And the first cycle is over :-(

I am devastated. After getting so many good news- 32 eggs retreived, 24 fertilized, all 24 making it to day 5, and 12 frozen, yesterday's call was a punch in the stomach. I went in for my beta test yesterday morning, and it came back negative, 2.2. Before getting the call, I was feeling very optimistic so I was in shock. The worse part was that I was home alone since my husband was at a conference. As soon as I hung up the phone with the nurse, I called my husband, and just started crying like a baby. I must admit that I was surprised by my reaction. I did not think that I was going to take it that hard, but I did, and it hurts, a lot.  To say the least, I cried on and off for the rest of the day.  I was feeling sorry for myself, trying to guess what is wrong with me, but the truth is no one knows what's going on.
What does the future hold? I don't know. I just know that after 3 failed IUIs and 1 failed IVF cycle, I am not ready to give up on having my baby. After all, my husband and I still have 12 precious frozen embryos on which we are not going to give up. I will keep you updated. Until next time. Good luck to everyone.

And then, there were 12 :-)

The embryologist called and informed me that they were able to freeze 12 embryos! 12! That's amazing! My husband and I are ecstatic that we have 12 embryos to work with in the future. :-)
Side note, when I went in for my transfer, the doctor told me that I had the best day 3 results that she has ever seen. That made me feel very happy.

No more Gatorade, please!

So I have to say that you will start to feel better after your egg retreival. I was miserable for five days after mine. The added stress of potentially getting hyper stimulated was no help. I have to say that I cannot stand lemon Gatorade, or Gatorade for that matter. My RE has me drinking 8 12oz glasses of Gatorade a day, no water. I started drinking Gatorade two days before my egg retreival, but it was allow to drink water then. Now, my RE wants me to stay hydrated, and is concerned that drinking all that water for so long would only do harm. I was drinking  8 12oz glasses of water a day when I started my stimulation shots.  Luckily, I stumbled upon Nuun tablets four days after my egg retrieval. I was introduced to these by my brother-in-law, a runner, about three months when I was dehydrated, and thought I was going to pass out. I was at Whole Foods trying to find something appetizing to eat, and I saw the Nuun tablets. I asked my husband if I could take these and he said to take 1 tablet a day, and do Gatorade as well. The good thing, is that I do not have to drink the 8 glasses of Gatorade, the Nuun tablets hydrate me pretty well. These tablets have more electrolytes and less sugar (1g) so it's easier on my stomach. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, that I started feeling much better the day after I started taking the Nuun tablets. Now, I am not nauseous. I was super nauseous day 3 and 4 after my egg retreival, now I am starting to think that those symptoms are due to the Endometrin 3x a day).  I was able to two meals without feeling nauseous; it was a great day!

Egg Retrieval

Yesterday was my egg retrieval.  I was scheduled to go in at 8:00am, and my procedure started around 8:50am. I must say that everything went well except that we do not know when we are doing the transfer. During my retrieval, the doctor retreived 32 eggs. There is a risk of hyper stimulation with that many eggs and the fact that my estrogen is on the higher end. Before my procedure, the doctor informed me that we may have to freeze all the eggs before moving on to a transfer. He said that this will allow my body to recover and time for all the meds to leave my body.  After the retrieval, my husband and I met with the doctor. We all agreed, since we are moving in August and are going away in July, that we would monitor my symptoms during the next couple of days and see if we do the transfer on day 5.  I am praying that my ovaries do not get hyperstimulated so that we can proceed with the embryo transfer on Day 5.  Plus, I do not want to get sick. I think it is enough with how I feel right now.  As of today, I continue to drink tons of Gatorade to stay hydrated, and trying to eat protein with every meal. Those were the recommendations from the IVF coordinator today.  As to how I feel, I feel very, very bloated. The pain from the egg retrieval has subsided, but I still feel a little bit of pain on my left side (the doctor said they had to go in multiple times on the left, so therefore to expect to be sore).  The good news, is that the embryologist called today and told us that 24 eggs fertilized! 24! I am super excited about that! Here is to keep taking care of myself and to praying that I do not get ovarian hyperstimulation. :-)

