"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" Proverbs 13:12




Thursday, September 27, 2012

The transfer that doesn't feel like it happened

Yesterday I work up, rolled over in bed in that fuzzy state you often go into between dream and waking.  I was lying there, not at all stress, but dreamily thinking "I've forgotten something".  Then it hit me.  The transfer.  It's the two week weight.

It's funny how when an act gets repeated it becomes more and more normal and less and less dramatic.  This time seemed particularly to be the case.  When I got up yesterday and had a shower, I realised I hadn't had a morning shower on transfer day.  This isn't too much of a surprise in terms of my normal life, I sometimes have evening baths or even (please don't think I'm disgusting friends!) no shower for a day.  But transfer days I was always careful to have a shower, to make sure I had no perfumy anything on me that would hurt my embabies.  But that day it hadn't even occurred to me.

In the past transfer days were days off.  I was determined to relax, determined to stay home.  I would write a post in the morning- you can scroll through my blog titles and see this is the case. This day I had two meetings on and I went and they were distracting.

The other thing that made this one seem strange is that it was so quick.

Our clinic usually says to come in half an hour before your transfer.  And I thought I did.  But as the nurse called me in as soon as I arrived I realised I'd gotten the time wrong by 20 minutes!  So we arrived, filled out the paper work, and suddenly we were in.  I put on my gown, we talked about the embryos, I got on the table, he put them in.  It was all so quick, I almost said to Earl "did that really just happen".

It was so fast that I wasn't really watching the screen when the scientist sucked the embryos up into the syringe.  So I have this weird thought "what if they missed them and they didn't go in".

Today was different.  Today I woke up, not quite able to sleep in.  I woke up knowing that the embryos were inside of me: dead or alive.  And I prayed, and I touched my belly the way I hate in other women and I said "Please stay".

You probably want to know the stats.

The two day two embryos that were defrosted made it!  One was a marula and one was an expanding blastocyst.  I am praying for both, but I'm not really expecting twins out of this scenario.  The blastocyst made the marula look so puny!  But it was still growing, so there is still hope.

So, I now have two in my belly and 9 frozen.  It still seems like crazy numbers.  But I can't think of that now.

Beta Monday week.
LG

Sunday, September 23, 2012

I just want to be a cat

A few days ago, bff and I were talking and she said she had some "good but hard news".

I recon I've heard the words "good but hard" news come out of my bffs mouth a million times.  I almost want to talk to her about it.  It's almost like she HAS to acknowledge that pregnancy is good and that it is right to celebrate it, and she just wants to emphasis it to me.  That she wants me to to be a "good girl" and be happy for people, even if I'm sad for me.  And maybe that's reading too much into it.  But I think I want her to stop.  It's not her job to make me feel a certain way, it's not her job to counsel me to be well behaved in this.  It's hard enough to try to be mature in this situation.  It's harder when treated like a child.  It makes me want to be childish and say "Not good!  HARD HARD HARD HARD"

Anyway, off topic.  She is normally fabulous.  Its just this one thing.

Anyway- the "good but hard" news was (of course) someone was pregnant.  That someone was K.

Now- this is my relationship with K.

I met K years ago.  We shared a room once at a conference.  She was lovely.  I met her again when she became great buddies with my bff.  I maybe saw her twice (though I heard lots about her).  When bff got married we were both bridesmaids and went dress shopping together and made invites.  She then moved across the country.  She is now married to another friend of mine, but not one I see very much.

And she is pregnant.

Now of all the people I know who I couldn't really care less if their pregnant, K would be up the top.  She is in no way connected to my life.  I never have to see her or talk to her, my only real connection is through bff.

So I said to bff.  "Don't worry, I don't really care.  I mean, I never see her anyway.  And besides, I seen so many people become pregnant, it's almost like that's a world far removed from me that I'm not really affected".  But even as I said the words.  A wave.  A wave of pain and tears and anger.  At the unfairness of it.  Yes, I don't care two hoots about K or anything that is happening to her.  Yes, I am definitely better at dealing with other people's pregnancies.  But it's just unfair.  Unfair that I've had time to become immune.  Unfair that pregnancy is just so far away from my own experience that I don't even have room to be jealous. 

It's almost like being jealous of a cat because they just lie around all day.  I could be jealous of a cat, but then I'm not a cat, so I just don't think like that.  That is just not my world.  Every so often I might think, it would be fun to be a cat.  But it's so hard to imagine because a cat's life and my life have almost nothing in common.

And getting pregnant straight away after being married for 6 months?  That's something that cats do.  Not Lady Grey's.

And it's wrong!

The waves of anger and sadness continued to come, and I ended up blurting something out about it being unfair and that I wasn't okay, and that it just sucked.

Bff listened and then said: "You are an amazing person".

Lots of people say that.  I don't really get it-because it usually comes after a rant.  I mean, I am dealing with this, okay but definitely not well.  I guess they know it takes a certain person, a certain steel, a certain character to be able to live through all the crapiness and only have the occasional angry rant to reveal how terribly hard that is.  I guess that's what bff sees.  This person who goes on with life, despite this horrible part of their lives that doesn't go away.  Maybe that does make me special.

