Lupron on board

As of this morning, we've begun.

Microdose lupron is on board. Tonight this beginning will be augmented with more lupron, plus some saizen and some dexamethasone just to round things out.

God help Will over the next week before I leave for Colorado. I pretty much hate taking lupron - and poor husband beware! The idea of combining the dreaded lupron with steroids sounds downright awful for anyone who has to be around me, since I'm a fairly high anxiety person as it is. Oh well. It's only for the next couple of weeks, right? And maybe, just maybe we'll have a good outcome. Universe, you listening? Please?

Today included an extra super special treat. I got to meet mekate from I Can't Whistle who was here in town for a writer's workshop, plus got to see Sprogblogger to boot. So Mo and two pregnant blogger women enjoyed a lovely Sunday coffee together in Brooklyn. Does it get much better than that? Just about all you could ask for, really. And they both are such great role models on how to go about this infertility, loss, pregnancy-after-loss business. A bright spot in a tough couple of days. So glad to have seen you, ladies. You put a smile on my face and helped me regain some much needed perspective. Thank you.

Mo

Wading into it

We went today for baseline bloodwork and ultrasound monitoring.

I must be crazy because I really thought it would be no big deal. I've done the bloodwork a thousand times now and I can practically perform my own ultrasounds.

If were just that, it would have been fine. But somehow in imagining how this morning would go, I failed to consider the emotional impact of being back at my clinic and back in the IVF saddle again.

Why my reaction surprises me is in itself puzzling (I'm, um, a psychologist, so I'm supposed to have a pretty decent read on my own feeling states), but being there, breathing in the desperate anticipation of the other women - who somehow managed to make it through a major blizzard to crowd the waiting room by 7:45 AM, seeing a woman clutching her ultrasound with its little gestational sac plainly visible, hearing my doctor come out of another room where he'd clearly just done an IUI insemination, well, it all just about did me in.

I thought I was going to throw up. I looked bad enough that the tech asked me if I was all right.

Me, all right? Why no, actually, I'm not all right.

Just being in this place - reliving our five pregnancies, our five subsequent losses, facing my fear that we will never have a child who lives - makes me want to rip my own head off. But, ahem, that's not socially acceptable, so I'll just go out into the waiting room and take it out on Will, who is having his own very hard time with all of this. Why we aren't always able to comfort each other with consistency during the hardest parts of this is another mystery. Something we're working on, but need to work on fast.

Because (gulp) we're back here again. We're doing this. We waded through more than a foot of snow to make it in for this morning's monitoring.

Why is it that all I feel is dread about cycling again rather than the nervous excitement I used to feel?

IVF #6 here we come.

Mo

Progressing

Things are progressing.

I took the last birth control pill yesterday and will have a baseline scan tomorrow to make sure all is quiet on the ovarian front.

A big box o' Gonal F and Menopur arrived two days ago and I'm expecting a shipment of more Gonal F as well as microdose lupron and Saizen (costly stuff that is) today, assuming the snowstorm doesn't delay Fed Ex.

Things have been pushed back a few days but the current plan is to fly to Denver March 7.

Looks like we're moving forward. Gulp.

Mo

Back on the horse that threw you

My period arrived yesterday.

After several phone calls over the past half week, yesterday I also spoke to the Denver clinic and although they are techically "full," they've been most helpful to squeeze me back onto their IVF calendar.

No, the family situation is still not completely resolved, but I cannot wait any more. Watching cycle after cycle go by with no intervention is starting to drive me batty. It's begun to really weigh me down. Add to that that I've had hot flashes a couple of nights in the past month (including last night, bah!), and I am just not comfortable letting more time pass as my little ovaries seem to be trying to shrivel up and die.

So we're on the calendar for an early to mid-March retrieval at Colorado. I start birth control pills tomorrow and will take them for fourteen days, starting stims and human growth hormone after that.

Tentative date to fly to Denver is March 2...

Fingers crossed. Please, please, please let this be it.

Mo

Here

Wow. I've let a lot of time pass since my last post. Sorry 'bout that. And especially sorry that I've worried some of you.

I've been...not sure how to articulate it, even to myself...Hibernating? Avoiding? Living? Some combination of these. A little out of words for the last little bit.

But I'm ok. I'm here. Still going.

Truth be told, this whole babymaking venture feels hopelessly stalled, although in reality it's only temporarily sidelined by the ongoing family situation. And it's been hard to come here into blogland and see others moving forward and feel us stagnant and not able to take any steps right now that might lead us out of this babylessness we find ourselves in.

So I've been letting myself be distracted by work, which has included travel and training, and my coursework (what was I thinking agreeing to another master's degree on top of the PhD?!) and, can't ever forget it, the family drama.

Just biding my time, hoping we can move into the next phase of things soon. Thanks for hanging in there. I'm not gone...just quiet.

Mo