Steps after stimulation meds

After I went in for the lab and ultrasound today, I received a call from my IVF coordinator. It looks like there will be many follicles to remove, so I am keeping my fingers crossed. She told me that my retrieval will be on Monday at 8:45am. I need to take my Ovidrel shot tonight at 8:45pm. She also reminded me that I need to start taking a pill for eight days to prevent ovarian hyper stimulation. I will be starting those pills tonight right before I go to bed since she said people complain of feeling dizzy after taking it. In addition, I start the antibiotics tomorrow, and will be taking those twice daily for five days. She also reminded me of the importance of drinking water and recommended that I also get Gatorade to keep hydrated. I am currently drinking at least 96oz of water. This is lot of water for me especially since I weigh 122lbs. I am drinking almost 4/5 of my weight! The water keeps me feeling full so sometimes I forget to eat because I don't get hungry, not good! I am praying that my retrieval goes well, and not only for many follicles to be removed, but that most of them have good quality eggs in them, and that most of those eggs get fertilized properly. By the way, I have a date for the transfer! It is scheduled for Thursday, May 28th. I am super excited! :-)

Stimulation Meds

If you have been wondering what happened with my cycle, here is the update. The lupron shots were not bad at all (second time giving myself the Lupron shots because we had to cancel first cycle due to a death in the family). I am now well into my IVF cycle in terms of medication. I have to say that I was very nervous at the beginning, especially since I didn't want anything to go wrong. It is not as bad as I thought it would be. Yes, there are days when the shots hurt especially the Menopurt. I also have a few bruises, but mainly because I inserted the needle wrong. I didn't get my first bruise until day 6 of stimulation. I think so far so good. For those of you who are wondering which shots I take, I take Lupron (started with 10 units, but once I started the stimulation shots it went down to 5 units), Menopur (75 units), and Follistim (150 units).  I only took Follistim for 6 days because my Estraidol was where it needed to be after 6 shots. So yesterday and today I only did two shots. :-)  I have had to go in five times for ultrasounds and blood. I am doing great, so today will be my last day of stimulation, so all in all-- 8 days of stimulation meds. My retrieval will be on Monday, Memorial Day.

Back at it...

It has been three months since my last IVF attempt, and I am back at it again.  Right now, I am taking my contraceptive pills. I have to take them for three weeks. (By the way, after getting my period regularly every 32 days for the past 11 moths, after I took the last pills, my period did not come back until day 49 of my cycle.)  Then two weeks after taking the pills, I am going to start the Lupron shots again. I have to give myself the Lupron shots for 11 days, and then I go in for a baseline ultrasound and blood work. If everything is fine, I start giving myself three shots a night starting the day of my baseline ultrasound and blood work.  I must say that since this is going to be the second time that I will be giving myself the Lupron shots, I am not as nervous about the shots.  I know that in a few weeks I will be giving myself the three shots a night, but it doesn't scare me as much as it did when I first saw the big bag of medication. I just hope that this cycle goes smoother than the last one, and that I will be able to go through the entire protocol without any awful news.

Cancelled IVF

A cancelled IVF? Well, not really, but sort of.  I took my contraceptive pills for the time that I was supposed to and started the Lupron shots. I did eight days of shots, but then had to stop the cycle.  There was a death in my family and I needed the time to grief without having to look at the clock to give myself the next shot. 

IVF Medication

My husband came home with a bag filled with meds.  Yes, a huge bag filled with all the meds for my first IVF. There were so many syringes, alcohol swabs and medication that I  was immediately overwhelmed.  I could not believe that I would be using all those medications in a few weeks.  I started my contraceptive pills again. I thought that I would never have to take those again especially since I already think that I wasted all that money when I took them for twelve years. But, what can I do?  It is part of my IVF protocol and I must take them for three weeks before I begin the Lupron injections.

One Mango Margarita, please!

