Update 6dp3dt

I went back to work for the first time since our IVF cycle out of town. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. My coworkers felt really bad and brought me beautiful flowers and a card and did not say anything insensitive the whole day. It was nice to have the support.

I hate how all of this feels. It is a feeling that I have grown unfortunately accustomed to over the past 5+ years. Previously there were more ups than downs, but the downs are now becoming the norm. Everyone always talks about life being "too short," but most days for me it feels far too long. I just want things to go back to the way they were. I look back at pictures and see the sparkle in my eye. It is no longer there. Maybe I am just getting old and that's what happens. I feel like this will never end and that I will never be happy again and that this life was wasted. I know, I know, probably time to call the shrink. Too bad my insurance doesn't cover the one I want to see. She is actually infertile herself and that is the only counselor I want to talk to. Nobody else could come close to "getting" it. I saw a counselor after my second miscarriage and she told me that I should not feel so bad because she mostly works with young moms who hate their lives BECAUSE of having had children. She then went on to say that had she not had 3 kids herself, she never would have gotten divorced. I beg to differ. And that cost me $200 out of pocket. Needless to say, I have been wary of counselors ever since.

Kind-of a depressing post/ramble even though my day really wasn't that bad (all things considered). My new cell phone with the fancy touch screen stopped working, so I did have to go to the store to see if they could figure it out. But that was probably the worst thing...the greatest part of the day was when I stopped by Petco to see the kitties up for adoption. There was a kitty that I had been admiring before I left for our cycle a few weeks ago and I couldn't get him out of my head. I told myself when I went in today that if he was still there then he would be mine. Well, sure enough, there he was! Now I probably shouldn't get too attached because he was the only one without a label on the cage. This either means that he is no longer available or he is getting his nuts chopped off this week. I am hoping that it is the latter (even though I am positive that he does not have the same hope). I really think that he has just been waiting for me this whole time (our other 2 cats will likely argue that). We had been thinking about getting a puppy and I even went to the shelter last weekend, but then the other morning when the kitties were meowing to be fed I realized that if we had a dog we would HAVE to get up and take it out. Then, for a brief moment, I panicked at the thought of having a kid! Yikes! We would have to just get up- period! And stay up! At that particular moment I could not fathom it, but I know that if we did have kids I would have gladly gotten up with them. So, anyway, a kitten it will probably be. I get so excited at the thought, even though I am concerned about how the other two will do. I guess we will find out...

Funny, the title of my post was "Update 6dp3dt" and I haven't mentioned the actual 2ww. This has actually been the least upsetting 2ww ever. I am actually sad to see it end, probably because I know that it is my last and I am not going to like the beta results (assuming I actually have the beta done). From reading the posts from all the other girls that cycled in Las Vegas this month, it sounds like most had a bad cycle so I am not alone. There was actually even one person whose eggs were lower quality than mine if that's possible. I feel for her- she didn't even get to transfer. I probably would have regretted not transferring, but I can't believe I paid an extra couple of thousand dollars to do the transfer only to have to do those damn PIO shots in the arse for an extra 2 weeks. I'm sure I would regret it if I stopped doing them, though, so I will continue. Does anyone else find themselves living "the path of least regret." Maybe that's what I should have called this blog. Unfortunately, I am no longer even on a damn path so I guess that wouldn't have been appropriate. Eventually, my hope is that through these ridiculous ramblings (that no one is likely to see) I will be able to find a path. I feel like the lost puppies and kitties I want to rescue and it makes me want to cry...

Update 5dp3dt

Nothing really to update. All "symptoms" are gone with the last of the trigger shot. The unfortunate part of having been pregnant (and miscarrying) twice is that I have known within a few days of ovulation of every cycle since then that I am not pregnant. Now, this has been good in the sense that I don't have to avoid alcohol or worry about what I am eating, but bad in the sense that usually the 2ww is a little respite of hope. Of course, when you are paying $15,ooo out of pocket for an IVF, the hubby will insist that you not drink and will also insist that you get stuck in the arse by that damn progesterone dagger every night until the very end of the 2ww.

Now, in this particular IVF, we went in with hope that I would come up with more than 2 bad eggs. And the good news is that I did!! I came up with 4 bad eggs! It sounds terrible to call my only children "bad eggs," as I thought all 4 of them were gorgeous in their own way when I saw the picture. It's just that the embryologist didn't think they were cute at all and actually recommended letting 3 of the 4 die and try to see if the best one (still grade 3 and very fragmented) could make it to day 5. Since my hubby and I both knew that none would make it to 5-day, we requested that they transfer all of them so that they could die with me and not in a petri dish. I am, after all, their mother. I am very happy to report that even though this would negatively impact his success rates, our doctor agreed to do this. The nurse said that we didn't need to have the "multiples" talk because there was a ZERO chance of multiples even with 4 embryos. We really didn't even need to have the "baby" talk at that point. The other nurse said, "Stranger things have happened." That can't bode well, even if it WAS a full moon the evening of our transfer... Needless to say, it was an extremely sad night. I stayed in the hotel by myself because my hubby had to get back to his new job (he took a 60% pay cut to work in a job that is completely unrelated to flying- what a trooper!).

