A start of a new cycle

Quick update on me: Last cycle was a bust and I am not pregnant. I have an appointment tomorrow with my OB to figure out the next step in the TTC process for me. I am nervous about what he might suggest but ready to move forward and finally get pregnant. I will be sure to post any updates.

Also need to apologize for my sparse updates lately. I have been trying to keep myself busy and my mind off the setbacks of TTC. I mean to post, but when I sit down to actually write something the sadness becomes overwhelming. Basically I was trying to avoid my emotions. And I didn't want to depress people with my Debbie Downer attitude. It truly is not my personality!. But bottling up emotions is not best and I hate to admit that lately I have taken out some of my TTC frustration on Mr. PB&J. Poor guy. We had a heart to heart talk this weekend and I feel better about where we've been, where we are and where we're going. I have learned that I need to talk about my feelings so I will be posting more regularly. Today I woke up and felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. It's amazing what communication can do!!

I hate to post and run, but I am going to post and run. I have a busy day but like I promised earlier, I will post tomorrow with updates from my doctors appointment. Hope everyone is having a GREAT day :)

#4

Well, the Betas are in and they are shit. I knew this was going to happen when I started spotting yesterday. Even though it was brown spotting, I knew what was coming. I've gone through it 3 times prior - I'm pretty much an expert!

So welcome miscarriage #4. You would think that I would be thrown a bone. At least one of these pregnancies should have been viable, right? Apparently not.

It is just so unfair. What a crock of shit it is that a financially stable, responsible, very much in-love couple cannot have a child. And I am just not saying this for me - I'm saying it for all of us that have been through or are going through this.

The thing that really gets me is that my body is perfect. Yes, I could afford to lose a few pounds, but that's about it. They have not been able to find a single thing that is medically wrong with me. I have had every test know to man done on me, and am surprised that I haven't been mistaken for a heroin addict, being that I have been a human pincushion for the past two years.

Wow, two years. Two years of trying to conceive only to end up with heartbreak in the end. Happy Anniversary to us.

I have an appointment with the RE next Wednesday. They are talking about shipping me up to The Cleveland Clinic for IVF with genetic testing.

I don't know what else to write. Infertility sucks.

No More Waiting...

Well, it seems as though our waiting has come to an end. Baby Magnolia Bud wasn't meant to join us. I miscarried on Saturday afternoon.

Mr. MB and I had been preparing ourselves for it most of last week, especially after my betas came back Thursday (I was a wreck), and even more of one after our ultrasound Friday, so when it finally happened, I was just numb. Friday afternoon/evening I had increased bleeding and cramping, and then I cramped really badly on Saturday. We were in a little mountain town all weekend for some work meetings I had to attend, and we had been planning on spending Saturday afternoon hiking--the OB who saw me Friday said I could still go, just take it easy if I wasn't feeling well. Well, we only were able to manage one trail, and the whole time I felt sick to my stomach because the cramps were so bad. Once we got back to our hotel, I realized why :( The bleeding pretty much tapered off starting Saturday night, and has been pretty light since.

We're both still pretty numb (and realistically, I think I'm in a bit of denial), and I suspect I might lose it again after I talk with the nurse at our clinic this morning. She's supposed to be calling with my betas from Friday. I need to find out:

• What happens next? I'm assuming I'll still go for my follow-up ultrasound on Friday to make sure everything passed naturally;
• How long do we wait before we can try again?
• Should we still go to the birth center tour on Wednesday? (Mr. MB and I haven't decided if we even want to, but if we're still pretty numb, we had considered it so it's out of the way for next time).

Yesterday when we got home from our weekend away, I put away all the reminders around the house of the pregnancy. Clothes in the back of the closet, books back on the bookshelf, unsubscribed from all the e-mails, and deleted my Amazon wish list. I also logged into Fertility Friend to update my account, and got out a new paper chart and my thermometer. I'll be peeing on HPT's every couple of days starting tomorrow to see when my levels have dropped to zero (well, less than 12.5 on the IC's ;) )

Thanks to each of you for your thoughts and prayers over the last week.