Well, from the tittle of this blog you can deduce that my third IUI did not work.  I am so bummed, but part of me is also hopeful because we are moving to the next step.  Every time we have to do a new IUI or more tests, I just think that I am closer to having the baby that we so long desire. I know that it is not the place where I thought I would be, but it is where I am and I might as well look at the bright side of it.
My husband and I went to the IVF class.  I was taken aback when I was sitting in class and the IVF coordinator was talking about how to administer the different shots.  While sitting in class, I zoned out because in my mind I thought why should I learn how to give myself all these injections if I am only going to need to give myself one.  I will just ask the IVF coordinator whenever I get my IVF plan.  Luckily during the meeting, it ocurred to me to ask "When would we know which shot we will be giving ourselves?" And to my horror the coordinator said, "You will be giving yourself all three shots." Three shots? Really? I thought that all I would be doing would be one shot a night.  When I met with the coordinator to talk about my IVF plan, I had to ask her to show me how to do the shots one more time. She also mentioned that in the IVF packet information I can find a website which shows you how to give yourself each shot. That was such a relief to know!

Third IUI

I had my third IUI and I am waiting again. This time, three days after the IUI, I got a lot of cramping. Could it be that I am pregnant this time? I cant wait to take a pregnancy test. The two week wait is the worse. I really want to be pregnant, not only because I want to be a momma, but because I would rather not go through the IVF process- it really scares me. But I know that I am not going to let fear get in my way.  If IVF is in the cards for my husband and me, I am going to go through with it.  Right now, I am willing to do anything that medicine has to offer to me in the hopes of being a mom.  So I am being positive by trying to think positively in order to make the remainder of my waiting more bearable.  I think the two week period would be so much easier if I could have a margarita or two. :-)

Meeting with our fertility doctor, again

So in the meantime, while we wait to be able to do the third IUI, my husband and I scheduled a meeting with our fertility doctor.  We wanted to know how many IUIs we should do before moving on to the next step (not that we knew what the next step was). The doctor recommended that we do IVF since we have had two failed IUIs.  He said that he thinks that IVF would be the best route to take.  So, my husband and I received a packet from the clinic with all the information about IVF along with many forms to fill out.  In the packet, we found information about the IVF procedure and the statistics for the clinic.  I must admit, I was terrified to find myself reading the IVF material and couldn't believe that at 33 (I had just turned 33 two weeks before) I was going to start my IVF journey.  Because the clinic requires that everyone (both partners) attend a class before starting IVF, and the clinic has this class every month, we calculated that we had enough time to do another IUI before starting with IVF.  I was relieved that we had the time to try IUI one more time since in my mind, I had told myself that I would do three rounds of IUI before moving on to anything else.

Would the third time be a charm?

My second IUI did not work, and now I have to wait at least a month to do the other IUI because I have a cyst in my right ovary and cannot take any fertility meds.  Part of me feels optimistic, maybe this time we will get pregnant without any meds or IUI, all on our own. But then, the other side of me thinks back to our more than a year journey and thinks... what are the chances of that happening? Either way, I will be taking ovulation tests this month praying to get lucky.

What comes after a failed IUI?

So last time I wrote, I talked about the two week wait to take a pregnancy test after my first IUI.  Unfortunately, the IUI did not work and now I am waiting to do another one.  So, what does the IUI process consist of, you may ask? The process for me is going to get bloodwork and an ultrasound on day three of my period.  The ultrasound is to make sure that there are no cysts so that I can take the Clomid.  After the ultrasound, I start taking Clomid (50mg) on day five of my cycle for five days, 1 pill a day. I then return to the clinic on cycle day 13 to do another ultrasound to measure my follicles. If the follicles are 17mm or greater, I get the Ovidrel shot (to release the follicle), and finally I go in to the clinic around 24 hours after the shot for the IUI.  If the follicles measure less than 17mm, I wait another day to take the shot and proceed with the IUI the day after.  Since this is my second IUI, I feel less nervous about going through it again because I am now familiar with the procedure. I know that it does not hurt me and I do not get any side effects from the Clomid. I heard that for many women it takes two or three IUI to see a positive pregnancy test.  I hope that this one will do the trick. As for me, I not only want to see a positive pregnancy test, I want to hear a heart beat, and after 39-40 weeks deliver a healthy baby.