So, I sat in the hotel by myself staring at the picture of my embryos. I had to drive back home the next day and decided to screw the 24-hours of bedrest. I got a cheeseburger happy meal and ended up filling the happy meal box with tissues as I cried all the way home. I am lucky I didn't get a ticket. My husband got a very expensive "criminal" ticket on his way home and hiring a lawyer to try to get it off his record is going to cost a pretty penny that we no longer have thanks to the IVF.

Since I have been home, I have avoided any contact with anyone. I had wanted to get my hair cut and couldn't even bring myself to talk to my hairstylist. I think I have just slept, cuddled with the kitties and found every possible way to google any hope for pregnancy. Here are the many ways I have found to search:

1. anyone get pregnant with poor quality embryos

2. anyone get pregnant with poor quality embies

3. pregnant with poor quality embryos

4. pregnant with poor quality embies

5. pregnant with grade 3 embryos

6. pregnant with grade 3 embies

7. pregnant with grade 3 fragmented embryos

8.pregnant with grade 3 fragmented embies

9. pregnant fragmented embryos

10. transfer 4 poor quality embryos

11. transfer 4 poor quality embies

12. low quality embryos

13. low quality embies

14. put back poor quality embryos

15. poor egg quality

16. cockapoo rescue dog adoption

I didn't even bother to try, "pregnant with endometriosis, advanced maternal age, diminished ovarian reserve, poor egg quality, activated NK cell activity, DQAlpha match 4.1 (the worst), homo MTHFR, myomectomy, possible adenomyosis and only 1 ovary that responds." There are ZERO success stories for that situation and most likely never will be- sorry to crush your hopes...

Now I know some of you are thinking, "Of course you will never be pregnant with that negative attitude," but I have to tell you after doing one IVF with a negative attitude and one IVF with a positive attitude there is absolutely NO difference between the outcome of the two. At some point, you have to be realistic or you will never survive.

I do have to say that for those of you who are doing FETs with poor quality embryos, your odds of success seem to be quite a bit higher. I maintain that it is because if the embryos survived being thawed out at all, they must have at least some of what it takes to survive.

So I am now going to try to drag myself to Whole Foods to get some of that CoQ10 that I keep reading about. I know, I know, it is sick and wrong to think that we could ever get pregnant without every possible high-tech medical intervention known to man, but a few pills couldn't hurt I'm sure. Too bad they don't sell valium in mass quantity at Whole Foods...

There is a first for everything...

Well, here I am. I have been talking about starting a blog for over a year now. It was actually originally going to be about living as an expat in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, but that just goes to show you that you should never really count on anything. My husband, a pilot who looks really great in his uniform, was furloughed/laid off from a job at a major airline last September due to the poor economy. This was, of course, perfect timing as we had just put money down on our first IVF and I was still recovering from major surgery done a few weeks before to remove 4 baseball-sized fibroids. On top of that, my month off from work was unpaid. Things did not get better as we found out on Christmas Eve Day that IVF #1 had failed. Go figure.

Now that you are still wondering why I was going to be writing about being an expat, I should tell you that after my husband was laid off, he was lucky enough to get an interview halfway across the world (literally) for an airline based in Abu Dhabi. It was a 4-day interview that 3 of 8 people survived and my husband was one of them. I was so proud!! We had started researching how we were were going to get the kitties (and myself!) to be comfortable on a 17+ hour flight and I was two weeks away from resigning from a job that I am very fortunate to have. That is when we found out that his opportunity at the new airline disappeared. Their growth plan fell through (kinda saw that coming, but was in denial) so they would no longer be needing him in Abu Dhabi.

It was a devastating blow, especially after coming off of our first failed IVF and finding out that a supposedly good friend was pregnant (I had to cut her off for reasons which will likely be explained in a later post...). After that, I kept thinking about starting my blog just to share my, at times hideous, feelings about the unfairness of infertility and of life in general. Now, I am well aware that I am very lucky in many respects (great husband, family, friends, well-educated, own a condo, good job, etc.), however I am also VERY well aware of the one area that I am not so lucky in and that it often seems that nobody understands.

I started reading some other blogs written by infertiles and I was so excited to find that most of them "get it." I say most of them only because I was reading a ridiculous one the other day in which this person whined about being infertile and yet she had gotten pregnant naturally within a year of trying. How is that infertile?? Anyway, I figured that since I can be brutally honest with my feelings, it may help someone else who is thinking the same things that I am. Either that, or I will end up winning an award for being the most bitter and bitchy infertile in blogland (assuming that someone will actually read this!).