:::Tumbleweeds float by:::

I know - almost a week and no update.  But, as it turns out, fretting about whether or not you're pregnant is quite tiring and stressful.  Who knew?

This cycle has been far more dramatic than the first - lots of ups and downs.  Yesterday, we were having a very up day.  Today - it is very, very down.  But, as many good friends have counseled me today - we should never give up faith.  We have a bloodwork test later this week and will know more then.  Until then, we could really use any spare good thoughts and prayers you have (after you are done praying and thinking about more worthy topics).

Trying to get pregnant and going through IVF is without a doubt the most stressful event of Nick and I's life.   However, since the season of gratitude is upon us, it has provided me some perspective.  I know I am certainly grateful for an amazing partner in Nick; I couldn't have gone through this process without him (ha! both literally and figuratively).  I'm amazed at how we continue to get stronger rather than be pulled apart by all the heartache. 

Along this vein, Nick and I were talking about the many ways you can have a family today and he reminded me of the first 5 minutes of Up.  If you haven't seen it, you've either been under a rock or don't have kids (made by Pixar).   While I loved the movie, the first 5 minutes nearly killed me and through (sob, sob) tears, I declared to Nick 'this is the worst movie EVERRRR!'

The gist of it is that a boy and girl, meet and fall in love.  They find out they cannot have children and are devastated.  However, (as I recall) they spend the rest of their years together having wonderful adventures and generally living a good life.  And then the wife dies.  (Cue tears from Sarah) (Bear in mind, this is only the first 5 minutes of the movie.) And it is SAD.  But then the (by this time curmudgeonly) guy has a young boy thrust into his life and they hate each other, but then they love each other and become best friends and they all live happily ever after.  The End.

Where was I going with this?  Oh, yeah - the point Nick was trying to make by reminding me of the movie was that we will have a family one way or another.  So, in sum - IVF=drama, Up=tears but good life lesson, Nick=awesome, Sarah=still holding out hope.

Thanks for all the love, thoughts and prayers; it means the world to us.

P.S.  In WTF news...WTF, Mississippi?

Success...measured in pants buttoned

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that, despite evidence to the contrary (blog posts, emails, and texts referencing the fact that I'm dying)...I am in fact, alive and well!  Well, as well as can be expected.  I showered and everything, you guys!  And today...I was able to button my pants.  This was a feat not possible in the last few days.   Not being able to button your pants really limits your ability to be a functioning adult.   That and feeling like you're dying.

Other than recovering from near death and returning to work, not much to update on.  And it's probably going to be that way for awhile.  If you thought the waiting to find out about our freeze-able embryos was bad, hold on, sisters and brothers, because it's about to get a whole lot worse up in this IVF joint.  Before we will be declared 'officially' pregnant, we have weeks of bloodwork and waiting and ultrasounds to go.  I suggest you pick up a crafty hobby in the meantime...I would really like a new scarf and some mittens for Christmas, so feel free to choose knitting.

In the meantime, we'll be over here waiting not-so-patiently.  Nick has established a daily ritual of rubbing my belly and praying, which frankly makes me feel a little bit like Buddha, but I suppose there are worse things in life.  I am obsessively Christmas shopping and taking lots of naps with Ernie, The Multi-Toed Wonder Cat.  His favorite place to sleep is curled up parallel to me with both of our heads on the pillow.  It's so cute you would throw up if you saw it.   And now I'm going to force you to see it.

Three...it's a magic number

Anybody remember Schoolhouse Rock?  This one is apropos today.

I feel slightly less like dying today, so that's good.  The upside to feeling like your stomach is going to explode at any moment is that it makes it difficult to stress out when the embryologist waits until 2:00 in the afternoon to call you with the report on freeze-able embryos, or as Nick calls them 'chilly willies'.   However, Nick was not so lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) so I was getting near hourly texts from him.

Finally, we got the call that we have three blastocysts to freeze.  All along, I'd been hoping for 4-6 total embryos so five is nice and in the middle.  It's still a little disappointing given how many eggs we had fertilize, but we'll take it.  It's 2.5 times better than our first cycle at least.  And they're all good quality, so hopefully that bodes well for future frozen transfers. 

Back to work for me tomorrow!  I've finally experienced that feeling of 'whatever is going on at work...they can deal with it without me' which I suppose is either a factor of how much we want this cycle to work or how terrible I feel. :)

And now, in the immortal words of Schoolhouse Rock...

A man and a woman had a little baby...
Yes they did...they had threeeee in the family and that's a magic number.

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!

