!  Just got off the phone with the doctor’s office…got my ‘trigger shot’ instructions.  Tonight at 9pm I give myself the Ovidrel shot…which will trigger the follicles to release the eggs.   Let’s all hope that this is the last shot I give myself…EVER.  Oh…one other difference this time around…I am extra bruise-y.  It looks like a GI Joe action figure has been repeatedly punching me in my belly button.   I like it, though…makes me feel tough. J

XO to you all…thanks for the good thoughts, emails, calls and texts!

This Sauce Will Change Your Life

Maybe that's a bit hyperbolic, but it has changed my life.  Readers...I introduce to you...Mandarano Balsamic Glaze.  (cue the angels singing)

What is it?  Other than a life-changing sauce, it is...

• Ketchup's older (according to the website, the recipe is 400 years old), much more sophisticated Italian cousin
• A balsamic vinegar reduction in a way-too-convenient bottle
• What has been on my breakfast, lunch, and dinner for days

I love making a balsamic reduction...but it requires a great deal of time and patience.   Essentially, you just poor balsamic vinegar into a sauce pan and literally let it 'reduce' over heat.   And I would say of the times I've made it, 1 out of 3 three times I look away for 10 seconds too long and ruin the reduction.  So, when I discovered you could buy this delicious and luxurious sauce in a bottle, I knew I had to try it.

To date, I've had it on:

• Fresh mozzarella (a classic) and goat cheese
• Granny Smith apples
• Strawberries
• As a garnish on caprese chicken (chicken breast marinated in balsamic vinegar and garlic, then sauteed  and topped with fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato...or in my case, some roasted red peppers I needed to use up)  Nick proclaimed this dish Top Chef worthy (he's easily fooled by presentation).
• Scrambled eggs
• A spoon by itself

If you're interested, you can buy it here.  Anyone want to go in on a case?

I can't remember how exactly I came across it, but I know it started in one of those Pinterest wormholes where you start looking at one pin and then that takes you to some new website which takes you somewhere else and then, voila!  You're ordering balsamic glaze at 4AM.  Not that I did that or anything.

Oh, P.S.  I started the Lupron injections today.  I forgot how much fun it is to stick yourself with a needle every day.  Luckily, my trusty Nate the Needle coffee mug was there to keep me company.

P.P.S.  It's probably a sign of how laissez-faire I am about this cycle that only 5% of the words in this post were dedicated to IVF.  Very Zen.