Waiting for AF

Hello to the long lost blogosphere!

I have been away for a while, but I am ready to be back! My body isn't yet ready to be back, though, since I expected my period yesterday, and haven't gotten it. For years, I was you-could-set-your-watch-by-me-regular, but that was of course, before I started having sex. And trying to get pregnant. I love Mother Nature.

I'm drinking Sobe lifewater like it's going out of style and checking constantly to see if I have started spotting yet, and nope, nothing. And honestly I'm not expecting it for a few days, because ever since I'm been off the pill I get massive cramps and backaches the day or two before my period starts, and I haven't gotten either one of those yet either. Unless being with abotu 60 women nonstop for the last two weeks has screwed up my cycle. (More on that in a moment.)

I wish it would just come, so I can make plans for this cycle.

I've been in a great place lately. Literally and figuratively. I spent the last two weeks in New England at an amazing two-week "mini-MBA" for Executive Women that my company sent me to. It was like summer camp, I swear. I was with 52 of the most amazing women I've ever met and the faculty and staff were wonderful. Our every whim was taken care of. We did rock climbing, pilates, yoga, kayaking, canoeing, and ate the most amazing food and Espresso Martinis, too. Oh yeah, and we learned strategy, finance, leadership, negotiation, and shareholder value from some of the best professors in the US. All in all, a brilliant time.

And a great reason not to cycle in July.

But I'm back.. and ready to cycle now. It's not like I was thinking about it a lot, but of course, put together a group of 52 30-and 40-something career women, and you're bound to find several stories of infertility, IVF, adoption, and surrogacy. And since women move so effortlessly from the professional to the personal, several of us shared stories of our journeys.

But I hadn't thought about it constantly. There honestly wasn't time to read my work email, much less the AJLI blogs that I was addicted to. I also had forgotten about the fact that my acupuncturist had said he wanted to see me 6 times before last cycle and this one. Oops..that's 6 times more than I've actually seen him.

So, on my way home, I called and booked myself for a last-minute appointment late on Friday. I'll need to write another post about how I feel about spending all this money on something I'm not sure helps at all. But whatever, I did it. And I made another appointment for next Friday.

Sorry, there is not much to report. Hopefully my next post will be tomorrow and it will say that AF is here. I really want to fill out a calendar in ink.

Transfer Report

Wow, what a day!

There is so much to write, and I'm finally getting to it. Today was really amazing!

Our appointment was scheduled for 12:30 at the fertility clinic, so I scheduled acupuncture at 11:30. The acupuncture office is less than a block away, so super convenient.

I couldn't sleep so I got up really early and got a lot of work done. I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to do today. (pretty much none, until about an hour ago, so I'm glad I did that. I did a ton of laundry and re-read my day of transfer instructions.

We got the call from RGI about 9:00 am. She gave us all the results of the PGD testing - We already knew they tested one cell from 14 embryos. (I don't think I wrote about how we got from 17 to 14, but we did.)

Anyway, I have all the stats, but basically, she told us that we had 8 embryos that they were recommending for transfer.. which is GREAT NEWS! Of course, we didn't know at that point how many of those would look good or still be dividing.

So... of the 14, 6 either were affected with CF or aneuploidy or only had one chromosome. We had one with Klinefleter's as well. (That's XXY on the sex chromosome.
It was all very very interesting, and she told us we would have the full report at the doctor's office. We were glad we did the anueploidy testing, even though we would not have done it if we weren't already doing PGD. Of course, we probably wouldn't be doing IVF at all, if we weren't doing PGD.

I didn't expect the embryologist to call (usually you just get all the news when you get there) but she did about an hour later and shared that they talked to RGI. One of the eight had arrested (stopped growing). So, we had 7 to choose from.

I went to acupuncture, and it was great and relaxing and nice to see the Dr. that we have gotten to know over the past several weeks - he was very encouraging.

I had been drinking my protein shake all morning, and I couldn't help it, when I got to the doctor's office 10 minutes early, I went to the bathroom. You have to have a full bladder for the transfer, and they had told me to start drinking 10 minutes before I got to the doctor's office, so I figured if I went now, then I could start drinking again. I knew the process of discussing the embryo options and transfer process chat with the doctor would be an hour or so, and I didn't want to be doing the potty dance the whole time.

So, we ended up waiting in the waiting room for like thiry minutes, i'm sipping my water the whole time. They brought be back for blood pressure check and bladder check. I said don't even bother - it's not full yet. Then i decided, why not, just check. I was so happy when she said, oh, you're good. You can stop drinking. I had visions of having this totally full bladder and being so uncomfortable and that was not the case at all.

So, we went and talked to the Doctor and looked at the pictures and asked all kinds of questions. He was so patient with all our questions.

We had great embryos, and ended up picking two to transfer. We picked one that was 6AA and one that was 3AA. The doctor told us they rarely give A grades to embryos. And I told the doctor that we were pretty used to getting As when they were rarely given. (Just kidding.) The first number refers to how far along in hatching the embryos. The 6 was fully hatched, and the 3 was hatching.

We just picked the two we liked the best.. but it does happen to be one boy and one girl. (Carlos was pleased that the boy was a little farther along.)