-Magnolia Bud

Introducing Golden Bud

bark SQEAK!

That's how we say hello here in the Golden Bud household. I am a mom to the world's most handsome Golden Retriever and wife to Mr. Golden Bud. Mr. GB and I are both in our reproductive "golden years" so to speak--he's 42 and I'm 39. We have been TTC since returning from our honeymoon in December 2007.

In the beginning, Mr. GB was way more enthusiastic about babymaking than I was. I'm an only child, I come from a small family, and most of my friends are my age and either single, done having kids, or don't seem to want them. Mr. GB on the other hand has 3 siblings, 7 nieces, and all kinds of fertile college buddies. Of course I wouldn't have married him if I had no intention of having kids, but let's just say that I wasn't exactly psyched to go off the pill. Turns out I never needed to be on it in the first place, but I digress.

After our honeymoon, we tried the old-fashioned way for a few months, and then I bought a Clear Blue Easy Fertility Monitor (CBEFM) to get the show on the road. Turns out I was ovulating around Day 10. At first I thought oh, we’d been doing it a few days too early all along. But then after a few more months of BFNs I checked with Dr. Google (fyi, I see Dr. Bing now) and he gave me an eye-opening diagnosis--decreased ovarian reserve.

So off to the fertility doctor we go. No biggie--my best friend (who is a few years older than I am) was also seeing the same doctor. Mr. GB and I each had a $15k lifetime benefit for fertility treatments, so all our initial testing was covered. Mr. GB had his semen analysis, and I had the standard workup: Day 3 FSH and antral follicle count via ultrasound, pooled progesterone blood tests, and an HSG.

The infertility verdict? Turns out my tubes were busted (one blocked, one kinked), my AFC was 6, and my FSH was 9.2. Not horrible, but not great. Mr. GB's sperm was fine, but with the tubal situation and my age (37), the doctor recommended we go straight to IVF. Again, no biggie--I was prepared for this.

What I wasn’t prepared for was blowing through almost half of my insurance coverage on our first IVF cycle. In addition to having crappy tubes, I'm also a poor responder. We spent over $6k on meds only to have the cycle canceled due to no response. At that point I was considering donor eggs, but our doctor offered us 2 cycles as part of a research study for poor responders. We'd have to pay for the IVF monitoring and procedures, but our meds (the expensive ones) were free.

7 months, $1k in acupuncture fees, and 14 boxes of Gonal-F later, I'd managed to grow 4 follicles, make 4 embryos, and have 2 embies survive to Day 3. I'm talking two IVFs, two different protocols (MDL and antagonist) and virtually the same response--a single perfect 8-cell embryo transferred on Day 3. BFN both times. I'd also used up my lifetime insurance coverage. Within a year. So much for lifetime coverage.

Now is a good time for me to mention that I’m an eternal optimist, very even-tempered, and generally unemotional. This is probably the perfect psyche for dealing with infertility. I don’t think I cried at all up to this point in our journey—I instead preferred to stay positive and work with the cards I was dealt. Mr. GB is the emotional one in the family, but he’s also very tuned to me—if I’m happy, he’s usually happy, too. For this reason he had no doubts about moving to donor eggs. I was excited, and so was he.

The next part of our story, the story of our first donor cycle, is very sad. And I’ve already written so much that I think I’ll save that story for another post. And then after that I’ll get you caught up with the story of our second donor. Yes, that’s a lot of baggage! Fortunately our journey has really only just begun.

Til then, yours truly
Golden Bud

Big Fat Negative

Well, another cycle down, another disappointment.

I'm going to apologize in advance for the depressing tone of this post. If you want to be happy and blissful, please stop reading now.

I promise I'm not this depressed/resentful/jealous/psychotic all the time. Really, I'm not.

Things have just been hard lately. And they're only going to get harder.

You see, I know the reason that I'm not pregnant: We only had sex THREE times this last month. And we only had sex those three times because I insisted on it.

My husband told me last night that he doesn't want me. That he doesn't want to have sex.