Impatiently Waiting: The Two Week Wait

My husband and I moved to a new city so we had to get a new doctor.  Luckily, we did not have to start the process again.  I contacted my previous reproductive endocrinologist and all my records were sent to my new doctor.  That was a relief since we did not have to do any of the preliminary blood work again.  Also, my last doctor had sent us for genetic testing and everything looks good, so it was a great that that information was sent as well. This new doctor recommended that we try Clomid (50mg) since I was ovulating with that dosage.  (I was ovulating on my own as well, but he gave me Clomid to control the timing of ovulation.) In addition to the Clomid, we would do IUI.  I must admit, that I was very nervous about doing the IUI the first time.  For those of you out there who are nervous about it, don't be.  It feels just like a papsmear and it is just as fast, and therefore, you do not need any pain medication.  The hardest part of the IUI, like any other method of trying to get pregnant is the two week wait. Now, that's hard!  You do not know what to do with yourself to occupy the time- seconds feel like hours, hours seem like days, and days are like years. If you have been there, you know exactly what I am talking about.  You tell yourself that you are not going to think about it- just act like it's just another day-, you tell yourself that googling is not going to make things better, and finally after all the self talk to calm yourself down to try to distract yourself for 14 days, you take a pregnancy test, way too early, but it helps the nerves nonetheless. 

What next?

When I first started trying to have a baby, I did not know that my journey would be this long.  How could I? I started trying to have a child when I was 31 years old.  Yes, 31.  I am healthy, I exercise, I am not overweight, as a matter of fact, I am a healthy 122lbs woman. I do not smoke, do drugs, and I only drink when I go out to dinner with my friends, about once a month. Now, here I am almost two years later (1 month short of two years), and I still do not have a baby.  So what's going on?  It is not because of lack of trying, my husband and I haven't stopped trying since we first started (with the exception of the two months following my surgery).  After my surgery, my gynecologist sent me to a fertility specialist. After reading my chart, the reproductive endocrinologist said that we could move on to IVF right away if we wanted to given our experience with our first pregnancy. I said no because I wasn't ready. At this point, it was April of 2014 and I was getting my menses every 36 days after not having them on my on after taking the pill. (By the way, doctors usually say that after you stop taking the pill your body will revert to whatever your cycle was before taking the pill. Not in my case, before I started taking the pill, I was regular and I did not go back to being regular until after 10 months of stopping the pills.)  His reasoning, was to decrease the chances of having an ectopic pregnancy, which we do not even know if that's what I had since both my tubes looked normal during surgery and my surgeon said I had a PUL (pregnancy of unknown location). In addition, my HSG showed that both of my tubes are open. So, we agreed that I would do more cycles of Clomid since it worked for me the first time I tried it and plus, I wasn't ready for IVF. After three more rounds of Clomid and trying on our own, we did not get pregnant like the first time we took Clomid.  :-(

Life after surgery

Hello!  It has been a while since I had written.  The last time I wrote, I told you about my first pregnancy and how I had to have surgery because they thought it was an ectopic pregnancy.  After surgery, they told my pregnancy was a "pregnancy of unknown location" or (PUL). After I had my surgery in January, I did not get my menses until March.  At this point, I was so happy that I had gotten my period without any meds (Remember, I stopped my pills at the end of May and did not get a period on my own until March. I was given progesterone in order to take Clomid.) So after March of 2014 I started getting my period regularly at first every 36 days and then every 32 days.  Since this was a good sign, I did not want to do anything (meaning no medications), just try naturally on our own especially since I was doing ovulation tests and I was ovulating on my own :-).  So we did just that until July.  In July, I went to my gynecologist and I was given Clomid (50mg), but nothing happened. Then I was given Clomid (100mg), but again nothing happened.  I then went to see a reproductive endocrinologist and they did tests on my husband and me.  After the reults came back, they were not of much help.  We were told that we fall under the "unexplained category of infertility" meaning that every test is normal, but they just don't know why. So again, no concrete answers. So now, I had a pregnancy of unknown location and I fall under the unexplained category of infertility.  At least I know that my tests and my husbands tests are normal for whatever they can test, now we just have to be patient and see what happens next.