But I don't want to be special.
I just want to be a cat.
LG

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Injecting in an empty airport terminal and other things that I never thought I'd do before IVF...

One thing that I am very thankful for is laughter.  I always used to think that when people on television shows said they wanted a man "with a sense of humor" that they were just being too picky.  I mean, did a sense of humour really matter.  Don't you want someone who is deep, more than funny?

God definitely does have that said sense of humour though, because after I got over the initial "I don't want to marry a funny guy" thing- I did just that.  And Earl's sense of humour has been such a blessing to me, particularly going through IVF.  Sometimes, you just need to break the tension with a laugh, and he does that so well.

But I think it's rubbing off on me.  Because when I think about today, and all the medicine related dramas, all I can do is laugh at my crazy life.

So, as I think I said in my last post, trigger was today.  I've just had 2 lovely days in Sydney for a conference that Earl and I attended together.  And as I went I had to decide- will I take my trigger?  Earl (who organised the flights) told me that we were leaving at 3:45, and my trigger was to be at 8pm.  If the flight got in at 5:15, that left nearly 2 hours to get home still (it should take just 1).  Was I being paranoid if I took it with me?  But given I had to take my general stimulation drugs anyway- I thought, better safe than sorry.

Boy am I glad now!!!!

So, yesterday I was looking at the conference schedule and I realised the conference finished at 3:30.  I asked Earl 'Why are we flying out at 3:45? We will miss some of the conference".  Earl looked concerned, got his phone out, and then smiled and said, don't worry, the flight is at 6:30pm.

Now, Sydney to Melbourne usually takes about 1.5 hours on a good day.

I checked with nurse, and she said I could trigger between 8 and 9, so I felt pretty safe that I would be off the plane in time to do it. 

Which means...trigger at the airport.

Now- I don't know how other's meds work, but my trigger works like this.  Take awkward little glass vile.  Make sure liquid sits at the bottom (this takes about 2 minutes of careful tapping to get it to settle).  Break open vile, managing not to smash it so that you cut your hand (the one time I wasn't paranoid was the one time it happened).  Then, place it down, and do the same with the powder vile- without accidentally knocking over the first vile.  Then, get out a drawing up needle and attach it to a syringe: tight enough so it doesn't fall off, but not so tight that it takes ages to get it off (again- been there, done that). Draw up the liquid (again making sure you don't knock anything over).  Squirt it into the powder until it dissolves.  Draw it back up.  Unscrew first needle.  Screw on the second needle.  Remove air bubbles- managing to get all the air out without loosing a single drop of liquid!  Then inject.

Now.  This process is hard enough on our dining room table at home, after an entire evening of stressing about "What if I smash the vile again!".  Imagine doing it in a "mostly" empty departure lounge. We found a table, Earl stood so that people couldn't see what we were doing, and we broke and screwed and mixed away.  And I did it.  I shot up in an airport.  It was complicated and stressful.  But also really funny.

Just another new adventure in the roller coaster of IVF!
LG

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Ticking along

Not much to say. Cycle is ticking along. Started off very emotional and sad.  Feeling much better now. Keep having silly thoughts like "i better clear that out of the fridge now, because if that is still in the fridge when I'm pregnant it will make me vomit". In some ways I'm glad I still hope but in others it seems ridiculous. After all we've been through you'd think "when I'm pregnant" would be out of my vocabulary!

Scan today to find out timing.
LG
 UPDATE
Provided I don't trigger naturally, I will trigger Wednesday night and have the transfer Wednesday week. Can't believe we are back here again. It's been a long month...

Sunday, September 9, 2012

AF, emotions, and 5years and 9months of trying

Well, AF arrived on Friday. Shoots began last night and I have my first scan on Friday. Sometime in the next three weeks, all being well, I will have a frozen embryo.

Am I the only person in the world who is this obsessed with "How to feel" and "what to think"? It seemed to come up every cycle. I go between being scared and excited, hopeful and helpless. I want this to work more than anything, and to correspond with cycles starting I've started to feel more sensitive and empty. I think it's just that infertility is so normal now that most of the time I cope. But cycles remind me what I am missing and I feel the weight once again.

I saw Lydia yesterday. Lydia is an adorable little 4 year old. Though her mother mentioned she is 5 this month. And it hit me. September. 5 years and nine months of trying.  I could have had a five year old this month.

How to feel about that?
LG

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Not fair

I could tell you about my holiday (which was good), I could tell you about all the unhelpful comments and pregnancy annoucements that accompanied it (which was bad).

But to be honest, the main thing on my heart at the moment is Sometimes, who has lost her baby.  I am in complete shock, and so very, very sorry.  It is the most terrible thing.  And while every loss is different and none of us can totally know what each other are feeling, because she found out the same way I found out about Thumper (at what should have been a routine ultra sound at 9 weeks), I keep remembering what it was like, how hard and horrible, and I ache for her.  I am so, so, so sorry friend.  I wish there was something I could do :"(.

I'm sure any love or comments for her would be appreciated at this time.

Love LG