New and Improved...IVF the Sequel

As I mentioned earlier this week, we have a new IVF calendar.  Since I know you all like to know EXACTLY what is going on with my ovaries on a day to day basis, here's the calendar.  Follow along at home, kids.

October 5 - Start Lupron 10 units (ovulation suppression) daily injection
October 8 - End Desogen, continue one baby aspirin daily
October 12 - Baseline ultrasound
October 14 - Start 'stims' - Follistim 175 units each day, Decrease Lupron to 3 units
October 18 - Continue stims, Ultrasound/labs
October 21 - Continue stims, Ultrasound/labs
October 23 - Continue stims, Ultrasound/labs
October 25 or 26 - Egg Retrieval
October 30 or 31 - Embryo Transfer (we're doing a 5 day embryo transfer this cycle instead of a 3 day transfer...the number of days refers to how 'old' the embryos are/how much they're developed)
November 1 - on - pray, worry, repeat

In other exciting IVF news, our medicines have been purchased and all paperwork has been completed, so we're officially ready.  Well, as ready as one can be.

I've already done some super mathematical calculations (i.e. I googled it) and if I get pregnant with one baby, I'll be due mid-July.  If I get pregnant with twins, in all likelihood, I'd deliver some time in June.  Yay for being pregnant in the summer!  As if I don't hate being hot enough.  Sounds like a good excuse to spend a lot of time at the pool to me.

Where in the world is Carmen San Diego, er....Sarah?

My parent should have known I was destined to get a geography degree because of my love for the PBS mid-90s geography quiz show, Carmen San Diego…and the theme song…so catchy.

As  you might have guessed, life has been a little crazier than normal at the Haberberger Homestead.  On the Monday of Labor Day (after having spent a delightful anniversary weekend in our old stomping grounds in Columbia), I was sitting down to (belatedly) post my Thankful for Thursday post (as several of you had pointed out, I was late in only my second week of intentional gratitude).

The phone rang and it was Nick…a transcript of our call.

Me: Hello, dear!

Nick: I am on my way home, I had a bad crash on my bike, I’ll be there in 40 minutes, you need to take me to the hospital.

Me: Okay, I’ll see you then.

Call ends.

I immediately freak out that I didn’t ask for ANY details.  However, I made good use of that 40 minutes – packing bags for us both (since Nick was both conscious and coherent, I assumed he was not mortally wounded, but in my head, I was already planning for a hospital stay), collecting phone chargers, preparing my car for what was sure to be a bloody and battered Nick (which really just amounted to putting a towel on the passenger side seat.)

A Good Samaritan (a fellow mountain bike rider, as it turns out) pulled up shortly after and deposited my husband and off we went to the emergency room.  After many painful hours at the hospital, it was determined that he had separated his shoulder and we were sent home with a prescription for Percoset and a sling.  He was home from work that week and his mom came to stay with us for a few days to help out (thank you!!!), but he has since made fairly rapid process.  I like to say that he’s gone from being one-armed to 1.5 armed.  He improved enough to host a gathering of some of my work friends for what we dubbed Meatapalooza.

Were I not lazy, I would post pictures of his excellent BBQing, but I am.  (If you're really curious, there's some on both of our Facebook pages).

So, that’s what we’ve been up to.  What's new with you guys? :)

Oh, and we also are postponing our IVF cycle by a few weeks.  I had a small anxiety attack when Nick first hurt himself and assumed I would be what I'm affectionately referring to as a 'single mother' to Nick (believe me, I understand that what I experienced is in no way close to what single parents go through...however, I think it's a fairly apt description of the worst of the days when he could do nothing but mope and sigh.) for 6-8 weeks.  Stressful, no?  So, I asked the clinic if we could postpone it a bit so as not to add another layer of complexity and they said of course.  Actually, a more apt description of the series of events would be to say that I left several increasingly teary messages on the nurse's voicemail and eventually wore them down.  Yeah!

So, the combination of normal life stress + IVF stress + Nick nearly killing himself on his bike stress has resulted in two events.

#1 - At a recent doctor visit, I had a high blood pressure reading for the first time EVER.  I'm always secretly delighted when I have my blood pressure taken because it's ALWAYS good and I am a compliment whore...even if it's just for good blood pressure.  But this time...it was higher than normal...not HIGH-high, but still...not good.  When the nurse said "Oh, dear - this is a little higher than your last couple of readings...is there anything particular going on?"  OH HONEY...WHERE DO I START?