Introduction: The beginning of my journey

                                                  
   
Allow me to introduce myself, I am a 32 year old female trying to have a healthy baby for 19 months. I know that there are many of us trying to conceive, and many of us who just can't wait to see the positive pregnancy test, so I wanted to share my story. I decided to write this blog because I think it would make me feel better about my journey, take my mind off trying to conceive, put an end or a pause to all my googling, and hopefully help some women like me, feel better about their journey. I am going to try to be as detailed as possible since for me, the more details there are, the better.  I hope this blog helps you.
I must say, when my husband and I first decided that it was time for me to come off my birth control pills (I had been on the pill for about 12 years), that I did not think it was going to be easy getting pregnant. In my mind, it would take a couple of months, give or take about 5. I thought that was a reasonable time. I wasn't being too optimistic or too pessimistic. Five months would be a good amount time to wait for a pregnancy. In my mind, I started calculating due dates and where my husband and I would be in our lives by the time the baby came. I stopped my birth control in May. We started trying in June. I must say, that it was difficult to go to two weddings and not drink (not that I am a drinker at all, but at those weddings, I wanted to have a drink, especially so people would not speculate). So... at the beginning of July I took my first pregnancy test. It was negative. I did another one, then another, by this time it was almost August-no menses yet, and no positive pregnancy test. In September, I went to my gynecologist. He ran some tests, and nothing. Everything came back normal. No PCOS, nothing. At this time, since it had been 90 days and no menstruation, my gynecologist gave me progesterone for ten days, and told me to see if by inducing my cycle, I would ovulate on my own. He also said to keep trying on our own, and to come back in October if nothing happened. I got my period with the progesterone, but no pregnancy. I went back to my gynecologist who gave me progesterone again, but nothing. By this time, we were in mid November and my gyno prescribed me progesterone and Clomid (50mg) since I was not ovulating. He told us to have intercourse every other day starting the next day after the last Clomid pill. We were very good about this and we decided to have intercourse every other day for two weeks. On December 25th, I started spotting. I was upset because of it. On December 27th, I was still spotting, and out of no where, I decided to take a pregnancy test. To my surprise, the test had a very faint line next to the control line. I did not think much of this since I was spotting and the line was so light that I did not tell my husband until the next day when I took another pregnancy test and got the same result. He was sleeping, and I woke him up with the news. He was a bit skeptical and asked for me to go and get name brand tests from the nearest CVS. I came back and took two different tests. They both came back positive right away. At this point, we were both happy, but not so happy at the same time since I was spotting. He told me not to get super excited about the news until we confirm it with a sonogram. So on Monday, I called my endocrinologist (I take Synthroid for my thyroid, due to surgery after they had to remove half of my thyroid because of a nodule whose biopsy came back inconclusive) because I knew I had to increase my dosage whenever I became pregnant. For some reason, I did not mention my spotting. She told me to call my gyn to make an appointment. After five days from the first positive pregnancy test, I was still spotting, not a good sign. In the afternoon, when I used the restroom, I saw a small speck of blood in the toilet bowl, and I thought, did I have a miscarriage? That afternoon, I called the gyn and he told me to go to the ER so that they can check my blood type. While I was at the ER, they checked my blood type, and did some other tests. They decided to do an ultrasound, but there was no sac, nothing, but my beta was in the 900s. They checked my cervix and it was closed, which meant, I probably did not have a miscarriage. They told me that it could just be too early in the pregnancy to see anything, and to call and make an appointment on Monday to get another ultrasound and blood work. On Monday, I got another ultrasound, and nothing. The ultrasound was repeated again on Thursday, and so was my blood work. By this point, I was having some discomfort on my left side, but nothing serious. After the third ultrasound, they began telling me that I may have an ectopic pregnancy, and if I was in serious pain and bleeding heavily to go back to the ER. My beta was slowly decreasing also, so at this point, I just wanted everything to be sorted out. I quickly realized that in the end, my first pregnancy would not result in a healthy baby. That Saturday, my pain got worse. I went to the ER and they said that they needed to do surgery that my left tube did not look normal. I don't know if this has happened to anyone, but after 20 minutes in the ER, my pain started to dissipate, so when they talked about surgery I simply said, not tonight. I have to straighten things out at work before I can take a couple of days off for surgery. They kept me over night and sent me home the next day in the afternoon with a scheduled surgery three days later.  The day of surgery came. When I went in for surgery, I was under the impression that my left tube would be taken out. When I woke from surgery, I was pleasantly surprised that they did not have to remove my tube, it looked normal when they saw it. I still had my two tubes, I was elated! At the post surgery visit, I found out that they did not find any traces of an embryo in my dnc. The doctor called it a "pregnancy of unknown location." I still wonder what happened... Did I indeed have a miscarriage that Thursday, Jan. 2?