How a Chemical messes with your head…

… while you waiting for your results of your next treatment…

During my last 2ww I remember feeling a few “symptoms” that I thought were strange but which ultimately led me to believe with my whole heart that I was pregnant.  I was tired pretty much all the time even though I was getting enough sleep.  My breasts were tender.  I had on/off cramps for mostly the last week of the 2ww.  I had some lower back pain.  And I had a weird temperature thing going down.  My neck and shoulders would get super hot and then the heat would taper off for a while, then super hot, then taper off.  And my tummy area just above my bikini line had the same temperature thing (very clinical description don’t you think?) happening.

All of the above “symptoms” could be attributed to the progesterone I know, but at the time they were not cos of progesterone being shot into my butt daily, they *were* because something had tried to nestle into my endometrium, had started growing and then just stopped.

A lot of people are asking me how I’m feeling during this heck long wait after my GIFT.  And I know they don’t mean emotionally.  They want to know if I’m feeling any of the above symptoms that I felt last time round cos then it would give us a little clue as to whether I am indeed knocked up this time or not…

This is the thing. 

I’m not really feeling too much right now.  I am tired, but not overly so. I have the weird temperature thing happening as well.  And the odd cramp and shooting pain here and there.  That’s about it.

I am hoping that this has worked but in the back of my mind I’m not sure.  Swing, swing, swing.  Back and forth, I might be, I might not be.  I always thought it would be better to know that your body can fall pregnant, and while knowing that something happened in my ute last year does give me a certain measure of hope and comfort, it also messes with your head BIG time.

Because you automatically start looking for the same things, you start second guessing everything you’re feeling and thinking.  I kind of miss being that girl who was so dead sure of a pregnancy last year.  I  miss that I was reveling in the fact that my body was telling me in its own subtle way that I was close to creating a life.  And that this time, I am not sure at all.  This time I am close to driving myself to an insane asylum.

I guess there is only one way to get through the next 6 days - one little bite of the elephant at a time.

Stressful Week

Holy crapballs, I’ve had a stressful week. 

Work has been so over the top and I’ve been crazy busy and super stressed out.  I’m not going to pull a Dooce and discuss work on my blog and get fired but suffice it say – Holy Crapballs!   We’ve had our internet cut at work due to some hectic viruses that caused a few hard drives to crash (and cos of this we have not been paid yet – yikes!) so my updates are probably going to be sporadic for the next while.

My heart has taken a bit of a beating.  Bad, good, overwhelming, guilt, stress, sadness, happiness and more have been buffering my heart from all angles.  Between the stress of work this week, news that my Dad has got a very rare form of leukemia (not got a lot of details but things are not looking good for him at all, but that’s for another post), my amazing friend getting her miracle baby, my other friend progressing well with a pregnancy that could very well have co-incided with my own should it have been viable, me feeling like a complete failure, being told that a friend’s boyfriend (who admittedly has got many things like this right) believes my next treatment will work 16 weeks after my failed treatment and I’ll end up having a son, being told that another friend dreamed my GIFT worked and I was pregnant with boy/girl twins, my other friend getting a fricking negative, my in-laws being stressed about us and offering to help pay for our GIFT next year and me feeling guilty about accepting their money, admittedly I’m a bit of a mess. 

I’m on the brink of tears all the time and while I’m trying to be strong and I’m trying to stay grounded in my faith, truth is I’m floundering.  All I can hope is that next week is way less stressful and that my heart can start to get back to some semblance of normal.  Because I hate feeling like this, I hate being this person, it is so unlike me and somehow, someway I need to find me in all of this.

The Internal Debate

The last week has really had it’s fair share of ups and downs, thankfully more ups than downs but when the downs have hit, man they’ve hit hard.

During the down times I’ve been doing the whole “why me” thing.  Why did we have to fall on the wrong side of the statistics AGAIN?  Why couldn’t my embies just have held on and gone all the way?  Why do we have to face our 5th big ART treatment in 3 years?  Why does it seem like God is answering everyone else’s prayers and is sidelining mine?  Pity party deluxe.  Makes me want to vomit.  And slap myself silly.

The thing is this.  I am extremely sad that our pregancy was a chemical one.  But I’m also excited that we managed that much.  Cos it’s a hell of a lot more than we’ve ever managed before.  And it DOES bode well for the future.  If it can happen once to have implantation take place it can sure as heck happen again and also may very well go all the way.

I was thinking about how good I’d felt through this last cycle.  About how everything felt like it was falling into place.  If I’m really honest, I knew for those few days that I was “pregnant” that I was “pregnant”.  I really felt the hand of God on me during the whole process.  And I’m understandably a bit confused as to how this could have turned out like this.  How He could have let me feel a little bit of the miracle only for it to not be completely fulfilled.

I thought back to what I had said in the beginning of the cycle.  “Let His will be done”.  I think I did a good job of standing on that statement throughout the treatment.  But now?  Now I’m wobbling on that statement, cos dudes, this “will” sucks.

I do still believe that our miracle is coming.  I just wish I could know the time frame I was looking at.  I know He loves me and I know He feels my pain.  I just really hope that next time round, He say’s Yes to the miracle that we’ve all been asking for.

Not a Christmas G.I.F.T

I did not quite get the gift I was hoping for this Christmas but it seems it’s going to be a G.I.F.T of another kind in 2010.

We met with my lovely FS yesterday afternoon and went through the cycle and then discussed our options. 

Our FS was very upfront about the fact that we’ve done every test under the sun, we’ve pretty much done everything and tested everything that we can to pinpoint any underlying issues as to why we keep having no success.   There is technically nothing wrong (well aside from my PCOS but that is controlled in this process) and no indicators for why we keep getting shit news.  Clearly our options are slowly but surely running out.