It's not a physical issue. I won't get into details, but the three times we did have sex, there was no problem.

And I'm just so confused.

We talked about having a baby, he said he wanted to. That he wanted to have a family with me. But now, it's like he's sabotaging that plan, like he's trying his very best to not make it happen.

Now, I know that I married a nerd. And I mean a socially-awkward-walks-around-with-his-fly-down-all-the-time-and-doesn't-realize-it nerd.

So, after we decided to give this a go, I told him exactly what I needed from him: "Babe, I need you to take initiative and try to have sex with me on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be every day or even every other day. I just need to feel like you really want to do this. I want to feel like you want me."

Man, it totally sounds like I'm just whining. But I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me. How can a man not want his wife? How can he say he loves her, but not want to hold her? How can he sleep in the same bed with her night after night and not want to touch her?

It feels like he's not ready to have a baby and I don't want this to be something that I make him do. I feel so lost. He's telling me one thing: "I love you and I want to have a family with you," and doing another. Do I trust his actions or his words?

I want to go see a therapist. I just don't think I can handle this stuff on my own. I've never done that before, so that will be a new experience.

Sorry to be such a downer again. Hope everyone is doing well and feeling those baby flutters!

Is It Just Me...

Or when you're trying to get pregnant, does it seem like everyone around you is suddenly getting knocked up?

Image Source

Like everyone else can, but not you?

Ugh.

One of my clients told me today that she's pregnant and she may quit her job next fall so she can stay home with the baby. She's 14 weeks along.

And one of our couple friends from college just told everyone that they're expecting Baby Number 1 -- and the wife has already quit her job to stay home. She posts on Facebook all day about how she wishes she looked *more* pregnant. Seriously? Who wishes they could look *more* pregnant?

And there are numerous other friends and acquaintances who either are expecting or have just given birth.

Would it be crazy to de-friend all of the pregnant people I know on Facebook?

I'm a bitter, impatient woman.

--End of Rant-- :)

Mixed Emotions

As I posted awhile ago, I stopped charting. It was stressing me out, I was having difficulties due to my schedule, and since we are not TTC, it seemed a bit unnecessary at this point....although I definitely see the value in it! Other than keeping track of CM I haven't done anything to keep track of O'ing. DH and I have been semi-careful, not BD'ing when CM indicates that O is near, but I completely realize that method is not fool-proof, and we were ok with that. Basically, our half-assed attempt at TTA, while being ok with a surprise if it happened.

The other day, I entered my CM into my chart, and I suddenly realized that I was on CD 29. I have only ever had one 29 day cycle before. They are always 26-28 days. Instantly I had a moment of panic and hopefulness at the same time. It was really too soon to think that I could maybe be KU, but deep down, I have to admit there was a little part of me that hoped it wasn't just a random long cycle. I debated back and forth about whether to test, or to just wait another day, expecting that AF would show up. I allowed myself to entertain the possibility that maybe this was the "surprise" that I have halfway been expecting since we went off bcp in June. I allowed myself to panic just a little bit......although I would be excited, was I as ready as I thought I was?? What would DH think?

For those of you that have been following my posts, you know that DH and I are both ready and excited for children, but our job situation with my husband being recently laid off, has kind of put our TTC plans on hold. While half of me feels that we need to be practical, the other half of me feels like we should just go for it. That things can change a lot in 9 months, for the good or the bad. That part of me thinks that even if DH did have a fantastic job right now, that might be different in 9 months. And the fact that he doesn't have a job now probably won't be a concern 9 months from now. Life hands us so many unexpected circumstances, that we can't count on anything.....we can't plan our lives around "sure things." Then the practical side of me fights back. It is always this internal battle, trying to make sense of one of the biggest decisions we will make in our lifetime together. It is so hard.

Well all of the emotions that I was feeling on the infamous CD 29 were wasted. AF showed up on CD 30.

It's back to the drawing board.....or to the think-tank.....or the hamster wheel......or whatever you want to call this process. And honestly, I think that the process of making the decision to TTC is almost as craptastic at times, as TTC itself.