After we talked to the doctor, we were led to the transfer room by my favorite nurse.

The transfer experience was beautiful.

There were two Lindt Lindor chocolates on the bed - which I thought was a really nice touch. Carlos put in the CD he created for the occasion, and I just relaxed, thanks to the Valium I had taken 10 minutes earlier, and really just a general good, hopeful feeling.

It was just a lovely expereince. The whole thing took 10 minutes -- the nurse had my uterus on the ultrasound, the doctor put the catheter in.. It didn't hurt at all. Then my favorite embryologist comes in and brings the embryos in the inner catheter, which got inserted to the catheter which was already there.. The embryos were released into my uterus. A flash of light appeared on the screen, and it was done.

I rested right there for about 15 minutes, listened to more tracks on the Embryo Transfer CD, got dressed, and went to acupuncture again. By this time it was 3:30. I wasn't starving but was very pleased that Carlos had gone to get me some yummy lunch while i was at acunpuncture. I ate that in the car, while Carlos stopped at Blockbuster to get me two movies. He got Flash of Genius and Bride Wars. I had been wanting to see Flash of Genius and couldn't think of another one, but there was a Bride Wars poster, so I asked for that. I just wanted him to get them quickly so we could get home.

I pretty much slept all afternoon.

What a fantastic day and what a great experience this has been.

Thanks for reading - this was a long one.

Oh yeah, and we froze two today, and we'll see how many we have to freeze tomorrow.

I'll update on that and then also post photos of the embryos!

Friday update - TDAP and acupuncture

Ok, if you missed the Thursday update, read the post two below. This is the update from Thursday.

So, I had an appointment with a family practice doctor to get a TDAP immunization. My fertility clinic wants all patients to get one, as the CDC recommends that all primary caregivers are immunized to protect newborns. i like that we are thinking positive, that there will be a newborn soon!

However, no one told me that the TDAP shot would Hurt.Like.Hell. Seriously, i had no idea. I am so good at shots now, i thought it woudl be like those. Which, seriously, I want non-infertiles to think I'm going through hell with these shots, but I know I can't lie. they really are no big deal. But this shot was like an 8 inch needle and it hurt going in and it hurts now. I asked Carlos if he had a tetanus shot before and if he remembered it hurt, ever afterwards. He tells me, "Yes, babe. it will hurt for like two days. Feels like someone punched you in the arm." Nice. he's right. that is exactly what it feels like. and it's really nice to have my feelings validated.

So this is the best part. All i really needed was the TDAP shot, but the appointment took forever. I went to a new doctor, because well i recently moved, and I really don't have a general practitional. I got an OB/GYN, really, only to get a referrral to the fertility clinic, and i have a team of doctors at the fertility clinic, but i don't have a GP. So i really just called whoever I could get into to get this immunization. Turns out i made an appointment with a group of RESIDENT family practice doctors.

So my resident was like super thorough and took forever. oh yeah, and she was, i think 25 years old. ok, MAYBE 26, but she definitley had not seen this side of 30. that's fine, we all need to learn, but i defintiely realized something abotu myself. I am a bit ageist when it comes to doctors. I woudl really rather they be older than me. I realize as i get older, that will be harder and harder. but i'm sure i'll get over it as i get older.

so, this annoyance with her age probably comes from the comment she said to me.

So, I wrote on my intake form, in the same called, what are you here for? I wrote.. TDAP for preconception.

She reads that and here's the conversation:

Hi. I'm Doctor Young.

Me: HI.

Doctor Young: So, TDAP for preconcption. That's great. Are you pregnant?

Me: No. I'm doing IVF next week. (Thinking, did they teach you the prefix "pre" in medical school, but being very nice at this point.)

DY: That's great. Have you already gotten your donor eggs and everything?

Me: Uh.. (rather shocked, donor eggs are fabulous, but i'm not using them. Is she making a judgment on my age?? I'm about to get defensive. And after defensive comes bitchy. It's a short trip, actually.) I'm using my own eggs, actually. My eggs and my husband's sperm. We're fine. We're doing IVF to not pass on a genetic disease to our kids.

So, anyway, the rest of the appointment went fine, but i probably won't volunteer to see her again. Could she just not know that IVF typically happens with a woman's own eggs? Whatever. I think donor eggs are wonderful, and I am totally up for using them if my eggs turn out to be not good enough. But i'm 35.. the assumption at this point is that we're good. I know i got defensive. Of course, we weren't getting pregnant, which is why we found out we were CF carriers in the first place, but i still feel like we are fine, except for that one small thing.

So, anyway, I really don't think i look that old. but i've never been all interested in looking younger anyway. Actually in my line of work, I want to look older, more experienced for my cleints.

Whatever, i'm over it.

I went to Acupuncture and then picked up Carlos from the airport.

We watched American Idol from this week, (so happy about my little hottie Kris Allen - safe) did my shots, and fell asleep on the couch. I got up to write this and now, i'll wake him up to go to bed. He did my shots tonight. It was nice to be able to be lazy and let him take care of me.

More tomorrow.. thanks for reading.

Oh yeah, i called today for my esradiol results. Yesterday they were 2374. That's good. Yay!