He feels that we’d be beating our heads against the same brick wall by trying another IVF with Intralipids and expect a different result.  We’ve been down the fresh IVF road three times.  It’s clearly not working for us.  No matter how ballsy we are with the number of embies we put back.

While he was pleased to see that we’ve finally had some measure of success by way of the chemical pregnancy, he felt that we needed to look at other options.  He stated that the fact we had achieved a chemical pregnancy bodes well for our future chances and that from a FS perspective he now knows that he does not need to necessarily worry overmuch about the uterus being the issue.  Clearly it can handle implantation.  Implantation *can* happen in my uterus which previously had been a very grey area for us and a huge cause for concern.

So. 

That leaves GIFT.  Both he and his partner feel that we need to do GIFT simply cos by doing this treatment the eggs are in the ideal environment.  Our fertilization rate has always been between 80 – 85% so they are not worried that we are at any risk of not having fertilization occur in the tubes.  The hope is that by putting the eggs and sperm in the “ideal” environment we end up with that viable embryo implanting and sticking this time round.  We’ll combine the GIFT with the intralipids again as well. 

I asked about ectopic statistics and was pleasantly surprised to hear that they are less than 1% at my clinic with this treatment.

The question was as to how many eggs to put back.  Our fert rate is good and in light of the fact that we now know embies can implant in my uterus they would like to er on the side of caution.  Right now they’re saying 4 – 5 eggs.  But obviously we’ll look at it closer to the time and see how we go.

Having chatted to a few friends who have had chemical pregnancies and who went onto having successful pregnancies with live births the very next treatment I found that most had waited a maximum of two months to try again.  I talked to my FS about the possibility of the uterus having some form of muscle memory whereby it may perhaps remember being pregnant and that being the reason why many friends had success so soon after a chemical.  As usual there is no scientific proof to support this but he did not pooh-pooh my theory right off the bat.

Time wise my FS will not do another treatment in less than 60 days.  He feels we need to give my body time to recover and also for our hearts to heal emotionally.  So we’re probably looking at late January or early February 2010.

I’m praying and hoping that the GIFT we do ends up being the GIFT that keeps on giving right up until a live birth late next year…

On another subject all together, I am often amazed how our hearts can handle so many conflicting emotions at once.  While my heart is breaking for myself due to personal issues that are happening in my life right now, my heart explodes with joy at Sharon’s news and the fact that a good friend got a strong healthy beta with IVF #2 this morning.  Our capacity for feeling is truly a wonderful thing. 

It will never cease to amaze me.

How we roll…

The emotions are rolling. 

From sadness, to anger, to dispair, to hope, to holycraphowcouldthishavehappenedtousagain, to sadness, to hope and so we roll on and on and on.

Sometimes this really just feels like someone is playing an incredibly cruel joke on us.  It feels like the results were not chemical but actually good.

I suppose I should have known.  I believed with all my heart that I was pregnant and that IVF # 3 (or 4 if you count FET’s which I don’t) was going to be THE one.  And to a small degree I was right.  I was just not right enough. 

I had an extremely weird dream on Friday morning.  I dreamt we were going in for our beta.  We walked into a busy gym and Stephan met us at the door and told me to hop onto the treadmill get my my veins ready for the beta.  I ran on the treadmill for 5 minutes and then hopped onto the dildo cam bed and I saw in his face it was over…. I woke up and then you all know how the rest of the day panned out… Surreal.  Clearly my subconscious was telling me this was not the one.

We’re meeting the FS later today to discuss our options.  We’re going to discuss a lot with him – most of all GIFT.

Looking at the silver lining in all of this – at least we got one step closer this time.  At least not all hope is lost.  At least we still have each other.  At least we are alive to stand another day. 

Many prayers that I’ve said for others have been answered.  One HUGE one just today.  And one day, one day our prayers for ourselves (and those of you who pray for us too – thank you so much) will be answered too.

Chemical

I started the day with a good cuddle from my wonderful husband. 

It went downhill from there.

We decided that I would poas just to prepare ourselves for what the blood test would bring (we were sure we were going to see two lines).  We did two tests.  Both were negative.  We were gobsmacked.  We were NOT expecting that, not with the “symptoms” I’d been experiencing the last two weeks.  Maybe there was still hope.  Maybe  I would end up being one of those freaky women who just never get positive home pregnancy results.  We cried.  And prepared our hearts for a negative beta.

We drove to the clinic, had my blood drawn and took my barcode up to the co-ordinators.  I told them I thought it was negative and they asked why.  I told them about those darn pee sticks.  We left.  We got a call from my FS at 08h13.  And what he said literally knocked the wind out my sails.  I was expecting my usual flat beta of zero.

My beta is 14.9.  Fucking 14.9.  A chemical completely non viable pregnancy.  We’re so pissed off.  We’re so hurt.  We’re so fucking confused.  As my wonderful FS said it’s cold comfort to know that for once my body managed to start implantation.  And then it just stopped.  This hurts, A LOT.

We are naturally gutted. 

But on the one hand we are grateful to have got through a 2ww with no bleeding.  I am grateful to know that my body is not as fucked up as I thought it was when I looked at those one lined HPT’s this morning.  My instinct that something was happening inside my womb was not wrong.  My bodies signs to me were not wrong.  They were just not strong enough.  Not viable enough.

And while my head knows it’s a good thing that we finally had a chemical reaction between our embryo and my endometrial lining my heart is bleeding.  My heart longs for what this should have been.  And my heart cries for the injustice of this situation.

Thank you to everyone for your love, support and prayers for us during this time.  It really means so much.