Laying low and welcome

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Welcome to those here from ICLW. To give you our story in a nutshell: my husband Will and I are health care folks (he's a physician and I'm a clinical psychologist, and we both work in academic medicine) and we have been at this TTC thing since 2007, when we married and began IVF a month after our honeymoon. I've done 7 fresh IVFs and 2 FETs, experienced lots of failed cycles and six miscarriages along the way, and I am currently 8-and-a-half-weeks pregnant after our second FET with a chromosomally normal blastocyst. We are pursuing immune treatments this time, including IVIG, lovenox, and prednisone, to see if it makes a difference. As our history has unfolded, we have considered surrogacy and donor egg, adoption, and embryo donation. We've also done most forms of testing known to man, and then some, and have traveled half way across the country to cycle. If determination could bring success, we would have succeeded already. But well, obviously it's more complicated than that. So...we are pregnant, or we were pregnant Monday when I last saw the baby on ultrasound. We still are very, very tentative about this pregnancy given our track record, and are taking things one day at a time.  Thanks for stopping by.

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I'm laying low today, working from home, recovering from yesterday's IVIG infusion. The treatment went ok last night, for the most part. The nurse could not for the life of her access a vein to get the IV started, so that was a major bummer. Apparently between cancer treatments and five years of infertility treatments, my veins are quite scarred. Ultimately she got it. Both she and I were very relieved. It was interesting to watch my temperature climb as the time passed - only about 1.5 degrees, but definitely noticeable. I progressed from chills to feeling hot by the end of the treatment. I guess that's part of what the benadryl and tylenol are for.

I feel ok today overall, just weakened. No headache so far, which is a very good thing. I thought I was feeling relatively ok, but then realized that I'm more out of it than I thought. I went to my local supermarket, Fairway, earlier today to get stocked up on provisions, set down my shopping basket to go check on something in another area, and then couldn't find the basket again for a good five minutes. It's like I'm developing early-onset dementia. Geesh. Walking back to my apartment, I realized that that 20-minute shopping trip had taken most of my energy. Later I have to go in to see one patient and I will also be going to a memorial service later this afternoon for a colleague who died unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago. But as much as I can today, I'm taking it easy.

I hate to say it, but although I saw the embryo waving its limbs around on Monday, it is impossible to imagine that I am still pregnant. I lost one pregnancy at 8 weeks, 4 days (so the equivalent of today), and one at 9 weeks 2 days...and I guess it just seems too easy to imagine that there is some imaginary "stop" button that gets activated for my pregnancies right around now. Not logical, I know. I also know that both of those losses were chromosomally abnormal pregnancies. And this one should be chromosomally normal after all the testing we put this embryo through. No spotting today so far, which is a good thing. Next Wednesday, which is when we are next scheduled to take a look by ultrasound, seems impossibly far away.

If only I could travel through time to get to a safer feeling part of this pregnancy. Of course "safer feeling part" may be a moving target, I imagine. I keep trying to remember that whatever the outcome, we've done everything possible to try to make this a success. And that's really all I can do. That and let the time pass.

Mo

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