#2 - For the last several days, I've had a stress headache that Will Not Go Away.  I was nearly in tears on the way home from work today I was so uncomfortable (Side note...I feel like all the talk about tears would lead you all to believe that I am now and have forever been just a big blubbering mess all the time.  The truth is I almost never cry.  I AM MADE OF STEEL, Y'ALL.  Well, I almost never cried before - now it's like a leaky faucet.)  I decided to make an emergency call to the massage therapist for an appointment (I know...wah! My life is so hard!  I have to get a massage!) and luckily they were able to squeeze me in tonight.  So, the massage therapist starts working on my shoulders and exclaims "HELLO!"  Not sure if we were just greeting each other again, I responded with a tentative "Hi?"  She then tells me that I have the tensest shoulders she's ever worked on and spent the next 45 minutes basically beating the crap out of me, but in the best way possible.  I have to admit, in an incredibly sick way, I was thrilled to be WINNING at STRESS.  If you're going to do something, do it all the way is my motto...even life-endangering stress. 

All this by way of saying, I think I need to take a little better care of myself and manage my stress better.  Which, frankly, I don't FEEL that stressed, but it's also possible that I've been stressedIVF success is your mindset/stress level, so I best be getting myself under control.

Hmmm....that wasn't so bad!  I've been putting off posting for lack of knowing what to say, but as it turns out, I HAVE A LOT TO SAY.   Until next time...me and my hunched shoulders bid you adieu!

IVF The Sequel...it has begun!

First off, many thanks to my friend Elisa for commenting that she hoped IVF The Sequel was much like The Godfather Part II...in that it blows the original out of the water.  For some reason, I now picture God looking like Don Corleone...so hopefully the Father and the Godfather look kindly upon this cycle. 

Most of the paperwork has been done and bills have been paid and now we have our calendar.

Suppression Phase:

August 29th - start Desogen and baby aspirin

September 8th - injection teach (I will OWN this!) and hysterosonogram

September 15th - start Lupron injections

Stimulation Phase:

September 22nd - Baseline ultrasound and labs

September 24th - Follistim injections begin

September 28th - Ultrasound/labs

October 1st - Ultrasound/labs

October 2nd - lest my mother think I forgot - Family Photo Shoot with Elaina :)

October 3rd - Ultrasound/labs

October 5th or 6th - Egg Retrieval, begin Progesterone

October 9th or 10th - Embryo Transfer

October 11th - ? - Nervous twiddling of fingers while we wait. :)

We're not paying for personality....

I know, I know.  I totes abandoned you for a few weeks.  Truth be told...an entire summer worth of solely focusing on getting pregnant sort of leaves a path of unfinished projects in its wake (see: our yard, our closet, my desk at work, my nails, etc, etc.)

So, I've been trying to you know, regain, some sort of adult life and routine again.  And frankly, it was nice to have a few weeks break from thinking about IVF constantly.  I actually wrote several posts during this time but then got too lazy to hit publish...so more to come soon.

But, a quick update!  We had our appointment with our third fertility doctor of the year yesterday and as I mentioned on Facebook...hopefully the third time's the charm.  The title of this post is a quote from yours truly to a friend who asked me how the visit went.  Answer: good!  Our first doctor scared us.  The second doctor both impressed and scared us.  This one...asked us on four separate occasions if we had any other questions.  Tell me...have you ever known a doctor to do that?  The rest of the quote would be (We're not paying for personality), BUT...it sure doesn't hurt.  All this to say that we like and trust the new doctor (who has also treated one of our good friends) and are moving forward with our next cycle like...soon. 

We had two tests that this doctor had to pass: 1) he couldn't ask for any additional testing (we've already spent more than $5,000 on JUST tests) unless it was absolutely necessary and 2) we wanted to hear a conservative recommendation from him on the dosages of stimulation medication I would be given this next round.  He passed both tests!

The retrieval will be the first week of October and so, the meds will start up mid to late September.  And so it begins again.

I'll be honest...I'm thrilled to be moving forward but also totally overwhelmed.  It is a lot of work - forms, figuring out schedules, appointments, etc on top of you know, LIFE.  And my job. And my family. And Nick.  And my friends.  And my cats.  And our turtles (did you know we have pet turtles?  We do!)  And I'm feeling pretty low on energy.  Three straight days in a row I've had to get up from my desk at work and had to take a walk around the block to prevent myself from crawling under the desk and hiding.  I need a vacation, but that won't be happening anytime soon.  So, I'm going to start back up with acupuncture and maybe throw in a massage and a pedicure or two...Or twenty-seven. 

I know Nick and I are incredibly blessed so I'll try not to be so whiny next time.

In sum...third doctor - good.  IVF The Sequel - October.  Sarah - tired.

XOXO