Sensitivity Training

We had to do sensitivity training at work, why can't there be sensitivity training for real life. When people don't know better, they should just keep their mouths shut. This weekend was great until AF decided to show up and someone decided to open their mouth when they shouldn't have.

My health issues and the things I've been diagnosed with are serious to me. My concerns about IF and how successful Mr. Travel Bud and I are at conceiving are not joking matters. Someone thought it was.

We're watching a TV Show where children and holiday traditions are mentioned and we have a friend and his wife over, we will just call her, Crazy Bia. Well Crazy Bia mentions how she's excited to start traditions with their family when they start trying for kids next year and I say "Oh, you guys are trying for kids next year?" Crazy Bia then says, "Yeah. We do. Watch, we'll probably have about 4 kids before you guys even have one. I mean knowing how effed up your body is."

What the *^&*%&^$. I should have kicked her sorry ass out into the 7 degree weather. Instead, I just said "Please be quiet and watch the damn show."

Then, minutes later my killer cramps kick in, thanks to my lovely friend Aunt Flo and her sidekick Endometriosis. Needless to say, I cried myself to sleep.

I'm not sure if I can let her back into my house anytime soon. People who say such insensitive things are not allowed in my home.

So here I sit with my debilitating cramps just thinking about how someone could be so heartless. It's just a reminder to me that we don't know what people are going through at all times, so it's best to think before we say something we'll regret. Who even knows if Crazy Bia will think after the fact about what she said, but it sure taught me that some people just don't think and the best thing we can do is keep our mouths shut.

Hopefully, the rest of the week fares better for me and for everyone else that's having a bad week.

Guess who is a big fat failure?

FUIF

My doctor called us late this afternoon. He said he didn't want us to have to wait for an appointment to discuss the cycle. He asked if my husband was there (he was) and asked to be put on speaker so we could all talk. He stayed on the phone for almost 40 minutes answering all of our questions and giving us the next step.

He's concerned about why my ovarian response was what it was even with the good Antral Follicle count (15) and FSH (5.97). He thinks because my ovaries responded really slowly (i didn't really respond until stim day 11), that there's reason to be concerned about the overall health of the eggs themselves. He called the possibility "Advanced Ovarian Age".

Additionally, he's also concerned about the lack of implantation, so between that and the questionable egg health, tomorrow i'm having a RPL panel done (b/c he wants to do the genetics and the clotting factors) and an AMH.

He said once he gets the results back, we'll be able to plan the next step for changes in my protocol, etc.

Meanwhile, i can expect the worst period of my life to start in the next couple of days. When I asked him if I should expect it to be heavier than normal, i heard him flipping through my chart and he says ," um your lining was 16. Yeah."

He said that he takes my lack of pregnancy very personally and he IS going to figure this out.

He said that the AMH will tell a lot.

Personally, I think i was oversuppressed on the BCPs and Lupron and that all of this will come back normal. I mentioned that to him, and he said that either way, i won't be on lupron next cycle, and he'll most likely start me out at max doses of stims, because he'd rather rev me up and coast me, than barely make it to retrieval like this time.

I guess we'll see.

This is the hardest day I've ever had. I've spent most of the afternoon in tears. Thankfully my husband has been here and my sister just brought me some dark chocolate.

I don't know how long it's going to take me to get past this and move on, but I DO feel a little bit better having a plan.

A non-Infertility part of our plan is that I will be getting a new job. I've applied to Bayada to do pediatric home care/visits, and with any luck, i'll be able to start there in the next couple of months. It's not what I really want to do, but we've decided that I have to reduce my stress level before starting my next cycle. my 3 major sources of stress are school (can't be changed), infertility (unfortunately, can't be changed) and work.

Work is the only thing I can change - so it's game on.

I'm hoping when it comes time for our next cycle to start, we can time it so retrieval/transfer will fall between jobs, so I don't have to worry about the time off.

I know this was really long. If you made it this far, thank you. If you have any thoughts, thank you for those, to, in advance.

The penguin is very very sad.
photo credit